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, 2018
- 2 min
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, 2018
- 1 min
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, 2018
- 2 min
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, 2018
- 2 min
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, 2018
- 1 min
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, 2017
- 1 min
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, 2017
- 1 min
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, 2017
- 2 min
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 29, 2017
- 2 min
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 28, 2017
- 2 min
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, 2017
- 1 min
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, 2017
- 2 min
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 6, 2017
- 1 min
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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