the debate I wanna see (Will Phillips v. Carrie Prejean)

On CNN Monday morning (Nov. 16, 2009), ten-year-old Will Phillips his reason for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in his fifth-grade class:
I’ve grown up with a lot of people and I’m good friends with a lot of people who are gay and I think they should have the rights all people should, and [...]

Mooney & the “new atheists”: another round

Another round in the ongoing Neuatheismusstreit was touched off by an opinion piece in the L.A. Times by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of the new book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. They write:
It often appears as though Dawkins and his followers–often dubbed the New Atheists, though some object to the [...]

Pluto demoted: Opposition in state legislatures

Last night I watched the BookTV airing of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s talk on his new book, The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet.
Sometimes I find his showmanship annoying — a distraction from the substance that I’m interested in.
This time I thought his presentation was wonderful. You can see the video here. [...]

Augustine on Scripture and Natural Science

Somebody who calls themselves “Sirius Knott” has left a comment on my post about the “Collapse of a Texas ‘Quote Mine’” website, in which they say
You decry quote-mining and then you heartily endorse quote-mining Augustine [via Young who did not bother to critique Augustine's comments in context but rather in light of the evolution debate [...]

evolution — “I spent ages on that.”

I don’t have any comment on this;
it’s just too good to not share.
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Note: January 21, 2009
Audio files for the Texas Bd. of Ed. hearings on teaching evolution are now posted at

http://curricublog.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/tx-sboe-science-hearings/

“Behold: the atheist’s nightmare” (a banana) [ video ]

Before I say anything about it, just watch this video first:

The Simpsons evolution clip (restored)

In an earlier post, I had a link to this clip on YouTube; but then it became unavailable on YouTube.
Here it is again now, but with a little advertising.

Tom Chapin: “IT’S NOT ON THE TEST”

Extra (Oct. 21, 2008): Breaking news on NCLB & assessment under President Obama
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You can play this video here, but be sure to visit Tom Chapin’s site for “It’s not on the test.”
Includes Lyrics, Statement, Fact Sheet, Press Info, Advocacy …

Colbert WØRD: “Heated Debate”

Stephen Colbert says: “College students should be unformed lumps of clay fixed in the kiln of unchallenged thoughts.”
Click here, or on the image below, for the Colbert video at the Comedy Central website. (The image was originally linked to the Cavuto interview on YouTube; but apparently FOX has had that YouTube video removed.)

As reported by [...]

Does chewing gum make students smarter?

You can’t make this stuff up.
My soon-to-appear “Education à la Silhouette: The Need for Semiotically-Informed Curriculum Consciousness.” Semiotica 164, no. 1/4 (2007): pp. 235-329.) begins with a brief excerpt from the NBC Today show in which test scores are equated with “smartness” (see below), in a story on “Two recent studies [that] [...]

New operating system: the book (YouTube)

My thanks to Martha Ford of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education and the Delaware Writing Project for sharing this with our curriculum theory class!

YouTube: Dilbert, Simpsons, Family Guy – Evolution

YouTube clip of evolution & alternative, according to “Family Guy.”

Teacher Arrested in New York

President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”

Good use for Impenetrable Textbooks

A candidate for Oklahoma state superintendent of education has come up with a way to put those massively impenetrable textbooks to good use: If students can use them to protect themselves from gunfire in the schools, school safety can be improved without using more taxpayer money.

The First Year Grad Student’s Dictionary of Educational Terms

Here is the current version of an online dictionary for first-year graduate students in education. It is developing continuously, since it is maintained on a wiki page that anyone can join in and make additions, revisions, or whatever.