Welcome to the fourth issue of the Edge of Education Carnival, a collection of links to the most innovative teachers using and sharing tips and techniques on the cutting edge of teaching and learning. And now, before I get out of the way so you can click around, I’m going to make a shameless plea: If you are a real person . . .better yet, if you are a real teacher (or know one), gosh I’d be honored if you’d consider sharing some of the cool stuff that you do. Please consider submitting to next month’s Edge of Education Carnival.

If you’ve ever hired or managed or taught, you know the feeling.

People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: “If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I’m safe.”

When asked, resist.

Friedman, T. (2005).  The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century.  New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
An Annotation
This is a book about globalization and how world economies, networks, and technology have converged to level the playing field of knowledge and power, creating huge shifts in the standards of living throughout the [...]

Goldman, D. (1995).  Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ.  New York, NY: Bantam.
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Another outstanding book explaining the power of emotions in the human experience.  The idea here is that a person’s ability to recognize, harness, and/or control their emotions play even a larger role in determining happiness and/or success than intelligence [...]

Pink, D., Friedman, T. (2008).  Tom Friedman on education in the ‘flat world.’  The School Administrator.  February, 12-18.
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This article is actually an interview or conversation between Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, and Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat.  It is a great discussion about the importance of “mashing” the [...]

Zhao, Y. (2008).  What knowledge has the most worth?  The School Administrator.  February, 20-26.
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An outstanding article relating how America can and should continue to flourish in a global economy—by continuing to nurture more right-brained thinkers—in short to breed creativity.  Clearly, based on the fact that much of East Asian development has been done on [...]

Burke, J. (2007). Teaching English language arts in a “flat” world.  In Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice (149-165). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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A good article relating relevant literacy skills in the 21st century and how today’s students are going to have to think and appreciate a lifelong learning approach in order to be successful adults.  [...]

Fox, M. (1993).  Notes from the battlefield: toward a theory of why people write. In Radical Reflections (pp 1-22).  New York, NY: Harcourt Publishing.
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A great essay on the change in her students when the author moved to more “meaningful” assignments—particularly related to writing.  The big hurdle for many writing teachers is moving students from [...]

The Biggest Ideas. Com: Changing How We See, Changing How We Act (2003).  You have three brains.  Retrieved July 11, 2008, from
http://www.thebiggestideas.com/cgi-bin/viewps.cgi?you_have_three_brainsps.txt
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A great metaphorical explanation of the anatomy of the brain from an evolutionary perspective and how the brain’s evolution allowed for more complex and higher order thinking skills.

Saunders, J., Nelson S. (2004).  Closing gender gaps in science.  Educational Leadership 62 (3) 74-77.
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This article related some very interesting data about some AP test scores in the Dallas, Texas area.  The bottom line is that while girls are outscoring (and out-taking) boys in most AP tests, not only are fewer girls taking fewer [...]