Benjamin Barbour
@BenHBarbour
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Government and history teacher, librarian, reader, writer, husband, father. Interested in literacy, civics, local history, and information literacy.
Erie, Pennsylvania
Joined February 2020
I had a lot of fun collaborating with @edutopia in the creation of this video about a testing/note-taking strategy I use.
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@karenvaites I think the term "central planning" scares teachers who value independence. But how much content is skipped, repeated, unorganized etc, because there exists so little central planning? These are really important questions that schools need to consider.
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"Core learning about the world (seasons and animal adaptations, history fundamentals, civics basics) are foundations, too… foundations for comprehension and foundations for more sophisticated learning."
“It’s not just a knowledge-rich curriculum. It’s a knowledge-rich curriculum that is carefully sequenced. The ideal is that when we put a text in front of a child for the child to read, they have all the background knowledge in place to read the text and comprehend that text comfortably, but maybe not quite everything, so they have to reach just a little bit.” @DTWillingham explains the importance of coherent learning in the curriculum, in order to support reading comprehension and enable new learning. As soon as you understand this principle, you become a curriculum person. This kind of coherence is only possible if there is central planning in a school’s curriculum. If every teacher is left to his or her own devices in developing curriculum, you can have every teacher introducing the same content, and a failure to expose kids to maximal breadth and depth of content in K-5. Core learning about the world (seasons and animal adaptations, history fundamentals, civics basics) are foundations, too… foundations for comprehension and foundations for more sophisticated learning. From the a discussion of NAEP outcomes hosted by @JHUEdPolicy:
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Encourage writing in every class. Tie it to content. Don't underestimate the power of the single sentence. Teach students to write one strong sentence. Occasionally ask for two strong sentences. Maybe three. It's the little things.
“Instruction in basic writing skills were often isolated and support for these skills was rarely embedded within the context of children’s own written compositions. In addition, children had relatively less opportunities to independently write….” @SoniaCabell
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@JamesAFurey And I would encourage teachers not to neglect challenging non-fiction, especially in the social sciences. I incorporated a Gordon Woods book on the American Revolution that really complimented the content in a meaningful way.
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History teachers, have you been to your local museum, history center, library's heritage room, or archives lately? These places offer a wealth of information about your hometown. All of this info can be incorporated into your class! Visit! #education #sschat #TEACHers
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@MartinCothran If people accepted the premise that higher-level thinking about any topic required robust, comprehensive, domain-specific knowledge, there would be a transformation in how teachers and students approached information.
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@Beanie0597 Returning to tried-and-true ed methods might be such a seismic shift in thinking at this point that we could categorize it as revolutionary. Indeed, for several years now I've said we need a "retro ed revolution."
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I organized a faculty/admin book club in which we read this terrific book by @JonHaidt. Extraordinarily thought-provoking. I recommend teachers and parents organize group readings to foster discussions and ideas about the way forward.
You don’t give your child a cigarette or alcohol. Why are you giving them unrestricted access to cell phones, gaming devices and other technology? You can no longer say you don’t know how dangerous it is. There is simply no excuse.
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RT @educationgadfly: A new book, "Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking: The Knowledge Revival," makes a case for knowledge-rich curricul…
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"In a way, I wish Horowitch was right that the problem is that high schools are no longer assigning books to students. That diagnosis lends itself to a fairly obvious solution...But if the problem is that assigned books go unread, that’s a much harder nut to crack."
From the Winter 2025 issue of Education Next: Seven Thoughts about Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.
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"Teachers need to understand why cognitive science supports a content-rich, explicit instructional approach, as well as how to deliver instruction in a way that works best for their students."
"What can be done to overcome those obstacles and bring science-informed teaching to the millions of children who could benefit from it?"
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Learning, reading, and studying require the abilities to focus and pay attention, often for long periods of time. Educators and parents should be creating the conditions to foster, develop, and hone those abilities. We need to think what tools and practices allow for that.
If half your day is spent using screens that gives you continuous rounds of stimulus-response-reward, your brain will adapt and the other half of your day will become more boring. This may be why boredom is rising among Gen Z, and test scores are falling
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If teachers want to disseminate, discuss, and teach meaningful books --old and new, non-fiction and fiction--to students, then teachers should be reading meaningful books themselves.
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I used AI to research a topic about which I know a lot. I asked complex questions, responded pointedly to its statements, and knew of resources to fact check AI. Content knowledge allowed me to do this. I was in control. Students also need such knowledge in the age of AI.
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RT @ModestTeacher: Parents, the most important thing you can do with your toddlers and littles is to read to them. Every. Single. Day.
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Been on a Civil War reading kick and just finished these two books by @scgwynne. Can't recommend them enough for anyone looking for informative & entertaining books on the conflict.
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RT @edudissenter: Education leaders who care about learning need to see this. This, along with Louisiana’s NAEP scores, vindicate E.D. Hir…
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RT @FIVEfromFIVE: Strengthening the Mind’s Eye The case for continued handwriting instruction in the 21st century. BY Virginia Wise Bernin…
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RT @timsurma: Interesting new study on the implementation of a knowledge rich curriculum. This study tested the impact of a widely used con…
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