The education issue – it is so NOT what you think it is.

Today is Sunday 14 July 2013. I have been crying on and off since late last night when I found out the outcome in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin issue.

While most people were focusing on the race issue and profiling and men being black in America and all the other horrible parts of this great country which need to be fixed by voting, I was upset at how the focus had shifted from cause and effect of our choices in voting to the substantially more serious and saddening issues of literacy, reasoning and the ability for so many to be mis-lead.  I am talking about The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

It has been a couple  of weeks now and people are finally starting to see the issue in the light of day.    http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/25/justice/zimmerman-juror-b29-interview/index.html?iref=allsearch

No matter how the case against George Zimmerman played out, the issue behind the case was missed by most – except for the lawyers and those who actively read and follow what is really going on in the United States. Lawyers have specialized training to understand the process of law and think differently – which is why we go to them when we have problems. Lawyers think about issues in a specific manner – which is good. Without this ability, we would have less public defenders and fewer people willing to put in the good and necessary fight for everything from civil rights to euthanasia to all manner of other issues.  Organizations such as ACLU, The Southern Poverty Law Center, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, The American Humane Society and many others are staffed with wise and thoughtful lawyers who put their wisdom to practice in a country gone mad with all manner of strange belief systems.

At the end of the day, what happens in this country RESTS on our shoulders. Whether we choose to be involved, vote, have a voice in our democracy or not plays itself out all the time.  What played out on 13 July 2013 was a result of our lack of paying attention and getting caught up in the ancillary issues.  This lack of attention is what worries me. The ability to be so easily distracted is due to a lack of reasoning skills and literacy.

Lack of literacy does not allow a person to read or pay attention to politics – good, bad or indifferent. Lack of literacy and lack of reasoning (algebra) does not allow some one to think about being  manipulated and how to find more information.  Lacking literacy and reasoning RUINS LIVES – in fact, in some cases it kills people and ruins the lives of others around them.  Lack of knowledge allows us to be racist, xenophobic, and all the other things which hurt our society.

If you think grades in school matter, you are wrong. Grades are an arbitrary sampling of knowing pieces of information. Reasoning and literacy are what matter – and, sadly, not easily testable.  Literacy and reasoning are ongoing – as in ‘the rest of our lives’.

The loss of Trayvon Martin is terribly sad. The ruination of George Zimmerman’s life is equally terrible. Even though George is alive, he does not have a life worth living due to the court of public opinion.  There was and will be no winner from this situation.

The group which won, and continues to win is ALEC – they put the stand your ground laws in place with the NRA.  http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/06/11384/seven-faces-nraalec-approved-stand-your-ground-law

While people got all crazy about other issues and being distracted by wars, etc. ALEC went about its business with nary a blink of the eye.  AND then-kaboom. We had an incident play out in front of us which demonstrated the meaning and intent of ‘stand your ground’ and none of us liked it.

My own friends have come out and chastised me for not ‘understanding’. It hurts. Not only do I understand and I am heartbroken as no one should lose their life walking down a street, I understand what happened and how a community (Sanford) allowed its police force to operate with impunity until this most recent issue. I can also understand how and why George Zimmerman acted – which, I am guessing, is what happened with the jury.  Was the decision/outcome optimal? No. In fact, there was no optimal outcome.

You see, our legal system metes out punishment and rewards based on ideas beyond our comprehension. Kenneth Feinberg (The 9/11 Commission) wrote about this in his book ‘Who Gets What’. The world is not fair – in fact, what Mr. Feinberg wrote was, “Some people wish to be heard”.

Being able to better understand our legal system and fix how representation works requires literacy and logic. We will only be able to fix the current state of things when we educate our population. Until we pursue education with all due purpose, we can not begin to understand what needs to be changed and why.  We limit our ability to use logic and reasoning and operate on a level which does not necessarily change the system but makes us feel better for a bit.

Change comes about from affecting knowledge.

The Measure of a Father

My father passed away on 11 March 2011. While death is one of the most difficult subjects to discuss with anyone, it is an opportunity to reflect on a good life and the measure of what one leaves behind in ways of values, ideals, good deeds and meaningfulness.  Death allows us each to reflect on the past, improve the future and find the bits and pieces which best demonstrate how to do good, live well and be the change we wish to see in the world.

Frugality is one of the many words  explaining my father; He did not own much in possessions which most other people would consider important – he had books and experiences, a few pieces of art. My father valued being learned, having literacy and the capacity for compassion/empathy.  He believed in experiences, supporting causes and being positive about the possibilities ahead  and this was a wonderful legacy to pass on.  Very few people knew he was even ill.  He treated his cancer as an inconvenience to his living…..

Frugality meant using the library, having all the money you desired for books, magazines, models to build to help you understand math, science, history – it meant being wise about money and using it in a purposeful manner.  There was no greater goal than to be educated as this led to self efficacy and a keen responsibility to others.  Frugality meant not having everything handed to me – I had to work to earn things, even though I did receive dispensation along the way (allowance, college tuition as an undergrad, used car….I paid the insurance, gas, repairs!).  Frugality meant saving money from the time I probably first understood what a quarter was and that 2/3 of the value should be put away for some future need or endeavor and not wasted on a moment of abandon.

Becoming a life long learner did not happen by accident, rather it happened by choice (my father’s). The capacity for questioning/discovering, finding things interesting and knowing the world was my  oyster is the best thing any parent can instill – EVER.  As I went through the book-case (my father was a pharmacist and a teacher) I realized my father very much lived his values. I had been through the book-case many times to select something to read and this time it was to evaluate what was near and dear to my father’s heart.

Frugality meant finding things of value at second-hand stores and not always needing the most expensive, immediately advertised gizmo (we were often not early adopters 🙂  .   Despite frugality, I always had a sense of abundance as many things of value can be experienced on a shoe string budget.  My father was a first generation American from parents who survived the craziness of Poland/Russia for the craziness of the American Depression Era.  This man passed along a greater value than a large house and ‘stuff’ – he passed along the value of a quality life, which is substantially different.

As I walked through his apartment, I noticed all the magazines he loved – everything from The New Yorker and Smithsonian to Kiplinger, Road Scholar, anything about pharmacy and science, etc. He just wanted to be aware and in the know of the world.    Friends came by and the most important thing they wished for as remembrance were books…..books my dad had found at garage sales, books from library give away bins, books handed over to him for some type of safe keeping.  His friends wanted books because that was what they really knew of my father, besides friendship was his endorsement of reading and learning. So, I gave away the bridge, chess, finance books – things I don’t really have an interest in, and when I do, will obtain books on these subjects.  I gave away history books to my aunt for her son.  I gave away book ends to another.  It was so interesting how each person truly valued these gifts (these were not books of high value due to age) and knew this would keep the memory of my father alive.  Each time I gave something away, yet another person stated how they had enjoyed discussing subject x,y, and z with my father as he loved to learn.  I truly felt I was giving away both a memory and a very special gift.

Different books had book marks in them – some merely scraps of paper with notes he wrote to himself about this page or that, some tidbit of knowledge to be learned well and share with others.  My father was left-handed so sometimes this scribbles were not the easiest to decipher.

There were coins saved in a container called ‘sunsets’, apparently for a future time where he  might have wanted one more book at the end of the day.   There were notes, cartoons (humor enthusiast would not cover it all), no TV (it was not an object of value or something to covet even, except maybe for Washington Week and 60 Minutes), no gorgeous furniture – just simple things. I found a mechanical watch which was interesting for the ‘mechanism’ being exposed,  a slide rule (really old school math!) and so forth. These treasures are what will keep my father alive in my memory.

I have not finished (nor will I ever, most likely) processing his death, what it means to me in entirety or how he lived.  What I have done is find a tradition to pass down and pass on – the value and power of learning.  I have found a best cause for my endeavors and know, being a teacher myself, the gift of reading and knowledge is more than the sum of its parts.

It has been 10 days since my father died.  He is constantly on my mind as I miss our chats about politics, world events, stupidity in humans….you name it.  Most of all, I miss the philosophical discussions which would have allowed both of us to discuss the following article.  Even better was that my dad did not have a number’ in mind….he just lived.  ‘http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/after-a-diagnosis-wishing-for-a-magic-number/

Teaching to ‘The Test’ in Texas (and Testing Teachers Will to be Submissive!)

High School Principal Forces Teachers To Take Practice Standardized Science Test. Texas’ Daily News (4/21, Meyers) reports that Santa Fe High School Principal Mike Thomas “apparently upset about students’ scores on a practice standardized test, forced the school’s science teachers to take the exam to prove they understand the material.” In an e-mail, Thomas warned teachers that “failure to take the test…would be considered insubordination.” A spokeswoman for the district said that Thomas’s issued the mandate because he “wanted the teachers to evaluate the types of questions and questioning strategies asked on the TAKS test” and “to make sure teachers were covering the material necessary for students to pass the TAKS test April 3.”

Perhaps if Mr. Thomas laid down the guantlet in a different manner, this would be palatable. Unfortunately this is so proverbially ‘teaching to the test’ it makes it clear some one is worried about the scores, whether or not he had to state it.  The whole testing debate was brought home with this particular article.  Unless there are comments to this blog specifically asking for more interpretation, I will assume that people reading it can do the reasearch on the various aspects of standardized test taking.  I will stick to the main point of asking teachers to take the test to change their teaching practices to match the standardized test.

It is true that state tests are uniquely worded, often in ways which are misleading. This gets to the heart of what is being tested – subject matter or logic skills.   If subject matter is being tested, the questions should be straightforward and direct, not open to mis-interpretation.   When teachers have to spend time re-creating their lesson plans to match the question structure of standardized testing, the teachers are now teaching to the lowest level of knowledge, not the highest.  Multiple choice questions can not be constructed to adequately convey analysis, synthesis and evaluation which require more open ended choices and writing.  Asking teachers to dumb down the curriculum and make it mirror the state tests is ridiculous. Asking teachers to submit to this behavior is, well, tragic and immature on the part of Mr. Thomas.  Threatening insubbordination does not often endear oneself to their staff.

The state test(s) should, if written appropriately (include open ended and written essay answers) address the uses of knowledge, not the recall.   Teachers are correct in teaching to the highest level of  Bloom’s Taxonomy during the school year and not getting into the regurgitation of multiple choice.  When given an ultimatum such as Mr. Thomas’, it removes all the scholarly reasons we have teachers in the first place – to convey the information and develop minds.  Mr. Thomas has done a great job at eroding the actual integrity of good teaching by lowering the standards to the least common denominator.  Since Mr. Thomas is merely after test scores, he may get his wish of higher test scores and yet have uneducated students, not ready for college.

I believe there is a man, also in TX, named George W. Bush who recently came home to roost after eight rather unsuccessful years in the White House.  He came up with the wiseness of NCL B (with a bit of help from the spin doctor Margaret Spellings). 

 In addition, no matter how the questions are worded, TX students are bound to miss out on aspects of science which have to do with evolution.   What Mr. Thomas is insinuating is for teachers to actually teach biology,   so students can perform on that 0ne section of the test in high school and that is an affront to the State of TX, which is trying to remove this concept from its curriculum.  It must be horrible to be a biology teacher in TX  – you never know which way the wind will blow and you are always a servant to at least three masters – the scientific truths, your principal/state government and last, but not least, TAKS Testing.

At the very least, Mr. Thomas can be praised for sending an e-mail and using the word insubordination in it and realize the e-mail would ultimately be made public (either that or the man is not in the 21st Century).   I wish Mr. Thomas two things – forebearance to do what is correct (this is different from right) in the future and the ability to win over his teaching staff so his staff will respect him.  He may be a principal, however, he is sorely lacking in principles.

Updated 4/29/09 http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/04/29/30koretz_ep.h28.html?tkn=NVOFrov3C%2FZ3K6N23ailiNrQcSf4%2BT6T6jHI