When it comes to prophets, you can have Nostradamus and his esoteric metaphors. I’ll take George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, but I’ll take them with a heavy dose of foreboding.
Orwell’s 1984, published in 1950, and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, both depict futuristic societies in the oppressive grips of tyrannical governments. These governments nefariously employ technology and propaganda to exercise total dominance of its citizens. Both novels are recondite and prophetic, especially given the current geo-political climate.
Let’s consider two of Orwell’s most chilling dicta as stated in 1984, to wit: War is peace. Freedom is slavery.
Strip away all the faulty rationale, the cherry-picked intelligence, the erroneous assumptions, and the bold-faced lies that were associated with our ill-conceived war with Iraq, and the political hawks on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon still claim that we should not withdraw all of our troops from either Iraq or Afghanistan because it would weaken our national security. Meanwhile, they agitate for armed intervention in both Iran and Syria, or wherever else an opportunity to flex Uncle Sam's muscle may arise.
“War is peace.”
The Orwellian premise is that war accomplishes three essential goals in keeping a society in total control. It puts and keeps its citizens at work; it maintains and assures production and technological developments from the military/industrial corporations and, perhaps more importantly, combined with the expert use of propaganda, keeps its citizens focused on an external enemy while an internal oppressor tightens its grip.
War is a constant motif in Fahrenheit 451 as well. Despite it’s best efforts to maintain, through technology, propaganda, and the banning of books, a society of obliviously busy and artificially gleeful citizens, the government in Bradbury’s novel eventually goes to war with another nation.
War is peace.
When is the United States not at war? Our troops are still dying in Afghanistan, 13 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Freedom is slavery.
How can that be possible? A paradox is an apparently contradictory statement that can nevertheless be true. Consider former National Security Agency employee and current fugitive Edward Snowden's plight after he revealed that the NSA has been recording and archiving millions of U.S. citizens' private phone calls. Snowden's freedom is very much in jeopardy, whether he becomes a permanent Russian resident or not.
Former President George W. Bush claimed he never broke any of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act laws when he authorized the wiretapping of phone calls made from this country to overseas destinations. We’ve since learned that those phone taps were done without the prerequisite warrants, and we’ve also learned that three U.S. phone companies have been supplying intelligence agencies with information about millions of phone calls made within the United States.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez Jr. refused to cooperate with any congressional investigations into the legality of the National Security Agency’s activities, and Central Intelligence Agency director, General Michael V. Hayden, insisted that all the squabble over domestic surveillance is nothing but a “political football” and should therefore cease.
As the 9/11 terrorist attacks fade in our collective memories, the objections to NSA intrusions are growing, but many still believe that our government is violating our privacy to protect our lives and our freedom and approve of it.
Read between the lines, and our government is saying, “Freedom is slavery.” At this juncture, “slavery” is hyperbole. Still, the ghost of Patrick Henry must be apoplectic while we cede some of our basic freedoms in the interest of safety. And let’s beware of that slippery slope; shall we?
Orwell’s Big Brother, whose ubiquitous video surveillance assures no citizen a sliver of privacy, is not a benevolent overseer. The misleading apparition is classic Orwellian doublespeak. In other words, Orwell’s Ministry of Truth produces nothing but lies (sound familiar?); the Ministry of Peace is primarily concerned with war, and the Ministry of Love with re-education, read: torture. But the United States does not torture its enemies, or so we are told.
Fahrenheit 451 also features constant video surveillance of its citizens while predicting, a half-century before their actualization, television reality shows in a scene where Bradbury depicts the nationally televised pursuit of protagonist/fugitive Guy Montag. Bradbury also introduces his readers to interactive television, while his seashell earplugs anticipate the MP3 players and Ipods that are so popular today.
Both Bradbury and Orwell portray societies with increasingly illiterate citizens who are too overwhelmed with work (ring a bell?) to contemplate their government’s insidious encroachment on their freedoms and too inundated with propaganda to object to it.
The premise behind the censorship that leads to the book banning in Fahrenheit 451 is a diverse society that’s hypersensitive to political correctness. I don’t know about you, but that sounds eerily familiar to me.
The next time you drive on Route 95 or log on to the Internet, you’ll witness the Bradbury vision of a world obsessed with speed.
When certain media watchdogs disclosed that our government has been destroying historical archives and classifying secrets at an alarmingly record rate, the news was evocative of Orwell’s society where history, including records of its citizens, is incessantly and systematically either altered or destroyed.
Speaking of history, we could very well be at a crossroads. Naysayers might look at alarmists and cite two other literary characters, Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf, but it would behoove this nation’s citizens to know Orwell’s motivation for writing 1984.
He wrote it to warn us.
Take it from him, and Bradbury, not me.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
The Deer Wars
To stave off a similar attack locally, I infiltrated enemy ranks via a state-of-the-art cell phone that converts high frequency animal communications into the English language and consequently back into bovine scatological refuse. Punching in the appropriate numbers, which also afforded me a tiny screen image of a deer war council in session, I received the following intelligence: Gathered in a small clearing under soft moonlight that reflected a ghostly glow off a forest of antlers, a half dozen or so deer were huddled in what was obviously a passionate discussion. A few intermittently stomped at the fern and skunk cabbage underfoot and others occasionally reared back on their hind feet as if fending off a pack of bloodhounds. Inaudible grunts punctuated indecipherable screeches, but calmer utterances were discernible.
“We’ve reached a vital time in our history. Our very existence is at stake. It’s either punish or perish,” the largest buck exhorted. “The townsfolk are blaming us for bio-terrorism, using our ticks to breed and spread Lyme Disease, accusing us of suicide bombing on-rushing automobiles and raiding the vegetable gardens on which their very sustenance depends. They have worked up a hatred for us, and now they have expanded their hunting grounds to encroach on what little land we have left. It won’t be long before they want to eradicate us all.”
“I don’t get it,” a comrade said. “They used to cherish and adore us. On rare occasions when we were seen, they would stop and admire us, take pictures and make such a fuss that you’d think we were Tom and Gisele en-route to Foxboro.”
“That was when this was the land of hops and barley. Now it is the land of milk and honey. There was a real estate boon, and this became the Promised Land.”
“True, but the dogs on Main Street howl…”
“No matter, Boss. I know they understand, but when man gets fixated on an ideal, nothing can change his mind. You could contaminate his drinking water, and he’d still want to stay. Now we’re the scourge Rhode Islanders want to eliminate. War is imminent.”
“Here, here,” cried out a younger buck. “I can’t even forage in an apple orchard without staring down the business end of a double-barrel. I’m for war. Let’s attack, now.”
“Who are you kidding, Rambo? You can’t even lick pond scum,” retorted a peer. “You turn white tail and run from horseflies as if they were the Vermin Luftwaffe.”
“They’re disease infested. Besides, we were here first. This is about principle and righteousness.”
“What’s being first got to do with it? If being first mattered, the amphibians that crawled out of the sea would rule. The frog would finally become prince, and Viracocha would remain the Lizard King. Mr. Mojo Risin’ didn’t just get into town an hour ago, you know. You’ve either been skipping Owl’s history lessons or raiding the happy mallard’s cannabis crop again.”
“Enough bickering gentle…err, young bucks,” their leader said. “Let’s stop fighting among ourselves and stay focused on the real enemy. I say we follow that Ohio doe’s lead and attack them in their homes before they have time to take up arms and massacre us all.”
“That’s risky,” a previously silent doe observed. “It might just stir up more resentment against us. Then we’d be facing endless battalions of orange-clad deer slayer wannabes. We’d never get any peace.”
“All the more reason to attack. Would you rather fight them there or here?"
“What’s wrong with the home-field advantage? We know the terrain. We can survive off the land, use other animals as scouts and spies, and wage guerilla warfare that they cannot win. They may win some battles, but ultimately we’ll win the war. They cannot kill us all. We’ll get reinforcements to swim across the bay or traverse the bridges at night. Time is on our side. Let’s be patient, and let them come to us.”
“They’ll come all right, and they’ll be toting thirty ought sixes.”
A silence ensued, as if they all contemplated the grisly image of a punctured carcass, possibly his or her own, lying in a pool of blood, waiting to be devoured by either man or beast.
“You can call me Rambo, or call me crazy, but just don’t call me venison,” the gung-ho young buck suddenly exclaimed. “I’m for starting warfare right here and now.” And with that, he bolted from the congregation. Envisioning a sneak attack on a cigar puffing, bathrobe clad resident who would insouciantly answer the doorbell in expectation of a friendly neighbor or relative, he hurdled a fallen oak and dashed through some bracken toward the nearest road. A moment later, the sound of screeching automobile tires was followed by a dull thud and the crackle of breaking metal and glass.
“Fools rush in…” muttered a comrade before bowing his head mournfully. The others followed suit.
In the background, a man’s voice could be heard screaming about his bleeping brand new paint job and his bleeping insurance rates, and the fact that he was going to buy a shotgun and kill all the bleeping deer in the state by his own bleeping self.
“Why, oh why, oh why does it have to come to this?” the distressed doe called out.
“Ours is not to question why…”
“Can it,” the doe retorted. “I’m going to deal with this in my own way. I say make love, not war. Anybody with me?”
She had no shortage of volunteers.
This intelligence report concludes that, while war is temporarily averted, a future overpopulation crisis looms, leading one to wonder if there is nothing to fear but the deer itself.
Alas, only time will tell.
The Greatest Of All Time; There's One In Every Crowd
One would hope that the recent Denver Broncos’ dispatching of the New England Patriots on their way to Super Bowl XLVIII will put an end to the Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning debates that the sports media have been engaging in ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
Don’t bet on it. At stake for one of the two quarterbacks, at least in the minds of the fanatically delusional, is the august title of Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). If the Seattle Seahawks defeat the Broncos, New England’s Manning detractors and Brady hagiographers will be back out in full force.
Comparing any two athletes from different eras and coming up with a so-called GOAT is an egocentric exercise spawned from partisan passions and selective and distorted memories, especially regarding football, the ultimate team sport.
The current sports meme of conflating the GOAT with the number of championships his team has won is a regrettable byproduct of the old Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain debates. The argument does, however, have some legitimacy regarding basketball. The players play both offense and defense. In a five-on-five matchup, one player can have a significantly greater influence on the outcome of a game than in an 11-on-11, football contest. Nevertheless, the following is an attempt at some objective perspective on the topic.
First, full disclosure is in order. I am a Patriots fan. Also, statistics will be neither consulted nor included. All conclusions are based on empirical evidence only.
As with any sport, it is important to consider eras relative to player production. Brady and Manning are fortunate to play at a time when the NFL has placed a premium on offensive production. Had Dan Marino, to name just one prolific passer from yesteryear, played in this era, he would probably still hold many of the passing records that Brady, Manning, and Drew Brees either hold or have directly in their crosshairs.
Both Manning and Brady are great leaders, field generals whose charges are in lockstep with their every command. Both have IBM brains and excel at pre-snap reads and post-snap decisions. But while Brady frequently consults that encyclopedia of a playbook wrapped around his wrist, Manning seems to call every play at the line of scrimmage. He is his own offensive coordinator, regardless of any titles somebody else in the Broncos’ – or the Colts’ previously -- organization might hold.
Manning played indoors for a significant portion of his career and has had tremendous talent around him. Brady had one year with Randy Moss and Wes Welker but didn’t win a Super Bowl. Brady had two assets Manning never had – Bill Belichick, one of the top 5-7 coaches ever, and Adam Vinatieri, the greatest clutch kicker ever.
Both are accurate passers, and here I’d give both Manning and Aaron Rodgers an edge. It’s impossible to rank them among the all-time great pure pocket passers, but the obvious, such as Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Ken Anderson, Phil Simms, Ken Stabler, Kurt Warner, Bert Jones, and a host of others merit consideration. My frame of reference dates from the twilight of Johnny Unitas’ and Bart Starr’s illustrious careers, an era that would include the great Sonny Jurgensen. My apologies go to them as well as Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh and Sid Luckman. Anybody who wants to bestow the GOAT title on any of the above would get little argument from me.
History tells us that nobody was cooler under pressure than Montana and Starr. That has to count for something, and then we’d have to include Eli Manning in the discussion.
My preference is for the dual-threat quarterbacks, those who can turn chicken excrement into chicken salad with remarkable consistency and efficiency, yet who can/could pick defenses apart from the pocket. The current young guns, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, and Andrew Luck fit this mold, as does Rodgers. Their inclusion in this discussion will have to be revisited in a decade or so. Their forbears include Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Warren Moon, Steve Young, and John Elway.
Favre threw too many interceptions in crucial spots; Bradshaw’s field leadership and passing prowess were often questioned, and Moon played on no championship teams. Early in Staubach’s career, Tom Landry alternated his starting position with Craig Morton.
Elway’s numbers don’t stand out, but he played for the conservative Dan Reeves, a disciple of the “three yards and a cloud of dust” offensive philosophy. When the Broncos fell behind in the 4th Quarter, Reeves would take the reins off Elway and watch the victories tally up. Elway was the closest thing to a one-man team I have ever seen. Those Broncos teams he took to the Super Bowls to play the Giants, Redskins, and 49ers were all vastly overmatched. When he got a running game and a defense in the twilight of his career, he led his team to two championships, and he won a Super Bowl MVP. I would pick Elway slightly ahead of Young as my GOAT, with apologies to Unitas and a prediction that Rodgers will eventually be a challenger.
Maybe I’ve seen too much of Brady’s flaws, his statuesque playing style and his underwhelming post-season performances since 2004. He might make my top 10, with the emphasis on might. I have several friends who get angry with me regarding this, and one who gets so angry he has excluded this debate as a conversational topic. It’s just as well. It’s a frivolous discussion anyway.
Don’t bet on it. At stake for one of the two quarterbacks, at least in the minds of the fanatically delusional, is the august title of Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). If the Seattle Seahawks defeat the Broncos, New England’s Manning detractors and Brady hagiographers will be back out in full force.
Comparing any two athletes from different eras and coming up with a so-called GOAT is an egocentric exercise spawned from partisan passions and selective and distorted memories, especially regarding football, the ultimate team sport.
The current sports meme of conflating the GOAT with the number of championships his team has won is a regrettable byproduct of the old Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain debates. The argument does, however, have some legitimacy regarding basketball. The players play both offense and defense. In a five-on-five matchup, one player can have a significantly greater influence on the outcome of a game than in an 11-on-11, football contest. Nevertheless, the following is an attempt at some objective perspective on the topic.
First, full disclosure is in order. I am a Patriots fan. Also, statistics will be neither consulted nor included. All conclusions are based on empirical evidence only.
As with any sport, it is important to consider eras relative to player production. Brady and Manning are fortunate to play at a time when the NFL has placed a premium on offensive production. Had Dan Marino, to name just one prolific passer from yesteryear, played in this era, he would probably still hold many of the passing records that Brady, Manning, and Drew Brees either hold or have directly in their crosshairs.
Both Manning and Brady are great leaders, field generals whose charges are in lockstep with their every command. Both have IBM brains and excel at pre-snap reads and post-snap decisions. But while Brady frequently consults that encyclopedia of a playbook wrapped around his wrist, Manning seems to call every play at the line of scrimmage. He is his own offensive coordinator, regardless of any titles somebody else in the Broncos’ – or the Colts’ previously -- organization might hold.
Manning played indoors for a significant portion of his career and has had tremendous talent around him. Brady had one year with Randy Moss and Wes Welker but didn’t win a Super Bowl. Brady had two assets Manning never had – Bill Belichick, one of the top 5-7 coaches ever, and Adam Vinatieri, the greatest clutch kicker ever.
Both are accurate passers, and here I’d give both Manning and Aaron Rodgers an edge. It’s impossible to rank them among the all-time great pure pocket passers, but the obvious, such as Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Ken Anderson, Phil Simms, Ken Stabler, Kurt Warner, Bert Jones, and a host of others merit consideration. My frame of reference dates from the twilight of Johnny Unitas’ and Bart Starr’s illustrious careers, an era that would include the great Sonny Jurgensen. My apologies go to them as well as Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh and Sid Luckman. Anybody who wants to bestow the GOAT title on any of the above would get little argument from me.
History tells us that nobody was cooler under pressure than Montana and Starr. That has to count for something, and then we’d have to include Eli Manning in the discussion.
My preference is for the dual-threat quarterbacks, those who can turn chicken excrement into chicken salad with remarkable consistency and efficiency, yet who can/could pick defenses apart from the pocket. The current young guns, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, and Andrew Luck fit this mold, as does Rodgers. Their inclusion in this discussion will have to be revisited in a decade or so. Their forbears include Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Warren Moon, Steve Young, and John Elway.
Favre threw too many interceptions in crucial spots; Bradshaw’s field leadership and passing prowess were often questioned, and Moon played on no championship teams. Early in Staubach’s career, Tom Landry alternated his starting position with Craig Morton.
Elway’s numbers don’t stand out, but he played for the conservative Dan Reeves, a disciple of the “three yards and a cloud of dust” offensive philosophy. When the Broncos fell behind in the 4th Quarter, Reeves would take the reins off Elway and watch the victories tally up. Elway was the closest thing to a one-man team I have ever seen. Those Broncos teams he took to the Super Bowls to play the Giants, Redskins, and 49ers were all vastly overmatched. When he got a running game and a defense in the twilight of his career, he led his team to two championships, and he won a Super Bowl MVP. I would pick Elway slightly ahead of Young as my GOAT, with apologies to Unitas and a prediction that Rodgers will eventually be a challenger.
Maybe I’ve seen too much of Brady’s flaws, his statuesque playing style and his underwhelming post-season performances since 2004. He might make my top 10, with the emphasis on might. I have several friends who get angry with me regarding this, and one who gets so angry he has excluded this debate as a conversational topic. It’s just as well. It’s a frivolous discussion anyway.
Monday, December 9, 2013
SLO Going
Maybe Education Commissioner Deborah Gist was justified in sounding triumphant when she reacted to the Rhode Island Kids Count news that the graduation rates of students in the state’s poorest cities – Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, and Woonsocket – have increased 10% since 2007. After all, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education, if the nation’s 2011 dropouts had earned a diploma, they, over the course of their lifetimes, would have saved taxpayers $154 billion. This is because dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, receive welfare benefits, abuse substances, commit crimes and land in prison. Dropouts also generally earn less money than students who earn diplomas; therefore, they generate less tax revenue.
Reacting to the latest graduation rates, Gist told the Providence Journal’s Lynn Arditi (11/26/13), “We can no longer support a system in which students graduate but are not ready for success in college and careers.” Therein, if Gist were true to her words, she’d make immediate and wholesale changes to many of the educational policies she proudly champions under the misnomer of “reform,” including but not limited to the Rhode Island Model Evaluation System for teachers.
High graduation rates may be desirable, but they are misleading, especially when it comes to student achievement and college and career readiness. Implicit in the imposition of high standards is the realistic expectation that fewer people are going to reach them, thus the U.S. Marine Corps motto: “The Few, The Proud,” and the fact that out of the thousands of players in Major League Baseball history, only 208 have made the Hall of Fame. Not just any musician gets to perform at Carnegie Hall.
Education is no different, even at the high school level, which is why the graduation rates are misleading vis-a-vis student achievement. It also explains why a group of Providence students, calling themselves Young Voices, surveyed 635 high school students and found, according to Arditi’s article, that discipline was a “major issue negatively impacting school culture.”
How can the apparent incongruity of increased graduation rates, pervasive behavioral problems, and continued student underachievement co-exist? Let me enumerate the ways.
1. Summer School: To boost graduation rates, many high schools offer students who fail one or more classes -- for fees ranging anywhere from $200-300 -- six weeks of summer school and consider it adequate restitution for 36 weeks of the regular curriculum. Although the summer school curricula are not as simplified as they once were (English students in at least one district now must write a thesis essay.), many students continue to consider the considerably less rigorous 30 days of summer learning much more desirable than the 180 mandatory days from September to June. Consequently, when those chronically absent and often tardy summer school bound students do attend classes, they have nothing to lose from disrupting and sabotaging lessons. In fact, many derive great pleasure in doing just that. The diplomas they eventually earn in no way attest to their college and career readiness, or lack thereof.
2. Credit Retrieval Program: This program allows students who failed courses to take on-line, self-taught, and watered down courses to make up those they failed. It is a disincentive to work hard, or even moderately, in the classroom.
3. Home Tutoring: Neither of the two aforementioned bail-out options may be as tempting as home tutoring, which requires a student to make up a failed class after only 15 hours of one-on-one tutoring with a teacher. It is yet another disincentive to work in the classroom.
4. The Rhode Island Model teacher evaluation system and, most notably, the Student Learning Objectives: Maybe the most egregious, at least for teachers, manner in which RIDE and Gist have undermined teacher efforts and classroom effectiveness is by implementing and requiring the Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). Every Rhode Island public school teacher must explicitly state SLOs on his or her evaluation form at the beginning of each school year and must strive to meet them before that year is finished. According to RIDE and district administrators, the SLOs must be rigorous and indicate adequate challenges for teachers and students alike. They are designed to motivate teachers to work hard and effectively. However, only teachers are held accountable if students don’t do their part, and the vast majority of students could not care less if their teachers attain their SLOs. Therefore, if a teacher does not reach his or her SLOs because some students refuse to heed instruction, take notes, read, study, attend extra-help sessions, make up work, quizzes, tests, and other assessments, the teacher, not the students, gets penalized with a less impressive evaluation than he or she would if students had done their part. As a result, more and more teachers are going to great lengths to meet their SLOs and stretching the ethical parameters in the process. That includes doing the students’ work for them, discounting failed quizzes and tests, reducing the rigor of assignments, and misrepresenting data on the final evaluation forms, among other unprofessional but, given that jobs are potentially at stake in Gist’s draconian system, understandable actions.
Student apathy, fueled in large part by the phenomenon known as social promotion, was a significant problem before Gist instituted the SLOs, and it has only become worse since. If all the above were not enough to undermine teacher effectiveness and provide disincentives for students, district administrators, to help inculcate the recent, nation-wide “Response to Intervention” (RtI) education initiative, are now encouraging teachers to refrain from giving zeroes for student work that is not submitted. The justification for this is to raise the graduation rates, of course.
Higher graduation rates might be good news for students and society as a whole, but if policy makers are really interested in school reform, they must identify the behaviors and practices that truly will prepare students for colleges and careers.
Promoting apathy and failing to hold students accountable for both their actions and inactions has a countervailing effect, and Deborah Gist, of all people, should know this.
Reacting to the latest graduation rates, Gist told the Providence Journal’s Lynn Arditi (11/26/13), “We can no longer support a system in which students graduate but are not ready for success in college and careers.” Therein, if Gist were true to her words, she’d make immediate and wholesale changes to many of the educational policies she proudly champions under the misnomer of “reform,” including but not limited to the Rhode Island Model Evaluation System for teachers.
High graduation rates may be desirable, but they are misleading, especially when it comes to student achievement and college and career readiness. Implicit in the imposition of high standards is the realistic expectation that fewer people are going to reach them, thus the U.S. Marine Corps motto: “The Few, The Proud,” and the fact that out of the thousands of players in Major League Baseball history, only 208 have made the Hall of Fame. Not just any musician gets to perform at Carnegie Hall.
Education is no different, even at the high school level, which is why the graduation rates are misleading vis-a-vis student achievement. It also explains why a group of Providence students, calling themselves Young Voices, surveyed 635 high school students and found, according to Arditi’s article, that discipline was a “major issue negatively impacting school culture.”
How can the apparent incongruity of increased graduation rates, pervasive behavioral problems, and continued student underachievement co-exist? Let me enumerate the ways.
1. Summer School: To boost graduation rates, many high schools offer students who fail one or more classes -- for fees ranging anywhere from $200-300 -- six weeks of summer school and consider it adequate restitution for 36 weeks of the regular curriculum. Although the summer school curricula are not as simplified as they once were (English students in at least one district now must write a thesis essay.), many students continue to consider the considerably less rigorous 30 days of summer learning much more desirable than the 180 mandatory days from September to June. Consequently, when those chronically absent and often tardy summer school bound students do attend classes, they have nothing to lose from disrupting and sabotaging lessons. In fact, many derive great pleasure in doing just that. The diplomas they eventually earn in no way attest to their college and career readiness, or lack thereof.
2. Credit Retrieval Program: This program allows students who failed courses to take on-line, self-taught, and watered down courses to make up those they failed. It is a disincentive to work hard, or even moderately, in the classroom.
3. Home Tutoring: Neither of the two aforementioned bail-out options may be as tempting as home tutoring, which requires a student to make up a failed class after only 15 hours of one-on-one tutoring with a teacher. It is yet another disincentive to work in the classroom.
4. The Rhode Island Model teacher evaluation system and, most notably, the Student Learning Objectives: Maybe the most egregious, at least for teachers, manner in which RIDE and Gist have undermined teacher efforts and classroom effectiveness is by implementing and requiring the Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). Every Rhode Island public school teacher must explicitly state SLOs on his or her evaluation form at the beginning of each school year and must strive to meet them before that year is finished. According to RIDE and district administrators, the SLOs must be rigorous and indicate adequate challenges for teachers and students alike. They are designed to motivate teachers to work hard and effectively. However, only teachers are held accountable if students don’t do their part, and the vast majority of students could not care less if their teachers attain their SLOs. Therefore, if a teacher does not reach his or her SLOs because some students refuse to heed instruction, take notes, read, study, attend extra-help sessions, make up work, quizzes, tests, and other assessments, the teacher, not the students, gets penalized with a less impressive evaluation than he or she would if students had done their part. As a result, more and more teachers are going to great lengths to meet their SLOs and stretching the ethical parameters in the process. That includes doing the students’ work for them, discounting failed quizzes and tests, reducing the rigor of assignments, and misrepresenting data on the final evaluation forms, among other unprofessional but, given that jobs are potentially at stake in Gist’s draconian system, understandable actions.
Student apathy, fueled in large part by the phenomenon known as social promotion, was a significant problem before Gist instituted the SLOs, and it has only become worse since. If all the above were not enough to undermine teacher effectiveness and provide disincentives for students, district administrators, to help inculcate the recent, nation-wide “Response to Intervention” (RtI) education initiative, are now encouraging teachers to refrain from giving zeroes for student work that is not submitted. The justification for this is to raise the graduation rates, of course.
Higher graduation rates might be good news for students and society as a whole, but if policy makers are really interested in school reform, they must identify the behaviors and practices that truly will prepare students for colleges and careers.
Promoting apathy and failing to hold students accountable for both their actions and inactions has a countervailing effect, and Deborah Gist, of all people, should know this.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Free Fallin'
Before boarding the Cessna 182 at Skydive Newport, I wanted to let on that I had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, but I think the instructors knew better. Certainly the only time any one of them betrayed any hint of stress or anxiety was when I was subjecting them to an endless barrage of inane questions. While reading and signing numerous liability waiver statements, I learned plenty of pertinent statistics about skydiving. For instance, when you jump out of a plane at an altitude of 10,000 feet, you can plunge to the earth at speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour. The free-fall time lasts between 40 and 60 seconds, and the parachute ride from 5-7 minutes. Jerry, my tandem jumper/instructor who moved from his native Holland to the United States 18 years ago, has 16,000-plus jumps under his belt. I found that to be an impressive and confidence-inspiring number, but I wasn’t satisfied, so I pressed for more and learned the following: The chances of both the primary and reserve parachutes malfunctioning are over 12 million to 1.
Now he had me. Still, I had one more question.
“Should I have worn diapers?”
“I haven’t had that happen yet.”
“Great,” I thought. “I get to be first at something.”
As I zipped up my jump suit and got strapped into my harness, Jerry recited a litany of instructions. At 8,000 feet, he’ll strap his harness – and parachute -- to mine, at which point we were to remain seated while shifting forward toward the open door. I was to stick my right foot out and place it on the platform outside the Cessna’s cabin and do the same with my left foot. I was to cross my hands at my chest, grab my harness, and keep my hands there when exiting the plane with my back arched. After feeling his tap on my shoulder, I was to spread my arms wide like an eagle in flight. Most importantly, after we descended to about 10 feet above the ground, I was to stretch my legs into a sitting position so as not to land on my feet and potentially break any bones.
After Jerry finished, Andreas, the photographer/videographer for this flight, began my mini-documentary by asking a question I do not remember. Nor do I remember what I prattled nervously about while being filmed. Once airborne, I do remember saying into the camera: “There’s no going back now.”
If you picture one of those plastic storage bins that you can pick up on the cheap at Target or Wal-Mart stores, and enlarge it to fit 3-4 people, you have a pretty good idea of what the inside of the Cessna 182 looks like. I unsuccessfully blocked out the image of a large coffin. John, the pilot, had the only seat, and I sat on the floor with my back against it. Behind sunglasses, John looked barely out of his teens, and I told him so, but I don’t think he took offense. I spent the 15-minute flight trying to enjoy the scenery on a partly cloudy day and listening to Jerry’s intermittent instructions, but as we kept banking higher and higher, my tension increased.
For some reason, the altitude seemed more intimidating when wisps of clouds obscured parts of the wide, multi-hued quilt of dappled and filigreed land and seascape below. Andreas, creating the entire experience for DVD viewing, pointed the camera at me again. This time I looked into it and said, “I’m scared to death.” I was only slightly exaggerating. Andreas told me to breathe.
Jerry and Andreas placidly looked out the window as if they were sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in, and that helped calm me some. Andreas seemed to nibble on an apparatus that projected from his headgear like it was a toothpick. I assumed it to be a microphone attached to the video camera that was affixed to his headgear. In his left hand he held a digital camera. In a few minutes, Andreas would perform some daredevilry.
Because I had already resigned myself to fate, I felt relieved when Jerry finally told me it was time to don and tighten my goggles. Nevertheless I made sure to note each of the four clicking sounds where he secured his harness to mine.
The first moment of terror came when the cabin door was thrust open. A cold gust of air blew in, and I was sure we’d be blown out. We maneuvered gingerly toward the exit. I placed my feet on the platform as instructed, looked down and realized that the only thing between me and Mother Earth was 10,000 feet of empty sky. Much to my amazement, Andreas was already clinging to a wing support with one hand while taking still photos of Jerry and me emerging from the Cessna. It was the kind of sight that makes one wonder about the genetic make-ups in the likes of Andreas and Jerry.
Because I do not believe, I did not pray. I wouldn’t have had the time even if I wanted to. Before I knew it, Jerry and I were flying, and he was tapping me on the shoulder to let me know it was time to extend my arms. I was Freebird.
Jerry had told me his favorite part of skydiving is the free fall, and now I understood why. Awe replaced my fear. From the sky, Newport County appears Lilliputian. The Pell Bridge, a behemoth from sea level, looks as if it could be toppled with a finger. The Jamestown Bridge bisects the West Bay in a pale, humped line as it stretches to the North Kingstown shore. Dewdrop islands look like green lily pads floating atop the blue surface of Narragansett Bay. Serpentine roads, seemingly the width of arteries, carry microscopic vehicles like blood platelets past miniature houses, knuckle-sized clumps of trees, and checkerboard sections of open fields. A brisk, clamorous and refreshingly chilly wind buffeted us and negated any sense of descending at 120 miles per hour. To afford me the entire majestic panorama, Jerry expertly turned us counterclockwise and back again. When he tapped my head and pointed, it was at Andreas, who was still filming. I smiled, whooped and gave two thumbs up. The furthest thing from my mind was the parachute opening. The experience transcended fun. It was more like ecstasy.
Ironically, my second terror moment came soon after the chute opened. An instant sense of relief followed the emerged parachute’s upward tug as I watched a still free-falling Andreas drop like a rock out of sight. That’s when Jerry loosened the straps on my harness, causing me to drop ever so slightly within its embrace. My heart palpitated.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“Just loosening your harness,” Jerry replied.
“Please don’t do that again.”
“It was just for your comfort,” an apologetic Jerry explained in his Dutch accent. “Just for your comfort.”
I asked if there was anything to hold onto. He told me my harness. Good enough. It was time to hang on, take a breath, and enjoy the rest of the ride. It was like floating in a surreal dream, but the nervous edge remained until we reached an altitude where I gratefully thought, “I’d survive a fall from here.”
My butt-slide landing wouldn’t pass muster in a baseball instructional text, but it was just right for skydiving.
“Safe at home.”
Andreas was waiting for me with the camera rolling when I slid to a stop. Adrenaline was coursing through me. I tried to explain my exhiliration with as many details as possible, but the tone in my voice probably said it all.
“I’m going to save my money and do this again next year.”
“Lots of people come back,” was the reply.
For $350 you get the jump, a DVD video, still photos of the entire process, a thrill-packed seven minutes, a bumper sticker, and a certificate that says, in part: "(Your Name) jumped from a perfectly good airplane at Skydive Newport in Middletown, Rhode Island..."
The bumper sticker and the certificate are now displayed with pride.
And to those of you who are wondering: Yes, skydiving is better than most sex…but not better than making love.
Now he had me. Still, I had one more question.
“Should I have worn diapers?”
“I haven’t had that happen yet.”
“Great,” I thought. “I get to be first at something.”
As I zipped up my jump suit and got strapped into my harness, Jerry recited a litany of instructions. At 8,000 feet, he’ll strap his harness – and parachute -- to mine, at which point we were to remain seated while shifting forward toward the open door. I was to stick my right foot out and place it on the platform outside the Cessna’s cabin and do the same with my left foot. I was to cross my hands at my chest, grab my harness, and keep my hands there when exiting the plane with my back arched. After feeling his tap on my shoulder, I was to spread my arms wide like an eagle in flight. Most importantly, after we descended to about 10 feet above the ground, I was to stretch my legs into a sitting position so as not to land on my feet and potentially break any bones.
After Jerry finished, Andreas, the photographer/videographer for this flight, began my mini-documentary by asking a question I do not remember. Nor do I remember what I prattled nervously about while being filmed. Once airborne, I do remember saying into the camera: “There’s no going back now.”
If you picture one of those plastic storage bins that you can pick up on the cheap at Target or Wal-Mart stores, and enlarge it to fit 3-4 people, you have a pretty good idea of what the inside of the Cessna 182 looks like. I unsuccessfully blocked out the image of a large coffin. John, the pilot, had the only seat, and I sat on the floor with my back against it. Behind sunglasses, John looked barely out of his teens, and I told him so, but I don’t think he took offense. I spent the 15-minute flight trying to enjoy the scenery on a partly cloudy day and listening to Jerry’s intermittent instructions, but as we kept banking higher and higher, my tension increased.
For some reason, the altitude seemed more intimidating when wisps of clouds obscured parts of the wide, multi-hued quilt of dappled and filigreed land and seascape below. Andreas, creating the entire experience for DVD viewing, pointed the camera at me again. This time I looked into it and said, “I’m scared to death.” I was only slightly exaggerating. Andreas told me to breathe.
Jerry and Andreas placidly looked out the window as if they were sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in, and that helped calm me some. Andreas seemed to nibble on an apparatus that projected from his headgear like it was a toothpick. I assumed it to be a microphone attached to the video camera that was affixed to his headgear. In his left hand he held a digital camera. In a few minutes, Andreas would perform some daredevilry.
Because I had already resigned myself to fate, I felt relieved when Jerry finally told me it was time to don and tighten my goggles. Nevertheless I made sure to note each of the four clicking sounds where he secured his harness to mine.
The first moment of terror came when the cabin door was thrust open. A cold gust of air blew in, and I was sure we’d be blown out. We maneuvered gingerly toward the exit. I placed my feet on the platform as instructed, looked down and realized that the only thing between me and Mother Earth was 10,000 feet of empty sky. Much to my amazement, Andreas was already clinging to a wing support with one hand while taking still photos of Jerry and me emerging from the Cessna. It was the kind of sight that makes one wonder about the genetic make-ups in the likes of Andreas and Jerry.
Because I do not believe, I did not pray. I wouldn’t have had the time even if I wanted to. Before I knew it, Jerry and I were flying, and he was tapping me on the shoulder to let me know it was time to extend my arms. I was Freebird.
Jerry had told me his favorite part of skydiving is the free fall, and now I understood why. Awe replaced my fear. From the sky, Newport County appears Lilliputian. The Pell Bridge, a behemoth from sea level, looks as if it could be toppled with a finger. The Jamestown Bridge bisects the West Bay in a pale, humped line as it stretches to the North Kingstown shore. Dewdrop islands look like green lily pads floating atop the blue surface of Narragansett Bay. Serpentine roads, seemingly the width of arteries, carry microscopic vehicles like blood platelets past miniature houses, knuckle-sized clumps of trees, and checkerboard sections of open fields. A brisk, clamorous and refreshingly chilly wind buffeted us and negated any sense of descending at 120 miles per hour. To afford me the entire majestic panorama, Jerry expertly turned us counterclockwise and back again. When he tapped my head and pointed, it was at Andreas, who was still filming. I smiled, whooped and gave two thumbs up. The furthest thing from my mind was the parachute opening. The experience transcended fun. It was more like ecstasy.
Ironically, my second terror moment came soon after the chute opened. An instant sense of relief followed the emerged parachute’s upward tug as I watched a still free-falling Andreas drop like a rock out of sight. That’s when Jerry loosened the straps on my harness, causing me to drop ever so slightly within its embrace. My heart palpitated.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“Just loosening your harness,” Jerry replied.
“Please don’t do that again.”
“It was just for your comfort,” an apologetic Jerry explained in his Dutch accent. “Just for your comfort.”
I asked if there was anything to hold onto. He told me my harness. Good enough. It was time to hang on, take a breath, and enjoy the rest of the ride. It was like floating in a surreal dream, but the nervous edge remained until we reached an altitude where I gratefully thought, “I’d survive a fall from here.”
My butt-slide landing wouldn’t pass muster in a baseball instructional text, but it was just right for skydiving.
“Safe at home.”
Andreas was waiting for me with the camera rolling when I slid to a stop. Adrenaline was coursing through me. I tried to explain my exhiliration with as many details as possible, but the tone in my voice probably said it all.
“I’m going to save my money and do this again next year.”
“Lots of people come back,” was the reply.
For $350 you get the jump, a DVD video, still photos of the entire process, a thrill-packed seven minutes, a bumper sticker, and a certificate that says, in part: "(Your Name) jumped from a perfectly good airplane at Skydive Newport in Middletown, Rhode Island..."
The bumper sticker and the certificate are now displayed with pride.
And to those of you who are wondering: Yes, skydiving is better than most sex…but not better than making love.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Tom Sawyer's Fence
I first have to comment on Dave's introductory remarks to Session 7, most notably: "We have to teach (students) how to evaluate content for style as well as truth," and "In this post-typographic society, we continue to favor print." Regarding the evaluation of content, we should keep in mind that the traditional sources of "truth," as our generation grew up assuming them to be, may be the worst sources on which to rely. For instance, anybody who expects to find the truth from the White House or the Pentagon, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or many other media outlets, including periodicals with both liberal and conservative biases, will surely be left wanting. Finding "truth" in contemporary society is akin to listening to two children tell their versions of why they got into a fight and then trying to piece together some semblance of reality. As for continuing to favor print, please back off all of you contemporary Guy Montags of the world. Print media may still be the best and most reliable format. Anybody who gets frustrated with downloading (or is it uploading?) text on Adobe Acrobat Reader, and then scrolling up and down, backways and sideways, just to get the entire copy on the screen will probably agree. Give me print anytime.
Regarding the pod and vodcasts, maybe the so-called educational cognoscenti, those who brought us the whole-language approach, open classrooms, "the new math," heterogenuous classroom groupings, advisory periods, and a host of other worst practices may have unwittingly stumbled upon something of genius with these pod and videocasts. If it were up to the advocates of these practices, students will spend large chunks of the day in front of either a computer or television screen, and maybe the "experts" are onto something. While whitewashing a fence, Tom Sawyer figures out that work is what a body is "obliged to do," and manipulates his buddies into doing the loathsome task for him. On that premise, if we require students to spend up to six hours a day looking at either a computer or televsion screen, then just maybe when they get home from school they will be tired of the activity, forget that it was once fun, and want to either get exercise, read print media, or both.
In a 2007 survey, the National Endowment of the Arts concluded that teenagers are reading less and for shorter periods of time than at any other time in history, and one of the factors is either the time they spend on computers or in front of televisions. The National Wildlife Federation found that teenagers now spend an average of 44 hours a week staring at electronic screens. Naturally, the best solution to these disturbing trends is to force-feed them television in the classroom. According to the Television Goes to School article, "Watching television may seem a very simple act, but it actually involves a rather complicated thinking process," and "because brains are programmed to remember experiences that have an emotional component, television has a powerful ability to relay experience through the emotions evoked by images." I'm not even going to argue these two points; they may be perfectly valid. But the assumptions that reading and writing do not involve much more complicated thinking processes than watching television and that books do not evoke powerful emotional experiences have to be patently wrong. The percentage of students who can read proficiently in the school district where I teach is only between 62 and 66 percent. By all means, bring on the videocasts and the television shows. What's reading got to do with literacy?
Speaking of which, I have to wonder about all this emphasis on the "21st Century Literacies" when, according to an article in American Educator magazine entitled "Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does - and Does Not - Say," 1 in 9 students in today's public schools either does not speak English at all or does with enough limitations that he or she cannot fully participate in mainstream English instruction. Demographers also predict that the number of English Language Learners in public classrooms will increase to 1 in 4 in the next 20 years. It sounds to me like before we dive headlong into 21st Century literacies, we should first try to master those that characterized the 16th Century. Consider me a supporter of blogs and wikkis. If they promote and foster reading and writing, despite the logistical and technical difficulties (120 students, one classroom computer, two overbooked computer labs), I'm all for them, and I intend to utilize them as much as feasibly possible. Regarding the Boob Tube, you're going to have to go further to convince me. In the meantime, I'm hoping that obligating students to watch television and stare into computer screens at school will motivate them to turn those same devices off when they go home. Somehow, I'm not convinced it will happen, though.
June 30, 2008 9:24 AM
Regarding the pod and vodcasts, maybe the so-called educational cognoscenti, those who brought us the whole-language approach, open classrooms, "the new math," heterogenuous classroom groupings, advisory periods, and a host of other worst practices may have unwittingly stumbled upon something of genius with these pod and videocasts. If it were up to the advocates of these practices, students will spend large chunks of the day in front of either a computer or television screen, and maybe the "experts" are onto something. While whitewashing a fence, Tom Sawyer figures out that work is what a body is "obliged to do," and manipulates his buddies into doing the loathsome task for him. On that premise, if we require students to spend up to six hours a day looking at either a computer or televsion screen, then just maybe when they get home from school they will be tired of the activity, forget that it was once fun, and want to either get exercise, read print media, or both.
In a 2007 survey, the National Endowment of the Arts concluded that teenagers are reading less and for shorter periods of time than at any other time in history, and one of the factors is either the time they spend on computers or in front of televisions. The National Wildlife Federation found that teenagers now spend an average of 44 hours a week staring at electronic screens. Naturally, the best solution to these disturbing trends is to force-feed them television in the classroom. According to the Television Goes to School article, "Watching television may seem a very simple act, but it actually involves a rather complicated thinking process," and "because brains are programmed to remember experiences that have an emotional component, television has a powerful ability to relay experience through the emotions evoked by images." I'm not even going to argue these two points; they may be perfectly valid. But the assumptions that reading and writing do not involve much more complicated thinking processes than watching television and that books do not evoke powerful emotional experiences have to be patently wrong. The percentage of students who can read proficiently in the school district where I teach is only between 62 and 66 percent. By all means, bring on the videocasts and the television shows. What's reading got to do with literacy?
Speaking of which, I have to wonder about all this emphasis on the "21st Century Literacies" when, according to an article in American Educator magazine entitled "Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does - and Does Not - Say," 1 in 9 students in today's public schools either does not speak English at all or does with enough limitations that he or she cannot fully participate in mainstream English instruction. Demographers also predict that the number of English Language Learners in public classrooms will increase to 1 in 4 in the next 20 years. It sounds to me like before we dive headlong into 21st Century literacies, we should first try to master those that characterized the 16th Century. Consider me a supporter of blogs and wikkis. If they promote and foster reading and writing, despite the logistical and technical difficulties (120 students, one classroom computer, two overbooked computer labs), I'm all for them, and I intend to utilize them as much as feasibly possible. Regarding the Boob Tube, you're going to have to go further to convince me. In the meantime, I'm hoping that obligating students to watch television and stare into computer screens at school will motivate them to turn those same devices off when they go home. Somehow, I'm not convinced it will happen, though.
June 30, 2008 9:24 AM
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Maximum Lawman
Hello, EDC921 Colleagues:
Before I immerse myself totally into this course, I feel compelled to at least mention some of my misgivings pertaining to blogging, technology in general, and a course such as this. If writing, in its most ideal form, is a democratic process unfettered of censorship and a true exercise in free speech, and blogging is the act of eternally etching one's thoughts and words into the digital archive for future retrieval, we should be aware of the risks we are exposing both our students and ourselves to, and those risks go beyond privacy issues and the ever lurking cyber predators. In this current plutocracy, free speech is a Constitutional right that has been slowly eroding and may be on its way to complete abrogation. So if we ask a student to blog, and he/she reacts to a conflict with a teacher, administrator, peer, a parent or even our government in a way that reveals a desire for violence, even if fantasized, or if a student reacts in a blog to an emotionally disturbing passage in literature with the similar feelings, are we to protect the democratic writing process, that student's right to privacy and freedom from possible future persecution, or should we become thought police and turn the student in to the authorities, thus saving our own necks and possibly the lives of others?
There are other unsettling issues pertaining to the digital age as well. It is well documented that computer overuse has promoted illiteracy rather than literacy, and sentences with characteristics such as the following: "I love this course b/c w/o it I wouldn't write" are turning up in essays everywhere. This is the incipient trend of Orwellianspeak, and that slippery slope may inevitably lead to a government fiat insisting on "doubleplusgood" replacing real colorful words such as "outfreakinstanding."
Yes, this rant reeks of excessive paranoia, but there's another issue to consider here. We live in an era of "globalization," which is the economic term for capitalist imperialism, and Big Business considers labor unions collectively as Public Enemy No. 1. I'm assuming we are all in a labor union, or aspire to be. To the plutocrats, there is no better way to dismantle public schools and their concomitant costs, including salaries and benefits given to educators, than to allow students to earn their diplomas on-line. The prospect of privatizing education and outsourcing our jobs to degreed and certified teachers in low-wage, developing nations makes the Big Business mavens salivate. Our taking this course is tantamount, in my mind, to the sheep fattening up on the farmer's feed before the slaughter.
Of course, there's the other side of the coin. The potential for both personal and professional growth is immense in a course like this, and I am approaching it with this attitude foremost in my mind. I chose a technological goal to be part of my professional development I-Plan to remain certified, so this particular blog smacks of hypocrisy. Nevertheless, digital technology allows the Maximum Lawman's significant reach to extend far into the future, and our relentless quest for this knowledge may eventually prove to be a Faustian bargain. I hope I'm wrong. See you all in Session 3. jack
June 1, 2008 5:08 PM
Before I immerse myself totally into this course, I feel compelled to at least mention some of my misgivings pertaining to blogging, technology in general, and a course such as this. If writing, in its most ideal form, is a democratic process unfettered of censorship and a true exercise in free speech, and blogging is the act of eternally etching one's thoughts and words into the digital archive for future retrieval, we should be aware of the risks we are exposing both our students and ourselves to, and those risks go beyond privacy issues and the ever lurking cyber predators. In this current plutocracy, free speech is a Constitutional right that has been slowly eroding and may be on its way to complete abrogation. So if we ask a student to blog, and he/she reacts to a conflict with a teacher, administrator, peer, a parent or even our government in a way that reveals a desire for violence, even if fantasized, or if a student reacts in a blog to an emotionally disturbing passage in literature with the similar feelings, are we to protect the democratic writing process, that student's right to privacy and freedom from possible future persecution, or should we become thought police and turn the student in to the authorities, thus saving our own necks and possibly the lives of others?
There are other unsettling issues pertaining to the digital age as well. It is well documented that computer overuse has promoted illiteracy rather than literacy, and sentences with characteristics such as the following: "I love this course b/c w/o it I wouldn't write" are turning up in essays everywhere. This is the incipient trend of Orwellianspeak, and that slippery slope may inevitably lead to a government fiat insisting on "doubleplusgood" replacing real colorful words such as "outfreakinstanding."
Yes, this rant reeks of excessive paranoia, but there's another issue to consider here. We live in an era of "globalization," which is the economic term for capitalist imperialism, and Big Business considers labor unions collectively as Public Enemy No. 1. I'm assuming we are all in a labor union, or aspire to be. To the plutocrats, there is no better way to dismantle public schools and their concomitant costs, including salaries and benefits given to educators, than to allow students to earn their diplomas on-line. The prospect of privatizing education and outsourcing our jobs to degreed and certified teachers in low-wage, developing nations makes the Big Business mavens salivate. Our taking this course is tantamount, in my mind, to the sheep fattening up on the farmer's feed before the slaughter.
Of course, there's the other side of the coin. The potential for both personal and professional growth is immense in a course like this, and I am approaching it with this attitude foremost in my mind. I chose a technological goal to be part of my professional development I-Plan to remain certified, so this particular blog smacks of hypocrisy. Nevertheless, digital technology allows the Maximum Lawman's significant reach to extend far into the future, and our relentless quest for this knowledge may eventually prove to be a Faustian bargain. I hope I'm wrong. See you all in Session 3. jack
June 1, 2008 5:08 PM
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