History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Miss Frizzle fails IMPACT evaluation
- 07-20-2011
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Guest blog by Marni Barron and Leigh Dingerson/Washington Post
Recently, we were reflecting on the portrayal of teachers on screen these days. There’s the animated “dance of the lemons,” and Michelle Rhee’s teaching bashing in “Waiting for Superman.” Now comes Cameron Diaz in “The Bad Teacher.” What happened to the teacher as guide? Or the teacher as inspiration? What happened to Miss Frizzle? You remember Miss Frizzle. She was the uber-elementary science teacher of the public television series “The Magic School Bus .” The show was first broadcast in 1994, based on the books by Joanna Cole. Miss Frizzle is famous for the amazing field trips that she takes her students on—a fantastic demonstration of experiential learning where students don’t just learn about life on Mars or the workings of the heart and lungs…they go there. Through the extraordinary power of the Magic School Bus, they shrink to size, and take off on educational adventures. We remember watching episodes of The Magic School Bus with our children, hoping that our toddlers would someday have teachers as dynamic, quirky, creative and flamboyant as Miss Frizzle. But it seems like today’s teachers are getting all the Miss Frizzle drilled out of them, both on-screen and off. (more...)
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