seeds of change

Obama said some things about teaching today. I heard a couple of news blips on NPR while I was waking up, and then I read some more in The Atlantic. I have some thoughts, which I will try to keep brief.

First of all, I recently got into a heated conversation with my aunt and uncle about gardening. I had to watch a video about communication for an assignment a couple of months ago, and part of it really stuck with me. The class in the video is working on a long-term project to grow a butterfly garden. They build raised beds, plant seeds, care for their seeds, and keep records of the entire process. The unit takes many weeks and introduces skills from math, science, economics, and language arts. There are clips of the kids saying “wow!” and getting excited about bugs and seedlings and butterflies.

Ever since I saw this video, I have been asking myself one question: Why isn’t every school in America doing this? Why doesn’t every school harvest rainwater? Why doesn’t every school keep a vegetable garden? Why don’t schools have fruit trees and compost piles?

(I’ll admit that maybe I’m getting a little carried away with the compost idea, since in some urban areas it would probably take on the role of rat buffet. But composting is easier than many people seem to think. The other day a new friend tried to convince me that composting is impossible in the Arizona desert because it’s too dry. But in my back yard there’s a $3 plastic storage bin full of rich black dirt that would suggest otherwise. Never underestimate the power of fly larvae.)

So, returning to my original topic, I was asking my uncle these questions. I wanted to know if there was any conceivable reason why we couldn’t take on a project that would conserve resources, repurpose public spaces, feed our communities, and educate and involve students all at the same time. Not only that, but this project would be affordable and aesthetically pleasing. It could involve community members of all ages and levels of education. It would promote metacognition as students learned from their mistakes and from each other. It would be interdisciplinary and relevant to students’ lives. Most importantly, it would show students that hard work pays off.

After a while he just shrugged and said “You’re right. I really don’t know.”

Somewhere in all that, I’ve hidden my response to Obama. In case you didn’t catch it, I’ll paraphrase it here: You’re right. Teachers do need to be held accountable. But that’s only part of the solution, because teachers are only part of the problem. If parents aren’t involved, it’s because school is not a welcoming place. Let’s make it one. If kids can’t focus it’s because they’re hungry. Let’s feed them. If they’re not learning skills it’s because those skills aren’t useful to them. Let’s make them relevant.

Gardening is not the only way to do this. There are so many other ways to involve kids in the community and to involve community members in the schools. And there’s no reason not to do it. It’s not like we have anything to lose.

students with multiple disabilities

Today’s New York Times cover story is about the public education system’s responsibility to accommodate students with severe disabilities. It’s a sensitive issue, and the author does an impressive job conveying the virtues of the current system (stimulating environments, devoted teachers and aides) alongside the drawbacks (minimal academic progress, disproportionate per-student funding).

“It’s an awkward period,” Mr. Rose said, in talking about the education of children with the most severe cognitive disabilities. “Because we know what we are doing is not right, and we often don’t talk about things when we don’t know what we are doing about them yet.”

Definitely worth a read. And if you can get past the typos, check out the comments too.

as scary as ever

I am reading Jonathan Kozol’s “Illiterate America.” Needless to say, it is terrifying.

My used-bookstore edition of the book was published in 1985, so many of its statistics are sure to be out of date. But like many of the older education critiques I’ve seen, Kozol’s observations seem frighteningly familiar, and his concerns of 25 years ago are still prevalent today. In other words, they have been addressed unsuccessfully — or not at all. (More on that in a moment.)

According to a Salt Lake Tribune article, students’ ability to read by the end of third grade is a significant indicator of future success. That’s because the first several years of elementary school are spent learning to read, while success from fourth grade on requires reading to learn. We know this already.

Yet nationally, two-thirds of students are still struggling when they enter fourth grade. From then on, we can only expect the achievement gap to widen. The Tribune’s article cites the usual recommendations: improve early health and education, encourage family involvement, reduce absence rates, make schools perform better. My guess is that Kozol would shoot down most of these suggestions, arguing that the parents whose children would benefit the most from those suggestions are the same parents who will never know what resources are available because they are not functionally literate.

In keeping with Kozol’s 1985 calculation that about one-third of Americans are functionally illiterate, the U.S. Department of Education sets the national literacy rate between 65% and 85%, depending on where one sets the cutoff. Reading Seed’s figure of 80% literacy roughly fits this estimation as well. Of course, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that literacy rates are at 99%, based on the levels of literacy people report on their (written) census forms. (Pause for critical reflection.) Yep.

My other recent experience relating to unaddressed (read: festering) problems related to education was delivered in the form of a sitcom that first appeared in 1969. In preparation for convalescing from wisdom tooth extraction, I went to the library to borrow DVDs representing a variety of genres. Perhaps this strategy could be likened to facilitating channel-surfing without cable.

One of my selections was the first season of “Room 222,” a dramedy about an L.A. high school dealing with the typical issues: students, teachers, administrators, parents… Of the 7 or 8 episodes I watched, my favorite segment centered on a walkout staged by teachers in response to a failing school bond proposal. During the staff meeting preceding the strike, one teacher tries to drum up support among the others by challenging them to imagine what would happen if remedial reading programs were cut. Given the recent cuts to art, music and science programs, it’s not too hard to imagine anymore.

oh, by the way

With all the hubbub about the election I forgot to mention Arizona’s other big education story, the one about the Vail teacher arrested for sexual conduct with a student.

This story especially disturbs me because the teacher in question is my age. I sure hope Christie Elliot hasn’t just ruined the already grim job prospects for a 25-year-old teacher in this region.

I do enjoy how the CNN article specifies that the district “would not divulge the gender or age of the alleged victim,” whereas most of the other news networks seem convinced the child was a “he.”

education 1, scrooge 0

I was lucky enough to be studying in Italy during the last World Cup. Every time the azzurri won a game, people would drive their smartcars up and down the cobbled streets, honking and waving Italian flags while the rest of us cheered from our balconies.

I’m getting the same rush of patriotism from the results of Arizona Prop. 100, the one that will raise taxes by 1 cent to fund public education. Thank you, Arizona voters, for finally getting your priorities straight and choosing to support Arizona’s future rather than greedy business owners and greedier consumers!

Now that the state is out of danger, I’m going to share my favorite of the official arguments against Prop. 100, because it is just so incredibly entertaining.

Have we become a nation of sheep?

Our forefathers revolted against the British Empire over taxes on household necessities such as tea, and England’s general infringment of our persoal liberty. The French people, likewise, revolted against Louis XVI when he put a tax on their bread.

But, today, if you go into an Arizona grocery store to buy basic household goods, you must pay tribute to Ceasar by way of a sales tax of almost 9% for your staff of life. And, how do we, the people, react? Well, we allow our politicians to increase and extend this outrageous and oppressive tax, and even direct us to vote to increase this high level of tax. No bread for our kids and grandkids, without a big cut for our glorious leaders’ pet projects.

Another tea party will not give us back our daily bread and basic necessities such as aspirin and toothpaste. We must vote out all politicians,who refuse to lower taxes and reduce so-called government “services”, and, instead, vote in only those true patriots, who believe in less government and more personal responsibility with private charity and solidarity.

(Edmund D. Kahn, Tucson)

Though patriotic, this argument overlooks a couple of facts:

1. The Tea Act was an import tax, not a consumer tax. The exorbitant taxes imposed on the colonies by the British were established for purposes of control and to pay off recent wars against France. Colonists rejected these taxes on the grounds that the English Bill of Rights prohibited taxation without representation. Clearly Prop. 100 does not violate that standard.
2. Louis XVI never taxed bread. The pre-revolutionary bread riots were a response to price increases as a result of crop failure. Furthermore, noblemen at the time were not taxed at all, so the tax burden fell to peasants and wage-earners. Thus the responsibility to pay off  the decadent lifestyle of the French court ultimately fell to the common people — another situation in which tax revenue did not benefit those being taxed.

Seriously, though, the passage of this amendment means that Arizona’s education budget will only decrease by $350 million rather than $748 million. I agree with opponents of Prop. 100 in the sense that this state needs serious financial restructuring to avoid these kinds of cuts in the first place. The fact that Gov. Brewer fervently supported the proposition serves to highlight the fact that it was a last-ditch effort and hardly the type of reform that educators and other people who care about the future of this state would like to see.

Incidentally, the only precinct to vote against the proposition was Mohave County, a close neighbor to the hopping town of Needles, CA. In fact, Needles not so long ago considered seceding to join Nevada or Arizona, attributing its economic decline (frankly, it’s a ghost town) to California’s higher costs of living and doing business.

Anyhow, Mohave County is also where you can find the infamous Colorado City, home to Fundamentalist Mormon leader Warren Jeffs and his large extended family. After Jeffs urged followers to withdraw their children from public schools, enrollment dropped drastically in the Colorado City Unified School District, which only had one K-12 school to begin with.

I don’t have any concrete evidence to back this up, but I’m wondering if there’s any correlation between Mohave County’s voting record and its abnormal homeschooled population. I can’t think of any other reason why residents wouldn’t want the proposition to pass, and there are certainly a few reasons why they would.

that’s what i call student engagement

Here’s more on HB 2281, the one that would ban ethnic-studies programs in part because “they got everybody divided up by race,” according to the state superintendent of schools.

Students at Tucson High protested the bill throughout the day yesterday, although TUSD, which is clearly targeted by the bill, has declared it has no intention of changing its course offerings. (At which point the Daily Star apparently recused itself from covering the issue, as there is no mention of the 24-hour student/faculty protest in print or on azstarnet.com.)

The protests reminded me of my high school days, when it seemed like kids were always walking out for one cause or another. (WTO, Iraq, Iraq again…) I drove by both times, and both times I honked.

what are they thinking?

Part 1: Teeth

I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday. Beforehand, I had fun joking about using my wisdom while I still could. Now that they’re gone, I prefer to think I’ve freed up some room for overflow from my brain. Just in case.

The topic of pulling teeth is not particularly amusing to most people, so I’ll just conclude this feature by saying that I have taken this opportunity to eat as much pudding as possible and to make frequent use of the word “socket.”

Part 2: Whiskers

When I adopted my cat, I was hoping she would be a good influence who would make staying home more enjoyable and consequently prompt me to do more homework and less wandering around not accomplishing anything.

Unfortunately, my cat doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Rather than purring sweetly on my lap while I write lesson plans, she prefers to chew on the corners of my laptop, lie on top of whatever book I’m trying to read, or march back and forth across my keyboard, leaving a trail of sabotaged spreadsheets in her wake. If I try to push her off or ignore her, she will whine at me in her most pitiable voice until I shut the screen and give her my full attention.

Needless to say, blogging is more difficult under these conditions.

Sometimes having a cat feels like having a toddler… but maybe that’s a good thing. After all, managing a room full of middle-schoolers is no piece of cake.

Lately, my cat has been teaching me about trust — and why she shouldn’t get it. She went at least a couple of weeks without escaping, spilling anything, attacking my feet in the middle of the night, or trying to unravel any blankets, and I was beginning to think she might finally have transitioned into being grown up.

Then on Wednesday morning I was out back watering my victory garden when I heard a squeak of surprise and saw Winter streak by me to the opposite end of the yard. Thrilled, she plopped herself into a pool of dust and tossed about on her back before racing into an adjoining yard to play under an abandoned car.

I wouldn’t expect seventh-graders to go so far as to hide on their bellies in the school parking lot, but they are surely opportunists, constantly on the lookout for open doors, neglected snacks, and adults who can be taken advantage of. As the saying goes, give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile. Better I learn this lesson from my cat leaving dusty pawprints around the house than from a room full of rebellious 13-year-olds.

It’s impossible to be angry with this face for long:

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for:

Part 3: Claws

Ok, actually just laws. But crazy, crazy ones!

Here in Arizona, our state legislature has been passing all sorts of nutty laws. Everyone knows about the new immigration law. It turns out Gov. Brewer has tried to suppress criticism by amending it “to restrict police from basing their questioning on race or ethnicity.” Thank goodness, because everyone knows police never pay attention to race when apprehending a suspect.

Closer to home, and by home I mean work, Arizona schools are now forbidden from teaching curriculum that promotes “resentment toward a race or class of people.” In an effort to highlight the insanity of such restrictions, Democratic Sen. Linda Lopez suggested that perhaps in addition to the Mexican-American curricula targeted by the bill, schools could also refrain from teaching about Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the Holocaust.

Although her words were spoken with tongue firmly deposited in cheek, I worry what might happen if someone in the state house takes her seriously. These days, it seems like anything could be possible.

Finally, some Arizona schools are attempting to weed out teachers whose spoken English is flawed or accented. Maybe we can find replacements with neutralized accents… Indian telemarketers, perhaps?