My family chipped in and bought me an iPad for my 'special' birthday this month.
I haven't talked to anyone since. Or puttered around the house, or gone to a movie or even cooked a meal.
(Well, maybe one, when some special friends arrived from across the continent and I picked my head up to make an effort).
I even wake up in the middle of the night to play with it. It gleams in the darkness, lighting the way to knowledge. It also has terrific solitaire games!
Along with the new iPad came lessons at the local Apple store. I was very wary. I had taken 'computer courses' before, in my previous incarnation as an educator.
They were terrible. And I should know, because I know about learning.
As far as I'm concerned, there should be a corner in Michelangelo's 'Last Judgement' reserved for computer classes. What could be a more brutal torture than to find yourself sitting for hours looking up at a large, blinking projection at the front of a lab while the teacher/facilitator (there's an oxymoron) stammers and apologizes,
"I don't get it. This worked before. Wait a minute. No, ignore that....sorry." etc., etc.
To cover the instructor's tush, in one such week-long course on photoshop, everyone was given a certificate of proficiency anyways, even though none of us could demonstrate anything of much competence. Since many of my classmates were actually paying big bucks for the course (unlike moi, who, in the interest of full disclosure, was subsidized by my board) it was the least the 'school' could do.
And...after all, if people didn't pass, where would future clients, oh, excuse me, students, come for?
It's strange to admit this, especially since I spent the last 25 years teaching others, but I actually hated school.
Most of the time. Once in a while, especially in the primary years, I managed to enjoy myself and pick up a few things, but later on, I cringed. I was educated in the days of what they used to call 'teacher-centered learning', so much depended on the competence and personality of the teacher. The pickings were pretty slim. Do I really have to expand on this?
We had no 'google', of course, so our curiosity was severely hampered. Oh, we could visit the local library, undergo a background check, get fingerprinted and be allowed to take out a couple of dusty books for a week or two from their limited and highly guarded resources. Or, if we were lucky enough to find one in our family, we could try to eavesdrop when the occasional intelligent person was expressing a new idea, but the opportunity to participate in a meaningful discussion was often curtailed by the universally-held belief that children should be 'seen' but not, of course, engaged in actual conversation.
So I've spent a lifetime being a self-taught kind of learner. And I believe I've leaned a lot.
(As a matter-of-fact, I have heard myself flatteringly referred to as a Miss Know-it-All on many occasions!)
And I just love learning. I can't stop myself. For me, the best thing to come along since my university stack pass has been the internet. The concept that I can have a question about something, anything, and touch a couple of keys or a pretty glass screen and 'ta-da' there is the answer, or a link to it, is mind candy for me.
I'm actually quite addicted. To wondering about stuff. And then, finding out. If I had my way, school would be kids with wireless laptops searching for answers to facilitator-posited questions on a variety of subjects. The questions would not be things like, "If Johnny has ten candies and three friends, how many candies does each friend get? but rather, why/why not should he give them any? or, how many are left for him and how will he console himself with the remainder? Answer with reference to at least three religions. Then, are you satisfied with these explanations? If not, why not? Suggest an alternative for bonus marks!"
So the chance to expose myself to more school was a little unsettling. But one of my friends, who had skipped many a boring class with me in high school, a retired teacher of gifted nerds and a formerly very late adapter, assured me that going to the Mac Store school was a completely different learning experience and that I'd love it.
Although 'Trust' is not my middle name, I decided to give it a shot.
More on this later. I have to drag myself away from the keyboard and get dressed. I have another lesson in half an hour.
Showing posts with label Life Learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life Learning. Show all posts
Monday, November 8, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Those Who Can - Waiting for Superman
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the new film documentary, “Waiting for Superman” lays most of the blame for the current crisis in education at the feet of teachers and their horrible unions. According to filmmaker David Guggenheim (whose own offspring, he confides, are safely ensconced in private institutions) they are sucking all the money out of the system for living wages and harboring tenured reprobates in their bosoms. Without them, we could just get on with the joy of infusing the young with intelligence, proficiency and skills for success in life, just like we used to before they took over.
(Who ‘we’ are is never really disclosed).
It’s an easy shot. Who, among us, hasn’t had at least one (or ten) teachers we didn’t like, who made us suffer, picked on us just because we didn’t do our homework, made us throw away our gum, took away that note passed across the desks from the friend across the room, or, worst of all, gave us a detention for speaking out of turn? Depending on our own ability to adapt to the classroom, we might easily look back and recall a few names we’d like to see scratched out of the ‘Book of the Living’.
And yet, here many of us are, relatively well-educated, competent, at least, in what is referred to as ‘Basic Skills’, ‘Literacy’, ‘Numeracy’ and acceptable table manners, able to earn a living, manage a mortgage and raise a family and even survive the little challenges of life, like divorce and taxes, without too much calamity.
Casting his eyes around for a suitable subject for the successor to the controversial but highly popular sensation, “An Inconvenient Truth”, Guggenheim tells us he was struck by the sad state of the local public school he passed by daily when carpooling his kids to a much better private school. The fact that the American middle class (and increasingly the vanishing middle class up here, in Canada) has, over the years, withdrawn its support for, participation in and commitment to public education, like he has, himself, is a logical point he never acknowledges. There is an uncomfortable condescension to the ‘disadvantaged’ in the thesis of this film, which the nobody in the media seems to be noticing or commenting on as they hop on the bandwagon of praise for its shallow analysis.
Checking all this out is a big job…..say, it’s a job for….wait for it…..”Superman”!!!
Leave it to Mr. Simpleton, make that Guggenheim, to choose, as a name for his movie, a popular iconic metaphor, where kids are rescued by a ‘deus ex-machina’, instead of plain hard work. Everything about this documentary screams shallow cliché, from its throwing around of random statistics projected on the screen (in case you want to jot them down for future reference), tacky graphics, and the corny, time-worn doc convention of following a selection of sad-eyed child-contestants as they vie for some prize or other. In this case, unlike the excellent film “Spellbound”, which unfolded in a charming narrative structure accompanied by clever visual design and delightful music, where the parents and kids actually exhausted themselves working for their reward, or the outstanding documentary of several years ago, “WarDance”, which unfolded dramatically in the most gorgeous footage ever shot, the child/victims and their hapless parents in “Waiting for Superman” suffer under poor lighting, sitting passively by, waiting for their fates to be randomly decided in heartless lotteries while the cameramen hover like vultures, picking at the corpses.
You have to ask yourself why, in the course of this movie, no one asks the obvious questions….who thought this ridiculous system up? Why hasn’t anyone rebelled? You might also ask why there is no honest examination of the majority of those Charter schools which fail to measure up even adequately, or which narrow their curricula solely to readin’ and math and teach only to the test or hire (and fire, as needs be) uncertified, underpaid ‘teacher-facilitators’?
With all this emphasis on testing, what happens when a school does really well, year after year, scoring so well that there is no dramatic ‘improvement’? I’ll tell you. First of all, the school administration cannot draw favorable notices from on high, since their scores are static. They get less support, which, in education, means money and staffing. Resources are thrown down the bottomless pits while the tall poppies, as they are called, get lopped off. I taught at such a public school and the pride we felt for the success of our students was quickly shifted over to the parents and the community. After all, how could we teachers take any credit, when they gave us such excellently raised and motivated kids to work with? (But never seek to blame a community for poorly prepared pupils, on pain of PC death!)
There is no question that all is not well in the American educational system. In “Waiting for Superman”, most of the people with all the answers, have never really taught school at all, or if they have, it was brief step on the way up to academic bureaucracy, well above the ‘fray’. Some authorities are, themselves, the products of private education with ingrained prejudices about public schools. The irony is that a few, who pulled themselves up with hard work, now believe they must work outside the system. For profit, by the way. (There is no mention that the private sector must generate a profit or else it goes out of business!) This film would like you to forget about the many dedicated and sincere public school educators trying their best, every day, to make things better for their students.
Putting the blame for society’s educational ills mainly at the feet of the teachers’ unions and mocking due process for grievances is disingenuous, to say the least, especially when you can’t resist editing in some archival footage you’ve dug up showing ‘olden days’ schools and tell the audience that unions were first a ‘good thing’ since most of the staff were mere women who were being terribly exploited. (Hey, Mr. Guggenheim, that’s what usually, happens when workers have no contracts or agreements and can be terminated at will. Brush up on your Woody Guthrie songs). A highly respected, award-winning Science teacher I know was terminated at a prestigious private school because they could hire two starter teachers for the salary they were paying her! At another private school, a teacher/friend was told to keep her big mouth shut about how the sociopath in her Grade 9 class was interfering with the learning of the other high paying students. When she insisted his removal be considered, she was told, "You don't have a Private School mentality, my dear." She was 'let go' shortly thereafter.
Let's not even start about the 'credit mills' that popped up everywhere as soon as private school tuition became deductible. One of my students told me his father was told if he paid a little more, the marks might be more impressive!
Nothing is perfect, but to suggest that employees have a nerve to expect to be paid a living wage, have some job security and work in safe and decent circumstances is very 19th Century, if you ask me. Especially when you are entrusting, to them, the care and education of your most precious possessions.
The ‘inconvenient truth’ here is that when you insist on using a business model, refer to students as clients and treat staff as expendable if they don’t generate a ‘profit’, (ie. high test scores) no matter how poor the raw materials might be, you are setting yourself up for failure with a capital ‘F’.
(Who ‘we’ are is never really disclosed).
It’s an easy shot. Who, among us, hasn’t had at least one (or ten) teachers we didn’t like, who made us suffer, picked on us just because we didn’t do our homework, made us throw away our gum, took away that note passed across the desks from the friend across the room, or, worst of all, gave us a detention for speaking out of turn? Depending on our own ability to adapt to the classroom, we might easily look back and recall a few names we’d like to see scratched out of the ‘Book of the Living’.
And yet, here many of us are, relatively well-educated, competent, at least, in what is referred to as ‘Basic Skills’, ‘Literacy’, ‘Numeracy’ and acceptable table manners, able to earn a living, manage a mortgage and raise a family and even survive the little challenges of life, like divorce and taxes, without too much calamity.
Casting his eyes around for a suitable subject for the successor to the controversial but highly popular sensation, “An Inconvenient Truth”, Guggenheim tells us he was struck by the sad state of the local public school he passed by daily when carpooling his kids to a much better private school. The fact that the American middle class (and increasingly the vanishing middle class up here, in Canada) has, over the years, withdrawn its support for, participation in and commitment to public education, like he has, himself, is a logical point he never acknowledges. There is an uncomfortable condescension to the ‘disadvantaged’ in the thesis of this film, which the nobody in the media seems to be noticing or commenting on as they hop on the bandwagon of praise for its shallow analysis.
Checking all this out is a big job…..say, it’s a job for….wait for it…..”Superman”!!!
Leave it to Mr. Simpleton, make that Guggenheim, to choose, as a name for his movie, a popular iconic metaphor, where kids are rescued by a ‘deus ex-machina’, instead of plain hard work. Everything about this documentary screams shallow cliché, from its throwing around of random statistics projected on the screen (in case you want to jot them down for future reference), tacky graphics, and the corny, time-worn doc convention of following a selection of sad-eyed child-contestants as they vie for some prize or other. In this case, unlike the excellent film “Spellbound”, which unfolded in a charming narrative structure accompanied by clever visual design and delightful music, where the parents and kids actually exhausted themselves working for their reward, or the outstanding documentary of several years ago, “WarDance”, which unfolded dramatically in the most gorgeous footage ever shot, the child/victims and their hapless parents in “Waiting for Superman” suffer under poor lighting, sitting passively by, waiting for their fates to be randomly decided in heartless lotteries while the cameramen hover like vultures, picking at the corpses.
You have to ask yourself why, in the course of this movie, no one asks the obvious questions….who thought this ridiculous system up? Why hasn’t anyone rebelled? You might also ask why there is no honest examination of the majority of those Charter schools which fail to measure up even adequately, or which narrow their curricula solely to readin’ and math and teach only to the test or hire (and fire, as needs be) uncertified, underpaid ‘teacher-facilitators’?
With all this emphasis on testing, what happens when a school does really well, year after year, scoring so well that there is no dramatic ‘improvement’? I’ll tell you. First of all, the school administration cannot draw favorable notices from on high, since their scores are static. They get less support, which, in education, means money and staffing. Resources are thrown down the bottomless pits while the tall poppies, as they are called, get lopped off. I taught at such a public school and the pride we felt for the success of our students was quickly shifted over to the parents and the community. After all, how could we teachers take any credit, when they gave us such excellently raised and motivated kids to work with? (But never seek to blame a community for poorly prepared pupils, on pain of PC death!)
There is no question that all is not well in the American educational system. In “Waiting for Superman”, most of the people with all the answers, have never really taught school at all, or if they have, it was brief step on the way up to academic bureaucracy, well above the ‘fray’. Some authorities are, themselves, the products of private education with ingrained prejudices about public schools. The irony is that a few, who pulled themselves up with hard work, now believe they must work outside the system. For profit, by the way. (There is no mention that the private sector must generate a profit or else it goes out of business!) This film would like you to forget about the many dedicated and sincere public school educators trying their best, every day, to make things better for their students.
Putting the blame for society’s educational ills mainly at the feet of the teachers’ unions and mocking due process for grievances is disingenuous, to say the least, especially when you can’t resist editing in some archival footage you’ve dug up showing ‘olden days’ schools and tell the audience that unions were first a ‘good thing’ since most of the staff were mere women who were being terribly exploited. (Hey, Mr. Guggenheim, that’s what usually, happens when workers have no contracts or agreements and can be terminated at will. Brush up on your Woody Guthrie songs). A highly respected, award-winning Science teacher I know was terminated at a prestigious private school because they could hire two starter teachers for the salary they were paying her! At another private school, a teacher/friend was told to keep her big mouth shut about how the sociopath in her Grade 9 class was interfering with the learning of the other high paying students. When she insisted his removal be considered, she was told, "You don't have a Private School mentality, my dear." She was 'let go' shortly thereafter.
Let's not even start about the 'credit mills' that popped up everywhere as soon as private school tuition became deductible. One of my students told me his father was told if he paid a little more, the marks might be more impressive!
Nothing is perfect, but to suggest that employees have a nerve to expect to be paid a living wage, have some job security and work in safe and decent circumstances is very 19th Century, if you ask me. Especially when you are entrusting, to them, the care and education of your most precious possessions.
The ‘inconvenient truth’ here is that when you insist on using a business model, refer to students as clients and treat staff as expendable if they don’t generate a ‘profit’, (ie. high test scores) no matter how poor the raw materials might be, you are setting yourself up for failure with a capital ‘F’.
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