The Week This week we read articles and talked in class about a few issues that are important to me, most notably school funding. If you know me at all, you know that I'm pissed off about school funding.

We also had a guest speaker on Wednesday who talked about students with disabilities. Here again I was pretty interested because out of sheer coincidence I had had a troubling conversation with another Ed. major about funding and disabilities. This person had said something like, "as a business investment, we spend way too much on students with disabilities and not enough on the gifted and talented kids." I wrote to a former professor of mine looking for guidance on how to respond, and he wrote back with a simply fantastic answer... my current instructor even let me read that email to our class. Good stuff.

And then Friday... well, Friday reminded me just how tricky the evolution/intelligent design debate can be. Our instructor couched intelligent design in terms of a compromise between evolution and creationism, and because I had spoken enough that day, I didn't give the ID advocates the earfull they so richly deserve. ID is not a compromise. It is not, as our instructor said, halfway between evolution and creationism. ID is 99 steps from evolution and 1 step away from creationism. Everything I've read about ID indicates that its proponents, at least the vocal ones, are Christian.

My concern here is twofold: first, that teaching anything other than scientific fact in a science class subverts just about everything school should stand for. I'm aghast - literally aghast - at the idea of ID being taught in public schools, simply because it is an infinitely regressive argument and therefore not scientific fact and therefore not appropriate for public school. It is a religious theory, not a scientific one. It is, at its core, a transparent attempt to bring God into the classroom. Its proponents tend to argue that, well, if you can't prove it, how can you argue against it? To which I would say, well, we can't prove Yellowstone Lake was created by a giant bird who dropped water from its beak, either, so we probably shouldn't teach it.

Which brings me to my second concern. If we're going to teach human origins in anything other than scientific terms like "hydrogen" and "water" and "useless leftover organs like the appendix that sure don't seem like they were designed by some intelligent creator," then we're going to wind up devoting a whole lot of time to a whole lot of creation myths. In other words, if we teach ID, what's to stop other groups from insisting that their version of human origin be taught? I'm envisioning weeks of story time dedicated to every single creation myth ever, replete with quizzes on trivial "facts" of various groups' belief systems. As soon as we open the door to ID, we open the door to every religious wackjob and their wild-ass guess at where we came from.

Let's keep this one simple: if it can't be proven, it shouldn't be taught in science class. If you don't want your kid to believe in evolution, if you want your child to be cowed into religious obeisance in the face of reason, fine. Teach them at home or at a religious school. But as long as they're in public school, they will learn about one of the most important scientific theories in the history of human existence.  ¶ 11:29 AM 0 Comments

  Friday On Friday we discussed a few different articles about SES and school funding, which is my biggest hot button issue in education. Thankfully, the rest of the class also seemed to get it, so maybe there's hope for change somewhere down the road. If you're not angry about school funding, you really, really should be.  ¶ 7:35 AM 0 Comments

  Catch-up Okay, I'll readily admit that there's no way I can accurately describe everything that's been going on in class for the past three weeks. I'll summarize as best I can, and then elaborate on an interesting thing that happened in class on Wednesday.

October 24 - Our readings for today were about gay slurs in school, and our responsibilities as teachers when we hear such slurs. I think it's interesting that often, our response will depend on the school's policy. While I pretty much think teachers have a moral obligation to address sexual harrassment of any sort, it may also be encumbant upon us to report those incidents if our school has a Zero Tolerance policy.

October 26 & 28 - The university has a GLBT group that does "safezone" training for people who will be affected by gay/lesbian issues. I've been through watered down versions of this training a few times now as part of my other job, so this wasn't really new. What was new, though, were some of the stats behind just how many people are affected by GBLT issues or are gay themselves. There is absolutely no doubt that I'll be dealing with this stuff in the classroom one way or another.

October 31 - Wore my Hunter S. Thompson costume to class. Two people got it instantly and cracked up. Everyone else looked at me weird. This is precisely how the rest of the population generally reacts to that costume. In class we discussed socioeconomic status (SES), one of my Big Issues.

November 2 - In class we talked about class and did an interesting chart. We discussed the fact that a ridiculously low percentage of the population controls a ridiculously high percentage of the wealth. Not good.

November 4 - I missed this class, since I was at the local high school doing surveys for another class. Before the period started my mentor teacher told me it was her most problematic class, and while it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined it would be, it was still pretty out of control. My mentor had to redirect and/or refocus discussions at least 7 times, and in the surveys the responses indicated that most of these students really don't like reading/writing. Turns out something like 6 of the students in this class have been on IEPs or in alternative schools as recently as last month.

November 7 - Our readings focused on the issue of legacies in college admissions, an issue which I honestly had not given much thought to. Turns out I should. Legacies (children of alumni) often are less qualified than other studens and also perform below average once admitted to prestigious schools. This comes at the cost of other, more academically qualified students not getting admitted to the school - and the sad fact is, an Ivy League school on your resume does wonders for your career.

November 9 - This brings us to last Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we split into groups and devised classroom rules. This seemed pretty straightforward, and since I've already had to do that on a few different occasions, the most recent being for an online portfolio over the summer, I just pulled a few rules out of my memory and suggested them. One of them is, "water, fruit, and breakfast bars are the only snacks allowed in class."

Now, this seems eminently reasonable to me, or it did seem eminently reasonable. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I won't allow candy or soda in my classrooms. For one, I don't need my students going bezerk on sugar rushes while I'm trying to teach. I also think students get distracted by the pretty wrappers. Finally, I fully intend to be the kind of teacher who practices what he preaches; I, too, will drink only water (so no coffee for me in the classroom, which might be one of the toughest aspects of my teaching career).

Okay, so I suggested this rule, and other students suggested their ideas, and the instructor wrote them all down on a document projected onto the wall. As a class we went over the list and hammered out details.

Then the instructor read a letter from a woman living in poverty. Now, I've lived in poverty - in Laramie 13 years ago and for a few months in Seattle in late 1997. It's not pretty; I remember having $7 to my name on a Sunday morning, starving, and not getting paid until the following Friday. I've gone hungry, folks, and I've been to that point where your pride is shattered because you're crying on the phone with your mom, asking for money even though you're an adult and should be making it on your own, and failing. I didn't steal or anything, but I was tempted. And I damn sure learned a lesson about how ridiculously out of touch it is to say "well, the poor are just too lazy to bring themselves up." By the grace of God I had family to support me. If I hadn't, things might have gotten dramatically worse.

So in class we had a discussion about poverty and not blaming the poor for being poor. One guy in the class whose previous comments have hinted at typical redneck cluelessness, said something about homeless people in his hometown taking advantage of the system. Our instructor promptly addressed his jackassery (and at this point I should mention that I've struggled lately with negotiating the boundary between letting dumb comments go and standing up for what I believe in... and have made the conscious decision to start pushing back on the bullshit).

After that discussion, the instructor went down the list of classroom rules we'd created, and brilliantly revealed the assumptions almost all of us had made. . . in other words, the rules almost invariably referred to material items like cell phones, clothing, or grooming standards: things which people in poverty simply cannot always afford to pay attention to. And then the instructor came to my rule about water, fruit, and breakfast bars and said, "Do you really think poor kids have ever had breakfast bars or fruit in the pantry?"

Now, I stand by my rule. I think it's a good rule and ultimately leads to a healthier lifestyle. But it sure did make me think long and hard. It was one of those moments, which I personally think are good for the soul, that forced me to take a new perspective and evaluate what I'd believed.  ¶ 3:34 PM 0 Comments