Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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The best teacher blogs
Over at the LA Times’ School Me! Blog, Bob Sipchen and Janine Kahn are announcing their 10 favorite teacher blogs one per day over the next 10 days. (Great idea. Wish I had thought of it.)
The truth is, I’ll be interested to see the final list because there aren’t that many really good teacher blogs, or at least there aren’t that many that are well known in the blogosphere.
Even so, School Me! off to a strong start. Kicking off their list at No. 10 is one of my daily reads — Mrs. Frizzle. Mrs. Friz is a former Teach for America participant who stuck with the profession and still teaches in New York City. She’s about to embark on quite an adventure as she will be living in Istanbul next year as part of a teacher exchange program.
Since School Me! has already beaten me to highlighting one of my favorite teacher blogs, I thought I’d try to upstage them by releasing the rest of my list all at once. Here are my top SEVEN favorite teacher blogs:
No 7. From the TFA Trenches
Mr. AB is teaching at a school in California through Teach for America, a program that places top college students in urban and rural classrooms. He may be done for the summer, since he hasn’t posted in about a month, but this blog give a good flavor for the frustrations of a motivated, idealistic teacher in the face of the obstacles of urban education.
No 6. Polaski3’s View From Here
Ever wondered what your middle school teachers really thought about you and your classmates, the principal, the school, the textbook, etc? Polaski is very authentic voice with sometimes funny, sometimes outraged commentaries on the good, the bad and the insane of teaching in a middle school.
No 5. NYC Educator
This blog is updated daily with news items and commentary, often about New York City and New York state, but sometimes also discusses national or international issues. He tries a lot of different stuff, even the occasional narrative story, which I like. Lots of good photos and graphics, too.
No 4. The Shrewdness of Apes
The Oklahoma-reared “Ms Cornelius” is a thoughtful, versatile writer with interesting comments on a variety of school-related issues. It’s great when she gets fired up about an issue. And if you like movies, you can try to match her quote-for-quote on “Movie Madness Monday.”
No 3. Mrs. Frizzle
See my comments above.
No 2. The Education Wonks
In many ways, the Wonks are the kings of education blogs. The California-based teacher (influenced by his Wife Wonk and Teen Wonk) has an amazing talent for finding the weird, shocking, amazing or outrageous education news before anyone else. The Wonks launched and often host the weekly Carnival of Education, a compilation of the best education blog posts each week.
No 1. Mr. Babylon
OK, he’s posted sparsely for the past six months or so, but I am an absolutely addicted fan of this guy’s blog. Mr. Babylon is an often frustrated and occasionally inspired teacher at a, ahem, “crappy” high school in the Bronx. And the guy can really write. Like all good writing, his posts grab you because he really puts himself out there. He lets you experience what he thinks and feels as it happens, even if later he regrets those thoughts or actions. This blog is a really good window into the reality of inner city schools. Sometimes it’s hilariously bizarre. Sometimes it’s so exasperating you want to hit somebody. Sometimes it’s hard to stomach. But occasionally, good things happen too. For a really good flavor of this blog, check out his own list of “favorite posts.”
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By NYC Educator
July 1, 2006 9:14 AM | Link to this
Have you considered working up a graphic, so that the bloggers you mentioned could display it, and link back to you? The idea of best of blogs is fine, but the graphic was a really cool thing the LA times did. If you’re gonna steal ideas, you might as well go all the way.By NYC Educator
June 22, 2006 12:19 PM | Link to this
Thanks very much for your kind words about my blog! I’m particularly glad you like the narrative stuff, as I get fewer responses to that and was actually wondering whether anyone was reading it.By Scott Elliott
June 21, 2006 4:36 PM | Link to this
Oops. Sorry for the bad link. It’s fixed now. Thanks to Princess for the heads up.By The Portable Princess
June 21, 2006 3:45 PM | Link to this
Pssst. Your link to Mr. Babylon is really a link to the Education Wonks.