3,2,1 Blast Off!

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I hope  you had a great weekend. I did. I ended up taking over leadership of my son's Cub Scout Pack this year and it has been a lot of work but a lot of fun also.

This weekend was out first Space Derby in recent memory. I have since heard rumors that there was a few in the past, but none experienced by any of us now participating. So, as a pack we bought a slick new track, passed  out the kits, had a meeting to start building them and off we went. And off they flew! Some of the rockets went through the track and crashed at the end, flying of the track. Good thing someone thought to bring some fast drying model glue. One or two rockets had so much torque they just spun right off the guide!

One of my top goals was to have maximum participation. In order to do that we used a system called the perfect N which is sort of like a modified round robin tournament. Every racer raced four times, once in each lane. It was great. The only delays were the time it took to wind each rocket. There was also a few technical problems and kinks we worked out on the way but still everybody raced 4 times. Twenty heats is a lot of heats for a space derby.

I know it went well because after the official heats were over people wanted to race some more just for fun. And that is what Cub Scouting is supposed to be, fun with a purpose. Mostly, it was the joy of watching my own son getting a ribbon and a huge smile. Being a dad is very cool.

Good-bye 2010, Hello 2011

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I'm not sure what to make of this past year,2010. I had some good times, some not so good times, and some just plain ridiculous times.

I guess if you are a Republican or Conservative it turned out to be a not so bad year. Unless, of course, like me you live in California where the likes of Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Gaven Newsom and Jerry Brown still hold the masses under a deep hypnosis of liberalism. 

I am still trying to find a Tea Party in my area. I think the basic ideals of conservative, which the Republican Party so easily strays from need to be advertised and presented in a understandable manner. I am very tired of hearing Democrats and liberals, via their propaganda wing (like la Times) misstating conservative ideals and deceiving the public by withholding the truth about liberals and liberalism. News agencies refuse to tackle the truth. For example,I have yet to see and news article on the fact that in a state run by a Democratic legislature, that since 2005, over 1,200,000 Californians lost their jobs and that companies have taken those jobs to more business friendly states. I have yet to hear a whisper of a call for accountability from the legislature from our press core. That is why so many turn to the internet. May the government keeps its' slimy hands off!!! 

What I did enjoy this year was going on vacation with my family and participating in Cub Scouts with my son. There is nothing like the smile on your child's face when they are enjoying something other than video games. 

May God bless you and your family, our state, and our country.

Have a great and blessed 2011!

Teachers and Reform

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As a 22 year veteran of public education I have lived the tension between my union, the district, teachers and reform. I have seen the status quo, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and now Race to the Top. 

As an educator  I have served as a classroom teacher, categorical program advisor, intervention coordinator and administrator. As a teacher I encountered what all teachers encounter; students, parents and administrative bureaucracy. Now, each of these have an effect on each and every classroom. They also are a constant source of complaints and excuses from educators. I can not tell you how many times I have heard, "These kids," "These parents," and "These administrators." Usually some expression of exasperation related to how impossible it seems to be a successful educator under the present conditions. Personally, I learned that in public education I have no control over which children live in the area I teach, the parents that give birth to them and raise them (or not), and in my present position I have little to no influence with or over the district I work for.  So, I just do the best I can from where we are at. In that sense I find teacher evaluations a tenuous task if it does not take into consideration how little control a teacher has of outside influences that directly affect outcomes. Besides the fact that districts are famous for changing programs every seven years,which means teachers must relearn their material, which may take years to master, on an ongoing basis. Then the outcomes are changed randomly with the change of political leadership (currently and oxymoron).  The Kiss (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle is never applied to educational leadership.

I also question the idea that we just need to fire all the bad teachers. Although I do agree that some should go, I ask who would take their place? If there is an imagined line of "good" teachers waiting to take over classrooms, it is only in someones imagination, not reality. The reality is that even among good teachers not many are highly affective. In a conversation I had last week with a colleague (who I am humbled by his effectiveness) we came to an interesting perspective. I come from a church background and there is a portion of the Bible that describes some (valuable and good) leaders and being "apt" to teach, meaning they were not gifted at teaching but were able to get the point across. Many teachers are "apt" to teach, but few are gifted with a natural talent for helping others learn.

One truth that is often overlooked is that high performing students usually come from good, stable families. As I wrote earlier, teachers have no control over who enrolls at there school and little to no control over which students they get. As an aside, teaching gifted students is really an unfair benefit for a teacher to be judged by or comparison against with other teachers. Gifted and high achieving students usually already get how to learn and have learned it before you teach it.

Where is my union on all this? ...