Fundamentals

The Foundation of a Society is the Education of it's Youth - Diogenes

You can go to a ski shop and get a good fit for an average foot, right out of the box. For oddball feet, you'll pay more for the custom boot fitting. For the race fit, you'll definitely pay more and you'll be more involved in the work. But you're a racer for whom fractions of a percent are important. You're in the right-hand end of the right side of the distribution.

You can go to the supermarket and get good meat for a good price, right out of the display. You have choices galore, but not every choice. A good deal for a good price for an average customer. If you want specialized, you go to the butcher and you pay more and you get exactly what you want. If what you wanted was already in the display, you'd be foolish to go to the butcher, wouldn't you?

You should get the same for education. The "government-run" schools should provide a good education for the average student, right out of the box. If you want Catholic - you pay to send him to parochial school. If you want specialized, you should have to provide that, too. If you want a charter school and all the perks, pay up. If you want to homeschool, then you should contribute the time and energy.

It's time for schools to stop trying to provide extraordinary education for the average price. The multi-million dollar facilities for athletics are too much. The million-dollar, 20 seat computer lab is over the top. The TV station is an extra the voters shouldn't have to pay for - especially since the cable outlets are providing one for free - cable access LOVES schools.

We provide the education. Free, Appropriate, Public, Education. But it needs to be on our terms. If you'd like to take advantage of it, then you are welcome to do so. Your child comes to the school and takes the courses we offer. We try to schedule to fit everyone and disappoint no one - ideally of course.

We ask that your child fit in and not raise waves - not because we're trying to "beat him down intellectually" but because we're trying to do the most for everyone.

We look like a mall because we have to. Explain another way to put 60-100 classrooms in a small location with wheeled access to every room and we'll probably build that way. You can't, though.

We run on a model that resembles a factory, not because we want to be grimy and dangerous, hurtful and uninterested, but because we need to service a whole lot of people and one-to-one isn't efficient.

I have 15-20 in my classes at a time, but not because we're warehousing them or coddling teachers. We've looked around and found that that is simply the most productive number. It's not that I couldn't teach 30 at once. It's not that I'm trying to keep the maximum number of teachers employed. I know that 18 is the perfect size because I've had both fewer and more over the last 25 years, and that's the best.

We the voters are paying for this because we want to provide this education to the town's children. No vouchers to some other school or district. No demands that we meet every whim of fickle parents who have little experience with anyone under 18 who isn't their own kid. If you have 1 kid or 8 kids, the price is free. There is no tuition. The town is providing this service collectively and taxing itself to do so. Like the road over the mountain, my helping to repave it has nothing to do with whether I ever drive on it. Take advantage of it or not, that's your choice.

Just stop complaining that it needs to go away.

Homeschooling without all the effort

Florida has upped the ante on stupidity. They've started on-line courses that will essentially relieve the State of costs, teachers, students, need for school buildings and other apparently unnecessary things.

If you don't like the other children at school or disapprove of the minorities who might contaminate your little precious but are unsure of how you could teach her? Plop her down on the living room floor and a Florida-certified teacher will teach her online.

"A teacher working out of her home at an undisclosed Florida location supervises instruction for Taylor and dozens of other elementary students across the state. She monitors their work, talks with students individually online and holds virtual class meetings to discuss particular topics."

Instead of holding actual class meetings, she supervises education and monitors their work? Instead of 18 kids in a room where a physical teacher can see that Johnny is bored or misunderstanding and do something about it, we now have dozens of kids in their own homes possibly supervised by their parents. This is an improvement?

"What's missing is 18 kids competing for one teacher's attention, boring downtime in the classroom, distracting discipline incidents and playground bullying."

Now your little darling can be homeschooled and you don't have to do anything or know anything except be a presence in the building. The elementary school teacher now has dozens of students instead of 18. Little kids with no self-control and little motivation are treated just like highly motivated ones. There is no teacher, no one to explain or instruct or motivate, only

"boxes of textbooks, work sheets, study materials and other classroom supplies, right down to a compass, magnifying glass and other nifty items for basic science experiments. Older kids even get microscopes."

That'll help the little darlings. Unsure of something? Ask your computer screen and when the online teacher gets around to it, she might explain it. An adult is required in the home to help with instruction - yeah right, that'll work. The whole point of this program is to provide homeschooling for parents too lazy, too stupid or too unmotivated to provide it.

Back in the kitchen, Joni Fussell keeps Taylor on task, although there is flexibility for running errands or doing chores, as long as Taylor spends about five hours a day doing schoolwork. The program requires an adult at home to aid with instruction.

I love the "flexibility for running errands" thing. Like anyone will check if the only adult is gone for 4 hours. Like the adult is truly expected to do anything or is responsible for anything. At least true homeschool parents make a commitment to teaching and guiding their children. Essentially, the state is pawning off it's responsibilities onto parents in guise of giving them choices.

But wait, there's more. You can't do a partial program. No clubs, sports, computer classes, proms, languages. No attending school for part of the day to take a gifted and talented program. The teacher is not negotiable.

The final oxymoronic part of this new wave of homeschooling? People who have been homeschooling already are not welcome in this program. I guess that "once jilted, forever angry" is the stance Florida is taking.

Here's the link.

Problems in American Mathematics

I'm technically supposed to teach certain courses in this constructivist manner - "Be a Guide on the Side, Not a Sage on The Stage." I think you can guess my response to that. "Learn, Drill and Practice, Baby." You can call it 'drill and kill,' but I call it practice. This is rocket science, it's education. Education takes practice. Teaching takes practice and learning takes practice. Writing takes practice and very definitely math and science take practice. Learn and then practice.

from my own past:
Right-triangle trig was difficult for me because I resisted memorizing the ratios. I resisted memorizing the functions of common angles. I didn't see why radians were necessary. I was trying to understand and going nowhere. I finally just memorized SOHCAHTOA and the reciprocals. Things became abundantly clear and so incredibly simple. Now, every similar situation in the wood shop became obvious, every real-world problem became a piece of cake. (and the angle on that piece of cake needed to be 45^o - more would be greedy.) Then I practiced. Okay, the teacher gave us a bunch of questions, but they were easy because he had taught, I memorized some basics, I practiced and then I knew. I'd still be there if I'd had to come up with it myself.

"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of Giants." At what point do our students get to stand on the shoulders of giants? We say that people learn better if they come up with it themselves. I say that's a flippin' waste of their time. Math geeks spend their lives figuring this stuff out and you want a bunch of kids to do it in 9 months?

Anyway, here's the article from over at ednews ...

“Student-centered” Learning (or “Constructivism”)
By Laurie H. Rogers, author of "Betrayed"
Columnist EducationNews.org

Constructivism and lack of practice

Here are two of the clues to America's current mathematics problem:

1."Student-centered" learning (or "constructivism")
2.Insufficient practice of basic skills

"Student-centered" Learning (or "Constructivism")

In an October email, Spokane's secondary mathematics coordinator reaffirmed this district's commitment to a "student-centered" approach to teaching (also sometimes called "discovery learning" or "constructivism"). In this approach, students often work as partners or in groups, and teachers act as "facilitators" rather than as "instructors." Students are encouraged to come up with their own multiple solutions to problems and to ask fellow students for help before asking the teacher.

Reform math curricula are typically built around a constructivist approach, probably because the 1989 Standards document from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics calls for it (Stiff, 2001c; "Curriculum," 2004). Proponents say the approach leads to "deeper understanding," helpful collaboration and better student enjoyment of the process. Others say a dependence on it can hinder the learning process and frustrate students.

A local parent told me this story about when his daughter took a math class that used reform math curriculum Connected Mathematics:

Students were told that "Juan" was mowing a lawn in a right-angle triangle. He wanted to figure out the length of the diagonal. The term "Pythagorean Theorem" (a2 + b2 = c2) wasn't presented. The students were to work in groups and figure out a way to get the answer. Finally, one student who knew the theorem provided it to her group. (Her group was the only one to get the right answer.) Incredibly, the teacher "chastised" the student for using the formula.

"A lot of parents don't believe it at first," the parent said to me. "Like, their kids are younger, they don't know, and they feel that parents are exaggerating, but it is the honest-to-God truth, and these stories get worse."

In small doses, constructivism can provide flavor to classrooms, but some math professors have told me the approach seems to work better in subjects other than math. That sounds reasonable. The learning of mathematics depends on a logical progression of basic skills. Sixth-graders are not Pythagorus, nor are they math teachers.

Meanwhile, anti-reform advocacy group Mathematically Correct provides an amusing take on constructivism ("What Is," 1996):

"This notion holds that students will learn math better if they are left to discover the rules and methods of mathematics for themselves, rather than being taught by teachers or textbooks. This is not unlike the Socratic method, minus Socrates."

Insufficient Practice of Basic Skills

Another problem in math classrooms is the lack of practice. Instead of insisting that students practice math skills until they're second nature, educators have labeled this practice "drill and kill" and thrown it under a bus.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that phrase. It's a strange, flippant way to dismiss a logical process for learning. Drilling is how anyone learns a skill. Removing drilling from the learning process is like saying, "We'll just remove this gravity. Now stay put." Everyone drills – athletes, pianists, soldiers, plumbers and doctors. Drilling is necessary.
It isn't good or bad – it's simply what must be done.

Imagine if I told chess players they had to figure out the rules of chess on their own, in fits and starts, by trial and error and by asking their fellow players. Imagine if I expected them to win games when they hadn't had a chance to practice.

In American education, the "worm" is not yet turning, but it might be looking over its shoulder. In its March 2008 report, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel reintroduced the notion of practicing the basics:

"Practice allows students to achieve automaticity of basic skills – the fast, accurate, and effortless processing of content information – which frees up working memory for more complex aspects of problem solving" ("Foundations," 2008, p. 30).

But children in the system now are stuck with a process that asks them to work in diverse groups to reinvent thousands of years of math procedures that they then don't get to practice.

Some people enjoy puzzles on logic and process, where things might not be what they seem and where they've got to figure out subtle differences and new ways of thinking. But this esoteric, conceptual approach to math, with a constant struggle to understand the process, doesn't seem like a logical approach for children. Children are concrete thinkers who tend to appreciate concrete ideas. Children want instructions, direction and things that make sense. Many don't appreciate the daily grind of writing about math, of having to figure out what they're doing, of having to count on classmates for guidance, of trying to remember things they've done just once or twice and several weeks ago.

It's ironic that proponents of reform math criticize traditionalists for supposedly not knowing "how to teach math to children." The reform method seems completely oppositional to how children learn best.

I asked a Spokane student if she prefers the Connected Mathematics she gets in school over the Singapore Math she gets at home. She said, "In a way, Connected Mathematics is easier because you don't have to know as much math, but in a way, it's harder because you have to know more. You have to know exactly what they want."

She gave me an example of the classroom approach: Students are to gather in groups to discuss a problem. The problem might be a complicated twist on simplistic math, or it might be a concept they've never seen before. As the groups muddle around, they don't always agree on what's required. Sometimes, they don't have the necessary underlying skills. Some students become frustrated or bored. Trying to help each other, some confuse the others. They might come up with the right answer, or they might not, but – without practicing the new concepts – the class moves on to something new.

Singapore Math, on the other hand, "might be harder as far as the math goes," she said, "but at least you know what they want."

I told her I thought her answer was articulate and enlightening. "I've spoken to a lot of people now," I said, "and you explained things very well."

"That's because they teach it," she replied, "but I'm the one who has to learn it."

Published November 9, 2008

The opposite of strength

Professional development (two words and you already know this isn't going to end well) is starting. We are to write down information about our students. Now we have to speak about what we wrote. One says, "My students strengths are (1)(2)(3) and my students weaknesses are --" and is promptly cut off by the "expert."

"Your students don't have weaknesses. They have needs. You can't call them weaknesses."

You can't make this up.

Remembrance

A documentary about the Last Day of WW1, presented by Michael Palin.
(not HER husband, you ninnies. The Monty Python guy. Sheesh.)

Leave it to the Onion

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

I think I've used this excuse before.

"No, really, Officer. I was doing research in the lab with my assistant. We were making diamonds with tequila. Hic." "Tell it to the Judge, Sir."

From SlashDot:
Researchers, oddly enough from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have found a way to make diamond films using tequila. They were originally testing methods of creating the films with organic solutions like acetone when it was noticed the ideal ratios of water and ethanol turned out to be about 80 proof, or 40% alcohol. "To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests," Apátiga said. "We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds."

I love science. I just need to figure out how to tell my principal that this is a great example of critical thinking and that we should replicate the experiment. You know, peer review ...

Mme. Duck quacks and complains

We're in the first semester of a new daily schedule here at Curmudgeon HS. We moved from the old 4-period blocks to a hybrid 4.5 block setup. It's kind of complicated, with some blocks being split into half-block with full credit courses running all year. Other 40 minute half-block run for a semester and generate a half credit. The majority of the courses are full block, one semester, courses.

It's going to take some time to get fully used to it, but it has definite potential. The biggest upside is the increased chances for electives. We were all given the opportunity to propose new courses that we would like to teach. It was great. The Spanish teacher also knows Russian - how cool is that? Forensics got the nod, as did SAT prep and other non-traditional courses.

Needless to say, Mme. Duck is not amused. "I have so much work." "I'm just overwhelmed." "The students hate me even though I tried to help them. It just goes to show you how ungrateful they are."

Gee, Mme. Duck, I'm not an expert, but the probable cause is that you offered a course which is not in your area of expertise, you demanded that it be a requirement for seniors, and you forgot that many of the seniors are probably not finding your class too useful or meaningful, and that they've hated the way you teach for about 4 years now.

Why is that?

It's because you hand out photocopied workbook pages, plop down in your chair, and then don't teach them anything. It might also be that you chose a ninth grade level consumer-math skills book (designed for pre-algebra abilities) and everyone is feeling just a weeeee bit insulted. They don't think that learning to make change is something worth spending three days on. Many already have a car, with insurance and payments, they have a credit card and bank account. You don't need 12 pages of culturally diverse vignettes describing how to fill in the lines on a check.

I'd be more sympathetic, but when the math department pointed out a few of these problems, you rejected us and ran to the principal. Principal PJs couldn't figure out how long D period is -- 9:37 - 10:18 -- addition and subtraction are not his strength. He went along because "Everyone needs consumer skills."

The guidance counselor and scheduler, Mr. YankeeFan, got upset when you went over his head and basically forced him to redo the entire schedule in the first weeks of JUNE because you and Principal PJs suddenly wanted this a GRADUATION REQUIREMENT. At the last bloody minute. Mr YF got great glee setting you up with exactly the classes what you demanded before he waltzed off to a new job.

You have what you demanded. Your students are barely hanging on to their sanity. Your complaints are ringing in our ears.

Epic FAIL.

PD has me PO'd.

Dangerously Irrelevant wants to revamp Professional Development, to which I say "Hoo-Ah." Then I read the rest of it.

"Big idea 1: Most current staff development is awful."
Okay, for a Big Idea, this isn't much on the Wow scale. I thought this post was going to have some Ideas.

"Big idea 2: School vision statements are feckless."
Ummm. okay. I've never really felt that 50 words tacked over the door was much more than hokum, but this post isn't ringing my bell so far.

"Big idea 3: Schools have a great deal of internal expertise."
Ummm. okay. Sometimes though, this is the root of the problem ... many of those who are willing to get up some initiative are also those whose ideas are riddled with false intellectualism and educationese. You know, the ones whose jargon is meant to confuse rather than clarify.

Big idea 4: Students are experts too.
Ummm. no. They're not. They're willing to play with toys, but that doesn't make them experts any more than typing this blog makes me a Pulitzer-winner. Most of the students I've seen are technologically useless except when it comes to texting and IMing and Myspacing out. Games and toys are fine amusements for the young. Hardly what I'd call the qualifications of an expert.

All of this leads me to… Big idea 5: Have students deliver technology-related training!
Sure. Doing what, exactly?

Using the SmartBoard? If a teacher doesn't know how to use it, he should read the F Manual and work at it. You know, like we tell our kids to do - work at it, read the instructions, follow directions, practice, explore the software.

Excel or Powerpoint? Please. They do just enough to answer the question and then stop. Mostly, they play and attempt to copy off each other.

MySQL, Access? No.

PHP, ASP, JSP, AJAX? Right. In this lifetime?

FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, C, C#, PASCAL, VBASIC? No⁷. This is too much like work.

Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash, Premiere, Final Cut? Maybe, but only if they can morph the teacher's head onto a naked body and dub in the sound of giggling.

The rare few with the maturity to make art or programming that's useful in some way are greatly outnumbered by "I'm a digital native because I can listen to an iPod" clowns. These few would probably make a nice presentation for the tech illiterate. For me, though, and those like me, the preferred stuation is for that kid to sit down and "Check this out. Look at what I made this do!"

The last thing I want to do is to sit in PD while a student attempts to teach me something I learned years ago or that I could learn easily if I had the need. A fundamental problem remains the teachers' lack of motivation to learn the most basic tech without screaming for "more training" and "I'm not working on this at home."

If the computer teacher spent her time actually preparing for her classes and writing her plans instead of whining constantly about how overworked she is ...

If the slackers spent less time making stupid surveys from SurveyMonkey trying to change the schedule ...

Give me a break.


------------------------------------------
I'll post the entire article for reference:

Student-delivered PD: An idea whose time has come?

A collection of thoughts about P-12 professional development, with a (hopefully) whiz-bang ending…

Big idea 1: Most current staff development is awful.

We have known for decades what leads to powerful adult learning and what constitutes effective professional development. Yet the 3– or 4–days per year, ‘sit and get,’ one-size-fits-all training model still persists on a large scale. Shame on us.

Big idea 2: School vision statements are feckless.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a school organization that doesn’t have a vision, mission, or purpose statement that says blah blah blah life long learning blah blah blah. And yet we don’t really model ‘life long learning’ very well. Administrators feel that they can show no weakness in front of staff or parents. Teachers feel that they must be the experts before they can ‘teach’ students. No one has tried to operationalize the concept or delineate what it actually looks like. In terms of impact on daily practice, it’s a meaningless feel-good aphorism (much like all kids can learn). Shame on us.

Big idea 3: Schools have a great deal of internal expertise.

At the risk of impacting my occasional consulting income, I’m willing to say that most districts would be better served by having in-house experts deliver training rather than paying some outside guru big bucks to come in for a day (or hour). There’s a tremendous wealth of in-house expertise that goes ignored within school organizations. Shame on us.

Big idea 4: Students are experts too.

Tapscott & Williams note in Wikinomics (2006) that this is the first time in human history when children are authorities on something really important (p. 47). In other words, when it comes to digital technologies, our kids often are (or, given the chance, could rapidly become) the experts. We ignore this expertise in most school organization. Shame on us.

All of this leads me to…

Big idea 5: Have students deliver technology-related training!

Put Big Ideas 1 and 3 together and it’s clear that school organizations should do a better job of peer-to-peer training. Throw in Big Ideas 2 and 4 and we see that many school organizations could easily structure technology training opportunities for educators, parents, and students where children and adolescents were the instructors or co-instructors. The kids get the learning power and social/emotional benefit of being teachers and leaders. Adults and other students learn from the true experts.

All we have to do is walk away from our egos and our fear and embrace our mission statements, the ones that say that we all should be learners and say nothing about from whom we must learn.

How about it? You ready to start doing this?

Speaking of Obama

Charles Krauthammer wrote:

With him we get a president with the political intelligence of a Bill Clinton harnessed to the steely self-discipline of a Vladimir Putin. (I say this admiringly.) With these qualities, Obama will now bestride the political stage as largely as did Reagan.

We found Him

Mrs. Curmudgeon, also a teacher, reports that her school has finally found the ONE. You've heard the stories, the rumors, the whispers. You never thought you'd ever meet him. He's the ONE. He's loud, obnoxious, bounces around in class. He doesn't do any work, teases and taunts other kids when he can get away with it. Hyperactive behaviors. The works. Special Ed has tested him left, right and center ... Took hours of time and bunches of money.

And can't find anything wrong.

No diagnosis of ADHD or ADD. No ED. No OCD or ODD. No bad home life. No learning diasabilities, no dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dysfuntional. He's not autistic, or Asberger's, Tourette's, nope. Average IQ on the WISC-R or Woodcock Johnson.

Nothing.

They can't give him an IEP, 504, 157, EST, VIP, MVPFB or any other alpha-numeric excuse. He's solely responsible for his bad behavior.

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Time for Words of caution

Every once in a while I feel the need to step back and let someone else do the talking. Especially if the words are spot-on.

from Michael Crichton on opinion and the media

I grew up in the 1950s, supposedly the heyday of conformity, but there was much more freedom of opinion back then. And as a result, you knew that your neighbors might hold different views from you on politics or religion. Today, the notion that men of good will can disagree has disappeared. Can you imagine! Today, if I disagree with you, you conclude there is something wrong with me. This is a childish, parochial view. And of course stupefyingly intolerant. It's truly anti-American. Much of it can be laid at the feet of the environmental movement, which has unfortunately frequently been led by ill-educated and intolerant spokespersons--often with no more than a high-school education, sometimes not even that. Or they are lawyers trained to win at any cost and to say anything about their opponents to win. But you find the same intolerant tone around considerations of defense, taxation, free markets, universal medical care, and so on. There's plenty of zealotry to go around. And it's hardly new in human history.

The media might stand as a corrective, cool and a bit detached, showing by example how to approach information and controversy. Instead, the media has clearly caught the fever of our intolerant times. Formerly, news people would never openly state their allegiance; young reporters understood it was poor form, and a senior person would carry the caution born of the experience that at least some of what one believes in the course of one's life turns out to be wrong. But it's a new era. Now, media reporters are proud to pound the table and declare their advocacy. Since so few of them have any training in science, they don't really know what they are pounding about, when it comes to global warming. They couldn't tell you even in general terms how the global mean temperature is calculated, for example. But it doesn't matter anyway. They just want to declare they believe what "everyone" believes. Who values such a news source?

Hear, hear.

I'm voting Republican

Ha!