"All this happened, more or less."

A couple of years ago, my daughter and I had the privilege of hearing engineer, physician, astronaut, actress, and dancer Mae Jemison speak at UT Dallas. She asked those who believed they were right-brained to raise their hands. Photo credit: wikipedia.org I raised my hand. Next, she asked those who believed they were left-brained to raise their hands. I kept my hand in the air. Not knowing where this was going, I expected the classical argument about how one hemisphere rules each of us more than the other, and that we should cater to that side. Waiting for Jemison’s response, I mused… How many times do teachers hear students confirm “I’m a math person” or “English just isn’t my thing” or “I can’t draw”? By high school, students have categorized themselves according to what they believe they can and can’t do, and school sometimes reinforces these foolish notions by separating content areas by subject, curriculum design, and even areas of the building. ...

It's important to know how to read cursive writing. Reading cursive is not important in the age of computers. Most of us type, anyway. Knowing how to spell words properly is important so that students can clearly communicate what they mean. As long as a student can right-click and select the appropriate word, he or she will be alright. Writing legibly is imperative and indicative of eye-hand coordination and a sophisticated mind. Doctors are notorious for writing sloppily and are successful nonetheless. These are just a few of the differing viewpoints shared by teachers of different grade-levels and content areas during our writing workshop today. Clearly, we are in an age of transition, but isn't education always in such a state of flux? The rapid rate of technology growth since the computer revolution is responsible for many of the dilemmas we face in education today, but teachers have grappled with similar changes since long before the digital age. My daughte...