We passed a bill in 1997, signed by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, which created a pilot program for a novel experiment called Florida Virtual School. The notion of children using a computer for a classroom and reporting to virtual teachers wasn't exactly mainstream thinking in those days.
The bits I most remember about my school days are those that took place outside the classroom, as we were taken on countless theatre visits and trips to places of interest.
I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on cocktail napkins. I'd rather have my poems on the subway than around the seminar table at an MFA program.
I was singled out by other girls for participating in classroom discussions and physically bullied.
One of my earliest memories... I knew three full verses of the Star Spangled Banner when I was seven or eight years old. And one of the nuns discovered this phenomenon and I was actually sent around from classroom to classroom to do the whole thing.
Art in the classroom not only spurs creativity, it also inspires learning.
Google Apps for Education is a suite of applications intended to be helpful to higher level educational institutions, but in the long run, I think Google has a role to play in helping to assemble relevant content for classroom use.
I remember playing with John Zorn and Ikue Mori in Taiwan in a school classroom. There were, like, 15 people there, maybe, and they were sitting at the classroom desks, and we played under the chalkboard. There's no difference between playing that and the 'download' festival.
My days are jam-packed with carpools, classroom assistance, tending to chickens, dogs and seven acres of olive trees!
In the U.K. there is still work to be done, particularly in schools, stopping the homophobic bullies in the playground and introducing unbiased discussion on gay issues in the classroom.
We should empower teachers to do their job by cutting wasteful spending and crippling bureaucracy, not classroom resources our educators and students need.
Education - much like law or medicine - should be a profession governed by professionals. Unfortunately, too many policies, even those that are well-intentioned, come from the top, leaving out those closest to the classroom, who have the greatest insight into how to provide a high-quality education for all students.
