"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Spellings Visits Oracle of Exurbia

My favorite part of Spellings' speech to some teachers in Minnesota last week came when she bubbled this scoop about where she goes to replenish her supply of platitudes:

I had a meeting with Thomas Friedman from The New York Times last week. And he told me the number one skill our children will need to survive in the flat world is learning how to learn. We can make all the right policy moves in Washington, but without great teachers like you instilling a love of learning in our students, nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters? How about phonemic awareness, vocabulary words, math functions, and AYP? I thought it was the Oracle that was supposed to speak in riddles.

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