Tag: education

Don’t give him my regards . . . Give him my respect.

(cross-posted on Kos)

In the 1950’s, my Dad was the head counselor at a summer camp in in Pennsylvania. About 10 years ago, I ran into a friend who had gone to the camp.  After reminiscing for a few minutes, I asked him if he would like me to give his regards to my father.  His answer:

“Don’t give him my regards.”  He paused.  “Give him my respect.”

The comment captured his larger-than-life presence for generations of kids at summer camps and at the schools where he was a teacher and principal.

My Dad died on October 24 at the age of 91.  He was a quintessential member of the “Greatest Generation.” Born in 1916 to immigrant parents, he made it through the Depression, went to City College, served in W.W. II, took advantage of the G.I. Bill, raised a war baby (my big brother) and a boomer (me), moved to an “urban suburb” (Rockaway Beach, NY), worked two jobs — teacher and principal; and camp counselor and director.

Also, between 1973 and last month, he tenaciously and courageously fought his way through several heart attacks, a couple of “mini-strokes,” two multiple bypass surgeries, carotid artery surgery, gall bladder surgery (with complications), knee surgery and loss of most of his sight and hearing.  But another heart attack on January 1, 2007 began a series of events that even he could not withstand.  

In the Emergency Room that night, the doctor asked a series of questions to test his cognitive functions:  He aced “What’s your name?” and  “What’s your wife’s name?”  Then the doctor asked “Who’s the President?”  

His reply: “We have a President?”

We knew then that his mental functioning was fine.  

Leaving “No Child Left Behind” Behind

this is crossposted from Daily Kos, which will explain some of the dkos specific references

Our No. 1 education program is incoherent, unworkable, and doomed. But the next president still can have a huge impact on improving American schooling.

   So says perhaps the most cogent writer on educational matters, Richard Rothstein, in a piece in he American Prospect whose title, like that of this diary, is Leaving “No Child Left Behind” Behind   Before The New York Times lost its senses, Rothstein wrote columns regularly on educational matters.   Those of us who try to help the general public and policy matters  understand the reality of educational policy have often drawn some of our bgest arguments from his work.

The article, which became available online yesterday, presents the key issues as well as they can be presented, and there is little I can add, although I will offer a few comments of my own.  The notable educational figure Deborah Meier has said that we should blog about this and distribute the article as widely as possible.    I urge you to consider doing what you can, including if warranted recommended this diary, to make the article as visible as possible.

Why Do We Pay So Much in Taxes?

Canada is vilified in the US as a country with high taxes. Sure they have universal health insurance, but look how much they pay in taxes!! Not like here in the good ol’ US of A.!

Right?

Actually, maybe not. According to a recent study from the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Paying Taxes 2008: A global picture, Canada ranks 99th out of 178 for total tax rate. (Top-ranked are low-tax havens like Vanatu, the Maldives and the United Arab Emirates; bottom-ranked are a number of sub-Saharan countries where taxes actually exceed 100% of commercial profits – ouch.)

Canada at 99th beats out the US at 102nd.

The Microcosm

At the end of a semester, I’m always of the opinion that I’d like to end it on some kind of up note.  I haven’t collected the data to see how often that is the case.  I suspect it is rare.  But that could just be a reflection of how I feel at this moment in time.

We had two meetings of import to the Faculty this week.  On Tuesday we met with the Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty to “clear the air.”  One of the major issues was shared governance.  On Thursday we had a union meeting (AAUP).  I suspected that at least one of those was going to result in pissing me off.  I was correct in that assumption.

We have a relatively new dean.  Since she has been here she has talked about the importance of faculty taking the responsibility for initiatives to improve the plight of the college.  Since she has been here, there have been faculty members complaining about how everything is decided at the top and heard about the faculty later.

The disconnect is overwhelming at times.

Datamining 4.1: Education

Whew, that was one hell of a ride, but it seems to be over now.  Time for some Datamining.  This time Education.

There seem to be  several people who, like me, are self-educated.  I wanted to put in a category for that, but couldn’t figure out how to do it.  Even a PhD has some education derived from personal reading and analysis, so I’ll just go for Formal Education here.

People have also shown interest in the earning power of DDists.  This is harder because earning power can, and frequently does, change drastically.  I wanted to place two polls here, but don’t see a way to do it.  Next time.

Reprising Exhaustion

I am tired.  No, take that back.  That is too much of an understatement of the problem

I am exhausted.  I am so exhausted that I was halfway through writing an essay about the semester when I realized that for all intents and purposes, I’d written the essay before, two years ago.  So I’ll post that and go take a catnap while you read it and be back when you are done.

Originally posted as part of Teacher’s Lounge.

A Problem of Race And Ethnicity

In response to this, an essayist wrote this:

Then the student called me a racist. He claimed I was picking on him because he was Latino, and that I wouldn’t be pulling him out of the class if he were White. . . . Was the student race baiting? You bet he was. He was making specious and unsupported claims of racial victimization in order to distract from his own obnoxious behavior.

. . . Just to be clear about the program.  These kids all come in for a one off session and there is rarely if ever any repeats.  I had never met the student in question before that day, nor had I had ever spoken to or about him before the incident.  This is a voluntary program for the students and I do not take attendence, so there was no reason to even say his name.   To my knowledge and belief, there was absolutely no reason for the student to make the claim he did other than for the reasons I’ve already stated.  End of story.

End of story indeed. For Night Owl, this Latino student’s experience PRIOR to attending his class DID NOT EXIST. The racism and bigotry that permeates our culture and our country DID NOT EXIST. The feelings this Latino student had about his own experience outside of that classroom prior to meeting NIght Owl DID NOT EXIST.

GET OVER IT is Night Owl’s advice. ‘Why do we need to consider the racism and bigotry of our culture and nation? I am not a racist. I am not a bigot. Sure I am white. But I am not a racist. I am not a bigot.’

This sounds like nothing more than someone sayng “I did not own slaves.” Why should I pay for it? Most of us are familiar with this line of thinking. It is what is used to oppose affiramtive action, civil rights laws, indeed most every program designed to address the race issue.

A lot of people believe that the problems of race are attended one by one, individually. On one level, this is true. But the notion that the institutional, cultural and national racism and bigotry of our country can be washed away without addressing what racism and bigtory have done to our current situation, that we can walk into a situation with a clean slate, is ludicrous to me. It is equivalent to saying you do not want to do anything about it.

It is not possible imo to remedy and address racism, sexism and bigotry even we do not face up to the hard truths about oursleves, our cultures, our society, our Nation. We can not pretend what has happened did not happen. We can not pretend we do not live in a racist, sexist, bigoted country.

Just as Night Owl should not have pretended that the Latino studet’s life started when he walked into that class, no one can pretend that we as a People in this country can pretend that slavery did not occur, that peoples were NOT subjugated, that Jim Crow, redlining, segregation, etc did NOT happen. That people are not out there argung TODAY that non-whites are less intelligent than whites.

It is true that Republicans, racialists and some idealists want to pretend the past did not happen. But it did. And it causes a lot of things to happen today.

It is my opinion that attitudes like the one expressed by Night Owl are extremely harmful to fighting against racism and bigotry. And while I am sure Night Owl is no racist, his attitudes lead to aid and comfort to racists and RACISM.

It is why I will continue to fight against those attitudes. I think it is important to have that fight.

On the Measurement of Teachers

There are no numbers here.  There will be no links to research backing up my assertions.  Because this is not about data, it’s about people.  As one teacher out of many I will tell you my opinion.  As someone who teaches purely for altruistic and idealistic purposes and has done so for 31 years, I will tell you what I think.

What I do know is that drawing any connection between the performance of students on a high stakes test and the quality of the teacher is tenuous at best.  Some might say non-existent.  Even if there does exist such a connection, assumptions about what such a connection means really ought to be examined.

How does one tell the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher?  I hate that phrasing.  Bad Teacher?   Really?  People are dedicating their lives to doing public service, teaching our young people…and increasingly our older people as well…and other people think they have the right, even the duty, to call some of us Bad Teachers  Let’s get out the scarlet letters.  Lets burn them at the stake.  Bad Teacher?  

Is it all a waste of time?

I have been vastly preoccupied lately about the removal of people like me from among those who are considered worthy of civil rights protections.  I wrote about that here:  If only you were gay….  It was one of those pieces I wish everyone at Daily Kos would have read in order to gain maybe just a smidgen of insight, but as usual, people had more important things to do, like bash the other candidates.  Issues get set aside at times like this.

But I did manage to read a few diaries on education during the week.  Some were very good.  Some were appalling, from my point of view.  But I don’t only link to the ones I agree with.

Buried in a story about a crazy substitute…

Kinda bored at work this afternoon, had a week’s worth of paperwork to catch up on (or to ketchup on), so naturally I found myself browsing the news.

I saw this link from CNN.com about a substitute teacher’s lessons enraging parents.

I was curious.

Face, it- so are you.

Sustainability and Prefiguration in a Couple of Acres: The Pomona College Natural Farm

This is a revision of an earlier essay I published on DailyKos.com, in preparation for its republication in the Environmental Analysis journal (and perhaps elsewhere).  Its major premise is as follows:


Sustainability is nowhere to be found, and so we appear to be groping in the dark when looking for it.  One of the ways in which we can proceed to build knowledge about sustainability, however, is in the community garden.  A conceptual guide to the idea of sustainability is located in the concept of prefiguration (as described by Joel Kovel in his book The Enemy of Nature), which describes the sense in which social institutions point to the possibility of a global, ecologically sustainable, society.  Community gardens have important prefigurative qualities, too.  The bulk of this diary, then, will be about one such community garden, one located on the campus of a college: the Pomona College Natural Farm.  The Pomona College Natural Farm will be presented as a place where sustainability, both in social and ecological terms, can be studied.  Its conclusion will attempt to speculate about the significance of the Farm and of community gardens as “prefigurations.”

Gifted and Talented

I am far from an expert on anything concerning elementary education (apart from the topic of gender as it relates to child development, which I will claim as a topic of study about a decade ago).  But I have some personal experiences.  And I try hard to exercise the part of my brain which deals with fairness issues whenever I think about….well…anything.

At the same time, the better students need to be challenged.  I grew up in the era of “gifted and talented” programs and think it was good for me to get to do things that the other students didn’t.  But I didn’t think it was fair, necessarily, that I got to go to places that they may never go to and be exposed to knowledge reserved for the few.

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