Student Rights
Teaching Lolita
Published June 09, 2009 @ 03:08PM PT
[Note: Shipped the furniture to Singapore yesterday, cleaning apartment and moving out today. Backache from hell from waist-high Korean broom. Until normal comes back, have some Lolita. Written 10 April 2008. See this intro post for more. - Clay]
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Fear-Based Curriculum: A Language Arts Tragedy
In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus kills his father, then marries and impregnates his mother: we teach this parricidal, incestuous, antique “classic” to 14-year-olds.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the prince’s uncle murders his brother and marries that brother’s wife, enjoying her in “incestuous sheets“: again, we teach this 400-year-old Renaissance “classic” to 15-year-olds.
And let’s not forget the sentimental favorite about a 12-year-old whose father is trying to marry her off to a prize bachelor of at least 25, and in which instead the 12-year-old heroine elopes with her maybe 14-year-old lover, and spends a night of tender love-making a few paces away from her iconic balcony. Their pillow-talk the morning after their love-making is something we have 13-year-olds recite by the millions in our annual, usually painful, front-of-the-classroom recital days. Yes, I’m talking about Romeo and Juliet. Juliet would be a middle-schooler today - and her father would be in jail for pandering her to his cellmate Paris, the noble pedophile.
In Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a 40-year-old pedophiliac professor of literature marries an over-sexed 12-year-old’s mother, who shortly thereafter dies in a freak accident, plunging the professor and the 12-year-old in a morbid love affair that ruins both their lives. Often brutal, as often tender, more often laugh-out-loud funny, but never vulgar or graphic, this acknowledged masterpiece and “classic” of modern, 20th century literature - “the only convincing love story of our [20th] century,” according to Vanity Fair - sends educators running for the hills.
It’s a tragic irony and a very telling double standard: teach controversy from old, safely removed times? No problem. (Well, maybe just skim over Paris’ age, Juliet’s loss of virginity, Oedipus’ and Gertrude’s incest.) But teach the same issues about modern schoolgirls? No, no, no. That hits too close to the real world. Let them learn about that, if at all, from their sensationalistic prime-time TV’s at home: To Catch a Predator, anyone? School is not the place for unsafe subjects. We only think critically about safe ones here.
That we should think about these subjects in our classrooms - our young females, in particular, but our young males too, as is shown below - can be supported by a few statistics (USA only): (Click "read more" below...)
A Commencement Speech of Terror and Beauty
Published June 07, 2009 @ 09:44AM PT
I hate to sound all gloom and doom, but as the speaker below says, "If you look at the science ... and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data." More and more, as I study ancient Near Eastern religions of Babylonia, and especially Israel and Roman Christianity - Near Eastern in mind if not in space - I find myself noticing that science has taken the mantle of prophecy from religion, and that its jeremiads seem to have as little effect on society as those of its pre-modern predecessors. Today's Cassandra wears a lab coat.
If there's any hope at all, it's in education. For the sake of the world, I can only hope Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Eli Broad stop talking about education as a set of skills to dumbly read a "no insurance" contract at WalMart and to make change at its cash registers, and start talking about it in the more momentous terms the times demand.
But with businessmen leading our education policy, I can't say I'm too hopeful that will happen.
Call that a preface to the following. Thanks to Anand Thakker on Twitter for tweeting me this University of Portland commencement speech - "Healing or Stealing?" - by Paul Hawken, co-author of Natural Capitalism. It speaks of things we tend not to speak of to our young, when our only hope seems to be that they do hear these things, and make the changes in the near future that our own and previous generations were too weak to make.
Here's the beginning. Click through for the whole thing - and show it to the young.
Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. (Read the rest....)
photo of Malaysia by Shutterhack
Six Reasons I Apologize to My Asian Students
Published June 06, 2009 @ 09:08AM PT
I had lunch today with my Korean sisters-in-law, both of whom are gonzo, like all parents in Korea, to get their kids out of those public Korean schools of which EdSec Duncan and President Obama are so enamored - and into American schools.
One of my sisters-in-law speaks English, as does my wife, but the other one doesn't, and I don't speak Korean, so there was much two-way interpretation work for my wife. It came in handy after she saw me laugh a private laugh while watching her and her sisters talk.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because watching everybody talking with their mouths full made me think of a Korean student of mine years ago, when I didn't know your culture. He always talked with his mouth full, and it always grossed me out. I'd order him not to do that around me. Now that I realize it's normal in your culture, I realize how many other ways I was unfair to my East Asian students."
That led to a long conversation, which I summarize below. I'm tempted to think everybody knows this already, but then I remember that not everybody has lived in Asia for almost a decade. So this might help some teachers and administrators out there to understand their Asian students better.
1. I once thought they were being disrespectful by not looking at me when I was talking to them. I was wrong. Eye contact to elders and authorities is considered rude in their culture.
2. I once thought the boys were all lacking confidence because of their limp handshakes. This may be true, in a sense; but in another sense, Asians don't value the confidence and assertiveness connoted by a firm grip. They value harmony and hierarchy instead. And Koreans don't even shake hands, as a rule. Instead, they bow - especially to anyone older, even if only by days, weeks, or months.
3. I once thought my Chinese and Korean students were disprespectful brats for greeting me, "Hey, Burell" - sans "Mister." This greeting is hard for them to get the hang of. In their culture, they simply call the teacher "Teacher." They're not being disrespectful.
4. I once thought Asian students were unable to think critically or originally about the ideas studied in class. This may be true to a degree as well, but it's largely because, again, in their culture, authority is to be respected and valued, not challenged. Asian students are considered successful for learning the ideas of the "masters," not for challenging them. Challenging them would usually be frowned upon in their native schools.
5. I once thought Asian students lacked curiosity and a desire to learn because they almost never asked questions or took a shot at answering them in class discussions. I didn't understand the Asian premium on knowing the right answers, on not being wrong, on not looking ignorant. We in the West have a radically different take on these things.
6. That talking with the mouth full thing: it's normal for them. Some of the things that are normal in the West - yawning, for example - are considered far more rude to them than they are to us.
I just share this stuff because I'm leaving Korea. Call them lessons learned. If they stop anybody else from forming bad opinions of these students - which in the worst cases can result in lower grades or negative labels for them - then it was worth the time it took to write them.
I can only imagine the types of cultural disconnect that go on in U.S. schools with dozens of different ethnicities. What a rabbit-hole.
And sorry, kids. I get it now.
[Update: I passed this by my wife and her sisters, and they suggest that yawning is only rude when the young do it around the older. A better example of Western customs seen as outrageous in the East is our comfort with wearing shoes inside our homes, a habit seen as unbelievably unhygienic here. My wife wants me to add that Koreans only talk with their mouths full among friends, so I stand corrected.]
USA, explained by Jim Carson
Help Fight Big Telecomms for Net Neutrality
Published June 04, 2009 @ 08:44AM PT
I'm a big supporter of Free Press Action Fund, and their fight for net neutrality. I see it as an education issue - corporate hijacking of internet cables will affect school budgets.
So here's the latest appeal from FreePress. It only asks that you sign a petition to the FCC against big media lobbyists:
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Dear Clay [All],
"I'm a guy who sees nothing good having come from the Internet. Period." Michael Lynton
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Typical.
The media exec to the right just launched an attack on the Web, saying that he sees "nothing good having come from the Internet. Period."
But Michael Lynton is just the latest in a line of old media bosses who see the open Internet as a threat — something they need to control in order to keep prices high, access limited and users in check.
Those of us who rely upon the Internet every day now have a chance to tell Michael otherwise:
Make Sure Lynton and His Cronies Don't Stifle the Internet
At this very minute, the Federal Communications Commission is crafting America's first national broadband plan. Whether the plan will give more control over our Internet to the likes of Sony Pictures, Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon depends on what we do right now.
These companies' well-heeled lobbyists are flooding the FCC's public docket with comments in support of policies that let them:
- Tilt the Web’s level playing field to favor the Web sites of corporate partners;
- Deploy content-sniffing devices that would randomly open and sift through our private Web communications;
- Impose usage penalties on people who use the Web for more than simple e-mail and Web surfing;
- Block innovative Web services that compete against their phone, cable and entertainment products; and
- Disconnect users for any reason or without justification
Acting FCC chairman Michael Copps has called the creation of the broadband plan "the most formative — indeed, transformative — proceeding ever in the Commission’s history." He added: "The Commission must act to ensure that the genius of the open Internet is not lost."
Copps is right. Michael Lynton is wrong. We need to tell the FCC that a more open open and accessible Internet is a good thing that will revitalize our economy, engage millions more people in our democracy and give new meaning to freedom of speech. And we reject the nonsense that open Internet backers are all conspiring to promote piracy.
It’s time for the FCC to get behind a people-powered vision of 21st-century media media that’s participatory, open and democratic -- and not to hand the keys to the Internet to the old guard.
Tell the FCC: The Internet Is Good for Democracy. Period.
Click on the link above and tell the FCC that our national broadband plan must guarantee an open, fast, affordable and people-powered Internet without corporate gatekeepers.
Thank You,
Timothy Karr
Free Press Action Fund
www.freepress.net
P.S. Tell your friends to file comments with the FCC, too. Share the link on Facebook. Post a tweet. Forward this e-mail. Get the word out.
Texas Evolves, Ousts Creationist from Ed Board Chair
Published June 01, 2009 @ 08:44AM PT
Steve Schafersman of the Texas Freedom Network spreads the Good News:
On Thursday the Texas Senate failed to confirm Don McLeroy as Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. Rejection of a governor's nomination is rare. McLeroy lost confirmation in a close party-line 19-11 vote. One Democratic senator, Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. was present but abstained. A two-thirds majority (21 votes among the 31 senators) was needed for confirmation. McLeroy will remain on the SBOE as a member.
News reports about this topic can be found in the Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, the Dallas Morning News, and San Antonio Express-News.
As is widely known, Don McLeroy, a Bryan Republican, is a Young Earth Creationist who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old, that the Earth and the entire universe were created in six 24-hour days, and that all species were specially created in their present form by God. Organisms now represented by fossils were all killed and deposited in sediments of Noah's Flood.
But don't shout "Amen" yet. The Devil, Schafersman adds, is in these details, which may damn Texas to a McLeroy clone for two more years:
Since McLeroy's nomination was unconfirmed, after June 1 the SBOE will have no chair and Governor Rick Perry will be obliged to appoint a new chair. The next confirmation hearing for SBOE Chair will be in two years, so if Gov. Perry appoints Radical Religious Right and Young Earth Creationist Cynthia Dunbar, Terri Leo, David Bradley, Ken Mercer, Barbara Cargill, or Gail Lowe to be the next SBOE chair, he or she will be able to serve for at least two years before facing Senate confirmation.
Schafersman thinks the governor will indeed appoint another creationist for the interim.
Anyway, kudos to Texas' Democratic senators, all of whom voted against McLeroy, and a big *sigh* to the Republicans who all voted for him. A special thanks to Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who already received over 1,500 "Thank You's" from our petition here on Change.org for standing, ahem, upright against the primates fossilized in pre-scientific worldviews.
I don't know why the idea that we're animals is so terrifying. We're the only animal able to unriddle the great mysteries of life - the genome, the tree of life (lower case, mind you), the wonder of Google, and so much more. Sure, we're also historically the most destructive animal the world has ever seen, but that's been true before science as well as after it.
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Bonus video: Here's the good dentist McLeroy setting the scientific "experts" straight in the Texas science standards hearings at the State BoE:
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Video: Six Reasons Value-Added "Growth Model" Teacher Evaluations are Unfair
Published May 28, 2009 @ 06:29AM PT
University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham tipped me off to his latest video, on one of EdSec Arne Duncan's pet subjects: "Merit Pay, Teacher Pay, and Value Added Measures." Willingham gives "six reasons in three minutes" that the idea of evaluating teachers by the value-added "growth model," as reasonable as it sounds, is still unfair. Worth a watch, and good for a couple of chuckles to boot. (I wonder if Perez Hilton plans to sue.)
Besides Dan's six, what other flaws in this idea can you add?
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Tell Lawmakers to Say NO to Tax Dollars for an 8th Grade "pre-pre-SAT"
Published May 27, 2009 @ 07:05AM PT
From the Department of "Enough, Already!" The College Board, "non-profit" purveyor of the SAT, PSAT, AP, and other money-makers from the bubble-sheets-equal-intelligence economic bubble, is poised to inflict yet another standardized test on our students - this time in middle school.
Where will it all end? College prep bubble-tests for newborns?
This is no idle kvetching session. School districts - that means you, taxpayers - will end up paying for this new test, if the College Board isn't stopped, which means they won't have money to spend on more constructive ways to help our students learn.
Read more below, or just cut to the chase and sign this petition to Obama, EdSec. Duncan, Congress, and state governors to say NO to a middle school SAT clone.
The Big Money on Slate has more:
Before the financial crisis hit, eighth-graders across the country were scheduled to take a new test this fall, their first to get into college. The exam is called ReadiStep, and it's a new standardized test that simultaneously says it's "low-stakes" while also being a "vital step" toward getting ready to get a bachelor's degree. It's all multiple-choice, and it's split into three parts: reading, writing, and math. The test will offer teachers "insight into students' academic progress and early feedback that enables them to help students create a road map for success." Plus, administering the exam "helps create a college-going culture"—don't we have one already?—and the results are "predictive" of PSAT scores. PSAT scores, of course, are predictive of SAT scores, which are predictive of where one gets into college. ReadiStep is poised to become a new rite of passage for American youths.
But the test is not provided by the federal government. Nor is it a brainchild of state and local school boards or mandated by No Child Left Behind. It's provided by the College Board, the same organization that administers the PSAT and the SAT. It was originally supposed to launch this fall, but was postponed due to economic circumstances. . . . For students, ReadiStep is the gateway to a life of bubble-sheets and No. 2 pencils.
For the College Board, it's another way to make tons of money.
ReadiStep will cost 10 bucks a pop, which will likely be paid by school districts. That money goes straight to the College Board, just like all of the revenue generated by its other standardized tests. Read more....
The article sheds much light on the true nature of the selfless-sounding entities known as "non-profits." The president of the "non-profit" College Board pocketed a saintly salary of
$673,757 in 2006, an 88 percent increase from his initial starting salary," and "the College Board has 10 senior vice presidents and 28 vice presidents; senior staff members make an average of $239,374 in compensation. These numbers are presumed to have gone higher since 2006."
Who needs profit when two years at a non-profit can make you a millionaire? Thanks, charitable donors and taxpayer-financed government grants!
Again, please sign the petition here. This is getting ridiculous. Let's spare our 12-year-olds the anxiety of thinking bubbles determine their fate, and instead teach them that they have much more control over their lives than those bubbles do.
