Peabloggy

I will not lie and say that I loved gym class all of my life. In fact, I really did not care for it until about my junior year of high school, which, incidentally is when I finally shed all that baby fat. That year, my friend, Jenny, and I were reigning badminton champions in our physical education (PE) class. As a senior, I enjoyed playing flag football when the weather was just right for lining up in the school yard. Although, running the mile was another story; I always speed-walked it. I have never had the endurance for continuous running.

I support adding a half-credit of PE per semester for Tennessee’s K-12 students. Exercise is good for body and mind, giving students the opportunity to develop fitness habits as well as to ease tension before a big exam. I hope that the schools are also incorporating nutritional counseling with the added exercise, as those go hand-in-hand in combating obesity and developing healthy patterns for life.

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

According to an article on the USA Today Web site, some schools are going the gourmet route in regards to feeding the children. The article tells the story of a pastry chef turned cafeteria lunch lady (who in no way resembles the “Who wants some more sloppy” lady from Billy Madison) that creates made-from-scratch meals for students at a Catholic school in Virginia. Students there seem to love it, and I for one am happy to see that schools are focusing on providing better food that goes beyond the USDA requirements for nutritional value. When I was in school, the only things that could have been considered “gourmet” were the piping hot rolls that were turned out on “Roll Day.” The rolls might have been cheap at $.10 a pop, but I seriously doubt they compared to the broccoli with pasta or Italian sausage with polenta being served up in Virginia.

- Landon Clark

I had not truly pondered the lack of discussion on educational issues, particularly in the K-12 arena, in this year’s presidential debates until reading an opinion piece in the USAToday, in which the author admonishes the candidates for not addressing them.

For one thing, the war in Iraq, health care, and a possible recession seem to absorb all the candidates’ air time. In addition, I work in higher education, so I had taken note of a couple of connections between the presidential race and college. I saw a commercial, before the Tennessee primary, on behalf of one candidate suggesting that she/he would fight “predatory” loan companies. Regarding that same person, a news program aired a web video made by college students in favor of her/him. Though I do not recall any mention of K-12 education in such ads and programs.

Unfortunately, this election year, it seems the candidates are too focused on other, admittedly important, issues to discuss education as part of their campaigns. Interested voters will need to engage in independent research to discover how the hopefuls stand on that issue. In the candidates’ defense, I admit, I have not tuned-in to all 50 (or how ever many) debates. Perhaps, let us hope, education will make more headlines and sound-bytes closer to November.

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

Recently, for my sociology and philosophy of education class, I read the book “Amazing Grace” by Jonathan Kozol. I would highly recommend it for anyone considering teaching at any grade level in a high poverty environment. In the book Kozol recounts his interaction with people living the South Bronx, New York and their day to day struggle to survive.

Luke Webb

eSchools is reporting that Baltimore County Public Schools has installed a system of on-demand videos on high-capacity computer servers that are accessible by all 169 of its schools.

Since my first days as a teacher in an urban middle school in Los Angeles County, I’ve seen so many changes in education as a result of technological advance. Then in about 2003, I began to see my creativity match the resources available to me; that is, if I could think it, I could do it with my students. This kind of immediate access to videos on nearly any topic imaginable is a prime example of this.

It is terrifically fun to release the limits of curricula and begin to play with technology. Some examples: When I designed a unit on owls for my little classroom of eight students, I procured sounds of various species of owls online and played them for the students on my computer. When Jason McElwain, a student with Autism, scored 20 points in 4 minutes in the final game of his Rochester, New York high school’s basketball season, I showed my students the video on YouTube.

For fun one evening, I photoshopped the movie poster for “The Incredibles” and posted it on my classroom door, like so:

In 2005, I ordered five Painted Lady butterfly larvae from an online nature store and as a classroom, we bred butterflies. At the same time, a rare massive Painted Lady Butterfly migration began to move through our area. In a perfect coincidence, my students released their fully-developed butterflies just prior to the arrival of the migration. For days afterward, my students ran around shouting, “I just saw one of our butterflies!” What began as a little science project became a sensational and memorable social studies lesson.

I could not have done this without the internet.

In case you haven’t seen it, prepare to be inspired. Here’s Jason’s phenomenal performance:

- Peter Beddow

David Keyes, a second-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., wrote an article posted on Washington Post Online called Classroom Caste System which blames No Child Left Behind for the creation of a “new gap between poor and minority students…and largely wealthy and white students…” From what I’ve read, his assessment of the law received both praise an admonition from both sides of the aisle. An excerpt of the article:

Students in largely wealthy and white schools are learning to ask larger questions; students in poor and minority schools are only being taught to answer smaller ones.

The No Child Left Behind Act is creating a caste-like system in which students’ future prospects are likely to be similar to those of their parents. This undemocratic development is at odds with a society that prides itself on being a meritocracy. As Congress debates the renewal of the law, members should consider not only whether the act is reducing the achievement gap but also the skills gap it is creating.

I think Mr. Keyes has gotten it wrong. My take: the only implicit solution in Keyes’ article is to go back to the way things were before NCLB. No accountability and no measurement of achievement to help us understand what is working and what is not. For Keyes, it sounds as if ignorance was bliss - particularly considering his only argument against NCLB relates to mandated testing.

A new Center for Education Policy report shows that state test scores have increased significantly since NCLB. Of course, there is currently no way to tell whether there is a causal relation between NCLB and these improvements, but NCLB is the reason we are even able to have a discussion based on evidence.

The kind of hyperbolic anti-discussion conceived by Mr. Keyes doesn’t serve to amplify essential points of contention about the bipartisan legislation that is NCLB. It only widens the gap between already intractable opinion-holders. It’s tremendously easy to write an article that aggrandizes a generations-old problem and ostentatiously places all of the blame on a single piece of legislation. Offering suggestions on how to improve the legislation - that is what is difficult. In short: Pontificating is easy. Problem-solving is hard.

- Peter Beddow

Previous:
CEC on NCLB (FYI)
NCLB: When in doubt, bake cookies

In a front-page article “Getting lost in the great indoors” published June 19, The Washington Post describes the launch of The National Forum on Children and Nature, a coalition headed by The Conservation Fund and its partners, including Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and other civic leaders from around the country.

These key leaders call attention to the wide disconnect that exists between scores of American children and the natural world - a gap that affects their mental and physical health and family relationships, and is bound to impact our environment. Read about the initiative to turn the trend around here.

Cheers to the editors at the Post who chose to put this article above the fold. I love reading good news.

- Rachel Bowers

Previous: Greening our children

In my father’s kitchen, there is a picture of me at about 12 years old sitting with my then two-year-old sister on a log by the Potomac river. Under the shade, we sit barefoot with our toes in the mud. I remember that Saturday afternoon vividly, and many others like it during which I found freedom and refuge in natural settings. But were we the last children in the woods?

That is the question Richard Louv asks in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.

Louv’s book provides compelling arguments for environmental preservation (for those not already convinced) on the basis of its physical, intellectual and spiritual benefits to our children and ourselves. We are wired to need nature, Louv says, particularly in our childhood when those first encounters with worms under an overturned stone, tadpoles in a stream, poison ivy rashes on our ankles, thunderstorms rolling in over the hills, the mystery of the tides from morning to afternoon - when all of these experiences engender in us a sense of wonder that follows us throughout our lives. What’s more, positive experiences with nature provide opportunities for physical activity in an age of childhood obesity, inspire creativity in an era of shallow advertising, and teach us not to be so callous with the way we treat the earth as we wade through the muck of an environmental crisis.

So why do so many children suffer from what Louv calls “nature deficit disorder?” He credits the problem to overstructured, overscheduled lives (and schools), lack of access to natural areas, and an increase in fear of unknown places and people, particularly those that seem uncontrolled or ‘wild.’ Many of the symptoms of the separation between children and nature, he says, are the same ones we try to solve with elaborate curricular programs, structures and medicine: childhood stress and depression, lack of independent creative play, attention deficit disorder, overweight, and a general ignorance about biology, ecology and the source of our food.

What’s the solution to all of this, according to Louv? He offers several ideas, some targeted to parents and others to educators, urban planners and policymakers. They include the creation of more green spaces in and around schools and cities (including rooftop or community gardens in urban schools), opportunities for experiential outdoor learning across disciplines, and a wider implementation of eco-school programs.

I have often heard the argument that we should spend more money and attention on our children’s health and education rather than on environmental preservation. Louv does an excellent job of describing all the ways that, by investing in the environment and by restoring humanity’s once-intimate relationship with the earth, we might actually be more likely to achieve all of our goals for academic, personal and spiritual strength among our kids.

- Rachel Bowers

Hanne Denney, a special education teacher in Maryland, has written an article about teaching her students to write Shakespearean sonnets. An exerpt:

All freshmen, as part of the introduction to William Shakespeare, have to write an original sonnet. They choose the topic, and I help them mold it to the correct form of three quatrains, one couplet, and iambic pentameter. I have a love/hate relationship (to use an oxymoron as per Shakespeare) with this assignment. The students start out saying, “I can’t do it”, and I wonder if they will. But by the end all the students do it. It is such a great experience for them.     

I remember when my seventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Donoghue, assigned our class to write sonnets. I wrote mine about stuttering, and it turned out to be the first “publication” I ever had, in a newsletter by the National Stuttering Project (now called the National Stuttering Association) called Letting Go. Is this not what teaching is all about? It’s about moving kids beyond what they think they can do, so they begin to understand that many of the greatest challenges in their lives are not imposed externally, but they are in their minds. When someone can prove to a student without hope that what seems impossible is actually possible, he or she will never again believe those perceived limits are immovable. Rather, he or she may begin to test those limits and find that the apparently impossible road is the one with the greatest rewards.  

- Peter Beddow 

For Christmas, my mom gave me a little iron puzzle - one of those “remove the ring” types. My dad and I had a kick trying to figure this iron spring puzzle out. It took an hour or so, but we did it. Good thing, too - I suspect I would have stayed awake for days trying to free that darn ring. This is essentially what it looks like:

For years, I’ve enjoyed brain teasers, including those in video games, books, or situational/conversational puzzles (ever heard of the “albatross soup” riddle?) Anyway, I found a couple of online stores (here and here) with all sorts of these “disentanglement” puzzles. They’re usually called Tavern or Parlor Puzzles. Unfortunately, they’re a little expensive (usually about $15 each for the nice iron ones) but I figure if I purchase one or two each year, I’ll have quite a collection in no time.

I’ve got my Christmas puzzle up in my office in Wyatt 407 if anyone wants to visit and try it. Bring one of your own if you like and we’ll try and stump each other - that is, if you don’t mind causing a man to lose sleep!

These are wonderful items to have in the classroom. They can be made available to students who finish worksheets early, or given to those who need a little extra boost of self-confidence. I’m a believer in giving students tasks that intrinsically increase self-efficacy upon completion, but such tasks must be of appropriate difficulty that students are both challenged and encouraged simultaneously. As a teacher, this takes an element of finesse, as some might tend to give the answer away (eliminating the opportunity for growth) while others may offer too few hints when the child is in need of a momentary hand. These kinds of brain teasers can be found for many levels of difficulty, so even the Super Puzzle Genius in the classroom can be kept satisfied.

Since it’s summertime, I suspect someone out there is due for a little brain exercise. In case I’m correct, I’ll leave you with a classic situational puzzle:

Bob and Bill, who were identical twins, sat down and ordered drinks. Their drinks were identical. Bob drank his quickly and felt fine. Bill sipped his slowly and died. Why?

If you need a hint, I’ll answer yes/no questions via the comments on this post. You can probably find the solution on the internet within a few clicks - so no cheating!

- Peter Beddow