Playing with Fire

Legends of the SCA

Self-Immolation by EduTroll

I didn't alter anything, I swear ...

Unbelieveable...if you people really think that this is the successful way to the future, then your as stupid as the students that cant spell the word 'future'. Students have no social skills what-so-ever being raised in a computer generated world. They have no English skills as a result of comp slg...oh what you dont know what computer slang short-cutting is. The have no spelling skills as a result of spell check.

Correlations in education

Scott Macleod said on Twitter: From my doc student's dissertation: Student w/ 2 years of high school 1:1 said "I know way more #edtech than my college profs!" #true #sad

Does that say more about the profs, the education or the power of correlation?

An excellent response to the Facebook Kerfluffle

Well, this is interesting. Since some colleges are requiring student athletes to give up their Facebook passwords, I have begun counseling students to create a second Facebook page now, in high school. It should be all clean and pretty and contain nothing but links to foodnetwork.com, friends with Grandmother, and nothing controversial. Then, turn on all privacy settings on the other, real page, change the displayed name, alter the phone and address, delete and information that true friends already know and replace it with information from Game of Thrones. It's the 21st Century version of your Mother saying "This is not a Locker Room, young man. Keep your rough-housing and vulgar language for outside this house." There's a time and a place for that sort of thing ... it's the OTHER Facebook account.

There are other tactics, of course, and I hadn't thought of these but it is very true that this openness can cut both ways. Many companies have implemented policies requiring HR managers to shoulder-surf as prospective employees read through their Facebook accounts, or worse, require that those prospects give their passwords to the HR manager. Who is then bound by various laws on confidentiality and, more importantly, non-discrimination ...

Here's one Director's response ... he quit. The reason why is what's fascinating:

I hereby resign

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you very much for honoring me with the position of Director of Software Development. I value your trust and have enjoyed my first two months on the job immensely. You have a world-class team and are executing on a daring vision. It pains me to tell you this, however I am forced to resign my position as Director and from here on, I must cheer your team from a distance.

The situation is simple. As you doubtless recall, the new COO has issued a new set of employment contracts. The legalities of arm-twisting employees into signing a new employment contract when they already had a contract with the firm is her responsibility, I’ll just have to trust her when she says we can fire anyone without notice if they refuse to agree.

One of the new terms is that every prospective new hire allow their manager to “shoulder surf” as they browse their Facebook or better still, to voluntarily log their manager into their Facebook account. If I recall correctly, she claims that we have the obligation to do a “background check” on prospective hires. I’m extremely vague on the correlation between faux-promiscuous sex or drinking and employee performance, but as she is a seasoned veteran, I have to trust her when she says that things like this overrule my judgment as to who is and who isn’t fit to be a programmer in our employ.

I was willing to go along with things and see how they panned out. But today something went seriously wrong. I have been interviewing senior hires for the crucial tech lead position on the Fizz Buzz team, and while several walked out in a huff when I asked them to let me look at their Facebook, one young lady smiled and said I could help myself. She logged into her Facebook as I requested, and as I followed the COO’s instructions to scan her timeline and friends list looking for evidence of moral turpitude, I became aware she was writing something on her iPad.

“Taking notes?” I asked politely.

“No,” she smiled, “Emailing a human rights lawyer I know.” To say that the tension in the room could be cut with a knife would be understatement of the highest order. “Oh?” I asked. I waited, and as I am an expert in out-waiting people, she eventually cracked and explained herself.

“If you are surfing my Facebook, you could reasonably be expected to discover that I am a Lesbian. Since discrimination against me on this basis is illegal in Ontario, I am just preparing myself for the possibility that you might refuse to hire me and instead hire someone who is a heterosexual but less qualified in any way. Likewise, if you do hire me, I might need to have your employment contracts disclosed to ensure you aren’t paying me less than any male and/or heterosexual colleagues with equivalent responsibilities and experience.”

I got her out of the room as quickly as possible. The next few interviews were a blur, I was shaken. And then it happened again. This time, I found myself talking to a young man fresh out of University about a development position. After allowing me to surf his Facebook, he asked me how I felt about parenting. As a parent, it was easy to say I liked the idea. Then he dropped the bombshell.

His partner was expecting, and shortly after being hired he would be taking six months of parental leave as required by Ontario law. I told him that he should not have discussed this matter with me. “Oh normally I wouldn’t, but since you’re looking through my Facebook, you know that already. Now of course, you would never refuse to hire someone because they plan to exercise their legal right to parental leave, would you?”

What could I say? I guess we have another hire whether he’s qualified or not. Here’s the bottom line: My ability to select the best candidates for our positions has been irreparably compromised by looking into their private lives. I’ve been “tainted” by knowledge of their sexual orientation, illnesses, religion, political affiliations, and other factors that expose us to anti-discrimination legislation. We can't even claim that the employee improperly disclosed these matters to us, as we are the ones initiating the investigation of their private doings.

Worse, I cannot manage these people once they're hired. I would be diffident about censuring them or passing them over for advancement for fear of incurring a lawsuit that would be a distraction to our business and damaging to our reputation as fair employers.

Therefore, please consider this my formal resignation. The COO does not tell me how to write software, so I will not tell her how to set HR standards, but I would ask that you review this policy and ask whether it is truly in the company’s interest to indiscriminately dig through a candidates’ private lives. Either that, or we should move to a jurisdiction where we have zero exposure to legal consequences for discrimination.

Yours very truly,
Reginald Scott Braithwaite

Images that interest me.

Just a random collection of things that caught my eye. Below the break.

Why is a Valedictorian Like a Throughbred Horse?

Not similar to GPA.

Beats the hell out of me. Why should a girl who wants to major in engineering be "competing" against a girl who wants to major in business? How can anyone possibly compare the two to the number 3 girl who took predominantly music, art, and English electives and wanted to major in theater?

A couple of years ago, my school had two amazing kids: one took geometry as a freshman, the other took algebra 2 as a freshman. By the senior year, both had progressed up the ladder and taken calculus. Their GPAs were 0.003 apart. The valedictorian received a UVM total scholarship (Green and Gold) but didn't need it and went elsewhere. The salutatorian who needed that scholarship and wanted to go to UVM, didn't get it.

Why do we do this to our kids?

Awesome April Fool's Pranks

from Richard Wiseman, the Magician:


I think the last one is my favorite.

Students should be taught how to study.

Dan Willingham: Students should be taught how to study.

How do you study? Students respond:

Rereading is a terribly ineffective strategy. The best strategy--by far--is to self-test--which is the 9th most popular strategy out of 11 in this study. Self-testing leads to better memory even compared to concept mapping (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011).

Gladwell said it, too. "Deliberate practice" he called it, and said that you need about 10,000 hours of it to achieve mastery.

Innumeracy in the News again

A town in Illinois got hit by a tornado, causing $3 million in damage.

News clip: A powerful tornado hit Harrisburg, Illinois, killing seven people and caused widespread damage throughout the town. Dean Reynolds reports on how the state will not be receiving nearly $3 million in relief aid from FEMA to help homeowners and renters. On the day that a tornado ripped through Harrisburg, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn surveyed the damage and tried to think ahead. "We have an emergency management agency and I signed a declaration, a state disaster declaration," Quinn said. "And I will ask the feds for assistance. You have to file a good application if you want federal assistance."

They got denied and everyone started screaming how awful it was that FEMA would do such a heinous act. Predictably, someone blamed the President. A couple of talking-heads compared it to Irene and wondered if Vermont's democratic leanings had something to do with it.

Let's compare that Illinois damage to what they pay their school superintendents, shall we? The 100 highest-paid school administrators in Illinois in 2006 (and now, with inflation and the inevitable raises, much more!) had salaries ranging from $205,590 to $380,227. (#1: Catalani Gary T $380,227 CUSD 200 to #17: Wolf Boyce J $256,380 ROCK FALLS TWP HSD 301.)  The total for the top 100: $23,000,000.

That's the cost of ONE salary from each district, six years ago. In 2011, the top two salaries were $402,000 and $411,000. source. Summary: the top 100 (from six years ago) of 1145 district account for 22 million.

AnyQs?

Yeah, I think FEMA had this one right. Illinois can certainly afford it. Governor, shut up.

There used to be three lanes here, two up, one down.
There were five washouts this size in a two mile stretch.

Compare that to Irene in Vermont -- infrastructure damage could cost state $100 million. That's not including citizens' home and property damage. Many of my kids' homes were devastated, farmland ruined and crops destroyed. You can't sell food crop that's been flooded, you know, so the money was paid out all year for seed and fertilizer et. al., and then the only income is declared "spoil". FEMA sort of helped out; 10% - 20% of the cost of the replacement. Of the barn.


Farms were destroyed and crops ruined and whole sections of the state inaccessible due to washouts; farmers and contractors and citizens went out on their own initiative and used their own money and equipment to rebuild roadways, dredge and reconfigure streams and rivers, haul away trees and debris. The state had to come in to check and finish and pave, but a lot of that work was done by volunteers. Everyone helped out. The soccer team went door-to-door instead of to practice, even though school closed because no one could physically get there. Even the road contractors stopped leaning against their truck doors with cups of coffee - major bridges were rebuilt in weeks, roads like the one in the picture were rebuilt in days.

Since we used the schools as a proxy for our state wealth capability calculations: "On average, Vermont’s 60 superintendents earn $105,337 a year." That's all of them. $6 million. source.

Rasing the Standards for teachers

When are we ever going to have to use that
in elementary school?
You won't even make it that far.

Came across this bit from the Boston Globe, two years ago:

Aspiring teachers fall short on math - Nearly 75 percent fail revamped section of state licensing test."Not all our students are receiving a strong math education." -- Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of elementary and secondary education. By James Vaznis, Globe Staff, May 19, 2009

So, I ask again ... why do we allow people to teach math at any level if they can't pass a high school math test as an adult?

Here's another question, just to annoy the crap out of you as you consider that your child's prospective teacher had trouble with this:

Yeah, it's pseudocontext, contrived, silly, but jeez-louise people, it's easy.

OOOOOH, fractions. Scary.

Education Gap - Money Gap

A bunch of people are pointing to this graph and coming to lots of conclusions.

Who makes it to the top of the income pile?  The motivated and intelligent people who are willing to work hard, able to sacrifice for a goal, and able to defer instant gratification for a long-term benefit. (and lottery winners.)

Who makes it to the top of the education pile, achieving a high school and then a college diploma by any means possible? The motivated and intelligent people who are willing to work hard, able to sacrifice for a goal, and able to defer instant gratification for a long-term benefit. (and spoiled rich kids)

What kind of kids are motivated and intelligent people who are willing to work hard, able to sacrifice for a goal, and able to defer instant gratification for a long-term benefit? They are usually kids imitating their parents' qualities of being motivated and intelligent people who are willing to work hard, able to sacrifice for a goal, and able to defer instant gratification for a long-term benefit. The Income Gap is really an Education Gap which is really a Motivation and Work-Ethic Gap.

I don't see the motivation, work-ethic, and intelligence gap going away any time soon.

The chart below shows that as people's income rise, so too does the likelihood that they have a college degree or higher. By contrast, those with the lowest incomes are most likely to have a high school education or less. Just 8% of those at the lowest income level have a college degree while 78% of those earning $250,000 or more have a college degree or advanced degree. At the other end of the income scale, 69% of low-income people have a high school degree or less, while just 9% of those earning over $250,000 have just a high school degree.

Data-Driven is Driving out the Good Ones

from Jay Mattthews:

Cotton worked hard. He said his evaluations from classroom observers got better as the year went on. But his students failed to outdo their suspiciously high fourth-grade scores to save his job. Those test results counted 50 percent in Cotton’s final evaluation.

He might have been a lousy teacher, but most first-year teachers need a lot of practice to get this job right. It takes about three years to catch up to the standard. It makes no sense to toss him under the bus.

The data requires me to be 
stupid, that's why.

The test maker sees evidence of cheating in the previous year's answer sheets, for a "suspicious number of wrong to right erasures". A former teacher is fired for cheating, or as the administration puts it, "is no longer at the school" because of  "a lapse of integrity".  What to do?  Fire the new guy because his more honest scores are too low, because you can fire a probationary teacher without cause or reason, because you will be "doing something", because "we will turn this place around".

Decisions must be data-driven instead of intelligence-based, apparently.