Animal Testing: What's wrong with education this time?

Okay it's really about our kids.  But this post was inspired, in part, by this cartoon gaining swift popularity:

There's a burgeoning rebellion against the way we teach.  I'm all for rebellion, but we have to figure out if we really want to overhaul the entire system or just tweak it a bit.  Too many people are ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  And not enough want to look beyond schools to other factors that might affect achievement.

Humans: Too Invasive or Too Compassionate to Survive

In my last post, and elsewhere over the years, I went all Agent Smith and suggested that humans are a virus that can't be contained. All other animals work within their environment to regulate their population.  As long as people don't mess things up by moving animals around (like bringing rabbits to Australia where they have no predators), animal populations decrease when food is scarce so their populations never reach overwhelming numbers.  Nature is amazing and everything can work so well if we let it.  But when human numbers rise, we just keep invading other places until we use up all the resources everywhere.  We're going to Mars now, for crying out loud!  It's just a matter of time before we kill off our host and die out ourselves.

But recent conversations in my class have me thinking of things from a different angle.

Maybe the problem isn't our invasiveness, but that we are too compassionate to allow people to just die the way those other, more callous animals do.  Because we have such big brains, and because we have mirror neurons that cause us to feel pain when we watch others suffer, we have found ways to help millions of people survive during famines.  And we can help sickly infants survive that wouldn't have stood a chance 20 years ago.  And we can keep elderly people going for a few more decades.  It's awesome!  Except now we're at seven billion people which might be too much for the earth to sustain.

Enviro-Optimists vs Doom-Mongers: Another Wentian False Dichotomy

Margaret Wente, in her latest discourse, thinks the reason the environment's being ignored is because of all the pessimists making us too depressed about it all.  She splits all environmentalists into two camps:

"But the biggest divide is really between the purists and the pragmatists, the pessimists and the optimists - between the McKibbernists, who believe we're on the brink of global catastrophe, and those who think human beings are more resourceful and the Earth is more resilient than the doom-mongers say they are."

And I ask:  Can't it be both??

Because it is.  Every environmentalist I know wavers between the two fronts or else the pessimists would just kill themselves or stay drunk all the time, and the optimists would stop fighting to be heard - AND, if optimists really believe it'll all come out in the wash, they wouldn't worry about how to frame their arguments to avoid shutting people off by being too depressing.  Follow?

This is all a lead-in to the new Rob Stewart film:  Revolution.  He walks that line all the way.  He clearly believes we're on the brink of catastrophe, but also that human beings are resourceful - that we will actually get our shit together in this generation.

Silence During Tragedy

I went to a history conference, and one of the PhDs at the front was talking about the common occurrence of silence during tragedy.  And, while those around me discussed WWII, and the Iran-Iraq war, and internment of the Japanese in Canada, I started thinking more about how uncomfortable people are talking about rape.

It all fit together for me largely because of a woman I once met, a friend's mom, who had lived in a concentration camp in Poland.  She had nine kids, and two were born there, while she was separated from her husband.  The guards routinely took women into their cabins.  But, she said, the difference between that time and place and now, is that when a woman came out of those cabins, the rest of the women were ready for her, with open arms and warm blankets and a soothing touch.  According to this smiling woman with only one good leg and numbers on her arm, rape couldn't be hidden there, so it was much, much easier to recover from.

On Our Rape Culture: Rehtaeh Parsons' Unfortunate Legacy

And another one gone - a victim of assault and revenge porn enacted and filmed by a bunch of teenaged boys who had more power than they might have ever imagined:  they could kill from a distance.  As Elizabeth Renzetti says of these double-barrel assaults, they are, "not just an act of violence but a spectator sport."  And here we thought we had come so far from the bloodlust days of the Colosseum.

The act isn't dissimilar from torturing an animal and showing pictures to people.  It's a behaviour that is absolutely depraved.  Who looks at those types of visuals without looking differently at the goon who took them?  Unfortunately, they have enough of an audience that we need to be afraid.  For some people, their body responds to the visuals even if their brain might hope it didn't.  So clips are saved and circulated endlessly.

Circulating the film is also a mean of re-shaming the act.  After years of the rally cry, "Rape is a crime, not a shame!" some perpetrators are working hard to make people ashamed to be raped for obvious reason:  if they're embarrassed by it, they won't tell.  But Rehtaeh did tell.

When Men are Raped

A man was sexually assaulted by four women in Toronto, and the story is make the facebook rounds.  I hate to say "of course," but of course people think it's hilarious.  Here are some choice comments directly copied and pasted without names - but these were all written by men (or, I suppose, people posing as men):

"Lucky basturd!"
"Get any phone numbers?"
"Dayum...And I try to look suspicious to female security at an Airport just so I can get frisked."
"where is this club ? whats the cover charge ? will the women hurt you if you cant get it up?"
"lets give him a luckiest boy in the world medal"
"wierd stuff because most men would not complain unless they tried to cut it off or something"
"Jesus they were about 14 stone each .. fuck me poor guy like getting attacked by hippos , sure he would not of complained if they were of the smaller sized females either way hope they could of raped em I don't know what did they do put there finger up his ass so his cock went hard? Haaa"
"Is he bragging or Complaining?"
"Why do things like this never happen to me???????" 

My comment, in the middle of the fray and largely ignored:  "Wow. Rape is rape no matter the gender. If a guy isn't into it, then it's rape, and it's not fun or cool, and he's not lucky. It's an assault that can cause lasting emotional trauma - even for men."

On Boredom

 I'm not talking about the "nausea of ennui" discussed from Seneca ("many who judge life to be not bitter, but superfluous") to Sartre, that total lack of interest in anything that makes it difficult for some to get out of bed in the morning, but of that feeling that overcomes us when we are required to do something painfully tedious.

We often elevate simple boredom to the lofty realms of melancholia or depression, as if it's worthy of great sympathy and profound relief efforts, when a mere change of scenery (or attitude) can save the day. But often it's the word we use when we have unrewarding work to do.  It's a trapped feeling that we escape with any little thing we can - cat videos or video games - anything to avoid beginning.  And that's easily solved if we can just get on with it.  And sometimes the task is so repetitive, it takes all we have to get to the end of it - like marking 60 almost identical essays or tests.  We muscle through it to the end, sometimes rewarding ourselves with treats after every five papers to keep us alert and focused.

Undergrads: Underloved or Just Under Grads

An article in the G&M today expresses concerns with the "hookup culture" of university students.   There's a big fear that casual sex will create "a drastic divide between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy," and that people will see human bodies as disposable and "become incapable of creating 'valuable and real connections'."  The author goes on to quote researchers who have concerns about the quality of the sex as well.

I think there's a bigger problem that they've missed:  the connection between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy to begin with.  That fact that we see love primarily as a romantic connection between lovers, keeps intimacy from being part of less intense and exclusive relationships - even hookups.  We've created a false dichotomy between true love and nothing at all to the extent that some people, so concerned to clarify their lack of romantic intention, end up acting like jerks to partners in a  temporary encounter.

Seniority Does Not Always Equal Merit

The title is from a line in an essay published in Friday's Globe and Mail:  "I'm a First-Year Teacher Who Will Automatically be Fired at the End of the School Year."  The author of this unwieldly title laments the reality that, as a new teacher, s/he'll be first out the door over teachers who have been there longer, yet are clearly far less brilliant.  In the comments, people have been led to trash unions.  I don't think that's the real issue.

There are several problem with the author's arguments.  For instance, s/he claims that current teachers generally have only a B.A. whereas new teachers need two degrees.  With the exception of tech teachers, I think s/he must be thinking of a very long time ago - and most of that lot have long retired.  I've been teaching 22 years, and I had to have 5 years  of education with two degrees, and since starting, added several additional qualifications and a Masters.

On Teacher Accountability

One criticism that Cooper and friends say is part of the problem with education is a lack of teacher accountability.  I actually agree with this one.  But how do we assess teacher ability?  And, maybe a bigger problem, what do we do if we find some teachers below par?  This post was inspired by a twitter conversation with some fellow teachers  (Corbett, Dan, Scott, and Marcus), and I went all out to figure out what it would look like.  My goal over this break is to clean my house top to bottom and fix a ton of little things around this place, so I'm getting a lot of random writing done!

On Deducting Late Marks

I was going to list the pros and cons of taking late marks off assignments, but I had my students blog about it, and they hit on pretty much any points I could think of.  So I'll let their words speak here - in a bit.  But first some back-story:

Right now, we (in the History Department) deduct 5% per day up to 15% off and accept late work only up to one week after the due date.  After that it's a zero.  But starting in September, because of the bizarre influence of Cooper, O'Connor, and Wakeman (or C.O.&W. for short), we'll no longer be allowed to deduct late marks or give zeros for any reason.

The gist of our board's updated Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting Handbook, as I currently understand it from reading a preliminary draft, suggests that we can still have strict cut-off dates.  Then if a student misses the cut-off, the teacher has to call home immediately and either refer the student to interventional support, negotiate an extension or alternative assignment, or give the student an "I" indicating the work is incomplete.  Zero is no longer an option.  It's not clear, however, what we do with a row of "I"s mixed in with other marks.  Some in the C.O.&W. team would have us accept all work even past the last day of the term - 75 days past.  But our board's document alludes to allowing professional discretion by the teacher encouraging us to start with an average, but then consider the most recent or most consistent marks - something many of us already do.  But it's hard to average a bunch of numbers with a few letters thrown in the works, so I suspect many teachers will treat the "I"s as if they ARE zeros even though technically they're not.   Shocking, I know.

On Misplaced Admiration

Damian Cooper's out to reform education, and our board has come up with yet another a new assessment document as a response.  The article of the day that he co-wrote with Ken O'Connor and Nanci Wakeman, is "Redefining Fair."

The article suggests that there are four challenges to improving assessment practices:

1.  There's no political will to change.  

It seems to me that changes happen in education pretty much every year.  We're often in long meetings learning the new rules of grading or new jargon to take back to the classroom.  A ton of cash goes into changing the system regularly.  New is always better in my board.  I can't imagine where they got this idea that there's no will to change.  I wish they'd let us get settled into one thing before pulling the rug out again.

On Crappy Contractors - a Solar Powered RANT

I'm trying to get solar panels on my house under the MicroFIT program.  It's been a process so fraught with frustration, I'm thinking of forgetting the whole thing.  A colleague told me, "This could only happen to you," which offered a strange sort of comfort.  At least it acknowledges that it's a crappy situation, full of incompetent people, and that this sort of thing comes my way ALL THE FREAKING TIME!   Well, too much of the time anyway.

First, I did my research very carefully and, after scrutinizing three companies, I chose one that seemed to have the best reputation from satisfied customers, offered the best explanations for how it all worked, always e-mailed me back immediately to answer any further questions, and was in the mid-range for prices.  Then, the weirdest part, one of the sales people from a company I DIDN'T choose started phoning and e-mailing me several times a day, fanatically begging to be chosen and questioning, almost in tears, why I didn't go with his company.  I had to threaten to call the cops if he didn't stop harassing me.  

This is when my colleague first suggested, with a pitying head-shake, "Only to you, Snyder."  

On Hate Crimes and Sexual Orientation

I was reviewing for a test on theories of discrimination and hate crimes in Canada with grade 12 students, and one review question was, "When was sexual orientation added to the list of identifiable groups in the hate propaganda legislation in Canada?"

And the answers I got started in the 60s - 1968, 1969...  Then another bunch tried the 1980s and early 90s.  One group guessed 2005, and they were off by one.  Being victimized due to sexual orientation has only been seen as a hate crime since April 29, 2004.  Almost 9 years ago.

My first reaction was that it's... sweet? innocent?... somehow endearing that they believe we've been on this for decades - for them to believe that the justice system cared about this section of the population for that long.  They just haven't lived long enough to remember how bad it really was.  And it's a good thing that question wasn't on the test!

Following Your Dreams or Living an Illusion?

Ken Robinson, Sir, you are killing me!  I know you probably didn't mean for people to interpret your words in a warped way.  Nobody does.  But that's what happens when you use several rare examples as if they are the norm and send people off to change the world.

Some of my students watched his TEDTalk - the most watched TEDTalk in all the land - and, likely because of it, came away with a firm position that if they're doing poorly, it's entirely because their teacher (me) isn't inspiring enough.  A good teacher with good curriculum - not at all like we have in the schools now - will be able to get absolutely anybody to achieve absolutely anything.

So it goes.

Regulation 274, Education Act of Ontario

I was just about to start a petition at Change.org about this, but, thanks to Angie Potts, there's one already there.  After, I'm guessing, about 5 day, it's got 415 signatures.  Please take two seconds to click on the link and sign it.

I wrote a letter to Liz Sandals, Minister of Education, and Kathleen Wynne, Premier, and Catherine Fife, my MPP.  But if walking to the mailbox is a chore on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, send a quick e-mail - the contacts are at the links.  You can copy and paste what I wrote if you're not up to creating today:

On Education, Stress, and Success

I'm starting another run at the Futures Forum Project:  three subjects over two periods with one teacher (two team-teaching this year) that emphasizes an intentional digital footprint as we write for an authentic audience including students from classes in the 14 other participating schools.  Whew!

There's no way I can implement every idea suggested by the other teachers in the program, so this is my weeding out time - figuring out what's most important to try this time with the kids.  I've come across several links and videos lately that have me thinking about education in general.  Some recent articles discuss a survey that suggests our kids are miserable and totally stressed out in school, yet elsewhere articles complain that they're too apathetic and aren't trying hard enough.  Is the stress making them shut down?

The Not-So-Awful Truth About Being Single

"If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company."  Jean-Paul Sartre

In yesterday's Globe & Mail, Margaret Wente claims that people can get to a much greater depth of understanding and "perfection" of self through a married relationship than they can possibly do if they remain single.

"...the road to self-actualization isn't through perfection of the independent self, but through imperfect, messy, long-term relationships.  Everybody needs someone else to nurture, and someone to stand up for them, and someone to plan the future with, and someone with whom they share a past."  

Wente stumbles into one of the most annoyingly common false dichotomies surrounding this issue:  either you're married or you're alone.  And she continues that single people are lonely implying, of course, that loneliness never ventures into a marriage, that it's solely a quality of aloneness.  I've never been married, yet I know too well the messiness of relationships with myriad friends and colleagues whom I nurture, stand up for, and with whom I share a past.  We don't plan a future together in the same "until death" way that some married people manage, but that shared future in marriage is often illusory.  The future is unknowable.  Shit happens, and happily married people can still end up on their own.  

A Stoic Resurgence

In reading a few other blogs lately, Stoicism has come up a few times, and I'm seeing it in a few books I've been reading lately too.  Maybe it'll stick this time.

In Robin Hanson's blog discussing why middle aged people are most pessimistic, I suggested that maybe it's a point in life where we know too much horrible crap happening in the world, and it's making us miserable.  And we're just before a point in which we've found a way to cope with the unending tragedies that are part of being alive.  Maybe my cohort will become happier in a stoic manner - once we get our heads around how little control we have over the world, accept that many of these problems aren't ours to solve, and develop a tranquility around it all.

Then stoicism came up again in arguments about the relationship to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy via Lieter Reports, a N.Y. Times article by Kathryn Schulz about self-help books' suggested dualism of selfhood.

The Lasting Influence of Rhoda Morgenstern

I just saw that the house featured in the Mary Tyler Moore show is up for sale.  And I've been thinking about how much I was influenced by the character of Rhoda.  I used to wait for the few minutes she'd be on screen each episode.  I'm sure I'm not alone.