Old Math

Last Blog

2006-03-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

I got started with volunteer work at a middle school because I wanted to make a difference in education. Maybe not a huge difference but a noticeable and positive difference. The alternative seemed to be writing cranky letters to the local newspaper complaining about the school district; or running for the school board and have people complain about me.

I started reading education blogs because I saw all these people interested in education; I wanted to see what they had to say.

Finally I started writing a blog because I wanted my comments to come from someplace, I wanted people to know why I was saying what I did.

But I found I could not write what I wanted to say because I could not violate the privacy of the kids I worked with. Leaving aside the fact that I had at most three and a half readers, I am not enough of a writer to disguise the stories. I am helping transition an emotionally disturbed student to general education, today alone I have along blog's worth of material - but it is not my material it is his. So I gripe about idiotic math curriculums - pretty stale brew.

Lately I have stopped reading most other blogs as well. It is the same stories time and again:

Teacher Abuse of Students
Student Abuse of Teachers
Administration Abuse of Everyone
Lousy School of the Week

It just gets old. And the comments are predictable. You can read a blog and you KNOW what NYC Educator, Darren, and Mike In Texas are going to say. It might be witty, pertinent or impassioned but nobody every changes their mind about anything and nobody, least of all me, seems to learn anything.

Bottom line is I need to give the whole bogging thing a rest for a while before I get cynical.

Factor Fear

2006-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have been taken to task for using the term "Progressive Education" to describe the modern instructional practices. Progressive education is all about methods that work, since the methods I complain about don't work they are, ipso facto, not Progressive.
As my charges might say: whatever. I readily admit I don't know anything about Education, which is the academic study of how to teach. I am, however, starting to learn something about education, which is the practical art of teaching.

Every number can be written as the product of a unique set of prime numbers. For example the number 60 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 5 and that is the only product of prime numbers that equals 60, discounting permutation of course. This is known as the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. Factors are wonderfully useful for finding common divisors and other basic arithmetical operations.

Note the word arithmetic, this is pretty basic stuff. Factors also show up in higher math, for example every polynomial can be factored into smaller polynomials.

We are learning about factors in the 6th grade special ed class. The kids, for the most part, grasp the concept of a factor and prime numbers but in order to seal the deal they need to practice.

Find the factors of 24. They are 1,2,3,4,6,12.

Is 7 a factor of 135? Divide 135 by 7 and you get a remainder of 2, 7 is not a factor of 135.

Here is my problem: These students do not know times tables. Every time you ask them what is 6 x 4 they must count to 24 by 4s. Using their fingers. Rote learning of times tables, when they were young, was not considered proper modern teaching procedure.

Since they can't do multiplication effortlessly then can't do division easily. Since they can't do division they can't quickly do factors. Without factors they can't do fractions. Without fractions they will fail at algebra. etc.

Learning 50 or so facts about numbers (2x2=4, 2x3=6, etc.) unlocks a whole chain of knowledge. Without those facts everything becomes difficult in math.

The lack of factual knowledge prevents children from learning new conceptual ideas.
Argh.

Tag, I'm it.

2006-02-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by gracyie at Today's Homework. Might as well get the ball rolling by saying this is one of my favorite blogs.

Jobs I have held:
- Golf Caddy
- Hospital maintenance mechanic
- Precision machinist
- Electronics Engineer

Places I have lived:
- Chester County, Pennsylvania
- Palo Alto, California
- Grenoble, France
- Denver, Colorado

Blogs I enjoy:
- The Education Wonks
- Betsy's Page
- joannjacobs
- Pharyngula

Places I would like to visit:
- The Burgess Shale site in Canada
- The Amazon River
- Angkor Vat
- Great Pyramid of Giza

Music I love:
- Beethoven Symph. #7
- Mozart Concerto for Oboe
- Bach Brandenburg Concertos
- Little Walter

Fire Drill Paradox

2006-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Martin Gardner's "The Colossal Book of Mathematics" which is a collection of topics from his very long career as a writer about interesting mathematical oddities. Gardner's books are a wonderful source of material for teachers looking to challenge, perplex or intrigue students with an aptitude for math.

Here is a (paraphrased) paradox from the book:

One Friday the principal at school announces over the PA system that there will be a fire drill next week. It will be at 10 AM but in order to make the drill more authentic it will be a surprise. The principal (like all principals) is completely honest - there will be a fire drill and it will be a surprise.

Can we determine, logically, what day the drill will take place? If Friday of next week comes around and there has been no fire drill then everyone in the school will know there is going to be a drill and thus it will not be a surprise. Thus Friday is out.

On Thursday morning we know, from the previous argument, that the drill will not be held on Friday, therefore it must be held today. It will not be a surprise and thus Thursdays is not the day of the drill.

On Wednesday morning, we know that Friday and Thursday are not the day of the drill so that means today must be the day, which means it won't be a surprise… You get the idea; we can logically show that the fire drill cannot happen on any day of the week.

It is a very simple paradox to explain, yet it is a non-trivial problem, Gardner has three full pages in the bibliography on this one paradox!

I will try it out on the 7th and 8th graders this week.

Sad Math

2006-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

Here is how students are taught to multiply two numbers in the school district where I live. Consider the problem 12 * 34. We can write this as (10 + 2) * (30 + 4). Using the distributive law twice this can be written as 10 * 30 + 10 * 4 + 2 * 30 + 2 * 4 = 300 + 40 + 60 + 8 = 408. A helpful memory aide is FOIL, multiply the First, Outer, Inner and Last pairs of numbers.

Seems like a reasonable approach, and it can actually help to use this technique for mental arithmetic. If you are familiar with the “old” way of multiplication it goes like this: 12 * 34 = (10 + 2) * 34 = 340 + 68 = 408 (assuming the 34 was written above the 12).

The "old" and "new" methods have been around for centuries, but (until recently) the "old" method has been preferred because, well it works better.

The number of multiplications and additions for the new method scales with the number of digits in the bottom number. With the new number the number of operations scales with the number of digits squared (albeit they are simpler operations). If you are planning to multiply anything large than two digit numbers you want to use the "old" method.

Whatever the logic behind the switch the students in 6th grade do not know how to multiply three digit numbers and they do not know how to divide. (Long division? Are you CRAZY?). The curriculum simply does not provide for those two skills.

There are several root problems. Parents, for the most part, hate math. Elementary teachers, for the most part, hate math and it only takes one to ruin an entire cohort of students for the subject. The progressive education system rejects any kind of rote learning or systematic procedure like times tables or long division.

Net result is students do not know the basic math facts like 6*7, do not have any reliable algorithms to solve problems and get a near constant diet of negative feedback about the subject.

The oldest charter school in this district was started, in part, because parents were justifiably horrified by math education in the other public schools. That school emphasizes traditional math education. It has a large waiting list and ranks at the very top in all rankings of academic performance.

New kids

2006-02-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

I have been helping out in a sixth grade special ed math class since the school started, originally on account of a girl with big time attention problems but generally walking around helping students individually. Things have been going well, my protégé has made huge improvements and the class was really starting to "click" and I was talking to the teacher about spending less time in the class. Throw that crutch away I say.

And then in one week we picked up two new boys. Both big time victims of SLS (Sh*tty Life Syndrome, closely related to SPS, Sh*tty Parent Syndrome). Emotional and physical abuse, etc. Not an excuse of course but an explanation for distressing behavior: tantrums, lies, refusals; the whole gamut.

Both these kids are quite capable of doing the work, they are ahead of most of the class in knowledge and ability. But they are used to using bad behavior to get attention, which is probably one of the big things that has been missing in their lives.

Needless to say the class has not absorbed TWO bad apples with grace, kids are reverting to where they were at the beginning of the year. I call it The Math Class From H*ll. It will take us weeks to get things back on track and these two boys moving in a positive direction. At which point the parent will probably pick up and move, leaving me with an empty feeling and the boy with a new school to face.

New Class

2006-01-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

I have a new class, a small group of 8th graders. These students are having no trouble at all with their regular math class, so twice a week I take them off for something completely different. It is a double challenge, they have to keep up with the regular class with only 3 days a week attendance and I try to keep them interested in the material I have.

We are working on the mathematics of computers; binary numbers and operations, sets and logical operations, Boolean algebra, state and Turing machines. What I like about this material is that there is very little prerequisite. To learn calculus you need a fair amount of supporting material, algebra geometry and trigonometry. Most of the mathematics needed to understand a computer can be learned from scratch.

We are also doing reports on colleges; each student is doing some research on a school and reporting back with findings. It was a bit of a tough sell at first but they are warming to the idea. Your dreams can't come true if you don't have any dreams….

A visit with Nancy

2006-01-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

Recently I went with a teacher and a couple of parapros to visit Nancy, one of our special ed students (not her real name of course).

Nancy, an eight grader, had her hip replaced and will be in cast that covers both legs for at least six weeks. She was at home with her mother, who speaks English haltingly and her two younger sisters, one of whom is old enough to be an honor student in sixth grade. They are lovely people.

I don't know what Nancy's underlying problem is, something genetic I suspect. She is paralyzed from the neck down, cannot speak and has severe skeletal problems including scoliosis. It is very hard to tell of course but she is probably profoundly mentally handicapped.

Nancy can do several things. She can turn her head, look at you with big brown eyes and give you a smile that lights the room up. She can also laugh like an angel, a sound like chimes in a gentle breeze.

She is quite the favorite around school. The man who drives her bus, a mountain of a man, gets tears in his eyes when he talks about her. Students who have trouble focusing on almost any activity will sit and read to her. When we take her to a regular class the teacher and students will fuss over her.

A smile and a laugh will take you a long way.

I have been asked, why is the state spending resources bringing this child to school? And make no mistake the resources are significant, Nancy needs someone with her at all times, severe needs students require twice the expenditure than for other students. Shouldn't we concentrate more on the regular students and let kids that obviously cannot learn stay home?

How do you draw the line? I answer. At what point do you say, "This child cannot benefit from school, this child can". Who makes the decision? I think there is wisdom in universal education.

There is another aspect. When we take Nancy or any of the severe needs students into a regular classroom the students in that class get a lesson in acceptance and tolerance. They might just think "Things are not so bad for me, at least I can walk".

I know I do.

Small rant

2006-01-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

In this state if the students in a school have a long consistent history of failure in standardized tests the school is taken from the control of the local school district and converted to a charter school. This has happened only a few times since the legislation was passed.

The implicit assumption is that the students in that school are not keeping up with students in similar schools because the school administration is not up to the job or because the administration is so hamstrung by procedures, rules and contracts that it doesn't have the tools to improve the situation. The solution is to remove the school from district mismanagement; union contract rules remove the administration and start over.

Over at http://www.joannejacobs.com/ there is a link to a sad/funny story about a teacher who flips out when a stapler goes missing and in the process teaches a lesson to her class. The comments to the blog are revealing; a litany of complaints about mindless bureaucratic nonsense inflicted by school and district administrators.

There are other horror stories, school districts with a non-teacher for every two teachers, twenty thousand non-teachers in the New York system. Scary but not surprising stories; this is inevitably what happens when a protected state monopoly is allowed to flourish.

There are not many good solutions. Forget about gradual reform; has that ever worked in this kind of situation? You can rip the whole structure up and start over (to grow again) but that sends a huge dislocation through the vital K-12 system. Or you can put up a competitive alternative - which is the thinking behind the forced charter school conversion.

This gets back to my previous blog. Teachers do not care for the administration nightmare "downtown". Many don't like the knuckleheads running their own school (in fairness: there are some great principals out there; soon to be promoted out of the job).

Yet teachers for the most part will not accept any solutions that involve change and risk on their own part. They are looking for the magic dust solution. I say "No pain, no gain". If teachers want improvements they need to become agents of change and not reactionaries against anything that might affect them personally.

Competition is not a cure-all but it is a viable solution for some problems and that is better than endless complaints over mac & cheese in the faculty lounge.

Competition

2006-01-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

Recently a tacky ABC news program offered competition as a mechanism to improve K-12 education. Simplistic; there is much more to education than what happens in school (what about education during the first 5 years of life? what about a culture that supports learning?) and competition is not a cure-all (what about rural areas? what about the kids that are left behind in a dreadful public school system?).

Competition is a good thing however and we should have more of it in K-12 education. In this state there is a rapidly growing charter school movement but vouchers were killed by the courts. There is also an open enrollment system, parents can send their child to any public school in the state that has a seat available.

I can understand that public school teachers don't like the idea of vouchers - compared to private sector jobs a public school teacher has lifetime tenure, good health benefits and a very nice retirement package. There are also philosophical objections. I can see how teacher unions don't like charter schools, most of which are non-union and offer better working conditions in exchange for lower pay.

But what puzzles me is the animosity of public school teachers to the idea of open enrollment. Teachers will complain one moment about how over-crowded the school is and in the same breath complain about the loss of students to other schools. It seems like the whole idea of competition in any form is repugnant.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Scott

2006-01-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

I was driving home with the materials for dinner (soup; fresh oriental noodles, strips of fried pork, green onions and carrots and I hope we have some chicken stock in the freezer) today. In front of me was the inevitable SUV but this fellow was kind enough to provide me with something to read. Several stickers proclaiming the superiority of the Kansas City Chiefs football team (a tough sell, this is Broncos country), one for Ernie Ball guitar strings (which in fact I do buy on occasion), an American flag sticker (which I pledge to every school morning alongside 18 very special special education students). In other words the usual stuff you might find on the back of any SUV.

What was different about this rolling curriculum vitae was the following message, displayed in 1 inch high yellow letters on the rear window: "In memory of Scott".

I must confess that I don't know who Scott is, or more likely was. Nor do I know why anyone would put this message right above their tailpipe to be read by total strangers who likely wish that Scott's memorial wasn't directly in front of them anyway.

But I will respect the wishes of this unknown person and I will remember this unknown loved one; at least for a little while. And I ask those few readers of this blog to also remember Scott, whoever he is, at least until I can think of something else (preferably education related) to write about.

You want a WHAT?

2006-01-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to get an e-mail address on the school district system. I miss school announcements on a regular basis and think it inappropriate that I communicate to the staff about a student using my personal e-mail address. No big deal, right?

Try pulling teeth. The district e-mail Lord doesn't know what box to check on his form for "volunteer" and has gone quite catatonic on the subject. It has been two months since the school has sent in the request and no sign of an address.

Today I sent a slightly sarcastic memo to the district superintendent asking if we could make an exception to the maxim that rules are more important than people. I don't expect results but I feel better.

In general schools don't deal with volunteers very well.
Administrators don't quite like the fact that they are not on the payroll, hence can't be controlled.

Teachers are a little nonplussed as well. "You want to help me?, nobody has ever offered help before, what's the catch?"

Unions suspect that somehow this is taking membership dues away from their coffers.

If you do find a niche and start making a contribution you will become a treasured asset to the school. It is very rewarding. Just don't ask for an e-mail address from the district office.

What a 6th grader can do with a rubber band...

2006-01-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

We did the rubber band pantograph in my 6th grade class. Take two rubber bands tied together. Hold fixed one end of the combined band. Put a pencil through the loop at the other end and draw with that pencil such that the knot in the middle traces over a shape. If done properly you draw enlarged version of the shape. Kind of a neat idea but there are a few snags:

- One very bright boy in the class is a total klutz - very poor hand-eye coordination. This activity was a real trial for him

- In general handing out rubber bands to 6th graders is asking for trouble. Trust me on this one.

- The resulting figures are pretty awful; it is hard to draw much of a conclusion about size and area.

We will try it again next week, this time using a ruler. Measure from a fixed point, double (or triple) the distance and make a new point along the same line. This should give us figures accurate enough to reach valid conclusions about scale.

…..

A few blogs back I mentioned a Dad whose solution to a son that wasn't interested in working outside of class was to yank son from my advanced class. I guess the boy told his father he REALLY wanted to stay in the class, so Dad asked for another meeting. Things had a completely different tone this time and the boy is back in my challenge group.

My classes by the way are officially "study groups", since you can't have an uncertified (oh the horror) person teaching a class. I am not even in the union (oh the shame).

Missing some kids

2006-01-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

We seem to be short a few students at school. Part of the shortfall is illness, kids getting sick AFTER the winter break. More significant is a large number of students taking extended vacations in Mexico. Staff is envious.

I am not so sure; I had a talk with one young man about his vacation. Some of his brothers were born in the US, hence are US citizens, some were born in Mexico and are not. The whole family has had some experience with the criminal justice system here. Every year they take a three day drive, in two cars, to their hometown in Mexico.

His description of Juarez? "The whole place smells like a dead dog".

.....

I continue to snarl at the "Connected Math" text book. Not only is it purely constructive, it is also a poor job of the constructive approach. Why don't school districts write their own text books and publish via photocopy? Why do they spend good money on this junk?

Back to work

2006-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Two movies watched recently here, both with educational connections:

“Radio” with Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding doing an amazing job portraying a developmentally disabled young man. A story of redemption, both for the title character but also some redemption for everyone that tries to help him. If you want to understand why people choose to work with the severely disabled then see this movie.

“Mad Hot Ballroom”, a documentary about a program in the NY school districts that teaches 5th graders ballroom dancing; leading to a competition. This is the kind of thing that would drive a “traditionalist” a little mad hot, why are schools teaching kids how to dance? The answer is that there are a lot of important social lessons here; cooperation, respect, politeness. The kids are a great study but I found the teachers equally interesting.

…

I am looking for another word to describe the teaching method that is the opposite of constructive. I don’t like using “traditional” for this since it implies that traditionally teachers never used constructive methods; good teachers have always used constructive methods. My reaction (and I am not alone by any means) is curriculums in math that are almost completely constructive. Suggestions gratefully accepted.

…

School starts tomorrow, are you ready?

Ack – cont.

2005-12-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

Another lesson on the to-do list is prepping a math chapter for the 6th graders. This is from the infamous “Continued Math” series. I have serious problems with this book, including:

- It is very wordy. I think I understand the rational, might as well polish up on those reading skills. Problem is many (most?) of the students at my school speak English as a second language. It seems unfair that in a subject that has a universal language, one that has a concise set of symbology, these kids are getting hit over the head with their lack of language skill, again.

- Because it is wordy the book is huge, as are all modern text books. (It is almost as if the text book publishers get paid by the page. Oh wait, they do.) This one is broken up into little booklets, which encourages an attitude of “finished that chapter, never need to remember that again!”.

- Because it is wordy, huge and broken up into many separate booklets it is pretty much impossible to find a specific item unless you have been through the whole book, and have an excellent memory, which is sadly no longer true for me.

- But my REAL gripe is the total reliance on the “constructivist” school of education where students learn by exploration and discovery. My favorite example is an activity where students “discover” that the sum of the interior angles of a polygon is equal to (n-2)*180 degrees, where n is the number of sides of the polygon. How do they discover this? By drawing polygons and measuring the angles with a protractor. So this is good exercise with the protractor but the mathematical proof of the “discovery” is never mentioned. Argh! One of the most elegant and simple constructions in all of geometry, that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees and that all polygons can be broken up into triangles. No logic, no deduction, no chains of reasoning.

I get quite a bit of leeway in how I present material, the kids I work with are either a slam dunks to pass any and all standardized tests; or don’t have a chance at all. Plus I am a volunteer, so there is no financial incentive to do things the “right” way. I see no evidence that a constructive approach works better than a traditional approach. I am giving it a try; we will scale drawings with rubber band pantographs and discover scaling laws. But don’t be surprised if I happen to blurt out a few truths along the way that someone else discovered, say a few millennia ago.

12-30? Ack!

2005-12-30T09:08:00.000-08:00

It seems just a few days ago I was looking at a long break from school, plenty of time to prep some lessons, rest up, get organized. Time does fly when you are avoiding work.

Today I am going to put together a little electronics experiment for the 8th graders in Mr. P.s class. The hardware is a 9V battery, an adjustable resistor, an LED, and two fixed resistors; all in series. The procedure is to turn a knob on the adjustable resistor and to measure the voltage across the components. If done properly the voltage across the two fixed value resistors should be directly proportional to each other and the voltage across the LED should stay almost constant. The mathematics aspect comes in play when the students analyze the data and determine the ratio of the two resistances. I have four voltage meters from a corporate donation I finagled last year and four experiment sets. With close to 30 students this is not a good ratio but the experiment should go very quickly and we can do it in two shifts if we want.

I am of mixed minds about this. When I was in school mathematics was strictly an intellectual exercise; we scratched diagrams in the sand with sticks and if anyone asked "What is this good for?" the teacher had his aide give the student a penny, then booted him out of class. Today when I am asked that question I answer, "To improve your brain to the point that it can solve whatever problems you are interested in." Which only satisfies some students.

A small percentage of the students in the 8th grade class will find the experiment interesting, that is the target audience I suppose. The rest of the class will see that math is good for figuring out electricity but who cares about electricity? I don't have time for this stupid experiment; my cell phone is ringing…

My heart hurts

2005-12-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

Last summer I worked with the school district summer school program with kids with severe needs. It was a great experience, a skilled and coordinated team and another volunteer beside myself so we had an adult to work with each child.

One of the children was D., about six years old, a tiny, cute girl with CdLS, a genetic disorder. She was mute but taught me a few American Sign Language signs. She could be very funny, when she heard some music she liked she would start a dance that would crack us all up. She was a "runner", a child who would take off as soon as your back was turned, but that was no distinction; all of the kids in the class were runners except the ones that were wheelchair bound. Mentally she was still a baby, which is part of the charm of these kids.

One of the teachers I worked for sent me an e-mail this morning telling me D. died on Christmas Day. I thought of D.'s father who took time from work every day to bring her into the classroom and had such obvious love for the girl, such happiness to be with her. I stand in awe of some of the parents of these children, what might seem a heavy burden becomes a shawl of beauty and grace on their shoulders. This is what it means to be a good person.

Since I have started working with the severe needs group there have been three funerals of kids that were in the program, this will be the first for a child I knew personally. It is an aspect of the work I had not considered, it is grievous news to any teacher to learn one of their pupils has died; in loco parentis means in the place of the parent and I can't imagine anything more devastating than the death of a child. For most teachers it is a rare occurrence, for a person working with kids with severe disabilities it is a regular thing. One more reason to admire those people, I still feel privileged that they have included me in their group.

Meeting; yuck

2005-12-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

Meeting with Dad, by the way, was a disaster. Dad (a military man) started right off the bat attacking M., the regular math teacher, for "not being in control of the class", (which is utter nonsense, she does a very good job).

Ms. M. did an amazing job of keeping her cool, maybe that's what education school is all about, you learn to suffer idiots with grace….

We had a teacher in the school that had retired from the military and thought teaching would be a nice second career. She didn't last two months - the kids LOVED hearing her try to raise her voice above the din. One of the most effective teachers I have worked for spoke in a hoarse whisper. The kids would strain to hear what he was saying. Amazing.

Anyway Dad's son will not be in my Algebra class next week. The kid was way behind the class and with no support from Dad there was no way to catch up. I am sure the boy will be mortified and his friend will ask me why he is not in the class. No comment kids, now let's look at this curve called the parabola.

Two more days.....

2005-12-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

Holiday break in two more days. Not a moment too soon, everyone is getting a little wound up.

I sent out progress reports for my Algebra I class on Tuesday. The one item of interest is this: the smartest kid in the class is getting a D. In his regular math class he is getting an F. In class he is right on top of things, answering questions, right on topic, gets the point of the lesson before everyone else. Outside of class he forgets about little details like, oh say, homework or take home tests. I think he has never had to exert himself; he can rely on brilliance and a great memory. Algebra takes practice; you don't get it the first time.

We are meeting with Dad on Friday. I think Dad needs to modify his extra-curricular activity schedule but I will follow the regular teacher's lead on this.

Richard Pryor

2005-12-11T11:33:00.000-08:00

Richard Pryor died Saturday. He was 65.

When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis some ten years ago I looked around for someone in the same predicament and found Richard Pryor. We had almost nothing in common, a scrawny, black, comic genius with a history of coke addiction and a hefty white engineer. But we both had something wrong in our brains that we could not understand or do anything about. The suffering on Pryor's face was always right on the surface, when it was suffering from racial injustice, or his own demons or his failing body the pain was visible for all the world to see. I think that is part of what made him so funny, we laugh because we are looking at a mirror and it makes us a little uncomfortable, so we laugh to chase away the pains.

Since then there have been other celebrities who have chosen to tell the world that they, along with half-million other Americans, live with MS. Teri Garr, also a greatly talented comic. Neil Cavuto, a TV commentator.

But for me there will never be another Richard Pryor.

Election results

2005-11-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

The mil levy measure in my school district was voted down by a large margin.

When the measure was being considered I had a discussion with one of the members on the steering committee, a teacher. In effect I told him "If you phrase this tax increase in terms of pay increase for teachers the measure will fail. You need a Big Idea, something like merit pay, or a magnet school, something voters can get excited about". That teacher was gleeful when the decision was made to phrase the increase in terms of teacher pay.

Denver passed a merit pay system: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_4203576,00.html

Denver also passed an initiative that would de-criminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Mile High City indeed...

My portrait

2005-10-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of one of my students, an excellent likeness.

oops

2005-10-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

One of the classes today had a substitute teacher, a soft-spoken Anglo with blond hair. A student, not the brightest bulb in the refrigerator, decided to impress his classmates by swearing at the substitute in Spanish. Turns out the sub speaks Spanish fluently….

Weather Vanes

2005-10-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

There are dramatic shifts in the weather where I live, fronts will roll in and the temperature will drop 20 degrees in a day. Many teachers and aides accept it as wisdom that you can predict a change in the weather by the behavior of kids - squirrelly behavior, tantrums, etc. all presage a change in the weather. My own observations would support the theory.

G., the stubborn fellow with Down Syndrome, has accepted me as the person who takes him to and from keyboarding class - so much so that he refused to leave the class today when I left early to do an origami lesson with another class. The other aide in the classroom was unable to move him out of the room when class was over. They called my name over the school PA and I came in, told him "Let's go" and the problem was solved. At other times of the day he has locked onto other people and refuses to budge without that particular person. Routine is everything.

Back

2005-10-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very busy and I have been fighting vertigo so no blogs. I will try again.

The severe needs class has been part of the busyness. We started the year with 17 kids, diagnosis ranging from autism, cerebral palsy, emotional problems, etc. A kid too difficult to handle in any of the other district schools is likely to end up in our program.

Seventeen middle school kids with severe problems is a large class, plus we started the year short two paraprofessionals. As soon as the second came back we gained a new student, E., who requires strict supervision. Probably E. does not have any organic problem, she suffers from SLS, or Shitty Life Syndrome. Abusive father, victimized mother, homeless, etc., it is a very prevalent syndrome. As a result she has learned to be manipulative, a chronic liar, occasionally violent in a spectacular fashion.

I have two main duties. One is working with a 6th grader with severe attention problems. I sit in class with her and keep things in focus. Otherwise she will literally bounce out her chair and disrupt the whole class. She is making good progress.

I am also gradually taking over in a keyboarding class for a para who is having a neck fusion surgery soon. The main issue here is a boy with Down syndrome. Like many with this affliction he is adorable, gentle and monumentally stubborn. Any change in routine results in non-cooperation. By working with him more and more each day we can avoid the problems a sudden changeover would entail.

A uniform vote

2005-08-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I visited a 6th grade classroom on Friday. These kids are just out of elementary school, about 11 years old.

One young lady had a shirt with the following message in very large print, "This might be your lucky day". Now this could be some sort of walking pink fortune cookie, or it might be something less innocent. I asked some adult female friends if they would allow their daughter to wear this shirt, the resounding answer was "No". Which leads to the question what was this girl's mother thinking? In this classroom there was a very good chance said mother does not speak or read English.

There is a lot to be said for school uniforms.

2005-08-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

The tax increase arguments have been quite a disappointment so far. The pro crowd is all platitudes ("It's for the children"), jumping from the premise that "we all want good schools" to the conclusion "therefore we need a tax hike", without ever touching logical ground.

The anti arguments are even worse, venom laced diatribes against public education in general and this school district in particular.

I am hoping that the rhetoric will improve, but I am not planning on it.

End of summer

2005-08-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy summer. I worked with three Algebra I students, rescued them from the horrors of district summer school. Then a few weeks with elementary school severe needs kids. That was a blast, great kids, great teacher and paras. Finally a three week program to get high risk middle school students up to speed for the regular school year.

School starts next week. Looks like I will be doing a repeat of last year’s “Topics in Mathematics” for the academic top kids in 6th grade. Plus a new class; try to squeeze Algebra I into two days a week for the bright 7th graders. And a classroom of my own! – just big enough for eight students. No more trying to teach in the library with story time and various other distractions going on.

The rest of my time will be in the severe needs classroom. We have more room there as well; the home economics classroom next door is now ours. So we can move the kitchen out of the changing room.

So a very optimistic start to the school year. The political nonsense from last year is mostly behind us, a much less crowded school, and the new IB program. I am established as “super volunteer” and have a program to run.
More to follow.

An "investment" in education

2005-08-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

"Half of the world's population has below average intelligence."

The school district where I live is putting a mill levy override (tax increase) on the November ballot. The increase is equivalent to $625 per pupil, to give you an idea of how much money is involved. The voters rejected a smaller increase last year.

The major change to last year's ballot is that a much larger portion of this year's increased revenue is slated to go to teacher's salaries. This change was the result of some politicking between the school district and the union - no salary bump, no support. Smoke-filled rooms are gone but the deals remain.

This leaves me in a quandary. I know a few hardworking, dedicated teachers whom I would like to give a raise to. But I don't have that option; teachers' salaries in this district (like almost all school districts) follow a dreary formula - enter your years' experience in the district on the rows, enter your education level on the columns, presto -- out pops your paycheck, to the penny.

So by voting for this increase, you are voting to give all teachers -- good, great and terrible -- the same raise.

The argument I expect to hear soon is that our teachers deserve a raise. Maybe, but do you know anyone who doesn't think they should get more money? People that get up on rooftops to nail down shingles in the summer sun - there is a collection of people who deserve a raise. How about nurses who work 12-hour shifts? "Deserve" becomes meaningless when everyone deserves a larger salary.

Will teachers from nearby districts flock to mine under the stimulus of higher pay? No, because the contract in place only rewards experience in the district. It is a system best described as medieval.

Will engineers and scientists start a new career as a teacher, motivated by a higher salary? No, the teacher certification process will prevent that.

So what exactly do taxpayers get for their investment in the school district? We will see what arguments are presented.

The Problem with Education - Found!

2005-08-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

I have a theory why primary education in the US does such a poor job. It is the fault of the kindergarten teachers.

Consider. The average high school teacher does a pretty good job educating his charges, considering the poor preparation of the incoming students in his class. Likewise, any middle school teacher will tell you that the kids coming into her classroom do not know the material they should -- otherwise, things would go much better. By induction, the problem starts at the beginning of the chain -- the kindergarten teachers.

This obviously facetious theory points out what I think is a real problem in mathematics education -- the failure of lower grades to impart basic arithmetic facts to the students. Many middle school students struggle with any sort of arithmetical algorithm -- for example, finding LCD, or prime factors, or long division -- not because they have trouble learning the steps, but because they are constantly getting stuck on simple facts. Ask them what 6 times 7 is. Long pause, long pause…. 42? Often you can see fingers moving under the table, counting the same way a Babylonian might have 3000 years ago.

I have another theory, this one in earnest. Years ago, we learned math facts by rote; endless drilling in addition tables and times tables. We chanted facts every day. And for the most part learned them.

At some point some educators (probably math morons themselves) decided since they hated all this rote they would replace it with a "better" way to teach math. Children would organically learn using flashcards. Guess what? That way works even less well than rote. And children rise through the academic system, crippled by the inability to add or multiply two single-digit numbers instantly and instinctively.

But we don't chant times tables anymore.