Archive for December, 2008

Roots of the Adversarial Education Culture?

Posted December 28, 2008 By Dave Thomer

Last night Chris Lehmann posted about the way that many figures in the education world view teachers more as adversaries than vital resources in the effort to educate our kids. I’ve been mulling over Chris’s post in my head since then, and while I am far from an expert I think there are a number […]

I’ve been loosely following the goings-on in the Screen Actors Guild negotiations, and I admit that much of my info seems to come from the dueling statements by various factions which are reposted on Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood site, but it strikes me that there’s a really interesting case study here of an idea I’ve […]

The Problem with Paper Ballots

Posted December 12, 2008 By Dave Thomer

After the 2000 election, I was pretty strongly in favor of electronic voting. Of course, what I was in favor of was an idealized form of electronic voting, one that I would describe as “functional.” Instead we wound up with many instances of buggy, non-secure machines that sometimes failed to operate and often could not […]

I Was Young and Foolish Then

Posted December 5, 2008 By Dave Thomer

Another thought that’s been running through my head, in part based on the idea that I heard in last night’s presentations and elsewhere that these days twenty-somethings are more likely to spend some time after college in an extended period of gathering their thoughts and figuring out where they want to go – possibly returning […]

Merchandising, Merchandising . . . Priorities?

Posted December 4, 2008 By Dave Thomer

This post is a short thought that I’ve been trying to develop into a larger one for a while, but I was finally moved to just start typing based on a couple of things I saw the other day. One was a Daily News column questioning the amount of money that Philadelphia spends on overtime […]

I’m Doomed

Posted December 4, 2008 By Dave Thomer

So my urban ed class tonight was full of presentations on various books/reports on what the heck is wrong with schools and kids these days. I actually have a number of thoughts/rants based on mine that I’ll try to roll out over the next couple of days. Two different classmates discussed a book that complains […]

Skip the Coke, Keep the Nap

Posted December 2, 2008 By Dave Thomer

If this study gets further verified, I’m bringing a pillow to my office. I often like to say that mentally I don’t feel like I’m older or see the world very differently than I did when I was 21. I know I am and I do, but it doesn’t feel that way, especially when I […]

Man of Iron, Women of No Substance?

Posted December 2, 2008 By Dave Thomer

I finally got around to watching Iron Man over the weekend, and I liked it a lot. Definitely the best superhero origin movie I can remember, and considering how much of the movie Robert Downey, Jr. has to spend talking to himself, that’s pretty impressive. But there has been something nagging at me since I […]