Stress, strESS, STRESS!!! We rarely heard this word when I was a kid more than half a century ago. Now, however, it seems to be a plague upon modern society and its snake oil cures are exceeded only by those for weight loss.
When I think of stress relief, I think of my childhood and Jim Maconya’s cow. We lived in Roslyn, Washington, a little coal mining town in the foothills of the Cascade mountain range populated with Eastern European immigrants, Czechs and Slovaks, who worked the mines. Those of you who remember the TV series “Northern Exposure” are familiar with the town as the program was filmed there, though it was called Sicily, Alaska.
Our house sat high on a hillside on the very edge of town. Out the back door, across the alley and we were in a fragrant pine forest. Jim Maconya and his family lived next door. The only two things I remember about Jim are that he had a daughter named Lucy, and a cow I’ll call Bessie.
As best I recall, Bessie was a petite, brown Jersey. (Probably not, but I prefer petite and Jersey.) Jim kept Bessie in some kind of old shed in his back yard, maybe a garage or a coal shed. Since our houses were in town, she stayed in the shed all day, while Jim worked at the mine.
When Jim came home late afternoons, he took Bessie off to the woods for a couple of hours of grazing on the wild grasses. She had a bell around her neck so Jim could relax, stretched out under a tree on cushy pine needles. As long as he could hear Bessie’s bell, all was well.
When Bessie was full and Jim’s stress had pretty much dissipated for the day, he took her back to the shed, fed her a scoop of grain, and milked her. He squirted any residual stress into the milk pail and then went to the house for supper. Jim got rid of stress, the family got milk, and when there was any left over, they sold it to us for a little extra cash: fabulous, rich with cream, straight from the cow, never been pasteurized, raw milk. Soooo good!!
I suppose we all can see where the stress went. I sometimes think of getting a cow of my own. But hey, I live in Jonesboro with a small back yard. Also, I think there is some kind of ordinance against keeping farm animals in town. Besides, who’s going to care for her while I’m roaming about, camping and trout fishing? It’s hard enough to find a kid who will mow a lawn anymore, let alone one who will or can milk a cow twice a day.
We’ve got to think this through a bit further. Was the cow really the heart of the matter, or was there something else? I don’t think it was the cow so much as the ritual of caring for the cow. For two hours everyday, Jim was separated from his stressors. He could have just sat under a tree, but he would have been thought lazy. By turning his sitting under a tree into a chore, it was okay.
Fishing and hunting serve the same purpose. Go sit on the riverbank for an hour or two everyday and you’re lazy. Put a fishing pole in your hands and you’re a sportsman. Sit in the sun every day and you're lazy, but plant, weed, and water and you’re a gardener.
These all become simple rituals, opportunities for our minds to go blank. They give us an excuse to divorce ourselves from the stressful realities of life. There are many more such activities. One of my favorite, until recently, was motorcycle maintenance. Certain things have to be done on a motorcycle over and over again. I turned them into a ritual. My mind could go blank; I would go through the motion, divorced from the stresses of life.
All these stress reducers are ours for the taking, free of charge, if we don’t mess them up with our modern technology. When Jim and his cow went to the woods, they went alone, just Jim, the cow and Jim’s private thoughts. No cell phone, no handheld computer, and no Ipod (they hadn’t yet been invented). I have seen fellows standing in the middle of a stream, trout fishing, and talking on a cell phone. I hope I never become so important that I can’t just leave my cell phone in the car or at home when trout fishing. Why contaminate the ritual by taking a stressor with you?
Because I have so many fond, early memories of milking cows (It’s how I made my spending money as a teenager.), I favor Jim’s ritual, but I know it could never work for me. I’ll be happy with a fishing pole. You are free to join me or to find a ritual of your own.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sometimes the Teacher Wins - personal essay
Kids love stories which pit students against teachers and the kids win. But, once in a while, the teacher has to win, and it is not hard to do when it involves the jocks.
I arrived at school early one April Fool’s day at Grubbs public school. It was my first year of teaching. I also drove a school bus and wanted to get my classroom ready before leaving on my route.
As I grabbed my classroom door knob in the dimly lit hallway, I felt something gooey and sticky on my hands. It was a grease of some kind. (As it turned out, this was also my introduction to Icy Hot, a minty smelling balm used by athletes on their sore muscles.) A quick check up and down the hall disclosed the same greasy stuff on all the door knobs except one: the weight room door where the ball players worked out.
I wiped the slippery mess off all the door knobs with some old rags and then rushed to the bus garage, got some thick, yucky axle grease and slathered it all over the barbell bar resting on the lifting bench in the weight room.
As the jocks arrived at school that morning, they did not get any reaction from the teachers, and so they begin to ask them if they had found anything on their door knobs that morning. Since they had not, the teachers were puzzled by the question. I alone had any idea what had gone on.
However, when the jocks went to the weight room and grabbed their barbell bar, they discovered they had been the biggest fools of all. This was one April Fool’s day where the teacher scored and the jocks “got schooled” as my students would say.
I arrived at school early one April Fool’s day at Grubbs public school. It was my first year of teaching. I also drove a school bus and wanted to get my classroom ready before leaving on my route.
As I grabbed my classroom door knob in the dimly lit hallway, I felt something gooey and sticky on my hands. It was a grease of some kind. (As it turned out, this was also my introduction to Icy Hot, a minty smelling balm used by athletes on their sore muscles.) A quick check up and down the hall disclosed the same greasy stuff on all the door knobs except one: the weight room door where the ball players worked out.
I wiped the slippery mess off all the door knobs with some old rags and then rushed to the bus garage, got some thick, yucky axle grease and slathered it all over the barbell bar resting on the lifting bench in the weight room.
As the jocks arrived at school that morning, they did not get any reaction from the teachers, and so they begin to ask them if they had found anything on their door knobs that morning. Since they had not, the teachers were puzzled by the question. I alone had any idea what had gone on.
However, when the jocks went to the weight room and grabbed their barbell bar, they discovered they had been the biggest fools of all. This was one April Fool’s day where the teacher scored and the jocks “got schooled” as my students would say.
My Lucky Day - commentry
I swear it was my lucky day. An article in the Nov. 7, issue of the New York Times, reporting on research published in the American Medical Association Journal says being overweight extends my mortality. Of course this is contrary to everything we’ve been told for the past many years, but it is enough to keep me from ever going on a diet again. Do you ever wonder whose research to believe? I do too. It doesn’t just happen in health issues, it also happens in education.
"The Great Tech Worker Divide," an article in the October 10, issue of Business Week reports that people like Bill Gates are lobbying congress to pass immigration laws to make it easier to import foreign scientists and engineers to fill a shortage in this country. Yet an article that appeared in the October 26 issue of Business Week, "The Science Education Myth," claims our colleges are turning out a surplus of scientists and engineers, that we have more than enough students enrolled in science, math, and engineering courses, and that our secondary students are out performing those from most other countries in the world. Sounds a bit contrary to what you’ve been hearing, doesn’t it?
Statistics, like a picture, freeze a subject in time. That picture of yourself that you don't like is just a representation of you for 1/125th of a second. Had it been snapped a second earlier or later, it would have been a different picture. The same thing happens with statistics. While a statistic freezes reality, time rapidly moves on. Meanwhile, bureaucracies which respond to problems disclosed by the statistics move excruciatingly slow. By the time a huge bureaucracy responds, reality has changed and the response is often all wrong. Do you remember the panic in the 1970's over the supposed teacher shortage? The government put a massive program in place and by the time it got rolling, all it accomplished was to produce a huge surplus of teachers with dozens applying for every available job. In many districts, the only way you could get a teaching job was to substitute for two or three years first.
Consider also that what researchers choose to plug into a statistic can alter the nature of a problem. For example, we had been told for years that test scores are declining. Because of this, we have spent billions trying to boost them and have succeeded to a very modest extent. However, I think researchers are analyzing the wrong data. What I want to know is whether there has been a decline over the years in the test scores of the top 30 to 40 per cent of those tested. If so, then we have a problem. The reality is that we only need so many doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, and other professionals.
As late as the 1950's, we were only educating about half of our young people much beyond the eighth grade. Now, we try to leave no child behind through grade 12, so it is not surprising that the average test score has declined. And, it is not that I want to ignore the bottom 25 or 30 per cent; it’s just that I wonder why we insist that they get an academic education.
If some researcher will answer the question about the test scores of the top 30 or 40 per cent, please let me know. Until then, let's look at some of the conclusions of Urban Institute's Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell in the afore mentioned article, "The Science and Education Myth."
The article talks about separate incidences in which both Bill Gates and President Bush stated the U.S. is falling behind in knowledge workers and we need to encourage more students to enroll in math and science courses.
Salzman and Lowell found the reverse to be true. They found both the number of students taking math and science courses and the number of units taken per student has increased steadily since 1982. They also found increases in math and science scores in the SAT and the ACT over the past two decades.
"...the report found that the U.S. is one of only a few nations that has consistently shown improvement over time," the article said.
"There isn't a problem with the capability of American children....Science and engineering graduates just don't see enough opportunity in these professions to continue further study or to take employment."
The article also states, "Proposals to increase the supply of scientists and engineers rapidly, without any objective evidence of comparably rapid growth in attractive career opportunities for such professionals, might actually be doing harm." As with the teachers, it would create a surplus and drive wages down. Some in the high tech industries believe that is actually what people like Gates are trying to do by lobbying for less restrictive immigration for scientists and engineers.
Well, I guess my question about how things are going with our top tier students has been answered. So, who benefits from all the negativity that gets thrown at us constantly? Remember, education is a $500 billion business and as long as it appears to be failing, those who profit from it can insist on our government spending even more. Serious problems need solutions and solutions need money.
"The Great Tech Worker Divide," an article in the October 10, issue of Business Week reports that people like Bill Gates are lobbying congress to pass immigration laws to make it easier to import foreign scientists and engineers to fill a shortage in this country. Yet an article that appeared in the October 26 issue of Business Week, "The Science Education Myth," claims our colleges are turning out a surplus of scientists and engineers, that we have more than enough students enrolled in science, math, and engineering courses, and that our secondary students are out performing those from most other countries in the world. Sounds a bit contrary to what you’ve been hearing, doesn’t it?
Statistics, like a picture, freeze a subject in time. That picture of yourself that you don't like is just a representation of you for 1/125th of a second. Had it been snapped a second earlier or later, it would have been a different picture. The same thing happens with statistics. While a statistic freezes reality, time rapidly moves on. Meanwhile, bureaucracies which respond to problems disclosed by the statistics move excruciatingly slow. By the time a huge bureaucracy responds, reality has changed and the response is often all wrong. Do you remember the panic in the 1970's over the supposed teacher shortage? The government put a massive program in place and by the time it got rolling, all it accomplished was to produce a huge surplus of teachers with dozens applying for every available job. In many districts, the only way you could get a teaching job was to substitute for two or three years first.
Consider also that what researchers choose to plug into a statistic can alter the nature of a problem. For example, we had been told for years that test scores are declining. Because of this, we have spent billions trying to boost them and have succeeded to a very modest extent. However, I think researchers are analyzing the wrong data. What I want to know is whether there has been a decline over the years in the test scores of the top 30 to 40 per cent of those tested. If so, then we have a problem. The reality is that we only need so many doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, and other professionals.
As late as the 1950's, we were only educating about half of our young people much beyond the eighth grade. Now, we try to leave no child behind through grade 12, so it is not surprising that the average test score has declined. And, it is not that I want to ignore the bottom 25 or 30 per cent; it’s just that I wonder why we insist that they get an academic education.
If some researcher will answer the question about the test scores of the top 30 or 40 per cent, please let me know. Until then, let's look at some of the conclusions of Urban Institute's Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell in the afore mentioned article, "The Science and Education Myth."
The article talks about separate incidences in which both Bill Gates and President Bush stated the U.S. is falling behind in knowledge workers and we need to encourage more students to enroll in math and science courses.
Salzman and Lowell found the reverse to be true. They found both the number of students taking math and science courses and the number of units taken per student has increased steadily since 1982. They also found increases in math and science scores in the SAT and the ACT over the past two decades.
"...the report found that the U.S. is one of only a few nations that has consistently shown improvement over time," the article said.
"There isn't a problem with the capability of American children....Science and engineering graduates just don't see enough opportunity in these professions to continue further study or to take employment."
The article also states, "Proposals to increase the supply of scientists and engineers rapidly, without any objective evidence of comparably rapid growth in attractive career opportunities for such professionals, might actually be doing harm." As with the teachers, it would create a surplus and drive wages down. Some in the high tech industries believe that is actually what people like Gates are trying to do by lobbying for less restrictive immigration for scientists and engineers.
Well, I guess my question about how things are going with our top tier students has been answered. So, who benefits from all the negativity that gets thrown at us constantly? Remember, education is a $500 billion business and as long as it appears to be failing, those who profit from it can insist on our government spending even more. Serious problems need solutions and solutions need money.
Valorization of the Trades - commentary
Persistent problems require radical solutions and public education has proven to be a persistent problem. So, let’s look at some radical solutions.
Camille Paglia, libertarian feminist and college professor, in a recent Salon.com essay, says "I call for a valorization of the trades and for national investment in vocational schools to help salvage the disaster zone of urban public education."
We glorify a college education, mostly through economic comparisons: college graduates make X amount of money more than high school graduates. Why not compile statistics in other ways? Let's compare the incomes of skilled steel workers or pipeline welders against incomes of mediocre liberal arts graduates.
Why not compare life in an office cubicle against the open air work place of an oil field well driller? Whose life is most interesting, the worker who built the building or the paper shuffler who occupies it?
It is time to recognize trades for the grand opportunities they afford young people and make preparation for them on par with college preparation. A high school principal once told me that he did a study of his students and found that only thirty per cent of the students in the school went to college and only thirteen per cent completed a degree. Yet, ninety percent of the budget is spent on the thirteen percent. His school is not unique, yet the standard response is to try and persuade more students to go to college rather than fund preparation for the trades. Those who make such decisions need to read again Walt Whitman’s poem "I Hear America Singing." A career in the trades is every bit as glamorous as being a college educated, expendable part of some multinational corporation.
Professor Edward G. Rozycki, Ed.D, of Widener University, argues for another radical solution: do away with grades eleven and twelve. He suggests those two grades are kept for social and cultural reasons rather than any academic need, things like the prom, the graduation walk, or a fourth year of football. He says, "Let's just stop pretending that the senior year in high school is all that important for the education of all seniors."
Rozycki says the GED test is based on a tenth grade level and that it is good enough to get you into most colleges. So, why not chop off those two grades and spend the money saved to upgrade the education in the first ten?
My contention is that the most important work of the educator is done in the first eight or nine years anyway. If a good job is done and the student can read, write, and cipher, he can pursue an education with or without a good teacher.
Rozycki also says we should drop any notion of "fullest potential," because we have no idea what it means and even if someone created a definition, you'd never get political agreement on it. "We cannot guarantee success with every child, no matter how imploringly that child's parents beseech us, no matter how ominously that child's parents threaten us."
A prestigious panel calling itself the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce calls for similar action. They want to see a rigorous test given at the end of the tenth grade. Those who pass it leave high school at that point. The only students remaining after that would be those taking remediation so they can pass the test or those involved in challenging academic study so as to get in the elite universities.
In 1997, Leon Botstein, then president of Bard College, in his book Jefferson’s Children, proposed we do away with high school, kind of. He says we should start school a year earlier, say at four years instead of five and end it at age sixteen. After that he says young people should be moved into learning environments more appropriate to their individual interests and life goals.
He says our attempt to educate all children, those who are ready for serious academics and those who are not, creates a serious problem starting in the mid-teens: “The behavior of sixteen-year-olds is influenced by that of other sixteen-year-olds as perceived through popular fashion and trends…. In terms of educational performance, this translates into a powerful dynamic within the high school. The best are influenced by the weakest.”
As to college, he says, “…if a young person comes to college at age eighteen without a serious love of reading, without a reasonable comfort level with mathematics, and without a basic concept of science or history, it is usually too late to fix all this.”
Most students have decided by their tenth grade year whether they are scholars, and even if they have not, their performance speaks for them.
We know that most people are not going to go to college. Also, most people only have so many years they will devote to school of any kind. When we force these kids to spend all those years in academic classes rather than providing vocational training, we condemn them to lower end service industry jobs instead of better paying technical jobs or the trades.
And then there is a seldom mentioned aspect about keeping students around for two or three years after they are through learning: it demoralizes teachers. When you daily face students who have no interest, you too lose interest. We often refer to it as teacher burnout. All too often, when teachers burn out, they don't quit their jobs, they just quit being the best they can be. Interested students keep teachers sharp and both do better.
Camille Paglia, libertarian feminist and college professor, in a recent Salon.com essay, says "I call for a valorization of the trades and for national investment in vocational schools to help salvage the disaster zone of urban public education."
We glorify a college education, mostly through economic comparisons: college graduates make X amount of money more than high school graduates. Why not compile statistics in other ways? Let's compare the incomes of skilled steel workers or pipeline welders against incomes of mediocre liberal arts graduates.
Why not compare life in an office cubicle against the open air work place of an oil field well driller? Whose life is most interesting, the worker who built the building or the paper shuffler who occupies it?
It is time to recognize trades for the grand opportunities they afford young people and make preparation for them on par with college preparation. A high school principal once told me that he did a study of his students and found that only thirty per cent of the students in the school went to college and only thirteen per cent completed a degree. Yet, ninety percent of the budget is spent on the thirteen percent. His school is not unique, yet the standard response is to try and persuade more students to go to college rather than fund preparation for the trades. Those who make such decisions need to read again Walt Whitman’s poem "I Hear America Singing." A career in the trades is every bit as glamorous as being a college educated, expendable part of some multinational corporation.
Professor Edward G. Rozycki, Ed.D, of Widener University, argues for another radical solution: do away with grades eleven and twelve. He suggests those two grades are kept for social and cultural reasons rather than any academic need, things like the prom, the graduation walk, or a fourth year of football. He says, "Let's just stop pretending that the senior year in high school is all that important for the education of all seniors."
Rozycki says the GED test is based on a tenth grade level and that it is good enough to get you into most colleges. So, why not chop off those two grades and spend the money saved to upgrade the education in the first ten?
My contention is that the most important work of the educator is done in the first eight or nine years anyway. If a good job is done and the student can read, write, and cipher, he can pursue an education with or without a good teacher.
Rozycki also says we should drop any notion of "fullest potential," because we have no idea what it means and even if someone created a definition, you'd never get political agreement on it. "We cannot guarantee success with every child, no matter how imploringly that child's parents beseech us, no matter how ominously that child's parents threaten us."
A prestigious panel calling itself the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce calls for similar action. They want to see a rigorous test given at the end of the tenth grade. Those who pass it leave high school at that point. The only students remaining after that would be those taking remediation so they can pass the test or those involved in challenging academic study so as to get in the elite universities.
In 1997, Leon Botstein, then president of Bard College, in his book Jefferson’s Children, proposed we do away with high school, kind of. He says we should start school a year earlier, say at four years instead of five and end it at age sixteen. After that he says young people should be moved into learning environments more appropriate to their individual interests and life goals.
He says our attempt to educate all children, those who are ready for serious academics and those who are not, creates a serious problem starting in the mid-teens: “The behavior of sixteen-year-olds is influenced by that of other sixteen-year-olds as perceived through popular fashion and trends…. In terms of educational performance, this translates into a powerful dynamic within the high school. The best are influenced by the weakest.”
As to college, he says, “…if a young person comes to college at age eighteen without a serious love of reading, without a reasonable comfort level with mathematics, and without a basic concept of science or history, it is usually too late to fix all this.”
Most students have decided by their tenth grade year whether they are scholars, and even if they have not, their performance speaks for them.
We know that most people are not going to go to college. Also, most people only have so many years they will devote to school of any kind. When we force these kids to spend all those years in academic classes rather than providing vocational training, we condemn them to lower end service industry jobs instead of better paying technical jobs or the trades.
And then there is a seldom mentioned aspect about keeping students around for two or three years after they are through learning: it demoralizes teachers. When you daily face students who have no interest, you too lose interest. We often refer to it as teacher burnout. All too often, when teachers burn out, they don't quit their jobs, they just quit being the best they can be. Interested students keep teachers sharp and both do better.
Reading is Fundamental - commentary
Futurists tell us children today are preparing for jobs that don't yet exist. So how do we prepare our kids for something we know nothing about? We do it by emphasizing skills that are transferable from job to job. Among those skills, reading tops the list. Reading is fundamental, or could we say fun(damental), yet it amazes me how many kids want no part of it. If you are a parent, you would do well to insure that your child reads well and enjoys it. One of my "aha" moments as a young man was that given the right book, I could do anything, whether it was building a boat or figuring the time value of money.
Arkansas is spending millions of dollars on programs to make readers out of our kids. One of the most exciting programs I was privileged to attend was Literacy Lab taught by Ken Stamatis, professor at Harding University. It is a pleasure when I get to substitute for a teacher who has been literacy lab trained. But it is difficult for schools alone to make readers out of kids. They need help from the home.
When children don’t like to read, you can usually trace the problem to the home. Parents, to begin with it is hard to make readers of kids if they never see you read books for pleasure. Fathers, your children need to see you read, especially your sons. It is very difficult to get boys to read because their male role models seldom sit down and read for pleasure. I'm not talking about magazines or professional journals. I'm talking about what the kids call "chapter books" for pleasure reading. (Kids' first books are short and are not divided into chapters. A sign of progress or a badge of honor is when they are reading chapter books.) If you are already a reader or when you become one, the next step is to read to your kids. They will love it and so will you. Dads, if you need some help go to Guysread.com. Moms and dads, you will find help at Scholastic.com.
If you have not yet discovered the books being written for young people, you are in for a real treat. I think the number of books written for our kids and then made into movies underscores that statement: Holes, Hoot, When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, Bridge Over Terabithia, Charlotte's Webb, Harry Potter, Fellowship of the Ring, Summer of the Monkeys, and others. Many of the books will not only appeal to your kids, they will hook you as well. If your kids think they are too old to be read to, then read the same books they are reading and discuss them.
There are some things good readers do naturally that you can help your young readers do as you discuss what you are reading. Good readers visualize; they see pictures in their heads. Remember, a good writer is an artist who uses words to create images. Help your young reader see pictures. Tell him what you see and what the writer said to help you see it. Get them to tell you what they see.
Good readers make connections. There are three basic types. One type of connection is a text to self connection where the reader sees something in the story that reminds him of a personal experience. A second type of connection is a text to text connection. This is when something in your book reminds you of something you have read in another book or something you have seen in a movie or on TV, or something you have heard in a song. A third type of connection is a text to world connection. This is when something in your book connects with something you know about in the world at large.
Good readers also make predictions as they read along. They try to figure out where the story is going and how things are going to work out. Stop at appropriate places and ask your child what he thinks is going to happen and tell him what you think might happen.
With this background you now have things to discuss. Ask your student what they're reading this week. If they say “nothing,” have a suggestion ready, something you have read and enjoyed. If they are reading something, ask what kind of pictures they see, what the setting looks like, or what they imagine the characters look like. Ask them what kind of connections they are making or what they predict is going to happen. All of these things improve comprehension and make real readers out of children.
Remember, reading is a learned skill and like other learned skills, you get better at it the more you do it. One of the reasons kids don't like to read is because they are not very good at it. One of the reasons they are not very good at it is because they don't do it. When students would tell me they didn’t like to read because they weren’t very good at it, I would ask how they got good at shooting free throws or hitting home runs. I asked if they told the coach they were not going to shoot at the basket anymore because they were not very good at it and didn’t like to do it. Parents need to help them break this cycle and encourage them until they get good at it. Reading is one of those skills that will transfer to any job, even those that do not yet exist. Students who don't like to read, who won't read, or who are not very good at it are drastically limiting their future. Any job worth taking is going to require good reading skills.
Arkansas is spending millions of dollars on programs to make readers out of our kids. One of the most exciting programs I was privileged to attend was Literacy Lab taught by Ken Stamatis, professor at Harding University. It is a pleasure when I get to substitute for a teacher who has been literacy lab trained. But it is difficult for schools alone to make readers out of kids. They need help from the home.
When children don’t like to read, you can usually trace the problem to the home. Parents, to begin with it is hard to make readers of kids if they never see you read books for pleasure. Fathers, your children need to see you read, especially your sons. It is very difficult to get boys to read because their male role models seldom sit down and read for pleasure. I'm not talking about magazines or professional journals. I'm talking about what the kids call "chapter books" for pleasure reading. (Kids' first books are short and are not divided into chapters. A sign of progress or a badge of honor is when they are reading chapter books.) If you are already a reader or when you become one, the next step is to read to your kids. They will love it and so will you. Dads, if you need some help go to Guysread.com. Moms and dads, you will find help at Scholastic.com.
If you have not yet discovered the books being written for young people, you are in for a real treat. I think the number of books written for our kids and then made into movies underscores that statement: Holes, Hoot, When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, Bridge Over Terabithia, Charlotte's Webb, Harry Potter, Fellowship of the Ring, Summer of the Monkeys, and others. Many of the books will not only appeal to your kids, they will hook you as well. If your kids think they are too old to be read to, then read the same books they are reading and discuss them.
There are some things good readers do naturally that you can help your young readers do as you discuss what you are reading. Good readers visualize; they see pictures in their heads. Remember, a good writer is an artist who uses words to create images. Help your young reader see pictures. Tell him what you see and what the writer said to help you see it. Get them to tell you what they see.
Good readers make connections. There are three basic types. One type of connection is a text to self connection where the reader sees something in the story that reminds him of a personal experience. A second type of connection is a text to text connection. This is when something in your book reminds you of something you have read in another book or something you have seen in a movie or on TV, or something you have heard in a song. A third type of connection is a text to world connection. This is when something in your book connects with something you know about in the world at large.
Good readers also make predictions as they read along. They try to figure out where the story is going and how things are going to work out. Stop at appropriate places and ask your child what he thinks is going to happen and tell him what you think might happen.
With this background you now have things to discuss. Ask your student what they're reading this week. If they say “nothing,” have a suggestion ready, something you have read and enjoyed. If they are reading something, ask what kind of pictures they see, what the setting looks like, or what they imagine the characters look like. Ask them what kind of connections they are making or what they predict is going to happen. All of these things improve comprehension and make real readers out of children.
Remember, reading is a learned skill and like other learned skills, you get better at it the more you do it. One of the reasons kids don't like to read is because they are not very good at it. One of the reasons they are not very good at it is because they don't do it. When students would tell me they didn’t like to read because they weren’t very good at it, I would ask how they got good at shooting free throws or hitting home runs. I asked if they told the coach they were not going to shoot at the basket anymore because they were not very good at it and didn’t like to do it. Parents need to help them break this cycle and encourage them until they get good at it. Reading is one of those skills that will transfer to any job, even those that do not yet exist. Students who don't like to read, who won't read, or who are not very good at it are drastically limiting their future. Any job worth taking is going to require good reading skills.
Myth of the Drop Out - commentary
The year was 1968; I wrote a column for the Coeur d’ Alene Press in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, concerning the high school drop out rate which was at 25 per cent. Forty years later I read in the Jonesboro Sun that, “One in four children is still dropping out of high school.” Forty years of campaign promises, forty years of increased education budgets, forty years of making education more interesting, more exciting and more fun, the creation of a federal Department of Education and the introduction of technology at a cost of billions and we haven’t put a dent in the problem.
Maybe it is time to drop the myth of the high school drop out which goes something like this: High school drop outs make $271,000 less than high school graduates over a lifetime therefore we must do everything possible to keep kids in school. The success or failure of each student after high school has little to do with a diploma; you have to look somewhere else.
To begin with, the statistic used is the wrong one. Averaged in with the high school graduates are the college graduates, any millionaires, and the billionaires who have a high school diploma.
Here is the way I want to see the statistic averaged: what is the life time income of those with a C average or less verses those who make a B average or more. We expend a lot of effort cajoling at risk students to stay in school. The would be drop out hangs around to practically be given D's and C's just to get them through. But, I think the statistic done my way would show that it makes little difference that they were awarded a diploma.
The success or failure of the high school drop out will depend on why he did it. I think you will find a constellation of problems around the average drop out that leads to his dropping out. It might be drugs, anger management, authority issues, unstable home situation, lack of self discipline, laziness, or any number of others. If these problems are dealt with constructively, the drop out will find a place in the working world and do fine. If these issues are not dealt with, the mere acquisition of a diploma will not mean a thing.
There is also the myth of the high school diploma; because I have one, I'm on my way to success. The value of the high school diploma rests on the honest answer to the question, what is behind my diploma?
I had several students argue with me recently that just getting the diploma was all that mattered. It didn't really make any difference whether they had learned anything. When my son was processing to take his GED, he was reading an article while in the waiting room. He reported that the author, an employer, stated that all other things being equal, he would hire a person with a GED diploma over a regular high school diploma. Why? Because, the author said, you were guaranteed the GED applicant had to have proven a certain knowledge base.
Recently I was lucky enough to get to attend a workshop in Monticello put on by the forestry industry. Part of the workshop included trips to a logging site and to a saw mill. It had been more than 40 years since I had been on a logging site or in a saw mill.
Now, Instead of a half dozen or more men on the logging site, there were only two with two high tech machines. In the saw mill there also were few workers and lots of automation. When I asked the tour guide about the need for a high school diploma to work in the mill or the woods, he said, “even if they have a high school diploma, we're going to test them to see what they know before we hire them.” It is not the diploma that matters, it is what is behind it. Again, the absence or presence of a high school diploma, or even a college degree is no indicator of success.
Do you want to succeed? Forget about diplomas and concentrate on actually learning something. Learn to get up in the morning and get to where you are suppose to be on time. Learn to be responsible and dependable. Learn to be on the job when your employer expects you to be there, and make yourself so valuable to your employer that he cannot afford to let you go. Commit to being a life time learner, whether a diploma is involved or not. These are the important things. But, to continue to spend billions to cajole kids into staying in school when they don’t want to be there appears to be a waste of money.
Maybe it is time to drop the myth of the high school drop out which goes something like this: High school drop outs make $271,000 less than high school graduates over a lifetime therefore we must do everything possible to keep kids in school. The success or failure of each student after high school has little to do with a diploma; you have to look somewhere else.
To begin with, the statistic used is the wrong one. Averaged in with the high school graduates are the college graduates, any millionaires, and the billionaires who have a high school diploma.
Here is the way I want to see the statistic averaged: what is the life time income of those with a C average or less verses those who make a B average or more. We expend a lot of effort cajoling at risk students to stay in school. The would be drop out hangs around to practically be given D's and C's just to get them through. But, I think the statistic done my way would show that it makes little difference that they were awarded a diploma.
The success or failure of the high school drop out will depend on why he did it. I think you will find a constellation of problems around the average drop out that leads to his dropping out. It might be drugs, anger management, authority issues, unstable home situation, lack of self discipline, laziness, or any number of others. If these problems are dealt with constructively, the drop out will find a place in the working world and do fine. If these issues are not dealt with, the mere acquisition of a diploma will not mean a thing.
There is also the myth of the high school diploma; because I have one, I'm on my way to success. The value of the high school diploma rests on the honest answer to the question, what is behind my diploma?
I had several students argue with me recently that just getting the diploma was all that mattered. It didn't really make any difference whether they had learned anything. When my son was processing to take his GED, he was reading an article while in the waiting room. He reported that the author, an employer, stated that all other things being equal, he would hire a person with a GED diploma over a regular high school diploma. Why? Because, the author said, you were guaranteed the GED applicant had to have proven a certain knowledge base.
Recently I was lucky enough to get to attend a workshop in Monticello put on by the forestry industry. Part of the workshop included trips to a logging site and to a saw mill. It had been more than 40 years since I had been on a logging site or in a saw mill.
Now, Instead of a half dozen or more men on the logging site, there were only two with two high tech machines. In the saw mill there also were few workers and lots of automation. When I asked the tour guide about the need for a high school diploma to work in the mill or the woods, he said, “even if they have a high school diploma, we're going to test them to see what they know before we hire them.” It is not the diploma that matters, it is what is behind it. Again, the absence or presence of a high school diploma, or even a college degree is no indicator of success.
Do you want to succeed? Forget about diplomas and concentrate on actually learning something. Learn to get up in the morning and get to where you are suppose to be on time. Learn to be responsible and dependable. Learn to be on the job when your employer expects you to be there, and make yourself so valuable to your employer that he cannot afford to let you go. Commit to being a life time learner, whether a diploma is involved or not. These are the important things. But, to continue to spend billions to cajole kids into staying in school when they don’t want to be there appears to be a waste of money.
Military Public Schools - commentary
The next two sentences should be read in a shouting voice. "Hup, two, three, four! Hup, two, three, four! Platoon halt! Report!"
"First platoon all present or accounted for, sir."
Is this the way the school day will begin for your child in the future? As I write this, five public schools in Chicago are now operated by the military and a sixth one will open in '09. When this happens, Chicago will be the only city in the United States to have at least one school operated by each branch of the military.
Students attend these academies by choice and according to a Nov. 2, Associate Press report, 7,500 students applied for the 500 freshman vacancies this school year. The students have to enroll in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. This means uniforms, inspections, drills and lessons in military history. These are college prep academies with an emphasis on leadership training, discipline and character-building.
The academies are built in the poorer parts of the city with large minority populations. Statistics show attendance rate at 94 per cent compared to 84 per cent for neighboring schools. One academy, created out of one of the lowest-performing schools in Chicago, saw graduation rates climb from 55 to 71 per cent in 2006. So far test results have been mixed.
However, when the Brits, who are having education woes similar to ours, sent some observers over here to look at possible solutions, they didn't come to observe our public military academies. They came to observe what some call "extreme education: 10 hour days, parental contracts and zero tolerance behavior policies in small, 200 pupil academies," according to The Guardian, a British newspaper.
The schools they visited are Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools. KIPP schools are small public charter schools being sponsored by the KIPP Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These schools, built in some of the most impoverished areas of our inner cities, boast of 100 per cent college acceptance, test scores to match private schools and students who play classical music like their uptown neighbors.
The KIPP school principal in Newark, America's second poorest city, told The Guardian, "We have established a school culture which is very distinct from the attitude they walk in the door with. It's a college-bound culture."
If you want your child to go to one of these schools you will have to enter into a three way contract between the principal, you, and your child, each of you agreeing to carry your weight. If your student doesn't have his/her homework in by 8 a.m., you will be called and a meeting set up. Miss the meeting and your child will be sent home and not allowed to return until you show up. Students are tested every six weeks and the school motto is "No Excuses."
Who goes to these schools? The Newark school is 85 per cent African American and 90 per cent of them get free school meals.
What do the critics of these two approaches have to say? Some say the military schools are just recruiting tools for the military and should not be allowed. I guess they figure it is better for kids to be poorly educated and spend a life in poverty than run the risk that a few of them might actually want a career in the military.
The small school movement has been accused of "undoing decades of progressive education," according to The Guardian. This puzzles me. From what I have been reading in the news for at least the last four decades, American education has been in trouble. How could a successful experiment set back progress when there seems to have been so little of it? Those who make such an argument must have some agenda other than just educating our youth.
It is my philosophy that persistent problems need radical solutions. These academies work for several reasons. They work because young people need structure, especially if internal discipline was not established in the home. They work because accountability is required from all participants, the parents, the students, and the teachers. They work because they are small. This is a topic I will address in another column, but I am a believer in small schools.
However, the most significant reason they work is because all the students are there by choice. The unmotivated and the disruptive students are not welcome. These schools demonstrate there are just as many bright kids in the poor areas as in the middle and upper class areas and they will learn if they can go to decent schools populated by others who also want to be there.
We will know in time whether either of these experiments will become widespread. The military approach can certainly provide some much needed discipline, but we are not a militaristic people. I doubt that it will succeed much beyond a few inner city neighborhoods. The KIPP program requires a tremendous amount of energy on the part of the faculty, the kind of energy that resides mostly in young idealists. For this reason, it too is a self limiting reform.
However, maybe we can learn from these experiments about the benefits that come with offering choice and with spending our energy on students who want to learn.
"First platoon all present or accounted for, sir."
Is this the way the school day will begin for your child in the future? As I write this, five public schools in Chicago are now operated by the military and a sixth one will open in '09. When this happens, Chicago will be the only city in the United States to have at least one school operated by each branch of the military.
Students attend these academies by choice and according to a Nov. 2, Associate Press report, 7,500 students applied for the 500 freshman vacancies this school year. The students have to enroll in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. This means uniforms, inspections, drills and lessons in military history. These are college prep academies with an emphasis on leadership training, discipline and character-building.
The academies are built in the poorer parts of the city with large minority populations. Statistics show attendance rate at 94 per cent compared to 84 per cent for neighboring schools. One academy, created out of one of the lowest-performing schools in Chicago, saw graduation rates climb from 55 to 71 per cent in 2006. So far test results have been mixed.
However, when the Brits, who are having education woes similar to ours, sent some observers over here to look at possible solutions, they didn't come to observe our public military academies. They came to observe what some call "extreme education: 10 hour days, parental contracts and zero tolerance behavior policies in small, 200 pupil academies," according to The Guardian, a British newspaper.
The schools they visited are Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools. KIPP schools are small public charter schools being sponsored by the KIPP Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These schools, built in some of the most impoverished areas of our inner cities, boast of 100 per cent college acceptance, test scores to match private schools and students who play classical music like their uptown neighbors.
The KIPP school principal in Newark, America's second poorest city, told The Guardian, "We have established a school culture which is very distinct from the attitude they walk in the door with. It's a college-bound culture."
If you want your child to go to one of these schools you will have to enter into a three way contract between the principal, you, and your child, each of you agreeing to carry your weight. If your student doesn't have his/her homework in by 8 a.m., you will be called and a meeting set up. Miss the meeting and your child will be sent home and not allowed to return until you show up. Students are tested every six weeks and the school motto is "No Excuses."
Who goes to these schools? The Newark school is 85 per cent African American and 90 per cent of them get free school meals.
What do the critics of these two approaches have to say? Some say the military schools are just recruiting tools for the military and should not be allowed. I guess they figure it is better for kids to be poorly educated and spend a life in poverty than run the risk that a few of them might actually want a career in the military.
The small school movement has been accused of "undoing decades of progressive education," according to The Guardian. This puzzles me. From what I have been reading in the news for at least the last four decades, American education has been in trouble. How could a successful experiment set back progress when there seems to have been so little of it? Those who make such an argument must have some agenda other than just educating our youth.
It is my philosophy that persistent problems need radical solutions. These academies work for several reasons. They work because young people need structure, especially if internal discipline was not established in the home. They work because accountability is required from all participants, the parents, the students, and the teachers. They work because they are small. This is a topic I will address in another column, but I am a believer in small schools.
However, the most significant reason they work is because all the students are there by choice. The unmotivated and the disruptive students are not welcome. These schools demonstrate there are just as many bright kids in the poor areas as in the middle and upper class areas and they will learn if they can go to decent schools populated by others who also want to be there.
We will know in time whether either of these experiments will become widespread. The military approach can certainly provide some much needed discipline, but we are not a militaristic people. I doubt that it will succeed much beyond a few inner city neighborhoods. The KIPP program requires a tremendous amount of energy on the part of the faculty, the kind of energy that resides mostly in young idealists. For this reason, it too is a self limiting reform.
However, maybe we can learn from these experiments about the benefits that come with offering choice and with spending our energy on students who want to learn.
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