The philosophy of education - Articles - Zimbio

Abstinence Education: Just Wait is Just Worthless

Sun, 16 Apr 2007 01:30:00 GMT

posted by beckychr007

Last week Anderson Cooper had this segment about Sex and Salvation. Perhaps it was sweeps week, and that is why they had to repeat it every day. It did have all the elements--primarily plenty of shots of bikini clad Girls Gone Wild on Spring Break in Florida.

However, to give it legitimate journalistic value it also focused on some evangelical college students who went down there to tell the others not to fuck.

I have to admit, I liked the Christian kids better than the others. They were fresh faced and healthy. The regulars were drunk, sunburnt and lobotomized.

And probably the good kids had a better time in the end. They went away with the feeling perhaps their abstinence message hit home with a few. Moreover, they went back with both their brains and genitals intact.

But, according to a congressional report, it seems unlikely most of them will remain true to their abstinence pledge. However, I do suspect, by and large, they will not engage in mindless humping.

From the Congressional Office of "Everyone Understands This Except George Bush" comes the news that abstinence education classes don't work. I know, I'm shocked too.

The federal government currently expends 176 million dollars a year on these programs. Albeit, thats not much considering more is spent in three Iraqi hours. Just the same, with tax day just around the corner, it does frost a bit.

Essentially they found the classes have no effect. Half the control group eventually got it on, as did half the indoctrinated.

I guess the good news out of all this was that, despite what critics of abstinence education said, the classes and pledges did not lead to an increase in unprotected sex.

Essentially they are just worthless.

Of course, the Bush administration says the science is not yet in on this. And you also know that whenever the word "science" is used nothing will be changed. So they will continue to spend the money in order to pacify the Righteous Right.

Whatever the politicians do, there are going to be kids who make the decision not to fool around without any pressure from the federal government.

And I will say it again, I really do like those kids, cos they are under a lot more pressure from society and their peers who are like I was, to do anything but.

School is Hard

Sat, 2 Mar 2008 16:22:00 GMT

posted by wbrown10

This is the time of the year when I always feel a little overwhelmed. QHST being annualized my relationships with my students are either on autopilot or reaching levels of unspeakable stress. Talk around school starts to focus on next year.

Who will be teaching what?
What schedule will we be using next year?
Who will not be returning?
How many new-hires will be joining us?
Are we meeting the needs of all learners?
Has the CTT model been working for teachers and students?
What are we doing wrong?
What can we fix before June? What will have to wait til next year?
What will summer school look like?

And then there are the seniors, they are stressing about college, or other post high school expectations. I must admit with the room changes this year, I teach in four different rooms, and the pressure from the DOE to make data driven decisions, I forget why I love teaching. Outside of school with the economy in disarray and a hotly debated presidential race and I seriously need to refocus.

What has saved me this year from sheer depression have been a couple of "ah ha emails". Former students feeling compelled to share their college experiences with me, or even asking me for help. Through these emails I've been invited to “sit in” on an undergrad class by a students who compares her current sociology class to her experience in my government class. Another student thanked me for going paperless senior year it helped her greatly making her transition to her current economics class.

QHST will never be the same year to year. Our family of students and parents changes and grows. Not becoming so overwhelmed with the here and now and focusing on the long term accomplishments helps me gather the energy to dive back into Mondays. Tuesday I start to look at data again, start to look at multiple failure lists, start to look at suspensions, start to look at attendance rates, exam scores, start to look at ID cards, hall passes, teacher time, credit accumulation, teacherease, IEPs, and will start to look once again at the day to day.

New Comment on an Old Post

Mon, 4 Mar 2008 16:01:00 GMT

posted by wbrown10

Below is a comment I received yesterday on a post that was written in May of 2007. We seem to be having a new discussion around our model of inclusion. Venting frustrations can be healthy, but more importantly offering solutions is really the only true way to overcome adversity.

The comment reads:

"As a CTT teacher, I absolutely feel this model is not working. It could work, in theory, but not the way things are set up now. Being forced to stand up in front of a class and embarrass yourself teaching content you don't know just to put on a show that you're standing in front of the room is stupid, frankly, and benefiting no one- not the students, not the CTT teacher, and not the general ed teacher who will have to reteach the lesson the next day, anyway. Steamrolling your CTT teacher into doing what the general ed teacher wants, whether it be either extreme- ignoring them and not planing with them, or handing them a lesson that you wrote and wondering why they can't posibly teach it is not exaclty what 'relationship' building is all about. If you have never taught special ed, please do not read theory and a manuel and then feel you are an expert and able to give advice and instruction to CTT teachers. Go teach a CTT class. Then you might have even a fraction of an insight as to what you're talking about. "

How might we help our distressed colleague through this situation? What are teachers supposed to be doing in a CTT model classroom?

"The school that I'd like"

Mon, 7 Aug 2007 21:46:00 GMT

posted by JHolford

Back in 1967 – the Observer newspaper in the UK organized an opportunity for children to write about on the subject: “The school that I’d like”.

The results became a Penguin book edited by Edward Blishen. The collection of opinions provides a trenchant critique of school and school life. The students wrote with freshness, passion and insight and their words provide a sustained attack on the status quo as perceived by the children actually in the schools.

One girl wrote in her essay: "I don't think I would get on very well in my ideal school because I am too used to being told what to do."--Frances, 15.

Here are some other extracts:

“I am not preparing for life. I am alive now,” Melanie, 14

“The pupils should be given more chance to speak and the teachers should be given a chance to listen,’ – Susan, 13

In editorial Blishen wrote, "Standing out above everything else is the children's desire to teach themselves, rather than be the passive targets of teaching...they long to be excited, to be amazed by learning, since amazement seems to be a proper response to life...They want to learn to govern themselves. They want to take risks - lord, how anxious they are to be at risk, intellectually and emotionally, and how shameful it is that so many of them should find their teachers, the whole system of education, lacking in every kind of courage! They want to break down the walls of the school, to admit the wider world".

Children spend years of their lives in school. How is it that they are so rarely consulted about how things and how they could be improved? Young people are much to offer about how their worlds can be structured for learning and for creating an ethical and safe community. These are high priorities for children and they have a great deal to tell us about how to create effective school environments that promote and expect these values. When we fail to engage students as active participants in their own education we are missing a great opportunity to teach, and learn.

Here’s Edward Blishen back in 1967 again, "From all the quarters of the educational scene it comes, this expression of children's longing to take upon themselves some of the burden of deciding what should be learned, how it should be learned."

Thirty plus years on the newspaper repeated the experiment. More on that next time.

Finally Some Accountability ????

Sat, 20 Jan 2008 19:55:00 GMT

posted by wbrown10

After reading the following article I began to ask myself what problem is this new DOE policy going to address? and what is the solution? If the change in policy is meant to help the HS system by filtering out reading an writing problems then I believe he is on to something. Freshmen classes would be more academically sound for the first year. I suspect however that sophomore reading and writing skills would be about the same.

However if the change is being put in place to genuinely help the struggling students I question this practice. With the advent of the smaller HS should not they be better equipped to handle the struggling student rather than the overcrowded middle school. Holding students accountable for failed instructional practices upon hearing strikes an awkward tone in my ears.

Imagine if a doctor punished patients for not getting better with the hope that they would not return for more medical care.

It sounds like the we are almost literally throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Excerpted from the NYTIMES:

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Thursday unveiled strict new criteria for promotion to high school that could, if current testing patterns hold, put nearly a quarter of New York City’s eighth graders in danger of spending an extra year in middle school.

The new policy, which Mr. Bloomberg announced in his State of the City address, would require next year’s eighth graders to score at a basic level on standardized English and math exams, and to pass their classes in core subject areas in order to be promoted. It is stricter than similar policies that the mayor has put in place in the third, fifth and seventh grades, all in an effort to end the practice of social promotion, in which students are moved ahead despite academic problems."