I'm not sure which part of this story is more offensive. On the one hand we've got a black PTA member who's paid by his New York school district to be an advocate for parents allegedly suggesting that meetings be held on Friday nights when parents aren't likely to come.
On the other hand, we've got a black PTA member who's paid by his New York school district to be an advocate for parents allegedly calling those same parents the N word. About 70% of the families in his district are black.
Gosh, where does one begin?
The New York Daily News reports July 19 on Ron Barfield, a parents advocate earning $53,000 a year who was caught on tape during a discussion of when to hold Public School 134's PTA meetings as allegedly saying, "Do it Fridays 'cause n****** don't like to come out on Fridays."
Barfield's job is to assist parents who are having difficulty getting their issues resolved by the school staff.
Racism. It's ugly no matter what color it comes in.
As for public education, caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.
Wordly discourse on everything from the sad state of public education, politics and world peace to vegetarianism, breast vs. bottle, religious persecution, bad media, and all manner of life's vagaries.
July 19, 2010
The pain of 75 sentences
Ah, sentences.
When I was in grade school, one of my teachers' favorite penalties for bad behavior was to assign "sentences" -- you know, where a student goes up to the blackboard and writes 50 or 100 times something like, "I will not throw spit wads at Sally Ann," or somesuch.
Tonight I decided to take a page from my old-school playbook and penalize one of my children in similar fashion.
My daughter, age 8, temporarily lost her senses and tore up a drawing done by her older sister.
Said older sister was pretty peeved and demanded to know how I was going to handle the situation.
I thought for a minute and asked the offending party to bring to me something she'd made. My original plan was to give it to her sister to shred, sort of an eye for an eye resolution.
But when my daughter brought me a little paper cat with stick-on jeweled eyes that she'd made some months ago she was much too cavalier and too happy about it.
It was obvious she wasn't giving up anything of real value and that bothered me.
No penalty is any good if some sort of sacrifice isn't involved. I needed to see remorse, and judging by the look on my daughter's face she wasn't feeling any at all.
I set the paper cat aside and reassured my older daughter that a just verdict would be forthcoming. Our toddler had fallen asleep just as my husband and I were preparing to take the kids out for supper so I opted to stay behind while he and they went on ahead.
My 8-year-old unwisely decided to stay with me and gaily set about gathering colored pencils, paper, and glue to make a new craft.
As I sat down to begin my evening's writing, I had a revelation. If she had the energy to sit down to a craft project, she had the energy to write sentences!
I got up and went to the table where she was just beginning to lay out her latest project and coolly informed her she'd be doing something else instead.
"You're going to write a sentence for me," I said matter of factly. "It's going to say, 'I will not tear up other people's artwork.' And you're going to write it for me 75 times."
Jumping up with a scream like she'd been set on fire, my daughter immediately began to cry and protest. I remained calm and told her that if her antics woke up her little brother she'd have to write the sentence 150 times so she'd best settle down and get busy.
Busywork. That's my daughter's currency. She must be busy, but productively so, at all times and cannot stand to do something repetitive or mundane.
I'm the same way. That's why I get that the sentence-writing penalty is extremely effective.
I used this technique once before when she was about six and had decided to draw a mural on a freshly painted wall using a washable marker that did not wash off. That time I assigned 50 iterations of "I will not write or draw on walls again." It worked and she never wrote or drew on a wall again.
As I sit here writing this 'blog, my precious little girl sits at the table nearby writing sentences. I am very unpopular right now, but that's okay because the last thing I want to do is to raise a child whose respect for other people's things has not been properly cultivated.
I'm banking on the fact that someday she -- and the world -- will thank me just as I now thank the schoolteacher who made ME write sentences the day I purposely stepped on and broke new crayons that belonged to a fellow 4th grader.
When I was in grade school, one of my teachers' favorite penalties for bad behavior was to assign "sentences" -- you know, where a student goes up to the blackboard and writes 50 or 100 times something like, "I will not throw spit wads at Sally Ann," or somesuch.
Tonight I decided to take a page from my old-school playbook and penalize one of my children in similar fashion.
My daughter, age 8, temporarily lost her senses and tore up a drawing done by her older sister.
Said older sister was pretty peeved and demanded to know how I was going to handle the situation.
I thought for a minute and asked the offending party to bring to me something she'd made. My original plan was to give it to her sister to shred, sort of an eye for an eye resolution.
But when my daughter brought me a little paper cat with stick-on jeweled eyes that she'd made some months ago she was much too cavalier and too happy about it.
It was obvious she wasn't giving up anything of real value and that bothered me.
No penalty is any good if some sort of sacrifice isn't involved. I needed to see remorse, and judging by the look on my daughter's face she wasn't feeling any at all.
I set the paper cat aside and reassured my older daughter that a just verdict would be forthcoming. Our toddler had fallen asleep just as my husband and I were preparing to take the kids out for supper so I opted to stay behind while he and they went on ahead.
My 8-year-old unwisely decided to stay with me and gaily set about gathering colored pencils, paper, and glue to make a new craft.
As I sat down to begin my evening's writing, I had a revelation. If she had the energy to sit down to a craft project, she had the energy to write sentences!
I got up and went to the table where she was just beginning to lay out her latest project and coolly informed her she'd be doing something else instead.
"You're going to write a sentence for me," I said matter of factly. "It's going to say, 'I will not tear up other people's artwork.' And you're going to write it for me 75 times."
Jumping up with a scream like she'd been set on fire, my daughter immediately began to cry and protest. I remained calm and told her that if her antics woke up her little brother she'd have to write the sentence 150 times so she'd best settle down and get busy.
Busywork. That's my daughter's currency. She must be busy, but productively so, at all times and cannot stand to do something repetitive or mundane.
I'm the same way. That's why I get that the sentence-writing penalty is extremely effective.
I used this technique once before when she was about six and had decided to draw a mural on a freshly painted wall using a washable marker that did not wash off. That time I assigned 50 iterations of "I will not write or draw on walls again." It worked and she never wrote or drew on a wall again.
As I sit here writing this 'blog, my precious little girl sits at the table nearby writing sentences. I am very unpopular right now, but that's okay because the last thing I want to do is to raise a child whose respect for other people's things has not been properly cultivated.
I'm banking on the fact that someday she -- and the world -- will thank me just as I now thank the schoolteacher who made ME write sentences the day I purposely stepped on and broke new crayons that belonged to a fellow 4th grader.
June 28, 2010
Educational travesty in Texas
Just a couple of weeks after blogging about New York schoolteachers asked to give students partial or passing grades for getting math problems wrong, I am pretty irritated to find that right here in my beloved state of Texas a similar travesty has occurred.
The difference is that a judge has ruled that eleven school districts must stop doing this. The districts, most of them in my county and at least two of them fairly affluent in terms of socioeconomic demographics, are all upset. They don't want their teachers reporting any numerical grade lower than a 50, not even if such detail might actually be useful.
Not even if such detail is the truth.
They WANT to lie to their students, you see, because supposedly giving a kid a failing grade for crappy work will somehow damage his self-esteem to the point that he drops out of school altogether.
No word yet on what the dropout rate would be without this hokus pokus but last I checked, the state already has a pretty appalling rate of attrition when it comes to high school students.
The more cynical among us are less inclined to believe districts are lying to failing students to keep them happy because the districts genuinely want to help. Au contrare, we suspect that telling failing students it's all gonna be fine makes it easier to shuttle them through the system, let 'em screw up the test they have to take to graduate, tell them they've passed anyway, and then send them on to the local community colleges to be educated to the tune of $200 million in taxpayer monies a year. (See previous 'blog entries to learn more about this phenomenon.)
But, read excerpts from the actual news article and judge for yourselves, dear readers. Are the school districts in question truly altruistic in their zeal to convince failing students that what is, in reality, failure should be viewed as only sort of failure? I'll be interested to read your thoughts, so please comment at your convenience.
And now, for the educational travesty as reported by Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle, June 28:
AUSTIN — A Travis County judge ruled today that Texas public schools are required to give students truthful grades on class assignments and on their report cards under a 2009 state law that 11 school districts were challenging in court.
Look, I'm all for encouraging students to do their best and for helping them untangle whatever has them all balled up when it comes to academics. I do this sort of thing on a regular basis with my own homeschooled bunch. But one thing I don't do is tell my children they've done great when they've done just okay, or that they've done okay when, in fact, they've really screwed up an assignment. I don't berate, badger, name-call, or otherwise humiliate them, but I do tell them that whatever they've done needs to be redone because A or B or C is incorrect. If they need help, I help them. If the mistakes are careless with no pattern to suggest an underlying genuine lack of understanding, I advise them to attempt the corrections on their own. One way or another, we figure out what went wrong and then I watch for a repeat in the days ahead just to make sure there's no residual confusion.
Granted, I'm dealing with only three kids and not three hundred but my point is that schools that prevent their teachers from being honest with students and parents are not doing those children any favors. While a 50 and a 30 are both failing grades, as a parent I'd want to know whether my child was consistently scoring one or the other. Sometimes a lot can be learned from identifying patterns, and severely failing grades at the 6 or 9-week mark would be a definite red flag.
I understand the argument of the districts' in this story that a failing grade is a failing grade and that driving home the degree to which a student is failing might, in fact, prove discouraging. But honestly, folks, if you're already making an F of any sort, aren't you likely to already be discouraged? Will getting a 50 versus a 39 really make you feel better?
Truth in public education is sorely lacking these days. We see it in the failure of teachers and students to report abuse of students by peers or other teachers. It's in the drive to preserve the status quo of the educational bureaucracy by fudging standardized test scores. It's in the testimonials of teachers who want to speak up about abuses within the system but who dare not for fear of losing their jobs. It's in the countless children failed by a system that told them they were fabulous when, in fact, they were failing. It's in the students who pass the standardized test required for high school graduation who still can't read, write, or do math at grade level.
We shouldn't expect students to love the truth, much less tell the truth, until we began behaving in ways worthy of emulation ourselves. I'm glad the Texas judge had the nerve to shut down the practices of the districts involved in this debacle.
I'm sorry the districts didn't have enough intelligence to do it themselves.
The difference is that a judge has ruled that eleven school districts must stop doing this. The districts, most of them in my county and at least two of them fairly affluent in terms of socioeconomic demographics, are all upset. They don't want their teachers reporting any numerical grade lower than a 50, not even if such detail might actually be useful.
Not even if such detail is the truth.
They WANT to lie to their students, you see, because supposedly giving a kid a failing grade for crappy work will somehow damage his self-esteem to the point that he drops out of school altogether.
No word yet on what the dropout rate would be without this hokus pokus but last I checked, the state already has a pretty appalling rate of attrition when it comes to high school students.
The more cynical among us are less inclined to believe districts are lying to failing students to keep them happy because the districts genuinely want to help. Au contrare, we suspect that telling failing students it's all gonna be fine makes it easier to shuttle them through the system, let 'em screw up the test they have to take to graduate, tell them they've passed anyway, and then send them on to the local community colleges to be educated to the tune of $200 million in taxpayer monies a year. (See previous 'blog entries to learn more about this phenomenon.)
But, read excerpts from the actual news article and judge for yourselves, dear readers. Are the school districts in question truly altruistic in their zeal to convince failing students that what is, in reality, failure should be viewed as only sort of failure? I'll be interested to read your thoughts, so please comment at your convenience.
And now, for the educational travesty as reported by Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle, June 28:
AUSTIN — A Travis County judge ruled today that Texas public schools are required to give students truthful grades on class assignments and on their report cards under a 2009 state law that 11 school districts were challenging in court.
The school districts — most of them in Harris County - argued that the law applied only to grades on assignments, noting that the statute didn't specifically mention report cards, semester grades, or six- or nine-week averages.
But state District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal ruled that the statute is "not ambiguous" and clearly means districts cannot require teachers to give students grades they did not earn. The bill's author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has said she intended it to apply to all grades.
Richard Morris, the attorney for the school districts, said he would ask his clients whether they wanted to appeal the decision or to try to lobby for a change in the next Legislative session.
The school districts suing state Education Commissioner Robert Scott were Klein, Fort Bend, Aldine, Alief, Anahuac, Clear Creek, Humble, Deer Park, Eanes, Dickinson and Livingston.
The districts argued that their policies prohibiting teachers from awarding grades lower than a certain number - typically a 50 - helped keep students from getting discouraged and dropping out of school.
Without the policy, Clear Creek ISD Superintendent Greg Smith, said, "I think you close the light at the end of the tunnel for some students."
But the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, which intervened in the case on the side of the state, countered that the minimum failing grading polices were dishonest and didn't prepare students for college or the workforce.
"I feel like it's unethical," testified Mary Roberts, a teacher in Humble ISD.
Gee, do ya think?Look, I'm all for encouraging students to do their best and for helping them untangle whatever has them all balled up when it comes to academics. I do this sort of thing on a regular basis with my own homeschooled bunch. But one thing I don't do is tell my children they've done great when they've done just okay, or that they've done okay when, in fact, they've really screwed up an assignment. I don't berate, badger, name-call, or otherwise humiliate them, but I do tell them that whatever they've done needs to be redone because A or B or C is incorrect. If they need help, I help them. If the mistakes are careless with no pattern to suggest an underlying genuine lack of understanding, I advise them to attempt the corrections on their own. One way or another, we figure out what went wrong and then I watch for a repeat in the days ahead just to make sure there's no residual confusion.
Granted, I'm dealing with only three kids and not three hundred but my point is that schools that prevent their teachers from being honest with students and parents are not doing those children any favors. While a 50 and a 30 are both failing grades, as a parent I'd want to know whether my child was consistently scoring one or the other. Sometimes a lot can be learned from identifying patterns, and severely failing grades at the 6 or 9-week mark would be a definite red flag.
I understand the argument of the districts' in this story that a failing grade is a failing grade and that driving home the degree to which a student is failing might, in fact, prove discouraging. But honestly, folks, if you're already making an F of any sort, aren't you likely to already be discouraged? Will getting a 50 versus a 39 really make you feel better?
Truth in public education is sorely lacking these days. We see it in the failure of teachers and students to report abuse of students by peers or other teachers. It's in the drive to preserve the status quo of the educational bureaucracy by fudging standardized test scores. It's in the testimonials of teachers who want to speak up about abuses within the system but who dare not for fear of losing their jobs. It's in the countless children failed by a system that told them they were fabulous when, in fact, they were failing. It's in the students who pass the standardized test required for high school graduation who still can't read, write, or do math at grade level.
We shouldn't expect students to love the truth, much less tell the truth, until we began behaving in ways worthy of emulation ourselves. I'm glad the Texas judge had the nerve to shut down the practices of the districts involved in this debacle.
I'm sorry the districts didn't have enough intelligence to do it themselves.
June 17, 2010
Who's Eric Duquette and why does he give me hope?
Eric Duquette.
Google the name and see what you find.
He's not famous, but he oughta be.
Duquette just graduated high school in Rhode Island as salutatorian in a class of about 200 and gave a speech that will leave you wondering whether to laugh at his keen sense of humor or to cry in sheer joy and amazement at his accomplishment.
He didn't begin to speak until he was five years old.
Autism.
His parents were told he'd wind up in an institution.
According to Duquette, the doctors were right -- in a way.
He's been accepted into every institution of higher learning to which he's applied.
Never ever, ever give up.
Thanks, Eric.
Google the name and see what you find.
He's not famous, but he oughta be.
Duquette just graduated high school in Rhode Island as salutatorian in a class of about 200 and gave a speech that will leave you wondering whether to laugh at his keen sense of humor or to cry in sheer joy and amazement at his accomplishment.
He didn't begin to speak until he was five years old.
Autism.
His parents were told he'd wind up in an institution.
According to Duquette, the doctors were right -- in a way.
He's been accepted into every institution of higher learning to which he's applied.
Never ever, ever give up.
Thanks, Eric.
June 16, 2010
Ace is the place for the homeschooled hardware man
Last weekend, I made a trip to our local Ace Hardware to buy a fan. I wanted to install it alongside my treadmill so that even in the most brutal Texas heat I can exercise in comfort.
My sons and husband elected to go along with me because, well, the husband and older son have this weird affinity for things with moving parts and my toddler wants to do whatever they are doing.
We were standing in the aisle of fans or, as my five-year-old likes to say, the "Palace of Fans," when a store employee approached me and asked if I needed any help.
I was a little taken aback when I looked up. The salesman was really more of a sales boy, he looked so darn young.
Now, I know as I get older lots of people are going to start looking younger. But this person looked really young, too young to be wearing the store shirt and i.d. badge that said his name was Matt.
Not wanting to be rude (but figuring this kid couldn't possibly help me decipher the gazillion fans on display to find the one that had the most blowing power), I explained my situation and waited for the "oh, let me go ask So-and-So because he'll know more about it."
Instead, Matt smiled and said, "The fan you'll want is this one right here made by Stanley. It has a blah-blah-blah-blah and a frimfram for the gee-gaw" -- at least that's what I heard him say as he blew me out of the water with his technical know-how. My husband, on the other hand, was able to keep up and they engaged in a lively discussion about the pros and cons of the Stanley fan versus another one I'd picked out. Matt admitted he'd researched the subject and had bought one of the Stanley-made fans for his father for Father's Day.
"Do you research a lot of the things Ace sells?" I asked. He nodded. "Yeah, I like to know what everything does so when people ask me questions I can answer them," he said. I commented that he must really like his job to take the time to do that, and he said he did.
Looking at Matt more closely, I said to him, "So are you still in school?" (My way of finding out just how old he was.)
"Yes ma'am, I'll be a junior next year," he replied. "A junior in college?" I asked, thinking that would account for his incredible knowledge of makes and models of fans and pretty much everything else in the store.
"Oh no, in high school," he replied.
The plot thickened. How in the world, WHY in the world, would someone so young be so keen about researching products.
"What do you want to do after you graduate?" I asked.
Without skipping a beat he replied, "I want to start my own small business."
Ah.
Anyone who's read as many homeschooling magazines as I have -- and I think I've read them all -- has also ingested plenty of stories about young people free to explore their own entrepreneurial tendencies, often in a family-owned business. It's not uncommon among homeschooled teens to begin work early and often and, in fact, they can often be seen working right alongside their parents at book fairs and homeschool conventions selling, stocking, talking to customers.
The small-business remark, his manner, his ability to hold an articulate, informed conversation, his eye-contact, his politeness, the fact that he is so young and yet so capable, that he was working in a hardware store instead of screwing around wasting his summer like so many boys his age, that he was comfortable in a discussion with adults whereas most teen boys would rather cut off a body part than look you in the eye -- all those things combined prompted me to ask The Question.
"Matt, are you by any chance homeschooled?"
With a sheepish grin he said, "Yes. How'd you know?"
Sweet.
My sons and husband elected to go along with me because, well, the husband and older son have this weird affinity for things with moving parts and my toddler wants to do whatever they are doing.
We were standing in the aisle of fans or, as my five-year-old likes to say, the "Palace of Fans," when a store employee approached me and asked if I needed any help.
I was a little taken aback when I looked up. The salesman was really more of a sales boy, he looked so darn young.
Now, I know as I get older lots of people are going to start looking younger. But this person looked really young, too young to be wearing the store shirt and i.d. badge that said his name was Matt.
Not wanting to be rude (but figuring this kid couldn't possibly help me decipher the gazillion fans on display to find the one that had the most blowing power), I explained my situation and waited for the "oh, let me go ask So-and-So because he'll know more about it."
Instead, Matt smiled and said, "The fan you'll want is this one right here made by Stanley. It has a blah-blah-blah-blah and a frimfram for the gee-gaw" -- at least that's what I heard him say as he blew me out of the water with his technical know-how. My husband, on the other hand, was able to keep up and they engaged in a lively discussion about the pros and cons of the Stanley fan versus another one I'd picked out. Matt admitted he'd researched the subject and had bought one of the Stanley-made fans for his father for Father's Day.
"Do you research a lot of the things Ace sells?" I asked. He nodded. "Yeah, I like to know what everything does so when people ask me questions I can answer them," he said. I commented that he must really like his job to take the time to do that, and he said he did.
Looking at Matt more closely, I said to him, "So are you still in school?" (My way of finding out just how old he was.)
"Yes ma'am, I'll be a junior next year," he replied. "A junior in college?" I asked, thinking that would account for his incredible knowledge of makes and models of fans and pretty much everything else in the store.
"Oh no, in high school," he replied.
The plot thickened. How in the world, WHY in the world, would someone so young be so keen about researching products.
"What do you want to do after you graduate?" I asked.
Without skipping a beat he replied, "I want to start my own small business."
Ah.
Anyone who's read as many homeschooling magazines as I have -- and I think I've read them all -- has also ingested plenty of stories about young people free to explore their own entrepreneurial tendencies, often in a family-owned business. It's not uncommon among homeschooled teens to begin work early and often and, in fact, they can often be seen working right alongside their parents at book fairs and homeschool conventions selling, stocking, talking to customers.
The small-business remark, his manner, his ability to hold an articulate, informed conversation, his eye-contact, his politeness, the fact that he is so young and yet so capable, that he was working in a hardware store instead of screwing around wasting his summer like so many boys his age, that he was comfortable in a discussion with adults whereas most teen boys would rather cut off a body part than look you in the eye -- all those things combined prompted me to ask The Question.
"Matt, are you by any chance homeschooled?"
With a sheepish grin he said, "Yes. How'd you know?"
Sweet.
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