tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64360927921366430782024-02-02T00:58:33.128-08:00Curious MindsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-74696771033242186082013-10-11T12:06:00.003-07:002013-10-11T12:15:45.278-07:00AbsoluteBearing
How do you command your ship during a vicious Pacific Ocean storm off the California coast so that you avoid contact with other ships attempting to navigate the same storm? And how do you do this with radar down, white spray lashing at your face like hot pellets from monster waves dead ahead and men missing from your radar detection spaces? Such was the challenge for Lt. Stephen Wheatley, Officer-of-the-Deck of USS Latner, DD-952, a Forrest Sherman class destroyer, during a horrendous storm off Catalina Island at the end of the Cold War in 1990.
Wheatley was under the Captain's Night Orders to report all unknown surface contacts, known as "Skunks," to him when within three nautical miles. But events,weather and loss of focus intervened. The result was Latner came into "extremis," the situation where any maneuvering by one of two ships will result in collision.
The resulting events were tragic for one wandering engine man on board Latner and devastating for Wheatley, who then faced a most contentious general court-martial, a military legal process than can result in dismissal from the service, or more dire, in death. "I'll kill the sonofabitch," thought Wheatley about the prosecutor.
Wheatley's misadventure leads to his search for personal redemption and reclaiming his professional bearing.
His is the story of The Caine Mutiny and The Poseidon Adventure.
"You'll all be killed!" urges his new love interest as Wheatley sets off from a pier on San Francisco for a Pacific Target range where a former troop carrier is about to be deep-sixed by the Navy.
Absolute Bearing is now an Amazon.com selection.
Read Excerpts from Chapter One in subsequent blogs.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-34306508079077620972013-10-11T11:58:00.001-07:002013-10-11T12:00:08.197-07:00AbsoluteBearing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBk8JFfSnOatpvpVZxMEy17fzHwkI_GdU3aM1YLrz-bP28ttXP2Uz9YtJXbvOmmnlpjFvxtnWTqFYivC4pHCUuWrgz-gqfn_cQfwzhWGLWnhJ3qISOBWwP5jkhmwNAHHIo2z6pByQhZHs/s1600/Front+Cover.4224284.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBk8JFfSnOatpvpVZxMEy17fzHwkI_GdU3aM1YLrz-bP28ttXP2Uz9YtJXbvOmmnlpjFvxtnWTqFYivC4pHCUuWrgz-gqfn_cQfwzhWGLWnhJ3qISOBWwP5jkhmwNAHHIo2z6pByQhZHs/s320/Front+Cover.4224284.jpg" /></a>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-61484520936078022352013-04-24T06:26:00.000-07:002013-04-24T06:26:29.790-07:00Boston First Responders<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">First responders rushed toward danger at 4 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds after the beginning of the Boston Marathon on a much celebrated Patriots Day.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The bombers had detonated two vicious devices designed to maim human beings and, indeed, what medical personnel from local hospitals found was carnage unseen since their days in Iraq or Afghanistan.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx64v3jYPydVKltaSMYEORu8bPWm2jxrBN1hipaPWTvaOBKvbq5czA0XQF5AlQ9sXw-Hrmvzu1W5YTJ6cyU69tkt0QpSs-4R4ItBUqZt4o-fO414R-yrypJeT__gJ5aWYusbw0Kze2q9M/s1600/first_responder_carrying_AP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx64v3jYPydVKltaSMYEORu8bPWm2jxrBN1hipaPWTvaOBKvbq5czA0XQF5AlQ9sXw-Hrmvzu1W5YTJ6cyU69tkt0QpSs-4R4ItBUqZt4o-fO414R-yrypJeT__gJ5aWYusbw0Kze2q9M/s200/first_responder_carrying_AP.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Theirs is the courage not merely of a profession, a badge, a uniform, but of character, of strong moral courage and dedication to protecting all of us who sometimes take their service for granted.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But there were other immediate responders. The managers, wait staff and bartenders of a new restaurant to Boylston Street, Forum, were at what we now call “ground zero.” One of the staff was looking out the window toward the green mail box and, without hearing anything, saw a ball of orange/yellow flame and his mouth was soon filled with the grit of devastation.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All Forum employees did what professional first responders do, they went to the danger, to the devastation, toward those in terrible need. When told by local police to evacuate, they refused and proceeded to tend to the wounded, some of whom had been sitting out on their patio for a bird’s eye view of those strong, determined, goal-driven men and women who were finishing perhaps their first marathon, the dream of a life-time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAmmxh-JQpZ7oWHJd8wj_1OJgs0NYdnEmLcAx0nwYP38izfa6m8_l4NWrJY4_uIQjO3wl1dmUWxBLyha2pyG3VKmihm6KMW-UKqXoWIL5xNh4u1E4AvlvMjlCGd8NOHTSCvl33iYrqejk/s1600/s-MARTIN-RICHARD-large640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAmmxh-JQpZ7oWHJd8wj_1OJgs0NYdnEmLcAx0nwYP38izfa6m8_l4NWrJY4_uIQjO3wl1dmUWxBLyha2pyG3VKmihm6KMW-UKqXoWIL5xNh4u1E4AvlvMjlCGd8NOHTSCvl33iYrqejk/s200/s-MARTIN-RICHARD-large640.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The crew of the restaurant as well as others who were ambulatory after the blast rushed to help, taking off belts to act as tourniquets which, in many cases probably saved people from bleeding to death. Nearby Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzhi Lu lay wounded and dying. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s hard for those of us who watched story unfold on television to imagine what these first responders saw and the bravery they showed in the face of these terrorist acts. As so many of us thought following 9/11, maybe there are other bombs to be set off?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But, almost mindless of their own safety, these men and women of Boston (police, fire, EMS, medics) gathered about the sick, the severely injured and the dying to offer comfort and assistance as we hope that we would were we on the spot. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DcvhM2CUs8UbgbgSofeM79UGfapDq5MwfS_uza_Cz00yhmhkMRDdLbD6SiSauCA1LkG6GIlqLWY5P3QAt4IQm_wsuNmvfdzeo9WTb4SBkEOi5Rgn9keS5YuI1hDHTWA0KmXdE6TCgwQ/s1600/s-KRYSTLE-CAMPBELL-FUNERAL-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DcvhM2CUs8UbgbgSofeM79UGfapDq5MwfS_uza_Cz00yhmhkMRDdLbD6SiSauCA1LkG6GIlqLWY5P3QAt4IQm_wsuNmvfdzeo9WTb4SBkEOi5Rgn9keS5YuI1hDHTWA0KmXdE6TCgwQ/s200/s-KRYSTLE-CAMPBELL-FUNERAL-large.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They held victims in their hands, stroking faces, smoothing their hair and telling them, as best they could with all the hope they could muster, that they would survive to live another day, to enjoy Spring as it continued to bloom in all its effulgence.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The warmth of a hand, face and body is that human touch that forever binds us one to another. This is the blessing of community, of togetherness of our humanity. These are the relationships that say we are of one family.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9hIJ5BwVOxt7yE8Y4_l2Lb0wNuRplv-L6qm5dNkGH7UhIbnrShG2ZQ4V11EyeT7MN2rOrcFQB3kNPcUZnvflrQQwN3WvKqHnllZD4mjOIy8g9o88HW00GvJGT2YuJDexGHVTyIjG6Qk/s1600/Lingzhi+Lu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9hIJ5BwVOxt7yE8Y4_l2Lb0wNuRplv-L6qm5dNkGH7UhIbnrShG2ZQ4V11EyeT7MN2rOrcFQB3kNPcUZnvflrQQwN3WvKqHnllZD4mjOIy8g9o88HW00GvJGT2YuJDexGHVTyIjG6Qk/s200/Lingzhi+Lu.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We must, in this day and age of world-wide terrorism be prepared to do what all the professionals, bystanders and men and women of Forum restaurant did--go to the carnage and be a human presence of comfort and care for people who might very well be facing their last moments on earth, who might be taking their final breaths, who might be taking a last few seconds glance at the great blue sky above, usually so representative of the infinite possibilities of life in America.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-87094131130749637122013-04-01T11:19:00.001-07:002013-04-01T11:19:24.693-07:00Atlanta Outrage<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXD9zeOMuKnbkqGF59RS_McvppBVQsSbkYKiElffWeF6LkWVieJNXJITLwN85sm7BgtV2z-mgqaQGBJJo9QjByQ1ZqhJdKIcbKnTrFH_2u1HUoOKlNEEHsmpTJUtBcbaSopEv09qXsBbU/s1600/classroom-590-eed050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXD9zeOMuKnbkqGF59RS_McvppBVQsSbkYKiElffWeF6LkWVieJNXJITLwN85sm7BgtV2z-mgqaQGBJJo9QjByQ1ZqhJdKIcbKnTrFH_2u1HUoOKlNEEHsmpTJUtBcbaSopEv09qXsBbU/s200/classroom-590-eed050.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Two years ago while working in an Atlanta suburban elementary school to foster inquiry-based instruction and curricula, I heard stories about cheating on standardized test within the city school system. There was no proof, only rumors at that time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, according to Michael Winerip in <i>The New York Times</i> (3/30/13) 35 school personnel have been indicted for doing just that: cheating on standardized test scores.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What were clues? “. . .extraordinary increases in test scores from one year to the next, along with a high number of erasures on answering sheets from wrong to right.” (p. A13)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here’s how it worked. Students in elementary and middle schools took the high stakes tests in reading and math. Some did well and others posted enough wrong answers to indicate sub-par achievement. These scores were subsequently changed to indicate performances at norm or above.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How? Teachers closeted themselves in rooms without windows and erased the incorrect responses and penciled in the correct answers. All the while school administrators were standing guard at the door. Principals even wore gloves while handling the test papers.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Results? Many schools posted scores that met or exceeding given norms, showing their students to be proficient when they were not.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Principals were rewarded. Teachers received tenure and bonuses. Those whose schools failed suffered consequences, many losing their jobs. “Low score---out the door,” noted one involved </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">teacher. You can imagine the psychological pressures on teachers and administrators. </span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How did this happen? The allegations are that leadership, including the Superintendent, so insisted upon superior performance, with “no excuses,” that cheating proliferated.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUku4v6OLgeYGQ8PJ7nNyyt6GzmxV6D0Tt6yQh0tAwLidpOoNXeSEp1wQkfV_QYB9sIXwL6gjdo9Fwhujt8Wd1fMX6NQRxFIavRuMzq0t7ncNTrvCs8xYHw-Y5M0tQmWw8R-0BzNNzRDI/s1600/Voices_Connecting-Classrooms_Frank-Noon_590x332-edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUku4v6OLgeYGQ8PJ7nNyyt6GzmxV6D0Tt6yQh0tAwLidpOoNXeSEp1wQkfV_QYB9sIXwL6gjdo9Fwhujt8Wd1fMX6NQRxFIavRuMzq0t7ncNTrvCs8xYHw-Y5M0tQmWw8R-0BzNNzRDI/s200/Voices_Connecting-Classrooms_Frank-Noon_590x332-edit.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> The practice supposedly began in 2004. Said one involved teacher, “The cheating had been going on so long, we considered it part of our job.” That was the norm, test score sheets, erasers, closed doors and protective gloves.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What’s sad is that the district took these means to boost students’ performance, giving all a false sense of achievement, especially the students.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The outrage is that district leadership has thereby cheated its students out of the instructional work needed to learn how to read, write and compute satisfactorily.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The further outrage is that these leaders and teachers garnered for themselves all of the kudos, while their children suffered. “Look at us!” they proclaimed. “Our students performed at or above their grade levels! They’ve improved so dramatically! We must be doing something right!” NOT.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They cheated the kids out of their anticipated growth had the district taught them the basics as they should have done. The leadership gave up on the kids and said to themselves, “The only way to get these children to succeed is to cheat!”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Shame on them!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">High expectations are splendid and they certainly are what we need in order to ensure that all students, regardless of SES, talent, learning abilities and the like, succeed. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Honest educators about the land are working with determination, skill, art, research and persistence to ensure that all children succeed to the best of their ability. The record of KIPP schools and others (P21 districts, for example) attest to our successes with all students.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We want all kids to grow up to be curious, and to pursue meaningful inquiries in all their classes. But we’ll never get there so long as high stakes tests are the measurement for teachers’ and administrators’ performance.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In some districts standardized tests are counting 50% of a teacher’s evaluation. Here in NYC it may be 20%. State legislators might take a lesson from Atlanta about the over-riding impact of high stakes testing and their detrimental effects on some of our students.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Leaders should foster amongst all educators the alternative means of observing students’ growth in 21st century skills: inquiry, problem solving, critical/creative thinking. We do see such growth in kindergarten teachers observing and tracking students’ growth in asking good questions; sixth and eighth grade teachers monitoring students’ abilities to think critically; and high school teachers who challenge students to create their own math problems, and to analyze data in literature and physics classes. (See <i>How Do We Know They’re Getting Better? Assessment for 21st Century Minds, K-8</i>: <a href="http://www.morecuriousminds.com/"><span style="color: #171699; letter-spacing: 0px;">www.morecuriousminds.com</span></a>) </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYJmB7i83yZXeqq2GJiBCBRLPsOL9JoDjABX6oJksdVPGDrUOOnOtOrny2Mm10-YdQs8GWARuwOVVY5XFVnr8tFAFXFEBpWxZbSrX1pqvA_EIAdpB-2ljDDPdYd6LIc0NCSP6AtLOAcs/s1600/Students'Projects.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYJmB7i83yZXeqq2GJiBCBRLPsOL9JoDjABX6oJksdVPGDrUOOnOtOrny2Mm10-YdQs8GWARuwOVVY5XFVnr8tFAFXFEBpWxZbSrX1pqvA_EIAdpB-2ljDDPdYd6LIc0NCSP6AtLOAcs/s320/Students'Projects.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Students need to be able to ask good questions, think analytically and creatively, to be entrepreneurs and innovators. In order to achieve these goals we need to buckle down and ensure that all our children can read, write and compute skillfully.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-89004798245162645152012-12-20T07:59:00.000-08:002012-12-20T07:59:31.285-08:00Newtown, Our Town<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZ-I0zXX8fpKdet30lDQjS4A-0-z3csqGBNvz7eH5RRMwmkSUuuCquitq5ls5Y-u91zedWWCquttasxzrHUM5H_Du4_EteL5QKJlt5-G1_2bDJ4rxytrlAB4BwxiZDWFgywXFYAblIaI/s1600/newtown-kids-pf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZ-I0zXX8fpKdet30lDQjS4A-0-z3csqGBNvz7eH5RRMwmkSUuuCquitq5ls5Y-u91zedWWCquttasxzrHUM5H_Du4_EteL5QKJlt5-G1_2bDJ4rxytrlAB4BwxiZDWFgywXFYAblIaI/s200/newtown-kids-pf.jpg" width="182" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Newtown, Our Town</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Newtown, Connecticut is all America.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We grieve for our lost children and their teachers.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But in those first grade classrooms, we see what America can mean, not in death, but in the lives of joy and hope reflected here. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Robbie Parker spoke of his daughter Emilie as “bright, creative and very loving, adding “I am proud to be her father.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Donna Soto, mother of Vicki, told us she expected Vicki would do exactly as she did, shield her first graders from the gunman, telling him that they were in the gym. For that she lost her life.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Dawn Hochsprung, the principal, ran out of her office attempting to tackle the shooter. She lost her life together with five other educators, all women.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mr. Parker urged us not to let this tragedy “turn into something that defines us.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And how do we wish to be defined, we Americans who suffer with all of Newtown and who are appalled at the loss of life?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We shall be defined by the courage of the educators who gave their lives for the sake of their children.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWGp6Sw3n2MM1mdpBWhfnL0O2iPj7kl9Zdw24mIbygmGTysvcQUg-IS0S48v9zxnfGZaXOKSJr7VBYtZ-Q8R1VVTySzao-sKqLcVOWLW3wsLrk7STpgVHFBwelzTAyE7zPO3Xcr9v5CM/s1600/Vicki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWGp6Sw3n2MM1mdpBWhfnL0O2iPj7kl9Zdw24mIbygmGTysvcQUg-IS0S48v9zxnfGZaXOKSJr7VBYtZ-Q8R1VVTySzao-sKqLcVOWLW3wsLrk7STpgVHFBwelzTAyE7zPO3Xcr9v5CM/s200/Vicki.jpg" width="184" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Greater love has no one than this, that she lay down her life for others.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And we can be defined by the children. President Obama quoted Jesus’ saying, “Let the little children come to me. . .For such belong to the Kingdom of Heaven.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is the essence of Heaven, the bright, creative, loving and innocent spirits of Emilie and her classmates--the joy of being alive, having fun on the playground swooping down the turning slides, playing Hide ‘n Seek, house, school and being fearless astronauts on Mars.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Noted theologian Reinhold Neibuhr once observed that “The individual faces the eternal in every moment and in every action of his life.” </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And what is this “eternal” if not the life reflected in the playfulness of children, their eagerness to explore, to discover and to find out? We see the “eternal” in every child’s curiosity about new stories, colorful, strange rocks or animals, and wondrous displays on an iPad. We see the “eternal” in their holding hands with each other as they faced danger, being together with playmates, then and now.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What is the “eternal” if not the dedication, love, sacrifice and courage of adults who serve others, who work tirelessly so that they can grow, develop into their fullest potential? </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And we see the “eternal” in every parent’s loving her children, leading them off on a new adventure, to explore, discover and continue to wonder.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In our sorrow, we can remember Emilie, all her playmates, Vicki, and Dawn and learn from them, learn to see newer worlds of hope, faith and love in their lives.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Poet William Blake challenged us </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQt61iTEYyQpjXO1eCaCi0nZQtX8LC_Y4dpfCDttI3ssnGqvWsVDeYu8iWeUjJhEdRGELnqgo123uLTjGII4lNCED7BK8sXIIb3nxoq-boZko8SENb1S4MHe5h0hxs2s_dIbDLkl7nTo/s1600/Emilie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQt61iTEYyQpjXO1eCaCi0nZQtX8LC_Y4dpfCDttI3ssnGqvWsVDeYu8iWeUjJhEdRGELnqgo123uLTjGII4lNCED7BK8sXIIb3nxoq-boZko8SENb1S4MHe5h0hxs2s_dIbDLkl7nTo/s200/Emilie.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“To see a World in a grain of sand,</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And Heaven in a wild flower</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And Eternity in an hour.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Eternal is reflected in the wild flower and the grain of sand just as it is in Emilie’s joyfulness and Vicki’s total love and devotion to those she called her children.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes, Newtown is Our Town.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-41424841203854218222012-11-28T08:38:00.000-08:002012-11-28T08:38:06.507-08:00Lincoln, Language and Liberty<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmhpyJDYTvcMfXQbYHFUNpy7FbkKVIzdr3HKLnxDXWBIySQJSpxLlpi8lZjz4XYRvf4ZAJwp81bwntppalXqv5E5ra8F2HMyUvsM-VXQydXDBLgjSt65bfv77dP7jfTWNHNMkcS6nw59E/s1600/lincoln-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmhpyJDYTvcMfXQbYHFUNpy7FbkKVIzdr3HKLnxDXWBIySQJSpxLlpi8lZjz4XYRvf4ZAJwp81bwntppalXqv5E5ra8F2HMyUvsM-VXQydXDBLgjSt65bfv77dP7jfTWNHNMkcS6nw59E/s200/lincoln-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Go see “Lincoln.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You will view superb actors bringing to life one of the most monumental struggles in American history--that concerning the abolition of slavery.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Daniel Day-Lewis exemplifies the almost severe gravity of having to lead a country during the worst war in our history--a civil war-- all the while showing his humanity in the prosecution thereof.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sally Field, according to an NPR interview with Bob Edwards, noted that during the filming all major characters stayed within character during the entire shoot. And she is heart-wrenching at times fighting for the life of her oldest child, Robert.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A real surprise is James Spader, unrecognizable from “Boston Legal,” as the head lobbyist, the one who dashes from the House of Representatives floor to the White House with a most consequential note to the President during the day of the vote. We surely see how lobbying became the all-entrenched force it is today on K Street with votes back in 1865 being bought, and needed Democratic (!) supporters being bribed for a good cause.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But the character that stands out in my mind is one Thaddeus Stevens, he a congressman and long-time abolitionist, played superbly by Tommy Lee Jones. Stevens had long advocated full rights for Negroes prior to the vote, but on that date i Lincoln needed him to be full-throated in his advocacy of equal rights under existing law. Almost to deny that he advocated that ultimately blacks would have the right to vote as citizens. Remember that privilege was reserved at the time for white men.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqZV79Ql91LBhDYoj4xNowPtgO1_IszcmPBqPWs4GbA25wg8HdEWIM0pqir5UJWFinhuVPTzc-pQbYca8gr_0wDst8yRmDdR9CR4t40F0FT2KynDAeEduez57fZaLKuXse2rjp3HCCDU/s1600/Lincoln_-Thaddeus-Stevens-by-Tommy-Lee-Jones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqZV79Ql91LBhDYoj4xNowPtgO1_IszcmPBqPWs4GbA25wg8HdEWIM0pqir5UJWFinhuVPTzc-pQbYca8gr_0wDst8yRmDdR9CR4t40F0FT2KynDAeEduez57fZaLKuXse2rjp3HCCDU/s320/Lincoln_-Thaddeus-Stevens-by-Tommy-Lee-Jones.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In a most dramatic moment you can see Stevens mulling over the conflict in his mind--between full rights as citizens or only those within current law. His final pronouncement leads to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by Congress and, subsequently, ratification by three quarters of the states.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Upon reflection I am struck by the overwhelming power of language in our country to guarantee, or to secure for generations, the liberty so necessary for the welfare of the country, for the preservation of the union.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Thirteenth Amendment reads, in part, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here we see the power of language for what did “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” mean in 1865? Surely they referred to the condition experienced by those brought unwillingly to our shores, many of whom fought during this conflict.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But today do these words have any bearing on us, as citizens, as educators?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You might be as surprised as I was to learn that in 1996 a high school student in Rye Neck School District (NY) filed suit claiming that the school’s requirement to perform 40 hours of community service constituted “involuntary servitude.” The plaintiff also claimed, using the Fourteenth Amendment, that such service violated his parents’ right to educate him in accordance with their own philosophy and priorities.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How would you have ruled on that decision? (http://csl.sog.unc.edu/node/1238)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Notice also how many famous Supreme Court cases come down to interpretations of language: “separate but equal. . . corporation/person. . . speech. . . regulate interstate commerce. . .the right to bear arms. . .to peaceably assemble. . .the establishment of religion” and so on.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What Thaddeus Stevens could not articulate in order to get the amendment through the House was his very strong belief in the rights of all men to vote and to establish relationships of their choosing.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Notice that in our last election how that right to vote was challenged in many states with laws requiring voter identification and other means. In other words, we cannot take our liberties for granted.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What Lincoln, Stevens and the others portrayed in this film is the sometimes sausage-making process necessary to pursue lofty ideals, the right of all men and women to live lives of self-determination toward the pursuit of happiness.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #333233; font: 12.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="color: black; font: 12.0px Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tommy Lee Jones said about his role: “</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Politics and government was conducted with language through oratory. People had to speak their minds rather than insinuate them.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkZiV8pT3qYXTNTaQEr-b-dE5j34B-5Fr8CalTRjcK9vdO92sCs43hrEpXWNAYmv5V-QJh_VoXsBpzOVKdMUMJ42Txsm5h5CuiABHiDI_QPx5PrRpykhrjRjRsDGvYjXxdA0DWYx47Xw/s1600/13th+Amendment.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkZiV8pT3qYXTNTaQEr-b-dE5j34B-5Fr8CalTRjcK9vdO92sCs43hrEpXWNAYmv5V-QJh_VoXsBpzOVKdMUMJ42Txsm5h5CuiABHiDI_QPx5PrRpykhrjRjRsDGvYjXxdA0DWYx47Xw/s200/13th+Amendment.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Language matters deeply and we see it during election cycles when words are carelessly and mindlessly hurled around and toward various candidates in order to persuade, often words or claims without any basis in fact whatsoever.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Words matter as they affect people’s well-being and, perhaps, their survival.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Go see the movie. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-55565393597661735622012-10-29T11:40:00.000-07:002012-10-29T11:40:26.378-07:00Teacher Evaluation and Students' Progress <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoUZL_DGZ9Ypy_2J6l4W9UF3gvwBApODhx1R7nT1jkLYglIcU9YBco8KyW_PmxR5_22mbt1-oNjTXjjQ1HT2-TAQfcGLgn8NPy1CsIRHROEexJmzi9eTFkM-2BllFtCnTF9Yz7ayW6Lag/s1600/21st+Century+Skills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoUZL_DGZ9Ypy_2J6l4W9UF3gvwBApODhx1R7nT1jkLYglIcU9YBco8KyW_PmxR5_22mbt1-oNjTXjjQ1HT2-TAQfcGLgn8NPy1CsIRHROEexJmzi9eTFkM-2BllFtCnTF9Yz7ayW6Lag/s200/21st+Century+Skills.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Teachers in Chicago, Newark (NJ) and all across America are being asked to accept new systems of evaluation. Here in New York City the use of standardized tests for this purpose will constitute forty percent of their total evaluation, with principal observations and other data comprising the remaining sixty percent.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Part of the impetus for such use of these kinds of measures stems from President Obama’s Race-to-the-Top competitions where there have been certain criteria specified in order to succeed in this process, one of them including a most appropriate emphasis on improving education in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM programs. Another criterion has been the desire to show how we will hold teachers (and I trust administrators) accountable for their work. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Teachers are not protesting the need nor logic for their being held accountable. No, they justly protest having from twenty-five to forty percent of their professional evaluation based upon measures scored with a one-time, bubble-test or Scantron sheet. Why?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These tests were not designed for the purposes assessing teacher competence. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They are all-too brief snapshots of students’ knowledge at one moment.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And, what they measure is important but it’s not the be all and end all.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No, what we should be looking at are ways of assessing students long-term growth in what schools say they are all about. Each school mission statement contains statements like these:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“We hold high academic standards for all students and expect each will become a responsible citizen of our American democracy.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We want all students to dream, achieve and contribute to a global society.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On a more specific basis there is one school district (Greenwich, CT) that paints a portrait of the graduate that calls for her, assuming content knowledge, “to pose and pursue substantive questions” and then engage in the problem solving, critical thinking and ethical behavior required.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To become responsible, active contributors to our society we need students to exhibit what we now call 21st century skills and capacities--inquiry, problem solving, critical/creative, reflective thought, leadership, collaborative skills and skillful use of technology. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrGukF_keTff803W9NXvo_Rs5JK1w2vep3jqjUk5wG79CI9npF3AdsBTjFcX7jQgv7-zagDRX7aoADup6ZLBK5p2R1cCJ8OwY7PtGK0OPElyfFYqYxeSNLMkj5PdJewgJVBI3BFUAs1QQ/s1600/Emily+Chloe+Jolene3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrGukF_keTff803W9NXvo_Rs5JK1w2vep3jqjUk5wG79CI9npF3AdsBTjFcX7jQgv7-zagDRX7aoADup6ZLBK5p2R1cCJ8OwY7PtGK0OPElyfFYqYxeSNLMkj5PdJewgJVBI3BFUAs1QQ/s200/Emily+Chloe+Jolene3.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Also within the Race-to-the-Top program Secretary Duncan is his much needed call for alternative means of assessing students’ growth, ones that do not rely upon standardized tests.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Isn’t it reasonable that we should as educators develop these alternative means of observing, monitoring and drawing conclusions about students’ getting better at posing good questions, engaging in scientific reasoning, thinking critically and creatively and using technology? Knowing Newton’s three laws of motion, themes within <i>Charlotte’s Web</i> and how to prove triangles congruent are important, but we need more than this kind of declarative and skill knowledge to become responsible citizens who can think, discern fact from fiction and create a plan for their own and others’ improvement.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How do we do this?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We use all of the long term, reliable and direct means available through teacher observations; students’ journals posted on Google Docs, Groups/Plus, Moodle, Edmodo, wikis; performance tests; traditional assessments, interviews and metacognitive reflections.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We can observe Lorraine Radford’s kindergarten students in West Vancouver, BC, growing from making statements about fish--”That’s a clown fish”--in September to asking in April during a unit of The Oceans--”Do you think that anglerfish think humans are fish sometimes?” Notice the growth from observing and stating facts (as most kindergartners do) to being able to ask a question that puts the questioner into the mind of the anglerfish. Lorraine monitors students’ asking more and increasingly complex questions using tried and true means of keeping accurate notes during class and posting them to each student’s spread sheet on her computer.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We can observe eighth grade students in Catalina Foothills (AZ) growing from being what their teacher Patricia Burrows calls a “Cookie Cutter A” student, one who recites what the teacher wants to hear, to one who can critique <i>Animal Farm </i>using analogical reasoning in written essays by comparing Napoleon in the story to Stalin and Hitler. Critical thinking involves this kind of reasoning together with asking good questions about sources, evidence, definitions and bias.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Educators across the land know how to do this by using their own and district frameworks like those within Project 21 schools (like Catalina Foothills), focused as they are upon critical thinking as one element in educating for 21st century skills. (See CFSD rubrics: http://www.cfsd16.org/public/_century/centMain.aspx)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The key will be to convince educators that these skills are indeed necessary, that we can observe and monitor students’ performance progress therein and then communicate such results to parents, use them for our own teacher inquiry study groups and for our own professional development .</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Having background knowledge about plate tectonics, the Civil War and Shakespeare’s major characters is important. But students need to know how to apply such information in our globalized world that changes with ever increasing acceleration. And we need to know how well they are doing at becoming active, responsible citizens who can contribute to our American democracy and the globalized society.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE1d04F_o62gDzNboJMebsE1ZvAr_z0MyYLNU_olZuo1fADZvDAVi1Vy8apWdcGD1CFv6XYnP0OiEd3tZa1wDr5hyphenhyphen8IBhvSkpXTZvp3ZTuSRAxJSeWDhWuQgpVtWFjRwTzpbGxhYLCtE/s1600/girlwithtablet16-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE1d04F_o62gDzNboJMebsE1ZvAr_z0MyYLNU_olZuo1fADZvDAVi1Vy8apWdcGD1CFv6XYnP0OiEd3tZa1wDr5hyphenhyphen8IBhvSkpXTZvp3ZTuSRAxJSeWDhWuQgpVtWFjRwTzpbGxhYLCtE/s320/girlwithtablet16-9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is, indeed, “value added” in being able to establish alternative, reliable and valid ways of assessing students’ development and academic progress.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">John Barell</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Author: <i>How Do We Know They’re Getting Better? Assessment for 21st Century Minds, K-8.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-1316713333006903512012-07-06T04:03:00.000-07:002012-07-06T04:06:36.765-07:00Bernstein, Sousa and Jefferson<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigL90iQWi_xb-OMAyxF2TO33BjolpwhrrTtL33ET4HZQWXmy_-AhNWPkfQqf1fUlYJ78ziBQXjG-X6xYcjnfXB7n2I76T21nUOmLwn68JFfSUq7j38rX8yzPXqOrnc7CTFR5ZXRIf9SIE/s1600/Fife2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigL90iQWi_xb-OMAyxF2TO33BjolpwhrrTtL33ET4HZQWXmy_-AhNWPkfQqf1fUlYJ78ziBQXjG-X6xYcjnfXB7n2I76T21nUOmLwn68JFfSUq7j38rX8yzPXqOrnc7CTFR5ZXRIf9SIE/s200/Fife2.gif" width="173" /></a><b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On Independence Day, Nancy and I enjoyed celebratory music offered by the New York Philharmonic and the Hellcats and Jazz Knights from the West Point Band.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The conductor, Bramwell Tovey, leapt to the podium, pointed his baton at the Philharmonic snare drummer and we were instantly on our feet for “The Star Spangled Banner.” We attempted to sing, but were caught up in the emotions of the moment reflecting the history of this anthem.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Familiar tunes from <i>On the Town</i> and <i>Candide</i> roused the audience as a packed house settled into the coolness of Lincoln Center, avoiding the intense heat of New York City outside.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The West Point Hellcats and Jazz Knights offered stirring renditions of “America the Beautiful,” Glen Miller’s “In the Mood,” and several military marches, including Sousa’s “Liberty Bell.” </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There can be few scenes that stir the soul of a former military person than the sight and sound of a precision drum and bugle corps blaring forth from bright silver horns and philharmonic field drums very strong cadences that reminded me of my favorite march of all time, “The Guadalcanal March” from Richard Roger’s World War II suite, <i>Victory at Sea</i>.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Following these selections conductor Army Lt. Colonel Jim Keene invited all current and past service personnel and their families to stand during the playing of their respective anthems, “Semper Paratus (Coast Guard), Anchors Aweigh, The Marine Hymn, The Caisson Song (Army) and The Wild Blue Yonder (Air Force).” Men and women, young and old, stood in silent attention at their seats as the corps musicians in crisp blue uniforms brought all of us to memories of having served this great nation, and of those who paid the last full measure.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfmdAuHB9-lameaoVb2SZ5a3ocIgc93i3Sb3NvrY3IYt_8r0Y-R2d8xWXYbxluzqcZGN5EaX4uFw9ba_pUyxig5d5pH004YqtVaqgiCyMMRbleFgIDbLp1iueCFVF-p4sjuCY01WrMKbA/s1600/Enterprise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc6J6r4nJ1boSX1FV-Mjct9WJnCjvhwGPoLojn8LXqVOFk2e38WyMdjmzXBPwi8M_GrB7HzCUOb9WGhB2zJmU3KKYhy4IS9kzxCsVvR_qLKx78ML_Z1M9PjJIrUboUxp-0JWI9tWkL0uE/s1600/Declaration-of-Indep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc6J6r4nJ1boSX1FV-Mjct9WJnCjvhwGPoLojn8LXqVOFk2e38WyMdjmzXBPwi8M_GrB7HzCUOb9WGhB2zJmU3KKYhy4IS9kzxCsVvR_qLKx78ML_Z1M9PjJIrUboUxp-0JWI9tWkL0uE/s200/Declaration-of-Indep.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All during these emotionally-charged performances I recalled having read the Declaration of Independence in the morning’s <i>New York Times</i>. There were the words that laid the foundation for our country, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bands which have connected them with another. . . We, therefore. . .declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. . .”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Most memorable, perhaps, are the words that each of us is endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable rights, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Derived from writings of John Locke--who championed the pursuit of Life, Liberty and Property--Jefferson changed Property to Happiness, a word for which he then invoked civic virtues of courage, justice and, perhaps, service.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Another thing that struck me was that “imposing taxes without our consent” was listed by Jefferson in the middle of a much longer list of grievances, commencing with “He—[King George III]—has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. . .” and ending with references to “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. . . suspending our own Legislatures. . . excited domestic insurrections amongst us” and caused the impressment of our sailors at sea.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What I remember from high school US History are the grievances about taxes, the Stamp tax, Tea Party and the like. How time has faded our memories of original causes.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17hDXltwMJyQKgeJYYEjV1RvhRK_F7yWxwUlop9No8Zyz3gO3UfR4ds5zFjUyQeZsyepciSEn1WG7MSSBwPsrECGrYetJwzUaQVFRzsD3oegKHKOSf-iO6H39IpgWnHNFtxLQyXk9CnQ/s1600/yankee+doodle+dandy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17hDXltwMJyQKgeJYYEjV1RvhRK_F7yWxwUlop9No8Zyz3gO3UfR4ds5zFjUyQeZsyepciSEn1WG7MSSBwPsrECGrYetJwzUaQVFRzsD3oegKHKOSf-iO6H39IpgWnHNFtxLQyXk9CnQ/s200/yankee+doodle+dandy.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The most stirring tune on Independence Day was, of course, John Philip Sousa’s magnificent “Stars and Stripes Forever;” its cadences sent our hearts to marching inwardly in ways that would be reflected that evening by seeing James Cagney as George M. Cohan, creator of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Over There,” strut, march, parade himself across the stage in his own inimitable fashion. For these two hymns Franklin Roosevelt awarded Cohan the Congressional Medal of Honor. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We were reminded once again that freedom comes with high costs; that thousands have given their lives that we might breathe free and speak our own minds. A little sign on the walker of a WWII veteran and friend of my mother’s says it all, “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you’re reading it in English, thank a GI."</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipj6W4uX24P8Yt4t3x4QZe0J_zaoGLOQOQr0KltqWZyG5mrr5jo9y_5sesfvt_KdsbPCU5cHNF2_0fhN-UqFPbDOQ3S6R2OJ6WmNmYTZnZNHQyTho5z9KwbdGexxRL3d7ve6Az5joiWQY/s1600/StarsStripes1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipj6W4uX24P8Yt4t3x4QZe0J_zaoGLOQOQr0KltqWZyG5mrr5jo9y_5sesfvt_KdsbPCU5cHNF2_0fhN-UqFPbDOQ3S6R2OJ6WmNmYTZnZNHQyTho5z9KwbdGexxRL3d7ve6Az5joiWQY/s200/StarsStripes1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Every year we need to be reminded of how we came together to establish this great country on the ideas of Liberty, Equality and the Happiness of those civic virtues--courage, justice and public service. And how on so many occasions our parents and grandparents sacrificed as necessary on all fronts--abroad and at home--to preserve, protect defend these rights. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-81220263548133506892012-05-18T08:04:00.000-07:002012-05-18T08:04:37.677-07:0021st Century Skills--Critical Thinking<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8j4dzc1ckCrBVVQZRCBH8BlGflWE4ZOzaAoRDJsbOgz-LluafiVyAYiRoqumYarLq47nH9Qw4TzxoWaWZ32wxZrIi0UvobGEmNa-INhpaA9Xj9SDVWlpUlsVimEHEoorqFJ1R9i24HTo/s1600/three-cups-of-tea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8j4dzc1ckCrBVVQZRCBH8BlGflWE4ZOzaAoRDJsbOgz-LluafiVyAYiRoqumYarLq47nH9Qw4TzxoWaWZ32wxZrIi0UvobGEmNa-INhpaA9Xj9SDVWlpUlsVimEHEoorqFJ1R9i24HTo/s200/three-cups-of-tea.jpg" width="130" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Recently, a US Federal District Judge, Sam Haddon in Helena, MT threw out a case brought by four readers of Greg Mortenson’s famed <i>Three Cups of Tea</i>. The plaintiffs claimed that Mortenson had distorted the truth in order to build his reputation and sell more books. For this they charged him with “fraud and racketeering.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Judge Haddon dismissed these charges as “flimsy and speculative. . .” claiming that their racketeering charges “are fraught with shortcomings.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My first response was delight that Mortenson, who is responsible for bringing education to thousands of Afghanis and Pakistanis, was relieved of yet another burden. (If you have yet to read his books, please do so.)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A second response was <i>Hurray!</i> for critical thinking. Judge Haddon found no credible evidence to support plaintiffs charges.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Too often we find people in the public eye making claims they just cannot support with reliable evidence. That’s what the Common Core Standards in Language Arts repeatedly call for students to be able to do, support claims with good evidence. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is one aspect of critical thinking.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How often do we hear “The economy (or my economic plan) will do this or that” without any supporting documentation, given nor asked for? </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another aspect of critical thinking is too often seen by its absence: asking good questions about claims.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Recently, on one of the cable news channels, I watched as five people discussed and debated the merits of this claim: “The war on terror is over.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>During the discussion about effects of this claim no one bothered to raise any of the following essential questions:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who said it? To whom? When? Under what circumstances?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And, why was it said? What was the speaker’s or writer’s motivation?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoJ1m6J6_3wQ0VpbDOCSSK82ISCSbu_r-kxKLGIlNlhCxkaWju3O9BlPZLCey9Wxvtui9yrZClLh_Od8D0s8kzaAH01NDS3umKOC5qjxm_4X-VX-tBPLwYRAPpTF2bhchMwuKK2TChtQ/s1600/there_is_no_god_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoJ1m6J6_3wQ0VpbDOCSSK82ISCSbu_r-kxKLGIlNlhCxkaWju3O9BlPZLCey9Wxvtui9yrZClLh_Od8D0s8kzaAH01NDS3umKOC5qjxm_4X-VX-tBPLwYRAPpTF2bhchMwuKK2TChtQ/s200/there_is_no_god_logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These would seem to be quite basic questions. The claim was made that this assertion came from “an administration spokesperson.” But who? A fifth ranked member of a branch of the State Department or Director of Central Intelligence? Was it said the day before the program or in a leaked memo directly after the killing of Osama bin Laden?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Other questions would include this one: What was said directly before this claim and after? Even the Bible says, “There is no God.” But we know that what precedes this claim is “The fool has said in his heart.” (Psalm 14: 1-3) Context can be king.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How to foster critical thinking in humanities ought to be obvious. We present students with challenges to analyze and evaluate actions and ideas in literature and history. Students arrive at conclusions with supporting evidence. We begin educating for logical thinking at a very young age.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For example, John Selkirk teaches first grade in Ottawa and one of his goals is to challenge students to think critically by interpreting human emotions in pictures. “How’s she feeling?” Sad. Students quickly learn to ask their friends, “What makes you say that?” What’s the evidence in the picture telling you she feels sad?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Pat Burrows in Catalina Foothills (AZ) challenges her students to think analogically about Napoleon in Orwell’s <i>Animal Farm</i>: compare him to other historical figures and support your conclusions. We do the same when we claim “This conflict is just like---” Again, what are the reasons with what kinds of evidence?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In math, we can strive for students always getting the right answer. Or, we could educate them to think analytically by asking good, critical questions: “What am I asked to do? What’s the key information? How is this problem like others? Can I draw a picture? What are important assumptions? Can I break it into smaller parts?” and once solved “How might I have solved it another way?”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We can foster critical thinking in sciences where we inquire, suggest testable hypotheses, analyze data, draw conclusions and provide evidence. We can also ask good questions about problematic situations and claims. A good way to diagnose students’ scientific reasoning is to present them with a complex problem in September and record the kinds of questions they can ask about it. Then compare this throughout the year.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Jacob Bronowski, noted scientist and poet observed, “That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Critical thinking is analyzing situations, and using available evidence to arrive at conclusions. It also means possessing that certain skepticism that leads to asking impertinent questions. Skeptics are not negative. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDnyXXm1Le1NZwAxOIPnBHt4wjxx82axKkPG3QRqWkNcx_QGxFRK-UNEklizCT3Zx6s9cX8uvgybWhyphenhyphenk0OmS1Ly8c7Wb7uuM0AX6iz4n9cqOGBDll7-JiIWxu8QXrEbtHl0wDgzp1jEk/s1600/skeptic:Arctic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDnyXXm1Le1NZwAxOIPnBHt4wjxx82axKkPG3QRqWkNcx_QGxFRK-UNEklizCT3Zx6s9cX8uvgybWhyphenhyphenk0OmS1Ly8c7Wb7uuM0AX6iz4n9cqOGBDll7-JiIWxu8QXrEbtHl0wDgzp1jEk/s320/skeptic:Arctic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As Thomas Merton noted in his <i>Secular Journal </i>(1969): “. . . the true skeptic doubts in order that he may know.”<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-54679935158305302492012-05-02T06:45:00.000-07:002012-05-02T06:45:08.800-07:0021st Century Skills--Imagination<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>21st Century Skills--Imagination</b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtRui5yUOtj1PD8kUtwIvOtlcYsutq2RYqnA7sNQPH13fTf32dSLWd-SGYjphxugNslOTFVvkk5_Buc6zAh5vEPs7W2wDqa-eBj72hYQupg60Woks4Xp2cP2OdQhCCiuwFL8GaUBsT0k/s1600/foreversjpg-ef801ad772e37654.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtRui5yUOtj1PD8kUtwIvOtlcYsutq2RYqnA7sNQPH13fTf32dSLWd-SGYjphxugNslOTFVvkk5_Buc6zAh5vEPs7W2wDqa-eBj72hYQupg60Woks4Xp2cP2OdQhCCiuwFL8GaUBsT0k/s320/foreversjpg-ef801ad772e37654.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b></b></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Pulitzer Prize committee chose not to bestow an award for fiction this year.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Novelist Ann Patchett (<i>Bel Canto</i> and <i>Run</i>) wrote about this decision:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings." </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She continues to note that “following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking. . .” and allows us to be “quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.” (<i>NY Times</i>, 4/17/12)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Patchett’s thoughts on imagination took me to a book I’ve just completed, Katherine Boo’s <i>behind the beautiful forevers--Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity</i> (2012). Boo is such a graphic writer that it doesn’t require much to visualize the real lives of Abdul, Sunil, and Zehrunisa, some of the 3,000 residents of Anawandi, a collection of 335 slum dwellings in the shadows of the airport. From the trash heaps you could see “how crazy-lopsided all the huts were against the straight lines of the Hyatt and Meridien hotels that rose up behind them.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Abdul, for example, is a young man whose skill is being able very rapidly to categorize purchased or stolen paper, plastic, metal waste “in order to sell it.” (Categorization/classification fosters cognitive development.) Others in the slum break into the Air India facilities and take apart new construction for the nuts and bolts--again to sell.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What’s amazing about their stories is that there is hope. They go to school; they strive to graduate and move on to become nurses, professionals, even politicians. Manju’s goal was to become Anawandi’s first college graduate. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> As one boy said, “Educate ourselves and we’ll be making as much money as there is garbage!” </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There was, indeed, hope for the future, for better lives, but it did take intense imagining to place yourself in the skins of these folks struggling toward the light, for freedom from the crippling corruption that riddled every level of civic life.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What we have here is a tale of human aspirations, the same kinds of aspirations we see in page after page of Greg Mortenson’s <i>Three Cups of Tea </i>and <i>Stones into Schools</i>. When his schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan had been damaged by storms or by the Taliban, parents became insistent that he and others fix them, do what they could to return their children to the world of books and learning. In one community struck by disaster, education was being conducted in tents until Mortenson delivered the chairs with writing arms with which we are all so familiar.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A better life for our children is what can all imagine and strive for.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
The life of the imagination is one of our overlooked basic capacities. It is the fountain of our curiosity about the world. From our imaginations spring forth those alternative worlds that we grow to live within. We become better persons by being able to create pictures in our minds, move them around in the past, project them purposefully into the future and then take actions toward self-actualizing them. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In every classroom we should be fostering the life of our imagination.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Imagining a life other than our own” is what we do while reading books in every classroom and we can foster this important capacity by challenging students with questions such as:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“What do the characters look like?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Where do you see them?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What do you think they would do under these/different circumstances?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How are you like them?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What would you do in these situations?”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In history, we must engage our imaginations if we are to understand how George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other founding fathers felt during the first days of our new republic:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbI0BcVIzw1jH8bkPiGDfkPTu8cxmMae_bGNVdiwZD9l8mVjrgBfeR2Z9zLsrgBjKGrp3cqEX92aTLgMJAo0gsnZ7zpX7p-Z6Z_XSbi8prqXKYs850xFtXFmQV3H6K3ILMHbavIEndRo/s1600/founding-fathers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbI0BcVIzw1jH8bkPiGDfkPTu8cxmMae_bGNVdiwZD9l8mVjrgBfeR2Z9zLsrgBjKGrp3cqEX92aTLgMJAo0gsnZ7zpX7p-Z6Z_XSbi8prqXKYs850xFtXFmQV3H6K3ILMHbavIEndRo/s320/founding-fathers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What were they thinking/feeling during these early days?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What were their aspirations?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Why did they advocate the ideas and actions they did?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How do you imagine they would deal with failure/frustration?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What if you had been at the Constitutional Convention how would you have handled representation among states/any issue?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How would any one of them want to change government today?”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In science we invoke our imaginations as the greats have done:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For Richard Feynman scientific thinking “was a process of putting oneself in nature: in an imagined beam of light, in a relativistic electron. (Gleick, 1922, p. 244) He once asked, “How would I behave were I an electron?” </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We know of Einstein’s imagining “thought problems” (<i>gedanken</i>) such as “What if I rode along a ray of light? What would I observe?”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These “What if?” questions require using our imaginations to go beyond givens into areas where physical laws do not apply.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And, in math, where do we use our imaginations?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In turning all those SAT figures topsy turvy in the theaters of our minds in order to demonstrate to somebody in college that we have this capacity. . . </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In posing our own “What if?” questions that challenge us to take the data and imagine alternative solutions, problems:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What if I try this approach?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suppose I draw it out?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What can I compare this to? (“Factoring is like. . .”)</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Imagine being the tangent to a circle. What is my goal?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How would I graphically describe myself as a math student.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These questions, if they become part of our ways of seeing problems, put us more in control of our own thinking. We manifest what psychologists have called a sense of “agency,” being in command of our own thinking.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As Patchett said, reading and imagining make us more “empathetic beings” and thereby better able to work and live within our several communities. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our imaginations are gateways to those unexplored territories where we will make discoveries:</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Come, my friends,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsC_nwMe5dThih1C0YCrcY4GZ6PrXhwqb8g7dM5m2INFAN711oqVcExg7gB1UYKwt5JWmom7FdUfSLPm6E8R7NQLKwqIR3V8SwbfajC3UuhmRlGEqPkgSBj9AL59VV9tepsnXFkQmS5og/s1600/imagination2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsC_nwMe5dThih1C0YCrcY4GZ6PrXhwqb8g7dM5m2INFAN711oqVcExg7gB1UYKwt5JWmom7FdUfSLPm6E8R7NQLKwqIR3V8SwbfajC3UuhmRlGEqPkgSBj9AL59VV9tepsnXFkQmS5og/s1600/imagination2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-77793083799962995582012-04-18T10:31:00.006-07:002012-04-18T10:56:02.728-07:0021st Century Skills--Innovation<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDkW1JfdWSX4jzw1Svt6-x52lRI8DP3xuaoUPmB1W86wKlbhopSBifuxzG6_bAZPbZzDJtiJ0c1yoij78Z1nDtRLcIemxyKOtJr20bvcI08TfPT4wUqgIrrvqlDnB28JxX4zVU_FN-UhU/s1600/canada1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 318px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDkW1JfdWSX4jzw1Svt6-x52lRI8DP3xuaoUPmB1W86wKlbhopSBifuxzG6_bAZPbZzDJtiJ0c1yoij78Z1nDtRLcIemxyKOtJr20bvcI08TfPT4wUqgIrrvqlDnB28JxX4zVU_FN-UhU/s320/canada1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732795687236805458" /></a><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">As Tom Friedman noted a while back in his <i>NY Times</i> column (7/13/11), employees of the future will survive depending upon their ability to add value to their jobs, in other words, to think beyond defined expectations, to be able to innovate. Emplo</span>yers are looking for people “who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.” (p. A47)</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">More recently we’ve had</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">research on successful countries, developing nations that are growing prosperous largely because of their abilities to do the same thing, innovate, to create new ideas, products and ways of living.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In <i>Why Nations Fail </i>(2012), authors Acemoglu and Robinson note that the US, Britain and European countries prosper when compared to other countries. Why is the US so much richer than, for example, Egypt? In part because we rid ourselves of dictatorial powers and shared control with all citizens. “We, th</span>e people. . .” are in charge.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">As noted historian Niall Ferguson observed about this book, “Without the inclusive institutions that first evolved in the West, sustainable growth is impossible, because <i>only a truly free society can foster genuine innovation and the creative destruction that is its corollary.</i>" (emphasis added)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">What does this “free society” mean? That we as citizens have a good measure of control over our lives and ways of prospering. Some have less than others.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">When you can take a plot of land and carve out space and time for your own plantings and ingenuity, you will invest more in it, rather than, as serfs during the middle ages, having to give all products to the lord of the manor. We have a stake in our future</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">What does this have to do with schools?</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In our classrooms we as the educators have opportunities to do what Pat Burrows does in her Catalina Foothills 8th grade English class does. Provide students with choices: </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>I give my students choices on a regular basis. Those choices range from choosing from menus <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>to <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>demonstrate their proficiency in a skill/knowledge to making decisions about using technology or <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>other <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>resources. Bottom line here: if my students do not feel that they have any power when it <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>comes to <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>what and how they learn, they don’t `own’ their learning and become`bystanders.’ <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(Barell, 2012)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>It’s the same way with emerging nations. If the people feel they have control over over access to and use of certain natural resou</span>rces and can devise ways of making money therefrom, then it stands to reason that this country can grow and prosper.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Innovation is also fostered by an educator’s creating a more authentic problem-based curricul</span>um wherein all students can pose good questions, conduct purposeful research, making findings, think critically and creatively and draw reasonable conclusions.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Students in Mary Darr’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) middle school classes (Sandusky, OH) have been, for the past two years, been learning how to collaborate with friends in order to solve problems such as:</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>How to attract `Tweens to the Cleveland Indians ball park</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>How to use vacant properties along Lake Erie for profit.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>How to rebuild the Cedar Point roller coaster rides to attract more customers.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>During these intensive learning experiences, students often struggled with collaborating and learned that “TEAMWORK” was the most important ingredient for success. They were also able to create novel solutions to well-stated problems, solutions that often intrigued the adults who reviewed their ideas (e.g. using mood indicating colors on the roller coaster handle bars, “Acting cool in front of friends would be difficult if the lap bar turned a color that showed nervousness.” ).</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>As we are learning from books like <i>The Idea Factory</i> (Gertner, 2012) about how Bell Labs created/invented the transistor and laser, it’s vitally important for creativity to have people with diverse experiences and backgrounds working with each other. The best solutions come when people with different perspectives collaborate with each other. Hence, probl</span>em solving in schools should be conducted with students with different experiences and talents. Diversity of input is key.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZvhBhg1b51xFrIBR8LqcDEPVs-8bavCMClFy1lD28h2VjyOLtfXkRFMGVAwZJEShvVGPTOwCFcNdE1071YTaTkxUmwwk53iV4Bk8qmK4XRemNfEV_bVs00pP5KhAZ0SZ4xzA3uTKEY8/s200/IdeaFactory.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732797437579462834" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In addition to having some control over decision making within a problem solving context, and having problem solvers with varied talents, another element within our educational systems that can foster innovation is our openness to mystery, novelty and, of course new ideas. Not all adults are comfortable with the new thinking of our children and students, new thinking reflected in such questions as:</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>Do you think that angler fish think humans are fish sometimes? (kindergarten)</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>How big will space be when it stops growing and when will it stop growing? (kindergarten)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Why are mo</span>untains necessary? (grade four)</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What if a planet spun out of the solar system? (grade four)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>How much g force can a person bear during a coaster ride? (grade eight)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What if there were no gravity on the moon? (grade nine)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Suppose Holden Caulfield (Macbeth, Jefferson, Marie Curie, Cleopatra) lived today? (mine)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>These are just a sample of the kinds of questions we might encounter when we provide students with some control over their own educational destinies within a problem-oriented curriculum. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>There’s little or no preparation for such innovative thoughts. What we need to do is respond in ways that encourage the original thinker’s creation, urging him or her to share their thinking, to take it further and suggest the kinds of resources that might be necessary to find answers, if there are answers. For some this might take gradually moving beyond our comfort levels into those domains where novelty prevails. As one te</span>acher in the STEM projects noted, “We were out of our comfort zones!”</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">So, countries and classrooms thrive on innovative thinking, when citizens in both environments have choice, emotional and intellectual support and are confronted with challenges of a high order wherein all can participate in their own fashions.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 178px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyPpP2q-7IVlU9cOYY48kv7z55dmDocSjFh13WR2ddXuhyNINxNJ4A1XW8utJITXISsShPJV4hvLrdkxzGggX7tZGcdjzDbeqV-ZsX0H57KcnqIS6LNEM6su1TFZX6Xi0pbUqgHpH6FHI/s200/Arka%253AIsaac.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732798553852993650" />I never realized while I was a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University in Dwayne Huebner’s curriculum theory class that his introduction of the concept of who controls which decisions, when and how would be so vitally important to my work as an educator and to the prosperity of persons as well as developing nations.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana">www.morecuriousminds.com</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Verdana; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-63407907307966780582012-04-07T08:57:00.005-07:002012-04-17T11:58:18.224-07:0021st Century Skills<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi45ajKgbTiKOre65yyfhyphenhyphenQpXOPofSd5k9WIZOiJgCPw3CtDoDFLUyCWHNpG5OQmTlJGIyvEDyBt98-UAfnlqIATRhsg1_P9hbwEieKf6NA0swH_u96PVjwz8N6UMyF0F2P6Scq0gIhFgU/s1600/Barell_How_Do_We_72ppiRGB_powerpoint.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi45ajKgbTiKOre65yyfhyphenhyphenQpXOPofSd5k9WIZOiJgCPw3CtDoDFLUyCWHNpG5OQmTlJGIyvEDyBt98-UAfnlqIATRhsg1_P9hbwEieKf6NA0swH_u96PVjwz8N6UMyF0F2P6Scq0gIhFgU/s200/Barell_How_Do_We_72ppiRGB_powerpoint.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728688887883688322" /></a><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;font-size:100%;">“How do we know they’re getting better?”</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This is a question I started asking many years ago while working with a national educational organization. I wanted to know then if there were ways of determining if our students were getting better at critical thinking and problem solving.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>One respondent commented, “I don’t think we need to be reductionist about it.” Seemed to me he thought we needed to look at students’ growth only in terms of numbers. We dropped the subject until about three years ago when I began asking the same question about what we now call 21st century capacities or skills--inquiry, problem solving, critical/creative/reflective thought and uses of technology.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Corwin has just published a book by this title focusing upon how some outstanding educators grades K-8 have been answering this que</span>tion. They work in schools such as Partnership 21, STEM, International Baccalaureate and traditional schools.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>There are many amazing stories within this new volume and one that I am especially fond of is related to an earlier post, “STEM changed my life.” Here I related the story of Karla, an eighth grade student in Pearson Middle School during her challenge with a science, technology, engineering and math project to build a better roller coaster for Cedar Point Amusement Park.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>We also learned from interviewing these students on several different occasions that the most important learning was “TEAMWORK!” Virtually every student, in grades 6-8, noted how difficult this was--working in teams to solve problems. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>One CEO, Carlee noted, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">“I like my team because were are able to bounce ideas off each other and work well to get everything done.” </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Emmy said, “Working together is important because you all have to be on the same page, and if you’re not you get off task.” (Barell, 2012, <i>How Do We Know They’re Getting Better? Assessment for 21st Century Minds, K-8</i>, Corwin)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>But not all teams were as successful. Sydney noted that “you have to learn to deal with arguments” and with those who do not participate. Some groups were able to achieve consensus. But when I asked one CEO what she did with disagreement, she r</span>eplied, “I told them what we were going to do.”</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>When Mary Darr, the leader of the STEM projects, and other teachers realized through observations that teams weren’t working well together, she often brought them into her office and asked questions such as, “What if we follow your solution? What are the consequences?” and “How are these two ideas alike? How might we combine them?” </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Mary worked with students’ struggles to build teams where collaboration was the essence, where students listened and bounced ideas off each other; built upon each other’s ideas and were able to arrive at reasonable decisions by consensus.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>During subsequent team challenges their abilities to work together improved markedly. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Today, teams work in all fields of human endeavor from sports, medicine, engineering to education, and the military. What is the essence of good team work? Being able to work for the good of the group, not always feeling that one’s ideas are the best but keeping your eye on the intended outcome.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>As somebody once noted, “There’s no `i’ in `team.’”</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Phil Jackson, the NBA’s most successful coach observed in <i>Sacred Hoops</i> (1995), quoting his former NY Knick coach Red Holzman, “</span></p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbiQalj44NWizulcEqvamgptNmfqmFFGmqd5IIfXNmTl1ZyQFmwVIHlTnn1-1IOe7LXhxpsySMusve5laPmTv8VpS9-qiPfK5LbMU6Hew0oaLzaITzPjJJhDodffhyoRM-ye4P0FTfMiY/s200/Phil-Jackson2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728689026236048498" /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The power of We is stronger power of Me.”</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>And, “Working with the Chicago Bulls I’ve learned that the most effect way to forge a winning team is to call on the players’ need to connect with something larger than themselves.” (p. 5)</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This “something larger than themselves” might be the goals of the team--to do your best, as John Wooden coached; the desire of every family--develop its health, welfare and collective joy; the aspirations of a concerned citizenry--to preserve the essence of our democracy; the vision of an action group--to save the planet. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This might or might not be hard for Carlee and her friends to grasp, working for something larger and more significant than our own egos, our own successes, and today, how wonderful it is that there are in every walk of life people who recognize daily that power in a team’s committing to goals representing</span></p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqMEAqSixPQQTgjAcBm4Nbudur_OVXC-MybaYh_530Y6gWB6mQBIOgG8Xq4a3O4MOujKkyAoyLZdvv6tbj_J_pvXb_SdqxJll-rOtM5qaKH72oK3jOEG1Vn392BQCgtxKUiim8I4FvM8/s320/nba_g_pjackson_576.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728689278081513602" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: medium; ">an ideal worth striving for, the betterment of the human condition. Perhaps in every walk of life with some notable exceptions.</span><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Carlee and her friends might just have learned life’s most important lesson.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 16.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p><div><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-17737269355884326402012-02-21T06:41:00.000-08:002012-02-21T06:57:59.279-08:00Play Time--"The Best Day of My Life!"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUWoz1Qg2PG1P3fRbm0AuOiDyh2weLgd5e5LeznVg3NO7pOJX4tZNYXjNDzrJVOTNiEFnmg0enKEdVvMEr8A6aGpf5LUOU9_pCgKJhZEwZWeOze1gTGI0u6E06saykQjWKlLED1ksSoZY/s1600/Luke.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 231px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUWoz1Qg2PG1P3fRbm0AuOiDyh2weLgd5e5LeznVg3NO7pOJX4tZNYXjNDzrJVOTNiEFnmg0enKEdVvMEr8A6aGpf5LUOU9_pCgKJhZEwZWeOze1gTGI0u6E06saykQjWKlLED1ksSoZY/s320/Luke.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711600074234502930" /></a><br /> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>579</o:Words> <o:characters>3303</o:Characters> <o:lines>27</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>4056</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.512</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Luke was having a regular day in his Kindergarten class at Deer Creek Elementary School in Austin, Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Activities before lunch included calendar time, whole group reading and work board, where every child has and performs her/his special job for the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After lunch the class would have time for math and science instruction. At the very end of the day would come Play Time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>But on this particular day during a break just before lunch Katy Azanza and her partner Gina Pinkston decided to try something different.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">“Let’s see what happens if we move Play Time up before lunch instead of its being the last event of the day as it normally is.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Gina agreed and both went into their classrooms to announce:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK, children today we’re going to do things a bit differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, right now is Play Time and you can go to whatever corner or computer you want to.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There were youthful cheers, a scramble to get to the blocks, the reading corner and Luke walked purposefully by Katy saying, <b>“This is the best day of my life!”</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Imagine that, at six Luke already knows his good and better days and having time to play at the computer—or, one imagines, with the blocks—represents to him a significant change for the better.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What have Katy and Gina done?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>They have chosen to provide Luke and his friends with the opportunity to play, to make a choice and to have fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But her decision involves more than just making this choice, for she has given Luke and his friends time to engage in what psychologists have called play, “children’s work,” a most important activity in growing up and learning to think and act responsibly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Why is play so important for kindergartners and others?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because play is that very important human activity characterized by:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Internal motivation</b><span style="font-weight:normal">—We play because it is fun, not for external rewards</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;line-height:200%"><b>Internal control</b><span style="font-weight:normal">—We decide what to do—to go to the computer, to use blocks to build a city</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;line-height:200%"><b>Internal reality</b><span style="font-weight:normal">—We make a block into a truck, a whole structure of blocks into a city or a school.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There are few if any other human activities wherein we have such control over our experiences, to engage in fantasies about being a commander on a space shuttle, a world famous basketball player, a doctor, teacher or Antarctic explorer.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Recent research by Aamodt and Wang, claim that play is one of those experiences that lead to self-control:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Play allows children to practice skills that are useful in adult life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Young children build self-control through elaborate imaginative games like pretending to be a doctor or a fireman.” (19 February, 2012, <i>NY Times</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Sunday Review, p. 5)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Play gives us opportunities to make choices, to create little dramas as the teacher or the commander of an expedition, to figure out how to solve them and learn from our experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Katy says that some of the dramatic play in her class focuses upon playing husband and wife, imitating how their parents act at home, how they deal with family situations.</p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipY9_A74ph0M_gZQxJnRqI36I2HGDaHWE_uDfER7MxAFxCEWryhEEpPY9rlpYu_JkYMh05vO-3ltHy1N8grtc_orDOorBc0NnEqCDTl4TPi_80yeBuDbtBxiNWTAtKTZUp4lU_RaJ_xD4/s320/BPlay.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711600745970872402" /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Play builds our minds, our feelings and our physical bodies and is not something to be relegated to the end of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>H erein, as Katy and Gina are discovering, are golden opportunities for kids to play with the toys of the curriculum—the snails in the science unit where a Wonder Wall records kids’ questions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">Imagine being a snail out in search of food during a rainstorm, or when a predator lurks around the corner. What would you do? </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Play makes us who we are and every child deserves as much time to play as in doing her numbers to prepare for first grade. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Katy reports that now Luke and his classmates “are much more calm” in class as they do not have to wait all day to play.</p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivukI77IEFCf4YbDJR-sBvwM8ToVbCqkdpGkaKjqyBpZKImBwUI06rELAMK9siXNUZecmoVbv6aS1AJU5kuzy7ThZXEzEzVTikS3qEUGyNcyWF0c8XyZsrIFyFe63m3v-l1i6sQJi3sUI/s320/snail+bus+1+-+blog.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711601366179647682" /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>And truth be told, my Kindergarten teacher, Lilian Mould, reported that John Barell’s Dramatic Play—“centers around block construction he has done, and shows he has a variety of ideas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She also noted, however, that he “tends to be somewhat over-anxious.” Would that little John had played more often and with others to gain Luke’s sense of calm.</p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-30129952345526277992011-05-19T06:51:00.000-07:002011-05-19T07:07:36.118-07:00STEM Changed My Life!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0OsnGd8GlGW15VaIqzTJl0Vi1HN58_oax8UvOaNSwIfBnR6z5YCllH4k9h3Ik3YhDv6Cr5QbOFaqzobA0-Y2FcyM7PzvmQEVQP2JcHukqYcYir1D117Pt9ZU9ZwjhEM122ywwlgYbAlY/s1600/CP1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0OsnGd8GlGW15VaIqzTJl0Vi1HN58_oax8UvOaNSwIfBnR6z5YCllH4k9h3Ik3YhDv6Cr5QbOFaqzobA0-Y2FcyM7PzvmQEVQP2JcHukqYcYir1D117Pt9ZU9ZwjhEM122ywwlgYbAlY/s200/CP1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608424769508037634" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Karla is an eighth grader at Perkins Middle School in Sandusky, OH.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Recently, she and her classmates were challenged to design a roller coaster for its amusement park:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in">To continue its domination as the “World’s Roller Coast,” Cedar Point design engineers need your help. They want to bring a new coaster to the park, one that will generate much publicity and many riders. What is your vision for Cedar Point’s new roller coaster? Where should it be built? What will it look like, and what will it be named? Who should be its target audience? How will the park finance it? How far can designers go with the ride and still keep it safe for riders? If you build it, what will make them come?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">This was a STEM project, one focused on developing students’ abilities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Many schools across the country have adopted such innovative approaches, some in an effort to qualify for Race-to-the-Top federal funding.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Karla worked on a team with several other students acting as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>CEO, lawyers (Legal Eagles), architects, financiers and marketing experts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>During their weekly meetings students had to solve many problems of design, safety, publicity and finance, e.g. “How close to the beach can you build<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and what kinds of permits are needed from OH?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“What is the g-force on a human body going 75 mph?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No easy task, especially if you were new to the roller-coaster improvement business.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">But they had the benefit of experts in engineering, marketing, architecture, and financial planning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Imagine hearing about design principles from someone who actually designs buildings, not from a textbook, and then designing a model yourself!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">According to many team members the most valuable aspect of this STEM project was an important 21<sup>st</sup> century skill, learning how to solve problems collaboratively:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Emmy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Working together is most important because you all have to be on the same page and if you’re not, you get off task. .”<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Nicholas: “The most important thing about STEM is TEAMWORK!!!!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Sydney noted that “You have to learn how to deal with arguments” and those who do not participate.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Doug Reeves notes that in the future “performance will be measured not by the success of the individual, but by the success of the team. . .[helping] others learn is an essential process and therefore collaboration is essential.” (2010)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In telephone interviews several of the CEOs told me that they found the problem solving most challenging—finding solutions to problems required them to “think differently,” as Karla said, to be imaginative, creative and “think out of the box.” Carlee noted: “I like my team because we are able to bounce ideas off each other and work well to get everything done.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">This involved a lot of brainstorming new solutions, searching Google for ideas<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and narrowing ten ideas down to two or one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then the CEOs would have to arrive a consensus, not an easy task by any means.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They had to learn, for example, “how to incorporate other peoples’ ideas” into an agreed upon solution.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some CEOs worked for compromise, others made a final decision themselves. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Before a final presentation each team ran a dress rehearsal to get feedback from other students, as Grant Wiggins has advocated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kids saw others’ ideas, responded, “That’s pretty neat” and changed some of their plans.</p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9VOMzmpQp_ZpLd2VAs9jPRoCRGwlngEPxlGlHm2_Qc1f7NfzkoG5-uoKiMVfnG8k2DcOsTjOUz5VF9kDPW5gy0cKub7pfTbxuJap7EndNNaW-TpqsvCm7bDYU6a0UxVGYLgq3PZ9UhI/s200/CP2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608424870906592354" /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">And Karla?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At first she was bored,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>but she persisted and made the project her own: “I wanted to find some purpose for the project.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And she did.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in">“STEM made me actually start to do better in school and to start thinking <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>. . I started to think differently<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>because I realized it was time to become a better person and to grow up and to<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>reach the expectations that my parents have for me and I have for myself.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">So, how did STEM projects compare with regular classes?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What pleased some students was learning “more ways to get things done, rather than just [sitting in class and] answering specific questions.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>There were “more variables” you had to work with, more points of view (others’ ideas) you had to reconcile.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>During a subsequent challenge—building a colony on Mars—you had to “project consequences” of, for example, building this or that kind of structure and responding to a variety of “What if?” scenarios—suppose somebody gets killed. . ? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">And, said Karla in conclusion, “You had to ask a lot of questions.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What are the benefits of this kind of project?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Students thought there second STEM project--habitat on Mars--was superior because they had spontaneously used good problem solving processes--creating a challenge statement, brainstorming solutions and thinking critically about them to make decisions. They'd become better problem solvers and team members.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Some teachers noticed a transfer effect into their regular classrooms—students becoming more self-reliant, resourceful and focused on the tasks at hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“We had to teach ourselves!” said one student.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Mary Darr, the faculty leader of these STEM projects, observed, “Unlike standardized tests, these challenges encourage students to work together in an authentic environment to generate something new, to figure out what to do when answers aren’t obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here they have to pull everything together,” meaning apply knowledge from all subjects they’ve studied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>And Paul Dougherty, Director of Curriculum, noted that life for middle school students today is very “individualistic” and “social only within a cocoon.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>STEM provides them with opportunities to create a product and persuade an authentic audience using logical arguments and good reasons. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">No wonder Karla transformed her life.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">(Photo left to right: Brandon, Karla, Kayla, Laura)</p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNfLxhI4foxQ0_Fp-G7WJ_cy8MuBgZznuE8yqXjr4OngXFvS0p98CACtoCx09Jq8X1uH_fnI4vIOPfMpcc1AmgaEbpaV11mSBcFOPTVmc8aZ5c-KxiBJzsSLaxpaVVbf3MfTErwymSNMs/s200/Karla.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608425436607062210" /> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-43474647113507059982011-04-12T10:54:00.001-07:002011-04-12T11:00:12.146-07:00Students' Asking Good Questions<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl32dpKhlCpuBRGgTcXZT-O09_0vtKWf8KElBIggIj5t3m7hfdydnITGcIt1DGGX1tw4QfcUjHUWAUb3TQYNdJOgYufXYnsjm9nis_c6Nthf7gAClo-ud2J6klTEs15QXwU1kLveLXrNQ/s1600/solar_system.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 197px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl32dpKhlCpuBRGgTcXZT-O09_0vtKWf8KElBIggIj5t3m7hfdydnITGcIt1DGGX1tw4QfcUjHUWAUb3TQYNdJOgYufXYnsjm9nis_c6Nthf7gAClo-ud2J6klTEs15QXwU1kLveLXrNQ/s200/solar_system.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594757193995813010" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">“What does the sun look like from other planets?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This question from Jasmin Ramzinsky’s 3rd grade class at Parkside Elementary School in Austin reflects how education can be turned around almost on a dime by simply challenging students to assume more control </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">of their own learning.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>How do they do this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By being encouraged to ask good questions about the content they are studying and then pursuing what International Baccalaureate calls “purposeful investigations.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>And how do we encourage students to get interested and excited enough to pose questions about a subject we have to teach?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>First of all, teachers must be willing to model their own curiosities about the subjects we teach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If we aren’t curious, why would our students be?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Modeling tells our students that we are inquisitive, that we don’t know everything and that asking good questions and searching for answers is very exciting!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this is what we do throughout life.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Second, we need to share with students subjects that are intriguing, sometimes full of mystery and puzzles to figure out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">For this unit Jasmin’s students read a short book and she wondered, “Why is Pluto no longer considered a planet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What is a `dwarf planet’?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These questions led off the unit with the guiding question Is Earth the only planet with life?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">These teacher wonderings sparked other curiosities from students:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“How did the sun get into space?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>How many galaxies are there?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What’s a nebula?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>How big do asteroids get?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>How many seasons are there in space?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Is it legul [sic] to color with markers on the moon?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">And, my favorite, “What does the sun look like from other planets?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Sometimes it takes a younger person’s questions to present us with entirely different perspectives on what we think we know a lot about, like the sun and the planets. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">From these questions Jasmin helped her students find answers.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">You can imagine their excitement, total engagement and purposefulness as they researched questions they wanted answers to.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Before Jasmin adopted this inquiry-based approach, she would assign students’ questions; they would then conduct the research and write a one or two page paper.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>After completion of this solar system unit, Jasmin asked her students to </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">comment on how this new approach compared with what they did previously, answer questions she posed for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here are some of their comments:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">"Mrs. Ram, that doesn't make any sense. Why would you ask questions about my planet. You weren't doing the research, I was." <br /><br />"Mrs. Ram, I bet your kids kinda got bored with finding the answers to your questions." <br /><br /><br />"Mrs. Ram, How did you know what your kids wanted to research? Did you ask each kid before you wrote the list of questions?" <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Indeed, why do we assume we can dream up the kinds of questions our students would be intrigued by?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Because we have stuff to teach, to “cover”?)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">Why would we assume that the old approach would generate interest and engagement in the topic? (Because that’s what we’re used to?)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We have made and continue to make these assumptions throughout our educational system.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Teachers who afford students an opportunity to pose their own questions related to the designated content report that students become:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> More highly motivated.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">2.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>More engaged intellectually and emotionally.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>More in control of their own learning and, thereby, more responsible for achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>As a matter of fact this problem-based/question-based approach led one student to tell her mom that now she was “in charge” of her own learning.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are many, many Jasmins across this country who know the benefits and wisdom of challenging students to pose meaningful questions and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; ">conduct purposeful investigations about content that matters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Inquiry that leads to problem solving and critical thinking are all so-called 21<sup>st</sup> century skills (as they were last century and the ones before that dating back to Socrates!)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>One of the questions to pose and answer is “How do we know they’re getting better at these 21<sup>st</sup> century skills?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7m83LnfVdDZyfLLfObkPy2nWewbjgJir53g5q40bmbOoeBo_6wsxsDim7huDyugrftSw4zCmp3Bkift9bB4dgvZfz_QDuutnBqi94rsVS2cEs0Jhy0rXhXEmaz58rdlkTVPR4Gk_fwr0/s200/Jasmin.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594757559708045874" /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span>Jasmin can see the growth of her students’ questioning in science, math and in reading dating back to November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All because she’s put a priority on changing the classroom dynamic from one in which the adult asks all the questions to one wherein both teachers and students are asking good questions, searching for answers and learning together.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-76340219291543514782011-03-09T09:47:00.000-08:002011-03-09T10:04:12.805-08:00Bringing Mom to First Grade<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiousWJhfAtVmb0ue3IXO95UGmZLx8u1shMdaA_yZlHsfzdTQ2Q3-Bk9r_Mm6kSqLOY1w6sfsAn43bsR4HED5Tkeo-SepPt6wjRyLkDunULYIcujFBTKtcu_PQSogdjS-ihY67fbCdQ7kE/s1600/sc0013b9d8.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiousWJhfAtVmb0ue3IXO95UGmZLx8u1shMdaA_yZlHsfzdTQ2Q3-Bk9r_Mm6kSqLOY1w6sfsAn43bsR4HED5Tkeo-SepPt6wjRyLkDunULYIcujFBTKtcu_PQSogdjS-ihY67fbCdQ7kE/s200/sc0013b9d8.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582139602697462402" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There’s nothing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,” said Water Rat in the Kenneth Graham classic, <i>Wind in the Willows</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The fun of just messing about in and around stuff.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> The sheer joy of it all!</p><p class="MsoNormal">And there’s nothing quite like bringing your mom into first grade so children can get to know about her life, the times she lived in and what she valued.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> I had this pleasure recently at the Mulgrave School in Vancouver, British Columbia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On a not too unusual cloudy February day, I brought pictures of my mother, Elizabeth Ferguson Barell, into Monique Vodrey’s class to model how one might challenge students to become good observers and questioners of folks who lived before them. They were studying change across generations and I’d already admired some of their family trees.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> I showed the students six or seven photos of Elizabeth from age twelve to eighty-five and asked them to arrange them in chronological order. This they were able to do upon the second or third try.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What distinguished one photo from another was my mother's height, “She’s taller here!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and the presence or absence of her son, me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Then I focused on one black and white picture, that of her standing next to a Model A Ford probably circa 1927, the first year of production. It was most likely her father’s black car and I’m sure he took the picture in front of their house in LeRoy, NY.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> I asked kids to observe it closely and tell me what they saw:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“the car—not like my Dad’s car at all!” and lots of comments about the car, the windows, so many, the hood, the tires without hubcaps, the running board and the roof. They were fascinated by the roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were curious about the windows, why so many, the car’s color, why black, and the spoked wheels.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> The point was to help them become good observers, because inquiry starts with being keen observers of objects and experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Go here to view a video clip of students making their observations: <span style="color:#0036CF;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg3j3-1wzwg</span></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Next, I wanted them to pose good questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was sitting on a couch and held up a color picture of my mother and me when she was about 85.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then I said, “If my mother, Elizabeth Barell, were sitting right here, what would you ask her?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You can hear from the tape<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>how kids asked questions about life when she was born and then they asked a question that really surprised and delighted me, “What was her life <i>about?</i><span style="font-style:normal">”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(View: </span><span style="font-family:ArialMT;color:#0036CF;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMaYbM7l04</span></b></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Wow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“What was her life <i>about</i><span style="font-style:normal">?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Behind me were all the pictures arranged in </span>chronological order and one wonders what she might have said in response.</p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByE4t32BGhw6oSl3M-8jy40rMN5Ok1XXpbdaCibxjY843i1bVnMuXZwq4RrkDaCJ5EpqJOJ0gZPaj3j8wmn7h7tuQ_TudVE9n88YQCYloSBS4IbCs79wh4rJPZOTtiK8cCQLXV5ZCFe8/s200/sc001393c8.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582139799441714466" /><p class="MsoNormal"> “What did she like the best?” one other student asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> I think her life was about total devotion to her children, loving them, sacrificing for them especially when there was a family need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As a single working mom, she drove from Wellesley, MA everyday in her later life to work at Dana Farber Cancer Research Center in Boston as a researcher, then drove home,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>made my sister, Robin, a delicious meal, without ever, ever complaining, or asking Robin to make it herself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> But it was also about loving life. She was one of the most curious persons I’ve ever met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On her shelves, before she passed away last September, were books about Leonard Bernstein, nuclear physicist Richard Feynman, stories by A. A. Milne, and Ann Taylor and audio tapes of her favorite comics, Bob and Ray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, scattered about the apartment were cross word puzzle books galore!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Now that she’s gone we miss her and find different ways to keep her in our lives.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> At least first graders in Vancouver got to meet a lovely lady who once summed up the meaning of her life thusly:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Mind your own business!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because if you don’t, somebody else will.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-30483534786784826832011-02-06T13:15:00.000-08:002011-02-06T13:22:51.405-08:00Christina Taylor Green<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCyFfBlwJRGJXrEZUxqqCj80RPEmg5IFwYBthXrzVsKQUwi_O31jPQp5JRvjX4Ugth-_nMMSq5aCUVr6eOaGNsZ746fSW14dTT7FqLp7g3IIAHLXJR50gWcOhl3fdiZGUxO70xFLBVeDs/s1600/Christina-Taylor-Green.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCyFfBlwJRGJXrEZUxqqCj80RPEmg5IFwYBthXrzVsKQUwi_O31jPQp5JRvjX4Ugth-_nMMSq5aCUVr6eOaGNsZ746fSW14dTT7FqLp7g3IIAHLXJR50gWcOhl3fdiZGUxO70xFLBVeDs/s200/Christina-Taylor-Green.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570689379238642018" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas Kristof of <i>The NY Times</i><span style="font-style:normal"> interviewed two brave women in Liberty Square, Cairo last week (2/3/11).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Brave because they were out on the streets, surrounded by thousands of mostly male demonstrators, not concerned about their own safety and subject to the attacks of pro-Government armed men crashing in on horses and camels.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> These two sisters Amal and Minna, “had their heads covered in the conservative Muslim style, and they looked timid and frail as thugs surrounded them, jostled them, shoute</p><p class="MsoNormal">d at them.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> But these two “stood their ground.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They explained calmly to the mob why they favored democratic reform. . .”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> “We need democracy in Egypt,” they told Kristof.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“We want what you have.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> They and their brothers want what we too often take for granted: the rights guaranteed in those first ten amendments, guaranteeing us all the freedom to dare, to dream, to question authority and wonder about possible worlds we can create and inhabit, “here, th</p><p class="MsoNormal">ere and everywhere.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Amal and Minna remind me of Christina Taylor Green, that all too young nine year old gunned down in Tucson as she stood listening to congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All she wanted was to learn more about our democracy, how we can work together to live a good life, everybody potentially able to live out a dream.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> She should live on in our collective memories as an example of childhood curiosity, wonder , trust and enthusiasm!</p><p class="MsoNormal">President Obama elevated her curiosity to national heights:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Monaco;">“I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>as good as she imagined it. All of us, we should do <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>children’s expectations.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What were Christina’s expectations?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That she could observe her government at work on the corner, that she could, if patient enough, someday participate at a state or national level as she was doing in her own school’s Student Council. That maybe she could be one of thos</p><p class="MsoNormal">e people who works to help others live as she had, growing up with loving parents, a splendid brother, a terrific school that challenged her to imagine life as full of possibilities and a community that cared about all of its citizens.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She probably knew how fortunate she was.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Christina probably wanted what most of us want, to raise our hands with questions about something that is mysterious, intriguing, puzzling about our world—how people did or didn’t live in harmony, what was that "Milky Way" spread out so brightly over Tucson’s warm evenings, how do animals think, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>what makes some music so weird!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> With a grandfather and father in baseball, I imagine Christina loved the rough and tumble of various sports, playing them for the sheer joy of participating, dreaming of winning, learning to live with the losses, but always laughing up the thrill of being on a team.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I’m sure Christina loved reading, escaping with a good story that took her “lands away,” into Narnia, away with Charlotte into that web and way, way off to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> And I imagine she loved exploring the landscapes around Tucson,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>skipping, laughing and dancing her way toward what<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>e.e. cummings called that</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;line-height:15.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“. . .k<span style="font-family:ArialMT;">een <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:15.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:ArialMT;">city which nobody’s ever visited,where <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:ArialMT;">always<o:p></o:p></span></p><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoD5CuV7sA_0A4T5rAbVmeSfL6ccuRNvdNXFw1VquzawTIdH5aJBiSxuAwTk1wsMzTmHC_erPP9FkJOVIPmQKU4qlPaKZj0BMut2mI2tCDr0Xmb1X0hGSZUBSHtULoZhlWL7tC-1eR1Hc/s200/flowers.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570689617255538034" /> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:ArialMT;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:ArialMT;">it’s Spring)and everyone’s</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:ArialMT;">in love and flowers pick themselves”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">God bless you, Christina Taylor Green!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-4384848138198036242011-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:002011-01-06T10:04:25.317-08:00"Simply reeks with class"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrKg3tiHxD7BWbn-XiVSu1EAb7xXRijdm7dY-bgXFCqvMgS2h05XmJHoSm8w-aDjvksVDgr5YwrsEyMQJB7wk2eHYg1RjOFOTX94_n8ZwQA3XWJ27dJS-BP-nit1loLfdzKFkr8pGMwfU/s1600/TopHat.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrKg3tiHxD7BWbn-XiVSu1EAb7xXRijdm7dY-bgXFCqvMgS2h05XmJHoSm8w-aDjvksVDgr5YwrsEyMQJB7wk2eHYg1RjOFOTX94_n8ZwQA3XWJ27dJS-BP-nit1loLfdzKFkr8pGMwfU/s200/TopHat.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559134443256340722" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> During a recent breakfast with my aunt, Anne Cooper, I learned of one of my mother’s favorite movies, “Top Hat,” starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> One day during its movie debut, 1935, my mother, Elizabeth Ferguson, returned home with a girl friend simply roaring with laughter about one of Astaire’s lyrics. They saw him in top hat, white tie and tails before an entourage of over twenty similarly attired men, all sporting the walking cane dancing and singing about “dudein up” his shirt front, “puttin’ in the shirt studs, polishin [his] nails.” (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fizrfcAI13A">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fizrfcAI13A</a>)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But, according to my aunt, one line sent my mother and her girlfriend, both probably twenty years old and in college, into gales of laughter was the following:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“I’m steppin’ out, my dear To breath an atmosphere that simply reeks with class. . . “</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mother loved that line about breathing in an “atmosphere that simply reeks with class.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What did it mean to her, I wondered?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What represented “class” to her in 1935?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Surely, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. FDR?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her father, the famous scientist?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her mother?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Douglas Fairbanks?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nancy and I wondered what we meant by that word and she offered this definition: “Some one with class has a personal style, is self-confident and performs with humility and without arrogance.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Others have noted that to have class means to be very respectful of all others and to have “an innate sense of appropriateness” in social situations. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I usually think of someone with class, like Astaire and Rogers, as performers on the grand stage of life, but surely one doesn’t need to be famous to have class.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We then considered who amongst us, past and present had class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s a brief list:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Cary Grant</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Jean Arthur in any of her splendid movies</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Audrey Hepburn</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Admiral Richard E. Byrd treated me upon first meeting him when I was a young teen-ager and in awe of him as a member of his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He definitely had class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>See <span style="color:teal;"><b><i>Quest for Antarctica.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anne Morrow Lindbergh</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anne Frank</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Abraham Lincoln</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Former Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel</p><p class="MsoNormal">Former Senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Former Congressman from Bridgeport, CT, Christopher Shays</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Senator from Illinois Richard Lugar</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">President Barack Obama</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Physicists Isidore I. Rabi and Richard Feynman</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Astronomer Carl Sagan</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All the Tuskegee Airmen</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Marion Anderson</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Oprah </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Joe DiMaggio, even on that one occasion when he kicked up some dirt at missing a home run. And, of course, Yogi.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Walt “Clyde” Frazier of the NY Knicks</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Connecticut women’s basketball team (of 90 straight victories) coach Gino Auriemma after recently losing to Stanford, “I think they played an unbelievably good game.” Had to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga who, on 3 June 2010, pitched a perfect game only to have the last out nullified by umpire Jim Joyce, who admitted he blew the call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Galarraga treated this terrible disappointment with class, no thumping around ranting and raving about “I was robbed.” A true gentleman and sportsman.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>And who doesn’t have class, you ask?</b><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Any of the sports figures who feels it important to “hot dog” after making a routine play on the field—sacking the quarterback, scoring a touchdown or hitting a home run. Strutting around pointing to themselves, thumping their manly chests, all to their own greater glory.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, I would also nominate Elizabeth Ferguson Barell, for courage during the darker days of her life. Simply reeked with class.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Whom do you nominate as a person who has or had class?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-58048383327493664222010-12-24T06:51:00.000-08:002010-12-24T07:02:22.544-08:00One Team<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqUgK0W8uvvbvQHzsWdQq07TW2FxPyBoDoEPfxsW4ovWq7_DP9dRPcmTV-sf1Grb7tAZWgYLybHGJFae95XVDue9gGZwFciCWsout0km1EhHgGa8XTNswGudv-tIYo3_y7-WO4ZOx1i4/s1600/ArmyNavy.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqUgK0W8uvvbvQHzsWdQq07TW2FxPyBoDoEPfxsW4ovWq7_DP9dRPcmTV-sf1Grb7tAZWgYLybHGJFae95XVDue9gGZwFciCWsout0km1EhHgGa8XTNswGudv-tIYo3_y7-WO4ZOx1i4/s200/ArmyNavy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554264279267045250" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Last week Nancy and I visited Lincoln Center to hear the West Point Band playing Christmas and Hannukkah music with the New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A marvelous performance of traditional holiday music from sparkling brass players and vocalists.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Just before the performance I met one of the West Point Band’s officers, thanked him for his service and then said, “As a former Navy person I offer my condolences for yesterday’s game on the gridiron in Philadelphia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Army lost to Navy 31-17 for ninth straight time, a record winning streak in this service rivalry.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> He smiled broadly and then responded, “It’s all one team.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> All during the magnificent musical performances that followed this brief encounter I recalled players from the football game and announcements that this Navy quarter back would be serving on destroyers upon commissioning and that Army running back had signed up for infantry or this wide receiver would be assigned to field artillery.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Many of these cadets would be serving in Afghanistan before the end of next year, perhaps supported at sea by their navy comrades in arms.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Very sobering thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Regardless of one’s political persuasion we pray for the life of each of these future officers and the enlisted who serve with them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> “One team.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That phrase kept resounding in my mind as I watched the lame-duck session struggle mightily, it seemed, to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>pass several major pieces of legislation—repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; the huge tax bill; 9/11 first responders health and ratification of the New Start Treaty with Russia.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> It seems as if politics has, indeed, changed since the last election. Democrats are working with Republicans to pass significant legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Somebody said, “We ought to bring them in for only six weeks and set them loose!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Has the era of Good Feelings returned?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Probably not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The hyper-partisanship that has characterized the political wrangling during the past year made me sick of the whole process for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was worse than sausage making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was like small boys in a schoolyard yelling and screaming at each other when they didn’t get exactly what they wanted, and that meant <i>everything</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> This lack of conversation across the aisles—the almost total grid-lock on the field of politics—this hyper-partisanship--led to the recent formation of a new movement called “No Labels” led by Republicans and Democrats. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But reason seemed to prevail during these last weeks, even though die-hards claimed “There’s no time. . .we’re not going to rush things.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, both sides passed significant legislation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> But where is the sense of “One Team” for 2011? I remember former Congressman Chris Shays, Republican of CT,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>saying he got up every morning realizing he served not only Republicans in his Bridgeport area district, but Democrats and Independents as well. There aren’t too many folks in Congress who reflect that spirit of attempting to solve America’s problems first, not working to ensure that President Obama serves only one term or to eliminate certain tax cuts.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> “One Team” means that we think, for example, of the economy, the need to mount huge efforts to compete with the Chinese who have just invested almost 1 trillion dollars in new green energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We must think not as ideologues from one party or another, but as Americans needing to solve a problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Too often what passes for legislative problem-solving is acceding to the wishes of one’s political base to ensure re-election.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> We think of what Senator John McCain said about what he would have done post 9/11: ask for “shared sacrifice.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Such sacrifices would mean that we think first about the best ways to deal with immigration policy and not about who are our campaign contributors and ideological soul-mates.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> “One team” means that we realize that those men on the gridiron serve one nation, one America. We don’t ask them to pull the trigger in defense of Republicans or Democrats, the poor, or the middle class or the rich, but of <i>all</i> citizens.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Yes, we’ve had our divisions since the first Washington administration when you had Madison and Jefferson strongly disagreeing with the advice Hamilton was giving the President (see <i>Madison and Jefferson</i><span style="font-style:normal">, 2010 by Burstein and Isenburg) about building standing armies and assuming a large national debt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Political discourse became rather vituperative, accusatory and inflamed at times.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> My fantasy is that one day I would be given 60 seconds to speak before a joint session of Congress. During this presentation I would<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>mention McCain’s call for “shared sacrifice” from all Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tell them of my parents’ many contributions during WWII (See “Mutual Sacifice” 11/23<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>below) —along with millions of other American citizens.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Then I would ask them for one week—even <i>one day</i><span style="font-style:normal">—to shed any semblance of party loyalty, forget their always imminent re-election campaigns<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and work diligently to solve the problems we face as men and women whose only allegiance is to all the voters in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Be Chris Shays for one day, just <i>one </i><span style="font-style:normal">day!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Fantasy? Sheer fantasy. Yes, I know, but I keep rehearsing my lines.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> The men and women from all of the military academies serve our country—we owe them our supportive acknowledgement that we are, indeed, “All one team.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Peace for this holiday season!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-40429841092662417462010-12-13T05:13:00.000-08:002010-12-13T05:22:35.673-08:00Great Askers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5Hczw9lmAgVBoptaEvwDx2ElUxP1-08glv0bHM0i9QkocTbxnQ_uNBoVis8wu_4oFKZ1wN0L75ztYG-6bmt1FHjrrfitcYovjf0UN0-1QiJF_d34HsTbciHubkA3BspiIY6TVvGytgw/s1600/The-March-of-Folly.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5Hczw9lmAgVBoptaEvwDx2ElUxP1-08glv0bHM0i9QkocTbxnQ_uNBoVis8wu_4oFKZ1wN0L75ztYG-6bmt1FHjrrfitcYovjf0UN0-1QiJF_d34HsTbciHubkA3BspiIY6TVvGytgw/s200/The-March-of-Folly.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550154807396066194" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Great Askers<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Driving north toward Albany recently to visit a high school where they challenge students to think by solving real-world problems, I happened to turn on an XM radio station that played a very short clip from a Glen Beck radio broadcast the previous day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In this segment Mr. Beck said the following (slightly paraphrased from memory):</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What is the number of Muslims who are terrorists. 1%?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think the figure is closer to 10%.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I heard nothing of what might have followed that claim.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The person who played it, of the opposite political persuasion, however, asked the right question, “How do you know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What evidence do you have to make this seemingly outrageous claim?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Reminded me of Beck’s similar claim on TV that President Obama was “anti-white,” that he was “deep down a racist.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’ve heard this claim many times over, but I’ve never heard of anybody’s challenging him to support this judgment about the President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What was it based on? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Made me think that if he’s anti-white, he must be schizophrenic, in the common definition of that term as being of a split personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I asked, “Well, which portion of himself does he hate, since he’s both black and white? The lower/upper half?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never heard the logical follow-up question, “What leads you to that conclusion?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, driving back from this terrific high technology school in Rensselaer, NY where they foster 21<sup>st </sup>century skills such as inquiry, problem solving and critical thinking, I was wondering how Mr. Beck models for his radio/tv audiences arriving at logical conclusions using valid, representative evidence?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve heard Mr. Beck so many times laying on his audience that they should fear the coming revolution, just recently, the approaching chaos that will result in a communist state or the dreaded one world government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Several nights later on TV<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>he claimed that “They [I think he means progressives since they are mostly the big bad wolves here] they feed on fear and violence.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One way to propel your own agenda is to characterize what others do to conceal your own use of the same tactics. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This from a spokesperson who sees the coming of a Reichstag-like fire incident that would lead to dictatorship, just<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>as a similar event led to the Nazi take-over of the German government in 1933. <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This from a person who plays tapes of students in London and Berkeley demanding free education and concludes that this is evidence that we’re headed for a socialist/communist state and a loss of freedom. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But the critical thinker asks, “How representative are students at Berkeley of the entire US?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What other evidence do we have that the country is headed for a dictatorship or any stripe?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, there are groups here and there that might give suggestion of that idea, but what say the three major branches of the federal government, to say nothing of their state and local counterparts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Where’s the preponderance of evidence?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Makes one think that evidence/data/facts/verifiable information is of little or no consequence. Say what you will. Nobody will challenge you and some may agree. (What Jonathan Schell recently, in <i>The Nation</i>, called "casting off factuality."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We must be so careful in listening to folks in the media.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Each side throws claims around that baffle the mind of an educated person:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“The Obama Stimulus Effect? Zero?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(WSJ,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>12/9/10) Why did they say that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because spending almost 800 billion dollars did not lead to significant “purchases” by the states that received the money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Are there other criteria for success? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You have economists on the other side from Harvard, for example, claiming on Charlie Rose “I can’t explain why the wealthy got tax breaks.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One wonders who amongst the young people at that NY high school accepts these kinds of claims without the requisite and healthy skepticism that demands we ask probing questions like “How do you know? What leads you to that conclusion?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How good/representative is your evidence?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a most revealing book, <i>The March of Folly</i><span style="font-style:normal"> (1984) about governments that pursue policies “contrary to their interests.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She cites British policy in our Revolutionary War and ours in Vietnam as examples of “folly,” that is, “perceived as counter-productive in its own time. . .[with a] feasible alternative course. . .available. . .” (p. 5)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A better policy would, I imagine, be based on solid evidence to the contrary.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To avoid such future disasters Tuchman concluded that “What government needs is great askers.” (385)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What society needs to counter claims that seem outrageous, that represent only one ideological point of view, or that are merely presented without any supporting evidence are “great askers”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>at home, schools, in the media, and in all political parties, people who daily challenge us to examine issues in accordance with evidence, who ask us to do what very few people are willing to do, that is ask, “What’s the other side of the coin? What evidence contradicts my favored point of view?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is the nature of good citizenship, especially in these days of hyper-partisanship in Washington politics.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-36768946394034980612010-12-06T08:01:00.000-08:002010-12-06T09:50:13.644-08:00The King's Speech<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoeiGP69FaEjAKcqijOG8Re2mBA80vKEQX3xtbb9O__0IbS_53jCRUYsEdWs23mOWFYC2IfCrcDb2HovRAojPDGbqiF4i0xaT77VnTA9qB86e1dEbG2dWCU6orXWpFjm_EaZ54e4kubk/s1600/TheKing_table.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoeiGP69FaEjAKcqijOG8Re2mBA80vKEQX3xtbb9O__0IbS_53jCRUYsEdWs23mOWFYC2IfCrcDb2HovRAojPDGbqiF4i0xaT77VnTA9qB86e1dEbG2dWCU6orXWpFjm_EaZ54e4kubk/s200/TheKing_table.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547601035101250386" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The King’s Speech</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As the movie critics sometimes say, “Run, don’t walk to see Colin Furth in <i>The King’s Speech</i><span style="font-style:normal">.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why run?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because Furth delivers a most moving portrait of a monarch, George VI, as he ascends the throne after his brother Edward’s abdication to marry Mrs. Simpson in 1936.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George VI suffered from what they then called a “stammer.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He choked up when he had to speak in public and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>this is something a monarch does rather often, especially if his country is heading into World War II against a man with Hitler’s articulate passion for enflaming his people against the world.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Furth recently recalled that he had what actors call an emotional memory of his fear of public speaking:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>When he was eight years old he was caught talking in class and the punishment was rather severe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“The teacher said, `Oh, do you want to give the lesson?’" The following week, after several sleepless nights, Furth was made to teach an hour-long class on the topic of soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> "</span>It’s the only thing I ever really learned during my entire school years,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> "</span>I still remember words like <i>loam</i><span style="font-style:normal"> and </span><i>subsoil</i><span style="font-style:normal">, and different levels and layers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I brought in samples and little test tubes.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(</span><i>The New Yorker</i><span style="font-style:normal">, 12/6/ 2010,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>p. 30)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here we see the efficacy of teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you want to learn something, teach it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you want to know if students understand something, challenge them to teach it to those who are novices.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, there is the element of total fear about this learning experience and we would not want to terrify our students by putting them in Furth’s position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The actor said, “It was punishment.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“The King’s Speech” demonstrates once again the vitality of our speech patterns, our ways of communicating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We can joke, as <i>The New Yorker</i><span style="font-style:normal"> did recently, about being the only “between you and me” chap in a “between you and I” world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But for those of us who really care about “the King’s English,” as my mother always did, it’s vital to pay attention to words, their pronunciation, usage, their connotations and denotations and even their derivations. What a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>joy it is when we learn that “stammer” is derived from the Old English word “stamerian. . .related to stumble."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s just what Furth did as King George VI, stumble over his words as if he had these natural or psychological blocks deep within his psyche. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style:normal">Language usage sets certain expectations.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I always remember Elizabeth Barell correcting those in the media for saying, “This is a really/most/very unique experience” or rather strongly chastising them for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>mis-pronouncing the word “dour.” The latter drove her crazy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What are words?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are our means of communications amongst ourselves, our concepts for understanding the world (from <i>pen</i> and <i>peace</i> to <i>Pater Noster</i>) and, finally, they are most assuredly magical, mysterious human creations for exploration and discovery of newer worlds of awe and wonder.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Words reveal our souls, passions, aspirations and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the stories we tell with our lives. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Attention must, therefore, be paid.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-20217936348361195062010-11-23T08:31:00.000-08:002010-11-23T08:38:43.884-08:00Mutual Sacrifice<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhznxBR2RoX11OXaEI1VekmQ5fkL1vIUjwpulVmGKb79NHHAep83KpBzanqPyjaf0PWZJFp1TYPNL8Sx9HxSriXVKs7uEpYl8LmIMHN74LJ_9-pPlZdkPc0DpdivqSax2cc_QGKD3TRM4k/s1600/sc003c1b68.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhznxBR2RoX11OXaEI1VekmQ5fkL1vIUjwpulVmGKb79NHHAep83KpBzanqPyjaf0PWZJFp1TYPNL8Sx9HxSriXVKs7uEpYl8LmIMHN74LJ_9-pPlZdkPc0DpdivqSax2cc_QGKD3TRM4k/s200/sc003c1b68.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542784349739357026" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Bob Herbert in today’s (11/23/10)</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">NY Times</span></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> reflects on the meaning of JFK’s candidacy, inaugural and presidency, as short as it was.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Herbert:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“What Kennedy hoped to foster was a renewed sense of national purpose in which shared values were reinforced in an atmosphere of heightened civic participation and mutual sacrifice.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As so many have pointed out over the years, we are currently engaged in fighting two wars that directly affect only a small percentage of US citizens—those doing the fighting--troops, support forces and commanders-- and their families, relatives and friends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nobody has asked us to do much of anything to support these troops.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They were hardly mentioned during the 2010 mid-term elections.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No controversy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At this time of Thanksgiving I like to remember what my parents did during WWII:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">1.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Used ration stamps for food and gasoline<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">2.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Flattened tin cans and contributed them<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">3.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Conserved water, especially in the bathroom<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">4.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dug and cultivated Victory Gardens<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In addition, my mother, Elizabeth Barell, knitted black watch caps for sailors on the deadly convoy runs from NYC (or Norfolk) to England and/or Russia. Remember these were convoys of cargo vessels carrying much-needed war supplies that were stalked by Nazi U-boat wolf packs. Thousands lost their lives in terrible explosions from torpedoes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She donated blood on 26 January 1944 and 27 June 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And, finally, like her father, she became what we might today call an air-raid warden, trained to spot enemy planes over her community, Hartsdale, NY.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She became an “authorized member of the Air Defense Command Filter Center Staff” in White Plains, NY, not far from our home.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This card was “Not Transferable,” which means, I guess, that she had special training that could not be passed on to my father or others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Today, what have we been asked to do?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Former-President Bush said he thought we were sacrificing because we have to take off our shoes in the airports, and now we go through full body scans to reach our destinations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">President Obama hasn’t asked us to do anything in terms of “mutual sacrifice” that I can identify.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We hardly ever hear about these wars.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The point, I think, is that we have men and women implementing our foreign policy in two distant countries where in one, Afghanistan, we’re spending upwards of 1.6 billion a week and</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">we’re not paying for it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Former Senator Alan Simpson (Co-Chair of President’s Debt Commission) said we’ve always paid for wars even back to the Revolutionary War with revenue enhancements, call them taxes. Today, we’re using other peoples’ monies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What can we do?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Follow the lead of Betty Barell and millions of others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I leave specifics up to our imaginations.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-28150061903411424932010-11-19T05:57:00.000-08:002010-11-19T06:01:44.336-08:00"How do you know?"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LkiEo_kwfBwueDHbmE3WKdSYnOi6fM2LSK-6m8G4JTZ_6iOm9Iua91LBULdvbAlVrdsnnWukQX-_fBzZfh9_mhlzHE66G0g6EaWVnPsJIW2Azs_7n5pEf6-_LcA8Eob0qfnG8PlSyLw/s1600/18-Hubble-Telescope-Amazing-Space-Pictures-Pillar-like-structures-of-the-Eagle-Nebula.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 316px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LkiEo_kwfBwueDHbmE3WKdSYnOi6fM2LSK-6m8G4JTZ_6iOm9Iua91LBULdvbAlVrdsnnWukQX-_fBzZfh9_mhlzHE66G0g6EaWVnPsJIW2Azs_7n5pEf6-_LcA8Eob0qfnG8PlSyLw/s320/18-Hubble-Telescope-Amazing-Space-Pictures-Pillar-like-structures-of-the-Eagle-Nebula.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541260352429168962" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Upon reading Tom Friedman's column in yesterday's NY Times (11/17/10), I was reminded of my mother's oft-spoken question to me--"How do you know?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She first asked this when I showed her a picture of the Eagle Nebula on my computer and told her this was a “stellar nursery.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">In an unusual column about tv and cable news broadcasters/showmen, Friedman quoted at length a program by CNN's Anderson Cooper. Cooper evidently examined the claim made by many of one political persuasion that President Obama's recent trip to Asia would and did cost about $200 million<i> per day. Yes, per diem.</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">When Cooper heard this claim he did some digging around and found that the first mention of this charge came from some not-well-known individual in India ("an alleged provincial Indian official") and then it made its way to the US, into the House of Representatives, onto cable tv news and the radio airwaves. No one could identify who this "official" is.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Like so many tall tales, new versions got added as people spread them: Obama's trip turned into a "vacation" guarded by ten percent (10%) of the entire United States Naval forces with an entourage of 3,000.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Cooper said on his CNN show: “. . . no one really seemed to care to check the facts."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No one was curious enough to ask any one of the political figures, “How do you know it’s going to cost $200 million a day? Where did you get your information, your facts?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Reminds me of the claims of WMD in Iraq. Who was fact checking the stories emanating from the same <i>NY Times</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> about their presence in Iraq before our invasion?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Friedman concluded, "When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, we have a problem."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">How did we get into this kind of situation--absent people who have a high regard for Elizabeth Barell's question--"How do <i>you</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> know? How do t<i>hey</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> know?"<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Perhaps it’s the presence of the very 24/7 cable and radio news networks on which people of very strong political views voice their judgments. Or, can we really call them "judgments"?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My definition of that term, especially when used to educate our young, involves drawing a reasonable conclusion supported by good reasons and very specific facts/data/evidence/information.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman wrote once that we need to "teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed." It's OK to say, "I don't know."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Some of us seem to be very certain of just about everything leaving no room for doubt nor for that confirmatory question that Elizabeth Barell used to ask, "How do you know?"<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">I’m often found ranting and raving at the television set where some politician is making a modest, grand or outlandish claim.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“How do you know?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tell me the facts behind your claim, if there are any.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;">Rigid certitude may be the hobgoblin of small minds and what we need are more skeptics in the press, in government, in politics, at home, in the world of work and at play.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-31033841311572160812010-11-13T03:50:00.000-08:002010-11-13T04:18:08.218-08:00No frigate like a bookEmily Dickinson wrote "There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. . ." And this was my feeling on first opening a new book yesterday, <i>Madison and Jefferson</i> by Burstein and Isenberg (2010). <div><br /></div><div>As I read the Preface, there was a frisson of freshness that overcame me as I realized I was venturing back to the 18th century and the founding of our country. There is always such a thrill when reading about Washington, Adams, Jefferson and their forging a new nation out of the thirteen colonies.</div><div><br /></div><div>The authors make a point of telling us what historians do, that is challenge conventional wisdoms, assumptions and preconceptions about people in history and the events they helped initiate. "The discipline of history exists to reexamine time-honored treatments of people and events, and to separate myth from reality."</div><div><br /></div><div>They warn against celebrating these men "blindly," for this invites "massive self-deception." </div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, what the authors want to do is take a fresh look at the relationship of these two former Presidents, third and fourth, to hold them up to the light of new scholarship, new questions about what they did and didn't do.</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing we learn right off the bat is that "Jefferson sought to undermine the [Constitutional] ratification process--to Madison's severe embarrassment." (xix) But Madison went on to champion Jefferson for the presidency, to battle John Adams, thus becoming his "campaign manager."</div><div><br /></div><div>What's exciting about this literary/historical adventure is to witness two first-rate historians using their craft to scrutinize old misconceptions about two very famous men, founders of our country. </div><div><br /></div><div>If we think today's politics are sometime brutal, one should learn more about the battles amongst the early men of the Revolution and the founding of this country.</div><div><br /></div><div>Questioning the common wisdoms might not always be popular, but we need men and women who will accept this challenge, not just as historians but as critical friends within the parlors and corridors of power. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the recent past too few questions were asked about major policy undertakings and with new memoirs afoot, we need all the inquisitiveness we can muster lest we thickly varnish reality.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6436092792136643078.post-87052707017502035462010-11-12T03:53:00.000-08:002010-11-12T04:10:17.262-08:00Chancellor's RealmHere in NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has appointed Cathy Black as new school's chancellor. Already opponents are saying she's not qualified because she's never been an educator, doesn't have appropriate education credentials (degrees and the like).<div><br /></div><div>The Mayor obviously prefers to run the schools with what he considers to be excellent managers, people who have a proven record of leading large groups of people toward organizational goals--in the world of business.</div><div><br /></div><div>This appointment raises many questions:</div><div><br /></div><div>Would a potential chancellor benefit from experience in teaching and running schools?</div><div><br /></div><div>Does knowing something about how kids learn, how they grow intellectually and emotionally help us organize large numbers of teachers and administrators toward being successful in school and beyond?</div><div><br /></div><div>Do we not have anybody within a school system across the US with leadership credentials to govern the NYC public schools?</div><div><br /></div><div>Does an "outsider" have more potential for effecting change within a very complex organization than and "insider"?</div><div><br /></div><div>Can such a person create a strong team of educators to school her in the complexities of curriculum, instruction, school change/management, negotiating with unions and setting a vision for the future?</div><div><br /></div><div>These are some of the questions we might ask about Bloomberg's choice.</div><div><br /></div><div>His choice seems to say that anybody like Gerstner (formerly IBM chief), Iacocca (Chrysler), Gates/Balmer (Microsoft) or Mulally (Ford) could lead the NYC school system.</div><div><br /></div><div>It makes an educator like me take pause, wonder about what it takes to lead a complex organization of professionals who pride themselves on knowing how to challenge students to become deeply involved, intellectually and emotionally, in their own learning, setting goals for their own improvement, asking good questions and pursuing thoughtful answers.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677906179793437551noreply@blogger.com0