Archive for the ‘School policies’ Category

« Older Entries

Ups and Downs This Week

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Maybe it comes from teaching adolescents, but I have had a roller-coaster week from start to, well, middle at this point:

Down: Discovering that only half the school got the latest edition of the paper.  Somehow, I forgot to remind all the students about their assignments.  You know, the assignments that have been on the board since we made up the schedule LAST SEPTEMBER.  Additionally, we’d run out of 11 x 17 paper and no one had ordered more.

Up: Discovering that there was in fact a whole case of 11 x 17 paper, hidden at the bottom of the stack of boxes in the basement office behind the forklift and among six prepositional phrases.  Glad I didn’t wear heels that day.

Further Up: Getting excited about the upcoming field trip to the Washington Journalism Center, which I’ve been planning since January.

Down: Getting two parent phone calls several minutes apart in which mothers told me their daughters couldn’t attend for various annoyingly understandable reasons.

Up: This means the entire class can now fit into my car, so I don’t have to drive the school van.

Down: The dearth of submissions for the literary magazine, even with the incentive of a contest with cash prizes.

Up: The cheerful willingness of the staff, all volunteers, to make announcements, place flyers and talk about layout design, even if it’s all in vain.

Further Up: Most of the computers in the lab finally got layout software installed on them.

Down: I’ve been requesting this, also, since September.

Further Down: An anonymous negative comment scrawled in blue highlighter over a copy of the newspaper and placed in my mailbox.  Our latest issue, centered around food, was conceived, written and designed by students; it included an article that interviewed the school’s physician about eating correctly before sports events, an tour of the Asian market with a Filipino student, polls about favorite Food Network stars and local eateries, and an article about the Culinary Club’s philosophy of home cooking.  The comment said, “Whatever happened to writing about the students?”

Up: The support of the vice-principal when I showed her the comment.  “It’s not like you would tell them how to design their class,” she said.  “They shouldn’t tell you how to run yours, and I sure don’t see anyone stepping up to take over.”

Further Up: Rob suggested I post copies of the anonymous note in the faculty room with the caption, “Whatever happened to writing in ink and signing your name?”

Tags: , ,
Posted in Life, Media, Methods, School policies, Vices, Virtues | 4 Comments »

The Freedom to Choose Poorly

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

It was always a dangerous question: “Would you like some broccoli?”

Dangerous, because it wasn’t really a question.  If I said “no,” I would incur a Look until such time as I meekly helped myself to a moderate amount and polished it off without complaint.

Believe me, I think parents have the right to do this, and I think they should do it.  I have little sympathy for the mother who complains that her children won’t eat anything but macaroni and hot dogs; few children would behave differently, given the choice.  I think my appreciation of healthy and diverse foods stems from this strictly-imposed rule growing up.

But where should we draw the line?  If that mother’s behavior is ridiculous, it is equally ridiculous for the government to ban products it deems sufficiently unhealthy, like hydrogenated oils or cigarettes.  Clearly, adults are granted the freedom to choose poorly.  Call it one of the perks of adulthood.

I remember when our school made the switch from junk food to health food.  I went to a private school where there was no hot lunch; we ordered out several times a week for pizza and Chick-Fil-A, but the other days we had to bring our own lunches, supplemented sometimes (or all the time) by the offerings on the table outside the cafeteria.  Doritos, M&Ms, and Coke ruled the afternoons.

When we had a schoolwide Health Day, the cafeteria switched to selling yogurt, granola bars and juice.  Surprise!  They found that when they have no other choice, kids will eat more healthy foods.  Shortly thereafter, they made a permanent switch.  There was grumbling, but the kids who had to have junk food just brought their own from home.  The rest of us enjoyed crackers instead of chips, fruit instead of candy and Spritzers instead of sodas.  It wasn’t a big deal.

The question, as always, has to do with degrees. This recent article from the Times hints at it, wondering about how far schools and parents should go to keep their children from eating junk.  What about fundraisers that sell candy bars and lollipops between classes to support the endless stream of new uniforms and sports equipment?  Bake sales that raise money for charities?  Should we draw a line between yogurt and ice cream, or apple juice and soda, when they boast an equal number of empty calories?  And should we give seventeen-year-olds the benefit of the doubt, or treat them just like seven-year-olds?  Once you begin to legislate lifestyle choices, it becomes awfully difficult to pin down where and how the rules should apply.

Tags: ,
Posted in Methods, School policies | Comments Off

The Changing Face of College

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Everyone seems to be talking about college all of a sudden — not just me.  The Times reports a very interesting trend: early college programs, in which students take five years to earn both a high school diploma and a two-year college degree.  There have always been schools who will do this for high-achieving students, but now programs are targeting first-generation college attenders:

With a careful sequence of courses, including ninth-grade algebra, and attention to skills like note-taking, the early-college high schools accelerate students so that they arrive in college needing less of the remedial work that stalls so many low-income and first-generation students. “When we put kids on a college campus, we see them change totally, because they’re integrated with college students, and they don’t want to look immature,” said Michael Webb, associate vice president of Jobs for the Future.

The article considers it a given that the last year of high school is a waste — I guess because students have already made plans for college or a career or both, prime conditions for the ailment known as senioritis.  That was certainly not the case with me; I found my senior year very freeing.  I was finished with most of my course requirements, so I was able to choose courses I knew would bring success and enjoyment, like Yearbook and AP English.  I also experimented a bit, taking Anatomy and AP Civics, neither of which interested me beforehand, but both of which proved useful and fascinating studies.  And I finagled an independent study of classical piano, which basically meant I got to continue studying with my private teacher while practicing for a whole period on the school’s sadly neglected 9-foot concert grand.  Someday I’ll tell you all about that.  Besides, I got to play Liesl in The Sound of Music, I learned how to swing dance, and I had my first real boyfriend.

So I’m a big proponent of senior year productivity, however it can be achieved, and although I still object to the idea that college is for everyone, I can’t take issue with an idea that expects a great deal of students out of whom  no one has ever expected much of anything.  I’ve never seen a study that didn’t prove the link between expectations and achievement, and this is no exception: dropouts plummeted from the 38% state average to zero, and one college president said this performance, from a group of completely average kids, was the most exciting development he’s seen “in 27 years.”  The kids are pumped, too:

“I didn’t want to do it, because my middle school friends weren’t applying,” Ms. Holt said. “I cried, but my mother made me do it.

“The first year, I didn’t like it, because my friends at the regular high school were having pep rallies and actual fun, while I had all this homework. But when I look back at my middle school friends, I see how many of them got pregnant or do drugs or dropped out. And now I’m excited, because I’m a year ahead.”

Good for her.  Good for her mother.  Good for the school, for trying something different.

Tags: ,
Posted in Current Events, Media, Methods, School policies, Virtues | Comments Off

The Cheapening of College

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

In case you don’t know the story, or you weren’t listening the first time, I think the SAT is a bit of a scam.  It’s a very good predictor of success on future standardized tests.  It’s not good at measuring creativity, discipline or intellectual curiosity — three things that are, or should be, necessary for a college education.

Unhappily, we have set our standards too low.  The high school where I teach boasts that 100% of its students are accepted to college.  As much as I love my school and the students who attend there, there are quite a few who should never go to college, either because of low scholarly aptitude or because they just aren’t cut out for academia.  (Sometimes these students are actually too smart for college, at least for the “college” they have their hearts set on.)  But they are told they have to attend college to be successful, so they do.  Then they drift off to careers in service industries or retail (both of which are trades that would be far better learned through an apprenticeship program) or get married and raise families and never look back.*

Grad school, I thought, would consist of a thinned crowd — people who really do love to learn and think.  I’ve been monumentally disappointed.  Many of the students are fresh out of their undergrad programs without a day of teaching under their belts; they treat it like, well, school, instead of a community of learners.  In my first undergraduate experience, at Cooper Union’s School of Architecture, we spent nights in angry debate about the principles of parti and racial violence.  Not because it was assigned, but because we were passionate about it, even at the expense of sleep and partying and sometimes our graded assignments.  After this experience, many people told me it “sounded like grad school,” so I assumed it would be similar, but my classmates seem to treat school as more of a business transaction (tuition now for higher pay later) than an opportunity for intellectual enrichment.

And now we’ve stooped to a new depth of consumerism: pre-approved “fast track” applications that require, in some cases, only a signature — no essay, no visit.  Sometimes, no joke, the university will throw in a free baseball cap.  All of this is guaranteed to boost the number of applicants, which helps the college look good (they’re selective; they don’t just admit anyone!) while hurting the students (those who really might want to attend have less of a chance, while those who are shoe-ins and never even intended to apply gum up the works.)

Bad.  On so many levels.  There are fewer and fewer who want to learn.

*I’m not trying to insult parents here . . . just saying that there are people who want to attend college and raise families, and people who want to raise families but attend college because they feel like they’re supposed to.  Society would be better served if those in the latter group simply focused on their main goals.

Tags: ,
Posted in Current Events, Media, School policies, Vices | 2 Comments »

Score One for Efficiency

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Picture the middle of the day at a typical elementary school: you get an hour to eat lunch and play.  What do you think kids are going to do?

Eat lunch in five minutes and dash outside?  Check.

Skip lunch altogether and feel sick later?  Check.

Run around on a full stomach and get sick immediately?  Check.

Throw away some or all of the food their parents bought and packed for them?  Check.

Come back to class after recess full of wiggles and energy, and needing a drink of water?  CHECK.

How could this situation possibly be remedied? Well, duh.  As the saying goes, “Life is uncertain; give recess first!”

In the test schools that adopted this practice, kids were overjoyed to be able to burn off their energy straight from class, then “cool down” over a lunch that was more leisurely without the dangling carrots of kickball and the monkey bars.  They paid better attention in class afterward, with fuller bellies and calmer nerves.  Afternoon nurse visits decreased by 40%.

Logic.  Works every time!

Tags: ,
Posted in Media, Methods, School policies, Virtues | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries