The First Explorer to Travel around the Horn of Africa

Walking past a history classroom yesterday, I heard a teacher, probably reading from a test, ask, "Who was the first explorer to travel around the Horn of Africa?" She then listed four possibles. I recognized two of the four and immediately knew the answer to be the first listed, Vasco Da Gama. I doubt, however, that I would have been able to answer that question had it been a fill-in-the-blank. I'm not sure exactly when I learned about Vasco. Probably in late "grammar" school. But I do know that, unless you count yesterday's experience as a "need to know," I have never in the past 55-plus years needed to know that the first explorer to travel around the Horn of Africa was Vasco Da Gamma. I wonder what else I learned that I have never needed and have since forgotten that I know. How much of my education K through masters was a waste of time and effort?

Google Docs

Have I mentioned that I'm a Google Docs proponent? I've tried a few of the others, e.g., Microsoft Office SkyDrive and Zoho and for my and my students use, Google Docs just works. The applications are not nearly as robust as desktop versions of office suites, yet they are more than adequate for most of us. Assuming few changes over the next six or so months, I plan to migrate our school to Google Apps next summer. I find that the three most valuable features of  Google Docs are 1) the cost (free); 2) access from any computer with Internet access; and document collaboration.

If you're new to Google Docs and are interested in getting starting, you might want to view the video tutorials at http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/learn-about-google-docs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GoogleAppsBlog+%28The+Google+Apps+Blog%29.

Pushing College

One of my favorite blogs, discussing the student loan problem, posted the following in part:

I fully understand that this fix [eliminating government student loan guarantees] would likely prevent thousands, if not millions, of young people from attending college, because schools would have to become more picky as to who was accepted in order to keep costs down.  Millions of poor people will either have to put college off or go part-time, taking longer to finish their schooling. 

To me, that’s fine.  A stint in grad school grading papers opened my eyes to the fact that there are a lot of young adults out there who absolutely do not belong in college--they simply don’t have the intellectual capability to handle a traditional university course load.  And we are not doing the poor any favors at all by putting them $20K, $50K, $100K or more into debt when they are barely into their wealth-creating years.  We can’t continue setting up entire generations of young people to fail for the false promise that a piece of paper provides.

I agree. Not solely because of the huge debt being accumulated, much of which is never paid, but also because unprepared students who drop out before being awarded a degree consume huge amounts of limited scholarship dollars--dollars that if more prudently appropriated, could have eased the debt load of more qualified and motivated students.

I teach at a high school that brags that 98% of graduates are accepted into college and proudly displays (one of those thermometer things) the amount of scholarship dollars graduating seniors have received. The college counselor does a fantastic job of conducting a two-week, one hour daily, College Boot Camp; orchestrating college visits; transporting students to college fairs; hosting college admission and college attending alumni speakers; guiding, assisting and following up students' completion and submission of college applications; and educating students and parent/guardians about the intricacies of financing college. Yet the school does not track student college attrition and I know that many graduates are not academically, intellectually, emotionally or psychologically prepared to attend and succeed in college. Actually, many of them, probably about half, come to us unprepared for 9th grade, so we play a catch-up game that we cannot win.

Sadly, by achieving the high rate of undeserved college acceptances, I believe we are doing a terrible disservice to our graduates, indirectly lying to them by giving them the impression that they are ready for college. How disappointing and potentially hurtful will it be when they have to drop out owing thousands of dollars?

Can Educating Children Be Compared to Training Dogs?

"Dogs: An unusual guide to school reform" -- a blog by Marion Brady in The Washington Posts' The Answer Sheet.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise. It's like comparing apples to oranges but I do agree that our current ed system's grouping of students into grade levels guarantees that we lose many who have an aptitude for one or some but not all subject areas.

Students Are Bored! Duh....

Headline:

Latest HSSSE results show familiar theme: bored, disconnected students want more from schools

Some excerpts:

"The numbers between 2006 and 2009 have consistently shown a troubling trend among high school students in the U.S."

"'We've got similar numbers in terms of kids who are bored every day -- about 49 percent of the kids are bored every day, 17 percent every class. That's two-thirds of the kids who are bored at least every day.'"

"But students did clearly indicate what might motivate them. Asked to respond to the statement that they welcome opportunities to be creative at school, 82 percent said they agree or strongly agree. As for what methods they preferred in the classroom, 65 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 'I like discussions in which there are no clear answers.'

"'Many students would be more engaged in school if they were intellectually challenged by their work. Discussion and debate is still one of the highest rated kinds of teaching, as are group projects,' Yazzie-Mintz [project director] said. 'Technology projects, art and drama projects also have a good number of kids saying they really like this type of teaching.'"

Now we need a study to determine if cause (bored) and effect (substandard performance) are in play--more money wasted on the obvious.

Blame the Teachers 2?

Back in July I addressed research that indicated that student performance is mostly (80%) due to environmental and cultural factors leaving only 20% due to teachers (13%) and schools (7%). Another study reported on by the author in the CommonWealth finds that "there is surprisingly little difference between the quality of teaching in so-called “good” schools (wealthy, suburban schools with high MCAS scores) and “bad” schools (inner-city schools with low scores) when the results are averaged across all teachers in the district and disaggregated by student demographics, specifically race and poverty." The author, Edward Moscovitch, president of Cape Ann Economics and chairman of the Bay State Reading Institute, using the data from the study goes on to debunk most of the popular carrot and stick reforms being initiated as a result of federal pressure: merit pay, charter schools, and firing teachers.

Must Read - Moursund

I am a strong proponent of project-based learning (PBL) and a fan of David Moursund, a prolific writer of over 50 books, many of which focus on technology in teaching and learning. Twenty-six of his books are available for free online and what I consider one of his most valuable books, Project-Based Learning Using Information Technology, is available from ISTE (David was the founder of ISTE) for $34.95 ($24.45 for members).

For a shortcut version of his thoughts on PBL see this website where he provides a syllabus, outline and other materials for a one credit course/workshop on PBL.