Peacemaker Leymah Gbowee

This woman is amazing and makes me want to teach a class about peacemakers.

I had a professor in college who argued that women decide whether or not war is possible. He explained a theory, I'm not sure whose, that there are four types of women whose consent and collaboration are necessary for the prosecution of war: the faithful wife, the supportive mother, the prostitute away from home, and ____________________ (anyone know?).

Here is a case in which the faithful wife does not consent. Without her, the war effort cannot go on.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Leymah Gbowee
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Colbert: "Neutral Man's Burden"

A beautiful piece of social commentary:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Neutral Man's Burden
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Sol and Walter

My grandfather, my Zeide, Sol, drove a cab in New York City for a time after immigrating to the United States as a Holocaust survivor. He had some crazy stories, but one of the best was the time a man got in his cab and it turned out to be Walter Cronkite.

Zeide passed away in May. Maybe he's up there somewhere showing Walter Cronkite around one more time.

Pursuit of happiness

When the state of Minnesota told me I had to take two U.S. history classes to get my license here, I have to say I wasn't psyched. But I'm actually getting a lot out of being in history class 14 hours a week.

Recently we've been talking about the 1950s seeing an increase in the diagnosis of depression and prescription of antidepressants and tranquilizers. We talked about gender roles and how middle-class, college-educated women were expected to get all their satisfaction from staying at home, buying consumer goods, and raising children, while men were expected to derive satisfaction from bureaucratic jobs and being fathers.

Basically society was making them depressed because they didn't fit what they were told was supposed to make them happy.

I wonder how much of that is going on today. Why are so many of us depressed? What are we told will make us happy? And if that's a lie, what will truly make us happy?

Happy Independence Day!

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

According to David McCullough's John Adams, which I am slowly plowing through, Adams, who was a diary freak, wrote nothing on July 4 of that year. Jefferson wrote only about the temperature and a shopping trip to buy ladies' gloves. So there is reason to believe that nothing at all happened on July 4. Later in life, though, both Adams and Jefferson would swear up and down that it had all happened on the fourth. And, of course, they both died on the fourth, 1826, within hours of one another.

Milk musings

Some have argued that charter schools "skim the cream" of student populations because students have to apply to get in, rather than simply being geographically zoned in.

Our school tends to get students whom traditional schools have expelled and sent our way. So we're not starting out with the cream, if that exists.

At the same time, this year alone we "moved along" something like seven students, out of a total student body of 85, for offenses like repeated stealing, repeated bullying, and drug dealing. What are we left with: the students who don't steal, don't bully, and don't deal drugs. The cream.

You can argue that we are skimming the cream and leaving the chaff (am I mixing my metaphors?) for someone else to deal with - or worse. Of those who leave, most end up at online school (another charter) or district-run ALC's (Area Learning Centers). A few don't go back to school at all - they are dropouts.

But what are we supposed to do with someone who deals drugs, or repeatedly steals from or bullies other students after multiple disciplinary measures are tried? According to the NYC Department of Ed's discipline code, selling drugs is a Level 5 infraction (the highest it goes); bullying and persistent stealing are Level 4 infractions. We don't have a "Suspension Center" to send kids to.

I'm not defending these decisions. Just discussing.

Pig Out

In two years in Minneota I have not had a single snow day, but yesterday we all got sent home at 9:30 a.m. because of a suspected swine flu outbreak.  There was a sudden run on the nurse's office with high fevers and other H1N1 symptoms.  Half the school was already out sick, so they just decided to send everyone home.  However, when the sick kids went to the doctor and got tested, it turned out to be a regular non-swine virus.

In other pig news, Chris, the other School-of-Blogger, is in Austin, MN today interviewing workers in the pork industry about working conditions.  He's been down there before as part of a larger workers' rights project.  (Austin, I'll remind you, is where workers were contracting the weird neurological disorder after being exposed to aerosolized pig brains. There's also a great documentary about a union drive at the Austin Hormel plant.)

Stricter charter oversight in MN

As a charter school board member in Minnesota, I have to say, it's about time.  

According to a story in today's StarTrib,

Legislative changes affecting the special breed of public schools will increase oversight, close loopholes and clean up unclear language that had made it easier for some schools to get away with sloppy management or outright theft. Charter school sponsors will have stricter guidelines -- which could drive some away -- and the state will have more power to withhold taxpayer money or to shut down a school that breaks the law.

The minutes of our board meetings are public record, so I don't feel guilty about saying that I think we could use a lot more oversight, or at least training, in our financial decision-making. We don't have anything illegal going on like the charter school director who walked away with $1.4 million, but it just sort of feels like the blind leading the blind. Apparently our authorizer has barely come around to check on us except to make token yearly visits - that is until we got audited this year and the state had to get involved.

In New York this never would have happened, because the system is much more centralized.  There are only two charter authorizers in the state of New York, and their standards are very rigorous.  I've heard terrible stories about some of the many Minnesota charter authorizers.  

So apparently the state is putting pressure on authorizers: 

Some authorizers have gone "above and beyond the law" watching over the finances and operation of their charter schools, but others rarely even visit schools, said Chas Anderson, state Education Department deputy commissioner. "Without a strong authorizer, it's really hit or miss whether a charter school is going to be successful."

Now, all of a sudden, our authorizer has started to pay attention.

Mental Health Day, Redux

I had a comp day coming, so I decided to take it today when all the kids were busy testing.  How did I spend it?
1. Knitting
2.  Reading
3.  Going to the gym
4.  Sleeping
5.  Not grading.  

I am lucky to be at my current school in many ways.  The flexibility to call at 6:30 a.m. and tell my boss I'm not coming in is a big one. 

Hope springs ... not at all

Sigh.

I got two pieces of news today:

One: My co-worker, next-door neighbor, carpool buddy, and best friend in Minneapolis (other than my co-School-of-Blogger) got an offer at another school.  

Two: The job I'd applied for (at a similar type of school but likely without the racial issues I've been dealing with all year) is no longer available; that school is "sticking with their current staff" next year.

The sum of One plus Two is me not looking forward to next year very much.

A better way to merit pay

I've been catching up on my reading this weekend and saw two blog posts about merit pay, via This Week in Education.  

It's timely for me because my school is in the process of applying for a grant to start using Q-Comp, Minnesota's version of merit pay.  Governor Pawlenty is a huge fan and has made a pool of funds available, at a time when the state is cutting funding left and right to try to balance the budget.  

We need to balance our budget too -- we can't be squeamish about things like principles.

But actually, we've found a way to do merit pay that sort of fits with our mission.  Only 10% of the pay increase is tied to test scores, and that applies to all teachers, not to any teacher in particular - so it gives us an incentive to work together.  The rest is tied to projects that teachers come up with at the beginning of the year.

For example, as a social studies teacher my project might be to design and run a class that utilizes oral history.  I write up the proposal.  If I'm successful in my stated goals, I get the extra pay bump.  Q-Comp even provides some funds for materials for my project (such as tape recorders, etc.). 

Teachers at our school who experienced Q-Comp in traditional districts and hated it are excited about doing it this way.  It's cooperative rather than competitive.  I'll keep you posted on whether we get the funding.

If Only.

From The Onion:

Senior Prank Somehow Leaves High School With Increased Math Funding

MAY 21, 2009 | ISSUE 45•21

TEXARKANA, TX—A prank in which seniors at West Texarkana High arrived for first-period classes with their shirts and pants on backward has somehow resulted in a $50,000 increase in funding for the school's math program, bewildered administrators announced today. "We'd like to thank the state superintendent, I guess, and also the fine folks at Texas Instruments for all those brand-new graphing calculators," vice principal Ed Guerrero said during his morning announcements. "I'd send everyone home and make them change, but maybe we should wait and see whether our computer lab gets remodeled first." The incident comes on the heels of last year's district championship by the debate team, after which the school's football program mysteriously had its entire budget cut.

To the student who left me a prank voicemail wishing me a "cock-tastic" day ...

... and asking when that paper is due so he can be sure to shove it up my ass for me ...

I give you points for creativity. But by no means is that the most shocking prank voicemail I've gotten from a student.

Keep working at it!

Okay, let me have it.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confiscated a reporter's cell phone today when it went off during his briefing.  Then, a second reporter's phone went off, and the dude had the nerve to take the call and walk out of the room!  I would have definitely given him detention.

Video below, via the Washington Post.

Problem unsolving

Each year in May my school staff takes a week in May and reflect on what has gone well, what's not working, and what changes we can make for next year. We break into task forces to address the various changes we need to make. It's a really productive and exciting time.

This week one of the things I brought up as "not working" was our policy on stereotypes and harassment. Those of you who follow this blog know that our teachers are, shall we say, divided on the issue as what is acceptable in a public school. The "policy" our staff has been using so far when an issue comes up is either to ignore the situation, send the kid to me (because Julie's the one who cares about these things), or totally overreact by suspending kids without proper explanation of what they had done wrong.

The task force worked on it and came back with a written policy: Anything that's clearly harassment or stereotypical will be punished. Any "gray area" will be dealt with by the individual teacher who sees it.

That means that, for example, if a kid is wearing something like this * in one teacher's class and I find it inappropriate, I may ask him or her to take it off. However, no other teacher minds, that student may wear it in every other class. This policy absolves our administrators from having to be the bad guy.

*Which, by the way, apparently one of our TEACHERS wore one year for Halloween, complete with PAINTING HIS FACE BLACK.

What Not to Wear

This afternoon a student told me he wanted to nominate me for the TV show "What Not to Wear." I said I was game. When I asked why, he said "All you wear is brown. And your hair, it's just, blah."

Earlier in the day a kid told me I should buy a pair of really skinny jeans. Usually when kids comment on my appearance I tell them they can come to my house at 6 a.m. and pick out my outfit, do my hair, etc.

Precious moments #2

Me: Jeff's (the math teacher's) baby was born this morning - his name is Wesley!
Student 1: Like Wesley Snipes?
Student 2: Like Ron Wesley?
Student 3: Don't you mean Ron Weasley?
Student 4: I can't believe they named it Wesley! I am NOT calling that baby Wesley.

Precious moments

Student 1: [burps loudly]
Me: Wow!
Student 1: What, I'm not allowed to burp?
Me: No, it's a natural bodily function.
Student 1: Yeah, like when I heard you fart in your office the other day!
Student 2: Awkward!
Me: Everybody farts.
Rest of class: [breaking into chatter]
Me: Okay! Anyone who's talking in five seconds is going to have the teacher fart on them.

Budget talk in St. Paul

I've been thinking about state budget policy ever since my days working here in college, but it has taken on new meaning since I've joined a charter school board of directors! Now every 1, 2 or 3 percent has me reaching for the Pepcid.

The Minnesota House of Representatives has just passed a bill that would hold K-12 spending flat for the next two years. Minnesota Public Radio had a great segment that sums up most of the politicking: The Democrat-controlled House and Senate are trying to balance the budget by skimping on K-12 funds; the Senate bill, which passed a few weeks ago, included a 3% cut (HUGE).

Republican Governor Pawlenty is proposing a K-12 budget increase tied to school reform measures:

"If you look at the discussion around the country around school reform and accountability, adequate funding is important, I don't mean to diminish it," Pawlenty said. "But their bill is devoid of any meaningful reforms, either in the House or Senate, that would substantially, directly impact student learning."

Of course, it's questionable whether Pawlenty's reform measures - mostly merit pay - would actually "directly impact student learning."

At our school, we have budgeted for 0% increase or decrease from the state in the upcoming years. We are also considering enrolling in Q-Comp, the state's merit-pay system, which could get us an additional $20,000 next year.

Police State

Our school has been having issues lately with students using marijuana during field trips and selling prescription drugs on campus, so the administrators made a decision (bless their hearts!) to do something about it. This morning we were told that the K-9 unit would be coming in to search the school.

The officers came in with a big, goofy german shepherd who looked like he was probably a teenager himself in dog years. He was so excited about doing his job that he didn't have time to be graceful as he bounded up and down off of students' desks, sniffing for contraband. Every now and then they would have to plant a little baggie in a kid's binder just to keep the dog's hopes up. When he found it, he would just sit.



They found a couple of questionable items at the students' desks and some weed in a student's car. Meanwhile, many of the students saw this big dog and were afraid. Not to mention the fact that their stuff was not being treated gently. When we met as a school after the police left, one student asked if they would be getting an apology for the search experience. The response: No.

Later in the day I told the student that he had a right to feel angry.

Other People's Trash

For her senior project, one of my students coordinated a day of service for Earth Day that got the whole school out picking up trash at various locations. She did a great job and the students did awesome.

Best find - This shopping list:

Oil
Pam
Velveeta Cheese
Paper Plates
Frig Soda
Bread
Fiber 1

Peppermint Oil

Time (mis)management

Came home this weekend with an unprecedentedly huge stack of grading and somehow managed to avoid it all weekend. Ah well, that's what my morning prep is for.

I spent way too much time prepping for my Geography of World Conflict class, but I'm really psyched about teaching colonialism this week. We're going to read some Bartolome de las Casas.

More about financial literacy

My mom pointed me in the direction of Brainpop.com, a site that has videos on all sorts of topics for educators. This month they are focusing on financial literacy and asking teachers to post videos on their blogs. I am glad to oblige.

Break out

Even though it's Friday, it's my last day of spring break ... Tomorrow at 8 a.m. I'm picking up 6 students and spending the weekend with them at a youth conference. Nothing like spending the last weekend of spring break with your teacher!

But we're psyched - we get to meet Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and show off our service project: an attempt to start up a peer mediation program. The kids will get to meet some other committed teens and I will try desperately not to freak out about the fact that I have 2 new courses starting up on Monday that I haven't planned yet. (Geography of World Conflict and Debate)

When in the course of human events ...

Aaaaahhhhhh. Spring break.

I'm using the time to relax and reflect. And root around for possible job openings in other schools.

As I'm doing this, I'm thinking, "What would I say to my school leaders if I actually did decide to teach at another school next year? How would I explain my decision?" And I came up with a list, sort of a Declaration of Independence, of qualities I'm looking for in a school leader that my current ones lack.

Here it is - let me know what you think:

• I'm looking for strong leaders who will make it easy, not hard for me to be successful.
• I need leaders who won't take things personally. Right now we are so afraid of anything we say or do being taken personally, and of retribution, that we can't be effective. It's no longer about the kids.
• I want a leader who makes us feel good about our work, not someone who makes us feel like shit.
• I need someone who is able to make hard decisions as a leader and doesn't expect us to just figure things out.
• I need someone who supports us in front of the students.
• I need the leader to be seen as fair. Other schools also have restorative justice models of discipline, in which consequences are not always the same in every case, but unlike at our school, students see those systems as fair.
• I want a leader who leads by example - do as I do, not as I say.

This is why we don't use Wikipedia

I have a student working on a project on gay rights. The other day I was looking over one of his PowerPoint slides, which had to do with Ellen DeGeneres, and saw that he had written "Ellen DeGeneres is married to Ally McBeal."

It took us a while to sort that one out. Another student was with me at the time and said, "Is Ally McBeal even gay?"

I had to say, "Ally McBeal isn't even real!"

Siiiiggghhhh... Seriously though, I've been thinking and talking to other teachers recently about high expectations. And motivation. I've had a lot of crappy, crappy work recently. My plan is to not accept it - hand it back for no credit. What I haven't totally figured out is the relationship between expectations and motivation. Obviously I haven't motivated the students to do high quality work. How do I communicate that I expect better? And if I give them no credit, what does that do to their motivation for future projects?


Actually I read she's married to Elmo

Barbie's long, strange history

One of my favorite methods I learned at NYU was teaching history through material culture. My school has a lot of bodily-kinesthetic learners, so it helps them to be able to hold and examine objects to learn from them. (You should have heard what they came up with last week when I had them try to guess what one of these things was used for.)

Anyway I came across this recent video from Slate and thought it would be good for a material culture lesson:

Sick day

After holding out against most of the bugs that have passed through the school this year, I finally succumbed to a particularly nasty one and let Chris talk me into staying home today.

I got to watch some Tivo, read Harry Potter y el misterio del príncipe, and work on a baby blanket.

Best part about sick day on Wednesday - getting out of the staff meeting. :)

Now on to Women's History Month!

When things get overwhelming at school, I just tell myself I'm collecting fodder for my book about kids and race.

Last Friday we had our celebration for Black History Month. As the school’s only social studies teacher, I decided to form a “Black History Month” committee. A group of students volunteered and took on the task of putting together activities for the month, which took the form of an afternoon of discussions and games.

At the staff meeting prior to the event, one of the school leaders asked, "What are you going to do when students object?" She meant white students. I said the students had planned to lead a discussion around whether Black History Month is necessary, based on articles from The Root. But I had the feeling that the teachers were trying to manufacture a controversy.

Needless to say, the controversy reared its big teenage head. Some quotes:

"Why do we always have to focus on the negative parts of history and not the positive parts?"

"Black History Month just makes it seem more like black and white people are different."

"I can see why it used to be important, but racism isn't an issue anymore."

"Why can't we have a White History Month?"

The upside was that the whole school was talking about race for an hour and a half. The downside was that rather than learning about the often-overlooked part of African Americans in the narrative of U.S. history, we spent that time instead focusing once again on ideas we can't agree on rather than ones we can agree on.

The Procrastinator

This School of Blogger has an exam coming up on Wednesday! With blue books and everything! And instead of studying I am procrastinating.

How did I get into this pickle, you may ask?

I decided to teach social studies in Minnesota. Since moving here I have discovered I'm hardly the only one who has run into this problem. While most states will grant you a teaching license if you have been certified in another state, Minnesota does not have reciprocity with any other state. In addition, they are notorious for making it difficult for out of state teachers to get certified.

So when I applied for my license here, they told me I did not have enough undergraduate social studies credits to qualify. I have to take three intro-level history courses and one middle school pedagogy course.

I was pretty pissed at first but what cannot be cured must be endured. When life gives you lemons, etc etc. So I'm taking an American Indian Studies course right now and liking it pretty well.

Conversations with students part 1

One conversation with a student yesterday:

"I'm angry at Obama."

Why?

"Because he lied."

What do you mean?

"He said he was going to start bringing home the troops. But in a few weeks Brian* has to go back to Iraq for another year in a half."

*Brian is an ex-boyfriend who came back from his first tour with post-traumatic stress disorder. He couldn't do anything but sit in front of a TV and play video games night and day. But that didn't stop the U.S. government from sending him back to the front lines again - and again.

The Notebook goes live

Via This Week in Education:

Check out The Philadelphia Public School Notebook these days!

Hot!

Diversity training update

First of all I keep thinking of the episode on the Office where they have to go through diversity training because of Michael's blunders. That and Stephen Colbert. Particularly when my coworkers say "I just don't SEE color!" (Skip to minute 5:00 - basically word for word what I hear.)

So the cultural competency educator came back yesterday and had us go through actual scenarios from our school. One of the scenarios we went through was the chili pepper incident. (Second update here.) The Spanish teacher brought out the actual poster in question (with the chili pepper wearing the sombrero and mustache, saying "Ole!"). And, to my great vindication, the trainer confirmed that this is not a poster that we should have hanging up if our mission is to create an environment of respect for all cultures.

By the end of the morning, however, I still don't think that all of my coworkers agreed. Why should they, when half the staff and the students watch and love the incredibly offensive comedy of Jeff Dunham, which includes this exact same stereotype? If it's okay for a comedian to perform it and Comedy Central to air it, why wouldn't it be okay for staff and students to hang similar pictures in their work spaces?

The cultural competency educator was good, but she wasn't going to change people's deeply held beliefs about what "should" and "shouldn't" be offensive. That's frustrating to me because it means some people think it's okay to do things that could be hurtful to kids. And that means we're right back where we started before we spent $1000 on the training.

Be advised: I stalk your grocery lists

I don't know about you but I love reading other people's discarded grocery lists. One from today:

Smart Bud Light (I didn't know there was such a thing?)
Beef gravy
Turkey gravy (these people love gravy!)
cabbage
PUFFS
Potatoes
Bread 7 gr.
Sudafed

Don't get too comfortable

From the Star-Trib: Minnesota charter schools are in for a change

This is change I can believe in.

I can definitely see the difference from working with charters in NYC and working with charters here - going from a state with only a handful of charter authorizers to one with dozens, and little oversight of the overseers. Our school barely gets any oversight at all - which is why we're in the fix we are in right now. The article mentioned "shoddy fiscal management and conflicts of interest in school governance" ... I wondered if they were talking about us!

Some good changes:

• In Minnesota, changing the rules about sponsors is a key point. A 2008 legislative auditor's report said the state should increase the authority of charter school sponsors and require the state to approve them.
  
  
• Two state proposals deal with religion, Anderson said. One would bar a house of worship from sponsoring a charter school (none does now). Another would require charter schools to follow a state law that currently applies to district schools, which allows students to attend limited religious instruction but only if it's off campus.

Can you help?

In my humanities class, one of our trios is studying the 1930s and reading The Grapes of Wrath. As they make text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections, they can't help but compare the suffering of the 1930s to today. Many of my students' parents are getting laid off, losing their homes, losing their health insurance, losing their pensions. When they came across the word "apocalyptic" in reference to the economic disaster of the '30s, they really got it.

It's in this context that I'm teaching my Life Skills class. Yesterday I had a speaker, a financial planner, who talked to the kids about the cost of life after high school - buying a house, a car, etc. He told me beforehand that he expected that everyone would know at least one millionaire - but only one kid in the class did. I think he was a little taken aback by some of their questions. One student asked about the financial burden of having a child. The speaker said, "That's something you really need to think long and hard about before deciding to do," not knowing that this student's girlfriend had recently given birth to a daughter. Another student asked, "If my parents have tons of debt and they die, will it all get transferred to me?"

It's scary out there - especially for my kids. That's why I hope you can take a look at my proposal on DonorsChoose.org - I am asking for a camcorder to help us practice some financial literacy skills. Even if you can't spare $10 or $25 right now, it would be great if you could pass it along to friends or family members who care about schools or financial literacy.

Thank you!

This is too funny

From the NY Times. The whole article is worth reading. Especially if you have a high school sense of humor like me.

Inauguration Nation

Just finished watching the installment of the HBO John Adams series where both Washington and Adams are inaugurated. Two words: Dork Heaven. Not sure about the accuracy of the portrayal (haven't gotten to that part in the McCullough book yet), but in the series Washington is sworn in before masses of cheering patriots. Adams is sworn in before Congress, and gets his most rousing applause during his inaugural address when he praises Washington.

I read in a New Yorker article that Adams' inaugural address was both "indefinite" (a large percentage of the words in the address were "if") and "cumbrous" (the third to last sentence was over 700 words long).

Meanwhile, if that's not enough inaugural trivia for you, check out these "Quick 10 Facts" about Presidential inaugurations from Mental Floss. My favorite: Andrew Johnson was so drunk he couldn't speak clearly during his inauguration.

Can't wait ...

... to watch the inauguration with my kids on Tuesday during lunch.

What are YOU doing?

How we do it in Minnesota

Article in NY Times today about six of Minnesota's 30 charter schools created to serve specific immigrant communities.

I was definitely struck by this phenomenon when I was first thinking about moving here from New York. I visited several of the schools in the article and was offered a job at another one. This is markedly different from charters in NYC, which tend to center on unique teaching philosophies, despite the many different immigrant communities and strong tradition of advocacy.

I can see why parents feel it is needed though. We have a Liberian student who, his father told us, was being given his last chance at our school. After years of trouble at other schools (bad grades? discipline problems? who knows) the kid was told that if he didn't shape up here, he was being sent back to Liberia.

Weekend Voting Act Introduced

From Why Tuesday? Good news!

What Have You Wasted?

I started teaching my Life Skills class today. It's my favorite class to teach because I usually have mostly seniors and juniors, and the material tends to be more relevant and life-applicable than the material in my other classes. If only I could make history more like Life Skills! Gotta work on that.

Anyway, in honor of Life Skills here is a video from a website I recently came across called Spendster.org, where teens post videos of the outrageous things they've spent money on. It's an offshoot of the National Endowment for Financial Education, which publishes the (free and awesome) High School Financial Planning Program, which I also use in Life Skills.

Teaching with photos

Google has partnered with TIME magazine to provide an incredible primary source: the LIFE photo archive. I've just been sifting through it for one of my classes. Here is one of the more interesting finds:



In this picture a migrant worker from the 1950s Bracero program is meeting with union organizers.

Why?

From another New York Times article, this one reporting on the civilian casualties in Gaza:

... there were several children in another intensive care unit on Tuesday. Among them was Ismael Hamdan, 8, who had severe brain damage as well as two broken legs, according to a doctor there. Earlier that day, two of his sisters, Lama, 5, and Hayya, 12, were killed.

“I prepared them breakfast that day in the garden,” said their mother, Ayda, 36. “They had the tea, bread and thyme. Lama wanted a second pita, but we all teased her saying, ‘Keep it for lunch.’ She told us, ‘Don’t worry, God will provide us with bread.’

“She made all of us laugh,” the mother said. “I cleaned after them and collected the garbage. Ismael volunteered to dump the garbage, but Hayya and Lama joined him. The garbage can is in front of the house, a five-minute walk away. All of a sudden I heard the news from a neighbor, and I ran barefoot to the hospital. A relative collected the bodies of Lama and Hayya on a donkey cart.

“The neighbors ran trying to save Ismael, who was the only one breathing,” she said. “They say my kids flew 40 meters before hitting the ground.”

Ismael died Wednesday night.

It's my Judeo-centrism that calls my attention to the names of these kids; I have no idea what these names mean in Arabic or in the Islamic tradition. To Jews, Ismael, of course, was the son of Abraham who was exiled later to become the father of the Muslim people. Hayya with a hard "H" means "life" or "living being" in Hebrew. And "Lama" means "Why?"

Quagmire in Israel/Palestine

Happy new year, everyone. I have been doing a lot of thinking about Israel and Palestine lately. I tend to look at it from an Israeli perspective since I lived there between high school and college, but with sympathy for the Palestinians because of the human rights involved. Two NY Times pieces by writers/thinkers I admire have provided some food for thought.

This piece by historian Benny Morris explains how today's Israelis sort of feel backed into a corner, a familiar sense of being vulnerable from all sides.

This piece by the fabulous David Grossman gives a Gandhi-ish perspective on how Israel should proceed.

Not such a lame duck

NY Times video of Bush getting attacked by shoes here. Shows interesting footage of the perpetrator being "escorted" out of the room.

Here's the video with Bush's response. I gotta say - the man must still have great reflexes and reaction time to dodge both the shoes and the journalists' questions afterwards.

Fiddling

Going back to our racial sensitivity issue, something happened today that made me feel lucky we haven't had a fistfight already.

I noticed today that one student (a white student) had put up a sign at his workstation that said "I was abducted by aliens" and had a picture of someone being carried by people wearing sombreros. I mentioned it to another teacher who was going to ask him to take it down. Before the teacher got a chance, however, I came across another student (a Mexican-American student) who had taken down the sign, crossed out the word "aliens" and written "crackers." I took the sign away saying "neither this sign nor that word is appropriate at school."

Apparently later on in the meeting between the two students and our administrator, the white student made a convincing case that he really didn't understand what was so insensitive about the sign. The Mexican-American student said that at his old school he would have met the other kid after school and beat him up over something like that.

This is why we need some outside help - now. At least our administrators are on the same page (which is an improvement), but our students desperately need - and are asking for - education on how to live in a diverse society. I've given our school leaders many different names of people who specialize in coming into schools and teaching about diversity, but they have done nothing to move forward. What do I do now?

Perspective

Too tired to write a full post now, but I will say that I am gaining a new perspective since I've been elected a teacher representative on the board of our school. I always worked with charter school boards in my other jobs, but it's a different view from the other side of the table.

Competing values

Sometimes I get to see first hand how parents instill exactly the type of xenophobic "American" values in their children, the opposite of which we are trying to teach.

Basically, it's our competition for the kids' hearts and minds.

We are in the middle of college application season, and one college in particular calculates scholarships based on class rank. We do not usually calculate GPA or class rank, but we will do so if a student needs it. A student applying to this college had apparently been #2 as of the end of her junior year, but at the end of the first marking period this year, she dropped down to #3 - effectively disqualifying her from a large scholarship.

One of the students ahead of her is a foreign exchange student. I got a call this morning from the student's mother, very upset. She was ranting about how the exchange student shouldn't be included, my daughter has been worried and crying about this all night, and I'm sorry, but when I was in college there were all these foreigners that got a free ride, but I'm an American and I had to pay my whole way, and it's time for us Americans to get a break.

I calmly told her that I would have an administrator call her back. Glad I am not the bottom line on that one - what would I say?

Namesake

Via: Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

And:

Popularity of names starting with JULIE

Via: My sister, when she was pregnant with her now 1-year old, Lila

Big sigh

Two articles from the NY Times this week about New York teenagers who went out to attack a "Mexican" and ended up killing an Ecuadorian man.

It hits pretty close to home given what's been going on in my school this year. I don't think I wrote about what happened around Halloween, when one of our students came dressed up as a "Mexican," wearing a sombrero, a fake mustache, and some kind of rug, and the administration didn't have a problem with his costume. We have a few Latino kids in the school, we have first and second generation immigrants from all over the world, and we have a pretty substantial number of students who have said things like "illegal aliens should be executed at the border!"

The issue keeps coming up, and it is becoming more and more clear that it's something we need to deal with as a school. Our students come from families that have been hit hard by the economic downturn, and for a lot of them it is a very appealing narrative that "others" are to blame.

But the part that has been giving me the most ulcers is how other staff members have reacted. I've made my peace with the Spanish teacher who thinks there's nothing wrong with gross racial stereotypes - we have agreed to disagree on this point, but at least the students know we respect one another. The big problem is teachers - and ADMINISTRATORS - who have been pushing the problem onto me, because they don't want to be the bad guy.

These problems aren't going away. Just the other day a Latina kid ran out of my class crying after another student said "the Mexicans are taking our jobs!" There's only so much I can do alone, and the kids have stopped listening to me already. I think it's only a matter of time before something terrible happens like what happened in Long Island.

Thanks DreamBox!

This School of Blogger is just coming up for air after a week of getting grades in, so I finally had a chance to check the School of Blog email account, where I saw that we had been chosen as one of the top 8 education blogs by DreamBox. Thanks for the recognition and the nice write-up!

Why we must vote

From ASCD Inservice: Five Reasons Educators Must Vote.

I would take this a step further and say educators should consider other forms of participation. Voting is just one way to participate; you can also write letters to, or meet with, your elected officials, get involved in local issues you care about, or even run for local office. When your students see you doing these things, they get the message that participation is important, real, necessary, cool, something they might be able to do someday.

Forget that "don't wear political buttons" bullshit. Recently a Federal judge ruled in favor of New York City when it argued that "when a teacher wears a political button in the classroom, it creates an environment of intimidation and hostility toward students who do not share that view." Of course we need to make sure we are not creating that kind of environment in our classrooms. But we have the power to do that, buttons or not. Our politics are always going to make their way into the classroom, no matter how hard we try to stay "neutral." And even with our buttons, we can say, this is my personal view. Here are the other views. Here are the resources whereby you can make your OWN decisions.

I think we MUST wear our buttons. I plan to tell my students that I made 150 phone calls for Al Franken this weekend. But I know, and they know, that I have the kind of classroom where if they tell me they knocked on doors for Michelle Bachmann all weekend, they will get a big smile and an "awesome!" out of me.

Electoral college tool from Google

Paid for by Norm Colemonster?

I should show this to my students when we start talking about campaign advertisements and how they work:

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

"I Spend 3 1/2 Hours A Day Online"

My mom, a fourth grade teacher, passed along this video created by students about meeting them where they are. Really relevant for post-secondary educators, but also interesting for 9-12 teachers.

Historical archives from The Onion

The Onion has opened up its archives and reprinted its October 6, 1783 issue. Here is one of the more enlightening articles:

Can't wait ...

... for my reward in heaven.

PeaceJam!

Finally getting around to posting about the PeaceJam Global Call to Action Conference that 4 of my students + myself went to on Sept. 11-13 in Los Angeles.

It was AWESOME.

First of all, if you are not familiar with PeaceJam, check out their website -- it is a great organization, and an awesome thing for kids to be involved in. Nobel Peace Laureates work with youth on service learning projects, and there is an excellent curriculum for the adult educators to help the kids develop their projects.

In their written reflections after the conference, my students said the most memorable part for them was seeing how other teenagers have developed projects to meet needs in their own communities. There were kids there from all over the world doing awesome things, and getting so much love from peace activist superstars.

Two videos about The Machine

Kicking back.

Week 1 down. Already it has been SOOOOOOO much better than last year. And already I had a conflict with another teacher, and resolved it using our schoolwide restorative justice process, which I believe in deeply, and I am so happy that I can now say to kids "It works -- I know from personal experience."

Meanwhile, I am running out the door to school again, even though it's Saturday. ACT prep class waits for no man, woman, or anxious teenager!

p.s. Though I will never volunteer to do the schedule for the whole-school orientation again, I am glad that I scheduled in a schoolwide game of kickball.

Reality check

Have been having an experience at school that makes me feel sort of isolated and crazy. Meanwhile Chris has the RNC going on in the background which is sort of amplifying the effect.

Last year we had a few students who thought it was funny to draw pictures on the whiteboards of "Mexican" people wearing sombreros and mustaches, and in one case standing behind a barbed wire fence. When I would ask the kids to erase these pictures, and later write them up for it, I got very little support from the other staff members. They would say things like, "Well, personally I don't find it offensive, but if Julie does then we shouldn't have it in our school."

On Friday, I noticed that our Spanish teacher had hung up a poster outside her classroom with a drawing of a chili pepper wearing a sombrero and a mustache, saying "Ole!" Long story short, I am basically the only teacher in the school who finds this culturally insensitive. I am getting no back up from our school leaders, one of whom actually told the Spanish teacher not to take it down so that it could be used as a teaching tool.

What do I do? Am I crazy that this is insensitive and doesn't belong in a school?

The truth about cats and dogs

We have a new exchange student from Azerbaijan, which has gotten me into this blog from a teacher in that country.

Leigh has a really interesting recent post about how dogs and cats are viewed in Azerbaijan. Very different from how we view them (almost as children), and also quite different from what I observed in Bolivia, where nearly every household has at least one dog for guarding purposes. Dogs are also rarely spayed or neutered, so they have the same hordes of stray dogs roaming around as what Leigh is talking about.

Promises to keep

Sarah Vowell has a really nice homage to Ted Kennedy and the Democrats, the party of Pell Grants, in yesterday's NY Times. I particularly enjoyed her interpretation of Obama's vision of the "promise" of the U.S.:

Picture this: a wind-powered public school classroom of 19 multiracial 8-year-olds reading above grade level and answering the questions of their engaging, inspirational teacher before going home to a cancer-free (or in remission) parent or parents who have to work only eight hours a day in a country at war solely with the people who make war on us, where maybe Exxon Mobil can settle for, oh, $8 billion in quarterly profits instead of $11 billion, and the federal government’s point man for Biblical natural disasters is someone who knows more about emergency management than how to put on a horse show.

The second year

... already I can tell is going to be so much better than the first year.

School of Bolivia

Hello from La Paz, the world's highest capital. The School of Bloggers have been in Cochabamba, Bolivia for a couple of weeks (following two weeks in and around Guadalajara, Mexico, where Chris's sister got married), and are now in La Paz for a little bit of business and mostly pleasure.

Now on to the interesting stuff: Bolivia has been in a familiar state of discontent recently in the weeks leading up to a referendum on the country's first indigenous president, Evo Morales. In the past week or so there have been a lot of road blocks, protests, and strikes over the pension system.

In the Cochabamba department, the urban and rural teachers' unions have been on strike for about a week now. All of the strike days will be made up at the end of the school year, like snow days, but that hasn't prevented government officials from making nasty statements that sound all too familiar. A representative from the Department of Education said something the other day like, "We ask that the teachers have a little more respect for their students."

Hmm. Just like in the U.S., if teachers think about their own livelihoods, they are being selfish.

Anyway, we are having a great time, and I will post another update when I can.

Love it or fix it

I don't often click on web ads, but today I did and came across GOOD Magazine. I was particularly excited about their slogan "Love it or fix it."

I have a lot of students who have a "Love it or leave it" attitude when it comes to being critical of the U.S. I'm excited about having a catchy new blurb to use as a teaching tool this fall.

The Gap

As an SAT prep instructor for several years, and now as a high school career advisor, I have always made it a point to encourage any kid who will listen to take a year off after graduating high school to do something totally random before continuing down their career path.

It seems like the editors of the New York Times are of the same mind. Every now and then they'll publish a story about students who take a "gap year" in Ghana before going on to Princeton or Yale to study nanotechnology or microfinance.

I'm being snarky, but I really do believe that taking a year off before college was the best thing I ever did for my post-secondary education and my career. My instant best friend in college (and still one of my closest friends) had taken a year off to live in France. We were both just a little more mature, and a little more ready to get on with the whole college thing.

When I bring up The Gap to parents, they typically look at me like I'm crazy. But once I explain the benefits -- that you're likely to get more out of college when you're more mature, that it gives you another year to save for college, that you can apply for college now and defer your admission -- they tend to warm up to the idea.

History repeating

Is it me, or does this initiative to reduce the amount of time IT workers spend on unnecessary (work-related) emails seem a bit ... Taylorish?

Testing testing

I'd be really interested in seeing the Georgia statewide middle school social studies test that was so hard, 70 to 80 percent of students failed, and the state had to throw out the results. (Via ASCD Inservice)

What was so hard about the test? I'm curious. Not just because I'm a social studies teacher, but also because I grew up in Georgia and took plenty of standardized tests there.

Meanwhile, Georgia's lucky that they can throw out social studies scores, since social studies tests are not mandated by NCLB (yet), but they have also "questioned the validity" of the math tests, which are required. What do you do about that in the NCLB era?

Should have, would have, etc.

The last day of school was on Friday, which was also D-Day. Slate.com has a great series of photos from that time period that I wish I could have used for my contemporary U.S. history class. Sigh.

So I'm done with my first year. All of my seniors were able to walk at graduation, though some will be attending summer school before they can get their diplomas. My grades are entered, and I've taken the college posters down from the career office so they can paint the walls. I've sent reams of paper to the recycling bin. I even had time to sign a few yearbooks.

Now all I can do is reflect on what happened in 07-08, and what I can do differently in 08-09. I feel like as a social studies teacher, I should be scurrying around trying to plan curriculum to take advantage of this historic presidential election year.

But ... that can wait a day or two, can't it?

"Well you give HIM some trouble."

The Department of Ed is now giving my school trouble about the fact that I don't have my Minnesota license. The reason I don't have my license is that the Department of Ed wouldn't give it to me. So it goes ...

I still get emails on my NYU account about social studies job openings at all of these wonderful New York City schools, including both schools where I student taught, for which I would be perfectly licensed and certified. I don't know why I even bother opening those emails.

Meanwhile I'm working on proving that I am qualified to teach social studies in Minnesota. Luckily my school is supporting me throughout this process. But what happens if the state comes down on my school with more than just a slap on the wrist? With their budget they can't afford to keep someone on staff who legally can't teach, and they wouldn't risk having to pay fines or lose funding over it.

Students being historians

My contemporary U.S. history students today conducted their oral history interviews. Two groups went to the senior apartment complex next door and came back really excited about the people they'd interviewed, one of whom was a soldier during World War II under General Patton. The Cold War group interviewed one of our school leaders, who told them about being a child in Iowa when Khrushchev made the "We will bury you" speech from an Iowa cornfield.

We'll see tomorrow how much they got out of it. This oral history project has been a huge challenge and a huge learning experience for me ... hopefully the kids have learned a thing or too as well.

UPDATE: Obviously I meant to write a thing or two. And obviously I have been hanging out with teenagers and reading their writing too, too much. They presented their interview data today -- pretty interesting! More in a post to come.

Summer, summer. I love the summer.

Hard to believe I'm coming up on the last week of my first year of teaching. I have a lot of mixed, confused feelings about it all. But most of all I'm ready for a good long break. The School of Bloggers are making travel arrangements for a trip to Guadalajara for Chris's sister's wedding, then on to Bolivia for the rest of the summer. We'll be there long enough to see the Urkupiña festival in mid-August, then get back just in time for staff development before school starts again!

Graduation's on Monday. I think I'll breathe a huge sigh of relief to see my seniors walking across that stage.

Fashion police

One of my students said to me today, "Do you even think about your outfits before you put them on?" I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Like on Friday, you were wearing these khaki-ish pants, a green shirt, and a blue sweater. It just really didn't work."

I invited her to come to my house every day at 6 a.m. and be my personal wardrobe adviser.

Seriously though, it's amazing what kids notice.

I had another couple of students -- seniors -- in my office today talking to me about an issue they were having with another teacher. Right before they had to leave to go to class, they looked at each other conspiratorially and asked, "This may be a personal question, but are you okay? We have noticed that you've been sort of sad recently."

I was touched that they had noticed and that they'd said asked about it. It's nice to have little reminders every now and then of why I keep chugging along.

Chug chug chug

Minnesota's giving me a hard time with my teaching license. It's a pain but apparently it's something of an unofficial policy: making it hard for out of state teachers to get certified in Minnesota. The line they're drawing in the sand for me is the fact that my undergraduate major was Urban Studies and not history, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science or geography.

Oh well, just keep on chugging. This week the kids in my contemporary U.S. history class will write their interview questions for their oral history project, and hopefully we'll have two guest speakers: a student's great uncle who was a scout in World War II, and a member of the Minnesota Eight.

Why did Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?

To make up for a horribly depressing spring. Last week we had our staff development week in which we started planning for next year. There was something so energizing about taking a break from thinking about all of my "failures" from this year and starting over, learning from my mistakes.

One of my many hats is as the advisor for the senior projects, which the seniors have been working on all year. The students will be presenting these this week, so I'm excited and nervous to see how they will turn out.

Funny

Uncle Globey & Friends | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Not quite this bad, but close

Economic Stimulus Check Burned For Warmth

HELENA, MT—Saying the extra bit of kindling material couldn't have come at a better time, 43-year-old school teacher Tim Donaldson received his...

The dumps, and being down in them

The other day in my reading and writing lab we went over subject/verb agreement, and then as an informal assessment of the students' understanding I asked them to write a little story in which they played around with the S/V rule by using it both correctly and incorrectly. When I was grading them this morning I saw that one student had written this:

This IS such a boring class. July [sic] IS just about the worst teacher in the school.

I don't know if it's just first-year-teacher syndrome, or if it's just me. But if today hadn't been a professional development day I probably would have gone home sick at that point and never come back.

Zombie Prom

My usual Friday Night Syndrome is being too exhausted after a week of teaching to move very far from the couch. Tonight, however, I am finishing up my job as prom coordinator. A job I will NEVER DO AGAIN.

Puppets

The NY Times has a great expose today about how the Pentagon controlled TV news analysis of the Iraq war by using retired military officers with ties to government contractors:

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

I'd love to use this somehow in a critical thinking skills lesson. Any ideas?

On a similar note, I want to do a lesson tomorrow where kids learn how to think critically about textbooks -- who writes textbooks and why, what biases they might have, etc. One of the essential questions in my Contemporary U.S. history class is "is there one 'true' version of history?" And a lot of kids have been saying, "sure, the version that's in the textbook." So I want to disabuse them of that notion.

Has anyone done a lesson like this before?


A few more years of the Bush administration and we'd all be studying this ...

Ladies' Night

Chris is off in Boston presenting a paper at the American Association of Geographers conference, so this weekend it's just me, myself, and an APARTMENT FULL OF LADYBUGS.


Massage circle

Ladybug exoskeleton shards on my sheets

My apartment is infested with ladybugs.

It is not the cutest infestation ever.

Apparently this is:

Proud

Yesterday I had so many occasions to be proud of my students. Wish I'd told them at the time, but I will tell them today.

Where's Chris Rock when you need him ...

I was just perusing the unsolicited emails I've gotten recently at theschoolofblog AT gmail DOT com, and one in particular stood out: an advertisement for a character ed program marketed toward homeschoolers. The spokesperson for this program is a little being named Cracker the Crab.

Something tells me that there weren't too many kids in the homeschool focus group who knew the other meaning of the crab's name.

NY Times: "U.S. to Require States to Use a Single School Dropout Formula"

Boring as it may sound, this is actually really good news (and it's about time). As someone who's had to deal with a lot of graduation and dropout data, I know there are a lot of schools and families who are going to benefit from this.

From the article: The requirement would be one of the most far-reaching regulatory actions taken by any education secretary, experts said, because it would affect the official statistics issued by all 50 states and each of the nation’s 14,000 public high schools.

Margaret Spellings: Much Better than Rod Paige.

Spring break

It's finally sinking in that it is, in fact, spring break. Yeehaw.

The teacher becomes the student

I went snowboarding for the first time today! I didn't break anything personally, but we had three casualties among the students. The kids inducted me as a "real Minnesotan" now that I have participated in winter activities. (Even though I spent much of the day on my buttocks.)

Not what I looked like today

Wednesday morning blahs

These kinds of news articles always annoy me because they perpetuate the idea that there is only one kind of "history" and one kind of "literature." That there's this "common core" (hence the organization's name) of knowledge that students must have in order to be well-educated.

Grr.

My little minions

Today in Life Skills class I had my students do my taxes. I gave them copies of my W2's (with certain bits of info redacted, of course) and the 1040EZ worksheet, and had jolly ranchers ready for the first ones who did it correctly.

One student said, "Isn't this something you PAY people to do for you?" Another said "You know that feeling you get when you're going to the dentist? I'm getting that feeling now, doing your taxes."

Turns out I'm going to be getting a $440 refund.


p.s. Filling out tax forms is part of the standard for personal and family resource management ...

Heads up

Not sure how many of you this applies to, but I work in a school where the computers are on a network, and students are using the computers ALL THE TIME.

We discovered yesterday that a few of our, shall we say, more creative students have downloaded a program that will allow them to access desktops of other people on the network. They use the program to do things like turn on their iTunes at full blast right when a teacher walks by, perform inappropriate web image searches, and delete each others' files.

The real problem was when they started doing it to teachers' computers, which contain confidential student information.

So. FYI.

Funny

When it's time to change ...

Here's some historical perspective on the buzzword of the moment: