esrosedotblog

I love school teachers but they have gained far too much power for their own or anyone else's good.

That power seems to be draining away. Here is what happened out here.

California Teacher Tenure Laws Ruled Unconstitutional

My Dad was a school board member. They fought this battle every year one way or another and this was 60 years ago.

Some of my best friends are teachers, or retired teachers. But the idea that lousy teachers cannot be fired is a lousy idea. It always has been. Will always be.

What happens here is the practice of taking lousy teachers and letting them drop to the bottom of the barrel with poor schools, marginal students and so on. But those people are fighting back. They don't want those lousy teachers either. They also have considerable political power in California right now.

I am encouraged by this.

Labels: education

Not many people know you can go to MIT without paying any tuition.

But it is true. Up to a point. Look here: MIT Open Course Ware

More and more of the kids that I interview have taken one of these programs.

But anyone can do it.

I guess other schools do the same thing but MIT was an innovator in the field.

I am not sure how this will sit with the lifetime ticket to any job you want that we all had when we went there. But it has to be significant.

It is the real deal. Not some watered down version of a live class.

It is a new age in higher education where, in reality, there is no "higher" in that anyone seeking success needs at least 14 and probably 16 years of school under their belt.

Labels: education, MIT

LONGHAND

The latest abandonment.

Should Schools Require Children to Learn Cursive?

I say "Yes". But then I say "No". And, then, I follow with "I don't know".

I need to say that I remember an awful lot about writing what we called "longhand". The Palmer Method.

The letters were up front in every class room. I think we started with it in the fourth grade.

Miss Bush. A hard taskmaster.

OK. So why "yes". Hand eye coordination for one. Integration of the brain with the fingers and hand. The same reason it is useful and often cleansing to write out shit that is in my head. Journaling. It also gave me a style. You had to write right but then you could let go and find your own way with it. I think that it is wrong to abandon old stuff that might have some civilizing discipline to it.

No. Because it was a pain in the ass and took time from other subjects. Some people, some of my kids, just couldn't do it. And it was a source of shame for some. Not only that but it was not taught well. There were the ideal shapes but not even the teachers could do it. No modeling.

I don't know because it is the way I was brought up. I have learned that there is no right way to teach or right curriculum. The ideal one is that which will give you basic skills, hand and mind skills for example, that you can apply to more complex issues.

My present handwriting is a mixed bag. I still do write cursive and I still do print and sometimes the two are combined.

One thing I do not do is to make round dots over the I or put smiley faces on my periods.

Miss Bush would crack my wrist with a ruler if I did that.

Labels: education

CHICKEN LITTLE

I find it hard to believe all the hand wringing about our education system going to hell.

Sure there are problems. There were problems when I had Miss Bush hitting me on the fingers for some infraction. She also wrote our names on the board like demerits. Or Mr. Price who painted one fingernail red and mostly sat in the back of the class having kids go up and read stuff.

One of my kids got hit with the new math and never learned how to do long division. And so on.

There is always shit going on.

My Dad was on the school board in our town for years. The stories he would tell (and probably shouldn't have) were certainly not very encouraging about how the educational process was going on in the schools.

But I got into MIT. One of my kids got a PhD and another is working on one. All are useful citizens.

WTF is the problem?

If you are a ranter and raver read this.

American Education is not in a Catastrophic Decline.

Labels: education

DOING BEETTER

Take a look. School kids are doing better across the board. Good news you won't hear in the usual news casts.

A Quick Look at How Our Kids Are Doing

Labels: education

THE MEME, THE MEME

You know the one. Our kids education is in the shitter and going down the pipe fast.

Here is the latest.

Geography Report Card Finds Students Lagging

But when you read this you find that is not the case in certain grades. And some stayed the same since last time.

The other thing is the body of questions.

Geography 2010: Sample Questions

Step right up. Give it a try. What about those maps right there on the first page. Answer is A, right?

No.

I got all but one question correct. I didn't get the idea behind the Great Lakes water/air thing.

So, I didn't lose much over the years.

There is an impression that these are more difficult than I had to work with. But I still got the answers. All but one.

This all proves nothing. But we are not in a crisis.

Labels: education

DINNER TALK

Taylor Mali, slam poet and teacher.

Via Bill in Exile

Labels: education, poetry

OLD SCHOOL TIES

My cousin in Pennsylvania sent me this today.

Barrett High School was once center of community, alum recalls

My cousin is the Alum in question. He is the town historian. Well, township. There were four small "towns".

This is the school that I went to when I was a kid. All twelve grades in one building. We didn't know any better. They formed a larger jointure district three years after I left. The history is here in this article more or less. Mostly less.

I sometimes dream about the school. Most often I am on the north side in the drive either in the playground or on the steps. Not much happens there but it is important. I suspect that is the door I went through the first day as the 1st grade room was just around the left corner.

I don't remember the last day.

I have never seen this photo with all the old buses. When my Dad was on the School Board, I remember a year they bought all new ones. All the bids came through the house. They didn't buy the ones that I wanted which were the sleeker Air-Stream type of bus which I never see anywhere (used to spy them in California but not now). I also wanted them to get the flag that popped out of the side so people would stop. They skipped that also and just got the flashing lights.

I did not ride the buses on a regular basis. I walked through Daniel's field either through the old rent-a-house next door to Elmer and Lela (and Roger for awhile and their wired hair terrier Trixie). Then through the back lot and into the field from the house we built and owned further back on the same street. Are you following me? No. You had to be there.

I went home for lunch and never ate in the cafeteria. I was sheltered. From Ray Jones food and the less savory society of other kids. More over protection from my mother. No wonder I am an introvert. It would have been a lot better had I been with the other kids. Too late now.

See what a little photo will do to an old man's thoughts?

We used to pretend shoot the WWI machine guns out in the lawn next to the flag pole which had the honor roll of who served. It was not allowed. Playing with the guns. But after hours, when Mr. Lewis couldn't see out of "the office" windows we fired away.

The Office. That was what it was called. Everyone knew what it meant and where it was.

You didn't want to be called to "the office".

I wonder if they ever took the asbestos out of the school. It was loaded with it. In the big mostly unused basement rooms next to the cafeteria and shop...north and south...there were exposed walls proudly labeled "asbestos" as was the old roll down curtain on the stage. Roll up. A scene of a waterfall on the front.

In the gym, one year, the basketball boys had broken the plaster wall under the stage. The teachers told us that it was the easter bunny who had come in to leave eggs.

I have seen a lot of schools in my time. The old BCS ranks as one of the finest. A great gym. Pretty good facilities.

My grandkids go to what look like office buildings. All of my kids went to a middle school in a modular building, open plan, in Plymouth, MA. No walls.

It had to be totally renovated. This was when they were trying everything new. New math. New this, new that. One son never learned how to do long division. He denies it but I know it is true. He learned it later.

I learned times tables and how to divide in, well maybe, fourth grade or something. Miss Bush had one board at the left where she would write names of miscreants. Penalties abounded. Cleaning the erasers for example. I loved cleaning the erasers. Clearly Miss Bush did not and thought it a punishment.

Her room was the second rank of windows from the right. I can see her peeking out at us. And there's Mr. Lewis too. Who I actually loved and was very good to me. He helped me get out of that town forever.

Labels: education, history, life

MOVING ON

So. We have reached another plateau or benchmark or stage of life.

We now have grandkids heading for college.

Two are high school seniors, both have been accepted in a college, both are waiting until all the cards are dealt before they decide which one to attend.

I have always been sentimental about the first day of school for kids. Particularly the first one. Kindergarten or whatever.

Now, we will go through it all over again. Freshmen. Women.

This is not the only higher learning going on. We have have a daughter now finishing her work for a doctorate in nursing.

Pretty good stuff. Very nice.

I have worked with applicants to MIT for awhile and am familiar with the tension involved in the process of deciding, applying, waiting, deciding again. It is newish to be on the other end and see people I love going through the moves to get more education.

All for the good.

Labels: education, family