In Texas, there are 180 days of instruction, taking away 30 days for state testing so that leave 150 days for instruction. Let's say that a teacher gives a curriculum-based test once every two weeks and the district benchmark test three times a year. That is 21 less days of instruction or 129 days. Now, schools typically have three days of teacher in-service. Five special assemblies, two holiday parties, two half days, four emergency drills and three sick days takes away 15 more days bringing it to 111 days.

This is the second post in a two-part series. For the first part, please see The "Reggio Approach" to 0-99 Education: A Deep Exploration of Community.

I still remember April Fools' Day when I was a fourth grader. A reading comprehension worksheet went out to the class, and in minutes, we were all dumbfounded. The story and questions were incomprehensible, written in complete gibberish. But our teacher went along with the joke. We had a half hour to finish it, and it was going to be worth a substantial amount of points.

ASCD's annual conference (see #ASCD13 on Twitter) recently came to a close, and one of the main themes that kept surfacing was the need for more "connected educators." At this conference, there were definitely some great "firsts." The general session kicked off with a keynote from Freeman A. Hrabowski III, who tweeted his first tweet; an impromptu #edcampRogue sprouted up from in-attendance edcampers; and author and poet Maya Angelou was even tweeting at age 85!