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In what other profession...

2012-01-28T13:47:00.003-05:00

I had to repost this article. It was just too amazing. Enjoy.

August 27th, 2010: by David Reber

I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.

I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?

Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.

In what other profession, indeed.

In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”

In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.

In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”

But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.

And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.

If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.

For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.

If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.

And if someone – anyone - tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.

Anatomy Resources

2012-01-24T20:54:00.002-05:00

As part of a biology listserv, I often get tips on resources available online. Here's one of the messages I received in terms of locating reliable anatomy and physiology resources for classroom use... Hope it helps!"

You may be interested in the Archive of Teaching Resources from the American Physiological Society (APS): http://www.apsarchive.org/index.cfm

It has a wealth of resources for teaching anatomy and physiology, and related topics – many for the K-12 classroom. I recommend using the advanced search option to take advantage of the extensive categorization of each resource.

One distinguishing feature of the archive is that all the materials have been reviewed for scientific accuracy as well as for adherence to appropriate ethical standards.

Note that the APS is also accepting external submissions – if you have a terrific resource to share, this is your chance to have it reviewed and posted in an NSF-funded digital library!"

UFT: Tell the Mayor to Support our Kids!

2012-01-14T07:54:00.002-05:00

Dear colleagues,

The UFT has filed legal papers with the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) asking it to declare impasse, charging the Department of Education with walking away from negotiations that would have brought additional funding and support to dozens of New York City schools.

Instead of coming to an agreement with us on an evaluation system that would help teachers improve their skills and enhance our classrooms, the mayor and the DOE have decided to play politics and close schools. We have asked PERB to intervene and force them back to the bargaining table.

Since Mayor Bloomberg has decided to use smokescreens to hide his decade of disastrous leadership over our public schools, we are encouraging all members to call 311. Tell the mayor to stop bashing teachers, start taking responsibility for not properly supporting schools and help us give children the quality education they deserve.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

My 2 cents...

Bloomberg is the worst example of a leader I have ever seen.

Leaders take responsibility for their shortcomings and their failures at some point. Hell even George W. Bush took responsibility for Katrina after they fumbled around with whether or not to evacuate or assign the appropriate personnel to assist New Orleans.

Bloomberg on the other hand has demonstrated no accountability of his own. How does one take all the credit for smoke and dagger numbers and data (higher test scores...?, higher graduation rates...?) then blame classroom educators for all the failures of the system? Because Bloomberg is a terrible leader.

It just goes to show how terrible of a leader he is when even George W. Bush has more humility to admit when he screwed up more than Bloomberg has ever admitted.

All this talk of Bloomberg running for president in the future is so short-sighted. I wish people took a step back and actually evaluated his record as the "education" mayor of NYC. That's all people need to know about him as a presidential candidate.

This issue alone should convince even Bloomberg himself that he can't buy his way into the Oval office the way he did with the Mayor's office.

Unbelievable.

Advice for first-year teachers: Don't be a sucker!

2012-01-07T22:08:00.001-05:00

I know it's common for first-year teachers to assume that students have some credibility but the reality is that you cannot trust everything a student tells you to your face.

An adolescent is quite possibly the most manipulative organism on the face of the planet. They lie, they cry, they feign illness, they will look you square in the eyes with their puppy-dog looks and expect you to cave.

Under no circumstances are you as an educator to give into these schemes. There's a rule in the business world called the ABC's. Always be closing. You're either selling your students on a reason to learn and put forth their best effort, or they're selling you their best excuses for a lesser standard for themselves. Either way, a sale is made. Don't be the sucker to buy their ridiculous excuses.

I tell students that the worst thing they could do to me is lie to my face. The profession of teaching teaches you to determine who is lying and who is not lying pretty easily. You get a lot of practice...

Students who lie to my face, to get around things they're supposed to be doing, usually end up getting screwed by the system. And when I point this out they learn that lying probably wasn't the best course of action. It's a waste of their time and energy to fabricate a false reality - so they end up confessing things to me instead.

The student who continues to lie in spite of my ability to spot the crappy alibis is the student who gets the least amount of support later on in life. You can't live your life through a series of lies because you undermine the value of your words. The last thing you need is for people to stop listening to you when you have a legitimate problem because you've made a habit of telling lies when it's not necessary.

Sort of reminds you of the boy who cried wolf...

In any case, if you're teaching and you are in your first-year, don't cave in to your student's nonsensical stories. Ask for notarized or official documents. Went to the bathroom? Where's the SSA who witnessed you? Came from the nurse? Get a pass! Had to go to a doctor's appointment? Get a note! You were hospitalized for 6 weeks? BULLSHIT!

Don't buy student bullshit. It stinks and it has no value. You give it value by buying it, if anything you give up your own dignity by buying their bullshit excuses for not doing what they're supposed to.

Student Memo: Raise YOUR expectations

2011-12-17T12:56:00.001-05:00

To give you a taste of the sort of population I teach. I teach a group of students who are mature, but make poor decisions that have negative academic consequences. Another thing that many of my students have in common is that they only want to get a 65 just to get out of school.

I address this attitude with an anecdote on raising their own expectations of themselves:

I start off by asking students, "If a student wants a 65 and gets a 64, should they be happy or pissed?"

Students often think that they should be really upset.

Here's my response, "Honestly, you can't be mad, because you're 99% of the way there. You've accomplished 99% of your goal to get to a 65. So why would you be mad?"

When you leave no room for mistakes, how can you possibly blame anybody other than yourself for the one mistake that costs you the 1%? I always find it fascinating that students seem to think that their expectations are all that matter in my classroom. Heck no, it's not about your expectations, it's about the state and city's expectations! This is why you need to take 5 exams to graduate from high school.

One of the biggest struggles with my students is breaking this minimalist mentality of scraping by to get where they need to or where they want to go. With many students they often see this story as a reason to doubt their abilities even further, but honestly, that's the critical-mass psychological challenge that education poses to students of extreme academic need.

I often tell my students that my grading is not a negotiation. Where you are does not change simply because you feel that you deserve that extra point. I also tell students that I have the utmost respect for the material that I teach because it has the ability to lead to individual greatness, but whether or not you attain that greatness is not up to your teachers or the material itself.

Science is a subject that either gets conquered by the most motivated individuals or it is the subject area that conquers the masses. Let's not kid ourselves, science in America is treated like a joke or like sorcery compared to other countries, particularly with a decline in public awareness of current research efforts.

What I would hope readers would do to help remedy this social problem is to curb this public expectation for less. You hear someone settling for less, you tell them they don't have a reasonable right to complain should they fail to meet their lesser standard for themselves. You can't dig yourself out of an economic depression by hoping to just break even!

No one will fix all of the statements that include the words "I can't" or "I won't" because the biggest hurdle is not the obstacle that stands before you but your diminished expectations of yourself.

NPR: Photographing the Ocean's Soul

2011-11-30T14:21:00.000-05:00

I thought these ocean photos on NPR were amazing.

Students often ask about the mysteries of the deep blue sea when we remotely discuss anything related to marine biology. It's a common assertion that students understand that we know less about our own oceans that what lies in outer space.

What I always find amazing are the photogenic opportunities that arise by exploring these areas we do not understand. It's the same sort of mysterious curiosity that arises when you look at the Cassini photos of the unmanned mission to Saturn. My favorite is this NASA picture where the probe was directly behind the planet with the sun in the background...

Enjoy!

Scott Walker - Governor Recall Initiated

2011-11-16T20:04:00.001-05:00

Apparently as of November 15, a recall effort has been launched to take back the office of Governor after the actions of Scott Walker, who stripped teachers and public service workers of their collective bargaining agreements.

The action requires a petition of over 540,000 signatures and it can be located at this website: http://www.unitedwisconsin.com. Their message and mission seem very clear to repeal the negative actions of Scott Walker.I can't imagine a greater deception of the electorate than what has taken place in Wisconsin. The people have been duped into voting a man into office who had absolutely no intention of actually executing the promises made during his own campaign. If you're interested in looking at Governor Walker's feelings about this recall, his site is here.

NPR: Flying Rhinos

2011-11-10T08:03:00.002-05:00

I'd have to agree with this article that this is something you probably wouldn't expect to see in the course of a normal day. A Flying Rhino!

I thought this was a really interesting method of translocating rhinos from dangerous situations to new areas that are not as heavily poached.

I was wondering how they would set the animal down though... Would seem a bit odd landing on your horn or on your back. I can definitely understand the blindfold, I would probably go nuts in their position if I were fully aware of what was going on.

Yay conservation! Save those rhinos!

Enjoy!

Update: Earlier today on November 11, 2011

I just read that the Black Rhino has been declared extinct... They say that the reasoning is because of the extremely lax poaching laws. These laws are described in such a way that even though people are caught poaching rhinos, they are let go the same day... This is really sad.

Conservation is not a joke. We need to minimize our negative impact on neighboring populations. Animals like the black rhino don't deserve the sort of treatment they have received... And now we may never see them in the wild ever again. There are some left in captivity but re-releasing them back into the wild has apparently never been that successful...

What a tragedy. :(

NPR: How dogs evolved into our best friends

2011-11-08T12:22:00.003-05:00

Here's an interesting article about the evolution of dogs and how they've evolved to become man's best friend.

Thought it would make for an interesting read for all you science aficionados.

Enjoy!

Happy Autumn!

2011-10-31T14:05:00.002-04:00

Enjoy this BBC Audio Slideshow on Autumn!

Enjoy this regular slideshow of Walsall Garden in Autumn!

Here's a photo slideshow of the North East after it was hit by a snowstorm...

Lick Your Rats

2011-10-28T10:49:00.000-04:00

Epigenetics has opened the door towards a new way of analyzing how inherited genes are expressed and observed in real life. This site in particular really emphasizes how the field has led to a new way of looking at the effects of expressing genetic material.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu is an amazing site that I use regularly.

I'm a huge fan of Mouse Party if I want to teach students the areas of the brain and how taking different drugs affects these areas of the brain. But I found this particular site on epigenetics fascinating.

If you're not familiar with epigenetics, it's the study of how gene expression changes during the course of an organism's life. So it's analyzing the heritable changes in gene expression that result from physical changes that take place to your DNA.

So some sequences of DNA are tagged with methyl groups (methylation) or histones are acetylated or deacetylated to turn genes on or off. This essentially studies not only what you've inherited, but how what you've inherited is expressed at various times of your life.

So in other words, it makes the science we study, far more difficult and interesting to study. Hence this Lick Your Rats analysis of epigenetic influences on behavior.

Here's a quick excerpt from the site on epigenetics and anxiety:

Anxious Behavior Can Be an Advantage
In our society, we think of anxious behavior as being a disadvantage. But that's because, for the most part, we live in a nutrient-rich, low-danger environment. In the rat equivalent to our world, the relaxed rat lives a comfortable life. It is likely to reach a high social standing, and it doesn't have to worry about where its next meal is coming from. An anxious rat, on the other hand, doesn't do so well. It is more likely to have a low social standing and suffer from diabetes and heart disease.

In another environment, however, the tables turn. The anxious, guarded behavior of the low-nurtured rat is an advantage in an environment where food is scarce and danger is high. The low nurtured rat is more likely to keep a low profile and respond quickly to stress. In the same environment, a relaxed rat might be a little too relaxed. It may be more likely to let down its guard and be eaten by a predator.

Enjoy!

Fitness in Nature: Reproduction!!

2011-10-27T13:44:00.001-04:00

The BBC has a video of insects and their astonishing mating practices.

I've always taught my students that the fitness we describe in nature is purely meant to describe one's ability to survive long enough to reproduce to create viable offspring.

The notion that fitness has anything to do with strength, or stamina, or ability has little to do with the reality in nature that what truly matters most is that it's more important to mate to ensure the continuity of your genetic legacy than it is to be a physically strong individual.

What I also tend to teach students is that depending on the realm or the scope of what you are looking at (whether it's nature, or society, or economics) the definition for fitness also changes. So in the instance of society, the criteria for social survival and social success is a very different metric than the natural definition for fitness and survival.

Essentially, the key to fitness in the natural world (in the absence of social and economic influences) is the ability to reproduce to form children who can ultimately do the same later on...

I thought the video was fascinating to watch. Aggressive mimicry with the female firefly was particularly deceptive. I certainly hope that in my encounters with the opposite gender that such behavior doesn't take place... I guess I've been lucky so far... Or cautious enough. :)

Enjoy!

Educator's Dichotomy: Good Kids vs. Good Students

2011-10-20T19:34:00.001-04:00

This is probably not a very commonly discussed topic because many non-educators may consider these to be linked. I've come to realize that they really are not. Being a good kid is not a meaningful predictor of how well they do as students. And being a good student is not a meaningful predictor of what sort of moral character students have or acquire over time.

In my experience, there have been plenty of students who have demonstrated the ability to be amazing kids, however, they make lousy students. The opposite has also proven true, where some of my best students were really lousy kids with marginal/questionable moral values.

I can't help but dismiss this notion that the types of kids we teach are dependent of the kind of students they are or become. Though it helps to be a good kid in terms of developing a meaningful rapport and developing their skills as students, there's oftentimes this cloudy gray area where sometimes the student gets lost in being a good kid while learning nothing in class (hence good kids as lousy student).

In the past, many of the strongest students are very manipulative since they have this egocentric passion towards attaining their goals at any cost, even if it means compromising academic integrity or their depth of understanding. Whereas the lousy student, who could care less about the quality of the work they produce, has not bought into the egocentric passion to attain the academic success, however they are often not afraid to admit this either.

Which raises the question, as an educator, would I rather have a classroom full of egocentric butt-kisses as students or a classroom filled with a bunch of kids who aren't going to lie to themselves about what they really think about the science they learn in my class (usually littered with really colorful language, if you know what I mean). Which would YOU want?

It's an interesting dilemma as an educator to look for these qualities in my students and trying to figure out how to take advantage of their student abilities without compromising their development as "good kids." Students are driven and motivated by their interests and emotional state of mind as kids so it's very difficult at times to engage everybody on something as uninteresting as mitosis and meiosis (honestly, who gives a damn about cells when you're 16?).

I don't know if this is a difficult distinction to illustrate for readers but there's something about teaching that requires more than content knowledge and qualification, but a social awareness that nourishes individual growth, regardless of the direction of growth. It is not in our place as educators to sell students on hypothetical futures that they haven't believed in their whole life.

I've always felt that it is just as unethical to sell a child on a future as an astronaut than it is to tell them that they are going to drop-out of high school (the whole selling an unlikely future vs. telling them the actual future to their actions). I've learned that it's more important to have students buy their own future than it is to sell them on one that is unrealistic and unreasonable. With this in mind, in my observation of other teachers at my school, I have noticed a stark difference between their approach towards managing their students and my own approach at managing students.

Here's the difference. I am a believer that complete control of a classroom of students is an unattainable and unrealistic expectation. It's a nice goal to have but there's really no way to completely control the universe, that we call the classroom (especially in NYC). So with this in mind my approach at reaching my students has taken a turn away from micromanaging their behavior (a common and exhaustive practice I have observed with other educators). Instead, I have placed a stronger emphasis on appealing to the student's motivations for being in school and for living an emotionally fulfilling life.

The good kids that are lousy students tend to be more receptive to my emotional state of mind than the good students who are not good kids. So my visage of disapproval or my gestures of distaste weigh more when dealing with lousy students of good moral character than it does with the good students (the thousand-yard teacher stare). This is especially true in one-on-one encounters with these students since now the message is personal.

The good students usually keep their mouths shut and wait while being flies on the wall waiting for class disruptions to end while rarely taking matters into their own hands (which I encourage since it's their education - the notion that class time is more valuable than my time). It's a really interesting experiment. However, I can't imagine other teachers doing this in their classes, it feels like I've grown into this without really realizing it.

I don't know where I'm going with this except to point out this stark contrast between the nature of good kids vs. good students. They are rarely one and the same, and to expect them to be is a first-year fallacy.

Education Nation with Diane Ravitch and Geoffrey Canada

2011-10-10T07:04:00.000-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

United States - Educational Attainment

2011-10-05T14:57:00.000-04:00

There's a link that compiles educational information about the American public and their educational attainment based on age groups.

I always find these eye-opening and occasionally send students to look these statistics up. It's statistics like this that will put things into perspective in terms of figuring out where you stand amongst other Americans in society. Are you among the top 15% in your age group? Or are you representing the bottom 50% of your age group?

What's even more interesting is when you compare the results of the more recent year with prior years. The median income for individuals 25 and over always seems to fascinate me. Though there's been little movement in these numbers it's always amazing to me how they correct for inflation and so forth.

Anyway, I hope that you as readers fall in the top echelons of American society. It's important to have a very learned populace since it opens up spaces for intellectual dialogue and mingling. For any international readers, I'd be interested to see the comparison between America's educational attainment statistics and your own educational attainment statistics.

Enjoy!

BBC Video: Baby Animals... Warning: Too Cute!!

2011-09-22T10:56:00.000-04:00

Change or DIE!

2011-09-19T15:02:00.004-04:00

I hate to use this slogan, which is sort of a twist off of P. Diddy's "Vote or Die" message during the presidential election several years ago (which is actually a reference to some other distant political reference).

Anyway, I love reading Dr. Dutch's postings on various topics revolving around politics, pseudoscience, and irrationalism. There are times that his writing can be blunt, but it's really necessary to deal with the blatant ignorance of others with an equally blatant approach.

I was most appreciative of his writing about the political atmosphere surrounding Science and the Republican Party. It really brings out the glaring anti-intellectualism ideals of the party.

Here's a little sample of his writing:
Liberals often promise rainbows and unicorns but don't deliver. One thing you can say about the conservative position on many issues: they are honest. They promise nothing, and deliver. Need help with an unwanted pregnancy? We'll be with you in nine months. No health coverage? That cancer will stop growing eventually.

I have a link posted on the right to his web postings under blogs and websites.

Enjoy!

BBC - Cool DNA Article

2011-09-19T07:39:00.001-04:00

The BBC published an article about current DNA technology that was really interesting.

The article looked at the cost of sequencing the entire Human Genome and the information we can get from it. It touched upon what we still have to learn from sequencing the human genome.

I thought it was interesting that Professor Church addressed the point that understanding DNA does not mean we will soon live to be 150 years old. There seems to be a functional expectation that any and all science must first, and foremost, advance the quality of life for mankind.

When will people value knowledge for the sake of being enlightened to the natural world that we live in? It's not about what we get out of it in terms of improved health and profitable ventures, it's as significant to pursue the knowledge for the sake of understanding the world (though I am sure many fiscal conservatives would disagree).

I suppose it is difficult to argue that in an atmosphere of tightening budgets that science should pursue the knowledge of nature and the universe with a vigor without the expectation of some form of return on the investment... But I digress.

In any case, enjoy the article!

Heads up!

2011-09-16T13:37:00.004-04:00

According to this BBC article, a 20-year old NASA satellite is falling out of orbit somewhere.

It's nice to know that the junk we leave up in orbit manages to find it's way back to us. Perhaps it's a nice reminder of not only the persistent pull of gravity, but the thoughtlessness that we cannot allow to become the norm (allowing objects to fall back to Earth that we put up there in the first place...).

I'm sure that NASA has kept track of this since they seem to be confident in their 1 in 3200 odds that it will threaten to harm any life on the planet in its descent. So expect some debris overhead sometime around September 24 and hope that none of the debris survives the re-entry.

I always find it sort of amazing that people are rarely struck by falling space debris. I'd hate to be that one casualty. I think people would agree that such an event would probably constitute the absolute worst day ever...

Bad Republican Reasoning: Galileo and Anti-Global Warming

2011-09-11T08:50:00.001-04:00

If you watched the Republican Presidential debate between candidates, there was a moment where Rick Perry was using an analogy with Galileo to justify why it's more reasonable to accept that global climate change is not a man-made occurrence.

Mr. Perry's reasoning, Galileo was just one man who stood up against a dominant majority of people who believed in a less rational truth to the universe. The same is true with people who disagree with global climate change. They disagree with the dominant majority of scientists who have this consensus that global climate change is actually taking place, in spite of their evidence.

The fault in Mr. Perry's reasoning, just because you are a minority in your beliefs does not mean that you are automatically correct. Galileo was up against a body of society that refused to listen or even see what evidence he had. If anything, the vast majority of people back then would not have understood the evidence he had due to its complex mathematical nature. The difference is that today there is evidence to suggest that global climate change is taking place and that the causes of such changes are the result of industrialization and our dependence on fossil fuels.

There may be some small portion of the scientific community who stand strong against the global climate change argument simply because they do not believe enough evidence exists to assume that it is of man-made causes. There's a difference between the nay-sayers of global climate change who are scientists and the nay-sayers who are common folk and haven't the foggiest idea who to believe so they turn to the clear experts on scientific thought (the Republican party).

The Republicans seemed to have picked their battles this time around. Last time they were dancing around the notion of teaching non-scientific alternatives to evolution in science class but in doing so they looked like morons. Now they actually picked a scientific topic that has a lot of people on the fence, global climate change.

I won't take a definitive position on this matter other than to suggest this alternative scenario: according to nay-sayers, if man were not on this Earth and producing these emissions through industrialized practices then the Earth's climate would naturally get warmer leading to the changes in climate we observe today (according to Republicans)? That's a pretty bold prediction. I can't stand it when people don't seem to understand that just because you cannot directly observe the changes we make to our immediate environment doesn't mean it's not significant.

At one point in Earth's history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen (anaerobic). Then the evolution of blue-green algae slowly (over millions/billions of years) converted the atmospheric composition from an anaerobic one to an aerobic one. During this transition, the Earth faced a massive extinction of species (which is what many people don't seem to recognize). Changing the atmospheric composition can have a significant affect on the life that lives on this planet. Blue-green algae slowly converted the atmosphere from anaerobic to aerobic and it led to the extinction of a large percentage of anaerobic life on the planet. We're doing the same but we don't have the luxury of millions or billions of years to see what will happen as a result... I doubt humanity will last that long anyway.

America and Science: An Emerging Allergy

2011-09-06T14:30:00.002-04:00

NPR has a story about America's largest particle accelerator that will no longer operate by the end of this year. This was once the largest particle accelerator on Earth, now it is replaced by a larger one in Geneva.

We've been beaten by the Swiss!!

Do we really need a large and scary adversary to spark interest in science, like the Soviets and their launching of Sputnik that set off the race to the moon? The Swiss don't even pose a threat and they've ousted us out of the game in the arena of astrophysics and particle sciences.

For shame. If people in America do not invest in leading aspects of science, there is no way that we can stay ahead of the rest of the world. I may be focusing on this one instance but in past years, we have needlessly surrendered many areas of science to other nations who have become leaders (stem-cell research, cloning, chopping the shuttle program, and now particle physics).

I would like to take this moment to tell readers to send a message to Americans out there that seem to think that science is a waste of public funding that just because you don't understand the research, doesn't mean it's insignificant! Popular pseudoleaders, like Sarah Palin, are quick to dismiss fruit fly research when that research has led to an in depth understanding of molecular genetics and disease progression/development.

Please fight the emergent American allergy to science. It's bad enough that NASA lost the shuttle program so now children cannot aspire to become astronauts anymore. Don't settle for this regressive attitude that cutting our research and development in cutting edge science will help us get out of the mess created by our flawed financial system.

BBC: Wellcome Trust

2011-09-02T10:20:00.005-04:00

The BBC has another audio slideshow about the Wellcome Trust. They have an online library that is very comprehensive and I'd recommend using. I may start listening to their podcasts regularly.

This is the trust that's responsible for creating the Tree of Life flash animation.

I thought it was interesting to learn more about the establishment of this organization and its roots in biomedical science. Brings a lot of things into perspective in terms of the advancement of science (the whole "science marches on" sentiment).

I also don't know how I would use this in a classroom but it does shed a lot of light on the organization and their roots in terms of supporting scientific progress and development.

The Wellcome Trust has another audio slideshow about The Secret of Life which I thought was really good also about the discovery of the structural attributes of DNA.

In addition to their collection of articles and podcasts, they have a very deep collection of photographs that they showcase in this audio slideshow that illustrates Beautiful Science.

Enjoy!

BBC: History of Writing

2011-09-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

The BBC has an audio slideshow about the ancient history of writing.

It doesn't really fall under the umbrella of what I teach but I suppose it makes an interesting teaching point to students that the simple act of recording one's thoughts and one's observations has changed the course of human history.

I just thought it was fascinating the various methods that exist in terms of recording information. The basis of all forms of information, entertainment, even mathematics is based on the ability to develop an organized written language.

Just imagine a world without it...

Enjoy!

Interesting Thought Experiment

2011-08-11T17:55:00.004-04:00

For all of the negative advertisements and messages against the profession of teaching that has been thrown around in recent years, I would like to offer a moment's indulgence.

I would like somebody who really believes that the only reason that a student fails is because of the quality of their teachers to describe the ideal teacher. I'm talking about in its entirety from salary and benefits (heck, take away tenure if you'd like), including their personality and work habits, along with their working conditions and available classroom resources.

What does the ideal educator look like in your eyes?

Once you've done that. Now find someone who is willing to take that job for more than 2-3 years before either getting fired or quitting on their own.

Here's what I can't stand about the educational reform effort: When people make statements under the guise that they are motivated by the negative outcomes their children experience while at no point do they think ahead about not only what the profession as a whole would look like but who would even bother to consider working in that profession should the changes they seek be granted.

If they get what they want, we'll have to import teachers or outsource our children.

Quite frankly, as a science teacher, I could pursue other lines of work that pay multiples of my current salary. I take offense to anybody who thinks that my line of work is for lesser human beings or that teachers deserve less compensation because they have summer break, decent health benefits (that I hardly use because I'm in good health, knock on wood), and tenure. If you asked me to work for any less, I'd quit. I'd expect many others to do the same.

My ultimate back-up, should this educational reform turn sour is to teach internationally. So as of now, I'm in Peru. On vacation, learning the language, while at the same time scoping out international schools to work at. If the USA is not willing to respect and advocate for their public servants then I'll work in a country that will (or hasn't been influenced by this nonsensical approach to educational policy).

Flash Animation Movement/Relocation

2011-08-11T16:44:00.002-04:00

One of the flash animations from the biology list has been moved or relocated to a different address (the peppered moth simulation).

If you ever encounter a dead link or an outdated link leave a message and I'll look for an updated address or an alternative. Many of the flash animations are fairly easy to download directly from their online directories (if their servers are not so fancy), so if you are looking for one of the flash animations in particular let me know and I'll see if I've archived them.

The flash animations that I archive are stored in Google docs so it would be easiest to leave an e-mail address and I'll simply send the .swf file as an attachment or just grant access to whatever flash animations I have on Google docs.

For all you Open Source nuts out there...

2011-07-29T08:49:00.002-04:00

If you love free software and are tired of paying up the ass for Microsoft programs, there are free alternatives to buying expensive productivity suites.

The one I have been using is OpenOffice by Sun Microsystems.

The new one that has emerged from Oracle (they acquired Sun Microsystems last year) is called LibreOffice.

After my Ubuntu computer updated from version 10 to version 11, it automatically updated my productivity suite to LibreOffice and replaced OpenOffice. Haven't really found much of a noticeable difference between them, they are essentially the same in function and design.

Enjoy and I hope you guys enjoy ripping off Microsoft by replacing all your processing needs to open source, free, software. I know I do.

Walcott Wants Your Feedback! Go Figure.

2011-07-19T10:04:00.005-04:00

Hi there. We need your help reaching out to our NYC school families.

Right now, Chancellor Walcott is collecting parent feedback in the Chancellor's Family Feedback Form. He wants to know what information is important to our parents and how they'd prefer to hear from us.

Here's what you can do RIGHT NOW to help us help our parents before the July 25th deadline:

1. Forward this email to any parents/guardians you know.
2. Post it to Facebook or Twitter
3. Distribute the flyer to contacts who support NYC school families (community and faith-based organizations, service providers, NYCDOE employees, etc.)

NYC Public School Parent/Guardian,

Families are valued partners, and we know that your feedback and suggestions are key to improving your child’s education.

Chancellor Walcott wants to know what information about your child’s education is most important to you and how you'd prefer to hear from us. Tell him by completing the Chancellor’s Family Feedback Form.

Our goal is to do a better job of providing tools to help you support your child and this is just another way to help make that happen. The deadline to complete the form is Monday, July 25th. So what are you waiting for? Get started!

If you've already completed the form, we ask that you forward this email to a friend, post it on Share this email with your network on facebook or Share this email with your network on twitter or share the flyer with your community (available in 10 languages).

Enjoy your summer and thanks in advance for your feedback!

The Nature of Death

2011-07-10T20:31:00.007-04:00

There are many ways to look at life and death. I subscribe with the notion that even in the strongest relationships, participants are expendable on some marginal level.

What I mean by this is that when a loved one dies the worst thing one can possibly do is spend the remainder of their life in regret, in seclusion, or in mourning. What's important is not that they are no longer physically there, but that they have made a lasting impression on who and what you have become as a person.

There is more to life than who we are, it's who we've interacted with, the memories and stories we've shared, it's what we've done or left behind. We all leave our own little legacies after we're gone. The question is what shall follow? The possibilities are infinite (which is both an exciting and a terrifying prospect).

This essentially describes my notion of being "expendable." The fact that an emotional bond has been severed forever is tragic, but one must look towards the powerfully emergent nature of things that pass in and out of this world. To focus on what used to be is the same as mourning the loss of the dinosaurs. But without their extinction, mammals would have never had their shot. We wouldn't be here to have these philosophical discussion on the nature of life and death (as Paul Grobstein mentions in his blog). Though this is an overly simplified example, it does send the message that the impact of a single life is immeasurably variable. So in response to the loss of a loved one, it's important to remember that the focus should not be on the death itself, but on the impact of their life on others.

I have learned a lot from the stories and memories told of the departed. They bring them back to life in ways that are immeasurable and unforgettable. And that is an astonishing achievement in itself.

The Concord Consortium

2011-06-27T18:52:00.001-04:00

There's a site out there that stockpiles material for all the sciences online.

The only issue I have with this site is the level of relevance for my students who have to take a Science Regents, not an AP exam (particularly if you're going to use the molecular workbench software).

I appreciate the advanced material as much as any other teacher, since it gives you an idea of what students should strive to understand. This site is pretty comprehensive and for that reason it's also hit or miss. It's a good start if you're looking for something to cover major topics in the sciences.

I've been poking around and I've found a few interesting things. I thought the evolution simulations were pretty neat.

Enjoy!

Why I never teach summer school

2011-06-11T09:58:00.002-04:00

Students and faculty often ask if I teach summer school. I usually tell them, "Hell no."

When asked why, I explain that I am philosophically opposed to teaching over the summer. And here's why.

With our student population, we have students who intentionally fail classes during the semester for the sole purpose of making up their credits over the summer. Students develop this mentality that "Why should I bust my ass working 180 days during the school year for a credit that I can earn over the summer in 6 weeks?"

I want to play no part in enabling that student mentality. I tell my students at the very beginning that if they are unwilling to accept their academic responsibilities during the school year then I will see them next September for another full academic year.

There are very few exceptions where students are legitimately in need of summer school, but I cannot accept that the best use of my time or the city's money is to tutor 1-2 students who legitimately need it while babysitting the students who chose to fail and would probably end up failing summer school if I taught it anyway due to the strict attendance rules.

I am by no means an easy teacher. I am of the firm belief that we as educators represent more than student advocates and public servants, we represent a standard of achievement that we cannot settle for less on. If a student can't read, how are they graduating? If a student cannot multiply and divide then how are they graduating? If a student cannot distinguish between a living organism and an inanimate object then how are they graduating? We represent a level of mental/academic competance that our students reflect to the rest of their community.

There are some things you cannot allow to happen and I cannot participate in the systemic belittling of what a high school diploma stands for in terms of representing a firm academic standard. Honestly, what does that say about a school that issues diplomas to students who cannot perform basic mental functions like simple math, reading, or writing?

Vadlo.com

2011-06-10T08:05:00.002-04:00

There's a life science search engine. Weird.

They also make cartoons. But in any case, it seems pretty technical so use it if you need to find an experimental protocol to run an experiment. It's serious science.

The classroom application for this may be limited unless you're getting students to research the more technical aspects of science and the experiments that are conducted on a regular basis. Wouldn't hurt to get students to use it to look up how tedious experiments can be or how measuresments are important when it comes to gels and microarrays.

What's pretty useful is finding powerpoints through this search engine. You could definitely find material to incorporate into your own lessons. :)

Enjoy!

Strange Letters from Strange People

2011-06-06T22:26:00.003-04:00

I received the following hand-written letter from a David L. Freeman in regard to teaching some form of Biblical science the other week. Read, respond, enjoy.

Dear Sirs,

I am enclosing an article on the Protein Opsin. I am requesting that the physiology of aging and death, using its structure be presented in student classroom discussions.

I am an Eastern District High School Graduate 1974, 227 Mercy Ave. Brooklyn, NY. An Ithaca College BA Biology graduate 1978, Ithaca, New York and a third year medical student, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

The understanding of the structure requires a Biblical application, as the protein impairs the cone and rods in the eyes. We are unable to see God. Gene sis 3:1-24.

With a heavy chain laying directly on the cones and rods, they are unable to conduct impulses for bright light, which is a Na+ channel and saltatory conduction. The cell membrane should be the focus of attention in impairing these cells and blocking the ability to see God's bright light.

The mechanism for aging and death could be readily discussed, using a sheet handout or picture on a slide and the method a free radical is formed from a carbonyl group (C=O...). The blood of Christ which is given at Communion is a necessity for its dissolution and ascension to heaven.

Acknowledging the structure in our schools would explain man's origin and our relationship to God.

Thank you,
David L. Freeman

I am debating on an appropriate response. If this letter warrants one...

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman

2011-06-06T21:45:00.002-04:00

Movie Website: http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

Shifting Paradigms: Teacher Attrition

2011-06-06T07:22:00.000-04:00

One of the current movements to systematically enable the abuse of educators is this philosophical debate between veterancy and effectiveness.

The current movement to reform teacher evaluation is necessary but it is not facilitated appropriately. Our school in particular has multiple 6-figure salary educators as ATR's that teach zero students. What possible impact do they have on students? As a school, as a faculty, as administrators, and even as students, there is something clearly odd about these ATR's who show up everyday yet teach nobody.

I can't help but side with the mayor in terms of the need for reform in this arena, however, I cannot advocate their method of implementing these changes. It's one thing to single-handedly wipe the ATR slate clean, it's another to say, we've done this, this, and this to try to get them back into the classroom and since they haven't been able to, we must let them go. I don't see any attempt on the DOE's part to systematically assign or train ATR's to remotely want to go back into the classroom.

On another note, there are some serious shifts in paradigm in terms of attrition. It seems that teaching is the only profession where attrition is not only an accepted reality, but an expectation to close budget gaps. That's really pitiful. When you look forward to turning over percentages of your workforce in order to close a future budget shortfall there's a serious problem with the profession itself. Essentially, if you're counting on teachers to burn-out and quit in order to help a municipality close a budget deficit then you have bigger problems in your society than a budget. It's the dollars and cents of the profession that don't make much sense.

Imagine a world where teachers become the same as cubicle employees. They're easily assigned, fired, and replaced. What sort of learning experience does that create for our students? When a teacher leaves a classroom mid-year there are serious consequences that affect hundreds of students. These consequences are in no way addressed by this movement to force abusive teacher evaluation measures through state legislatures.

Let's just turn the profession into a revolving door of burnt-out teachers and see what the quality of this high school diploma will be after 3-5 years. It's a social experiment that is the scary reality in the current reform movement.

Prophecies of the Apocalypse

2011-05-22T18:23:00.004-04:00

As an educator it is inevitable that you will encounter the student or students who are convinced that the world will end. Especially with the 2012 prophecy looming over the horizon (in December - on my birthday, actually).

In my frustrations as an educator, I find that it is our duty to spotlight these individuals as people who haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about.

Useful arguments to use against a student "prophet":

What evidence do you have that says that the world will end in this way on this day at this hour?
Of the tens of thousands of prophecies of the apocalypse that have been made in human history, what makes this one instance the most credible of all of them?
What are you willing to do about it? Some people have spent their life savings and quit their jobs to follow their beliefs and spread this message of ignorance to the masses. What are you willing to do with the last moments of your life now that you're a believer?
If the world is going to end tomorrow why are you here in a classroom? This is how you'd want to spend the last hours of your life?
Put your money where you mouth is. Not that I'd encourage educators to make money off of the gullibility of a student, but at least get them thinking at another angle that they may believe the world will end but they're not willing to risk anything to back it up.
How gullible do you have to be to listen to a person who really has no meaningful intentions in spreading this message other than to generate mass hysteria or to attract attention they never would have received otherwise.
Make up your own prophecy to highlight how gullible students are and demonstrate the need to ask questions about what they are told by complete STRANGERS!
Get into the habit of encouraging students to put these prophecies down. Standing by and doing nothing only validates the noisiest of the bunch. Have some sort of planned approach that is public and addresses an open confrontation to this belief.

Give me a break people. Students are pretty gullible and when they ask me "Why do we have to learn science?" and they come into my class spewing this garbage that the world will end tomorrow, I usually give them an earful from this list. As everybody should.

NYC: Save Our Teachers Website

2011-05-16T07:18:00.000-04:00

There's a site out there that has been put up to support teachers by protesting Bloomberg's lay-offs this year.

Please sign the petition and support our teachers by saying no to Bloomberg's nonsensical lay-offs.

Enjoy your Monday!

UFT: Protesting the Mayor's Budget

2011-05-10T20:31:00.001-04:00

Dear colleagues,

We are in a major fight to avert educational disaster. By including layoffs in his executive budget last week, Mayor Bloomberg has moved one step closer to implementing his threat to lay off thousands of teachers. We must stop these cuts, and so I urge each and every one of you to join me this Thursday, at 4 p.m. at City Hall to protest.

The city has a $3.2 billion surplus, but the mayor is unwilling to use $270 million of that to keep 4,278 teachers in the classroom. Just like Governor Walker in Wisconsin, Mayor Bloomberg is using budget woes as an excuse to pursue political ends. He wants to end seniority protections for teachers and undo collective bargaining rights, and he is willing to risk the education of our children to pursue his ideological goals.

And like the people of Wisconsin, who rose up in opposition to the governor’s agenda, we New Yorkers must rise up and fight back like never before.

The teacher layoffs are the most devastating part of Bloomberg’s budget, but they are not the only cuts. Child care cuts threaten working families. And there are other reductions as well. The only people who are not asked to sacrifice in the mayor’s budget are those who could actually afford to give back — Wall Street bankers and other millionaires.

On Thursday, UFT members will join with thousands of others from scores of community groups to say “Enough is enough” — the budget must not be balanced on the backs of middle-class families and our most vulnerable citizens. The banks and the millionaires must pay their fair share.

We will start at City Hall at 4 p.m. and then march down Broadway and through Wall Street.

We became teachers and educators to help children. That’s why we must be in streets demonstrating as well as in the classroom teaching. It is the only way we can protect our children, and our city, from the mayor’s draconian cuts.

I know I can count on UFT members to do whatever it takes. I’ll see you Thursday. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

UFT: Mayor sells out NYC children

2011-05-02T19:18:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg will release his executive budget proposal. In it, there will be drastic cuts that would harm our city’s most vulnerable citizens, first and foremost children. We will be protesting in response in all five boroughs. I urge you to join us and to ask your colleagues, friends and neighbors to join us, too.

Thursday, May 5, 4:30 p.m. Download the flier for your borough on the UFT website.

The city has a $3.1 billion surplus, but the mayor wants to lay off 4,700 teachers and cut 16,500 child care slots. These cuts are outrageous and completely unnecessary.

The only people that the mayor’s budget would spare are the very people who could afford to give back: Wall Street bankers and other millionaires.

None of us would allow the kids in our classroom to pick on other kids because they are weak. We must not allow the adults who run our city to do it either. On May 5 we will stand up and speak out for our children, our schools and our future.

Thank you for all that you do every day — inside and outside the classroom — to protect the children of our city.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

Pigs evolved to love mud... Weird but not surprised...

2011-05-02T14:31:00.001-04:00

There's a BBC article about how pigs have co-evolved to enjoy bathing themselves in mud.

I thought it was an interesting article that starts to explore the effects of natural selection and evolution on behaviors. Though we usually attribute natural selection and evolution to physical attributes, it's oftentimes overlooked that certain behaviors are also products of an evolutionary selection process. Though this is best exemplified by very pronounced examples like bees pollenating flowers, it's rare that you encounter an example that cites an interaction with a non-living component of the environment like mud...

In any case, I thought it was kind of interesting. Perhaps useful for a class on co-evolutionary relationships or even investigating the effects of natural selection on certain behaviors.

Enjoy!

People need to wise up...

2011-05-01T19:17:00.000-04:00

There is a serious problem with the public perception of education if they truly believe that the system of public education as a whole would benefit from Republican control.

Here are their main points on "improving" education in America:

Holding teachers, administrators, and schools accountable by performing efficiency assessments and performance assessments annually to determine efficacy and tenure decisions using flawed data reports
Emphasizing performance pay programs where teachers are paid based on their student performance (which begs the question who would ever voluntarily teach the lowest performing students?)
Stripping teachers of their collective bargaining rights in order to close budget gaps created by offering private sector enterprises tax breaks - attacking union protections and tenure
Utilizing standardized tests as the sole measurement of how effective a school is regardless of outside factors that affect student learning (poverty, health care, unemployment, lack of counseling and social work, etc)
Privatizing education by turning to charter schools where there is less financial accountability and mixed academic results - what's their motive? It's not for children
Turning teachers into the scapegoats of society's inability to handle the chronic problems that a growing lower class brings - oddly enough, caused by large corporate malfeasance and meltdowns
Turning schools into service industries by shifting accountability of student failures away from parents and students and placing all the blame on individual teachers using flawed data reports
Never once addressing the problem of teacher attrition and problematic continuity and consistency as teachers leave the classroom from year to year - they don't have a solution to the shortages of educators in high-need areas, only more finger pointing

Show me a Republican who understands the nature of high-need education and can actually reasonably address these issues I see and deal with on a daily basis and perhaps I'll reconsider the hopelessness of the Republican party in terms of educational policy.

Why is attrition never mentioned in school reform?

2011-04-07T19:55:00.006-04:00

You have to wonder why in the deeper conversations surrounding improving schools, why does attrition never come up as a topic of discussion.

For our school, and others in the same building, we have lost teachers mid-year for whatever reason. So what happens to these students in terms of the continuity of their educational aspirations this year?

Does this mean the school should be shut down? Should we punish a school for the decisions made by individual educators to leave their classrooms mid-year? What possible solution is there for this problem of teachers who abandon their classrooms after a few months, a semester, or a couple of trimesters?

I don't question the motives for teachers who make this choice since it is not a reflection of their lack of conviction to serve the public, but rather serves to reflect the lack of support that we have as educators.

Just today, our school chancellor of 3-4 months has decided that the public sector and serving 1.1 million students was not for her. Though I could have told her that from the get go, as many teachers could have offered insight into the wild-world of education, the feedback of teachers in classrooms doesn't seem to be respected by very many who seem to be sold on the notion that teachers aren't in it for the right reasons.

I find it troubling that the current reform effort seems to emphasize the tactics of business and corporate practices. How do you incentivize a classroom by offering highly effective teachers larger classrooms (as Bill Gates seems to suggest)? How do you go about rewarding schools with bonuses when they're in the process of phasing out? How do you go about on this witch hunt that alleviates any and all responsibilities of parenting and student responsibility and place it all on the shoulders of teachers?

What's even worse is who listens to and buys into the mentality that the only reason that students cannot learn is because the person who stands before a classroom has a union and collectively bargains? There's so much wrong with this mentality that we have to bring in the BEST possible educators by cutting their resources, by cutting back on their professional development, by eliminating diversity in their curricula, by paying teachers less through "performance" loop-holes, and the list goes on and on...

The chancellor leaving her post is the sort of disarray that we are in at the moment. I find it to be tragic when a teacher makes the conscious decision to leave their students mid-year. What's even more tragic is to appoint someone after selling their credentials as a manager and going to the trouble of lawyers and panels to get her into a position only to abandon her duties after 3-4 months. Though I don't fault her for leaving a position she had no business in, I can't help but think that we should start focusing more on the issues of the city's inability to delegate the needs of classrooms and teachers rather than selling this flawed perception that teachers are the only reason that students can't graduate.

Perhaps the chancellor's stint in the hot seat will raise attention towards this issue of attrition in the field of education...

New Poll: Tenure

2011-04-07T16:59:00.000-04:00

I've created a new poll that asks the question of whether or not the complete removal of tenure would benefit not only the teachers but the profession of teaching.

What is implied in this statement is that what is best for the profession is what is best for the students. This should be a basic assumption that if the profession is to be improved, then the students are well taken care of. So please don't attack me for not including "students" in this statement since the focus is on the advancement of not only the students in the school system but the profession of teaching as a whole.

It is quite common to use the argument that if teachers are not in the profession to advance their students then they should not be teaching, but I beg to differ that if the profession of teaching doesn't support the longevity and development of promising teachers, then to hell with how the students are going to do in school. For this reason, the focus will remain on the profession of teaching, which includes any student performance indicators that reflect the profession.

Keep this in mind as I would like anybody who votes on this poll to consider what the consequences of this decision are to the profession when you decide where you stand on this matter.

I know where my vote will end up... Vote wisely.

Biosphere 2 Blogs

2011-03-31T21:36:00.003-04:00

I thought these were pretty interesting readings.

There are a bunch of research fellows working in this massive research and conservation facility that write in blogs regularly.

They discuss various topics in nature that really tickle the curiosity. For example, one of their research fellows studies the evolution of leaves and their patterns. There are some interesting pictures and articles on his site that are pretty fascinating.

Thought it would make for some interesting reading.

Enjoy!

The Logistical Issues of Data

2011-03-31T21:24:00.000-04:00

The DOE expects every school to assign teachers to start handling and processing data on their students.

What I mean by data is the intimate details of each and every student in the form of massive excel spreadsheets.

What we as teachers are tasked to do with this information, on TOP of the teaching duties of teaching 4-5 classes a day, is to assess the individual needs of every student on a regular basis. What's their credit situation? What's their Regents situation? What's their attendance situation? How does this affect their programming? Who needs credit recovery? Who needs summer school? What's their progress to graduation? What interventions would be needed to advance students? Why are students failing?

Here's the downside of the data. By the time we get the data in its raw excel form, it's usually several days old. By the time we've identified the students and determined what the most pressing needs of these students are, we're weeks into the new term.

By the time interventions are established and the faculty are made aware of these interventions, it's pushing the point of no return in the trimester. And honestly, you could have just gone around and asked each teacher which students are having the most trouble rather than going to the trouble of going blind looking at and reorganizing excel spreadsheets.

For some misguided reason, it appears that the responsibilities of a typical teacher have changed. We're not only teaching and addressing classroom needs of over 80 students a day, we're working these excel spreadsheets for hours on end to cover our asses.

Where's the sense in that? This data mining and data analysis work is a full-time position in itself. We could hire somebody to do all of this work independently and give our teachers back several hours in collaborative and cooperative planning that we BADLY need.

It's not an administrative problem, but a shift in policy that has driven this data-obsessed overhaul in educating students.

Not to mention the flawed metrics used in the gathering of the information to begin with. We're essentially making decisions about students based on unreliable systems of data provided by the DOE. Our school along with many others have invested money from our school budget to buy into alternative data services since the DOE's data service are so terribly flawed.

And this is the data machine the DOE wants to use to measure a teacher's efficacy?

I'd like to see the study done on how the time spent data mining these spreadsheets affects the quality of instruction by draining time away from collaboration and cooperative planning. But I won't hold my breath. The DOE has proven time and again that they have no classroom-level common sense on the effects of their policies.

UFT: Mayor Bloomberg Fiscal Delusion

2011-03-28T19:41:00.002-04:00

Dear colleagues,

With a state budget reached in Albany, the mayor continues his wrong-headed call for teacher layoffs.

The final state budget adds more than $200 million to Governor Cuomo’s proposed education budget. Even without that restoration of aid, the governor had said that layoffs would not be necessary.

Let’s be clear: the mayor’s case for layoffs is as full of holes as ever.

The fact is the city’s tax revenues are soaring, with a $2 billion increase just in the last few months. New York now has a $3.1 billion surplus, and the Department of Education is holding back $106 million of its own unspent personnel funds!

We are obviously disappointed that Albany cut more than $1 billion in statewide education aid and did not agree to extend the millionaire’s tax, which would have offset the need for such a big cut. The mayor did us no favors by staunchly opposing the continuation of the tax on his wealthy friends.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who fought to keep the millionaire’s tax in place, has said that he has not given up hope of convincing the governor and Senate Republicans to agree to extend the tax before it expires in December. We will do whatever we can to help make that happen.

We must now redouble our efforts to alert parents and the community that our kids can’t afford teacher layoffs and that the mayor’s own books show that such a drastic step is not necessary. We need to make it clear that if the mayor lays off a single teacher, it is because he has chosen to do so — it’s not out of necessity.

With the cut in state education aid, it becomes all the more important that the city spend its education dollars wisely. But that is not happening. At the same time that the mayor threatens teacher layoffs that would make class sizes skyrocket even higher, he wants to hire hundreds more central staff administrators at the DOE, spend tens of millions of dollars more on high-priced consultants, and nearly double the spending on computer contractors, with most of that going to central bureaucracy.

I want to personally thank the thousands of UFT members who have volunteered their time in the past few months to fight for our children’s future, whether you paid a visit to your state lawmaker, handed out leaflets outside your school or at a subway station, attended your local CEC meeting, or any of the other many ways that we have mobilized to get the truth out.

We remain in the fight of our lives. If you have not already done so, please sign up to join our campaign to protect our students and our schools. Here’s a flier you can use for leafleting outside your school. Check the UFT.org events calendar or contact your chapter leader or district rep to find more ways you can get involved.

Thanks for all that you do,

Michael Mulgrew

NOAA - Ocean Acidification

2011-03-27T22:42:00.000-04:00

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has a site dedicated towards explaining the effects of a process called ocean acidification. This is a process where as the oceans absorb carbon dioxide, the oceans become more acidic.

Though they do not go so far as explain the effects of global warming, they seem to imply that the reason for these global changes in ocean composition are attributed to the industrial processes that we rely on as people.

I would check this site out, they have a lot of resources available to teach this process of bicarbonate production in the oceans. Seems like a useful unit to teach students about the human impact on their environment.

Haven't found a good time or reason to implement this into my own scope and sequence but it'll certainly warrant a second look should I find some time in the remainder of the year.

Good luck!

Have times changed!

2011-03-11T06:50:00.002-05:00

Back in my day... (I'm not THAT old, but it's turned into an alien atmosphere)...

Seriously though, back in my day there was a disciplined approach towards being educated and educating your children. Now, there's this strange lingering perception that through some convoluted formula we can pinpoint the exact impact that a teacher has had on a student's ability to perform on tests. The shift was subtle but noticeable. Students are no longer responsible for their own failure, only for their mediocre successes.

Welcome to the new age of metrics and excel spreadsheets. I am curious to see how these metrics take into account the individual motivation of students,the student's annual household income, or the student's social status as a foster child or recently released from incarceration. Because you cannot reduce a student to a mathematical algorithm.

Anybody familiar with the profession understands that the demand for data has actually altered the amount of time spent planning lessons and grading material. It's replaced time that would normally be spent on collaboration or planning to crunch meaningless numbers into multiple data systems.

Microsoft seemingly has the DOE by the balls in the arena. Honestly, schools use Excel spreadsheets more than they use PAPER. Aside from accountants who keep electronic books of financial transactions, schools are keeping programs like Excel in business.

Here's a list of frequently updated data management systems that we have to be familiar with as educators:

HSST
ATS
ARIS
Skedula
Knowledgebase
Datacation
PowerSchools
PowerTeacher
Microsoft Excel

And the list goes on and on and on. I'm sure there are other acronyms that I have yet to discover since it's Microsoft's bedrock policy to make any current system obsolete within 6-18 months of release (just look at their Windows varieties!).

I have never before seen such a swift shift away from classroom atmosphere and lesson planning towards meaningless number crunching.

And what's the worst part of this number crunching is the inability to effectively turnover the data that we're asked to on a regular basis. By the time we get some of this data, it is several weeks old. We can no longer act on it! We're spending millions of tax-payer dollars on systems that produce data that ends up painting a bleak picture, after the fact. If the goal is to get this data to the hands of educators to act on the numbers then the DOE has failed in every sense of the word.

It's like painting a picture on the Titanic while it's sinking. What's the point? It's a waste of time, it's aesthetically useless (unless you're a politician), and it ignores the most important priorities within a school environment.

Daily Show with Jon Stewart

2011-03-04T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show - Crisis in the Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

UFT: Keep fighting the good fight!

2011-03-02T20:08:00.001-05:00

Dear colleagues,

Your political activism is making a difference. Collectively, our voices are being heard.

You jumped into action when the news broke that the State Senate was considering legislation to end seniority rules that guarantee impartiality in layoffs. The mayor tried to scare parents and teachers and divide communities by promoting a bill that would take our schools back to the days when cronyism and bias determined which teachers got to keep their jobs. We stayed united and saw the Senate bill for what it was: a direct assault on schools and collective-bargaining rights and the mayor’s attempt to make us all at-will employees.

Thousands of you sent faxes to your state senators’ offices in the past 48 hours, while 1,200 UFT members descended on Albany yesterday for Lobby Day to fight for money and more resources for our schools. More than one hundred teachers stood with me at a series of news conferences in recent days to denounce the mayor’s scare tactics.

As a result of your hard work, the mayor’s effort has stalled.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the Senate bill will not be considered in the Assembly. Recognizing the need for a more objective system for evaluating teachers, Governor Cuomo wants to build on the work that we did in drafting a new statewide teacher evaluation system last spring. Cuomo understands that personnel decisions must be based on an evaluation system that truly works. Yesterday the governor announced that he would introduce legislation to accelerate the implementation of that new system.

While the current teacher evaluation system is totally subjective, the new system will be much more objective and move us forward as a profession. When the new system is completed, it will establish specific criteria that incorporate multiple measures of evaluating teacher performance, something this union has always advocated. The details need to be hammered out in collective bargaining between the union and the DOE.

But our work is far from over. Despite the city’s $3.1 billion surplus, the mayor is not backing off his threat to lay off thousands of teachers — or his push to change the seniority layoff rules. With class sizes already exploding, we need to continue to get the message out that layoffs would be an educational disaster. Bloomberg’s layoff threat is a political game and the losers in this game will be our children.

Your advocacy thus far on behalf of our schools and our students has been inspirational. UFT members are once again proving that when we work together, we can improve our schools and make a difference in our communities. Please keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

Jon Stewart: Special Message to Teachers

2011-03-02T08:16:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Scary

2011-02-28T06:55:00.001-05:00

The DOE has released an excel spreadsheet of proposed faculty layoffs for each school. This list was acquired off of the NY1 news website. You can pretty much guess who is going if you know how long each of the faculty members have been in the system.

My school has been asked to lay off 5 teachers - which is 29% of the total teaching staff. I think I just barely made the cut so I may not be vulnerable to this lay-off...

Though I am not sure how the union will protect us from lay-offs such as this, it seems like the most realistic threat thus far in a long line of threats to lay-off teachers from year to year. Other years they didn't seem to go to the trouble to analyze how many from each school should be laid off or to go to the trouble of pounding out these spreadsheets to scare the crap out of people.

Kind of a scary time to be a young career teacher...

Harvard University Drops Tuition for Low-Income Students

2011-02-26T20:38:00.004-05:00

No Tuition and No Student Loans

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers said, "When only ten percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution."

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. The prestigious university recently announced that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families can go to Harvard for free... no tuition and no student loans!

To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year, visit Harvard's financial aid website at: http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/ or call the school's financial aid office at (617)-495-1581.

SEND TO SOMEONE WHETHER THEY CAN USE OR NOT. THEY JUST MIGHT KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN.

Republican Misdirection

2011-02-22T16:49:00.001-05:00

Republicans in Wisconsin would have common Americans believe that the bill on the floor of the legislature is the best solution to their financial problems. They would have you believe that Democrats have fled and are forcing the governor to resort to lay-offs.

The Democrats have taken a hard-line measure in defense of worker's rights. They've worked with the unions to get every single financial concession necessary to close the gap however the condition that nullifies collective bargaining is worth holding out on a vote.

The governor would have you believe that he has no other choice but to lay off state employees due to the democrats who are not willing to surrender the labor union's ability to collectively bargain for its constituents. But the truth remains...

The truth is that the governor has a balanced budget proposal. The Democrats and the unions have conceded to every financial demand asked to close the state's financial gap. It is the attack on the unions and collective bargaining that is the core of this issue.

If the governor wishes to lay off state workers over collective bargaining then he's the villain, not the Democrats who fled the state to protect worker's rights.

Don't fall for the Republican misdirection. If you allow Republicans to establish this precedent and you'll allow every state in the country to do the same.

The irony is that Republicans are for smaller government and job creation but by reducing government in this fashion, you're eliminating jobs... Where's the plan on job creation? Cutting to a stronger economy? That's the plan to make the rich richer, not to help the working middle-class families of America.

Who are the Republicans really looking out for? Not for the working, soon-to-be-unemployed, middle-class American. And it shows in Madison, Wisconsin. If the Republicans are all for balancing budgets and shrinking government, what's their plan on finding jobs for the soon-to-be laid off educators? THEY DON'T HAVE ONE!

NYC Teacher Attrition Rates

2011-02-22T09:29:00.003-05:00

A report published on the NYC.gov website back in 2009 points out the glaring issue of teacher attrition and disparities from district to district.

Some interesting summarizing points in this report:

70% of the most experienced teachers are likely to retire within the next two years.
The 2-year attrition rate is 25% with 19-25% of teachers leaving after their first year (compared to only 10% nationally).
29% of new teachers say it is unlikely that they will remain teaching in the next 3 years, based on telephone surveys.
The DOE estimates the 3-year attrition rate is approximately 40%. The UFT verifies this at 42%.
23% of surveyed new teachers (1-5 years of experience) said they would be teaching outside NYC by the following year.
The report contains median teaching salaries of neighboring districts: Scarsdale, Bronxville and others for comparison to the NYC salary. NYC is the lowest-paying of the neighboring districts.

Commonly emphasized solutions to teacher attrition in NYC:

Increase salaries and benefits to more competitive levels.
Decrease class sizes.
Increase Teacher's Choice allocations.
Improve school safety.
Improve disciplinary measures.

People should learn to indulge their counter arguments

2011-02-21T12:26:00.004-05:00

Americans would not pursue this form of union-busting abuse if they only indulged for a moment the counter-argument and evaluated the consequences of their proposed actions.

So let's say for a minute that all of the union busting is successful. So teachers are now going to work for less money, will have to contribute more to their own pensions (which I have no problem with), will have to pay more for their health insurance (which I also have no problem with), and may have to deal with the loss of tenure so there wouldn't be anymore due process or collective bargaining rights (a huge no-no)...

So what will education look like then? For one, there would be a loss of veterancy. There wouldn't be many teachers who teach more than 6 years since they're too expensive to keep. There wouldn't be very good mentors since all the veterans are too expensive to mentor the new incoming teachers.

There would be a constant shortage of teachers due to the outrageously inflated turn-over as a result of changes to benefits and tenure rules. So where are teachers going to come from?

How do you recruit the best and brightest teachers into a profession where you are paid less, earn fewer benefits, and have no job security? How do you encourage the growth and development of master teachers in the most critical of subject areas like math and science when teaching could never compete against private sector jobs that pay more and hold workers to lesser accountability standards? You can't. What's stopping promising science teachers from leaving the classroom to pursue medical, dental, veterinary school, or conducting research? Nothing

So until all of these issues are addressed, there is no rational reason other than the short-sighted need to attack the largest group of municipal workers and subjecting them to vicious demonization in order to fix budget shortfalls.

How do you close the gap between the USA and other developed nations like Finland, China, and Korea? If you allow teachers to be ostracized and demonized for things beyond their control, then you can't. This goes beyond laws, this goes beyond schools and classrooms. This addresses the attitude towards education that there seems to be something wrong with only one component of the complex formula that leads towards educated children.

At this point, I can't help but think that every outspoken person who demonizes teachers because of their union hasn't the foggiest idea how these changes will affect teacher performance in the future. Should these changes make it through legislatures, scores will go down, class sizes will go up, and we will fall further behind other nations. If America is really ready to make that concession, then so be it. Be prepared to have more apathetic educators and angrier protests about school and educator quality (propagated by this movement against teachers).

Perhaps we should start outsourcing our students to other countries to be educated. Or importing educators from other countries to educate our children since there seems to be a lack of trust in the quality of American-bred educators. These are pretty far-fetched ideas, but if all this union-busting succeeds, then I wouldn't be surprised...

Ultimately, people need to start recognizing that the rationale of do more with less is not a sustainable educational policy that will close the global disparities in educational quality. You get what you pay for. You can't attract the best by offering less... I'd love to see the research that suggests that unions are the sole perpetrators of failing students or that the quality of educator improves as you reduce their pay and benefits...

Why I'm glad the DOE released the TDR's

2011-02-19T20:55:00.002-05:00

There is some good that comes from releasing the ridiculously flawed teacher data reports. It truly illustrates to people who can see through them that they are poorly created and not that meticulous.

Here are a bunch of questions that the release of the TDR's raise that the DOE and Bloomberg will never be able to answer, but the public will answer for them in the form of public outrage or through lawsuits that cost the city more tax-payer dollars.

How do you put a clearly flawed report that may incorporate real students, but haven't actually measured anything in connection with their actual teachers?
How do you create a report that not only paints a negative picture of public servants, who need open public support, but doesn't even tell the reader anything true about who they teach and what they teach?
How do tax-payers tolerate the spending of money on a department of education that finds that it is necessary to pay people to tell lies about honest workers?
Where's the department of education's accountability?
When will Bloomberg hold himself accountable for their failures?
How does the city benefit from the release of such flawed reports that cost the city money, would ostracize promising educators away from high-need areas, and would increase attrition when it is the leading reason for inconsistent classroom conditions?

I find that it serves a greater good to show how mismanaged the DOE is to release such reports and have no remedy for improprieties in data. It serves a greater purpose, though at the expense of innocent teachers, to show the public how their tax dollars are wasted on finding ways to vilify public school teachers.

If people are truly interested in saving the city money, don't cut on the classroom level. Cut at the management level that led to this embarrassing showcase of incompetence. What the hell are these people doing in Tweed? They look at a bunch of spreadsheets and assume that anything in their little boxes are facts or statistical truths when rosters change so often that they're pinning the failures of others on innocent people.

Jumping to the conclusion that the DOE knows how to evaluate teachers through data requires that the DOE actually knows how to effectively track students (and teachers, for that matter) on a regular basis, which doesn't appear to be the case.

So Thanks, DOE. You've given us the necessary argument to show the world that the leadership of Bloomberg and Klein or Bloomberg and Black are ineffective and disconnected from the real needs of high-need classrooms.

Wellcome Trust - Tree of Life

2011-02-17T21:14:00.001-05:00

I know I posted this before but they appear to have expanded their resources for educators. Their interactive tree of life is a really cool tool to illustrate to students how to generate phylogenetic trees.

I haven't used the other resources yet but they seem to support the message that evolution is the truth behind the creation and development of all life on Earth (something every biology teacher should emphasize throughout the year).

Enjoy!

UFT: Politics of Fear

2011-02-17T19:46:00.001-05:00

Dear colleagues,

Playing politics with people’s lives is an ugly, shameful act, and that is exactly what Mayor Bloomberg is doing by continuing to raise the specter of layoffs. His efforts to scare newer teachers and demonize veteran teachers do nothing to help children or support the work that we do every day. That’s not strong leadership or responsible management. It’s irresponsible and downright disgraceful.

The fact is that layoffs aren’t necessary, and the mayor knows it.

The mayor and his staff continue to greatly exaggerate the size of proposed state budget cuts, which has earned them several public rebukes from the governor. What’s more, the city has now been forced to reluctantly admit that it has a surplus of more than $3.1 billion, according to the mayor’s budget presentation on Thursday.

If the mayor was truly concerned about a budget cut from Albany, he would be advocating for smart, sensible revenue plans in Albany, including the renewal of the millionaire’s tax next year — a move that would bring in $1 billion this year and $5 billion next year.

Yet the mayor has refused to back down on his layoff threat. He is also actively campaigning against extending the millionaire’s tax. His stance is very telling of his true motives: He wants to do layoffs to force the issue of how layoffs get done. He wants to pit parents against parents and teachers against teachers. And he wants to give tax breaks to his wealthy friends at the expense of our schools.

Our children can’t afford to be pawns in the mayor’s political games. Nearly 6,000 teachers and other educators have left and not been replaced over the last two years. Class sizes have skyrocketed, reaching levels we haven’t seen since the city’s fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. The loss of additional teachers will directly harm students’ education even more.

New York City now has the worst income disparity in the entire country. The “haves” are enjoying record profits and record bonuses, while the rest of us are still struggling through the recession. Consider this: Half the households in our city have incomes of less than $30,000 a year and more than 10 percent live in deep poverty on incomes of $10,500 or less. At the same time, the top 1 percent of city households average $3.7 million each year, or $10,137 a day.

The mayor needs to stop playing the political games. We can’t afford to let this income disparity continue. We cannot allow class sizes to rise any further. That’s why we are fighting for additional state dollars with the millionaire’s tax.

The mayor’s failure to fight for children and working families only further reinforces what we, the true advocates for our students, need to do.

Here is what you can do today:

Call 311 and tell the mayor to say no to layoffs and skyrocketing class sizes.
Send a letter to your state representatives asking them to keep cuts away from kids.
Spread the word among colleagues, parents and friends about the mayor’s shameful tactics.
Sign up to participate in our growing grassroots campaign at www.uft.org/jointhefight.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

George Carlin

2011-02-13T22:17:00.002-05:00

One of the greatest comedians in history... I love it. Brings a lot of things into perspective. Not that he's right or wrong, but it does shine a light on how anal-retentive we can be about the smallest things in life... Though I don't share his overall view of nature, it's a funny way to look at human existence.

UFT: Oh no he didn't! Oh yes he did!

2011-02-12T16:39:00.000-05:00

Dear colleagues,

What is the mayor’s problem?

This week Mayor Bloomberg went to Albany…to fight for layoffs.

That’s right. Our schools have absorbed $2 billion in cuts in the last two years. We have lost 5,000 teachers. Class sizes are skyrocketing. We’re facing a proposed $579 million cut from the state this year. And instead of lobbying for funding for our schools and fighting to prevent layoffs, the mayor is lobbying for layoffs.

Continuing the state millionaire’s tax instead of letting it sunset would add several billion desperately needed dollars to the budget that can be used to protect our kids from cuts. But Bloomberg opposes extending the millionaire’s tax.

The truth is we cannot afford to lose a single additional teacher in our schools, and there is no need for layoffs. Governor Cuomo, in unveiling his budget proposal, indicated that there would be no need for layoffs, especially since the city has a $2 billion surplus.

The governor is right: There is no need to lay off educators, even amidst ongoing fiscal challenges that the state faces. But for weeks and weeks Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Black have been running around telling everyone that layoffs are coming…and therefore we need to abolish the seniority rules that ensure layoffs happen in an impartial way. Now the mayor’s front group Education Reform Now is airing a slick commercial with the same message.

This campaign for layoffs has nothing to do with the necessity or lack thereof of layoffs and everything to do with City Hall’s determination to attack teachers, which will hurt children.

The mayor has sown fear among the city’s teaching force, putting everyone on edge, making educators at all levels worry about the survival of their own families as well as the fate of their students.

He says seniority rules will force the DOE to lay off some of the best (younger, newer) teachers and force them to retain some of the worst (older, veteran) teachers. He says seniority rules will force them to lay off more teachers in struggling schools and minority neighborhoods. (Now they care about struggling schools? After neglecting them and tracking them for closure?)

These are false arguments designed to pit teachers against teachers, schools against schools and communities against communities.

The mayor also said if that the city were allowed to lay off older teachers, there would be fewer layoffs because veteran teachers earn more. So the real agenda isn’t about retaining the “best” teachers, it’s about retaining the cheapest teachers. Along the way, it’s fine to single out those who have dedicated their lives to public service and toss them out on the street.

I can’t begin to tell you how incredibly offensive this idea is. I don’t need to — I am certain that every UFT member is just as appalled and outraged as I am at this proposal.

The state’s budget woes are real, but so are the options that can prevent layoffs. At the DOE, contracts and consultants and other costs that do not service classrooms can be cut. At City Hall, waste and fraud like the CityTime scandal can be reined in. And in Albany, the millionaire’s tax can be extended.

These are the real issues — not this smokescreen about who and how to lay off people — and the work we all need to be doing in Albany is making sure that our schools have the funding they need.

Please go here for more information on what you can do to help in this fight. I know I can count on you, as always, to do that work because I know you put the needs of our children and our schools first.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

UFT: Battle of the TV Ad's

2011-02-12T16:37:00.002-05:00

Dear colleagues,

The UFT launched a television ad campaign today urging Mayor Bloomberg to protect teachers and schools, not millionaires.

The 30-second spot will air through Feb. 22 on local broadcast stations as well as cable television networks in the New York metropolitan area.

The ad opens with an image of Bloomberg next to a snow globe. "Mayor Bloomberg sees things differently than the rest of us," the narrator says. "Our schools are short of money, yet he refuses to ask millionaires to pay their fair share." The spot goes on to implore the mayor to focus on stopping layoffs: "He says class size doesn't matter. And talks more about who will get laid off than trying to stop teacher layoffs altogether."

Instead of making his No. 1 priority attacking teachers, the mayor should join our effort to extend the millionaire's tax to add several billion dollars to the state budget, eliminating any possibility of layoffs.

View the ad here >>

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

Racial Gap at Specialized High Schools

2011-02-11T17:23:00.002-05:00

Saw this report at GothamSchools. It's really interesting how this is a commonly overlooked practice - admissions. The ability to deny admission to low performing or disruptive students is what makes a classroom easier to manage. Though it poses other pedagogical challenges, there are some questions to raise about whether or not schools should be mandated to take in populations of special needs or ELL students. Though, I know that will never break ground.

Sort of exemplifies the have and have-nots of our educational system.

2011 Specialized High Schools - 8th Grade Students Receiving a Specialized HS Offer by Ethnicity 2009-2011

Arne Duncan Adresses NCLB and Teaching

2011-02-08T16:39:00.001-05:00

BBC: The effects of light pollution

2011-02-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

The BBC posted another audio slide show about the effects of inefficient lighting at night. What they mean by inefficient lighting is that the lights we use affect the ability to see or observe the starts at night.

As a New York City science teacher it is really difficult to teach a student who has lived in the city all their lives that the sky is full of starts. The lights from the city and the atmospheric glare make it impossible to see the millions of starts that actually scatter the skies at night.

We seem to take the technology of lighting for granted in this respect and for that I really thought this was a very well done slide show.

Enjoy.

Babies distinguish between right and wrong...

2011-02-01T17:41:00.004-05:00

This was an interesting clip from a while ago. The subject was raised in class about moral development and it posed an interesting opportunity to spark reasonable discussion about the research done on individual development.

Support Our Schools rally postponed until this Thursday

2011-02-01T14:39:00.003-05:00

Dear colleagues,

On Feb. 1 and 3, the mayor’s Panel on Educational Policy will vote on the DOE’s proposal to close 25 of our schools.

Due to the bad weather forecast for today, we have rescheduled the Support Our Schools rally for Thursday, Feb. 3, at 4:30 p.m. outside Brooklyn Tech.

Anyone interested in doing informational leafleting before today’s PEP meeting can pick up leaflets at the corner of DeKalb Avenue and South Elliott Place, anytime starting at 4 p.m.

Parents, teachers, community members will be at the Feb. 3 united with the message: Closing struggling schools rather than working with them and offering them the support they need to serve ALL their students is not educational “reform” – it’s educational neglect.

I hope to see you there.
Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

Living Environment Labs... Online?

2011-02-01T07:32:00.002-05:00

There's a site that provides students with online access to living environment labs. Though they boast that they complete lab minutes to satisfy the Regents mandate, I find it hard to accept that the future lab skills of high school students will be learned through a mouse and keyboard (does that mean I'm old-fashioned?).

I know that the labs that the state require don't necessarily require lab skills, but they do ask procedural questions about how to use equipment like a microscope that you can't really learn from a computer screen. You sort of need to handle it yourself to get the gist of it.

Though I have asked for an on-site demo by the site administrator who has announced that they will be making stops across NYC sometime, I have opened up a canister of my patented science-teacher skepticism. Perhaps this will be the next big thing for our students, perhaps it will be a complete waste of time and money on the part of the school. We'll see.

BBC: Art and Images of Science

2011-01-28T08:38:00.001-05:00

The BBC has an audio slide show of images of science. Some are really artistic, others are really interesting pictures.

Not sure how this would fit in to a lesson or a curriculum but it makes for an interesting lead-in to the beauty of nature and how previous societies demonstrated their appreciation of nature through their artwork or their pictures. Seems kind of interesting to note also the cultural perceptions of nature in a geographic and ethnic context... But they don't really go too far into that. I thought that Hooke's drawing of the flea were really cool though...

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Libraries are community indicators

2011-01-28T08:09:00.002-05:00

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

I respectfully disagree with Dostoevsky on this one. I can understand where he's coming from that how we treat our criminals is the measure of how civil we are as a complete society. But from a community-level perspective, I'd have to modify his quote to look closely at the libraries rather than the prisons.

This part of the Bronx has a library within walking distance from our school, but I can't help but wonder how often our students use these community resources.

The purpose of a library is to archive and to enable/allow for public access to any and all forms of information. When you enter a community that has a stripped down library as their access point you must wonder what the level of educational attainment is for the surrounding area. If the library has out-dated resources or little to no resources to provide it's neighboring populace then what sorts of inquiry into research could this community possibly conduct?

Though we have entered the age of the internet and accessibility, there are bound to be pockets of communities that do not rely on the internet and rely on the local libraries as their window to the rest of the world.

Also the utilization of these facilities also raises the question of how well-grounded we are as communities in conducting sound research on topics that really matter to us.

If students simply turn to Google or Wikipedia for their questions without first turning to their textbooks for answers then what sort of literary skills or primary source research can these students conduct in the future? Heaven forbid you ask a student today to write a bibliography that abides by MLA or APA formats with embedded citations rather than submit a list of URL's as their sources.

If you truly want an idea of how seriously a community treats their education, the local libraries are the most authentic indicators here.

Living Environment Prophet...?

2011-01-27T14:54:00.001-05:00

This year's January exam essentially covered all or most of the material that I emphasized since September.

I have gotten better at predicting what sorts of questions and what concept and content they need to know prior to taking the test. Though some students have issues with what questions are specifically asking for, they've definitely done better than I had expected...

I am either a really good guesser on what the test will cover or I'm just really lucky. The kids who took their exam this time around passed with very small margins.

I can't help but wonder what the rest of this week will look like... It doesn't seem like they're going to extend this week's regents exams since other schools upstate didn't get school closures. But it wouldn't be fair to the tens of thousands of students in the city who could graduate this month to wait until June to retake a test because of a snow day.

Only time will tell... On a personal note, I am sore as hell after shoveling my car out of the snow this morning. I think there was like 800 pounds of snow on or immediately around my car.

Snow Day!

2011-01-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

After shoveling my car in preparation for more snow tomorrow and treating myself to breakfast at the local diner, I've taken it upon myself to take the day off.

Sadly the Regents will have to wait, though I am not entirely sure how the scheduling of the tests will be affected, I can only hope that the kids who need it will be able to take the tests they need at some point this week.

It would be foolish to keep the original schedule of Regents exams rather than push everything back a day. But then again, I have seen dumber things take place in the largest public bureaucracy in America.

I any case, I made my snow angel on the front lawn. It was nice falling backward from the edge of the porch onto 20 inches of snow...

State of the Union: Science and Education

2011-01-25T22:25:00.001-05:00

Watching the President's speech tonight was definitely interesting. He shows a lot of love and reverence to educators. There are a few things that really resonated with me though...

The President can tell parents to promote education all he wants, but they don't HAVE to listen. Professional educators are obligated by their profession and for the love of teaching to get up at wee hours of the morning to face a classroom everyday. Think about this double-standard for a second: Why does our school get punished when your child doesn't make it to school? Schools don't have the power to punish students for not showing up or for their truancy aside from time out of school (which they already want, clearly).

When will parents and students be genuinely held accountable? Using the State of the Union address is hardly a way to make parents and students responsible for high academic achievement. At what point will it be a national mandate to graduate rather than a national imperative?

Another thing that resonated with me was when he talked about increasing/improving science education. I have recognized over the years that, oftentimes, students enter my class with minimal exposure to science. This leads me to believe that the recruitment for science teachers shouldn't be focused at the secondary level, it should be focused at the primary and kindergarten levels.

If you want to generate students with a love of science, they have to grow up with a greater exposure to science. You cannot ask a science teacher to enter a tough district, like the Bronx, and teach high school science when they could put up with less and make more in other fields.

If the agenda is genuinely focused on improving research and development so that we stay competitive, then they must put their money where their mouth is and invest in making quality science education worth the educator's while.

I am not an educational mercenary, but many educators who normally wouldn't be educators are or would at least reconsider pursuing education as their primary career choice. This is why there is typically a shortage of math and science teachers in urban centers - they could do other things where they put up with less and get paid more (multiples of a teacher's salary). If you want higher quality, you have to be willing to pay for it.

Oxidative Phosphorylation

2011-01-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

Here's an animation of oxidative phosphorylation.

I normally don't cover this depth of material but I can't help but put this out there for the honors or AP clsases who may find it useful. This is something that is difficult to teach since it's such an abstract concept and if students have difficulty with simpler concepts like diffusion or osmosis, this is something they'll never comprehensively understand.

In any case there's a lot of information embedded in this animation but I'm sure it's a useful teaching and learning tool. It's nice how it lays out the products of each step of the cellular respiration process.

The animation has been added to Biology as Flash - Oxidative Phosphorylation.

Conradictory Reasoning

2011-01-23T12:01:00.004-05:00

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

HA! I laugh every time I hear that one. The more people believe this, the less they can complain about the quality of educator that stands before classrooms of students.

If people believe this to be true then there is a lack of public affection or reverence towards becoming an educator. I challenge anybody who buys into this mentality, "How is it possible to attract the best and brightest into a classroom when they are looked down upon by the very people who want them placed there to begin with?"

It's one thing to be criticized by other educators, students, administrators, or even the parents of my students, but by Joe Schmo? Don't even bother. Save your energy when it comes to criticizing the work that I do with my students in my classroom.

I have no sympathy for a systemic reform effort that marginalizes or belittles the very work that we do. You cannot demand excellence while at the same time patronize the profession. The message itself is so conflicting that it's mind-boggling that people don't catch on to this glaring contradiction.

I challenge anybody who really thinks that they can justify the above statement when surviving as an urban educator requires putting up with an atmosphere where due process is about to disappear, where students can make allegations to get your fired on a whim, where the test scores of your students (whether they attend school or not) is more important than the actual lessons learned.

Anyway, on a lighter note, Go JETS!

UFT: Response to Bloomberg

2011-01-22T09:28:00.001-05:00

Dear colleagues,

City Hall puts children first? It’s a great soundbite, but actions speak louder than words.

The mayor and his administration have chosen sides, and it’s clearly not with the children of this city. Their priority is protecting millionaires and billionaires, at the expense of everyone else.

Studies now show the income disparity here in New York City is the largest in the nation, with one percent of residents earning almost 45% of the city’s income. Those 90,000 households are bringing home an average of $10,000 a day. That’s what roughly a million of our poorest neighbors here in the five boroughs bring home in a year.

Given these realities, the mayor should be talking about policies that benefit all New Yorkers, but instead, he is threatening to lay off teachers and other city workers, drastically cut school budgets, and go after the hard-earned pensions and benefits of working families. Where does that leave our students? Apparently when it comes to profits, they’re simply collateral damage. City Hall should be ashamed.

There are reasonable solutions to fixing the city’s fiscal problems, solutions the administration has chosen to ignore.

The highest earners could pay their fair share, for one. While the top one percent of earners make 45% of the city’s income, they only pay 34% of the city’s taxes — far less than in other cities where income disparities haven’t exploded.

The city could also offer a retirement incentive, which would save hundreds of millions of dollars without hurting families.

It could look at curtailing wasteful contracts, such as the scandalous City Time project, now hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and under a cloud of criminal charges.

The last few months have been disastrous, with the test score scandal, the controversial chancellor selection and the epic failure during the December snow storm still fresh in the minds of all New Yorkers. Yet City Hall is trying to pit teachers against teachers, parents against parents, schools against schools — tactics that may divert public attention but do nothing to solve the city’s problems.

We will not be silent in the face of this assault on the children and members that we serve and on all New Yorkers. We all need to stand up for the true priorities of our city. We all need to stand up for each other.

Rest assured that the UFT is actively pushing back against City Hall’s destructive policies and advocating for what’s right for our students and our schools. It is critical that elected officials hear from you — the people who work and care for children every day in our city — in this effort. We are putting together teams to meet with city and state legislators, community boards, CECs and other interested parties. Sign up here.

I cannot thank you enough for the important work that you do for this city every day, and I am sorry that you have a mayor and chancellor who clearly do not respect or understand what you do.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

Sanitary vs. Sterilization

2011-01-21T08:36:00.003-05:00

A coworker of mine is a bit on the compulsive side when it comes to germs. They enter a room and they open a window to allow fresh air to circulate (even if it's freezing outside). They'll use tissue to grab and open door handles.

It's gotten to the point where there's little rhyme or reason for the behavior. They are so terrified of getting sick that they go to great lengths to avoid anything that remotely could get them sick. They boast that they haven't been sick in years... And in my mind, I imagine the person's white blood cells are bored as hell because there's really nothing to kill... But I digress.

I have nothing against this mentality of exercising aseptic techniques in the workplace. But oftentimes you have to recognize that there are serious practicality issues with this sort of behavior. Schools are not hospitals, they do not need to be sterile environments. And if anything the worst infections originate from hospitals where they constantly use antibiotics and develop resistant strains of bacteria. Nosocomial infection is one of the biggest problems in hospitals.

Sanitary is the true goal in keeping a school environment clean. Sterility is not. I don't argue with these people, they've made up their minds to the point where nothing you say will change their minds. I can't talk badly about aseptic techniques in school because I've had my own days in school when I was sick or when students came in sick. For me, I don't worry too much about how goofy purple, nitrile gloves look... But that's only once in a blue moon. I can't imagine keeping up this routine on a daily basis...

Cuts

2011-01-20T07:43:00.003-05:00

I didn't watch the mayor's address. I figured it's best to avoid the propaganda.

But the reactions to things he said and neglected has resonated. It's clear through the change in tone in this school atmosphere that the Mayor has every intention of closing budget gaps by opening the city to cases of age discrimination law-suits.

When you cut school budgets every year it's not a matter of retaining the best and brightest! It's a matter of who you can afford to stay afloat. The mayor and Chancellor would have the public believe that the effectiveness of teachers is the only measure they are interested in while at the same time they send memos to every principal that they'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars cut from their budget and to prepare for these cuts. To those unfamiliar with school budgets, upwards of 80% of school budgets goes towards staffing

Budgets reflect priorities. If schools are not the priority then please just admit it. I'm sure the public will understand. I mean what's the worst that can happen to a mayor that managed to get himself a third term and has no intention of serving the greatest needs of the city? What does he have to lose by turning the profession of urban teaching into a 2 year fling? What does he or the Chancellor care?

I cannot imagine the city in any way, shape, or form going out of their way to spend the extra tens of thousands of dollars to retain a 15-20 year veteran when you can get 2 TFA's or 2 Teaching Fellows for the same price. I would love to see the city spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it does not have developing a fair and agreeable evaluation system to validate this practice. No businessperson would think for too long about this choice between the expensive experience over the cheaper newbies.

Student Dilemma: Success or Failure

2011-01-18T20:49:00.002-05:00

There are some students who cannot be saved. It's a fact of teaching. Not everybody is meant to finish in the fashion that is established as the norm.

What do you do with a student who is so complacent and so comfortable with their current mediocrity that they sabotage graduation to prolong their stay in school?

The Van Wilder effect of finishing college in 7 years comes to mind. There should be some sort of study done on our students that describes how students sabotage themselves out of fear of success.

It sounds crazy but there is no other reason for some of our students to fail. They do so well until the very end and it seems like they simply do not want to advance that they are happy with where they are. The mere notion of success frightens some students to the point where they shut down and give it all up. It's better to deal with the familiar feeling of failure than deal with the unknowns that success brings (or maybe they realize that it's easier to repeat classes than to take newer or harder classes).

Sadly their desire to stay amongst their peers (who are graduating) is a shortsighted effort that cripples them later on in life.

But as an educator I am not trained nor am I equipped to deal with this type of psychological dependence (if you can call it that).

So what's the remedy? I don't have one. The school doesn't have one. The parents don't seem to have a clue. Perhaps our school Chancellor... Oh wait, birth control can't fix this either.

How would you deal with students who have this sort of dependence? Some schools counsel these kids out of their schools prior to graduating. Unfortunately, we have higher authorities (like state and federal government) to answer to so that's not an option for us as a public institution. What would Bill Gates propose? What would Bloomberg suggest?

NYC Public School Parents Silenced

2011-01-17T22:46:00.001-05:00

After last year's struggle to keep the public schools open, this year the DOE took the same steps but more thoroughly. They certainly dotted their i's and crossed their t's this time around.

Out of my own morbid curiosity, I sat in on the public hearing at Stevenson High School where the public hearing for the phase out of the School for Community Research and Learning by 2014 was officially announced to parents. I can remember last year when the auditorium was filled with hundreds of people who had a lot to say about the DOE's actions. They had a lot to say about the DOE's lack of support and their draconian methodology of school improvement.

This time around, there were no protests outside the school. There were no signs being waved by the crowd. There were no reporters or cameras. There were 2 parents, 1 teacher, 2 UFT representatives, and a couple of politicians (one of whom had nothing better to say than to acknowledge that the legal steps were being taken in closing the school).

The meeting lasted no more than 26 minutes (including public comment, and question and answer sessions, and even an introductory speech by a deputy chancellor). I don't know to what "public" this hearing was meant for, but as I recall, the school represents more than 385 students who have families and are either too disheartened or too fed up with the DOE to even bother showing up to put in their two cents at this meeting. If the DOE's obligation is fulfilled by simply opening a forum for discussion where no parents are willing to participate because they realize that their voice doesn't matter, then it really isn't a "public" hearing. Nothing that the public says will change the outcome of this decision.

I would hope that someone of actual importance like Michelle Obama would make an appearance at these PEP or public hearings to watch how the DOE silences public opinion by relentlessly pursuing its own politically driven agendas.

Education is an arena of social injustice. And sitting in on public hearings like this is evidence of the lack of community involvement and engagement that has been silenced by the bureaucracy that has become the DOE.

If you are unfamiliar with the events of last year's PEP meetings, here's a clip from a student who was at the meeting last year. This meeting was the deciding vote to close schools. The state supreme courts overturned this decision citing that the DOE did not follow the necessary steps to involve the communities in the decision-making process... But it looks like the DOE will face little resistance this year.

Why these kids are awesome: Random acts of humor

2011-01-13T06:45:00.042-05:00

I originally planned to post this several weeks ago but in light of recent incidents, I had second-guessed that decision. But I figured, screw it since it makes for an interesting anecdote.

The students I teach are not the best and brightest, nor are they the solution to all the world's current problems, but they are to the core of their being, genuine characters.

At the end of last trimester, we transitioned into a new trimester and a student from a previous section I taught came up to me with their smart phone (after they were handed back at the end of the day).

This student has an app on their phone of a gun that fires every time you shake the phone. He came up to me and showed me the picture of the gun and said to me, "So you failed me last trimester, right? Right?" I played along and replied, "Yes, you failed my class last trimester."

At that moment, he takes his phone and shoots me repeatedly ("BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG") and quickly dashes out of the room. I couldn't help but laugh. I was just massacred by a student's smart phone. I know that it's probably not the most positive message to laugh at even the slightest form of violence (especially after the incident in Arizona) but I couldn't help but think that there's still a little humor in the clearly harmless provocations of a smart phone app.

We're not at odds with each other nor will we ever be at odds with each other but these are the little moments you have to enjoy. We both seem to understand that there are bigger things in life than a class you failed last trimester, like sharing a good laugh.

If you don't find this amusing or funny then I apologize. I can already see how people could paint this story as one of promoting gun violence out of frustration when it clearly was just a harmless joke that has no underlying message of violence.

Snow, Snow, Everywhere...

2011-01-12T06:54:00.000-05:00

As usual, no snow day.

Can't say I'm surprised. Still woke up at the wee hours of the morning. Got to school before there was ANY traffic in sight to avoid any slipping and sliding vehicles. The custodial staff was shocked that I was at school...

Attendance Forecast:
Let's see what our attendance will be like. We may get a decent turnout of students who will show up in the morning but will bail as the sun comes out later in the day as they make the conscious decision to play or spend the extra time to get to work as MTA and mass transit options are facing minor delays.

Centipede vs. Tarantula

2011-01-11T23:08:00.000-05:00

Warning: This clip is a little creepy. If you aren't too keen on watching creepy crawlers or seeing insects get attacked then this probably isn't the best video for you. I am deathly scared of insects with more than 6 legs... Watching this sends chills down my spine...

Enjoy.

Why NYC should close schools for tomorrow

2011-01-11T20:48:00.004-05:00

It's a public liability.
Lots of students will end up cutting anyway.
~~People's lives are at stake.~~
~~If the clean-up of city streets have been mediocre, then what sort of clean-up do you expect of a school custodial staff?~~
Other districts have already announced closures as a courtesy to parents.
It doesn't undermine the city or municipal government in any way to preemptively announce closure.
Waiting until 5:00 in the morning is really inconsiderate and it doesn't set the right tone for a new chancellor to wait till the last minute to make an executive decision about the well-being of the public.
If you already declare a weather emergency how does it make sense to keep schools open?
If the kids are at school, then who's going to shovel our sidewalk?

Ethinic Parenting Practices - Let's Inflame Stereotypes!

2011-01-11T08:03:00.007-05:00

There's a Wall Street Journal article about a Chinese mother and how she raised her children to be star students. Though she does mention that her practice as a mother does stretch to other ethnic groups, I couldn't help but reflect on my own Korean upbringing.

Her points on raising her own daughters are similar to the conditions that I was raised under as a son.

It paints an interesting picture on the different environments of upbringing from household to household. I can see how the reaction to grades warrants different responses. Demanding the best is very different from encouraging the best effort out of kids. The real difference is in students who push themselves after getting lesser grades versus those who settle for lesser grades and don't put forth the stronger effort to bring their grade up.

It just makes sense to me that a culture that sets self-esteem aside for results is more focused on results rather than on social development (which has its own setbacks). If all we care about are results, then this is the parenting culture/style/approach we must address for future generations to reach for those results.

When I visited Seoul last summer, I went to check out some bookstores and out of morbid curiosity I checked out some subject test-prep materials (I wanted to see the material written in another language). There were test prep books that teach AP level biology. I remember grabbing a book and thinking, "Wow, that's some good stuff they learn." But my cousin pointed out, "That's a middle school book." My jaw dropped to the floor. Her own son was using that AP-level test booklet to prepare to apply for high schools in Seoul.

I know that this article was probably written with the best of intentions in terms of providing insight into the life of Chinese-American children, but I'm not so sure about it's title since it seems a bit obnoxious and condescending to assume that Chinese mothers are superior because of how they raise their kids. For all the greatness in their children as students, ultimately what matters is what they make of themselves when the strings are severed (if they're ever severed).

Any thoughts?

Some things I remember from my own upbringing.

Guilt treatment - guilt is punishment enough - sometimes overwhelmingly so (see number 2)
Crying at parent-teacher conferences as a kid for getting a B
Unilateral decision-making hierarchy
Implied love - never explicit
Ironclad curfews
No such thing as 'my' property
Fear of embarrassment paired with guilt treatment
Instruments were mandatory - 1 hour a day minimum practice
Mandatory library trips
Mandatory after school sports or clubs
Going to language school - with little to no success -> more guilt

After reading and writing some of these, I can't seem to agree with this author that putting a child through these experiences makes them superior parents. I'm sure there are other ways to get the same results without the guilt, fear of embarrassment, or the tyrannical family structure (they just haven't figured it out since they were raised the same way).

Doomsday Prophecies

2011-01-08T08:08:00.000-05:00

I think these are the worst things to captivate imaginations of generations of students. It is quite possibly the worst alibi towards doing nothing that a student can propose and yet it is so common.

I can't begin to tabulate the number of times a student has said, "What's the point, the world's going to end in 2012 anyway." So why are they wasting the last months of their lives in school?

Students take things so literally or they turn to these explanations out of sheer laziness that it is really scary. What I would like to see is a student who puts so much energy into believing something that when it turns out they are wrong, they put the same amount of energy into punishing their own gullibility.

But alas, that is asking for too much. Students rarely respond to this level of gullibility by preparing themselves for the next doomsday prophecy. They go from one to the next. First it was the Y2K scare during the 1999 to 2000 transition, now it's the 2012 doomsday prophecized by the end of the long count of the Mayan calendar. What's next? The Earth will be struck by a marshmallow comet in 2015?

What really annoys me is the lack of consequences for scares like this. People really should be held responsible for making such extraordinary claims they have no evidence for. On top of this, the recruitment of others into believing their claims only makes matters worse.

But why is it that there are no serious consequences for incorrectly prophecizing the end of the world but there are consequences for misleading the public into believing you cured an incurable disease? Why is it that there are consequences for getting people's hopes up but no consequences for spreading mass/irrational fear through stupidity?

Just another one of those questions we'll never see answered until people start taking their heads out of their asses.

Perceptions on Life

2011-01-06T17:31:00.001-05:00

It is a very common perception that life is one of the miracles of nature.

I adamantly disagree. Life is hardly a miracle, if anything, it is inevitable.

I can understand the perception that life is miraculous in the sense that we value and cherish life (for whatever personal reasons we may have). However the contradiction lies in the accomplishments of the living, which range from greatness to terror and genocide.

In this context it doesn't seem to make sense to say that life is a miracle. It makes more sense to say that life is inevitable. On the floating blue sphere we call home, there is little reason to believe that something we cherish as well as abuse and take advantage of on a regular basis is something miraculous.

Perhaps when you consider how difficult it was for us to have evolved into what we are today then I may consider the miraculous notion of life. But it's difficult for me to accept that perception when the struggle for survival is the unpredictable variable that determines the destiny of the living.

It's amazing what sorts of philosophical discussions you can have with students.

Memorable student response: "You know what's miraculous, mista? Marijuana!"

This is what happens when you ban the US census

2011-01-03T19:29:00.001-05:00

You lose the power to pass legislation you want.

For the groups who thought that boycotting the US census was the best course of action in terms of protesting the lack of attention you get as a demographic, you got what you deserve, less political power as a state.

If you really want comprehensive immigration reform, you have to show that you exist! You have to be counted and stand out a through a nationwide census! To hide from the census just means you'll never get the reform you seek, so why boycott it?! Oh well, I guess the comprehensive reform you seek will have to wait another ten years, when you wise up to the consequences of boycotting the census.

I doubt that New York or New Jersey were affected by any boycott of the census but to lose seats in both of these states can be a bit scary. But I suppose the Latino representation in congress will be stronger in future elections in the southern-border states.

The Death of Democracy

2011-01-02T23:08:00.000-05:00

The Panel for Educational Policy is a body of 13 individuals. 5 of these members are appointed by each of the borough presidents. The remaining 8 are appointed by the mayor himself.

In what way is this democratic? In what way does a 5 to 8 vote on any measure that doesn't agree with the mayor constitute educational justice? It doesn't.

I've learned last year that whatever the mayor says, goes. It doesn't really matter if what he has to offer would run schools into the ground so long as he has the option to start over by hitting the reset button called the PEP.

It has been an interesting and depressing time watching the department of education try to flounder its way through the school closure process. It seems like the city and the department of education wants only to expedite this process rather than actually consider the community impact that closing/reshuffling/reorganizing schools has on the communities they serve.

I doubt that anything will change in terms of school closures. Ms. Black seems very enthusiastic to continue the work that Klein started. But we shall see, it will be an informative month for all of us...

Aww sht, my igga!

2010-12-21T16:40:00.000-05:00

The words of a student who remembered my birthday as they were writing the date on their class handout.

Gave me a fist pound/hand shake and a chest bump afterwards.

Awkward and yet mildly flattering. Good times. :)

UFT: Tell the DOE to FIX struggling schools!

2010-12-20T22:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Educator,

The NYC Department of Education refuses to help struggling schools, and thousands of children are being hurt as a result of this neglect.

Twenty-five district public schools, a record high for one year, have been put on the block as the DOE continues to insist that the best reform strategy for struggling schools is to shut them down. We need a school system that will identify schools that are struggling and intervene to help them succeed.

That’s why we are calling for a moratorium on closures of schools where the DOE has not intervened to provide support.

Please sign our online petition now.

Last year thousands of educators, parents, students and community members mobilized in protest of the DOE’s close-them-don’t-fix-them strategy, culminating in a court victory that kept 19 schools from closing. This year the union has again pledged its full support for any school that chooses to fight back.

Let’s send a powerful message to the DOE that the educational neglect of our neediest schools and students MUST end.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

Propagating Negative Stereotypes

2010-12-11T13:23:00.002-05:00

Recently, there have been stories in the news about a Livery cab union head who encouraged the practice of racially profiling passengers to avoid violent crimes from taking place.

Let's be realistic here. He's admitting a practice that has been going on for years. Just because he says cabs drivers should be able to racially profile their passengers doesn't mean it hasn't been happening before his public statement.

So what is worse? Subversively allowing a practice that propagates negative stereotypes? Or publicly spotlighting an ethnic group unfairly for violent crimes against cab drivers?

I hope, for his sake, that he has the statistics to support his claims (which I doubt). But I can't help but empathize with his sentiment that it could reduce the number of violent incidents towards cab drivers if indeed his claims are correct.

I've taken several cabs and drivers have been forthcoming about their passenger selection practices. Some say they require a down payment for some of their passengers because they occasionally get stiffed by black and Latino passengers... But again, this only propagates the negative stereotype. One driver, as I recall, said that he would not have picked me up if I were black or Hispanic at that hour of the evening, especially if I'm driving into the Bronx from Manhattan, but he saw that I was Asian and immediately picked me up.

My question is, how do you go about fixing the negative stereotype? Because it is not entirely based on individual bias, it is based on some statistically misguided truth (even if it is a negative label or a negative behavior that paints a bad picture for everyone in that ethnic group).

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone negative stereotypes, particularly when they promote unfair treatment to honest passengers with good intentions (which represents the majority of passengers of any ethnicity), but I can't help but wonder if it is equally unfair to allow cab drivers to fall victim to violence by ethnic groups (assuming his claims on the crime statistics are true).

One has to wonder if in a world where cab drivers were unbiased and chose random passengers how any union would attempt to address the criminal behavior of passengers if they noticed a legitimate, authentic pattern that identifies potential acts of violence before they enter the cab.

I make no assumptions about the intentions of anybody regardless of race or ethnicity. A person's motivations and intentions are not a product of their race or ethnicity but a product of their circumstances and their upbringing. But I am curious how any social body would solve the problem of this vicious cycle of propagating negative stereotypes.

Student Life in the Bronx

2010-12-07T21:33:00.003-05:00

I could not imagine a moment in my upbringing where I was ever afraid of telling on someone for something they clearly did wrong to me or to somebody else. It's not that I run for help at every emergency, but I never talked myself out of it because I was afraid of the consequences of telling.

The student and social culture of no snitching is one that is quite pervasive. And whether it is to maintain a level of integrity amongst peers or to protect oneself from retaliation, there's a lot of reasons for students today to keep their mouths shut when they really need to step forward and say something.

Though it is a tough lesson to teach, there's a tougher social stigma to address that goes beyond the walls of a school building. The role of a snitch or a rat in society paints the picture of someone who has no loyalties and cannot be trusted - The Scarlet Letter comes to mind.

I have lost count of the number of incidents that I could report but cannot follow through because of the lack of details or the omission of details to take the disciplinary action to the next level. Though this does not stop me from addressing clear behavioral issues, it creates a disciplinary impasse that not only allows for greater levels of disruptive behavior to go unaddressed, but creates a culture of fear or a culture of collaborative disobedience.

Some incidents are too complex to describe but the only complicating factor is the inability to tell the whole story... People must recognize the complex social issues that really permeate these communities on a level that surpasses others.

BBC: The Fellows of Science

2010-12-06T17:20:00.000-05:00

I love the BBC. It's pictures, it's in-depth and robust science resources, and it's audio slideshows.

This time around, they published an audio slide show for Fellows of Science.

Enjoy!

The Central Dogma of Biology

2010-12-06T08:17:00.010-05:00

Here are 3 animation links I use to illustrate the central dogma of biology. They must have been a set or have been created by the same group but they're a wonderful way to illustrate the process of gene expression.

If you right-click on the links and save them as .swf files on your desktop you can play them whenever you like if you don't have internet access (assuming you have adobe flash player).

Use them wisely:

DNA Replication

Transcription

Translation

Chancellor Interview on ABC - with Diana Wil... I mean, Art McFarlan

2010-12-05T11:41:00.001-05:00

What worries me about Cathy Black is how she will handle the data machine that has become the DOE's weapon against teachers (good or bad).

Data can make a sparkling teacher look like they don't belong in a classroom, they can also make a God awful teacher look amazing. The unreliability of these data measures begs the question about whether they are worth the time or the money developing in a time of serious economic stress.

What really disturbed me is the blanket statement of concurrence with Joel Klein's work in the past 8 years. A chancellor who has an understanding of the complex social issues would have the stones to look critically at the biggest social issues of the prior chancellor and would at least make some assurances of effectively addressing those issues during her tenure. But alas, I ask for too much.

I also have to wonder how well she will recruit teachers to her vision and her mission as chancellor if their work is not supported in the classroom. So she may want to see a robust and in-depth re-evaluation of curricula, but that's really not possible with the Regents-level standards they have in place. You can't have it both ways, have a Regents for every subject AND have robust and diverse curricula. This is something she will not learn unless she looks at a Regents exam or a Regents curriculum and compares that to the robust and diverse curriculum she's looking for, which really worries me.

I can only hope that she lives up to her own expectations that she will do better reaching out to parents, schools, students, and teachers in terms of addressing the concerns that affect the schools. So rather than going to a school to deliver only bad news, have a chancellor who goes to a school to evaluate the problems and come back with good news on how to address these problems...

But again, I have a feeling that I am asking for too much...

Why we struggle teaching this generation...

2010-12-04T10:24:00.005-05:00

I can recall a moment when Michelle Rhee was interviewed on TV (I think it was on the Colbert Report, but I don't recall) and she once responded to a question about why we see different results from America in the 50's and 60's to America today. She went on to babble about the lack of a student-centered political initiative or something like that. I agree but she doesn't go far enough.

I'll offer a simple explanation about why America was number 1 in the 50's versus why we're not number 1 today. Back in the 1950's, we were in a COLD WAR!

People were unified by a level of nationalism that doesn't exist today. In the 1950's, the American people accepted the responsibility to educate themselves to better themselves as well as to improve their nation as a whole. Every American owned up to a civic responsibility and a civic duty to perform well in school.

I mean the goal of JFK as President in the early 1960's was to send a man to the moon! In order to do this, we need the best and the brightest! This means, stay in school! Compare this to George Bush's goal of having every child test at grade level in reading and math by 2014... Seems like we've regressed... From going to the moon to reading and math...

Where is this message of urgency today? Where is this level of nationalism today? It doesn't exist. Where's the educational incentive to learn? We aren't going to the moon anymore, in fact we're cutting NASA's budget. Our current message of nationalism is one of consumerism, not of academic achievement.

Back in the 50's and 60's at the sound of air-raid sirens students had duck-and-cover drills where they scamper under their desks to protect themselves from the fallout of a Soviet nuclear attack. Everybody was pretty much on the same page because they envisioned a common enemy of the American people. Today, it's a burden of a task to convince urban high school students to walk in single-file lines when a fire alarm sounds.

The lack of a uniform and consistent message of urgency to learn is one of the biggest missing pieces in today's society. We lack a unified message of urgency that America needs educated individuals to do amazing things. There is one certainty, today, education is no longer glorified as it once was.

According to Oprah: Teachers are the Biggest Problem

2010-12-04T09:40:00.004-05:00

It interests me to hear about Oprah's view on education. She has her uninformed opinion about the matter but rarely dives outside the realm of her pseudo-reality.

My question is, when will the outspoken celebrities who advocate privatization invite the dissenting opinion onto their nationally televised shows to argue with the facts and to objectively take a look at the actual problems that plague education? Is it because there's a lack of objectivity? Is it because they're scared of admitting that they're wrong? Is it because they don't want to admit that they're misinformed?

For whatever reason, it's more important to feel right than to look at something and realize that the message you send is not only wrong, but professionally offensive and abusive.

It's shows like this that solidifies the notion that Oprah is someone who doesn't exercise skepticism when watching politically directed documentaries. I suppose she believes her celebrity friends more than the people who live and work in the hardest public school districts in the country. I'd love to see her invite Diane Ravitch or myself or my school's faculty onto her show to dive into the dark side of the educational reform movement launched by non-educators like Gates, Guggenheim, and Legend. Because who listens to a general who's never fought the fight before? Who listens to a coach who has never played the game? Who listens to Oprah and friends about what we should be doing to turn around a public education system that is being starved by the private sector?

Diane Ravitch in New Orleans

2010-12-04T08:37:00.004-05:00

This video can be found at the following site: http://www.katrinaresearch.org/ravitch_video.html

Apollo 15 - Galileo was right.

2010-12-02T17:39:00.000-05:00

I always appreciate old footage like this. I would like to know how Galileo would have felt to see this take place on the surface of the moon... I'm sure he would have had to change his underwear.

This time for Africa

2010-12-01T17:18:00.002-05:00

For World AIDS Day one can't help but think about Africa and the effect that one of many different diseases has on the entire continent. Whether it's Malaria, Schistosomiasis, Trypanosoma, Onchocerciasis, or HIV/AIDS, there are so many afflictions to live through that it's amazing that there exists a norm.

In spite of all the struggles of living in Africa, one can always enjoy a friendly game of soccer. So this song came to mind. I can only imagine that it wouldn't just serve as a decent World Cup theme song, but also as a good song to unify people of any background. Enjoy the video and the lyrics...

You're a good soldier
Choosing your battles
Pick yourself up
And dust yourself off
Get back in the saddle

You're on the front line
Everyone's watching
You know it's serious
We're getting closer
This isn't over

The pressure is on
You feel it
But you got it all
Believe it

When you fall get up, oh oh
If you fall get up, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
Cuz this is Africa

Tsamina mina, eh eh eh
Waka waka, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

Listen to your God
This is our motto
Your time to shine
Don't wait in line
Y vamos por todo

People are raising
Their expectations
Go on and feed them
This is your moment
No hesitations

Today's your day
I feel it
You paved the way
Believe it

If you get down get up, oh oh
When you get down get up, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

Tsamina mina, eh eh eh
Waka waka, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa a a

Tsamina mina, eh eh eh
Waka waka, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

Awela Majoni Biggie Biggie Mama One A To Z
Athi sithi LaMajoni Biggie Biggie Mama From East To West
Bathi Waka Waka Ma Eh Eh Waka Waka Ma Eh Eh
Zonke zizwe mazi buye
Cuz this is Africa

Tsamina mina, eh eh eh
Waka waka, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa a a

Tsamina mina, eh eh eh
Waka waka, eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

(2x)
Django eh eh
Django eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa a a

This time for Africa (2x)

We're all Africa (2x)