Teachers For A Democratic Culture

As teachers, we are always on the prowl for new and interesting ways to engage our students into the activity of learning. After all, it is our job; we are responsible for engaging our student so that not only is learning made fun, but so that students walk away with knowledge that is invaluable. So with that in mind, Celestron Telescopes is our focus of study. Celestron Telescopes has been making telescopes for both professional, educational, and personal use for years. With one of their powerful telescopes, you will be better able to teach your students about astronomy, the universe and the world around them. Star searching and gazing also makes a  great recreational treat for students with good behavior. The Celestron NexStar 8SE Telescope has been noted to perform very well and is user friendly too.  And not to worry about how to afford one for your classroom because there are educational grants available for such projects as well as district funding in some cases.

So let Celestron Telescopes into your classroom and allow them to add a bit of fun and excitement to the learning environment; your students will definitely thank you for it later.

The New Year has brought with it the idea that teaching should be done differently. As a teacher, you cannot continue to teach your students with the same methods that you have been using. You must focus on a new way of doing things, especially if the current conditions are not working. Harvard University has for many years utilized case studies as a primary method of teaching. Case studies offer a great opportunity to not only teach students in the realm of several different subject areas, but also encourage deeper analysis on their part and independent learning. With the help of case studies, students can become more well rounded and well versed individuals. 1800 Flowers, for example, is a great learning opportunity for a case study. If you are an elementary or middle school teacher, you could have your students run basic arithmetic analysis on the company. Have them understand what profit is and how to calculate it, or how much money one need if you wanted to order X amount of flowers at various costs.

You could also create reading assignments for them, requiring them to do research on the history of the company and is founders. As you can see, 1800 Flowers has a wealth of material to provide as a case study. Any student of this subject would be ready for any business school, and even for any opportunity to perform analysis on any subject.

If you are a teacher then you are probably extremely happy that Christmas is right around the corner. As much as we love our darlings at school, the two week vacation that we get this time of year is long over due and well deserved. There will be plenty of time to spend with our families, do our holiday shopping, catch up with old friends, and veg out in front of the television, or a good book, which ever you prefer. So Teachers of America, take some time to regroup and get yourself together this holiday season. The kids at school have certainly worked a nerve this year and it’s time for you to unwind so that come January, you can have it together and be ready to educate them and prepare them for everything that life may potentially serve them. So to unwind, here’s what I recommend: start with a nice glass of wine and some personalized m&m’s to set the mood off right.

After you have eaten about a half bag of your personalized m&m’s that are color coded just the way you like them, take a nice warm bubble bath, light a few candles and put in your favorite cd. Take some time to enjoy yourself because Christmas will be over before you know it!

It is our view that recent curricular reforms influenced by multiculturalism and feminism have greatly enriched education rather than corrupted it. It is our view as well that the controversies that have been provoked over admissions and hiring practices, the social functions of teaching and scholarship, and the status of such concepts as objectivity and ideology are signs of educational health, not decline.

Yet because the mainstream media have reported misinformed opinions as if they were established facts, the picture the public has received of recent academic developments has come almost entirely from the most strident detractors of these developments.

It is time for those who believe in the values of democratic education and reasoned dialogue to join together in an organization that can fight such powerful forms of intolerance and answer mischievous misrepresentations. We support the right of scholars and teachers to raise questions about the relations of culture, scholarship and education to politics — not in order to shut down debate on such issues but to open it. It is such debate that is prevented by discussion-stopping slogans like “political correctness.”

We need an organization that can not only refute malicious distortions but also educate the interested public about matters still too often remain shrouded in mystery — new literary theories and movements such as deconstructionism, feminism, multiculturalism and new historicism, and their actual effects on classroom practice. 

Welcome back to Teachers for a Democratic Culture. Our organization orginally began this website in early 2000, and have gone through a number of change but we’re back! In case you didn’t know, Teachers for a Democratic Culture  is a coalition of academics committed to preserving education as a force for social change and as a site for cultural pluralism. We stronly believe in the power of education to change not only ourselves but the world in which we live. There will be live forums sponsored on this site to discuss change and ideas of change to help make our community and our world a better place!