My biases - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog

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<p><script type="text/javascript" id="clstr_globe" src="//cdn.clustrmaps.com/globe.js?d=pFjMKB4D3rBCt2gIUozWNVi8mKWVkHJzYdZfLgGskqo"></script></p> <p>My latest books:</p> <p>    <span class="full-image-inline ssNonEditable"><span><img style="width: 120px;" src="/storage/65578_Johnson_TeachingOutsideLines.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1420392449928" alt="" /></span></span></p> <p><span style="color: #8899aa; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">        <a href="https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/teaching-outside-the-lines/book244218">Available now</a></span></p> <p><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118024559,descCd-buy.html"><img style="width: 150px;" src="/storage/survivalcover.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1330430571041" alt="" /></a></span></span></p> <p>       <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118024559,descCd-buy.html">Available Now</a></p> <p><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img style="width: 125px;" src="/storage/IL2cover.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1347373321334" alt="" /></span></span></p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Indispensable-Librarian-Surviving-Information/dp/161069239X/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_1">Available now</a> </p> <p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/2404458" target="_blank">My book <em>Machines are the easy part; people are the hard part </em>is now available as a <strong>free</strong> download at Lulu.</a></p> <p> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Blue-Skunk-Page/130430170339601">The Blue Skunk Page on Facebook</a></p> <p><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img style="width: 150px;" src="/storage/albert.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1499449302286" alt="" /></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://www.edtechupdate.com/&source=the-blue-skunk-blog" target="_blank"><img title="EdTech Update" src="http://www.edtechupdate.com/images/edtechupdate/badge-small.png" border="0" alt="EdTech Update" /></a> </p> <p><img style="display: none;" src="/?cmd=tv&request-number=2081337&blog-group=70" alt="" width="0" height="0" /></p>  <p> <a href="http://teach.com/teach100"><img src="http://teach100.herokuapp.com/teach100/badges/12-The-Blue-Skunk-Blog" alt="" /></a><a href="http://teach.com">Teach.com</a></p> <p> </p> <p style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"> </p> <p> </p> </div></div></div> </div></div></div></div></div></div> </div></div></div></div></div></div> <div id="sidebar2Wrapper" class="verticalNavigationBarWrapper"><div class="iw-vnb1"><div class="iw-vnb2"><div class="iw-vnb3"><div class="iw-vnb4"><div id="sidebar2" class="verticalNavigationBar"> </div></div></div></div></div></div> <div id="contentWrapper"><div id="content"> <p><br /><span> </span></p> <h3>My Freely Admitted Personal Biases</h3> <p><span>(subject to change on short notice)<br /><br /></span></p> <p><strong>About education:</strong></p> <ol> <li>Ultimately, we are responsible for our own education.</li> <li>The solution to all the world's problems will rely on effective education.</li> <li>Libraries and uncensored Internet access are vital to a democratic society.</li> <li>A teacher's primary job is to instill a sense of importance in his subject. Skills will follow.</li> <li> Schools should teach children to think, not to believe.</li> <li>Creativity, empathy, and humor are as important to success as reading, writing, and numeracy.</li> <li>An effective school library program should be available to every child.</li> <li> Money alone won’t improve education. Chastisement alone won’t improve education.</li> <li>All citizens should pay for public education. Don't you want an educated person changing your drool bucket in the nursing home?</li> <li>Also see <a href="/blue-skunk-blog/2005/9/23/all-10-fingers-all-10-toes.html" target="new">"All 10 fingers, all 10 toes"</a> on my educational wishes for a new grandchild.</li> <li>All kids should be treated the way I want my own grandchildren to be treated.</li> <li>There is no place in the future for teachers. Only co-learners.</li> <li>Like it or not, what gets tested, gets taught.</li> <li>On data driven decision-making: anything that you can get someone else to believe is true.</li> <li>Anything fun in education is automatically suspicious.</li> <li>The best way to show gratitude for a professional courtesy is to pay it forward. Show a person new to the field a kindness.</li> <li>Standardized tests are more about discrediting public schools than improving education.</li> <li>Forprofit education is an oxymoron.</li> <li>When traveling, never eat anything you can't translate.</li> <li>A real teacher doesn't provide answers. Only questions so compelling the student must answer them.</li> <li>Creativity always starts with a problem.</li> <li>Some are born learners, some achieve learning, and others have learning thrust upon 'em.</li> </ol> <p><strong> About politics and religion:</strong></p> <ol> <li> Both politics and religion should be viewed with profound skepticism. </li> <li> Legislators should not require children to take tests that they themselves can’t pass.</li> <li> All political extremists of both the left and right should be put in a compound surrounded by razor wire and armed guards in western North Dakota – and kept there. Ann Coulter and Al Franken should have to share a room.</li> <li>If life isn't fair, why should the afterlife be?</li> <li>The best gifts given are to those who are actually in need.</li> <li>Strength of opinion and depth of knowledge rise and fall in inverse proportion.</li> </ol> <p><strong> About technology:</strong></p> <ol> <li> Technology is neutral.</li> <li>Best practices should drive educational change, not technology. </li> <li> Short-term fixes rarely fix anything and usually aren’t short-term.</li> <li> PowerPoint doesn’t bore people: people bore people.</li> <li>Machines are the easy part; people are the hard part.</li> <li>Cell phones are evil. (Exception to bias #1.)</li> <li>Macs are better than PCs. But both are detestable. </li> <li>iPads are better than Chromebooks. But both are detestable.</li> <li><em>More</em> and <em>better</em> are not synonymous.</li> <li>My best decisions are made when I think of myself first as a child advocate, second as an educator, and lastly as a technologist.</li> <li>The motto of most technology departments should be: Solving problems with technology that you didn't have before there was technology.</li> </ol> <p><strong> About race and culture:</strong></p> <ol> <li> Swedes are superior to Norwegians in every way. But mixed marriages can work.</li> <li> Everyone has a funny accent except Minnesotans.</li> <li> George Carlin and Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are almost always right.</li> <li>Unrecognizable food served in small portions artfully arranged on over-sized plates served by an obsequious waiter is not fine dining.</li> <li>No male over age 10 should wear bangs. </li> </ol> <p><strong> On human nature:</strong></p> <ol> <li> Although I may not say it out loud, my grandchildren are better than any other children on the face of the planet.</li> <li> I really <em>want</em> most urban legends to be true.</li> <li>Most of us would prefer shallow wit to deep intelligence in our writers and speakers. Thank goodness.</li> <li> Sport stadiums should be paid for by the people who use them; community centers, parks, bike trails, libraries, and swimming pools should be paid for by everyone.</li> <li>Smoking and overeating should be considered poor health choices, not moral failings. </li> <li>Most of us should be a lot more thankful than we are.</li> <li>Most of us should worry a lot less than we do.</li> <li>Change is inevitable - except in human nature.</li> <li>Say something nice about your spouse <em>to</em> your spouse everyday. </li> <li>If you wait for the perfect conditions, you’ll spend your life waiting.</li> <li>It's easier to find something than to find it again.</li> <li>Rules and reasoning only work with the rational.</li> <li>Unless you are the bride, <em>never</em> be the thing people remember most about a wedding.</li> <li>Only English majors and film critics like tragic endings.</li> <li>Nice people ought to get better service. </li> <li>Charitable giving is the best investment you can make. Spoiling your children and grandchildren a little is the second best.</li> <li>The happiest people in the nursing home are the ones with the best stories, not the ones with the most money.</li> <li>If you can't find someone on whom to pass your stress, you're stuck with it.</li> </ol> <p><a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2006/6/25/bicycling-lessons.html">Lessons learned from bicycling</a><br /><br /><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/dougjohnsonweb/library-rules">Johnson's Little List of Library and Technology Laws</a></p> </div></div>  </div></div>  <div id="pageFooterWrapper"><div id="pageFooter"> <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/88x31.png"/></a><br/>This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License</a>. </div></div> </div></div>  <div class="clearer" id="bodyClearer"></div> </body> </html>

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My biases - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog