New school facilities address 21st-century challenges

Go Ahead and Freak Out About the School with No Books

BTW:

Count this dinosaur among the "almost "50 percent of Americans (who plan) to buy an e-book in 2013."

In fact, have already purchased several, including Rafe Esquith and "The Confessions of a Bad Teacher". (Not to totally abandon my "old school" ways, Diane Ravitch's "Reign of Error" will be arriving this week in hardback form.)

However...

I would not wish to be in a classroom trying to teach students armed with their own digital devices.

I mean...

...Illinois decided that there was a need to crack down on "distracted driving" by passing a law banning use of hand-held cell phones beginning in January 2014.

Yet teachers are being advised/required to permit each and every student access during class?!

Look, what's more complicated...

Driving with one hand, holding a cell phone in the other and talking, or engaging in learning, reading e-mails/texts and responding to same all at the same time?

Look, I know whereof I speak...

...have been there, done that!

During my final year in the education trenches (serving as Alternative Classroom teacher)...

...on any given day I would have at most ten students, each with their own computer and individualized learning program. It was pure hell trying to keep them on task since their computers had access to the Internet. Bump that number to a regular size class of 20 to 30?