Carnival Of Education Info And Extra Credit Assignment

In last week's Extra Credit Assignment, we asked readers to let us know how they would feel about establishing a Carnival Of Education. We received encouragement from a number of writers via comments and email.

The Education Wonks are delighted to announce that we are seeking entries for the Carnival Of Education.

The goal of the Carnival is to regularly showcase writing from a variety of authors on a variety of topics. The Carnival itself is essentially a gathering of entries, accompanied (sometimes) by editorial comments, which will not be negative in tone. Holders of all political and educational viewpoints are equally welcome.

Our aim is that readers make up their own minds.

The completed compendium is then published in a post.

This is an excellent opportunity for writers to achieve greater distribution of their work.

Those that write (or read) about any (or all) facets of the Education Craft are highly welcomed, whether they blog mostly educational issues or not. This includes, (but is not limited to) the following topics: teachers, (and instruction) teacher education, educational pundits, administrative issues, home-schooling, educational policy, finance, and governance, any and all subject areas (math history science etc.) Basically, just about anything (serious, light, or fun) related to education is heartily welcomed.

In order to facilitate participation, we have consciously attempted to limit the entry guidelines to a few common-sense items.

• Writers are highly encouraged to submit a post from their own site. Please limit your submission to the entry that you would like to see get the greatest distribution in the 'Sphere. Writers that submit their own posts are guaranteed "a booth" at the Carnival.
• Alternatively, readers may submit multiple posts that they believe address topics that are important, humorous, or informative. Please limit these submissions to no more than three posts. These will be included if at all possible.
• The submitted post(s) should not be more than one month old.
• In all cases, the entry submitted should include: The site's name; the title of the post; and the post's "permalink" URL.
• Entries should have Education Carnival in the email subject line.
• Send entries to: owlshome [at] earthlink.net

Please send entries for Education Carnival #9 by 10:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday, April 5, 2005. Barring unforeseen disasters, we will publish the fifth edition of the Carnival by Wednesday morning. And we hope to have subsequent Carnivals each Wednesday. (Though at some point it is hoped that other sites will be willing to host.)

Update: To see the First Edition of The Carnival Of Education, please click here.

We would be happy to send an email reminder about Carnival deadlines. Just drop us a line at the above email address. Your privacy is guaranteed, as we never share information about our readers with any third party.

Any help that can be given by our fellow writers in the 'Sphere publicizing this carnival (through link/trackback or blog posts) would be deeply appreciated.

Here is this weekend's Extra Credit Assignment: (This will be updated throughout the weekend.)

Chris Correa tells us about how students are tracked in 37 different countries. (Some of the countries listed are surprising!)

Jenny D. addresses a readers concern, and gives her position on the No Child Left Behind Act.

Education At The Brink politely disagrees with a fellow writer regarding educator John Dewey's legacy. (As a StudentWonk, I fondly remember reading his work Democracy And Education.)

At Eduwonk.com they are covering the debate between Jenny D. and Education At The Brink over the whether or not NCLB is "progressive."(We have always considered ourselves progressives in the tradition of Robert La Follet, which means that since the Republicans made their hard right turn, we now have no political home.)

Over at post hip chick, Nicole is coming to grips with the fact that she is about to turn thirty. (EdWonk fought that battle of conscience some time ago.)

A Constrained Vision thoughtfully proposes that any affirmative action-type remedies to increase campus diversity be based upon socio-economic class, and not color. Vision concludes by saying, "If the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one, I suppose this is a good sign." (We here at the 'Wonks heartily agree.)

Joanne Jacobs points to an article that defends Harvard President Lawrence Summer's remarks concerning the possible existence of differences in math ability based upon gender. (The source of the article was very unexpected.) She also treats us to a story about the confusion caused by a "Parent's Lounge" sign. (On Wednesday,we commented on a post by Discriminations that addressed the "serial comma" issue; guess you could say that punctuation has become an issue since those pesky pandas were publicized by Eats, Shoots and Leaves.)

Moebius Stripper at tall dark & mysterious gave a math test the other day. See how one student chose to answer a Certain Problem. (Consider googling "moebius strip"-- you will learn something.)

Number 2 Pencil has a message for spammers, and tells us why she will be doing extra blogging this weekend. (Spammers are evil, worthless, pieces of....well, you get the picture. heh.)

At Precinct 333, Mr. Chair raises the alarm that a professor is under threat of sanction due to one anonymous complaint that he said something politically incorrect at a lecture in March.(!?!)

Professor Plum has something to say about the "Workshop Model" of instruction that is being used in New York City. (We also published a post on that same topic.)

The hipteacher has a funny (and yet disturbing) letter written by a student whose parents didn't attend open house. (We wonder why? heh.)

Ms. Frizzle has a post about one southern college that has implemented an unconventional grading policy. (It sorta reminds us of the '60s.)

David, over at The Cabarfeidh Pages, is a student teacher in Scotland. He brings us a hilarious set of comments from children ages 6-10 on "How Do You Decide Who To Marry?" as well as other important questions. Here is a taste:

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

Both don't want any more kids.-- Lori, age 8

Discriminations weighs in on the Ward Churchill controversy at the University of Colorado (This story just gets curiouser and curiouser.)

Wizbang! has the story of some young girls that gave "the lady next door" some cookies and got sued for their troubles. The girls lost, and had to pay. The incident is another example of a court system that is clearly out-of-control. (This proves once again that no good deed goes unpunished.)

Over at First Year Teacher, we are being told that she has been directed to place yet another poster on the classroom wall. (Read the post, and you'll appreciate some of the nonsense that young teachers must tolerate in order to survive the day.) TeachWonk also had something to say on the same topic.

Mr. Babylon, who teaches in the Bronx, had a surprise when he asked his class to write an essay. (We are still waiting for the other shoe to drop.)

The folks at a school yard blog are asking that people spread the word in order to aid a worthy cause that promises to help children.

At Critical Mass they are having quite a discussion about the survey that publicized our high school students' ignorance about the First Amendment. (I find this lack of understanding not only lamentable, but dangerous as well.)

A new addition to our roll, Tuttle SVC offers criticism of us here at The Education Wonks. (The piece provokes much thought, but we wish that it had been more constructive in nature and we are concerned about some quotes taken out of context.)

At Pedablogue, they have the skinny on tax rules for teachers. (Since we have not had any type of raise in over three years, we could sure use some extra deductions.)

Here at The Education Wonks we reported about schoolyard romances happening earlier than in the past. We also have our latest installment of The Spellings Report. The 'Wonks takes a look at accused child abusers Linda and John Dollar.

The First Edition Of The Carnival Of Education has been published. To see it, please click here.

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