Some interesting reading

With the start of the school year, education writing kicks back into gear and blogs come alive.  Here are some things I've read the past couple of days ...

The Blackboard Bungles at Newsweek.  Reviews three new books about education.  I've seen all three of them on the bookshelves, but my reading list is so long at this point, I don't know when I'll get to them.  Anyone read any of them?

An interesting article on the NCTE Inbox Blog.  It looks at Internet language and students' use of it.  Personally, I think this use of language is brilliant.  Face it, language changes as the world does.  This is where the language is headed and instead of being scared of it, we need to explore it and not just ignore or denigrate it.

Samuel Freeman write a piece about the Arab language and culture school opening its doors this year.  The hateful comments regarding this school are just completely shameful and bigoted.  This is not a new phenomenon, though.  The same thing happened when the city opened the high school for students who had been harassed for being gay - The Harvey Milk School.  The same furor and, just how the furor died down with that school, the same thing will happen here.  The sooner, the better.  At some point soon, I hope the more ignorant people in our society will learn that the majority of Arabs and Muslims are not 'terrorists'.  When I hear hateful statements to that effect it makes me ashamed to be American.

More shame ... book banning madness.