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THE BIGGER PICTURE: Educating Students for the Globalized Present

Patrick J. Walsh. Oregon, USA

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019

Is Our Goal Obedient, Professional Teenagers?

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October 31, 2019November 1, 2019

Designing a Unit on Climate Change (While California Burns)

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April 26, 2019

Education and Trust: Finland and the USA

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March 13, 2019March 13, 2019

An Attempt at Measuring “Class Participation”

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February 19, 2019February 25, 2019

Global Economic and Environmental History in 2 Slides

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February 6, 2019November 19, 2019

Has Good Teaching Changed?

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November 27, 2018November 27, 2018

Beginning a Schoolwide Recycling Program Was Easier Than I Expected

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July 11, 2018

Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Natural Causes” and the Education of Teens

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May 7, 2018

How Can I, a Single Teacher in a Single School, Counter Global Trends in Student Culture?

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Recent Posts at: THE BIGGER PICTURE: Educating Students for the Globalized Present

Is Our Goal Obedient, Professional Teenagers?

“He’s a rule follower.” “She needs to learn to break the rules.” “She can be rigid.” “Help him learn to break the rules.” On Back-to-School Night in September, I met with my students’ parents and guardians. For each of my classes in turn, I spent ten minutes explaining the course and my approach to teaching. […]

Designing a Unit on Climate Change (While California Burns)

Something has changed. Yes, climate change is now “current events,” not a coming attraction. But something else, something more interesting, has changed. My students. They are first-year students in secondary school, mostly 14-years old, the Class of 2023. Since our current unit on climate change policy began six weeks ago, they have exhibited a number […]

Education and Trust: Finland and the USA

Three years ago, at the end of my family’s time in Finland, Mika Rantala, then the Head of school at Schildt Upper Secondary School in Jyväskylä, asked me to record a brief video on my reflections after visiting numerous Finnish schools, meeting with teachers, administrators, and students. Having visited many Finnish schools at all levels and […]

An Attempt at Measuring “Class Participation”

I have long been unhappy with the subjective nature of my assessment of students’ class participation. Earlier in my career, I simply equated asking and answering questions with successful participation. I also included trips to office hours. But it was clear I was privileging one kind of student: the kind that is assertive, confident, and […]

Global Economic and Environmental History in 2 Slides

In the New York Times last Sunday, David Wallace-Wells offered an essay on climate change entitled, “Time to Panic.” We have been downplaying the risks of our situation, Wallace-Wells argued, for psychological and political reasons. Now, as he quotes David Attenborough, “If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of […]

Has Good Teaching Changed?

I wonder: when is my teaching helping to shape ethical, thoughtful, happy human beings? When am I (doing a good job, maybe) teaching to fulfill the demands of the market, of corporate future employers, of educational fashion, of the latest branding initiatives of influential schools? I have written here before about the dangers of so-called […]

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