It is important for students to know there were vocal objectors!

Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas was a Spanish Dominican friar who became famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for his defense of the rights of the native people of the Americas. His brave stand against the horrors of the conquest and the colonization of the New World earned him the title “Defender of the Indians.”

Indigenous Peoples' Day

6 TED Talks Students and Teachers Should Watch Together

Bill Gates: How state budgets are breaking US schools

Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slums

Kakenya Ntaiya: A girl who demanded school

Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback

Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together

Shukla Bose: Teaching one child at a time

Charles and Ray Eames: The Powers of 10 (1977)

7 Simple Secrets: What the BEST Teachers Know and Do!

Read a book review HERE!

Bobb Darnell Achievement Strategies

Check out this guy's website HERE!

Dr. Bobb Darnell is President of Achievement Strategies, Inc. and is an advocate for high student achievement and daily professional growth. He served as Director of Staff Support for more than 1700 staff members in a Northwest Illinois school district and taught for more than 20 years. Bobb has served on the Board of Trustees for the National and Illinois Staff Development Councils, Illinois International Branch of the Dyslexia Association, and has been a member of numerous national and state task forces and committees. He is the author of ASCD's 2002 action tool kit--A Guide for Instructional Leaders and has also written four staff development guides for Wavelength's award winning educational comedy videos. Bobb's work on the 21st Century Instructional Leader is featured in ASCD's 2010 PD Quick Kits.

Dr. Darnell is an internationally known speaker who has delivered keynote presentations and conducted workshops for educators at all grade levels and for corporations. Bobb's high-energy workshops are filled with "edutainment" and practical ideas that have resulted from blending research and tested practice. Teachers and administrators can easily sense his enthusiasm for continuous improvement, job satisfaction, lifelong learning, and organizational excellence. He is truly committed to helping teachers build high performance classrooms and building strong parental support for schools and learning.

Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms

Watch the full lecture HERE!

Reading List | The Top 100 Best-Selling Education Books of 2014 (So Far)

The book trailer for “The End of Your Life Book Club,” No. 67 on our list.

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,by Maya Angelou
3. How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough
4. The Opposite of Loneliness, by Marina Keegan
5. Congratulations, by the Way, by George Saunders
6. Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, by Daniel J. Siegel
7. Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger’s, by John Elder Robison
8. The Promise of a Pencil, by Adam Braun
9. Show Your Work!, by Austin Kleon

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10. Lean In (for Graduates), by Sheryl Sandberg
11. The Whole-Brain Child, by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
12. America the Beautiful, by Ben C. Carson with Candy Carson
13. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
14. The Reason I Jump, by Naoki Higashida
15. The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead, by Charles Murray
16. Healing ADD Revised Edition, by Daniel G. Amen
17. You Are Not Special, by David McCullough Jr.
18. The Normans, From Raiders to Kings, by Lars Brownworth
19. How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Revised, by Thomas C. Foster
20. The Smartest Kids in the World, by Amanda Ripley
21. Our Mathematical Universe, by Max Tegmark
22. I Just Graduated … Now What?, by Katherine Schwarzenegger
23. Cracking the AP Calculus AB and BC Exams, 2014 Edition, by Princeton Review
24. Two Old Fools on a Camel: From Spain to Bahrain, by Victoria Twead
25. 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2, by Bryan Cohen and Jeremiah Jones
26. The Naked Roommate, by Harlan Cohen
27. How Music Works, by David Byrne
28. My Life in Middlemarch, by Rebecca Mead
29. Mom and Me and Mom, by Maya Angelou

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30. It’s Complicated, by Danah Boyd
31. With Their Eyes, edited by Annie Thoms
32. Letters of Note, compiled by Shaun Usher
33. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread From the Data, by Charles Wheelan
34. Survival Wisdom and Know-How, by Amy Rost
35. Mastery, by Robert Greene
36. Everything’s an Argument, by Andrea A. Lunsford, John J. Ruszkiewicz and Keith Walters
37. Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou
38. 1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know, by Harry H. Harrison Jr.
39. Plato at the Googleplex, by Rebecca Goldstein
40. The Knowledge, by Lewis Dartnell
41. Focus, by Daniel Goleman
42. De-Textbook, by Cracked.com
43. Homework for Grownups: Everything You Learned at School and Promptly Forgot, by E. Foley and B. Coates
44. The Autistic Brain, by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek
45. F This Test, by Richard Benson
46. If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?, by Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Wakefield
47. F in Exams, Richard Benson
48. 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, by Bryan Cohen
49. 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Joanne Baker
50. Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch
51. Letters to a Young Scientist, by Edward O. Wilson

The book trailer for “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth,” by Chris Hadfield, No. 52 on our list.

52. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Chris Hadfield
53. Expert Companions: Outdoor Skills and Tips, by Lachlan McLaine
54. MFA vs. NYC, by Chad Harbach
55. The Brainy Bunch, by Kip Harding and Mona Lisa Harding
56. Autism Breakthrough, by Raun K. Kaufman
57. Teach Like a PIRATE, by Dave Burgess
58. My Gentle Barn, by Ellie Laks
59. GRE Premier 2015 With 6 Practice Tests, by Kaplan
60. Essential Skills and Practice, Grade 2, by the Staff, Brighter Child Publishing
61. On Writing, by Stephen King
62. The Perfect Score Project: Uncovering the Secrets of the SAT, by Debbie Stier
63. The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects, by Richard Kurin
64. Writing Skills Success in 20 Minutes a Day, by LearningExpress
65. Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, by Marta McDowell
66. The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe
67. Quantum Mechanics, by Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman
68. The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden
69. How to Write Anything, by Laura Brown
70. The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver

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71. Letter to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou 
72. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
73. Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, by Claude M. Steele
74. The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin
75. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013, edited by Siddhartha Mukherjee
76. The Education of a Lifetime, by Robert Khayat
77. A Little History of the World, by E. H. Gombrich
78. Barron’s 6 ACT Practice Tests, by Jim
D. Giovannini and Patsy J. Prince
79. A Smart Girl’s Guide to Starting Middle School, by Julie Williams Montalbano and Sara Hunt
80. The One World Schoolhouse, by Salman Khan
81. The Enjoyment of Music, by Kristine Forney and Joseph Machlis
82. This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace
83. George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior, by George Washington
84. The Priority List, by David Menasche
85. Teach Your Children Well, by Madeline Levine
86. How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster
87. The Art of Public Speaking, by Stephen Lucas
88. The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean
89. The Pact, by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt and Lisa Frasier Page
90. The Happy Student, by Daniel Wong
91. The New School, by Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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92. 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off, by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
93. A Different Mirror for Young People, by Ronald Takaki
94. Make It Stick, by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark McDaniel
95. F for Effort, by Richard Benson
96. What You’re Really Meant to Do, by Robert Steven Kaplan
97. What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World, by Taylor Mali
98. How to Create a Mind, by Ray Kurzweil
99. Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina, Neal Thompson
100. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel C. Dennett

The Top 75 New York Times Best-Selling Education Books of 2013 By Deborah Hofmann

  

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

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1. America the Beautiful, by Ben C. Carson with Candy Carson
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
3. How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster
4. How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough
5. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
6. The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver
7. Pathways to the Common Core, by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman
8. Far from the Tree, by Andrew Solomon
9. The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe
10. The Smartest Kids in the World, by Amanda Ripley
11. Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch
12. How Music Works, by David Byrne
13. Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series, by Charlotte Mason
14. The Autistic Brain, by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek
15. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data, by Charles Wheelan

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16. One World Schoolhouse, by Salman Khan
17. The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics, by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
18. F in Exams, Richard Benson
19. Letters to a Young Scientist, by Edward O. Wilson
20. On Writing, by Stephen King
21. NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
22. De-Textbook, by Cracked.com
23. F for Effort, by Richard Benson
24. The Whole-Brain Child, by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
25. Walk in Their Shoes: Can One Person Change the World?, by Jim Ziolkowski with James S. Hirsch
26. Teach Like a PIRATE, by Dave Burgess
27. What You’re Really Meant to Do, by Robert Steven Kaplan
28. Make Good Art, by Neil Gaiman
29. The Education of a Lifetime, by Robert Khayat
30. The Naked Roommate, by Harlan Cohen

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31. Sticks and Stones, by Emily Bazelon
32. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, by Daniel C. Dennett
33. College (Un)Bound, by Jeffrey Selingo
34. Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, by Kristina Ellis
35. How to Create a Mind, by Ray Kurzweil. (Penguin)
36. Pandora’s Lunchbox, by Melanie Warner
37. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s, by John Elder Robison
38. This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace
39. Heretics and Heroes, by Thomas Cahill
40. Instant Vocabulary, by Ida L. Ehrlich
41. Onion Book of Known Knowledge, by The Onion
42. Disney U, by Doug Lipp
43. Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia, by Smithsonian Institution and Amy Pastan
44. Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, by Mignon Fogarty
45. Things Come Apart, by Todd McLellan

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46. Real Talk for Real Teachers, by Rafe Esquith
47. The School Revolution, by Ron Paul
48. What Great Teachers Do Differently, by Todd Whitaker
49. Why Teach? by Mark Edmundson
50. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr
51.Shouting Won’t Help, by Katherine Bouton
52. Teach Your Children Well, by Madeline Levine
53. Big Book of How, by Editors of Time Magazine for Kids
54. Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt
55. Is College Worth It? by William J. Bennett with David Wilezol
56. Here Is Where: Discovering America’s Great Forgotten History, by Andrew Carroll
57. Art As Therapy, by Alain De Botton and John Armstrong
58. A History of Western Music, by J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca
59. My Bookstore, by Ronald Rice
60. Hello! My Name Is Public School, and I Have an Image Problem, by Leslie Milder and Jane Braddock

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61. Thinking in Numbers, by David Tammet
62. Who Owns the Learning? by Alan November
63. Good Luck, Graduate, by Gregory Lang
64. First Class, by Alison Stewart
65. A Year Up, by Gerald Chertavian
66. Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
67. History’s Greatest Hits, by Joseph Cummins
68. Strings Attached, by Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky
69. Hope Against Hope, by Sarah Carr
70. Learning by Doing, by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Thomas Many
71. Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice, by David Stinson and Anita Wager
72. Information Dashboard Design, by Stephen Few
73. Fire in the Ashes, by Jonathan Kozol
74. What Your Third Grader Needs to Know, by Hirsch, E. D., Jr.
75. All Roads Lead to Austen, by Amy Elizabeth Smith

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My Happy Place

"I Met the Walrus"

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace.John Lennon's voice and spirit,40 years ago. Now,Josh Raskin added his talent.What was the result? It's a very good animated film. Simply,timeless...

Diane Ravitch

Now seventy-four, Diane Ravitch has been a forceful voice in education debates for more than four decades. A research professor at New York University since 1995, she has taught at Columbia University’s Teachers’ College, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, and edited education journals. She has written ten notable books on education history and policy. Most recently, she has written a series of scathing rebuttals of reform measures in The New York Review of Books and some two thousand posts on a blog she started in April, which has received almost a million and a half page views. Since the publication, in 2010, of her book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” she has barnstormed across the country giving speeches berating the reform movement, which, in addition to test-based “accountability,” also supports school choice and charter schools (public institutions that often receive substantial private funding and are free from many regulations, such as hiring union teachers in states that require it), and which she calls a “privatization” movement.

http://dianeravitch.com/

http://dianeravitch.net/