CDZ Lift Off -- What thoughts does this inspire in you?

[320 Years of History]

"Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen more dividing and conquering
In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality.
For some, the only difference between a classroom and a plantation is time.
How many times must we be made to feel like quotas —
Like tokens in coined phrases? —
“Diversity. Inclusion”
There are days I feel like one, like only —
A lonely blossom in a briar patch of broken promises.
But I’ve always been a thorn in the side of injustice.

Disruptive. Talkative. A distraction.
With a passion that transcends the confines of my consciousness —
Beyond your curriculum, beyond your standards.
I stand here, a manifestation of love and pain,
With veins pumping revolution.
I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree.
I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.
I am a movement – an amalgam of memories America would care to forget
My past, alone won’t allow me to sit still.
So my body, like the mind
Cannot be contained.

As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance.

I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.

To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.

I look each of my students in the eyes,
And see the same light that aligned Orion’s Belt
And the pyramids of Giza.
I see the same twinkle
That guided Harriet to freedom.
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.

At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened here —
An indelible impact that shook up the world.
Are we not astronomers — looking for the next shooting star?
I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.

Education is no equalizer —
Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream.
So wake up — wake up! Lift your voices
Until you’ve patched every hole in a child’s broken sky.
Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential.
I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.
But those days are done. I belong among the stars.
And so do you. And so do they.
Together, we can inspire galaxies of greatness
For generations to come.
No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.
Lift off.
-- Donovan Livingston

​

Note:
The italicization is mine, not the author's. They denote the bits that resonated most for me.

 

[emilynghiem]

I think his criticisms refer to indoctrination for social convenience, not real education.
The word education from Latin educere means to draw out,
which is what he seems to say is the solution:
To lift people up and inspire them to fulfill their natural potential, gifts and dreams.
Not to stifle this with rote and rhetoric.

 

[emilynghiem]

BTW 320 Years of History Thanks for posting this which I will try to watch later.
I'm sure the live presentation is even better than the dry read.

If I can recall from memory, I wrote a poem about going to an awards
ceremony for an art prize I received (for a satirical poem I wrote
on top of the Lord's prayer and turned it in as a spoof on angry feminists).
When I was at this college literary reception, I found a flyer that read
FREE STUDENT A. There was a controversy over an honor code violation
where between Student A and Student B, one was denied a retrial, resulting in protests. And on top
of it all, spoof flyers started posting: "Free Student A (with the purchase of Student B)".
What started as a serious poem, turned into a rap. Here's what I can remember.

I picked up your flyer in the coffeehouse
The black and bold letters read "FREE Student A"
I was at a literary reception
To see my own Scarlet Letter
Printed on the backpage
The original was still at the printer's
So all I got back was the small wooden frame.
I thought of inserting your flyer
But I'd no one to ask, and I didn't know your name

How does it feel to wear my Scarlet Letter
That I earned by not learning
What couldn't be taught
In a world that would measure
Old pimps by degrees
And young prostitutes by their
A's B's and C's

What has become of the love of knowledge
And the joy of teaching
And the whole point of college
How can we free you
Without freeing ourselves
From the prisons we choose
Within our own brain cells

Free Student A
(With the purchase of Student B)
And free every student
From every stupid university

Free Student A
(With the purchase of Student B)
And every student C to C
So we can B
a real
D mock ra C ...

 

[320 Years of History]

I think his criticisms refer to indoctrination for social convenience, not real education.
The word education from Latin educere means to draw out,
which is what he seems to say is the solution:
To lift people up and inspire them to fulfill their natural potential, gifts and dreams.
Not to stifle this with rote and rhetoric.

I think that's definitely among the things he's addressing...and I might add "contrivance " to the convenience you note. I think the stanza opening with the didactic "I’ve seen more dividing and conquering, In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality." introduces your noted theme. Livingston further develops the idea synecdochally: "With veins pumping revolution. I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree. I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.", and culminates in his summation with, "Education is no equalizer — Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream. So wake up — wake up!"

Were I to speak with Mr. Livingston, I'd want to ask him how he sees the indoctrination manifested in our educational institutions. I can imagine how it plays out in terms of pedagogy; he is an education major after all. I wonder, however, where else he sees it or whether, perhaps he thinks the phenomenon primarily in contemporary education doctrine and the morass of political rancor accompanying it?

 

[emilynghiem]

I think his criticisms refer to indoctrination for social convenience, not real education.
The word education from Latin educere means to draw out,
which is what he seems to say is the solution:
To lift people up and inspire them to fulfill their natural potential, gifts and dreams.
Not to stifle this with rote and rhetoric.

I think that's definitely among the things he's addressing...and I might add "contrivance " to the convenience you note. I think the stanza opening with the didactic "I’ve seen more dividing and conquering, In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality." introduces your noted theme. Livingston further develops the idea synecdochally: "With veins pumping revolution. I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree. I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.", and culminates in his summation with, "Education is no equalizer — Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream. So wake up — wake up!"

Were I to speak with Mr. Livingston, I'd want to ask him how he sees the indoctrination manifested in our educational institutions. I can imagine how it plays out in terms of pedagogy; he is an education major after all. I wonder, however, where else he sees it or whether, perhaps he thinks the phenomenon primarily in contemporary education doctrine and the morass of political rancor accompanying it?

Wow what is your vocabulary level? You leave me behind in the dust. My brain hurts!
Good exercise though. If I don't learn new words, my cells won't get any exercise, but will atrophy and die.

I have no idea what experience he went through for his formative years in school.
I was fortunate to catch the last of the retiring teachers who had taught BEFORE all the state curricula and testing hit.
They saw what was coming down the pipeline and warned me. I wanted to be a teacher, but they
generally advised that I may not be able to handle where the system was heading that was killing teaching.

I have no idea if that is what he's referring to, the bureaucracy of trying to make everything uniform.

When the uniform standard was focused on reading and writing, then it was
understood that you keep your individual interests on the side and don't
disrupt the whole classroom and teacher for whatever you've got going on.

Now it seems people are trying too hard to impose "uniform accommodations for all diverse types and needs"
that it defeats the purpose by micromanaging which doesn't work.

Whatever this author is referring to, overall I find it expected that new ideas and ways
are going to break out of the old shells. But there is this "weird politic" going on where
more money is spent on lawyers and lobbying on policy disputes that could be
invested helping the kids in schools.

My real criticism is that adults try to teach kids things like "not to bully" and to "include diversity"
but then adults bully and exclude diversity all the time, even judge reject and punish people for their beliefs.

I didn't see that level of criticism in the part you posted.

I see the problems in formal/public education as REFLECTING the political and social environment.
I have ideas how we can correct this through public education, but it involves teaching and training
adults to address and mediate conflicts as part of citizenship and civic education.
Not indoctrination, it doesn't work that way. The agreement on policies, principles and process
has to come from within from free choice will and consent to be enforced, and can't be by coercion or repetition by rote.

 

[emilynghiem]

Basic Math

Oh, Mayor Brown! Oh, Mayor Brown!
The sky is falling down --
Upon my Fourth Ward neighborhood
That borders on downtown.

Oh Mayor Brown! I can't skip out
Of working at a school
To come by City Council
And ask you to renounce all
The plans of redevelopers
That disobey the rules.

How can I teach my Fourth Ward kids
The basic rules of math,
When budgets seem to multiply
For housing cut in half?

Can I teach kids on Andrews Street
The concept of addition -
If all they see around them is
Subtraction and division?

What will they learn of justice
And common decency,
If poor folks still do all the work
To serve their close-knit neighborhood,
While public funds are eaten up
By outside agencies?

How can we speak of anything
But "inequality"
If money gives authority
To demolish whole communities,
Outweighing people's equal right
To assemble peaceably?

Oh Jew Don Boney, John Castillo,
Councilmember Todd --
What lessons shall we teach our youth:
To seek the truth of God?
To have respect for history?
Compassion for the elderly?
Or shall we leave a legacy
Of lies, deceit, and fraud?

Oh Felix Fraga, Martha Wong,
Carroll and Calloway --
Can we teach children right from wrong
If grown-ups either break the law
Or look the other way?

Dear Mayor Brown, please tell me how
Accounting should be taught
To little Fourth Ward children
Who watch as multi-millions
Are siphoned off civilians,
The waiting list for shelter grows,
While sturdy houses row by row
Are razed to empty lots.

Oh, Mayor Brown! Oh, Mayor Brown!
The roof is coming down!
On our historic neighborhood
That once was Freedmen's Town.

No, Mayor Brown, we can't leave out
The children of Fourth Ward
Who want to save their neighborhood,
For if their voices go unheard
How can our young ones ever learn
That everybody counts?

-- presented at a rally and to Houston City Council
circa 1997-1998 Emily Nghiem, Civil Wrongs series

 

[tinydancer]

Holy toledo people! Well said.

Apart from basic education I had always believed that educators were to inspire us, to teach us to think, to debate to expand our minds outside of the four walls called a classroom. To challenge. To be able to embrace Carlos Castaneda at the same time as Ayn Rand. To treat the world as an "endless mystery".

Taught to travel down that path. One of my favorite quotes from Don Juan. It has been my life.

“For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.”

― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8088.Carlos_Castaneda

 

[320 Years of History]

Holy toledo people! Well said.

Apart from basic education I had always believed that educators were to inspire us, to teach us to think, to debate to expand our minds outside of the four walls called a classroom. To challenge. To be able to embrace Carlos Castaneda at the same time as Ayn Rand. To treat the world as an "endless mystery".

Taught to travel down that path. One of my favorite quotes from Don Juan. It has been my life.

“For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.”

― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Carlos Castaneda Quotes (Author of The Teachings of Don Juan)

From the same text, I was keen on:

Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him.
​

From Journey to Ixtlan:

You say you need help. Help for what? You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.
​

The thing that struck me about Castaneda was that initially I thought he was onto something. As I read more and more of odyssey with Don Juan, Castaneda, to me, showed himself to be a loon who never quite "got it." Castaneda says he finally did, but, frankly, I don't buy it. I think he figured out how to explain things, what to say, but truly "get it," I don't think so. Maybe he did one day, however?

I couldn't help but feel that Carlos frustrated the bejesus out of Don Juan. By the time I finished reading the books, I thought, "Is it the peyote that let Dons Juan and Genaro suffer Carlos, a dude who struck me as just about the slowed strain to ever leave the station?" Carlos just never really seemed to get it. All that time spent with Carlos -- thank God it was intermittently -- and for what?

 

[320 Years of History]

TY for your thoughtful remarks.

Wow what is your vocabulary level? You leave me behind in the dust. My brain hurts!
Good exercise though. If I don't learn new words, my cells won't get any exercise, but will atrophy and die.

Red:
I have no idea. I can only say that mostly I use the words I bothered to learn for the SAT "way back when."

Blue:
I'm sorry. I had no desire to make that happen.

Pink:
For myself, I find that it's "use it, or lose it" sort of thing that'd catalyze the atrophy. LOL Regardless of what approach one must take, abating the decay is the key.

I have no idea what experience he went through for his formative years in school.
I was fortunate to catch the last of the retiring teachers who had taught BEFORE all the state curricula and testing hit.
They saw what was coming down the pipeline and warned me. I wanted to be a teacher, but they
generally advised that I may not be able to handle where the system was heading that was killing teaching.

I have no idea if that is what he's referring to, the bureaucracy of trying to make everything uniform.

FWIW, IMO, there some things whereof a "one size fits all" approach works. As goes education, I think it's more "one size fits most." Without a doubt, the uniformity paradigm we see these days makes the task of measuring performance easy, but it does so to the detriment of the students for whose benefit the process is conducted.

The idea of structuring a process to facilitate easy measurement isn't unique to education. Throughout my career I've many times come across corporations that had structured operational processes so as to enable the accounting and reporting of those process' outcomes. It's not hard to understand why they did so; however, that they did so is vexing.

With education it's the same. One must focus on what constitutes good teaching and then teach that way. What one doesn't do, not if the students' learning is the paramount objective, is implement measurement methods and metrics that teachers/principals can manipulate without actually producing well educated, well informed, students.

When the uniform standard was focused on reading and writing, then it was understood that you keep your individual interests on the side and don't disrupt the whole classroom and teacher for whatever you've got going on.

Now it seems people are trying too hard to impose "uniform accommodations for all diverse types and needs" that it defeats the purpose by micromanaging which doesn't work.

Red:
Assuming your description is accurate, which for now I am so doing, the lunacy of that approach is evident in the mere words one must use to depict it.

Blue:
Micromanaging is a fine tool for identifying specific foibles and failings present in a process. It's also very effective at correcting the deficiencies one finds and helping the process actors learn how now to perpetuate their flawed behavior. However, it's a poor opening salvo to select from among the mix of approach options one can choose to accomplish a task.

If I were to posit a high level reason why so often we resort culturally to micromanagement techniques rather than, I'd place the blame on our ethos that focuses on finding fault and punishing the misdoer. I think were we instead to focus on rehabilitation more so than retribution, things would be very different. Such a paradigm shift is most critically needed, IMO, in governmental organizations like school systems, yet they are the organs of society that are least amenable to that approach, and they are the ones the citizenry is most intolerant of subjectivity.

There are, of course, reasons why that's as it is, and they abstract to a lack of trust. Sadly, however, until and unless we can, as a society, inculcate a model that strives for solving problems collaboratively before paltering, prevaricating, and polemically pounding the persons perceived as the problem's provenience, I predict we'll get nowhere. One can hardly trust the institutions individuals serve until one trusts the individuals themselves. That's so with regard to teachers or trashmen, solicitors or sovereigns.

there is this "weird politic" going on where
more money is spent on lawyers and lobbying on policy disputes that could be invested helping the kids in schools.

"Weird" is a far tamer adjective than I'd have used to describe the phenomenon. LOL I'd deem it downright discomfiting.

My real criticism is that adults try to teach kids things like "not to bully" and to "include diversity" but then adults bully and exclude diversity all the time, even judge reject and punish people for their beliefs.

I didn't see that level of criticism in the part you posted.

Red:
Yes, the bumptious hypocrisy of "do as I say, not as I do" is palpable. That is among the central themes of my florid alliteration a few paragraph back.

Blue:
I'm sorry...I don't know what you are referring to. Do you mean the poem I pasted in the OP? I posted the entirety of Mr. Livingston's verse libre.

[Boy, I got that "P-thing" going a few paragraphs back, and now I can't seem to push past it even though the moment has come and gone. LOL The first and last sentences of the next quote aren't helping. LOL]

I see the problems in formal/public education as REFLECTING the political and social environment. I have ideas how we can correct this through public education, but it involves teaching and training adults to address and mediate conflicts as part of citizenship and civic education. Not indoctrination, it doesn't work that way. The agreement on policies, principles and process
has to come from within from free choice, will, and consent to be enforced, and can't be by coercion or repetition by rote.

I would tend to agree with your observations.

Sometimes, reflecting social mores is a good thing, and other times not so much. Frankly, I think the content and process of educating people -- kids and adults -- should have nothing to do with what society thinks, believes or wants beyond wanting well informed graduates.

For example, it is entirely disingenuous not to teach young people about religions, sex, contraception, etc. There's nothing in educating folks about those things that calls necessarily for telling them what to do about them or how to value the various alternatives available within those topics. That is one's own, or in the case of children, the parents', choice to make based on knowing the facts about the options themselves.

If there is any one thing against which I think Mr. Livingston railed, it's the use of institutions we are supposed to rely upon to instill and perpetuate bias. For example, one of my former mentorees enrolled in a ecclesiastical high school. It's an excellent school and in its curriculum are theology classes as well as comparative religion classes. Too, the school teaches health and human biology classes. Even though the school is aligned with a theological hierarchy, its administrators are well aware that not all their charges ascribe to that belief system. Accordingly, the school teaches theology from the perspective of, say, "this is what the XYZ church says and believes," not from the stance of "this is what the XYZ church says and believes and it is right and it is what you should/must believe too." Indeed, they make a point of telling students that one need not belong to the school's faith to be happy, good, get to Heaven, etc. Similarly:

• In theology class, students learn the church of which the school is a part isn't keen on contraception.
• In health class, students learn what the various means of male and female contraception are.
• In biology and health class, students learn what types of sex there are and what happens (or can happen) during and after sex.

The school draws the line at providing information about what constitutes "good sex." The instructors even will, if a student raises the topic, inform the students about the nature and existence of some sexual fetishes, they refrain from passing judgment on them. Given the easy and ubiquitous access young folks have to the Internet, I think that's as it should be. Better they learn about those things before they stumble upon them and, as is normal for kids, get curious and take matters into their own hands absent any prior awareness of what they may get themselves into. In raising my own kids, I adopted the "if my kids are able to ask about something, it's my duty to give them an honest and objective answer." Of course, after doing so, it's also my duty and prerogative to tell them what I think about the matter and what comportment I expect of them with regard to it as long as they are depending on me for their livelihood.

 

[OldLady]

"Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen more dividing and conquering
In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality.
For some, the only difference between a classroom and a plantation is time.
How many times must we be made to feel like quotas —
Like tokens in coined phrases? —
“Diversity. Inclusion”
There are days I feel like one, like only —
A lonely blossom in a briar patch of broken promises.
But I’ve always been a thorn in the side of injustice.

Disruptive. Talkative. A distraction.
With a passion that transcends the confines of my consciousness —
Beyond your curriculum, beyond your standards.
I stand here, a manifestation of love and pain,
With veins pumping revolution.
I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree.
I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.
I am a movement – an amalgam of memories America would care to forget
My past, alone won’t allow me to sit still.
So my body, like the mind
Cannot be contained.

As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance.

I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.

To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.

I look each of my students in the eyes,
And see the same light that aligned Orion’s Belt
And the pyramids of Giza.
I see the same twinkle
That guided Harriet to freedom.
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.

At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened here —
An indelible impact that shook up the world.
Are we not astronomers — looking for the next shooting star?
I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.

Education is no equalizer —
Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream.
So wake up — wake up! Lift your voices
Until you’ve patched every hole in a child’s broken sky.
Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential.
I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.
But those days are done. I belong among the stars.
And so do you. And so do they.
Together, we can inspire galaxies of greatness
For generations to come.
No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.
Lift off.
-- Donovan Livingston

​

Note:
The italicization is mine, not the author's. They denote the bits that resonated most for me.

The man's a poet. Wonder what he teaches?
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Very nice. Pointless, but very nice. People have been mouthing these platitudes since public education started to fail. They substitute soaring rhetoric and homilies about potential for pragmatic assessments. Platitudes are much cheaper than truly assessing the scope of the problems we have in public education and exactly how complex are the roots of these problems. Fundamental shifts in the structure of the American family and the radical reformation of our work force have directly affected the quality of our educational outcomes. Poverty distorts our perception of our educational system's true level of functionality. It's much easier to focus on the teacher than it is to consider how more fundamental forces have cut the legs from under our teachers.

 

[320 Years of History]

Very nice. Pointless, but very nice. People have been mouthing these platitudes since public education started to fail. They substitute soaring rhetoric and homilies about potential for pragmatic assessments. Platitudes are much cheaper than truly assessing the scope of the problems we have in public education and exactly how complex are the roots of these problems. Fundamental shifts in the structure of the American family and the radical reformation of our work force have directly affected the quality of our educational outcomes. Poverty distorts our perception of our educational system's true level of functionality. It's much easier to focus on the teacher than it is to consider how more fundamental forces have cut the legs from under our teachers.

Red:
I am not convinced that public education has begun to fail or that it has failed overall. I'm sure that there are better and worse public school systems, schools and teachers, just as there are better and worse students in every school system, school, classroom and family. In my mind, a good school is one that reckons its expectations of its students' scholastic performance based on the body of information and skills available to be taught for a given course and not based on what subset of that information/skills the students seem capable of mastering.


Blue:
You and I have gone down this road before, so I know we both well grasp where the other stands; thus I won't endeavor to reprise that line of discussion. IMO, "the legs" haven't been cut from the teachers, but rather from the students.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Very nice. Pointless, but very nice. People have been mouthing these platitudes since public education started to fail. They substitute soaring rhetoric and homilies about potential for pragmatic assessments. Platitudes are much cheaper than truly assessing the scope of the problems we have in public education and exactly how complex are the roots of these problems. Fundamental shifts in the structure of the American family and the radical reformation of our work force have directly affected the quality of our educational outcomes. Poverty distorts our perception of our educational system's true level of functionality. It's much easier to focus on the teacher than it is to consider how more fundamental forces have cut the legs from under our teachers.

Red:
I am not convinced that public education has begun to fail or that it has failed overall. I'm sure that there are better and worse public school systems, schools and teachers, just as there are better and worse students in every school system, school, classroom and family. In my mind, a good school is one that reckons its expectations of its students' scholastic performance based on the body of information and skills available to be taught for a given course and not based on what subset of that information/skills the students seem capable of mastering.


Blue:
You and I have gone down this road before, so I know we both well grasp where the other stands; thus I won't endeavor to reprise that line of discussion. IMO, "the legs" haven't been cut from the teachers, but rather from the students.

I am not convinced that public education has begun to fail or that it has failed overall.

You shouldn't be. What you should do is ask yourself some more basic questions.

1- Is is possible to make an accurate evaluation of American education?
SAT scores at lowest level in 10 years, fueling worries about high schools

http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/historical-average-SAT-scores.pdf

2- Should schools be evaluated solely on the basis of their rates of poverty? Is there any value to comparing schools with effective disciplinary systems with those in which discipline has devolved to the point of barely contained chaos?

IMO, "the legs" haven't been cut from the teachers, but rather from the students.

My educational model is a four-legged table. The legs are, in order of importance:

1- The student.
2- The family.
3- The teacher.
4- The school administration.

All these legs have been cut out from under the educational process. Not everywhere, of course, but in enough places to account for the steady drop in SAT scores noted above, imo. When someone's got to be blamed for a failure which may be partially real and partially imagined, but is absolutely 100% politically imperative, search ye for a scapegoat. Look at the above list. You can't scapegoat parents and students because they're too numerous. Scapegoats have to be a minority, and politicians who tell the truth to their constituents are not popular. It can't be school administrators. Too few. Ahhh, teachers. Now they're "just right".

What's to be done? Clean up our statistical practices. Demand absolute transparency. Establish uniform national standards for statistical collection and analysis. Mostly we need to understand failure. Understand the terrible impact of compound failure. Understand the anatomy of a failed school. We acknowledge failure. We decertify schools, which is an acknowledgement that the place is dead, without any hope of rehabilitation, but we don't understand why. Compound failure. A similar mindset to what one sees in prisons. Alienation. It's what happens when you aggregate people with nothing left to lose. That we allow such a situation to exist for any of our children is the greatest condemnation of our culture that I can imagine.

 

[Wilbur Right]

The most important thing you can do with your kids? Eat dinner with them.

By Anne Fishel January 12, 2015
Anne Fishel is a co-founder of The Family Dinner Project, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of "Home for Dinner."

researchers found that for young children, dinnertime conversation boosts vocabulary even more than being read aloud to. The researchers counted the number of rare words – those not found on a list of 3,000 most common words – that the families used during dinner conversation. Young kids learned 1,000 rare words at the dinner table, compared to only 143 from parents reading storybooks aloud. Kids who have a large vocabulary read earlier and more easily.

Older children also reap intellectual benefits from family dinners. For school-age youngsters, regular mealtime is an even more powerful predictor of high achievement scores than time spent in school, doing homework, playing sports or doing art.

Other researchers reported a consistent association between family dinner frequency and teen academic performance. Adolescents who ate family meals five to seven times a week were twice as likely to get A’s in school as those who ate dinner with their families fewer than two times a week.




The breakdown of the family has had the largest negative effect of student performance in schools. Simple things like eating together, reading to kids, making them aware how important you as a parent view their education all helps in one of our most important responsibilities; educating our kids.

It sure worked for me and mine.

 

[OldLady]

The breakdown of the family, the failure of true integration, a decade of struggling economy, a major shift in what education is necessary for today's workforce, more and more weight given to performance measures like standardized tests, and increasingly, political influence poking its way into every discussion of education .... all of those factors and probably a lot more are responsible for an education system that is not keeping up with the Joneses on the other side of the pond.

It is not the fault of standardized tests in themselves. We would be equally upset with our tax dollars going into systems without accountability. When the schools receive taxpayers' money, they owe it to the public to show they are doing the job. Hence standardized testing. People talk as if this were something new, as if a uniform, statewide curriculum were something new and diabolical. I was taking standardized tests from the time I was in 3rd grade (I think it was 3rd) and since I received my education in New York state, I was in the Regents track, which has for at least 50 years outlined a specific curriculum and administered statewide finals in those subjects. It wasn't required for all students when I went to school, but those on a college trajectory took it. It didn't interfere with my education; we were of the generation that got good SAT scores. There is more to the problem than either of those factors that people blame for the "failure" of our schools.

The breakdown of the family? What kids learn at home about respect for education and for schools and for their teachers is a big factor. When kids have stressed out parents working two jobs to keep the lights turned on, or parents with drug addiction, or parents who dropped out of school and freely share their hatred of education, that makes a big difference. You can point fingers at teachers, but if kids don't get support at home for their primary "job" (being the best student they can be), a lot of them won't make it. Has it ever been the case that these factors weren't at work though?

Elvis is right, I think, to distinguish between schools with good disciplinary systems and those without. That is not necessarily a poverty thing, although in neighborhoods with gangs, it is certainly more essential. I taught once in a public school where the principal (who was fired the following year) insisted teachers not send disruptive students to his office. He was sick of dealing with so many of them. Detention was also never enforced, so if a student was written up, he or she could ignore it. The kids ran the school and there wasn't one goddam thing you could do about it as a teacher. This was a 100% white school, by the way, so lack of discipline and a lot of disruptive students are not necessarily an inner-city, black phenomenon.

It seems that education is now a big political talking point for some. Its failures are blamed on whichever party you don't like. I really hate to hear our schools called "indoctrination centers," to hear teachers called "commies" for being in the teachers' union, to hear Common Core blamed for everything but toe fungus, and to hear people say they would never send their children or grandchildren to them. But it's pretty common on this board. I would bet, though, that many of these people have no idea what actually goes on in a typical school room on any given day. They have been filled with what I believe to be propaganda ... to what end, I have no idea. It sure doesn't help things, though; that I'm sure of.

Schools have a big responsibility on their shoulders, to educate every child in the district regardless of mental, physical or emotional disability in the mainstream classroom and to ensure each student graduate, regardless of what language they speak or what motivation they bring with them to school. They feed kids breakfast and lunch, try to keep them safe in neighborhoods that aren't, and somewhere in there, teach them to read, write and cipher. It's not actually that easy. It's not really political. The troubles in our education system are reflective of the problems in our society, in the neighborhoods where each school exists and in the amount of attention we are willing to give those problems. It isn't about the curriculum or lazy teachers or bad parents or violent students. "Fixing" any one of those things will not solve the problem.

Mr. Livingston reminds us of the higher purpose of education--to open the mind and therefore open possibilities in people's lives. Not just the possibility of getting a job and making money enough for a McMansion and two late model cars, but each individual's ability to explore and become the best, brightest and boldest they can be. To spread that light into other dark places just by doing what they do and raising their children to also seek the truth, be curious and unafraid of questions.

That's what his remarks and the subsequent remarks by posters here made me think of.

 

[Elvis Obama]

The breakdown of the family, the failure of true integration, a decade of struggling economy, a major shift in what education is necessary for today's workforce, more and more weight given to performance measures like standardized tests, and increasingly, political influence poking its way into every discussion of education .... all of those factors and probably a lot more are responsible for an education system that is not keeping up with the Joneses on the other side of the pond.

It is not the fault of standardized tests in themselves. We would be equally upset with our tax dollars going into systems without accountability. When the schools receive taxpayers' money, they owe it to the public to show they are doing the job. Hence standardized testing. People talk as if this were something new, as if a uniform, statewide curriculum were something new and diabolical. I was taking standardized tests from the time I was in 3rd grade (I think it was 3rd) and since I received my education in New York state, I was in the Regents track, which has for at least 50 years outlined a specific curriculum and administered statewide finals in those subjects. It wasn't required for all students when I went to school, but those on a college trajectory took it. It didn't interfere with my education; we were of the generation that got good SAT scores. There is more to the problem than either of those factors that people blame for the "failure" of our schools.

The breakdown of the family? What kids learn at home about respect for education and for schools and for their teachers is a big factor. When kids have stressed out parents working two jobs to keep the lights turned on, or parents with drug addiction, or parents who dropped out of school and freely share their hatred of education, that makes a big difference. You can point fingers at teachers, but if kids don't get support at home for their primary "job" (being the best student they can be), a lot of them won't make it. Has it ever been the case that these factors weren't at work though?

Elvis is right, I think, to distinguish between schools with good disciplinary systems and those without. That is not necessarily a poverty thing, although in neighborhoods with gangs, it is certainly more essential. I taught once in a public school where the principal (who was fired the following year) insisted teachers not send disruptive students to his office. He was sick of dealing with so many of them. Detention was also never enforced, so if a student was written up, he or she could ignore it. The kids ran the school and there wasn't one goddam thing you could do about it as a teacher. This was a 100% white school, by the way, so lack of discipline and a lot of disruptive students are not necessarily an inner-city, black phenomenon.

It seems that education is now a big political talking point for some. Its failures are blamed on whichever party you don't like. I really hate to hear our schools called "indoctrination centers," to hear teachers called "commies" for being in the teachers' union, to hear Common Core blamed for everything but toe fungus, and to hear people say they would never send their children or grandchildren to them. But it's pretty common on this board. I would bet, though, that many of these people have no idea what actually goes on in a typical school room on any given day. They have been filled with what I believe to be propaganda ... to what end, I have no idea. It sure doesn't help things, though; that I'm sure of.

Schools have a big responsibility on their shoulders, to educate every child in the district regardless of mental, physical or emotional disability in the mainstream classroom and to ensure each student graduate, regardless of what language they speak or what motivation they bring with them to school. They feed kids breakfast and lunch, try to keep them safe in neighborhoods that aren't, and somewhere in there, teach them to read, write and cipher. It's not actually that easy. It's not really political. The troubles in our education system are reflective of the problems in our society, in the neighborhoods where each school exists and in the amount of attention we are willing to give those problems. It isn't about the curriculum or lazy teachers or bad parents or violent students. "Fixing" any one of those things will not solve the problem.

Mr. Livingston reminds us of the higher purpose of education--to open the mind and therefore open possibilities in people's lives. Not just the possibility of getting a job and making money enough for a McMansion and two late model cars, but each individual's ability to explore and become the best, brightest and boldest they can be. To spread that light into other dark places just by doing what they do and raising their children to also seek the truth, be curious and unafraid of questions.

That's what his remarks and the subsequent remarks by posters here made me think of.

They have been filled with what I believe to be propaganda ... to what end, I have no idea. It sure doesn't help things, though; that I'm sure of.

It serves the interest of privatization.

or parents who dropped out of school and freely share their hatred of education,

Here, I think, we see the gulf that exists between educators and their critics. Educators live with these realities. Their critics have no appreciation for these underlying realities, which define the relationship between teachers and the families of students. Realities which can make or break the classroom dynamic.

Mr. Livingston reminds us of the higher purpose of education--to open the mind and therefore open possibilities in people's lives. Not just the possibility of getting a job and making money enough for a McMansion and two late model cars, but each individual's ability to explore and become the best, brightest and boldest they can be. To spread that light into other dark places just by doing what they do and raising their children to also seek the truth, be curious and unafraid of questions.

The current war on teachers is a direct challenge to the concept of teaching as a profession. It seeks to devalue teachers and reduce them to the level of clerical employees. To make teachers into non-union cogs in a charter school machine. Public education has allowed that to happen by sucking all the joy out of education, by abandoning humanities in the face of mounting failure. All that did is accelerate the failure, and give the privatization forces the crack they sought.

 

[Wilbur Right]

I believe the education problem can be attributed to a reading skills problem. Reading skills problems can be shown to originate before formal schooling starts. If a kids mother can't read well, chances are the kid will not read well.

Until the third grade, kids are learning to read. After that, they are reading to learn. If a kid is behind at the third grade reading level, studies show that catching up will be very difficult.

So seems like we have a second (besides money and no money) have and have nots situation. Kids and adults who can read WELL and those that can't.

If you don't read well in this society at this time, chances are you are struggling. And there are millions of Americans who do not read beyond a basic level.

 

[320 Years of History]

I believe the education problem can be attributed to a reading skills problem. Reading skills problems can be shown to originate before formal schooling starts. If a kids mother can't read well, chances are the kid will not read well.

Until the third grade, kids are learning to read. After that, they are reading to learn. If a kid is behind at the third grade reading level, studies show that catching up will be very difficult.

So seems like we have a second (besides money and no money) have and have nots situation. Kids and adults who can read WELL and those that can't.

If you don't read well in this society at this time, chances are you are struggling. And there are millions of Americans who do not read beyond a basic level.

Well, there again, learning to read is something a parent whose reading skills are weak can do with their children. Poor reading skills or not, one would expect a parent to pick up the skill faster than will their child. As disillusioning as that may be for the parent, as a parent, as one who aims to be the best possible parent they can be, they need to "get over" their embarrassment and do it because doing it is in their child's best interest. Call me crazy, but there simply is no justifiable excuse, least of all imaginable excuses being one's personal chagrin, for abdicating any aspect of one's responsibility to one's child.

That said, learning to read entails more than just recognizing words. Our language has "codes" and conventions that convey meaning beyond the literal denotation and implicit connotation of the words themselves. We call those codes "punctuation" and the conventions for their use "grammar."

If I recall correctly, it's not until somewhere around the sixth or seventh grade that students have been given the entirety of the body of grammar that English uses, and it's even later, somewhere around the ninth or tenth grade that students learn the most advanced aspects of English communication, literary devices. Allegory, allusion, euphemism, hyperbole, irony, personification, syntax, semi-colons, appositives, verb modes, etc. are not elements taught to third graders, yet they are critical to one's ability to read well because if one does not understand and recognize them when one encounters them, one will often misinterpret the meaning of what one reads (or hears).

In light of those realities, I assert that learning to read does not in any way stop at the third grade. Be that as it is, I fully agree that folks who are behind in reading skills in the third grade will indeed struggle to catch up later.

 

[Wilbur Right]

In light of those realities, I assert that learning to read does not in any way stop at the third grade. Be that as it is, I fully agree that folks who are behind in reading skills in the third grade will indeed struggle to catch up later.

My apologis for not making myself more clear. In the school system that I volunteer at, they spend a great part of the school day teaching reading. This is the emphasis until the third grade reading proficiency test is passed.

After third, while continuing to teach more and more reading skills, the emphasis has moved on to the kid being able to read the material presented to be able to learn said material.

It's the law that kids pass the third grade test.

I worked with English as a second language students this past year. There is minimal English spoken in the kids home that I worked with. It's a real struggle to teach a kid to read when they have no help at home.

Same thing with kids living in poverty. Around 60% of househds at the poverty level have no appropriate reading materIal for kids.
Plus the adults living in the home can't read or don't read very well.

It's a big problem.

You and I learned to read in a way I call organically. We were exposed to the right reading stimuli at the right time. One day we could just read. And we took it from there. Kids that miss out on that organic approach are struggling to learn to read. And it's a hard problem to fix, yet has serious implications for our health as a society. IMO.

 

[Wilbur Right]

Poor reading skills or not, one would expect a parent to pick up the skill faster than will their child.

I thought the same until I had a few conversations with tutors who teach adults to read. They (adults) really have a hard time learning to read.

English is a tough language to learn.