I’ve got a busy week ahead, at two public events to which everyone around Madison is welcome, if they can bring themselves to leave their homes. The first is Tuesday night, at the Madison Public Library. UW Madison’s Center for the Humanities is sponsoring a 2-part forum on the topic of The Good Childhood (cool poster here). The speakers tomorrow are myself and Sally Schrag (an expert on child ddevelopment and educator of child-care workers); next Tuesday (the 13th) we’ll have Anne Lundin (of our SLIS department) and Carole Trone, who is a historian of childhood. Several respondents will also be at one event or another, including a newly minted member of the Wisconsin House of Representatives, and an excellent local elementary school principal.
On Wednesday and Thursday our Educational Policy Studies department is hosting its annual conference. This year the topic is “Education and Educational Research in an Era of Accountability: Insights and Blindspots“. The Keynote Speaker on Wednesday night is Richard Elmore. I’m speaking on Thursday at 9 am on the topic “Values in Evaluation: Why Empirical Evidence is Never Enough”. I’m currently trying to figure out how many nice things to say abut NCLB. This will be followed by excellent sessions looking at empirical evidence and the problems of gathering it. The past few conferences have been great, and the only thing that threatens this one is the weather.
{ 3 comments }
Daniel 02.06.07 at 1:42 am
What’s the current state of play on Judith Rich Harris’s theories of child development?
Laura 02.06.07 at 6:34 pm
Oooh. Wish I could be there, though I’m pleased that it’s at least 10 degrees warmer over here. Could you give us the highlights later?
Bob Calder 02.07.07 at 1:02 am
Have you tried Sherman Dorn’s blog? He is a professor at the University of South FLorida and an educational historian. His blog is full of great material. http://shermandorn.com
Probably his two greatest attributes are first, the ability to know when numbers reach their useful end and second, the ability to keep a level head, carefully keeping the good in people’s contributions and gently discarding the chaff. Just look for Accountability Frankenstein down the left side, but the WHOLE blog is very good for many reasons.
Comments on this entry are closed.