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Historians’ automaticity, part 1
Concerns with science and math education are nothing new, and although the rhetoric today focuses on saving the planet and the economy, the argument for urgent intensification of STEM education is remarkably similar in structure to the Cold War era debates in the 1940s through the early 1960s: our country is in crisis, we need […]
Education stories of 2009 (U.S.)
The end of the year is the traditional time for journalists and laypeople to look back and identify major issues in a year. As Phil Graham (or maybe Ben Bradlee) said, journalism is a first rough draft of history, and you know what a first rough draft looks like. Nonetheless, as an historian I’ll take […]
Issues in electronic grade reports
This morning’s article in USA Today on electronic grade reports is a reminder of a few important facts in evaluating technology use in schools: Ease of use (in jargon, “usability”) is critical to adoption. The systems that existed a few years ago were (and many still are) clunky and hard to use for both teachers […]
The curious case of Larry Summers
Okay, maybe I can’t let well enough alone on economics. About a decade from now, someone will have both the material and distance to write a fabulous biography of Larry Summers. On one level, he is a brilliant economist. At another level, he has been a total MF, and at Harvard the financial games and […]
An historian reads the business section (with apologies to John Allen Paulos)
I do not generally comment on economic matters, but I think historians of education can say something productive about the current myths plodding around the internet about the stimulus and the non-bank sector of the banking industry. First, some of the current discourse: Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida, is unimpressed […]