"I did not see the same things that the administrator said he saw," said Miranda Manners, who observed the same lesson during a different class period. "I saw a new, young teacher teaching her lesson according to the objectives she stated on the board. I saw her engage with her students and interacting with them in a very positive way."
Among Salazar's "missteps"? Teaching excerpts from Malcolm X, a book approved for use by the LA Unifed School District, having her students read the poetry of Langston Hughes, and quoting the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
A Rose is A Rose explains why all students should read about Malcolm X :
i'm NOT a big fan of tupac's. ok, i'm NOT a fan at all. in any way shape or form. however, i think it's important all students should learn about malcolm x AND hear/read the words of langston hughes. malcolm x in the beginning of his conversion preached separation and unkindness to people whose skin color was different than his. at the end of his life, he realized that wasn't the way to go. he was a part of american history and we should ALL know about him. like him or not
For more details, see the Save Salazar wiki and the Los Angeles Times article from which the mentor teacher's quote was drawn.
AngryBrownButch finds the firing reprehensible:
Keeping American students in the dark about America’s wrongdoings, keeping Latino, Black and other students of color from truly understanding their histories in the U.S. - that’s all key to maintaining white supremacy and white privilege in this country. If students need to go out of their way to learn the truth, they’re less likely to get angry about it, less likely to do something about it. That’s why community education is so crucial - to teach kids and adults alike everything that the schools are deliberately leaving out in an effort to exert control. And these elements of school curricula are so widespread, so normalized, so accepted that when an educator tries to break away from it even just a little, they’re the ones being accused of brainwashing students.
If it wasn’t so dangerous and so damaging, it would be funny. Instead, it’s fucking infuriating.
It is shameful that we assume that U.S. literature and history must be taught from a Eurocentric perspective. Why do U.S. history classes and textbooks always seem to start on the East Coast and move westward? Why not start that story on the west coast and move east? It would still be chronological--but it would be a very different story.
Why not center our teaching in our students' lives? Why not begin with their interests and build outward? This method was pioneered 100 years ago in elementary school science, when students were encouraged to explore their world in mini field trips on and around the school grounds. Why not also use this method in English and history classes? There's no harm in saying to a class of students in Watts, "Here's what people who look like you, who share your experiences, have written, and here's why we value those texts"--and here, now, are the kinds of sentiments (by white authors) to which they were responding."
And why not challenge white students (and middle-class students of all ethnicities) with something different from literature-as-usual? We should be asking them to read literature that is outside of their comfort zones. That's how we grow as people--by having our beliefs challenged, and then defending and/or modifying our worldview accordingly.
Feminist standpoint theorists like Nancy Hartsock, Sandra Harding, and Donna Haraway ask us to consider where knowledge is situated--that is, from where is the author speaking? Do we let him get away with, as Donna Haraway calls it, "the god trick," speaking from a disembodied place? What happens if we challenge our students to begin with women's lives, or the lives of people of color, or of the poor--and if we ask them to do this before they enter college?
My hunch is that we'd have more students of color engaged with American literature and culture and history, and that more of them would go on to college. As it is, only the most engaged students tend to seek out information on coalition-building and contemporary and historical activism.
Again and again in recent weeks, I've been reminded (ABC's Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos using the phrase "the opposite race"; the Obama sock monkey; that e-mail that's been forwarded around comparing flooded Iowans with waterlogged New Orleans residents) that many (most?) Americans--and especially white Americans--lack the vocabulary or the wherewithal to talk about race because they have no education to draw upon. Experiences, maybe, but not education. Americans of all ethnicities learn to talk about race by listening to our parents, our televisions, and our radios. We need instead to learn to talk about race (to talk about it and be talked to) from listening to one another, and from learning about all Americans' histories and cultures in our public schools.
How are you teaching your children to talk about race? What vocabulary do they have for engaging with race and racism? And what would you think about enrolling your child in Karen Salazar's English class?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>Why isn't my brain as responsive as it used to be? Is it distracted by too much web surfing? Do I have a brain-eating amoeba? Is it the (I hope mythical) "mommy brain" that accompanies life with young children? Am I just too damn busy with too many projects, so I lack time to reflect? Am I spending too much time in that stream of constant interruption, the 140-character world of Twitter? Has my RSS reader driven me to distraction? Is it just that my brain is aging and therefore less plastic that it was in my/our twenties?
I've devised many plans to get my brain back into shape, but procrastination has thus far kept me from many of them. Here are some of my ideas:
My plans involve a blend of study and what Barbara Ganley has termed "noodling". Ganley writes about the healing power of noodling:
I’m tired of writing angry. Frustrated. Negative. And so I have stayed off-blog. Thinking. Feeling. Planning. Noodling. Doing. Tweeting. But not sharing writing longer than 140 characters at a stretch. Not until now. This morning when I whined a bit on Twitter about my lack of posting due to having little positive to say about schools, especially those of a private, liberal arts, expensive nature-Bud Hunt came right out and told me to move past the need to write about formal ed (i.e. get over myself) and write about the new thoughts, the new connections. With that one little nudge, I could feel myself start to shuck that snakeskin of academia and the baggage of nineteen years and be ready to start noodling around out loud about what I’m reading, thinking, dreaming and wondering.
Ganley has a kindred soul in Bethany Hiitola of Mommy Writer Blog. Hiitola is going through an annual ritual she calls "Clearing." She explains:
I let go of projects that aren't routine. I let work slide a bit instead of living the life of an over-achiever. And in the end, I spend quality time with myself, my family, and sorta experience life in order to "fill the well."
Sure, I'll still be blogging here. And reading. And writing. But no pressure. No substance. And hell, you might even get some delayed postings around here. But, it's all part of my process. My brain re-wiring itself for more creativity. Or at least I tell myself that so that I don't think of it as "lazy."
Other bloggers believe more firmly in studying. Beatricks of Easel Ain't Easy writes that taking a summer class is helping her brain to grow. Kirsten Fisch of Math Monkey has a variety of ways to keep her kids' brains active during the summer, including reading enrichment, math practice, Apple (computer) camp, creative writing, online classes, and learning guitar.
How do you stave off brain atrophy in yourself and your kids?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
I wrote a couple years back about how some faculty, and especially women faculty, struggle with depression. (Fun fact: my blog ranks number one in Google for the phrase "depression in academia," and it's one of my blog's top keyword phrases.) Academia and depression are a nasty feedback loop, a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Are people drawn to graduate school and faculty work likely to be depressive, or do grad school, adjuncting, and the tenure track make us depressed? I sense it's a bit of both.
Making things worse is a deep-felt sense of loneliness. I did my first two stints in grad school alone, sans really close friends. And it was rough. (On the positive side, it made for some good poetry for my creative writing degree--solitude lends itself to self-reflection and lots of time for writing.) I was fortunate to have a partner to support me through my final, successful stab at the Ph.D.--but many people aren't so lucky. And even those who do have partners may still feel isolated from friends and family.
Recently New Kid on the Hallway threw herself a self-described"pity party" because she realized it had been too long since she'd had any summer fun:
But if I'm completely honest with myself, one of the problems is not so much summer, but missing having a group of friends with which to do any of these summery things. I recently read a blogger talking about having friends over to her new house, grilling in the backyard and just hanging out on the deck in the warmth of an evening. And I was so envious that I could hardly stand it. I have all sorts of wonderful friends. But none of them are HERE.
Meanwhile, Hilaire of clashing hats recently had a scary medical situation--she thought she was having a stroke--and came to the realization that she lacks a local support structure:
I feel better now - still some pain and sensitivity, but it's pretty minor.
What I didn't like (well, who am I kidding, I didn't like any of it) was the feeling that the people I wanted to talk to and have there with me were so very, very far away. The one friend here that I really would have liked to call was away. My downstairs neighbour, with whom I've been becoming friendly, wasn't answering her door. It just sucked to be so scared and to feel alone. Yeah, I should have thought of migraine, but I didn't. So I was scared.
The work environment in academia rewards time spent alone on research and writing, which can contribute to feelings of loneliness and isolation. The remedy? Try to be collegial. But be careful. If you think all universities are places where bright, mature people engage in vigorous, open-minded intellectual discussions and treat one another equitably and with respect, you have another think coming. Historiann writes about workplace bullying at her former university, how it escalated, and how it cascaded through her department:
People were filled with ressentiment about the way they were treated, and most of them either became bullies or apologists, explaining that “don’t worry, you’ll still be tenured. That’s just the way we do things. Everyone goes through it, so you’ll just have to suck it up.” There were a few good people who tried to make changes–but they have been easily defeated by the others. Those who were my friends and allies were valiant in their optimism and their commitment to change, but in the meantime, what a life: stomping out flaming bags of poop that someone else is leaving on yet someone else’s doorstep.
Go read the post for some insights on women and the tenure process and how academic bullying might be stopped.
But there is hope for the patient, long-suffering, and slightly extroverted. After reading Hilaire's post, Bardiac reflected that after many years of feeling isolated, she has finally established a circle of acquaintances and friends in her town:
I was thinking about that and Hilaire, and realized that if something happened to me here, now, I actually do have a community to call on. And I'm glad to have realized that. Even if what I need is only a gardening consult, I have friends to call on. It's a really comfortable thing to realize, after feeling sort of alienated in this community.
I, too, have been fortunate to establish a small network of good friends who I can call on in an emergency--and I hope they feel they can call on me, though I suspect (OK, know) they're far better ensconced in the community than I am (having school-age children gives them an advantage). But this network is transient in many ways--my friends who are grad students are on their way to graduation and (I hope!) good jobs far from here, while early- to mid-career faculty members feel the need to stretch their wings and move on. Of course, people in many professions have this experience of losing friends and comrades to bigger and better things, but there's something about the cycles of academic life that can make it feel especially keen--particularly if you feel you're being left behind.
Do you feel lonely? If so, how do you cope with loneliness?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>1. Before going to the museum, check out the museum's web site. Many museums offer tips to teachers (and, by extension, parents) on how best to prepare children for a visit to that specific museum. Some museums even have materials designed for teachers, including background materials as well as worksheets for kids or (better yet) pre- and post-visit activities. (See, for example, these resources from the National Museum of American History.) If you can't find any such materials on the web site, try calling the museum's education department to see if they have any age-appropriate materials available related to the current or permanent exhibitions. Let these materials inform your visit to the museum.
2. Familiarize yourself with the subject of the exhibitions before you go to the museum--but don't overdo it. This might be as simple as reading a few pages on Wikipedia. If you can find children's books or newspaper or magazine articles on the topic, share these with your children. But don't pressure your kids to absorb too much before the visit--you don't want to burn them out. Just pique their curiosity--and give yourself some background knowledge so that you can help your kids understand the context of the objects and activities at the museum.
3. If you're going to a very large museum, make a preliminary visit without your kids. Large museums can be tiring, so it's good to get an idea of what's in the exhibition halls before you show up with your daughter. Bonus: If you're at an art museum that has an audio tour, take it! That way you can gain a better context for the art and you can use this knowledge when you visit the museum with your children.
4. Call ahead to find out when the museum is most crowded--and then avoid those hours. For many museums, the best time to visit is early or late in the day on a weekend, or after 3 p.m. on school days.
5. Talk to your kids while you're in the exhibition. Ask them questions about the art, science phenomena, or objects on display. Ask open-ended questions that require an answer of more than a word or two. Connect what you're seeing with your daughter's interests or other experiences in her life. And remember: don't shy away from scientific topics, especially if you're a woman yourself. You want to model for your daughter the satisfaction we get from asking intelligent, interesting questions and seeking answers.
6. Talk to museum staff and volunteers on the exhibit floor. In science centers, aquaria, and zoos, there will often be education staff available to engage with your family and to answer your questions. These people--many of them volunteer docents or "explainers"--tend not only to be trained to work with children but also have a passion for the subject.
My experience in art museums, unfortunately, is that there are fewer people available to answer questions, unless you tag along on a docent- or curator-led tour. In this case, don't be afraid to approach the security guards and ask them questions. Chances are they've overheard information from the tours and can share something about the art with you. Despite their sometimes stern demeanor, many of these guards enjoy being asked about their expertise or opinions. If they can't answer your questions, they might be able to point you to someone who can.
7. Don't be afraid to interact with other families. Too often, museum visitors wander around in their own little family silos. Most kids like to interact with other children, so if you see an opportunity--for example, at a hands-on science center or children's museum--to let your daughter try an activity with another child, encourage her to play.
8. Even if you're especially well-prepared for your visit, don't be didactic--that is, overly instructive. Pay attention to cues from your daughter to see what interests her, and follow her lead.
9. If appropriate, purchase souvenirs at the museum store--and I'm not talking about the cheap little plastic crap near the register. You don't need to spend a fortune, but if there's something relevant to the exhibitions that is affordable, interesting, and age appropriate, then purchase it for follow-up activities (see #10). I especially like The Savvy Source's tip to purchase postcards of the art you have seen in a museum and even to start a collection of such postcards for your children.
10. Plan some follow-up activities. If you've been to an art museum, make plenty of art materials available to your children for the days following your exhibit. We have a table set up in a corner of our kitchen where our almost three-year-old sits down a couple times a day to draw, paint, glue, cut, and hole punch his way to happiness. It's a mess, but he gets a lot of joy from it, and learns a lot, too. (His preschool teacher is amazed at his attention span for arts and crafts. Little does she know we've inculcated him at home. Heh heh.) You could even place the postcards from tip #9 on the wall for inspiration.
If you've been to a science exhibition, go to your local library and find books of related science experiments. I recommend just about anything by Janice VanCleave--her experiments are simple to do and make concepts clear.
Parenting and education bloggers have been very generous with tips on museum-going. Here are a few:
What are your thoughts? Share your tips for (and frustrations about) visiting museums with children in the comments.
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
*Kevin Crowley, Maureen A. Callanan, Harriet R. Tenenbaum, Elizabeth Allen (2001). Parents Explain More Often to Boys than to Girls During Shared Scientific Thinking. Psychological Science 12 (3), 258–261. (Abstract)
]]>Among the report's findings:
What's wrong with that, you ask? Shouldn't we be putting our resources where they're most needed?
Teachers don't think so. Even though their schools are devoting the majority of their resources to struggling students, 86 percent of teachers in the study indicated that schools should focus equally on all students, and not focus so heavily on those who are in the lowest percentile.
Another interesting tidbit from the study: Low-income, black, and Hispanic high achievers on the eighth-grade standardized math test were more likely than their struggling peers to be taught by experienced teachers. These students also were as likely as their higher-income peers to have teachers who majored or minored in math.
The Fordham Institute explains the implications of its studies:
Neither of these studies sought a causal link between the No Child Left Behind Act and the performance of high-achieving students. We cannot say that NCLB "caused" the performance of the nation's top students to stagnate any more than it "caused" the achievement of our lowest-performing pupils to rise dramatically. All we know is that the acceleration in achievement gains by low-performing students is associated with the introduction of NCLB (and, earlier, with state accountability systems). Neither can we be sure from these data that teacher quality explains why some low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students were able to score in the top 10 percent on the 2005 eighth-grade math NAEP, though there does appear to be a relationship between the experience and education of math teachers and their students' performance.
The national survey findings show that most teachers, at this point in our nation's history, feel pressure to focus on their lowest-achieving students. Whether that's because of NCLB we do not know (though teachers are certainly willing to blame the federal law). What's perhaps most interesting about the teachers' responses, however, is how committed they are to the principle that all students (regardless of performance level) deserve their fair share of attention and challenges. Were Congress to accept teachers' views about what it means to create a "just" education system--i.e., one that challenges all students to fulfill their potential, rather than just focus on raising the performance of students who have been "left behind"--then the next version of NCLB would be dramatically different than today's.
The authors of the report write that this unintended consequence--the lack of progress of high-performing students--is "worrisome for America's future competitiveness."
What says the blogosphere? Plenty, even though the report was just released today.
On the Fordham's blog, Flypaper, Mike Petrilli explains how schools might better measure their accountability to students under a revised version of NCLB:
Everyone’s right that policymakers can tweak No Child Left Behind to create incentives for schools to pay attention to the top students and the bottom students (and everyone in between). A new version of the law could, for example, expect schools to help all of their students make progress over the course of the year (not just the ones below “proficiency”). It could give schools credit for helping more students reach the “advanced” level on state tests (though these still not be high enough). And it could allow out-of-year testing so that assessments could accurately measure how far above grade level bright students are—and could then determine whether or not they are staying well above grade level over time.
Eduwonkette writes about the liability of models of accountability that, like NCLB, are based on proficiency rather than growth. Systems that focus on a proficiency goal ask lower-achieving students (and their schools) to make larger gains than higher-achieving students, who likely have already met or exceeded the proficiency target. Accordingly, the high-achieving child grows less than does her struggling peer. This model doesn't take into account students' initial levels of achievement.
At the Core Knowledge blog, Robert Pondiscio writes about his frustration with schools' relative lack of attention to the highest-achieving students:
These are the students I refer to as “Not Your Problem” kids. As a teacher, when I raised concerns that my brighter student[s] were bored and neglected, and expressed frustration at my inability to sufficiently differentiate instruction to challenge them, I was dismissed by an assistant principal who pointedly said “those kids are not your problem.” She meant I was to focus on getting my low-achieving students to proficiency; the high achievers were already there and could be left to their own devices.
I’m positively giddy to see this issue getting attention. It was my No. 1 concern as a classroom teacher.
Melissa Westbrook provides a nice roundup of this study and another one that came out this week about the efficacy of the SAT on predicting college success. She's glad to see low achievers making progress--after all, she points out, "If it had been high achievers moving forward 16 points and lower achievers moving ahead 3 points, there would have been howls." Her conclusion? "We need to work for all students across the board."
Corey Bunje Bower doesn't see a problem with the study's findings, especially when one looks at the problem from an international perspective:
Given that the low-performing students in the U.S. lag behind low-performers in other countries while high-performing students hold their own against other high-performers (previous post), it's hard for me to see this as anything but a good thing.
Brigitte D. Knudson has a long, thoughtful post on the commodification of education. An excerpt:
Beyond the implications for college, No Child Left Behind and the standardized testing movement have fueled an entire industry. In Michigan, where I teach, the Michigan Department of Education is required under No Child Left Behind legislation to provide Supplemental Education Service Providers -- tutors -- to students whose schools or school districts fail under the act. Interestingly, this has allowed tuturing centers, like Sylvan, to prosper (Sylvan Learning Centers represent the largest block of SES Providers on MDE's 7-page list, with 25 of the 112 available choices for parents in the state, no doubt partly because of their corporate identity and slick marketing provided to franchise owners).
[...]
Education is now big business -- for-profit in many cases. There are even seminars aimed at prospective small-business owners to suck them into the "Education Industry," because education, like everything else in the United States, is not about our children, it's about making a dollar. Yes, folks, the business model applied to education -- the commodification of education. They even have a website: EducationIndustry.org. Don't let the sweet little pictures of parents and children fool you -- it's not about parents and children, it's about entepreneurs making money. Even if your kid isn't at a failing school and you need a tutor, these places can work to get you LOANS! One Sylvan Learning Center touts that it will work with "SLM Financial, a subsidiary of Sallie Mae, to ensure children get the tutoring help they need.
[...]
Testing to improve our students? How about testing to exploit a new economy? SAT. ACT. Tutoring Centers. Remedial tuition dollars. Banking and loans. Anyone smell a skunk? How about No Child Left Unscammed?
Personally, I don't have a problem with entrepreneurs entering the educational field--after all, there are some truly excellent educational consulting and publishing companies out there. However, like Knudson, I do have a problem with businesses taking advantage of parents--particularly low- and middle-income parents--because of a government mandate that students perform at a particular level on a standardized test.
Over at Eduwonk, Andrew Rotherham elaborates on the tough choices highlighted by the Fordham Institute's report.
Choices do have to be made. It doesn't mean that we throw different groups of student under the bus, but any accountability system that holds people accountable for everything holds them accountable for nothing. So choices have to be made about emphasis. And considering the yawning achievement gaps, graduation rate gaps, and outcome gaps that separate poor and minority students from other students, that's where I'd argue the emphasis should be placed. And, within those groups of students on the wrong end of the achievement gap are plenty who with better schools would also be recognized as gifted.
There are certainly steps that policymakers can take to help lessen the zero-sum nature of these choices. They can, for instance, also reward schools that do a great job with high achieving students as well as closing gaps (something they can do under No Child Left Behind now but few do in a meaningful way). Or, we can think about various non-regulatory accountability strategies, for instance giving parents more choices within the public system, to create some countervailing forces. And of course, states and localities should invest in programs for gifted kids and ways to stretch them.
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
What are your thoughts?
]]>My parents are retired high school teachers, and I remember our summers as pleasant periods punctuated by one- or two-week vacations around the American west. My parents participated in a "summer savers" program that automatically withdrew money from their paychecks during the school year and put it into a summer account. Although they tried not to talk much about money (and how if you're a public school teacher supporting a family there's never quite enough of it) in front of us, I'm sure by late August the family budget was stretched pretty thin. Accordingly, when we were at home, we took many trips to the library and the beach, we played in the backyard, and we helped my parents with gardening and little jobs around the house.
Other teachers, however, are more adventurous. Linda at Gymnotes participated in "The Udder Run" through a dairy in 100-degree heat.
Happy Chyck was trying to earn some extra money this summer, but both her summer jobs have fallen through. Instead, she's going to an instructional conference and a writing institute.
Elementary History Teacher is spending her summer on professional activities:
It's all over now but post-planning, isn't it? Now it's on to spending the next eight weeks tweaking those lesson plans, creating new slide presentations, looking for new sources, and research, research, research. Oh, and don't forget team meetings to plan, professional development classes to attend, college classes to finish up at break neck speed, and reading all of those professional manuals and research books you've stacked up for the summer.
Anna Ayala is in a similar position. Among the items on her summer vacation to do list: textbook reviews, catch up on sleep, take a continuing education course, study for the Graduate Record Exam, write a syllabus, teach a Sunday school class, teach summer courses (driver's ed?!?), work at a summer camp, and rearrange her portfolio. Whew! Just reading her list makes me tired.
Yoda of Math is sprucing up her teaching wardrobe and planning how she's going to teach probability and statistics.
Social studies teacher John Spencer worries about overplanning and wonders if he should consider occasional procrastination:
So, it's the end of week one for the summer vacation. I have all eight weeks planned out and subdivided within a bulleted list. The bullets have sub-bullets. After awhile, it begins to resemble a drive-by, with bullets strewn everywhere. I suppose "drive-by" is not a bad metaphor for my approach to summer vacation. I get restless too fast and forget to rest. I attack it and plan it to death. I drive through the summer quickly and miss out on the spontaneity of a lazy afternoon.
I have a friend who tends to put things off until the last minute. He plans his lessons the night before and quickly modifies them during class. True, he's a bit scattered and occasionally not very dependable. Yet, he is always present, in the moment and flexible to the changes of the social context. It is not that he "puts things off," so much as he waits until the last minute to go into action.
The Buss provides first-year teachers with a guide--"Teacher Summer Vacation for Dummies." Here's his rundown of how summer vacation works:
Summer break: Day 1: This is the "Is it true?" day, when you realize you no longer have to wake up and go to work for awhile. You spend most of the day bored, looking for things to do.
Summer break: Week 1: I did say you'd be tired, so you'll spend this week sleeping in and watching lot of TV. Towards the end of the week, you'll start regaining some energy and maybe start doing yard work and things like that.
Summer break: Week 2: At some point this week, you'll find yourself missing work, and wishing you could go back. Don't worry, you'll get over this quickly. This is usually a good week to go on vacation or something, because you're starting to break out of that early vacation funk, you're getting your energy back, and you don't mind sitting around.
Summer break: Week 3: This is the week when it all becomes great. Everything is right with the world, you can read for pleasure, watch TV and not feel guilty about not grading papers, and stay up late doing whatever and not worry about work tomorrow.
After week 3, you're spoiled, you're rested, and now you settle into the life of someone who basically doesn't have a job but gets paychecks in the mail. Don't get too spoiled, because soon enough, you'll be starting up again, but don't worry, because by then, you'll be full of energy and ready to get back to it.
Keri of Quaint and Quirky is planning a similarly relaxing and productive summer:
Today was my first official day of summer vacation. As a teacher, it's kind of something for which you live. I refer to myself during the summer as "Summer Keri" like I'm some sort of vacation super hero. Summer Keri is relaxed, carefree, and fulfilled because she can explore things that interest her whenever she wants. In the past she has had a clean car and bedroom. This summer, her goal is clean house. She has time, she has energy. She has plans. She has projects.
What are your plans?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>First, a piece in Inside Higher Ed suggested that academia hinders parenthood, and Dean Dad, Dr. Crazy, ScienceWoman, Janet Stemwedel, Addy N., and others weighed in on the question.
Then, Laura, a Ph.D. and instructional technologist at the forefront of her field, blogged about faculty requesting that she complete menial technical tasks for them.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick sent more of my synapses firing in a post titled Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy." She argues that academia's slowness--or unwillingness--to change the ways it validates knowledge and to adopt and adapt new media means it will (if it hasn't already) become irrelevant to public discourse. Laura responded with the hope that the academy will come to accept, if not embrace, different kinds of work as scholarship.
From Twitter and other conversations online and off, I also know other women who work in the liminal space between faculty assignments and staff duties have been wrestling with conceptions of what counts as scholarship or as leadership in their fields--and even what counts as their field. I'm in the same uncomfortable position--technically I'm classified as staff, but I have a teaching appointment at my institution and at another university so that I may teach courses occasionally. My intellectual work has been in American studies and the history of science; my employer is a teaching resources center; and my teaching expertise leans right now toward museum studies. I'm expected to produce, however, academic work related to pedagogy or instructional technology--and yet that kind of academic production isn't likely to be recognized or valued by the faculty with whom I consult.
This liminal space can be uncomfortable in ways that are not merely intellectual. Imagine an office where half the staff has Ph.D.s and the social status and privileges that come with such attainment, while the other half has very little college education, if any at all. The non-degreed staff, especially those who have been around the university block a few times, are likely to have been less recognized and respected by faculty than they should have been. It's likely, therefore, that they expect any newly arrived staff Ph.D.s are going to similarly lack empathy for where staff are coming from. Similarly, the Ph.D.s, who are used to the flexibility of an academic schedule and who feel free to come and go as they see fit, may not realize the hard feelings of staff members whose duties keep them at their desks from 8 to 5 every day. Intraoffice class warfare, anyone?
All of these issues--of academia being unsympathetic to working parents (and particularly to mothers), of nontraditional forms of intellectual production being dismissed with little reflection, and the tension between degreed and non-degreed staff--all boil down to a lack of respect for people's life experiences and choices.
I chose to be a mother and because of that decision, I no longer have the time to focus on long-term, sustained, traditional academic projects. Instead, I post on blogs--where I reach a larger number of actual academic readers than if if I published in a journal--and tinker with new media with the goal of producing more thoughtful teaching (my own and others'). Staff members without Ph.D.s at my institution are also tackling a lot of really interesting issues that are only tangentially related to their staff positions--and faculty (and other staff) may never understand the intellectual curiosity, passion, and brilliance half-hidden in the people who crunch numbers or answer phones for the department.
Digital media has the potential to level the playing field inside the academy because it allows for new kinds of collaboration to emerge. New technologies allow staff to showcase their intellectual and aesthetic interests; the same technologies can humanize faculty by allowing staff and others a glimpse behind the ivory curtain. Through faculty blogs that blend the personal and professional, for example, we might see the physiologist's participation in her daughter's soccer league or the model railroad a transportation engineer has set up in his basement.
If new media allows us to see people holistically--be they faculty or staff--then there's hope that the academy might recognize some "new" voices--voices that might better connect us with our communities and engender mutual respect.
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>In his post, he delves into "this fascinating dispute," including a glance at the recent California Court of Appeals ruling on the legality of homeschooling in the state. He also draws on his own experience with parents who homeschool their children, as well as on cultural ideals regarding citizenship and knowledge. He writes,
On one hand, if parents are themselves talented and choose to homeschool for the "right" reasons (e.g., to instill a love of learning, to share the family experience, to promote emotional closeness. because they feel they can do a better job of it), I've seen homeschooling succeed magnificently.
On the other hand, if it's done for the "wrong" (at least in my biased opinion) reasons (e.g., because of paranoia about exposure to the real world, to limit the child's knowledge to a few narrow precepts, to avoid outside social interactions), then I've seen homeschooling stunt the socioemotional, academic, and intellectual growth of children who, in my opinion, desperately could have used a "parentectomy" during the day to allow them to transcend their parents' narrow views and ambitions.
After mulling over the issue, Parker concludes,
Tight regulations on home schooling - yes. Courses on how to teach for homeschooling parents - better still. An outright ban of homeschooling - not justified.
Denise Tanton at Flamingo House Happenings takes issue with Parker's anecdotal use of two very different families' homeschooling experiences and philosophies:
Really disappointed in Dr Parker. Could he be any more judgemental and condescending about his Christian home school patients?
Scott at All in the Fam is disappointed that Parker didn't consider the track record of many public schools. If, as is the case in many school districts, schools are failing our K-12 students (24% high school graduation rate in Detroit, anyone?), why should homeschooling parents be held to a higher standard?
Scott has a good point. But looking at it another way, should we let homeschoolers adopt a similarly low bar for achievement? Homeschoolers opt out of public schooling because they feel the public schools aren't doing a sufficiently good job of educating children. In that case, why should they be allowing themselves to adhere to the same standards as public schools? If anything, it makes sense that homeschoolers would organize into regional associations, with affiliations based on philosophical affinities, that themselves set standards for homeschooling. In the business world, industries frequently try to regulate themselves voluntarily in order to stave off state or federal regulation of their business. Is it time for homeschoolers to do the same?
Don't tell me that homeschooling isn't an industry. Whether or not individual parents actually purchase curriculum for their children from homeschool publishers or buy memberships to online homeschooling forums and other sites, or whether they take an even more DIY attitude to their children's education, homeschooling is a huge business in the United States. Dr. Parker's article mentions 1.1 million children are schooled at home each year. That's a lot of students.
Of course, the very philosophy behind some approaches to homeschooling would make parents hesitant to adopt regulations, even if voluntarily. If parents believe the state can't be trusted to educate their children, why would they trust other institutions (beyond maybe their church, if they're religiously-informed homeschoolers) to provide guidelines for schooling? Perhaps religious bodies might provide guidelines for homeschooling parents to ensure that their youngest parishioners are receiving the educations they need to function as 21st-century citizens. Any such steps would be in the interest of these religious bodies, for they could ensure that future members of their church/mosque/temple/meeting could be social leaders.
Sometimes this might mean that religious bodies recommend parents take courses of action that would not at first blush seem in line with a church's best interests or political stance. For example, in the U.S. I have met a surprising number of young women who are white, very conservative Christian Republications and who are not particularly enthusiastic about progressive philosophies on multicultural education, but who are learning Arabic. Why? Because they want to serve as U.S. envoys to Middle Eastern countries--where they would be positioned as well to proselytize. Christian homeschooling regulatory organizations might therefore recommend that parents expose their children to certain high-priority foreign languages.
Dana Hanley at Principled Discovery considers questions of regulation and government interference:
Unfortunately, there is at times a conflict between parental interests and governmental interests. But the real question is who we believe is better equipped to protect the interests of children. It disturbs me that in a free society, we so frequently tip the balance in favor of government rather than private citizens who have not done anything to arouse suspicion.
She asks when it comes to homeschooling, where should the burden of proof of an adequate education lie--with the government or with the parent? Her answer, as a homeschooler, is with the parent. I think that local governments and parents should work in tandem to ensure their children are receiving a well-rounded education and adequate exposure to mainstream society's ideas. Does that mean parents need to teach children that these ideas are good ones? No. But students need to be able to interact with others in their society, and understanding these ideas and their foundations is of paramount importance. It's the basis of civil discourse.
Hanley also considers Dr. Parker's example of a Christian family that homeschools their children, it seems, out of anxieties about the social values of the wider world:
How much different would life have been had these children been forced into school? This doctor seems to picture children “rescued” from their isolation and allowed to develop beyond the math needed to balance a check book. I envision twelve years of conflict between parental values and the demands of teachers. I imagine children apathetic about their studies and encouraged in that by their parents. I see a lot of teasing…a lot of social isolation. Not by choice, but rather by bullying. I see a somewhat extreme world view reinforced by negative experience.
I like that Hanley here takes a typical criticism of homeschooling--that it is socially isolating--and points out that kids feel socially isolated in school all the time. That was my experience for, oh, grades 5 through 10--basically all of puberty. (But that doesn't mean I would have benefited from homeschooling. Many young people, however, do flourish in alternative environments to the public school classroom.)
Over at Home Education Magazine, Valerie Bonham Moon brings up another point: that children's education isn't sealed off into a special section of a day; children learn all the time, during a variety of activities. If we're going to regulate homeschooling, she asks, then what counts as homeschooling? She writes,
What is reasonable is that all children whose education has been delegated to people paid at public expense be taught by credentialed teachers. People who are paid with public funds, who teach other people’s children, and who do so as a public service should be competent. The parents of the children pay to have this done (as do all of us).
The idea, though, that no child should “be taught” by anyone without a credential is un-doable. Taught what? Taught when? Does this rule out mom reading Hop on Pop to a child while pointing out how the words are pronounced? How about Aunt Susan teaching little Madison to knit and telling her how to increase and decrease stitches. Or maybe Uncle Rick explaining to Jordan that when the acidic vinegar saturates the alkaline baking soda that the chemical reaction causes the fizz? Maybe Grandpa Dave drove Angel and Kelly out to a national monument and described the event the monument commemorates. So far the grownups have “taught” the children something about reading, counting, science and history.
What are your thoughts? Should homeschooling be regulated? If so, how?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>At Aetiology, guest blogger Whitney Baker looks at possible infectious agents for obesity:
]]>At Aetiology, guest blogger Whitney Baker looks at possible infectious agents for obesity:
Adenovirus 36 (Ad-36) typically causes respiratory and eye infections. But somewhere along the way, scientists noticed something special about Ad-36. In 2000, Dhurandhar et al found that "animals inoculated with Ad-36 developed a syndrome of increased adipose tissue and paradoxically low levels of serum cholesterol and triglycerides." Of note, this study did use comparison groups inoculated with other pathogens both in mice and chicken. In a total of 3 experiments, Dhurandhar et al showed the prevalence of obesity in chickens and mice infected with Ad-36 versus control animals were 60-70% (infected versus control), and 100% of non-human primates that were infected with Ad-36 gained adiposity (infected versus control). They also noted significant decreases in serum cholesterol and triglycerides.
Two human studies relating to Ad-36 have been performed. In a 2005 analysis of 502 subjects, significant (p < 0.001) association between obesity and positive Ad-36 antibody status was found, independent of age, sex, and collection site. Atkinson et al estimated the prevalence of antibodies to Ad-36 to be in 30% of obese and 11% of nonobese persons. In a second study, they also examined 89 twin pairs, and found that in the discordant pairs, the antibody-positive twins had higher BMIs and body fat than their uninfected twin. Therefore, Atkinson et al concluded that "Ad-36 is associated with increased body weight and lower serum lipids in humans. Prospective studies are indicated to determine if Ad-36 plays a role in the etiology of human obesity."
Also at Aetiology, Tara C. Smith, writes about the risks of drinking raw milk:
Coxiella burnetti--the causative agent of Q fever, was found in 76% of tested samples. Listeria monocytogenes, a more common food-borne pathogen, was found in 5% of samples. Previous outbreaks have been due to E. coli contamination as well, and at least 1000 cases of illnesses and two deaths linked to consumption of raw milk were reported between 1998 and 2005 in the U.S. (and keep in mind that food-borne diseases are frequently under-reported).
Despite this, demand is rising for raw milk.
At The Ways and Means of the Immune System, Veo Claramente comments on two papers that suggest environmental toxins and autoimmunity.
Easternblot brings us an absolutely fantastic video of scientists studying ocean pollution by plastic bottles containing Bisphenol A. Bisphenol A has been connected to miscarriages in women and has recently received media attention for its danger to children. Definitely check out the video--it's the first in a series of twelve on "Garbage Island" in the Pacific.
Anna Gosline of Inkycircus writes about fish oil in yogurt:
Junior would have to eat 29 pots of yogurt to meet his daily requirement [of omega 3]. Riiiiiiiiiight.
This is pretty fine print here and parents who think they are giving their kids the omega 3 boost they need through yogurt while avoiding the hazards of fish (all that mercury, see) will be mistaken. Unlike vitamins and minerals - that have a recommended daily dose and are listed on nutrition labels as a % of the RDI - there is no such consumer information available for omega 3s.
Sarah Bellum of The Beauty Brains gives students a heads-up on the ways that attending prom can harm--or maybe even help--your body.
The Biotech Weblog brings us news of cancer-detecting nanoparticles.
In the "'Bout Damn Time" category, scientists have finally decoded the DNA of a human woman, says Linda MacDonald Glenn at the Women's Bioethics Blog.
Some people in Santa Fe, New Mexico are trying to persuade their city to ban WiFi in public buildings. Sandy Szwarc examines claims that WiFi is dangerous to human health.
What's your favorite recent science story?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>namely that the Utopian, blue sky ideas of technology as a singular harbinger of possibility and liberation ignores the cold and all-consuming role that capital plays in the shaping of technology as means of control. Now I understand that this struggle is by no means unilateral, and that for every instance of technology as a means to consolidate power for capital, there is another instance in which that same technology can be used to undermine the fallacious logic of capital’s vision of progress.
[...] How do I understand the work I am doing in the field of EdTech when in comes to the intersection of progress, power, and the voracious appetite of capital to co-opt and re-package the labor of others as its own, patented, insanely expensive, proprietary product?
He elaborates by using BlackBoard as an example of capitalist predation gone awry:
BlackBoard makes an inferior product and charges a ton for it, but if we reduce the conversation to technology, and not really think hard about technology as an instantiation of capital’s will to power, than anything resembling an EdTech movement towards a vision of liberation and relevance is lost. For within those ideas is not a technology, but a group of people, who argue, disagree, and bicker, but also believe that education is fundamentally about the exchange of ideas and possibilities of thinking the world anew again and again, it is not about a corporate mandate to compete—however inanely or nefariously—for market share and/or power. I don’t believe in technology, I believe in people. And that’s why I don’t think our struggle is over the future of technology, it is over the struggle for the future of our culture that is assailed from all corners by the vultures of capital. Corporations are selling us back our ideas, innovations, and visions for an exorbitant price. I want them all back, and I want them now!
Enter stage left: EDUPUNK!
Jim also highlights a couple of Wikipedia projects he considers edupunk.
Mike Caulfield explains why the concept works for him, and points out one liability:
“Edupunk” gets us there — with its implication of technical accessibility, a DIY ethic, quick and dirty over grand design, and a suspicion of corporate appropriation it hits a lot of the right notes.
The wrong notes it hits are mainly historical — because of course punk had surprisingly little social impact — and it’s worth remembering the same attitudes that kept it pure relegated it to being a tribal phenomenon rather than a broad cultural movement. Punk culture valued its exile from the mainstream. We want to change the world.
D'Arcy Norman shares his view of edupunk:
The key to edupunk is that it is not about technology.
It’s about a culture, a way of thinking, a philosophy. It’s about DIY. Lego is edupunk. Chalk is edupunk. A bunch of kids exploring a junkyard is edupunk. A kid dismantling a CD player to see what makes it tick is edupunk.
D'Arcy also draws our attention to a post at injenuity in which Jen talks about the ideal classroom. She doesn't mention the term "edupunk," but D'Arcy rightly calls her vision edupunk. Jen writes,
Yes, kids need to learn science, math, reading, the arts, etc., but why break them down? They aren’t broken down in real life. Why can’t they all be incorporated? If you had a room full of junk, every single discipline would apply at the same time. Maybe some kids would make musical instruments. Others would make robots. Some would make a business plan and marketing strategy.
Artichoke is also already thinking along edupunk lines, also without using the word:
This thinking is so entrenched that I am grateful for Cuban in helping me tease out and clarify that when we adopt the business rhetoric of “efficiency and effectiveness” and “productivity” in education, when we describe students as “human capital”.... we adopt a mindset that believes that.... personal advancement comes from individual merit and hard work in school.... we start to believe that schools are a solution to inequality in society.
As a direct consequence of this thinking our educational policies start focusing on removing barriers and enabling access to opportunity in the education system framing this education as the solution to producing the future workers and citizens for the 21st Century.
In short, edupunk is student-centered, resourceful, teacher- or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance. Barbara Ganley's philosophy of teaching and digital expression is an elegant manifestation of edupunk. Nina Simon, with her imaginative ways of applying web 2.0 philosophies to museum exhibit design, offers both low- and high-tech edupunk visions.
Edupunk, it seems, takes old-school Progressive educational tactics--hands-on learning that starts with the learner's interests--and makes them relevant to today's digital age, sometimes by forgoing digital technologies entirely.
But whither this nascent movement? I wonder how its rhetoric might influence faculty (in K-12 and higher ed) to adapt, adopt--or not adopt--particular technologies. Do faculty like to be seen as edgy? Or will they be drawn to new DIY experiments, and inspired to reject slick, corporate ed tech solutions, by edupunk's insistence on progressive interventions?
What are your thoughts? Do you know anyone who's a practicing edupunk?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>Fast forward to motherhood. I turned in my dissertation the day after my toddler turned one year old. Three months later I gave up adjunct teaching full-time in favor of a staff job that offered more stability, a better salary, and far fewer papers to grade. No more staying up into the wee hours grading papers or fielding dozens of e-mails from students the weekend before their papers are due. I love my 40-hour week because my evenings and weekends are, for the most part, mine to spend with my family and friends. I tell my grad student friends (and the occasional new assistant professor who isn't sure what she's gotten herself into) that a staff job is actually quite nice, but they nod and think I'm just trying to make lemonade from the lemons the craptastic academic job market has handed me.
But not everyone in academia--or in K-12 education--is so lucky. My parents taught high school, and they were burdened with loads of homework, from course prep to paper grading to filling out Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for special-education students. In the humanities, it's easy to fall into the trap of always having to read another book, to work up another paper for publication, to prep extra hours for that class you teach. In the sciences, it's another matter entirely: hours in the lab and field add up quickly, and while humanities folks tend to work alone, in the sciences there's pressure to put in face time with your lab mates and other colleagues.
Several science bloggers recently weighed in on the mythical 40-hour workweek.
Mad Hatter points out that she has never worked a standard 40-hour week, then asks who does:
So who are the people working 40-hour weeks? The only people I know who work those hours are secretaries, clerks, and some lab techs. My labmate, D, knows some people in his neighborhood who work 40-hour weeks in mostly low-paying labor-intensive jobs. Between the two of us and another labmate, we couldn't come up with a single job that only requires 40 hours a week that any of us would find intellectually satisfying and would want to have.
Granted, the three of us are comprised of one PhD and two MD/PhDs...probably not your average population. And one could argue that all of my friends are non-representative as well because I've preferentially associated myself with other Type A workaholics. But I have to say I'm extremely skeptical of the existence of jobs that are intellectually challenging and that pay decently, in which someone could work 40 hours a week and still be competitive. And the reason, of course, is because intellectually challenging, decent-paying jobs attract people who are ambitious and driven.
Wouldn't it be great to be ambitious, driven, in love with your work--and still only work 40 hours a week? Arbitrista asks a variety of this question in the comments to Mad Hatter's post, which led to this exchange:
Arbitrista: I just wish we could re-structure the workplace so that we weren't all trapped in this prisoner's dilemma, where everyone thinks they have to work more than 40 hours a week. Working more than that just seems unhealthy, but we all end up being forced to do it anyway. I mean really - what's going to happen with the rest of one's life when all there is is work?
Mad Hatter: I agree, but I don't really see how that restructuring can be effected unless we create a system in which there are no avenues for advancement and there is 100% job security. Because as long as there is incentive for people to work harder, some people will. And everyone else will feel the pressure, real or imagined, to keep pace. The problem is that such a system will end up populated with unmotivated people who don't care about their work, which isn't good either.
In the same comments thread, Arduous asks the question that was always on my mind in my former, thumb-twiddling jobs:
I wish I worked 40 hours a week! But one of my biggest beefs is that after 8 hours, most people start becoming way less productive. And I'm an efficient worker so I can finish in 6 hours what takes others 8. So it's frustrating to me that then I have to stay 9-10 hours to "look good."
EcoGeoFemme laments the ambiguous expectations about academic hours:
It’s different in a university setting because people are off doing all sorts of things that make them absent from the office/lab. Students are teaching or taking classes, faculty are teaching or in meetings. This makes it easy for people to breeze in and out with little accountability for their time. I have no doubt that many academics work an obscene number of hours. But I also suspect that many students (and faculty for that matter) would be surprised by how little they work if they actually clocked their time spent really working.
The tricky thing is that students don’t really have to work any set number of hours. Their TA or RA is probably for 50% time, which is pretty unclear since they are obviously expected to work more than that. Nobody tells incoming students how much they should work, so some treat it like undergrad, showing up for class and doing everything else at home. Others, like me, treat it like a job, which may inhibit their progress. And of course, work hours are a central source of conflict in many student – advisor relationships.
Just one more thing that new academics are stuck learning for themselves. How many problems could be prevented or solved by just telling people what they need to know?
ScienceGirl says she couldn't--and doesn't want to--keep up with the long hours:
But even with all the opportunities in the world to apply my curiosity, here I am, a disgruntled grad student. Why? Because I have let myself to get convinced that there is only one way to stay on my career path: make my work the center of my life. I watch people that devote every waking minute to work; people that think that having any other commitment in life means that you are not serious about your work. Talking about non-work reveals your lack of commitment, and thus is frowned upon. Leaving work at 5 involves an apology and an excuse. Going to bed on time and without guilt means you are a slacker.
I followed the rules, and I burned out.
In another post, Mad Hatter explains what keeps pulling her back into the lab: competition. She writes,
But efficiency can only get one so far. An experiment I often perform is started on Day 0, must be manipulated again on Days 3 and 6, and must be analyzed on Day 7. If I were to never work on weekends, I would only be able to do two of these assays a week, whereas someone who is willing to work on weekends can start seven of these a week. Even if we work equally efficiently, that person would still beat me to publishing the results and, by extrapolation, out-compete me for jobs and funding.
This is the crux of the matter: long work hours are driven not by excessive workloads per se, but by competition amongst scientists for limited resources.
[...]
One could also choose to work in positions that are less demanding, as Propter Doc suggests. There is great variance in work hours between labs, departments, and institutions, but there's a catch: places that are less demanding also tend to be less highly-ranked. And there is definitely a "pedigree effect," based on the prestige of one's PI or institution, that influences one's chances of getting grants funded, even at the postdoctoral level. At the faculty level, working at less highly-ranked institutions will affect one's ability to attract high-quality graduate students and postdocs, which in turn affects one's productivity and ability to get funding.
Jennie writes about the blurring of home and work that comes with long days, and particularly if one's partner is also an academic:
My husband became more focused when he wrote and I became more distance. He became the wake-up-police. We would commonly work 12 hour days, 7 days a week. At first I enjoyed the new separation of work and home, since I no longer took work home. But then the line started to blur between work at home. We would call our dept. home and our home work. I started not working so well in my office since I felt trapped there.
Since, in theory, academics are supposed to be pursuing things that interest them, it's very easy for work and home lives to become blurred. You socialize with other academics, who may want to talk shop. Your leisure reading might be academic or scientific journals, or the latest book from your favorite university press. (Doesn't everyone have a favorite university press?)
ScienceWoman admits to feeling a twinge of guilt for leaving her daughter, Minnow, in daycare over spring break so that she can get some work done, but then reflects:
I prefer to think of my working spring break as one of the few times a mommy-profs gets a chance to catch up with their childless colleagues. I hope they are all staggering around drunk and not accomplishing anything. It might level the playing field.
The problem, I think, is that the people overseeing the research in labs often expect their grad students and postdocs to work "after hours" (whatever that means in an academic context), on weekends, and even over break. In a comment on a post by Amanda at A Lady Scientist, Academic shares this anecdote:
I remember sending an email to my advisor at 1000p from the lab on night because I was trying to get some code running. He replied AND he said that he was glad SOMEONE was in the lab! Apparently he thought that all graduate students should be married to their research.
What's the solution? Would it help if the people running labs were women who are also balancing the demands of marriage and childrearing? If so, how do these women secure those positions? And when women are in positions of power, are they really kinder, gentler leaders? Anecdotal evidence suggests that the first generation of women scientists to secure tenured research positions were put through a trial by fire--and some of them put their own women grad students and postdocs through the same trials in order to "toughen them up."
What are your thoughts? Is your workplace humane? Do you work reasonable hours?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>These days it's not just high school students with too much homework. Elementary school students, too, are bearing the brunt of the high-stakes testing industry. A recent study from Duke University says all this homework doesn't actually help young students do better on national tests. (Secondary students do benefit from regular homework assignments, although not, I imagine, from an avalanche of them.) The Evening Standard reports on the study and some UK teachers' reactions to it:
Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said she was not surprised by the results.
She said: "Children get extremely tired mentally and physically at school. Then they have to come home and do more work on top of that. It's counterproductive.
"While we're making six, seven and eight-year-olds do extra work, in some countries they wouldn't even have started formal schooling."
But David Fann, head of Sherwood and Broughton primaries in Preston, insists that homework does improve achievement.
He told the Times Educational Supplement: "Reading books at home, or doing half a dozen spellings, is an essential part of primary education.
"Without that process, a lot of children wouldn't have acquired confidence in their literacy and numeracy skills."
At present, the Government recommends that a Year Five pupil (ages nine and ten), should spend an hour a week on homework.
However, it is not uncommon for pupils in Year Five and Year Six (ages ten and 11) to be set two or three hours a week.
Last month, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers called for homework to be scrapped at primary school because it puts children under too much stress.
If you're looking to build a case against homework, and especially if you're looking for overwhelming anecdotal evidence against homework, your first stop should be Stop Homework, a blog by Sarah Bennett, co-author of the book The Case Against Homework. For example, she shares the story of an honors student who earned mostly As and an occasional B, but who dropped out of high school in his junior year. His story:
I was a bright student. I was quick to learn. And, I still passed all my tests. A’s. Maybe the occasional B. I paid attention in class. I took in the knowledge. And, I gave that knowledge right back to them when tested. Typically you would think that my test scores would show competency and success. I understood what I was taught without a doubt. Yet I failed four courses! Because I wouldn’t (no, because I couldn’t!!!) do my homework. It was too much. Way too much. Years and years of excessive homework took its toll on me. I was tired. I was fatigued. I was beat. And I dropped out.
The system turned a successful, smart kid into a worn out dropout.
Definitely go check out Bennett's blog. It's an eye-opener. I especially enjoyed the entries by Fed-Up Mom, who in one entry disabuses readers of common myths about homework. In responding to an apparently common response from schools that "A lot of our parents want more homework!" she writes,
This used to slow me down, but increasingly, I see it as a red herring. The bottom line is that nothing a parent says makes the slightest difference in how a public school is run. Parents don’t make policy. While it may be true that some parents want more homework, the school has no way to know whether they’re in the majority, and they make no effort to find out. And if some parents want more homework and others want none, how about an official opt-out policy?
I found that if I complained to the teacher and/or principal I could always get a deal for my child. One of the best-kept secrets at our school is that the homework is negotiable. But the negotiations are very unpleasant and had to start all over again every time my daughter got another teacher.
(Want to know more about The Case Against Homework? You can read a review of it at Teachers College Record. If you're not a subscriber, you can see the entire text at equip.)
A year ago, The New York Times reported on a student who managed to get the homework load reduced for students at his school. The article presented both sides in the debate over homework. An excerpt:
One faction of parents approves. But another complains that homework erodes childhood, leads to nightly squabbles and is responsible for ills like obesity and depression. The annual fall harvest of education books bring titles like “The Case Against Homework,” “The End of Homework” and “The Homework Myth,” which corroborate the argument of homework’s detractors. Advocates of severely limiting homework like to cite a letter to parents last September from the principal of Oak Knoll Elementary School in Menlo Park, Calif., declaring that one hour a night is more than enough for 9- and 10-year-olds.
“Large amounts of homework stifle motivation, diminish a child’s love of learning, turn reading into a chore, negatively affect the quality of family time, diminish creativity, and turn learning into drudgery,” the principal, David Ackerman, wrote.
What often gets lost in the debate is some common sense and some distinctions that need to be made for the children, courses and schools involved. One hour a night may be too much for a third grader, but not enough for a high-school junior taking three college-level classes. The demand for homework in a class of lagging readers from a neighborhood where parents may not be schooled enough to help or where the children may be frying burgers part time could be different than at a prep school where students shoot for the Ivies and parents are well educated.
Those who would virtually banish homework lose track of a reality pointed out by Eric Grossman, Stuyvesant’s assistant principal for English who has seniors read long novels like “Moby Dick.”
“That’s not something we can do in school in 40-minute chunks each day — and discuss,” he said. “One of the overarching goals in our department is to have students become lifelong independent readers.”
Over at the Region 19 Board of Education Gazette, the Caretaker dissects the differences between a 2007 survey on homework by Harris Interactive and the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education's interpretation of the report. The Caretaker writes,
CABE's framing of the results as supportive of homework practice is pure disinformation, inaccurate, and deceiving to CT Board members.
[...]
What CABE implies as does the CT State Board of Education is that homework is a silver bullet to success in school, that it is not the discrepancies in income and the quality of education in ghetto schools that is the problem but the laziness of students and a largely poor and uneducated minority population whose belief[s] (largely the result of state sponsored brain-washing) are far more important than the scientific research.
This myth is sold so successfully that most Americans believe that lazy parents and students are the cause of all educational ills and that it is the lack of homework and not quality that ails public education.
What are your thoughts?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>But what is a literacy coach? The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) explains that
Literacy coaches are teachers who have content and instructional expertise in literacy. They are released from teaching so they can promote and support high quality literacy instruction through direct, school-based work with other teachers. [. . .] The main benefits of literacy coaching are: increased teacher willingness and ability to collaborate, peer accountability, and teacher knowledge about other teachers' classrooms; increased levels and quality of implementation of new instructional strategies; and support for new teachers. Many respondents indicated teachers became more receptive to change. Several cited coaches' ability to keep equity goals in the forefront of teachers' conversations and practice and help teachers use differentiated instruction with at-risk students.
If you're interested in literacy coaching--in how it works, in becoming a literacy coach, in implementing literacy coaching practices in your classroom--you're in lucy because there is lots of information online from sources teachers trust, as well as from new organizations around which experts are coalescing. For example, the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse offers a number of briefs about literacy coaching, including articles about coaches' qualifications, how administrators can best work with coaches, and literacy coaching in classrooms of English language learners. The National Council of Teachers of English also has a page of links to resources on literacy coaching, including how to get started with literacy coaching, a listserv on literacy coaching, and standards for middle- and high-school literacy coaches. The International Reading Association also offers a page of literacy coaching resources, including books, articles, standards, and best practices. The Carnegie Reporter also has a long article about the evolving roles of literacy coaches.
Once you've made your way through all these resources, it's time to turn to blogs about literacy. These blogs will keep you updated on the latest research and best practices in literacy coaching and preK-12 reading.
Literacy.coach is written by a pair of literacy coaches. Don't miss the rich link love in the "Saturday Literacy Roundup" posts.
The Miss Rumphius Effect is "the blog of a teacher educator discussing poetry, children's literature and issues related to teaching children and their future teachers." I particularly enjoyed her post "Learning to Read and Learning to Love It." An excerpt:
All these thoughts bouncing around in my head have me thinking about how you get kids to love reading while they're learning to read, with the emphasis on enjoyment, not how fast, how accomplished or how soon it happens. Helping your child learn to read shouldn't be about bragging rights (MY child read Harry Potter at age 7), it should be about modeling and encouraging a healthy love for a skill that will last a lifetime.
What the Research Says offers "early literacy research distilled for educators." The blog is packed with short excerpts from literacy research, as well as brief commentary from the blogger.
Two Writing Teachers is the blog of Ruth Ayers and Stacey Shubitz. Particularly useful is their page of tools to support teaching reading and writing. Ayers and Shubitz are particular adept at combining words and text on their blog--and demonstrating how they use the same cross-media approach in their classrooms.
Literacy is Priceless is a blog packed with teaching tips and links to K-3 literacy resources. The resources recommended seem fabulous, and I like how bloggers Anna and Melissa integrate technology into their practice.
The tagline for Literate Lives is "Good books and how to use 'em with kids." What more is there to say? This blog offers summaries and reviews of a broad spectrum of fiction and nonfiction books for children, as well as some personal reflections.
Creative Literacy is a blog by an educator and mom who seeks her own "reading and writing identity" as she nurtures reading and writing in young people.
Read, Read, Read is "a collection of children's literature as viewed by a fifth grade teacher." Like many of the other teacher-bloggers mentioned in this post, Megan Germano offers book reviews and personal reflections on teaching and reading.
Susan at Literacy Coaching: Stories from School shares anecdotes from the classroom and from literacy coaching.
How are you promoting literacy in children's lives? And what resources do you recommend?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.
]]>Lauren expresses a concern that professors won't look at course evaluations, particularly for large lecture courses where they don't interact much with students. She also worries about the timing of course evaluations:
The timing of the evaluations is not chosen wisely. At the end of a semester students are just finalizing their last projects, tests, and papers. Grades for the most part have already been determined. Why would a student care about shedding light on a professor’s inadequacies when nothing they say will better the experience they will take from the class. The class is over; any complaints will just be a waste of time and energy. Evaluations should be a dynamic process that is available to students throughout the suration of the class. Feedback should be always provided to the instructor if a class if to be effective.
It is possible for professors to ignore course evaluations, which is too bad, because in my experience there's usually something there--a thoughtful critique or an expression of gratitude for a job well done--that makes them worth a read.
I agree with Lauren that the timing of course evaluations is bad: at the end of the term, everyone is tired and it can be hard to motivate students to take the time to write something meaningful on the evaluations. Worse, students' grades in the class often influence their opinion of a professor's skills. So if a student learns that she is getting a C in a course, it's likely--unless the professor is truly exceptional--that she will perceive the professor as below average. It's entirely possible that the professor in this example is below average--perhaps she couldn't teach the students well enough for them to earn As, or she wrote tests that didn't accurately assess what students were supposed to be learning in the course, or her grading methods were unfair. It's also possible that this professor is a pretty good instructor--but we won't necessarily know that by looking at end-of-course evaluations because these assessments tend to be colored by (a) a student's grade and (b) whether or not a student likes the professor's personality.
Craig Monk, a faculty member, dislikes the anonymity of student evaluations of faculty:
If you have a problem with a course and the way it is taught, you should always talk to the instructor about it while the course is ongoing. I have never understood why students fear reprisals in such a situation. How is it that we dignify such suspicions by structuring a whole system to protect people from something we only assume might happen? If a student with a complaint was ever somehow punished for complaining, mechanisms already exist to investigate and reverse any manner of asymmetrical treatment of individuals in the classroom. If the problem cannot be resolved, ultimately, if it is the kind of thing that should be reflected in a course evaluation, it is the principled thing to do to sign that evaluation, even though the instructor will not (and should not) see that signature.
It is my personal opinion, and only my personal opinion, that we should always require signatures. If we are going to say things about people, we should have to put our names to those things. We should send our students out into the world respecting the power of their opinions and better respecting those people on whom those opinions are brought to bear.
I'm not sure I need to have students sign their course evaluations, but it would be nice to see, in the aggregate, whether positive evaluations in my course correlated to high grades and more reserved evaluations associated with lower grades. I think anonymity is especially important in the case of students majoring in a discipline who may have the same professor again. Monk suggests student signatures should be removed from the evaluations faculty see, but there's a danger that evaluations to "leak" into the hands of the professor or her colleagues, thus jeopardizing students' right to comment freely without fear of reprisal in future courses.
The departments where I have worked have allowed us to see the original handwritten evaluations. In this digital age, the chances of me identifying a student's handwriting are slim, so I don't feel students' anonymity is being compromised. It's fun to imagine, however, which students heaped praise upon me, and I have to admit I even enjoy thoughtful critiques because ZOMG! at those moments students are thinking about learning. But every batch of course evaluations also includes maddening "evaluations," off-handed comments that make you furrow your brow or gasp in horror. For example: "the professor is biased towards those who did the readings" and "Professor Kibitzer makes me feel like I am stupit."
That said, I never have wanted to sue my students after reading their course evaluations. (The professor, Priya Venkatesan, has since dropped the lawsuit. That case, in which it appears professor and students really distrusted and mistreated one another, deserves its own blog post--and the professor thinks her experience is book-worthy. Oy.)
Of course, formal course evaluations aren't the only way students rate courses--there's also the infamous Rate My Professors, where students can post whatever they'd like to say about faculty, even if they never even attended the courses in question. Most faculty don't take the site seriously, but Lucky Jane thinks it has its merits:
we wandered onto the subject of Rate My Professors.
I’ll never forget their looks of horror when I defended the site, but I’d do it again. I know, I know it has no credibility, that it exists for disgruntled, anonymous students to indulge in their disgruntlement and anonymity as they trash their professors publicly, by name and institutional affiliation. Just as there’s no safeguard against one disgruntled student posting dozens of libelous reviews, so there’s no need even to have completed a course with a particular faculty member to post a review. Take one of my favorite mentors, a scholar-teacher who taught me everything I know. On RMP she is represented by a blue frown and someone who boasts of having dropped her class after the first day, because she said “um” so often as to indicate that she lacked the eloquence necessary to profess English. (I can’t help picturing that poster’s righteous head toss.) But then no one’s checking to make sure raters attended the class for even one day, or attends that institution at all, for that matter. That “ease” and “hottness” are on equal footing with “quality” speaks volumes about who uses the site: generally, stupid people rely on these criteria, and I don’t want stupid people in my classes.
Still, on a campus as vast as ours, students need—they deserve—a way to share opinions about us. College is expensive, and in terms of time more than money.
Click through the read all the reasons she feels the site is worth defending.
More suspect, I think, than Rate My Professors is Pick-A-Prof, which posts the grade distributions in courses taught by a given professor. Nice, eh? Now if you want to go to medical school, you can practically assure your 4.0 GPA by taking courses that don't challenge you or in which professors inflate grades relative to their colleagues. Pick-A-Prof came on the scene just as I was ending my last stint in the undergraduate classroom, so . What can you learn from Pick-A-Prof? Not much. Depending on your POV, the stats at that link tell you that a) I'm generous with grades (lots of As and Bs), b) it's hard to get an A in the survey course I teach, c) my TAs in the survey course grade too harshly, d) I instruct my TAs to give a lot of Bs, and/or e) my students in my upper-division course were How many of these are true? You'll never know. And honestly, I don't want students in my course who use Pick-A-Prof. If you're the kind of student who shops around for As and who sees Bs as a "bad" grade, then you're not likely to enjoy my efforts to educate you.
So if sites like Rate My Professors are so popular, why don't more universities offer evaluations online? (Hint: low response rates.) There's a lively discussion at FemaleScienceProfessor about the ins and outs of online and in-person course evaluations administered, in the case of FSP, by a "hostile zombie."
One partial solution to the ennui engendered by end-of-course evaluations is administering what my institution calls a "mid-quarter interview" or MQI. I didn't come up with the MQI system, but it's pretty damn brilliant. Here's how it works: A professor requests that a teaching consultant (moi) come to the classroom to chat with her students for 15-20 minutes. I come to the class with brief evaluation forms and pass them out to students. The students answer the first two questions on their own: "What do you most appreciate about this course or instructor?" and "What do you least appreciate about this course or instructor?"
Students then form small groups to brainstorm responses to the final question: &