Education Buzz Life's A Carnival--State of the Union Edition

Welcome to the 2011 State of the Union Edition of the Education Buzz--an eclectic smattering of educational type things buzzing around the EduSphere. Education Buzz President has just completed her State of the Carnival. Our speech pundits counted no less than 13 gazillion standing ovations, 17 gajillion random bursts of applause and 28 gabillion spontaneous Woo-Hoos.  Let's check in with our panel of experts and see what they have to say.

Our first expert–and one of the Buzz' personal favorites–is Tim from Assorted Stuff who very eloquently discusses how this obsession with data may very well lead us further away from what we need to really know.

The State of the Carnival speech outlined several ways to improve our schools.  Pat over at Successful Teaching believes schools would be better if we invited more parents into our schools instead of discouraging them. David Wees at 21st Century Educator thinks we should rethink traditional schedules and bells. Liam Goldrick over at The Education Optimist points out that with many of these education reforms we're "Sailing A Ship With Half A Crew." 

Joanne Jacobs tosses in some interesting information about Chinese schools with her post "It's the Confucianism, stupid"

While we're on the subject of the Chinese, Dan from My Dad's Blog Chinese moms are superior while Mary Elliott over at Orphaned: The Abandoned Teacher talks about the "Hell in Helicopter Parents."

Although we, as Americans, certainly enjoy our pursuit of happiness, the president clearly agreed with Old Andrew, our friend from across the pond, about the "unhappy turn to happiness."

Of course, it wouldn't be much of a State of the Carnival speech if the environment wasn't included in there. Anyone who has ever traveled to Denver and seen its brown cloud will want to check out science guru Steve Spangler and his post on the "Science Behind the Denver's Brown Cloud."

Let's not forget to mention our distinguished visitors sitting in the balcony. On the front row is Jane Goodwin whose talking about people with small vocabularies and, ahem, small brains, sitting next to her is A Teacher's View who asks who the heck cares who Samuel Gompers is, and seated on the right side of Jane is Darren from Right on the Left Coast who wonders about the necessity of providing a food bank for college students. On the second row sits Dead Class Pets who noticed the empowering nature of a lost blazer. And then there's that group over at SharpBrains who wants to discuss the merits of exercise for kiddos with ADHD. 

Over in the nursery watching everyone's kiddos is Michaele Sommerville. She's whipping out some construction paper and drawing a spider. Check out her lesson over at Kindergarten's 3R's: Respect, Resources & Rants.

If the State of the Carnival rambled and didn't make sense, my apologies. Just blame it on Howard.

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I think that wraps up this edition of the Education Buzz. If you are interested in hosting an edition, please let me know by emailing me at mybellringers@gmail.com. If you find any broken links or problems with this edition of the Ed Buzz, please let me know. 

As always…

“I’ve got this feeling that there’s something that I missed…”
–Snow Patrol

And, if I did, my apologies.

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Our next Carnival will be Wednesday, February 9. Please send your submissions using this handy dandy form. Deadline for submissions will be at 6 p.m. central time on Saturday, February 5.