I found a great quote on JD Prickett’s blog by Harvard’s Roland Barth.
“Show me a school whose inhabitants constantly examine the school’s culture and work to transform it into one hospitable to sustained human learning, and I’ll show you students who graduate with both the capacity and the heart for lifelong learning.”
I agree passionately that the school’s culture is the basis for its accomplishments and that the principal’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is the source, whether active, passive or by benign neglect.
Unfortunately, the culture described above is constrained, distorted or totally destroyed by education policy—Dallas Independent School …read more

By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university. He shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.
Wes Ball, Tuesday’s regular guest, posted his response to my posting about the Dallas Independent School District grading policy.
He makes a point that a nurturing approach is a good one.  And I agree with him that giving students the opportunity to fix mistakes within defined boundaries is a good learning strategy, and one that I routinely use for my college students.
However, the key …read more