Three Cups of Tea

While reading this remarkable book and discussing it in depth, I have come to some realizations of my own. One of these being the wealth in which we live, and the privilege our children have to such a well-funded, non-biased education. In small villages in Pakistan, the children have been forgotten by the government. While many of the larger towns and cities have government sustained schools, the funds allotted to these towns are ciphoned off before they reach them. Greg Mortenson saw this need for schools and created the Central Asia Institute to fund and build schools across rural Pakistan.

This need for schools was also met by another means, the Taliban-funded Madrassas. These "schools" were instilling Islamic Extremist values into the students of the small towns, who were desperate for any opportunity to learn. Greg Mortenson counteracted this by building secular schools, combatting the militant curriculum and hate bred by the Madrassas.

I am so thankful for the education I have had, and the one I hope to provide my students. I feel, as Mr. Mortenson does, the only way to fight terror and hatred is through education. We as teachers need to understand the situations in which some schools around the globe operate, how children endure such poverty and misdirection, and teach our students to be compassionate and thankful humans.

Miss Gabbert

"Chalk"

The one word I can find to describe the teachers of chalk is "dysfunctional." Each one was blessed with his or her giant flaw conveniently manufactured by the writers, of course. I could tolerate most of the shortcomings, finding them mildly humorous; the high-strung AP, the gym teacher and her obsession for rules, the history teacher with zero classroom management. The one that I could not laugh at, however, was the Social Studies teacher. He had his sights set on the Teacher of the Year award, and could focus on little else but himself. His students learned little to nothing in his class, and at one point he even told off a student for knowing more about history than he did. "Act a little bit dumber, please. You are making me look bad."

That holds little humor to me. The fact that children are not learning is not a laughing matter, but rather one of real and serious consequence. I am unaware of how many teachers actually forgo learning for superficial relationships with students, to be perceived as a "cool" or popular teacher. There is nothing of substance, no real learning happening in that classroom. Children are reading the subtle hints that knowledge isn't actually important. It is more important to be liked. It is more important to have fun.

Superficially, I enjoyed the movie. But the things it hints at make me wary.

Miss Gabbert

Making the Grade: Who Gets the "A"

I can remember the feeling I had at midterm when I saw my grade. "98%! Yes!" I thought to myself. But as my eyes wandered to the letter printed next to it I felt my elation drop sharply. "B+? Really?" I could hardly wrap my mind around it. On what planet is a 98% a B+?

This is the dilemma teachers face. How do you grade students fairly, while maintaining a high standard? How many students should get A's? How do you control grade inflation? In the above example, enough students achieved in the top two percent to bring up the curve to an unreasonable level. This is a textbook example of norm-referenced grading. Experts find that it is detrimental to the relationships between students, as well as the relationship between students and teachers. Anita Woolfolk, author of Educational Psychology, mentions that the curve arbitrarily limits the number of good grades that can be given. The normal curve has no sacred meaning in education. Is the goal not to see all students succeed? Therefore, when only a handful of students are considered "A" students, we have failed them. Norm-referenced grading is an inefficient method of grading students, which, to some extent, breeds hostility and learned helplessness in the classroom.

Another method of grading, seen as superior to norm-referenced grading, is criterion-referenced grading. If a student meets clear objectives set out by the instructor, then he or she will receive the correlating grade. In this way, students can work towards the grade they want by meeting the criteria. If in my example I had been graded according to the criterion-referenced method, I would have received my "rightful" A, since I had answered correctly the test questions.

There are more ways to grade than just the above examples. Despite this, it is important for teachers to choose the best method for the activity at hand, not a one size fits all grading pattern. For indeed there might be times when the norm-referenced grading system may be appropriate. Keep in mind the goals, which are for all students to learn and excel.

Miss Gabbert

Recess Deficiency Disorder

I was recently reading an article from the New York Times about the watering-down of recess time. It mentioned how games like tag and dodgeball are being considered too rough for children. I see this as a major shortcoming of our educational system.

With many schools cutting recess altogether, it is alarming that in these instances they are beginning that process. It has been concluded that play is children's work, that they learn and grow, make social bonds, and gain exercise. When recess is eliminated, or even watered down, the children have lost an outlet for energy, creativity and imagination.

Also, let us consider the nature of the game tag. It does not involve checking (hockey), tackling (football), or any other potentially serious bodily injury. It involves a simple touch. Now when our children's wellbeing is endangered by a game of tag, what else could we possibly save them from?

Miss Gabbert

The article can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/education/14recess.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=recess&st=cse

Lost and Found

I experienced a strange cultural phenomenon this morning while at Church Youth Fest Sunday service. Usually, as have been all my observations, children and adolescents will embrace the "cool" or "pop" music if presented to them, rather than traditional music, such as hymns. Well, today I have dropped all of my stereotypes. The band Lost and Found, a quasi-Christian worship-leading band, was up on stage and singing an upbeat chorus. The kids in the audience were singing softly, not getting into the music. However, when the band left the stage and the hymn started to play, the result was magical. The kids were singing with gusto, creating harmonies and truly embracing the message.

I think this strange phenomenon translates to teaching as well. Fads in teaching may come, and kids very well might embrace the style or technique. But genuine instruction based on research and results will always prevail. Teachers who put their students' learning first will never go out of style.

Miss Gabbert

School Board Forum

Monday, October 27th 2008: Olin 102. For the second week in a row, we were presented with a panel of persons from the Decorah School System. This week it was school board members. They came from many walks of life and backgrounds.

I was first taken aback by how little power they actually had. I will give the example of the budget. It is common for everyone to think that the school board has ultimate control over where the funding goes and how it is distributed. The panel dispelled this rumor. They said that federal money comes into the district with a predetermined purpose and destination. Some funding may come in and it can only be used for hiring new teachers, or only for the music program. If there is a surplus in one area, it can not be put to use somewhere else. They find this very frustrating.

I feel this kind of dialogue between school board members and teachers is very important. It facilitates the understanding of each group, so that no one is unaware of the needs and necessary procedures of the schools and their operation. I encourage everyone to become familiar with the way their district works, and the people in charge.

Miss Gabbert

Because "My" and "I" Exist, Therefore There is Life After Death

I have a wide range of interests. When I am not growing tomatoes, loving animals and making projects out of paper mache, I enjoy pondering the world around me. Thus, when I noticed a flier for a lecture by a prominent philosophy professor from the University of California at San Diego, I jumped at the opportunity. After getting the time and date wrong I, in my zeal for philosophy conversation, finally made it to the lecture hall.

He started out by retelling the conversation he had had a few weeks prior over lunch with two professors of biology at the University. They had insisted that scientifically it was impossible for life to exist after death, while he maintained that because we have the linguistic terms for self, then it must exist. That was what he presented to us tonight. His thesis on the afterlife was derived from a lunch conversation.

To be a little more precise, he stated that because we have differing terms of self, such as my and I, therefore we have already in our vocabulary the words for something besides a strictly physical existence. He asked us to consider how we would say the phrase "my leg hurts," but in essence we are more than just a leg, the leg belongs to "us" and that s what was significant. He then asked us to look up the definition of any animal in a "good" dictionary and we would find a picture of that animal, what foods it eats, where it lives, etc. But if we were to look up the definition of "person" we would find no such descriptors, but instead a series of words describing the faculties of logic and reason. Because of the way we define ourselves, we are already assuming that we are more than just physical creatures but logical creatures and therefore possibly eternal creatures.

I personally found this "logic" (as he referred to it a multitude of times) faulty. We ourselves shape our language. Does this mean that we also shape our destinies, our afterlives? He also kept referring to the equation a+a=a, and saying that concrete logic, such as this equation, was what brought him to his thesis. But, logically, a+a does not equal "a" but "2a." The logic from which our certain afterlife was derived was crumbling beneath him.

After the fifteen minute lecture (1/4th of the allotted time) he opened the floor up for questions. But, unfortunately, the questions the philosophical community at Luther conjured up were "too complex to be answered at this time" or needed to be understood "within the context of my book." The most insulting, however, was the "you need to take a philosophy course to understand" response given to one of our esteemed professors of philosophy.

What I left the lecture with (besides a feeling of relief that I did not attend the University of California at San Diego) was a flaming indigence at the ignorance this professor assumed we lived in, and no clear philosophical argument for life after death.