Peabloggy

I feel extremely lucky that last night I was able to attend the preview of a documentary film made by a former local tv news reporter about two current Vanderbilt Medical School students.  The film is called “Sons of Lwala.” The two students are Milton and Fred Ochieng’ who come from a small, remote village in Kenya named Lwala.  The documentary recounts the story of how the two brothers came to be at Vanderbilt and their struggle to build the first medical clinic in their home village.

There are so many remarkable facets of the film that I don’t want to give away because there are still a few opportunities to see the film locally and hopefully nationwide.  Let me just say that it is a great story about sacrifice, philanthropy, and dedication to ones community and family.  Milton, the older brother, was only able to come to the U.S. to attend college because the people of his village sold their cows, chickens, and anything else they could in order to buy him a plane ticket.  The reader should understand that it is not uncommon for students to leave Africa to get a college education; it is unusual for them to come back, and to take on the kinds of burdens in doing so that the Ochieng’ brothers have in order to change the unfortunate state of their home village and country.   The brothers lost both of their parents while at school in the U.S.

I implore everyone who has the chance to see the film to make the time and please go to the premiere at the Nashville Film Festival.  If you are not in the Nashville area, then you can go to www.lwalacommunityalliance.org and learn more about the brothers, their familly, and the clinic, as well as their continuing mission to construct clinics across Kenya and Africa.  Donate.  Tell all your friends. Consider what it is that you have sacrificed for your education or your profession.

–Luke Webb

The Commodore men face Siena and the women meet Montana this week in the first round of the NCAA tournament, proving Vanderbilt offers more student experiences than purely classroom-based. I took advantage of the graduate student discount on football tickets last fall and enjoyed two home games.

Though the busyness of this semester precluded me from attending any basketball games, I could have witnessed a host of incredible competitors at a small ticket price. Maybe next Spring–basketball could help me gear up for “comps.”

Exciting sports is just another perk of attending a vibrant university. How great it is to be a part of a school that not only ranks at the top in terms of academic achievement, but also excels in athletic accomplishment. Go, ‘Dores!

-Teresa Bagamery Clark

During his campaign, Dean stressed improving Nashville’s public schools. It appears he may be keeping his word, unlike many politicians paying lip service to the importance of education. Dean has created an education task force of parents, students, teachers, educational experts, college administrators, and political pundits committed to improving Metro schools. (A full listing can be found here.)

During a faculty meeting at one of my student teaching placements, three members from Mayor Karl Dean’s education task force came to visit. These members requested candid feedback from the teachers on parental involvement, communication between school and parents, and Metro’s troubling drop-out rate, among other topics. Earlier in the day, the task force engaged students in the same conversation.

I am very excited to see Dean making initial efforts to understand the deep-seated issues within Nashville public schools, but I hope that this valuable feedback actually results in positive changes for students, families, and teachers.

–Katie Harris

Richard Morton is a staff member in the Peabody Dean’s Office. Last Sunday, he drove to nearby Trousdale County to assist with the cleanup efforts in the wake of recent tornadoes. What he encountered there awed him, and he has written movingly about the experience in a blog post on The Tennessean site. Here’s a snippet:

Turns out this was his grandfather’s farm. Clarence Scott lived with Christine, his wife of twenty five years, in a trailer in the front yard. They were both in their mid-eighties. They had moved into the trailer fifteen years ago when the old farmhouse had proven too much to keep up. The house still stood. A hundred feet away, the trailer had literally been wiped from the face of the Earth.

Highly recommended.

–Kurt Brobeck

Should high school students get a jump on college at any university they choose in the state of Tennessee? Lottery money may one day pay the way for high-schoolers to “dual enroll” in any public or private institution of higher education in the state. Whereas before, only community colleges offered “dual enrollment,” in which students have the opportunity to receive college credit before graduating from high school.

What are the benefits to providing a greater selection of institutions from which high-schoolers may choose for their pre-college work? What are the implications of opening up the classrooms of private universities to high school students?

 For more details, check out the article in The Tennessean: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080116/NEWS04/801160443/1018

Teresa Bagamery Clark

I heard an interesting presentation in a class the other day on KIPP schools.

KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools are charter schools that focus on serving extremely low SES communities with an emphasis on completing schooling all the way through college.

For all the aspiring teachers out there, KIPP schools generally pay relatively high salaries, but have much longer school days, meet for a few hours on Saturdays, and go almost year round. But if you are interested in serving in a high need area, in an environment that will allow you to be very free with your instruction and method, I would recommend giving them a look –>here<–

–Luke Webb

Environmental education is only one step toward greening our schools and universities; the buildings themselves are various shades of green (or not), depending on the age and efficiency of generators, source and type of building materials, and heating and cooling systems.

While I don’t know enough about the carbon footprint of most Vanderbilt structures to comment, I’m proud of the fact that university planners enlisted a local firm committed to principles of environmentally friendly (green) design to envision one of the university’s most ambitious construction projects of late: Peabody’s Commons. The Commons, a residential hall and community living center located on Peabody’s campus, is scheduled for completion in August 2008.

Street Dixon Rich Architecture created a design for the 280,000 square foot structure that employs a variety of recycled and renewable resources as building material, eliminates toxic off-gassing from carpet and paint, and aims for maximum efficiency in lighting and ventilation.

I love hearing things like this - and for fear of becoming too preachy, I’ll only spend a second on the soapbox: I hope this type of green thinking becomes a contagious, community-building trend for Vanderbilt that leads to creative and thoughtful use of the many resources we have at our disposal.

Read local reporting on environmental design and construction at Peabody here.

- Rachel Bowers

I’m admittedly ignorant when it comes to California education policy and achievement, but last week when I was visiting old friends in L.A., I tagged along for a day of observation at the Culver City Middle School. The Culver City School Unified School District is a small independent entity separate from the surrounding behemoth that is the LAUSD. I spent all day at CCMS visiting two eighth-grade English classrooms, one seventh-grade English class, and one eighth-grade math class. This past semester, I logged in over 20 hours of observation in Davidson County Schools.

I won’t try to generalize the similarities and differences between the two districts because I’ve only visited a handful of classrooms in each, but I will note a few things that stood out to me during my visit to Culver City. The diversity in Los Angeles is, as one would expect, extreme and lively. I grew up in public schools in northern Virginia which is home to a similarly diverse population, so an environment in which there is no clear ethnic or racial majority feels comfortable to me - and contrasts sharply to what seem like highly segregated (by virtue of geographic distribution, if nothing else) schools I’ve visited here in Nashville.

I appreciated Culver City’s outdoor hallways and large classroom windows. The school’s mission statement mentions the importance of an aesthetically pleasing environment to promote learning - as a highly sensory person, this is something I appreciate.

I also noticed the way the teachers at Culver City smiled at their students - genuine, warm smiles of camaraderie. Although I’ve never considered the fact that other teachers I’ve observed don’t smile often, the fact that I noticed Culver City’s teachers’ smiles more than once made me wonder if perhaps a happy teacher is a rarity in Tennessee (and maybe many places).

I think we could make a case for the claim that a happy teacher is a better teacher, but many of our policies and procedures leave teachers tired, hopeless and, consequently, grumpy. I doubt that a grumpy teacher will do a very good job of improving test scores, let alone helping students achieve their whole potential.

So what factors contribute to teacher happiness, and how might we build our policies and structure school environments to bring about a better quality of life for teachers - and, consequently, their students?

- Rachel Bowers

I was front-row center (literally in the first seat to the right of the aisle - no political implication intended) for Newt Gingrich’s IMPACT lecture on March 20 in the Student Life Center. The Tennessean covered the event here (why did they choose such an uptight photo? He was so relaxed in person!)

I have a number of thoughts on Mr. Gingrich’s speech and on the experience in general, but since I am no student of politics, I primarily want to relate the portions of his comments that relate to my studies at Peabody.

Mr. Gingrich’s recurring theme seemed to relate to the backwards nature of government spending, particularly in terms of how projects are funded. His characterization of NASA in its current form, for instance, was that of a bloated beast that can’t go anywhere very fast. NASA claims to need such-and-such billions of dollars for a manned mission to Mars to be completed 10 years from now; by the time the project actually gets underway, Gingrich said the estimates will have ballooned and timelines will have been extended many times over. Instead, he says, the government should offer what he called “prizes” for targeted goals. The first person (or team) who meets the goal gets the prize. He suggested that if the government offered $20 billion tax-free to whomever can get to Mars and back, you’ll have 20 teams competing, all of which would put bases on the Moon (because, according to Gingrich, it’s the only feasible launch point for a trip to the red planet) and it will be exciting.

“People will become engineers again,” Gingrich said.

In terms of scientific research, Gingrich proposed a complete overhaul of the current system of grant-disbursement, by which researchers (many of which reside at degree-granting institutions such as Vanderbilt) propose projects based on what they think will get funded. Under the current system, researchers receive a certain amount of money for a certain project based on anticipated costs, and they may spend that money only on said project; Gingrich referred to these as “process-oriented” prizes. Gingrich’s reversal would go something like this: the government funding agencies would propose a goal (e.g., find a cure for cancer) and offer up an enormous prize for the project that reaches the goal. By funding what we need to accomplish, Gingrich believes the competition would spur much more efficient work, in terms of both time and money. Along the same lines, Gingrich proposed a $1 billion tax-free prize for the first private citizen or team who can design a mass-producable vehicle that runs on hydrogen fuel.

Admittedly, I was too shy to ask the question (even though microphones were available) but I wondered whether Gingrich would propose a similar overhaul for the Special Education system, in research and in practice. Would he favor the current disability-diagnosis-before-funding system, or would he suggest more money be placed into other kinds of preventive interventions?

Would Gingrich be so bold as to propose a prize for the researcher who can find a “cure” for learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, autism, or ADHD? For non-biologically-based disabilities (and I’m making no claims about those I’ve mentioned) it seems research is incremental and based on prevention and intervention, not whole-hog cures. If my assessment is correct, I can’t see how Gingrich’s goal-based prize system would work. Some lines of research take years to develop, and progress may be practically measurable only when analyzed across a series of studies, research teams, and findings over a period of years. After all, researchers are expected to ground at least some of their hypotheses in prior research, and with the current peer-review process, research may take months or years to see the light of day in publication.

(Now I really wish I’d asked my question!)

I enjoyed Mr. Gingrich’s speech and appreciated the ease with which he addressed audience questions. Thanks to the student IMPACT organizers for setting up the event.

- Peter Beddow

A mayoral campaign is underway in Nashville, and yesterday The Tennessean informed us that “residents generally agree that the city’s next leader must be an ‘education mayor.’” For those who agree, or simply want to know the candidates’ stances on education in our community, the paper also printed, in imitable Gannett style, a handy table with responses from the five major candidates. The table is available as a PDF here.

–Kurt Brobeck