What exactly should be on curriculum?

We talk a lot about curriculum. Which subjects are necessary, which are there seemingly only to torture us, and which are purely for professional development. So what courses should be on a curriculum? How do you decide how to spend a child's formative years in regards to learning, what should there be more of, and what should there be less of?

I might accidentally be biased towards social sciences, for that is something that I am passionate about, so you are now forewarned.

I have previously outlined what I think the purpose of school should be. In short I think it is educations job to create critical thinking, employable at any moment in time (meaning at any point after high school graduation) people who are well-informed about not just government, but the workings of society. In the following paragraph's I will not necessarily outline a specific curriculum, that would take a 7,000 page government document, but instead I will pitch some ideas that I think should be a focal point of public education at some place and time.

One thing I noticed about education is, yes, they do spend some time in first grade teaching you about money, and counting it, but have you never noticed they never teach you about money management? Without my parents, I would never have understood what I was getting into by creating a bank account, I would never have understood what an interest rate or credit score was, shouldn't this information be available to those that have not so dedicated parents? Personal finance should be taught in high school, more specifically money management. How to set a budget, how much you should be spending on your living space, the benefits of renting, the benefits of owning. All these things should at some point be discussed.

Understanding political platforms is under written as well. It is hard to be objective about this one, however. It would be hard to determine what is taught in this class, but there is far too much mis-information about public policy, how it is made, and what the major parties actually mean. For example, I guarantee that if you go into a public school high school classroom, at least half the students in the class will be under the impression that the "Independence Party" is the same thing as being an independent, or "blank" voter, not realizing that the party endorses political candidates and has a platform. We're taught how a bill becomes a law, we've all seen the video, but we really have no idea...what the video doesn't explain in song are earmarks, bargaining, the ulterior motives that politicians can have- especially ones that represent small communities that have just as much power as those who represent large ones. There are a lot of things that are simply glanced over when American Government is taught in public school, instead we can all recite the fact that there are two senators per state, and the number of representatives is 2 + a number determined by the population. If people would like to consider themselves so dedicated to one party, they should understand what they really mean.

Basic medical science. And I'm not talking about cell-biology or organic chemistry here, I'm talking about what to do in the event that something happens. How to treat an open wound, stuff like that. I know this comes out of left field, but the only reason I know to put pressure on open wounds that are bleeding out is from television. People should be taught what to do in emergencies, or better yet, small emergencies. We should also know the processes at work when something heals, so we can fully appreciate what is occurring. Students should eventually learn what exactly a scab is, how a broken bone mends back together, why certain breaks need metal plates, etc. What exactly is cancer? What exactly are the treatments for it? Why do we need a different flu vaccine every year? The story of how we cured polio is one of the most intriguing of the past century, and I didn't even learn it until a very specific college course about what life was like in the 1950's. Things like this can spark interest in medicine, in science, and in learning about yourself. All good things.

Those are just three suggestions, there would undoubtedly be more, but at the same time I don't think a lot of these would be included by some of the first and foremost curriculum experts. Teaching people how to literally live and navigate a world where a large portion of people are trying to get "theirs" would be beneficial to everyone.

What the class was about

Pretty loaded question there, Powell. Let's see, what was the class about?

Simple answer is standards, teacher evaluations, education policy rhetoric, political ideologies, curriculum, testing, charter schools, vouchers, school choice, and the occasional* anecdote about your kids.

But, of course, there is a larger picture. To me, the class was about seeing the whole picture, not just knowing things and taking a side, but being able to explaining things. Understanding both sides of the argument, and understanding that we really do not have a one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of education.

There were many things that I really enjoyed about the class, but I think my favorite aspect of the class was understanding why things end up going in the direction they do. Learning about how programs and policies get instituted is the key to understanding how you can change how policies and programs get instituted. I also enjoyed having students from different back grounds contributing in their own personal ways. I know we had someone who was in New York City public schools, some one from California, private schools students, and public school students. The diverse perspectives led us to diverse class discussion that would ultimately widen our perspectives.

The readings for the class provided good pre-texts to our class conversations, it informed us of the topic enough to create our own opinions, though I must admit they were often one sided- I know there is research out there that points to the positives of things like higher standards, more testing, the benefits and setbacks of mandatory pre-k, etc., and a little diversity in perspective- especially in regards to class conversational topics may have stimulated a little more positive in-class contention because I often felt our conversations took one idea and built on it without considering the opposites sides perspective entirely (i.e. the aforementioned issues).

That being said, I also do not see that as being too big a deal. A little diversity would be nice, but the perspectives on the things I previously mentioned are often based off of statistical data that does not provide much for conversation and can be tedious, and is often not exactly what you think it is (i.e. saying something like x amount of parents are in favor of higher standards, when no other options were provided for them to select). All in all, I think I learned a lot more than I ever expected to about education policy through our in-class discussions, and the subject has become one of my favorites especially within the political sphere. It is very likely that I write my final political science next year on the subject as well.

*By occasional I mean frequent & often.

The Perfect Teacher

Our discussion in class about the two books this week (Improbable Scholars, Confessions of a Bad Teacher) had me wondering about two things. The quality of my public school education, and what it really means to be a great teacher. As I was trying to fall asleep last night, I was recounting my experience top to bottom, and I came to the conclusion that in my 12 year public school career where I had roughly 40 teachers (one a year in elementary school, and 5 or so a year from middle school on), I can honestly say I had at 2 that flat out, should not be in classrooms, and maybe half a dozen that may have just been in the wrong classroom.

As far as the two teachers go, one was a middle school spanish teacher who played favorites, publicly ridiculed students, only graded certain kids assignments, rarely taught, constantly made kids cry, and he was inclined to be much sweeter to the members of the fairer sex. The other, a math teacher I had in high school, once literally video taped herself teaching a lesson at home, her hand being the only thing in focus, and made us watch it as she sat at her desk with her feet up. She did this so students would not be inclined to ask questions, and she would not have to teach the same lesson multiple times a day. There were other things, of course, but this was the most prominent.

Then I thought about the truly great teachers I've had. Out of the same 40, I had close to 10. I'm lucky- I went to a top 400 United States public school, so I had opportunities I am aware other students definitely do not have, but 10 truly great teachers and I'm beginning to paint a picture of the traits they held in common.

The first being, excitement. I mean this is multiple ways; them excitement about the lesson, instilling excitement about the lesson, and just being excitable people. Of course, this trait has it's time and place as well. I definitely had teachers that were bubbly to the point of ridiculousness, and to the point where it deterred you from thing (who can really get excited about fractions- come on stop playin'). For the great ones, it was always a time and place thing. For Mr. McKillop, it was rewarding students with basketball shots for good grades, the whole class to watch and if you hit yours, you were rewarded with a slurpee at the end of the week (fourth grade). For Mr. Stapleton, it was providing us with creative writing prompts every morning, first thing, and if you liked yours enough, and were brave enough you could share yours in front of the class. Eventually the stories even started to play off of one another (sixth grade). Mrs. Madonia in middle school also somehow managed to make math fun, the woman used to bellow "HAPPY HOLIDAY's, YOUR CHILD IS FAILING" as a joke right before holiday breaks, but her voice was her strength. She wasn't afraid to yell at you in a playful manor should you make an error. This wasn't necessarily a youth thing either, it was just teachers truly passionate about their subject.

After the excitement, and the personification of these teachers rather than them standing in front of the class and scaring you, they were real people as well as teachers. I can still go back to my schools, sit down, and have a conversation with these people because they were people, not educational machines. Their involvement in my life, their interest in us allowed us to know their door was always open and they wanted us to succeed.

I think one of the traits I cannot really talk about with great strength would be the empathy that Alina had. I was never in a situation where most of the kids in my class were ESL, hell I am from one of the least diverse places on the entire planet (95.5 white), but this doesn't mean I don't understand the importance of empathy. When you understand circumstance, you can understand a person, when you understand a person you can teach them. Not only that, they'll respect you more and that will make them actually listen. It is key for teachers to know their student body, it will help them react to things more appropriately, it'll help them understand why they're coming up short in some places while seeing great success in others and they can build off of that.

The last is the natural ability to explain things. It's a trait that makes teaching so difficult, and is hard to learn. It's a matter of having a way with words, I guess. It takes experience first and foremost, knowing what questions students will ask so that you can frame the original explanation in a way that it won't even need to be asked. This is my biggest problem with teaching to the test, it encourages teaching us how to do things, but not why we need to do things. You hear kids so often say, "when will we use this in the real world." And yes, the answer is not always clear, but they have the right to know that physics will be used by potential engineers, and cell biology will be used by doctors, and english literature will be used by no one (just kidding).

In short, a passion for teaching and the right subject placing is the first step to being a great teacher. The question is how do we a) get enough of this in education and b) convince people it's actually there?

Stop the worrying!

I am of the opinion that a large part of our educational reform- or educational misreform rather, is because of our great distrust of teachers. I also think it is ignorant to say that this mistrust is unwarranted, and before you freak out let me explain.

I've probably said this before, but there's a very adequate reason that parents worry about teachers. They are literally sending their children to spend a day with these people. As I will explain in my group project about standards, this very fact is played off of a lot in politics. Politicians, unwittingly or otherwise are able to pass legislation to increase standards under the guise that it will improve teachers & schools. Of course parents are going to jump on board and support these things, because it's about their children and they don't take that lightly, nor should they.

Now, whether or not a teacher is good at their job doesn't really matter at all when it comes to this, because parents are very likely going to assume the worst. They're always going to assume that there's better out there for their very own and act based off of that instinct. When a politician brings up more standards, they say yes because that's a guarantee that their kids are going to get the education they need. Note that this guarantee isn't coming from teachers, but from politicians.

So how do we fix this? We put the guarantee in the teachers hands and not the politicians. Autonomy in the teaching profession is very clearly what teachers want, they want to be trusted to educate students in the way they want to. They also want security, and like all people pay for their work. So my solution, and of course this isn't new but perhaps my explanation as to why this works is, is to make teachers the new doctors.

Higher pay and more prerequisites to becoming a teacher. You can grown all you want about having more prerequisites, but the point would be that the higher pay would be worth it, the same way it is for a doctor going to medical school. What this would create is a guarantee that you're getting the best of the best. The job market would be more competitive not because the degree was easily attainable, but because of what it offered. You also get the added benefit of making sure the teacher is ready, and not just some 22 year old that still has to finish their masters.

Teachers would get higher pay, and the security they want from the fact that they are trusted, and parents would get the guarantee that their children are in good hands, and standards could be taken out of the equation. If politicians wanted to reform, they would have to do so productively, and not just by passing off responsibility to the parents, and by this I mean they would have to make changes to things like budget, and curriculum, rather than standards, and teacher contracts.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, please comment!

Charter Schools

After hearing a charter school teacher speak, my views on Charter Schools haven't all that much changed. The only problem I have with Charter Schools is that there success derives from their rarity. Of course schools in poor income areas that have lower class sizes, a higher budget, and a staff insistent upon getting students to graduate and go to college is going to have better results.

But, the issue arises, how do we replicate these results? And to this I don't think there's an easy answer. When you look at these schools, like Geoffrey Canada's schools in Harlem, and see that 2/3rds of their funding is private, you have to realize that their isn't an infinite abyss of private money willing to fund schools, the same way there isn't an infinite abyss of public money to fund public schools. What I'm trying to say is, there can only be a limited amount of successful charter schools because if they only depended on public funding, they'd likely be no better than public schools.

I think they're great to have around, especially the ones with proven track records, but one issue I have with some is the fact that they have an application process and than pass it off as if they've made the best out of the worst. Having an application completely defeats the purpose of having a Charter Schools, that's why I think a lottery system is undoubtedly the most appropriate system.

As for things public schools can do to make themselves as successful as these Charter Schools, I think it's easy. I think there needs to be more staffing in terms of college prep. Public schools should have a fully dedicated staff that meets with every student at least once a year to discuss where they're headed in terms of their academics. It doesn't even have to be about colleges alone, they could stretch it to career preparation as well. Preparing students for life after school needs to be tackled better.

I also don't believe that Charter Schools stricter standards are such a big influence as they make them out to be. Doing things like reprimanding students always is predicated upon the idea that the students want to be there. A student being suspended from a low-income school that's not a good student does not care he's suspended because he does not want to go to school. The punishments Charter Schools are dolling out are effective because the students, and the student's parents want them to be there.

This is yet another reason Charter Schools are going to be more effective. If a parent takes the time to enroll their student into a charter school, fill out the application, or even attend the lottery, they are already demonstrating their commitment to being a parent, those students have a good backing behind them and are bound to be at least a little bit more dedicated.

All in all, I have no issues with individual Charter Schools, the issue I do have is when people start looking to them as a national education solution, or taking their bloated results seriously.

One of the things I'm more intrigued to read about is how tenured public school teachers, and those alike feel about Charter Schools. It seems to me that these school's successes are predicated on being able to pay low teacher salary to young teachers. It'd be interesting to see if their was a love-loss between public and Charter School teachers.

Class Discussion the other day

Sorry for the ailment delay...

            Today’s assignment was to come up with a creative way to solve our countries issues as they pertain to a subject within education. The teacher of the group immediately honed in on the subject of student evaluation as they pertain to standards, a subject in which we really haven’t discussed (student evaluation not standards). I think it’s interesting that the teacher in the class was of the first to bring up students. Her idea, of which I hesitantly agreed to was to have student evaluations based not on any standardized material, or comparative standardized material (whether that be tests or projects), but on individual work that highlights the skills and abilities of the student.

            Originally I was hesitant towards this idea and focused on asking the questions that politicians would ask. How would we compare students to one another? How would we know that they covered everything we wanted them too? Who would grade these assignments and how do we avoid teacher bias towards their own students as well as lenient standards that allow for more students to pass? I wish I could say we answered all of these questions completely, but there is definitely still some room for improvement in the answer that we agreed upon. Katie’s answer is strong in that it truly allows for evaluation of each student’s unique qualities, as opposed to their test taking skills. At first we discussed the idea of a presentation, but presentations are biased towards those who are adept at presenting, and not necessarily those who are knowledgeable, so what we ultimately leaned towards was a portfolio.

            The idea of a portfolio is definitely a unique one, they’re often only used to grade class by class, and they could still be used for this. A teacher would still be able to give out a grade based on the student’s class portfolio which could include everything from tests they’ve taken (or could be graded along with in-class non-standardized tests they’ve taken) to projects, and it would be all encompassing. One of the original problems I had with the presentation idea was that not every college is going to want to sit through presentations, and sift through various portfolios. The idea of a portfolio would likely lead to more work on the part of colleges, but it could also eliminate needs for standardized tests, and could in turn would allow for teacher approved and verified work to be handed in. What I mean by verified is hypothetically, the teacher could hand in a description of the assignment along with a verification that the assignment the student was handing in wasn’t changed after its due date.

            The big thing with the idea of handing in portfolios is that it puts a lot of responsibilities in to the hands of teachers and is very subjective. Teachers often feel affectionate towards students, and take pride in their own students. If you leave such a large portion of grading up to the teachers, it would be theoretically possible that their subjectivity, especially in non-standardized things like oral presentations would be graded higher than they should be. It would take a lot of trust in the objectivity from a teacher for these grades to be evaluated, but even still the work that would be turned into the college, or employer could be evaluated by them without thoughts from the teacher.

            Another issue that arose is that there would be a lot of difference amongst students. They’d all have these individual projects that probably are all over the place in terms of subjects and yes, this would allow for them to demonstrate the skills they wanted to show, but it wouldn’t highlight their shortcomings and area’s they needed to work on as much. Showing what you’re good at in education is just as important as knowing what you need to work on. If a student was adept at making movies, there’s a good chance that every individual assignment he/she would do would be catered to that skill. It’s not necessarily a bad thing when you think about the student utilizing a skill that will allow them to have a future in that industry, but what if the student decides later that it is not what he or she truly enjoys? Then they would be behind because they’ve spent so much training time devoted to one skill, they may not be so adept at doing things like debating, or publicly speaking.

            I think one of the important things about a public education is the multiplicity of things taught and how they’re taught. You’re never taught everything the same way and there is a lot of different skills to be taken from things learned that are presented to you in fact, but are utilized in the shapes of presentations and tests later. This multiplicity allows for options in the future, regardless of whether or not you excelled at them when you first started doing them.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the responsibility put on the teachers to objectively grade, come up with all the projects, and essentially guide a student towards where they want to go in life will not be met without contention. We’re so focused on the rhetoric of saying “we don’t trust teachers enough” that we often forget how incredibly important trusting teachers can be. What I mean by this is; there’s a reason this is a highly contested debate, people don’t want to leave their children with just anyone, and to leave them with people that will ultimately have so much influence? You better make sure the people are equipped to guide them.

So in order for a portfolio plan to work I think there would have to be more than just the portfolio. Ever notice the people who curse the SAT’s so often are the people that didn’t do as well as they hoped? They forget the SAT’s are the saving grace for a lot of students that can demonstrate ability on them (like me). I know I may be in the minority, but without them I would’ve never have made it to this college, and I would argue with you to the death that I belong to be here. It would not be bad to continue to utilize some of the things already in place as an accurate measurement of a student’s complete picture as well as a portfolio. GPA, SAT, a portfolio, and a body of extra-curricular activity would be, in my opinion, a solid representation of a student.

107!

I would've loved to have sat in the middle for that class. I think it's interesting that the debate over 107 went from a debate on ethics to that of teacher empowerment. But, I'll begin with the ethics part of it and then get to teacher empowerment.

Firstly, I don't think there was much merit to discussing the value of winning class valedictorian, personally, it was never something I strove for in high school (not that I was one to strive in high school at all, but hey, I did okay). But, who's to say what's important to who, whether it be scholarships, competitive nature, parental pressure, or whatever I think a part of us all know that valedictorian is a little bit more than just a title. True, the importance of the award does impact the pressure on the teacher, but being that it is of a considerable amount of importance, I understand the stress involved.

The ethical problem I had with fudging changing the grade I can now tell you having thought about it more carefully was not that the grade wasn't deserved, or that grades are subjective, but rather the teacher put the decision into their own hands. In a competition such as this one, there are a considerable amount of factors that go into valedictorian, like I said in class, a high school student takes about 28 classes. That is 28 classes worth of data, and it is illogical to weight the importance of one class over ones taken earlier (*note that this is already considering the weight of it being an AP class). Grades are essentially a data set, the more you have, theoretically the more accurate their representation of you will be. If Mary's first teacher wouldn't give her a better grade freshman year because she thought she might be valedictorian, why should a teacher senior year have that power? The power to achieve valedictorian is competition reserved to a student's data set (regardless of how accurate we feel this presentation can be). They control their data set as much as possible, it should be up to them.

Now, if you point to the knowledge of the fact that the other student had the "easier" teacher, then suddenly you come into a bit of a gray area. This starts to point more towards the area of teacher empowerment, but I will refer back to the data set argument. You can take into account that one singular class, but you have to keep in mind the other (roughly) 27 taken. Not having knowledge of the other student forced you to base your knowledge on the fact that the other teacher was an easy grader, this doesn't account for whether or not she deserved a high grade regardless of that fact, whether she would've gotten the same grade in your class no matter how impossible you deemed it to be, and whether or not at some point in the past Mary was given the same or similar advantage(s) that the other student now had. The decision was put in an individual's hands against everything that had come before. A very subjective judgement.

The most valid counterpoint to my argument is the fact that a teacher should be able to decide what a student deserves, and to this I don't disagree. However, this advantage was given to one student. I get that it was senior year and circumstances encouraged the grade change, but how about all the other students that may not have gotten into the college of their choice yet? What about the ones on the wait lists at schools, or those planning on transferring after their first year to a better school? Their senior year grades are almost equally as important to them as they are to the girl already on her way to Harvard chasing valedictorian. Now, I understand why the grade was changed, and I literally would not have a problem with this if something were written into the class syllabus that said you could! How about, the teacher reserves the right to add up to a 5 point bonus on final grades for considered hard work, extra effort, and participation. Of course in order to apply this it would've had to have been done at the beginning of the year, but it would help in future situations. It removes the singularity, gives you the empowerment you need, and I doubt many people would take issue with a point bonus at the teacher's discretion, especially a capped one.

Sorry sorry sorry!

Hey, quality over quantity, right? right? right?

Maybe not, I fell behind, but here's the standards blog you've probably been waiting ever so patiently for.

Being a philosophy major has taught me at least one thing (maybe only one thing), and that is in order to must effectively create a philosophy, you must start at the beginning; you cannot leave any considerations out and you have to explain every point you make.

That's why I think most people on both sides of the issue are so often tricked by standards.

On one side of the argument there's a group that doesn't think there should be any standards. They point to things like teacher independence, private school success, charter school success, teaching to tests, when truth be told, none of these things have much to do with why standards are necessary. Then there's those in favor. They start telling you, how do we know teachers are doing a good job? How can all the students get a fair education without standards? And how do we effectively pick the best if it's not all the same across the board? And those things have more to do with a standardized curriculum than standards (which I'll get to towards the end).

But why are standards necessary, if at all?

Glad you asked. Standards aren't necessary to monitor teachers, they're not necessary because you need to compare students to one another, they're necessary because you need to be certain that public schools are providing an education of any sort. And honestly, they should be minimal. They shouldn't interfere with teacher independence, they shouldn't require teachers to teach to tests, and they shouldn't overwhelm students. What they should do is minimally ensure that schools are doing a job. They should make sure that by fourth grade a student knows who Abraham Lincoln is and maybe some knowledge about him. Point being, there has to be a barometer for parents and students to feel that their education is worth something.

But Chris, private schools and charter schools don't have standards!

Yeah, they do. Their just independently set and not always clear. Private schools promise an elite education, and point to their results. We send x number of kids to Ivy League schools, y number of kids become lawyers, etc. Their standards are their own guarantees to  their paying customers that their child is in good hands. As for charter schools the same rules apply. And all they have to say is we're going to be better than a public school!

And because of the nature of public schools and how they're funded. The standards set for them has to be at an educational level, because public schools can't promise Ivy League, they have to promise the opportunity for students to attain the education that will allow them to get in an Ivy League school.

The fact still remains that this should be done minimally! Their should be a ton of room for teacher independence, student choice and local learning.

Now, I'm about to offer a simple solution to a complex problem, but the reason I'm offering it well aware of that fact is because I would leave curriculum assigned to each standard to those who are more knowledgeable than myself.

At Smithtown High School West, we started school at 7:20am and the day ended at 1:55. That's six 1/2 hours, if you take away lunch and period breaks you're left with about 5 1/2 hours in a school day where a student is in class and learning. Now imagine this, in that 5 1/2 hours, you get 2 and 1/2 hours of national curriculum, 1 and 1/2 of state/county decided curriculum, and an hours of student choice. This isn't to say each individual class would fall under one, it could fall under all three. Take social studies for example, the teacher could start of the day with a lesson on the American Revolution (federal) move towards the impact it's had locally (state/county), and then assign a student to find one fact about the Revolution that they find interesting (choice). Or they could split it up through out the week or even the year. this way teachers could run their classrooms how they want, teaching the subjects they're supposed to while giving students the opportunity to learn independently.

But how would we know the students would be being taught each thing for sure, without having someone in the classroom? How would we know the standards are always being accomplished?

First, the whole "self answering questions thing" is really overplayed so I'm gonna go ahead and make that my last one. But, for now I'll consider those questions to be of the "teacher evaluation variety" and put them off until a later date.

From Citizens to Consumers

“From Citizens to Consumers” is a discussion of the change in rhetoric over the years and how it exemplified the approaches to education that were taken during these periods. The chapter explains how Horace Mann, the founder of public education, intended for education to be the root of creating good citizens in an informed republic. It then moved towards education being a professional advantage when people realized it was something you could judge people by, and from there went to being the “great equalizer” after Brown v. Board of Ed.  This was followed by a change to using education as a means to create job-ready individuals, followed by the move to create higher standards, and more things standardized in order to create citizens who would make society better. All of this led to, as the chapter argues, The No Child Left Behind Act.

            I think that the intent of the chapter is definitely to push for the idea of a more standardized education curriculum. Something nation wide that everyone can understand. Personally, I believe it would be better to push for a little of everything that they mentioned rather than just the one thing that is dependent on the era. It would be a lot better if we had well informed citizens within an electorate that were both employable and from equal back grounds, who could create a mutual benefit with society, rather than just one of those things, and I don’t necessarily think that would be unattainable.

            My main concern, and this is something they glance over in the chapter is what is the argument for a less standardized curriculum. I definitely think that having some things set as a nation wide is a good idea, we do all share occupancy of this land in common, but that being said, things are vastly different by location within the United States. Should Alaskans be taught all the same things that Texans should? I don’t think so; I’m not even advocating for a state issue, it could be a district issue. Giving local governments more autonomy in creating educational policy is not necessarily a bad thing. Though they are undoubtedly less informed about educational policy and efficiency they are also undoubtedly more informed about local issues and what needs to be taught locally. I guess what I’m advocating for is space in a national curriculum for local curriculums as well.

            I found it particularly interesting that they talk about how “A Nation at Risk” didn’t really “pump up the nation for action” so to speak. Having read the entire report, it almost seemed like it was designed to do nothing. Though they made bold statements, they all seemed purposefully vague. Creating a “better America” is in my opinion, the politicians appeal to emotion and usually doesn’t mean anything at all. It makes you think it’s the right thing to do without having to provide an argument.

            What I liked best out of this article was the idea that everyone should be taught the same way, regardless of their ambitions or what others felt their ambitions should be. I am aware that this was meant on a more national sense, but adopting this within each school singularly is just as important. I recently watched my 30 year-old brother graduate from college to work his way to become an engineer. Where people are at 18 doesn’t imply where they will be at when they turn 30, and prepping everyone the same way gives the same advantages and even disadvantages for everyone. It makes being able to do what you want to do at any point almost plausible.

Burning Questions

1. If any, what would the cons be to having a nationalized standard curriculum?

2. Who should be the creator of a standardized national curriculum?

3. Does a nationalized curriculum benefit the individual, or society?

4. What is, to you, the overarching principal that education should be for? (I.e. an educated electorate, a well prepared employee, etc.)`

Rhee Vs. Ravitch

Sorry, it's late! Don't judge me.

Interesting read, especially with having the preconception that Michelle Rhee is a bit of a b-... meanie. That being said, most of my disagreements are with her, they actually make me want to pull my hair out. I think, as I stated in class that she tried to run before she could even crawl. Firing mass amount of teachers and principals only left some kids with inexperienced teachers in already failing districts. Increased testing led to increased cheating, but you read the article so I won't re-write the whole thing.

My problem with her is mostly on a philosophical level. She is under the impression that hard work is possible for everyone, and that people are making the choice not to work hard. It's a (in my expert opinion) a conservative idea. Hard work is the fundamental key to success, some people strive, others don't. The way I see it, Rhee doesn't realize how lucky she had it because of the fact that she had to overcome so much. She came from a family, that though it wasn't doing well, preached hard work, and the importance of school. Because of this, she strived to succeed and worked her butt off!

That being said, this isn't a value instilled in every child in every home in America. Unfortunately, hard work has to be taught, unless it's in someone's veins and for most, I'd assume it's not. But either way, you're really not all that responsible for your own work ethic.

So she see's her own successes, and uses this to set guidelines on teachers. Teachers she believes, are the most important part of the formula. Good teachers create good students, bad ones create bad students.

Textbook example of oversimplifying a problem that leads to an oversimplified response. That response? Testing of course. Test the shit out of these kids. I know, I was one of them.

Results, results, results.

"What'd you get on your standard test?"
"98, you?"
"Oh, uhm, good job I got a 78. Studied really hard too, how much did you study?"
"Eh, it just kind of came natural to me."

And just like that you have one student who feels like he doesn't have to work any harder, and another student who feels like hard work doesn't pay off. You know what sucks about competition? There's losers. And losers accept the fact that they're losers, especially when everyone around them is a loser, think it's not that bad and end up being economic drains.

But there I go, oversimplifying it. Obviously it's not all about egos, you have to have some way to measure how people are doing. But, do we really need these things to decide the rest of people's lives? What about teacher evaluations? Why don't we hear about them more often. When I applied to the 'burg I sent in grades, SAT scores, essays, and a letter of recommendation. One letter, from one teacher, who happens to now be a friend. So the people who helped mold me, taught me, consoled me, and learned from me have really that little a say? And when the hell am I going to take a scan-tron test working in business? Also, I can't really explain to you what a stock is, but can tell you the definition of flotsam with ease.

I guess I'll just have to get to Ravitch later.

(And it means wreckage or cargo from a ship floating in the water. I can't believe you didn't know that.)

Teacher's Unions

Prompt: Last week we spent some time looking at the rise of the NEA as a political operation and its impact on education policy in the Carter administration. I’d be interested in seeing you write about your perceptions of teachers’ unions. What do you know about them? What have you learned about teachers’ unions as you have read other blog posts or read the news outside of class? How does what you read this week reinforce or rebut what you already know about teachers’ unions?

I must admit I know a limited amount about teacher's unions. I think I understand the basic criticisms, as well as the benefits to having them. Teacher's unions, like all other unions are designed to protect those they serve. They are responsible for negotiating on behalf of teachers, and often advocate for things like higher salaries, greater benefits, and job security. I'd like to say that teacher's unions are responsible for teacher tenure, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. I'd know that they do negotiate against teacher firings.

The case against teacher unions is relatively simple. They have only their own interests at heart, and because of this, they block attention from the students. They make it nearly impossible to fire teachers without "just cause" which seams to be a purposefully vague term in favor of teachers, because, at least where I come from, you'd have to be Walter White to get fired. Teacher's unions also aren't always beneficial to all teachers, teachers that are exceptional have the limitation of group negotiations rather than individual ones, so they can pay for poor district or school performance even if there's is solid.

That all being said, teacher's unions defend the rights of teachers from all of the exaggerated forms of what was previously mentioned. They try to protect teachers from being unreasonably fired based on, say for example a test score. Also negotiating as a group is a lot more effective than negotiating as an individual, especially if the group has the power to perform a deadly strike.

Also, you should know I've seen "Waiting for Superman" so, I'm kind of an expert. (jokes)

My experience, or knowledge of unions comes from what I've learned from the readings, in the movie, and the fact that I frequently discuss education policy with one of my old high school teacher who is now a close friend.

I know that Rhee isn't a fan, especially as an advocate for testing as a parameter to measure teachers by. My high school teacher isn't their biggest fan either, thinks they're a necessary evil, but he's of the type that would be fine without them.

As far as the NEA goes and the readings, I think it's interesting that the origins of the NEA weren't necessarily political, but it certainly became that way. I think that unions should probably be smaller, I don't think one organization promoting a vast amount of teachers is necessarily a good idea, because I think the interests of teachers in different locations is different.

My opinion? Well, first, stop asking rhetorical questions in a blog post. Secondly, it's hard to say, I don't know that much about them, but if what I do know is true, I think they're a necessary evil that should probably be a bit smaller. I am of the type that believes that teaching should be a coveted position, and not a fallback as it is for some. I'd love for them to be compensated as if they were doctors, but also understand that because we require so many, and it is a state job (requiring taxes to pay for) it's always hard to make it that way. If you look at it in timeline form, teachers become more and more important as time goes on. We used to be one room school houses, with non-required attendance, now were schools of thousands rotating between multiple teachers with specific fields and grade level teaching skills. So it doesn't make sense to me that a job that's increased in importance only gets raises essentially with the rate of inflation.

Now tell me so I don't embarrass myself, how is your last name pronounced?

Good evening reader. I mean that in the singular sense very literally. I have never done this before, so you'll have to bear with me while I work out the kinks of what it means to be a blogger.


I think I'll start by explaining the title. "The Uncool Exchange" is not from my creativity, but is actually from the Cameron Crowe movie "Almost Famous." Almost Famous holds a special place in my black hole, I have seen it well over one hundred times and it is, without a doubt, my favorite movie.

Now to why I chose "Uncool Exchange" is a little more specific. The late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the role of a rock journalist who serves as a mentor of sorts to the main character; an aspiring rock journalist who is writing his first article for Rolling Stone Magazine. He's covering a mid-level rock band growing in popularity as they travel across the country. Oh, and it turns out the kid is only 15 years old (Rolling Stone thinks he's a college grad). Anyways, the kid's really down on his luck, he's had this rock band whom he idolizes take him across the country, he's partied, lost his virginity, fallen in love with an older woman, and done all the things you'd expect a 15 year old traveling rock journalist to do, but he has nothing to show for it. He realizes that things weren't as great on the road as they thought he would be, and the band is trying to force his hand into writing a story that will "make them look cool."

Cue Phillip Seymour Hoffman's worldly advice that helped get me through high school.









And there it is. You're uncool, probably weird (or my professor in which case you're the exception of everything I've previously mentioned) and you're reading my blog. I'm not cool, you're not cool, let's get some ideas about education flowing people!