Same Shoes 4 Years

Each morning, I receive an NEA Morning Update. The following is a story that I just had to share with all of you. I copy/pasted the blurb from the email, but the full story is available if you click on the St. Petersburg Times link.

"High Schooler Focuses Senior Project On Well-Worn Shoes."

"High School Student Turns The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (5/7, Solochek) reports that Land O'Lakes High School senior Ben Hedblom has worn the same pair of black sneakers everyday since ninth grade. "Four years ago, Hedblom made a wager with Spanish teacher Adrian Antonini that he would wear the same shoes through to graduation day. The loser would shave his hair and eyebrows." Hedblom says that "the lessons he has learned from wearing" the now tattered, treadless shoes "propelled him to a perfect score on his senior class project." The project focused "on the psychology behind his effort," namely "the initial perceptions that people had when seeing his ratty old shoes, and how he would persuade them to understand that it's not all about the shoes." Hedblom noted of his four-year shoe experience, "I've learned a lot about self image. You are what you believe you are.""

This is a short clip of Spike Dolomite-Ward who is an Executive Director speaking on the importance of arts in the public schools. Spike Dolomite-Ward is part of the San Fernando Valley school system. She encourages that the arts remain in school districts. Some of the important comments she makes stood out to me. She said that we are doing a disservice not using two sides of the brain. Including the arts is a "critical component to well rounded education." I was happy to find out that in March, Spike Dolomite Ward and others get together to hold a valley wide fine arts and performing arts festival. Arts have lately been the first classes to with the budget cuts, why do you think this is? Do you have any suggestions on how the arts can be saved?

Augmented Communication Device for Special Education Learning.

There is a little girl that I work with at John Muir Elementary school who is completely paralyzed but she has a normal IQ. She cannot speak, walk, feed herself, or go to the bathroom on her own, but she is very smart. Just recently through her IEP plan, the school was able to provide her with an augmented communication device. She is learning to use this device in order to allow her to communicate. the device works by reading the movement of her eyes. The problem for many children who are receiving these devices is that they are not properly trained on how to use them and then the money spent on the machine goes down the drain. The girl I work with, has a similar problem. No one is training her how to use her device, because there is a lack of knowledge in the system. There are certain centers around the nation that provide this service, but they do not come cheap, and they are not that nearby. This is a problem because a machine that could open the world up to this little girl, could also end up in the garage because she never learns to use it and doesn't stay motivated. Do any of you have other solutions to this problem?

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Education Summit

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/race-to-the-top/obama-should-call-an-education.html

This author, Valerie Strauss, feels that President Obama should call an educational summit in which he further shapes his policies for the future of the nation's education system. It was noted in her article that all sides of the education platform are against his policy, that should make it clear to President Obama that the policy needs further tweaking to improve the system.

His reform program suggests that there are four ways in which a low-performing school can reform.

1. Turnaround Model: replace the principal and half the staff. (The principal and staff may not be the only factors in why the students aren't doing well).

2. Restart: Turn the school into a charter school. (I agree with Strauss, the school should start from the ground up to initiate the core values, not as a replacement).

3. School Closure: Shut the school down and send the students to schools in high achieving areas. (What good will closing a school be? It will just increase the amount of students in other schools/classrooms. Many classes are at maximum capacity (or more) and will only increase the likelyhood of not doing well.)

4. Transformation Model: Replace the principal. (There are other factors that lead to why a school isn't doing well. The principal might be an excellent principal and replacing them might just take the school backwards.)

I feel that Strauss has a point in her article where she states that teachers should be uniting and sharing what works in the classroom: working together, instead of competing against each other like giant corporations.

Do you feel that an educational summit is necessary for the changes this reform wants to make?

Bilingual Education

The image above may seem odd at first glance but the Chinese character is being used in a demonstration by the teacher to show how the word "eye" is written in Mandarin. We've discussed in other classes the rise of charter schools and the limiting effects of "English Only" education. Both of these concepts are at the center of a TIME magazine education article describing the cognitive and future professional benefits of a full immersion language school. The school this boy attends is the Yinghua Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a charter school where students learn basic subjects of math, art, and history... in Mandarin Chinese. The goal of this program is: "to introduce kids to the language and culture as early as possible — ideally, before age 12, while they're still absorbing information like sponges. Kindergartners and first-graders are taught exclusively in Mandarin, and a single period of English is introduced in second grade. By sixth grade, kids are learning half in English and half in Mandarin, with the expectation of proficiency in both." I thought this was interesting and significant in not only what is happening in education today but for the job market that students will be entering in the future, what an asset to be able to speak Mandarin Chinese--with China being one of the most rapidly developing economies.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1938738,00.html#ixzz0lhriPR9K

Kindergarten Cutoff Date

Just before I was about to interview the vice principal of the school that I am observing at, I overheard him talking to the principal about a very relevant issue. This issue is the possible change in the cutoff date for incoming kindergarteners. Though the bill would not be fully implemented until 2012, this is a hot issue in education right now. So, what are the pros and cons of pushing back the cutoff date? On the positive side, teachers would have fewer children in their classrooms that are not ready for the subject content. In a kindergarten class that I was in last semester, one of the boys still wore pull-ups, and another got so frustrated, daily, with the lessons, because he just couldn’t understand. Both of these boys were four at the time. So, it would clearly save children and teachers from frustration. Also, it would save the government $700 million a year. But, the flip side is that parents would have to pay for pre-school or daycare if their child didn’t hit the new September 1^st cutoff date. (The current cutoff date in California is December 2^nd)

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/Kindergarten-Age-Rules-Could-Change-90847919.html