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Monday, November 14, 2011 F.F.A. for All For those of us past a certain age, any mention of the F.F.A. may bring to mind lyrics from the late Roger Miller classic, Chug-A-Lug, and of students rebuilding farm tractors in ag class. But Motoko Rich's Future Farmers Look Ahead tells of a growing F.F.A. organization that is reaching out in new directions beyond its traditional farm related roots. Rich writes from the annual F.F.A. Convention held last week in Indianapolis:
Rich notes that "although farm employment accounts for less than 1 percent of all jobs in the United States," farm "workers have actually fared better than most" during our nation's economic downturn, giving "the F.F.A. a calling card as an organization that actually prepares students for viable careers." While most of the organization's members still live in rural areas, the fastest growing segment of that membership is now in urban and suburban areas. The addition of fields well beyond agricultural science, including genetics, logistics, landscape gardening and alternative fuels, has helped push non-farm membership. He adds, "Now, the group’s chapters aim to teach students leadership and job readiness as much as the finer points of cattle care or corn fertilization." Having farmed a bit and also taught in a classroom that looked out on the ag/industrial arts building where the world's largest yo-yo and guitar were built along with lots of rebuilt old tractors, Rich's story obviously caught my interest. But something from a news story about the world's largest yo-yo brings back some of the relevance of such classes. After the successful launch of the yo-yo, one of the students involved told a reporter, "It took about three weeks to complete all the necessary calculations to begin the actual building process." And I can attest that those projects had kids who wouldn't carry a book home or do homework (at least for me in elementary school), totally involved in the planning and calculations necessary to complete the projects. New Play Curriculum in D.C. Bill Turque had an interesting article in Friday's Washington Post, D.C. school reform targets early lessons, about a promising early childhood curriculum the District schools are trying call Tools of the Mind. The program focuses on students' ability to self-regulate their social, emotional, and cognitive behaviors. Based on the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky who believed play was the key to learning, the program "uses play to build the capacity to 'self-regulate,' or resist the impulses and distractions that can hinder academic growth." Online Latin Game/Curriculum Nathan Maton tells of an interesting approach to teaching Latin in Can an Online Game Crack the Code to Language Learning? He writes about Latin teacher Kevin Ballestrini's efforts to create a roll playing game that includes a two year Latin curriculum for his students. In the game, "students play the role of Romans in a reconstruction of ancient Pompeii (or ancient Rome) and have to learn to think, act, create and write like a Roman in order to win the game." The program in now in its second year with approximately 30 classrooms involved. Maton reports that students love the class and game. And a comment from one of Ballestrini's co-creators in The Pericles Group relate that the group is working on "several other subject areas...including one for high school life science/biology called Operation BIOME." The underlying principle of matching learning and game objectives is what makes it possible to do this with with any content, and we're very excited to share those materials with kids and educators very soon. Republican Presidential Candidates on Education AP writer Kimberly Hefling has a good summary of the positions of the candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination in Candidates seek to limit federal role in education. She notes:
"Evidence" for School "Reform"? Carol Corbett Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York, has an excellent guest blog today on Valerie Strauss's The Answer Sheet blog, Proof there is no proof for education reforms. Burris starts near the top, showing how Secretary Arne Duncan ducked the issue when he "was asked by an Education Week reporter about the evidence base for the policies of his department," and continues on through many of the unproven favorites of the reform crowd. Odds 'n' Ends Just a few links here today.
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A Vote for Childhood Obesity Ron Nixon reports in Congress Blocks New Rules on School Lunches that "A slice of pizza still counts as a vegetable." Lawmakers working on a House and Senate compromise for an agriculture spending bill blocked implementation of the new school lunch rules proposed by the USDA last January. The proposed changes were aimed at reducing childhood obesity by adding more fruit and green vegetables to lunch menus. Nixon quotes Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, as saying of the defeat:
On the Blogs It was just a few weeks ago that I complained in this section that I "must have chosen poorly in selecting blogs to follow this year on Educators' News," complete with a reference and link to the "He chose poorly" scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Mrs. Chili presented a great little song in last week's Grammar Wednesday posting for remembering the 23 helping verbs. Set to the tune of Jingle Bells, it goes:
Her next posting, Wishing Time Away, on her A Teacher's Education blog is a riot. Here's just a part of what she wrote:
And we all grin and say, "Been there, done that, got the headache to prove it."
Deven Black's We Need to Teach So that Kids Will Care on his Education On The Plate blog is a great read. The title sorta gives it away, but Black presents his thoughts in an intriguing way:
Larry Ferlazzo's The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2011 presents a nearly overwhelming bunch of great web apps that you'll probably want to bookmark for future reference. Mrs. Bluebird's How To Make Friends - By Walking a Kid to the Nurse is just a good, heartwarming read. Paul Hamilton is busy exploring assistive apps and devices on his Free Resources for Every Learner blog. See:
Norm Scott's Further Cracks in Ed Deform No Excuses Mantra yesterday started me on an illuminating jaunt that first led to Anna M. Phillips' Calming Schools by Focusing on Well-Being of Troubled Students on the New York Times and finally to the Turnaround for Children site. Both Scott and Phillips quote Turnaround founder, Dr. Pamela Cantor, as saying of schools in high poverty areas, "A teacher who works in a community like this and thinks that these children can leave their issues at the door and come in and perform is dreaming." Cantor's non-profit organization focuses "on students' psychological and emotional well-being, in addition to academics," occupying "a middle ground between the educators and politicians who believe schools should be more like community centers, and the education-reform movement, with its no-excuses mantra." Phillips writes of Turnaround:
Phillips concludes her piece with an apt quote from James Shelton, the federal Education Department's assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement, who said programs like Turnaround were often overlooked as "so much kumbaya." He then remarked:
Tom Hoffman continues to chronicle the turnaround craziness in Rhode Island in This is No Way to Run a Manufactured Crisis on his Tuttle SVC blog. NYC Educator unloads about the attempted privatization of public schools in Why the Push for Teacher Evaluation? He begins:
Walt Gardner's Walking in Teachers' Shoes on the Reality Check blog is a good discussion of some of the realities that must be faced in improving education in America. While I don't want to steal his thunder, I will list the three biggies Walt expands upon in the posting.
And as always, Diane Ravitch's latest posting on the Bridging Differences blog, Billionaires for Education Reform, is an excellent read. A related posting on Education Week, KIPP Charter Network Receives $25.5 Million From Walton Family Foundation, just helps make Diane's point. Second Jobs Teachers, facing low salaries, opt to moonlight on eSchool News does a good job of telling why teachers moonlight. The surprising thing to me is that anyone still is surprised it's going on. Odds 'n' Ends
Seed Catalogs
It may seem a bit premature to be talking about ordering seed in late fall, especially when we're still harvesting lettuce, spinach, and broccoli from our gardens. But this is the time of year when seed houses begin sending out their catalogs. It's also important for us to order some of our seed before the end of the year, as we start planting our seed geraniums in December and our onions in early January! And it's really nice to sit at ones desk on a snowy winter day, browsing through beautifully illustrated catalogs of vegetables and flowers. Charity Banners In mid-September, I started running charity banners on Wednesdays in this site's advertising slots. I haven't gotten any feedback or suggestions from readers on this practice as yet, and it certainly hasn't affected our site income from advertising. (It still covers a bag of Tootsie Roll Pops I'm still irregularly updating the list of charity banner sources I ran in a recent Odds 'n' Ends column. My hope is that other education writers and bloggers might begin using some of the charity banners on their sites. Trekking the Planet A short Site of the Week posting on eSchool News led me to Darren and Sandy Van Soye's Trekking the Planet site this week. They plan to begin a 14 month around-the-world trip in January and share their trip with schoolchildren via their web site, newsletters, and downloadable educational materials.
From the Trekking the Planet YouTube video page:
DCPS Still a Mess Bill Turque has a couple of disturbing articles about the Washington, D.C. Schools that really aren't directly related to K-12 instruction. He relates in D.C. says there’s no money for contract early retirement provision that the District is trying to renege on early retirement provisions for teachers. Far more disturbing is his article, Court orders District to expand preschool special education, that tells of a federal judge lambasting the system for failing "to provide special education services to hundreds of eligible preschool-age children." Considering that the system was under a 2005 court order to do so, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth's blast from the bench is probably well deserved. Turque writes:
Black Friday Looms In a week, we'll once again hit Black Friday, with Cyber Monday shortly thereafter. As a new wrinkle, some stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day, getting a few hours head start on Black Friday, while denying their employees a major family holiday. Other stores in our area are waiting until 9 P.M. or midnight to open on Thanksgiving, which means their employees will either have to nap during the day or show up at work a bit bleary eyed. I received a Change.org email this week requesting that I sign their petition to Target Stores to not make their employees come in at 11 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day. I didn't sign it, but I also won't be shopping on Thanksgiving. The Huffington Post reports that "Walmart Supercenter stores will be open 24 hours on Thanksgiving this year, with most regular Walmart stores opening midnight Thanksgiving night." I can only hope those stores are paying their employees overtime for working on a holiday, but I know better. I shopped in our local Walmart on Labor Day. When I asked a checker I know if she volunteered to work the holiday, she hissed, "No, and they're not even paying us overtime!" My inbox has been awash with Black/Pink Friday/Cyber Monday messages from affiliate advertisers for weeks. You can probably guess why you haven't seen any of those ads here on Educators' News as yet, and probably won't. Black Friday is still a week away, and I'm sick of hearing and reading about it already. I'm also really disgusted with some of our national retail chains. Odds 'n' Ends Since I'm already up on my soapbox, I'll just continue to rant today. In the wee hours this morning as I was getting ready to post today's edition of Educators' News, I happened upon one of the more biased and inaccurate articles I've read recently about education "reform." Seattle Times editorial columnist Lynne K. Varner must live in an alternate reality from what she wrote in Diane Ravitch: putting education reform to the test. It's late, so I'm not even going to rebut her half truths. I'll wait for Valerie Strauss or Anthony Cody to take her on. Have a great weekend!
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©2011 Steven L. Wood