31 December 2012
President Palin
Right now, in a bizarro world in which Sarah Palin is capable of introspection, she is preparing for her impending inauguration as the first female President of the United States.
You see, when John McCain nominated her for VP, she thought carefully (blinked, even), realized how unprepared she was for the job, finished her term as Governor of the State of Alaska but did not run for re-election, and then spent a couple of years really doing her homework. Glad to have seen that she escaped a bullet by not attaching her star to McCain's candidacy, she prepared to run the campaign that he didn't.
She spent time in DC, making friends with influential lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and showing them the skills she honed as a governor who worked with members of both teams. She traveled the world, meeting with leaders of important nations like Germany, the UK, Russia, and Japan. Her experience dealing with resource extraction, naval and fisheries issues, and Arctic policy rapidly made her sought-after as a power broker and negotiator, and the US State Department sent her as a member of several important delegations to consider renegotiations of Arctic treaties.
When the 2012 election rolled around, she was viewed favorably by women, the elderly, the Religious Right, supporters of the military, and just about everyone who was frustrated with Barack Obama. Her numbers among white males, ages 35-70, were historically high. Her cautious handling of the immigration issue helped to split the Hispanic vote despite the fact that that demographic voted against Republicans nationally. Obama was still solid with the Democratic base, but the loss of women was enough to drive Palin to a narrow win in the Electoral College.
It sure is a good thing that in our world, she didn't blink.
19 December 2012
07 December 2012
Punchy
Doing a late-night radio show sometimes gets me punchy when I should just go to bed. Right now, I'm all worked up about schooling someone in the finer points of his stupid religion, which is funny, because I'm an atheist.
Why can't the believers actually know anything about their beliefs? Why can't I just stop caring about this and go to bed? Why am I asking you?
30 September 2012
blame the (good) teachers!
It is exhausting to attempt to follow all of the various arguments about school improvement in the United States. In no small part, this is because it frequently feels like it all devolves into a game of finger pointing. There is one party responsible for the state of modern education in our country, and they are responsible due to a shocking negligence.
We should not be blaming politicians for the state of modern education in the US. Yes, they have forced it on us, but they didn't create it. That was done for them by moneyed interests, and nobody told them otherwise (which of course means, "nobody demonstrated to them that it would be politically unjustified to resist the moneyed interests").
We should not be blaming parents and families for the state of modern education in the US. Yes, they are an easy target and it is frustrating to have students show up to school without having had enough food, enough sleep, enough time for homework, good clothes, or preparation for kindergarten. However, parents are doing the best they can. None of them are perfect and many do intentional or inadvertent harm to their children, but that is something that our country is not ready to do much about through the law, so it's off the table in the education debate.
We should not be blaming administrators. They are, contrary to what many of them say, not in the business of educating children. They are in the business of running schools. One function of that is seeing that children are taught well, but they also are concerned about keeping the lights on and providing meals. They cannot be expected to digest, understand, and then advocate for or against education policies as they simply do not have the time.
We should not be blaming "bad teachers." Now, this one is a bit controversial. It is tempting to blame the spectre of bad teachers for every ill in the schools, but these are much like Reagan's specious welfare queens - there are abuses of various privileges to be found in virtually every school, but I have never yet encountered a teacher who truly didn't care at all about children, education, or seeing that children become well-acquainted with that teacher's subject matter. We should stop considering these people "bad" teachers and think of them as unmotivated. They are like water - they follow the path of least resistance, but can generate great quantities of work if well-guided.
We should not be blaming the students. They're children. They're all egocentric and most of them are lazy, and it's up to the adults in the room to work with and around that.
We should be blaming the good teachers.
The good teachers are the ones who come to school early every day and leave late almost every day. They teach well-organized lessons that align to well-considered curricula. They bring extra bagels in their lunches to slip to the kid who didn't have breakfast or offer a ride home to the kid who's walking in the rain. They sponsor two or three clubs without asking for a stipend because they can see that it benefits the children. They attend professional development and read up on the latest instructional theories and attempt to implement research-based methods in their classroom and excitedly meet with other teachers in their discipline or in other departments in order to find new strategies or places where they can collaborate. They know that it takes a personalized community effort to teach every child, so they call home frequently and send notes and meet with counselors and administrators and coaches and the librarian in order to get the fullest picture possible. They're doing everything right, but this is all their fault.
What they are not doing is anything beyond the school level. They do not show up at school board meetings. They do not testify before the state legislature. They do not contact their national representatives and they most certainly do not testify before Congress.
Good teachers knew what was wrong with every major educational initiative of the past twelve years before it was enacted (because they do their homework), but they never stood up to advocate against these flaws.
While rolling their eyes in department meetings and chuckling to themselves about the newest policy that surely wouldn't last five years, they counted on someone else to tell Congress that No Child Left Behind wouldn't work because it didn't have enough money and was expecting the impossible (seriously, every good teacher is an optimist, but not even the most starry-eyed of hippie dreamers would believe that in only thirteen years, every student in the country would be able to pass standardized state exit exams).
After realizing that NCLB really wasn't going away, teachers were elated to hear about Race To The Top, until they did what nobody else did and actually looked at what was being asked. When they realized that it meant increasing class sizes, reducing curriculum diversity, and aligning state standards with the Common Core, they got nervous. After all, the Common Core is a nice guide and all, but students in different places have different understanding of the world - there are two states for which the answer to "what country lies south of the United States?" may well be "Canada." Similarly, cultural understandings and social mores vary greatly from place to place, even within a state. Again, good teachers saw this problem coming and did nothing.
When charter schools became more and more popular as "school choice" options, good teachers began looking at the data and pointing out to each other (but not to parents, legislators, or newspaper editors) that even with selective admissions practices (meaning that most charter schools will not take special education students or those with language impairments), charter schools perform on average in a manner that is statistically indistinguishable from the average public school, if not worse. Of course, this is done with far less oversight than what is given to public schools.
When NCLB waivers began being offered and states clamored for them, good teachers again saw right through the biggest flaw and did nothing. While linking student performance on standardized tests to teacher pay and retention may sound like a great idea to someone accustomed to running a business, good teachers know that this makes as much sense as blaming Toyota for a car that ran into a tree after it's been piloted by a drunk driver with the lights off in an unfamiliar city. The multitude of factors impacting student achievement is too great to be distilled in one easy set of numbers that can all be attached to one person's work over ten months. These scores do not, cannot, and will not take into account any external factors and there is no way to have those external factors (pregnancy, rape, abuse, death of a parent, parental divorce, loss of the childhood home, etc.) attached to the score as a footnote. Again, the good teacher knows about those factors most of the time and is working with and around them in the classroom, but that never shows up when the scores are tied to the teacher's evaluation.
Good teachers know that merit pay is a sham. In only one study has merit pay been shown to do any good, and that was a study in which the teachers got the money up front and had to forfeit it if they did not perform to expectations. It's hard to give back that which has been spent. Good teachers, however, are not interested in bonuses. What they want is more time for professional development, more time for collaboration with other teachers and with students, better facilities in which to work, and, if there's time left over, a bit of respect. The unmotivated teachers also want all of those same things, and will generally teach better in situations where they spend more time in contact with colleagues who are doing all of the right things.
Unfortunately for the US and for the teaching profession, good teachers aren't sharing this knowledge. There are a few heroic advocates who are standing up to the corporate reformers and the Michelle Rhees of the world, but Diane Ravitch cannot do it alone. Teachers by nature tend to be a cautious lot. We self-censor all of the time because we do not wish to cause offense or to alienate students or parents with different beliefs. We carefully lock down our social media presences so that we do not cross any boundaries. We share our cell phone numbers with students for various reasons connected with work but are then uneasy about the public perception of a teacher with forty or fifty teenagers' numbers stored in a contacts list.
We need to get over our caution. We need to be our own advocates and take back our profession by doing what we do best. We need to teach the public the things that we know.
We should not be blaming politicians for the state of modern education in the US. Yes, they have forced it on us, but they didn't create it. That was done for them by moneyed interests, and nobody told them otherwise (which of course means, "nobody demonstrated to them that it would be politically unjustified to resist the moneyed interests").
We should not be blaming parents and families for the state of modern education in the US. Yes, they are an easy target and it is frustrating to have students show up to school without having had enough food, enough sleep, enough time for homework, good clothes, or preparation for kindergarten. However, parents are doing the best they can. None of them are perfect and many do intentional or inadvertent harm to their children, but that is something that our country is not ready to do much about through the law, so it's off the table in the education debate.
We should not be blaming administrators. They are, contrary to what many of them say, not in the business of educating children. They are in the business of running schools. One function of that is seeing that children are taught well, but they also are concerned about keeping the lights on and providing meals. They cannot be expected to digest, understand, and then advocate for or against education policies as they simply do not have the time.
We should not be blaming "bad teachers." Now, this one is a bit controversial. It is tempting to blame the spectre of bad teachers for every ill in the schools, but these are much like Reagan's specious welfare queens - there are abuses of various privileges to be found in virtually every school, but I have never yet encountered a teacher who truly didn't care at all about children, education, or seeing that children become well-acquainted with that teacher's subject matter. We should stop considering these people "bad" teachers and think of them as unmotivated. They are like water - they follow the path of least resistance, but can generate great quantities of work if well-guided.
We should not be blaming the students. They're children. They're all egocentric and most of them are lazy, and it's up to the adults in the room to work with and around that.
We should be blaming the good teachers.
The good teachers are the ones who come to school early every day and leave late almost every day. They teach well-organized lessons that align to well-considered curricula. They bring extra bagels in their lunches to slip to the kid who didn't have breakfast or offer a ride home to the kid who's walking in the rain. They sponsor two or three clubs without asking for a stipend because they can see that it benefits the children. They attend professional development and read up on the latest instructional theories and attempt to implement research-based methods in their classroom and excitedly meet with other teachers in their discipline or in other departments in order to find new strategies or places where they can collaborate. They know that it takes a personalized community effort to teach every child, so they call home frequently and send notes and meet with counselors and administrators and coaches and the librarian in order to get the fullest picture possible. They're doing everything right, but this is all their fault.
What they are not doing is anything beyond the school level. They do not show up at school board meetings. They do not testify before the state legislature. They do not contact their national representatives and they most certainly do not testify before Congress.
Good teachers knew what was wrong with every major educational initiative of the past twelve years before it was enacted (because they do their homework), but they never stood up to advocate against these flaws.
While rolling their eyes in department meetings and chuckling to themselves about the newest policy that surely wouldn't last five years, they counted on someone else to tell Congress that No Child Left Behind wouldn't work because it didn't have enough money and was expecting the impossible (seriously, every good teacher is an optimist, but not even the most starry-eyed of hippie dreamers would believe that in only thirteen years, every student in the country would be able to pass standardized state exit exams).
After realizing that NCLB really wasn't going away, teachers were elated to hear about Race To The Top, until they did what nobody else did and actually looked at what was being asked. When they realized that it meant increasing class sizes, reducing curriculum diversity, and aligning state standards with the Common Core, they got nervous. After all, the Common Core is a nice guide and all, but students in different places have different understanding of the world - there are two states for which the answer to "what country lies south of the United States?" may well be "Canada." Similarly, cultural understandings and social mores vary greatly from place to place, even within a state. Again, good teachers saw this problem coming and did nothing.
When charter schools became more and more popular as "school choice" options, good teachers began looking at the data and pointing out to each other (but not to parents, legislators, or newspaper editors) that even with selective admissions practices (meaning that most charter schools will not take special education students or those with language impairments), charter schools perform on average in a manner that is statistically indistinguishable from the average public school, if not worse. Of course, this is done with far less oversight than what is given to public schools.
When NCLB waivers began being offered and states clamored for them, good teachers again saw right through the biggest flaw and did nothing. While linking student performance on standardized tests to teacher pay and retention may sound like a great idea to someone accustomed to running a business, good teachers know that this makes as much sense as blaming Toyota for a car that ran into a tree after it's been piloted by a drunk driver with the lights off in an unfamiliar city. The multitude of factors impacting student achievement is too great to be distilled in one easy set of numbers that can all be attached to one person's work over ten months. These scores do not, cannot, and will not take into account any external factors and there is no way to have those external factors (pregnancy, rape, abuse, death of a parent, parental divorce, loss of the childhood home, etc.) attached to the score as a footnote. Again, the good teacher knows about those factors most of the time and is working with and around them in the classroom, but that never shows up when the scores are tied to the teacher's evaluation.
Good teachers know that merit pay is a sham. In only one study has merit pay been shown to do any good, and that was a study in which the teachers got the money up front and had to forfeit it if they did not perform to expectations. It's hard to give back that which has been spent. Good teachers, however, are not interested in bonuses. What they want is more time for professional development, more time for collaboration with other teachers and with students, better facilities in which to work, and, if there's time left over, a bit of respect. The unmotivated teachers also want all of those same things, and will generally teach better in situations where they spend more time in contact with colleagues who are doing all of the right things.
Unfortunately for the US and for the teaching profession, good teachers aren't sharing this knowledge. There are a few heroic advocates who are standing up to the corporate reformers and the Michelle Rhees of the world, but Diane Ravitch cannot do it alone. Teachers by nature tend to be a cautious lot. We self-censor all of the time because we do not wish to cause offense or to alienate students or parents with different beliefs. We carefully lock down our social media presences so that we do not cross any boundaries. We share our cell phone numbers with students for various reasons connected with work but are then uneasy about the public perception of a teacher with forty or fifty teenagers' numbers stored in a contacts list.
We need to get over our caution. We need to be our own advocates and take back our profession by doing what we do best. We need to teach the public the things that we know.
04 September 2012
Ann Romney brought a knife to a gun fight
Not to minimize Ann's suffering, but this kinda puts to shame "I work from the home" and "I live in pain."
My father was a pump operator at the city water plant, and he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when my brother and I were young.And even as a kid, I knew there were plenty of days when he was in pain…I knew there were plenty of mornings when it was a struggle for him to simply get out of bed.Ouch. They heard that hit all the way up in the nosebleeds.
But every morning, I watched my father wake up with a smile, grab his walker, prop himself up against the bathroom sink, and slowly shave and button his uniform.
And when he returned home after a long day’s work, my brother and I would stand at the top of the stairs to our little apartment, patiently waiting to greet him…watching as he reached down to lift one leg, and then the other, to slowly climb his way into our arms.
But despite these challenges, my dad hardly ever missed a day of work…he and my mom were determined to give me and my brother the kind of education they could only dream of. - Michelle Obama
05 August 2012
If I can ever find that medal...
The breadth and depth of ignorance in this country is shocking.
Reading the comments on an opinion piece about a Wiccan Eagle Scout who returned his medal in protest of the anti-gay policies of the BSA was revealing, to say the least. Apparently, when he decided to be Wiccan, he violated his Oath as a Scout (did any of you know that? I doubt the Wiccan I served with on camp staff knew that).
Also, there are apparently no gay youth who wish to be in the BSA, only adults who will either convert children through association or predatory pedophiles who will rape them just like priests.
Odd, when I was on that camp staff, I could have sworn that 1/4 of the staff members were gay (some under 18, some over) and that 90% of those gay men were Eagle Scouts. In fact, I felt that I was in the minority as a straight Eagle. If Scouting is Camping, as was so frequently stated, the staff that was standing up as the examples of what it was to be Boy Scouts was full of people who, apparently, have no right to be Boy Scouts.
The BSA has a responsibility to uphold the principles that it teaches. It also has a responsibility to protect children from abuse, both physical and emotional, at the hands of adults, other children, and the institution itself. I know that I'm asking a lot of a group of people who have never been in the organization or cared about it until the Gay Agenda was attacking it when I expect them to understand that the BSA is welcoming of all religions (their mistreatment of atheists is another issue) and when I expect them to also understand that gay children need positive role models in organizations like the BSA so that they will learn to value their own lives in a society that tells them to devalue themselves and I'm really asking a lot of them when I expect them to understand that gay people are just that: people.
I intend to return my medal to the BSA. I have no desire to maintain any affiliation with an organization that is so desperate to maintain the approval of the LDS church that it will turn its back on the kindness, loyalty, friendliness, courtesy, bravery, and moral integrity enshrined in its Oath and Law. Yes, I am interpreting all of those things as I believe they should be interpreted, but anyone who believes that it is kind, loyal, friendly, courteous, brave, or morally straight to tell a ten-year-old that he is wrong for the feelings that his body is producing in him can take that opinion and fuck right off.
16 July 2012
The (Thinking) White Man's Burden
*sigh*
Today, I learned that there is more than one Whitest Place On Earth.
Previously, Sedona, Arizona held that title in my mind. Overpriced kitsch, questionable spirituality, exploitative use of misunderstood (as if they cared to try to understand) Native culture, oppressive building design codes... that's about as white as it gets, right? I mean, who else (with a college education) would rub crystals on their cancer to make it go away?
Today, I saw a place that was capable of doing worse. Imagine if somebody came in from another country, got so excited about being an American that he had to do something drastic, took explosives to a major cathedral (or synagogue or whatever it is that theists use) in order to celebrate that enthusiasm, and then opened it to the public. Who then overwhelmingly approved, made pilgrimages to the site in order to put themselves in front of it in pictures, emblazoned it on crappy merchandise, and then capitalized on it by opening even more disgraceful and disrespectful ancillary businesses for dozens of miles around. If this weren't all bad enough, operation of the site would be handled by the National Park Service (the stewards of the physical, cultural, and historical legacy of our nation), who would completely neglect to acknowledge what previously existed on the site or why some people might find the new use offensive.
I went to Mt. Rushmore today. It is (also) The Whitest Place On Earth.
And so we come to the title of this post. The Thinking White Man's Burden is this: to forever bear the shame, embarrassment, and humility that the rest of his kind utterly lacks. On all our behalf: I'm sorry.
Today, I learned that there is more than one Whitest Place On Earth.
Previously, Sedona, Arizona held that title in my mind. Overpriced kitsch, questionable spirituality, exploitative use of misunderstood (as if they cared to try to understand) Native culture, oppressive building design codes... that's about as white as it gets, right? I mean, who else (with a college education) would rub crystals on their cancer to make it go away?
Today, I saw a place that was capable of doing worse. Imagine if somebody came in from another country, got so excited about being an American that he had to do something drastic, took explosives to a major cathedral (or synagogue or whatever it is that theists use) in order to celebrate that enthusiasm, and then opened it to the public. Who then overwhelmingly approved, made pilgrimages to the site in order to put themselves in front of it in pictures, emblazoned it on crappy merchandise, and then capitalized on it by opening even more disgraceful and disrespectful ancillary businesses for dozens of miles around. If this weren't all bad enough, operation of the site would be handled by the National Park Service (the stewards of the physical, cultural, and historical legacy of our nation), who would completely neglect to acknowledge what previously existed on the site or why some people might find the new use offensive.
I went to Mt. Rushmore today. It is (also) The Whitest Place On Earth.
And so we come to the title of this post. The Thinking White Man's Burden is this: to forever bear the shame, embarrassment, and humility that the rest of his kind utterly lacks. On all our behalf: I'm sorry.
13 May 2012
navel gazing
For years now, it's been a frequent gripe of mine that some of the people who knew me when I was younger haven't bothered to understand the man I've grown up to be. I've also occasionally found it amusing to consider my interactions with various people in the past and to imagine how differently I would have felt about those people if Then Me could think and act as Now Me does.
For all the time and thought that I have put into these two different ideas, I haven't ever seriously considered that others might have changed from the people I knew as well. Of course, I understand it on an intellectual level, but I've never taken the time to really think about the progressions that other people may have made.
Although I talk in a facetious manner as though I think myself to be perfect, I do tend to introspect a lot and seek out flaws in my own thinking and understanding, but this one came as a shock. I'm a bit surprised that I never paused to see the world this way, and I will have to put some time in on trying to gain a new understanding of a lot of people that I used to know.
For all the time and thought that I have put into these two different ideas, I haven't ever seriously considered that others might have changed from the people I knew as well. Of course, I understand it on an intellectual level, but I've never taken the time to really think about the progressions that other people may have made.
Although I talk in a facetious manner as though I think myself to be perfect, I do tend to introspect a lot and seek out flaws in my own thinking and understanding, but this one came as a shock. I'm a bit surprised that I never paused to see the world this way, and I will have to put some time in on trying to gain a new understanding of a lot of people that I used to know.
09 April 2012
it hits at the weirdest moments
At the strangest times, I'm confronted with missing my grandfather. Over the past two years, he'd become such a daily, albeit long distance, part of my life that I still find myself wanting to call him to share something with him. It stung to realize that it's Passover and that there is nobody to call to wish a happy holiday to, nor anyone to talk with about my plans to make matzoh ball soup (or to beg for some red horseradish). With his great-granddaughter's first loose tooth coming along a couple of days ago, it reflexively occurred to me while making dinner tonight that we hadn't passed the information on to him and that I should call. He'll never know about the latest silly things that the kids have done, nor the latest adventures we've planned. Maybe I would have had more closure if I'd been able to attend the funeral, but these little things keep hitting me, and, though they're not overwhelming, they still hurt a bit and throw me off of my rhythm.
I think he'd be pleased to know that we're taking a huge road trip to spend a lot of time with family this summer. I'm just disappointed (and I think he would be, too) that his death occasioned it.
I think he'd be pleased to know that we're taking a huge road trip to spend a lot of time with family this summer. I'm just disappointed (and I think he would be, too) that his death occasioned it.
25 March 2012
we should all be so lucky
Quick, in the presence of loved ones, and still looking forward to the future with hope. We should all be so lucky.
A few memories:
Our last conversation was mostly about how much he wanted to come up here and visit us, talk about work, talk about the kids, and talk about how much fun he was having with his girlfriend. I told him that my chief concern was that he was taking care of himself and he was touched by that and, of course, wanted to pass along his love to the kids. It was a very typical conversation for us, and nothing was missing.
A few memories:
- A kite made of wood and paper that didn't fly.
- Driving too slowly down the middle of a two-lane road, listening to WCLV, never using a turn signal.
- Teaching a young child what "analytical thinking" means.
- A perfectionist at the grill.
- Knowing the perfect way to brew a cup of tea and then using the shittiest blends available.
- Indulging his wife in so many ways while quietly subverting her.
- Joyfully buying cheap crap from dollar stores and then giving it away.
- Buying desserts because they looked good, but giving them to others because they were "too rich."
- Never going near cinnamon, a relic of the Great Depression and rice pudding.
- Endless terrible email forwards.
- A craftsman's admiration of art.
- Adoration of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, even when they drove him crazy.
- Having a "guy" for everything.
Our last conversation was mostly about how much he wanted to come up here and visit us, talk about work, talk about the kids, and talk about how much fun he was having with his girlfriend. I told him that my chief concern was that he was taking care of himself and he was touched by that and, of course, wanted to pass along his love to the kids. It was a very typical conversation for us, and nothing was missing.
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