A Teacher on Teaching

Home School for Homeless Kids: The Genius of Rick Santorum

2012-02-23T07:24:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be great if all families
home schooled their own kids?
It depends in part on the family.

If you haven't noticed, the debate about the "school crisis" in America keeps gets dumber and dumber. And just when you think it can't get any dumber some politician or "expert" steps up to the plate and we sink to some new nadir.

Speaking recently on the correct role of government in schools, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum made clear he sees no role for the federal government in U. S. education.

Mr. Santorum might have been on decent footing had he stopped there, but comments that followed were the last link in a chain that critics of public schools never follow to an end. For years we've been told, usually by conservatives, that if we give all parents vouchers, and let all parents send their children to schools of their choice, and to do it with tax dollars, our problems in education will go away.

People didn't buy that idea. So the push for charter schools began, instead. Now we were told that if a kid had a problem in school, the solution was obvious. Just pack the child off to a different building.

Mr. Santorum now has an even better idea. He takes the school reform movement one building farther.

The federal government is out. So, too, are the states. Taxes are reduced and government gets a long-overdue shrinking. Parents take on the role of educating children. The "school crisis" is solved by eliminating the root of all evil.

We get rid of the school buildings.

If you don't know: Mr.Santorum and his wife prefer the home-school option, themselves. They're well-to-do and Mrs. Santorum can afford to stay home and focus on educating their seven children. The parents are good, stable individuals (as far as I can tell). So it's working for them.

The problem critics like Mr. Santorum never see, either because they're naive or because it doesn't fit their agenda to see it, is that not every family is the same or even sane. First of all, many poor and lower middle class families are in no position to have mom or dad stay home to home-school the kids. Single parents are out of luck, too. And there's an even bigger hole in Senator Santorum's logic and a gaping hole in all the arguments that fault public schools for all our problems. It would be wonderful if every parent gave a damn about their children, in school, or out, like the Santorums. But the public schools have to educate every child. So they take children from good, stable families, and children from the families where mom and dad are useless, at best, dangerous at worst.

Consider an old example, but one of my "favorites," from the Lebanon Daily News, a small Pennsylvania paper I picked up once on vacation. Reporters noted that in May 2008, a neighbor called police after spotting Elizabeth Ann Fox’s two young sons, 4 and 2, crawling out a bedroom window. A state trooper arrived to find the “kitchen floor covered with garbage and half-eaten food. The stench of rotting food and human waste forced him back outside.”

A second trooper located mom soon after, “sitting in her car and eating a sandwich at a fast food restaurant in neighboring Union Township. State police said the children had been left alone for at least two hours.” Picture mom if you will, happily stuffing her face with a Big Mac and fries, while her children remain at home amid piles of garbage.

Then ask yourself: Does anyone think the problems these children will have in years to come are going to be about schools?

That's the blind spot in all the bold plans being floated to fix American education. What plan out there addresses the needs of the kids who most need help, when their problems aren't in the classroom, but in the bedroom at home?

If you'd like a current example, consider a story in today's New York Times. It's about a family in Dayton, Texas. Agents of the child welfare agency raided the home one recent afternoon. Inside, they found 11 children, several tied to their beds. An 11-year-old had a black eye, finger marks on his forearms, and one front tooth had been knocked out. Eight kids were confined to a single 10 x 10 bedroom, in the dark, the window boarded over with plywood, when investigators entered the home. Two infants were removed immediately for signs of "failure to thrive" and pneumonia. None of the older children were enrolled in school; and, needless to say, these weren't the kind of parents who were going to have much aptitude for home-schooling their own kids.

That's the problem with plans to fix education with vouchers and charter schools and now Mr. Santorum's call for parents to home-school their kids. The public schools take all kids from all kinds of homes. We even take kids whose families may be good, but who have no homes, who can barely put bread on a table, if they can locate a table to put bread upon.

Senator Santorum's backward thinking on education is enough to make Charles Dickens cringe. Call his new plan: “Home School for Homeless Kids.”

Where in the World is Ohio: The Curse of the Standardized Test

2012-02-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

I was working out recently, trying to work off a few of my candy-for-breakfast calories, when I ran into an old high school buddy, Ray Spicher, who spent a career in education and worked as principal in the Cincinnati, Princeton and Madiera schools. We talked shop a little and I asked him what he thought about standardized testing.

His answer perfectly captured the central dilemma. He said he thought testing helped kids at the low end in school, forcing teachers to devote attention to their needs. Then he added (this is not a perfect quote, because both of us were huffing and puffing and pedaling stationary bikes), "I used to tell my staff whatever you measure, you'll get more of it. If you test for 'more cars in the parking lot,' you'll get more cars in the parking lot."

Exactly.

So: Let me give you examples from my experience. The last year I taught, 2007-2008, we were told in no uncertain terms to focus on standardized tests. (Principals really had no choice, since they would also be judged according to test results.) When it came to my lesson plan on pioneers, cheap land in early America, and the roots of the "American Dream," I had to kill that topic, because it wasn't going to be covered on the test. Instead, I had to worry about a question or two on Shay's Rebellion or a query about Songhai trade.

Call me crazy, but I don't think we need more cars in the parking lot with bumper stickers that read, "Shay's Rebellion."

I taught a long time, too, and got to see what happened when states first started using standardized tests, and when that didn't help, got to see what federal pressure could achieve. When I was teaching American history, and I was free to do what I thought best, I used to ask seventh graders to take a test and identify the fifty states. I'm sure some of my former students will remember fondly how, if they failed a test, I called their parents, ratted them out, and required them to stay after school and retake the test. (There's a lesson, there, too; but not one you can measure on a standardized test.)

Now, let's say, in an average year, I have 140 students. By the time I'm done, all but two know at least 35 states, the minimum required; 138 know where California is; 137 can identify Florida, 120 know Wisconsin is next to Michigan, and 24 know all fifty states.

I'm not going to deny that a dozen still mix up Kansas and Nebraska. I'm not going to say that one boy still doesn't mark "Tennessee" as "Hawaii." I'm only going to say, if you're a teacher you do the best you can.

In the early 90s, however, the State of Ohio came up with a brilliant plan--a Ninth Grade Proficiency Test. On that test, under the social studies section, the only state you really had to find was....OHIO! So, my 24 students who can find all fifty states, suddenly they mean nothing. If my average student can find 44 states, which is roughly the case, that means nothing. I need to focus on that one kid who thinks Hawaii is south of Kentucky and make sure he knows where Ohio can be found. It doesn't matter if he still believes Hawaii is south of Kentucky.

Ohio is the only car in the parking lot.

Since passage of No Child Left Behind, in 2002, we know in the lower grades that testing has been limited to reading and math. So what you get, quite simply, are fewer cars in the elementary lot. Music is not tested, and probably can't be. So children spend less time on music. Art can't be tested. No art necessary in second grade. Gym class? You could test for physical fitness, but Americans aren't ready for that. So schools cut back on physical education.

Just what we need.

Even science can be cut if nessary. It's not covered by testing in the lower grades. So you can cut time spent on plant growth and focus on reading, instead.

If you're a third grade teacher in Ohio, under proposed new laws, your pay and job security may soon depend on test results. And if you have thirty students, and they all get one more question right in math, you're going to get a bonus, even if they still believe the earth is flat, that dinosaurs roam the earth in 2012, and the moon is made of cheese.

In my history class we used to read a fourteen page assignment on George Washington, one I created myself, and spent a day-and-a-half discussing his early life and leadership during the American Revolution. I liked to focus on what made him a great leader; but you can't test for an understanding of leadership. And I liked to focus on a list of 110 rules of behavior he memorized when he was a youth. I liked to point out that he wanted to make himself a better person. Then I asked students, for homework, to draw up a list of their own rules to try to follow. Unfortunately, you can't measure self-improvement, either. So there's no "sense" talking to teens about how to be better people.

No car in that parking lot.

Most of what makes education meaningful can never be measured in the end. In the school where I used to teach we had an outstanding band director. Mr. Maegly had middle school kids sounding like high school bands and dozens of his charges went on to careers in music. And for what? The loudest-talking "experts" in education today insist that teachers in every subject will have to be measured if we want to "fix" America's schools. What we're going to have in the end is an I.R.S. model in education. We're going to bog down an entire system in abstruse rules and complex codification and mountains of paperwork. We're going to kill the best teaching and focus on simple tests.

What are we going to get in the end, for all the billions being spent? We're going to get more cars in the parking lot.

What we actually want, of course, are better drivers. Standardized tests don't measure real learning any more than your ability to pass a license test when you were sixteen guarantees ten years later that you won't tailgate the car in front of you, or forget to put on your seatbelt or flip your left turn signal at the appropriate moment.

It doesn't mean, twenty years later, that you won't drive drunk, either.

It's just a basic test.

If Only Vouchers Worked Like Magic Cloaks

2012-02-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

My wife's father died when she was eight;
but she was raised by a great mother.
So she turned out great.
It works like that a lot in life
and it can work the other way.

My blog has been picking up a little traffic lately. I figure it probably has something to do with my fluid writing style, or perhaps it boils down to my good looks.

It can't be because of brains. To hear critics speak, America's public school teachers are a bunch of Neanderthals and every problem in our education system today is a direct result of their all-encompassing stupidity.

So, to recap: I'm a retired teacher and my blog is designed, in part, to speak in defense of all good teachers.

For that reason, I try to make clear that teachers are not the only problem in our schools, nor, in my opinion, the biggest problem by far.

I'm not like U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

I don't believe, like he does, that we can test ourselves to education success. Nor do I believe in vouchers and charter schools, as keys to our salvation. In my opinion there are plenty of bad parents out there and they are the very ones most likely to send children to school who have severe problems and who are, of course, least likely to have support or love or decent living conditions in the home.

If you're a fan of vouchers, however, I have a perfect voucher plan--which is probably going to make me the next U. S. Secretary of Education if Mitt or Newt or Rick or Ron or Michelle or The Donald or the Herminator or "None of the Above" can oust President Obama from his comfy seat in the Oval Office in November.

My wife was great with
raising kids.
Sadly, not all parents are alike.

Yesterday, a "fan" of my blog complained because I was using "scare tactics," citing examples of terrible parents, and chastized me for arguing that vouchers will never solve the problems of children in the very greatest need of help.

I don't believe I'm resorting to "scare tactics" when I try to point out the obvious. Take, for instance, the recent tragedy in Washington state. There, Josh Powell, already a suspect in the disappearance and likely murder of his wife, set fire to his home, killing himself and two young sons, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5.

Maybe I am another stupid teacher. Maybe I've been getting along all these years on nothing but my looks. But had those two poor boys survived, I don't see how a voucher or a seat in a charter school was ever going to make their father a decent parent or even a decent human being.

You can bury your head in the scholastic sand if you want to and try to make the case that more and more charter schools will fix U. S. education. But that is tatamount to saying if we built Mr. Powell a better home he'd be a better father.

I want to hear the experts outline a plan that helps kids like Charlie and Braden--who are never going to get the help at home. Just because you took your voucher and took your child away to a different school, that doesn't mean you did a damn thing to save the Powell brothers.

It's sad, really (and again, I admit, there are bad teachers out there and we need to do more to get them out of the schools). But when I "Googled" "father sets fire," intending to add "to sons," to find the story about the Powell's, I got multiple stories before I could finish. One was an old report, from 1986, about a boy named David Rothenberg, whose father dumped three gallons of kerosene in a motel room while his 6-year-old was sleeping, and set it on fire, burning the child over 90% of his body. A more recent example, from West Palm Beach, Florida, would be Jorge Barahona, found with the body of his adopted daughter, Nubia, in the back of his pickup truck and a badly battered son, Victor, 10, her twin brother, slumped across the front seat. Dad told police he was distraught over the girl's death and planned to set fire to himself and his son, but couldn't do it in the end. Remorse came much too late for the poor girl or for Victor's sake. The boy showed evidence of all kinds of prior injuries: broken collarbone, broken arm, burn scars on buttocks and abdomen, and rope marks on wrists.

Emily Rodriguez, Victor's first grade teacher, told reporters she remembers how Nubia used to visit her class at the end of every day to see how her brother had been doing.

Now: Think about this whole story for a moment. Think like any good teacher. Is the solution to such problems really more layers of standardized tests? A school voucher for Nubia? What good would that do in the end? Stupid teachers? Really? That's our biggest worry?

Worst of all, it doesn't take any effort to find these kinds of stories. The same paper that reported on the Barahona case included an article about Marsee Strong, 34 and Edward Bailey, 40, now in jail after their nine-year-old son was found wandering the streets, naked, bruised and starving, one recent Saturday night. He informed police he had jumped out a bedroom window to "escape his abusers." Rushed to the hospital, he begged for food, said he hadn't eaten in three days, and was found to have "permanent marks of abuse" all over his body.

A shocked judge in the case said the boy looked "like he just came out of Auschwitz."

You see, no "scare tactics" are necessary at all. Every good teacher I ever knew wanted to save every kid they ever had in school. That doesn't mean, no matter how much they tried, or how much they cried (or cursed in my case) when they failed, that the task of saving the most needy children was ever easy.

People who believe vouchers and charter schools will save all our children must be a collection of blind, deaf and dumb people.

Or they must be fools.

The Witch-Burning Mentality and Miramonte Elementary School

2012-02-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

We don't hang witches today.
We don't act on the basis of hysteria.
We don't judge entire groups
based on the actions of individuals.
Or, at least, we shouldn't.

This probably isn't a big news story if you're not from Los Angeles. But it's a story I think that has ramifications, for all of us who have been or are now public school teachers, and for Americans, in general.

We start with accusations of sexual abuse against two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School in the City of the Angels.

In response to what might be a "culture of silence" at the school, Superintendent, John Deasy, suspended ALL 150 staff members.

I find this hard to fathom, not just because I'm a former teacher, not because I don't love my own children, and not because I don't want sexual abusers to face the full weight of the laws. I find it sickening because this is mob mentality, at least partially unleashed.

It is a reaction in the face of fear, when human beings are most prone to lose sight of subtle truths, if not obvious ones.

I have four children and love them all very dearly. If I thought any of them had been abused at school, by, say the sixth grade music teacher, I would want to hurt that individual.

That doesn't mean that I'd want to see the first grade teacher suspended. It doesn't mean I'd believe the fourth grade language arts teacher, who never had my child in class, had never spoken a word to my child, who rarely had time to look up from her work with other people's children during her incredibly busy days, who had no idea what the sixth grade music teacher was doing, because molesters are notoriously secretive, should be suspended.

I would be furious at the "individual," you see. Yet, even in my fury, I would hesitate to act violently against the accused, because I also realize some accused individuals turn out to be innocent, too.

Parents were concerned for their children in
1692, too.

I'm an old, retired history teacher and I'm not a fan of witch burning, no matter the century. I still believe in the Bill of Rights, as well. There are two teachers accused of criminal acts at this school. And from what I read one sounds to be guilty. I wonder if the other might not be the victim of spreading hysteria; but in both cases, the courts will have to act. The other 148 individuals are accused of nothing. They "might" have known something. That's true. Hypothethically, they might have known. Yet, since I am ready to bet they are good human beings, like myself, or Mr. Deasy, or any of the parents now so much afraid, I highly doubt they did.

It's an insult to all good teachers to act on the assumption that they did and still failed to act.

If almost anyone I have ever known thought someone was abusing a child, they'd tell the police at once. If they did not know, I would not expect anyone to demand that they be suspended from work because they lacked telepathic powers.

Read the Ox Bow Incident and consider what happens when angry people react in the heat of the moment. Go back to 1942, when fear blinded most Americans, and 110,000 Japanese-Americans were locked up, because people who looked like them had bombed Pearl Harbor. Remember that for a century, an accusation of rape against an African-American male by any white woman was tatamount to a sentence of death, no trial required, and in fact, "rape" was not a prerequisite. Emmett Till, in 1955, was murdered after whistling at a white woman down South. Keep in mind that our ancestors had no doubt witches existed--and once hysteria took hold at Salem in 1692 it did not abate till 300 innocent people had been jailed, one witness had been crushed with rocks for refusal to testify and 19 people were hanged.

Remember, too, that after the attacks of 9/11 hysteria swept this great nation. In one case a man walked into a gas station/quick market and shot down a clerk in a turban, shouting that all Muslims had it coming for the attacks by a few. Too bad the clerk was a Sikh, a different religion. Too bad Muslim Americans (citizens like ourselves) died in the 9/11 attacks. Too bad other Muslim Americans serve in the U. S. military today, defending the freedoms we say we hold dear, defending us from radicals who happen to share the same name, if not the same spirit, of the Islamic faith.

Read the comments people left on the Facebook page for the movie, Waiting for Superman (a movie which vilifies teachers as a group--and that tells you something about the current status of America's teachers), and what you hear might be the distant growl of the approaching mob.

No one who abuses children should escape punishment. That would be sick.

Judging people as members of groups--giving way to fear and hysteria--forgetting why courts exist--this is also sick.

Absurd Question Posted on "Waiting for Superman" Facebook Page

2012-02-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

There was no greater expert on witches.
Cotton Mather said witches existed.
In the end, he was wrong;
but it was too late to help the victims.

Okay, I get it. Most people who go to the Facebook page for Davis Guggenheim's movie already believe public school teachers are scum. They've seen Waiting for Superman, which focuses on five kids, desperate to flee to charter schools--to get away from bad teachers and failing regular public schools.

And they think: Now I've SEEN the truth.

Now the Superman page drops the veil and carries a link to a story in the Los Angeles Times. In case you missed it, two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School (see the link itself) have been accused of sexual abuse and very correctly removed from the classrooms, and I hope will face the full power of the law if guilty. That's hardly the end, however, as the district has removed all 150 teachers in the building from their duties, at least temporarily.

So the page poses this question: "Was it right for Miramonte Elementary School to remove all staff during investigations of sexual abuse?"

Let me see if I can parse an answer. First, if a teacher down one floor, around the corner, and at the end of a long hall, is taking lewd pictures of students, I almost certainly don't know anything about it, because:

A) I am too busy working with my own students.
B) I do not have the same kids in class.
C) I cannot see through floors.
D) I cannot see through walls.
E) Children being abused often remain silent about any abuse. And I, your humble teacher, cannot read minds.

I'm sorry. I apologize.

L. A. School District Superintendent John Deasy explains to reporters that he wants to find out how a "culture of silence...where someone could have known something and then chose not to act," could possibly exist.

The most likely answer: because it DID NOT exist.

If ever you wondered why teachers prefer to be protected by unions, this story offers perfect insight. My god, if your neighbor, Josh Powell, ten houses down, is arrested on child pornography and voyeurism charges, are you responsible for his crimes, if they happened in your neighborhood? No, of course not. You don't know anything about it, because those who commit crimes rarely broadcast the fact that they do so. If your co-worker abuses his own son or daughter at home, should you be in trouble?

Again, of course not.

It's sad too look at most of the comments, offered by those who visit the Superman page. Almost without exception, they agree, yes, get rid of everyone.

It's the spirit of lynching you see in their words--no matter how well those words might be intended. It's the Salem Witch Trials, before calmer, more rational heads prevailed. By then it was too late and twenty innocent victims dangled from scaffolds.

Protect our children by all means. Absolutely.

Remember, also, that the our legal system also exists to protect the rights of the innocent, including those 148 teachers. (Click link, right, to see additional post on same topic.)

A fairly typical comment, from a woman named Jackie Schneider, captures the flavor of the current line of thinking: "Agreed [they should all be suspended], I'm sure the parents are just shaken up. I would NOT be sending my child back, even though the staff has been changed. Another pedophile could be in the new group. After all the lemon dance just keeps on happening."

Martha A. Sanchez-Maldonado agreed--except that she didn't think the lemons had been squeezed hard enough: "No, because this is still not addressing the real problem. These teachers are not all being terminated, from what I hear, they are all being shuffled around to other schools. Yes, I agree that the safety of the students is the most important thing, but passing the buck or doing the "dance of the lemons" does not solve the issue at heart...which is that there needs to be accountability and transparency in the educational system. Otherwise, this will be a never-ending problem!"

Yep, all teachers are lemons.

A Liberal Comes Out of the Closet: Will Mitt and Newt Follow?

2012-02-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, Edwards tuned out to be a slime ball.
I admit.

It's probably not accurate to say I'm a liberal coming out of the closet. Here, in conservative Cincinnati, I'm more a "flaming liberal" than anything else. I still have my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on my Honda Civic, because I want people to know I didn't vote for George W. in 2004.
So: If I'm liberal, does that make me a bad person? Many of my friends are conservatives and I still like them.

I guess I'm confused.

Part of the problem with being a liberal in 2012, is that liberals lost a grip on the discussion when we let far-right types start to define us. You can't use the "N" word in polite company these dasy; but you can vilify opponents by sneering, "He's a liberal." Too often, that epithet means, even to people who ought to know better: unpatriotic, advocating socialism/communism, and big, big fans of more government. Our foes see us not as honest doubters, but in an evil light, as "union thugs," "libertards," "zombies" and the like. In the mind of Sarah Palin, I'm afraid, we're not even really Americans.

Oh yeah, and God is on the conservative side, too.

I've got nothing against God, if He's listening, by the way. But I'm a liberal in part because of my roots as an American history teacher. I love the U. S. Constitution as much as any conservative, maybe even more than Michelle Bachmann. A liberal, defined in the proper sense, I believe, is a person "favoring individual liberty and political and social reform." Or, as I used to explain to students, a liberal looked at the world, saw problems, and "wanted to make the world better." You could make a rather tidy argument that the Founding Fathers were "liberals" themselves. (And yet: conservatives love to claim a lineal descent from Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton.)

Let me stress then, that I am both a liberal and a huge, huge fan of Founding Fathers Gunning Bedford Jr., Richard Dobbs Spaight and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, too.

In fact, I believe the Bill of Rights, alone, assures the Founding Fathers a glorious place in history. It's the devil in the details of what those rights mean, that divides us today.

We live in perhaps the freest society in human history and conservatives want to insure that it remains that way. So, for example, they fear any kind of gun control. They believe our nation is rooted in Judeo-Christian teachings. In both positions they are likely half right, at least.

So why am I a liberal? Well, liberals are full of doubts and prone to question accepted social and religious thinking. I know Massachusetts required tax support of an established church long after the U. S. Constitution was approved. I know that when the Irish began pouring into this country in the 1840s they were seen as a threat to the American way of life, with their funny religious ideas. I know Mormons were driven out of New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois by conservatives who despised their faith, that their founder, Joseph Smith was murdered. It wasn't liberals--who have honest doubts about religion--who did it, by the way.

I remember, more recently, when conservatives said John F. Kennedy couldn't be president because of his Catholicism and his insidious ties to the pope. That very thought ought to make Mitt and Newt and Rick Santorum sit bolt upright in their beds at night. I mean: are those three boys actually liberals, believing as they do, that any person of any faith can run for president? Do they just not know what liberal ground they stand on?

Are they liberals, still hiding in the closet? My god, what's next?

A Muslim president?
I'm old enough to remember the U. S. Supreme Court decision in 1965, overturning Connecticut law, rooted in religious thinking, which held that sending birth control information through the mail was the equivalent of sending pornography through the mails. I remember the Loving decision, too, which overturned laws in several states, banning interracial marriage. I remember conservatives standing in college doors and vowing that no Negro would ever enroll at the University of Alabama, except maybe over a few conservative dead bodies. So, I'm a liberal. I think if Trent Richardson wants to tote the pigskin for the Crimson Tide, well, then, he's entitled.

In other words, liberals have often stood against big government and conservatives have often stood for it. I know Newt and some of the folks on the conservative end of the spectrum believe gay-rights activism is going to undermine the American way of life. But I'm a liberal and tempted to call that paranoia. I'd like to point out that in the Old Testament both sodomy and adultery were equally offenses in God's eyes and adultery was meant to be punished with stoning.

Newt, be thankful, Man on the Moon GOP presidential candidate (and, yes, Perfect Hair John Edwards, too), that liberals triumphed on that issue long ago.

We might also consider Ms. Michele Bachmann, the rightest of the right candidates in this primary season. I seem to remember that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were liberals when they launched the fight for womens' rights in 1848.

In fact, if you believe women should be assertive, and that they can work for a living, and that they don't have to get married, yep, Ann Coulter, you, too, are a flaming liberal.

It's funny, actually, because Representative Bachmann is probably the biggest fan of the Founding Fathers now alive. Yet, in 1789, even those god-like men could not determine how far liberty truly extended. Unlike Representative Bachmann, I might point out the Three-Fifth's Compromise, which said five slaves equaled three whites in determining state population for purposes--oh, the irony--of state representation in Congress. I also note the absence of the word, "women" in the document; conservative thinking at the time having no doubt that, like gay people in conservative thinking today, females were second-class citizens.

Some people serve heroically.
Others serve in their own fashion.
The blogger in "action."

Actually, you don't have to go that far back to argue that liberals are Americans in good standing. Liberals, again, are full of doubt--even when it comes down to the matter of "patriotism." A good liberal might argue that if "patriotism" is always right, then Hitler's followers were right and those flaming liberals, Robert E. Lee and Jeff Davis were traitors and probably flag-burners outright. That concept ought to make a few heads in conservative South Carolina spin.

I enlisted in the Marines, myself, in 1968 and volunteered to go to Vietnam, twice. (I wasn't sent, though, and maybe this actually proves conservative thinking that all liberals are dumb).

In fact, I love America for what it stands for: freedom for all. I didn't cry liberal tears when we were attacked on 9/11, I cried red, white and blue. And I thought, in 2003, that conservatives idealogues were wrong to drag us into war in Iraq, when Osama bin Laden was hiding farther east.

I hated to see good American boys, of any religion or political persuasion, die, when I thought our government had made a mistake. See: I don't trust big government, either.

Hell, I remember Watergate.

I'm not saying I was right about everything, of course. I'm a liberal; and liberals always have those doubts. But I didn't like the idea that some conservatives blamed all Muslims for the 9/11 attack by 19 followers of that faith, either. I taught history, you see; and I remember that we locked up 110,000 Japanese-Americans, including 77,000 U. S. citizens, after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. Call me a "libertard," I guess, but when I hear people say that all Muslims are terrorists, I think it's like saying Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich bear guilt for the Irish Republican Army bombings in Belfast in the 80s.

The way I see it, you don't have to be a conservative to be a very good American.

Can Teachers Save Every Child: Even Dylan Klebold?

2012-02-01T17:04:00.000-08:00

Some children come from healthy homes.
and they're easy to teach.
Others come to class loaded
with problems and even loaded weapons.
Saving them is much tougher business,
Teachers can only do their best.

That's not always enough.

There's nothing remotely funny about school shootings. I know (very nearly) from experience. A quarter of a century ago, a young man brought a gun to school to shoot me and to shoot one of his wrestling squad teammates. His teammate had been taunting him about his weight and I caught him drawing an obscene picture during class and told him he had to show it to his father.
Luckily, he didn't shoot either one of us, or anyone else, that day. Years later, however, he shot himself. Nothing funny about this in any way.

Still, when I hear the cascading criticism leveled at public school teachers and hear experts insist we have to save every kid, I think, who was ever going to save Dylan Klebold? Who was ever going to save Eric Harris? Those two were the school shooters at Columbine in April 1999.

It's ironic, when teachers hear their job is to save every child--because the people who say they know how to do the saving are never the ones who do the real saving. Congress passes No Child Left Behind and promises.... promises, mind you....that every child in America is going to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

Of course, teachers have to be committed to working toward that noble goal. It's absolutely true: We don't want to give up on any child.

That doesn't mean that we should take leave of our five senses and ignore harsh realities. The New York Times reported just this week that Salinas, California had a serious gang problem, and police were struggling to control 3,500 young men involved in various criminal enterprises.

I see that, and I want to tell the fools in the U. S. Department of Education, or our pompous Governor John Kasich, here in Ohio, or assorted newspaper critics, "You want to save a sixteen-year-old gang member with a violent criminal record, you save him yourself."

Frankly, it gets tiresome listening to U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan preach. He says fixing U. S. education is "all about the talent," meaning all about teachers. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City, Harvard grad, and billionaire, a man who never spent a single day in a classroom in his life, unless he got lost on the way to making a deposit at the bank, insists that his efforts to reform NYC schools have been thwarted because most teachers come from the bottom ranks of their college classes, and "not of the best schools," in any case.

Davis Guggenheim, producer of Waiting for Superman, put together an entire film, focusing on five great kids and their families, and how badly they wanted to win the lottery and get into the local charter schools, and the moral of the story was simple and clear. The typical public school teacher was lazy or incompetent, probably both, and all parents and all children would live happily ever after if only we had more vouchers and more charter schools. Then he sent his own kids to an elite private school, lest they might rub shoulders--or noses--with actual poor kids--or a few gang members.

Steven Brill, non-teaching expert on teaching, and a well-healed lawyer, insisted in his own book, Class Warfare, that the main problems in schools were teachers' unions and tenure laws, and I guess if I hadn't had tenure that poor boy wouldn't have brought that gun. And if it weren't for teachers unions, those two terrible young men who shot up Columbine would have been fine.

Try teaching in the public schools and you're going to be dealing with a lot of great kids and great parents. That doesn't mean the worst human beings in the world can't produce egg or sperm and become moms or dads. That doesn't mean you won't see kids who are being abused by mom, won't see kids who have to deal with alcoholic or drug-addled dad, that you won't run into unfortunate young men and women with profound emotional problems.

Then, saving every child isn't as easy as the fools who write books and the knuckleheads who pass legislation promising miracles, make the job of working those miracles sound.

Why Teaching Matters: Part Five (Sing Sing, STAR Awards, Singing and Swimming)

2012-01-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

Lunch with Mr. Tucker, right.
I'm happy to say: in black and white,
my wrinkles are much harder to see.

I was happy to have lunch recently with former-star-student Joel Tucker and his wife--and always consider it an honor when old students are willing to spend time with a teacher they had back in seventh or eighth grade.

I'm not going to lie, I think I did a pretty good job in the classroom, myself, and think good teachers make a huge difference in young people's lives. Unfortunately, these days, we don't hear enough about good teachers.

Joel filled me in on what he was up to and told me about what other Loveland grads were doing--mostly good, of course--but did mention one fellow who was serving life in prison for a double murder. So, you never know, if you're a teacher, how life will turn out for the boys and girls who sit before you and all you can do is do your best to help them turn out right.

Joel was always a pleasure to have in class back in the day; and he still has the STAR Awards I gave him (those were like "certificates of appreciation" I used to give everyone, an idea I took from Paula Dupuy, a fantastic young counselor, who worked for Loveland City Schools in those days). And the fact those awards meant something to Joel, when he was young, and the fact he still has them today, plays into a series of posts I've been doing.

I don't think we can ever really "measure" most of what teachers do and I'm no fan of standardized testing for that reason, among others.

The first of five STAR's Joel earned (September 5, 1984) read:

"I was impressed the FIRST day of school because Joel said 'thank you' four times--and I'm hoping my 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son will turn out as well-mannered as Mr. T. has."

The last (March 30, 1985), explained why I always liked having him in class: "Mr. Tucker sometimes doesn't realize how many good qualities he has. But I DO! I'll take hard workers like Joel in class any day!"

In any case, I've been asking former students to comment on teachers who shaped their lives in positive ways and the response has been excellent. (Again, I doubt, in ten or twenty years anyone is going to be looking back and saying, "I remember Mr. Slapshot, because he helped me pass the standardized test." There's way more to what teachers do.)

Sarah Hager, who teaches now herself, responded with this:

I wanted to share this story, but also respect the person's privacy--so you get a message! In first grade I had Marirose Stiver for a teacher. There was a boy in our class (NAME WITHHELD, although Sarah still remembers) that must have been going through some tough things at home--his behavior was volatile. One day he was disciplined for going down the slide and getting muddy, after being instructed not to, of course. He completely flipped out, started screaming and kicking, threw his desk and chair across the room and totally lost control.

Mrs. Stiver walked over to him, took his hand, smiled so sweetly at him, and walked him out of the room and up the hallway to the principal's office without saying a word. She came back to class, told all of the wide-eyed students that "K----- was having a rough day" and that "sometimes we all feel better when we let our feelings out". She handled the situation with class, dignity, and respect for K----- as well as for our feelings. I will never forget it.

I truly believe she set the example for me to successfully work in special education. I think of her (and that incident) every time one of my students acts out. We NEVER know what baggage our students carry when they walk through our door, but we always give them love, support, safety, respect, and empathy. Mrs. Stiver was (and is) an amazing teacher, and I'm sure she holds a special place in the hearts of many Loveland students.

Jerry Dotson, who still sings with a local band, remembers a teacher who "stalked" him all the way through his days in the Loveland City Schools:

First grade at Branch Hill I go to music class and meet Mrs. Henderson and for the next 5 years she`s my music teacher. Then I move to Loveland and attend Loveland Elementary and lo and behold. Mrs Henderson is there. Then its on to Middle School and who`s the choir director you guessed it. Well in the eighth grade I got one of the leads in the spring musical and had ALOT of solo`s. And who met me three days a week at 6:00 a.m. for a month and a half to help just me with my solo`s. Now being a kid I never gave it a second thought as to why she was always my Music teacher, but now realize she taught music for the the entire school system. And for her to do all that plus take that extra time for just me. I am forever grateful and to this day believe she`s why I love to sing.

Jerry and I (and a number of other former students) used to play pickup basketball Sunday nights, in the Loveland Middle School gym, and I remember him for both his deadly long-range shot and sense of humor; and still remember Vicki Leroy Busby as a star student, too. She was able to recall a whole list of teachers who made a difference. Apparently, she was a little obstreperous at times, although I never witnessed that side of her personality:

Second grade--Mrs. Davidson swatted the kids who deserved it. I loved when she had our whole class over to her house to make Christmas cookies.

Third grade--Mrs. Lewis gave us these awesome little sugar coated ball candies when we were good. We LOVED those!

Fifth grade--Mrs. Glasgow showed how proud she was of me, a scrawny little girl beating every boy--except for maybe Gary Sands--in arm wrestling. Small but mighty I say!

Fourth grade--Mrs. Ross showed me that math could be fun when it was taught in a non-intimidating way and games like Around the World were incorporated. The same goes for Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade algebra teacher (except we didn't play Around the World in there).

Sixth grade--Mrs. Reid--one of the sweetest human beings on the face of the earth

8th grade--Mrs. Puls for turning the other way when I had a 7th grade boy raised against his locker demanding he buy me another frisbee since he threw my favorite one into the Ohio River during a field trip. I was SO peeved.

High school--Mrs. Lemon taught me to appreciate the beauty and geology of our national parks when we had to pick one and do a project on it.
--Mrs. Foster told me that I wouldn't need a microphone to be heard on the radio and I got the last word in on that when I came back to visit her class on college break and told her that indeed I used a microphone to be heard all over Indianapolis on its NPR station. Touche.

How could I forget Mr. Wagner?! He was hands-down the best chemistry and physics teacher and an all-around great person. He challenged his students and encouraged their involvement in extracurricular activities at school. He was the sponsor of many of the clubs at school and volunteered many hours of his time to these clubs. I know one person who became a forensic chemist because of Mr. Wagner's advanced chemistry class.

This comment, added by Dwane Shelly after an earlier post, is going to be hard to top, when it comes to a teacher making a difference in a rather unsual way:

Totally forgot Mrs. LEMMON. Actually she saved my life. Some twenty years ago my fiance and myself....er now my wife....went to Edisto Beach, SC. In my mad rush to "swim out" into the ocean....forgot about the rip currents there. Beach empty...wife assleep on beach...long story short I got pulled so far out I could no longer see shoreline. After panicking and wondering if Jaws was going to dine on my toes....I closed my eyes and lo and behold....I remembered a slide she had shown in her class Oceans of Air and Water. ......it was a slide describing ocean currents and rip currents. I laid on my back...pointed my head at an angle...and barely dipped my hands in the water to maintain the top layer of current.....came in about a mile downshore.....wife didn't even know there was a problem. I'd say that was a piece of education that truly saved my life.

Vicki agreed with Dwane--then added, "I thought of Mrs. Lemon when I was at Crater Lake because I remembered the slides she showed from there. I still smile when I think of the phrase she taught us all: 'Oh, piffle!'"

For now, I'll let Ms. Vicki have the last word today: "Reading all of these comments makes me appreciate my Loveland education more than ever before. We truly were fortunate to have had some great teachers teaching us. It's the lessons we learned in the classroom that we remember most, not the standardized tests we took."

A Voucher Plan for Every Child and Every School

2012-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

All parents are equal.
All parents are good.
Ergo: Only the school the child attends
really matters in the end.

I've been watching a lot of Fox News lately and tuning in to Rush on radio; and I'm a huge fan of the film Waiting for Superman. So, even though I'm a retired public school teacher, I am finally forced to admit the truth. We need a voucher & lottery system for all kids and all schools, a Wild West competition, if you will. That is: we allow successful schools to thrive and unsuccessful schools to wither.

(WAIT....keep reading....I might be joking....and you won't know if you don't finish.)

No more public school monopoly. No more union teachers, sitting on their fat duffs and pillaging the State Treasury.

(Keep going...don't quit now.)

Competition, baby--kind of like McDonalds vs. Burger King vs. Burger Chef--and may the best burger and fries win.

(Patience, my liberal friends. Continue to the end.)

In fact, if you haven't seen my favorite movie, here's a Superman summary: Five great kids enter the lottery to get into superior charter schools in the cities where they live. They must flee the failing public schools, where teachers are pathetic losers and unionized malcontents. Every parent is concerned about their child, of course. The movie makes that perfectly clear because there are no bad parents in the movie. So we know bad parents do not exist. We need more vouchers, charter schools, and free and open competition.

In fact, let's look at the famous "Parable of the Schools." (I just made it up.) First, we have Joseph R. Crappy Public School. Until now, this school has enjoyed a monopoly. This school even has a monoply on children with serious handicaps and hogs all the homeless children, too. In this school they take children of all faiths, and no faith at all, and then because they have a monopoly, they can't even be bothered to read from the King James Bible--or is it the Latin Vulgate--or the Book of Mormon--or pray at the start of the school day.

Boy oh boy...those unionized teachers...they have some nerve, not even having the gumption to teach your kid good religious values any more.

Down the street we have Arne Duncan Charter School. This school can save any child from Crappy Public School. This school takes children whose parents are involved and sign their sons and daughters up for a special lottery, to gain admission. If you have seen Waiting for Superman, you know every parent (or grandparent) stands behind their child and wants them to get into this school. It is a matter of life and death, this escaping Crappy Public School.

Turn right at the next stoplight and you come to Stupendous Prep Private School. This school comes in 57 varieties, including: 1) Christian School, where religion is taught and the King James Bible rules; 2) Hideaway School, a residential facility where tuition is prohibitive and only children of the upper classes can afford to go; 3) Elite Catholic School, where the Latin Vulgate Bible is preferred, and entry is determined by scores on entrance tests; 4) Muslim School, where the Koran is favored and few listeners of Rush dare to tred; 5 thru 57) other.

Now: we all know that Joseph R. Crappy Public School is failing and why. It's crappy unionized teachers. We know good parents are demanding that their children be allowed to attend Arne Duncan Charter School, which is sure to be better, because there the crappy unionized teachers are kept at bay. Meanwhile, the students at Stupendous Prep are happy and safe and learning religious values, of various kinds, in perfect good order.

So: Here's the plan that perfects the whole. (This plan elevates me to U. S. Secretary of Education under President Newt Gingrich.) We already know that all parents are equal, that all parents are good, and that teachers in unions are minions of the Devil. So we level the playing field for every child in America.

First, we let Stupendous Prep receive regular state funding.

Second, we give every student at Crappy Public a voucher, so that now we have perfect school choice.

Third, since this is a business competition, we allow Crappy Public to operate by the same rules. That is, what works for Arne Duncan Charter and Stupendous Prep, it's got to work for Crappy, too.

I was going to say, "Suppose we take an extreme example...." But all parents are the same, as we have already mentioned. So, imagine that we have a mom and dad who cook methamphetamines in their home. And they get too busy running the family business to sign up for the lottery to get their child in the nearest charter school. Well, if the child has serious problems and scores low on standardized tests, Crappy Public School does its duty for once, loosens its monopoly grip, and gives the child a voucher--actually sends them away to Arne Duncan Charter or Stupendous Prep, down the block. These schools receive state funding, too, and we want every child to play on a level field. So: yes. Stupendous Prep can no longer deny entry based on test scores or keep kids out by charging huge fees. And Arne Duncan Charter has a civic duty to take students whose parents didn't sign them up, because charter schools exist to save kids who want to flee the failing regular schools.

Or, now: the kids the failing regular schools send them to save.

Homeless kids? Yeah, break the Crappy Public School monopoly here, too. We enter them all in a lottery and divide them up, so that Stupendous Prep gets a fair share of the pie, and next you know, these poor children are wearing monogrammed blazers and getting ready to go on to Harvard and Yale and Brown. Handicapped kids? BREAK that Crappy Public monopoly. Kids with severe behavior disorders? BREAK that monopoly.

Honestly, how can such a brilliant plan go wrong? From now on, in every school of every type, all kids take State standardized tests. If Crappy Public has the lowest scores in 2013, then we do our duty to the children and allow the lowest scoring students, say the bottom 50, to load up the yellow bus and go on down the street, where Arne Duncan Charter will save them--raise them from the educational dead, like Lazarus, so to speak. You don't ask parents if they want their kids to go, lazy unionized teachers! You send those lowest scoring students away.

You can't be selfish and try to keep all the kids with the worst problems to yourselves.

In fact, the State can now close all juvenile detention facilities. We give every kid with violence issues or a criminal record a chance to escape Crappy Public and send them to Christian School to learn from the King James Bible, and sit next to Governor Kasich's children, or we send them to Hideaway School, where Davis Guggenheim, producer of my favorite film, sends his kids and then watch the business model work in education to perfection.

Family background has no bearing on what happens in schools. Schools and teachers alone shape kids. So let's send all the boys and girls who really need help to the very best schools. Open those doors wide Arne Duncan Charter School. Come on Stupendous Prep!

You've got some saving to do.

Mormonism, Liberalism, Socialism, Botulism?

2012-01-24T06:03:00.000-08:00

The author stops at Thomas Jefferson's home
during his cross-country bicycle ride in 2007.

I've been thinking a lot about politics and religion and the simple terms we use in categorizing people we don't like, lately. I'm a liberal, for example, and a retired teacher and Mitt Romney is a venture capitalist and a Mormon.

So we have: liberalism, unionism, Mormonism and capitalism in four tidy packages. Yet, I wonder: What do such labels really mean?

I happened to catch a news clip yesterday of a Florida woman speaking to Rick Santorum and telling him that Obama was an "avowed Muslim" (but she wouldn't call him "president" because, I don't know, he wasn't really an American). Mr. Santorum smiled demurely but did not correct the woman. So what do we have here? "Americanism?"

And Rick Santorum? "Conservatism" and "Catholicism."

The lady in the audience? I think we have "Euphemism." I think people who believe the president was born in Kenya might be hiding a little "Racism" under their skirts and coats; but I'm a liberal, remember. So I don't usually deal in definitive statements. I was checking my Facebook feed the other day and one of my former students, Betsey Barre, quoted Robert Frost's definition of a liberal as "someone who can't take his own side in an argument."

Of course, some of my conservative friends question why I'm a liberal in the first place. Is it a mental defect of some kind that I have failed to acknowledge? I don't think so. I think I'm a smart guy and did I mention "handsome?"

Okay: add "Narcissism."

I've been hearing a lot in this campaign about how liberals don't love America but I don't believe that's true. Actually, because I'm both a liberal and an American, I thought Mr. Santorum should have said something about religious tolerance to the Florida lady. I'm old enough to remember, after all, when people in this country said no Catholic could be trusted to be president. So, if you believe in "Conservatism" and it clashes with "Catholicism," where do you come down on "Americanism?" Again, as a victim of "Liberalism," questions like this cause me "Confusionism."

And what about Mr. Romney? My god, could there be a bigger fan of "Capitalism," free enterprise, and job creation in god's whole wide world??? (I could throw in "Creationism" here; but I shall refrain.) Now what do I hear?

According to many Evangelical voters, his "Mormonism" makes him suspect; in other words his religion trumps everything. It's like Rock, Paper, Scissors. "Mormonism" kills "Conservatism."

Of course, if you don't like one man's religion you have...Newt Gingrich, who has tried more than one faith and insists we must vote for him, otherwise, "Socialism" triumphs under Mr. Obama and taxes go up and Mitt Romney has to pay more than 15% to the federal government. Yep: add "Federalism" to the mix and that brings in the Tea Party. I know some liberals suspect all Tea Party people are inclined to "Facism" and I know Tea Partiers who think all liberals are closet communists. So there you go: a touch of "Communism" to add to the stew. But I'm an old history teacher. So I remember that the original Tea Party folks were accused of "Radicalism" when they protested against "Colonialism" and dumped the tea in Boston harbor in 1773.

Which seems kind of anti-capitalism, if you think about it.

So, where does a liberal like me come down in this kind of discussion? I think if a Mormon is qualified to be president, we should vote for him. If "Capitalism," however, means that the super rich can park their money in offshore accounts in the Caymen Islands, well, you can't really be president if you won't do your share to support the very government you say you want to lead.

I say "Americanism" beats "Caymen Islandism." Does that make me guilty of "Jingoism?" Do these jeans make my ass look fat???

Well: I'm not sure the evidence is in on where Mr. Romney parks his big stash of hundred dollar bills. I'm just saying--you know--the categories we use aren't as tidy as people might think.

We've been hearing a lot about "unionism" here in Ohio, where teachers, police and firefighters are fighting to protect pay and benefits, and I've heard people describe these fairly ordinary Americans as "union thugs" and the like. So I get even more confused. If one of my best friends is a public school teacher, but always votes Republican, because he's anti-abortion, is he guilty of "Unionism" or "Conservatism?"

Or both?

Certainly, Newt is in favor of the sanctity of marriage. So he's against "Lesbianism." But isn't he guilty of "Catholicism?" And isn't it weird that conservatives once insisted that disqualified him from running for a seat in the Oval Office and liberals said it didn't.

Or, since his own marital history is a bit checkered, do we use the term "Recidivism?"

Yeah, I admit it. I'm guilty of "Liberalism." I think a Catholic can run for president, or a Jew or a Muslim. Right now, I know there are American Muslims and American Jews and American Catholics and American Evangelicals and American Mormons and American Agnostics overseas, fighting Islamic "Radicalism." I cringe when I hear people say that all Muslims are dangerous; and sometimes, as an ex-Marine, I get tired of hearing conservatives question the "Patriotism" of liberals.

Even "Americanism" can be suspect, if you examine the term under a microscope, if all it means is "Nationalism" and not justice and freedom for all, which as a liberal, is what that particular term means to me.

So, to wrap it up for today, let me end by saying that as a liberal, I am DEFINITELY against "Botulism."

Why Teaching Matters: What's the Square Root of Inspiration? Part 5

2012-01-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

Did she try to kill that boy or didn't she?
What do students really remember about teachers
who made a difference?

Well, we're ten years into the Age of the Testing Fix in this country, when standardizing education was supposed to make everything better. So, where do we stand? With billions spent and millions of hours wasted preparing for and taking standardized tests, we're pretty much in the same place where we first began.

It isn't always the diet plan or the diet planner that matters.

More often than not, it's the dieter's motivation.

So, I've been asking former students to comment on teachers who made a difference in their lives, mostly in the years before testing became a mania.

Let's start with Joey Caylor Spencer. She remembers Mrs. Henderson, the middle school and high school choir director: "I loved Mrs Henderson. She didn't let me get away with just singing in choir, she made me learn how to read music. She doesn't get the credit she deserves for all she did to make kids feel special."

Elaina Wolff Strub agreed:

Not to discount other teachers, but Mrs. Henderson stands alone in my experience. (Mr. Viall, you stand out too, but more for the um, ahem, incident in class...). Now that I am a teacher myself, I realize how dedicated Marge was to all of us. It takes A LOT of time to do the job just as it needs to be done, but she ALWAYS went above and beyond. I can't even imagine how much of her life she spent working and preparing for work, much less on all the extra activities that came along with Show Choir and such. She was so clearly passionate about her subject and a major player in my teenage years... (this coming from a reformed choir nerd, of course.)

If you've been reading this series of posts, you know what I've been saying. You can't measure what a choir teacher is doing and the degree to which good teachers, like Mrs. Henderson, shape lives.

You can't do it.

In a brief posting, Jacquelyn Pohl, a recent Loveland graduate, harkened back to her earliest days in school to find a teacher who really mattered: "Believe it or not my first grade teacher Mrs. Hoppe was so encouraging and inspirational. I would always talk with her growing up to[o]... she was a great mentor with a lot of insight."

Insight? Is this going to be on the standardized test? (God, we're letting the fools run American education today. Sorry: had to get that out of my system.)

Tami Barnett posted a brief tribute to two elementary teachers (and I know from working with Mrs. Lundy in the higher grades later, that Ms. Barnett is right): "i was blessed to have mrs. lundy for 1st and 3rd grade...she was amazing! and having mr atkins for 2nd was a treat too. i was pushed to challenge myself and appreciate them for it!"

Andrew Grote and Mike Smyth had fond memories of my class. But I mean this series as a tribute to other Loveland teachers--and there are many excellent ones so far not mentioned--and to hundreds of thousands of educators who are out there working hard every day all across the country.

So here's what Andrew says about Mr. Ball, Mr. Friedmann and Mr. Zinnecker:

I can comment on teachers that made a difference to me. 4 to be exact...Not one of these guys taught the same subject. But they all had one thing in common. They never pushed me to conform with the way everyone else learned things. The each sat back and realized that I saw the world differently. And they used that knowledge to allow me to learn to my potential. To many teachers, especially these days, seem to teach more toward passing tests, than learning. I learned different aspects of life from these 4 gentleman, things I share with others everyday...Mr Ball opened the door to computers and math, that I never even knew I liked. Mr. Friedmann help me realize, not everyone speaks english...I now speak 6 languages. And Mr. Zinnecker helped me realize, that no matter how creative, or obscure, or off the wall I make things, someone out there will enjoy it. All these things still stay true today, and have molded me into the person I am.

Sam Demmerle also chose to salute a number of fine professionals:

My junior year of high school Mrs. Bosse [showed us] how to write a good paper. To this day, I still believe she taught me the tools and techniques to write analytically and the proper way to close-read a text. She is a fascinating educator and [I] loved the discussions she would direct in class. She inspired me to be an English major. I remember how she challenged my thesis on my literary analysis of Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and instead of changing my idea, I pushed myself to prove her wrong and I got a 198/200 (I lost points for grammar mistakes) on the final draft. If I had listened to her suggestion, I wouldn't be such an opinionated writer/analyst now.

I would continue to list every teacher who has ever made an impact on me (you Mr. Viall, Ms. Weill [now Mrs. Chast], Mrs. Jamison, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Lail, Mr. Maegly, etc.) but the list would be quite lengthy for a Facebook comment.

Matt Mouser, who posted earlier this week, posted again and mentioned the kind of subtle touch that made one teacher memorable: "At the end of the 6th grade year Mrs. Emden made me a bookmark that said "Matt, To my champion joke teller. Have a great summer and always do your best!". She was probably the nicest teacher I ever had."

For today the final words go to Shawn Richardson, who weighed in exactly the way I thought most students would. You see, real young men and women, who sit in real classrooms all across this land, they know that what matters in education goes far beyond simple testing. Shawn reports that three of his ex-coaches have turned into "great friends," Mike Rich, Dave Evans and Denny Johnson. "All have been to my house to play cards, we go golfing, go out of town to sporting events, [and they] come to my wedding and just flat out care on how I'm doing and are there if I need them."

He's talking about "teachers that stay in 1 community for 30 years even if they didn't go to high school there [and] were so committed to the schools and the students that they live there[,] that is what makes a teacher."

How do you measure all that teachers actually do?

P. S.: A brief note about that "incident" Elaina mentions. In eighth grade she piled a tall stack of her books atop her desk one day, before class started, and the weight (she was a good student and so carrying some serious baggage) tipped it as suddenly as a trap door sprung on a gallows.

Unfortunately, the front edge of the top struck a young man (who if memory serves was trying to flirt with her) directly in the shin. At first we thought it might have broken his leg; but once it became clear he was fine, Elaina seemed mortified. So, to make her feel better I began accusing her of trying to assassinate the poor fellow.

Why Teaching Matters: What's the Square Root of Inspiration? Part 4

2012-01-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

What teacher taught
Matt Mouser about art?

I've been asking former students, via Facebook, to tell me about teachers who made a real difference in their lives.

I'm happy to say, response has been great.

So let me give you a little background on why this subject interests me.

Currently the BIG idea in American education is to "fix" what's wrong with schools by creating all kinds of standardized tests and then tie teachers' pay to results.

Unfortunately, most proponents of this approach have taught only briefly, or have never taught at all. And in their ignorance they are taking us down a dangerous path. Of course, schools in this country could be better (but so could doctors' offices, day care centers and roofing companies, to name a few).

My fear, howerver, is elemental. I believe current leaders in education are leading us right over the cliff.

Here, for example, are a few facets of education that cannot be measured. Does that mean they aren't important? Are we really going to focus on test scores and imagine that that is all there ever is to learning? I was a history teacher--but I'm fairly certain former students would tell you they did more writing in my class than almost any other. But the ability to write with style is never going to be measured on a standardized social studies test. Techinically, in this new Age of the Testing Fix, that means any time I spent trying to help students perfect their writing style was wasted.

It's a god awful way to "improve" education.

In my class we did a number of debates and all kinds of what I called "skits," on various topics. I still remember a young man named Derek Vormwald, in a skit about George Washington and his army during the American Revolution. Derek managed to use the two doors to my classroom to play two characters, exiting and entering as required, in a brilliant display of creative thinking. Part of the time he was "Martha Washington," complete with falsetto voice and ratty-looking red wig. Then he would exit and return in the role of a new recruit to the Continental Army. Skits like these were meant to last for entire periods; and students did almost all the talking and all the thinking. They had to learn material in great depth, had to learn to speak in front of an audience, and hundreds of students told me how much fun they had, participating and watching. But debate skills, the ability to speak to an audience, fostering a love for learning, none of that can be "measured."

It's like trying to "measure" art.

Indeed, we had outstanding art teachers at Loveland Middle School (Barb Rockwood, Bethany Federman and Diane Sullivan, among others). I often looked at student work, posted on bulletin boards in our halls, and marveled at what they had kids doing.

We had a brilliant band director, too, Bruce Maegly. He sent dozens of musicians on to the professional ranks. How do you "measure" that?

Then there was my good friend, Jeff Sharpless, also a history teacher, who came up with the idea for a comic play based on Homer's Iliad (Achilles, Hector, Paris, Helen of Troy--and then he threw in Jessica Simpson). There wasn't going to be a question on any standardized test about this. But every year he got fifty kids involved as artists, actors and singers. Jeff had played in a rock band during his youth. So he created the songs for the play, including "We all Live in a City Known as Troy," performed to the tune of "Yellow Submarine."

Students loved performing and Jeff stayed late after school, twenty-five or thirty days each year, to make it work. That can't be "measured" either.

It worries me--all this talk about standardized testing. So, I've been asking former students to tell me about teachers who made a difference. (I don't believe, twenty-five years from now--or a hundred--that other young men and women will be looking back fondly and saying, "Yes, I loved Mr. Johnson, because he focused on standardized test prep.")

Here, then, are memories students shared this week (and more to come). William Ladd is up first for today:

I feel that I must weigh in on this anyway, because my comments will reflect on the not so [often] mentioned world of L.D. teachers, “teachees“, and teaching. I am very qualified to remark on this subject as I was an L.D. student with behavioral problems. I have had much time, expense, and effort put into my education. There are some who might believe this effort was a waste. It is to those people that I must protest. Although I did in fact “drop out” I have since paid “penance.” I served the Army, earned the G.I. Bill as a result. After Serving in the Army I studied at Southern State Community Collage and earned a Associates Degree in Electronics W/ Robotics Emphasis. I graduated with a 3.94 GPA thus earning Honors. This most likely would not have been possible for me with out my participating in L.D. programs. One teacher who stands out for me was Ms. Dee Ross (she has since been married). Although over time I have lost touch with her I still consider her my mentor (along with others). She taught me L.D. English, spelling (an area I must admit that I am still weak), and Mathematics. Aside from this she taught me respect (Not on a standardized test) and generally speaking she taught me how to carry myself through life (also not on a standardized test).

Ms. Ross did in fact marry, and as Mrs. Zaenglein, continued to do excellent work as a third grade teacher in Loveland for many years.

Tina Lee Coffinbarger "liked" William's post, another vote, in the Facebook world, for Ms. Ross. Then Steve Glass added another comment. Steve remembers getting swatted, unfortunately, but agrees with William whole-heartedly: "Mr. Battle,Mr. Viall, and Coach Rich made a big impact on me when I would get in trouble and got lifted off the ground about six inches. I would say that was a big impact... Miss Ross was a very great teacher and caring."

Great and caring? Can't be measured on a standardized test.

In fact, most of what matters in schools can't be tested. Mr. Battle has aleady been mentioned in an earlier post, after he stepped in to help a young lady with a serious eating disorder. And Coach Rich could get the best out of athletes in every sport he ever set his hand and heart to, from seventh and eighth grade football to wrestling and even, one year, girls' volleyball. You wonder. Does it matter if you teach kids to dig deep inside and never quit on a court or a field or in life?

I believe it does.

Annie Taylor, a star student in my class, and a 2007 Loveland High School graduate, reached back to elementary school for inspiration:

Mrs. Kroncke from 6th grade... I will never forget her..... She made learning fun and she had the kindest heart... Even when the worst kids acted out and were so uncalled for and rude, she reached out to them. Also Mr. Zinnecker in high school... He made class a blast and had hilarious sarcasm. I loved them and will never forget them, along with u Mr. Viall !!

Lisa Brown dug even deeper:

There is an elementary teachers that I have the upmost respect for...Mrs. Walker, she helped me get through first grade. Everyone in my class didn't expect me to return to school after a bus accident I was in. I remember that day as if it was yesterday. School was dismissed early due to weather conditions. We had a substitute bus driver that day. I had slipped on the snow and ice and went under the bus. The bus driver thought I had already crossed in front of the bus, but when he went to pull away from my house, the back wheels ran my legs over, between my knees and ankles. I was very lucky that the snow had cushioned my legs. I couldn't walk for about a month unassisted by crutches. Mrs. Walker had came to my house to bring me my assignments and to tutor me on her own time. She didn't have to but she did, she went beyond her duties to ensure that I could stay caught up with the rest of the class. She was an amazing teacher.

Vicki Leroy and Ambie Hice "liked" Lisa's post; then Vicki went back farther still to mention an educator who had a lasting influence: "Kindergarten--Mrs. Poe--pointed out to my mom that I had 'leadership' qualities. My mom says she thinks it was a nice way of saying I was bossy (like I didn't get that quality honestly, Mom)."

Ms. Leroy had more good to say about teachers; but I'll save her comments and others for another day, note that I too discoverd in seventh grade that she had leadership qualities, and end with what Matt Mouser's has to say.

He remembers, for example, the moment he learned he'd never be a carpenter:

One time Mr. ----- yelled something to me I will never forget and it changed me forever. From one side of the room to the other he yelled to me "WHAT THE HELLS THE MATTER WITH YOU!! ARE YOU SOME KINDA GOD DAMNED IDIOT!!" I'll never forget that....we were close like that. I haven't built a shelf since.

Then he added: "In all seriousness Mr. Viall...Mrs. Reynolds always told me she believed in me. I am the artist I am today because of her."

Ruth Herzog "liked" Matt's comment and added her own thoughts, but, again, for we'll leave it at that for today. Teachers can have a negative impact--but most of the educators I ever met were having a positive impact, often in subtle ways.

You can't measure that.

Why Teaching Matters: What's the Square Root of Inspiration? Part 3

2012-01-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many readers of this blog have seen the movie Waiting for Superman; but if you haven't let me save you the time and give you the plot outline for the film:

Scene One: America's public schools suck.

Scene Two: America's public schools suck really bad.

Scene Three: And they suck because America's public school teachers suck.

THE END

(I've heard it's Governor John Kasich's favorite movie, by the way; but that might be nothing more than an ugly rumor.)

It's funny, though. I worked for 33 years in the public schools and most of the teachers I worked with were dedicated professionals. That doesn't mean most of us walked on water or deserved to have our careers immortalized in Hollywood film.

But I do have a theory: I believe teachers come in all the same varieties as movie producers, political figures, and plumbers. Some good. Some middling. Some not so good.

(Yes, Governor, I mean you.)

At any rate, last week I asked former students, via Facebook, to comment on teachers who made a difference in their lives. This is Part 3 of a series.

Scott Everett, a young man I well remember for his outstanding work ethic in seventh and eighth grades, went on to study zoology at Miami University. He remembers several fine educators from his Loveland school days:

In high school I came down with mono and was stuck at home sick and barely able to get out of bed for over 3 weeks. Mr. Wagner (Advanced Chemistry and Physics) and Mr. Bivens (Calculus) actually came to my house several times during that period and went through all the material with me so I wouldn't fall behind. And of course there's Mr. Maegly [Loveland Middle School band director]. The quality of musicianship he was able to get out of us wild & crazy 7th-8th graders was amazing, and routinely outshone even the high school band. After all these years a bit of Mr. M still comes out every time I strap on my guitar and crank it up.

Jessica Maxfield, second from left.

Jessica Maxfield, who now makes music a career, and lectures at Northwestern University, agrees.

She's working on comments about Mr. Maegly and I'll add them when she finishes.

Mandi Vargo, also a Loveland graduate, now teaching chemistry at East Feliciana High School in Louisiana, posted her thoughts:

"While I don't agree with everything you say [on your blog] Mr. Viall, I really love reading what you have to say about education."

What??? The young Jedi doubts Yoda! Well, I forgive her. She was a wonderful young lady to have in class, and something tells me she's another fine teacher.

So: Ms. Vargo continues:

My most memorable teachers from Loveland definitely include the cast of characters already mentioned. I loved your class Mr. Viall, you made history (by far my least favorite subject) fun and interesting. I also remember how you always treated everyone the same. I don't think I realized it at the time, but as a teacher myself now, I try and live up to that standard with my own students. I also distinctly remember Mr. Ball and his endless patience. I went through a bit (understatement) of a whiney phase in the 7th grade and he never once showed frustration at my endless monologue of “But Mr. Ball, I dooooonnnn’tttt geeeetttttt ittttttttttt!” Mr. Miller was also an amazing influence on my gooney preteen years. He was wonderful at building up a student’s confidence. It’s amazing how much you appreciate your former teachers when you step into those shoes yourself! I hope I can have half the impact on my students that my teachers had on me.

I didn't want to use what students said about me, but Ms. Vargo mixed her praise altogther. And SirSam Benzinger had a few kind words to add--and I should note that he helped me raise a lot of money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation this spring (Sam is a good man, and worked his buns off for JDRF, and "blames" me for his interest in government.)

Then Deana Callahan Willisch weighed in from a point of view so unusual, I had to include what she offered. This one goes way back, to a time when corporal punishment was still used in the schools.

(I feel like a dinosaur.)

Ms. Willisch writes:

I have to agree with SirSamuel - it would have to be you. If you remember the infamous swatting of a classmate for snapping my bra strap in your class….I had been bullied all my years at Loveland in one form or another (mostly mentally and emotionally, but sometimes physically). When you stood up for me (and took back order in your classroom by reminding the students that there are consequences to bad behavior), it was really the first time a teacher had ever done so in response to my tormenters.

You were so obviously angry at not only the disruption of your lesson but at the sheer injustice of the unwarranted and unprovoked act against me, and you promptly marched that student out into the hallway and delivered justice.

It was at that moment that my mindset changed from "I am a loser who deserves to be treated this way" to "I am just as worthy and important as anyone else in this school."

Education is a funny business, I think you can say, as complex and hard to "measure" as life itself. So, if standing up for Deana helped her, I'm happy. And I hope I didn't ruin that other boy's life, the young man who pulled her bra strap and got swatted.

And I'm not an advocate of corporal punishment today, in any way.

Meanwhile, Zach Goyer, jumped into the conversation and added a fresh name to the mix: "What about Mr. Damewood?" he wondered. "He was an awesome teacher, and the assignments he gave us weren't only related to English, but also helped with skills that I use now in college such as how to properly write a research paper. Plus he would always try to keep us on top of current events, and the books he had for us were always amazing."

Jonathan Davis, now a Loveland High School senior, concurred: "I agree Mr. Damewood is an awesome teacher. English has been great this year even though I normally dislike it." I asked Jonathan to add a few details and he came back with this:

Mr. Damewood always keeps us entertained in English class by just doing different things. one day we had a book talk about bees so he brought in his beekeeper suit and explained how you get the honey out and everything. when we have reading assignments he likes to point out stuff that we didn't realize that makes us laugh. whenever we seem bored he'll just make a few jokes then go back to class work.

Working at Loveland Middle School for more than three decades, I heard young students talk about elementary teachers they loved and then heard former students come back and tell me which high school teachers they most admired.

I wasn't living in some fantasy land. Don't get me wrong.

I know there are bad teachers out there, just as there are bad car mechanics and stock brokers and horse wranglers, too, I suppose. But we need to remember there are plenty of good ones, a simple truth that seems forgotten today.

Eric Bauer, a top student when I had him in eighth grade, and now a senior at LHS, had this to say:

Mr. Wagner has been an amazing teacher for me. I was privileged enough to have him for AP Physics. The first day he asked all of us what we wondered about. The most common replies were silence or "I don't know". Boy did he fix that. He showed us countless demonstrations and asked many us all questions on why things happen. He also accepted any question of ours and answered it to the best of his knowledge (which is quite considerable).

He taught us an amazing amount. Not only did we learn mechanics, electrostatics, and thermodynamics but he taught us how to think abstractly. In that classroom we were fledgling college students for 90 minutes. In the first quarter I struggled quite a bit but once I got into the swing of things I was able to enjoy and learn the units very well. Thanks to his class I am currently acing AP Chemistry (the hardest class in the school!) and independently studying circuitry.

Mr. Wagner has been good in the classroom for a very, very long time; and Cheri King, a dedicated sixth-grade teacher for Loveland today, remembers Mr. Wagner just as fondly as Eric, though from the perspective of an earlier generation:

Mr. Wagner - I was his student near the beginning of his career. Although I was not a talented science student, I remember his enthusiastic approach to teaching, making every minute of class meaningful.

When I became a math teacher, after completing a music degree, I used Mr. Wagner as a role model for how I approached teaching. He was highly prepared for class and was always looking to fine-tune his work. He kept careful class notes as evidenced by the giant notecards stacked on his lab table. When needed, he added notes to himself on ideas inspired from class. If there was a “fool proof” method to make a lesson more effective, Mr. Wagner was going to find it. (He did, however, chuckle on occasion that this might be the one unachievable task - but it didn’t stop him from trying.)

Mr. Wagner seemed to be as interested in helping his students - teenagers - learn more than just science facts. We learned how scientists really conduct their research, make discoveries, and learn from their mistakes. If Mr. Wagner’s demonstrations went awry - no problem. This turned into an opportunity for him to invoke one of his mantras at the time: If it’s worth doing; it’s worth doing right. The learning experience was of primary importance. Giving up was not an option. Observing, analyzing, hypothesizing, and finding a solution was the path to take.

Mr. Wagner knew how to make science relevant and accessible to all students. He was caring and encouraging toward his students. He set high expectations for everyone. Critical thinking, thoughtful ideas, and questions were always encouraged. It’s not surprising that he’s still a well-loved teacher today, over 40 years into his career.

I suppose Susanne Beaudoin should have the final say. She remembers a number of educators fondly, for the very kind of reasons that are an immeaurable, in the end, but offer the best evidence of what good teachers actually do:
I would have to say Mr. Folzenlogen. Just for the fact that he helped to set me on the path to being an artist. He helped get my art recognized and showed me that being in the art club did NOT make you a nerd. Then there was you. You showed me that history was a truly awesome subject when presented the right way. (I graduated college 4 hours shy of a history minor. You also helped encourage my writing and artistic side. And there was Mr. Still [who taught industrial arts for several years at Loveland Middle School]. I got a deck chair that is STILL in my yard today! In his class, girls with power tools that knew what they were doing were COOL! (between him and my dad, I learned enough to paint my walls, tile my floors and fix about anything!) I also need to mention: Mrs. Dyson, Mrs. Reynolds and Herr Friedmann. Thanks Guys!
So, yes. I'm no fan of standardized testing--and I think you'll notice that what real students remember, looking back on days spent in school, has nothing to do with standardized anything. In the end, education is about the teacher who inspire a love for learning.

I'd like to know how education experts (who never teach) and politicians (who only preach) think we can go about measuring any of what these students say.

Why Teaching Matters: What's the Square Root of Inspiration? Part 2

2012-01-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Lindsay Moore, right, in fire gear.
Some kids grow up wanting to be firemen
(or fire ladies).
Teachers try to prepare students
for whatever life might bring.

If you read my last blog post (and all across America, people are saying, "Who didn't?) you know what this post is going to be about. Teachers who make a difference

I'm retired now; but I truly fear that the education "experts" are going to cut out the heart of U. S. education with a monomaniacal focus on standardized testing.

At any rate, I don't believe you can measure what good teachers do with testing. So I asked former students on Facebook to comment, to tell me about educators who made a real impact in their lives. Here are some of their responses.

Emily Francis Lloyd checked in to offer a bit of praise for a favorite high school teacher: "Ken Zinnecker all the way! I had him for Creative Writing and Fantasy/Sci-Fi. He's the man :D" Three other former students, Wendy-Kidd Yockey, Erin Parkinson Betz and Brandon Huber, "liked" her post and in a Facebook world that's like three more votes for Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucases.

(Unless you don't like Mitt Romney, that is.)

Dwane Shelly had his own nomination and tried to explain the essence of what he thought made good teachers good:

They don't give up on the student....they use their life experience and savvy to figure out what makes the student "tick"....then exploits what he/she can to drive that student to performing their very best. Mr. Poe did that for me. As a consequence...I have always sought to do my best and be a problem solver. Sometimes teachers don't really know how much they affect the lives of their students in ways that last a lifetime. Kudos to all my teachers that gave a damn.

Lori Chisman Barber (a star student from time's past) went back to junior high days and added her ideas to discussion:

‎1st off- I can't name just one teacher. I loved school and loved a lot of my teachers. Other than you- I would say: Mr Huffmaster. He taught me it was ok to learn about the Big Bang theory and other theories of creation even though my parents didn't like it one little bit. He said as a scientist he not only knew all of the theories but he also knew the Book of Genesis very well. He said "If you don't understand scientific theories of creation how can you ever refute them if you only know the book of Genesis?" He also taught me it was pretty cool to be VERY different and not care what others think- because he was that way. I remember his teachings to this day because he was so unusual.

Lindsay Moore remembered a high school government teacher, not for the facts he taught but for the fashion in which he made clear what those facts meant:

Mr. Volkman inspired me on so many levels. He changed my views on the potential and greatness of our country. Listening to him speak so passionately about government (at least how a government should be) got me out of my pessimistic ways of thinking, not just about our country as a whole but for people in general. I realized I'd rather be an idealist who gets disappointed sometimes rather than a pessimist who's constantly proven right. I'd rather stand up for the uncommon good morality and be laughed at than hide behind the superficial surface of our bubble and be generally accepted :)

P.S. On our way back from the senior trip to DC, Mr. Volkman got on the loud speaker and made a speech about everything the city stands for and what it means to him. Every single person on the bus fell silent as he spoke from his heart and even choked up a little. It was an amazing moment to witness someone, much less our teacher, be so pure and honest with us.

Really. You can't measure that, even if you decide to batter students with standardized tests into the next century. But students know what counts and Sarah Jackson, Abby Hoff and Valerie Daugherty agreed with Ms. Moore's assessment.

After I messaged her and asked for details, Emily Lloyd returned and had this to add about Mr. Zinnecker:

The most important piece of knowledge that Mr. Zinnecker gave me when it came to writing was to throw any kind of cliche out the window. Common cliches including "it's raining cats and dogs" and "as dead as a door nail" were not welcome. Mr. Z's response to the door nail cliche was, "What the Hell is a door nail anyway?" :P

Ms. Jackson (presently doing her own student teaching) chimed in with her own take on educators who made a difference:

I couldn't agree with Lindsay more! Mr. Volkman changed my whole way of thinking about the government. He is one of the reasons I decided to teach :) he treated us seniors like adults in his class and I will never forget when he handed out our constitutions he played patriotic music and shook each and everyone of our hands. He opened my eyes to government and made me think. I also respected him for the sheer fact that he was and still is a solider who as if right now is deployed? I could be wrong but you should definitely include Mr. Dave Volkman into your blog :)

Chelsea Olivia joined in the discussion and nominated one of the best teachers I ever saw in my 33 years in education. She noted: "my favorite teachers[,] I absolutely loved Mr. Ball and thank him for teaching the class that made me a computer geek, because of him I am able to be in front of any computer for ten minutes and be able to tell you anything that you need to know. I still occasionally see him when he comes to eat at my work."

Lisa Brown had only a few words to say, but her comment was excellent: "Seventh grade english, Mrs. Puls. She taught the students to stand up and be heard. Not to be afraid to speak in groups. Let your opinions be heard."

Brandon Beck, a junior at Ohio State, entered the fray:

Mr Zinnecker from LHS was one of the best teachers ive had to this day. One of the most down to Earth teachers ive had, and he actually teaches you lessons you will use every day of your life, instead of just making you memorize facts you will forgot once the class is over.The best advice he gave me, and some of the best advice i've ever received to this day was when he told the class: "if theres one thing I can teach you, it's to do something that you love." I use his advice daily.

Jennifer Szczepek-Prokosa agreed:

Mr. Zinnecker. Other than being an awesome fantasy / sci-fi/ English teacher, he really cared. I went through some tough times at home my high school years and he was the only teacher I ever had that came to me concerned. He said he could see that something was wrong. I don't think he'll ever know how his concern helped me. It was nice to have a teacher to talk to.

So, you see, education isn't really about standardized testing. No, what matters most is the long-term effect we have in the classroom on the kids who come our way. Former students in every district in the land could tell you there are all kinds of educators out there, hard at work, changing lives in immeasurable and important ways every single day.

Yet, we rarely hear anything about teachers these days, unless it's negative.

I still have plenty of examples to use; but I'll end with something Glenn Hughes said. "Back in the day," Glenn wasn't always the best student, as he would willingly admit. But I had him for history, and I could always tell he had a good brain. At Loveland Middle School one year we took fourteen students who struggled the previous year and set up a special program (known as SPARK) to see if we couldn't help them.

We hired a veteran administrator, teacher and coach out of retirement, Mr. Stan McCoy Sr., and put him in overall charge. Then three dedicated young female teachers and yours truly went into their room every day and taught the four main subjects. (Those three women: Ms. Cindy Taylor, Ms. Jennifer Windau and Mrs. Karen Gowetski, later Karen Clary.)

Watching Mr. McCoy was an inspiration--and he never let those fourteen kids forget they had real talent. The year before their grades were...well, let's just say they weren't good. But this time was different. The three young teachers helped get those fourteen teens rolling. (At least one boy kept asking Ms. Taylor to marry him.) And I did my part, too. One day, I made the SPARK group a bet. I said I thought they were as smart as any class I had, they just hadn't always used their talents before. So, if they could all earn A's or B's on the next history test, I said I'd run to school from my house.

How far, they wanted to know? Fourteen miles.

Mr. Hughes went on to study
at the University of Cincinnati.
(Mr. McCoy could see his potential.)

Lord have mercy! Those kids buckled down and started studying; and Mr. McCoy encouraged them every way he could. The day of the test thirteen kids were present and when I graded results we had thirteen A's and B's. But one young man was absent; so we had to wait a day, and when he took the test, and earned another B, the room erupted in cheers. I'm not sure I've ever been prouder of a group of kids in all my life, and I know Mr. McCoy told me he felt the same way.

With the help of one old football coach, and three fine young women, and maybe even me, the SPARK class kicked some academic butt that year. And Glenn (and Doug Conwell, who "liked" his comment later) have not forgotten, two decades later.

With that, I'll let Mr. Hughes have the final say today:

Mr. McCoy - I think i speak for most in the SPARKS class Mark Jones Doug Conwell Stefan Talley He was a wonderful mentor that always had our back and taught us even though so many teachers had given up on us (for good reason) He would stand beside us. We all worked in every subject during that year just because we wanted to show him how much his dedication meant to us. I believe most of the class stayed honor role that year. Not bad for a bunch of misfits and clowns! Although you were the biggest clown in class that year! See you can get in this one!

I'LL HAVE MORE EXAMPLES IN A FUTURE POST--AND WE STILL HAVE PLENTY OF GOOD ONES TO GO.

Why Teaching Matters: What's the Square Root of Inspiration?

2012-01-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Former Loveland student Todd Huntley
serving in Afghanistan in 2006.
We didn't teach him to shoot;
but teachers shape lives in many ways.

I've been thinking a lot about standardized testing since I retired from teaching in 2008. Several of the big names in education reform believe more testing is the solution (but since they've rarely taught, I don't believe they even know what the problem is; and most real teachers I know don't think focusing on testing is making education better.

And neither do I.

So I put a question out on Facebook for former students, asking them to tell me about teachers they felt made a real difference. Their comments were excellent--and yet represent only a thin sliver of the story of U. S. education, coming only from students of the Loveland City Schools, and only from those who happened to have me in seventh or eighth grades.

Still, these examples make me proud of what ordinary men and women do in America's classrooms every day.

I should point out that I told my former students I wouldn't use anything they said about me (you know, names changed to protect the innocent, and all); but Josh Nutgrass couldn't resist, saying, "john viall is the first name that comes to mind or mrs. miranda cuz she was hot hehehe lol[.]"

Okay, Mr. Nutgrass has a good eye for the attractive female form and I must agree; Mrs. Miranda was a very fine teacher.

Pat Treadway mentioned an old friend of mine, a former college football player, an imposing gentleman, and a man of great integrity, too. Pat recalls: "Mr. Battle. His no-nonsense attitude and toughness was a scary thing as a kid. I look back and realize it did a lot of good for me. He also provided quality entertainment when he saw any type of bullying or minor vandalism. I'm sure he made a few kids pee their pants a little."

Josh jumped back in with all caps: "O YEAH MR BATTLE 'ASSUME THE POSITION' OR MR MCCOY!!!"

I'm not sure which "Mr. McCoy" Josh meant, because we had three, or if he ever had to do pushups for Mr. Battle after getting in trouble, and Josh certainly wasn't the type to be bullying anyone. But the words, "assume the position," uttered in Mr. Battle's deep baritone must have sent shudders up and down the spines of any bully or troublemaker who ever crossed his path at Loveland Junior High. (Later renamed: Loveland Middle School.)

Natalie Golliher cited Mr. Battle, as well, and if you can measure this kind of impact, I'd like to know how. She explained:

Mr. Battle helped me get through a lot he gave me tough love when he found out I was struggling with an eating disorder everyday for weeks he walked me through the lunch line made me get a healthy meal and sat down with me and made me eat it helped with gym class being my next period after lunch so I couldn't get out from under his eagle eye lol

We happened to have a fantastic choir director at our school, a man named Shawn Miller, and I used to sit and listen to his choir perform or go to plays he put on as a play director, and marvel at how he was able to coax out the great talents of so many kids.

Kate Altieri (left in costume for the musical Seussical), a senior at Loveland High today, explained his impact:

[Mr. Miller]...doesn't just help you with music but he can also help you when you are...[in]need. Having six years with mr.miller ive learned so much about myself and of course music. He is the reason I decided to major in music education in college at northern Kentucky in the fall of 2012. He has been a big impact on my life and I've never worked with such a man who is dedicated to seven choirs, ( a boys, girls, two mixed choirs, a middle school show choir, a high school show choir and a high school top choir called chorale) even with such a busy schedule he still makes time for his family with havin every weekend dedicated to show choir he still puts his family first. I want to be like Shawn miller but the girl version of course :) he is an amazing man and an inspiring one at that too.

Kelly Harris decided to talk about an industrial arts teacher he had at Loveland High School:

Mr. Jim Poe...is the reason my dad had me add[ed] an addition onto our house during the summer of my Junior/Senior year in high school! I have done so many home mechanics by myself that I have never needed to hire a contractor!!! I have completely rewired a house that was built in 1920, replaced roofs, completely tore out plumbing and replaced with new and even hooked up to county water as well.

Valerie Lynn Daugherty mentioned several educators who made a difference for her:

Oh there are so many... After you John [that's me] Mr Berkoff was awesome.. You both kept history interesting and fun. Doug Bush was another one of my favorites after he left I quit band which was my senior year. Mr Rich was fun but tough. Mr Miller is why I did show choir he is like Mr. Shew on Glee always made music different and ever since middle school I've loved singing... Still to this day I wish I could record.

Later she added: "Oops...Mr. Still was another."

Deonna Cossentino added a fresh name to the mix: "Mr. Sievering! He was amazing, and he really connected to students. He cared for everyone, no matter how 'popular' you were. He knew what needed to be done, and helped everyone who needed it."

I remember watching Mr. Sievering during a meeting with a young lady who was struggling in eighth grade, even though she had real talent. You can't measure most of what teachers do, including most of what really matters, but at one point during the discussion he said to her, "Jessica, what I respect about you is that you're 'real.' You know who you are and you're not afraid to show it."

Jessica told me later how much those words meant--and when she had to tell someone she was pregnant she went to Mr. Sievering for that, too.

Todd Huntley spoke fondly of his foreign language teacher at Loveland High School:

Amos Friedmann, I took 2 years of German and 1 year of French with him in high school. Looking back I can now see that he helped instill in me a love for learning about new cultures, travel, and languages. While the knowledge of German certainly came in handy living in Germany for 3+ years, it is more the interest in learning that he fostered that really set me on the path that I'm on.

Considering the fact that Mr. Huntley went on to Harvard Law, and a career in the military (traveling to thirty countries in the process), we can safely say that Mr. Friedman earned more than his pay.

I plan to post more examples in days to come; but I was pleased when an old high school friend jumped in on the discussion, joined not long after by my older brother. Mark and Tim and I are all advanced in years; but we still remember teachers from Revere High (near Akron) who made an impact, even after the passage of almost half a century.

That's what great and good teachers do. They shape lives. And you can't measure that with a chronometer, an odometer, or a standardized test. Brother Tim felt the need to vent first, but then got into the swing:

How about Mr. -----, who made most students both hate him, and, hate algebra? What a psycho he was! On the other hand, Ms. Ocasek was great and made Latin interesting, Ms. Schmidt, my fourth grade teacher, was wonderful, and several profs I had in law school (practicing attorneys who taught in the night school) brought outstanding real-world insights to their classes!

I won't go into details on the algebra teacher; but I had Ms. Ocasek, myself, and when I attended my 40th high school reunion, I asked classmates (because this question always interests me), "Who do you remember as being a really good teacher?"
Ms. Ocasek's name came up a number of times--and I forgive her, myself, for giving me a "D" in Latin II for the year. It wasn't her fault. I was pretty lackidaisical in school.

Mark mentioned three educators who left a lasting impression:

Mr. Pamer taught Advanced Math and Physics. He pushed us pretty hard. Any grade you got from him was earned. He invented the concept “firm, but fair[.]” His explanations of slippery concepts were clear and to the point. No question was stupid, even the stupid ones. When I re-entered college in 1980, much of what he taught still lined the inside of my skull. It lasted through my engineering career. This is a characteristic of an excellent teacher.

Sadly, Mr. Smith was my English teacher only for my senior year. His personality was sometimes (how shall we say) eccentric. If you could handle the mood changes and the occasional bombast, he was very intelligent and a great communicator. He treated us like college students to present concepts like “death wish”, existentialism, sexual motifs found in literature, and others. Preparing us for college, he said, and that he did. Sometimes when I got my themes back, I wondered if he had cut an artery over it. The grade of the paper he wrote so large that everybody in the class saw it – there was no hiding from it.

I never took Interscholastic Basketball I, II, III from Coach Greynolds. I just had him for Driver’s Ed. Every so often Coach tossed the Driver’s Ed book out the window to cover what he called the practical stuff the school doesn’t teach us. So he taught how to balance a checkbook, how to buy a new or used car, what to look for in a house, how to apply for a loan and so forth. Was he giving us the right scoop? In my experience, his advice was pretty sound, especially about buying new car.

It's interesting to see how much Mark's memories of Mr. Greynolds mirror those of Kelly Harris, when Kelly talked about Mr. Poe. (I know dozens of former basketball players would tell you Greynolds, the most intense coach I ever watched in action, profoundly shaped their lives for the better.) And I can testify myself: Eugene Smith taught me how to write. (His name also came up repeatedly when I asked about good teachers at my 40th reunion.)

Mr. Smith had one rule in class that I never forgot and adapted for use in my own history classes (my students did a lot of writing, as I'm sure many would attest). If he caught you using the words "thing" or "things" in an essay he circled either and slapped an "F" on your paper and your academic goose was pretty much cooked. If you wanted to say something, he insisted, say it clearly. Don't talk about "things going bad." If your pet hamster was flattened by a bulldozer, then by all the powers in the English language, say exactly what you mean!

I worked for the Loveland City Schools for 33 years and saw all kinds of fine teachers in action, from Steve Ball, who taught math for the team of teachers I had charge of, to Jeff Sharpless, who taught seventh grade history like I did and was always so helpful in his collaborations. I saw Rachel Angel in action, a young lady who worked tirelessly with special education kids, and Pat Settlemire, who got paid as an aide, but really did the work of a regular teacher, and Kathy Simpson, who worked brilliantly with LD kids. And I have to be honest: my ex-wife was a heck of a teacher, too.

(My current wife is an even better educator, I might add.)

There are hundreds of thousands of great and good teachers out there in America today and there always have been. It's a shame we don't hear more about them.

MORE EXAMPLES TO COME.....

Lesson One: A Tea Partier's Guide to Teaching in America

2012-01-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

Abby, my oldest daughter,
was a very strong student.
So what is the key variable in schools?

I've been trying to pump up my blog traffic recently; and several of my conservative friends have been kind enough to log on and read a post or two. I'm pretty much a flaming liberal, as most of them know--out of the closet, politically, I suppose you'd say. I still have my Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on my car from '04 and my Obama '08, too. So, yeah, I'm coming from a different direction than the typical Tea Party supporter.

I probably ought to scrape off Edwards' name, I admit...that cheating scumbag.

Then again...Newt...really??? But I digress.

That still doesn't mean a friend who lives across the street can't come out a couple of weeks ago and lend me his leaf-blower when he sees me using an old-fashioned rake. He's a wonderful neighbor and a Tea Party supporter, himself; but when it comes to education issues he's probably a bit conflicted. His daughter is a teacher in the public schools. (I think he might even have cast his vote against Issue 2, here in Ohio.)

As far as I can tell, conservatives believe that American education is in precipitous decline, that our system sucks tax dollars out of citizens' pockets and leaves them with nothing but heartbreak, that teachers' unions exist only to protect the incompetent, that members of those unions are "thugs" and "parasites," and liberals are the minions of the devil.

And so, only private schools and charter schools and vouchers and business control in education can save us in the end.

Another conservative gentleman I know, and a good man by every measure I can think of, told me recently he couldn't understand where I was coming from in a recent post, "U. S. Education by the Numbers."

So: let me try to explain how teachers really feel to the Tea Party folks. Imagine, my conservative friends, that your favorite football team (let's say the Bengals) is finally playing well. At the end of three quarters, Andy Dalton has the boys in stripes leading 21-10. Then the referees wave the Cincinnati players off the gridiron and the Ravens are allowed to keep throwing passes down an empty field and they score six touchdowns and the fans in the stands start booing the defenders and crying in their $8 beers.

That doesn't make a bit of sense. Yet, it's exactly the kind of comparison critics make when denigrating American public schools, and praising, for example, the "superior" Japanese education system. Here's how a teacher in this country sees the situation: Japanese children attend school 240 days a year. U. S. students go to class for 180 days.

Four quarters of football vs. three.

Or: consider the South Korean education system--also held up as model of success, and then used to shine a glaring light on America's failing schools. In a recent international comparison, South Korean kids finished #1 in reading, #1 in math and #3 in science, out of 65 nations. American students were #12 in reading, #17 in science and #25 in math.

If you're a Tea Party American, at this point, you probably gnash your teeth and start to grumble about the evil unions. But if you're a Teacher American (even a Teacher American/Union Member American) the number that grabs your attention is "14."

That's how many hours the average South Korean student spends every day in school, completing homework, and attending after-hours tutoring sessions, a kind of mania in that nation.

If you're a public school teacher in the U. S. you think, "If I asked students to shoulder that kind of load parents would be apoplextic. They'd be calling my principal and demanding that she lop off my head and they'd want her to spike it on the front lawn of the school to serve as a warning.

So, you dream of saying to a conservative friend: "Both of us are going to get paint brushes and buckets and ladders and we are going to start painting this house today, at 8 a.m. The winner, the person who covers the most surface, before they run out of paint, is going to receive $100,000 and the loser will get nothing but a lump of coal in their stocking on payday."

Then you add this caveat: "I will use these fourteen buckets of paint. You can have nine."

Your conservative friend is going to question the fairness of such a contest, but that's how teachers see it when they hear South Korean schools are better--or schools in Finland or Liechtenstein or Glennbeckistan--and the reason for the difference is that America's teachers are unionized crooks and fools. If an American kid spends nine hours on academics, which is close to the average, you figure that five hours extra every day, multiplied over the years, might give South Korean kids a slight advantage, academically speaking.

I suppose, in one respect, I think like a Tea Partier, myself. I don't believe that U. S. education can ever be fixed by pouring in more money. In fact, my experiences in life (I was a lazy student once) and in the classroom seem to prove that if you give me 35 students, ready to work, and I am willing to work hard, too, and parents will back me up if I'm truly, truly demanding, then I can teach effectively in a barn, with all my students seated on bales of hay.

That doesn't mean that the conservative perscription for fixing the public schools is correct. That's just my spiel for today.

U. S. Education by the Numbers

2011-12-30T18:22:00.000-08:00

The year now coming to an end has been good for education reformers. That doesn't mean it has been a good for education, necessarly; but reformers have had a field day, blaming teachers and teachers' unions for almost every problem in the schools.

In 2011 we were warned that America's educational decline undermined our standing in a global economy. We heard that charter schools and vouchers would save U. S. education. Arne Duncan, U. S. Secretary of Education, pushed the idea that standardized testing was the key. Michelle Rhee, the Queen of Hearts in reforming circles, insisted that all school improvement boiled down to better teachers in the classrooms. Steven Brill--a lawyer, by trade--wrote a book, laying out the same essential case. And Davis Guggenheim's savaged teachers as lazy, incompetent union bums in the movie Waiting for Superman.

Meanwhile, I continued to amuse myself, trying to write a book about teaching. Naturally, I am making myself the handsome hero of the story. When Hollywood buys the rights, I even know who I want to play me in the film version: Brad Pitt.

(I think we look like twins.)

At any rate, here are some education statistics you might have missed recently:

0: We know U. S. schools are killing our nation's standing in the global economy, right? This number represents the growth in the Japanese economy since 1991 (it was $5.7 trillion two decades ago and it's $5.7 trillion now), despite a "superior" education system. In a survey done in 2009, comparing fifteen-year olds from 65 countries, Japanese students ranked #5 in reading, #4 in math, and #2 in science.

1: Number of unions representing teachers in the Wyoming City Public Schools, here in Ohio, where graduation rates are 98% and 2% of children qualify for the federal free lunch program. Same number representing teachers in Cincinnati Public Schools (bordering the Wyoming schools) where graduation rates are 81.9% and roughtly 60% of students qualify for the same program.

1.8: Estimated % growth of U. S. economy in 2011; critics say it's the public schools' fault. (U. S. public school teachers are apparently a bunch of miscreants.)

4.4: In 2009, Finland ranked #2 in that same survey of fifteen-year olds in reading, #2 in math and #1 in science. Finland is also a socialist country and only 4.4% of children grow up in poverty. In the United States, the comparable figure is 22%.
5:42: Hours and minutes spent daily watching TV or playing video games, average child in the U. S., age 8-18, compared to 38 minutes with printed material. (See: U. S. test scores below.)

6: Number of years actually spent in the classroom by leading voices in education reform, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Joel I. Klein and Catherine Black, two recent chancellors of the New York City schools, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates and Eli Broad, billionaire philanthropists, Jon Schnur, who runs the school-reform group New Leaders for New Schools, Brill, Rhee, who promised to save the Washington, D. C. schools, Guggenheim, Chester Flynn Jr., think tank expert and staunch advocate of No Child Left Behind, Duncan, and six other U. S. secretaries of education, combined. That's right: combined.

8: Percentage growth of Brazilian economy in 2010. Brazil ranks 52nd in reading, 57th in math and 53rd in science out of 65 nations.

10: Percentage of babies born in Scioto County, Ohio, with illegal drugs in their blood. (You can see where this might be hard to pin on teachers.)

12: U. S. ranking in survey of 65 nations in reading (three-way tie with Iceland and Poland).

14+: Hours the average student in South Korea spends per day in school, doing homework, and in special after-hours tutoring sessions. In 2009, South Korea ranked #1 in the international survey noted above in reading, #1 in math and #3 in science.

15: One out of every fifteen U. S. high school students admits smoking marijuana on a nearly daily basis in 2011.

17: U. S. ranking in science knowledge, for fifteen-year-olds, out of 65 nations.

25: U. S. ranking in math, above.

33: U. S. standing, out of 33 "advanced economies," in a survey by the International Monetary Fund, in a ranking of preterm births and infant mortality.

36: Dollars per month, average pay for garment workers in Bangladesh, where exports have doubled since 2004. (You figure a superior system of education has nothing to do with this trend.)

43: Number of points higher--average SAT math scores--of Asian American students, who attend the same "failing schools" as white, black and Hispanic students.

46: Percentage of American adults who admit they did not read a single book last year not required for school or work. (See U. S. reading scores above.)

96: Number of reporters who showed up in 2009, to watch Tom Brady's first practice after missing most of the preceding NFL season with a serious knee injury. (You couldn't get 96 reporters to show up to watch the best teacher in America work in the next 96 years. We don't exactly focus on education in this country. See Japan and South Korea, above.)

108: Number of major league baseball players taking prescribed medications for A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. in 2008, after Major League Baseball began testing for amphetamines. (It makes you wonder if doctors might not be over-doing.) More generally, the Mayo Clinic estimates that 7.5% of all U. S. students are now taking Ritalin for A.D.D. and A.D.H.D.

200: Estimated murders of children in the U. S. by their parents every year. (Not all parents are the same and it's hard to see how vouchers will solve every "school" problem.)

240: Days spent per year in school by the average Japanese student. If U. S. students score lower than the Japanese it may be due in part to the fact that the Japanese boy or girl attends as many days in 3 years as his or her American peer does in 4.

245: Chicago public school students killed or wounded, mostly as a result of gang violence, during the 2009-2010 school year, almost entirely outside of schools and off school grounds. (This is the district Arne Duncan "fixed," by the way.)

670: Length in pages of the No Child Left Behind Law, designed to close the achievement gap between races, (see Asian American students, above) and passed by Congress in 2002, requiring schools to insure that every child is proficient in reading and math by 2014. This gap is entirely the fault of schools, even though black males are six times more likely to be murdered than white males, blacks have an unemployment rate twice as high as whites, a life-expectancy four years shorter, and are three times more likely to raise their children in single-parent homes.

8,500: child abuse and neglect cases in one year in Hamilton County, Ohio. Call Children's Services in your area for comparable statistics. (See: vouchers and charter schools, above.)

17,000: School resource officers presently employed in U. S. schools (a euphemism for "police" in halls).

132,000: Students now in U. S. public schools, classified as "severely disabled" . (See: No Child Left Behind, above.) This represents only a small fraction of the 6.5 million students on special education plans in the public schools.

954,914: Homeless children in America, according to most recent statistics by the U. S. Department of Education. (Charter schools? Really? That's your answer?)

1,500,000: U. S. students, grades K-12, with at least one parent behind bars at any given moment.

5,000,000: yearly salary of Ronald J. Packard, chief executive of K12 Inc., the biggest for-profit company in on-line education. Packard's schools are almost entirely funded by taxpayer money, based on number of students enrolled.

26,500,000: Money spent by K12 Inc. in 2010 on advertising; i. e. spending taxpayer money to convince students to sign up for internet classes, funded by taxpayer money. (Repeat cycle until taxpayers get too dizzy.)

31,650,000: Value in dollars, added incentives not included, of 8-year contract signed by John Calipari in 2009 to coach the University of Kentucky men's basketball team. Ironically, schools where Calipari coached previously were twice forced to forfeit games due to NCAA rules violations. Memphis forfeited its entire 2007-08 season (38 wins) after investigators discovered that at least one star player, reportedly guard Derrick Rose, and probably two, had other students take the SAT tests for them.

Could it be that we have a social problem in this country, not really a school problem?

As I. F. Stone once noted, "There are countries in which the ignorant have respect for learning. This is not one of them."

America's Teachers Stink Up the Place Again!

2011-12-28T07:36:00.000-08:00

I'm a former teacher. So it's hard to have to face up to the facts about how bad America's teachers really are. In fact, it can be downright depressing. Time for a glass of spiked eggnog, I suppose.

Even the liberal New York Times piled on recently, in a story titled "Death Knell for the Lecture: Technology as a Passport to Personalized Education."

The focus of the story was actually the promise of internet teaching--but to make internet teaching sound like the solution you had to first identify the problem. In the first paragraph, then, we learned that among developed countries the United States ranked 55th in quality of elementary math and science education, 20th in high school completion rate and 27th in the fraction of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.

Bad schools and bad teaching, obviously.

The point was simple: We needed to replace bad teachers with superior internet lessons. Or we needed to replace bad teachers with cardboard cutouts or mannequins or maybe lamp posts. Whatever. We're 55th among developed nations!

It makes you wonder, though. What do these kinds of lists actually prove? I decided to do a little sleuthing.

If we use the same simple approach, we uncover a variety of chilling problems that demand immediate internet action. Online cops, anybody? In a recent survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the United States finished dead last (cheap pun absolutely intended), 32nd out of thirty-two advanced nations, when it came to murder rates. And we're dead last by six feet and a mile. The Netherlands fell to tenth with one murder per 100,000 population. Finland finished one step above us, in 31st, with 2.5 murders. The United States landed in the morgue with 5.2 murders per 100,000 population.

Clearly: worst cops in the world.

According to another chilling survey we ranked 30th out of thirty advanced nations in obesity rates. So what do we learn from studying this chart?

We learn that America has absolutely the worst dieticians in the civilized world. Online dieting advice probably represents the last hope for fat people in the District of Columbia and all the fifty states.

Maybe we should jail more teachers?

Thank god, though, for America's judges! Clearly the best in the world. Where do you think we stand in rates of incarceration? Not 20th, for god sakes, not 27th. Certainly not 55th. No! We're #1. Liechtenstein has the worst judges, with only 19 people per 100,000 behind bars (you figure their cops must be too inept to catch anyone). Japan (58) and South Korea (94) beat us in education but their judges are pathetic, and probably need a few internet lessons on how to run an effective justice system. China? Failing badly. Only 122 prisoners. Mexico? No good. Only 200. Puerto Rico finishes in 35th place (303 prisoners) out of 212 nations; but they're just copying us. Grenada is #13 with 423, The Seychelles # 6 with 507, and Rwanda is #2 with 595.

Thank god we live in the United States of America, with the best jurists in the world--maybe in the universe! We lock up 743 people for every 100,000 in population.

That's what simple lists prove--and when I get the first Pulitzer prize ever awarded to a blogger, you can say, "I knew him before he became a famous celebrity and his head got all swelled."

And the first time I meet Lindsay Lohan at some big Hollywood party, you know what I'm going to say? "Baby, you need to think seriously about emigrating. Yeah. Liechtenstein would be cool."

For even more chilling statistics please go to: "Numbers Don't Lie: Our Teachers (and Doctors) Are Failing."

If you're a teacher (or a teacher's friend) consider spreading the word about this blog, or becoming a "follower" (not in any cult-like sense).

I intend to speak for all good teachers whenever I can.

Old Tools, New Tools in the Classroom: The Battle is Unchanged

2011-12-26T15:59:00.000-08:00

I've been reading--once again--about how computers are going to save U. S. education. And I admit: I'm not really sold. Maybe it's because I use Facebook regularly. Don't get me wrong. I like Facebook. Still, it reminds me of something Henry David Thoreau said when the world was "speeding up" in the 1840s, with the new telegraph, and the new railroads cutting deep into his beloved woods.

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys," he grumbled, "which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end...We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

That probably sums up every status update I've posted for the last six months.

I remember when my old school district started bringing computers into classrooms and setting up computer labs and hearing that technology was going to revolutionize education. I remember learning how to use Power Point and how to upload pictures from the Internet for use in lesson plans.

It was going to be great!

Now, instead of the tired old way, writing "AMERICAN CIVIL WAR (1861 to 1865)" on the blackboard with a piece of chalk, we could put it into Power Point. Then the letters would come flying out of a corner of the computer screen and spell out:

"AMERICAN CIVIL WAR (1861 to 1865)"

You could even add sound effects, like cannon crashing and horses whinnying. Unfortunately, students still had to memorize the same fact.

Of course, computers opened up a vast ocean of knowledge to students. Some dived in; and others merely dipped their toes. Others, still, walked the beach checking out the hot young guys and the tanned girls in their bikinis.

In fact, if you took a class to the computer lab and put everyone to work some students buckled down, and got excited about what they could find. Others surfed the web when you weren't looking or played electronic Solitaire. You could find interesting primary sources on the web; or you could go to Wikipedia, do a bit of quick cutting and pasting, and turn in the mishmash as "original" work and hope your teacher went away. You could even find sites pedaling pre-written term papers on all kinds of subjects for the right price. Or you could go to YouTube and find helpful tips on how to cheat on tests.

One suggestion: A) tear off old label from a Desani water bottle; B) scan label on computer; C) write tiny cheat sheet notes on back of new label: D) glue fake label back on bottle; E) carry bottle to next test. Drink as needed and refresh.

Improved means to an unimproved end.

I don't mean to sound like a Luddite here; I know computers can help good teachers in the classroom; but maybe we need to understand that there is no magic cure in education.

I used to take slideswhenever I went on vacation, for example, and used some to great effect in my American history classes. In that mythic era known as the "Good Olde Days" you could use a slide projector to flash a picture on a screen. It was interesting, though, when computers came into use. The old slides filled the screen no matter how the camera had been held originally. A horizontal landscape, 3" x 5", became a 3' x 5' picuture on the screen.

A portrait taken vertically became a 5' by 3' shot instead.

Here's an old favorite--which I used whenever we talked about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt and early efforts to save the environment. Muir pushed for Yosemite Park to be protected and devoted his life to drawing boundaries to save sequoia trees from rapacious lumber companies.

I used to ask students how many thought that was a big tree lying on the ground behind my wife (now ex; a nice lady) and virtually all agreed. Then I pointed out that what they were looking at was actually part of a sequoia limb, 150 feet long, before it broke from a tree and shattered on the forest floor. That got everyone's attention.

Unfortunately, when we switched to computers, if you took a picture in portrait mode and flashed it on the screen it was fitted to a computer monitor, shrinking it in size and leaving large blank spaces to left and right. So: if I wanted to show this picture from a cross country bicycle ride I took in 2007, with the old slide projector method it looked like this:

And if I used the computer to flash the picture on a screen it looked like this:

What I discovered, I think was this: you had to interest students in real learning. Old-fashioned notes on a blackboard, with chalk = regular flathead screwdriver. New-style notes in Power Point, with computer = electric screwdriver.

The real question remained, whether you worked with old tools or new: What did you and your students plan to build?

If I was still teaching--and the subject of the environment came up in class today--I might show students this picture from the top of Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park, taken near the end of another cross country bicycle trip this summer. I think, slide projector or computer, it might gain a little adolescent attention and lead a class into a stirring discussion along the way.

War on Christmas: The Muslim Under the Bed

2011-12-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a liberal. So you figure I'm not worried about what Fox News likes to call the "War on Christmas."

I don't believe President Obama is a Muslim, either, and even if he was I wouldn't care. I know plenty of good Muslims--good Jews--good Mormons--and good Evangelicals, too. I'm also old enough to remember a time when people said we couldn't elect John Kennedy president, because he'd be loyal to the pope and not the U. S. Constitution.

Religion, of course, has been mentioned frequently in all the recent Republican presidential debates. Rick Perry ran a commercial accusing President Obama of leading a war against religion. Michelle Bachman wants to be president so she can uphold Biblical truths and stop gays from marrying. Newt Gingrich is promising, if elected in 2012, to set up a commission his first day in office "to examine and document threats or impediments to religious freedom in the United States." I'm waiting for Mitt Romney to insist we follow the Biblical admonition to stone adulterers.

I just want to see Newt's face.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if all this talk isn't distracting us from serious issues. Kind of like saying, "There's a boogie man under the bed," to scare little children.

You may have heard the usual complaints: the Bible has been driven from our schools, Christmas vacation is now referred to as Winter Break, and the imposter in the White House, the guy without the birth certificate, is forcing schools to focus on Islamic teachings. But the lines here are fairly clear and state and federal courts are tasked quite often to make them even clearer.

I was an American history teacher for many years, and near the end of my career taught Ancient World History. So you have to talk about religion to get a grip on human history. The Pilgrims crossed an ocean to practice their beliefs and so did the larger Puritan body that settled in New England ten years later. In fact, before we bewail our modern, godless society we should keep in mind that the Puritans whipped Baptists and executed Quakers for bringing their interpretations of the Bible into the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

And where was Rush Limbaugh when we needed him in 1711? Our Puritan forebearers banned all Christmas celebration!

Three centuries later, what can public schools actually do in the realm of teaching religion? In Ancient World History we were expected to examine five world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam), not because President Obama said so, but because the Ohio Department of Education gave us a curriculum. In American history we included material about the Quakers, who settled Pennsylvania, the Mormons, who settled Utah, and for fun I did a lesson on the Shakers. For those who might not remember: the Shakers were a millenialist sect, started by Ann Lee, who believed the end of the world was imminent. In order to focus attention on matters of the spirit all Shakers were celibate. Membership peaked at 6,000 in 1860, for obvious reasons, and has been declining ever since.

No insult intended to the nine Shakers still remaining.

You can discuss religion in public schools. (I did go out on a limb, when we mentioned the Aztec practice of human sacrifice; I said that that was wrong.) I once organized a debate on religion in my Ancient World classes and asked five kids in every class to volunteer. They would be required to outline their own beliefs and explain their positons on various issues. The only ironclad rule would be: No insulting other students' beliefs. And they would be graded only on how they laid out their beliefs and not on what those beliefs might be. I used to do projects in my classes--a project counted as a test grade--and this debate would be a project. The kids, all volunteers, were incredible. The other students were allowed to ask questions, and I asked a few, but the thirty students (five each in six classes) held center stage for the entire period. They made their classmates think and had to examine their own beliefs.

They even made me think.

In other words, have no fear, freedom of religion is alive and well in America, and if you want to join the Shakers, they'd be happy to have you, I'm certain. And if you're worried about gay marriage, and you're really conservative, don't let it ruin your holiday celebrations. God is going to get those homosexuals in the end and they're going to burn in hell.

Chirstmas is alive and well.

I don't believe that, by the way, but that's just my opinion; and so here's what you can't do in public schools. If a student says gays are going to burn in hell, you can't tell him he's wrong. If a gay student in the same class speaks up and says the other student is incorrect, you can't tell him to shut up, either. If I'm a Catholic teacher in the public schools, I can't read to students every morning from the Latin Vulgate Bible, because that version differs in important points from the King James version, preferred by Presbyterians and others. If I a Jewish teacher, I can't tell a Mormon kid his religious book is bogus; and if I'm a Mormon, I can't tell a Muslim kid the Koran is rubbish. If mom and dad are Scientologists, and a student brings up L. Ron Hubbard for discussion, I have to bite my tongue and can't tell that child to be silent. Nor can a teacher say to a child who professes to be an atheist or an agnostic that his or her ideas are wrong.

If you believe the U. S. government is forcing schools to teach Islamic ideas exclusively, you're really worrying about the boogie man under the bed, or, rather the Muslim under the bed. The U. S. government is blocked in all attempts to force religious teachings of any kind on students.

State governments determine curriculum and state governments are similarly blocked from imposing any particular religious views.

With that, let me say to all, conservative and liberal alike: "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

Rock, Voucher, Scissors: Saving Carl Won't Be that Easy

2011-12-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had a chance to talk to a former student, now teaching first grade in a Southeast Ohio school district. She works diligently at her craft and tries every way she can to help her young charges.

So she can be a little testy when she hears another story about "what's wrong with America's teachers." She knows there are bad teachers. She's not blind. I taught 33 years, myself. I'm not blind to that reality, either.

Still, when you hear Governor Kasich in Ohio, or some leading education reformer like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, talking about how vouchers will cure the problems in our schools, if you're a teacher, it starts to grate a little on the nerves.

Here's one situation my former student faces: In her class she has a little boy who doesn't talk. Or: he doesn't talk to peers much, to adults almost not at all. One of his classmates comes up to her (we'll call her Miss Smith) occasionally, and says, "Miss Smith, Carl talks to me." Otherwise, the six-year-old is a selective mute.

He can talk but chooses not to.

At first, Miss Smith and various therapists at the school assumed Carl had an anxiety disorder, and if they helped him relax he might improve. Miss Smith, for her part, provides a nurturing classroom environment and has been breaking through on rare occasions. But there's still a long road ahead and the journey is painful and slow.

A few days ago, the boy's great uncle stopped by to speak with Miss Smith. "I don't want to talk behind my niece's back," he began, "but I need to explain the situation at home. Carl was born with cocaine in his system and his mom has been an addict most of her life."

Miss Smith has been teaching for eight years, in a district where many families are poor, and though each family suffers in it's own way, she's heard this story before. So she listens while the uncle continues: "Mom has already had one child taken away by Children's Services. (Like Carl, his sibling was born with drugs in his system, too, and had to suffer withdrawal pains while still in a crib.) We're trying to help her keep Carl, but the drugs have damaged her thinking. She's like a child and we have to watch her all the time. Until recently, my niece was broke and she and the boy were living out of a cheap hotel."

"It's been a struggle," the uncle admitted. At that point, he began to cry.
Ms. Smith is a good teacher. (In fact, a vast majority of the people who man our classrooms are.) So she's not going to give up and she's doing everything in her power to help.

It's kind of disheartening, though, to keep reading about vouchers and how they'll make everything better in American education.

Ms. Smith is too busy trying to help real kids to make this kind of promise. But I'm retired and willing to make a simple bet. I don't think anyone out there, not even U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, can explain how a school voucher, a single sheet of paper, allowing Carl to change schools, is going to shield him from all the cruel vicissitudes he has so far met with in a very short life.

A Parent Voucher, sure, maybe. (Carl often begs his uncle to adopt him,but his uncle is poor, and too old to start over, raising a six-year-old.) Even a Housing Voucher. A school voucher? If you can show me how a chance to change schools is going to solve this child's problems, I'll eat a school voucher and I won't even wash it down with beer.

****This sort of situation is far from rare and in the end there's not one syllable of humor in it. If you're Miss Smith, or any other dedicated teacher, though, you want to hear the experts in education outline a plan to really help these kinds of kids.

According to the New York Times, nearly 1 in 10 babies born in Scioto County, in Southern Ohio, last year tested positive for illegal drugs in their blood.

In 2008-2009, the U. S. Department of Education estimated that there were 954,917 homeless children in this country.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg--your typical, billionaire school reformer, says the real problem in education is that teachers are culled from the bottom 20% of college graduates, and those not the best schools to begin with. Bloomberg, a graduate of Harvard, himself, and therefore an expert in helping poor children, is thinking about buying a modest little home in Southampton, a 22,000 square foot place nestled on 35 acres.

It makes you wonder. Are bad teachers really our biggest problem? Maybe the mayor could find room in his own "cottage" for a couple of homeless kids.

Why Teaching Matters--Part 4 (Books)

2011-12-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, Jenny Ball, if you ever read this post. I'm sorry, when I had you in eighth grade, that I drilled a hole in your history book.

You have to admit, though, that textbook was boring.

Despite an occasional drill mishap, I was a fairly typical teacher. I worked hard, but so did most of my peers. Today we hear constantly about standardized testing, the importance of teaching basics, and new tools to measure what teachers do.

Often, in education, it's impossible to "measure" what matters. Loveland Middle School, where I taught for 33 years, had a phenomenal band director, Bruce Maegly, and a tremendous choir/play director, Shawn Miller. You'd hear Mr. Maegly's jazz band perform and swear they were high school kids and Mr. Miller's students were unbelievable in the plays he put together. We had great coaches, too: Mike Rich, who could lead young men and women to success in pretty much any sport, except NASCAR, and Chuck Battle, who set the bar for character. Our art teachers, Bethany Federman and Diane Sullivan, were also excellent.

For thirty years, I taught American history in the seventh and eighth grades (and later did three years of Ancient World History). It was part of the grade in my class to require students to read four books if they wanted an "A" or a "B" for the year, two for a "C," and one if they wanted to pass with a "D." I didn't assign the books though. No standardization where literature was involved. I wanted students to read works they actually liked. So: if Jason Garnerett wanted to read Lonesome Dove in two weeks, all 961 pages--which he did--I didn't want to get in his path.

Over the years, my students read roughly 10,000 books. And I wonder, if we're going to go to standardized testing (with merit pay based on test scores), how this could be measured. Take the Holocaust memoir, Night, for example. It's short, 116 pages, and sad, and you can't ask questions on a statewide test about it, because not all students would have been exposed. I only know that hundreds of students in my classes did read it and many were moved to tears.

Or consider Go Ask Alice, the tale of a teenage girl who falls victim to the allure of drugs. I received this Facebook message from Christina Vogelsang recently, two decades after the young lady passed through my classes:

I love to read, and you got me turned on to a great book called 'Go Ask Alice'. I believe that book is what kept me from getting into drugs. Loveland has lost several due to drugs, and that book scared the hell out of me! Thank you and Good Job! ---You spoke of the book, and I remember you had several back behind you desk I do believe?? One thing you did say is that there is no bigger waste of time reading a book you are not interested in. You could not have been more correct! Hahaha! You brought critical thinking to the class room..."

Christina also noted, "Your temper was quite entertaining as well...but then again I wouldn't want to put up with 30 seventh graders!" But I'll let that line pass.

I'm sure none of my other students ever saw me mad.

So: how do we measure what truly matters. If M. K. Fisher, a serious-minded and talented young lady reads the Civil War novel, Cold Mountain, does that count as education? Most experts believe students exposed to great writing learn how to write more effectively. And Cold Mountain grips a reader from the opening scenes and never loosens that grip for 300 pages. In the first chapter, Inman, a Confederate soldier, lies in a hospital, badly wounded. Doctors had not expected him to survive a wound to the neck, but he has. Occasionally, he wipes the wound with a rag and dips it in a basin near his bed, "until the water...was the color of the comb of a turkey-cock."

But mainly the wound had wanted to clean itself. Before it started scabbing, it spit out a number of things: a collar button and a piece of wool collar from the shirt he had been wearing when he was hit, a shard of soft grey metal as big as a quarter dollar piece, and, unaccountably, something that closely resembled a peach pit. That last he set on his nightstand and studied for some days. He could never settle his mind on whether it was a part of him or not.

Does it help a star student like Ms. Fisher, to read this work, to see lines like this, where author Charles Frazier describes a character so: "He was a sculpture carved in the medium of lard."

Gone With the Wind was a hit, too, mostly with girls, but I always had to caution readers to beware of latent racism in a finely-crafted story. At one point, Margaret Mitchell insists Master O'Hara was a good master, who only whipped one slave all his life--for failing to rub down his favorite horse after a hard ride.

Wait. What?

Nazi soldiers capture a Jewish member
of the Polish army.

The horse rated higher than the man?

There's learning there. Now tell me: how do we measure it on a simple standardized test?

John Crawford tells a story "not of the insanity of war, but the insanity of men" in The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, about the part he played in the War in Iraq. As an infantryman, Crawford looks with envy upon the comforts he sees on an Air Force base. "My company, on the other hand, slept where we shit and shit next to where we ate." That's a sentiment that Sam Watkins, in Co Aytch, a Civil War memoir popular with boys, would have understood.

I had seventh and eighth graders who read Puddn'head Wilson by Mark Twain and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. They read Born on the Fourth of July, by Ron Kovacs, paralyzed from the waist down when he was hit by enemy fire in Vietnam, and Native Son by Richard Wright. Johnny Got His Gun, the anti-war novel, was surprisingly popular. Sadly, in my opinion, A Farewell to Arms was not. To Kill a Mockingbird, was and it would be hard for any teen to read that work and not come away burning with a desire to end injustice.

I loved teaching and loved books and felt getting students to read more was like getting people to go to the gym to get into better intellectual shape. So, I had weak students, who needed help, who read Sounder, and one who finished a biography of General Custer in the eighth grade and said it was the first book he had ever read in his life. At least one young lady, Martha Hoctor, tried Walden and one young man finished The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, all 1141 pages, while still in middle school.

I gave kids as much latititude as possible. Several read Empire Falls, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a failing New England town. (Typical line: "It was the particular curse of the Whiting men that their wives remained loyal to them out of spite.") Maus and Maus II, comic book tellings of the story of the Nazis, as cats, and the Jews, as mice, were immensely popular and students were exposed once more to Pulitzer prize literature.

From where I stood, at the front of an American classroom for thirty-three years, I thought it was obvious that reading more was the surest and potentially broadest path to intellectual growth. So, yes, I think teaching always matters and I'm proud of what I tried to do.

Why Teaching Matters--Part 3

2011-12-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

You know the Big Buzzword in American education today is "standardized learning." So I'm going to let you in on a secret: Most of what matters in teaching can't really be measured. (It's like trying to say, "We need standardized parenting.")

My kind of art.

In my history classes, for example, we used to do all kinds of projects--and since students could choose the kinds they did, they almost always played to their talents and strengths. I used to be a terrible student, myself, when I was a teen. A bit of a bad attitude. Even got an "F" in eighth grade art.

So, thirty years later, my students scoffed at my drawing abilities (see example, left).

Luckily, I had kids with all kinds of gifts. So, if they wanted to do debates, like Chris Dorgan and Chelsea Williams, they did debate projects. If they wanted to do creative writing, they could do creative writing, like D. J. Kimble and Andrea Dearden. My last year in teaching, Christian Barnett loved building models. I encouraged him to do models for projects and he did wonderful work. Zach Fein and Mitul Desai, a few years earlier, did a fantastic scale model of Auschwitz. I gave them an "A+" without really having to think about it.

Zach went on to become an architect.

In other words: you never know what seeds you plant when you plant knowledge and you can't be sure how they'll grow.

Recently, I was looking over a few examples of art projects I happened to keep. I wish I'd kept a thousand more; but when you turn students loose and let them use their talents, that's where knowledge truly blossoms, in individual ways.

Think about "standardized education" in terms of 9/11, for example.

If you were following a set curriculum in 2001, technically, you would have been in violation for stopping to examine the story, since it would have happened after "standards" were already set in stone. In my class, at that time, however, I was able to let students do projects on a topic that interested them. Two young ladies, Courtney Allen and Tara Main, turned in a Pop-Up Book on September 11.

Driving to work on a beautiful September day.
(Allen and Main.)

At work in an office--before the attack.
(Allen and Main.)

Unfortunately, once No Child Left Behind was fully implemented, here in Ohio we were stuck following a strict new curriculum.

So: if we're teaching Ancient World History, what's the one fact about Islam you'd think I should teach? Because that's all there's going to be on the standardized test every year.

One fact about Islam.

When Chase Giles does an Alphabet Book on Islam, then, are 25 pages wasted? Does depth of understanding count for nothing? That doesn't make sense.

(Art by Chase Giles.)

The first year I ever taught Ancient World History, I decided to have my students read parts of Homer's Iliad; and again they responded. In that case, one project possibility was to join the cast and crew of a comic play, called "Jessica of Troy," the story of Hector, Paris, Helen, Achilles and Jessica Simpson. We even added a Greek chorus for students who liked to sing. Alex Neal, Suzie Culbertson and Anna Eltringham all excelled, as did dozens more.

Amanda Shelton was more artistically inclined. So she did a series of sixteen water colors on the same topic--well, not Jessica, of course.

Paris leaps from the ranks of the Trojans to battle Menelaus.
(Amanda Shelton.)

Andromache tries to convince Hector to avoid his fight with Achilles.
(Amanda Shelton.)

Achilles drives his spear into Hector's neck.
(Amanda Shelton.)

For most of my career I taught American history and we used to do a lesson on Father Bartolomew Las Casas, a Spanish priest, who tried to save Native Americans from abuse. In a reading I prepared for students, it mentioned soldiers throwing babies into a river and calling out, "boil there you offspring of the devil." So we talked at length about "labels" people use to describe those they don't like (i. e. fag, jock, nerd, kike, gook, nigger), and about how this leads to "dehumanization." Finally, we talked about the antidote. We talked about empathy.

Ian Wagers, took the lesson to heart and turned it into a wonderful comic book:

Father Antonio was one of the first priests
to warn settlers that what they were doing was wrong.
(Ian Wagers.)

At first, Las Casas did not care about the natives.
He changes his mind, freed his own slaves and became a priest.
The book he wrote was titled: A Brief History of the Indies.
(Ian Wagers.)

I think it mattered--to focus on empathy--even if that can't be measured on a standardized test.

I think it mattered that Ian and so many others had a chance to exercise their gifts in ways they chose themselves.

Teaching always mattered.

Why Teaching Matters--Part 2

2011-12-02T05:49:00.000-08:00

Where do we lead students?
We may never know.
Drawing by Matt Mouser, former student.

As all my avid readers know (yes, I'm talking about both of you), I was a junior high and middle school teacher for 33 years.

That's right. I spent my life in the company of hormonal teens.

So I learned to use some "unconventional" methods to keep students interested. (Not that my lectures weren't scintillating, I mean.)

I hated wasting class time for any reason whatsoever; but if I thought I could keep kids engaged I was willing to try anything. One day, Susan Ezell, a lively, funny young lady, made the mistake of telling me class was boring. She was an exceptional student. If she said class was boring it probably was.

I said we needed to liven up.

Susan foolishly agreed.

So, I picked up her books and threw them out a window onto the school lawn. That woke everyone up.

Another time, the homework paper of a top student floated off her desk and landed in the center of the room. (we had desks in a horseshoe arrangement.) I walked over to pick it up and had an inspiration. Saying, “Here, let me get that,” I placed one foot on the paper, grabbed to pick it up and ripped it in two. I stood there staring at half a paper in disbelief.

“That was my HOMEWORK,” the owner of the dismembered assignment exclaimed. “What am I going to do now?”

“I’ll give you an automatic A,” I replied, and the class roared and that’s what we did.

If I ever wondered whether these kinds of tactics were effective, the first great letter I received from a former student resolved the question. It came in the mail one day, after I had been teaching seven or eight years.

Joey was bright and impossible not to like; but his grades in my class were terrible. He missed homework diligently. He missed five assignments. We talked. He missed seven more. We talked. He ran his string of missing assignments to twenty—thirty—headed towards forty, like Joe DiMaggio in reverse.

Around that time, I hit upon the idea of fishing in my pocket occasionally and saying to my class in a game show announcer’s voice: “You can win all the money (jingling sound) in this pocket if you answer the next question.” Sometimes I would pull out the coins and show them for effect. “This entire thirteen cents, one dime and three pennies, can be yours if you tell me who wrote the Declaration of Independence.”

Every so often I offered “big money.” In morning classes one day I gave a dime to anyone who could name the first man to walk on the moon. In every class someone could. So it took a few dimes to generate a little enthusiasm. I started offering fifty cents—a huge prize—if anyone could name the three astronauts who took part in the first moon landing mission. The letter I received explains what happened next and shows how much teaching can matter:

If you will, try and think back 5 or 6 years…In your history class I received the honor of having the most consecutive zeroes in your teaching career, I believe it was 32 or 37. In class I also received 50¢ for naming the two other astronauts that were with Neil Armstrong. And I will never forget your ability to throw erasers at pupils who were talking while you were conducting class, namely myself. I was one of the worst students in the junior high that year. Can you remember.

The reason I am writing you is... to say thanks. You made me realize that if I didn’t straighten my life out I would end up being a bum.

It took me 2 years after having you for history to realize you were right. After my freshman year at Loveland Hurst, which was a joke, I moved to Grant County, Kentucky. I figured I would start out with a clean slate and settle down. I started doing my homework, a first, right? Believe it or not I was well respected there. I found enjoyment in excelling in my school work. I almost majored in mathematics in high school. I received an award in my poetry class. Get this I Joey ----- was the only student to keep an “A” average in poetry class. I also got a couple of awards in Band. I have graduated high school this year and I am now attending the University of Kentucky. You will never believe what I plan to study, I am a pre-medicine student. You didn’t faint did you? I am doing fine in college and I want to repeat a humble thank you. It seemed that you knew I had the potential and tried to bring it out of me but I would not allow you. Thank you.

Your friend forever,

Joey -----

You see: teaching always matters.

P. S.: If there's any teacher out there who wants to copy my "big cash prize idea," go ahead. I would warn you, however. NEVER offer $5 to anyone who can answer some question you consider hopelessly abstruse.

When the do you will end up poorer and wiser.

Why Teaching Matters--Part 1

2011-12-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

I've been retired from teaching now for three years and don't miss the grind. I loved life in the classroom, but if you're doing the job right, the demands are unending. So for a few blog posts, I'm going to try to explain why teaching matters.

It's not just academics, either. You talk to the 14-year old girl, who has been lying about her age and seeing a 36-year-old man. You listen to the boy, who is being bullied, and has been spat upon, and you go look up the bully, yourself. You talk to the mom who doesn't know how to control her teenage daughter; and you tell her not to nag and berate. You tell her to remember the words of Anatole France: “The more you say, the less people remember.”

Good advice when dealing with teens.

For most of my career I taught American history. Early on, I stumbled across a type of activity that seventh and eighth graders loved, and one at which they excelled. We were doing a long reading on the famous winter at Valley Forge (which I wrote myself). At one point the reading included this section:

Food was in short supply and soldiers were soon reduced to eating nothing but “fire cake,” a mix of flour and water cooked over a fire.

Dr. Waldo [an officer in Washington's army who kept a journal] jokingly described the diet. “What have you got for Dinner Boys?” he asked the men one afternoon: “Nothing but Fire Cake and Water, Sir.” Again that evening he asked: “Gentlemen, the Supper is ready. What is your Supper, Lads?” Once more they shouted, “Fire Cake and Water, Sir.”

We spent part of class discussing some of the tough vocabulary and then students were told to finish the reading that night.

On the drive home that afternoon, I began thinking over more creative ways to use the material. Instead of giving a quiz, I decided to do a short skit to start class the next day.

Now, when students filed in and took their seats, I explained that we would be having a “fire” in the center of the room and “soldiers” would sit around it warming themselves over the flames. We needed volunteers to discuss camp life. Hands shot up all over the room.

Good start. Students liked the idea.

The first group to act out the scene started slowly and it looked like the idea might fizzle. Then one of the boys took off a shoe and threw it in the “fire,” saying, “At least we’ll have something to eat besides fire cake.” His “comrades” nodded and rubbed their hands and looked dejected. A chronic complainer in class starred--as a chronic complainer in Washington’s army.

In another bell, two volunteers set their shoes aside before the skit and plunked down beside the fire in stocking feet. After a few minutes, one keeled over “dead.” The other soldiers sniffed loudly, from cold or sorrow we knew not which. Then one of them tugged off the dead man’s socks and placed them on his frostbitten hands like mittens.

A second exclaimed, “Dibs on his underwear!”

This brought moans and laughter from the audience and I knew we had stumbled onto something big.

Once it became clear that classes enjoyed doing skits we began experimenting. But it was the suggestion of a young lady in one of my morning classes that sent us digging deeper into this rich lode. I was still a young teacher at the time and Lisa was one of Loveland’s rare minority students. Her grades were fair at best, and the girl could be a pain if she disagreed with your teaching methods.

Still, Ms. ----- knew how to think.

One day she approached my desk. We had just started a unit on the South in the years before the Civil War. She bent close and whispered: “I think we should do a skit about slavery.”

Normally, I might have steered away from the topic, lest we seem insensitive. Lisa’s enthusiasm, however, altered my thinking. The two of us whispered back and forth before settling on a “panel discussion” involving slaves and slave owners. Lisa volunteered at once to play a slave. When we explained her idea there were plenty of volunteers. John, who liked to argue with Lisa anyway, agreed to play her master. We picked a second “master” and explained that none of her slaves would be present for the skit. Then we selected two more “slaves.” They would be from different plantations and their owners would also be absent.

This gave variety of perspective.

In years to come thousands of students took part in all kinds of skits and it was often subtle touches that made their performances great. In Lisa’s case she wore a blue bandanna round her head and adopted a field hand’s manner of speech. She also ran the kind of chain you use to secure a dog in your yard round her wrists and through her belt loops and jingled it whenever John claimed to be a “good master.” John picked up on every cue and threatened “trouble” when they returned to their plantation. Lisa refused to be cowed, saying if he beat her “like always” she was not afraid.

At some point, John insisted slaves sang in the fields because they were happy. Lisa objected and said music lightened the load of sorrow bearing down upon their souls. She sang a few verses from a Negro spiritual and explained their hidden meaning to make the point.

This panel discussion--the brain-child of one creative young lady--was the first skit we ever did intended to last the entire period.

Lisa and four classmates held center stage for forty-five minutes and all five earned A’s.

Of course, young teachers enter the classroom believing they can save every child. And today politicians who couldn’t save a kitten stuck in a bush insist this miracle can be achieved on a national scale.

(See: No Child Left Behind.)

If you plan to survive in teaching, however, you must divest yourself of this delusion or prepare for prolonged bouts of depression. You must try to save every child. That you must do. You must assume there is potential in every head and do everything in your power to tap it. But you must be ready for failure.

You are a teacher.

Not a magician.

When I first met Conan, near the end of my career, he had already been held back twice. In other words, he had a reputation for failure. A tall, thin kid, he favored Gothic clothing, and on first glance appeared to be the kind of character who might cause discipline problems. As it turned out, he rarely did homework and his test scores were low. But he was quick-witted and funny and had a maturity (partly based on age) that gave him the edge in discussion. I sensed he’d be a natural in skits and encouraged him to join a group preparing a presentation on Pilgrims and Indians.

The day of the skit when everyone else was ready, Conan insisted he needed more time. My heart sank. I thought he meant he hadn’t studied. No, he said, he needed time to dress. I sent him to the restroom. Five minutes passed. We sent a scout to find him. The scout returned.

No Conan.

I was starting to wonder if he might have skipped out the back when an old lady in a full-length black dress and white lace collar, gray hair pulled back in a bun, entered the room. Granny sported blue-tinted hippie glasses.

For the next forty minutes Granny was as good as anyone I ever saw in a skit. He (she?) knew why the Pilgrims went to Holland in 1609, before they came to America, and why they left, what weather was like when they arrived on these shores, and cackled as he explained. Sometimes he stumbled over answers, but only in character, as if memory was fading with age. He said he was shocked when the natives mooned the settlement. (That's a little know story involving the Pilgrims, not something we usually talk about on Thanksgiving Day.)

And he said it like he meant it.

Once he hiked his dress to show a little Pilgrim ankle and called out in my direction: “Hey, baby, give me a call!” His classmates were enthralled.

When the bell was about to ring we ended a minute early so I could tell everyone what a wonderful job they had done. I singled Conan out for praise. “How many think Conan deserves an ‘A+’?” Every hand went up and we awarded him a perfect score by acclamation.

It wasn't standardized learning, of course--and it didn't mean Conan's personal problems and troubles at home had suddenly evaporated.

Still, for one day, the young man had reason to feel proud.