@Chris, I didn’t want to set up any straw men but I stripped all the hyperlinks from the post because I didn’t feel like picking any fights either.

It isn’t surprising any more how much contempt the Michelle Rhee-style reformers have for the public school teacher. A little more surprising to me, though, is how thick that contempt runs in the edublogosphere. Leading Thinkers grandstand mightily about how schools should be, blithely placing the blame for that frustrated vision at the doorstep of these stubborn, recalcitrant public school teachers, casually dismissing a) huge institutional challenges as well as b) the fact that digital natives are distributed *ahem* rather unevenly across the K12 student population (cf. Gina above.).

Kate, at various points, in posts that aren’t hard to find, has gently noted that disconnection from reality. She reaches for a scalpel in those instances where I find the chainsaw pretty irresistible so I’m glad she’s on the case.

(And yeah, I’m totally aware I once posted this. Hazards of growth, I suppose.)

Bravo girl. Your transparency on twitter has been an inspiration to many..

My students are creating a website (using Google Sites) for our ancient civilizations unit. I spent almost an entire class period with one of my 9th grade “digital natives” showing her what a url is (“the web address with the http://“) where it’s located on her computer screen (“at the top of your internet browser…. the thing you use to browse the internet”), and how to copy and paste it into a word document (“you don’t have to retype this whole thing letter for letter”).

She said she didn’t get on the internet much.

Welcome to the 21st Century! Yay!