I like Doug Noon’s Borderland blog and he often has thoughtful ways of putting a new spin on old ideas. This time, the new spin was on one of the canon texts of progressive education–John Dewey’s Education and Experience. Here’s what Noon has to say:

“Rarely, I’ve observed, is NOTHING learned in school. Unfortunately, what’s learned too much of the time is that some subjects are more interesting than others, that some teachers are better than others, that some people are smarter than others. What is learned best is an idea that runs constantly in the background, which is that school is not about learning as much as it’s about getting credit for fulfilling other people’s expectations. “

Hmmm. Not only do we teachers have standards to teach, we have mindsets to debunk as well.