Today's Reads, Views, and Links

I've slacked on blogging, but now that quarter grades were due yesterday, I have a little time this morning to fire off a post.

Here is what I've been reading and viewing this week.

Sports often get a bad rap - sometimes rightfully so - but this story is what is great about athletics.




If Coach Mumm taught me one thing, and he was brilliant in speaking with my Teaching & Learning 250 class two weeks ago, it's that we all (coaches or not) can make an impact.  Best of all, we can teach our player and student to have a positive impact on others.

In fact, I came across this article awhile ago, the case against high school sports.  I would have proponents of high school sports just watch the previous video.

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Finally!  Colleges are valuing voice and style in student writing.  Well, at least some are.  Down with generic formulaic writing.  After all, there is no five paragraph theme that will help you answer this -

A small but growing number of select colleges have turned to off-kilter questions like that one, part of this year’s application to the University of Chicago, or like this one, from Brandeis University: “You are required to spend the next year of your life in either the past or the future. What year would you travel to and why?” This year’s most-discussed question, from Tufts University, was about the meaning of “YOLO,” an acronym for “you only live once,” popularized by the rapper Drake.

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What? Is this even really real?

Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting. There are no inspectors, no exams until the age of 18, no school league tables, no private tuition industry, no school uniforms. Children address teachers by their first names. Even 15-year-olds do no more than 30 minutes' homework a night.

Does any such thing even exist?

Yep.  In the greater public school system in the world: Finland.

Yeah, but they are a tiny, insignificant country compared to the mighty U.S.

Well, consider this

According to the World Economic Forum, Finland ranks third in the world for competitiveness thanks to the strength of its schooling, which overcomes the nation's drawbacks, in the forum's view, such as restrictive labour market regulations and high tax rates.

Amazing, right?

Well, there is a cost.

Pupils who stay beyond 16, as more than 90% do, move into separate (allegedly self-selected) streams: "general" and "vocational" upper secondary schools. Though there is some crossover between the two, the vocational school students usually go to polytechnics or directly into jobs.

Only the general school – catering for what, in effect, is the academic stream – offers the 155-year-old national matriculation exam, a minimum requirement for university entry. Wholly financed from student fees (in a system in which everything else, including school meals, is completely free until university graduation), the exam comprises traditional essay-based external tests covering at least four subject areas. To study a particular subject at a particular institution, students must take yet more exams set by the universities themselves.

So for a student like me, who didn't real excel in school until I began college, I would have been placed on the vocational track and that would have been it.  For that reason alone, I'm glad we have the education system we do in America.

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Here is an interesting article on the growing assertion that brainstorming (at least in large groups) isn't nearly as productive as we think.  

I think this Tweet sums it up perfectly:

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Speaking of Twitter, I've been watching the Richie Incognito bullying scandal unfold.  If you haven't heard about it, here it is.  

As the story was breaking, it hit Twitter (where news alway unfolds first) with ESPN's Adam Schefter breaking the story first.  In a first of its kind, Richie Incognito took to his Twitter feed to refute the charges leveled at him.  The only problem?  In his Tweets, which were quite threatening, Incognito damned himself more than he helped himself as he came across as just the type who would bully a teammate.  Not smart.

Now we have this unfortunate Twitter feud happening with a Fox News reporter.

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If you know me, you know how much I love this: Are you living your eulogy or your resume?

That's why I keep this blog.  That's why I look forward to Mondays more than Fridays.  And that's why I have the greatest life/job in the world.

Now what's so hard about that?

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It's not often that you have the chance to read something that will stay with you forever.

But this story, about the first Make a Wish child, will do just that.

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I was finally able to upload one of my best Keynote presentations.  This one focuses on the Ten Ways to Begin an Essay.




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And finally, if you haven't checked out the great site TED ED, which allows you to "flip" not only TED Talks but any video on youtube, you're missing out.  Here is my latest attempt.