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Kitchen > PrivateWebHome > WebPreferences > Archives > CompleteArchives > June2006
HowYouCanHelp 01 Jun 2006 - 00:24 CatherineJohnson



NOTE: IF YOU ARE READING THIS POST AT THE TOP OF AN ARCHIVED MONTH OR CATEGORY THREAD, BE FOREWARNED THAT A NUMBER OF THE POSTS SHOW UP INCORRECTLY. IF THERE ARE MISSING WORDS OR IMAGES, CLICK ON THE POST TITLE & READ IT IN A SEPARATE WINDOW. (SORRY!)


because I know you were wondering ......


How can family members reinforce the work of the No - Putdowns Program?

  • Use the language of the program – Think About Why, Stay Cool, Shield Myself, Choose a Response, and Build Up.

  • Refer to the skills in daily interactions.

  • Observe the use of putdowns at stores, restaurants, on television and radio [and school].

  • Think about establishing an incentive program to reinforce the use of the skills.

  • Tune into your own use of putdowns.

  • Emphasize positive communication:  listening, eye contact, questions, paying attention to the speaker, fighting fair, and encouraging rather than discouraging.  These are all skills that can be practiced and used.

  • Remind your children that as parents and as adults, you have a right and responsibility to correct their behavior and that there is a difference between constructive criticism and reprimands — and putdowns.  However when you need to get a point across, try to do it without a putdown. Instead of, "You're so sloppy or lazy," try "After you pick up your toys, you can go out and play." You can get your point across without a putdown.

    • source:
    Laytonville Elementary School





    how to be multicultural part 4 (no putdowns)
    comebacks and putdowns for the ages
    synchronicity alert
    how families can help



    -- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006



    comments...

    OrganizationallyOverwhelmed 01 Jun 2006 - 03:24 CarolynJohnston

    BerniesOffice.jpg


    The organization is overrated thread is alive again. This was a thread from last March in which I confessed that I've given up trying to get my kid organized, in spite of pleas from his teachers. Instead, I want him to learn some content this year (and he did! especially in science and math -- whether or not his grades show it).

    It's alive again because everyone seems to be struggling with organization, with their kids. It's something that every kid is expected to have, and nobody's does (at least nobody here). Kathy's daughter, for example, has had project planning challenges all year in 4th grade (projects are what you get when they aren't teaching a lot of content yet), and they're actually docking points because of poor eye contact. In my day, kids would have gotten points simply for refraining from wetting our pants. Those teachers really understood encouragement.

    Anyway, at work I've lately had the experience of going through an acquisition (i.e., we were the ones acquired). I've had my goals changed and my computer changed, and my system of self-organization changed, and my job title has changed no fewer than 3 times. The future has been murky for months. And I am a mess. I'm trying to get my arms around it; I've reread Getting Things Done a few times, and for the toughest project planning stuff I've even read Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it Notes (a darn good idea, by the way), but so far nothing is helping very much. It appears that having 3 job titles in a month has done me in.

    Change has come upon me, and it's knocked me off my feet. And it's not like it took very much to do it, either. So how can we expect Total Project Planning Awareness from our 4th graders?

    -- CarolynJohnston - 01 Jun 2006



    comments...

    EmailToTheAssistantPrincipal 01 Jun 2006 - 21:19 CatherineJohnson



    Hi Raina—

    Just a quick note.

    Christopher came home yesterday saying that the high school kids were asking Middle School students to sign a petition asking the U.N. to help the citizens of Darfur.

    When Christopher signed, he saw that many of the middle schoolers had written epithets about President Bush beside their names.

    One student wrote, “George Bush is a douche bag.”

    A girl wrote, “Bush is a Dick.”

    These remarks are inappropriate, to say the least. They have nothing to do with Darfur, but even if they did, they don’t constitute reasoned political speech (!)

    Then today I read in the news that state comptroller Alan Hevesi is apologizing for having made a remark about “putting a bullet between the president’s eyes.” (story: Official Apologizes for Saying Bush Should be Shot Between the Eyes)

    I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m incredibly tired of vicious partisan attacks. “Bush is a dick” is the kind of language that should stay on the internet. It’s also the kind of language that escalates. I’m sure “put a bullet between his eyes” wasn’t the first ugly thing Alan Hevesi ever had to say about George Bush.

    If we’re going to have character education integrated into every class our children take, it ought to mean something. Yesterday, instead of learning how to study, Christopher’s study skills class watched a video on “respect.”

    Then they signed a petition filled with disrespectful comments about the president of the United States.

    If character concepts such as “respect” and “tolerance” don’t mean respecting people who are different from us—and that would include, in this town, Republican presidents and conservative Christians—then I’d prefer Christopher spend his time learning how to read, write, and do mathematics.

    Of course, I’d prefer that anyway!

    In any case, it sounds to me like petition drives could probably use a little more supervision.

    Thanks, Raina—

    Catherine J.
    (Chris Berenson’s mom)


    -- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006



    comments...

    SmarterThanYourAverageBear 02 Jun 2006 - 13:58 CatherineJohnson



    We got this email from Andrew's teacher yesterday:

    I have a funny story. We have a digital timer that we use for Andrew's break between work times. He has to earn tokens for working, then he gets a break for a few minutes. We set a timer so he knows when it rings, it is time to get back to work. Well, we thought the timer was broken because it seemed like it took forever to go off. Anyhow, today we caught Andrew adding more minutes to the timer!! He must have been watching Annie and figured out that he had to add minutes (without us knowing) so he could get a longer break. He's so smart!!


    Andrew is very mechanically inclined. If he can't figure out how to operate a DVD player, nobody can.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    Barney goes to school


    AndyBarneyschoolsmall.jpg



    keywords: Barneygoestoschool


    -- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jun 2006



    comments...

    CharacterEducationABriefHistory 02 Jun 2006 - 14:30 CatherineJohnson



    ednext20051_22c.jpg

    If the vast and various character
    education movement is unified
    by anything, it is the conviction
    that schools can, and must,
    develop a healthy peer culture.





    a brief history, by James Traub

    Character education has legs. It is a reform so thoroughly in the American grain, not to mention so various and adaptable, that it cannot be dismissed as just another shiny and insubstantial bubble. Moreover, the wish for schools to somehow address the sense of drift and anomie in the larger culture is not likely to abate. And so the issue is not whether we will have character education, but instead, what kind we will have and what relationship it will bear to the ongoing campaign to improve children’s academic skills. [ed.: it's always worse than you think]

    [snip]

    The expression “character education” would have seemed a redundancy until quite recently in history. Virtually all elite private education, whether at prep schools or colleges, was designed to ensure that young men of the better classes were prepared for the leadership positions in government and the professions to which they were destined....Not until the age of John Dewey and the progressives was this inculcation of civic and personal virtue questioned; Dewey mocked the rigid pieties of McGuffey’s Reader and called for a pedagogy that would liberate the child’s own questioning nature, that would replace inculcation itself with a more “child-centered” form of learning. And by midcentury, as a test-driven meritocracy made deep inroads into the old world of inherited privilege, character began to take a back seat to intellect at the elite institutions.

    [snip]

    The modern character education movement began as a reaction to the aggressively value-neutral school culture that emerged thanks to this combination of progressivism and meritocracy. In The Closing of the American Mind, which appeared in 1987, Alan Bloom wrote that among young people “openness” had ascended to the status of supreme moral principle, just as “relativism” had become axiomatic in philosophy....At the same time, neoconservative thinkers like Gertrude Himmelfarb were extolling the much-denigrated virtues of the Victorian age. The word “virtue” itself began to take on an almost talismanic power, especially in the wake of William Bennett’s Book of Virtues, published in 1992. The very willingness to use the word meant that you accepted the principle that some things were true and some were not, as against the woolly relativism and permissiveness that pervaded the schools.

    This philosophical and ideological assault on liberal, secular-minded culture put character education on the public agenda. But many parents and educators who had no interest in fighting the culture wars lamented the generalized loss of authority of traditional institutions. They felt angry that schools had succumbed to an anything-goes ethos that was harmful to both the schools and the young people passing through them. The killings at Columbine and elsewhere seemed to offer terrifying proof that the schools had somehow lost their way. Schools had left the development of values to parents at the very moment when parents were leaving it to . . . whomever.

    Character education really took wing, before Columbine, in 1992, at a conference sponsored by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, in Aspen, Colorado. There a group of educators and ethicists agreed on a list of values—not virtues—that they felt transcended sectarian, partisan, or class distinctions. These were codified as “The Six Pillars of Character” (trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, citizenship). The following year, the institute established the Character Counts! program to help schools and communities incorporate the six pillars. At the same time, a group of civic and education organizations formed the Character Education Partnership, which now functions as the movement’s clearinghouse and professional organization (and promotes its own “Eleven Principles” of character). President Clinton seized on the fledgling movement as one of the cost-free, nonpartisan initiatives he was then touting. The White House began sponsoring annual conferences on “Character Building for a Civil and Democratic Society” in 1994. And in 1996 the president gave the movement the ultimate blessing when he said, in his State of the Union address, “I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship.” By that time, according to a survey by the National School Boards Association, 45 percent of school districts said they had instituted character education programs, while another 38 percent said they planned to do so. Thus the character education bandwagon swiftly became a juggernaut.

    Education publishers now offer kits and exercises designed to teach every virtue and every value known to man. The Character Counts! folks, for example, offer a 45-minute lesson plan designed to teach caring to teens. The class begins with a moralized version of musical chairs, in which the kids form groups of three the moment the music stops. Some kids inevitably get excluded in each round. “How did it feel to be left out?” the teacher asks.

    The tens of thousands of schools now obliged to institute character education programs need materials, and a world of providers stands ready to help them. A company called Integrity Matters offers “entertaining, attention-capturing character education videos” on 35 “basic moral values” (including “Virtue”). Tolerance is a mini-industry all its own, with manuals offering “proven strategies” to stamp out hate. A curriculum program called “The Seven Cs of Thinking Clearly” (Criticism, Creativity, Curiosity, Concentration, Communication, Correction, and Control) helps children identify “faulty thinking practices” by way of “The Stink’n Think’n Gang,” a gang of no-goodniks whose members include Iwannit Now, Judge B. Fore, and—well, you get the picture. The most hopeful thing one can say about most of these lessons-in-a-box is that they are so hokey and tone-deaf that it is hard to imagine a child, even one of tender years, taking them seriously. At the same time, they constitute a terrible waste of a precious commodity. Whatever time you spend revamping your faulty thinking practices or stamping out hate is time you are not spending studying history or chemistry.

    [snip]

    Some studies have found that character education programs do, in fact, build character, though none of these studies is rigorous enough to be remotely definitive. The largest of them is a study by researchers at South Dakota State University of 8,419 students in schools that have adopted Character Counts! The study concluded that between 1998 and 2000 the number of students who reported various acts of cheating, stealing, drinking, drug taking, class cutting, and the like decreased significantly.

    source:
    The Moral Imperative
    by James Traub


    I'll believe it when I see it.





    What Works Clearinghouse

    evaluations of 9 character curricula





    preview of coming attractions

    Traub profiles the original Hyde School in Maine. In Hyde Schools, it seems, character education trumps education education.

    ..the Hyde idea emerged entirely from the mind of one extremely determined and deeply dissatisfied individual. This was Joe Gauld, a math teacher and administrator at the New Hampton prep school in New Hampshire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was the early days of the burgeoning postwar meritocracy, and Gauld felt increasingly repelled by the ethos of “giftedness” and the honors track and the rat race for college placement. The schools, he concluded—not just New Hampton but all schools—were failing children by rewarding innate ability rather than seeking to draw out each child’s “unique potential.” And so this lonely dissenter from the post-Sputnik fixation on academic achievement quit his job as assistant headmaster in order to pursue his flinty New England faith in self-improvement and transcendence. Gauld ultimately scraped together the funds to purchase the 145-acre Hyde family estate in Bath, in southern Maine, and the Hyde School opened its doors in 1966. “Instead of relying on intellect to produce good grades and high test scores,” Gauld writes in Character First: The Hyde School Difference, “students at Hyde learn to follow the dictates of their conscience so they can develop the character necessary to bring out their unique potential.”


    Apparently the Hyde Schools have become a movement:

    Hyde schools are now flourishing in Woodstock, Connecticut, and in the inner-city systems of New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. The school’s founder, Joseph Gauld, Malcolm’s father, says that he hopes to have charter schools operating in New York City and Oakland, California, by 2005. In the great, ongoing laboratory project known as whole-school reform, Hyde may turn out to be the leading entry under the heading “character education.”

    And a very large heading it is, too. (See sidebar.) Thomas Lickona, the head of the Center for the Fourth and Fifth Rs (the fourth and fifth being respect and responsibility) at the State University of New York at Cortland and a leading figure in the field, says that two-thirds of the states’ schools are now required either by legislative mandate or by administrative regulation to implement programs in character education. The U.S. Department of Education has been awarding grants in the field since 1995; the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 established the new Partnership in Character Education Program, which gives $25 million annually to schools. In part, perhaps, because the very term “character education” evokes such an all-American image of wholesomeness and high moral purpose, this is one bandwagon that educators are almost sure to be climbing aboard in growing numbers.

    [snip]

    ...character education has come increasingly to be seen as an educational rather than a social reform, with measurable inputs producing measurable consequences, for both student behavior and academic performance. Indeed, if the vast and various character education movement is unified by anything, it is the conviction that schools can, and must, consciously and explicitly develop a healthy peer culture because such a culture is the indispensable foundation for successful learning.


    Well, there you have it.

    Peer culture is the indispensable foundation for successful learning.

    I happen to believe peer culture can make or break a kid. In fact, I happen to believe, pace Laurence Steinberg, that what you're really paying for in a school district like ours is the peers.

    Just this morning, Christopher was telling me he's one of the 3 best students in his social studies class. He and the 2 other boys he thinks are best "race each other to see who finishes first." Finishing first doesn't mean slacking on the answers, but getting the answers quickly because you know the material.

    Peers like that are worth their weight in gold.

    However, the reason peers like that are worth their weight in gold is that the school isn't providing a coherent curriculum and performing routine formative assessment to make sure kids are learning it.

    I want to add that Christopher's social studies teacher, Miss Tucci, has gotten a lot of content inside Christopher's head this year. He's constantly telling me things he's learned in her class. She loves her subject, and she's done a great job.

    However, our district, last year, did not use a Miss Tucci standard in tenure decisions. Affluent school districts have the luxury of relying on parents to teach and reteach content at home, or hire tutors if they haven't the time, expertise, or cooperation from their children to do the teaching themselves. During the school day affluent districts can rely on competitive peers to spark and maintain student motivation.





    update: the Hyde motto


    Courage, Integrity, Concern, Curiosity, and Leadership

    Just to point out the obvious, I don't see Learning on this list.

    Or Achievement.

    Or Excellence.

    Or anything else of that nature.





    Also missing: loyalty.

    Brother's Keeper: Requires students to hold one another accountable for achieving their best by challenging the "I-don't-rat-on-my-buddies" ethic.

    I give up.



    eclectic.jpg



    character education reading list
    lots more books on character education
    character education resources for parents !

    The Girl Show
    The Boy Show
    The Other Boy Show

    What Works Clearinghouse assessment character ed
    Character Ed at the DOE

    a brief history of character education
    a first grade teacher focuses on moral decline
    zero tolerance for zero tolerance
    self esteem vs character ed
    constructivist character ed
    Michael Josephson, father of character education in U.S.

    character ed in "study skills" class
    character ed & shaming
    Irvington character education wall calendar
    Facing History and Ourselves

    worsethanyouthink


    -- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jun 2006



    comments...

    CharacterEdDoneRightMarraAward 02 Jun 2006 - 18:17 CatherineJohnson



    What a great day.

    Jimmy received a Marra Award from the high school today. That's him, shaking hands with Don Marra, for whom the award is named.

    Marraawardsmall.jpg


    Don Marra taught at the high school for 30 years; he was assistant superintendent for part of that time. He was the shop teacher, and was beloved. Scott Mosenthal, the principal, said Don's nickname at the high school was "God."

    Don told me he retired partly because NY state decided to drop industrial arts from the curriculum. (Boo)

    The Marra Award is, esssentially, a character award. But nobody calls it that. Scott said the Marra Award is for great kids who show up and work hard. (paraphrasing): "It's not necessarily for the straight-A kids, but some of those kids are here, too. It's for the kids who make your day when you see them." Every department and program gives Marra Awards to students they choose.

    After he was finished with the Marra Awards, Scott handed out awards for perfect attendance. (Jimmy got one of those, too — no seizures this year!) Scott said, "I go to principals conferences, and nobody gives these things out. Nobody has perfect attendance. I don't know what that means, but I think it means we're doing something right around here."

    The place was packed with parents and kids. After all the awards were distributed, Scott delivered an old-fashioned pep talk.

    He said, "Kids, thank your parents. They're the ones who got you here, who loved you and supported you and picked you up when you were down and pointed you in the right direction."

    "I've visited most of the schools in Westchester, and I'll put our students up against anyone. They're the best.Our parents, too. We're successful because we have the best group of parents in the county."



    Wow.

    I know that the person at the top sets the tone, but you have to see it to really get it. There's no b*s in a high school awards ceremony. The kids are the best, the parents are the best, the school is the best - and that's that. No 11 Principles of Character, no "everyone's gifted in his own way," no bell curves drawn on the blackboard to explain to all the kids that they're average, and they should be happy to get Cs.

    Just straight-out, old-fashioned boosterism and team spirt.

    Looking forward to 9th grade.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    If I were moving, and had to choose a new school district, I'd look for the district with perfect attendance awards.


    -- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jun 2006



    comments...

    AGoodYear 02 Jun 2006 - 18:55 CatherineJohnson



    We’re ending the year on a high.

    Jimmy has his Marra Award; Andrew is defeating digital timers at school. Better yet, Andrew and I have hit the +1 worksheets in KUMON. He's zooming.

    Then there's Christopher. Christopher is fantastic. He’s happy, he's confident, he's in the best shape we've seen, I think. We’re glimpsing the person we hope he’ll be when he’s 16 or 17.

    Two weeks ago he came home with a 92 on a science test I hadn’t even known he was taking. His science teacher is very good, but still. A couple of months ago he wasn’t getting As on science tests without help from Ed or me.

    Christopher studied for this test on his own. “I quizzed myself,” he said.

    He invented a study method, which I think he may have based on rap: “I chanted the answers out loud to myself,” he said. That part, I do remember. I heard him downstairs one night loudly reciting material from a textbook.

    What he said next may have been the best part: “I don’t know if it works.”

    That was a moment, the beginning of skepticism and humility.

    In edu-terms, it was the beginning of metacognition, but I don’t want an edu-term just now.

    He’d invented his own special way of studying, and he’d gotten a 92 on the test, and even though he'd done well he knew he'd have to try his method out a few times more before deciding it worked. He knew that he didn't know!

    Little kids, when they’re happy, think everything they do is great.

    If they’re not happy they think they “stink.” “I stink at science” – a classic Christopherism.

    When I was in grad school, one of my professors, who was a fairly well-known avant garde filmmaker, said that the beginning of maturity came when you stopped thinking you were a genius, but also stopped thinking you were nothing. He was talking about age 30, as I recall, but kids must make a similar discovery somewhere in the middle years, too.

    We’ve spent the whole year battling Christopher over whether he did or did not know whatever it was he was supposed to be able to do on a test. He would insist he knew the material, we would insist he didn’t, he would insist he did, and invariably the dispute would end in tears and yelling. You hurt my feelings!

    6th grade is not easy.

    On Mother’s Day, Christopher suddenly looked at me and said, “Thank you for all the extra work you give me, that helps me succeed.”

    6th grade isn’t easy, but this has been a good year.


    -- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jun 2006



    comments...

    MostEmailed 06 Jun 2006 - 18:49 CatherineJohnson


    The number 1 most emailed article in the TIMES today is The Gilded Age of Home Schooling:

    In what is an elite tweak on home schooling — and a throwback to the gilded days of education by governess or tutor — growing numbers of families are choosing the ultimate in private school: hiring teachers to educate their children in their own homes.

    Unlike the more familiar home-schoolers of recent years, these families are not trying to get more religion into their children's lives, or escape what some consider the tyranny of the government's hand in schools. In fact, many say they have no argument with ordinary education — it just does not fit their lifestyles.


    This is good news.

    Once the TIMES starts writing about rich homeschoolers, homeschooling becomes an option.

    An option for everyone, I mean.

    This article is a case of synchronicity for me. Just last week a friend told me that an Irvington family has hired a 5th grade teacher, who retired from the Main Street School last year, to teach their kids at home.

    When Nick Niell, an investment banker, and his wife, Sarah, moved to New York from East Sussex, England, for about a year in 2003, four teachers would come on weekdays to Mr. Niell's townhouse on 69th Street near Madison Avenue to teach his three school-aged children. Mr. Niell said he could not find a British school in the city and wanted his children to study the same things they would have studied in England. A floor of the house was converted into classroom space.

    "It was quite good fun," said Mr. Niell, whose teachers came through Partners with Parents, a Manhattan in-home tutoring service.


    That's it.

    If the British are doing it, everyone's going to do it.


    The cost for such teachers generally runs $70 to $110 an hour. And depending on how many hours a teacher works, and how many teachers are involved, the price can equal or surpass tuition in the upper echelon of private schools in New York City or Los Angeles, where $30,000 a year is not unheard of.

    Other parents say the model works for children who are sick, for children who are in show business or for those with learning disabilities.

    "It's a hidden group of folks, but it's growing enormously," said Luis Huerta, a professor of public policy and education at Teachers College of Columbia University, whose national research includes a focus on home schooling.

    The United States Department of Education last did a survey on home schooling in 2003. That survey did not ask about full-time in-home teachers. But it found that from 1999 to 2003, the number of children who were educated at home had soared, increasing by 29 percent, to 1.1 million students nationwide. It also found that, of those, 21 percent used a tutor.

    Bob Harraka, president of Professional Tutors of America, has about 6,000 teachers from 14 states on his payroll in Orange County, Calif., but cannot meet a third of the requests for in-home education that come in, he said, because they are so specialized or extravagant: a family wants a teacher to instruct in the art of Frisbee throwing, button sewing or Latin grammar. A family wants a teacher to accompany them for a yearlong voyage at sea.

    "Sailing comes up at least once or twice a year," Mr. Harraka said.

    Parents say in-home teaching arrangements offer unparalleled levels of academic attention and flexibility in scheduling, in addition to a sense of family cohesion and autonomy over what children learn. To them, these advantages make up for the lack of a school social life, which they say can be replicated through group lessons in, say, ballet or sculpture.


    Yup. That's sure the way I feel about homeschooling now. All of the above.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    money 'graph

    Companies that supply teachers and curricula are abundant, also making it easier for families to step away from traditional schools, experts say. And though many who follow the new model are wealthy, increasing numbers of middle class families more sociologically and racially diverse have begun to school their children at home, according to education officials and tutor-service companies.

    Laurie Gerber, president of Partners with Parents, said she started to get requests for in-home teachers about three or four years ago.

    "Our tutoring business started to become a huge percentage of home-schooling clients, as opposed to tutoring," Ms. Gerber said. "We started a whole home-schooling wing."

    The teachers who are hired to home school say the job is great.



    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    textual analysis

    What does this teacher mean when she says, "This is pure teaching"?

    Tiffany Wheeler's tutor, Nancy Falong, retired a few years ago after 32 years as a teacher in the New Jersey public schools. Now she works for On Location Education. Sitting next to Tiffany last week, their two world history books turned to the same page on the Marshall Plan, she expressed a sense of delight. "This is pure teaching."

    Someone posted a comment on Math Forum saying that this teacher was talking about the breakdown of discipline in the classroom.

    I don't think so.

    Breakdown of discipline may be part of what she's talking about.

    But I suspect she's talking about the wretchedness of public schools overall. The constant paperwork, the lack of authority given to teachers, the chronic churning of curricula by itinerant administrators....and perhaps the ban on direct instruction as well.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    speaking of direct instruction...

    Bank Street weighs in:

    Jon D. Snyder, dean of the Bank Street College of Education in New York, said his main concerns about this form of education were whether tutors and students were a good fit, and whether students got enough social interaction.

    "From a purely academic standpoint, it goes back to a much earlier era," Dr. Snyder said. "The notion of individual tutorials is a time-honored tradition, particularly among the elite."

    Think Plato, John Stuart Mill and George Washington. Philosopher kings and gentleman farmers. Because of the cost of in-home tutoring, the idea will probably not spread like wildfire, and just as well, Dr. Snyder said.

    "Public education has social goals; that's why we pay tax dollars for it," he said. "When Socrates was tutoring Plato, he wasn't concerned about educating the other people in Greece. They were just concerned about educating Plato."


    I feel a letter to the editor coming on.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    update from Tracy

    When Socrates was tutoring Plato, he wasn't concerned about educating the other people in Greece. They were just concerned about educating Plato."

    To the best of my knowledge, the only way this sentence is true is if we are talking about the moments Socrates was actually talking with Plato. Quite possibly Socrate's whole attention at that point of time was on tutoring Plato.

    But this statement is not true of Socrates' life in general. Socrates didn't charge for his conversation. He was notorious for stopping all sorts of people, including slaves, and having ethical debates with them. He was eventually convicted and ordered to drink poison on the basis of having corrupted youth in general, not just Plato.


    The further I go with all this, the more frustrated I become by my own poor education and general lack of knowledge. (Latest obsession: grammar. And Latin. History & "Bible literacy" are still on hold.)

    It doesn't surprise me at all that the Dean of the Bank Street College would speak knowledgably about Socrates on the basis of precious little knowledge.


    05homeschool.xlarge1.jpg
    Librado Romero/The New York Times

    Krystal Wheeler, 18, right, studying with her tutor, Jennifer Jones, at the Wheelers' home in New York.
    Krystal's sister is also home-schooled.




    -- CatherineJohnson - 06 Jun 2006



    comments...

    LovelessOnCurriculumChurning 06 Jun 2006 - 19:24 CatherineJohnson


    At Harvard, former teacher Tom Loveless teaches a [course called]: "Controversies in Education Reform." The syllabus, which consists entirely of required readings on school failures, resembles an indictment of a Mafia chief. Loveless has a personal feel for the problem that dates back to his nine years of teaching in Sacramento public schools. "This is an industry with tremendous turnover at school sites," says Loveless. "Half the principals change schools every six or seven years and superintendents even more frequently. I went through three or four principals, all of them saying: "I have some new ideas and we're going to change things." In come the big changes, out goes the principal within a few years, in come more big changes. "Nobody would stay in one place long enough to be responsible for outcome," says Loveless. "By the time everyone figures out what they're doing doesn't work the principal is gone and you're off to a new approach."

    Neglected Evidence - educational research
    by Richard Whitmire




    -- CatherineJohnson - 06 Jun 2006



    comments...

    BibleLiteracyReport 07 Jun 2006 - 00:48 CatherineJohnson



    University Professors in New National Report agree:
    An educated person needs to know about the Bible


    bible-in.jpg

    AP Photo


    I have this book.

    As far as I can tell, it's great.

    We've managed to read approximately 3 pages in the year we've owned it.

    If you want to see Major Worming Out Of Stuff, try reading a Bible Literacy textbook out loud to an 11 year old boy.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    Bible Literacy Project
    College Students Should Know More About the Bible, English Professors Say in Survey
    (CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION)
    Public schools looking at Bible literacy class (USA TODAY)



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    WhatToWearToYourDayInCourt 07 Jun 2006 - 16:27 CatherineJohnson


    Today was the big day: our appearance before the Surrogate Court to petition to becomeJimmy’s legal guardians.

    I wore:

    • White, button-down, no-iron Oxford cloth shirt from Brooks Brothers.

    • Ancient DKNY-outlet grey cotton jacket (blech).

    • Polka dot socks from Nordstrom’s.

    • Red and black Mephisto tennis shoes from Paris.

    I looked profoundly dull, but responsible. Or, rather, profoundly dull and therefore responsible.

    Jimmy performed on cue, biting his hand and wailing when we came before the judge.

    I managed not to cry on my way out.

    I’m crying now.

    Not for long, though.




    wes_sur.jpg



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    LiveBloggingTheMathTeachThread 07 Jun 2006 - 17:30 CatherineJohnson


    Midway through a math-teach thread at Math Forum, and I feel much better now; I’ve just reached the spot where Wayne Bishop quotes Reid Lyon saying we ought to blow up the ed schools

    I love the math wars.




    live-blogging the math-teach thread
    the Jerry Springer of the math wars
    blow up the ed schools, part 2

    reidlyon
    blowuptheedschools



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    MathTeachAtMathForum 07 Jun 2006 - 21:29 CatherineJohnson


    Math-teach is the Jerry Springer of the math wars.

    - Barry Garelick


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    I can't believe it took me two years to figure out:

    a) the names of math-teach and math-learn

    and

    b) where to find them


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    live-blogging the math-teach thread
    the Jerry Springer of the math wars



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    CommonSenseInEngland 07 Jun 2006 - 21:52 CatherineJohnson


    In the midst of a terrific post at math-teach, Vlorbik (who, I'm discovering belatedly, has created VLORBLOG 2.0) links to this article in the TELEGRAPH:

    Back to basics as maths problems multiply

    Modern methods of teaching maths which have mystified parents and confused many pupils are to be abandoned six years after the Government forced them on primary schools.

    The same unit at the Department for Education which devised the strategy now wants teachers to go back to the "standard written method" it abolished.

    The decision has prompted a backlash from some primary teachers and maths advisers who say children are better able to understand the concept of arithmetic when they break sums down into a series of units.

    They say the "back to basics" approach heralds a return to the "dark ages" of adding up, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in vertical rows without understanding what they are doing.

    But evidence has shown that many pupils are arriving at secondary school unable to do long division and multiplication and reliant on columns of workings out which take longer and are more prone to errors along the way.

    The proposed change, put out to consultation yesterday, has already won support from many teachers on the website of The Times Educational Supplement, who say it is better for pupils to master one, simple, standard method than struggle with many. [ed.: I'm not surprised - I also haven't been able to track this down.]

    [snip]

    The decision to return to the old methods will come as a relief to many parents.

    Christine Turno says she dreads the twice-weekly homework with her nine-year-old daughter.

    "She goes ballistic," she said. "We have massive rows because she says I'm doing it wrong and she has to do it the way the school says. But she can't understand what they want and it's a complete mystery to me."

    A 20-minute homework session turns into an hour.

    Mrs Turno, of west London, said: "The teachers say it is the new way and if the answer is wrong it doesn't matter as long as she is using the right method. It's quite bizarre."



    I've learned from The War Against Grammar that Britain also restored formal instruction in grammar in 1998.

    So we'll see.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    All this stuff is going away:


    nmaths27big.gif


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    British education URLs

    • QCA
      "non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)...
      maintains and develops the national curriculum and associated assessments, tests and examinations"

    • Ofsted
      "inspectorate for children and learners in England"



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    TaughtMyDogToWhistle 07 Jun 2006 - 22:17 CatherineJohnson


    Englandtaughtdogwhistlesmall.jpg

    I taught my dog to whistle.     I don't hear him whistling.        I said I taught him. I didn't say he learned.

    source:
    Improving learning in mathematics: challenges and strategies
    (link to pdf file on this page)



    -- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006



    comments...

    TheHappinessHypothesis 08 Jun 2006 - 12:34 CatherineJohnson


    For most of the time that anatomically modern humans have existed—a highly contested figure, but let’s call it a million years—it has made good adaptive sense to be fearful, cautious, timid. As Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, puts it in “The Happiness Hypothesis” (Basic; $26), “bad is stronger than good” is an important principle of design by evolution. “Responses to threats and unpleasantness are faster, stronger, and harder to inhibit than responses to opportunities and pleasures.” This is a matter of how our brains are wired: most sense data pass through the amygdala, which helps control our fight-or-flight response, before being processed by other parts of our cerebral cortex. The feeling that a fright can make us “jump half out of our skin” is based on this physical reality—we’re reacting long before we know what it is that we’re reacting to.

    This is one of the reasons that human beings make heavy weather of being happy. We have been hardwired to emphasize the negative, and, for most of human history, there has been a lot of the negative to emphasize. Hobbes’s description of life in the state of nature as “nasty, brutish and short” is so familiar we can forget that, for most of the people who have ever lived, it was objectively true.

    source:
    PURSUING HAPPINESS
    Two scholars explore the fragility of contentment.
    by JOHN LANCHESTER
    Issue of 2006-02-27
    The New Yorker



    Reading this review a second time, I realized that one of the points of religious practice is to create and sustain a good frame of mind.

    Being happy really isn't natural.

    Being anxious is natural. Anxious or ticked off.

    Think how much time and effort practicing Buddhists put into achieving non-thought-flooded states.

    Well, truth be told, I have no idea how much time and effort practicing Buddhists put into achieving non-thought-flooded states. From where I sit, it seems like a lot.

    I think I'm going to take up meditation.

    Or something.



    10304659.jpg



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    SummerReading 08 Jun 2006 - 12:53 CatherineJohnson


    This book will change your life.

    I'm serious.


    0307337332.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


    Even better, watch the TV show.

    And read Dog Days by Malcolm Gladwell.

    We used to have insane, hyper dogs.

    Now we have calm submissive dogs.

    Calm submissive is better.


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    art1a.jpg


    This is the way Cesar takes 40 dogs for a walk.

    After discovering Cesar, this is the way I take two two formerly insane, hyper dogs for a walk, too.

    The secret: the dogs walk behind you.




    summer reading
    summer reading, part 2



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    AnotherOneBitesTheDust 08 Jun 2006 - 13:04 CatherineJohnson



    (I logged onto the TIMES, looking for an article on Cesar Millan, and this is what popped up. Thursday, June 8, 2006 Last Update: 8:53 AM ET)




    Zarqawi.jpg


    Good.


    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    SummerReadingPart2 08 Jun 2006 - 13:33 CatherineJohnson



    Q: As the founder of the Dog Psychology Center in Los Angeles, you claim that Americans are driving their pets to the brink of insanity by smothering them with affection.

    The U.S. is a very assertive society with people, but not when it comes to dogs. People are soft and kissy with dogs. That is why dogs take over. All dogs in America are suffering from the same problem — lack of exercise and lack of leadership.


    On your television show, "Dog Whisperer," and in your new book, "Cesar's Way," you encourage dog owners to treat their pets with the "calm assertiveness" of a natural pack leader. Why is that state apparently so hard to achieve?

    Because Americans are focused on making money. And to make a lot of money, you have to be hyper.


    And you believe that we're projecting our own neuroses onto our dogs, even when we leave the house?

    If what you do is say, "I'm sorry, baby, Mommy has to go, blah, blah, blah," the dog doesn't understand what you are saying. He only understands that you are in a soft state and he is dominating you. So what departing words would you prefer we say to a dog?

    "Bye, man."


    Do you think it is O.K. for a dog to sleep in bed with his owner?

    Yes, because a dog pack sleeps together. But the thing is, you have to invite the dog into your bed.


    Should a dog be allowed on the living-room couch?

    Make sure you invite them. The whole point is that you always remind them who owns the couch. The pack leader reminds them who runs the show.



    [snip]


    Do you find that dogs on the West Coast or in the suburbs get more exercise than New York City dogs, most of whom live in apartments and don't have backyards?

    The backyard is not exercise. It doesn't represent freedom. It doesn't represent fun. It doesn't represent balance. The backyard is just going back and forth between walls. People in New York don't have the backyard and are forced to walk the dog more often, which is the best thing that can happen to dogs.


    Yet in your book you insist that many Americans and especially New Yorkers don't know how to walk a dog properly.

    Every time I go to New York, I see dogs in front of people. Oh, brother. The dog should be behind the person. In the natural dog world, the dog is always behind the pack leader. Pack leaders never, ever tell the dog to go in front.


    source:
    QUESTIONS FOR CESAR MILLAN
    By DEBORAH SOLOMON


    07q4.190.jpg



    summer reading
    summer reading, part 2



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    SampleFiveParagraphEssay 08 Jun 2006 - 19:20 CatherineJohnson



    here


    Haven't read it yet, but it looks useful.



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    CircumHorizonArc 08 Jun 2006 - 19:56 CatherineJohnson



    rainbowAP080606_600x390.jpg

    source:
    Daily Mail



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    HelpDeskPart4 08 Jun 2006 - 20:55 CatherineJohnson


    I'm hoping someone here knows something about this query at Math Forum from a homeschooled student:

    Hello. I'm home-schooled and am simply curious if the books I have which I am using as my geometry course are enough to cover everything. I am quite interested in all topics in math, so I would like to make sure I'm not missing out on anything.

    I have:

    Geometry, Serge Lang & Gene Murrow Geometry: Euclid and Beyond, Robin Hartshorne (which I will be reading concurrently with vols. I and II of Heath's translation of the Elements)

    I'm mainly using the book by Lang and Murrow as my course and Hartshorne's is 'just for fun'. I also have an almost painful to read standard high-school textbook by Ron Larson, but it's quite worthless.

    I have read about a text by Moise entitled "Elementary Geometry from an Advanced Standpoint" however if I have everything covered already I'm not going to look into it as it is expensive.

    So, my question is: Would Lang & Murrow's text with Hartshorne's and the Elements cover everything necessarry for high-school geometry? If not, is there anything anyone would recommend?


    I'm sure Barry will have an idea, since he's a geometry guy.


    Here's the Amazon review that sparked my curiosity (this reviewer has a list of interesting reviews of math books here:

    I found this text interesting because it does not follow the standard approach to high school geometry. In a standard high school geometry text, the material is developed from Euclid's postulates (axioms) and common notions in the manner that he did in the Elements, albeit in modern language. These books generally cover much the same material, although some include right triangle trigonometry and transformations. The authors of this text choose to introduce their own postulates, which leads to a quite different development of the material and alternative ways of proving standard theorems. Having previously read a standard development of geometry, I found reading it developed in an alternate way fascinating.

    The authors omit some topics in a standard geometry course, including inequalities, theorems about tangents, secants, and chords of circles, and concurrence theorems. The presentation of other topics is truncated. Instead, they include material on dilations, vectors, the dot product, transformations, and isometries. Right triangle trigonometry is not included. Another way in which this text differs from standard texts is that proofs are written in paragraph form, which is standard practice among mathematicians, rather than in the two column statement and reason format favored by geometry teachers for pedagogical reasons. I should caution you that some of the terminology and notation is also nonstandard, which could pose problems for you in your subsequent reading or examinations. Consequently, I recommend that you read a standard text before working through this one.

    The text begins with a discussion of lines and angles. Postulates are introduced. However, some statements initially stated as postulates about distance and parallel lines are later proved as theorems. Then coordinates are introduced, allowing the authors to use algebraic arguments throughout the text. From there, the authors cover area, the Pythagorean Theorem, the distance formula, circles, perpendicular bisectors, triangles, polygons, and triangle congruence. Dilations are used to explain similarity. Volume formulas are derived for some standard figures. The authors present fascinating geometric arguments that enable them to obviate the need to use calculus to find some of the limits involved in the derivations. The book concludes with nonstandard topics, including vectors, the dot product, transformations, and isometries. This material is the greatest strength of the text, which concludes with a proof that any isometry can be expressed as the composition of at most three reflections.

    The writing is generally clear, but there are errors. In one proof, there is a triangle whose three vertices are actually collinear. The authors do not distinguish between the Angle-Side-Angle congruence postulate for triangles and the Angle-Angle-Side Theorem for congruence of triangles, arguing that since the sum of the measures of a triangle is always 180 degrees, the measures of two angles of a triangle determine the third. Where this causes problems is that when they express that triangles are congruent, corresponding vertices do not necessarily match, which can be confusing.

    The problems in the text are both interesting and tractable. The problems in the final section of the text and those listed as Additional Exercises are more challenging. There are no answers to the problems in the text. A solution manual written by Philip Carlson is available separately. Also, a problem involving similar triangles and another that hinges on the Side-Angle-Side congruence postulate for triangles are introduced before the relevant topics.

    I recommend using this text as a supplement to a standard course. That way you will be familiar with standard terminology and notation. You will also know what a standard course covers and the usual way in which the theorems are proved. That will help you appreciate the nonstandard material covered in this text and the alternative proofs that are presented.

    Alternatively, you could work through the text Geometry by Edwin E. Moise and Floyd L. Downs, Jr. That text, which is known for its challenging problems, is comprehensive enough to cover both the material in a standard course and much of the nonstandard material in this text.



    I've decided God wants me to learn geometry.

    I bought the Moise & Downs textbook a year ago, after Barry (& Carolyn & Ed) recommended it. Then a couple of days ago I found an ancient copy of the solution manual on sale at an online bookstore. I'll post the ISBN number when it comes.


    SMSG Geometry



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    DontKnowNothinAboutHistory 08 Jun 2006 - 21:12 CatherineJohnson



    no surprise here —


    The State of State World History Standards 2006



    -- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2006



    comments...

    NewYorkSun 09 Jun 2006 - 12:39 CatherineJohnson


    I finally broke down and subscribed to the New York Sun, scandalizing Ed, who thinks 3 newspapers a day are enough.*

    I'm glad I did it. The Sun makes me feel as if I've picked up and moved to another city. In The Sun, New York is a town filled with charming & obscure neighborhood chapels and International Centers of Photography staging exhibits of mysteries like Unknown Weegee, Weegee apparently having been a photographer who followed cops around in the 1940s and took pictures of dead bodies. It seems that Weegee was an unpleasant character:

    Weegee was a pest," Helen Gee wrote in 1997. "Popping off flashguns in customers' faces ... handing out greasy name cards, rubber-stamped with his logo, Weegee the famous."

    Gee, the proprietor of Limelight, the first New York gallery devoted exclusively to photography, admired Weegee's tabloid photojournalism from the 1930s and '40s, but she had little use for him as an individual. (Among other things, he asked to photograph her daughter naked.) By the late 1950s, Weegee's fame was fading, and he had become something of a pathetic character. When Gee finally offered to give him a show at Limelight, he wanted to put up pictures taken with a trick lens, instead of his famous crime shots. "These broads with five tits will be a sensation," he insisted. "Nobody's done anything like it."


    That sounds good to me.

    On another morning I find one Lawrence Otis Graham ($?), a black man who went to Princeton and supported himself handsomely while there by writing books:

    "Some kids worked in the dining halls or the library - my job was writing books," he said.

    The first of his 14 books was about a 10-point plan that Mr. Graham devised for high school students to gain acceptance at a college of their choice. It was an instant success, not the least due to its serialization in Good Housekeeping magazine.

    "I wrote a book a year while in college," he said. "By the time I entered Harvard Law School, I was making a tremendous amount of money."

    Mr. Graham also became an entrepreneur while at Harvard. Teaming up with a friend, he launched a newsletter about marketing to young people, especially in affluent black communities. The newsletter, which sold for a subscription price of $500 annually, made its publishers a tidy fortune.

    It was at Harvard that Mr. Graham met Pamela Thomas. Like him, she hailed from a prosperous African-American family. Like him, she was ambitious - obtaining an M.B.A. from Harvard in addition to a law degree.

    They married not long afterward. The Grahams have three children, Gordon, 7, and twins Lindsey and Harrison, 4.

    Pamela Thomas-Graham is group president of Liz Claiborne Incorporated. Earlier, she was president and chief executive officer at CNBC. Before that, at 32, she was the first black woman to become a partner at the fabled consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

    Ms. Thomas-Graham writes mysteries whose locales are Ivy League schools.

    "There might be a hint of the overachiever in both of us," her husband said. "But we were brought up to succeed - and to make our contribution to contemporary American society."


    I think Lucy Calkins should spend more time reading the Sun, and less time reading the Times.

    Lawrence Graham has a new book coming out: The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty.


    0060184124.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V52132891_.jpg



    The Sun also seems to run sayings on the op-ed page nearly every day. Now that is an excellent idea.

    From today's paper:


    Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
    - Samuel Johnson

    My thoughts exactly.

    And here's Emile Zola on Edouard Manet:


    In beginning a picture, he could never say how it would come out.




    On Tuesday I woke up to find this dress on the front page:


    2006-06-06_thumb_2.jpg
    designer: Oscar de la Renta

    I want this dress. I'm never going to have it, but I want it.

    Since I'm not going to have it, I think getting to look at it on the front page of my newspaper is a good thing.



    Here's Weegee:


    1974.12.155.JPG

    Weegee
    source:
    The Gibbes Museum of Art


    weegee.jpg

    source:
    bezembinder


    weegee-summer.jpg

    Summer
    source:
    coldbacon



    Naked City
    Weegee chronology
    Weegee's profile & photos
    Weegee: Paparazzi or Social Documentarian?
    Fragment.nl "Writing is a trip"
    coldbacon index of Weegee pics


    dingbatWSJ2.jpg


    * Grammar query: 3 newspapers are? or 3 newspapers is? Now that I've read David Mulroy's The War Against Grammar, I intend to find out.



    -- CatherineJohnson - 09 Jun 2006



    comments...

    MeteoriteInNorway 09 Jun 2006 - 20:13 CatherineJohnson



    _A-Meteoritt_6sek_j_410790h.jpg
    PHOTO: PETER BRUVOLD
    Peter Bruvold witnessed the meteorite streaking
    across the night sky.



    Record meteorite hit Norway



    -- CatherineJohnson - 09 Jun 2006



    comments...

    HowToSucceedInMiddleSchoolWithoutReallyTrying 10 Jun 2006 - 17:55 CatherineJohnson


    I think our household stumbled onto a plan for managing middle school this year.

    Christopher continues to be in almost bizarrely good shape. He brought home another couple of As this week — a 92 and a 98 — both in English. One of the tests had essay questions on which he lost just one point.

    This is the teacher who had been giving him grades of C on his writing.

    It’s not just the sudden appearance of high grades that’s so good to see. It’s the attitude. Christopher today is the kid we’ve been trying to grow. He’s serious, friendly, cheerful, and above all non-cool.

    Ed is funny on the subject of cool. We were talking about Christopher not being cool one night, and Ed said, “You never want a boy to be cool.”

    I suspect you don’t want a girl to be cool, either.

    Of course, he’s young yet, so I shouldn’t count my chickens. Coolness may yet emerge. For the moment, though, Christopher has no sardonic humor (middle-school quippiness, yes; sardonic humor, no), his hair is short, and his pants aren’t hanging off his bottom. I’ll take it.

    I have an idea how this happened – and I think this may be a workable approach for other kids in other schools.





    Toru Kumon was right

    Christopher’s afterschooling is pretty minimalist at this point. At least 5 days a week he does:


    Christopher does this work on his own. He takes his materials down to the basement and works alongside his dad, who has set up a desk for him there.

    I’m going to add grammar (sentence diagramming in particular), writing, and possibly some extra work in Spanish to the mix. But when I do I’ll follow the same formula. One page a day in each subject, assigned from the same book each day, which lives in the same place on his desk upstairs. A book he can manage on his own.

    When I first went to KUMON, part of the pitch was that KUMON's daily worksheets turn children into “self-learners.”

    The American website seems to have dropped that language now, but you can still find it on other sites:

    Self learning and Self motivation

    Kumon students study independently at both Kumon Centers and at home. The role of instructors within the Kumon Method is focused almost entirely on the development of a student's ability to learn on their own. Kumon refers to the ability to set goals and solve unfamiliar and challenging tasks independently as "self-learning" ability. Instructors foster this "self-learning" ability in students by using worksheets that allow students to learn at one's own pace, moving forward when they are ready. The students' enthusiasm for learning is aroused in this process, as the goals they set are their own goals. In addition, this process awakens a desire in the students to take on new challenges.

    Instructors ensure that students can, without any hindrances, experience over and over a sense of accomplishment, thereby boosting confidence in their own abilities. Problem solving abilities are enhanced, and independent methods of solving problems are encouraged.


    When I read this passage last fall, I didn’t get it.

    It made sense that KUMON would increase a student’s self-confidence, but I didn’t see why “succeeding” at worksheets would produce a “self-learner.” When you talk about self-learning you're talking about executive function, and I didn’t see how filling out 5 math worksheets a day had anything to do with frontal lobe development.

    Now I think Toru Kumon was right, though I still don’t quite understand it. “Drill and kill” doesn’t just lead to procedural mastery and confidence. Somehow drill and kill also helps develop independence, motivation, and a responsible nature.

    Is it the same principle that’s at work in military training?

    It’s probably fair to say that military training is literally “drill and kill.” I don't know anything about the military, but as far as I can tell the result of military training is a young man who can follow commands or give them, and keep his wits about him in the midst of battle. All good things.

    I don't know how it works, but I do think "the KUMON principle" has proved itself around here.

    I also think that, in terms of Christopher's grades, the psychology of this year's "hands-off" afterschooling has been more important than the actual content Christopher learned. His afterschool books have little to do with his present school work. He's still in Level D - 4th grade - in KUMON Math, and vocabulary and spelling will pay off in the long run, not the near term.





    who's in charge

    I've mentioned more than once that, before Christopher entered middle school, I had decided I needed to "own" math.

    I figured Phase 4 was going to be brutal, and I needed to "own" math to limit the damage.

    Then it turned out we needed to own more than math; we needed to own the whole academic enterprise. Christopher has had at least 2 — maybe 3 — good teachers this year in his core subjects, but the school is a dark place.

    Yesterday a friend of mine captured the unspoken school motto in 5 words: Do this or you're f*****.

    That's it. That's what our kids are up against.

    Label your graph, or 50% off.

    Show your work the way I want it showed, not the way you thought I wanted it showed, or 20 points off.

    Use complete sentences on the science test or points off. (That's coming up next year.)

    Have your mom sign your test tonight or it's points off-off-off!

    I think Tracy once used the expression gale of negativity.

    That's what it's been.

    Setting up an "afterschooling household" strips power and authority from the school in a good way. The message to a 6th grade child is: your job is to learn stuff.

    Doesn't matter what grade you got.

    Doesn't matter if the other kids think you're dumb. (Christopher says the other kids think he's dumb.)

    Doesn't matter that you spent 4 hours on your scale drawing and Ms. K. deducted 20 points because you showed your work the wrong way and you still don't know what the right way was.

    Go get your books and learn something.

    Remember when Mr. Liu said that the Asian way is to be persistent and patient?

    I didn't set out trying to create our own Personal KUMON. It evolved.

    But I think we ended up teaching persistence and patience. I hope so.



    NEXT: LEMONS & LEMONADE, WINDS OF WAR, AND REACTIVE TEACHING REDUX


    -- CatherineJohnson - 10 Jun 2006



    comments...

    SummerPlans2006 11 Jun 2006 - 06:08 CarolynJohnston

    School ended on Thursday, and I can already see Ben calming down and relaxing. This has been a tough year for him. I've read Catherine's description of Irvington Middle, and I can't complain that Ben's school is anything like that; that's a whole different order of awful. But I think middle school, even at its best, is pretty awful. Give em another couple years in elementary, that's what I think.

    High points of the year:

    • Science class -- he had a great teacher who taught a very content-heavy class (yes, I'm a content freak). As a result of this class, we can talk about why people in airplanes (with which he is fascinated) feel pushed back in their seats when the airplane takes off, even when it's level. We can talk about Bernoulli's principle, and how it makes planes fly. I can talk about what causes mirages with him. It's wonderful. It's what school is about. Ben really dug that class, too. Great science teachers are rare as hen's teeth, too, so we lucked out.

    • Math -- good old Saxon. Ben worked hard and learned alot. He was sad not to be in the regular class, though -- next year, we'll try again (I hear this teacher is more heavy on the Prentice-Hall and less heavy on the Connected Math than the 6th grade teacher).

    A coda on this story -- the other day in the local coffee house, I heard a bunch of moms talking about the math class Ben was originally in, and how they can't help their kids with the math, and how the teacher tells them that's because it's different math that they learned. Snicker.

    • Reading -- Ben's reading skyrocketed this year, independently of everything else that was going on. He read all the Harry Potters up through half of Harry Potter 5 (which got to be rough going because it's dark and depressing). Last year, I couldn't have imagined it. However, he's slowed down since doing all that Harry Potter, since he hasn't liked anything else as much (JK Rowling really has a golden touch). Any recommendation as to where to go from Harry Potter?

    • Personal growth -- Ben's official record doesn't show it, but Ben definitely went through some heavy changes this year. He is much more socially aware than he used to be, and this brings pain with it, of course. But much better to have him become more socially aware than not. Pain comes with the territory for all these kids.

    Low points of the year:

    • Reading and writing class: pretty much a waste of a year, since he did no true research writing assignments, short or long. It was a special ed class with a lot of in-class support for all the kids, and they wanted to keep Ben there, and after pushing the math issue I decided not to fight to have him moved. He's regressed as a result, but we'll work on it over the summer. Maybe we'll reinstate the Kumon reading I tried to start with him last winter.

    • Social studies: not so much good or bad as neutral. They covered the same stuff he covered last year. This kid is an expert on South America now.

    Last but not least, something for the special ed parents. Ben had a set of (what we all thought were) reasonable goals on his IEP in October. Such as: Ben will express in words what is bothering him, 70% of the time without adult prompts (this is a very typically stated IEP goal). Another one: Ben will organize his own folders and keep track of his belongings (HA. Double HA).

    I got the last installment of his quarterly IEP report the other day, and all 8 or so goals have been listed as being "in progress" every single quarter. Not a single goal has been achieved, and I don't know why not because I have no real information about it. As far as I can tell, noone was taking the document seriously. I am tempted to call an IEP meeting for this summer and ask for an explanation and a change in course, but my first impulse is usually wrong. Any ideas from the experts on how to make next year a better year for him?

    Summer plans, 2006, really this time

    So now it's the summer, and he has a little time and mental space for doing some learning and catch-up. Here are my plans:

    • Get him reading for pleasure again (this means finding good books that he likes. Anyone have any ideas? He really loved Harry Potter).
    • Have him do his vocabulary a little every day (this is pretty easy with the Sadlier-Oxfords).
    • Finish Saxon 8/7 (he got up to lesson 90 in school, so there are 30 lessons to go. This is definitely a reasonable goal).
    • Have Laura work with him on his writing (Laura is our brilliant and genial therapist, who's been pulling Ben along reluctantly* for 9 years now).

    I'm not going to pursue getting him touch typing this summer, much as I'd like to. I know darn well that I probably won't achieve all the stuff I've already set out to do, so why make it worse than it has to be?

    Please share your summer plans for your kids with us, if you have any.

    One more thought

    I was at a barbecue tonight, and someone mentioned a recommended practice from a book on adolescent-rearing. The practice is that when you tuck your child in, you play a sort of a game: you each tell each other things that you like about them. Ben and I did it tonight, and it was lovely. It went something like this:

    Me: I like it that you're so nice that you could say you felt sorry for [Adult family friend in bad position], and tell me why. (It really was amazing).

    Ben: I like it that you snuggle me, and take me out for dinner.

    Me: I like the way you love maps and are interested in where things are, and can tell me which way is the right way to go.

    Ben: I like it that you're smart and you can teach me math (!!!!).

    Me: I like it that you're so nice you let those toddlers chase you and play with you at the party today.

    Ben: I like it that you do computers and make maps for your work. (!!!!!)

    And so forth. I think it's an every night thing, and I think it's okay (I think it's necessary!) to repeat themes, but with new examples from their day. It's basically a codified positive interaction, and I thought it worked very well for us, which means it would probably work very well for practically anyone.

    * reluctantly refers to Ben, not to Laura!

    -- CarolynJohnston - 11 Jun 2006



    comments...

    MeanwhileOnAnotherPlanet 11 Jun 2006 - 17:28 CatherineJohnson


    So today, David Brooks has a column ($) on "The Gender Gap at School":

    Researchers in Britain asked 400 accomplished women and 500 accomplished men to name their favorite novels. The men preferred novels written by men, often revolving around loneliness and alienation. Camus's "The Stranger," Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" topped the male list.

    The women leaned toward books written by women. The women's books described relationships and are a lot better than the books the men chose. The top six women's books were "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," "The Handmaid's Tale," "Middlemarch," "Pride and Prejudice" and "Beloved."

    [snip]

    Over the past two decades, there has been a steady accumulation of evidence that male and female brains work differently. Women use both sides of their brain more symmetrically than men. Men and women hear and smell differently (women are much more sensitive). Boys and girls process colors differently (young girls enjoy an array of red, green and orange crayons whereas young boys generally stick to black, gray and blue). Men and women experience risk differently (men enjoy it more).

    It could be, in short, that biological factors influence reading tastes, even after accounting for culture. Women who have congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which leads to high male hormone secretions, are more likely to choose violent stories than other women.

    This wouldn't be a problem if we all understood these biological factors and if teachers devised different curriculums to instill an equal love of reading in both boys and girls.

    The problem is that even after the recent flurry of attention about why boys are falling behind, there is still intense social pressure not to talk about biological differences between boys and girls.... There is still resistance, especially in the educational world, to the findings of brain researchers.... [ed.: I'll say]

    Young boys are compelled to sit still in schools that have sacrificed recess for test prep. Many are told in a thousand subtle ways they are not really good students. They are sent home with these new-wave young adult problem novels, which all seem to be about introspectively morose young women whose parents are either suicidal drug addicts or fatally ill manic depressives. [ed.: remind me to tell you about the middle school book slam one of these days...]

    It shouldn't be any surprise that according to a National Endowment for the Arts study, the percentage of young men who read has plummeted over the past 14 years. Reading rates are falling three times as fast among young men as among young women. Nor should it be a surprise that men are drifting away from occupations that involve reading and school. Men now make up a smaller share of teachers than at any time in the past 40 years.

    [snip]

    During the 1970's, it was believed that gender is a social construct and that gender differences could be eliminated via consciousness-raising. But it turns out gender is not a social construct. Consciousness-raising doesn't turn boys into sensitively poetic pacifists. It just turns many of them into high school and college dropouts who hate reading.



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    meanwhile, some place on a nearby planet

    So I read Brooks' column this morning and then, this afternoon, stumbled across this flap on a Park Slope email forum:

    New York mag has a cute front-of-book item today on an only-in-Park-Slope battle that recently raged on an email list for earnest and progressive parents in that earnestly progressive Brooklyn neighborhood. As Ben Mathis-Lilley explains:

    A few weeks ago, a member of the Park Slope Parents e-mail forum who’d encountered a stray piece of winterwear in the neighborhood posted a notice to the group titled “Found: boy’s hat.” … [S]ubscriber “Lisa” went public with her problems regarding the gender-specifying description of the hat. Wondering how such a categorization would feel to a spiky-hat-wearing girl, Lisa wrote, “It’s innocent little comments like this that I find the most hurtful.”


    Gawker seems to have posted most of the thread. Definitely a thing to be gawked at, and I have.

    First impression: these folks are not concerned about the 60-40 gender gap in college.

    In fact, these folks appear never to have heard of the 60-40 gender gap, which is now — what? Twenty years old?

    A couple of the emails are hilarious —

    First, the offending email:

    Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:25:27 -0500 (EST)
    Subject: Found: boy’s hat

    Hi:

    Friday, at the corner of 11th street and 8th ave, adorable navy blue or maybe black fleece hat with triangles jutting out ofit of all different colors. Sorry did not post right away. For older child.

    -Helene



    Lisa reacts:

    Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:34:48 -0500
    Subject: RE: Found: boy’s hat

    Helene,

    I’m sorry, I know that you are just trying to be helpful, but what makes this a “boy’s hat”? Did you see the boy himself loose it? Or does the hat in question possess an unmistakable scent of testosterone?

    It’s innocent little comments like this that I find the most hurtful…

    What does this comment imply about the girl who chooses to wear just such a hat (or something like it)? Is she doing something wrong? Is there something wrong with her?

    Lisa



    Then Trina reacts to Lisa:

    Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:34:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: RE: Found: boy’s hat

    Lisa,

    Its emails like yours that drive me up the wall! Is it that you have so much time on your hands that you can take the time to make such a comment. The original poster was just trying to do something nice and return a lost item to someone. If it was my hat I wouldt care if she posted it as a dogs hat found Id just be happy to get it back. ....

    Trina


    Good point, Trina.


    Abbey chimes in:

    Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:34:14 -0500 Subject: Re: Found: boy’s hat

    It’s emails which try to suppress all matter of interesting dialogue which are my pet peeve.

    I appreciated Lisa’s email very much and I am glad she wrote it. I imagine it has nothing to do with some rigid standard of “PC” which led her to post her response.

    I know that many people like to think they are beyond these issues and that sexism doesn’t apply to them, but truthfully it is alive and well. “Rambuctious” girls are still “punished” for the same actions which for “active” boys are not. Boys are still noted more for their math skills, even when there are girls in the same class who are equally skilled. I’ve witnessed it first hand. The emphasis on how a girl should look and dress and act is much stronger than it was when I was a kid, and frankly it’s very oppressive to a girl who doesn’t fit or want to fit “the mold.”

    etc.



    My favorite response thus far:

    Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:43:13 -0500
    Subject: Re: helene’s post about the boy’s hat

    Look — everyone stop ! ! !

    It is my hat, OK? I’m a 42 year-old man and I like wearing little boy’s and girl’s hats, as long as they have little triangles on them. In fact I’m pretty much fixated on all kinds of triangles. Gosh, what a great shape. Three sides!

    It’s my pathetic little obsession, and yes I’m seeing a shrink about it. OK? I’m sorry I dropped my little hat. I miss those triangles so.

    Helene, can I have my hat back please and can everyone stop speculating that I might be a little boy or little girl? I’m sad now.

    Ben

    P.S. I’m good at math.





    oops - it's always worse than you think

    Apparently these folks have heard of the gender gap:

    ...how can we encourage and develop styles of playing and games which enhance girls skills and love of math and science? Why is it that society is suddenly obsessing about how boys are falling behind in reading? Are they really and is it a function of sexism that everyone cares so much about the sucess of boys when girls have been shut out of math and sciences for decades? Doesn’t it rebalance in middle school and high school when boys pick up speed and girls start dumbing down so that they can be cute for the boys? And what about puberty itself, how does that effect academic success?

    That's Abbey talking.


    -- CatherineJohnson - 11 Jun 2006



    comments...

    NewsFromNowherePart11 12 Jun 2006 - 16:25 CatherineJohnson


    Last full week of school — "assessments" happen next week.

    That's assessments, not finals.

    Which may be OK. I think these assessments are to be used as exit outcomes.

    If so, I'd like to see the data before it gets warehoused in our new data warehousing system. I'd like my next issue of the Irvington Middle School newsletter to include a front-page article on the assessments: what they are, how they're scored, what we've learned from them thus far, and what we hope to learn.

    I'd like to know how the assessments given at the end of this school year stack up against the assessments given at the beginning of the year.

    I'd like to know what my child has actually learned this year!

    Without having to set up my own private testing session with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills or file a Freedom of Information Act!

    I would like to receive an actual report, as opposed to a report card.

    I don't think that's asking too much.


    Coming up:

    • two-hour school assembly on character today, displacing social studies & technology class [2 hours? is there a character problem going on at school I don't know about? is this an Emergency Character Assembly?]

    • math test on volume and area on Wednesday, giving Christopher one last chance not to get a C+ in math this quarter

    As to that, Ed says Christopher worked 3 hours straight yesterday, logging only one brief outburst sparked by Ed's insistence on explaining why the formula for finding the volume of a solid is what it is.

    Christopher understands nothing about the formulas. It's possible that the reason why, if you're finding the volume of a cylinder, you must first find the circumference of the base, was mentioned in class.

    It's possible Christopher is suffering from math amnesia.

    I'll never know.

    In any event, Ed got a head start on this our final week of teaching to crammery in Phase 4 math, 6th grade.

    Onward and upward.



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       yay!


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