Joanne Jacobs
‘Rigor’ is a Potemkin village
High school rigor is often a facade, writes Natalie Wexler on Forbes. It’s a “Potemkin village.” High school graduates in the class of...
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Joanne Jacobs
Oct 17, 20182 min read
Teach history, not ‘social studies’ units
Periodically, my eighth-grade teacher would fill the blackboard with everything we should “know” for the test. I remember “1777” (battle...
Joanne Jacobs
Oct 10, 20181 min read
Which classroom do you want for your child?
Pray that your children get the first classroom, tweeted ResearchED founder Tom Bennett in response to the graphic by Deeper Learning....
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 15, 20182 min read
We’re teaching reading wrong
We’re teaching reading wrong, writes Natalie Wexler in The Atlantic. U.S. schools spend a lot of time on reading skills in the early...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 20, 20182 min read
History is taught as texts without context
Studying texts, without context, is no way to learn history, writes Will Fitzhugh on Diane Ravitch’s blog. But it’s the Common Core way....
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 6, 20181 min read
Facts — not thinking skills — fight ‘truth decay’
“Critical thinking” is all the rage in schools, counters writes Chester E. Finn, Jr. in Education Next. “As construed and applied” in our...
Joanne Jacobs
Nov 30, 20171 min read
To teach reading, teach history, science …
Reading isn’t a “general skill that can be applied with equal success to all texts,” writes cognitive scientist Dan Willingham in the New...
Joanne Jacobs
Nov 7, 20171 min read
Is personalization a fad? Curriculum matters
If students choose what to learn, pursuing their own interests, they’ll be engaged and active learners, say some personalized-learning...
Joanne Jacobs
Jul 12, 20172 min read
Teach the language of power, privilege
A “language of privilege” excludes those not born to the educated classes, writes Robert Pondiscio,in response to New York Times...
Joanne Jacobs
May 28, 20172 min read
How your brain beats Google
Google is all very well, but you still need your brain, writes cognitive scientist Dan Willingham in the New York Times. The more you...
Joanne Jacobs
May 27, 20172 min read
Teach the controversy — but how?
In The Case for Contention, Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson argue for the Enlightenment tradition, writes David Steiner in an...
Joanne Jacobs
May 25, 20171 min read
Confident — and incompetent
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge,” wrote Charles Darwin inThe Descent of Man (1871). He was on to...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 10, 20172 min read
For a more perfect union
Elementary schools have contributed to national discord by neglecting to teach American history and civic principles, writes E.D. Hirsch...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 5, 20171 min read
Teach knowledge to fight ‘fake’ facts
“Media literacy” — teaching students to distinguish between “fake” news, propaganda, hype and reliable information — is all the rage,...
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