The Ten Best Blogs about Education

Read and learn. Here are some of the best education blogs around – in no particular order. More British contributions are always welcome...

1) Author Joanne Jacobs writes an excellent blog which is topical, opinionated and well written.

Sample posting: “I remember when a boy, back from a year in Austria with his family, came to elementary school in leiderhosen. His parents thought it would be culturally broadening for us. It was social death for him. There are things parents shouldn’t do.”

2) Alexander Russo posts a daily round up of education stories which makes essential reading.

Sample posting: “All too often, writing about schools and urban kids ends up being sentimental and indulgent, or overly policy-oriented, rather than unblinking and insightful.

3) Alaskan based Rory is studying to be a teacher and pens Parentalcation. He writes from the heart about teaching, life, the military and anything else that occurs to him. He’s strong minded, opinionated, and a very good read.

Sample posting: “Once the kids get to 9th grade it's to late to save them. Education reform will have to start at the elementary school level.”

4) Don Ledingham is a teacher who has been blogging (he calls it writing a learning log) since August 2005. Well informed and widely read, he’s currently Acting Director of Education and Children’s Services for East Lothian Council in Scotland, so comes at it all from a slightly different angle.

Sample posting: “Having to make difficult decisions is a key part of my job. Some of these decisions can often be unpopular - but I suppose that’s what I get paid for.”

5) Dana Huff, author of Huff English is, unsurprisingly, an English teacher. Enjoy her postings on teaching, life and especially literature. She also posts useful handouts on teaching and other content.

Sample posting: “Quite apart from reading and appreciating Jane Austen’s language, it has been my experience that students have difficulty understanding her world. For example, is Mr. Darcy really rich? After all, £10,000 doesn’t sound like a lot of money. What’s a pelisse anyway? What’s with all the letter writing? What’s up with all the tea?”

6) Doug Belshaw is a young teacher who’s currently studying for a doctorate in education at Durham University. He writes particularly about teaching and technology. Read him to find out what the future of the profession is thinking…

Sample posting: “We need diversity in the profession. We need young people to come into contact with as many different types of people from different backgrounds as possible. Teachers, although they necessarily come from a smaller pool than that which reflects the world’s population, can still give students a taste of different perspectives. Instead, what we should be doing - which has been called for time and again - is give teachers more time and smaller class sizes so they can really make a difference.”

7) Vicki Davis is Cool Cat Teacher and writes an extremely knowledgeable blog about teaching and technology.

Sample posting: “ Education is messy -- it is about learning and no one comes into a subject knowing it all, not even the teacher. The world is also not flat, it is wrinkled and high speed internet access is irrelevant if you filter out everything that you try to access.”

8) Eduwonkette is another first-rate US site, which casts a knowing eye over education news.

Sample posting: “We need to disrupt this ridiculous myth that expects superhuman effort from educators in order to achieve success for kids. Almost all of the teachers I know work very hard, and struggle to maintain a balance between their professional responsibilities to the children they teach and building and maintaining a life outside of their work.”

9) So you want to teach is a very readable blog by a music teacher in Texas. It's especially sympathetic to the difficulties of being a new teacher – because the author's own experiences.

Sample posting:  “Everything that goes on in my classroom is my fault. Good things happen because I set up the expectations. Bad things that happen are because I allowed them to happen. While this is not entirely true — sometimes kids do dumb things and act like kids because they ARE kids — accepting responsibility will revolutionize everything that you do.”

10) Mr McNamar, a teacher from Connecticut, writes the Daily Grind about education (and often about being a dad too).

Sample posting: “As a child, I wanted to become a professional baseball player, but the fact that I couldn't hit prevented me from my dreams. Today, I returned to a thought I have had in the past: teachers being treated like athletes.
If in order to earn six figures as a teacher, we had to endure the paparazzi, endless talking heads bantering about our performance, or reporters critiquing us, would we take it?”

(picture from woodleywonderworks on flickr.com)

Comments

[Hall Monitor]

http://detentionslip.org voted #1 education blog.

[Mr. McNamar]

With so many excellent education blogs available, I am honored by your affirmation. Thank you for "filling my bucket" today.

[Vicki Davis]

Wow! Thank you for including me upon this list. It is great to see people talking about blogs and the best of blogging now. It is also nice to see some other educators recognized as well. There are a lot of great us blogs (and UK blogs -- hat tip to my good friend Terry Freedman from over there in the UK.) Ewan McIntosh is also another amazing blogger.

We are so interrelated now that often country location is an afterthought.

Thank you again for creating this list.

[gsundheim]

"You missed the best of the U.S. education blogs. It Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk..."

Posted by Mike "Bernard" Klonsky, perhaps?

Just kidding. Excellent list, Sarah, thank you.

[Bernard]

You missed the best of the U.S. education blogs. It Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk at http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/

[Bernard]

You missed the best of the U.S. education blogs. It Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk at http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/

[Rory]

Thank you for the mention, of course now I will have to post more often.