Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

All photos in this blog are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license, unless specifically stated otherwise. If something written seems worth your time and effort, use it under the same license.

This is my personal blog. Those interested in other blogging I do, may feel free to visit Moving to Open Source in Schools and/or openminds: Fighting Fear of Failure.

Tue, 30 Apr 2013

Truth

A rhyme is not a poem.
It takes more work to show 'em
How your words go deeper, to the heart.
And then they still may miss your art.

[ Last day of poetry month for 2013. Hope your poetry shines out in all you do. ]

posted at: 12:27 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 13 Apr 2013

Spring 2013

Beside the leafless chestnut stump
The village smithy's land
Is barren, paved and bland.

It's April in the U.S,A.
And buds are bursting out.
Tornados scream and shout.

Monarchs are leaving Mexico.
They'll seek milkweed in vain.
Herbicides kill their strain.

Soon the drought will come once again.
Phoenix drains a river.
Green grass a desert does deliver.

Bees will soon visit crops from hives.
To colony collapse
Mankind the world entraps.

Sat, 19 Jan 2013

Attention Span

Being retired has many positive aspects. I get up at 5:00 to go to the YMCA to swim instead of going to work. I dress casually every day, not just Friday. I save money I used to spend on commuting even though I have less money. You get the idea.

And, it's not like I don't have anything to do. Just the opposite. I have too many things to do. My friend, John Young, described retirement as "Every day's a Saturday." That's great. But, think about your typical Saturday. You try to catch up on all the little jobs that you couldn't do during the week because you were working. Sometimes there are big jobs, but mostly Saturday is filled with one thing after another.

There's the thing, you see.

One thing after another, none too big, usually. There goes your attention span.

Yesterday, I spent a stretch of three straight hours writing up an article on doing GIF animation. When I finished, just before dinner, it was great, just like writing up a set of activity directions for my students. I had done one thing, pretty much start to finish with a level of concentration I had been missing. Long sessions on one task were pretty common during my work years. It was common to look up after a concentrated day of work to realize I was alone in the building, except for the custodians. I hadn't noticed the time passing.

What's a deadline?
What does it matter the order I do things?
Off on a spontaneous search for more information after reading an email...I'll get back to reading the rest of it later.

All in all, my attention span is shot.

Sat, 10 Nov 2012

Phew

The election is over. The best part is the end of the advertising for candidates. We got ads for three states, oh yes, we got the national ads, too.

Yes, the TV is on here often enough to see the same commercials we've seen, dozens, scores, maybe even hundreds of times before. Back to normal Hooray.

Sun, 05 Aug 2012

Stop Privatizing Public Schools

Please copy and reuse this graphic, available under a Creative Commons Atribution license.
Also available in source SVG format.

Education is a public responsibility in the United States. It isn't a corporate responsibility. While making the effort to learn is an individual effort, the need to provide a school with resources is the job of the community: local, state and national.

Sharing is the process of education. Each generation of teachers guides many groups of students by sharing the world's knowledge, by encouraging children to try and not be stymied by needing to try again. Older children share their developing skills with younger children, learning to be effective at sharing and leading in a community. We must not sell out to the profit takers. We need to continue encouraging and enabling generations of citizens, those members of a community who make the community stronger by giving back, not just taking out. A community is not defined by its singular, grasping, winners at all cost. A community is defined by its willingness to support its children and the next generation of community success.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit at Common Dreams for the inspiration for my post.

Thu, 26 Jul 2012

Surrounding the Common Core

There seems to be a rush to find ways to write curriculum to address and align with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS or Common Core) and it bothers me.

Image Credit: Jeff Kubina photo of sculpture by Claes Oldenburg

An apple isn't going to be very interesting to eat if there is only a core to start with.

A curriculum isn't very rich if it is merely the core of a curriculum.

I am very worried that the effort states, districts, individual schools, teachers and students will make to satisfy the demands set by adopting and supporting the Common Core will eliminate most of what has traditionally made education worth the trouble.

I believe, very strongly, that the Common Core is a trap rather than a solution. The rich curriculum of U.S. public schools has been shrinking. I taught for 36 years. I watched home economics disappear. Shop classes briefly became robotics classes and then stopped altogether. Civics is currently being shuffled into the hands of the English and Math teachers.

At the same time, there has been a "time on task" movement that focused on reading skills, rote math skills and endless years of grammar study. Recess disappeared. Physical Education classes merged boys and girls together and had class sizes rise to the 50s. Of course, there are now more little league and town football programs than ever before...in some communities. The goal, too often is just winning, not participation or fun. The sidelines are crammed with parents screaming at the players (often their own kids) and swearing at referees and coaches. Somehow these hyperorganized sports don't seem a great replacement for learning teamwork in a supportive Phys Ed class or being the older siblings providing encouragement and a good example (once seen as learning leadership) during recess in the schoolyard.

School day music and art classes are under pressure or are even gone from the schools.

All of these components are the parts that surround the Common Core. They are the tasty parts of the apple. I don't want to buy an apple that is just a core. I don't want my grandchildren to attend a school that concentrates only on the Common Core.

• If you are a parent, support a broad curriculum.
• If you are a teacher, offer your students more than the core curriculum.

• If you are an administrator, stand for a rich, broad curriculum in you school.

• If you are a legislator, don't listen to those who would privatize public schools.

• If you are a taxpayer, step up and be responsible for your children, your neighbor's children, your district's children.

Remember. Children are eager learners unless the desire is squeezed out of them.

Surround the Common Core.

Sun, 22 Jul 2012

Peloton Grading - More

At Diane Ravitch's Blog Duane Swacker objected to part of my Pelton Grading comment. Go read his comment. I expanded the idea.

I'll concede that honoring the best is an element of competition, and I do not think learning/education is competitive. Schools have become hotbeds of competion with grading as a contributing factor. “You do realize, Sally, Harvard won't look at you unless you have a hign GPA.” Sad guidance.

The only valid competition is to improve, to be more effective than before. This is comparison against oneself, not others.

Yet, we love to chase one another around the school yard. At least we used to before recess was elimiated in favor of more time on task. That common, joyful play might be one reason we see grades in schools. They've possibly been institutionalized as a way to capitalize on the joys of running around. I'd say the use of grades has been a dismal failure.

The concept of “peloton grading” is an idea to minimize the damage of grading. Children often are proud to know a “star” and look up to their peers and kids in higher classes. We are comfortable giving applause to the performance of a band and the soloist, almost to the same degree as we cheer for the kid striving to be first across the finish line.

Kids in a class don't mind slapping a friend on the back for a job well done. They just don't want everyone to turn around and jeer as they cross the finish line last. Today, such behavior is called bullying and the nation's schools are developing curricula to try to stamp it out. (I wonder how the grades will be determined for that curriculum?)

Yet, there it is. Tell a kid he got an F. How is that not bullying?

The trouble grading causes is less that it acknowledges outstanding performance. The trouble is that the system, bell curve or not, stigmatizes much more than it highlights exceptional performance. Ask most kids in class who's smart. They know, and it isn't because they have been keeping a rank book during the year.

Peloton Grading

The 2012 Tour de France bicycle race just finished today. For those who don't know about it, briefly, it is a long race (3,497 kilometers this year) held over three weeks. To call it an endurance race is putting it mildly, as it involves all-out sprints for some days and grueling mountain "stages" in both the Pyranees and the Alps.

Okay, the grading bit. The mass of riders that stay together for the finish each day all get the same time (grade). The outliers in the lead most often become the notable winners of things like the overall fastest (yellow jersey), best in the mountains (polkadot jersey), etc.

NOBODY in the race gets C, D, or F grades. It is possible to not finish and get no credit for the race, but usually that isn't even considered bad because it happens because of sickness or injury.

Schools might want to do something similar. (Diane Ravitch, or another education historian might be able to confirm that it is how school culture once worked). Recognize the excellent performances. Honor the best and brightest. Do not penalize the others. Remember, the students have all gone through the same year of work. Does it matter to their success in life if they were middle of the peloton (pack)? Does it even matter if they were one of the least successful? Will a quiet finish in the tail of the group make a bad citizen? Is it really more effective to apply the letter grades of D or F to these children? Does finishing the year matter so little, and it it better for the students to have a negative label applied to them?

Starting on the journey and finishing it matter far more than being first, and there need be no stigma for finishing last. Just ask Tyler Farrar, one of the American riders in the race. He finished 151st, almost last. He was over three hours back from the winning total time of Bradley Wiggins, the overall race winner.

Tell me it would be fair to say that Tyler deserves an F. Are you kidding me?

Mon, 09 Jul 2012

http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/09/my-view-of-the-common-core-standards/

Comment 1:

Taking "best products to scale" sounds efficient. Now, if only all children were equally prepared to go to school each day and practice the same skills on the same day.

Efficiency is not a viable goal for learning. Each child faces singular challenges in learning. Even twins from the same family are not the same and do not gain the same benefits from the same lessons taught by the same teacher.

Education can be kept "efficient" by offering the same materials for study to rooms of students, but any teacher who understands the job, knows that the questions needing answers will not be the same from child to child. There will be a slant that reflects the individual needs of the moment for each child.

Dealing with the similar questions first will help the majority (making it practical to ask children to raise hands and ask their questions aloud). After that, the questions will be more personal. When a teacher can get to the individual questions, the child may get the special answer needed. When a teacher cannot get to the child, frustration can build in the child. Over time, a sequence of unanswered questions may sour the affection for learning.

"Best products to scale" won't solve the challenges faced by individual children. Quickly "trained" teachers won't, perhaps, even know to seek out the individual questions after the hands go down. Children are not all alike as peas in a pod. Children are not a monoculture to be liberally sprayed with the best products so they grow to maturity and can be harvested from their school, all equally ready for college or the work force.

Comment 2:

A "common core" sounds reasonable. "Back to basics" didn't have the necessary ring to it. Back to basics had the sense of retreat built into it. Common core suggests there will be time and support for the addition of all the rich elements of learning found around the core.

Time will tell. As you note, Diane, this initiative is being rolled out in 45 states. Each state will implement their own curriculum. Each districe/school/teacher will add what is possible to the basics (oops, core). We can hope that there will be time and support for the civics lessons, the band practices, the application of brushes to the art canvas and a bit left over for the joys of running free during recess.

But, if due process is eliminated, will quickly "trained" teachers replace the seasoned professionals?

If the money from state and federal sources is determined by a school's success rate only on the core, will districts find the money to support the arts, STEM, chess club, programming a computer (not just knowing Office)?

Will the core remain just the core, or will it be the whole since only the core will count toward maintaining the financial support from the state and federal level?

Wed, 04 Jul 2012

The Best Way

Is there a single "best"?

Today's education "reformers" seem to think so. We've recently seen a move by the state governors to forge the Common Core State Standards for all fifty of our United States. All sorts of work is going into making these guidelines the best guidelines. There might even be an assumption that the hundreds of thousands of children in today's public schools will each, individually benefit from the development of this Common Core.

Is there a single best way to teach every individual student? Are the hundreds of thousands of children in a particular school grade level so alike that the exact same curriculum will do them the best good? Will every student gain the same amount of skill after the school year finishes? Will every student tie for first place?

You might wish to suggest that the Common Core isn't expected to do that. I think you are right. So what is its purpose?

According to the key sentence of the first paragraph at the Common Core State Standards site: "The standards establish clear and consistent goals for learning that will prepare America's children for success in college and work." The trick in the wording happens around the words "clear and consistent goals" right smackdab in the middle of the sentence. By being "clear", the goals become easier to implement than if they were full of ambiguity and variation and focus on the needs of any one individual. By being "consistent" the goals tell us that variation and individualization isn't really a good thing for the students. They should all be evaluated equally against the same benchmarks. Sure, you are free to go beyond these goals, Sure, you can add material not covered in our prescription. Of course, you will need to do that while being careful to get these goals reached since we have plans to give all students a common test. That common test will be the instrument that judges the progress toward success. It needs to be a standardized test. If you could give your own test, how could we possibly compare Bob in Iowa with Corrinne in New York?

You might say, "Bob will never be directly compared with Corrinne. That's silly." I would again agree with you. It will be far more probable that Corrinne in New York will be compared to her own classmates. She and they and their school will be compared to the other New York students and schools. Mayor Bloomberg will perhaps close Corrinne's school because it will be judged "underperforming." It won't matter that Corrinne is hungry when she gets to school because her mother works nights at minimum wage and she can only get a quick bite of toaster pastry which she shares with her younger brother, the one that she gets out the door on time to get to his school. Bob in Iowa has it relatively good. He lives on a farm and was up early and carried the eggs in that his mother cooked for his breakfast. He's a bit tired because of the early wake up time, but he's been doing it since he was six and he has had a good breakfast before he and his younger sister get on the bus to school.

Bob is male. Corrinne is female. Bob is from a farm community with two parents at the breakfast table. Corrinne is from an inner city single-parent family and only she and her brother share the toaster pastry without sitting at a table. Bob and Corrinne have little in common except that they are both sophomores in high school. They do, also, share the same Common Core expectations that the Governors have proposed so everyone is treated equally.

I think I'd rather see Bob and Corrinne treated as individuals, cared for by teachers with ability to see their individual potential and to nurture it within the classroom along with all the other individuals facing their own challenges, perhaps even along with the Common Core expectations of the Governors. That would probably require more time and more money, though.

Did I mention that the cost of writing the Common Core and the standardized tests is supported by millions of dollars a year, mainly paid to corporations like Pearson Education who also grade the test and that the millions of dollars do come from the overall education budget of the states, money that might have otherwise gone to the schools of Bob and Corrinne to support their individual needs?

Why is it that we seem to think that an expert cannot be somebody local? Why do we believe that the governors and the likes of Pearson Education know better what is good for Bob and Corrinne than the local principal of our neighborhood school? Even if they are all very smart, has any of them met Bob or Corrinne to find out what they individually need? No, of course not. The parents, principals and teachers who know Bob and Corrinne have met them, though. We cannot listen to them, though. They are not really experts, no matter how many years they have been raising children, helping them with their pronunciation and their breakfast concerns.

What is best for Bob? What is best for Corrinne?

Is it the same thing? Is it provided by the Common Core State Standards?

Fri, 29 Jun 2012

Local Community Schools

Comment to Diane Ravitch's Blog

Choice to have a wonderful neighborhood school is both a worthy goal and a potentially troubling one. Local control does not have a perfect record.

While a school community might decide to offer plenty of physical activity and play, there is equal chance that the local school will expect everyone to pray the same prayer before the game. There might be a dynamic discussion of the universe and the role of humans in the world of biodiversity. Unfortunately, with local control, there might also be a community norm expecting children to know their dominion over the beasts of the field. There might be a school full of different colors of skin and a variety of garments. There also might be a school full only of "people like us."

Local control might hire a staff of dedicated, eager, engaged educators. But a principal might, instead, hire his cousins and their friends instead of somebody from the next town or county. Unions and teacher due process are not, necessarily, significant components of local control.

I hate thinking these thoughts.

I really love the ideal of community-controlled schools. The ideal also includes my desire to see strong teachers whose hands are not tied by cronyism or expectations they will examine only narrow beliefs.

What will balance the need for neighborhood/community schools against the honest acceptance of a world not constrained by the mountains (real or metaphoric) which surround the community?

What prevents a set of train tracks from dividing a town/city/community into ethic enclaves?

State and federal laws have frequently been designed to prevent schools from perpetuating belief isolationism or segregationist localism. Those laws are not universally loved any more than I love the laws which impose statewide or nationwide standardized testing.

Can we find a balance?

Can we avoid just throwing up our hands and letting commercial/corporate gurus take over?

Let us struggle (acknowledging it won't be quick or easy) to support *public* schools, with all the traditions and buy-in from the community; public schools which have broad financial support from all citizens (with or without children in school); public schools with teachers who love the tradition and community-building sequential interaction with one generation after another; public schools which celebrate the accomplishments of the individual students, their many "teams" (including drama/arts and band/chorus, not just football, etc.); public schools which benefit from the return of their adult successes.

Let us simultaneously embrace a broad view which doesn't pit "our good community" against "them and their undesirable community."

Tue, 26 Jun 2012

Are YOU a Geek?

Geeks come in many sizes and shapes. That is to say, we are not all the same. But there may be something about us that overlaps in a consistent way.

What makes you a geek?

Perhaps it is this simple. You are interested in something that the vast majority of others are not. When you laugh at the memory of a favorite line from an obscure movie, you identify yourself. If you study the leg joints of butterflies, you identify yourself. If you obsess about the pronunciation of the letter H (haitch vs. aitch), you identify yourself. The realms of your geek identity are dissimilar, but your focus and "odd" fascination mark you.

I smiled, and thoroughly enjoyed this video. So did Guy Kawasaki whose blog brought the video to my attention. Will you think the explanation is "cool" or will you even go so far as to stop watching before it is finished? Are you the same kind of geek as I?

Do you have something that captures your interest; stamps, coins, spelling, knitting, computer logic? It doesn't matter what it is. We with such focus share something good, something human.

What is your geek realm? You don't need to have one, you know. Of course, even if you have such a focus, you don't have to call yourself a geek at all.

Go ahead. Enjoy your fascination.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012

Leadership Rules:

Comment intended for http://the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.com/2012/06/are-you-true-21st-century-leader.html

Wow, this is a challenging post. The term "expedient" immediately comes to mind. Follow the rules when it serves your purpose. Don't follow the rules if they are in your way.

That's not to say orders must trump ethics and morality. We may remember the "I was just following orders" defense of war criminals.

It is true that I approached my own teaching job with awareness of the valuable message, "It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission." [Grace Hopper] Many times my actions actually became acceptable policy. I was not fired along the way. I think my students benefited from both of those results.

I prefer to look back and see that kind of action as pushing the limits which have been set artificially by tradition, not by direct order.

I am exceedingly uncomfortable thinking that leadership means simply ignoring carefully considered rules. Yet, I do not think it will always be simple to judge when ethics require doing what is best for a learning environment and when ethics demand we stand up for the rules. There certainly are plenty of rules for schools which are mainly arbitrary or simply traditions.

Like you, I hope a "careerist" isn't mainly trying to stay a teacher or school administrator to get safely to retirement. On the other hand, it is a shame to see dynamic educators carelessly bucking the system and standing tall as they walk out the door, effectively deserting their post and the children who deserved their best in the coming years.

Changing the culture of schools isn't done from outside. It is accomplished by dedication and persistence from within. No serious, long term change comes from an apathetic, subdued staff following the bosses' rules (or apathetic, subdued student body, for that matter). An effective leader needs to work with the staff and students to bend and stretch the boundaries of restrictive tradition. New traditions don't easily develop from rubble which can too often follow "revolutionary" changes and their crushed hopes. It is especially true when a series of leaders have arrived with their own revolutions, only to move on. Good leaders engage and invigorate the "troops." Leaders demonstrate the ability to challenge themselves and their team. Leaders rarely gain the trust and loyalty of their staff by sudden, often unilateral, unexplained moves.

Even worse, Consider the situation that a dynamic leader establishes a fabulous relationship with the staff, gets them to take chances, make mistakes and develop sustainable progress for themselves and their students. Then the leader steps out too far, too fast, too thoughtlessly. Gone. The leader has effectively abandoned the staff to a replacement, most often arriving from outside. The new leader is put in place by the higher administration. The new leader owes his/her job to them, has no loyalty earned from staff or students. The staff and students who have stuck their necks out may fight on, but just as realistically will learn to live with the less dynamic leader. Gone will be the chance to develop the initiatives you've started. The students and staff may not have the guts to challenge the new leadership anointed from above, the people above who established the rules you broke.

With all this discussion, even though Grace Hopper, quoted above, was in the Navy, I do not think the military is an especially good model to follow in education. Faced with sudden death, soldiers must be ready to follow orders that may, and often do, get them killed. Instant response is trained in so the troops do not get a say or argue when lethal action is imminent. Let us hope that set of conditions is never added to our education system.

Children need a supportive staff which helps children get back up after they stumble. Children need the encouragement to try what they cannot accomplish on their first try. A staff needs supportive leadership which encourages experimentation which allows teachers to change, to learn, to improve themselves and guide their children through their own growth.

Sat, 09 Jun 2012

Miracles and Education in the Headlines

(comment posted to the blog of Diane Ravitch Voucher Follies)

There's this little thing about miracles.

They are miraculous. Now, don't tell me. I know. That's saying the same thing.

The thing is, miracles are not normal. They are the stuff that converts normal humans into saints. Saints are rare, unless you count the football team in New Orleans. Hmm. Just a minute, NFL Commissioner doesn't think their behavior is too saintly just now.

We are, most of us, pretty ordinary folks. We work hard and go home tired. We expect to do the same tomorrow. We don't expect miracles. We expect progress, or at least the opportunity to do as well as we did today.

Children in schools are not looking for miracles either. School is the place kids go that gives them challenges. Children are pretty happy if they meet the challenge head on and struggle through. Children are used to daily challenges. Their teachers give them challenges, support them when they slip, encourage them to stick to it. The good teachers make school a safe place to slip, to stumble, to fall. That is because a good teacher is human, approachable, real, not too saintly, not perfect, not a miracle worker.

That is, of course, unless you think getting Johnny to read or Sally to multiply is a miracle.

Asking for miracles, describing public education as "failing", using words like "crisis" in the headlines, these are setting a crummy tone for the conversation. It makes parents wonder whether a day's worth of challenge and success is good enough for their child. It makes kids doubt the chances for their future. Parents and children begin to look at their teachers, their school and see not the reality of hard work, but the specter of doom. Don't go in there. There aren't any miracles happening.

Phooey.

Let's start talking about the reality of learning. It is incremental. It is a constant struggle. If it isn't a struggle, it isn't worth doing. It is not a winner-take-all proposition, either. Being the "best" is typically a temporary honor. Being the middle of the pack is okay, and only in the worst situations, where parents, teachers, peers and adimistrators are harsh or even cruel, even being at the trailing edge, the bottom of a class isn't so bad. I'm better this year than I was last year, right? You still like me, right? You still love me, right?

Keeping a positive attitude, getting up after a fall. Moving ahead to the next challenge. Those need to be our expectations. We need to try not to be disappointed if every child in a school doesn't enter college at age 14. Come to think of it, I don't want to be around for the frat parties that will follow from that.

No miracles for me, thanks.

Thu, 07 Jun 2012

Beginners and Experts

An article published in Make Magazine and as a blog post Zen and the Art of Making comparing the beginner and expert approaches to things made me think learning and teaching.

Phillip Torrone says, I've been thinking about how much fun it is when you're a beginner at something as opposed to being an "expert."

Seeing math and most subjects as a beginner sees it keeps it fun. Kids aren't generally worried about "getting it" as long as they still enjoy making progress. Kids are satisfied with doing a job well enough, but mainly don't concern themselves with a refined product. If the plane flies, they are happy. Most kids don't obsess that the plane isn't an exact replica of the WWII Spitfire, down to the precise location of the painted red-white-blue roundel (I should point out that I knew the emblem was a circle, but had to look up on line to find out what the emblem is called: "roundel".) An expert might know that. A kid doesn't know or care. How often, as students, did we give an answer like that only to be upgraded (not necessarily upbraided) by the teacher who said the emblem was called a roundel? Teachers are experts, insofar as they know much more than their students.

Teaching can be a process of enticement, but it is also possible to "be the expert", to give the answers, to know the shortcuts that save time. Classroom efficiency is potentially a problem. Children, left to discover some important concept will not be efficient. They will stumble around a problem. They will build concepts the same way they build models or buildings from blocks. Even they wouldn't want to move into the block building as a house, but they'd be really proud if they built a treehouse with their friends, even if the boards didn't meet precisely at the corners every time.

That poses a big conflict, especially in math. Math is as close as we get to perfection in abstract thought, especially before concepts like chaos or fuzzy logic enter the discussion. Perfection isn't intrinsically part of the world of childlike exploration.

When 2+2 is 4, there's no wiggle room. If I say "five" to the teacher's example on the board, I'm not congratulated for coming closer than if I had said "fifteen." Math isn't usually explored, it is explained. That's not the same thing, is it?

Efficiency trumps exploration. Aren't we gradually moving algebra down the curriculum tree? Once it was advanced math. I took it as a high school freshman. I know it has been taught in grade 8. How soon before some expert says we should teach it in third grade?

A version of this post was sent to Mathfuture mailing list June 7, 2012

Mon, 07 May 2012

Standardized Tests

I am not a fan of the pervasive presence of standardized testing in educaton. Real education happens at the three-way interface of teacher-student-challenge. There is little about a standardized test score that can connect to that.

Diane Ravitch is one of my guides in this. She is an educational historian who worked inside the educational testing scheme during an early phase of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and has changed her mind. She now speaks consistently about the damage being done to the education of children by the testing regime overseen by Pearson Education which is the maintainer of many (most?) of the test bank questions used across the United States. MCAS testing began as a test linked to high school graduation. In Massachusetts the MCAS test was given in grade 10, high school sophomores. Of course, it soon became a "good idea" to test in grade 8, then 7 to help prepare kids for the critical "high stakes" test in grade 10. You couldn't get a diploma without a passing score on the MCAS. Wasn't it logical to give the kids a bit of earlier practice?

Well, now my granddaughter has taken an MCAS test in fourth grade. I've heard that there will be MCAS testing in earlier grades soon. All of this testing is important, too. Governors around the country are promoting legislation to tie teacher evaluation to the test scores. It doesn't matter whether a teacher has established the best three-way interace with class after class of students. It only matters if the student scores on the tests have gone up. It really doesn't make sense to me. Standardized test scores, if they measure anything, measure how students compare to one another, to students who are taking the same question set in another juridiction. The standardized tests do not measure the progress of individual students, just the relative progress against other tested kids.

That means that kids are set up to compete against their peers. And, the nature of testing is: some students will do better than others. Those whose skills are tuned to standardized tests will do better. It won't matter if they are eager learners, just if they are good at the skills of eliminating horrible answers from the multiple choices and selecting what the test designers have decreed is the RIGHT answer. Naturally, it won't help the kids who are feeling the pressure and crumple under their stress. They won't benfit from the success of the others who didn't crumple.

There will again be "winners" and "losers." Sadly, like many educators in the classroom, I'm not much a fan of calling a kid a LOSER. I always felt my job was to encourage and challenge and support during the inevitable failures of learning. Standardized testing doubles down on the pressure of "getting the grade." There's no feedback from the testing to the kid. The test goes away (far away) to be evaluated. Teachers do not get real, timely, effective opportunity to see which questions were missed. The teacher cannot help any individual student to see what they got wrong, why they got it wrong and what to do about it. That kind of immediate feedback can happen during a regular student-teacher interaction. It simply cannot happen with standardized tests. The "power" of standardized tests is that they are intentionally removed from the hands of the professionals who work directly with the students. The removal is part of what is judged as the value of standardized tests. The standardized tests remove the bias of local control. The control is intentionally removed from the local teacher, the local school, the local district, even the "local" state. Control has been handed off to a corporate body, paid big money to disconnect the questions from the strengths of local classroom interaction.

Please sing along with me.
"Oh Pearson Tests, we sing thy praise,
the core for us in student days.
By you alone we pass or fail.
You are the holy grail."

Sun, 11 Mar 2012

Peyton Proposals

Football is a year-round obsession for some. This year, even bigger than the draft, is the courting of Peyton Manning.

What do you think?

Fri, 09 Mar 2012

Collaboration

I love the Internet.

Today, I saw a tweet from an author I follow on Twitter, Rudy Rucker. He referred to a site that would let me order ePub formatted books for me to read on either my Nook or on my computer. The books are DRM-free. That means I'm not stuck. I can read the book on any gear that supports the ePub format.

OK, he deserves it. Here's the link: Transreal Press

I noticed a small thing about the site that could be improved, not a big thing, but something I knew about, so I sent an email to his contact address. I explained the simple change he could make.

Within a few minutes, I clicked the refresh button of my browser, and the page was updated, reflecting my suggestion. Wow!

A minute or so later, I checked my email. I'm retired. What else do I have to do?
There was an email from Rudy Rucker, himself, letting me know he'd updated the site.

So, why do I like/love the Internet?

• Some fan that Rudy Rucker doesn't know can contact him with a suggestion about a Web page.
• He can make changes in a couple of minutes.
• The unknown fan hits refresh in his browser and gets a charge, seeing the update.
• The unknown fan gets an email from an author he admires, and yells out to his wife to tell her what just happened.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, apparently wanted to make it easy for people to collaborate using the Internet. I'd say he has succeeded.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012

SPAM

I get Twitter direct messages (DMs) which contain my account name, @algotruneman. They also contain a link to something like "The Molehill Daily".

I think I'm intended to follow the link to see how some Tweet I've made has become news in the eyes of the person who has decided to publish the online news compilation from social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook. I'm supposed to be flattered, I think.

In fact, I think I'm being spammed, maybe more technically, "phished", with these DMs trying to get me to provide traffic for the service, such as Paper.li You may note, I'm not making the site's name a link. I'm not interested in promoting it.

Of course, maybe I'm famous because I've been included in these "newspapers", but I doubt it.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012

Car Talk Staff

Post in the Waste of Time Department section of the blog

Sent in the following suggestion to Car Talk, that radio production by Tom and Ray Magliozzi that I hear on National Public Radio

Hi Guys, Why don't you hire a technician to do some of your under-the-hood fact checking. I would like to recommend my good friend Lew Boyle Anfilter. Just don't try to get funny by trying to say his initials are L.O.F. like the guys at my local shop.

For a look at the current official list of employees at Car Talk, Gota Dislink

Sat, 21 Jan 2012

Play

I just received a catalog from LEGO Education. "Minds-On STEM 2012."

Instead of rushing to look at the exciting new and the other familiar goodies inside, I started to read the welcome message from Dr. Harvey Dean, LEGO's CEO. No reason. The message was upbeat, but something caught my eye near the end. (I added the bold for emphasis.)

"In response to teacher input, we've also decided to change the name of one of our products. Those of you familiar with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY will be pleased to hear that we've changed the name to an education-focused title BuildToExpress."

It made me stop. I didn't even flip the page to look at the product(s) mentioned. There was nothing to do but think about what that change of name suggests.

Is it really the perspective of teachers, or at least the ones who made the complaints, that "play" needs to be removed from education?

That is certainly the reaction I had. LEGO developers had given play a prominent place in the product's original name, but at least some teachers objected. Presumably, it was more than a few who complained that "play" was out of place in their schools and classrooms. Of course, it is possible that it was "teachers" who were actually administrators, but either way, it bothered me. LEGO is part of a creative childhood for many kids. This change of name makes it sound as if play, which was OK before kids entered the classroom, must be set aside as we get down to the serious job of STEM and "21st century learning."

(Wait. I'm going to check right now. What are the details of the renamed product?)

OK, I'm back. It was quick, on page 4 and 5. "BuildToExpress is a groundbreaking process that combines a facilitative teaching method with hands-on manipulatives. The result is a solution tailored for educators who are serious about developing 21st-century learners and creative problem solvers."

The catalog includes comments from Erin Hardy, an elementary school teacher who reports, from one of her students, "Hayley said, 'It is fun because we build with our hands, watch with our eyes, and think with our minds."

Well, at least that student still gets it. "It is fun", including all that thinking with the mind. Of course, the product name may not actually impact the kids. It may well be that the students still get to see their learning as fun. They might not have the play drained out of their activity.

Sadly, I'm left with the alternative conclusion, that it is the teachers who don't want to hear that their students are learning as they play. It sounds like play has left the hearts of the teachers. That makes me very sad.

How do kids maintain their love of learning if their learning guides, their teachers, are no longer having fun, no longer playing, maybe even no longer learning in a natural way, themselves?

The teachers appear to need a "solution tailored for educators who are serious..."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012

Hyperbole

Well, here you have it. Everything that could be said, has been said.

What makes an "Ultimate Guide" most intriquing, as a concept, is that the initiative mentioned was revealed just today at a presentation from Apple, Inc. That's right. The announcement was made today for Apple to support and own rights to all sorts of interactive textbooks, a digital/e-text alternative to pounds and pounds of traditional paper texts.

I feel I must stop, now. The "ultimate blog post" has been a waste of your time. Sorry. Go read the guide by following the link from the Tweet.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012

Greenhouse Gasses

Advertising placement on Web pages probably doesn't link consistently with the story content on a page, but this convergence was intriguing.

Don't you think the ad would work better if a car company were advertising a hybrid or even an electric car instead of an SUV? Of course, maybe somebody with a wry sense of humor bumped the ad into place on purpose.

Sat, 10 Dec 2011

Best Crowd

Performers love their audiences. I've heard that the sound of applause is what makes some keep working.

I've been to concerts where performers thank thier audiences and it may be common to have comments like "You've been great!" or "I love to play in Boston!"

I do wonder, though, what will people think, who have been to Amanda Palmer's earlier concerts, if they see this tweet.

Mon, 05 Dec 2011

In Touch?

There was a time that I called a friend, specifying three rings. He was on a party line phone and three rings meant the call was for somebody in his family. Of course, if his family was known to be away, somebody else on the party line would pick up and tell me. They'd even promise to pass along the message that I had called.

Today, I called my son's house to talk to his wife. She didn't answer. I left a message. Later, I tried her cell phone. She didn't answer that. Still later, I called my son's cell phone. I was redirected to an automated answering service. Finally, I tried my granddaughter's recently acquired cell phone. I couldn't reach anybody that way, either.

I would try email, but the question isn't that monumental.

I love modern conveniences, don't you?

Fri, 02 Dec 2011

Different Kids - Different Education

I was reading the Monday Morning Quarterback by Peter King. He quoted John Fox, coach of the Denver Broncos: "So here, we just figured let's try to do what Tim's comfortable with. It's just coaching. Doesn't matter if you coach JV, high school, college or the pros -- when you've got different kids, you need to do different things. Figure what your players can do, and adjust to them."[1]

While this quote is about handling a young quarterback in the NFL, it just might also apply to education in general. Education of a classroom full of students isn't an easy, endlessly repeatable application of a formula which worked once with a group of students. A classroom isn't a factory floor on which consistent actions reproduce consistent results. A classroom with several students and one teacher has been developed as a way to be efficient, though. By providing common tasks and activities to the group of students, a teacher seeks an effective path to develop skills and thought processes for more than one child at a time.

David Warlick recently wrote "[A] vision of teachers as curriculum curator is inconsistent with a central and arrogantly authoritative blueprint for everything that learners need to be doing for hours, days, and years of their childhoods and youth."[2]

No two children are the same. While they are similar, each child struggles through the early stages of life working like crazy to be part of a group and simultaneously to establish a working individual identity. Teachers play an important a role in the struggle. Effective teachers consciously spend hour upon hour seeing each child as an individual, recoginizing their unique contributions to a class discussion, a project, etc. Teachers also help children work out their differences, allowing a team to build itself in their classrooms. Being a curriculum curator and being a good coach are both valuable ways to describe the role of a successful teacher.

It is time to recognize that children deserve the dedication of teachers who see more than the "easy" goal of improving standardized test scores.

Read more:
[1] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/11/14/Week10/index.html#ixzz1dgozyFId
[2] http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=3290

Reinvent the Wheel

"Well, in education, sometimes you DO want to re-invent the wheel!" -- Michel Paul

One of the biggest, and often overlooked, elements of education is that students need well structured environments in which they try to reinvent the wheel. Too often, society sees children as empty vessels whose brains need to be filled with approved content. Thoughtful educators understand that children need to "try stuff out" not just be told something is true.

"Here is another idea: enabling children to learn for themselves. There is a considerable literature on learned helplessness and its cure, including the fact that schools are organized to produce it. The most important fact about learned helplessness is that once one has gotten out of it, one cannot be put back into it. The second most important fact about it is that the cure is a lot of work, and seemingly nothing happens until the person reaches a tipping point, when it happens all at once." -- Edward Mokurai

Today's curricula may be too rigid, telling a child what to do and how to do it, even when to do it. What would happen to a child, a classroom, a school if children weren't endlessly put into one rigid curriculum after another? Isn't there also an assumption built into those curriculua that there is a "right" answer? If a right answer can be assumed, then, of course, it is practical to put it as one choice on a standardized test. Then, certainly, the standardized test measures a child's progress and that progress is applicable back to the classroom, the teacher and the school.

Pedagogy: to lead a learner. I'm put in mind of the image of a child moving along after a teacher in just the way a bull follows the herdsman with his hand on the rope that attaches to the solid ring on bull's tender nose.

I think I prefer the image of a teacher, one well informed and helpful, playing a flute like the Pied Piper with a score of children following, smiling and laughing, cavorting, playing, learning the dance and following the music, then taking up an instrument themselves and practicing the music with a tune of their own.

There's an important element to be injected into any curriculum. Children who learn by following an interesting piper(teacher) are still potentially only followers, just like the ones who were lead by the nose. Our society needs a kind of cohesion, being as harmonious as we can. As citizens in a society, we may continue to be followers, of a spouse, a politician (with luck not a dictator), a party. Not all of us need to be leaders, at least not all the time. Instead, a successful member of a society is a contributor, lending support to a cause, being an active participant, sometimes adding valuable notes to the symphony, but also sometimes taking the opportunity to grasp the conductor's baton to lead at least during a rehearsal, if not the main performance.

Children need the opportunity to develop an ability for self-expression, allowed to develop that self-expression in harmony with the others in their classroom, school, community, country. Part of the process also involves taking on more and more responsibility. Responsibility develops through practice of both being a group member and simultaneously, an individual. A child needs to learn how to be a self-expressed individual without subjugating, dominating or persistently irritating the others in their group. Striving to improve is natural to children. It is a shame when a society or a school stifles the joy of learning, stifling the attempt to grow into productive personal expression.

Both quotes are from email communications on the Mathfutures mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture?hl=en , November 2011.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011

Stakeholder

I was reading an article in pre-publication today. The author used the term "stake holder" and was clearly describing a "stakeholder."

To save you from rushing to a dictionary, here's what Google's definition search revealed:

1) (in gambling) An independent party with whom each of those who make a wager deposits the money or counters wagered

2) A person with an interest or concern in something, esp. a business

3) Denoting a type of organization or system in which all the members or participants are seen as having an interest in its success

The meaning intended in the article was, I think, meaning three. Many management plans seek to involve the stakeholders so they will buy in and drive a project to a good finish.

What wasn't included in the set of definitions was: "holder of a stake, while one or more guys swing sledge hammers to drive it home" Of course, that was what my warped word sense took from the pre-publication article. I think it needs a bit more proofreading.

The extra space got me thinking though. In many top-down organizations, the various groups not in top management positions are asked to be involved. All too often, the stakeholders are present, but not actually heard when they participate. The top down approach leaves the stakeholders limited to the stake holder role while the ideas of the bosses are hammered home.

Stake holder is not a great role in any project, especially if the hammers come down just a bit off the mark. I feel sorry for those stake holders who are not really allowed to be stakeholders.

Thu, 15 Sep 2011

Winning - Football Example

I am a fan of American football. I am a fan of the New England Patriots. They won the game on Monday night, and set a team record for offense, with quarterback Tom Brady becoming the fifth all time with 517 passing yards for the game.

Winning seems to come often to the Patriots. But is winning all it seems?



"O'Brien and head coach Bill Belichick were more focused on the little things the team did wrong in the opener as opposed to the many areas in which they excelled. Belichick was unhappy the Patriots failed to score after having the ball on the Dolphins' 1-yard line late in the first half, then failed to put the game out of reach more decisively with a couple of first downs in the closing minutes." NFL.com

It would seem that the coaches are not satisfied with just "winning." Other parts of the game motivate them to do a better job, even after a spectacular win.

Tom Brady, himself, said, "I enjoy scoring points. Whatever the hell we need to do to score points that's what I enjoy doing. Sometimes we go fast, sometimes we go slow, it's just a matter of what the point at the drive is, how we're trying to execute, and ultimately trying to get the ball in the endzone." It seems, again, that winning might just be a byproduct of the stuff that really matters.

Working to get better for the next challenge, reducing the number and severity of mistakes. Scoring, scoring again, and scoring yet again.

For the part of the team on the other side of the football, the defense, scoring points clearly cannot be the goal. They focus on doing everything they can to reduce the  number of opponents' scores. They plug the gaps in the line of scrimmage, race along down the football field to stick out a hand at just the right moment, disrupting a pass catch. They stick a shoulder into the midriff of a running back trying to knock him to the ground and maybe to also knock the ball loose so there will be a turnover. Getting better at these defensive skills might be what winning teams focus on.

A recent radio talk show discussion[1] of winning included the suggestion that winning is the most important part of the psychology of amateur sports, that teaching the children or college kids to be winners was the main point of sports.

These thoughts from members of one of the current most winning teams suggest there is something more important on a day-to-day basis. Boosters of amateur sports might do well to listen to these professionals.


[1] Jim and Margery on Boston's FM 96.9 "Boston Talks"


posted at: 12:38 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 14 Sep 2011

Winning and Sports

Jim and Margery discussed this article on their radio program this morning on 96.9 Boston Talks.

"Wheelock Athletics Lauded in Boston Globe Wheelock College Director of Athletics Diana Cutaia outlined her unique philosophy toward athletics in a Boston Globe article: Winning doesn't matter. Improvement, enjoyment, character, and team building do. And, the article noted, the Wheelock Wildcats are winning more games as a result." Globe Article (PDF)

I was moved to respond.

Sports assumption: Win or be a loser!

Sports reality: Win and it is a temporary, incremental, momentary rush. That is especially true if the win was the result of a fluke, a technical issue, anything which does not reflect the concerted effort of the members of the team. Lose one game, two, three, limited real consequences.

--------------------------------------------

Winning isn't what it seems to be.

At least for the male population, winning must be put into the context of hunting. Winning for a prehistoric hunter means eating, both for himself and his family. Winning for the hunting party of subsistence tribes means the tribe gets to live another day, a week, a season. Winning means not losing hunting grounds to rival tribes. Winning means survival. In a tenuous, subsistence society, boys need to learn to hunt. They need to learn to run fast, hit hard. Girls need to learn to keep the fire going, to defend themselves, to survive raids when the men are off hunting. Tribe members need to learn to do these things better every day until they can win by "bringing home the bacon" to a shelter that isn't empty or filled with dead bodies.

As a result of that need for skills, games boys and girls play are steps toward the win of survival. For the boys, having at least one good leader, someone best at the training games and visibly successful at hunting is useful to the tribe. Boys compete to establish that leader in their generation. Adults observe the children as they develop and rationally expect success at a rite of passage to promote the the boys to the next hunting party, to productive manhood.

In a healthy tribe, the competition develops a few leaders and a cadre of lieutenants. Being a lieutenant means being able to step in if the leader is incapacitated. Winning isn't zero sum. Being second, third, fourth in line isn't being a loser. The chance that a lieutenant will need to step up to lead is virtually inevitable. Death is always just around the corner in a subsistence society. The only measure of being a loser is death, and it isn't exactly seen as a "failure." Death certainly is failure, but it is inevitable, while not desirable. It is eventually unavoidable. As a tribe, failure would be sitting down beside the game path in the event of a leader's death.

"Oh, well. The boss is gone. We've lost. Let's just sit here and wait for the lions to eat us."

I'd say that such depression of a whole tribe would be improbable in a subsistence society. There certainly might be individuals who would give up, but not the tribe. Pride of survival is the norm. Pride of living long enough to raise the next generation of tribe members to take over. Pride at winning.

In modern society most of us are far, very far removed from actually having to hunt for daily sustenance. Nonetheless, we have a genetic inclination to develop physical and mental survival skills. We learn skills in order to mature from totally helpless infants to functional adults. The problem comes in the middle. Today's adults don't have to kill a gazelle or boar to eat. Adults don't have to kill a lion which is also stalking the gazelle to avoid death. Near adult children don't need to demonstrate their hunting/survival prowess to become an adult. Modern humans have substituted something else in order to satisfy the genetic need to win/survive. We've adapted to a world in which someone else does the "hunting" and we must instead, earn enough money to buy from those suppliers. The relatively unsatisfying accumulation of money has become our measure of prowess. We win if we earn more money than our contemporaries/competitors. We can buy food for tonight's dinner. Maybe we can buy for a whole week. Wow, we could buy food for a year. Hey, what do we do now? What should we buy next? When is enough, enough? A hunter/winner isn't genetically built to shut off the drive to win some more just because dinner next week, next month, year, decade is no longer in question.

Most humans have the built-in desire to be a productive tribe member, developing skills as kids, adolescents and young adults. Most of us want to develop what it takes to be a leader or a trusted lieutenant, even just a productive member of the group. If we no longer must hunt and kill to survive. What do we do instead?

Sport is one pathway to develop and establish hunter/winner skills. Instead of being pitted against death from hunger, we have created artificial conditions by which to test our skills. Sports provide a training ground for the physical prowess that would equate to survival of the tribe. Children begin early to love to play these competitive games. Unfortunately, in our modern world, children lack the need to succeed that kids needed in the past. Today, dominant physical skill isn't really requisite for survival.

Families don't always have the need to put children into working for the survival of the family. Farm families do still ask children to do honest, important chores around the family farm. Dad can plow an extra acre if he doesn't have to also muck out the horse stall. Mom can cook a better dinner for everybody if somebody else gathers the eggs from the chicken coop and weeds some of the kitchen garden. Unfortunately(?) most of us do not grow up on a family farm, not even as part of a sharecropper family.

Parents, even ones living in a four room apartment, do still want their children to be successful. It is built into the system. Lacking after school home/survival chores that are meaningful, children are encouraged to participate in some sport, or another "valuable" extra-curricular activity. Sitting in the apartment, sitting in the suburban family room by the TV, sitting on a curb at the urban street corner with the gang isn't seen by many as good training.

In sports, the system partially breaks down at the level of adult involvement. Most kids' pickup games work fine because they are organized by the participants. When adults tightly organize the kids' activity, too often, the goal changes. The goal changes away from doing well as individual members of a team. Improved individual skill isn't enough. As a group, something more must happen. The goal changes to "winning" in a way not motivated by need. Winning is fine, but the reality in our modern world is that "losing" a sports game doesn't really have serious consequences. The losers go home to dinner just the same as the winners. The parents of the losers don't lose their jobs. The parents of the winning team don't get a raise at work. Many adults don't accept that. Maybe they cannot. Adults urge their sports team charges to ever more effort, even benching the least skillful, all driven by the urge to "win." Winning validates something in their adult survival core. Adults probably still need to identify the next generation of hunters. Humans today really aren't much different from humans 10,000 years ago, maybe even 100,000 years ago.

Getting shouted at by testosterone drenched adults isn't very motivating for most children. It matters, too, that many of the loudest shouters are parents of the players, though many coaches also think it is good to yell. It makes the kid "tough", somehow more ready for life. The question is, does the "win at all costs" survival instinct work that well in a crowded, non-subsistence, non-tribal society?

It is complete bunk that learning to "win" in sports prepares us to be effective stock boys, burger flippers, plumbers, shoe salesmen, office workers, no matter which gender.

Winning does establish the ancient pecking order, though. Winners are looked up to. They are assumed to be good leaders when that may actually not be true in today's society. In our modern world, where daily kill-or-die survival isn't really necessary, what is the value of a winner?

Winners may really just be testosterone-rich bullies who lead because their brash leadership style doesn't put them into confrontation with a lion or bear or even an enraged bull elk. Today, bullies often win in spite of their lousy leadership style. Some bullies go on to be very successful, ignoring the needs of their tribe, taking all they can for themselves with no concern for whose feet they step on along the way. These bully-winners have little doubt that they should continue to be winners, even at the expense of those around them. If they get rich, what does it matter that there are all those poor "losers" out there? "They aren't like me. They're not my responsibility. If they had just tried harder, they'd have been winners, too."

If sports are going to teach "win at all costs", we will continue to overpay hedge fund managers by seeing them not as bullies, stripping others of options. Instead, we will continue to see them as successful "winners." Likewise, corporate CEOs get high accolades because they lead their amorphous corporation's "team" to success...and make money for their investors. Do the CEOs care seriously about the others on the corporate team? I doubt it. They get their props from the corporation board. If they win in the short term, they get their stock options and golden parachutes. The corporation's investors get their short term payback. The board members slap each other on the back and affirm that they are still winners, too. When the climate changes, the CEO is dumped and walks away to another opportunity where their board-and-investor-encouraged short sighted leadership will again work its corporate magic, until the next switch. If and when these rich winners finally tire of the effort, they can retire at 30, 40, 50, whatever. Their leadership role may finally be in tatters, but they still are "winners" in the eyes of society. They are RICH. Society honors them. "They earned it!"

The job-hopping CEOs' multiple millions don't necessarily make them care a minute about the people who have to subsist on the leftovers, especially the leftovers of a mediocre career, especially the leftovers of a series of unremarkable jobs: Social Security.

Wait, don't these money hungry winners also support Social Security? They pay in, don't they?

Well, yes, without considering recent economic stimulus reductions, the social security tax (aka FICA) is 6.2 percent of salary (matched by the employer). A person making $30,000.00 pays 6.2 percent, that's $1860.00 a year, to FICA. Someone making $106,800.00 personally pays 6.2 percent, $6,621.60, FICA tax.

But, jump up to a person who makes $200,000.00. They still only contribute $6,621.60. The social security pool doesn't benefit from their financial win. And if a person makes 200 million dollars, they still pay only $6,621.60. Not only are they winners once, they are "winners" again when they retire. They get the same social security benefits as a middle class worker who maxed out over several years at about $100 grand and stayed at it until 67 years old. The winners, though, probably still have some of that one year 200 million, and the multiple millions from the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that...

I'm actually not so impressed by that kind of winner. That kind of "winner" doesn't support his community well. That kind of winner doesn't necessarily have any sense of responsibility to his tribe, the one that supported him on the way up.

What a winner.

Sports at the college level and below should serve society better than that. Sports should not be a by-product of the wish of the booster club "investors" to vicariously be winners. "Look, look. My team won this weekend. I won't say I won much money from my bet on them, but I did win."

Worse, yet are the blood suckers who bet "the spread", winning their bets even when their beloved team actually lost the game within the handicapped margin. "See, I can be a winner even if my team is a bunch of losers, this week. Maybe, though, we should be looking for another coach. At this rate, they can only get worse."

I repeat. Sports should serve us better than that.

Tue, 09 Aug 2011

Market Manipulation or Merely Market Madness?

An online article from BBC included the following information:

"People are hoping the Fed is working on a plan that will come out later today, and that, along with yesterday's sell-off, is why we're rising now," said Jeff Duncan, president of Duncan Financial Management.

Sarah Wasserman of Schaeffer's Investment Research, was also waiting for some move by the monetary authorities: "While the Fed's been noncommittal about additional monetary easing, Friday's downgrade has spurred hopes that additional assistance from the government could, perhaps, be on the horizon."

Some observers say the Fed has few weapons left.

Interest rates - at near zero since 2008 - have nowhere further to go and the bank has just completed its second round of quantitative easing, another liquidity-boosting move but one whose success is difficult to measure.

But others warned that no action by the Fed could trigger further losses: "If the Fed does nothing, it could prove to be a disappointment at this point," said one analyst at JP Morgan.

While recent months in the U.S. have seen corporate profits rise, even soar sometimes, jobs have NOT been created in the style of Regan's trickle down economics. People who can work are doing so, but many are out of work. So, how is it going to really help us if the Fed makes it easier for people to borrow money to buy and sell stocks? Is that going to make corporations suddenly see the light and begin making jobs that they have not been making during the rise of profits?

Sat, 30 Jul 2011

Anachronism

Definition: out of place in time.

We just saw "Cowboys and Aliens" yesterday. It escaped being too hokey by a narrow margin. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford don't like each other, but team up when aliens attack the town, capturing many humans, including Ford's loopy son.

The men were grimy most of the time. The lead female was clean most of the time. The aliens were slimy almost all the time.

I enjoyed the movie, but cannot make a glowing recommendation. Don't expect too much from the star power. Craig is manly, but doesn't actually pull off the gang leader macho moment. Ford is nasty as a cattle rancher, until he's "lovable" as a redeemed parent. Lovable is improbable, and it comes through that way.

Picky details:
1) The aliens are slimy, but when an alien reaches out with slimy grippers and touches the cheek of a cowering boy, the cheeks remain pristine, smooth, unslimed.
2) Harrison Ford has a shiny knife which he gives to the very frightened boy, telling him to be a man. It is a very shiny knife. It is clearly stainless steel. Stainless steel was successfully patented in the U.S. in 1915. The movie timeframe might have been later than that year. The date wasn't specified, but the railroad wasn't present in the town. Wikipedia tells us that New Mexico got its railroads around 1880. Ford got the knife from his own father when he, himself was a young boy. That would make the too shiny knife 50 years old, at least, and made before stainless steel was readily available.

Alternate history bends facts around, so maybe stainless steel was invented earlier in the movie's timeline. I still think it is a big anachronistic "whoops!", especially when the knife plays such a visible role. Quality alternate history drops big changes into otherwise ordinary, accepted history.

One touch I did like was that the aliens flew around in some fancy airplanes (not shiny) with multi-vaned wings. The planes belched smoke as they flew. It made the aliens seem more vulnerable, somehow.

Sat, 25 Jun 2011

Wizard Reader

J. K. Rowling has announced that she's going to sell ebooks from her own website: pottermore.com.

Though there is a temporary home page, the site is scheduled to begin operating in October. There are rumors flying around, of course, and the word is that Rowling has taken control over her ebook sales which have not existed before. She's apparently going to share profits with her publisher.

Sony is providing technology support to the pottermore site and has its name on the home page. Does this suggest Sony is planning a new ebook reader?

Sources:
biggest-losers-plus-one-surprise-winner

Sat, 11 Jun 2011

Career Teachers

Is a teacher a replacable widget?

I went to a retirement party this week. One of the retiring teachers, Mr. Gallerani, was ending a carreer of 42 years, all at the same school, teaching the same subject: social studies. He stressed study skills, expected attention from students (and got it), read widely in his subject area throughout his career and engaged students in his passion for the material he, himself, loved. Through the years, I've encountered students who went through the school where Mr. Gallerani and I both taught. Most remembered having me as a teacher because I taught everyone in the school about and with computers. But, even those who didn't have Mr. Gallerani for social studies, remembered him. They had siblings who were in his classroom; they had friends who spoke of him; they went on the class trip to Washington, D.C. which he lead for over 30 years; they remembered him.

I've read that most who begin teaching also leave teaching instead of staying with it. "Teacher Career Choices", a report of the National Center for Educational Statistics [1] determined that only 31 percent of those who went directly into teaching after graduation had stayed with it for ten years. Others did enter the job of teacher later, and the study is recent, so it doesn't cover teachers like Mr. Gallerani.

Diane Ravitch, educational historian, has said, "Teacher longevity is very important. That's the way a teacher changes lives. Not in a year or two, but by consistency, making a commitment."[2]

I remember some of the teachers who helped to prepare me. The ones I remember best were not short timers. They had a style which made them stand out, a style which they had developed over many years and which created a special, individual relationship with their students. It wasn't that they were super friendly or grumpy/stern. It wasn't that simple. They engaged me in the subject we were studying. They pulled reaction from me. They made me change.

I'd have to say that I cannot always tell you the specific things they did which made the impression, though a few stand out. I do remember that Miss Erickson, a high school English teacher, returned every written assignment to us the next day, carefully corrected and marked with clear recommendations. We thought she was nuts to stay up as late as 4:00 A.M. to do it.

I do remember that Mr. Semple asked us to tell him what he was thinking when he referred to a page of the Newsweek we were reading for classs. It amazed me that we didn't get it in September, but by June, we were almost all raising our hands and it didn't matter which of us got called to give the answer. We got it. I remember my chorus/choir teacher who simply glared at us if we were off key. He was heartbroken when our choir was split by a school board decision to ship those from one of the towns to another high school.

You get the idea. These teachers made me focus. They weren't just delivering a lecture from yellowing note cards. They were educators, drawing/leading us out of our childhood ignorance and limited viewpoints. We remember teachers because they recognized what we needed and gave it to us.

Teachers who are young may come in with great skills, of course, but I challenge you to think back. Are the teachers you remember typically the ones who blazed hot for a couple or three years and then left? Are they, instead, the ones who were like my teachers and like Mr. Gallerani, a 42 year veteran, a fixture, a dedicated, beloved, respected teacher. He will be missed by the students entering his classroom next year even though they won't know it. I hope that in September, the room is occupied by someone like him, someone who isn't just filling the seat behind his desk. I hope the "new" teacher becomes a beloved, remembered veteran.

I hope public education doesn't become dominated by short time, widget teachers. Students deserve better than that. Are you listening, policy makers, educational reformers? Are you listening, teacher bashing talk show hosts and politicians?

For the record, I stayed in the same school district for 36 years. I started as a science teacher in grades 7 and 8. I finished as the district's computer coordinator.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011

Copy vs. Share vs. Rights

Janis Krums took a snapshot of the plane crash on the Hudson River in 2009. He's a Twitter user. He posted his snapshot to a photo-sharing web site called Twitpic. The photo became famous, shared widely. Krums apparently wishes he could have been compensated for the commercial use of his photo.

NOT my photo - Not cc-by license.

More recently, in 2011, Stephanie Gordon took a snapshot out the window of a plane, capturing an image of the final launch of the Endeavor space shuttle. She also put the photo out by way of Twitter and Twitpic. She doesn't care about being directly compensated for use of her photo.

NOT my photo - Not cc-by license.

Twitpic's terms of service require that a Web use be done by linking back to the original images, as I have done here. It would be inappropirate to save the photo and simply post it from the copy. Twitpic wants the traffic to go through their site. By this requirement, Twitpic also helps to ensure that the correct attribution to the authors happens.

Both photos offer us important images. Both give us a look at events we didn't see directly. Both photos have become culturaly important because people want to see, even at a distance, what other people are talking about.

Who owns the photos. The simple answer is "the people who took the photos." However, by putting the photos on Twitpic, both author/owners shared the photos with their followers. Any retweets made the sharing wider. Sensing the cultural "viral" spread of the images, the news and online media spread the word farther, often including the images as I have here.

Mr. Krums wants to be paid for the use of his photo; Ms. Gordon doesn't expect to be paid, doesn't apparently care.

I'm glad the Internet has made it possible for ordinary people to easily contribute to the common culture. I hope the trend will accelerate. In a world of short attention spans, making a contribution to the common wealth is a significant feat. Congratulations to both observant, prepared individuals.

[1] Plane on Hudson http://twitpic.com/135xa
[2] Shuttle Launch http://twitpic.com/4yg6hs
[3] Controversy over use TechDirt post

Mon, 16 May 2011

Keeping Busy

These days, retired, busy is easy. Even doing very little, I'm occupied with something, even if it is only doing these doodles.

We also walk the dogs when it isn't raining. Mowing the lawn is always available. There's puttering with wood, building stuff (with luck including square corners). For the record, I don't actually polish the car. We love Scrub-a-Dub carwash which is just down the street from us.

Sun, 15 May 2011

Exploration is Exciting
There's always something new going on in my brain. I enjoy experimenting...lifelong learning, I guess. Hence "betty 'n' bob."

I recently came across a simple cartooning idea. Basic characters in a simple comic format. Just add the dialog and...there it is, a cartoon. Thanks to Leo Loikkanen at All Filler, no Killer for the idea and inspiration. He created and released a cartoon template called "American Efficiency" using the CC0 "Creative Commons Zero" license. That makes the template essentially public domain. Anybody can use the template. Just download it to your computer. Print a copy and add your own dialog to make your own cartoon with marker, pen or pencil.

There was also the cartoon from Nina Paley which I mentioned in my last post. There are all sorts of creative people out there.

I've been exploring graphic ideas using Inkscape, a free open-source program for drawing vector graphics. I am NOT very artistic, and find that my limited talents are harnessed better by using a vector graphics tool than a freehand sketch/paint program like Krita (both on a GNU/Linux computer). I decided to try out the idea from Leo Loikkanen in Inkscape. Along with a basic template, I created a series of mood-showing characters, one male "Bob" and the other female "Betty." Here's my first effort.

Please feel free to make use of the full Inkscape "betty 'n' bob" page. I'm releasing it as CC-Zero as Leo did his.
Perhaps you could use it with students in your school or with your own children. Inkscape is a great tool for all sorts of things.

Inkscape Template of "betty 'n' bob".

If I stay motivated, maybe you'll see more of my own betty 'n' bob ideas.

Thu, 12 May 2011

Happiness

CC-BY-SA Nina Paley

For the record. I am a happy person.

I do know more than one person who would benefit from this outlook, though.

Love that song: "Don't Worry; Be Happy"

Go forth and enjoy your day. Visit mimiandunice.com for more enlightened humor.

posted at: 06:37 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Tue, 03 May 2011

All Education is Local

Common Core - Standardized Assessment

Nobody knows a child as well as his parents, teachers and friends. Learning is an individual process, one aided by support from peers, parents and professionals. A professional (teacher) is a guide. Peers and parents probably lack the tools to nurture a child through the maze of material which constitute a curriculum. A professional will focus, for example, on grammar while a parent might smile proudly when son Joe says, "Me and my friend, Bob scored goals in the soccer game today." A peer might say, "Like, dude, that's wicked cool." Joe is supported by the smile and comment, but also will benefit from the next school lesson -- Writing and Speaking in a Formal Setting.

It takes a professional set of skills to effectively adjust a curriculum to the current needs of a child. The lesson may require many repetitions geared to the moment, not a curriculum time-and-sequence alignment chart. Joe may have needs in common with many in the class, too. Those needs may not be aligned with the common core expectations for the year.

A child's experience writing and speaking in class takes him a step out of his comfort zone, a step from the streets, or maybe even a step away from a mediocre home life. Accomplishing those goals is more complex than core standards can address. No standardized test will measure a child's reaching the goals, either.

Nationwide core standards represent "a good." Local application of the standards isn't simple reiteration, though. Local, individual application of the core takes much more than publishing the standards and wanting all children to meet the them. For each child, personal context applies, and the ground isn't even. It will take more work to encourage good grammar for a child whose entire culture says "like" every third or tenth word of a sentence. A good grammar lesson will not simply need to state the rules and assign homework practice. Each child in the classroom will need valid exercises in which well spoken and well written work is accomplished. They will need to "learn" that there is a difference between informal chatting and educated discourse. The effort is complex. It takes time and much more work than a common core statement such as this one:

"L.6.1e. Recognize variations from standard English in their own and others' writing and speaking, and identify and use strategies to improve expression in conventional language."[1]

For other groups of children who don't bring as much careless language into class, a teacher's job will be easier. The grammar curriculum will flow by more smoothly and a test will be easier for the students to pass. The language environment around the school makes a difference.

For a child to learn, he must face individual challenges and rise to them. What is difficult for one child may be easier for another. An attentive teacher is the person most likely to expect good grammar from a child, to recognize the mistake and provide a targeted experience to reinforce proper expression. A hard-working teacher with experience in recoginizing a "teachable moment" is much more valuable to a child than a list of common standards. It is going to be important for a series of hard-working teachers to assist classroom groups to build the necessary series of teachable moments into a sequence which makes children eager to improve and comfortable with making mistakes along the way.

No standardized test is going to create a unique curriculum for each child. That unique curriculum will happen. It will happen whether or not there is a 100 percent effective group of teachers. The unique curriculum will happen whether Joe plays soccer, is a musician, a skate boarder. Good teaching supports each "Joe" along with peers and parents. Making final judgments of the success of each child's unique curriculum may be possible through standardized tests, but maybe not.

I was a junior high teacher for years. At one point we were re-named from junior high to middle school. It did not change our outlook too much. We took children into our classrooms at the start of their seventh grade year and helped them develop until they left us at the end of grade eight. We saw each child as unique, not always having the same skills as others of the same size, shape and age. Middle school also exposed us and the children to the wildly differing body changes typical of the middle grade years. At the end of grade eight, there were still children barely five feet tall standing next to others well beyond six feet with sideburns almost down to their chins.

A common curriculum and a common standardized test?
What is standard about a child?

We need to celebrate childrens' unique needs and accomplishments as much as we need to get all students to graduate with some common skills. We cannot expect a cookie cutter approach to work. We cannot expect all children to come out of the assembly line the same as endless sets of injection molded plastic dinnerware. Judging all students equally by one test is just plain silly, much less judging the hard-working series of teachers who helped prepare a student for the test moment.

[1] http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english-language-arts-standards/language-standards-k-5/language-progressive-skills-by-grade/

("All politics is local." Thanks to Tip O'Neill, former congressman from Massachusets for the inspiration for this post's title.)

(Thanks to Diane Ravitch for her article on the Education Week blog.)

Sun, 01 May 2011

Advertising Math

An Olay commercial says their competition has 80% water in its product.

Olay is proud to say that they have 25% less water.

What is the amount of water in Olay's product?

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But wait!

Isn't Olay's product still mostly water?

Perhaps water is a valuable ingredient of the product.
Maybe Olay is using math to trick us.
Maybe Olay can charge big bucks for the water. Selling water has worked for Fuji, Dasani, Crystal Springs, Smartwater, etc., etc., etc.

--------------------------------

For those who wish to let me give the math solution (even if the Olay product is a "suspension")...

Take a 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 80% water: 80ml. Fill the rest with "moisturizers" and other fillers and you've got the product Olay doesn't sell.

Take another 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 60 ml of water: that's 25% less water (1/4 of 80 is 20 ml of water which you leave out). Add the moisturizers and other fillers. You've got Olay's product.

Hmmm. I wonder if the other fillers take up more volume than they did before?

Bull image modified from work by Utrescu at openclipart.org