Monday, April 29, 2002

Seattle struggles to deal with diversity in the schools. The principal of Ballard High School recently resigned in protest over the decision to remove race as a tiebreaker in deciding which school students will attend. He argues that learning to interact with people different from yourself is an essential life skill. 1:38:37 PM     UW screened Davis Guggenheim's The First Year last week. Lots of interest and energy in the room -- people were sitting in the aisles and lined up against the walls. After that film ended, Guggenheim was introduced: loud ovation. Then Maurice Rabb, one of the teachers from the film, was introduced: deafening cheers. TFY is a good documentary portraying the first year of teaching for five LA teachers. If you haven't been in a classroom since your own schooling, it's a wonderful glimpse of challenges and rewards of the teaching profession. For those of us who spend time in classrooms, as teachers or researchers, it's a reminder that the issues faced by education all come down, eventually, to individuals. The subtext of TFY is to raise the status of teachers in the community and inspire new teachers to join the profession. PBS' web site for the film contains more information about this outreach effort. 1:35:03 PM     Apple announces the eMac, a new flavor of iMac targeted at education. It's nice to see Apple bring back a sub-$1000 machine. However, their description of the "learning" software that comes with the machine is, as Ben Loh points out, rather absurd. iMovie, iTunes, and iPhoto are fine applications, but what about them supports or contributes to learning? 1:26:31 PM

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