From the latest addition to my EduBlog RSS list — Bud the Teacher:

Susan Ohanian has an article that is osstensibly about messiness in the classroom. It’s not. Don’t let her clever style fool you.

It’s about the messiness of learning in and out of the classroom. It’s about how we as teachers need to consider the whole student — the kid beyond our lesson plan, and the interests and ideas they might have if we get off script and listen.

It’s a wonderful article — yet another argument against the standarized curriculum, and one more powerful look that should make us all question the very metrics we use to gauge student learning.

What can we do when we dare kids to follow their ideas and passions?