The Catalytic Triad

Eduwonk!

2010-08-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

*UPDATED 9/28/10: additional entries added*

**UPDATED 12/5/10: I've decided to make this post my official Eduwonk link page, so I will continue to update this with relevant links to all debates I've encountered**

Exciting debates ensue on Eduwonk. I've probably posted there this summer more than I've ever posted here, so I'll just go ahead and link to the notable debates and "debates" (in order, oldest first):

7/24/09: Education’s Moon Shot Or Race To The Annenberg? (standardized tests, ed schools)
8/7/09: If the Race to the Top were the Olympics... (Teach For America)
8/17/09: Do teacher need education degrees? (ed schools)
8/25/09: Reinventing Ed Courses 1: What courses? (ed schools)
8/29/09: Help Wanted (testing)
10/19/09: More DC (Rhee and DCPS)
10/29/09: Mad Members (irony)

1/22/10: Brown Out ("teacher bashing")
1/29/10: Stiff Cup of Joe ("teacher bashing", professional development)
1/30/10: LA Confidential ("teacher bashing")
2/2/10: Say Anything? ("teaching to the test")
3/9/10: Randi V. Rhee ("teacher bashing")
4/17/10: Cardinal Sin? ("teaching to the test")
7/26/10: Teach For America And The Problem Of Study Laundering (Teach For America)
8/5/10: Unmasking the “Blame the Teacher” Crowd ("teacher bashing", professional development)
8/6/10: DC-CAS Test Scores and Rhee (Rhee and DCPS)
8/10/10: KIPP and Catholic Schools (KIPP, charter schools, white supremacy!)
8/18/10: If Irony Were Bread... (unions)
8/19/10: LA Confidential? (standardized testing)
8/25/10: Good Reading – Now With More Polls! ("student bashing", Daily Howler)
8/27/10: Whole Lotta News! (Rhee and DCPS, reform)
8/30/10: Adding Value? (Rhee and DCPS, value added, Teach For America, UTeach)
9/7/10: Expecting What Never Was And Never Will Be? (Rhee and DCPS, racism!)
9/8/10: Five Ideas, And A DC Round-up (Rhee and DCPS, evaluations)
9/15/10: Eduimplications! (Rhee and DCPS, "teacher bashing", value added)
9/16/10: Rhee-Assessing (Rhee and DCPS, evaluations, unions, Teach For America, teacher prep)
9/23/10: The Value In Value Added (value added, evaluations, testing)
9/27/10: Candor ("teacher bashing")
10/7/10: Superman Is Here? I'm Not So Sure... (Rhee and DCPS)
10/8/10: Clipper Joint? (evaluations, "teacher bashing")
10/12/10: Show Them The Money (charter schools)
10/15/10: Two Sides Of The Dep’t Ed “Labor Summit” (unions, Rhee and DCPS)
10/21/10: Irony Alert (unions, evaluations, value added, "teacher bashing")
10/29/10: No! It's The Wrong Teacher Voice! (unions)
11/2/10: Good Reading (evaluations, value added, Rhee and DCPS, "teacher bashing")
11/9/10: Less of X... (standardized testing)
11/11/10: Paint It Black (NY schools)
11/17/10: A Clinic (accountability, reform)
11/17/10: Adding Value (value added, evaluations)
11/22/10: Chattering Confusion (charter schools, accountability, "teaching to the test")
11/24/10: Not Wired! (Valerie Strauss)
11/30/10: Dropping In On Dropouts (evaluations, accountability, "teacher bashing", reform)
12/4/10: More Teacher Voice (accountability, "teacher bashing", Stephanie Salter)
12/6/10: Rhee Invented! (Rhee and DCPS, GAO Report)
12/10/10: The Second Conversation (reform)
12/15/10: First Out On Seniority? (value added)
12/22/10: They’re Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs! Plus An Edujob (common core standards)

1/6/11: 11 for 2011 (reform, Stephanie Salter)
1/7/11: State Of Play (DCPS, reform)
1/10/11: Housekeeping (Joel Klein, pensions)
1/10/11: *Except For Them! Plus, What's Next? (reform, testing, international comparisons, achievement gaps, Robert J. Samuelson)
1/22/11: Tastes Great But Is It Less Filling? (Rhee and DCPS, GAO Report, reform)
1/26/11: In The Game... (Teach For America)
1/27/11: Too Good To Check, Part Deux! (WaPo, NCLB)
2/2/11: And More Live From Copley – Fairlawn Prison (Williams-Bolar, reform)
2/7/11: Double Option? (Teach For America, Valerie Strauss)
2/9/11: More Copley – Fairlawn Prison (Williams-Bolar, reform)
2/10/11: Why They Fight (Teach For America)
2/11/11: No Value-Added (Rhee, GAO Report, UMBC Report, WaPo)
2/23/11: Bears and Bulls (reform, accountability)
2/25/11: More LIFOsuction (value added, evaluations, seniority)
3/18/11: Must-Reads (reform, accountability, value added, DCPS, Rhee)
4/1/11: LIFO (Teach For America, merit pay, tenure)
4/4/11: Still Going... (KIPP, reform, accountability, school effects, peer effects)
4/14/11: The Big Lesson Of The Cathie Black Debacle? (Billionaires!)
4/22/11: Weekend Reading (Reform, motivation, Teach For America)
5/6/11: Appreciation ("teacher bashing", accountability, value added)
5/9/11: Political Maze (reform, teacher quality, poverty)
5/13/11: Duncan Dodges Cold Iron Shackles And A Ball And Chain? (Billionaires!)
5/17/11: Over Regulated? (charter schools)
5/26/11: STEM, Roots, And Strategy (STEM, teacher prep, alternative routes into teaching)
5/31/11: Good Reads (Jay Mathews, honors, expectations, student ability
6/6/11: Square This Circle (evaluations, observations, value added)
6/10/11: New TFA #s (Teach For America)
6/24/11: OK, I'll Bite! (Joel Kline, The Answer Sheet, education "debates")
6/30/11: Let's Be Careful Out There... (education "debates", "teacher bashing")
7/1/11: Clips ("teacher bashing")
7/5/11: A New Generation of Ed Reformers: What’s the Big Idea? (NYC, DCPS)
7/26/11: If dogs became kings And the Pope chewed gum (reform, accountability, policy wishlists)
7/29/11: Going Corporate (Corporations!)
8/11/11: This Week’s TIME School Of Thought: The Renegade Upstarts (reform, unions, poverty)
8/30/11: Common Sense Last (Rhee, union-supported attack website)
9/1/11: Is The Pig F**ked? (tenure reform)
11/2/11: Ignoring Red Herrings (name calling!)
11/3/11: Second Response From Diane Ravitch (accountability, tenure, poverty, testing is racist!)
11/10/11: Too Much? Too Little? Just Right? Our Goldilocks Problem On Teacher Pay (teacher pay, reform, corporations)
11/11/11: CMOs – Are We There Yet? Guest Post By Lake & Hill (CMOs, charters, peer effects)
11/17/11: Occupy The Schools (poverty, achievement gaps, IQ and genetics, The Bell Curve, in-school factors, motivation, TFA, charters, peer effects, "teacher bashing")
11/28/11: Carey on Ravitch (amazingly astute policy proposals)
12/2/11: Edujobs (It's not a conspiracy but...)
12/21/11: Class Matters, Plus Nutmeg Action Just In Time For The Holidays! (Jaime Escalante, AP Calculus, achievement gaps, IQ and cognitive differences)
12/27/11: Resident Knowledge? (Boston Teacher Residency, STEP at UMASS, SATs, achievement gaps, IQ and cognitive differences)

1/6/12: Good Teachers Matter (value added, impacts of good teachers, poverty and policy, education reform, false dilemmas, Michael Winerip, sockpuppets)
1/19/12: Teacher Choice! (teacher quality, value added, peer effects)

Hello

2010-06-16T01:53:00.000-07:00

Several months later, I've not forgotten about this blog, and do come back to past essays on certain fact-finding missions. I just don't write much anymore, which one expects ought to be the primary motivation for an author to return. I've been firmly entrenched in graduate serfdom, and just recently finished my coursework and chosen a lab to subsist in/on for the next few years. This impromptu blog post may fool the reader into thinking that the posting frequency herein may well increase, but that likely shan't be the case.

I recently retook an online personality test I took 2.5 years ago, back when I was a relatively new teacher, to see how I've changed after 1.5 more years of teaching and a year of graduate school. These most recent results and comparisons between the older data set are outlined below:

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Mystical	\|\|	10%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|	20%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Conflictseeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%

Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Dependency	\|\|	10%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|	20%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Peter pancomplex	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Histrionic	\|\|	10%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Artistic	\|\|	10%
Hedonism	\|\|	10%
Physicalfitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Religious	\|\|	10%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Indie	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

Data Analysis:

Strong Growth (up +50%): Conflict Seeking (54)

Growth (up +20%): Intellectual (27), Materialism (37), Work Ethic (20)

Decline (down +20%): Mystical (33), Hedonism (46), Dependency (33), Histrionic (20), Vanity (40)

Strong Decline (down +50%): Narcissism (53)

Results:

After the last few years in the crossfire of students and research, I've not surprisingly become more confident with how I work with others and in addressing conflict, as contentious issues are common territory in the edu and science worlds. Also, I've steadily increased my work ethic and spend solid chunks of the day now by reading, all in anticipation of future, more lucrative, science careers. Perhaps a growing interest in material wealth is just a sign of adulthood, where I want (and need) to consider money more frequently, but I think it also stems from the fact that I went from a teaching career that paid alright, to grad school, and this downward trend must cease immediately before I start having to pay my next employer.

My declining traits are interesting, too. I've grown more in touch with my logical side, settled down quite a bit, and have become increasingly introverted. This is likely a product of both my environment and my nature, which emphasizes that grad school has been a good fit so far. There's much to be done individually in this setting as it was for teaching, and so an increased reliance on my own skills is necessary.

While this was only a 126-question survey, the analysis is somewhat enlightening, and at the very least entertaining.

BrainPOP and H1N1 Video Clip

2009-10-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

BrainPOP, an educational resource providing animated content, lesson plans, and much more to help educators engage students (and whose motto of "The more you know, the more you know!" always cracks me up for some reason), is offering schools two weeks of complimentary remote access to all BrainPOP resources during school hours (7 am-5:30 pm local time). Sign up here to get in on this cool BrainPOP offer. The purpose of such good will is explained in a recent newsletter:

Last spring, more than 700 schools in 25 states temporarily closed due to outbreaks of the H1N1 virus. We're all hoping for the best this flu season. But as schools prepare for the possibilities of illness-related absences and disruptions to studies, we'd like to help.

Here's the updated H1N1 video they've made to help address misunderstandings students (and some adults..) might have:

Irony

2009-10-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

All that effort to plan and implement my past lessons with a minimum of talking, and now I'm listening to people speak for hours at a time.

At least the labs are more fun!

I want clarification on "time off"

2009-09-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

Me: I graduated in 2007 and then taught high school biology and integrated science up until now, what about you?

Hypothetical Other Persons: Oh you too? Yeah I took some time off as well before graduate school, and (insert: traveled/relaxed/did drugs/stared into nothingness for days at a time).

Me: ...

Why We are Walking Out

2009-09-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

The below message is circulating around the UC mailing lists, and it explains why UC staff and students are walking out today (except me, because I can't fail out of graduate school just yet):

***

On Thursday, September 24, an unprecedented coalition of UC faculty,undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, lecturers, and staff willengage in a system-wide walkout. As UC Davis graduate students andlecturers concerned with the quality of all UC students' education, wewrite to clarify the reasons for this walkout as we understand them.

This summer, UC administration began implementing tuition hikes,enrollment cuts, layoffs, furloughs, and increased class sizes thatjeopardize our education, endanger the livelihood of the mostvulnerable employees, and compromise the fundamental mission of theUniversity. This is not simply another budget cut; although the UCRegents repeatedly state their commitment to "quality, access, andaffordability," their recent actions undermine all three principles.These decisions affect all sectors of our campuses and communities, andthreaten the fundamental character of the university.

On Thursday, we walk out to support our faculty, who are concernedabout the undermining of shared governance. Their traditionalinvolvement in decision-making processes was subverted this summer whenPresident Yudof assumed emergency powers, ignored the recommendationsof the Academic Council, and created the Gould Commission on the futureof the UC, originally with no faculty from any UC College of Lettersand Science present.

We walk out because faculty furloughs threaten to lower the quality ofUC education. Whether taken on instructional days or not, furloughssuggest faculty should spend less time either on research orinstruction, both of which are key components of UC's prestige.(Nonetheless, the faculty walkout statement requests an end tofurloughs only for salaries below $40,000.)

We walk out to support our university staff members. The UC Office ofthe President demanded unlimited rights to furloughs and layoffs fromUniversity Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), who arestriking on 9/24 in response to unfair labor practices. They will bejoined by the Coalition of University Employees (CUE). Our educationdepends on the vital role of UC staff, who make possible the day-to-dayfunctioning of this university.

We walk out to support our undergraduates and their families, who nowfind themselves carrying a majority of the burden of funding thisuniversity. President Yudof’s proposal to raise student fees will bringtuition to over $10,000, forcing undergraduates to take larger loans,work full-time jobs, or drop out. While student fees continue to rise,course offerings are cut, extending the time needed to graduate.Lecturers and postdocs represented by the American Federation ofTeachers Unit 18 have been laid off after UCOP refused to considerfurloughs or answer questions, canceling required courses just weeksbefore classes begin. UC prides itself on making the world's bestresearch faculty available to California's best students, regardless ofincome. Recent administrative actions threaten to strip students ofthat promise.

We walk out to support our fellow graduate students, who face proposedfee increases alongside heavier workloads, reduced lab assistantshipsand teaching appointments, and greater debt. Administrative responsesto the budget cuts undermine our educational and professional goals,hinder our ability to offer quality teaching, and diminish theperceived and actual quality of a UC graduate degree.

The crisis facing UC, while certainly related to the state budget , isprimarily about California's priorities for funding education. Afterthe 1978 passage of Proposition 13, California's K-12 public schoolsdropped from 4th to 45th in the nation. Current budget decisions by UCadministration place our university system on that same path. There arealternatives to fees and furloughs, including pay cuts -- rather thanpay raises -- for the highest-paid UC executives, and the tapping ofsurplus funds from medical and extension units.

The UC Regents' actions accelerate a long-standing process ofprivatization and have led us, today, to a crisis we cannot and willnot stand for. On September 24, we will not conduct official universitybusiness. Instead, we will gather at our university for education of abroader sort. We walk out to educate students and all Californiansabout what the University of California has been, what it promises tobe, and what it might be in the future. We walk out to force theadministration to seek alternatives to fee hikes and furloughs, and todemand that legislators prioritize state funding for education. We walkout to demonstrate that this university belongs to its students, itscommunity, and its workers. We walk out on 9/24 so that come 2010, westill have a public university in California: a university solidlycommitted to quality, access, and affordability.

Sincerely,

Toby Beauchamp, Graduate Student, UC Davis
Kristin Koster, PhD, Lecturer, UC Davis
Vanessa Rapatz, Graduate Student, UC Davis
Kaitlin Walker, Graduate Student, UC Davis

Grad students and email

2009-09-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

In response to an email invitation for all grad students to attend "the biggest, baddest, most expensive party the [Graduate Student Association] has ever thrown," flyers were electronically exchanged chronicling the downward spiral and certain demise of the UC system, along with a picture of the UCOP pouring salt on a melting banana slug.

That is all.

SC Orientation

2009-09-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in a new place called UC Santa Cruz, and after a long day of listening to and reading up on and thinking about everyone-there's research project, I see that there's a long road to travel before I can get all of my mind here, too.

The Speech that Ended Democracy

2009-09-08T01:23:00.000-07:00

Short snippet of Obama's address to students planned for this morning:

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

It's likely going to bore some, but it could also be a worthwhile springboard into a class of activities planned around reflecting on personal goals, sharing them with others, tying them to academic success, etc.

Obama's School Speech

2009-09-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

President Obama's planned Sept. 8 speech addressed to our nation's students is getting its unfair share of backlash:

The White House found itself on the defensive Friday over what would ordinarily be considered the most uncontroversial of events: a back-to-school speech for children.

The White House said the address, set for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are simply meant to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.

Many conservative parents aren't buying it. They're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

I must've missed the part about a "partisan political agenda", as I conveniently read that the purpose of the speech was "to challenge students to set goals, work hard and stay in school." That one would assume the president is lying about this and will actually turn this into a policy speech is somewhat mind-boggling, given the attention this speech has garnered.

Conservative gripes about included lesson plans that initially asked students to write letters to themselves about what they could do to help the president (this language was removed) are similarly perplexing. As eduwonk notes, this activity is within the context of students doing well in school, not about policies or politics. How's a kid going to help him pass health care, anyway?

Some argue that this language of helping a president implicates the role of government in our affairs as necessary, which is philosophically at odds with conservatives. Why is doing well in school connected to helping the President, as opposed to helping ourselves and each other?

Well, because students will feel that their president is setting an ambitious goal and is personally asking each of them to contribute by reaching high for their own personal academic goals. In the context of the speech, this makes a whole lot of sense. Conservatives can pout about how this accepts the mommy role of government, but they can’t argue with the influence and symbolism a president realistically wields as the leader of the free world, no matter how ineffective one deems him/her or government as a whole to be. Asking students to do something for the president gives it that much more importance, even if what they're being asked to do is strictly related to their own personal and academic achievement.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Final)

2009-08-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is the final installment of a series of essays I've written on the top ten things I learned while teaching high school biology and integrated science. It's taken a good amount of research and reflection to get all of these ideas out there into a coherent format, but I'm pretty happy with the way they've turned out. It is also good timing, as I need to catch up on studying for my next adventure into science and higher education.

I've recapped the first 9 items of my top ten list below. Click on their links to bring you to that specific essay for more detail, and if you liked any of these essays please click the Digg badge to the right:

#10) “Weekends were made for teachers”

#9)“If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail”

#8) "What it means when someone doesn't follow directions"

#7) “A student's unique needs can be defined by his English fluency, reasoning ability, and intrinsic motivation”

#6)“The history and importance of state standards and standardized testing”

#5)“Science is a method of begetting knowledge / What is Scientific Literacy”

#4)“Teach For America is making progress toward ending educational inequity”

#3)“The history and causes of the achievement gap”

#2)“There are 3 main obstacles to closing the achievement gap”

...and the #1 thing I learned while teaching secondary science:

#1)“The achievement gap can be closed”

There is evidence of instructional strategies in place that are producing real results in real schools. For example, research study upon study detail the successes of many charter schools with a reliance on heightened student/teacher/parent expectations and accountability in bolstering student achievement levels. Improved school choice with the addition of effectively run charter schools may also have a positive effect on eliminating segregation in schools, a long-lived artifact from a recent era of race relations.

The recent NAEP report referenced in an earlier post gave some examples of national successes in closing the Black-White achievement gap.

Other research highlights the power of effective instruction in making gains in closing achievement gaps (Cite and Cite). Good teachers matter and do have a measurable impact on increasing student achievement.

The real question, then, is not if these disparities can be fixed, but when we will see ultimate success toward this aim. Pinpointing a date is difficult, but it seems we are continually moving in the right direction, with increasing national focus and federal funding being channeled toward the bottom percentile of schools and a spreading movement of standards and accountability.

Finally, I learned from my classroom experience that all students do enjoy and can attain academic success, but it is a matter of presentation and advocacy for getting those select kids, who have grown comfortable to detention and see failure as inevitable, invested in their education. This is decidedly a difficult endeavor (and I saw my own share of successes and failures in investing kids) but rests entirely in the hands of the teacher, with unyielding patience and unending love, in making this success a realized possibility for all students.

Testing Comments...

2009-08-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

The last essay will be up shortly, but before then I wanted to test out the new Blogger comments....

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 9): Obstacles to Closing the Achievement Gap

2009-08-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#2)“There are 3 main obstacles to closing the achievement gap”

With some history and causes on the table, the next question follows suit: how is it that we still have an achievement gap? Over 40 years have passed since that monumental Coleman Report concluded that our schools were failing many kids, and longer still have we been aware of a deep divide in schools and culture that allows many students to slip through the cracks. If we know some of the causes, surely the next step ought to have been fixing what is broken. This has been a tougher chore than it sounds.

The obstacles encountered in movements aimed at closing achievement gaps between subgroups of students are numerous, but I believe the three that give the most impedance to said goal (and ironically the ones easiest to change) are lowered expectations for students, reluctance to embrace effective research-based strategies, and opposition to school and teacher accountability.

***

Lowered expectations for students

In the period of heightened expectations for all students with the somewhat recent introduction of standards as tangible learning goals, it is surprising to hear how expectations continue to factor into the achievement gap. Research shows that self-fulfilling prophecies related to expectations (the “Pygmalion effect”), where a teacher's perceptions of a student's academic prowess impact the future academic success obtained by that student, do occur (cite). When a teacher expects that a student will not succeed, this lowered expectation negatively impacts the quality of time and instruction that teacher will give the student, providing an outlet for teacher biases to affect student achievement. Students understand when little is expected of them, and respond by adapting their work ethic to fit these lesser goals. Low expectations thus cause even lower expectations, and this downward spiral continues.

Lowered expectations can be found on a more systematic level, too. Despite rigorous standards enacted to help ramp up the expectations of curriculum in all schools, there are still educators who do not base their curricula on the standards. That the rigor of curriculum in underperforming schools is lower than in more well-to-do schools is a product of learning deficiencies those students have accumulated from past years, the sentimental excuse is for such practices. Particularly in the later grades, often times students at underperforming schools like these are lacking by a number of years in reading level and math skills, making grade-level instruction nigh impossible. The stressed teacher decries, How can grade-level standards, then, be useful in these circumstances?

Teachers need to have high expectations for all students, even those with abilities below grade-level. If the standards encompass skills and knowledge hitherto unobtained by the class, the standards have succeeded in defining what skills and knowledge need to be taught. For instance, if the goal is “Z”, the teacher must make sure that “A” through “Y” are taught and reviewed along the way. As an example, noting the importance of reading in every subject, every teacher is in essence a primary language instructor who needs to work with students to make up for any given reading deficiencies. Grade-level standards can thus be a goal for all students, although the path toward that goal can be dictated differently depending on what interventions the students need most.

***

Reluctance to embrace effective research-based strategies

The importance of education research cannot be stressed enough. Utilizing the scientific method to determine correlations and potential causal factors between different factors, like student achievement and teacher effectiveness, gives educators unbiased advice for how best to teach their students. Good research studies, with a solid experimental design and strong external validity, give an account of the successes and failures a teaching strategy likely will have in a given environment, and are the best way to determine what will help close the achievement gap. The trouble is, they aren't often effectively used.

Stanford university professor Caroline Hoxby writes of this troublesome trend:

“Most interventions in education (class size reductions, pre-kindergarten programs, classroom technology, paying students for performance, drop-out prevention) are based not on evidence that they work, but rather on the “cardiac test” (e.g., “we just know in our heart that this is right”). Moreover, the interventions are not scientifically evaluated, sometimes because advocates oppose evaluation, but more often because no one bothers to set up pilot, randomization, or baseline data in the first place.

Thus, even though almost every popular intervention has been tried many times in American schools and is probably being started by some district today, we know very little about what works. If we did nothing other than analyze the effect of every intervention that is going to be tried, we would be far more likely to close the achievement gap.”

The opposing strategy to using research-based methods to determine what works is relying on intuition, or belief, that something is or is not working. There are teachers out there who would rather use intuition than data to inform their instruction, but we simply can't continue this trend. It is foolish to assess student achievement using our own teacher opinions rather than with objective data, in that it accentuates the impact of any known and unknown biases we have in the assessment process. And while data includes more than just test numbers, it certainly doesn’t include a vaguely defined “intuition”, especially when experiences from one teacher cannot be adequately compared to another, as intuition is not a standardized benchmark.

We don't ascribe belief any power in other sciences and we certainly won't make steady progress toward closing achievement gaps if we keep doing so in education.

***

Opposition to school and teacher accountability

As talk of merit pay and linking teacher evaluations to student scores increases, many teachers reveal themselves as opponents to such accountability. These teachers list out a number of arguments against such accountability measures, some addressed in the above two obstacles. They argue against standards, against standardized tests, against being evaluated on if their students succeed or fail, and this resistance is problematic for education.

As teachers, we take on the job for a lot of reasons, but most at least want to be responsible for our students’ learning and growing desire to learn, and we feel that if we put our hearts into teaching then we will help our students learn better. Every teacher has at least an ounce of self-confidence in this matter, and asserts that he or she can help all/most/many students reach higher learning goals and maybe even that elusive “knowledge is power” state of mind . It just doesn't follow that then a teacher would decry testing and evaluations based on student achievement. Simply put, if our job is getting kids to learn more, we should be evaluated on if the kids learn more.

***

Lowered expectations for students, reluctance to embrace effective research-based strategies, and opposition to school and teacher accountability are likely the three largest obstacles that we currently have in closing the achievement gap, and ironically, they are the easiest to close. Schools and teachers simply have to hold themselves accountable to teaching rigorous state standards and to utilizing objective data and research-based methods for effective strategies and practices.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 8): Achievement Gap History and Causes

2009-08-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#3)“The history and causes of the achievement gap”

In the early stages of the application process to Teach For America, I was given a few articles to read about the achievement gap in anticipation of discussing them during a phone interview. For me, it was a subtle beginning to learning more about what the achievement gap entailed, and why different subgroups of students reach such different levels of academic achievement and success. My opinions on the causes of these gaps changed as I experienced more of teaching, and thus learning more of the history of achievement gaps in education seemed an important step to learning how to approach these gaps.

***

The Coleman Report

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, with the intent to end racial segregation in society. Part of this legislation required that a survey be conducted of the educational opportunities available to Americans, to determine the lack of availability of such opportunities based on race, class and gender.

Shortly after, in 1966, the Equality of Educational Opportunity Study (EEOS) was released, also referred to as the “Coleman Report,” after its principal investigator James S. Coleman. The study focused on measuring student outcomes, a new idea in education research, to determine at what level students were actually learning. The conclusions were damning: large achievement disparities existed between Black and White students that schools were unable to close, and despite it being more than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” most schools remained segregated along racial lines.

“The achievement disparities the report documented were troublingly large. In 6th grade, the authors found, the average African-American 6th grader lagged 1.9 years behind his or her white counterpart. By 12th grade, the statistics suggested, the average gap had widened to nearly four years.

As expected, the report also showed that black children typically attended schools that were more poorly equipped than those attended by whites. They had less access to physics, chemistry, and language laboratories, for instance, and fewer books per pupil.”

The existence of an achievement gap along racial lines was more or less realized. At the time, student achievement was linked largely to family backgrounds and “a student's sense of control over his or her own destiny,” but having good teachers also correlated with increased student achievement, particularly for Black students. Recently, more in-depth analysis of the data collected by Coleman accentuated the impact of schools and teacher biases on this achievement gap:

“Even after taking into account students’ family background, a large proportion of the variation in student achievement can be explained by school characteristics. Fully 40% of the differences in student achievement can be found between schools.

...

Inequalities in student achievement within schools are explained in part by teachers’ biases favoring middle-class students and by schools’ greater reliance on academic and nonacademic tracking."

***

Success and failure in closing the gap

Following the Coleman Report, school desegregation efforts intensified, and these achievement gaps narrowed over the next couple decades, but the narrowing eventually stalled in the late 1980s:

“In the decades following the report’s publication there was a dramatic drop in school segregation in the Southern U.S. There also was a significant decline in the proportion of Black students attending 90-100% minority schools in the nation as a whole. But the gains in desegregation peaked in the 1980s and were practically reversed in the 1990s. ”

Gains made in closing these achievement gaps up until the 1990s may have been caused by the increased efforts of schools to desegregate and a national push for racial integration. One study suggested that the integration of hospitals and better access to quality healthcare for Black children contributed to this effect:

“We test one such explanation, which we call the infant health hypothesis. This hypothesis states that an improvement in black infant health during the mid- to late-1960’s had long-term effects on human capital accumulation for the cohorts that experienced these improvements. ...The specific timing across states suggests that improvements in infant health in the first 1.5 to 2.5 years of life had long-term effects on human capital accumulation and explain a significant portion of the narrowing of the black-white test score gap during the 1980’s. ”

Another hypothesis explains that the narrowing of these achievement gaps in the 1980s may have been caused in part by the narrowing socioeconomic gap between Black and White families that occurred at the same time, which also stalled during the 1990s:

“Black-White gaps in socioeconomic and family conditions continuously narrowed from the 1970s through the 1990s, but that this narrowing slowed down in the late 1980s and the 1990s. The acceleration of a narrowing of the Black- White gap in socioeconomic and family conditions in the 1970s and early 1980s parallels a significant drop in the Black-White achievement gap during the same period. Moreover, the deceleration of the narrowing of the Black-White gaps in socioeconomic and family conditions since the late 1980s coincides with a flattening of the achievement gap since that time. Because achievement and socioeconomic conditions covary without any time lag, it appears that they are related to each other.”

Notwithstanding the reduction of the Black-White achievement gap throughout the 1970s and 1980s and the possible explanations for the slowing of these academic gains, the achievement gap endured throughout the 1990s and even widened by some measures:

“In 1990, however, black-white convergence in educational attainment stopped. “Among men and women ages 26 to 30 in 2000, the black-white educational attainment gap is slightly larger than the corresponding gap in 1990,” he said.

Scores on standardized tests follow a similar pattern. “From the late 1970s through the late 1980s, black children made striking gains in achievement while scores for white children remained relatively flat,” Neal said, but test score gaps among 9- and 13-year-olds stopped closing in the late 1980s.

Other measures of trends in educational achievement since 1990 tell the same story. Among 21- year old black men, high school graduation rates were lower in the late 1990s than they were in the mid- 1980s. The opposite is true among young white men. Further, the ratio of white to black college graduation rates among young adult men rose between 1990 and 2000 after falling for decades.”

To place these events into context, it was during the 1980s when the culture of standards-based reform became widespread, as I've discussed before. This movement, along with the subsequent debates over state and federal roles in education that ensued throughout the 1990s, succeeded in firmly taking root not because of specific disparities between subgroups of student achievement, but mainly because of underperforming student achievement as a whole, something “A Nation At Risk” had warned of. Businesses helped lead the movement to ensure that future workers would acquire necessary reading and computational skills in schools, since at the time many companies were funding remedial programs for workers to learn what they hadn't yet learned. These efforts created positive change in our schools, but were not specific to any achievement gap.

Throughout this history, despite correlations between lower academic achievement of students of color and fewer opportunities for challenging classes, less rigorous curricula, and more inexperienced and ineffective teachers (cite), there have been assertions that biology plays some part in these achievement gaps.

The eugenics movement of the 1930s along with faulty statistical analysis of I.Q. test scores and standardized test scores in 1969 and again in 1994 gave rise to assertions of a biological basis for the disparities in student achievement, as people of color were supposedly genetically (and culturally) inferior to White people (p. 228). Claims like these have been discredited, but the racist undertones of their impact is lasting.

***

The “Education Debt” and how it creates achievement gaps

It is worthwhile to keep the above framework of some of the history and causes of the achievement gap in mind, particularly when the million-dollar question in education today is, “How do we close the achievement gap?”

Gloria Ladson-Billings argues that focusing on the current achievement gap alone to define the disparities of our education system does not address the long-term circumstances that initially engendered the gaps. She briefly delves into an economics example, explaining that the national debt, the sum total of all government debts obtained to finance previous annual budget deficits, cannot be solved by simply balancing the budget. A national debt continues to accrue interest payments even during a budget surplus. Using this analogy, Ladson-Billings refers to an “education debt” that requires an historical perspective to understand, and how achievement gaps are just the logical outcomes of such an education debt.

Ladson-Billings asserts that this education debt has been created by historical, economic, sociopolitical and moral decisions and policies made in our nation's past. To summarize:

Historical Debt: Race, class and gender initially prompted educational inequities. Slavery and segregation, forced assimilation and exclusion from educational opportunities, legal apartheid, all remnants of our history that contributed to the education system we have today. That Black students in the South did not see universal secondary schooling until 1968 is only one example of how rather recently this history existed (and in some cases continues to exist) and how it shapes our education debt.

Economic Debt: Funding disparities between urban and suburban schools have always existed, the result of an education system with seperately run schools and districts. It is a telling fact that there is a strong correlation between school funding and the percentage of White students at a school, even if not a causal link. Median incomes of Black males also still remain less than that of White males, adding another factor in how families occupy varying socioeconomic positions and thus varying access to higher-quality education.

Sociopolitical Debt: Minority communities have been historically excluded from the civic process, from authentic opportunities to create positive change in their schools and communities. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 drastically improved the lot of minority communities looking for positive changes in local schools, but afterward and even today there are still obstacles to these communities exercising political power, such as limited access to lawyers and legislators compared to their White counterparts.

Moral Debt: People of color have historically experienced barriers to social advancement and educational opportunities, and this exclusion creates a moral debt that the nation has for oppressed communities. While it can be argued that individuals simply ought to take personal responsibility for their plight, a democracy such as ours hinges on ideals of social responsibility, of extending a helping hand to those most in need, particularly when the oppression had been caused by its own policies.

Ladson-Billings states that this education debt is accruing its own kind of interest, or “the distrust and suspicion about what schools can and will do in communities serving the poor and children of color.” Knowing that we need educators and communities working together with mutual respect and trust, our education debt and our nation's history should be a prime focus when considering how to close the achievement gap.

***

The achievement gap today and tomorrow

Although progress has been made in closing these gaps, achievement disparities persist. In July, the NAEP released a report summarizing the performance of Black and White students on national and state assessments in reading and mathematics at different time points between 1978 and 2007. Here are some of its findings:

Mathematics score gaps for [both 9- and 13-year-old] Black and White students were narrower in 2004 than in the first assessment in 1978, as scores of Black students showed a greater increase than those of White students. The gaps in 2004 were not significantly different from the gaps in 1999. (p. 6)

Average mathematics scores were higher in 2007 than in 1990 for both Black and White eighth-graders. The 31-point gap in 2007 was not significantly different from the 33-point gap in 1990. (p. 7)

The Black-White mathematics gap among the nation’s public school fourth-graders was narrower in 2007 than in 1992, as Black students’ scores showed a greater gain than White students’ scores. (p. 14)

The [Reading] score gap [for 9-year-olds] in 2004 did not differ significantly from the gap in 1980, but was narrower than the gap in 1999, due to a greater increase in Black students’ scores as compared to White students. At age 13, reading scores for ... Black students were higher in 2004 than in 1980, resulting in a narrowing of the gap. (p. 28)

The reading gap for Black and White fourth-graders narrowed in 2007 in comparison to both 1992 and 2005. Although scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2007 than in either comparison year, a greater increase in scores for Black students caused the gap to narrow. The 27-point gap in 2007 was narrower than in any previous assessment year except 1998. (p. 29)

The national eighth-grade reading gap has not changed since either 1992 or 1998. ... From 1998 to 2007, the Black-White score gap did not change for any state. (p. 44)

The report is a mixed-bag of results, with certain gains being made toward closing gaps at one grade level but not the other, and alternating successes in math and reading. Still, the successes measured do show progress since the Coleman Report was first released, even if there is still a lot more work to be done.

***

A better understanding of the achievement gap and the history that has created it (our “education debt”) needs to be the goal for our citizenship if we still value justice and the ideal of a land of opportunity, as a long-term solution to the achievement gap, where equal educational opportunities for all truly exists, will require that all of the nuances of its history be fully realized.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 7): Teach For America's Mission

2009-08-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#4)“Teach For America is making progress toward ending educational inequity”

As a Teach For America alum, I've seen some of the inner workings of this nonprofit and experienced the ups and downs of teaching as a corps member, and I mean it when I say that this program is doing a heckuva job in its mission of ending educational inequities.

Teach For America is a national teacher corps of recent college graduates. Through a rigorous selection process, it selects individuals that have the highest potential to become great teachers in classrooms for schools that may be under-resourced, in a struggling low-income community, or modeled on lower expectations of students. Its selection process (as are its efforts to train and support corps members) is based on its Teaching As Leadership framework, which links the ability to be a great teacher to characteristics of great leadership, like propensity for setting an ambitious vision for success and masterfully planning, executing, and reflecting on progress toward this vision.

Wendy Kopp, CEO and founder of Teach For America, proposed the creation of such a national teacher corps in her 1989 undergraduate senior thesis, seeing that many in her generation (as it is now) wanted a chance to be a part of something meaningful, and while our educational system was in the midst of a standards-based reform movement, achievement gaps were persisting, and the window for leading a social movement toward ending educational inequities was wide-open.

***

There are many positives that Teach For America brings to education, some of which include:

* Making teaching in challenging areas desirable to recent college graduates

A movement of future leaders fresh out of college competing to be the best teachers for the most troubled schools in our nation. Wendy Kopp was a genius for envisioning this. As they get closer to graduation, many university students are planning out their futures and thinking of how they might give back to their respective communities. Will they volunteer? Will they donate money? The idea of giving back by being the best damn teachers they can be for children who have had less opportunities to succeed than they did is surely tempting.

The program is as prestigious as a top-tier university—and just as difficult to get into. Teach For America successfully makes the case that good teaching and good leadership go hand-in-hand as evidenced by the successful partnerships made with top graduate schools and employers, running the gamut of future opportunities in everything from law and business to science and engineering. It all comes down to this: if you want to be an effective leader, you need to learn how to teach.

* Enlisting people outside of education majors, such as scientists and mathematicians

Teach For America runs on an alternative credentialing program, which is in accord with NCLB for being a process toward becoming “highly qualified teachers”. Alternative credentialing programs allow a person without a background in education to pursue a teaching credential while teaching. Here where I live, I had to take a general math and English proficiency test, a science proficiency test, and a US government test. After passing all three, I then went through an intensive training with Teach For America over the summer, and immediately after took a teaching foundations exam. After all of that, I was allowed to enroll in a 9-month credentialing program that allowed me to get an intern (emergency) credential and teach in a classroom, working toward the next step of teacher credentialing.

What makes this such a great strategy is that it can pull people into teaching that would have never thought it to be a career. This holds especially for the math and sciences. After all of our focused coursework at the university level, it would be a huge barrier to teaching if we then had to pursue an additional degree before being able to utilize our math and science understanding in the classroom. Most would then more rather go on to science and math-specific graduate schools, since at least we know what science and math is like, but education? Alternative certification allows those with science and math degrees a more realistic path toward becoming teachers.

* Modeled on data-driven accountability and a part of the nation-wide accountability effort

Teach For America holds all of its corps members accountable for making academic gains with their students, and teachers are pressed to use data to inform instruction and make decisions on how best to serve our students. This use of student data will help impact the greatest change because good data can give an unbiased assessment of student learning, and it can allow the teacher and his Teach For America director evidence for what changes to implement in the classroom. Teach For America's efforts here mirror the national education accountability effort that is gaining traction, with monies from the recently passed stimulus plan going toward programs like Race to the Top, Obama's competitive grant program that allows schools extra funds if they hold teachers accountable to their students' data.

* Intensive summer training allows teachers to hit the ground running when they get to their placement schools

Everything about Teach For America is urgent, as is its pace during the summer Institute that all corps members must attend before beginning their 2-year teaching commitment. During that summer, teachers live, breath, and sweat education, by putting in long hours in education classes, discussion panels, and of course, teaching summer school classes. Every minute of a corps member's life is observed by someone who knows what he or she is doing, and constructive criticism comes at a brisk pace without rose-colored glasses. There is a lot to learn about teaching, and the summer is certainly not enough to learn it all, but the training ends only after that sense of urgency is completely diffused into the work ethic of its inducted corps members, and the pace for excellence carries on well into their teaching careers.

* Stellar alumni retention efforts to keep the movement alive in those finished with their 2-year commitment

After finishing a commitment to teach, even those who chose not to continue teaching will always have that inner fire burning to advocate for underprivileged children and to have a positive impact on our education system. This sense of urgency carries on after leaving the classroom, and Teach For America alumni bring their educational insight into many different roles and positions in the workforce. Alumni directors of Teach For America claim that the alumni movement is equally important to Teach For America's role in ending educational inequities, and I would agree, as changes needed to improve education must come from both inside and outside of the classroom.

***

Despite these positives, there are some in education circles who criticize Teach For America and blame it for perpetuating many educational woes, but these critics seemingly do so in bad faith:

Claim: “Teach For America brings teachers who have no real teaching experience to classrooms where students desperately need good teachers.”

This claim rallies the troops against alternative certification programs in general, but specifically is an elbow designated for Teach For America. Just recently a district court threw out an appeal in the lawsuit against Teach For America (PDF) over the “highly qualified” NCLB teacher provisions, a lawsuit that asserted this very claim. The assumption that this allegation makes, that teaching experience is required for a teacher to be successful in his first years, is flawed.

Individuals who are accepted into Teach For America are likely to show great leadership and thus likely to become great teachers as evidenced by the Teaching As Leadership framework, which was formed after analyzing the qualities of many successful and mediocre teachers. Before even getting into the program a person must exemplify these desired characteristics that they can utilize as a teacher later on.

The research we have would also tend to disagree with the allegation. A Mathematica study in 2004 found that students of Teach For America teachers scored as well or higher than students of non-TFA teachers in reading and math, and the authors concluded that “the success of TFA teachers is not dependent on their having extensive exposure to teacher practice or training.” General comparisons between university-based credentialing programs and alternative certification programs have shown mixed conclusions, leading us to believe that teacher effectiveness does not likely hinge on extensive teacher preparation programs prior to teaching, but falls on other teacher qualities.

All students need and deserve good teachers, but teaching experience should not be a barrier to teaching as it is not the underlying factor in effective instructional practice.

Claim: "Teach For America is not helping retain teachers for the long run."

“Teacher retention” is indeed absent from Teach For America's mission statement, but that is likely a good thing. The vision that the program works toward is closing achievement gaps between different student subgroups throughout the nation, which doesn't require making teaching a career choice. TFA teachers all throughout the nation are making significant progress with their students in their first 2 years of teaching. Adding additional years of commitment would hurt the program's appeal to college graduates uncertain of more time away from other career choices they may be drawn toward. And indeed, the program actually puts a lot of value on its alumni as they are the ones promoting the mission in other aspects of society.

Even despite this 2-year commitment, 61% of TFA teachers choose to continue teaching into the third year, a retention rate similar to that of other non-TFA new teachers. While teacher retention may not be the underlying goal, Teach For America is not harming current teacher retention rates, either.

Claim: "Teach For America is a bandage, not a cure, for the problems facing our educational system."

This one I never really understood, as I think Teach For America itself would also agree that it is not any type of “cure” for what ails our education system. Just as the achievement gap had been engendered and persists for a multitude of reasons, so plentiful are the needs of public education that have to be filled to close these gaps. Getting good teachers into places that desperately need good teachers is one logical way to help close these gaps. Making teaching a more valuable option to future leaders from top-tier universities is another logical way to help close these gaps. Empowering future leaders with a burning desire to advocate for their students' successes in many different arms of society is yet another logical way to help close these gaps. Teach For America seeks to fix what is broken on a number of different levels, and to attack it for what it doesn't do would be foolhardy.

***

Overall, Teach For America is making a lasting impact on education, and the program will only increase in scope and impact on today's, and tomorrow's, schools and students.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 6): Scientific Literacy

2009-08-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#5)“Science is a method of begetting knowledge / What is Scientific Literacy”

I can't say I was in the dark about this fact, as you learn a thing or two about science as you go through college (hopefully). What amazed me is how important this fact is for our students today, and upon personal reflection, how poorly it has been emphasized in education.

As a student in grades K-12, most of what I remember from science classes was reading textbooks and filling out worksheets, the occasional dissection, and science fair projects without much in-class emphasis other than the evaluation. Seldom did we approach scientific phenomena presented in class as scientists do, and allow for an inquiry-based, self-discovery of scientific principles rather than teachers dictating the facts and the reasons for those facts. I wrote before about using the scientific method to uncover the purpose of a mysterious pile of cardboard pieces. That the pieces combined to form a jigsaw puzzle would be the “science” taught in schools, when the process of questioning and uncovering their purpose is actually the essence of science itself.

Science state standards like the ones referred to in my previous post are modeled after National Science Education Standards (NSES 1996), which “spell out a vision of science education that will make scientific literacy for all a reality in the 21st century.” The NSES focus is on maintaining inquiry-based instruction, as it explains:

“The Standards call for more than "science as process," in which students learn such skills as observing, inferring, and experimenting. Inquiry is central to science learning. When engaging in inquiry, students describe objects and events, ask questions, construct explanations, test those explanations against current scientific knowledge, and communicate their ideas to others. They identify their assumptions, use critical and logical thinking, and consider alternative explanations. In this way, students actively develop their understanding of science by combining scientific knowledge with reasoning and thinking skills” (p. 2).

As I said before, I believe reasoning ability, being one of the “Big 3” of student needs, should be a prime focus of science education. Inquiry-based instruction as spelled out by the NSES is a path to targeting this reasoning ability and promoting scientific literacy for all. But what is scientific literacy, and does inquiry-based instruction help students attain it?

Scientific literacy, as defined by the National Research Council in the National Science Education Standards, is “the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity” (NSES p. 22). A scientific literate person applies an understanding of science to choices made in his or her daily life, whether that is through positing and answering questions through the scientific method or making informed choices about policies that impact the environment. Yet promoting scientific literacy for all students is a daunting task, and research shows that typical, non-constructivist (not inquiry-based) approaches to science education lead science educators further and further from this lofty goal of literacy for all students.

In one research study, Buxton (2001) focused on the scientific literacy of university undergraduates in different social spheres, and noted that students were most able to bridge the gap between science concepts and real world applicability in informal science settings like study groups, where students could collaborate in asking questions and piecing together concepts learned in lecture to construct individual understanding, rather than in rigid, traditionally taught lectures (the norm for some K-12 science classrooms). Buxton’s conclusions highlighted four ways for promoting scientific literacy in K-12 classrooms, all of which coincide with an inquiry-based approach: (1) give students opportunities to reflect on what is learned in class and how it relates to their community; (2) allow students to collaborate in learning; (3) empower students with control over what they learn and how they learn it; and (4) focus on strengthening scientific literacy throughout the year.

The goal of scientific literacy for all can be reached if educators utilize inquiry-based instruction to allow students to learn what science really is all about, and as Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg writes in “A Nation at Risk Revisited,” even the health of our democracy hinges on our meeting this goal:

The vitality of a democracy assumes a certain “core of knowledge” shared by everyone which serves as a unifying force. It is fundamental to the effectiveness of our democratic system that our citizens be able to make informed judgments on the more and more complex issues of scientific and technological public policy.

Short Pause for Ph.D Orals Survival Kit

2009-07-26T01:54:00.001-07:00

Parts 1-5 of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science are completed, and that means I am halfway toward actually completing a blogging objective!

I wanted to interject here with a link to a helpful guide for preparing for the Ph.D orals examination, entitled "An Orals Survival Kit:"

Too often, no one explains to graduate students what to expect of their comprehensive exams.

It is like standing in front of a firing squad. Your executioners are four professors who are experts in their fields. You writhe before them as they take turns posing questions almost beyond your grasp. The threat hangs constantly over your head: Fail to satisfy them, and your graduate career will end.

Parts 6-10 will be up soon.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 5): Standards and NCLB

2009-07-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#6)“The history and importance of state standards and standardized testing”

With the idea in mind of adapting teaching styles to the various learning modalities found in a classroom, and noting the “Big 3” of student needs-- English fluency, reasoning ability, and intrinsic motivation-- that ought to be a focus for educators, I'd like to turn now to some thoughts on the California state standards and standardized testing, and why I'm supportive of both.

***

In the late 1990's, the California State Board of Education approved of rigorous statewide academic standards for content and student performance in many different content areas. This act was part of the larger education reform movement that began in 1983, with the publication of “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” a document that warned both educators and the American public alike of the growing inadequacies of our educational system. Many were stunned when the report lamented that, whereas “America's position in the world may once have been reasonably secure with only a few exceptionally well-trained men and women... it is no longer.”

One of the recommendations of that staggering report was the following:

We recommend that schools, colleges, and universities adopt more rigorous and measurable standards, and higher expectations, for academic performance and student conduct, and that 4-year colleges and universities raise their requirements for admission. This will help students do their best educationally with challenging materials in an environment that supports learning and authentic accomplishment.

Notwithstanding some of the flowery language of the report (“America can do it”) and its Cold War-influenced messages (“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war”), it was not until 1998 that the official California K-12 science standards were adopted. These standards represent years of effort on the part of educators at many different levels, and are meant to include the essential skills and knowledge that all students need to be scientifically literate citizens. They are the framework for all public school science instruction in California and essential to the state standards-based tests, such as the California Standards Tests (CSTs), developed afterward to monitor all students' progress toward meeting these achievement goals. I've chosen to mention the science standards because I am most familiar with them, but for now we can continue with a more general explanation of CSTs.

CSTs and other standards-based tests are important tools in discerning which student subgroups are and are not scoring at proficient levels. The state culls data from these tests to determine Academic Performance Index (API) scores, which determine if a school is meeting state goals of performance, either continuing to fund them for meeting API growth goals, or punishing them with state sanctions for failing to meet growth goals. Along with API, the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 established Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements that similarly take data from tests like the CSTs, along with graduation rates and improvement in API scores, to decide if a school will continue to spend Title I federal funding with nominal restraint, or be put on intervention programs that can require a massive overhaul of the underperforming school or district.

Curiously and maybe parenthetically, NCLB stipulates that by 2014, all schools and districts must have 100% of students performing at the proficient level or above on English and mathematics state tests. Meanwhile, here at present time, many schools have trouble meeting the current AYP goal of ~35% proficiency, particularly within the Limited English Proficient (LEP) subgroup. To put the data in perspective for California:

Results from the 2007 California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) inform us that only 36% of LEP students passed the English-Language Arts section, compared to 83% of English-Only (EO) students. On the Mathematics section, 47% of ELs passed, versus 80% of EO students (data source).

The data is just as troublesome when looking at the entire K-12 student population with other CSTs related to reading and mathematics. In the 2007-2008 school year, only 45.7% of all students Grades 2-12 scored at proficient or advanced on the English-Language Arts CST; only 42.7% scored at proficient or advanced on the Mathematics CST (data source).

And the situation only gets worse, as reaching the goal of 100% proficiency in 2014 requires an additional 12% of all students testing at proficient or higher each year, while the trend over the past couple years is a meager yearly increase of only 2% total students testing at this level.

Getting back to the point, there is a history of the state standards (science as well as other content areas) grounded in educational reform, as is the increase in accountability with tracking progress toward state standards through standardized testing like the CSTs. In 2001, NCLB's driving purpose was to bulk up this accountability in schools and provide tiered consequences for schools unable to meet AYP for 2 consecutive years or more. This measure of accountability forces schools to disaggregate their data into its gender, racial, socioeconomic, and English fluent components, marking the achievement gap between subgroups as the primary problem needing fixing in education today. Although the goal for 100% proficiency in 2014 seems unobtainable given recent data, NCLB's push for closing this gap is an important step toward that goal, and state standards are a needed support in meeting such a goal.

State standards are critical for meeting NCLB's goal of closing the achievement gap between student subgroups. Teachers need to know what they and their students are being held accountable to, and the standards help build a framework toward success, or rather a definition of success that the entire state has agreed to adopt. Floundering achievement levels of students during the 1960s and 1970s (cite) were created in part by low expectations and watered-down curricula in schools. The 1980s saw improvement, particularly in minority student subgroups, but the cause of this improvement is debatable (lots to say about this in another post), and the 1990s were also rather dreary. All of our students need and have always needed higher expectations set forth by schools and teachers, and finally in the late 1990s these expectations were implemented statewide with the development of rigorous content standards, measurable through the use of standardized tests.

State standards and standardized testing go hand-in-hand. As a teacher, I really liked how useful standardized (and multiple-choice) tests are, for a number of reasons. First of all, multiple-choice tests are the quickest type of test to grade, which is a big plus for time-strapped teachers. Next, they are objective measures of student achievement with little to no bias inherent in grading them; all data collected from a multiple-choice test fairly gauges each student on the standards included in the test. In contrast, bias in grading free-response answers runs rampant in teaching, and I can attest to how hard it is to not be biased when I cannot read a student's likely awesome response written with ugly scribbles.

The data collected from a standardized exam is excellent for number crunching and quantitative analysis. How many kids didn’t understand question 3? What was the percent mastery of the first 10 questions? What standard did students do best on? I can put all of these data into an excel spreadsheet and reflect on this data for my review and further teaching. This data can also be made available to students via standards-tracking posters, and although a bit time-consuming (I use stickers to show content mastery of each standard for each student), the kids love the competition in gaining new stickers, and it's been a useful tool in showing students their growth.

Standardized tests can also certainly test critical thinking and analysis. The same kind of open-ended question asked in a free-response question can be made into a multiple-choice test, with 1 good answer and 3 distractors. The kids will most often only get the correct answer if they can reason through the problem. Surely the easy factual questions dominate multiple-choice tests for some teachers, but tests like the CSTs have many good layered questions that absolutely require critical reasoning to answer correctly.

I'm aware of other negatives associated with standardized tests, but all in all I believe the positives more than outweigh the negatives to using such testing to measure progress toward achievement goals, the state standards, and they are necessary for the level of accountability in schools that our students need.

***

To summarize, state standards and standardized testing have both played in important role in education's past as part of the education reform movement. As we move closer to NCLB's 2014 goal of 100% proficiency, reflecting on the advantages of using both of these educational tools offers insight into how the achievement gap will most efficiently be closed.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 4): Student Needs

2009-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#7) “A student's unique needs can be defined by his English fluency, reasoning ability, and intrinsic motivation”

The previous entry makes for an easy segue into the various student archetypes that I've come across as a teacher. Realizing the nuanced nature of intelligence and remembering that all students bring with them a number of different life experiences and cultures, it follows then that different students will also have different needs outside of just coursework that targets the visual, motor, and auditory modalities, and as educators these additional needs must be considered to make adequate progress toward academic achievement goals and for individual students to feel successful.

I assert that all high school students and all of their unique needs can be described by their levels of the following three components: primary language fluency, reasoning ability, and intrinsic motivation.

Primary Language Fluency: This first component of student needs describes the ability of the student to communicate in English, and includes reading, writing, speaking and listening. Here in California, where nearly one-quarter of K-12 students are considered Limited English Proficient (LEP), this element holds crucial importance, because learning how to speak and understand English is a critical goal for future opportunities in the US, and appropriate instruction for LEP students necessitates knowing their individual levels of English fluency.

English fluency is also a factor of concern for the rest of our K-12 students, particularly with regards to reading and writing. Many of our students struggle with reading comprehension, especially when it comes to grade-level content textbooks, like Biology. Many students will assert that reading is boring, and it certainly is when their reading skills prohibit them from gleaning understanding from text. Writing is also a skill that warrants further practice, as many struggle to write effective essays that structure their ideas into an organized form of communication.

Educators must incorporate opportunities for students to learn and perfect English skills in all forms of instruction, from social studies to science, as deficiencies in this element limit the achievement of students in all content classes and reduce their success at communicating in American society.

Reasoning Ability: Logic is the primary attribute of this component of student needs, the ability to make mental connections. Generating individual understandings requires a person to connect different ideas in ways that make sense to that person, a form of mental mind-mapping. Education asks for students to make sense of a lot of different content, and students who are able to mentally connect new ideas to ideas they've already learned will succeed far more than students who cannot effectively do so.

Science offers many opportunities for educators to help students sharpen their reasoning abilities. Science labs that require thoughtful analyses of data, that demand students place specific graphs, figures, and ideas into the larger context of truly understanding the natural phenomena witnessed, target these reasoning skills. Outside content areas also can include reasoning into the curricula with activities such as debates, where students have to defend a controversial position against another by logically using evidence to refute outside perspectives and support their own. Within the scope of these activities, educators can scaffold instructions for students struggling with making their own mental connections by pairing weaker students with stronger ones, and by visually organizing ideas with the help of a brainstorming worksheet.

Intrinsic Motivation: The final component describing student needs, intrinsic motivation represents how motivated a student is to achieve academically without outside influence. Extrinsic motivation (“If you do this and this I will give you such and such reward”) should not be included in this element because it is not representative of the student's desire to achieve, but rather just characterizes his need to be rewarded. A student who is intrinsically motivated wants to achieve notwithstanding any of his failings in the other constituents of English fluency and reasoning ability.

It should be the goal of educators to instill intrinsic motivation in each and every student. A means to this end could likely be extrinsic motivation for certain students, giving tangible rewards for doing well in school until the student doesn't need to be rewarded to want to succeed, but wants to succeed on his own accord. Making school enjoyable also helps build this intrinsic motivation; to want to go to school; to want to be in class with his peers; to want to work with his teachers toward his educational goals.

***

High school students are experts at their own lives and bring to school a wealth of perspectives and background knowledge. They possess a variety of intelligences relating to visual, motor, and auditory modalities that a teacher can incorporate into lesson plans. Their qualities help define what kind of student each will be, and what needs-- English fluency, reasoning ability, and intrinsic motivation-- a teacher must target in the classroom, and to what extent, to make progress toward achievement goals and academic success.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 3): Learning Styles

2009-07-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#8) "What it means when someone doesn't follow directions"

I have my share of stories of students ignoring directions, stories that end in many ways, although colored with different shades of disappointment and anger, as do all teachers. For the new high school teacher fresh out of college, gone is the idea of a chemistry lab manual, one that lists out the numerous steps of the chemical reaction concocted in a given lab, being the primary instructor and not the graduate student ambling around the room. Forget about 90-minute PowerPoint lectures every single day. As a high school teacher, one needs to be versed in the theories of learning modalities and multiple intelligences.

Over the past couple decades, research on learning and intelligence has given rise to theories related to learning modalities, or different ways of learning. In 1983, Dr. Howard Gardner published work relating to his theory of multiple intelligences, suggesting that defining intelligence in one specific way (numbers on an IQ scale, for example) gave an incomplete and subjective outlook on human learning. The theory of multiple intelligences states that the diversity of backgrounds and experiences a person possesses gives rise to a prowess for particular ways of learning. Gardner asserts there are at least 8 intelligences that a person may align with (image cite), while some researchers condense this into 3: visual, motor, and auditory. While one may learn about a new subject best by reading, another might need to act out the new content, and yet another might require verbal instructions.

As educators, this theory holds crucial importance in our line of work as we support students in building their own understandings. In a given class of 30 students, how many will learn best by just reading the textbook about the topic? Will I still have anyone's attention after I've unleashed a 90-minute lecture? How many students will hurt themselves trying to run the chemistry lab mentioned above? Being an effective teacher means realizing this diversity of learning types and structuring lessons so that every student has a chance to learn in a way that they learn best. It follows that a successful high school chemistry lab requires time for students to read each step of the manual individually, explain the purpose of the lab to their partner, watch the teacher act out the steps of the lab, act out a pretend run through of the lab, and finally, actually run the lab!

Usually there is nothing malicious behind a student's inability to grasp directions, and it's more of an indicator of poor planning and failure to address different learning modalities. This understanding of learning modalities also comes in handy with other leadership roles and with working as a team. If there is already a goal in place for the team, and plans created to meet that goal, it behooves the leader to successfully communicate these plans to others, and to do so in the way that the other person learns best.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 2): Planning

2009-07-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my Top Ten List of Things I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#9)“If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail”

During the ongoing rush of the teacher workweek, it can be cumbersome to write detailed lesson plans for the time allotted to each class, but it is the successful teacher who makes time to do so. Many a first-year teacher succumbs to the peril of an unplanned 5 or 10 minutes of class, not knowing of the dangers that lie therein.

Before becoming a teacher, I had no idea of the importance of good planning. I didn't need to. All of my teachers and bosses did all of the critical planning and I just filled in the gaps with my own efforts. There were individual tasks and projects, of course, but none that required the level of detail that teaching does.

Given that a class period might last approximately 55 minutes each day, that means that all of those 55 minutes need to have a purpose if students are ever to reach content goals such as state standards. A purpose-driven teacher structures his lesson plans knowing what his students need to do at each moment of the class period to maximize learning. This is a tedious process as a beginning teacher, and while being a task that gets easier over time, the siren song of other “equally important” duties is hard to resist when one doesn't know any better.

Planning is by far the most important task of a purpose-driven teacher. An unplanned segment of class time swiftly descends into chaos as young minds quickly find other sources of education and entertainment, such as learning what their friends are doing that weekend or honing their fadeaway shot at the garbage can with some crumpled paper. This failure to plan leads to lost time and wasted chances to advance toward learning objectives, not to mention more headaches with the increased need for disciplinary action.

This axiom holds outside of the classroom, too, and I certainly would not have learned it so quickly had I not been a teacher. Now that I'm continuing on to a science graduate program, I need to create a vision of where I want to be in the next 5 years after I'm finished with the program, along with a schedule of events leading me toward that vision. This blueprint will help guarantee that I am making good progress toward my personal and professional goals, and will continually inform me of what those specific goals are.

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 1): Weekends

2009-07-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

Reemerging from my 'anything-education-related' hiatus, I do realize that a thoughtful conclusion of my high school teaching experiences is in order. I've learned a great deal over the past two years and have a ton of stories to keep with me as I continue my journey into science and education. While the understandings are fresh in my mind, I intend to consolidate these experiences into a top ten list format.

Here I begin a collection of entries that compose my Top Ten List of Stuff I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science:

#10) “Weekends were made for teachers”

Education is the great equalizer, and knowledge is power, but there are certain well-concealed truths that I know now all too well. One of those is the above quoted and oft-repeated refrain of a friend.

A little over 2 years ago as I prepared for the Teach For America summer institute, I must have thought the web designer was being cute when he obviously edited the schedule of events to scare us novices into thinking that we'd be working 15-hour days. So you're saying my life outside of education has reached its end? Please.

Juxtaposed to that memory in my mind is another of me finding my roommate passed out on the floor of our living room after a long day at school, clutching a bag of goldfish that had partially emptied on the floor. I thought I had a homicide on my hands. Nope, just parent meetings.

A typical Monday for a teacher begins a little after the typical college student might decide to go to bed, using moonlight and sometimes cell phone keypad ambiance to help light the path to the car. Upon arriving in the classroom, there begins the rush (assuming the teacher isn't late). Writing of lesson objectives on the board. Sparring matches with the printer and Xerox machine. Fiddling with any teaching props/materials/realia that need to be fiddled with and properly arranged.

Then the bell finally rings to start a day of learning, meaning differentiating lessons for different learners, responding to varying levels of behavior incursions on his plans in effective and nonjudgmental ways, answering the same questions each about three-hundred times, walking 10 miles distance in roughly 1000 circles around the classroom as he circulates to different student desks, eating lunch, grading assignments during a preparation period, attending department meetings and arranging collaborative efforts with other teachers, and a wealth of other necessary job-related activities.

...Roughly nine hours later, the teacher is driving back home, only to grade more assignments, further plan for any upcoming lessons (read: tomorrow), work on outside curriculum homework to get necessary credentials/degree, develop and maintain grade and behavior databases to let students know if they are learning or not, call parents for myriad reasons, and make time to eat and sleep.

The typical Tuesday is more of the same, as is the rest of the workweek. The job is, to put it briefly, all-encompassing.

But, oh, what bliss the first Friday evening and Saturday brings! Time to rejuvenate his body and mind, connect with friends and family, and rest! Responsibilities do not go away; they are, however, put on pause for a time, and that moment of respite, of lulling tranquility, is of utter importance to the psyche of the teacher, to reflect on all of the joys of being an educator that make the job desirable to him without the necessary evils that accompany those visions of grandeur. The weekend was indeed wrought with the teacher in mind.

As are summer vacations for that matter.

Classes and Teaching

2009-07-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

I just enrolled for my first batch of graduate courses for the fall. A couple seminars dot my weekly class schedule, along with a very interesting section on "teaching chemistry", which emphasizes the need to practice modern teaching pedagogies in anticipation of the rigorous 20-hour-a-week TAing commitment. I giggled slyly.

Pilgrimage

2009-07-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

The school year ended in June in the plainest of fashions. A week of finals, grading, and yearbooks accompanied efforts to clean up and empty the room of my supplies. Someone asked me if I felt nostalgic at all to not be coming back next year, and I gave a perplexed look, not knowing how to define my answer.

Since leaving the keys at the school office over a month ago, I've sturdily focused my energies on the immediate present and future, looking up apartments in Santa Cruz, studying old (and recently re-purchased) biology and chemistry textbooks, reminding myself of how different I thought of education and my teachers a few years ago. Files from my classroom are still in a neat pile in the corner of my room. My diploma just came in the mail from the education coursework I completed, but I haven't much more than glanced at it.

There's been a desire strongly rooted inside me since deep within the dragging middle months of the school year to cut away thoughts of classes and students and curricula for a period of time, to cleanse and replenish myself with ideals and dreams outside my then-current situation. The past month of reflection hasn't been eventful but it has been necessary.

I'm going back to the university education setting come September at UC Santa Cruz, but it'd be silly to say that I'm putting my teaching experiences behind me or ruminate about the path of higher education ahead me. There's no everlasting feeling of fruition in my mind despite finishing my 2-year commitment with Teach For America, and there's no place to put all of these teacher understandings other than under my arm and in my head for the next journey.

Dostoevsky and "The Grand Inquisitor" / The Temptation of Jacob

2009-05-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

As a respite from the certain inundation of my many science-themed posts you must be feeling (and I do like to exude hyperbole), we will now drift toward a couple other topics that are rather unrelated to other material here: 19th century Russian literature and Lost. If you like neither, I suppose stopping now would be wise.

***

Given where we are after the Season 5 finale, there are still a lot of unknowns that make it hard to pinpoint the path Season 6 will take, but I believe the following is a very possible arc to the Lost storyline:

We have seen many literary references throughout the Lost lore, but one of the more notable ones that I will build upon here is that of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who some consider as the founder of 20th century existentialism (the philosophy concerned with finding self and meaning of life through free will and personal responsibility). Dostoyevsky explored themes of rational thought and religion, freedom versus faith. Christian Existentialism is maybe a more specific way to describe his works as they relate to Lost, how his characters must decide on their own how to follow their life path toward (or away from) religion and faith.

You will remember that in the episode “Maternity Leave” in Season 2, Locke gives Ben a copy of Dostoyevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, which begins a discussion between the two on how Locke is following orders from someone outside himself (Jack) rather than using his own personal responsibility to choose what to do (to push the button, or to not push the button!). By the end of the episode, the two finish their discussion, and Locke is upset that he is not following his own path but rather the path/directions of someone else (Jack). The themes of free will and existentialism are definite connections here. This book has more interesting connections to the evolving story of Lost, however.

In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, there is a very famous chapter entitled “The Grand Inquisitor.” In this chapter, two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha, are sitting at a table getting reacquainted with each other after a long absence, and they talk about their views on religion. Ivan tells his brother Alyosha of a poem he made long ago. In this tale, Christ comes back to earth during the Inquisition to perform a number of miracles, but is arrested and sentenced to death. As Jesus Christ waits in his jail cell, the Grand Inquisitor (GI) visits him and denounces him.

The GI denounces Jesus for His responses to the three questions Satan asks Him during the temptation of Christ. Basically, Satan tempts Jesus to perform a set of miracles to gain the trust of the masses and to rule over all of the kingdoms of the world, but Jesus refuses these in favor of offering people the freedom to choose to believe in Him or not. The GI asserts that Jesus misjudges human nature, and that most of humanity cannot handle this freedom, and so Jesus has, in essence, doomed humanity to a life of sin and despair.

The GI and the Church, through the Inquisition, have sought to right this wrong made by Jesus. The GI and the Church choose to follow Satan instead, by providing humans the miracles they need to make them believe, and to instill in them a sense of obligation to follow only what the Church says. It is the sole responsibility of a select few of the Church to take on the “burden of freedom”, to choose what the masses should do and should not do, so that even if the people are still sinning and robbed of salvation, at least they are well-fed and happy during their time on earth!

At the end of the tale, Christ says nothing, but instead kisses the GI on his “bloodless, aged lips”, and Christ is released from jail, but the GI tells him to never return.

I can’t help but see very strong connections between “The Grand Inquisitor” and the evolving tale of Jacob, the Smoke Monster and the Island. What we have seen of Jacob so far is that he is portrayed as a kindly, saintly man. He is soft-spoken, ageless, capable of miracles. He mentions choice several times in the Season 5 finale to other characters he speaks to (Hurley has the choice to come to the Island if he wants, Ben has the choice to stab Jacob, etc.). With what we know of Jacob so far, he fits in well with the character of Jesus Christ in the parable of “The Grand Inquisitor”.

Christ’s opposite in the parable is the Grand Inquisitor, much like Jacob’s opposite in Lost is the Smoke Monster/Anti-Jacob. Jacob’s viewpoint that human nature is benevolent and that free will is the right of all humans mirrors Christ’s denial of Satan during the temptation of Christ, where Christ chooses free will for humanity rather than using miracles to gain trust and rule over all of the kingdoms of Man. The GI denounces Christ for this decision and faulty viewpoint of humanity, much like Anti-Jacob denounces Jacob for thinking humans can choose the right path on their own (Anti-Locke denounces Jacob for summoning the Black Rock to the Island, saying that human nature will cause only despair and ruin).

The Grand Inquisitor and the chosen few who are given the “burden of free will” lead the masses toward the image of Christ, and the masses follow their human shepherds because they are protected and sustained through the Church. I argue that certainly we can see a connection here to how the Others are lead toward the image of Jacob and follow closely the directions of their leader(s). The leader(s) (Anti-Jacob and those Anti-Jacob influences) are the ones who decide what path to take, and the Others follow, because this provides them their community and safety. As the GI and the Church speaks of the miracles of their Roman Catholic faith to convince the people they are of the one true faith, so does the leader(s) and those Anti-Jacob influences reminds the Others of the Island’s miracles, and that the Island and the image of Jacob needs to be defended from threats (the Dharma Initiative, the Losties, the US military) to maintain their community.

A really interesting parallel is simply found in the Inquisition itself. During the Inquisition, heretics were judged for their crimes against the Church, much like we’ve seen the Smoke Monster judge those for their own crimes. The GI would judge the heretic on if he or she were damaging the path of the Church or spreading lies to its followers, and the Smoke Monster judges a person based on if they helping or hurting Anti-Jacob’s mission (and that of the chosen few) of keeping the Others in line and withholding true freedom from them.

To Anti-Jacob, the physical manifestation of Jacob damages his ability to lead his people, as was the case with the GI locking up Christ for performing His miracles. Anti-Jacob does not need a prophet like Jacob running around showing the Others that they can use their free will to peacefully live together and cohabitate with those that come to the Island. The GI did not need Christ around, either, for the same reasons. The image of Christ/Jacob and authoritarian discipline is what the people need, not free will.

Coldly, the GI mentions that, if he were to give the order to kill Jesus Christ, his people would do it without protest, and we see the same thing happen in the finale with Anti-Jacob setting up Ben to follow orders and kill Jacob. In either story, the followers kill the human representation of that which they worship.

Outside of these strong connections, there are other more trivial connections that are interesting in their own right. Names like “Ricardus” and the Other's Latin roots give another connection to the Roman Catholic faith. Also, and probably nothing, but when Jacob spoke in Russian to Ilana, it hints at us to again consider Dostoevsky’s work and the new connections we are seeing with the Smoke Monster/Anti-Jacob and “The Grand Inquisitor.”

So what does this all mean?

It is suggested that Jacob is weaving the Lost story’s timeline via weaving his tapestry, and perhaps is making sure that all of our Lost characters crash on Flight 815 and find and interact with the Others (led by Anti-Jacob and their leader). Maybe Jacob wants to give humanity another chance to prove themselves capable of sustaining free will and harmony with each other and the Island, and Anti-Jacob is adamant that that cannot happen. Now that the Grand Inquisitor (Anti-Jacob/the Smoke Monster) has banished Christ (Jacob) once again, what will happen next? Will this apparent failure of humanity lead to some cataclysmic event that actually does lead to the end of the world (or the permanent destruction of free will), unless our Lost characters find a way to fix what has been broken by the end of Season 6? Will all these characters ever learn how to coexist on the Island peacefully and on their own accord?

Phase 5: "Pandemic is Imminent"

2009-04-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

Now we're at phase 5:

Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, Dr Margaret Chan, WHO's Director-General raised the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to 5. She stated that all countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans. At this stage, effective and essential measures include heightened surveillance, early detection and treatment of cases, and infection control in all health facilities.

Phase 5 is identified with quite a strong choice of words:

Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.

This virus is hitting close to home, too, as a nearby high school just closed for 1 week in response to the first swine flu diagnosis in the area:

Tuesday, health officials confirmed that a 16-year-old San Jose girl was diagnosed with Santa Clara County's first likely case of swine flu. County health officials did not disclose what school the girl attends.
On its Web site, the Campbell Union High School District is alerting parents and students that a student who was last in school on Thursday tested positive and may have spread the virus. School district officials are asking parents to monitor their children for symptoms of flu, which include fever, cough, sore throat, chills and vomiting and/or diahrrea.

Hmm.

Stop Sign Means Stop

2009-04-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Him: What does the stop sign mean on the test?

Me: It means you are to stop working on the test.

Him: Are you sure?

Me: Yes I'm sure.

Him: Ok.... *continues to work after the stop sign*

(later)

Me: Why did you keep working past the stop sign?

Him: I didn't know what the stop sign meant.

ME: IT MEANS STOP.

Pandemic Possible, not Inevitable

2009-04-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

In response to available data on confirmed outbreaks of A/H1N1 swine influenza in the United States of America, Mexico, and Canada, the World Health Organization raised the level of influenza pandemic level from phase 3 to phase 4. What do these phases mean?

We were at Phase 3:

In Phase 3, an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of disease in people, but has not resulted in human-to-human transmission sufficient to sustain community-level outbreaks. Limited human-to-human transmission may occur under some circumstances, for example, when there is close contact between an infected person and an unprotected caregiver. However, limited transmission under such restricted circumstances does not indicate that the virus has gained the level of transmissibility among humans necessary to cause a pandemic.

We are now at Phase 4:

Phase 4 is characterized by verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause “community-level outbreaks.” The ability to cause sustained disease outbreaks in a community marks a significant upwards shift in the risk for a pandemic. Any country that suspects or has verified such an event should urgently consult with WHO so that the situation can be jointly assessed and a decision made by the affected country if implementation of a rapid pandemic containment operation is warranted. Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic but does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a forgone conclusion.

There are only 6 phases to this pandemic scale, with the 6th phase meaning the actual pandemic is underway.

While a tad frightening, these swine flu developments offer some great teachable moments about how viruses spread and how evolution plays a part in how a flu virus works.

Aetiology and Effect Measure would be good sources for more information.

union rep says

2009-04-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

They'll have to lay off this many teachers and that many school administrators, she says.

That's if Prop 1A fails, I ask?

No, that's just if Prop 1A passes, she says.

Even more staff members will be let go if it fails, she says.

Special Election, and a Prop 8 Update

2009-04-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

The California statewide special election is on the horizon (May 19th--it's almost May?), and it is a good time to talk politics.

In brief: vote YES on Props 1A through 1F, to help protect public schools and community colleges against further funding cuts, and to reverse the damages made to our schools from financial cuts so far.

Oh, and that whole gay marriage business? Yeah, haven't turned any students gay yet, good thing Prop 8 passed!

Here's a repost of my article explaining why Prop 8 never had anything to do with education:

***

Let's summarize what the code actually says, along with a 2003 sex education research study cited by the Yes-on-8 crowd, to understand what it is I actually have to teach your kids:

1) CA Education Code 51933 states that school districts "may provide comprehensive sexual health education" in any grade as long as it is age-appropriate and factual. It's likely your neighborhood school does. 96% of schools chose to do so.

2) CA Education Code 51890 elaborates on what a comprehensive sexual health education program entails, which is a vast spectrum of health topics concerning drugs, exercise, disease and making good decisions. Also included is this topic:

"Family health and child development, including the legal and
financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood."

Notice I don't really get into what marriage is, but the fact that it is legally binding, and involves vague financial aspects. Oh, and sometimes you have kids, too. The big idea here is that with commitment comes responsibility. This will not change with Prop 8.

3) Jumping back to CA Ed. Code 51933, there is another passage concerning marriage that is part of the health program that most schools teach:

"Instruction and materials shall teach respect for marriage and
committed relationships."

Students should consider relationships and committed relationships with respect. Students should respect that 2 people choose to commit to one another. The point, as given from the context, is that commitment and honesty are both traits found in a healthy lifestyle. That includes the commitment of heterosexual couples and of homosexual couples. The institution of marriage and what marriage means is not the focus. This will not change with Prop 8.

4) Yes, you read right, I can already talk about homosexual couples. Also from CA Ed. Code 51933:

"Instruction and materials shall be appropriate for use with
pupils of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds, and pupils with disabilities."

My instruction would not be appropriate if I chose to disregard certain sexual orientations and not others. This will not change with Prop 8.

5) Another mention of the role of marriage is contained within CA Education Code 51930 as one of the goals of these programs:

"To encourage a pupil to develop healthy attitudes concerning
adolescent growth and development, body image, gender roles, sexual
orientation, dating, marriage, and family."

Marriage in this context is nothing more than a committed relationship, as another aspect of a healthy lifestyle. Notice again that I am already teaching about sexual orientation and how that relates to dating and committed relationships. This will not change with Prop 8.

6) Despite what CA Education Code states, an ACLU research study conducted in 2003 found that while 96% of schools opted to teach an (optional) sexual health education program, many did not include all of the required components discussed above. For instance, 71% of middle schools omit teaching the required topics about contraception, condom effectiveness or abstinence. Exact data on how frequently the "marriage/committed relationships" topic is taught is not reported, even though proponents of Prop 8 continue with dishonest claims that nearly all schools teach marriage.

7) Knowing all of this, if parents still look unfavorably at the topics covered in this sexual health education program, they have CA Education Code 51938-51939, which states that I must notify parents at the beginning of the year of sexual health topics that will be covered. Parents can request to see any of the materials I will use to teach these topics, and can pull their student out of any or all portions of this program. If you still don't believe me that marriage is not and will not be a focus in your school, ask to see the materials, and if it is not to your liking, request that your child be given alternative instruction. This will not change with Prop 8.

8) My diverse students have diverse perspectives and took diverse life paths to get to where they are now, and my instruction needs to be aware of that. Some kids are raised by families with a mom and a dad, but there are many exceptions to that "rule". To be certain that my kids are growing up with a respect for diversity and an open, critical mind to differences, I need to expose them to these differences now. In the context of a sexual health education program, I teach them that commitment is a healthy choice, regardless of who is doing the committing. This will not change with Prop 8.

Spring Break!...

2009-04-12T01:29:00.000-07:00

Student: SPRING BREAK!

Other Students: YEAH!

*students run toward the outside*

Weather: Dee dee dee, watch as I pee rain and fart cold wind all over you and your vacation plans, doo doo doo

Students: *dejected looks*

new highlight of the month

2009-04-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

During today's lesson on the nervous system involving the handling of squishy, veiny sheep brains, two of my kids almost barfed.

highlight of the month

2009-03-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

"After reading the Misconceptions about Evolution packet, I learned that most of what I had thought about evolution was wrong. Reading each response after every misconception helped clarify things.

One misconception I had about evolution is that it is incompatible with religion. The response helped me realize that religion and science differ greatly from one another. Science is involved only with nature which can explain natural phenomena, while religion deals with the beliefs that are beyond the natural world. At first, I didn't care to read this packet, but after reading it, it explained a lot of questions that were always left unanswered. Now, I can learn about evolution without being closed-minded."

- Student response to Misconceptions About Evolution reading

Ask a Scientist!

2009-02-24T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm reading up on other science disciplines through Science Buzz, a "website of the Science Museum of Minnesota's 'current science' initiative... focused on science in the news, emerging research, and seasonal science."

Their Scientist on the Spot feature invites expert scientists to answer questions about their discipline in an online forum setting. The current scientist featured is a developmental biologist, and there are a TON of archived questions/answers from a number of disciplines ranging from a Bioethics to Eco-friendly Nanotechnology. Go ask (or just read) and learn.

Irony

2009-02-08T01:06:00.000-08:00

It just so happens that the most gifted writer in my class is also the one that turned in a book report asserting that global warming is a hoax.

Why this cruel trickery you play on us, fate?

Genetics

2009-02-02T09:26:00.001-08:00

"My sister reproduce babies every two years."

- A kid wrote this in class to practice writing with words we had read in our biology book.

My Strengths

2009-01-27T19:13:00.000-08:00

In today's episode of My Fun Future Careers Limbo, I took a personality assessment, called StrengthsQuest, designed to pinpoint my strengths and talents.

(It would be prudent to note that joining Teach For America opens up a wide array of career resources like these to help those of us almost finished with the two-year teaching commitment and who may be looking toward new career ventures (not saying I am, I'm just sayin'). From career mentors to free career guides from Vault.com to free personality tests such as the one I started writing about, Teach For America has got you covered. End praise.)

All of the 100-something questions I answered in StrengthsQuest were analyzed and my 5 strengths were pinpointed out of a list of 34. I definitely agree with these 5:

LEARNER: You love to learn. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you.

Graduate school is perhaps on the horizon?

INTELLECTION: You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective.

I'm trying to get my kids to be like this. Thinking is quite helpful, students.

ANALYTICAL: Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true.” In the face of this kind of questioning some will find that their brilliant theories wither and die. For you, this is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas, but you do insist that their theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and dispassionate. You like data because they are value free. They have no agenda. Armed with these data, you search for patterns and connections. You want to understand how certain patterns affect one another. How do they combine? What is their outcome? Does this outcome fit with the theory being offered or the situation being confronted? These are your questions. You peel the layers back until, gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed.

I experienced an inordinate amount of enjoyment when I took my education research class this past summer. Using an analytical eye to determine causal relationships between various factors in the classroom, or simply to find correlations at the very least, was great fun. Logic puzzles for the win!

INPUT: You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives.

I am a collector (of intangibles), and I do find many things interesting. Maybe too interesting.

ACHIEVER: Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day—workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied. You have an internal fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you.

This was what kept me teaching last year. Little achievements are what keep me going. Achievements like actually posting in this blog.

GATTACA

2009-01-26T12:37:00.000-08:00

"Consider God's handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked?" - Ecclesiastes 7:13

I think I enjoy Gattaca 100x more than my students do, and not just because it means extra grading time in class for me.

Ideas

2009-01-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

One of my kids, completely out of the blue, raised his hand excitedly in the middle of class and recommended that, if everyone in the class earns a passing grade, then we all go to Great America on the last day of school. Everyone got really excited. Like, really.

Hmm.

Free NIN Concert Footage

2009-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Eight months ago, Nine Inch Nails released their latest full-length album The Slip online for free and immediate download.

Now, Trent Reznor is helping propagate throughout the Internets a whopping sum of 405 gigabytes worth of high definition video footage filmed by surreptitious fans from their latest tour, Lights in the Sky over North America.

Fans capable of handling that much data at once should proceed directly to http://thisoneisonus.org/ to help with downloading and seeding the enormous files.

Fans like me who are typing on outdated (school) computers should simply digg this story, and stop smiling so damn much, since we can't see the concert footage just yet.

This was an amazing show. I am Excited!

My Detention

2009-01-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

Teacher: Alright, who's going to stay after school to learn English with me?

Students (collectively): AIEE NOOO MAESTRO

pew pew pew

2009-01-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

I utilize a laser pointer during direct instruction to help guide students to understanding, pointing across the room to PowerPoint visuals elucidating biological form and function in perfect rhythm with the timing that its corresponding topic is discussed during lecture.

...but when students turn around, I train my laser-sight on their figures, narrow my eyesight and whisper, "PEW PEW PEW", and silently cheer my acquisition of one-thousand imaginary points to my imaginary scoreboard.

Diamonds

2008-12-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

The kids began making alum crystals way back in October, but we delayed checking out big they had grown until today after their final. For your reference:

Alum (image source) -------> Alum Crystals (image source)

Student response varied:

* WOW!

* My crystal is bigger than yours!

* It looks like Mickey Mouse

* Look at my necklace!

* Can I take it home?

* Can I show my teachers?

* Can I sell it?

* So how do you make diamonds?

Gym Clowns

2008-12-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

When I go to the gym, there are many sights to behold, as I think I've talked of before. But let's not go down that road.

Another image I often see concerns the high concentration of young dudes trotting around with bulging muscles showing through revealing, sleeveless (and sometimes "sideless", with torso wings flapping and flexing wildly about) shirts. They often are too focused on their own muscles to remember to put (any of) their free weights away when they are done with them. Case in point, the bozo today who left his station, knowing I wanted it next, with weights still a-weighing and sweat still a-dripping from the equipment.

I have a fail-safe measure to respond in my usual, passive-aggressive, I-will-stare-you-down-until-you-die, way. I picture them with a red, squeaky nose and face paint:

And Calm is issued, like a goddamn charm. (Image source)

Teaching Evolution

2008-11-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

I won't need it just yet, but I happened on a useful website concerning what evolution is and how to teach it: Understanding Evolution for Teachers.

Non-teachers whom are nonplussed about evolution might venture a peek, as well.

from my opposite-of-humble abode to yours

2008-11-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

I pay the big bucks for this blackberry to do pointless things like post entries in a mostly unknown blog, wishing a handful of readers a happy thanksgiving and such, but to also remind myself that I can afford certain luxuries, even on the school payroll. And then we spend thanksgiving in a family member's mansion and converse with lawyers and business folk, next to the personal home theater and swimming pool slash waterfall.
I grip my pda to avoid letting nervous sweats carry it out of my hands and make small talk lacking a "sophistication" but with an eye of certain envy. I hate the thoughts that money makes me think.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fresh Prince of the Eukaryotic Cell

2008-11-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

A student turned in his cell project that I assigned the class. I gave a list of options as to what each student could choose to make for their project, and this student chose to write a short story about the organelles in a cell. Here is an excerpt:

"Hello, you may think that even the smallest of organelles, the ribosome, is not of any importance to the cell, but you're wrong! This is my story about a little organelle like me in a BIG cell! Today I was making proteins for the cell and giving them to the E.R. to fold them correctly. Suddenly, the cell went into code red! Every organelle needed to get its job done and protein was in high demand. Usually we can get stored protein from places like the vacuole but there were none left! The whole cell was working and in the confusion I was ripped from the E.R. and went flying through the cytoplasm.

I tried to swim back but I didn't have the strength. "I'm just a lowly ribosome!", I said as I tried to get back connected to the E.R. Just then, I bumped into another couple organelles who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said, "You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought, "Nah, forget it. Yo Homes.. To Bel-Air!" I.. pulled... up to the house at about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabby "Yo homes, smell ya later!" I looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air.

I fell out of my chair laughing.

Google predicts the next outbreak

2008-11-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

I just taught viruses in class, but I might go back and introduce Google's latest creation to my class, Google Flu Trends:

"We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for "flu" is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and found that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States."

Their search data aligns well to actual medical data and, because of the time taken for CDC data collection/analysis, can be made available 2 weeks ahead of the news from health agencies. I seldom get the flu, but if you do, Google has surely invented something (else) that can help.

Great is our sin

2008-11-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

"If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."

- Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, 1839

Science may make a comeback

2008-11-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

President-Elect Barack Obama has set science and society up for success with his new agenda:

The economy and foreign policy may be higher on President-elect Barack Obama's to-do list, but science and technology issues are on the radar screen as well. Among the top tasks: taking the ideology out of scientific issues, and doing more about what Obama has called a "planet in peril."

This is good news for many reasons, one of which: I'm tired of writing cynical blog posts relating to stem cells. Give me some better material to work with!

Bittersweet

2008-11-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

The good: President-Elect Barack Obama's new website

The bad:

Prop 8, eliminating gay marriage in California, passed by a slim margin. Prop 8 was decided by 250,000 voters, or 2.5% of the total vote. I am convinced that these voters, if not more of them, were voting not because of a belief that gay marriage is wrong, but because they worried it would be taught in our public schools. The issue of gay marriage in schools was one of the bigger issues pushed by the Yes-on-8 crowd. You can even see evidence of it in their banner, with the 2 adult figures protecting the 2 children (as if gay marriage had anything to do with family structure).

As a public high school teacher, I could just spit when I hear about how absolutely convinced folks are that schools would have taught gay marriage had Prop 8 failed. It's also unnerving to see how poorly the No-on-8 campaign refuted this dishonest claim. One measly ad featuring Jack O'Connell, the California Superintendent of Schools, was not nearly enough to halt the momentum of this race. Prop 8 was never about gay marriage in schools, yet the other side succeeded in playing this canard to voters. I'd applaud their strategy were it not so vile and baseless, tainted with church views that homosexuality is sinful.

Tonight's the night

2008-11-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

"It's gonna be a glorious day!
I feel [our] luck could change."

- Lucky by Radiohead

A Teacher's View of Prop 8

2008-11-02T01:30:00.000-07:00

I already voted via CA absentee ballot, so even if the fear-mongering ads supporting Proposition 8 were capable of hypnosis, my vote would safely continue to say, "No thanks: I don't much care for discrimination."

The latest polls show that this is a very close race, which it should not be, considering this is 2008 in Cali-fucking-fornia. Come on. It took us 2 years to get the hippies out of the trees of my university, yet we're really this willing to rewrite our state constitution to prefer one type of love over another?

Googling Prop 8 to see why this can actually be a possibility adds to the rage, since Yes-on-8 websites are clearly determined to shit all over the California Education Code with their own versions of truth designed to beguile the public.

***

Let's summarize what the code actually says, along with a 2003 sex education research study cited by the Yes-on-8 crowd, to understand what it is I actually have to teach your kids:

1) CA Education Code 51933 states that school districts "may provide comprehensive sexual health education" in any grade as long as it is age-appropriate and factual. It's likely your neighborhood school does. 96% of schools chose to do so.

2) CA Education Code 51890 elaborates on what a comprehensive sexual health education program entails, which is a vast spectrum of health topics concerning drugs, exercise, disease and making good decisions. Also included is this topic:

"Family health and child development, including the legal and
financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood."

"Instruction and materials shall teach respect for marriage and
committed relationships."

Students should consider relationships and committed relationships with respect. Students should respect that 2 people choose to commit to one another. The point, as given from the context, is that commitment and honesty are both traits found in a healthy lifestyle. That includes the commitment of heterosexual couples and of homosexual couples. The institution of marriage and what marriage means is not the focus. This will not change with Prop 8.

4) Yes, you read right, I can talk about homosexual couples. Also from CA Ed. Code 51933:

"Instruction and materials shall be appropriate for use with
pupils of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds, and pupils with disabilities."

"To encourage a pupil to develop healthy attitudes concerning
adolescent growth and development, body image, gender roles, sexual
orientation, dating, marriage, and family."

Prop 8 has nothing to do with schools

2008-10-23T20:43:00.001-07:00

Bigots and the "Save Marriage!" crowd: It's alright, I won't teach The Evil Known As Gay Marriage (TEKAGM) in my freshman biology class. Promise.

Other than, maybe, an informative discussion on how gay marriage killed the dinosaurs.

YouTube as an Educator's Resource

2008-10-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

I decided to consult YouTube for a nice G-rated movie showing the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar, also known as the erupting volcano experiment that younger students sometimes make at home for science projects.

The search wasn't helpful but was a little revealing: most of the 1000+ videos are titled "VINEGAR BOMBS" or "CHECK THIS BOMB OUT" or "HOW TO MAKE A BOMB" and show young teenagers throwing closed containers of said reactants into the street to watch them explode.

Serious? Parents: why are you letting your kids do shit like this?

Calvin, Hobbes, and Teaching

2008-10-01T19:03:00.001-07:00

I was reminiscing about my childhood (hence, the childhood label at the bottom of the post) and recalled one of my favorite perpetual memories: reading my Calvin and Hobbes collections in the quiet of my bedroom. What I loved most about the stories was Calvin's vivid imagination and the adventures he undertook with his trusty tiger Hobbes. He made his interactions with the ennui of the real world lively and fantastic, vivid and beautiful, as if polishing a rusted gem. His drawings of dinosaurs in rocket ships were unappreciated by his weary teacher, Miss Wormwood, mainly because of Calvin always drawing them during class.

I tore up a student's drawing today and realized that all these years later and I've gone and turned into Miss Wormwood! At least the picture wasn't of any dinosaurs in rocket ships.

(Images: Calvin and Hobbes)

Yes! Yes! Yes!

2008-09-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

I love me some rubber stamps, and have a creaky and dusty drawer full of them. Some are motivational, some include puns (like "You rule!" with a ruler underneath), all are amazing. The one I was using today for checking submitted homework after school was simply the word "YES!" inscribed within a 5-pointed star.

I came across a very lovely poster of the various groupings of ecology, from populations to biomes, that was perfectly drawn and colored, so instead of the obligatory stamp-to-stamp-pad-to-paper journey, I decided to apply my teacher brush a few times in succession! This unintentionally led to the following phrase in big, inky green letters across the poster:

"YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!"

And then I laughed a great deal and hoped no one would laugh the same way when they saw it, too.

Thoughts are Critical

2008-09-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

"It is quite possible and, unfortunately, quite "natural" to live an unexamined life; to live in a more or less automated, uncritical way. It is possible to live, in other words, without really taking charge of the persons we are becoming; without developing or acting upon the skills and insights we are capable of. However, if we allow ourselves to become unreflective persons — or rather, to the extent that we do — we are likely to do injury to ourselves and others, and to miss many opportunities to make our own lives, and the lives of others, fuller, happier, and more productive."

-CriticalThinking.org (teacher homework)

I need to promulgate the importance of critical thinking, lest my kids become more uninformed citizens with voting rights. Shoot, this will be tough.

Decimals

2008-09-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

I would fucking die if I had to teach math. I realized that kids are having trouble learning metric conversions because they don't understand how to use a decimal.

Me: Let's say you have the number "1", where do you write the dot/decimal/point/*any other synonym possible*?

Him: 0.1!!

Me: No.

Her: .01?

Me: No?

Him: 0.1?

Me: You just said that. Still no.

Him: Ohhhh 1.0!

Me: Yes! So how do you write it on your paper?

Him: *Writes 0.01*

Me: Wait what? No!

*5 minutes later, 50% of the class understands how to write the decimal to show that "1" is the same as "1.0"

Me: Great, now what happens if we have 43? Where do we write the decimal? Hint, write the decimal on the RIGHT SIDE of the last number.

Them: .43? .043? 0.043? 0.43? 4.3? 1.0? 7? 34?

This is not what I meant when I said I like working with numbers.

Still Here!

2008-09-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

hahahahahahahaha

Metric System

2008-09-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

My kids found this interesting, and so you will, too.

This is a world map with 3 countries shaded: Burma, Liberia, and Moi.

Why are they shaded? They are the only 3 nations who have not officially adopted the metric system as their primary system of measurement. Among industrialized societies, only in the US do our gas-guzzlers guzzle gas by the gallons versus by the liters.

Considering that the international language of science is dependent on the metric system, this fact alone drops us down a rung on the path to science literacy for all.

I mean, how do I get kids to learn how a centimeter is related to a micrometer when they be all, "centiwho?"

First Week, Second Time Around

2008-08-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

I engage a first period who fights to awaken instead of passively submits to sleep. I tutor a second period composed of 6 students. I welcome a third period that is eager to read science prompts aloud. I ease into a fourth period filled with competition for the higher grade. I eat lunch. I rest after lunch during my prep fifth period. I challenge a sixth period to learn how to read.

So this is what teaching is like.

***

Me: "Alright, which lab safety rule did you choose, Sagur?"

Him: "...on-only...use... mat... mat..."

Me: "Materials."

Him: "...mateereels... give-given... by... the... teacher."

Me: "Great, Sagur. Now, what could you draw that would show you breaking that rule?"

Him: "PLUTONIUM!"

Me: "...wait what?"

Support DonorsChoose.org!

2008-08-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Reflections at Ground Zero will have to wait, until I have the energy to stand up again. Monitoring students on my feet for hours straight is a rough routine to get back into.

DonorsChoose.org helped get me a free color laser printer for my classroom, which was an immense help in helping teach my English Learners last year, and will continue to help this year. I also scored a free poster laminator to help create paper activities with a longer usage life, to allow for more hands-on work.

I said free! I paid nothing at all, and got so much in return. Now I have a chance to give back, through the Members Project:

I'd like to tell you about a project I saw on Members Project. It's called "Help 100,000 children thrive in the classroom!," and with your support it could get funding from American Express. The best part: nominating this project for potential funding is free and only takes a minute!

Members Project is an exciting initiative that brings people together to make a difference in the world. It's simple. People go online to share ideas for projects — and ultimately vote on which projects will share $2.5 million in funding from American Express.

In 2007, Members Project provided clean drinking water to children all across Africa. What will Members Project do this year? The decision is yours. Please click the link to the DonorsChoose Members Project and nominate!

First Evening Before First Day of School

2008-08-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

1) Everything, from lesson plans to posters, is all set up for the first week.

and

2) Personal anxiety levels are low.

If 1 and 2 are true, then 3:

3) Tomorrow will be totally awesome. Right? Right?

Olympic Gold and Research

2008-08-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

(image cite) As the Olympics in Beijing end, I think about how much closer in proximity to the events I was just a couple weeks ago. I also think about my students growing up and succeeding as the Olympics athletes did. I think about them earning their own gold medals and breaking world records on their own.

I am busy planning totally awesome activities for the first week of school, which begins on Tuesday, and I am preparing my research study which also begins. My project is focusing on answering 3 totally awesome research questions:

1) Scores on which type of an ongoing formal assessment – multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank – better represent a recently immigrated EL’s opinion of his/her own science content understanding as measured through a weekly survey, written artifacts, and informal interviews?

2) Which classroom warm-up activity – silent reading or journal entries –raises scores the most on an English reading comprehension posttest?

3) What student grouping – tetrads grouped according to science understanding or English fluency – raises scores the most on weekly science content quizzes, an English reading comprehension posttest, and a science content posttest?

Summer: The End

2008-08-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well, that was fun.

My summer odyssey took me to the library, the beach, and the ends of the Earth! (Assuming there are "ends," and Hong Kong was at one of said "ends").

I stepped out of the cabin of an airplane into another world. I left my first footprints here on the suspended bridge to the airport, greeted by an attendant with a smile and a nod. I noted the oppressive air of this climate, dripping with humidity, before a tide of conditioned air rushed past and formed an invisible barrier that led to a temperate zone past the bridge. There, I joined a moving mass of people toward customs, signs along the way equipped with dual languages to remind me where I was. Moving walkways brought me closer to my legal entry to Hong Kong, but I was already here, really. I flipped out my passport, grabbed my suitcase with all of the teacher stickers on it, and journeyed out the door toward a bus headed for Kowloon.

I flew to Hong Kong because I could, but I also flew there to see Toshiko, my guide to all sorts of fun and adventure.

I also did a bunch of research for my education research project, and am preparing a study that starts when school does, which is on Tuesday.

There is so much to write about that I must temper my excited planning fervor with some due credit toward writing again.

Summer: Day 27

2008-07-11T02:16:00.001-07:00

Me: I'm going to the teacher store-- they are having a back-to-school sale.
Mom: Oh? How many are you going to buy?
Me: ...

I need to rethink this new usage of adjectives.

Summer: Day 23

2008-07-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

There's this girl I used to like back in school. We talked in class but I never asked her out, despite wanting to. And then I saw her today after a long time and finally asked, and she's married. Married!

Gosh, you wait 8 years to do something you want to do, and look what happens.

Summer: Day 20

2008-07-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

Twenty days through and I feel like a new man. Less and less of the first year teacher growing pains are apparent now, overtaken by a haze while I bask in the sun of a responsibility-free summer.

The sun was good to me yesterday, actually, and I may finally be sporting color on my body. We were at the beach for hours, so it was a gift I saw coming.

At the lounge later that night, we balked at the long line. There was a shorter, more attractive line that was reserved for attractive ladies, and with bouncers busy staring at the half-clothed figures walking by, perhaps they wouldn't notice a manly man sneaking through an incorrect queue.

Until I got to the front, where the tool of a bouncer didn't believe I was 21.

Yes, that is my ID.
Yes, I lost a lot of weight.
No, my eyes are not brown.
Yes, the DMV put "BROWN" next to "EYES" when they should have written "GREEN" or "BLUE" or "GORGEOUS".
Yes, I will sign my name on a piece of paper for you.
No, I cannot replicate my signature exactly as it appears on my ID because it's been 6 years since I got my ID and I write differently.
Yes, I will show you a credit card.
Yes, I will show you another credit card.
Yes, I will show you my college ID.
Yes, I'm positive that is my ID.

After all the fanfare, a few drinks brought about another haze that I always appreciate. Good times!

I hope I can keep having a life when school starts.

Summer: Day 16

2008-06-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

Updates via phone:

1) I can post via phone! Oh empty joys of technology!

2) 300 pages later of my education research textbook summer marathon, I am surprisingly more in tune with the thoughts and desires of researchers than I thought. Determining alternative hypotheses to control for with my experimental research design is making my brain tickle. I didn't have fun with research before perhaps because I didn't get to do any of the fun stuff, which is planning the entire experiment out.

3) My new bookcase has just been delivered! Now I get to build something!

Summer: Day 2

2008-06-16T22:59:00.001-07:00

My schedule for the rest of the summer includes the following (and much more):

* Begin another batch of online education classes and research for my MAE

* Create a better curriculum for a science class supporting recent arrivals from Mexico

* Fly to Hong Kong

I should be in Excessive Reading mode now to finish things ahead of time, but the following is bound to (repeatedly) happen instead:

"Astute thinking about research can greatly enhance your ability to understand published educational research and commu--

*snore*

Summer: Day 1

2008-06-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Bowling and beers led to:

Five Strikes in a row!

School's Out

2008-06-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

...and it ended quite abruptly, without much fanfare. But at least it ended!

There is lots of stuff on the summer agenda before we start again in August with Round 2 of the Teach For America commitment, but to paraphrase what my roommate told me:

"Summer vacation is so long that you forget you actually have a job."

Things are looking up!

Get Me Out of Here

2008-06-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

Depart: 02:00pm _________San Francisco, CA (SFO)
Arrive: 05:05pm _________Tokyo, Japan (NRT)

Depart: 06:30pm _________Tokyo, Japan (NRT)
Arrive: 10:00pm _________Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKG)

Mundane

2008-05-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

A student went to the bathroom today during class.

He came back with a "Tide to Go" stain removal pen, and busied himself with a persistent spot on his shirt.

I swear, the most mundane things catch my attention.

Teacher Accused of Wizardry

2008-05-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

BREAKING NEWS: Man made toothpick vanish in class.

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip (free album download)

2008-05-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Nine Inch Nails, one of my favorite bands since the beginning of time, has a new album out. They are giving it away for free.

The new album, The Slip, can be downloaded from the NIN website. If you're interested, please also digg the story and spread the word.

TEACHERS GONE WILD (18+)

2008-04-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

I had another trying day, but I certainly won't write about what I dislike on this public forum because of the tattle-tales at the Washington Post:

When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web
Public Profiles Raise Questions of Propriety and Privacy
By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 28, 2008; Page A01

Thanks, Peein' Crapira.

Let me be more grown-up about my repugnant stare toward the screen, not because I have to be, but because I want to be.

To summarize: the article shakes a cold finger at young teachers for their proclivities to use the Internets for anything outside of the world of education. The author even goes so far as to lambaste a teacher for posting a picture of her friends flipping off the camera. I'm sorry the picture offended the author's sensibilities, but come on.

Here are some responses I have to the article:

1) My sense of humor is often "overtly sarcastic", but please do not also label it "unintentionally unprofessional". Every word in this blog and on my Facebook and Myspace profiles were born of intention. I do not post garbage online and later say, Whoops! Unless I'm drunk.

The intention with these forums is not to exude professionalism, but to stir up ideas in myself and others, and to have some fun while doing it.

2) When young teachers post sarcastic, revealing perspectives of their lives or sense of humor online, it is not "acting like young adults", at least not in the way implied by the author. Toilet humor is not reserved for teenagers. Just turn on the television and see for yourself.

3) For that matter, words befitting the Urban Dictionary are also not reserved for the young'uns. There is a difference between the language we use in our classrooms and what we say to each other off campus. A Special Education teacher can certainly love her students and a few hours later message a close friend with, "Hey Retardo". Yes, I know I've commented on language use and abuse before, but she still has a right to use the language she wants if she is not teaching and simply out living her life.

4) This quote deserves some kind of recognition that I am uncertain how to give:

Click on [the teacher's] "summertime" photo album and see a close-up of two young men flashing serious-looking middle fingers.

Seriously? Young teachers should be scolded for posting "serious-looking" pictures of their friends flipping the camera off?

5) I do think there ought to be some reservations with what a teacher posts online, but these are simple common-sense precautions that any grown-up should take with uploading on the web. I'm featured in a good number of pictures and movies that no one should ever see, much less my kids and their families. This media will be kept out of impressionable students' hands so long as I keep any and all Berkeley friends out of the San Jose area until I'm done teaching. Stupid jerks with their stupid cameras.

6) Do not question my motives for teaching. I hate that. I'm not in it for money. I'm not in it for fame. I'm not in it for access to the cool kids' house parties when their parents go out of town. There are more important things in life.

That Asshole Mouse

2008-04-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Son-Of-A-Bitch Mouse Solves Maze Researchers Spent Months Building

IOWA CITY, IA—The mouse briskly traversed the complicated wooden maze in under 30 seconds, roughly 1/8,789,258 the time it took to secure funding for the experiment.

Teacher Teacher

2008-04-04T10:45:00.001-07:00

Them: Teacher teacher! Are you using MySpace?

Me: ................No.

Confession

2008-03-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I consider adding words to a wordsearch my kids are working on that are not actually hidden anywhere. So they will search forever but never finish.

Sinister laugh!

2008-03-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

In secondary education, having a wickedly bad lesson plan nets you front row tickets to the equivalent of a terrible plane crash 5 times in a row.

Typical Conversation

2008-03-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

Estudiante: Teacher! Teacher! *waves hand around*

Me: *approaches from the other end of the room* Yes?

Estudiante: ¿Por qué usted nos está enseñando biología cuando usted incluso no habla español? ¿Cómo nos suponen comunicarnos? ¿Cómo nos suponen sostenerle en alto como nuestro modelo del papel cuando no tenemos ninguna idea qué usted está diciendo mitad del tiempo? ¿Por qué nuestro sistema educativo nos está fallando?

Me: ...

Estudiante: Ahh!! *gives up*

2008-03-04T23:24:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm in purgatory.

What Another Sub Told Me

2008-02-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

"PERIOD 2: Terrible, terrible class. The worst that I have ever subbed for."

- Angry note from the substitute

I like to save these notes. They're kinda cute, in their own depressing way.

Valentine's Fun for Biology Lovers

2008-02-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day drags its tentacles into the laboratory. I hate poems and puns but these are slightly awesome:

I give you my heart on this Valentine’s Day
In a jar you can keep on your shelf,
With your books and your papers, in cluttered array,
Or a prominent place by itself.
It is really my heart—deep within every cell
Are the strands of my own DNA;
I could have just given you chocolates, but, well,
My message is clearer this way:
I love you much more than a card, or some flowers,
Or trinkets you see in the stores;
So it’s off to the lab for a few hundred hours,
And my heart—if you’ll take it—is yours.

- The Digital Cuttlefish

***

A rat cadaver’s donor heart
Is stripped of every cell
The protein fiber matrix left
Looks like a ghostly shell;
This matrix, in a sterile flask,
Is bathed in rat-heart goo
With both adult and baby cells,
And starts to grow anew.
In only days, the growing heart
May beat, or merely twitch,
Then work, at roughly two percent…

Like yours, you heartless bitch.

- The Digital Cuttlefish

***

- Ironic Sans

***

- Jacks of Science

***

Students: if you give out anything like these to loved ones (or awesome teachers), I will give you a million 'A ' plusses. Me and my awesome grading techniques.

2008-02-12T02:21:00.000-08:00

Today I bought a laser pointer that also can remotely advance slides in a PowerPoint presentation.

That is all.

This is called high expectations

2008-01-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Rachel: Mr. S, can I retake the vocabulary quiz? I think I wrote a wrong answer to a question.

Me: Sure. So, you got an A+ last semester, Rachel. What's your goal for this semester? A perfect 100%?

Rachel: Yeah. *dead serious*

Me: Nice. Nice.

*Rachel proceeds to officially ace the test*

Inspired.

2008-01-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

"Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth."

- Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC)

My Personality

2008-01-16T14:47:00.001-08:00

To procrastinate grading, I took an Advanced Global Personality Test that Andrew linked on his blog. Quoted below is a section of its findings.

Data:

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion |||||||||| 36%

Stability |||||||||||||| 60%

Orderliness |||||||||||||||||| 80%

Accommodation |||||||||||||||| 63%

Interdependence |||||||||||||| 56%

Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 63%

Mystical |||||||||||| 43%

Artistic || 10%

Religious |||| 16%

Hedonism |||||||||||||| 56%

Materialism |||||| 23%

Narcissism |||||||||||||||||||| 83%

Adventurousness |||||||||| 36%

Work ethic |||||||||||||||| 70%

Self absorbed |||||||||||||| 56%

Conflict seeking |||| 16%

Need to dominate |||||||||||||| 56%

Romantic |||||||||||| 43%

Avoidant |||||||||||||| 56%

Anti-authority |||||| 30%

Wealth |||||||||| 36%

Dependency |||||||||||| 43%

Change averse |||||||||||| 43%

Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70%

Individuality |||||||||| 36%

Sexuality |||||||||||||||| 70%

Peter pan complex |||||||||||| 43%

Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90%

Physical Fitness |||||||||||||||| 64%

Histrionic |||||| 30%

Paranoia |||||||||||||||| 70%

Vanity |||||||||||||||| 70%

Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 70%

Indie |||||||||||||||| 65%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

Data Analysis:

* Physical Security (90%) was the highest score. I believe I am well-off, and have a sufficient number of material things. I'm a teacher. This works well for me, because y'all know I'm not getting anything, anytime soon.

* Narcissism (83%) was the second highest score. This score stems from the fact that I believe I am a sexy, sexy beast, and that I am extremely optimistic and prone to working my ass off in hopes that I can do anything I will myself to try.

* Artistic (10%) was the lowest score. I am a silent, organized and logical being. I am a little surprised this was so low, because I am prone to expressing myself publicly via this blog.

* Religious and Conflict-seeking (16% each) were tied for the second lowest score. The questions were geared toward religion. Had they asked about spirituality in general I believe that score would be higher. The other score suggests that I am calm and level-headed, which agrees with prior experimental results.

Conclusion:

I am a stable, organized, logical, motivated, hard-working, secretive creature.
I am also a ninja.

Shh! Finals!

2008-01-15T12:26:00.001-08:00

I love when kids shush each other during a test.

Finals!

2008-01-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

I am really looking forward to this week. Why, you ask? Because it is finals week.

It is quite perplexing, this feeling of joy stemming from final exam time. A year prior, I was taking other teachers' final exams. Now I am giving them.

Three reasons why finals week is the best work week known to teachers:

1) Half days. We get out at noon!

2) Silent kids. The best way to get kids to calm down is through a test. Even if they don't know anything.

3) No lesson plans required. That's 80% of the teaching battle.

Sweetness.

..and Finger Mustache Tattoos For All

2008-01-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

Also known as "fingerstaches", also known as amazing. They even have their own online networking community.

Man #1: So I get the tattoo, what do I get?

Man #2: You get to be in disguise, at any time....

Drama!

2008-01-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

A lady friend visited my classes back in September. She wanted to see her good friend teaching a class. Rumors abounded shortly after she left. She's been everything from my mistress to my wifey. Students privately ask me if they should keep our secret love affair under wraps.

Today, two of my youthful bosses visited me after class. They are both of the female type. A student walked by. Her jaw dropped and she shot me an accusatory glance.

"Mr. S!" she shot out.

I hope my imaginary wife-to-be doesn't find out.

Clocks

2008-01-08T22:58:00.001-08:00

While it is not in the curriculum, I believe it would be advantageous to take a day or two off to teach my kids how to read an analog clock.

Because they're almost adults.

And they still need electronic devices with numbers to tell time.

Slowing me down

2008-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

* You would not believe how sparse lesson plans and activities are on the Internets (for high school biology, at least). I am learning that either high school teachers throw out everything in a screwed-up manner of spring cleaning, and reinvent the educational wheel each time September shows up and they need to teach again, or they are maintaining a fervent boycott of anything World Wide-related.

Just a study guide. Ecology themed. With answers. That's all I ask, Google. That's all I ask.

First Year of Teaching

2008-01-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

Here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote detailing my first few months of teaching to some Teach For America sponsors:

More than half of my students are designated as English Learners, meaning their ability to speak, read and write in English ranges from nearly fully conversational to students who have never been in an American classroom before and still communicate with gestures more than words.

Regardless, all of my English Learners come to class each day ready to learn in a language other than the language they grew up with, an added challenge to the already treacherous biology curriculum. Language development for these students is an ongoing goal in our classroom.

I began my first year of teaching in September, and since then I continue to learn more and more about my students alongside their own learning. I’ve learned firsthand just how ingrained some students’ perceptions were of themselves as “dumb” and why they used to give up on their education so quickly. Now, we focus on study skills, and through tracking study times and quiz scores on an individual basis, I show my students with hard numbers and data that bad grades are a product of bad study skills, and similarly, good grades come from good study skills. One of my classes has improved their average quiz scores by 10%, not because they are intrinsically smarter, but because they increased their average study time per night by 3 minutes. Another 3 minutes more, I tell them, might translate into another 10%. Their eyes glimmer. They realize that they can succeed if they try.

Science is all about using data to find trends and connections between phenomena. Students act as scientists when they observe their study habits and their grades, and find links between the two. I remind them of this every day.

While study skills are extremely important, our big goals for the year focus on the Biology California Standardized Test that they will be taking in May. That test is based on learning objectives set by the State, and so we focus on those same objectives. As students master these goals (80% or higher on quizzes), they work their way toward “graduating” and moving on to college. To recognize their progress, as students master more and more goals, they get to choose colleges they’d like to attend, and their names and their college banners goes up on the wall above the whiteboard. Students love our graduation days where I hand out diplomas that they can (and happily do!) take home and share with family members and peers, and this acts as incentive to work hard in preparation for the Big Test, not to mention gets them thinking about going to college.

Through our class focus on language development, study skills and college, my students are working hard to prove to their community and to California that they have great potential and the desire and drive to succeed.

I truly appreciate your interest in supporting students like mine through Teach For America, and it inspires me to work harder alongside my students when I know that my community supports my efforts.

2007 in Review

2008-01-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

2007 was one of those milestone years for me, like how invading Iraq made 2003 a milestone year for America.

* Turned an inconspicuous age. Down the hill, I go.

* Finished college. Miss it.

* Left Berkeley. Miss it.

* Started teaching. Biggest challenge of my life so far.

This is not to say that I look unfavorably at the past year and the challenges it has brought me. It is what I wanted. Most of these adversities have been self-afflicted, as I choose what ridiculous circumstances I put myself into, and when my plate is more than full I devour it greedily. I want to be challenged. It's how I operate.

Did I fulfill my past resolutions?

1) Read more/Write more? Kind of. I still blog, and in December I've read a few actual books.

2) Learn to cook? No.

3) Focusing on health? Kind of. Must stop stressing. Must stop stressing.

4) Drink more? This was a stupid, juvenile resolution. And yes.

5) Focus on friending? No. Well, not since school started.

Do I have resolutions for 2008? I think so, but I'll relegate them to the next post.

Happy New Year!!

2007-12-31T15:46:00.000-08:00

(end of message)

New Year's Eve Plans

2007-12-30T17:54:00.001-08:00

If you are still drawing blanks for the kinds of debauchery you will be participating in tomorrow, here is a list of 57 New Year's Eve events ongoing in the bay area, all for under $20.

And if you are not a teacher, maybe you can afford the NYE events happening in SF on this other list, tickets ranging from $40 to $400 each.

The Catalytic Triad

Eduwonk!

Hello

BrainPOP and H1N1 Video Clip

Irony

I want clarification on "time off"

Why We are Walking Out

Grad students and email

SC Orientation

The Speech that Ended Democracy

Obama's School Speech

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Final)

Testing Comments...

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 9): Obstacles to Closing the Achievement Gap

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 8): Achievement Gap History and Causes

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 7): Teach For America's Mission

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 6): Scientific Literacy

Short Pause for Ph.D Orals Survival Kit

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 5): Standards and NCLB

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 4): Student Needs

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 3): Learning Styles

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 2): Planning

What I Learned while Teaching Secondary Science (Part 1): Weekends

Classes and Teaching

Pilgrimage

Dostoevsky and "The Grand Inquisitor" / The Temptation of Jacob

Phase 5: "Pandemic is Imminent"

Stop Sign Means Stop

Pandemic Possible, not Inevitable

union rep says

Special Election, and a Prop 8 Update

Spring Break!...

*new* highlight of the month

highlight of the month

Ask a Scientist!

Irony

Genetics

My Strengths

GATTACA

Ideas

Free NIN Concert Footage

My Detention

pew pew pew

Diamonds

Gym Clowns

Teaching Evolution

from my opposite-of-humble abode to yours

Fresh Prince of the Eukaryotic Cell

Google predicts the next outbreak

Great is our sin

Science may make a comeback

Bittersweet

Tonight's the night

A Teacher's View of Prop 8

Prop 8 has nothing to do with schools

YouTube as an Educator's Resource

Calvin, Hobbes, and Teaching

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Thoughts are Critical

Decimals

Still Here!

Metric System

First Week, Second Time Around

Support DonorsChoose.org!

First Evening Before First Day of School

Olympic Gold and Research

Summer: The End

Summer: Day 27

Summer: Day 23

Summer: Day 20

Summer: Day 16

Summer: Day 2

Summer: Day 1

School's Out

Get Me Out of Here

Mundane

Teacher Accused of Wizardry

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip (free album download)

TEACHERS GONE WILD (18+)

That Asshole Mouse

new highlight of the month