Via: MAT@USC | Master’s of Arts in Teaching
Personally, I think there are several factors. As John Merrow has stated time and again: US Public Education simply has too many people who profit off it other than the students. Yes, this includes unions to an extent (but that doesn't quite explain how the government spends money on the overall education of our youth). But there are other facts - the special education machine. It is so sophisticated and complex that I truly feel bad for any special education teacher. Not only are they swamped with more students than ever but they also are swamped with more paper work than ever. As Merrow noted in a piece on Washington D.C. schools, some lawyers are making millions off of schools when it comes to special education. Then there are the test companies and rising prices of supplies and test prep programs. Thee are ineffective 'hired guns' who districts squander millions on to come in and inspire teachers at the beginning of the year or to transform their teaching with the newest trends in education. These rarely - if ever - work.
Second, and this doesn't tie in to the spending aspect of it as much as the failure of our students to excel like they should (or like past generations have) - they are simply spoiled by the hard work of the past. I doubt if this country will ever see work ethic or frugality like the greatest generation ever had. As Tom Brokaw points out - prior to WWII America was the 16th military power in the world. Then after Pearl Harbor, we stopped all production of cars and began manufacturing tanks and airplanes. Literally, the engineers would mark up designs on cheap yellow tablet paper the night before and farm boys - who were needed to work in the factories now - would machine the design all night and make the products happen.
Could you imagine that happening today? Our world is far too complex. Just to make an iPhone it takes over 500 people! I wonder how many different people it took to build a B-52 at the height of the war effort? If the world was suddenly drained of most able bodied workers (as it was in the WWII era), could we just take your average citizen and plunk them down in a factory to do the work?
I don't think so. Machines and computers do the work. Who would be left trained to program the machines to do the work?
The fact that all those people came back from WWII and went to college for the first time (thanks to the GI Bill), settled down, started having families in record numbers, and then having successful careers (which most couldn't have imagined prior to the war) helped America become the world power she is. But they also ushered in wealth and prosperity that would help weaken/spoil the baby boomers and then Gen Xers and now the Millennials.
As Brokaw put it: "in the 1950's if you had a good pair of hands and a strong back, you could make a very successful life for yourself." Today, what would those skills earn you?
Today you need a keen mind and the technological skills to make a successful life for yourself. Kids - thanks to their parents - have had it too easy for too long (and in many cases their parents have had it too easy for too long) to recognize the type of work ethic needed to excel in this digital world.
And to be fair - Don Tapscott (author of "The Net Gen") and even stuffy, old Harold Bloom (Yale English prof and literary critic) have acknowledged that the best of the best of this generation are on par or even superior to the best of previous generations. I was listening to an admissions person at Amherst and he said that today's kids have far greater knowledge and experiences than the students who applied there two decades ago. Tapscott notes that the top 1/3 of this generation are some of the brightest minds ever. The middle 1/3 is comparable to the average of past generations, but the real problem is the bottom 1/3 of our students. They are dropping out at a shocking rate (7,000 kids a day), and unlike the 1940's and 1950's, this is not a world where two good hands and a strong back will afford you to have a career. We are failing those kids terribly.
The Feel Good Story of the Week
I loathe country music, but this is awesome, especially in light of reading stories on stars who do so little with their power.
Santorum criticizes public schools
If this is the best the republicans can muster, it sure doesn't look like they have a shot at the presidency. My issue here - other than Santorum wanting to send us back to the Dark Ages - is with him labeling public schools 'anachronistic.' We all know well that the way our current education system is structured is based on the industrial model. But things are changing. Especially at LHS. As congressman George Miller has stated, "Education is rapidly becoming a process, not a place." But when it is revealed that Santorum and his wife home schooled their kids (which is actually a really effective practice, if you can pull it off), I couldn't help but think that home schooling (which was done for centuries prior to the rise of industrialization and a call for equal education among Americans - you simply wouldn't have poor immigrant kids getting a home school education the same way you would have rich kids getting a homeschool education. Thus, when child labor laws came into being, the nation had to do something with all the children. Thus, public education.) how home schooling is even more anachronistic than public education.
It's too bad McCain couldn't muster a run this time. He's head and shoulders above any of these candidates. Plus, he might just be what America needs right now.
A class called "Murder."
The wonderful thing about the internet is that there is no such thing as out of date. This story comes from 1995 via the New York Times. It features one of my favorite professors, Austin Sarat of Amherst.
It has become my custom when rocking Cash to sleep, to peruse wikipedia. After searching on Harold Bloom, whom I have been listening to more and more often on my iPod while I work out, on wikipedia, I typed in the name of another favorite professor, Sarat.
This story came up. Sarat is famous for his stance against capital punishment, so I wonder if the class doesn't revolve around that. Still, quite interesting.
Reading a book the second time is really better
Any English teacher will tell you this. Why?
Here you go:
The first time people read - or watch - through, they are focused on events and stories.
The second time through, the repeated experience reignites the emotions caused by the book or film, and allows people to savour those emotions at leisure.
Now as English teachers, we have to be careful. Too often our study guides come ready to assess our students as if they have read the text multiple times (as their teachers have), but that isn't true. So how can we get frustrated with them when they didn't discover a symbol or the story's theme on their initial reading (and, honestly, thanks to the numerous standards we have in language arts, how often do we ever have our students re-read something?). The first time through they are just struggling to get down the events and stories.
I often think of this when I teach To Kill a Mockingbird or "Young Goodman Brown." I've read both works dozens of times. Each reading gives me a richer experience and a more personal connection to the characters and themes. But I can't expect my students - struggling with the texts for the first time - to have the same rich experience. In fact, I never did the first time I read either of those. The first time through Mockingbird, I didn't even realize Mrs. Dubose was addicted to morphine! And Hawthorne's classic story bored me to tears.
The Five Tools for the "Wall-less" classroom
With the 1:! proposal (that is the "One to None" proposal) in the works (for those who don't know, that is our push to have 1:1 technology in our district). It breaks down like this: K-3 would have 10 iPads in each classroom. 4-8 would have every student with an iPad. 9-12 would have every student with an iMac Air.
Regardless of whether or not this proposal goes through, we are entering a time in education where the walls are coming down. Again, as Congressman George Miller said, "School is rapidly becoming a process not a place." And I like that.
Here are one bloggers Top Five Tools for teaching in a classroom without walls. Four of them are in use every day in my classes.
1. Webinars
2. Blogs (my College Comp II has a class blog. Plus, students just created blogs for their definition essays. Now my freshmen are creating blogs to publish their book reports).
3. Twitter (I use this every day for professional development and to stay connected to students)
4. Youtube (just sit in on one of my keynote presentations to find out how essential this is for me. Plus, now thanks to the rise of Prezi I have more and more students uploading ).
5. Slideshare (I don't use this in class, but I love the ability to find tons of slideshows that I can then download and use in my classes. This is rich with potential)
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