me likey

http://demandeducation.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/ive-been-called-a-scab/

Perhaps I am a scab
I am not 100% anti union. I think union power and will is skewed, but we do need protection from abuses.
I am a child advocate and believe the needs of the child come FIRST. ALWAYS.
And I happen to be unemployed and looking for work anywhere in the nation; among thousands and thousands of credentialed, jobless teachers.
Oh, and I believe in the free market.
So….
CPS, Chicago Public Schools, strikes. They do not want to be treated similar to charter school teachers, pre-tenure teachers, or any non-union person in the world outside of education. They also want fewer children per class and more funding and support, which I am not against, but striking, when there is no money to find anything, is not the answer. Revolutionizing the system is.
But anyways.
I am a scab. Such an ugly, vile, negatively connotative word, right?
I am a scab because I, if I could, would cross the picket lines in Chicago. Sure, I would be photographed and slandered and denied a job anywhere in the free world (ahh such diplomacy they have… lovely scare tactics, how adult) and if I made a buck or two, great! I need a job and some experience to fill my jobless gap, so, voila, free market….there are teachers needing jobs, here’s some jobs.
I am a scab because, if I could, I would be in Chicago in a hot second to open a school door and put a sign out, ”Hey kids, are you missing your English lessons, and think you deserve a free, fair, decent education, being that it is a right and all? C’mon in.” I mean, I’m fully qualified in my state (and have looked at IL certification…aside from living in Chi-town proper, if I filed the paperwork, I’d be qualified). And guess what? I believe every child can learn beyond his/her own expectations or others, and should be given the best education out there. With a graduation rate hovering around 50%, and college ready kids hovering below 10, these kids need an education. And not just sometimes.
Just like in Detroit when a few kids walked out, sick and tired of a subpar education, demanding more. Heck I’d have been there, too.
So I am a scab.
But you know what? Scabs aren’t just “killing teacher solidarity” or “not giving a s%^t about students and teachers” or “willing to hair-flip and turn on co-workers” or even “the incrustation that forms over a sore or wound during healing”
No. A scab also helps heal, stop bloodshed, attack and kill harmful germs, and protect the wound.
I am a scab. Yes I want to heal the broken education system, stop the bloodshed by giving children the education that they are watching rush away from them, show them teachers do care about them by stopping the proverbial bloodshed, I want to attack the notion of teachers not caring, and kill the lack of education going on. I want to protect our children from poverty, dropping out, etc by giving them the education they darn well deserve, need, and want. So yeah. I’m a scab I guess.

Prisonview Elementary

I interviewed for an administrative position at school X, we'll call it.
I did not get the job after a 5 hour interview including an 8 pages of typing for an in depth analysis/case study thing.

But that is ok. School X should be shut down. I want to expose them for what they do to children.

X is an elementary charter school in Illinois.

X does not have recess. No play time, free time, social time, zone out time, break time. At all. Even in kindergarten.

X does have lunch so I guess that is a "break"? It is either 20 or 30 minutes. They get assigned seats in the cafeteria and sit with their class...so if a 5th grader in Mrs. Teacher's class has a friend in Mr. Teacher's 5th grade class, they won't eat together. Kids just sit and eat and sit and go back to class.

X has P.E./Health but it isn't daily.

X is technology centered. For 1985. They have one computer lab, used once a week per class, for test prep. Joy.

X has students attend from 8-3, but you're supposed to arrive by 730 and stay till 5 for enrichment courses.

X serves a high poverty high minority population


X is "rigorous" and "academics focused" and "college bound, even in kindergarten, we expect every child to attend college"

X has "no mobility, students attend here till they have to go on to public middle school. None leave, they love it here". The official state data website has a different statistic- mobility of 82%, meaning 82% that started, didn't finish there. But the school does not allow new students after October so....yeah...

X does not reward good behavior cause it should be intrinsic. Sure, I agree, but sometimes it helps. If giving Billy a sticker for not cursing the teacher out, so be it, it is in the best interest for the students and staff.

X does not have art or music. Not even the Macaroni Lincoln Art we all did in school, cause it isn't "academic". No "Holiday musical" or anything. And no classroom parties, no birthday celebrations or even last day of school field day.

X has uniforms...ok I am not against that but they even get into sock color and length and stuff.


I have named School X, Prison View Elementary. Cause it sounds like prison.

just an update

I'm not dead in the blog world. That last post was written on my nook, and the typos were a little...much because my husband was on the phone and I was trying to type and listen to his conversation. Found out my dad had a few heart attacks. Thank God he seems ok. That threw my blogging for a swing and I've just not been "into" blogging about education lately. I wanted to establish the fact that I'm not "gone" just on a sort of brain-fart sabattical (however that is written) so...please read my old posts if you have not...there are plenty!

Disjoi ted post in progess ignore for now... celdt vs book on standardized testint, how celdt qs,some fluent kids prob wont pass due to stupid rubrics. 4 pics, explain. To really pass, need detail. Reg kids dont give the detail of a 4, a A grade score let alone english learners. Or certain pics ie gas pump, from the 40s look nothing like todays, some wont know what it is so they fail the queation. Not that that dont know ebglish heck i had to look at it twice.

But wait there's more

..If you read backwards....as this refers to my previous post below this one. Anyways....read that one first...

from http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/04/13/571/

 Therein lies the dichotomy: one form of education is for social control and domination, the other is for social uplift and rejuvenation; one type of intellectual is a programmatic priest for the proselytization of power, the other is an energetic and empowering enemy of entrenched elites.
Whether public or private, the key issue at hand is that of the utility – or purpose – of higher education. Conventional wisdom inflates the classical liberal concept of higher education as a social good, one which may be funded by the state in order to promote the general well-being of society, as inherently cultural institutions designed to raise the intellectual, spiritual, moral, and philosophical standards of society. A more critical history of education tends to downplay the “social good” theory in place of a “social control” theory of education, and specifically, of the social sciences. In this conception, education was designed to produce professional ‘technicians’ who would – using the techniques of science, rationality, and reason – study social problems with a desire to find and recommend specific policies and programs to ameliorate those problems – to promote reforms to the social system – in order to maintain “order.” Order, in this case, is understood as maintaining the social hierarchy. We understand “social order” as the security of the “social hierarchy” precisely because ‘disorder’ is understood as the opposite of this: a threat to the prevailing social hierarchy and institutional structure of society. Order is maintained through manufacturing ideologies, implementing policies, and undertaking programs of social engineering all with a desire to establish ‘social control.’

oh and oopsy, from my last post something I forgot to include but will here being of the same author,

This era marked the emergence of what has been referred to as “technocratic liberalism,” whereby social problems were addressed (in large part by the state, or at least state sanction) through the technical application of programs of social engineering: “the one best way,” the most efficient, effective, and “scientific” approach to understanding and addressing social problems. This was the task taken up by the “rational reformers” of the era, emerging out of the Progressive period, in which the techniques of the social sciences were used to create a system of “social control.” These social engineers– social scientists, technocratic reformers, experts, philanthropists, etc. – felt that society could “control its collective destiny in contrast to drifting with the tides… even while working toward the management of the many by the few.”[57]

and back to the article at hand,

The difference in ideology then, is that the word is used to deride and dismiss theories and ideas which challenge, critique, or oppose power, hierarchy, and the status quo. Those ideas, theories, philosophies and perspectives which support power, hierarchy, and the status quo, are not presented as “ideology,” but as “disinterested knowledge,” as a fact, not in need of proof, but of an assumed nature. They are simply accepted, and are therefore, not ideology. This is also widely reflected in the differences of the academic journals, between those which are establishment and elitist, and those which are critical and allow for more dissent. An example is Foreign Affairs, the premier foreign policy journal, run by the Council on Foreign Relations, the most influential think tank in the United States. In this journal, the articles and essays, written by various “experts” and active, former, or prospective policy-makers and those who hold seats of power, contain largely little or no citations whatsoever. All the ‘facts’ and ideas stated within the articles do not need citations or references because they are ideas which support the status quo, and therefore, they simply reflect the ‘perceived’ realities of society.

meh...more later perhaps.

Yep another Copy/Paste no commentary post...

Yep another C&P post without commentary....but worth a read. I pondered upon these articles today and to really "get' them, read them, but I wanted to share key bits that I found of particular interest.

From http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/04/02/class-war-and-the-college-crisis-the-crisis-of-democracy-and-the-attack-on-education/

Huntington identifies “the blacks” as one such group that had become politically active, posing a “danger of overloading the political system with demands.” Of course, this implies directly an elitist version of “democracy” in which the state retains the democratic aesthetic (voting, separation of powers, rule of law) but remains exclusively in the hands of the wealthy power elite. Huntington, in his conclusion, stated that the vulnerability of democracy – the ‘crisis of democracy’ – comes “from the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society,” and that what is needed is “a more balanced existence” in which there are “desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy.”[3] In other words, what is needed is less democracy and more authority

and

 The Trilateral Commission further sent rampant shivers through the intellectual elite community by discussing the perceived threat of “value-oriented intellectuals” who dare to “assert their disgust with the corruption, materialism, and inefficiency of democracy and with the subservience of democratic government to ‘monopoly capitalism’.” For the members and constituents (elites) of the Trilateral Commission, they did not hold back on the assessment of such a threat, stating that, “this development constitutes a challenge to democratic government which is, potentially at least, as serious as those posed in the past by the aristocratic cliques, fascist movements, and communist parties.”[5] This is a very typical elitist use of rhetoric in which when identifying any perceived threat to elite interests, they are portrayed in near-apocalyptic terms. The implication, therefore, is that intellectuals who challenge authority are presented as much of a threat to democracy as Hitler and fascism were....The Trilateral Commission report explained – through economic reasoning – how increased democracy is simply unsustainable. The “democratic surge” gave disadvantaged groups new rights and made them politically active (such as blacks), and this resulted in increased demands upon the very system whose legitimacy had been weakened. A terrible scenario for elites!

and

The “threat” of educated youth was especially pronounced. In 1978, the Management Development Institute (a major business school in India) released a report in which it stated:
perhaps the most pernicious trend over the next decade is the growing gap between an increasingly well educated labor force and the number of job openings which can utilize its skills and qualifications… The potential for frustration, alienation and disruption resulting from the disparity between educational attainment and the appropriate job content cannot be overemphasized.[11]
In these commentaries, we are dealing with two diametrically opposed definitions of democracy: popular and elitist. Popular democracy is government of, by, and for the people; elitist democracy is government of, by, and for the rich (but with the outward aesthetic of democracies), channeling popular participation into voting instead of decision-making or active participation. Popular democracy implies the people participating directly in the decisions and functions and maintenance of the ‘nation’ (though not necessarily the State); whereas elitist democracy implies passive participation of the population so much as to allow them to feel as if they play an important role in the direction of society, while the elites control all the important levers and institutions of power which direct and benefit from the actions of the state.

and

Forget the poor, black, and disenfranchised segments of society; forget the disabled, the labeled, and the imprisoned; forget those on welfare, food stamps, dependent upon social services or local charity; forget the entire population of the United States, who can only incite government recognition and support after years of struggle, constant protests, police repression, assault, c
urtailment of basic human rights and dignity; those struggles which seek only the attainment of a genuine status of human being, to be treated equal and fair… no, forget those people! The true “forgotten” and “oppressed” are the executives at Union Carbide, Exxon, General Electric, GM, Ford, DuPont, Dow, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, and Monsanto. They, truly, are the disenfranchised… At least, according to Lewis Powell

and

Debt thus disciplines the student toward a different purpose in their education: toward a job and financial benefits rather than toward knowledge and understanding. Activism then, is more of an impediment to, rather than a supporter of knowledge and education.

But wait there's more!  From http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/04/08/the-purpose-of-education-social-uplift-or-social-control/

The spread of ‘mass education’ of primary and secondary education from the Prussian system in the 18^th century was designed to socialize the population into a state-structured ideology (taking the monopoly of education away from the religious and community institutions and into the hands of the emerging nation-state). The aim, therefore, of mass – or public – education was not a benevolent concept of expanding and sharing knowledge (as is purported in liberal thought), but rather as a means to foster patriotism and support the state system in preserving the social class structures. In 1807, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the founding philosophers of this system, explained that educated was the means toward fostering patriotism, as “universal, state-directed, compulsory education would teach all Germans to be good Germans and would prepare them to play whatever role – military, economic, political – fell to them in helping the state reassert Prussian power.”[1] As British philosopher Bertrand Russell explained:

Fichte laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.[2]......The lower levels of education are directed at producing “general outputs for society,” while the higher levels may actually reflect and affect “socially and politically constituted authority.” In short, the lower levels produce the masses, while the higher levels may produce the managers. The university system is the dominant form of higher education in the world, far outweighing other forms of educational institutions that have existed through history. 

and

The Robber Baron industrialists of the late 19^th century – Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Astor, Vanderbilt, Harriman, etc. – were unquestionably the dominant powers in the country. They controlled the economy, hundreds of corporations, had hundreds of millions or billions in wealth, the banks, bought the politicians, directed foreign policy into an increasingly imperialistic direction, and thus, they saw it as essential to cement their control over society through social institutions, as the masses were hateful of them and needed to be properly controlled. Social control became the major concept of interest for elites and middle class reformers.In this era of social control, education became increasingly important, not only in terms of mass schooling, which experienced many reforms, but also in terms of the university system. As Andrew Carnegie wrote in 1889, at the top of the list of “charitable deeds” to undertake was “the founding of a university by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any country.” 

and

with the idea of “science in the service of society” as a goal for the foundation, basing its actions upon a new rationality brought on by the scientific revolution, and by the notions of reform pushed forward in the Progressive Era, based largely upon the concept of scientific social planning “to problems that educators, the new sociologists, social workers, and political scientists found important.” However, as the wealth of the foundations and the positions of their patrons attracted criticisms, a Congressional commission was on industrial relations (founded to settle a matter related to a brutal repression of a mining strike by a Rockefeller-owned mining company) expanded its scope to deal with the general issue of the foundations. The Walsh Commission, as it was known (after its founder, Frank P. Walsh), was formed in 1914, and Walsh explained the inclusion of the foundations in the commission by postulating that:
the creation of the Rockefeller and other foundations was the beginning of an effort to perpetuate the present position of predatory wealth through the corruption of sources of public information… [and] that if not checked by legislation, these foundations will be used as instruments to change to form of government of the U.S. at a future date, and there is even a hint that there is a fear of a monarchy.[35]
In 1916, the Walsh Commission produced its final report, the Manly Report (after the research director, Basil M. Manly), which concluded that the foundations were so “grave a menace” to society, that “it would be desirable to recommend their abolition.” No such actions were taken.[36]

and

In 1932-33, as the Board was considering the proposals of reform in education, all the programs were subject to the ultimate approval of the Board of Trustees of the GEB, which at the time included 15 individuals, all of whom were white, male protestants, including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and his 27 year old son, John D. Rockefeller, III, and most of whom had been educated at Ivy League schools or the University of Chicago, which had been founded by John D. Rockefeller. Nine of the fifteen trustees were also academics, and seven of them had been senior administrators at major educational institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, N.Y.U, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. Other members of the trustees included Owen Young, Chairman of the Board of General Electric, as well as banker Arthur Woods, and Raymond Fosdick, a Wall Street lawyer who would later become President of the Rockefeller Foundation. By 1931, the GEB’s survey of education emphasized three major fields of concentration:1) the study of the learning process and the mental, physical, and moral development of the individual; 2) the problem of “preparing the individual for vocations and leisure”; and 3) the means for relating education to an evolving society, that is education which would “insure the active adaptation of the individual to the changes which may come in his social, physical and aesthetic environments.”[49] 

And there's a third article too.....

OWS Arab Spring Agenda 21 and more.... a 1932 time warp

From http://courses.wccnet.edu/~palay/cls2002/counts.htm  an article by George S Counts in 1932.....some things that seem much too prophetic, his 1932 sounds like today, the cries of OWS, the ideas of Agenda 21, etc....
Bear with me as a give a smattering of lengthy verbose quotes from the article, without commentary...but I feel if you take the time to read them, they speak for themselves.

The need for the founding of Progressive Education on an adequate social theory is peculiarly imperative today. We live in troublous times; we live in an age of profound change; we live in an age of revolution. Indeed, it is highly doubtful whether man ever lived in a more eventful period than the present. In order to match our epoch we would probably have to go back to the fall of ancient empires, or even to that unrecorded age when men first abandoned the simple arts of hunting and fishing and trapping and began to experiment with agriculture and the settled life. Today we are witnessing the rise of civilization quite without precedent in human history -- a civilization which is founded on science, technology, and machinery, which possesses the most extraordinary power, and which is rapidly making the entire world a single great society. As a consequence of forces already released, whether in the field of economics, politics, morals, religion, or art, the old molds are being broken. And the peoples of the earth are seething with strange ideas and passions. If life were peaceful and quiet and undisturbed by great issues, we might, with some show of wisdom, center our attention on the nature of the child. But with the world as it is, we cannot afford for a single instant to remove our eyes from the social scene.

In this new world that is forming, there is one set of issues which is peculiarly fundamental, and which is certain to be the center of bitter and prolonged struggle. I refer to those issues which may be styled economic. President Butler has well stated the case: "For a generation and more past," he says, "the center of human interest has been moving from the point which it occupied for some four hundred years to a new point which it bids fair to occupy for a time equally long. The shift in the position of the center of gravity in human interest has been from politics to economics; from considerations that had to do with forms of government, with the establishment and protection of individual liberty, to considerations that have to do with the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth."

and,

Consider the situation in which we find ourselves today. How the gods must laugh at human folly! And who among us, if he had not been reared among our institutions, could believe his eyes as he surveys the economic situation, or his ears as he listens to solemn disquisitions by our financial and political leaders on the cause and cure of the depression! Here is a society in which a mastery over the forces of nature, surpassing the wildest dreams of antiquity, is accompanied by extreme material insecurity; in which dire poverty walks hand in hand with the most extravagant living that the world has ever known; in which an abundance of goods of all kinds is coupled with privation, misery, and even starvation; in which an excess of production is seriously offered as the underlying cause of severe physical suffering; in which breakfastless children march to school past bankrupt shops laden with rich foods gathered from the ends of the earth; in which strong men by the millions walk the streets in a futile search for employment and, with the exhaustion of hope, enter the ranks of beaten men; in which so-called captains of industry close factories without warning and dismiss the workmen by whose labors they have amassed great fortunes through the years; in which automatic machinery increasingly displaces men and threatens the economic order with a growing contingent of the permanently unemployed; in which racketeers and gangsters, with the connivance of public officials, fasten themselves on the channels of trade and exact toll at the end of the machine gun; in which economic parasitism, either within or without the law, has become so easy for the cunning and the ruthless that the tradition seems to be taking root that "only saps work"; in which the wages paid to the workers are too meagre to enable them to buy back the goods they produce; in which consumption is subordinated to production and the science of psychology is employed to fan the flames of desire; in which a governmental commission advises cotton growers to plow under every fourth row of cotton in order to bolster up the market; in which both ethical and esthetic considerations are commonly over-ridden by "practical" men bent on material gain; in which the dole to the unemployed is opposed on the grounds that it will pauperize the masses when the favored classes, through the institution of interest, have always lived on the dole; in which our most responsible leaders, not knowing what to do, resort to the practices of the witch doctor and vie with one another in predicting the return of prosperity; in which an ideal of rugged individualism, evolved in a simple pioneering and agrarian order at a time when free land existed in abundance, is used to justify a system, which exploits pitilessly and without thought of the morrow, the natural and human resources of the nation and the world. One can only imagine what Jeremiah would say if he could step out of the pages of the Old Testament and cast his eyes over this

and yet some more....yes, I bring in education here....

The achievement of this goal, however, would seem to require fundamental changes in the economic system. Historic capitalism, with its deification of the principle of selfishness, its reliance upon the forces of competition, its placing of property above human rights, and its exaltation of the profit motive, will either have to be displaced altogether, or so radically changed in form and spirit that its identity will be completely lost. In view of the fact that the urge for private gain tends to debase everything that it touches, whether business, recreation, religion, art, or friendship, the indictment against capitalism might well be made on moral grounds. And these are the grounds on which the attack has commonly been made in the past. Today, however, capitalism is proving itself weak at the very point where it has generally been thought impregnable – in the organization and the maintenance of production. In its present form capitalism is not only cruel and inhuman; it is also wasteful and inefficient. It has exploited our natural riches without the slightest regard for the future; it has made technology serve the interests of the profit motive; it has chained the engineer to the vagaries of the price system; it has plunged great nations of the world into a succession of wars, ever more devastating and catastrophic in character; and only recently, it has brought on a world crisis of such dimensions that millions of men in all of the great industrial countries have been thrown out of work and a general condition of paralysis pervades the entire economic order. Obviously, the growth of science and technology has reached a point where competition must be replaced by coöperation, the urge for profits by careful planning, and private capitalism by some form of socialized economy.

Changes in our economic system will, of course, require changes in our ideals. The individualism of the pioneer or the farmer, produced by free land, great distances, economic independence, and a largely self-sustaining family economy, is already without solid foundation in either agriculture or industry. The free land has long since disappeared, the great distances have been shortened immeasurably by invention, the economic independence survives only in the traditions of our people, and the self-sustaining family economy has been swallowed up in a vast society which disregards the boundaries of nations. Already we live in an economy which, in its function, is fundamentally coöperative. There merely remains the task of reconstructing our economic forms and of reformulating our social ideals so that they may be in harmony with the underlying facts of life. The man who would live unto himself alone is now a public enemy; the day of individualism in the economic sphere is gone.

To those who fear that the development of a coördinated, planned, and socialized economy may be accompanied by a severe curtailment of personal freedom, there are several things to be said. That under such an economy the actions of the individuals in certain directions would be limited is fairly obvious. No one would be permitted to build a new factory or railroad wherever he pleased; also no one would be permitted to amass great riches by manipulating the economic institutions of the country. On the other hand, by means of the complete and uninterrupted functioning of the economic system the foundations could be laid for the a measure of freedom in the realm of personal life that mankind has never known in the past. Freedom without a secure economic base is simply no freedom at all. Thus, in comparison with the right to work and eat, the right to vote is but an empty bauble. Today only the plutocracy have freedom with an economic support; and even in their case this freedom may be rather precarious. If all of us could be assured of material security and abundance, we would be released from economic worries and our minds set free to grapple with the really important questions of life – the intellectual, the moral, and the esthetic. The point should also be made that the full utilization of modern technology, a condition on which our entire argument rests, requires the planning and coördination of economic processes. We might, of course, resolve to retire into the simple agrarian society of the past; but we could scarcely hope to persuade many of our fellow men to follow us. And, no doubt, those few who might make such a resolution would like to take with them certain of the fruits of industrialism – bathtubs, electricity, and various labor-saving devices.

The problem of the reconstruction of our economic order, however, is not the only problem that we face. Profound changes in this realm are being accompanied and must be accompanied by equally profound changes in other fields. Life cannot be divided neatly into a number of separate compartments. The reduction of the hours of labor and the ushering in of an age of material abundance must have severe repercussions in the spheres of art, government, morals, and religion. Indeed, we see this very thing happening in contemporary society today. And while in the present paper attention is centered on the economic question, our educational theory will have to embrace the entire range of life. It will have to deal, not only with labor and income and property, but also with leisure and recreation, sex and family, government and public opinion, race and nationality, war and peace, art and esthetics.

Eugenics Alive and Well Today

So this will be a disjointed post, more to just collect information and thoughts.

The study and worship of eugenics is alive....not dead....

I was researching the notion of racial inferority and IQ and found an article that led to another and another....you get the idea...and I came across this,

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx

Which claims....

1. The Worldwide Pattern of IQ Scores. East Asians average higher on IQ tests than Whites, both in the U. S. and in Asia, even though IQ tests were developed for use in the Euro-American culture. Around the world, the average IQ for East Asians centers around 106; for Whites, about 100; and for Blacks about 85 in the U.S. and 70 in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Race Differences are Most Pronounced on Tests that Best Measure the General Intelligence Factor (g). Black-White differences, for example, are larger on the Backward Digit Span test than on the less g loaded Forward Digit Span test.
3. The Gene-Environment Architecture of IQ is the Same in all Races, and Race Differences are Most Pronounced on More Heritable Abilities. Studies of Black, White, and East Asian twins, for example, show the heritability of IQ is 50% or higher in all races.
4. Brain Size Differences. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) find a correlation of brain size with IQ of about 0.40. Larger brains contain more neurons and synapses and process information faster. Race differences in brain size are present at birth. By adulthood, East Asians average 1 cubic inch more cranial capacity than Whites who average 5 cubic inches more than Blacks.
5. Trans-Racial Adoption Studies. Race differences in IQ remain following adoption by White middle class parents. East Asians grow to average higher IQs than Whites while Blacks score lower. The Minnesota Trans-Racial Adoption Study followed children to age 17 and found race differences were even greater than at age 7: White children, 106; Mixed-Race children, 99; and Black children, 89.
6. Racial Admixture Studies. Black children with lighter skin, for example, average higher IQ scores. In South Africa, the IQ of the mixed-race "Colored" population averages 85, intermediate to the African 70 and White 100.
7. IQ Scores of Blacks and Whites Regress toward the Averages of Their Race. Parents pass on only some exceptional genes to offspring so parents with very high IQs tend to have more average children. Black and White children with parents of IQ 115 move to different averages--Blacks toward 85 and Whites to 100.
8. Race Differences in Other "Life-History" Traits. East Asians and Blacks consistently fall at two ends of a continuum with Whites intermediate on 60 measures of maturation, personality, reproduction, and social organization. For example, Black children sit, crawl, walk, and put on their clothes earlier than Whites or East Asians.
9. Race Differences and the Out-of-Africa theory of Human Origins. East Asian-White-Black differences fit the theory that modern humans arose in Africa about 100,000 years ago and expanded northward. During prolonged winters there was evolutionary selection for higher IQ created by problems of raising children, gathering and storing food, gaining shelter, and making clothes.
10. Do Culture-Only Theories Explain the Data? Culture-only theories do not explain the highly consistent pattern of race differences in IQ, especially the East Asian data. No interventions such as ending segregation, introducing school busing, or "Head Start" programs have reduced the gaps as culture-only theory would predict.

What a hoot! But then I began to wonder, who are the folks that wrote this? And on another this article and that article hunt I went...

The authors, and a person who compliments their work are: J Philippe Rushton and Arthur R Jensen, and their "worshipper" giving praise, Linda Gottfredson. So who are Rushton, Jenses, Gottfredson?

Well, Jensen has received over $1million from the Pioneer Fund. More on them later. Other stuff about him, prof. emeritus of Educational Psych at UC Berkeley, got his phD from Columbia and did post-doc research in psychiatry. (Great so his racist ideas were taught to our teachers!) He was named as one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Has authored over 435 articles books etc.

Rushton is head of the Pioneer Fund, and member of the American, Canadian, British Psych. Associations. He bounced around many universities for his education, and has taught psychology in many universities as well.

Gottfredson got her BA in Psych from UC Berkeley, and a PhD (Sociology) from John Hopkins. To cut and paste from wikipedia...

Board of directors, International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, 2005–present.

Editorial board, Learning and Individual Differences, 2004–present.

Editorial board, Intelligence, 2004–present.

Advisory board, International Society for Intelligence Research, 2000–present (Founding Member).

Board of editorial advisors, Society, 1997–present.

Editorial board, The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 1997-2000.

National Council, Federation of American Scientists, 1995-1999.

Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Oversight hearing on the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., May 20, 1997.

Board of directors, Society of Psychologists in Management, 1994-1997.

Board of directors, Society for the Study of Social Biology, 1990-1994.

Editorial board, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1983-1990.

Consultant, Department of Labor (DOT revision [APDOT, contract to American Psychological Association], implementation of "Goals 2000" [contract to Institute for Educational Leadership]), 1992-1995.

Consultant, Department of Defense Student Testing Program contract awarded to Booz-Allen, Inc. 1989-1991.

Panel member, Advisory Panel on the Identification of Alternative Approaches for reporting Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores. U.S. Manpower Entrance Processing Command, San Antonio, TX, November 1987.

Consultant, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1987-1989.

Wow just wow.....she is racist/eugenic, teaching our teachers to follow suit, encouraging MORE testing in schools, businesses, military, managing of people, social biology (ahem eugenics) and civil rights. What a crock. She is a Professor at U Delaware of Educational Psychology.

The Pioneer Institute....? Their first president was H. H. Laughlin, director of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Springs Harbor, funded by Carnegie; Princeton PhD grad.

Go visit http://www.pioneerfund.org/Founders.html  for more, their founders were all eugenicists and the Pioneer Fund exists today, Rushton their head, enjoy!

educational philosophy quiz

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072877723/student_view0/chapter9/what_do_you_think_.html
I tied my highest score for perenialism and existentialism (22). My lowest was social reconstructionism (13), makes sense, followed by progressivism.

You see a graph of all responses. For those that think my chastising of progressivism, social control in education is out dated, not happening, think again. The new teachers and those in teaching colleges have scores here which align with the highest score in progressivism (22) followed by a close second, social reconstructionism (21). The lowest is existentialism (14).

EXISTENTIALISM: Related to education, the subject matter of existentialist classrooms should be a matter of personal choice. Teachers view the individual as an entity within a social context in which the learner must confront others' views to clarify his or her own. Character development emphasizes individual responsibility for decisions. Real answers come from within the individual, not from outside authority. Examining life through authentic thinking involves students in genuine learning experiences. Existentialists are opposed to thinking about students as objects to be measured, tracked, or standardized. Such educators want the educational experience to focus on creating opportunities for self-direction and self actualization. They start with the student, rather than on curriculum content. (YES!!! THIS IS WHAT EDUCATION SHOULD BE! IS IT ANY WONDER THAT MOST TEACHERS RATE LEAST IN THIS?)


ESSENTIALISM is an educational philosophy whose adherents believe that children should learn the traditional basic subjects thoroughly and rigorously. In this philosophical school of thought, the aim is to instill students with the "essentials" of academic knowledge, enacting a back-to-basics approach. Essentialism ensures that the accumulated wisdom of our civilization as taught in the traditional academic disciplines is passed on from teacher to student. Such disciplines might include Reading, Writing, Literature, Foreign Languages, History, Mathematics, Science, Art, and Music. Moreover, this traditional approach is meant to train the mind, promote reasoning, and ensure a common culture.


PERRENIALISM Perennialists believe that one should teach the things that one deems to be of everlasting importance to all people everywhere. They believe that the most important topics develop a person. Since details of fact change constantly, these cannot be the most important. Therefore, one should teach principles, not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, not machines or techniques. Since people are people first, and workers second if at all, one should teach liberal topics first, not vocational topics.

A particular strategy with modern perennialists is to teach scientific reasoning, not facts. They may illustrate the reasoning with original accounts of famous experiments. This gives the students a human side to the science, and shows the reasoning in action. Most importantly, it shows the uncertainty and false steps of real science.

Although perennialism may appear similar to essentialism, perennialism focuses first on personal development, while essentialism focuses first on essential skills. Essentialist curricula thus tend to be much more vocational and fact-based, and far less liberal and principle-based. Both philosophies are typically considered to beteacher-centered, as opposed to student-centered philosophies of education such asprogressivism. However, since the teachers associated with perennialism are in a sense the authors of the Western masterpieces themselves, these teachers may be open to student criticism through the associated Socratic method, which, if carried out as true dialogue, is a balance between students, including the teacher promoting the discussion.  (ehh I kinda agree and don't. I scored high because I believe we are not to train workers but minds. I like facts but think we do need to train how to think, scientific reason for example.)

PROGRESSIVISM Progressivists believe that education should focus on the whole child, rather than on the content or the teacher. This educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The learner is a problem solver and thinker who makes meaning through his or her individual experience in the physical and cultural context. Effective teachers provide experiences so that students can learn by doing. Curriculum content is derived from student interests and questions. The scientific method is used by progressivist educators so that students can study matter and events systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on process-how one comes to know. The Progressive education philosophy was established in America from the mid 1920s through the mid 1950s. John Dewey was its foremost proponent. One of his tenets was that the school should improve the way of life of our citizens through experiencing freedom and democracy in schools. Shared decision making, planning of teachers with students, student-selected topics are all aspects. Books are tools, rather than authority. 

SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTIONISM 

Social reconstructionism is a philosophy that emphasizes the addressing of social questions and a quest to create a better society and worldwide democracy. Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights social reform as the aim of education. Theodore Brameld (1904-1987) was the founder of social reconstructionism, in reaction against the realities of World War II. He recognized the potential for either human annihilation through technology and human cruelty or the capacity to create a beneficent society using technology and human compassion. George Counts (1889-1974) recognized that education was the means of preparing people for creating this new social order.
Critical theorists, like social reconstructionists, believe that systems must be changed to overcome oppression and improve human conditions. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian whose experiences living in poverty led him to champion education and literacy as the vehicle for social change. In his view, humans must learn to resist oppression and not become its victims, nor oppress others. To do so requires dialog and critical consciousness, the development of awareness to overcome domination and oppression. Rather than "teaching as banking," in which the educator deposits information into students' heads, Freire saw teaching and learning as a process of inquiry in which the child must invent and reinvent the world.
For social reconstructionists and critical theorists, curriculum focuses on student experience and taking social action on real problems, such as violence, hunger, international terrorism, inflation, and inequality. Strategies for dealing with controversial issues (particularly in social studies and literature), inquiry, dialogue, and multiple perspectives are the focus. Community-based learning and bringing the world into the classroom are also strategies. It promotes education as a means to create a new social order. (creepy)

The Death of Education part V

from The Death of Education by Eric Olsen....

The problem with this kind of teaching [worksheets and basically all the "educating" you see in schools today] is that it creates a system in which students have no long-term responsibility in the course. Once each paper comes back to them it can be promptly thrown in the recycling bin. Once each test is taken the information learned can be instantly forgotten to make room for the next unit's information.

THis quote had me up half the night. Seriously.
It really irked me that my students would just toss their work in the recycling bin, and forget all about what they learned. Teach, assign, grade, toss, repeat. But, I couldn't figure out why it bugged me so much, except that maybe they threw away their precious work, don't they care? But it is not, was not, precious work. It was often busy work given to "master" a standard. I meant well, I really did. With my obsession of vocabulary worksheets (they had to use it in a sentence, define it, guess meaning from context, draw a picture of it, give synonyms, antonyms, part of speech- these worsheets would get the gold star and blue ribbon for model lesson, perfect worksheet, by most educators, schools, colleges, textbooks etc) and the significant rise in standardizded test vocabulary scores. I WAS effective, these worksheets WERE effective. So what was wrong?

They were, simply, part of the teach, assign, grade, toss cycle. Sure, they raised test scores but did they do anything more? No. Did they build upon each other? No. Think of learning as this: as a child, you learn to walk, of course. First, you roll on your tummy. Then inch, and finally crawl. Then you stand, creep, take a step, two steps, three, and you're suddenly running, jumping, kicking. Think of this model for education. PLEASE do. Try and apply it. Where do my vocabulary worksheets and vocabulary tests fit in? Maybe....crawling. Each week, I gave different words. Here, baby, crawl on blue carpet. Next week, baby, crawl on beige carpet. The following week, baby is taught to crawl on green carpet. Or, student, define, test, prove your proficiency in these 10 vocabulary terms. Next week, how about these ten?     

Think of many lessons in school....back to your day as a student, or your children as students, or if you work in school, your own observed experiences. How many courses, classes, lessons and units teach us valuable lessons, building on one another, so that we roll, crawl, walk? Very few.

The idea that all students- if they are actually learning something they don't already know how to do- will be successful from the start of a class is preposterous....

..and yet it happens everywhere, every day, all the time. We tell students they all start with class with an A. An F is certain doom. There is no room for a learning curve, you know, the stage between rolling and walking. Students are supposed to walk from the first day of school each year, and if you mark down that it is October and they are still crawling (or "failing to master the curriculum")  the teacher is neary tarred and feathered for being a "bad' teacher, the parents are angry their child is failing, administration is asking why half the class is failing. Again, I know from experience, where I tried to have students revise essays to earn an A, and most ended up with F grades, refusing to revise (even if I told them verbatim what to do, add a period here, indent, that word ends with an E not Y...) but who "failed" and got "in trouble"? Me.  Instead of starting my students out crawling and telling them hey, keep at, it, you will get stronger legs and be standing and creeping in no time, and then, bam! Walking! I got....stuck. Students were so used to getting praised for walking, getting As, when they still were rolling, had yet to master the idea. They had un-edited essays, just waiting to be edited and improved. But they'd always received As, Bs, Cs for a shoddy essay, why try for a good essay? Why walk when you can roll and be told you're walking?    In this instance, I had only one student revise her essay more than once. Of 35 students, 5 revised their rough draft once, so that 6 total did any revisions. The others were content with their F. I mean, they knew their parents, or the principal, would freak out and either make me change the grade to a C, fire me, or secretly change the grade behind my back anyways.

The problem here is, I've been so used to a crawl-only system, I am stuck on how to make a 100% course, in English, where things build upon each other, students begin failing or nearly so and end succeeding, where work isn't tossed because it is needed for the next task or discovery. I want to develop a curriculum based on this, but I'm stuck.....how do I do it? And, if I figure that part out, could I actually implement it in a classroom? Because NCLB, standards, tests "Claim" to build on skills, scaffold, be valuable bla bla bla, but they are anything but.

Which brings another question. I'm bolding it because it's that...wow...WHAT IF I OPENED A PUBLIC SCHOOL (CHARTER?) THAT SAID TO HELL WITH NCLB TESTS AND STANDARDS?  I'd face to lose at least 11% of revenue, as that is how much comes through the fed for following NCLB and its standards and tests. What if I found some non-biased billionaire to help me out, make up for that loss of 11% revenue? Sure I'd have some major mobility in school, as parents realized OMG, my child is not assessed, neither is the teacher, how do I know they're learning, being taught, progressing? How can I grade the value of my child's education without standards and standardized exams???" again, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't- parnets will likely still embrace NCLB. But I'd also attrach students who stayed. I'd become a montessori/private school style school, but for FREE. Not a charter school that follows all the ed code and NCLB and just does the same damned things the public schools do, with just more freedom. No. It's not a "charters are so much more free, I mean, look, they can teach how they want to..as long as it meets state and federal standards, API, AYP, NCLB.....they have total freedom....to do exactly as the public schools have to do.....wait...it's the same, just one is a shade different with the same goals and procedures". No. It would be the education our children DESERVE and FOR FREE.  As long as, you know, my school could get WASC accreditation, A-G requirements, state funding for all my rebellious ways. You know, as long as my credentian wasn't revoked, my school shut down or taken over, as long as I wasn't ridiculed into social and professional suicide, because the status quo is fighting to maintain their position at ALL COSTS including THE COST OF YOUR CHILDREN.
          

The Death of Education part IV

From The Death of Education by Eric Olsen....

Very quickly they [teachers] learn that by maintaining a low profile they avoid all kinds of negative consequences , things like parent-teacher conferences, principal-teacher conferences, counselor-teacher conferences, as well as a host of extra-currilular stress in the form of letters to the editor, discussion among school board members, and the chiched but very real gossip around town.

Maintain a low profile- don't make waves, and you avoid contention and get to keep your job! Maintain the status quo and you get tenure! Don't try and shake things up and actually try and teach, educate, because that means we, the school, will make life a living hell for you, the teacher. I know this because I have experienced it first-hand. I could go on and on (and have in previous blog posts) about my experiences in the classroom, getting written up for challening the system. Sure I can say I care about kids and their education but I best stay in my subordinated, shovel the same sh%$ around, do-nothing- position, smiling as I deal out worksheets, scantrons, and scripted curriculum. Speaking up, voicing my opinion, challenging the system paints me as the enemy and I am exiled.

Something is very wrong with that.

Teachers routinely give out passing grades to students who have failed....teachers escape having to justify flunking a student and students get to move on to the next class without having to master the skills and concepts taught in the course.

I have seen grades "magically" change in the transcripts, students held back magically promoted to the next grade, I've been told I must (or be fired) give failing students an "incomplete" which, guess what, becomes passing credit (again, "magically) upon graduation. Suddenly, when I, gasp, expect children to EARN their grade, they simply don't.... besides, if three years after my class, their F in my class is suddenly a C, do I hold my word, that an F is an F, a C is a C and so forth?    I have had former students tell me something like, "college is sooo hard, I was a good student in high school but not anymore. College expects me to know all this stuff I was never taught". Businesses and colleges alike cite the disparity between high school and college/the work world- kids come to college/work knowing very little.

This was the drive behind the accountabilty movement and NCLB, but if NCLB's standards and assessments merely assess rote learning, fact regurgitation, simple concepts, is it any wonder why children are still not "prepared"? The very system brought about to change the dumbing down of education just perpetuates it.  And, we get students in high school who do not know how to divide, read a newspaper, or speak to an audience because, to not damage their precious little butterfly egos- or to just avoid the "drama" they are passed up and up and up and on. Someone else's problem, who will take the easy road and pass them, until they are so far behind that the current system truly cannot help them advance. That is a travesty. Intellectual abuse.   And...also...we wonder why kids don't do their work, do well on tests? They either lack the skills, or they know the system is a game to their advantage- why work your butt off for a B when you can go to class, text your friends all period, never do a thing, and pass with a B as well? Why even try?

The Death of Education Part III

The Death of Education by Eric Olsen....

In this method the teacher reduces the level of skill that is necessary in all assigned work so that she doesn't have to teach anyone. Instead of writing assignments, worksheets are given so that those in the lower third can still progress by working with partners or copying the answers from someone else outside class. Instead of reading that requires thoughtful and evidence based answers, these teachers ask simple, knowledge-based questions that deal primaily with the most superficial aspects of the writing: character details and actions, plot points, and descriptions of setting.

Very true, in curriculum and testing. But ask a student a more complex question, "why do you think ___did ___?"  , "In your opinion, should ____ have done ___ and why?" students run into a wall. They're been so trained by high school (even 5th grade in my experience) to look up an answer, "the main character is Susan, says so on page 5" and not actually THINK that they don't know how. I see high school students thrashing through book pages, near the point of tears, looking for the answer to, "in your opinion....."    


Olsen also writes, but I'll praraphase, about extra credit. Students can slack through a semester, do nearly nothing, and then the week before grades, pull all-nighters of extra credit to raise their D to a B. Students have come to expect extra credit, as have parents. Even administration has; Olsen mentions that he had failing students and angry parents and the principal suggested to give the child extra credit to raise his grade.   I humbly admit I've given extra credit, but it is to such litte a degree that their 68% D might become a 69% D; not an A. That way if a child has an on-the border grade, a 89.3% B+ they can bump it to a very low A-.

Regarding inclusion, Olsen states,

And so every year, the entire group goes right along together up to the next class, despite their deficiencies, despite the fact that they're not "exactly alike and at the same time and year", so that by the time they get to secondary school there is no way to give low performing students the remediation they need, much less challenge any student to reach their full potential

.

If students are not allowed time for "practice makes perfect", to master a topic because "we have to move on to the next standard. The class next door is 3v worksheet answers ahead of us, hurry!" then this just perpetuates the gap between the inclusion students and the rest. It's cruel, to not give them the time and help they need, to not give that to any student, really.

Which also reminds me of something I hang my head in shame about. I had a student who, well he did pass my class, but....sigh. I had a final project where they compared Of Mice and Men to racism, genderism, ableism in history. He chose his project on racism and genocide; since we had "closed internet" I had to provide students (and the tech guy) websites that I had specially allowed to be seen, so it was easiest to give say, 5 websites on various genocides and have them report on how they all relate. Well this child used the wi-fi across the street to get the websites he wanted, and he spent three weeks reading about the Armenian Genocide. He turned nothing in so without evidence, I had to give him an F. Shame on me. I was so entrenched in the system that I wanted paper-based evidence that he mastered the concept, and that he connected the 5 genocides to slavery which conects to Of Mice and Men.... which he did not do. So, sorry, F it is. But I bet you, had I realized this, and sat down and asked him to tell me what he learned, he'd talk my ear off. He might not overtly say "it relates to the book because....." but darnit, he learned.

Also... by high school, since everyone just passes kids on, you get nearly illiterate kids. Why are there so many illiterate adults? People wonder, how did they make it into high school, graduate, without reading? Well, some would say "I don't know" to a question and get passed on to the next teacher. Or they would copy a friend's worksheet and thus pass the class. They'd say "I don't want to read aloud today" and get away with it.  They'd show up to class and get a C just for being seated. By the time I get a child in 5th grade who cannot even compose a sentence, or in 10th grade when a child cannot even grasp let alone use punctuation, and cannot even comprehend/read the syllabus, what do you do? When they are at a 1st grade level and ready to graduate, what do you do (other than secretly chastise prior teachers for passing him on)? Even if you hold the child back, repeat 10th grade, will they go from grade 1-10 in ability, especially in the way our system teaches? No, because Mrs. Teacher, you are teaching 10th grade standards, not 1st.  I was once chastised by administration for teaching long division- a 4th grade standard- in 5th grade. So why did I do that? Thev standard of the day was mean, median, mode. With more than 3/4 of my class unable to do long division, how could they average the word problem's basketball scores of 43, 88, 72? So I had to "go back" which was forbidden. So if this happens in each grade, then a certain portion of the students are "stuck" with 1st grade knowledge in high school and there's nothing we can do to help them because it isn't in the standards, isn't in the scripted curriculum.


Olsen also writes about making learning "entertaining". I at first disagreed with him, I mean, hello Olsen, learning needs to be fun! Duh! But these lessons often do not actually teach you to think, a video game where you shoot at the right answer to addition problems might seem fun but is it really really teaching true knowledge? "entertaining" education is really just a glorified worksheet, a "fun" way to get rote, dumbed down, simplied worksheet-style answers from kids.

For both parents and students in this situation, the only variable that they can detect to explain why these students are struggling is the teacher

Again, one of those post-it-on-a-billboard statements! I love it! Your child is not failing because they never did a single piece of work, the teacher failed because he did not give you work you could do, the work must have been too difficult. Or, the work was too boring. You didn't get to know the student enough to make learning fun, relevant. Or, you have it out for my child. You didn't offer enough extra credit. You didn't accept work that was 3 months late. You give too much work. Your too strict and mean. You can't expect my child to do that much work. bla bla bla bla bla. I've heard it all. No longer does a parent or even principal ask the child, "did you honestly TRY in the class? Did you actually ask for help? Did you attend tutoring, re-take test sessions or the like?" No. All fault is with the teacher.

The Death of Education part II

The Death of Education by Eric Olsen......

As long as their student is being promoted along with others of their age and continues to stay out of the principal's office, most parents feel they have done their duty if the child gets a diploma....as long as their students' grades are what they should be, parents don't care

.

Which is why teachers kowtow to parents and admin- not by choice but for survival. If Billy passes and isn't in too much trouble, all is well with the world... even if that means dumbing things down to where Billy gets an A for just coming to class. It is survival for the teacher and admin too. If too many kids fail, it looks bad for the teacher and admin- they are not doing their job, they're ineffective.  So why not design a curriculum where no one fails unless well, they don't even try? Olsen gets to that. Just know I myself have been in "trouble" for too many failing grades, But if a child honestly does not even TRY...what can you do?

To begin with, students resist genuine learning because they've never been epected to do it before. Secondly, learning a new skill takes time, patience, and most importantly, plenty of mistakes. Unfortunately, in today's public school culture, "failure is not an option". The near universal expectation in our schools, that students will be successful right from the beginning of any class if the teacher is doing his job correctly, is actually antithetical to the way learning works in the real world.

Which is why when I taught high school, it was as if irreviersible damage had already been done. I knew a student who left our school because of my grading practices. He never turned in a SINGLE assignment all year, except tests....usually with "IDK (I don't know) or really "off" answers showing no thought process, ie the same vocab. word for each vocab test answer. He said- and mom fully agreed- "I should get a C, at least, I mean, I came to class every day. All my other teachers did that." Can you believe it?!?! 

With what.....over 100 standards in English grade 9 alone, is a teacher given time, patience, to teach a skill to mastery? With scripted curriculum and every teacher on the same page at the same moment, is there time for knowledge to sink it, and be utilized? No. So education becomes surface knowledge, facts to remember then forget, to spit out when needed, 2+2 is 4, the answer is C because it is C. And of course as a concept is introduced, most will "fail" to understand it but, whoops, sorry kids, gotta move on; the failure for instant mastery is reflected on the teacher if these failures are "caught". The teacher is a bad teacher if kids don't "get it" right away. So if you just shove out worksheets and scantrons, you avoid this.

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

This is why real change- not minute tinkering called reform, but real change, won't happen in schools. Complete change is an uncertain, chaotic, scary devil. Sure things "suck" as they are now, but we are familiar with the devil that is our current "sucky" education system so we stay with it. Better safe than sorry.

more to come!!!

Death of Education

I should be writing my book, but last night I saw I had downloaded a book to my Nook, eons ago, called Death of Education by Eric Olsen and I started to read it. It is in a way, eye opening and yet confirming, like John Taylor Gatto's books are.....a "I knew it, but they clarifies it" type of book you want to share WITH EVERYONE. YES EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT.

Here's some excerpts. Oh and the author is a former teacher and is bashing the system more than teachers.

I continue to go to work every day, standing up infront of students in my classroom and assigning them busy work that does little more than exercise their ability to perform skills they learned a long time ago. In short, no actual learning occurs.

Exaclty. Wow. Well, Skinner-style conditioning and a factory model of schools bla bla bla (a big chunk of my book can be inserted here) made it so that the goal of education was to perform a skill, an output. Students will _________. Outcome based education. Like Pavlov's dogs, students will regurgiatate useless facts, low-level learning, usually in the form of bubbled-in A B C D answers. And I have been guilty of assigning busy work, because it met some stupid standard, was part of the inhumnae scripted curriculum, was "research proven" to improve test scores yada yada....when all it does is mirror a slow paced lobotomy, robbing children of true in-depth thought and knowledge, passion, drive. But why? We'll get to that.

The reality is that the current culture in public schols across the United States actively discourages genuine teaching. It begins with college education departments delivering theory and practices that are ocmpletely divorced from the practical realities of the modern classroom.

Exactly! I cannot stress that enough. I was talking with my husband, discouraged since I have yet to get a job. He suggested I look outside education, I mean, my MA is in Administration, I could manage a business, workers, something. I became stoic- manage? direct? lead?  Olsen wrote something about educational admiistrators being the only self-chosen leaders, they did not move up the ladder by promotion. That got me thinking to my admin. courses, how they didn't discourage some to say, drop out of the program, they could never even lead a lemming off a cliff. Nope, everyone was passed on through. Well, they had to have taught leadership right? Ok I had a few good courses, Leadership being one of them. I actually learned tools, how to apply them, case studies and alternative methods....you know, things you will actually, gasp, need and use on the job. But so many others were just reading a text, regurgitating it, discussing it, antiquated theory. Heck even my Personnel class...I thought, wow I can learn how to manage people, resolve conflict, and with what's happening at work right now, I so need that!  Nope. We learned about collective bargaining. Not really even the ins and outs of it, but looking at districts' CB paperwork and kind of regurgitating base facts. Recall when you'd read a book in school and you got lame base level questions, "who is the main character? On page 3, paragraph 2, what happens? What time period is this set in?" Well, it was "analysis" like that. Then we had three classes based on writing our thesis. Three.

So, based solely on what I learned, could I resolve conflict at the workplace, hire and fire employees, observe and report their performance? Could I calm down an angry employee, parent, etc? Could I speak with stakeholders and get the school or workplaces needs met and impress them? No. I could....hmmm....look up the answer to a question about a contract, i.e. "how many hours am I supposed to work a day?" I could look up some ed code (which is helpful actually....but only in schools) and I could explain to you the trials and tribulations of Mexican Americans in the past, in schools. I could tell you my Myers Briggs type is INFP bordering on INTP, and I could show you a plethora of articles I read and responded to. But....is that....what I need? No.

OH! About testing....wow...I could go on and on about that topic. So here's Olsen again,

Thus we are left to measure success of students and teachers alike using nothing but the score itself,, produced my students with little incentive as they are forced by law to take the test, and manipulated by teaching methods designed with only one goal in mind, that of raising the scores not teaching.

Man, preach it, Olsen! I could write 300 pages about that and yet Olsen said it in one sentence. Wow. I think this needs to be posted on billboards across the nation.

More to come!!!!

we dont need no thought control

When and if I write my book and go on tour, I'll ask Pink Floyd for rights....this MUST play at my book signing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez5pOboAfXc&feature=related   http://youtu.be/Ez5pOboAfXc   http://youtu.be/Ez5pOboAfXc 

No worries...yes, I've not blogged much lately, but I'm not "gone", just on self imposed sabbatical, writing a book and an investigative report. Do please enjoy my previous posts :)

charters

How do charter schools "steal" or "take" money from public schools? Please enlighten me. At School X, a public school of 1000 students, 100 leave for Charter Y. So yes, School X faces to lose 10% of their ADA (attendance funds) and other funds for sure, since funding is based primarily on the number of students.
But, let's say instead, School X loses 100 students to Private School Z, or those 100 students move all over and thus out of School District X's boundaries.
With the only logic I can figure about charters taking money- because they "take" the students that "belong" to school X, then can't that same logic be applied to Private School Z or the students moving? So we can just as easily blame private schools and all the factors behind families moving.

Also, do the public schools expect 100 students to leave to Charter Y and yet retain the funding? Because again that does not happen when they go to a private school or move.

So it is either a ludicrous argument or I'm missing out on some important detail. Please let me know.

C'mon baby light my fire

The  UK has banned teaching of the Holocaust so not to "offend" Muslim students (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445979/Teachers-drop-Holocaust-avoid-offending-Muslims.html). This notion is NOT new, as America has banned quite a lot of history or even imagery, terms, ideas... think 1985 Orwellian news-speak. American education loves to include special interest groups, getting their hands dirty and messing with education, history, facts

While Diane Ravitch has kind of turned against herself, her older books are chock full of great facts. The Language Police is a case in point, referring to the news-speak in schools. http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/05/28/life.language.reut/index.html  terms such as yacht-too elitist, polo-too elitist-, senior citizen-demeaning, God and/or devil-too religious, busybody -sexist-, cult-ethnocentric- dialect-ethnocentric, lame-offensive, Middle East-ethnocentric, Founding Fathers-sexist, huts-ethnocentric, insane-offensive, replace with person who has an emotional disorder or psychiatric illness, Old Wives Tale- sexist, tomboy-sexist, West/Western- ethnocentric

Images banned are, women portrayed as teachers, mothers, nurses,secretaries; men playing sports or using tools, girls as peaceful, emotional, warm; boys as competitive, strong,rough; people of color being liberal, Native Americans living in rural setting/the rez, not mainstreamed, doing a rain dance; Asians as intelligent, ambitious, hardworking; Hispanics in urban settings, doing manual labor, elderly people with eyeglasses, canes, orthopedics, being fussy, charming, or absentminded, retired, living with their children, fishing, baking, knitting, reminiscing.

While yes there are some stereotypes and offenses here, isn't the real world a little shocking, offensive?

And no wonder many kids HATE school and call it BORING when so many things that might strike controversy or emotion are banned. When history, books, truth become banal, who wants to have anything to do with learning? Even writing prompts must be stripped of any excitement and become things like,

"Some students at your school expressed an interest in making the school more

attractive by getting rid of the trash on the school grounds.

Write a persuasive essay for your school paper in which you convince the readers of

the importance of getting rid of the trash and making the school more attractive.

Convince your readers through the use of specific reasons and examples."  (An actual essay prompt from a High School Exit Exam)

Bo-ring. How can you even want to write about this? Even s stellar writer will end up sounding trite, using simple sentence structure and vocabulary, sounding very robotic and ignorant, "Trash is littering, which is illegal. Students, have respect for your school. Pick up your trash. It smells bad. It is pollution, so show pride in your school and throw away smelly trash".

Where will these books, essays, learnings get students in life? A person will not be inspired to greatness this way, when learning lacks controversy, passion, facts, emotion. How can our world's next leaders, movers and shakers, founders, inspirational icons, be fostered? How can a child's joy of wonderment, curiosity, discovery, intellect be lit in these conditions?

Also, if history is partially banned, or written without pure fact (I mean, if Native Americans cannot be depicted as living on reservations, doing rain dances, or respecting nature, what is to be learned of their history? The Native Americans were in America before Europeans. They....ummmm...did stuff, cultural stuff. Then they ummm decided to mainstream in US culture....those reservations? No, the Europeans didn't create those and no one lives there. The end." Ha!

Denying history- which is controversial, it does contain horrible acts such as the Holocaust- is plain WRONG. Without knowledge of history, we are doomed to repeat it. And a caged bird cannot sing a song of freedom if that bird does not know it is caged, and does not know what oppression, or for that fact freedom, really is. That bird is to live its caged existence being just....caged.