As instructors and students are forced to pause for winter break, EdSurge journalists will similarly take some time off from writing and editing during the final weeks of 2023.
As we take a breather, we’d like to reflect on some of the stories we’ve enjoyed over the past year. Here you’ll find recommended articles, books, and podcasts that speak to us. Some of these are related to education, while others go beyond education. enjoy!
emily
Let me take a risky guess, but turning 13 wasn’t easy at all. Your body is changing. Hormones are changing. Friends and interests change.
But when I think about the experiences today’s 13-year-olds have, I’m incredibly grateful for the first year of my teenage years. It was very delicious!
Nothing emphasizes this more than 13 years old, a multimedia-heavy feature by Jessica Bennett published in the New York Times in September. This piece shows how much kids these days, specifically her three girls, have in one year thanks to social media and all the other byproducts of carrying a small computer in your pocket everywhere. It skillfully and skillfully captures how overflowing it is.
It pairs well with Are You There God?, the recent film adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1970 (but timeless!) novel. “It’s Me, Margaret” will make you laugh, cry, and shed light on her experiences as a girl 50 years ago and now.
Author John Green is best known for his young adult novels, including the bestsellers “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Looking for Alaska.” I love reading them all. But I somehow missed that he published a new, different kind of book in his 2021 — “Looking back at the Anthropocene” is a collection of essays that are personal, reflective, funny, and deeply human.
In each essay, Green examines an element or experience of being human today – QWERTY keyboards, sunsets, Dr. Pepper, Canada geese – and rates it with five stars.
The essay begins wryly, but gradually becomes serious and thoughtful. In a world where literally every experience – a doctor’s visit, a visit to a national park, a dry cleaning service – is reduced to a number on his five-star scale, Green turns that concept on its head.
I give “The Anthropoceen Reviewed” 5 stars.
Read more about Emily here.
jeff
Although it’s not strictly about education, I’ve become an even bigger fan this year. Hidden Brain Podcast, a scientific exploration of what excites us. I was particularly struck by his two-part series on this show.paradox of pleasure” analyzed the challenges in dealing with the addictive temptations of the Internet and other technologies.
I’ve been reading more education Substack newsletters this year, and I’ve learned a lot from many of them, including Derek Newton’s news. cheat sheet On academic integrity.Nick Faurizos mile markers About higher education in rural areas.and Ethan Mollick’s There is one convenient thingcontains many timely nuggets about AI in education.
The book I read this year that shocked me was “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow too” written by Gabriel Zevin. This novel tells the coming-of-age story of three of his friends who start a video game design company. Like “Ready Player One,” it’s full of pop culture references to the early days of computers and digital culture, making me nostalgic for simpler, more optimistic times in technology. But Zevin’s book also turns out to be an unusual study of friendship, love, and how they intertwine in acts of collaboration.The author also says She didn’t know much about the world of video games When she started the project, I never would have realized how accurate her references would be (speaking as someone who was immersed in playing the games she describes). And the fact that the world of technology was new to her seemed to help her bring a fresh perspective, which made me think about how the technology we live in now It gave me an opportunity to think about whether I had arrived at a pervasive culture.
Read more from Jeff here.
Daniel
It has always been difficult for people who don’t fit into the cliché box to get the education they deserve. It comes out in various forms.
That’s why Sarah Carr’s article… Consequences of incomplete dyslexia testing I felt powerful. Kerr argues that changing the way dyslexia is diagnosed could improve reading outcomes for many students, criticizing the “discrepancy model” of comparing IQ and reading scores. . Of course, it will also improve their lives.
Woody Guthrie, a man of highs and sometimes painful lows, wrote America’s unofficial national anthem, “This Land is Your Land.” Nevertheless, although Guthrie has gone relatively unappreciated, his influence on other brand songwriters of an older generation, particularly Bob Dylan, is still noted. Even the last verse of Guthrie’s unauthorized national anthem was cut out, removing the political message and changing the song’s meaning.
This summer, I decided to read Guthrie’s autobiography, Bound for Glory. This book is packed with quirky storytelling from a man who has spent his life riding the rails. He knew better than anyone what it was like to be in seclusion, but his inner voice never stopped ringing. “A better world is coming/I’ll tell you why.”
Read more from Daniel here.
nadia
I interviewed Jen Manley in person and followed her this summer. Strategy classroom Since then, I have opened an Instagram account. (I had a great talk about why group work sucks and how to fix it, so check out the Q&A if you haven’t already.)
Manley is a university lecturer, educational consultant, and former computer science teacher. I’m not a teacher, but I like watching her videos on all kinds of topics. Recent uploads discuss allowing students to redo assignments and limiting planning time.
Accounts like Manley’s are a great way for me to get insight into what teachers think on a daily basis, but she might have something that’s actually useful for you too (OK, yes… I especially need her time management strategies).
If you want something emotional, or want something emotional, choose the streaming service you subscribe to and add 2023. “radical” Queue star Eugenio Derbez.
The film is set in one of Mexico’s lowest-performing elementary schools, located on the Texas border and across the Rio Grande and a stone’s throw from SpaceX in Brownsville, where teacher Sergio Juarez Correa Based on the true story of and one of his students.
Juárez Correa is a passionate educator who argues that inspiring a love of learning begins by letting students follow their curiosity, which essentially becomes leading the class. Spoiler: None of the principals or other greats are too impressed with his approach.
His young students, who live in impoverished communities, often face pressure to join nearby drug gangs; Parented To the extreme. And then there’s Paloma, who lives in a cabin near a landfill where her father scavenges for scraps to sell.
My favorite scene involves Paloma showing her classmate Nico a telescope she made from trash near her house and using it to view the SpaceX launch site being built across the river in Brownsville. climb the mountain. , Texas. She wants to become an aerospace engineer. Later in the film, Paloma’s father confronts her teacher Juarez Correa over her NASA space camp brochure, and when reality sets in and her dreams crumble, she realizes that she too is by Paloma’s side. I ask if you can stay.
You definitely have to see the ending. Luckily, I was the only person in the theater when I saw Radical, so no one was there to judge the sheer amount of tears I shed (I didn’t have anyone to judge the absolute amount of tears I shed on the way home). (Except for a teenage employee who took a bucket of popcorn with me). But you don’t have to worry about that at home!
The real-life Paloma was featured on the cover of the 2013 issue of Wired, which served as the inspiration for the film, with the headline, “The next Steve Jobs.” The name of the online version is “A fundamental method to unleash the genius of a generation” See what they did there?
Read more about Nadia here.
rebecca
This year, I’ve been obsessed with the Washington Post’s series on the rise of homeschooling in the United States.According to newspaper data analysis, this form of education grow rapidly, and among different family groups than in past years. Parents aren’t the only ones teaching their kids at home these days.now Entrepreneurial people and companies I coach groups of children in a variety of environments. Some families say their children are safer, more comfortable, or better able to learn Even outside the public and private school systems, this largely unregulated form of education carries the following risks: children being abused Out of sight. The series also looks at the experiences of parents who grew up educated at home and are now in education. Re-challenging the public education systemwant a different kind of education for their children.
Being surprised by a great book is one of my favorite emotions. I had such an experience this year when I read Sanora Babu’s 1930s novel The Name Unknown, which depicts the devastation of the Dust Bowl.
Some scholars argue that this literary work should not have been a revelation to me or other readers. As the Great Depression was recovering, editors at Random House were excited to publish a novel written by journalist Babb based on her story. experience Working with refugee farmers in a government camp in California. But then, in a writer’s nightmare, she was scooped no less than John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. So Babu’s book wasn’t published until 2004.
Babb’s evocative depictions of farm life strained by isolation and dwindling finances, and the tranquil beauty of the Oklahoma plains, initially hooked me, but as the story darkened, I began to lose interest in the characters. I couldn’t stop turning the pages as class consciousness grew.
Read more about Rebecca here.
