Shannon of Homeschool Hacks is hosting this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling.
Working on child’s play
June 26, 2007 By
Play isn’t just something kids do for fun, writes Ann Hulbert on Slate. It’s something adults try to engineer for the good of the children.
“Promoting group synergy and innovation is the goal” of a “next-generation” playground being designed in New York City.
‘‘Play is not optional for kids,” (designer David) Rockwell told the New York Times, in an article announcing plans for the more free-form play area with movable parts, to be staffed by “play workers” trained to facilitate the best use of them; “play is how children learn to build community, how they learn to work with other people, it’s how they learn to kind of engage their sense of creativity … to understand that they can control their own environment.”
Well, not really. The adults in charge of the playground.
Children don’t spend much time outdoors, except for organized sports, reports the Washington Post.
Concerns about long-term consequences — affecting emotional well-being, physical health, learning abilities, environmental consciousness — have spawned a national movement to “leave no child inside.”
Few children spend time in “hiking, walking, fishing, beach play and gardening,” concludes researcher Sandra Hofferth. From 1997 to 2003, children spent more time playing with computers and video games and watching television, as well as sleeping, studying and (surprisingly) reading.
Hulburt thinks The Dangerous Book for Boys is aimed at “fathers eager to embrace a rustic vision of self-reliant and resourceful childhood that few of them actually experienced — and even more eager to believe that such a vision still holds an appeal for children, too.”
But would it be a bestseller if boys weren’t interested?
Following up on the dream
June 25, 2007 By
Twenty years ago, a philanthropist promised a free college education to 112 students at a West Philadelphia elementary school in a high-poverty, high-crime, black neighborhood. George Weiss, a money manager, spent $5 million on counselors, tutors, field trips, internships and scholarships to help the children achieve. What happened? The Philadelphia Inquirer traced the Belmont 112, who are now in their early 30s.
20 bachelor’s degrees. College graduates constitute nearly 19 percent of the class. A comparable group of children — the offspring of low-income African American parents without high school diplomas — were tracked in a national study beginning when they were eighth graders in the late 1980s. Just 10 percent finished college.
10 associate degrees.
14 vocational certificates.
65 high school diplomas, plus five GEDs. That is slightly above 62 percent, more than double what was considered the norm for their demographic group.
Of 45 girls in the group, 30 became teen mothers. One, a mother at 14, is now a grandmother.
Seventeen boys started selling drugs in their teens. Two are in prison for murder and robbery. Eight of the 112 have died, seven by violence.
Forty-four of the 112 were special education students. One of them, Jarmaine Ollivierre, labeled hyperactive, earned degrees in aerospace engineering and physics and now works at the Johnson Space Center. The dream he expressed 20 years ago — to be an astronaut — is a real possibility.
David Sims, socially promoted to make him eligible for Weiss’ offer, earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree and works as a real estate investor.
Nickia Little-Naylor, a mother at 17, now teaches health and child development at a school for pregnant and parenting teens. She plans to earn a nursing degree.
This page has links to profiles of some of the former students.
Weiss has gone on to offer a free college education to other classes of students. By starting earlier, he’s seeing higher graduation rates.
Some of the Belmont 112 are trying to start a community development nonprofit, but they’re not asking Weiss for help.
“We don’t want to leave everything on George Weiss,” (ambulance driver Majovie Bland) said. “It’s time for us to pick up and carry the ball, to do for our community and do for our people.”
The New York Daily News is running a series on students enrolled in a Harlem kindergarten class for gifted students 13 years ago. Sixteen of 21 students have graduated from high school, two should make it in another year and three have dropped out and given up. That’s much better than the odds for black and Hispanic students in New York City, but low for gifted students. Kamal Ibrahim, the most successful from room 206, is going to Carnegie Mellon, where he plans to major in physics.
A line in the sand
June 25, 2007 By
In affluent Lake Forest, Illinois, a section of Lake Michigan beach is reserved for adults only, reports the Chicago Tribune.
“We’re creating a quieter space for those adults that are in search of that type of atmosphere,” said Sally Swarthout, program manager for the north suburban city’s Parks & Recreation Board, which created the 21-and-older beach at the request of several residents. About a quarter of the city’s nearly mile-long beach is now for adults only.
I grew up south of Lake Forest in Highland Park. On the weekends, the beaches swarmed with kids building sand castles, burying each other, jumping in the waves, even swimming. My mother would bring a picnic lunch: I remember the hard-boiled eggs. I guess we were noisy, but it was the baby boom and people expected to be around children. Now it’s the adult baby boomers who want peace and quiet.
Stop thinking critically
June 25, 2007 By
It turns out that high school officials don’t really want students to seek out information, think critically or discuss ideas with classmates, writes Colby Cosh in the National Post. A high school student in Saskatchewan who discussed the health risks of marijuana with friends was threatened, suspended and accused indirectly of being a drug dealer.
(Kieran) King, who is in Grade 10 at a high school in tiny Wawota, Sask., started researching marijuana after he and his fellow students were given an audiovisual presentation about drugs earlier in the year.
. . . On May 30, Kieran, who is described as “research-obsessed” by his mother, was chatting with friends around the school lunch table and telling them about what he’d discovered, largely from scholarly and government sources. He argued that marijuana carries a near-zero risk of overdose, that it has been approved by Health Canada for medical use and that it kills an infinitesimal fraction of the people that alcohol and tobacco do every week — claims so uncontroversial you’d have to be high on something much stronger than pot to dispute them.
He also suggested that it doesn’t make much sense for marijuana to be illegal in a world where booze and smokes are freely available in shops.
A student told the principal, who told Kieran not to talk about marijuana on school premises.
. . . later she called his mother to warn her that “promoting drug use” would not be tolerated. According to the education director of the school division, she was also told “if there were any drugs brought into the school, the police could be involved.” One can almost hear the truncheon slapping against the open palm. Later on, when Kieran organized a brief free speech protest outside the school with the help of a few “cannabis culture” types, Wilson reacted by ordering a lockdown (remember, they’re not prisons!). When he walked out anyway to join supporters, he was suspended from school and a “threat assessment” was ordered (definitely not prisons!).
Superintendent Velda Weatherald claimed “there was an accusation” that Kieran may have been involved in selling drugs at the school.
This boy’s mother is a teacher. His father was killed by a drunk driver.
When my nephew was in fifth grade, he gave an “I Have a Dream” speech on Martin Luther King Day about his dream that one day marijuana would be legalized. There was no censorship or consequences.
Update: On a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that school officials can punish a student for advocating drug use by carrying a sign across the street from the school saying, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”
Who’s going to teach?
June 25, 2007 By
Schools will have trouble finding “highly qualified” teachers to replace the retiring baby boomers, reports the Washington Post. Three quarters of teachers are women. In earlier generations, college-educated women had limited choices and frequently went into teaching. These days, they’re much less likely to choose a career in the classroom.
Overall, the proportion of women who pursue teaching after college, as well as the caliber of recruits, has declined significantly since the 1960s.
. . . in 1964 1 in 5 young female teachers graduated in the top 10 percent of her high school class, the ratio was closer to 1 in 10 by 2000.
The brightest teachers have a lot of other options and may be the first to leave teaching if they feel they’re not able to make a difference.
Looking for Big Brother
June 24, 2007 By
Big Brothers is looking for a few good men — actually a lot of good men — to mentor fatherless boys, reports Opinion Journal. They’re asking Big Sisters to help persuade men to give their time.
In Southern California, only three men volunteer to be Big Brothers for every seven women who volunteer for Big Sisters, notes Daily Pundit. He suspects men are afraid of being accused of child abuse. He notes several stories on the reluctance of men to teach elementary students for fear of child abuse accusations. From the Arizona Republic:
…Scottsdale’s (Margaret) Serna said the fear of being accused of inappropriate touching or abuse has made lots of educators uncomfortable. Many administrators and teachers leave the profession out of fear of lawsuits or false accusations.
“A man just has to be aware of his interactions and how they are perceived,†Serna said. For example, in kindergarten there is a lot more nurturing and hugging. “You have to be careful, and when you’re a man, you have to be extra careful,†Serna said.
An accusation can be devastating. It’s hard to clear your name.
Summer reading
June 23, 2007 By
College Board recommends 101 books for college-bound readers. Most are classics by dead white males. I read most of these in high school and the rest in college or later, except for Achebe, Proust, Roth and Silko. There’s also a short list of poetry and cultural texts. I’ve read it all except for Frank O’Hara’s poetry, but it seems ambitious for high school students. Of course, I guess they’re not expected to read everything before they set foot on a college campus.
See what you think.
Via the Houston Chronicle’s School Zone.
Unfit for service
June 22, 2007 By
Some 72 percent of Americans 17 to 24 years old are unfit for military service due to academic, fitness and behavior deficiencies.
Most of today’s youth are not eligible for military service because they are too fat, too weak, not smart enough and prone to drug-use and criminal behavior, according to a panel of senior military officers.
About 30 percent are ineligible because they haven’t finished high school.
I’ve been working as a temp editorial writer for the last week at the San Jose Mercury News, my old employer. (Every time I do this, they lay people off. By July, the editorial staff will be at 200, about half what it was when I left in 2001.) I walked into the editor’s office and saw a picture of his 18-year-old son, who’s serving as a cavalry scout somewhere near Baghdad. Every time I read the war news I wonder if Steve’s son is OK. We rely on young men like this.
On Quick and the Ed, Chad Alderman suggests recruiting and training teachers the way the Army recruits and trains soldiers.
The cheese sandwich of shame
June 22, 2007 By
To motivate parents to pay school-lunch debts, schools are serving an alternate meal, usually a cheese sandwich to the children of deadbeats. In Chula Vista, lunch debts fell from $300,000 in 2004 to $67,000 in 2006 with the advent of the cheese sandwich, reports the LA Times. But parents complain that cheese has become the sandwich of shame, humiliating children for their parents’ forgetfulness.
Most schools across the country have introduced alternate meals, said Erik Peterson, a spokesman for the School Nutrition Assn., an Alexandria, Va.-based organization for school nutrition professionals.
Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District serves crackers with peanut butter or cheese. The Los Angeles Unified School District gives children half a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches are a common alternate meal, but not a very effective one.
“It seemed to be one of the children’s very favorite meals, so that wasn’t productive,” said Beth Taylor, nutrition director for the Johnston County School District in North Carolina, where such sandwiches were tried. Taylor said switching to vegetable and fruit trays changed everything. Among last week’s menu items for students with lunch balances: crunchy cole slaw, fried squash and steamed cabbage. “The outstanding debt has been reduced to nothing,” she said.
Districts with lots of low-income students have no problem: The federal government funds lunch. It’s middle-class parents who neglect to pay for lunch but want their children served anyhow.
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