CircleReader

A collaborative blog about foodie books, beginning with Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food," then moving on to Ann Vileisis' "Kitchen Literacy." Think you'd like to post? Have another book to suggest? Come joint the conversation! (Hosted by CircleReader beginning in August, 2009.)

"The Obama [education] agenda is the Republican agenda with a smile and $100 billion in stimulus dollars to encourage districts and states to adopt conservative reforms. I recall back in the 1980s and 1990s, during the Reagan and Bush years, when Republicans wanted choice and accountability, and Democrats fought back with their own ideas. Now Democrats, with an overwhelming edge in Congress, have Republican ideas.

What happened?"

"We need to hear these stories. Like the art and science of Shakespeare and Piaget, the observations of parents are explorations of the range of the human experience. Today�s developmental research deepens and elaborates what observant parents know: �oeChildren learn…in fits and starts, sometimes showing that they understand and other times not,” writes Daniel Willingham, �oeIf you wait until you are certain that the children will understand every nuance of a lesson, you will likely wait too long to present it.” This is good news for parents and other educators. It implies that nothing is segregated by age or stage, that nothing is just for grown-ups�"anything can be engaged with, because we are not expecting to learn it all at once and check it off the list. We can begin learning together now, and settle in to our rhythms of learning more deeply as time goes on."