I confess to being caught doing math instead, in English, in history — and in art we often made mathematical games to create patterns. From the stuff I see on walls in schools, that’s still popular.
Also true that in most of the disciplines that work into classes we call social studies, we do not have the ability to discern the cool patterns like Fibonacci numbers in pine cones, pineapples and sunflower blossoms. People look for those pattersn in history anyway, and that poses a key problem to policy makers. People want to see a pattern, expect to see a pattern, and historians cannot meet that expectation, other than quoting Santayana.
Maybe one of my students will be the one who discerns a key pattern. It’ll be one of the slackers, if it happens.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Our textbooks and curriculum guides too often fail to make clear the links between the bloody conflicts in the Kansas Territory and the Civil War, between the conflicts engaged in by men like John Brown in Kansas, and later at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and the conflicts of the Civil War.
We might make the history more vivid and clear with the use of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” an epic war song based closely on a folk tune favored by Union troops of the time, conscripted specifically because of that affinity by Howe to serve the greater action of repurposing the war from merely saving the Union to freeing people from bondage. It’s a study in propaganda earlier than we usually think of it.
An early lyric sheet for "Battle Hymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe, Library of Congress via New York Times
Most of my students claim not to know the song, “John Brown’s Body,” and an astonishing number of the students say they don’t know “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It’s a chance to bore them — or instruct them, if the planets and stars align — using a bit of music (a teacher should be able to find a copy of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s version of the “The Battle Hymn” with little difficulty; it appears in the hymnals of most Protestant sects, so you can get a copy of the lyrics; you’ll have to do a search to find a good copy of “John Brown’s Body,” though; I’ve not found one I like to use in class).
It might be a short lesson, an adjunct to a lesson, or a project for a student with some choir training.
Gilpin wrote:
Even if Howe’s song spoke to a different understanding of the war, her efforts to transform “John Brown’s Body” into a national patriotic text meant that, much like Brown’s afterlife, people would end up using and abusing “Battle Hymn” as they saw fit. What Howe observed in that Union camp outside of Washington in 1861 was just the beginning of a war of clashing agendas and endlessly obscured meanings. To be sure, those north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line knew that the developing war was being fought over slavery – its brutal realities, its political volatility and especially its uncertain future – but even in its opening months, commentary about the war was already cloaked in the bland language of preserving the Union or defending states’ rights. Assessing the war itself, Howe later wrote that “its cruel fangs fastened upon the very heart of Boston and took from us our best and bravest.”
For Howe and generations of Americans, the cruelty of war demanded a providential overseer. Despite her urge to celebrate noble-hearted men like Brown, “Battle Hymn” helped to take responsibility for the Civil War out of the brutal and clumsy hands of ordinary mortals. To be sure, Brown his death would help to make his nation holy and especially to make all men free, but his radical extremism was frightening to most Americans. Soon enough, the Civil War would be transformed by songs like Howe’s into a conflict of necessity and destiny – a providential trial by fire. That narrative, of a harrowing but essential national adolescence, would eventually be at the expense of those Brown had died for, and whose fate the war was being fought to settle.
Sign on the door of the mishipmen’s mess: “The daily floggings will continue until morale improves.”
In an effort to raise teacher morale to a level at least as high as that of the British Navy back in the day when everyday brought “flog and grog” — though, admittedly, we work in education today without the grog — policy makers continue in their efforts to blame teachers for every problem of education, and they pledge to “hold teachers accountable” regardless the issue.
Utah senator says teacher morale is low and lawmakers need to address teacher perceptions
SALT LAKE CITY — A freshman state senator, who held a series of tell-all meetings with Utah school teachers, relayed to his colleagues Wednesday a common theme among public educators: Teacher morale is low.
“They are discouraging new teachers from entering the profession. … They feel classroom size is an issue. … They feel that they don’t have the professional development support they need,” said Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, at an Education Interim Committee meeting. “That’s what they feel. I’m not validating it or invalidating it. I’m communicating it to this group.
Osmond went to teachers to get feedback on his controversial proposal that would make it easier to fire teachers. His legislation would dismantle current state orderly termination laws that require districts to have a specific, documented cause when firing teachers and allow teachers a chance for recourse. The proposal would also give more control to local districts so they can develop termination policies based on what works for them and institute one- to five-year contracts at the end of which schools could let teachers go without cause.
Osmond held four meetings where public school educators could give him a piece of their mind. Hundreds of teachers attended.
“Our public employees feel that there is a major morale problem in education,” he said.
No kidding?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
DISD should redouble efforts to support Teach for America recruits
In 2009, the Dallas Independent School District welcomed 80 Teach for America teachers to its campuses. These newly minted teachers were part of a competitive program that sends top college graduates to work in urban and rural public schools.
Two years later, only 45 teachers from that inaugural class remain in the district.
Where did the others go? DISD can’t say for sure.
Teach for America teachers make a two-year commitment. So, after fulfilling that obligation, they’re free to pursue other teaching opportunities, graduate school or entirely different careers.
Losing 43 percent of the first TFA class is somewhat troubling — particularly because that’s higher than the program’s national attrition rate in high-poverty schools. But that fact alone doesn’t mean that DISD and Teach for America aren’t a good fit.
One number doesn’t tell the whole story, and DISD would benefit from additional data as subsequent TFA classes complete their two-year stints. It would be useful for the district and Teach for America to know more about why these teachers are leaving and whether they are seeking out teaching jobs in other districts.
Still, the attrition rate raises important questions about what more DISD can do to support these young teachers — and encourage them to stay.
TFA is supplying the Dallas school district with teachers who were high achievers and leaders on their college campuses. And while they’re new to teaching, many are distinguishing themselves quickly. In 2010, DISD reported that the district’s TFA teachers were outperforming their peers in educating students in reading and math.
Even Teach for America’s critics, who often complain that TFA corps members don’t stay long enough to make a difference, would agree that these teachers will become even more effective with additional years of experience.
With all this in mind, DISD should refocus its efforts to ensure that TFA teachers who spend two years at a Dallas public school consider extending their stay. While this is still a relatively new program in DISD, the early numbers suggest that the district has not been a particularly welcoming place.
DISD should bolster its mentoring efforts and consider what other strategies could be employed to help TFA teachers succeed — and feel motivated to continue teaching.
There’s no doubt that some TFA corps members enter the program planning to teach only two years before embarking on another career. But Teach for America’s hope is that some will be inspired to continue in education.
Other districts with similar challenges have had more success retaining TFA corps members.
DISD should seize this opportunity to mentor and develop a unique group of teachers — instead of simply watching them walk out the door.
I work alongside several Teach for America people — to a person, great colleagues. Some of them faced the same barriers to entry I did — Dallas was unhappy with my recommendations, for example, and held out my hiring for a few weeks because they didn’t want to take the recommendation of the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee which deals with education policy, for whom I worked for a decade, but instead insisted I get a teacher or someone from a local education establishment to write the letter (I got a person who assigned substitutes in a local district to comment — we knew each other on the phone). Why they wouldn’t take the word of someone who knows me over someone in education, I don’t know — but there is a moral in that morass, somewhere.
Dallas ISD is generally not a teacher-friendly place these days. After two rounds of layoffs, we have all been informed clearly that we are all on the maybe-needs-firing line. TFA teachers can stay above that only partly — the poisonous atmosphere infects all faculty meetings and department tete-a-tetes.
There is a big difference between TFA teachers and others: TFA is tough (sometimes stupidly too tough), but they let every one of their people know that each one is valuable, and expected to do great things.
Then the district announced it had goofed, and a few hundred teachers would have to go. Then word got out that the mother of the kid who gave the speech — a teacher — was on the chopping block. Then word got out that the whole program the kid was in, was on the chopping block. Yeah, we believe in you, kid — we just don’t believe in education any more.
Is TFA the answer to Dallas’s woes? What’s your view? I’m still thinking about an appropriate, and informative response.
Also see this at the Dallas Morning News site:
Sidebar:
What is Teach for America?
Teach for America is an organization that works to recruit high-achieving college graduates for two-year teaching stints in urban and rural public schools. The hope is that many will continue to work in the field of education or an area that impacts student achievement.
The selection process is competitive — only 11 percent of this year’s 48,000 applicants were accepted.
The chart shows the number of Teach for America teachers in DISD, broken down by the school year they arrived. Many of those who started in 2009-10, the inaugural year in DISD, left after serving their two-year commitment.
School year
TFA members received
In DISD as of Sept. 26
2009-10
80
45
2010-11
107
102
2011-12
45
45
Total
232
192
SOURCES: Dallas ISD; Dallas Morning News research
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
FIXING EDUCATION is Focus of New “Restoring the American Dream” FAREED ZAKARIA GPS Primetime Special
Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION Debuts Sunday at 8:00pm ET and PT
TIME Magazine Companion Story “When Will We Learn?” Hits Newsstands Friday
American primary and secondary education were once envied by much of the world, but over the last few decades U.S. students have fallen behind – while students in other countries have benefitted from improvements to their educational systems. CNN and TIME magazine’s Fareed Zakaria interviews innovative and creative leaders working on solutions to fix what ails American education in his November primetime special, Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION, on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 8:00pm & 11:00pm ET & PT, and for a companion TIME magazine cover article, “When Will We Learn?” that hits newsstands Friday.
Time Magazine cover for November 4, 2011, featuring Fareed Zakaria's story on education reform
PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, ranks 15-year-olds for basic skills achievement in 65 industrialized nations. In the latest PISA rankings, the U.S. ranks 15th in reading, 23rd in math, and 31st in science. Zakaria guides viewers through tours of what is working in education in countries with high rankings – to South Korea where students have more classroom time; and Finland , where professionalization of the teacher workforce has improved educators – in order to mine ideas for what could put U.S. education back on the right track.
Featured in the special are:
·Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation has donated $5 billion dollars to schools, libraries, and scholarships tells Zakaria that the single most important determinant in the quality of a student’s education is the teacher. The Gates Foundation is the leading source of private money for education in the U.S. .
·Salman Khan,< founder of the Khan Academy , an educational organization that provides free, self-paced tutorials and student assessments online. Khan’s famous podcasts have delivered more than 83 million free lessons in math, science and other topics, and he tells Zakaria that customizing education can improve learning through leveraging how students learn differently. He thinks it would not be that difficult to teach all American students this way.
NYU Professor, former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education, and author (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, 2010) Diane Ravitch has spent a lifetime in education policy analysis and has seen education reforms come and go – and harm students. Ravitch supports a rigorous national curriculum and tells Zakaria that standardized testing, charter schools, and modeling public education after business models have politicized American education and degraded schools for a generation.
·Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, in Washington, now leads StudentsFirst, a nonprofit aimed at education reform through, among other measures, ending teacher tenure and supporting charter school alternatives to traditional public schools.
A FAREED ZAKARIA GPS Special:Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION – debutsSunday, Nov. 6 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET/PT on CNN/U.S. It will replay on Saturday, Nov. 12 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET/PT on CNN/U.S. Preview available here: Fareed Zakaria and Brooke Baldwin discuss what makes a great teacher.
Fareed Zakaria’s TIME magazine cover story, When Will We Learn? hits newsstands Friday, Nov. 4.
So the Time story is already out (home delivery has already occurred in many cases).
If you’re interested in this special, you may want to record it yourself — CNN tells me no DVD will be available.
I have AT&T cable, so we don’t get CNN, which is reserved for the high-cost, not-teachers-salary package. Somebody tell me how it goes.
Zakaria thinks solidly and well on a number of topics, especially where comparison with foreign nations is made. Ravitch was struck with an epiphany on testing and the No Child Left Behind Act over a year ago, as described in the press release. She came to see that testing sucks rigor out of classrooms, instead of instilling rigor as we discussed 30 years ago in the education reform movement.
What in the world can Michelle Rhee add to this discussion? From the press release it looks a lot like the “balance” fallacy makes the show suffer: Journalists think they need a contrasting view, so when Euclid tells a writer that 2+2=4, the journalist seeks out others who have different opinions, and prints those opinions no matter how stupid, insipid, or dangerous they may be.
It’s the second day of classes here in the Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD, or DISD). Already we experience great trials from the loss of funding across the board in Texas education, as Gov. Rick Perry encouraged the state legislature to cut more than $4 billion from schools. Cuts will be larger next fall.
At Molina High School we have about 25% more students, with 10% fewer teachers. Classes strain the seams of the school — classrooms are crowded, desks and chairs are in short supply. Computers promised for teachers, supposed to be delivered eight months ago, still are not delivered. Printers, printing supplies, and paper, stand in conservation mode. There are so few technical support people that those few new computers delivered often are not set up to operate yet.
This year’s inspiration for Dallas teachers comes from Dalton Sherman, a fifth grader at Charles Rice Learning Center. Here’s a YouTube video of the presentation about 20,000 of us watched last Wednesday, a small point that redeemed the annual “convocation” exercise, for 2008:
Sherman’s presentation rescued what had been shaping up as another day of rah-rah imprecations to teachers who badly wanted, and in my case needed, to be spending time putting classrooms together.
(By the way, at the start of his presentation, you can see several people leap to their feet in the first row — Mom, Dad, and older brother. Nice built-in cheering section.)
Staff at DISD headquarters put the speech together for Dalton to memorize, and he worked over the summer to get it down. This background is wonderfully encouraging.
First, it makes a statement that DISD officials learn from mistakes. Last year the keynote was given by a speaker out of central casting’s “classic motivational speaker” reserves. As one teacher described it to me before the fete last Wednesday, “It was a real beating.”
Second, DISD’s planning ahead to pull this off suggests someone is looking a little bit down the road. This was a four or five month exercise for a less-than-10 minute presentation. It’s nice to know someone’s looking ahead at all.
Third, the cynical teachers gave Dalton Sherman a warm standing ovation. That it was delivered by a 10-year-old kids from DISD made a strong symbol. But the content was what hooked the teachers. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided a death-by-PowerPoint presentation leading up to the speech, one that was probably not designed solely as contrasting lead in. In other words, Dalton Sherman’s speech demonstrated as nothing else the district has done lately that someone downtown understands that the teachers count, the foot soldiers in our war on ignorance and jihad for progress.
The kids came back Monday, bless ’em. School’s in session, to anyone paying attention.
Matt Damon is now the heartthrob of teachers everywhere — at the Save Our Schools Rally in Washington, a misguided self-described libertarian asked Damon why we shouldn’t fire more teachers . . .
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I get important e-mail from the Texas Freedom Network; they’re asking for help next week to fight creationism and other forms of buncombe popular in Texas:
Science and the SBOE: One Week to Go
Next week, the Texas State Board of Education will take a critical vote on science in our public schools. We need people like you to make sure the vote is in favor of sound, well-established science.
Up for board consideration are science instructional materials submitted by a number of publishers and vendors who want their product used in Texas classrooms. Even before the board meets, far-right groups have been hard at work trying to ensure materials approved by the board attack and diminish evolutionary science and include the junk science of “intelligent design”/creationism.
The attacks include one from a little-know firm out of New Mexico, International Databases, which submitted instructional materials rife with creationist propaganda.
It gets worse. Far-right SBOE members last month appointed creationists with questionable scientific credentials to teams tasked with reviewing the materials and making recommendations to the board.
And new board chair Barbara Cargill upped the stakes when in a speech just last week she framed the debate over science as a “spiritual battle.”
The board will hold just ONE public hearing on the science materials. Your participation is crucial.
Please note: The deadline to sign up to testify is 5 p.m. Monday.
We must insist that the SBOE keep junk science – including “intelligent design”/creationism – out of our children’s classrooms. The board must approve only instructional materials that are accurate, that are in line with sound and well-established science, and that will prepare Texas children to succeed in college and the jobs of the 21st century.
Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the radical right. www.tfn.org | www.tfninsider.org | General: tfn@tfn.org
Tell a friend to subscribe to TFN News Clips, Alerts or Rapid Response Teams. Subscribers may choose the issue areas that interest them. To change your TFN subscription preferences – or to unsubscribe – click here.
Copyright 2010, Texas Freedom Network
Trying to carve out time here. Can you help?
Hearings will be most interesting. Support for the Texas State Board of Education actually comes, often, from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). TEA this week laid off just under 200 workers, to deal with the 36% budget chopping done to the agency by the Texas Lege. Word comes this week that curriculum directors at TEA were let go, including the director of science curriculum.
It’s rather like the first 20 weeks of World War II in the Pacific, with the aggressors advancing on almost all fronts against science. When is our Battle of Midway?
It’s a great idea, but I didn’t even dare think it possible
We’ve had blackboard paint for at least a century. Teachers at our school sometimes paint their closet doors, or part of a wall, to use as a chalkboard.
Lowe’s carries IdeaPaint, the stuff displayed in the graphic above. It isn’t as cheap as other paint, but compared to the cost of a whiteboard, it’s pretty good. RustOleum manufactures a version available at Home Depot and other outlets. It’s advertised as cheap as $20 per kit online, but runs as high as $40. One kit covers about 49 square feet (7 feet by 7 feet). I’ve found at least five different manufacturers of the stuff, with different features.
I haven’t calculated prices (at about $3.25/square foot), but there are also dry-erase skins which can be applied to any wall — with the added advantage that the product claims to be erasable for virtually any marker, including Sharpies® and other permanent markers. One manufacturer offers skins in clear, to allow underlying paint colors to show through, and white, and says it will match colors on a whole-roll basis (pricey, I’ll wager).
Uses for math and writing should be obvious — think about those mural-sized wall maps in a geography or history class, covered with clear, dry-erase paint . . .
Wouldn’t it be great if school districts had architects, or instruction coaches, who knew about this stuff and could help us keep up in the technology and tool wars/sweepstakes?
More, resources:
Dry-erase painting at Charlestown (state? Massachusetts?) schools:
Case study from Milford High, Milford, Massachusetts
Case study, Dever-McCormack School, Boston school district
Evernote software teams with IdeaPaint . . . look at the video
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
One of our very good art teachers at Moises Molina High School, William Adkins, works with a group called Big Thoughts. Big Thoughts interviews teachers who work with the program about how arts education boosts student achievement in core areas, and how to leverage arts to improve the boost. Adkins had some thoughts about how art really is a core part of education , and on the role of administrators in helping teachers:
Adkins’ students regularly win awards, often outperforming the many more students at our district’s arts magnets. One of his students, Moses Ochieng, too the top prize at the state art meet this year for a brilliant sculpture he did. Moses was my student in U.S. history, too — a great adventure, since he emigrated from Kenya just a few years ago, and he lacks the familiarity with so many American things that we, and the textbooks, and the state tests, take for granted that students know. Ochieng’s art helped focus him on history. It supplemented his studies so that he picked up two years of history work in just one year.
Five days on the road and we hoped to make it home Friday night.
"I've got the Presidential Seal / I'm up on the Presidential Podium. / My Mama loves me, she loves me . . ."* Playing around with the podium and teleprompter at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas.
Air conditioning on the bus failed, and then the vacuum system failed and we lost the ability to close the door, and we started to lose brakes. Fortunately, we were within sight of Dallas when things really came to smash.
So our Teachers Tour of Presidential Libraries came to an interesting end last night. More good fortune — the bus stalled out in the parking lot of a gas station with a Dickey’s Barbecue attached. Ross Perot is right, at least about this: Dickey’s food is worth the stop.
Other stops along the way provided nutrition for our minds, and for our classroom preparation. Education experts at the 13 National Archives-related Presidential Libraries work together, and work separately, to create classroom friendly and classroom ready materials. Beyond the museums, we were looking for history to use in our classes. We got a lot of pointers to documents our students can use in class to learn history and how to write it.
This is the second year of this particular Teaching American History grant, from the U.S. Department of Education to the Dallas Independent School District. It’s important that you know that, because Republicans in Congress propose to cut this program out. This is one of the few programs I think has value way beyond the dollars spent on it. TAH may become just one more victim of the conservatives’ War on Education.
It was a rowdy group of teachers, of course, and we closed down every bookstore we found along the way. The bus driver hopes never again to hear a single verse of “99 Student Essays to Grade on the Desk.”
From my earlier post on the Texas Tribune interview with Michael Marder, in which he questioned the assumptions that monkeying with teacher discipline, accountability, pay, training, vacations, or anything else, can produce better results in educating students, especially students from impoverished backgrounds.
Marder is the director of the University of Texas’s program to encourage much better prepared teachers, UTeach.
Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.
Texas Tribune said:
In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”
After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.
[Reeve] Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.
For the record, Michelle Rhee is probably right: In the toughest neighborhoods, children excel when the right adults do the right things for them. But the right adults usually are parents, and the right things include reading to the children from about 12 months on, and pushing them to love learning and love books. Teachers get the kids too late, generally, to bend those no-longer-twigs back to a proper inclination. The government interventions required to boost school performance must come outside the classroom. Michelle Rhee’s great failure — still — is in her tendency not to recognize that classroom performance of a student has its foundations and live roots in the homes and neighborhoods who send the children to school every day.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Franklin Roosevelt voting in Hyde Park, New York, November 2, 1937 - FDR LIbrary image
In the Dallas district, and across much of Texas, field trips are being cut out. Budget restraints, you know. Rick Perry’s math is atrocious, and the “surplus” he claimed we had in the budget turned out to be a $27 billion deficit.
For information call:
Clifford Laube at (845) 486-7745
YOUR BUS COULD BE ON US!
New funding available for field trips to historic Hyde Park destinations
HYDE PARK – Field trips are back! The National Park Service and FDR Presidential Library and Museum are pleased to offer new transportation grants for 2011 field trips to five renowned Hyde Park destinations – FDR Presidential Library and Museum, Home of FDR National Historic Site, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, Top Cottage and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.
The new grants are managed by Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV), a nonprofit that helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. A list of available programs and grant application form are available in the Grants section of THV’s website.
“These sites are brimming with world-class learning opportunities for local students,” said Sarah Olson, superintendant of the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites. “We recognize that many school districts have cut back or eliminated field trips due to budget constraints. These grants are designed to put great field trips back in reach.”
Educators are free to create their own curriculum, and the sites have a wide variety of prepared curricula, including:
Pretend You are the President, grades 4-6
Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World, grades 4-6
FDR’s Boyhood Farm, grades 1-3
Searching for Salamanders, grades 7-12
Podcasts interpreting the many trails that traverse the 5 sites
“To walk in the footsteps of history, to touch and hear nature – these are the experiences that make learning vivid and memorable,” said Lynn Bassanese, director of the FDR Presidential Library & Museum. “Field trips are becoming an endangered species, but the need for them is still great. Together these sites have provided decades of great experiences for educators and students. These new grants will help us continue the tradition.”
K-12 educators in public and private schools may apply for regular, summer or after-school programs. Trips should be related to core curriculum or programs and take place by December 31, 2011. Teachers in the same school or district may apply together.
ABOUT THV
Launched in 2003, Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV) helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical, and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. THV programs foster collaboration between schools and informal learning sites. Our growing collection of free K-12 lessons uses significant Valley sites to teach all subjects. For details, visit http://www.TeachingtheHudsonValley.org.
THV is a program of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area and HRV Greenway Conservancy, Inc.; National Park Service – Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites; Hudson River Estuary Program/NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation; and Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College.
# # #
Alas, it turns out it’s not intended for Texas classrooms. Drat.
I’ve taken large groups of 14-16 year-olds through those sites. An halfway interested teenager can get eyes opened seeing how FDR grew up, in the place he grew up. The library and museum offer spectacular displays on FDR’s presidency and the times. It’s exactly the sort of experience a lot of my students have never had, but need.
I’ll have to see what we can do with museums and libraries a little bit closer — the George H. W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas, the Lyndon Johnson Library in Austin, and the Bill Clinton Library in Little Rock. Possibilities of touring close-by sites make me quiet about the odd situation at the George W. Bush Library and Center for Right-Wing Propaganda planned for Southern Methodist University. There’s a great chance that the advantages of having the educational resources will outweigh the ignominy of the propaganda activities (though the Hoover Institute makes one appropriately wary).
We got the scores from the state yesterday, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Most of my students are juniors, so this is a big deal. If they pass these tests, in mathematics, science, English language arts and social studies.
Preliminary results gave me a 100% pass rate with 41% commended, out of 134 students whose scores counted (don’t ask about those formulae). Considering that our students’ poverty rate, as measured by school lunches, is well north of 85%, that’s good.
It doesn’t mean all these kids are ready for the Ivy League, though.
I know the preliminary results err somewhere. I can find two students in special education categories who did not muster the scores I had hoped, and to me, it looks like they may need to retake. Two failures wouldn’t be bad, either. I’ll let the state and our administrators fight that out.
So, I’ve done an okay job of teaching our kids bubble guessing. That’ what the TAKS test does, focus teaching on bubble guessing. Are we getting these kids ready for life and college? I have more doubts. The TAKS curriculum is limited, and shallow. Dallas District has two other tests, but again the curriculum tested is limited and shallow.
Each year I discover most students don’t remember what they studied of Paul Revere, and almost none know the famous Longfellow poem about him. They don’t know about Joyce Kilmer, either his poem or the sacrifice of his life.
Reading political cartoons proves difficult for many students, because they don’t understand the symbolism, sometimes of easy stuff like, “who does the Statue of Liberty represent?” or “why is that guy dressed in a star-spangled coat, striped pants and striped top hat?”
They don’t know about Route 66. They don’t know the National Parks. They don’t know Broadway, nor Stephen Foster. They are convinced Utah has some big river that led the Mormons to settle there, “on or near a waterway,” instead of the real reasons the Mormons settled there, for religious freedom in a desert.
Despite their remarkable test achievements, their teachers are all on the chopping block this year. The Texas Lege still quibbles over whether to lay off 10,000 or 100,000 teachers over the summer. We leave the academic year knowing only that the legislature as a collective hates teachers and teaching and schools, and they probably don’t like the students much, either, but they can’t say that because they want the students’ parents’ votes.
Jonathan at JD 2718 sent me a note a couple of weeks ago alerting me to a story in the online Texas Tribune, by Reeve Hamilton. Hamilton interviewed Dr. Michael Marder, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who in his spare times runs UT’s UTeach Program, which encourages the best students in science and math to consider teaching elementary and secondary classes. Marder has a strong case to make that it’s not the teacher’s fault when students in some schools do not measure up to the standards promulgated by the state tests, inadequate and inappropriate as those standards are.
(Personal note: Reeve Hamilton is a very good reporter who often does great work on otherwise mundane issues; he’s also the son of a woman I met in graduate school at the University of Arizona, the first woman who ever gave me a highly contingent proposal of marriage, which as you see we did not carry out — probably much to the benefit of all of us, with Reeve doing such great work, and all our kids being basically sane and sound. I smiled when Jonathan said such good things about Reeve’s work, and the subject of the story. Nice to hear unasked-for compliments about people you know and like.)
Marder knows numbers. Marder got the statistics on schools and their preparation of students for college, as well as we can get those numbers without an expensive and expansive study.
Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.
Texas Tribune said:
In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”
After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.
Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.
Marder indicts those who blame teachers first, with the data. By implication, he also indicts the state legislatures who appear bent on continuing the daily flogging of teachers until teacher morale improves.
In Part I of the interview with Hamilton, Marder shows the statistics that demonstrate poverty of the student is a greater influence on student achievement than the teacher:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
National Poem in Your Pocket Day 2011 - click for details
The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends.
Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores. Create your own Poem In Your Pocket Day event using ideas below or let us know how your plans, projects, and suggestions for Poem In Your Pocket Day by emailing npm@poets.org.
Put Poems In Pockets
In this age of mechanical and digital reproduction, it’s easy to carry a poem, share a poem, or start your own PIYP day event. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:
Start a “poems for pockets” give-a-way in your school or workplace
Urge local businesses to offer discounts for those carrying poems
Post pocket-sized verses in public places
Handwrite some lines on the back of your business cards
Start a street team to pass out poems in your community
Distribute bookmarks with your favorite immortal lines
Add a poem to your email footer
Post a poem on your blog or social networking page
Project a poem on a wall, inside or out
Text a poem to friends
Help us expand the list: send your ideas to npm@poets.org.
Poem In Your Pocket History
Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2004. Each year, city parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Even the Mayor gets in on the festivities, reading a poem on the radio. For more information on New York City’s celebration, visit nyc.gov/poem.
Poems have been stowed in pockets in a variety of ways, from the commonplace books of the Renaissance to the pocket-sized publications for Army soldiers in World War II. Have a story about the marriage of the poem and the pocket? Send them to npm@poets.org.
I just stumbled into National Poetry Month and National Poem in Your Pocket Day a few years ago, gearing up to use The Ride of Paul Revere on the anniversary of his famous ride. How are you using poetry in your job?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 