Board Opening

There will be an opening on the board next month. George Cherrie has moved to the Kutztown area and will be unable to serve. The school district will advertise for two weeks for potential candidates and make a selection within thirty days as prescribed by law. Interested parties should contact James Gilmartin acting superintendent.

So This is What Happened to Barney Fife After Mayberry

local6.com - News - DEA Agent Shoots Self During Gun Safety Class: "ORLANDO, Fla. -- A federal drug agent shot himself in the leg during a gun safety presentation to children and his bosses are investigating.
The Drug Enforcement Administration agent, whose name was not released, was giving a gun safety presentation to about 50 adults and students organized by the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association, witnesses and police said.
He drew his .40-caliber duty weapon and removed the magazine, according to the police report. Then he pulled back the slide and asked someone in the audience to look inside the gun and confirm it wasn't loaded, the report said.
Witnesses said the gun was pointed at the floor and when he released the slide, one shot fired into the top of his left thigh."

You may just be a math victim

ABC13.com: Inability to do math really might not be your fault: "Our brains aren't well equipped to grasp those kinds of advanced mathematics, said Stanford University mathematician and National Public Radio's 'Math Guy' Keith Devlin. Most people who can do such abstract number twisting don't even understand what they're doing at first, he said.
Unlike what Devlin calls 'natural mathematics,' such as counting, algebra, geometry and simple arithmetic that the brain does naturally, 'formal mathematics,' such as adding fractions and calculus, seems counter to common sense to our brains.
Because natural and formal math require different kinds of thinking, teachers may want to look for ways to teach them differently too, said Devlin, who was speaking at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The four-day conference of about 17,000 math teachers started Wednesday in Philadelphia.
So how does one learn formal math? Fake it until you make it -- and not everyone does because it can take years of frustrating, repetitious and rote rule-following, Devlin said.
'You have to be psychologically willing and able to just follow the formal rules, play the game and not try to make sense of it,' he said. 'Eventually, for some people, the meaningless game will eventually become meaningful.' "

TCS: Tech Central Station - How Much is Enough to Spend on Education?

TCS: Tech Central Station - How Much is Enough to Spend on Education?: "How much is enough when it comes to funding better schools? According to studies done for school finance lawsuits, schools are radically underfunded. And opponents of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) claim implementing the law would require spending an additional $85 billion to $150 billion, an increase of 20 to 35 percent.
In the journal 'Education Next', an article titled Exploring the Costs of Accountability explains how consultants decide how much funding is 'adequate.' The authors are James Peyser, who chairs the Massachusetts Board of Education, and Robert Costrell, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst currently working for the state government.

They conclude that the NCLB 'spending gap' is more like $8 billion, centered in a few large states, and could be met by giving states more flexibility in spending federal funds.
...

Over the range of spending commonly observed among school systems in the United States, the effect on student achievement is often swamped by how wisely the money is spent, by bureaucratic and contract rigidities, and by a host of important policies and decisions that have nothing at all to do with money. The fact is that most research finds, after controlling for demographic factors, no consistent causal relationship between expenditures and achievement over the current range of spending levels

...

Simply adding more money to a dysfunctional system produces higher-priced dysfunction

Should Have Bought A Digital Camera

Couple Takes Pics Of Son, 2, Smoking Pot - April 27, 2004: "APRIL 27--Meet Elizabeth Lyvers and John Robert Gray. The dimwitted Kentucky couple was arrested Sunday for felony child abuse after taking pictures of Lyvers's two-year-old son smoking pot. The pair was nabbed when an employee at the convenience store where Lyvers, 24, and Gray, 20, dropped off their film called cops after seeing the offending images. According to Bardstown police, one photo shows Gray holding a pipe to the child's mouth while an unidentified man--who is being sought--lights the pipe (after his arrest, Gray acknowledged that the device contained marijuana). Lyvers's son--and a one-year-old fathered by Gray--were removed from the couple's home by state child welfare officials. The below mug shots were taken by the Nelson County Sheriff's Department. Along with the abuse charges, Lyvers and Gray have one other criminal headache: their central Kentucky home was robbed yesterday while they were bunking at the local lockup. (1 page)"

Antietam Full Day Kindergarten

"The Antietam School Board voted 8-1 Monday night to approve a full-day kindergarten program, even though the program is one of the reasons the preliminary budget for next year is up about a half-million dollars over this year.
?It blows the budget wide open,? board member John A. Fielding Jr., who voted against the program, said after the meeting.
The tentative budget for the 2004-05 school year is $10.4 million, an increase of $505,000 over the current budget.
Antietam has the second-highest tax rate in the county at 24.25 mills, which means the owner of a property assessed at $100,000 pays $2,425 in tax.
Diane Mehle, the district's business manager, did not rule out raising taxes to pay for the budget increase, but said it also could be paid from the general fund or by cutting programs.
The board may vote on the tentative budget at its May 12 meeting." MORE in Today's Reading Eagle :

Article

"Fleetwood-area athletic groups have an ambitious goal to upgrade the school district's sports facilities to include an artificial-turf field, an eight-lane track and more tennis courts.
The school board recently approved a long-range plan that would require the groups to raise $1.2 million to $1.5 million.
Dr. Paul B. Eaken, superintendent, has said that no property-tax dollars would be used to fund the improvements.
A timeline for the project has not been set.
?We'll have an all-purpose field for field hockey, soccer, football any use in the future to try to serve our student athletes,? said Matt Q. Diehl, district athletic director.
Groups such as the Fleetwood High School Tiger Athletic Association and the Fleetwood Youth Football and Cheerleading Association will begin efforts to raise the money.
Mike T. Emge, president of the youth football and cheerleading association, said the group is excited to get the ball rolling." More in Today's Reading Eagle :

Don't Turn Your Back On A 2 Years Old

"An excellent article by Erin Anderssen and Anne McIlroy in the Canadian Globe And Mail summarizes research on child development and human violence in which they report that Richard Tremblay has found that 2 year old babies are more physically aggressive than teenagers or adults but fortunately too uncoordinated to do much damage to others. Are human beings born pure, as Rousseau argued, and tainted by the world around them? Or do babies arrive bad, as St. Augustine wrote, and learn, for their own good, how to behave in society?

St. Augustine was obviously much closer to the truth.

What Dr. Tremblay and his colleagues around the world have now demonstrated is that the ability to feel rage exists the moment human beings take their first breaths. A four-month-old infant can show anger. And as they gain more control over their arms and legs, their mothers report increasing incidents of kicking and biting: They can also act in anger.

By the second year, aggressive behaviour peaks in temper tantrums, with slapping and pushing; according to Dr. Tremblay's work, a typical two-year-old, playing with others over the course of an hour, will commit one act of physical aggression for every four social interactions.

With teenagers, he says, researchers talk in terms of years or months or weeks between aggressive acts -- never hours -- though the incidents, obviously, are more severe. By their third birthdays, children have the motor skills to perform any of the acts of aggression an adult can. But at just that age, aggression begins to drop.

For almost everyone, it continues to drop for the rest of their lives. By Dr. Tremblay's calculation, only in about 5 per cent of men does the rate of aggression remain relatively stable into early adulthood. They are the most dangerous group to society.
............

The article tries to put what I consider to be an excessive environmental spin on the reason for the decline in physical aggression as children age. The fact that babies simultaneously become more physically coordinated and less violent at the same time strikes me as too much of a coincidence to be the result of teaching and discipline. Likely there is a genetically programmed stage of mental development that builds inhibiting neural circuits to control the physical outbursts.

.......

Raine has also shown that that psychopaths have distinct differences in the shapes of some parts of their brains and that violent criminals have less brain gray matter.

These discoveries add up to suggest that there are limits to how much violent tendencies can be reduced using environmental changes and different methods of teaching and disciplining children. It seems unlikely that methods of teaching and socialization can fully compensate for less grey matter in those who commit violent acts as adults or the larger corpus callosums and asymmetrical hypothalamuses found in psychopaths." MORE

Now what it doesn't answer is the cause of the difference in brain shapes or abundance of gray matter. That could be caused by lack of socialization, teaching, genetics, diet and a host of environmental

Columbine

On the topic of aggression and anti-social behavior. An excellent article in Slate on the real reasons behind Columbine. Bullying had little to nothing to do with it. The Depressive and the Psychopath - At last we know why the Columbine killers did it. By Dave Cullen

Commitee of The Whole Agenda 4/26/2004

Click here

Boy, 12, Accused Of Threatening Allergic Teacher With Cookie

"SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- A sixth-grader was suspended after school officials accused him of threatening to expose a highly allergic teacher to peanut butter cookies, the boy's father said Thursday. Loubert Gabriel said his son, 12-year-old Jules, had been kept out of class since April 2, after a girl in his social studies class at South Orange Middle School told the teacher that Jules had made the threat." More When peanut butter is outlawed only outlaws will eat PB&J.

When Did This Become A Crime

MOKANE, Mo. (AP) - A middle school teacher was arrested and charged with false imprisonment after allegedly duct taping two seventh grade students to their desks and taping one student's mouth shut.
Prosecutors said the teacher, Darren Daughenbaugh, was apparently attempting to discipline the students. He was arrested Tuesday and released on bond, Callaway County Sheriff Dennis Crane said. MORE I read the article and I still don't seem the problem.

MSNBC - 'No child' law leaves schools' old ways behind

"WARREN TOWNSHIP, Ind. - Raymond Park Middle School lost its two arts teachers last year. Home economics was eliminated, along with most foreign-language classes and some physical education classes. The overwhelming priority these days is getting students to grade level in reading and math.
Instead of an art department, Raymond Park now has a computer wizard who, with a few clicks of a mouse, can produce charts of students lagging behind state and federal performance targets. An education consultant from Texas, preaching a business-driven model known as total quality management, has reorganized the curriculum into three-week chunks, each of which leads up to a test."
...
"The difficulty of keeping pace with the goals of No Child Left Behind has led many administrators and principals to conclude that the law is in need of serious revision. Hinckley, the school superintendent, favors switching to a different kind of accountability system under which schools would be judged by their progress from year to year, rather than their ability to hit a set of rigid federal benchmarks."

" 'The federal Department of Education is obsessed with regulations,' she said, leafing through the latest batch of directives from Washington. 'They are trying to micromanage us -- and it is driving us crazy.' " MSNBC - 'No child' law leaves schools' old ways behind

The goal of the law accountablility of schools is laudable for students, parents and taxpayers. But typical of a bureacracy they come up with "one size fits all" policy. Districts like Reading and Brandywine have very different problems and available resources but they both have to meet the same goal set by someone in a cube or a committee. It seems the thought is that if a little testing does a little good a lot of testing will do a lot of good. Students are not widgets that can have identical stamped out units, if the same process is used.

Common Myths and Uncommon Truths about Gifted Students

Common Myths About Gifted Students
Gifted students are a homogeneous group, all high achievers.

Gifted students do not need help. If they are really gifted, they can manage on their own.

Gifted students have fewer problems than others because their intelligence and abilities somehow exempt them from the hassles of daily life.

The future of a gifted student is assured: a world of opportunities lies before the student.

Gifted students are self-directed; they know where they are heading. The social and emotional development of the gifted student is at the same level as his or her intellectual development.

Gifted students are nerds and social isolates.

The primary value of the gifted student lies in his or her brain power.

The gifted student's family always prizes his or her abilities.

Gifted students need to serve as examples to others, and they should always assume extra responsibility.

Gifted students make everyone else smarter.

Gifted students can accomplish anything they put their minds to. All they have to do is apply themselves.

Gifted students are naturally creative and do not need encouragement.

Gifted children are easy to raise and a welcome addition to any classroom.


TRUTHS About Gifted Students
Gifted students are often perfectionists and idealistic. They may equate achievement and grades with self-esteem and self-worth, which sometimes leads to fear of failure and interferes with achievement.

Gifted students may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others, resulting in guilt over achievements or grades perceived to be low.

Gifted students are asynchronous. Their chronological age, social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development may all be at different levels.
For example, a 5-year-old may be able to read and comprehend a third-grade book but may not be able to write legibly.
Some gifted children are "mappers" (sequential learners), while others are "leapers" (spatial learners). Leapers may not know how they got a "right answer." Mappers may get lost in the steps leading to the right answer.

Gifted students may be so far ahead of their chronological age mates that they know more than half the curriculum before the school year begins! Their boredom can result in low achievement and grades.

Gifted children are problem solvers. They benefit from working on open-ended, interdisciplinary problems; for example, how to solve a shortage of community resources. Gifted students often refuse to work for grades alone.

Gifted students often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with concrete study- and test-taking skills. They may not be able to select one answer in a multiple choice question because they see how all the answers might be correct.

Gifted students who do well in school may define success as getting an "A" and failure as any grade less than an "A." By early adolescence they may be unwilling to try anything where they are not certain of guaranteed success.

Adapted from College Planning for Gifted Students, 2nd edition,

Common Myths and Uncommon Truths about Gifted Students

Common Myths About Gifted Students

Gifted students are a homogeneous group, all high achievers.
Gifted students do not need help. If they are really gifted, they can manage on their own.
Gifted students have fewer problems than others because their intelligence and abilities somehow exempt them from the hassles of daily life.
The future of a gifted student is assured: a world of opportunities lies before the student.
Gifted students are self-directed; they know where they are heading.
The social and emotional development of the gifted student is at the same level as his or her intellectual development.
Gifted students are nerds and social isolates.
The primary value of the gifted student lies in his or her brain power.
The gifted student's family always prizes his or her abilities.
Gifted students need to serve as examples to others, and they should always assume extra responsibility.
Gifted students make everyone else smarter.
Gifted students can accomplish anything they put their minds to. All they have to do is apply themselves.
Gifted students are naturally creative and do not need encouragement.
Gifted children are easy to raise and a welcome addition to any classroom.


TRUTHS About Gifted Students

Gifted students are often perfectionists and idealistic. They may equate achievement and grades with self-esteem and self-worth, which sometimes leads to fear of failure and interferes with achievement.
Gifted students may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others, resulting in guilt over achievements or grades perceived to be low.
Gifted students are asynchronous. Their chronological age, social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development may all be at different levels. For example, a 5-year-old may be able to read and comprehend a third-grade book but may not be able to write legibly.
Some gifted children are "mappers" (sequential learners), while others are "leapers" (spatial learners). Leapers may not know how they got a "right answer." Mappers may get lost in the steps leading to the right answer.
Gifted students may be so far ahead of their chronological age mates that they know more than half the curriculum before the school year begins! Their boredom can result in low achievement and grades.
Gifted children are problem solvers. They benefit from working on open-ended, interdisciplinary problems; for example, how to solve a shortage of community resources. Gifted students often refuse to work for grades alone.
Gifted students often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with concrete study- and test-taking skills. They may not be able to select one answer in a multiple choice question because they see how all the answers might be correct.
Gifted students who do well in school may define success as getting an "A" and failure as any grade less than an "A." By early adolescence they may be unwilling to try anything where they are not certain of guaranteed success.
Adapted from College Planning for Gifted Students, 2nd edition,

Slow News Day - So A Little Latin

Richard de BuryPhilobiblion, I, 9:
POSTREMO PENSANDUM
QUANTA DOCTRINAE COMMODITAS SIT IN LIBRIS
QUAM FACILIS, QUAM ARCANA!
QUAM TUTO LIBRIS HUMANAE IGNORANTIA PAUPERTATEM
SINE VERECUNDIA DENUDAMUS!
HI SUNT MAGISTRI QUI NOS INSTRUUNT
SINE VIRGIS ET FERULA,
SINE VERBIS ET CHOLERA, SINE PANNIS ET PECUNIA.
SI ACCEDIS, NON DORMIUNT;
SI INQUIRENS INTERROGAS, NON ABSCONDUNT;
NON REMURMURANT SI OBERRES;
CACHINNOS NESCIUNT, SI IGNORES

And finally, one must consider how great the ease of learning
there is in books, how yeilding, how trusty!
How safely we reveal, without shyness, in the face of our books
the poverty of our human ignorance!
They are teachers who instruct us without switches or rods,
without slaps or anger, without notice of rags or riches.
If you approach them, they are not asleep;
If you ask a question, they do not hide;
They do not mutter at you if you make a mistake;
When you are ignorant, they do not know how to laugh at you.

The troubles with learning from a computer is it laughs and mocks your ignorance. Making you feel dumber then when you started. Like I am supposed to know that little slide out tray is not for my coffe cup.

Man Bites Dog

"In a departure from the typical reaction to the prospect of higher taxes, about 60 Wilson School District residents told the school board Monday night that they want to see their taxes go up.
Spokesmen for the residents said they made the request because they want the district to avoid budget cuts that would affect the quality of education.
?Wilson's pride is our children and not the fact that we have one of the lowest tax rates in the county,? said Janice Jones, Sinking Spring. ?If you let the education of our children deteriorate, people will not want to live in this community. Be aggressive and act with courage and commitment.?
The group was responding to a Reading Eagle article last week in which several board members said they wanted the administration to make budget cuts that could affect staffing and programs.
The board's comments came during a Wednesday finance committee meeting at which members discussed ways to narrow the gap between spending and revenue in the proposed $57 million budget for 2004-05, which calls for a 3 percent tax increase.
The proposed budget has a 0.48-mill real estate tax increase, which would raise the rate to 16.18 mills, or $16.18 for every $1,000 of assessed property value." Article

Of course being taxed at $16/thousand vs $25/thousand makes a little difference.

SCREEN IT! ENTERTAINMENT REVIEWS FOR PARENTS

If you are want to know the details of a movie suitability for your family check out Screeit.com. The site is somewhat annoying with pop-ups but they have to make a buck. The review doesn't go into the artistic aspects of the movie but it does give detailed descriptions on what you can expect to see broken down into topics like ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE, VIOLENCE, PROFANITY... so you can make a knowledgeable decision. SCREEN IT! ENTERTAINMENT REVIEWS FOR PARENTS

Parents' Escalating Anxieties

Another sign that some people have too much money and not enough sense.

"How far can the frenzy over college admissions go?
Far enough, apparently, to have high school students flocking to a brand-new kind of summer program ? college admission prep camps.
No campfires. No hiking. Just hours a day of essay writing, SAT preparation, counseling, mock admission interviews and a potpourri of workshops and college visits, all intended to give high school students an edge on the admission process. " The New York Times > Education > More :

USATODAY.com - Kids + calculators = questionable mix, study suggests

"SAN DIEGO ? Allowing fourth-graders to use handheld calculators could be masking a serious deficiency in their basic computation skills, a study suggests."

Johnny Lott, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, says the study takes "a somewhat microscopic view" of students' math skills.

"What he's doing is saying, 'We've lost a lot here.' But the overall performance shows remarkable improvement," says Lott, a professor at the University of Montana.

...

"The findings probably won't change schools' willingness to allow calculators, he says: 'What we need is teachers who are knowledgeable in the usage of tools and who can integrate them into the curriculum.' " USATODAY.com :

Like everything else the overuse of technology without understanding produces a mixed bag of results. At the very least a student should quickly realize that if they multiply 20 x 50 the answer should be in the order of 1000 not 10,000 or 100. Calculators do take the drudgery of math and allows the student to concentrate on the concept allowing for more and harder more real life examples and questions. However real men still use a slide rule.

Oopsie

Does anyone know the telephone number to get your tax form back?

"U.S. Acts to End Web-Site Tax Scam (washingtonpost.com) "The government is asking a federal court to shut down what it charged is a wide-ranging system of tax fraud that has misled about 100,000 taxpayers into taking improper deductions and credits, and has cost the U.S. Treasury $324 million in tax revenue.

The company and related firms sold bogus Web sites, home-based businesses and incorporation packages that purport to entitle the buyer to big write-offs, the charges said. " More

Instead of Property Tax we could tax

Something is just wrong with financing education with gambling money but these states have that ideal beat.
****************
At least 11 states, including Alabama, North Carolina and Nevada, tax people who possess illegal drugs. Usually, though, you have to be in possession of a minimum quantity (for example, over 42.5 grams of marijuana in North Carolina) to be subject to the tax.

But no need to wait for the police to cuff you before you cough up the cash. In North Carolina, for instance, when you acquire an illegal drug (or even "moonshine"), you can go to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.

Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You needn't provide any identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.

**********************
Playing card tax: If you want a deck of cards in the state of Alabama, be prepared to shell out an extra dime. The state government has levied a 10-cent tax on the purchase of a playing deck that contains "no more than 54 cards". If you object to this, get your playing cards in a different state, or buy a deck with an extra joker.
**************

Fur clothing tax: Minnesota winters are cold, and keeping warm can cost you if you like fur.

That's because businesses in the state must pay a 6.5 percent tax on the total amount received for the sale, shipping and finance charges associated with the purchase of fur clothing in which the fur accounts for three times more of the garment than the next most valuable material.
***************
Strangest state tax laws - Apr. 9, 2004

Ohio School elimates Valendictorian in favor of laude

I graduated "Oh' Laude, we will give a dipolma to anybody." This doesn't seem like a bad ideal the Valedictorian No. 1 concept was fine when classes were smaller and everyone took the same courses from the same teachers. We shouldn't eliminate competition but we shouldn't provide disincintives to students for taking the more challenging courses. This is the one time they should be encouraged to explore as many options as possible.

By MICHAEL SEUFFERT The Herald Sun

CHESTER, OHIO - There will be no valedictorian at West Geauga High School in 2005.

The school plans to do away with the tradition of naming a valedictorian for graduating seniors after this school year.
A new system similar to that of most colleges will determine class rank and to award academic achievement. Students with a grade-point average above 4.0 will graduate summa cum laude (with highest praise) and receive a gold medal on their diplomas.

Students with a GPA between 3.75-4.0 will graduate magna cum laude (with great praise) and receive a silver medal, and 3.5-3.74 will be cum laude (with praise) and receive a bronze medal.

“We really felt that the current system of valedictorian was filled with flaws," principal Joseph, Mueller said. ."We found in the past that if you were to take an AP (advanced placement) or honors course and, get one B, you were eliminated' from consideration as valedictorian.

. That has impacted students more than once in the past decade. Under the old system, which had been in place for 10 years, anyone who received straight A's throughout high school was named as a valedictorian. There were seven valedictorians last year.

The change was urged by a committee of department chairs, the guidance department and parents. The committee studied a number of graduation systems and decided upon the college style system as a way to get students ready, for their post-secondary experience.

Mueller said the new system challenges students to take the more challenging AP and honors courses in order to push their GP As above 4.0 AP classes are graded on a 5.0 scale, while honors classes are worth a potential 4.5 points.
"We wanted to eliminate the idea of students being penalized because of a B in an AP or honors course," Mueller said. "We wanted to find a way to motivate our students to pursue the most vigorous course work.

. "Because you stepped up and challenged yourself with an AP course, we believe that deserves the highest praise."
Students in vocational programs are also eligible to receive highest honors.

"We really want to let our parents know that we recognize, the achievements and abilities of each of our students," Mueller said. "We're trying to educate and prepare these students for life. And life is not a win-lose proposition. "This is our way of saying to that student who may finish number two through ten, or in the top ten percent, that we recognize what you've done and that you should be proud of your accomplishments."

Mueller noted that Chagrin Falls, Beachwood, Solon and Kenston did away with valedictorians and salutatorians a number of years ago.

The change also means a change in naming a speaker at graduation ceremonies. Students graduating either summa or magna cum laude can submit a speech. A selection committee of students, parents and administrators will choose the winning speech

Finland, Where No Child is Left Behind

This article about education in Finland sort of blows the calls for more money, smaller class sizes, full-day Kindergaren as reason kids do bad out of the water.

"Consider the following:

1. Finnish children do not start school until they are seven years old. Most Finnish children do start day care from about the age of one, given that most mothers work.

2. Educational spending is a very modest $5,000 per student per year.

3. There are few if any programs for gifted children.

4. Class sizes often approach 30.

5. "Finland topped a respected international [educational] survey last year, coming in first in literacy and placing in the top five in math and science."

6. Finnish teachers all have a Master's degree or more.

7. Finnish teachers all enjoy a very high social status.

8. Reading to children, telling them folk tales, and going to the library are all high status activities.

9. TV programs are often in English, and subtitled, which further supports reading skills. (This should also serve as a jab to those who complain about the global spread of American TV shows


Children here start school late on the theory that they will learn to love learning through play. Preschool for 6-year-olds is optional, although most attend. And since most women work outside the home in Finland, children usually go to day care after they turn one.

At first, the 7-year-olds lag behind their peers in other countries in reading, but they catch up almost immediately and then excel.
.............

After every 45-minute lesson, they are let loose outside for 15 minutes so they can burn off steam. Others are allowed to practice their music, and they file into classrooms, sling electric guitars across their chests or grab drumsticks and jam.

.......
So long as schools stick to the core national curriculum, which lays out goals and subject areas, they are free to teach the way they want. They can choose their textbooks or ditch them altogether, teach indoors or outdoors, cluster children in small or large groups.
.....
While there are no programs for gifted children, teachers are free to devise ways to challenge their smartest students. The smarter students help teach the average students. "Sometimes you learn better that way," said Pirjo Kanno, the principal in Suutarila.
.......
If one trait sets Finland apart from many other countries, it is the quality and social standing of its teachers, said Barry Macgaw, the director for education at the O.E.C.D.

All teachers in Finland must have at least a master's degree, and while they are no better paid than teachers in other countries, the profession is highly respected. Many more people want to become teachers after graduating from upper schools than universities can actually handle, so the vast majority are turned down."

Maybe our TV networks will start broadcasting in Finnish so our kids will read.

The New York Times > International > Europe > Suutarila Journal: Educators Flocking to Finland, Land of Literate Children

CLASSICAL MUSIC'S TEN DIRTIEST SECRETS

"Classical music, we are assured, is really ?good for us? intellectually, spiritually, and even physically, the aural equivalent of cod liver oil.
..........
The problem with classical music is that people too often feel that it’s a “take it or leave it” proposition. So they leave it, and who can blame them? As a public service, therefore, I propose to close this editorial by revealing ten of classical music’s dirtiest secrets, the kind of facts that you’ll find critics and writers vigorously denying in program note booklets, articles, and reviews. But admit it folks, deep down we all know the truth, don’t we? Judge for yourself:

1. Mozart really does all sound the same.

2. Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge is just plain ugly.

3. Wagner’s operas are much better with cuts.

4. No one cares about the first three movements of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique.

5. Schoenberg’s music never sounds more attractive, no matter how many times you listen to it.

6. Schumann’s orchestration definitely needs improvement.

7. Bruckner couldn’t write a symphonic allegro to save his life.

8. Liszt is trash.

9. The so-called “happy” ending of Shostakovich’s Fifth is perfectly sincere.

10. It’s a good thing that “only” about 200 Bach cantatas survive.

CLASSICAL MUSIC'S TEN DIRTIEST SECRETS by David Hurwitz :

"

Easter Blog From National Review

ON EASTER [Peter Robinson]
he following, from the 1928 Myles Connolly novel, Mr. Blue, takes place atop an office building in lower Manhattan.


Jay Blue, the book’s central character, has chosen to live on the roof. This development puzzles Blue’s friend, the narrator. Here Mr. Blue has persuaded the narrator to observe Blue’s rooftop home for himself.

For non-Christians, a stirring passage about a beautiful, poetic dream—and for Christians, the truth.

Night had smothered the city, and the city gave up its protest in uncountable millions of bubbles and gasps of light. Below was glittering Manhattan. The east was black. The opaque hilly horizon of the west was razor-edged against a last gleam of cold white light. Destroyers rode the unbridged Hudson; ferries and small craft flecked her with light. The East River lay her dark secretive self, coddling her treasure, Blackwell’s Island, lay a cool, lamp-spotted, many-bridged stream between the sprawling white conflagrations of Brooklyn and Manhattan. It was terrifyingly beautiful up on the roof, four hundred feet above the gaudy streets, four hundred feet up in the cool dark silences, four hundred feet up nearer the stars….

[Blue] put his hands into his trouser pockets and leaned backward, his face toward the heavens, now filling with stars.


“I think,” he whispered half to himself, “my heart would break with all this immensity if I did not know that God Himself once stood beneath it, a young man, as small as I.”

Then, he turned to me slowly.


“Did it ever occur to you that it was Christ Who humanized infinitude, so to speak? When God became man He made you and me and the rest of us pretty important people. He not only redeemed us. He saved us from the terrible burden of infinity.”

Blue rather caught me off my guard. I might have admitted in him a light turn for philosophy. I did not expect any such high-sounding speculation as this. But he was passionately serious. He eyes were glowing in the dark. He threw his hands up toward the stars: “My hands, my feet, my poor little brain, my eyes, my ears, all matter more than the whole sweep of these constellations!” he burst out. “God Himself, the God to Whom this whole universe-specked display is as nothing, God Himself had hands like mine and feet like mine, and eyes, and brain, and ears!....” He looked at me intently. “Without Christ we would be little more than bacteria breeding on a pebble in space, or glints of ideas in a whirling void of abstractions. Because of Him, I can stand here out under this cold immensity and know that my infinitesimal pulse-beats and acts and thoughts are of more importance than this whole show of a universe. Only for Him, I would be crushed beneath the weight of all these worlds. Only for Him, I would tumble dazed into the gaping chasms of space and time. Only for Him, I would be confounded before the awful fertility and intricacy of all life. Only for Him, I would be the merest of animalcules crawling on the merest of motes in a frigid Infinity.” He turned away from me, turned toward the spread of night behind the parapet. “But behold,” he said, his voice rising with exultancy, “behold! God wept and laughed and dined and wined and suffered and died even as you and I. Blah!—for the immensity of space! Blah!—for those who would have me a microcosm in the meaningless tangle of an endless evolution! I’m no microcosm. I, too, am a Son of God!”

He finished his outburst with a great gesture to the stars.

The Corner

Speaking of Attention Spans

The trouble with art is that it is time-consuming. The monumental achievements of opera and theatre - Wagner's Ring, Peter Brook's Mahabharata, John Barton's Tantalus - are mammoth tests of an audience's stamina. The length of a novel is often taken to be an indicator of its worth. And just to walk from one wing of the National Gallery to the other takes a good 10 minutes, even without stopping to look at the pictures.

Yet does great art always have to be a feat of endurance? Is there something aesthetically unsatisfactory about a play that is over in 35 seconds, a short story that contains only seven words, or an opera that can be performed in the time it takes to boil an egg? Fortunately for the culturally hungry with little time on their hands, all these things exist. The issue is whether you think you would be getting your money's worth

......

Peter Reynolds's Sands of Time. At three minutes and 34 seconds, it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's shortest opera. "The librettist, Simon Rees, came up with the idea of an opera whose duration should match the boiling of an egg," says Reynolds. "So we created a domestic scenario of a couple having an argument over breakfast. It starts with the sand-timer being turned, and ends with the egg coming out of the saucepan." Bite Size Art: "

Study: TV may cause attention deficit

"CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Researchers have found that every hour preschoolers watch television each day boosts their chances -- by about 10 percent -- of developing attention deficit problems later in life.
The findings back up previous research showing that television can shorten attention spans and support American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that youngsters under age 2 not watch television.
'The truth is there are lots of reasons for children not to watch television. Other studies have shown it to be associated with obesity and aggressiveness' too, said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a researcher at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
The study, appearing in the April issue of Pediatrics, focused on two groups of children -- aged 1 and 3 -- and suggested that TV might overstimulate and permanently 'rewire' the developing brain." More

One thing wrong with the title should have omitted the "may".

OK What Were They Thinkin

"A church trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children.
People who attended Saturday's performance at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, 'There is no Easter bunny,' and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.
Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. 'He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,' Salzmann said.
Patty Bickerton, the youth minister at Glassport Assembly of God, said the performance wasn't meant to be offensive. Bickerton portrayed the Easter rabbit and said she tried to act with a tone of irreverence.
'The program was for all ages, not just the kids. We wanted to convey that Easter is not just about the Easter bunny, it is about Jesus Christ,' Bickerton said.
Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman, said Jennifer Norelli-Burke, another parent who saw the show in Glassport, a community about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
'It was very disturbing,' Norelli-Burke said. 'I could not believe what I saw. It wasn't anything I was expecting.'" MORE :

State and Local Tax Burdens 2004

"Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. In 2004, Pennsylvania taxpayers had to work until April 6th to pay their total tax bill, ranking it 29th nationally. That’s just five days earlier than national Tax Freedom Day (April 11th). Pennsylvania taxpayers must work 34 days into the year just to pay their state and local tax bill which, at $3,432 per-capita, is ranked 35th highest nationally. The Tax Freedom Days of neighboring states are: New York, April 27th (ranked 2nd nationally); New Jersey, April 19th (ranked 3rd nationally); Delaware, April 5th (ranked 33rd nationally); Maryland, April 11th (ranked 15th nationally); West Virginia, April 4th (ranked 38th nationally); and Ohio, April 10 (ranked 17th nationally)." State and Local Tax Burdens 2004

Ok this is for all the people on the topic board who are consumed with who makes what and how easy certain jobs are.

..." The truth is that real life sometimes doesn't turn out to be exactly what we'd planned or dreamed, This disparity occurs with alarming frequency. But hey, you've got to do whatever is necessary to live, to take care of yourself and your kids There are some pretty awful jobs out there, and people having to do them every day. My friend Scott told me About meeting a lovely young woman who worked, I swear to YOU, as full-time chicken plucker. The girl stands by a conveyor belt and pulls the feathers off chickens all day long, he said to her, with intense emotion, "I can't imagine that. You must have the most boring job in the whole world." And do you know, she lit up like a lightning bug and responded seriously, "Oh, no. You get a brand-new chicken every thirty seconds!"

She has what is undoubtedly the most overdeveloped sense of optimism-or she is the most joyfully creative soul there ever was. If a chicken plucker is truly fulfilled in her work, I certainly applaud that. If, however, she has merely set­tled for less and is dissatisfied-if anyone is spending life toil­ing away at work you despise-I'd have to say authoritatively that God doesn't make chicken pluckers; people make chicken pluckers, and if you don't want to be one, then by God, don't.
- The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love by Jill Conner Browne

Exter By THe Numbers

The Exeter School District is considering moving its elementary students from an A-B-C grading system to a numeral system.
The new approach would represent an evaluation of students against state standards, said Deborah G. Dawson, principal at Lorane Elementary School.

Under the A-B-C system, students' grades are determined by the material presented by the teacher and often depend on how students rank against others in the class.

“It increases accountability and raises the bar for kids,” Dawson recently said of the new system.

Following a two-year review, Dawson and a group of teachers and parents presented their recommendations Wednesday to the school board's curriculum committee.

“It shows the strength and weaknesses of the child better,” Andrea L. Sandusky, a parent on the committee, said after the meeting.

Article

Brandywine Looks At All Day Kindergarten

One educator is enthusiastic about teaching the entire day, but a school board member cautions that what's best for other districts might not be best for theirs.
By Robin Huiras
Reading Eagle
Opinions were split at a Brandywine Heights School Board meeting as educators and parents engaged in a discussion about all-day kindergarten.
The district's kindergarten teachers discussed their feelings about starting an all-day format in either the 2004-05 or 2005-06 school year." Article:

Schools looking to the skies to track buses

"Where's the bus? To get an answer, school districts have had to rely on two-way radios and cell phones.
Now some security-conscious districts are following the trucking industry and installing Global Positioning System equipment in the bright yellow buses to centrally monitor their whereabouts.
'In this day and age, you don't know what's going to happen,' said Jim L. White, director of transportation for Hamilton Southeastern Schools in Fishers
....
Costs range from less than $1,000 to more than $2,000 for each bus, depending on the features purchased, industry experts say. Besides tracking vehicle location, speed and direction, the GPS technology can include silent alarms for drivers to use in emergencies and monitoring equipment that shows whether bus drivers follow safety procedures or whether an emergency exit has been deployed." Schools looking to the skies to track buses

This looks like a great ideal and the price should fall over the next few years. They should give the parents an ID so they can go online and see where just their child's bus is located.

The Two Things

For the seniors who are about to start either in a new career or off to college to study for one, remember in any profession there are only two things you really need to know. Everything else is fluff. Knowing those two things well and putting them into practice will spell the difference between succes and failure. Thanks to economist Glen Whitman for compiling the list.

The Two Things about Accounting:
1. The trial balance must balance.
2. There's a lot of "grey area."
-abdabs


The Two Things about Human Relations:
1. We serve the company's, not the employees', interests.
2. Compliance, compliance, compliance.
-Babylon Sister

The Two Things about Marketing:
1. Know existing customers.
2. Recruit more customers.
-Racehorse

The Two Things about Computer Programming:
1. The only way to idiot proof software is to take away their computers.
2. Simple is better.
-Lee

The Two Things about Graphic Design:
1. Elements of Design: Line, shape, texture, value & color, space
2. Principles of Design: Movement, balance, emphasis, unity
-Dina

The Two Things about Teaching History:
1. A good story is all they'll remember, not the half hour of analysis on either side of it.
2. They think it's about answers, but it's really about questions.
-Jonathan Dresner

The Two Things about Art Criticism:
1. If it isn't novel, critics aren't interested.
2. If it is novel, no one else is interested.
-TheLetterM

The Two Things about English Literature:
1. The text is really about writing.
2. Writing is really about sex.
-Marya

The Two Things about World Conquest:
1. Divide and Conquer.
2. Never invade Russia in the winter.
-Tim Lee

The Two Things about Practicing Law in the Real World:
1. Billable hours.
2. Deep pockets.
-Glen

The Two Things about Litigation:
1) Don't ever admit to having an original thought. Precedent is everything.
2) Principle expressed in the following Q&A:
Q: What's the difference between a federal judge and people like you and me?
A: A federal judge can say, "It is so ordered," and you and I can't.
-Deborah Quest

The Two Things about Biology:
1. Evolution is the process through which genetic structures that are better equipped to reproduce viable copies will tend to proliferate.
2. Except for the Platypus.
-TheLetterM

The Two Things about Neuroscience:
1. Neurons strengthen or weaken signal strength between connected synapses.
2. If you think you've found the part of the brain that controls _________, you're probably wrong.
-TheLetterM

The Two Things about Science:
1. Artifactual data proves nothing.
2. All data is artifactual.
-Eustacia

The Two Things about Medicine:
1. Do no harm.
2. To do any good, you must risk doing harm.
-Dennis

The Two Things about Civil Engineering:
1. Dirt + Water = Mud.
2. You can’t push a rope.
-Todd Grotenhuis

The Two Things about Chemical Engineering:
1. What goes in plus what gets made must equal what comes out plus what gets destroyed.
2. What comes out should be more desirable than what goes in.
-abdabs

The Two Things about Public Relations
1. Perception is reality.
2. Perception is rarely reality.
-pepper

The Two Things about Theatre:
Don't forget your lines.
Don't run into the furniture/set.
-RainCityChick

The Two Things about Dormitory Food:
1. Everything is cold, except what should be.
2. Everything is greasy, including the corn flakes.
-Steverino

The Two Things about Star Trek:
1. Don't beam down in a red shirt.
2. You can always talk evil computers into destroying themselves.
-Tim Lee

The Two Things about Women
1. When complaining, they don’t want your advice, they want your sympathy.
2. Don’t you dare tell them you can sum them up with just Two Things.
-Glen

The Two Things about Parenting:
1. There's no such thing as too much affection
2. It's not so much what you say, as it is what you do
-Shannon Reynolds

Text Books Receive Failing Grades

The American Textbook Council just failed wold history textbooks for students in grades 6 through 12.

"'In subjects ranging from Africa to terrorism, the nation's leading world history textbooks provide unreliable, often scanty information ... In doing so, these textbooks foster ignorance of geopolitics and deprive students of authentic global understanding.'" The report can be read here.

There conclusions on what can be done " Rooted in a flawed production system and publishers' indifference, the problems with
world history textbooks raise questions about corporate violations of public trust. Educational publishers not only resist change and ignore criticism, but they are likely to retain their iron grip on the national market. What can be done? When it is feasible, high school teachers can turn to college-level textbooks, some of which are not too challenging for able tenth graders. Since some high school textbooks in print or recently out of print coming from established publishers contain sound lessons, could not these sections be isolated and unpacked from the subject and instructional chaos surrounding them? Could not textbooks of merit be stripped of trivia and nonsense that bulk them up? An artfully abridged edition of existing textbooks could provide the foundation for a clear, brief, cheap and honest world history textbook. Pressure from purchasers,
elected officials, editorial writers, and above all, educators is needed, but whether sufficient pressure exists to force publishers to change remains an open question."

Not The Way To Get A Prom Date

A hormo crazed 17 year old upset that his girlfriend dumped him hacked into her email account and sent President Bush death threats. Exactly how this plan was suppsed to win her back was not revealed. The lawyer did have a novel defense: "There was a girl involved". If that defense proves valid might as well open up the prison doors.

PCN Press Release

PCN Press Release: "PCN will air the only scheduled debate between Senator Arlen Specter and Rep. Pat Toomey on Saturday, April 3, 2004 at 7:00 p.m. The debate is being held in Altoona. Both candidates are seeking the Republican nomination for the United States Senate seat currently held by Sen. Specter."

On a Citizens for Specter site there is a county by county breakdown of all the pork bills that Toomey has voted against. Seems like Toomey should have his web site link to this as a reason to vote for him.

Mr. Gilly's Last Day

OK probably time for a little hypocrisy and give Mr. Gilly a warm goodbye and then again some things are best left unsaid.

You to can be a petty tyrant

Apply For The superintendent position

"George W. Bush Invigorating America's Youth"

Meanwhile, what began on David Letterman's "Late Show" as a comedy bit needling President Bush turned into a comedy of errors when CNN incorrectly reported that the White House had cried foul.

Then Letterman - apparently not getting CNN's message that it had made the mistake until he was well into his Tuesday broadcast - only heightened the confusion.

The whole thing started during a collection of video clips Letterman showed Monday under the label "George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth."

Continuing Adult Education

"Each summer several hundred men and women from some 25 countries arrive at Christ Church, University of Oxford. They study. They live in 'rooms' cleaned by their 'scout.' They eat baked beans and black pudding for breakfast, meat with two vegetables for dinner in the Great Hall. Grace is in Latin. They receive invitations to dine at High Table, drink Pimms in the Master's Garden, visit the Bodleian Library and the garden where Alice in Wonderland saw the Cheshire cat in the tree. They drink single malt whiskey and play croquet, spend an afternoon in the country, attend evensong in Christ Church Cathedral. In real life they are American business executives or South African kennel owners, Danish gynecologists or Brazilian homemakers, Oxbridge and Ivy League alumni or ninth-grade dropouts, 22 or 92 years of age, and can have accents from anywhere at all. They are participating in the Oxford Experience. The only prerequisite is the price of admission, which is over $1,000 a week." A Crash Course in Life at Oxford:

Your Next Home May Be "Printed Out"

Home, Sweet Home: "Degussa AG, one of the world?s largest manufacturers and suppliers of construction materials, will collaborate in the development of a USC computer-controlled system designed to automatically ?print out? full-size houses in hours.
Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Behrokh Khoshnevis of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering?s Information Sciences Institute has been developing his automated house-building process, called ?Contour Crafting,? for more than a year.
Khoshnevis believes his system will be able to construct a full-size, 2,000- square-foot house with utilities embedded in 24 hours. He now has a working machine that can build full-scale walls and is hoping to actually construct his first house in early 2005. "