How to Fix American Education

The solution is easy -

Hire John Merrow as Secretary of Education.

Then hire Leon Botstein as superintendent of schools (his best ideas - make it cool to be an adult.  Cut middle schools.  End high school after the 10th grade.  Stop expecting less from our young people and demand more.  They are capable of it).

Hire Sir Ken Robinson to be the principal (his best ideas - recognize that schools kill creativity and a love for learning.  Recognize the importance of individual student passions.  Design individualized curriculum.)


Hire James Burke to be the curriculum coordinator (his best idea - the knowledge web . . . people don't learn in isolation.  All knowledge is linked.  Plus, we don't demand enough of our kids.  We need to really start scratching our potentials. Actually, I don't think the man has any bad ideas!)

Now on to the faculty.  This will include a few shockers.

Hire Mark Bauerlein (he of The Dumbest Generation) to be the English department head (his best idea - millennials are the dumbest generation.  I'd love to see his students work to prove him wrong), Neil Postman to be the social studies head (his best ideas - limit technology, teach students what it means to truly be an "American"), Debra Meier to head up the humanities (her best idea - small schools matter.  We need to create human communities to produce productive citizens and not test takers), Phylis Schlafly to teach social studies (to see if she can put her money where he mouth is and really teach kids.  I don't care if she indoctrinates them to her extreme right view.  My next faculty member will be a nice juxtaposition.  I can't honestly say that she has any good ideas, but she is passionate and interesting), Michael Moore to teach government and multi-media (his best idea - recognizes the power of the media to manipulate and challenge and his leftist view will balance Schlafly.  Could you just imagine the faculty meetings?), Steven Johnson to teach innovation and creativity (his best idea - everything bad is good for you), Barry Schwartz to teach psychology (his best idea - we have lost our practical wisdom and we need to regain it as a society.  We stick too rigidly to rules), Clifford Stoll to work in the sciences (just watch his TED Talk and you'll know what I mean), Dan Meyer to teach in the math department (check out his TED Talk on how to reform math), Jillian Michaels can run the phy-ed and health department (Clifford Stoll can help too (if you watched his TED video you got a workout) and Steven Johnson could help too (his work on the cholera outbreak in London is great stuff for health).  Under their stewardship you could just about hire any underlinings - like me - to teach and do well.  How could you not be inspired and motivated by such talented, intelligent, and engaging people?


That would do it.

Just to make sure our schools remain superior, I'd like to also suggest outsourcing Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee and their love for high stakes testing to China.  They'd do more damage to our rivals than any tsunami, earthquake, or nuclear disaster ever could.

Great Speech

Here is the text version of a speech John Merrow gave to Yale music education majors on the importance of 'extra-curricular' activities (they are more than sports if you didn't know).

It is brilliant and high lights much of what is wrong with our current education system.

You can find it here

The "right" answer?

I got word last week that the ALC was facing a dilemma.  The MCA reading test is usually offered in late July.  However, since the MN government might shut down, that would leave us without a test to take.  There were two options: one, move the test date up to June 28th; two, hope the government doesn't just shut down and keep it scheduled for late July.  I guess the decision came down to me.  I opted to take the test early.  (If they all pass, we can then focus on reading for the joy of reading and not all of these 'reading skills' . . . but my hopes aren't high).

In light of all the high stakes testing mania I'm caught up in teaching the MCA Reading strategies class at the ALC, I got a good chuckle out of this picture a fellow teacher sent me.

Knowing of my disdain (to put it lightly) for high stakes testing, she thought this would put a smile on my face.  Boy was Bobbi right.

Gotta love the overachiever who opted for an original answer . . .

Can't wait to see what Phylis thinks of this

This story should scare the crap out of Phylis Schlafly and her followers.  I am sure she'll find a way to blame it on the president or other liberal policies.  It's all a scheme to undermine the American Dream.  What Phylis really means is the WHITE American Dream.  But just read Neil Postman's wonderful "The End of Education," for a great take on how there never was a WHITE American Dream to begin with.  Ever since we opened our doors to immigrants, the story above has been inevitable.  We shouldn't be ashamed or frightened.  Instead, we should celebrate the diversity that is one of American's greatest strengths.

Getting It In Writing

Well, it's finally been released.  Can you believe.  I didn't realize becoming a published author would take roughly four years.  But it's pretty cool to know that something of mine is on Amazon.

Here is the link.  I can't believe how steep the price is.  It will be interesting to see what topics the other teachers and professors chose to write about.

MCA Reading Strategies

For this first summer session I have to teach a class that prepares kids to pass the MCA reading test. To be honest, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.  I've always been a voracious reader.  Growing up I inhaled books and magazines. Somehow through all the reading I did, I developed great reading habits.  I didn't know this until my freshman year in high school.  In writing and discussing, I began to use some of the words I had picked up from all of the reading I had done over the previous summer.  My classmates looked at me oddly.  I'm sure they were thinking "How does he know words like this?" So I intuitively picked up vocab skills through my reading. Likewise, I learned how to infer and how to pick out main ideas and how to summarize and all that other stuff. But I did it naturally.  Now that I'm prepping for this class and learning how to 'officially' teach struggling readers how to read, I'm killing my love for reading! I just read a paragraph with the class in their packet on finding stated and implied main ideas (trust me.  I've never ever ever ever ever ever read a book or essay or article and wondered if the main idea was stated or implied.  I wonder if anyone else ever did until the stupid high stakes testing craze thought it up!) on farming. Here is the paragraph in full-- A back to the basics movement is shaking up the business of farming agribusiness by getting impressive yields with fewer chemicals.  An example of the cycles of a healthy dairy farm includes a farm aerated by earthworms and brimming with fungi and bacteria.  Legume roots such as peas, beans, and clover fix nitrogen in the soil.  Five year crop rotations on this dairy farm begin with an alfalfa harvest; roots are left for soil enhancement.  After corn is harvested, rye is planted for winter cover, a pattern repeated the second year.  Oats and alfalfa replace corn and rye in the third year.  In years four and five, alfalfa is cut monthly, late in spring to fall.  Alfalfa and grasses provide feed for cattle which produce fertilizer as does plant residue.  Ladybugs and other insects are introduced to the fields to control pests.  With fewer insecticides used and entering the atmosphere to return to earth in rain, the purity of rivers and drinking water improves. Whew.  Honestly, did you read all that?  Did you stay awake?  What is the main idea?  Please state it for me. Really?  When was the last time a real reader was reading the Grand Forks Herald and thought, "Wow.  This is a great main idea.  I better get my pen out and circle it!" Come on! Plus, how many kids can even relate to all that farming terminology anymore?  Furthermore, how many veteran farmers could even make sense of that paragraph?  I'd love to have an older farmer come in and explain the benefits of crop rotation and compare it to the previous paragraph.  Which one would be more lively and entertaining and engaging? I know.  I know. I know.  Kids need these skills(like the ones needed to find the main idea in that paragraph) to pass the test.  Plus, the test is full of paragraphs just like that one! But isn't that the problem? Beating kids over the head to comprehend main ideas put there by test companies or worksheet manufacturers (and I have to wonder, did the test prep companies take that paragraph on farming out of a textbook or manual?  Or did they concoct it in order for students to find the stated main idea?  I have a problem with the latter approach.  It's kind of like grammar worksheets.  Drilling kids on grammar work sheets doesn't work because the sentences were created to have nice verbs and nouns and adjectives or introductory adverb clauses . . . it's not real writing.  Grammar instruction improves drastically when students look at their own work or their peers' work and see real nouns and verbs and other errors) seems to me the wrong way to teach reading. Maybe if we taught a love for reading over reading skills we might have a different situation on our hands. But - as you can certainly tell - I'm no reading expert.  I know full well too that the argument can easily be made that if a reader doesn't have skills in order to understand what they are reading, how will they ever develop a love for reading? I don't know. I like what Theodore Sizer had to say about reading skills and tests . . . "If you want students to do well on reading tests, they should be reading a lot of really good books." Amen. At least now I have sympathy for those in English who are not at peace with teaching writing.  Professionally speaking, I live to teach writing.  But I've studied comp theory extensively.  I am a writer myself.  I live and breathe it every day.  I read about teaching writing nearly every day.  So I am at peace with it.  But I know I have colleagues who don't do those things or feel that way about writing.  And so when they have to teach writing, I now can empathize with them because that is how i feel about teaching reading right now.

Web blocker

I have made it a bit of a game to rant at the web blocker.  Our district's web blocker allows you to try and justify why a site should be unblocked.  For the first few months I took a rational approach, carefully outlining and justifying why sites like slideshare or scribd or blogger should be unblocked. For the most part my pleas fell upon deaf ears.  So now when I see that damned web blocker logo come up telling me "Access Denied," I still choose to submit a review to Lightspeed Systems Content Filter.  However, now I really vent. Here is my latest vent - "I hate your nefarious web blocker.  It is a complete impediment to learning.  How can you sleep at night knowing you deprive kids of knowledge?  I'd rather be a telemarketer than do what you do to kids." And all I wanted to do was watch the president of Bard college, Leon Botstein, discuss education policy and sustainability.  But, of course, youtube is blocked!  As are all the other sites that host videos!

Weird

The joke that has been going around our new house since we moved in is that it is haunted.  Now I will freely admit that I'm a skeptic.  I know I shouldn't be given the vast number of Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels I've read over the years, but I am. So when Austin mentioned hearing odd sounds down in the basement, I attributed it to a mouse or maybe the cats.  Then he decided to move upstairs after the lights in our laundry room kept turning themselves off and on.  I countered that there was a reasonable explanation: we have fluorescent lights.  When one get weak or goes out, the other light goes out as well.  It was that simple. Still, Austin decided to sleep upstairs for a week or so (before us getting up with Cash every couple hours drove him back downstairs). Last week KoKo chimed in with an odd tale.  One of the doors (not sure if that's the right word for them or not) to our living room fire place had come open just a bit.  Before she could shut it, it closed on its own. I countered that again there had to be a simple explanation.  Was it the wind?  Did she imagine it?  Did she shut it and just forget it?  There had to be a reasonable explanation. Everyone has heard odd noises in the house.  I attribute this to the two exhaust fans we have on the roof.  With as much as the wind blows in northern MN, those things get the hell beat out of them.  Yes, it sounds sometimes like someone is in our bedroom bathroom upstairs when I am the only one at home, but - again - there has to be some logical explanation. Well, all that has been called into question after this morning. I woke up first and showered and then took Cash downstairs.  Kristie was up next and got ready for work.  KoKo was up last and a bit groggy as she took care of both Cash and Kenzie as I took care of the cats and got ready to head to work. As she was upstairs rocking Cash, I realized that I had to grab something out of the dryer downstairs (it's that blasted laundry room I tell you!).  As I went downstairs, I heard the water running.  The toilet downstairs has an old corky flapper and leaks sometimes so that the toilet will run and run and run.  That was what I thought was the problem.  Then I turned to enter the bathroom. The light was on and the hot water was turned on full blast.  And the drain to the sink was shut.  The sink was rapidly filling with water. I thought that maybe while I had been getting ready, KoKo maybe was downstairs washing up and heard Cash crying and forgot the water on as she ran up to take care of him. I shut the water off, rather mad at KoKo.  Had I not come down, the water would have overflowed and poured all over the basement bathroom for who knows how long.  Maybe all day! Not wanting to disturb her trying to get Cash to sleep, I sent her a text asking her why she left the water running. She responded that she had not! I was the only one to use the bathroom that morning as I poured the cats some water in their bowl.  But I used cold water and never turned the hot water on . . . let alone put the drain down! Could Kenzie have done it?  She is wily, but for her to go down into the basement and do that - of all things - doesn't seem likely. So maybe there is a presence down there after all!

More Phylis Insanity

I was intrigued when I heard on Schlafly's podcast that the NEA supports same-sex marriage.  I dug around on her blog and found this.

According to Schlafly, the insidious NEA has an "action plan" advocating same sex-marraige.  The problem is that Schlafly states that this action can be found under "New Action Item E."  And she conveniently includes a link to the NEA document.

I clicked on the link eager to see what I would find.  Well, I saw nothing advocating same-sex marriage.  In fact, there is not even an Action Item E!

So we can draw two conclusions.  Either, Phylis is lying to push her extreme right wing propaganda or the NEA altered their document to exclude Action Item E, which is illegal.

Perhaps, Schlafly didn't like these items that were listed by the NEA

New Business Item 43
Referred to the Appropriate Committee As Modified
The NEA will contact the American College of Nurse-Midwives in order to establish a cooperative and mutually supportive relationship. This relationship will support healthy birth outcomes in all communities, and especially in low-income communities. The main goal of this relationship will be to help lower the incidence of premature birth, low birth weight, the overuse of C-Sections, and maternal and infant death. Further, the NEA will educate our members through NEA Publications on how low birth weight rates effect child development.

Supporting healthy birth outcomes!  How dare that liberal union support such a horrible idea!

New Business Item 78
Adopted As Modified
NEA will continue its outreach efforts to the Association's one million Republican members with the goal of advancing a pro-public education agenda within the Republican Party. Specifically, NEA will convene an annual conference for NEA Republican leaders from across the country to provide training and build grassroots organizing skills. NEA will produce updated materials to assist Republican members in taking leadership roles in their local and state Republican Party and influencing Party policy positions and elected officials. NEA staff will provide training for Republican leaders at NEA regional conferences and other appropriate Association meetings.

 Even reaching out to Republicans.  Bipartisanship.  Unheard of and blaspheme.  No wonder Phylis is so angry.






New Business Item 13
Adopted As Amended
The National Education Association President or his/her designee shall lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery during American Education Week.

Honoring veterans.  How dare a liberal organization do such a thing.  Everyone knows no liberal every fought in a war.

NEW BUSINESS ITEM D
Adopted as Amended
Scholarly academic research should not be dismissed or diminished simply because it contradicts a school board member's political or religious views. American history should not be rewritten simply because some of our history reflects poorly on our national character or how we would like to view ourselves. English language arts and mathematics instruction should not be subjected to the pendulum swings of competing philosophies that are not grounded in pedagogical research, and science standards should be determined based on science.

Furthermore, the curriculum taught to millions of children nationwide should not be held hostage to the ideological whims of political extremists. It is especially detrimental to education when politically and ideologically motivated decision-making influences the content included or excluded by textbook publishers, whose products reach far beyond the state(s) in which such decisions are made.

I would like to think that last part angered Schlafly and her followers as they are the very definition of "political extremists."

Again, read the document yourself and see that there is neither an item E or any mention of advocating same-sex marriage.

Get your facts straight Phylis. 

Eagle Forum

I've been following Phylis Schlafly's "Eagle Forum" podcast for over a year now.  I know I shouldn't (tune in and you'll realize why), but it's a guilty pleasure.  Kind of like soap operas or Ke$ha. 

I guess my main reason is to get a chuckle.  Though I'm a liberal, I think we need to work together and - gasp - compromise and have true bipartiasanship to get anyway.  I know our culture and mass media is not into that and encourages complete disagreement and refusal to acknowledge each other's side.

Schlafly's "Eagle Forum" is a super conservative and conspiracy theory driven program.  I imagine if Michael Moore ran a podcast, that would be the liberal version of "Eagle Forum."

I listened to a podcast on the dangers of 'sustainability' and 'going green.'  It was quite hilarious.  My mouth fell open several times at the wild theories thrown about by her so called 'experts.'  I never knew that trying to conserve the environment was anti-Christian.  I guess she never got the memo from the Catholic Church on their views of global warming (which according to Schlafly is a liberal conspiracy).

Inspired from her podcast, I decided to check out her website and sign up for her regular emails.  I find the ones focusing on the liberal conspiracies in our public schools the most interesting.  I guess - as a liberal - I am supposed to be advocating gay marriage, abortion, reliance on wellfare, anti-American attitudes (that we should go without so third world countries can supplant us), atheism, and any such wild idea.  Somehow, though, I never got the memo from the liberal powers that be.

Here is a great example of the flawed thinking that passes itself as fact on her website --


Obama Continues Pushing Absurd College Agenda
 
By George Leef 

Americans who weren't fooled by the slick advertising and deceptive posturing of his campaign realized that Barack Obama was going to be a dogmatic authoritarian in office. One thing you can count on with such people is that they won't abandon their pet ideas, no matter the evidence against them. 

(This is such a delicious piece that I can't wait to use it in my class next year.  Notice Leef's use of language and syntax.  "Americans who weren't fooled" leaves the impression that either a) you are a fool for believing what the president said or b) you are simply not being a good "American" if you do believe him.   Notice too his use of the phrase "with such people" which seems to further drive the wedge between "those people" (liberal heathens) and "us" (family oriented, conservative "Americans").

Just keep in mind what kind of "evidence" Mr. Leef really uses in here.  And he should know better.  If you read his credentials on-line, the man is far too well educated to spout such divisive foolishness.


Barack Obama's notion that the way to increase employment and output is through government "stimulus" spending is one such idea. There never was any reason to believe that, and only die-hard Keynesians persist in this wishful thinking. 

Another such idea is that the United States is "falling behind" other nations with regard to college graduation rates, and it's necessary for us to regain "leadership." Obama first raised that idea back in February 2009, and on August 9 of this year, he said exactly the same thing in a speech at the University of Texas.

"In a single generation, we've fallen from first place to 12th place in college graduation rates for young adults," Obama said, a situation he declared to be "unacceptable." To deal with this supposed problem, he has set a national goal of "retaking the lead" by 2020-that is, having "a higher share of graduates than any other nation on Earth."

Congress has already given Obama the policies he wants to reach that goal, by increasing Pell Grants and making it easier for students to repay their federal loans. I have argued elsewhere that those changes will have bad consequences; here, I'll show that the core idea, that the country needs more college graduates, is nonsensical. 

(First things first.  I'm sure you can find commentary on every president going back to the beginning of public education worrying about whether or not America is falling behind.  So the problem is not unique to our current president.  But that is the least alarming of Leef's statements.  I dare him to spout this one on any college campus or in front of any parents who are taking out second mortages or draining saving funds to put their children through college: increasing Pell Grants and making it easier for students to repay their federal loans . . . will have bad consequences.)


The first point to observe is that "our" college graduation rate is just a statistical artifact, like "our" home ownership rate and "our" voting rate. To people imbued with a central planning mindset, such statistics betoken national success or failure. In fact, the nation isn't doing anything. Millions of individuals are deciding whether or not to go to college and complete the course of study. Students and parents make those decisions with good (but not necessarily perfect) knowledge of the student's capabilities, the costs of college, and the prospective benefits of doing so. 

(Remember what Leef said of using evidence in his first paragraph.  You can read the previous paragraph a thousand times, and you tell me where there is a hint of evidence in that entire thing!  It's all a matter of semantics.  This is what people do - regardless of what political side they are on - when they are grasping at straws and trying to conjure an argument out of nothing.  So they resort to analogy and semantics, "Well, that is like saying . . . ")

Therefore, when Obama pronounces America's college graduation rate "unacceptable," he's saying that many of us are making the wrong decision. In an unguarded moment, he might even say that some Americans are behaving "stupidly" (like the Cambridge police) in not choosing to get their college degrees and thereby preventing us from "retaking the lead." On the contrary, there are strong reasons to believe that college education has already been greatly oversold and many of those who have "invested" in it are going to regret their decision. 

(Notice how Leef is now putting words in the president's mouth . . . "In an unguarded moment, he might even say . . ."  Come on.  For a professor to do such a thing, when we teach elementary school kids not to leap to conclusions or put words in other peoples' mouths, well, it's a shame.)

Obama and his education establishment allies note that on average, people who have college degrees earn a lot more than people who don't. True, but irrelevant. Individuals can't make decisions based on what the average person has experienced; they must make decisions based on what they expect will happen to them. 

(How do you like Leef's use of evidence there!  Wonderful.  He concedes a fact, "on average, peoeple who have college degrees earn a lot more than people who don't.  True, but irrelevant." So what extremestis like Leef - or Moore or Stewart or Limbaugh or Glenn or Coultier - do is either refute what they don't want to believe or simply disregard it.  Hence we get the wonderful tactic of "true, but irrelevant."  And just to muddy the waters some more, good luck trying to decipher the last sentence in that paragraph.  Another wonderful tactic.  Let's just try to move far away from the main argument by focusing on an obscure idea in the most complicated terms possible.  What happened to Mr. Leef's "evidence"?  Why can't a person make a decision based on averages?)

Some students — those who are well-prepared for college and intent on learning — will gain a lot of knowledge from their coursework, knowledge that might turn into a high-paying career. Unfortunately, a large number of young Americans are poorly prepared for college, disengaged from academic work, and mainly interested in college because it can be, as the title of a new book puts it, The Five Year Party.

(Interesting.  This is clear cut and to the point.  Though one must wonder how many students who earned degrees and now have high-paying jobs also partied while in college.  I don't think one can draw such a hard line here.  College is not so black and white.)


Even before the current recession, many of those kids wound up employed in low-skill, low-pay "high school" jobs such as cashiers, waiters, theater ushers, postal workers, and so on. Now that we're seemingly stuck in recession, stories about young people with college degrees and big debts, but mediocre to poor jobs, are commonplace. 

(True.  But irrelavant.  Ha.  Just kidding.  I agree with this statement.  But elaborate on it more.  Are you telling me, Mr. Leef, that you'd rather send your son or daughter out into the current workforce without a degree than with a degree?  And maybe it's the idealist in me, but the purpose of a college education is not solely to get a well paying job.  It's to get educated.  Here's a story I heard from the head of campus life at BSU when I was an RA there.  His roommate was going to inherit his father's large dairy farm.  He was going to do that the rest of his life.  So why are you here? the head of campus life asked him.  The roommate replied, "my father is making me.  He wants me to be educated.  He wants me to have what my father never did."  Education for education's sake.)

It's important to stress that the phenomenon of college graduates working in jobs that call for only basic skills and trainability is nothing new. In their 1999 book entitled Who's Not Working and Why, economists Frederic Pryor and David Schaffer noted that since 1971, there has been an increasing trend of college graduates taking "high school" jobs. They blamed that on the low standards that prevail at many colleges and universities.

(Finally, some evidence.  But a book from1999? Who was running the country then? Why didn't anything get done then to get us out of the supposed downward spiral we are currently in?  Who was president after that?  Why didn't they get us out of this fix?  Or could it be that maybe there is only so much a president can really do - regardless of their party?  Why raise this question when you just want to bash the president who is not affiliated with your party?  And that is simply the goal of these types.)

If we already are graduating many young people from college who learn little and will wind up in jobs that most high school kids could do, why should we want more of them? 

(Well, the one logical response to this would be that - hopefully - and maybe this is the idealist in me coming out - is that while in college, students garnered skills or ideas or passions that at some point down the road might make them an enviable applicant for a job.  Think of Steve Jobs' own statement that a class on typography - and one that he just took because he always wanted to, though it had nothing to do with his major (in fact, Jobs would drop out of college) - made all the difference ten years later when he was creating the apple personal computer.  We never know when the skills we learn with come in handy.  But at least we have those skills.  And make no doubt about it, if you don't go to college, you might not be getting certain skills that you can't find anywhere else.)

Many young Americans, especially those who are academically marginal students, correctly see college as a nearly worthless boondoggle costing a lot of scarce time and money. That explains why college enrollment rates are not going up. And if observers like Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds who say that higher education is our next "bubble" are right, the Obama administration's policy of getting more people through college looks a lot like the last-gasp efforts by Fannie Mae to lure more low-income people into mortgages. 

(Now what was our president supposed to say?  Really.  Could you imagine the backlash - surely, from Mr. Leef himself, if he would have come out and said, "There is a higher education bubble that is about to burst.  Young Americans should not strive to attend university.  Instead, they should be lucky to earn anything above minimum wage.  In fact, in these hard economic times, they should be content to simply have a job!"  Come on!  Survey parents in America on their hopes and dreams for the children.  I have to believe that 'earning a college degree' will show up more than 'work at Wal-mart" will).

But shouldn't we worry about "falling behind" other countries? No. We can't magically transform our anemic economy into a powerhouse by scraping the bottom of the barrel to find more disengaged kids to process through our credential factories. The truth is that there is no direct connection between national prosperity and "educational attainment." 

(True,  But irrelevant.  Ha.  Got you again!  I agree with this statement.  But as a fellow conservative, Neil Postman, noted some time ago, the purpose of an 'education' is not economic prosperity.  That might be part of it, but it is not the whole part.  The purpose of an education is to become a productive citizen.  Now, if I were a hard left nut-case I'd say something harsh like "and that is exactly why Mr. Leef and his cronies don't want Americans to go to college: they don't want free thinkers who will challenge what they say.  They simply want blind followers who won't question and who will just believe whatever wild theory - global warming is a hoax, our president wants to turn America into a Muslim nation, what we really need to do is drill, baby, drill . . .")

That is the crucial point Professor Alison Wolf makes in her eye-opening book Does Education Matter? She demonstrates that it's neither necessary nor sufficient for a growing, prosperous economy for a country to get the maximum number of its citizens through college. 

Dragooning more people into college won't give us a better workforce or better jobs. It will only give us more credential inflation as employers demand college degrees for mundane jobs. 

It does, however, have some political advantages for the president and his party. Our higher education establishment is one of the most loyal and vigorous supporters of the Democrats and their "progressive" agenda. Putting more kids through college means more money in the pockets of the overwhelmingly leftist administrators and professors.  (see what I mean about the conspiracy theories?) Furthermore, since the intellectual influence on college students is much more apt to drive them toward statism than toward individual liberty and free markets, the more young people go to college, the bigger the voting bloc for leftist candidates. 

Just like the notion that federal deficit spending will revive the economy, the idea that getting more young Americans through college will make the country more competitive and prosperous is utterly mistaken. Of course, Obama will never abandon it. 

(Again, what president - democrat or republican - is going to get up in front of the nation and spout this?  Zero.)

Let's Raise Kids to be Entreprenuers

Very, very interesting.



How about all the famous CEO's who have bi-polar?  Or ADHD?  I wish this guy was the Secretary of Education instead of Arne Duncan. 

Summer Session I

For what must be seven or eight years now, I am teaching summer school.  For only the second time, though, I am doing both sessions.  What can I say.  Glutton for punishment.

My first session is three classes: Literature I (how vague is that?), Science Fiction (could teach that in my sleep), and MCA Reading Strategies (this scares the hell out of me).

Lit I - since I have no guidelines for this class - and in talking with the regular ALC teacher - I figured I would focus this class on the 'best of' literature.  We are starting off with a bang on Monday: "The Lottery" and we won't let up from there - "A Rose for Emily," "The Chaser," "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," "Lamb to Slaughter," "The Penal Colony," "Like a Winding Sheet," "Listen to the End," "The Tell Tale Heart," "Beware of Dog" . . . We only meet for sixteen days, so I have sixteen stories in mind.  It'll probably bore the hell out of the students, but I'll have a blast.  Plus, I'm going to be teaching the classes from my room at the high school instead of at the ALC.  I've always wanted to do this and finally made it happen this summer.  I just feel like my usual self in my room.  Whenever I taught at the ALC, I felt like a substitute.

Science Fiction - one of my favorite classes, but because of the way our schedule works (and the fact that we are down 1.5 English teachers in our department), I don't get to teach it anywhere other than at the ALC.  I'll divide this up into four themes: "What is Out There? (Alien Life)" "Alternate History/What is Reality?" "Dangers of Technology" and "The Mad Scientist."  We should hit one per week.  I also have at least one film to go with each theme, so the kids always look forward to those.  Plus, I get to revisit some old friends here like "The Disintegration Machine," "Herbert West: Re-animator," "A Sound of Thunder," "The Father-Thing," and "The Electric Ant."  Plus the films - I, Robot, The Thing, The Matrix, and Cloverfield. 

MCA Reading Strategies - Oh boy.  I have no clue.  Luckily, I have three huge binders of worksheets and guide books to help me a long.  Plus, I have the binder that we were given after our year-long reading strategies workshops.  That will be invaluable.  Plus, I've got a ton of interesting articles to read and discuss.  My goal, though, is to help students summarize, decode, find main idea and all that jazz, but in the mania of passing the MCA tests, the one thing that gets lost in all of this reading strategies business is one simple thing: the sheer joy of reading.  So I hope to allow the students time to read for their pleasure.

More educators should be writing, wondering, and vulnerable in public

Here is a blog entry from Scott McLead's excellent blog, Mind Dump.

Do your students know how you, the teacher, write? Can they catch you somewhere in the middle of your own learning process, doubting, wondering, as a vulnerable human far from the know-all/authority in the subject ideal? #

Here’s what I wrote in response1: #

I’ve discovered that more and more, I’m wondering in public. I’m wondering on Twitter, or via Evernote, or here on the blog, or in a half dozen other places, and it’s beautiful. It’s messy and scary and contagious and weird – and it’s okay.

I couldn't agree more.  Isn't writing, not to mention learning, "messy and scary and contagious and weird"?  Yet, we don't portray that in our schools. 

Just look at the fiver paragraph/thesis-support format.  That makes it seem like the author devised the thesis first and then very efficiently devised three supporting claims.  In reality, the writing was scattered and fragmentary.  But the final product doesn't illustrate that.  Furthermore, all the messiness is discarded.  I stress to my students that such 'messiness' is really the best part - that's where all the learning is.

We need to do that more in school and in the public eye via social media.

Take this Food, Inc.,

A Japan scientist has discovered a way to synthesize meat, purportedly a steak, out of . . . gulp, gasp, puke . . . human feces.

Wouldn't want to be the one to taste test that!

The perfect beach spot?

This story is about a beach where aircraft come in low. It thrives because people love to see the aircraft come in so low.

Personally, not how I'd want to spend a day at the beach. I don't know what would be more frightening, being on the beach and being able to see the tread on the landing gear of a 747 or being on the plane and being able to see whether the beer is Corona or Corona Light.

Of course, people seem to be oblivious to the dangers.

But it doesn't seem to matter.

Unbelievable

I am a proud liberal. However, when I see stories like this - a pet ferret chews off most of a baby's fingers after the parents left it alone - I'm all for sterilization of the stupid. You want to mess up your own lives? Fine. But the quality of life for this four month old has now been reduced forever. Great job parents.

Our little Rebels

Terrifying

Having lost both parents to cancer, I found this info-graph on cancer terrifying, especially in the light of the news that now formaldehyde is a cancer causing agent.

I know I've said this before, but I just wonder what people three hundred years from now will think of all the unhealthy things we consumed (things, that as of now, we don't know are truly unhealthy). I think of all those who began smoking before the health risks were really clear. Or the Romans and their lead pipes. Or those who worked around asbestos for year. Or DDT . . . Our descendants will just marvel at how foolish we were for - who knows? - our pesticides? our cell phones? our microwaves? our plastics?

Tagul

We've all heard of word clouds, but Tagul takes it a step further. It allows you to choose a variety of shapes and alter fonts and so on.

Here is one I created of word list for college bound students --

29 Ways to Stay Creative

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.


Even though, I'm on my MacBook now, I think number four is a great way to re-energize one's creativity.

At least I have a cup of Caribou blend right now as I type this, so number 8 rings true.  And as Steven Johnson notes in his great TED Talk on creativity, the coffee houses were the birthplace of true innovation that helped usher in the industrial revolution (mainly because the bulk of Europe switched from drinking a depressant - alcohol - to a stimulant - coffee).  No wonder there was such a flowering of creativity and innovation.

Unfortunately, as I watch this and agree with the many of the tips - take risks, fail, be open, get feedback, surround yourself with creative people, collaborate, and namely stop trying to be someone else's perfect  - I can't help but ask myself, how often do students get to do these things in school? (Now, I have a great way to begin my College Comp unit of how to improve our school).  Too few I'm afraid.  At least in the age of the high stakes test.  Mistakes are not what are encouraged.  To say the least. I mean according to NCLB all students must be proficient by 2014.  So much for stop trying to be someone else's perfect, right?

Some of the other tips are interesting too - drink coffee and listen to new music.  Yet, how many schools have stone age philosophies that ban food/drink or iPods?

Funny

I saw this link to an article entitled "Don't Even Try to Explain These Vintage WTF Pictures."

And it's true; the title says it all.  They are bizarre and some are beyond explanation, though they would be interesting as writing prompts - just to see how people would possibly attempt to explain them.

But as I looked at the pictures, I couldn't help but think Yes, these are incredibly strange.  But 150 years from now when our descendents look at old youtube clips or - God forbid - old Facebook statuses - they will think the exact same thing.

Sure, the vintage pictures are all strange - and some are even disturbing - such as the picture of a child with a cigarette in his mouth sitting next to a chicken - but what will future generations think of an episode of Jack Ass or a Lady Gaga video?

Really?

While speaking to Rush Limbaugh yesterday, presidential candidate and former Senator Rick Santorum called global warming “patently absurd” and “junk science.” In addition, Santorum said that climate change science was simply a “beautifully concocted scheme” to allow the “government to come in and regulate your life some more.” In 2006, Santorum claimed that “scientists have not decisively concluded” that climate change is real and received a zero percent score from Republicans for Environmental Protection.

Now, I'm no conspiracy freak, but you can't tell me that reading the news - whether it was severe droughts in Russia last year that killed hundreds, the rash of wildfires that have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres in the US alone over the past five years, the rash of tornadoes this summer (and summer is hardly here) that have killed hundreds, the retreating glaciers that we've known about for years . . . this type of ignorance is just appalling.

It reminds me of something I read in a Stephen King book, Thinner, years ago.  In a scene where the protagonist is trying to convince another character that there is something mysterious - and rather unbelievable going on - the main character offers this example for why he actually believes the main character: I was in a drug store once waiting for a prescription.  While there, I saw an incredibly obese man lumber in.  He saw one of those machines that - for a quarter - can tell you your weight.  He put the quarter in and stepped on it.  The meter immediately shot all the way to the top.  The man just shook his head and said, "Fucking thing is broken" and lumbered back out.

Santorum is simply in denial.  Plus, I don't see why caring about the environment - especially what kind of world we will leave our children - is so liberal and morally wrong.

But, hey, he was on the Rush Limbaugh show.  I think that fits the definition of 'patently absurd' better than just about any thing.

Joker

Last week as I was trying to get Cash asleep, I heard my nephew Austin - who has been staying with us for the past couple months - come up from the basement.  I recalled how the dogs were still in their outside kennel and hadn't eaten yet, so I asked Austin if he'd feed them the left over chicken I had bought at Hugo's a couple days ago.

"Sure," Austin said.  "Do you want me to give it to them even if it has bones in it?"

"Yep," I said.

"But isn't that bad for them?" he asked.

"They're dogs I said," thinking about what my father would have said and also recalling how Joker once swallowed an entire ham bone whole.

Secretly, I was thinking, well if something does happen to one or both of them, that'll be a couple less things that I have to worry about.  But I didn't really wish anything bad to happen.

Well . . . it did.  For it wasn't more than a minute or two when Austin came into the house and announced in a worried voice: "There's something wrong with Joker!"

"What?"

"He's just laying there."

Oh great, I thought.  The one time I think about something bad happening to one of our stupid mutts, and, sure enough, it does.

So Austin sat with Cash while I ran out to see what was going on.

Sure enough, there was Joker sprawled out on the side of the house.  It looked like he had been shot.  I ran over to him and tried to stir him.

Nothing.

I picked up a leg and let go.  It sank back to the ground. 

I shook him.

Nothing.

His eyes didn't blink and they seemed to glazed over.

I put my hand to his chest and felt a very, very faint heartbeat.

I really wasn't sure what to do - there was no way I was going to do any mouth to mouth - and then I thought of Brian, Kristie's co-worker, who had given his beloved beagle some chicken and it had choked on it.  Finally, actually reached down into the dog's mouth and extracted the bone.

Well, here goes nothing, I thought, as I opened Joker's mouth and saw the tongue hanging limp and plunged my hand down past his jaw bones and down into his throat.

Sure enough, I could feel a piece of chicken lodged tight.  It was wet and slippery and I could quite get a hold of it.  Finally, I grabbed it and pulled it out.  I tossed the half eaten piece of a chicken wing onto the grass.

Nothing.

Well, he is getting pretty old, I thought.  But then again, I can't just leave him here over night.

Unsure about what else to do, I resorted to my CPR training and began chest compressions. 

Nothing.

I smacked him in the face a couple times and tried to lift him, but he was too limp.

I could still feel a faint heartbeat, though, so I kept the chest compressions coming.

Finally, Joker coughed a bit, blinked, and began to wheeze.

After some more compressions, his legs began to jerk.

It was at this point that I seriously began to regret trying to bring him back.  I had a thought: what if he has brain damage and can't move his back legs?  What if he's deranged?  What if he's a vegetable?

Then I figured that his brain can't be much larger than my fist.  Seriously, how much could it have been damaged?

I picked him up and his legs began to move, though he couldn't stand.  He let out the most pitiful whimper I have ever heard.  Then he gave me a tender look and his eyes said, "Help me."

That was when I knew I wasn't going to give up on him.

I carried him to his kennel in the garage and ran into the house to make a comfortable spot for him in our breezeway.  When I returned to the garage, Joker was able to stand on his front legs and wobble like a drunken sailor.  Progress!

I got him inside the house and gave him some water.  Usually, Joker drinks any water I put in front of him, but he didn't want any.

Well, if he dies now, I thought, at least I've done all I can.

I set him down on the blankets and towels I had laid out for him in a corner and went to check on Cash and fill Austin in on what was happening.

When I finally checked on Joker twenty minutes later, he was able to stand and wag his tale.  I figured that he was going to make it then.

I figured that his throat must hurt from me yanking the chicken from it, so I crushed up an Oreo (I figured maybe he could use the carbs to give his old heart a bit of a boost) and fed it to him.  He gobbled it right up, so I knew he was going to make it.

Then next morning, Joker was pretty much back to normal.

However, when I went to let Kozie out, I noticed that she had thrown up chicken meat and bones all over her kennel.

I cleaned that all up and thought how maybe she had a chicken bone stuck in her stomach that was making her sick.  Sure enough, after school she had thrown up again!

The sadistic part of me thought, wow.  this 8 dollar bag of chicken just about took care of the two biggest pains I have to deal with.  But that was the end of Kozie's ordeal and she was fine by the end of the day.

Now both Joker and Kozie are fine.  And I'm not allowed to feed them bones of any sort!

Fair enough.

Summer Reading List

Here is my summer reading list.  I never get through what I bring home, so I kept it short this year.

From top to bottom -  

Reclaiming the Classroom: Teacher Research As An Agency For Change.  I've wanted to get through this for some time now.  While writing my thesis I went through of purchasing binge of research texts and this got lost among them, but I saw it while cleaning out my classroom and grabbed it for summer.  A look at the contents reveals it's a "who's who" of comp theory - James Britton, Nancie Atwell, Ann E. Berthoff,  Janet Emig, Mina Shaughnesy, and Ken Macrorie.  So far I'm just on the first essay, "Addressing the Problem of Elsewhereness: A Case for Action Research in Schools" by Garth Boomer.  So far it's great.  In fact, it's going to be the topic of a blog post soon.

The College Writer.  I'm the first to admit that I'm terrible when it comes to using textbooks in my classes.  Every year I have the best of intentions to stick to the textbook, but then I start supplementing one story or assignment and before I know it, the semester is over and we've only read about a fourth of the textbook.  So I brought our College Comp II text home hoping to delve into it more thoroughly to see what I can use more effectively in my class.

Dimensions of Learning: Teacher's Manual.  This comes highly recommended from a colleague.  It's full of resources to make me a better teacher.  I hope to get new assignments to develop better discussions and thinking in my classes.

Western Civilization.  My old text from NCTC.  Western Civ was one of my all time favorite classes.  It'll be fun to go back and see what I've forgotten.

The End of Education by Neil Postman.  This is going to be the third time I've read it, but every time is worth it.  I've blogged about this book several times.  Though it's 16 years old, it is more relevant to day than ever.

Finally, Simon Schama's The Power of Art.  I loved his video series and bought the accompanying book.  So far I've just read the chapter on Mark Rothko.  Schama's prose is dense and polished.  It's like every sentence took an hour to craft.  Excellent stuff.

I also have John Merrow's The Influence of Teachers and Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment on my school iPad.

Now, if I can just get that all read.  My best reading time (and blogging time) comes in about 30 minutes spurts while Cash is napping.  Good thing he naps several times a day.

Seven Obvious Things in Education that are Ignored

I found just the title of this article very interesting.  It got me thinking about my list of things in education that I feel are ignored.  And I'll list those after I list the seven things from the article -

1.  Children do not learn well when they are under stress.  
2.  Tests, and high stakes attached to them, are very poor levers for increasing learning.
3.  It takes time to learn to be an excellent teacher.
4.  Programs . . . that deliver smaller class sizes and time for teachers to collaborate together . . . yield much stronger results.
5.  When unemployment levels are high, and opportunities are few, students struggle to see the purpose in their education.
6.  The people in charge of education policy in this country are dangerously out of touch with these obvious things.
7.  Teachers, parents and students need to take a visible, public stand to turn education policy in a better direction.


Okay, there's a macro look at the things that are ignored.  I'll off a micro look from my little perspective from room 211.

1.  It's tough for students to learn when they are not there.  A colleague of mine kept all the emails he received in April (and that's just one month) asking students be excused from class to attend some other function or competition.  He had 26 messages!  How many school days are there even in April?

It's great to say we need rigor and higher standards and all that stuff.  But it's quite something else to practice what we preach.  Regardless, all that great talk about "Brutal Facts" doesn't amount to much when spring rolls around and students miss for . . . prom decorating, rehearsals, spring sports, trips, and personal reasons (tanning for prom, work, shopping trips, family vacations - and those are just the reasons I was given this spring).

2.  We need to get serious about technology.  I can't tell you how often my kids - and I'll freely admit that I teach the best of the best in our school - were frustrated by our firewall blocking all the cool stuff we wanted to do - blogs, wikis, youtube, dropbox, scribd, iTunes music store - and that doesn't include what the firewall does to basic searches - said "why do we have to go home to really learn?"  I know our tech guy tried to unblock blogs and dropbox and a few other things, but it never happened.  There were a ton of opportunities lost because of that.

I just don't see how I can have little trouble coordinating an interview and career project with Digi Key where 20 kids are put through their hiring process, given a tour, and tested, but I can't have those same 20 kids create their own blogs or upload a video they created to youtube.

3.  The value of education.  I saw the lights go on in my College Comp kids' eyes all the time when I talked about the value of education.  But that didn't happen often enough in my general classes.  In my Lit and Lang 11 class, I had at least half a dozen kids explain to me that they couldn't get their home work completed because of work.  I think it's just odd how I never got that excuse from my College Comp kids.  And it's not like the latter didn't have to work too.  They just realized the importance of an education.  I don't know how to stress the value of education to every student.  I blame part of it on the assinnine law that doesn't allow us to fail anyone in middle school.  There are students who come here totally unprepared to even be average.  Where are they going to fit in the 'real world'?

4.  Our main purpose is to enrich the academic lives of children.  Everything else - sports, socializing, interpersonal skills . . . - is below that.  But that doesn't happen.  IF the main purpose of our school was to enrich the academic lives of children, we wouldn't have 26 emails asking for kids to miss class.  We wouldn't have faculty interviewed about the highlights of their careers and have them talk right away about sports related events.

5.  We don't need more testing.  I know this is indicative of a larger obsession - ushered in by NCLB and  fueled further by RTTT - of testing, but I'll put the best things I did in class this year (the final research paper in College Comp I and the multi-genre research paper and career project in College Comp II) against any high stakes test our kids take.  You simply can't measure all that my kids learned in those three examples on a simple bubble test.

6.  We are putting together a phenomenal staff.  I know we have lost some great, great assets to our faculty via retirement these last two years, but from what I hear and have seen, the new additions are coming in with great passion and dedication.  I love coming to work and being part of this team.

7.  Teachers need to step up every year.  Gone are the days of doing the same things over and over every year.  Today's learners won't stand for that.  Nor will the technology.  Teachers need to practice what we preach and grow and learn every day.

The Best Learning

Here's a great quote from an article about tech labs at MIT.  I think it illustrates the best kind of learning --

The students work essentially as partners with their teachers, and together they have produced technological innovations that often seem touched by magic, from the e-reader to the lifelike robotic prosthesis now in development.

But how can you have a nice little standardized test to measure something like that?  You can't.  Just like you can't measure the best learning.

But let's keep adding tests to our curriculum.  Brilliant idea.

Millennials, you have nothing to worry about . . .

Because a Gen Xer like Palin makes the supposed "Dumbest Generation" look downright brilliant.

Obama, Duncan, Rhee, Vallas, Miller . . . Please watch and learn about School Reform

Call me nuts.  But would you rather attend this "Blue" school (thus named because it is created by Blue Man Group) where the onus is on creativity and really learning?  Or would you rather attend the current elementary school in your town or district where students are tested and tested and tested and taught to the test and tested yet again (often through little fault of the school itself)?  I have no doubt that Kenzie's life would be drastically different (and more fulfilling) if she attend the former school.

Stop the Madness

Doesn’t anybody have the courage to challenge this slavish devotion to standardized testing (mostly bubble tests, by the way)? Students in New York City finished taking their ‘end of the year’ state test in mid-May, but school itself doesn’t get out until the end of June. For kids (and for the policy types in their comfortable offices), the tests are everything. Teachers, of course, have to hold their students’ interest for another six weeks or so.

As usual, John Merrow hits it right on the head.  Tests on top of tests on top of tests.  If we aren't testing basic skills, we're testing for adequately yearly progress.  And if we're not doing that, we're testing for our own specific content areas (such as for To Kill a Mockingbird or Fahrenheit 451).  Now we are going to test to gauge teacher effectiveness!