C4T #3

Discussion Post
By Tony Baldasaro

This go around I was assigned Tony Baldasaro's blog at tonybaldasaro.com. I was instantly interested as I saw his first post. I noticed this first post was very different from many of the other post I have come across in our C4T teacher blogs. His blog entry was simply titled "Discuss" and in it Baldasaro provided this statement he had written in an email, "Just because kids will work hard and do whatever we ask them to do doesn’t [automatically] mean we should be asking them to do what it is we are asking them to do."    After this he prompted the readers to discuss this statement. I found this very interesting as he used this blog post to engage his readers and find out their opinions on this topic. This statement was very thought provoking and I like this school of thought that gets us as educators thinking about what we're asking kids to do. One of the readers left a comment regarding this in the context of homework. I think homework is a very important subject that this question could be applied to as I think homework is far too often used as filler work.  

Culture Of "Us"
By Tony Baldasaro

In this blog entry Baldasaro talks on the topic of creating a culture of "us" in schools and how many of the blogs he sees are not conducive to this goal. He states that he has seen a lot of "my's" and gives the following examples: 

I look forward to meeting my staff at our first day of school tomorrow.

I can’t wait to meet my kids this year.

My school is up for an award.

My classroom is almost ready for my kids to arrive.

This is an interesting problem to address as many people probably do not consider it. It is very true and is apparent by these examples that Baldasaro found that many people claim ownership over many aspects of our schools. I am not sure that this creates as big as a problem as some people assume but I could see it creating an obstacle when it comes to working and thinking of education as a team environment.