1.29.2006
year of the dog
Well, Chinese New Year is coming up (tonight into tomorrow) and I'll be spending a portion of my day on the river. Rowing has gotten better - I'm not as sore when I finish as I used to be, and the bracing coldness does wonders for my lungs. No, that's insane. It's just cold out.
Had a nice dinner of homemade wontons in noodle soup last night. It was delicious.
Happy Birthday, by the way, to Diana, who turned on Friday. :)
Finally, two stories to comment on from the news. Both take me back to my days as a teacher, and I must say I still miss it a great deal. The first is from this week's New York Times Ethicist column. In it, an anonymous NJ teacher gives the following scenario: a student would have gotten an A+ had he not flipped two pages over instead of one and missed a section of the test. The question: is it ethical to prorate the test and give the student the A+ he *probably* would have gotten on the entirety of the test. Randy Cohen, the Ethicist, says no. And I agree with both of his solutions. Either give a re-take of the test (in which the student will probably be fine) or don't overlook the careless error, as it is only a midterm. "A single botched test will not hideously distort an otherwise excellent academic record." Still, it can be pretty darn demoralizing. I'd probably allow a re-take, but to make sure that the student feels a bit of the sting, I'd average the two tests together. The teacher, according to the column, "prorated the exam but would not do so again." This teacher was wrong.
Second note comes from the Boston Globe, and from the town of Milton, Massachusetts, home of both prestigious Milton Academy and Milton Public High. This story comes from the second of those two schools. I do not wish to imply in any way that Milton High School is not prestigious. Just that Milton High doesn't have a wikipedia reference. This story is an exercise in the absurd. A High School Senior has decided that the educational system is stacked against boys, and as such, is suing the US Department of Education. It's not that girls are smarter, it's that "the school system favors them." While he brings up a good point: that homework which sometimes includes points for decorating a notebook, favors girls. But that's not a point to bring up with the Department of Education. You bring that up with your teacher, because that's a stupid stupid stupid homework assignment. Says the student, Doug Anglin, "The system is designed to the disadvantage of males. From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this."
Now hold on. Lots of organized societies function like this. The criminal justice system works like this. You know what? So does the army! And I don't think that you can argue that the army is fundamentally designed to the disadvantage of males. Anglin wants to spur the Department of Education to issue national guidelines on how to increase boys' academic achievement. That's great. I can get behind that. But to say that it's because boys have a fundamental disadvantage in inherent structure of the school is completely wrong. According to the article, "he proposes that the high school give students credit for playing sports, not just for art and drama courses. He also urges that students be allowed to take classes on a pass/fail basis to encourage more boys to enroll in advanced classes without risking their grade point average." Sports is not a class, and it's unrealistic to treat it as one. Not to mention that at the high school level, the men and women's teams are equally stacked with scholar-athletes, and art and drama classes are very well mixed too. As for the pass/fail thing, that only encourages the lazier of the students *not* to work as hard, since they have no personal stake in getting a grade about a D.
I really enjoy his third remedy: he "wants the school to abolish its community service requirement, saying it's another burden that will just set off resistance from boys, who may skip it and fail to graduate as a result." Now he's being ridiculous. First of all, community service requirements are good things. They teach civic responsibility and allow students to make useful contributions to society at large. That it should be abolished is debatable - certainly there are those who feel that forced community service isn't really community service, and that true service should be attached to a student's desire to give back, not just meet a graduation requirement. If he'd made that argument, I'd respect him but disagree with him. Instead, his argument stems from the fact that boys don't want to, and we should lower the barriers to male achievement by removing anything they don't like to do.
And, no offence, but this is coming from a guy who's got a 2.88 GPA. His father wants the school to retroactively compensate the boys by boosting their grades. "If you are a victim of discrimination in the workplae, what do they do? They give you more money or they give you a promotion," says the boy's father. "Most of these kids want to go to college, so these records are important to them." If they wanted to go to college so bad, they should have sat down, shut up, and studied. They certainly can't blame their inability to sit down and pay attention on institutional bias. They might have a learning issue like ADD or ADHD, but that's not a fault of the school either. Apparently Newsweek did a story on this just this week. I read it - I disagree with them vehemently.
Look, when I taught, I modeled my course information sheets on the ones I got from my professors in college. I made up powerpoint slides which students could download from home, and I put homework online and expected them to have done it. Vocabulary was a big thing, and I quizzed them on it every other day. The students didn't like it at first, but they got to eventually. And I learned something - if you push students a little bit (this is not like putting trigonometry into a 7th grade math class, I mean really), they'll respond and excell. If you coddle them and treat them like kids, they'll react to that and they won't be as driven in your class. In other words, treat them like young adults and they'll react as young adults. Treat them like kids and they'll react as kids. Of course it's not that simple, but it's close.
Had a nice dinner of homemade wontons in noodle soup last night. It was delicious.
Happy Birthday, by the way, to Diana, who turned
Finally, two stories to comment on from the news. Both take me back to my days as a teacher, and I must say I still miss it a great deal. The first is from this week's New York Times Ethicist column. In it, an anonymous NJ teacher gives the following scenario: a student would have gotten an A+ had he not flipped two pages over instead of one and missed a section of the test. The question: is it ethical to prorate the test and give the student the A+ he *probably* would have gotten on the entirety of the test. Randy Cohen, the Ethicist, says no. And I agree with both of his solutions. Either give a re-take of the test (in which the student will probably be fine) or don't overlook the careless error, as it is only a midterm. "A single botched test will not hideously distort an otherwise excellent academic record." Still, it can be pretty darn demoralizing. I'd probably allow a re-take, but to make sure that the student feels a bit of the sting, I'd average the two tests together. The teacher, according to the column, "prorated the exam but would not do so again." This teacher was wrong.
Second note comes from the Boston Globe, and from the town of Milton, Massachusetts, home of both prestigious Milton Academy and Milton Public High. This story comes from the second of those two schools. I do not wish to imply in any way that Milton High School is not prestigious. Just that Milton High doesn't have a wikipedia reference. This story is an exercise in the absurd. A High School Senior has decided that the educational system is stacked against boys, and as such, is suing the US Department of Education. It's not that girls are smarter, it's that "the school system favors them." While he brings up a good point: that homework which sometimes includes points for decorating a notebook, favors girls. But that's not a point to bring up with the Department of Education. You bring that up with your teacher, because that's a stupid stupid stupid homework assignment. Says the student, Doug Anglin, "The system is designed to the disadvantage of males. From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this."
Now hold on. Lots of organized societies function like this. The criminal justice system works like this. You know what? So does the army! And I don't think that you can argue that the army is fundamentally designed to the disadvantage of males. Anglin wants to spur the Department of Education to issue national guidelines on how to increase boys' academic achievement. That's great. I can get behind that. But to say that it's because boys have a fundamental disadvantage in inherent structure of the school is completely wrong. According to the article, "he proposes that the high school give students credit for playing sports, not just for art and drama courses. He also urges that students be allowed to take classes on a pass/fail basis to encourage more boys to enroll in advanced classes without risking their grade point average." Sports is not a class, and it's unrealistic to treat it as one. Not to mention that at the high school level, the men and women's teams are equally stacked with scholar-athletes, and art and drama classes are very well mixed too. As for the pass/fail thing, that only encourages the lazier of the students *not* to work as hard, since they have no personal stake in getting a grade about a D.
I really enjoy his third remedy: he "wants the school to abolish its community service requirement, saying it's another burden that will just set off resistance from boys, who may skip it and fail to graduate as a result." Now he's being ridiculous. First of all, community service requirements are good things. They teach civic responsibility and allow students to make useful contributions to society at large. That it should be abolished is debatable - certainly there are those who feel that forced community service isn't really community service, and that true service should be attached to a student's desire to give back, not just meet a graduation requirement. If he'd made that argument, I'd respect him but disagree with him. Instead, his argument stems from the fact that boys don't want to, and we should lower the barriers to male achievement by removing anything they don't like to do.
And, no offence, but this is coming from a guy who's got a 2.88 GPA. His father wants the school to retroactively compensate the boys by boosting their grades. "If you are a victim of discrimination in the workplae, what do they do? They give you more money or they give you a promotion," says the boy's father. "Most of these kids want to go to college, so these records are important to them." If they wanted to go to college so bad, they should have sat down, shut up, and studied. They certainly can't blame their inability to sit down and pay attention on institutional bias. They might have a learning issue like ADD or ADHD, but that's not a fault of the school either. Apparently Newsweek did a story on this just this week. I read it - I disagree with them vehemently.
Look, when I taught, I modeled my course information sheets on the ones I got from my professors in college. I made up powerpoint slides which students could download from home, and I put homework online and expected them to have done it. Vocabulary was a big thing, and I quizzed them on it every other day. The students didn't like it at first, but they got to eventually. And I learned something - if you push students a little bit (this is not like putting trigonometry into a 7th grade math class, I mean really), they'll respond and excell. If you coddle them and treat them like kids, they'll react to that and they won't be as driven in your class. In other words, treat them like young adults and they'll react as young adults. Treat them like kids and they'll react as kids. Of course it's not that simple, but it's close.
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Mr. W!! Whatsup?! Its ML...your '03-'04 advisee. Haven't talked to you in a long time. Im guessing the Red Sox turmoil has you going a little crazy. My sister's hoping to work at Fenway again this season. As for Pingry stuff...The Notorious Pingry Quiz Bowl Team made a grand appearance at Bloomfield High School, A team got 6th, B team (thats me) got 8th. Hoorah. Good luck with grad. school. Feel free to give me an email...u know how the pingry system works. At least...i hope u haven't forgotten.
Carpe Diem-
Mateo
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Carpe Diem-
Mateo
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