Andrew Ordover's Blog: Scenes from a Broken Hand, page 12

All Trees; No Forest

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, our total annual expenditures on public education (Kindergarten through Grade 12) are projected to be $654 billion this year, or just shy of $13,000 per pupil. That sounds like a lot of money, but spread across a not-quite-ten-month school year, it averages out to about $342 per student, per week, or about $68 per day, all expenses

Questions Worth Asking; Answers Worth Hearing

As teachers, we ask questions constantly. “Why didn’t you
participate in class?” “What’s ¼ + ½?” “Who saves Scout and Jem from Bob
Ewell?”  The questions go on and on, all
day, all week, all year.



We know from our teacher-training that wait
time is hugely important. The great Bob Marzano has said so, and who
are we to question him? (Actually, we
have every right to question him, and all the

All Learning Time is Not Created Equal

“WHAT ABOUT TIME ON TASK?”



When I talk about
something like engaging math students in problem-solving discourse, somebody
always says, “But what about time on task?” When I write something about
argumentation using textual evidence, when I do presentations on growth
mindset—really, no matter what the topic might be, somebody always want to talk
about time-on-task. If students simply spent

Reaching for the Peak

When I was a young theater student, my greatest moment of
learning came not from a book or from a lecture, or even from watching a
performance, but from being left on my own to work with an actress on her
monologue, and then having the director put the actress through an exercise
that completely changed (and improved) her performance. When I asked the
director why he hadn’t just told me to

The Importance of Shutting Up

Teachers like to talk. I was a teacher, and while I think of
myself as an introvert at heart….I have to admit, I like to talk. My parents
were teachers. My wife was a teacher. Talkers, all.



This shouldn’t be surprising. We know a lot of stuff, we’re
passionate about the things we know, and we like to share. We love to share. My wife and I drive our
friends crazy with constant book

Pesach 2018

It's hard to stand up against Pharaoh and demand your physical and spiritual freedom. But we tell the story every year, because it can be done and it must be done.

It's hard to pack up your things and leave a place where you have been abused and despised. It's hard to remember that you are valuable and important, when all your live you've been told you're not. But we tell the story every year,

Feudal America

This month’s Atlantic Magazine has a depressing little article about how the idea of America—the set of beliefs that animated people like
Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau—appears to be disappearing with each passing generation,
leaving only a dry husk of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia in its place. According
to the article, on a scale of 1-10, less than a third of Americans born since
1980

We Are Unhinged

We have become unhinged.



I don’t mean “crazy,” though perhaps we are crazy. We
certainly think other people are crazy. Them. The other side. And it’s the
other-side-ness I’m talking about when I say we are unhinged. Un-hinged.



We’ve always taken sides in political arguments, right from
Day One, but the two sides used to be joined in the middle. There was a thing that held us together and

Non-Negotiables

I was wrong. I thought we were in agreement on the Big
Things, and the fights and debates were about details, the how-do-you-get-there
stuff. I thought we were on the same page about what America IS and what America
is FOR. I was wrong.



I was wrong—and I think that’s why this election has been so
difficult for me, and for so many other people. It revealed something I hadn’t
seen before.

How Much Choice Can You Handle?

So. Betsy DeVos will be our new Secretary of Education. Every
educator I know is freaked out about the fact and what it portends for public
education in this country. Will she use her power to divert public moneys to
private and religious schools? (Definitely.) Will she preside over the complete
dismantling of the Department of Education? (Who knows?) Will her actions bake
racial and class