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Nikhil Goyal is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the education world. In the TED Talk below, Goyal calls for an education revolution. His beliefs and thoughts seem to echo with education reform activists Sir Ken Robinson, Diane Ravitch, Alfie Kohn, etc.  So what's different about this guy vs. the others? We've all heard this "call to change the system as we know it" before. Well, consider this: Nikhil Goyal is a 17-year-old high school senior. We need more students like Goyal if we really want to transform the system. Question/conundrum: how do we effectively develop other students' critical thinking skills to Goyal's level and beyond with our current and outdated education system? 

Children react and cope with crisis in different ways. Some act out, others harm others, others harm themselves, the list goes on. From the onset, I coped by dreaming: I yearned to be a superhero and often fantasized (and still do) about having an alter-ego and going off to save strangers. I wanted to save people I didn't even know, probably because it was so much harder to save the people I already knew, like my dad. It was much easier to swoop in and swoop out. When I was younger, my disguise was perfect: nerdy, straight-A 2nd grader with parted-hair and black-rimmed glasses. I remember when my dad would go on his violent streaks, my mom and I would spend a lot of time together locked in my bedroom. She watched TV and guarded the door, and I played pretend with my Superman action figure after I finished my homework. The interesting thing was, when I played with that Superman action figure, I wasn't a spectator witnessing Superman's heroics. I was the action figure; it ...

A friend of mine shared this video with me; she said it reminded her of what I do. Take a look, it's pretty inspiring. Created by Tragedy and Hope , the video is narrated by the late philosopher Alan Watts. I might just show this to my students first thing Monday morning. You know, instead of test-prepping.

A colleague recently sent me this song (via this blog post), and I couldn't stop laughing. Enjoy.

An old friend of mine recently shared this video with me on Facebook, which I thought was pretty hilarious. An inner city high school substitute teacher takes attendance at his new placement: an all-white suburban science classroom. While there are some obvious problems with the stereotypes this skit plays to, there are definitely some truths I could also appreciate. The substitute clearly didn't need any particular "strategy" to win over these students, who were all prepared and ready to go in the science classroom. The entire class is already seated by the time the bell rings. Some students even have their lab goggles on and many have a notebook open ready to begin writing. To me, that is hilarious - if I were in that situation, I would probably have so much free time at the end of my classes, who knows maybe I would teach two classes in one period!

Nobody's perfect. A few months ago, I wrote a post about how happy I was that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was launching a Young Men's Initiative for New York City. Then, he went ahead and said this: What irritated me most was not his comment about "firing half the teachers." It was what he said after that: "Double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students." Uh.... No. It's not. Doesn't matter if you're fucking Jaime Escalante . Any teacher knows there is a direct relationship between the number of students in your class and how productive your class will be. Not to mention all students learn differently, and so if you increase the number of students, you lose the ability to work with all students one-on-one at some point in class. This holds true for college and university as well. For my undergrad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I honestly learned very little material in my "lecture-sty...

Over the weekend, I went to Lucia's high school graduation party in Brooklyn. I never thought I'd get actually invited to a student's graduation party (being a teacher), but there I was, dressed to impress and ready to pretend that I am not awkward. Lucia is special to me, because she's the other student I spoke about here . She's a work horse, scoring some of the highest grades at our grade on all the New York Regents Exams. She's incredibly motivated. I'm quite proud of her: she'll go to a community college for a year or two and then transfer out. As we sat at our respective tables enjoying the company, I remembered what it was like when I was in my students' shoes in this moment. Graduation right around the corner, everyone thinking this was a big deal. My thoughts during my graduation process: Hmm. Well, I don't feel any older... I wanted my high school graduation to end as soon as possible. I didn't want to go to a "formal...

Check out Stephen Colbert's interview of Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. I'd previously written a post about Khan Academy here . His lessons on YouTube have had over 57 million views. Pretty incredible stuff. The Colbert Report Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , Video Archive

So there's a major battle going on in the state of Wisconsin over massive state budget cuts affecting public workers (teachers, firefighters, police, etc.). Diane Ravitch wrote this piece a while ago summarizing why teachers in particular are outraged. The article summarizes the situation quite well. In case you may not know, Diane Ravitch , is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and has written several books about education. She's going to be on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight to discuss her latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I really want to read this book. Note: I accept late birthday presents. I highly recommend you catch this segment if you're even slightly interested in how the current education system in the United States fails its students and how this situation might possibly be remedied. I'll be watching it for sure.

I came across this brilliant video via a colleague of mine. Narrated by Sir Ken Robinson, this short clip provides a neat insight (using animation and British humor) on how and why our education system was designed the way it is and why it will never be as great as we want it to be. Watch the video in its entirety since you're probably bored at work right now anyway.

I'm Facebook friends with some of my students. I don't go out of my way to add them, that would be creepy . They find me and feel comfortable enough to add me, I guess. My experience has taught me that a no-bullshit relationship is the type of thing my students need in order to trust their teachers and succeed. At this point, one might think: "But accepting their request on Facebook? This could lead to something messed up. Especially since you're a teacher." Relax. I add them on limited profile - I have a separate list for students. It's evident however, that some of my students have no idea what privacy settings are. In fact, I have to manually add them to the hide list on mini-feed as some of their statuses definitely fall into the "too much information" bucket. Sometimes, I make sarcastic comments on their statuses which often times leads to their embarrassment. Sorry, that's what you get for adding a jackass teacher on Facebook. Put me on lim...

I wish I had a mini-Arnold Schwarzenegger in my classroom that would go around saying this when appropriate. Dear Santa: make it happen.

For those of you who missed the Teacher Town Hall on Sunday (hosted by Brian Williams), here's a complete and unedited version. Some excellent points were brought up by teachers, parents and third-parties. It seems education is finally getting some attention in this country. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy

Tomorrow is the first day of school for my students. I spent the better part of today getting my classroom ready. I was super tempted to buy this poster for my class, but I'm pretty sure promoting someone who moonlights as a serial killer would be inappropriate for school. Too bad, it's a great show. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I feel about tomorrow. I'm excited, yet scared. Unfortunately, I can't seem to wrap my head around how I feel. I will write a more thorough post on this when I can properly express myself. For now, enjoy this video (Thanks Alpha Za ). The Onion

If you haven't watched TV or read the news lately, Pakistan has been suffering from extreme flooding. 1,500 people have died thus far and another 13.8 million people have been affected. The government is struggling to get aid to the victims due to heavy infrastructure damage.  Please help by donating as much as you can. A mere $5 will go a long way. Here are some links: UNICEF Global Giving The UN Refugee Agency

I'm back in the country and I have a lot on my mind. Unfortunately, time has not been on my side lately as I started two new grad classes the day after I came back. There will be some more posts to come in the next few days in which I intend to discuss certain aspects of my trip to Pakistan. For now, enjoy this video which we saw on our first day in my "Teaching Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Adolescents" class. I thought it was pretty funny.

This was made by a student at my school. It's completely her work and her voice. I posted it with her permission, of course. The task was create a reflective piece on yourself, your community, or whatever you feel like. Sounds like a pretty open-ended assignment, but the true purpose was to foster creativity. Although I don't have her as a student in the classes I teach, I'm still proud of her.

For anyone who has seen It's a Wonderful Life , you'll love this video I found through a friend's away message (Thanks Rhick). As an outsider who was once a part of this system, I'm still shocked I participated in this crap. Big, nasty institutions more powerful than politicians earning billions off decent people who are losing their homes - yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I was just trying to be as rich as Mr. Potter? But then what?

Thanks to Kevin for finding this video . I think what Dan Meyer is saying in this video is pretty obvious; however, what he's asking for can only be implemented in a perfect world without the constraints that exist today in the classroom. The Department of Education administers state exams which require students to cover X standards in Y school days, thereby limiting the amount of time students can spend messing around with fun concepts such as surface area, volume, etc. Given the sheer amount of "stuff" students are required to know by the end of the year, teachers usually (emphasis on usually) try to cram as much curriculum as possible while simultaneously trying to make it as fun/hands-on as possible. That all goes out the window though if they're behind schedule. God forbid we get behind schedule. With less than forty school days left before the Integrated Algebra Regents, I am beginning to feel this pressure and it's coming out of nowhere. But why? I...

I finally got a chance to see this . Overall, I thought this piece was very interesting, informative and well... depressing. I have plans to move to Pakistan in a few years. They're not finalized just yet, but they are plans none-the-less. Do notice how I didn't say "move back to Pakistan..." I wasn't born there but for some reason I still feel attached to the country. Perhaps it's because I used to visit often during the summer. Or maybe it's because most of my closest friends are South Asian and they remind me of how great the culture of friendship is there. Whatever it is, I don't think I could ever forget the place. If I end up there and things don't get better, I might just decide to stay in education. Call me crazy, but just thinking about doing something good over there (regardless of how little of an impact I might have) gets me excited. I feel motivated. I want experience so I can help in any way possible. I have a lot to learn, ...