Welcome Page (July 2024)
Welcome to The Paste Eaters Blog!
🤔 Introduction
For those visiting the page from the Lafayette Ignite Conference, I wanted to throw together a quick page introducing the blog. Later I’ll add resources related to my talk, “Images and Words: Dual Coding Theory for Beginners.”
Feel free to comment with questions about the conference. I’d love to get back to you!
🏠 About Me
My name is Adam, and I’m entering year eleven in the classroom and year fourteen in education overall. I’m passionate about teaching students to write and showing teachers why it’s not so bad. I started this blog in part to post conference talks and other thoughts on education.
For more about me, check out this interview style post, “Dual Coding Theory, Old Schoolbooks, and Flan (An Interview)."
For an overview of my writing philosophy, check out a 2023 talk, “Help! I don’t know how to teach writing!” (This will link to Part 1.)
For my 2024 Ignite workshop, check out the first part, “Quilted Ideas.” As of this writing, I hope to post the other sections in the coming weeks.
🏆 Most Popular Posts
While you’re here, check out some of my most popular posts so far.
1. Recently I missed a graduation reception and sketched a quick letter about “Ten Life Lessons I Wish I Knew at Seventeen.” My list might surprise you.
2. Ever feel fatigue at the last bell and think back to the statistic that teachers make many decisions per day? Decision fatigue is real, but the statistic is not. Check out “Teachers do NOT make 1,500 decisions per day*”.
3. Ever notice how teachers are the last to be interviewed about education? In “CBS won't interview teachers about teacher shortage,” I analyze several interviews that, somehow, don’t feature teachers.
4. Ever notice how schools borrow quality control arguments from fast food and apply them towards children? You know, standardize our children for the standardized tests? Check out “Fast Food Workers of the Mind."
5. Ever ask a simple question and student begins a never ending irrelevant story instead? Check out my inaugural post, “My Grandma’s Cat.” Coming soon to a classroom near you!
⭐️ Quotables
While I believe schools should teach writing, this does not mean essays only.
“As letter writing disappears, so do the benefits. If we only teach academic writing--specifically writing for testing--we narrow both writing ability and thought patterns. When we neglect other forms, either alien conventions arise or the medium becomes feral.” (Check out Why Schools Should Teach Letter Writing, Part 1.)
“Physical mail became electronic mail (email) and email became part of messaging interfaces. Conventions change, but foundations remain. If we neglect teaching communication, convention collapses into interfaces.
“We underestimate—at our peril—how digital interfaces began with physical conventions. Simply put: If we teach letter writing as a foundation, it becomes assumptions for emails. If not, other conventions fill the vacuum. By contrast, instant messages (IM) best serve short ideas. Longer IMs begin to require structure and do not fit the flow of the medium. (IMs evolve into emails.) Similar interfaces do not mean similar conventions. Handles are handles, but hammers are not screwdrivers. IMs and email may share interfaces—"Type here”—but they are distinct.” (Check out Why Schools Should Teach Letter Writing, Part 2.)
Intimidated by grading writing? What if you only had to write the comments once and then just circle them therefore?
“If you have to write it more than twice, create a template. Predictable mistakes become predictable feedback. Rather than write "Avoid run-ons" hundreds of times over the decades, write it once. Then hit print. Push your starting points forward and save mental energy. Remember: Spoken feedback is forgotten. Handwritten feedback is tossed. But printed feedback can be reprinted. (Check out Stop Grading Essays with Amnesia.)
