Disqus - Latest Comments for mdoyle

Re: This is the hangover as the Biden government based economy trans

Michael — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 06:44:39 -0000

Look at the details of this administration's proposed budget. If you care about the deficit, well, then call Van Drew and ask him to address it. The proposed CR increases the debt.

You can follow along here: https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget

Re: So now we're going to condemn our teachers for buying coffee at

Michael — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 17:17:26 -0000

That's a cheap shot.

The Herald provides excellent coverage of local events. I am a proud subscriber and I get a year's worth of fine coverage for the same price you pay for 10 days worth of overpriced coffee.

Re: Back and Gone Away — Knuffke.com

Michael — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 17:01:28 -0000

You have influenced my teaching as much as anyone, no small thing in this business.
My students know you and Kim on a first name basis.

Thanks.....

Re: Will · Why I Deleted Candy Crush

Michael — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 07:58:49 -0000

Sounds like the soul of our culture.
Alas, "enough" is a dirty word.

Re: Why I Left Medicine: A Burnt-Out Doctor’s Decision To Quit

Michael — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 19:39:52 -0000

Here's what I wrote a year ago to answer folks who wondered why I left medicine to teach:

http://doyle-scienceteach.b...

Re: Why I Left Medicine: A Burnt-Out Doctor’s Decision To Quit

Michael — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 19:32:49 -0000

I was a doc, I am now a public school teacher.
Trust me, there's no comparison.

Re: Why I Left Medicine: A Burnt-Out Doctor’s Decision To Quit

Michael — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 19:25:17 -0000

I left medicine. I was good at it.
You cannot accept that kind of responsibility without autonomy--when autonomy was stripped from us, I left.

I miss big chunks of it, but I'm not sure I'd make it to 60 if I stayed.

Re: Why Do You Teach?

Michael — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:59:43 -0000

Sometimes it comes down to (dare I say it?) love....

Re: Hack Education Projects for 2013

Michael — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:01:42 -0000

One of my educational (and life) highlights this year was meeting you.
Keep up the energy, keep up the words. Thanks for sharing yourself.

Re: Some thoughts on Rushkoff

Michael — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 07:54:27 -0000

I learned to code way back in the stone ages. It's logic on steroids. It's unforgiving. It's powerful. (And...psssstt, come a little closer...it's fun.)

As our culture drifts deeper into magical thinking, our grasp of what's real becomes more tenuous. If you do not minimally grasp the way code works, you will become more dependent on those who do.

Brief, mandatory coding classes in our public schools would strengthen the independence of our citizens, encourage thinking, and hone problem-solving. Not sure it would make our kids more corporate "career ready"--kids with real tools harder to tame in cubicles--but Merca could use a little more thinking in its citizenry.

Isn't that the primary point of public schools?

Re: Science Standards: The Next Generation

Michael — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:02:02 -0000

Small circular strokes? SMALL CIRCULAR STROKES?!?!?!? What, are you trying to condemn children to a life of dental caries?

(Hey, thanks for the link--part of me, maybe most of me, just wants to grab my clam rake and avoid this nonsense. But children are involved. Our children. So this stuff matters.)

Re: Morning discussions on digital content, textbooks, & learning

Michael — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:45:39 -0000

Jose Vilson (@TheJLV), Ms. Bethea (@21stcenturychem), Joya Clark, founder of new charter school in Newark, NJ--just a few off the top of my head...

Re: Jan. 24, 1935: First Canned Beer Sold

Michael — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:53:29 -0000

I worked in the Krueger plant in the 1980's, long after the beer folks left--it became the neighborhood health center. Newark, NJ, was once the king of ale, before the years when the Passaic River could ignite. The building has been gone for years, now, but thanks for the memories.

For those who slam beer in cans, the funny taste can be avoided if you pour the beer into a glass. Really. (Before I get slammed by the beer elitists ("aletists"?), rest assured I homebrew--even grow my own hops. We can settle this civilly--in a pub, over a pint or two....)

Re: NBC News EducationNation.com - Teacher Town Hall: Teacher-only Live Chat (Sunday, Sept 26th)

Michael — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:21:44 -0000

My, my--"TAKE PARENT CONTROL AWAY!!!!!" Really?

(I suspect (and pray) that this falls under the same category as Swift's A Modest Proposal. If not, I'd be very worried about any children in Sciriha's classroom.)

Re: What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Michael — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:38:02 -0000

The elephant has been killed by a tree piercing its brainstem. Half its body is missing, and its trunk is suspiciously shrunken, suggesting that it has been dead for some time.

I am disturbed by the balloon tied to the rhinoceros' nose, and further disturbed by whatever critter is sitting in the car with the rhino.

There is also an epidemic of hypertelorism (witnessed in a variety of species).

And why in blazes is anyone exposing a two-year-old to this stuff?

Re: Attitudes toward teaching

Michael — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:55:32 -0000

I've done both teaching and medicine--medicine pays ridiculously well for some, and here in the States that may be enough to give a profession gravitas, esteem, whatever you want to call it.

Docs take a fair amount of jovial abuse here, as do lawyers. Any profession does--if you "profess," expect to be challenged, especially by your peers.

Teaching is hard work--so are a lot (I'd daresay most) jobs, professions, whatever you want to call work. I work with a lot of people who left other fields--professional chemists, business folks, a photographer, a lawyer--and while we're aware that a lot of folks see teachers as those that can't do, we're also aware that, despite the tremendous amount of work required, it's not harder than the professions we left.

So why does anyone teach here in the States? You'll get a lot of answers--love of students, time off, good benefits--but for those of us who happily stay, it's because we believe teaching matters. The financial compensation is reasonable if not spectacular, but that's not why we teach.

Re: It’s basically about shifting from getting people to love you, to you loving them.

Michael — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:17:27 -0000

Be genuinely interested, caring, kind, and loving to your students.

It's that simple.
It's that hard.
.-= Michael Doyle´s last blog ..LELA's just another pretty face =-.

Re: Freecomonics in Education

Michael — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:30:54 -0000

First let my naiveté poke through: a few people do look at the greater good, and make various forms of knowledge accessible without regard to their own profit (e.g., OpenOffice.org).

I do not doubt that "the innovations likely to achieve scale and impact will have a business model behind them--" not because only business models are capable of sustaining innovations but rather because monied interests will ultimately squash others.

Prior "free" entrepreneurial gifts in the classroom had hidden costs. Channel One, for example, required that a certain percentage of children watch their programming and their ads. Joel Babbit, the former Channel One President, bragged that "the biggest selling point to advertisers [is]. . . . we are forcing kids to watch two minutes of commercials." Exxon sponsored the Energy Cube, with a biased view against alternative sources.

I take in loco parentis seriously--if the state is going to make schooling compulsory, it had better put in safeguards to protect my children from forces that are not acting in the best interests of my children.

The primary concern of a publicly held company is to increase the bottom line. That's not my business. The primary function of the public school is to create a functional citizenry, and that is my business.

As far as the "the model we grew up with—25 kids in a classroom reading the same textbook and answering questions at the end of the chapter." It's already dead, at least in my district, and my district is not unique.

Your company's existence is as good an example as any. You may mean well, and I believe that you believe that your heart is in the right place. Still, your purpose is to sell a certain point of view. There's plenty of time to sell to the children outside of school.

I agree that the web does change education in many marvelous ways, and districts can save a lot of money by taking advantage of open source code. I just hope that superintendents recognize that "free" often comes with hidden costs.

Re: How do we not give zeros? Voicethread response.

Michael — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:59:49 -0000

pssstt....

I need to get back to this, but I must confess:

I do not have a webcam.
I do not have a cell phone.
I do not have a computer microphone.

I am thoroughly addicted to words pretending to be letters.

Keeping the window open is all we can do sometimes. and it can be hard when all kinds of debris is blowing past.

But we must keep them open.

Re: 20 Blogs I Wish Were Around When I Started Teaching

Michael — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:59:52 -0000

California Teacher Guy recently went public again--you can find him here:

Magical Mystical Teacher
http://magicalmysticalteach...

Re: Gotta Celebrate

Michael — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:43:12 -0000

Ah, wonderful stuff.

I am celebrating light and life. I suspect we all are on this side of the Earth.

I understand less and less but enjoy it more and more.

<abbr>Michael Doyles last blog post at [site]..Magical thinking</abbr>

Re: Robb's Oyster Book

Michael — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:17:00 -0000

Oh, one more thing--I like to write about oysters, too.

If you're ever in Jersey, feel free to give me a holler. I'll serve us some fresh oysters and we can chase them down with some blueberry melomel (or whatever we have brewing at the time).

Cheers!

Re: Robb's Oyster Book

Michael — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:11:00 -0000

Dear Mr. Walsh,

It's a rare book that even starts to nibble at the wonderful and frightening chaos called life in a way that makes sense.

It's a rare book that follows love instead of an agenda, that wanders around intelligently instead of following some rigid formula.

And you're a rare writer.

An hour or so before sunset today, I'll be scampering around a jetty on the Delaware Bay gently wiggling out some oysters for dinner. Our bay has been slowly making a comeback, and dinner is less than a mile away.

Thank you for crafting a celebration of life. My kinder side hope this book gets the audience it deserves, and sits on top of the NYT nonfiction list for a year or two.

My selfish side hopes it does not--Leslie and I have all the oysters we could ever need because, it seems, few people are alive anymore. If your book becomes too popular, I may have to find a less accessible oyster bed.

Re: in the mood for spring

Michael — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:38:57 -0000

Imbolc less than two twirls of the Earth away.
Really.

I was looking for crocuses today--a bit too optimistic, but no longer ridiculous.

Yahweh. (Apparently Hebrew doesn't transcribe here, or at least on my end--but maybe it does on yours--????)

Amen.

Re: Antarctica goes North

Michael — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:37:06 -0000

Ah, heck, you're better listening off to Edward Abbbey than me--truly--the last thing you needed was me acting like a cop.

If I had to write it over again, I would have said simply--"Hang in there, Love, Michael."

So if you get a do-over, I do, too.

So hang in there.