Induction: Day Four

The Teaching As Leadership (TAL) framework is the operating ethos of TFA corps members, as it is the teaching style of excellent teachers who have demonstrated the ability to lead students to significant academic gains (1.5+ years of content in 1 school year).

During our session today, I analogized the TAL framework to a race car. Just because.

Setting Big Goals for Students is like identifying where the finish line is. Where do we want the race to end? Where should students be academically at the end of the year?

Investing Students and their Influencers in Hard Work is like the seat belts. How will we safely strap in our students for the ride to the finish line? How will we motivate students to want to work hard for these goals?

Planning Purposefully is like the steering wheel. What direction do we need to steer the car to navigate the track all the way to the finish line? Given our goals, how will we organize lessons to maximize learning?

Executing Effectively is like the tires. How effective will our tires be in actually moving our car? How can our plans be implemented into actions to maximize time in class?

Working Relentlessly is like the fuel. How long can we keep driving without stopping to refuel? What support do we need to continue our constant push for large academic gains in the classroom?

Continuously Improving is like the pit crew. When should we pull over to have our car fixed and tweaked to give top performance? What can we change about our teaching style to improve?

Given these 6 tenets of the TAL framework, the analogy can be utilized further: a race car is not much of a race car without seat belts, tires, a steering wheel, fuel, and a pit crew, and it's not even a race if there isn't a finish line. A race car requires all of these to compete successfully. Likewise, an effective teacher needs to be able to set big goals, invest students, plan and implement, work hard and improve, to have the largest positive impact on students.

Induction: Day Three

We've just occupied the entire day with a 15-minute session to identify the ridges of our fingertips, and were then entertained at a few socials with lots of free food and booze. I hope this doesn't revoke my membership as an agent of change. I'd imagine this would only support our recruitment efforts: join Teach For America and join other immensely awesome people to do good in the world and to have fun while doing it.

Induction: Day Two

Still no Internets, but I've still got words to give:

As TFA corps members, we have a responsibility to invest students in hard work and in making significant progress toward large academic goals, but we also act as proponents of our national movement to end educational inequity. We are agents of change and of recruitment; to empower our movement and ensure that our message is heard, we explain our mission to our inquisitive friends and families, we fight bad policies for our students' rights and potential to learn in our respective schools and districts, and we set our sights on realms of influence outside of the classroom to command and conquer, all the while impressing on others a sense of dedication toward our goals and urgency to reach them.

As agents of recruitment, we progress toward our goals with intentions to spread our influence, to gather more capable hands to do our work. We expand and reform. We articulate and assimilate. We are exceedingly efficient and ever increasing our efforts. And our numbers continue to grow.

This job is totally awesome so far. Brrr, chills!

Induction: Day One

The beginning of his first foray into summer training for Teach For America, our Fearless Hero is now typing away his thoughts from the safety of an unfamiliar dormroom, his words saved to file because Hayward has not yet discovered the Internet. His resume is loaded and set to stun, his test results are at his disposal, but will it be enough to dodge his inevitable fate of obtaining substitute pay? And will he own his identity of a motivated college graduate in this vast expanse of motivation fielded by other professionals, or will he succumb to fears of rejection by his peers?

TUNE IN TOMORROW AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

Teach For America Extravaganza

Sorry for the lack of posts; I've not had internet for the past week, but have still been writing daily, and I intend to post those today and tomorrow. I just came back from a week-long Teach For America orientation and training with other corps members from the Bay Area, and am flying down to LA tomorrow for a month-long intensive teaching institute. I stress the adjective intensive.

Anyway, down in LA I will continue my attempts to write on a daily basis, and 99% of the time my posts will involve topics of teaching, so if you're into that, then you know what to do!

Ethical Responsible-ness-ity

Bush blows raspberries toward another stem cell research bill:

Vetoing the bill a second time Wednesday, Bush also sought to placate those who disagree with him by signing an executive order urging scientists toward what he termed "ethically responsible" research.

Bush announced no new federal dollars for stem cell research, which supporters say holds the promise of disease cures, and his order would not allow researchers to do anything they couldn't do under existing restrictions.

"If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," Bush said. "I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."

It is, however, "ethically responsible" to continue to fund embryonic stem cell research fueled by the blood of potential babies gathered prior a certain date:

On 9 August (2001), eager to please everybody, especially his conservative supporters, Bush tried another form of compromise, in a well-worded speech that suggested personal agony, as well as political astuteness. Bush reminded listeners, in a reference to use of fetal tissue transplants for Parkinson's disease, that promising scientific endeavors do not always succeed. He ruled that the government could fund research on stem cells that had been derived before, but not after, 9 August provided that they came from embryos left over after fertility treatments (thereby excluding the embryos created specifically for research by the Jones Institute).

The compromise was that the government should not encourage destruction of more embryos, but since the damage had already been done in the case of cells derived before 9 August, and the potential to treat disease was real, use of these cells should be funded. Bush's well-worded speech did not please everyone, though most conservatives (with the notable exception of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops) have remained quiet. Many scientific groups, including the American Society of Human Genetics, have offered cautious praise, largely because the statement sets a precedent for federal funding, which they hope may be expanded if preliminary research succeeds. Bush's statement is illogical and without a basis in principled reasoning. There is no reason, beyond the political, why it should be ethical to use stem cells from blastocysts killed before the arbitrary cut-off date of 9 August, but not afterwards.

It also must be "ethically responsible" to allow the killing fields in the private sector to continue, provided they are not funded by taxpayers:

Federal funding for research involving mouse embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells (both mouse and human) is currently available and is not restricted. However, federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells is limited to research involving only those cell lines that were approved by the Bush administration in August 2001. In contrast, no restrictions in the type of research that can be performed with private funds are in place.

You know, like how homicide is allowed as long as it's for-profit.

Human Nature

"Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature ."

- Charles Dickens

From K to Cal

It's never too early to start encouraging students to attend college:

Wednesday's ceremony at Anne Darling School in East San Jose, complete with "Pomp and Circumstance," crowned not only a year of kindergarten learning but also marked a promise for the future.

Eight South Bay college presidents and chancellors helped present certificates to the school's 84 kindergarteners with a pledge: When they graduate from high school, they will be guaranteed a spot in local colleges, if they meet admission requirements.

Although the certificate itself isn't guaranteeing much at all (if you meet admission requirements you most certainly will be able to attend college, with or without a note from years past), there is certainly something to be said for the power of high expectations. Letting children know that their teachers and family are expecting them to work diligently toward success and attend college, lets them know that they have the potential to do so. With all of the disparaging statistics and stereotypes of our modern age, children of certain backgrounds are getting the wrong impression-- that they lack the potential to succeed.

In California's class of 2006, only 36 percent had completed requirements for entering the University of California or California State University systems. For Latino students, it was 21 percent; for African-Americans it was 20 percent.

While teachers and parents have little control over the negative images and influences portrayed in the media and prevalent in society, we can and must counter these with the power of our words and expectations. Setting big goals early on and supporting students in achieving those goals is the best way we can motivate and empower our kids. All children have unlimited potential and we need to always remind them of that.

Berkeley Bureaucracy: Endless Hauntings

I need a transcript stating my conferred degree to get a full-time teaching salary.

5. When are degrees posted to the transcript?

Degrees are posted approximately three months after the end of the term.

Even after graduation, Berkeley continues to ruin my life.

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Stem Cell Mimics, not Replacements

Scientists are having luck with manipulating mouse cells to emulate some of the qualities of embryonic stem cells (ESCs)--and CNN blows the story before the end of the first misleading sentence:

NEW YORK (AP) -- What if scientists could find a way to produce embryonic stem cells without having to tamper with embryos?

1) They aren't producing embryonic stem cells. They've successfully rewired mouse (iPS) cells to emulate ESCs in various lab tests, although there are still some key differences, such as their capacity to "promote cancer in any patients getting therapy based on [iPS cells]".

More on those differences:

In addition, scientists still must show that these cells can give rise to many cell types in the lab, as embryonic stem cells can.

And all this must be accomplished in human cells -- a difficult task, because introducing genes into human cells is a major challenge.

Ah, Science and your bite-sized breakthroughs!

2) This whole "tampering" business is a crock. We're already tampering with embryos regardless of whether we partake in ESC research, and it's not as bad as it sounds:

ESCs are taken from extra 5-day-old embryos artificially fertilized in a laboratory by the wishes of the aspiring parents. Markedly early in development, the embryo numbers about 100 cells (compare that to the 10,000,000,000,000 cells in an adult). At this stage in the natural female body this bundle of cells has not even reached the uterus, the mother’s womb, where fertilized eggs have to initially implant for a pregnancy to even begin, as is the medical consensus.

I've written about the debate before so I don't have much more to add at the moment, other than how infuriating it is to hear the deputy director of pro-life activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops say he's "very encouraged" that we've made progress into making ESC mimics, which will take longer to produce cures and therapies for the millions of people suffering from serious medical conditions and diseases. Yeah, it's encouraging to know that scientists are gallivanting about trying to make alternatives to ESCs because of a provincial ethical outlook that currently dictates the management of federal funding. Right.

A Different Perspective #3: Gay Pride

June is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, the official month to recognize the positive impact Gay, Lesbian and Transgender individuals have made on society. While acceptance and tolerance of different sexual orientations on a daily basis should be the norm, this month is definitely the right time to (start) show(ing) support for this community.

In this week's clip of A Different Perspective, we have William Sledd's video addressing both the cowards who have posted thousands of messages of filth and pestilence on his wall ("It's my month, bitches"), and the fears and joys of coming out. At the end of the clip William asks for viewers to show their pride and support by leaving video responses--check them out to hear other touching stories and shout-outs from others.

Investing in Schools (Literally)

Inequitable, stratified school funding is one of the reasons propounded as a cause of the Achievement Gap, or the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Apart from the apportionment normally divvied up from your taxes, our schools are also funneled money from their respective communities:

In those final weeks before summer vacation, when temperatures can soar into the 90s, parents at 5 of Greenwich’s 11 elementary schools without adequate air-conditioning could no longer watch their children wilt, along with the crayons, in the heat. So they approached the school board and air-conditioning was installed — but not at the expense of property taxpayers; the parents raised the money.

Students in two other elementary schools in town, without the same deep-pocketed parents, had to wait, however. They were finally granted air-conditioning after town officials squeezed the upgrades into capital budgets financed by taxpayers.

In the last decade, a growing number of parents, alumni and corporations have been donating private money to public schools for a wide range of school equipment, educational supplies, artists-in-residence and accouterments that go beyond the traditional PTA gifts and what may otherwise be outside the local school board’s spending plan.

This growing partnership between schools and families offers us another arena of controversy, especially within the context of student achievement being impacted along socioeconomic lines by differently resourced schools in differently resourced communities. Is it fair that students in the quoted scenario above were offered air conditioning at different times based on the level of privilege of the homes they are growing up in? The issue burns brighter when the focus shifts from "Who gets air conditioning sooner?" to "Who gets extra-curricular activities?" and "Who gets more textbooks?"

Gift caps have been put in place by some districts, but they are not the best solution, as some communities cannot donate nearly as much as the legal amount, while other communities have had success in "negotiating" with districts to donate more than the allowed amount to their schools:

It was just those kinds of disparities that led the Greenwich school board to impose gift caps 10 years ago on what schools can accept in total each year from parents and other sources. These days, the caps have been hovering at about $64,600 per elementary school and $104,500 per middle school.

Despite those controls, a board of education analysis dated September 2005 showed “continuing inequities among schools,” with the largest variation evident at the elementary school level. Hamilton Avenue received as little as $17,022 in gifts in the 2004-5 school year, $7,811 of which was contributed by its parent-teacher association. Eight other elementary schools received well in excess of $50,000 apiece from their parent-teacher associations.

One of the more promising ideas is to create nonprofit foundations that meter out contributions to all schools of a district. There are approximately 5,000 such foundations, found in 1 out of every 3 school districts nationwide.

Unfortunately, in an effort to cash in on private philanthropy, these foundations are often put in place to compensate for individual donations given to separate schools:

In California, where parents first started educational foundations in response to a statewide law capping property taxes, the combined district of Santa Monica and Malibu requires that 15 percent of the gifts from parents to individual schools must go in an “equity fund” that is administered by an independent foundation. That money then provides block grants that have the potential to “improve the achievement of all students,” according to the district’s Web site.

The $330,000 that the equity fund took in this year, according to Linda Gross, the chairwoman of the foundation, goes a long way toward smoothing out differences in a district where one parent-teacher association raises $25,000 a year and another raises $750,000.

While the paltry 15% might help smooth out differences in funding for our schools, we could eliminate those differences if contributions to individual schools were restricted, or at least promote more equality if stronger gift caps were implemented and the "equity fund" was increased. These funding disparities are appalling and they detriment society by prohibiting education from truly being the great equalizer.