Is There a Better Way? Yes, there Is!

     I am sitting at home in one of the regions made post-Christmas famous by the storm that just whacked the area with anywhere from six to thirteen inches of snow-maybe more, I haven't had the chance to get my morning news/weather fix. Normally I would have gotten a decent helping of three-stooges style news with Fox and Friends, watching them stumble around the truth and poke real journalism in the eyes-one of the "anchors" (appropriately named, because FOX is the "cement shoes" of our nation's collective soul) practically "nyuk-nyuk"ing. I'll let you guess which of those schmoes is the curly-joe character.

     I am relegated to the spare room with my laptop, because two of my daughters and one of their cousins camped out in our living room for a girly slumber party. My littlest got up early and is forcing me to live, at this very moment, through one of the High School Musical DVDs-complete with her analysis of the acting and dancing, demanding my participation in the conversation. She's six years old! That Troy Bolton has got magic that transcends age and grade level it seems. Or maybe my little girl just likes cute boys. Man, I'm in all kinds of trouble, and incredibly blessed at the same time. I have three beautiful daughters, and they are incredibly smart, creative, savvy, family oriented. When they are together, great things happen. The link I just placed is to the YouTube channel (or whatever) the girls have made for their videos and their "production company", TwistedDollStudios. If you visit, hit the "Browse Videos" button. They really are quite warped and fun.

     Chloe, my oldest daughter, used to strip her Barbie dolls naked and tie them up in various ways to mesh laundry baskets, bedposts, floor lamps...whatever. She was like three years old! The first video they made on my old cheap basic cell phone had several Barbies and a Ken involved in a love triangle of some kind-nothing nasty, just soap opera teen drama, it was hilarious! A sorceress Barbie transforms Ken into a plastic dog (it was a bathtub toy) and there was a song/video performance (C'mon Barbie, let's go party-the "dog's" line, with a close-up camera shot...)-all performed on my little cell phone. I wish I had saved that one, but the YouTube stuff shows some growth in concept, and the cooperative efforts of these kids, even the gross boy cousins, is inspiring.

     I don't worry about the ability of my kids and their cousins to have a great future, if they seek it. I see what they do when they're together. Through their play and their talk, I see how they think and feed off each other-building products from grains of thought-sand. Smiling, laughing, cooking, camping...They live to get together and do things together, and even though some of what they do is maybe a little twisted, maybe slightly inappropriate, these kids are amazing, loving, brilliant and capable of almost everything.

     So how does this happen? I can tell you FOR SURE that no %$#&!!@ standardized test is making these things happen. The teachers these kids have had did much to foster the skills (and the ability to use them), but the opportunities to CREATE are the most important. Generally the foundation for that ability is constructed and refined at home, but it is directed and applied in more practical ways in school. Wasting the time of children and dedicated lifelong educators on test-shackled goals and standards is doing a disservice to learners and teachers. There is a better way to reform education than by isolating the individuals involved in the process with endless, cumbersome testing in a data-fixation stratification process.

     The kids are finally waking up in the living room, Gabriella and Zac (I think) are almost done singing, pancakes and snow play are on the agenda I believe, and at least one more video on YouTube this vacation-especially once the boys from Virginia arrive.

     There is definitely a better way to assess our children. Investing our time, money and energy into saddling our families, children, teachers and our schools with standardized baggage: not the way. We need to stand in opposition to this foolishness.

"Evil": The Convenient Scapegoat

     Recent events have opened discussions regarding causes of and explanations for horrible occurrences. In weaker moments we might even be looking to blame someone or something. Guns, for example. I am a sensible gun rights advocate. Not that I am sensible, but that sensible gun ownership is possible, and I am in favor of it. Reasonable people should be allowed to own reasonable guns for reasonable reasons.

FOX's Bill O'Reilly frequently admonishes
guests for veering away from facts and into
speculation,  but he is willing to blame "evil"
for tragedies like the Newtown shootings.

     In the darker moments of the "what can we do about this" debate, I have heard pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee deferring to non-explanations: suggestions that God's removal from schools (Huckabee) invites such horrible events, or apparent helplessness because some malevolent  force of evil  is easier to blame than some personality disorder (Even though O'Reilly himself said that one look at the killer and he knew he was a violent video game addict). The trouble for FOX is that delving into human burdens, more and more the result of the socio-economic impositions of our inequitable and unfairly gamed economy, would then require discussion about social interventions. These conversations are uncomfortable for FOX, and they generally regress to reflexive accusations of "liberalism", "socialism" and "class warfare". Blaming an active, powerful and mysterious force of evil, or the far left godless heathens in public schools, conveniently sidesteps some of the responsibility for addressing societal strains-or for playing a part in causing them.
     Certainly you can't individually and immediately stop a hurricane or halt the receding polar ice. But when natural disasters, unspeakable atrocities, mass shootings or other tragedies that tend to defy comprehension occur, we can't just abdicate the responsibility to learn from them and do what we can to prevent them from happening again. You cannot just shrug off the notion that increased human activity could contribute to climate change, and simply attribute unusual weather to the will of God. Doing that allows polluters to skate scott-free with a shrug, basically saying "Hey, it's up to God to handle this nature stuff, that's his department!" You also can't simply attribute the horrendous actions of troubled individuals to "evil", because it hands power over to intangible forces and  indicates an unwillingness to take on the greater responsibilty to join society in finding potential causes and solutions.Evil is a powerful suggestion, and a tempting scapegoat, but also a convenient excuse.
     To suggest "evil" in the world as the explanation for very troubled people having access to guns, suffering the burdens of whatever unchecked and/or undiagnosed problems they might have, and taking advantage of the opportunity to mix these issues and act out in most decidedly horrible ways provides excuses for the guilty and unwilling.

Our Students Don't Need More Tests, They Need More Teaching

REGISTER AND SIGN this petition to end the ridiculous level of stadardized testing and data collection, in a public education system already far different than more effective ones around the world. Teachers know how to teach, parents know how to decide, so...LET THEM!

Wayward Youth and Holiday Gift Thoughts

Kids really do say the darndest things, and they often reveal more about how the world is turning than watching too much news will-something my own children accuse me of. I remember my third grade class, when Charles Schultz passed away in February of 2000, being unaware of who he was and only vaguely familiar with his comic strip, Peanuts. I was trying to spark some connection to what was an inherent part of the fabric of my youth (forgive me for going all nostalgic, I can hear that voice and Wonder Years music right now). I said "You know, that kid Charlie Brown, and his dog Snoopy-the one that sleeps on top of his dog house?" The blank looks worried me, but not as much as one response: "I know Snoop-Dog!" Well, I knew then that world had come to an end.

Today, I see that I was wrong. The world is still here; kids are still saying the darndest things. When I ask them what their plans are for vacations, what they want for Christmas, or some other random check on hearts and souls of today's children, I am thinking back on own childhood. I expect stories of late-night hide-n-seek during milder seasons; snowball fights, sledding, snow-forts and tunnels during winter months. That Wonder Years music doesn't play for long, because the needle scratches across the vinyl when I hear  things like "X-Box" and "Black-Ops". This is from kids who are seven, eight, maybe nine years old. There are some who still get excited about actual play with other real-life kids. There are some who still regularly connect with family members, neighbors, and the world around them. But it feels like those numbers are shrinking, and as the social experiences of children become more narrow and shallow, the need for programs targeting social needs in schools grows. When their time in a pretend world surpasses their time learning to navigate the real world, children become less comfortable with the real world. More kids are liking recess less these days. They just don't know how to do it.

Young, immature minds can be consumed by electronic gadgets and warped virtual reality. When kill counts in  simulated urban combat climb higher than the number of hugs and smiles received, you likely invite some unwanted consequences. So if you are planning to head out for some last minute shopping, consider some alternative ways to spend that possibly three-hundred-plus dollars that a game system and a "rated M for mature" game might cost. How many good books would that money buy? How many family movie nights (including buttery popcorn)? Possibly the price of gas and admission to a nearby science center or museum, or some combination of these ideas. The flash and bang of a zombie kill or a high score is gone as quickly as it came, but the return on the alternative (and often less expensive) gifts can be tremendous, and really does show up in school.

My Letter to B.O.

Bill O'Reilly took the time to let a guest and viewers know that he has taken measures to protect himself and his home, that he doesn't want a fight that he plans to kill hypothetical intruders...his rants and his puffing up like a tom-turkey interest me. He does it quite a bit, and I think his age is starting to hit him, because he seems to do it much more these days. His suggestion that every school should have armed security prompted me to write this note to him.

 Bill,

On gun ownership: You have gone from letting guests and viewers know what a tough guy you are to letting us all know how deadly you are. I appreciate your point (if someone enters your home uninvited, and you DON'T have a gun, how can you kill them?), but the logistics of securing schools is much more complicated and would have FOX whining even more about the costs of education. We need a brave, new, societal approach, not a cower in our shells with our weapons approach.

Dan McConnell

Cortland

If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught.

The Push to Turn Us Into Numbers

It is easier for me to believe that this is more about diminishing the political power of unions, by demoralizing and frightening teachers. Anyone who has spent more than three or four years on a real public school, teaching real public school students knows that no formula can measure the job that needs to be done. The people being appointed to positions of power and respect in education today rarely meet this minimum criteria and have only well heeled and well connected allies, using PR to circle the wagons around the most significant sources of student struggles, continually distracting and handicapping those with the power to help with this educational idiocy.