1000 words.
That is what I still need to cut from my article manuscript in order to meet the miserly guidelines of the review committee. And don't think that these are reasonable guidelines. I am supposed to submit a 7000 word essay (including footnotes)!! Who writes journal articles like that?! 7000 words is graduate-seminar essay length; it begins to tell a story but can't do it justice. Still, I think if the reviewers read the beginning of my story, they will be so enthralled that they'll want to read the full 13,000 word version. Let's hope so! Cross your fingers for me.
(This must be driving me nuts because it prompted me to update my blog!)
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
meeting the standards
California grade-schoolers work all year in preparation to pass the state standards exam. Here's a sample worksheet that is supposed to help them meet those standards.* Click on the image for a better view.
*and it passes on the tradition of ethno-racial stereotyping
*and it passes on the tradition of ethno-racial stereotyping
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Blend
"Blend." That's the new word in trend-setting California for locating a new low in public education.
Last week, during the third week of instruction, one of the second-grade classes at Local Elementary School was "blended" with a third-grade class. Now, second and third grade students share the same classroom, instructor, and instructional time even though they are both held to two different sets of standards. Everyone I know who teaches at post-secondary institutions is familiar with the general notion of a "blended" classroom. We get a diverse array of students with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, who respond at different rates to the material that everyone gets in class. We meet them and their needs and work to expand their skills and knowledge.
Based on my limited observation, this is also the case in a traditional grade school class. Every classroom has kids who read or crunch numbers beyond or behind their peers; others have stayed up late playing video games, and others just daydream. Because of No Child Left Behind and its implementation through State Standards Tests, the grade-school teachers that I know work to get each student to some abstract grade level that is presumably measured by those tests but they also work to expand the skills and imagination of students in ways that can't be measured by tests.
"Blended" classes are not these traditional classes that unite students approximately based on age and ability. In fact, "blends" are not new to California but there are a lot more of them this year because state-lawmakers have proved themselves totally unable to comprehend fiscal and social responsibility. Thus, my local second-grade became a 2/3 blend a couple of weeks after the school-year had started. And, to clarify further, a blended class does not track each child individually, mapping their progress and teaching them how to self-motivate and take charge of daily and weekly assignments. This is not a Montessori-style of blended classroom. Instead, one teacher is responsible for teaching two different, state-approved, grade-level curricula to two different sets of students in one class every single day (until they take their State Standards Test in the Spring). In other words, "blending" is a great business model; when measured in raw numbers we California residents get more grade-schoolers through our public institutions while we spend less educating them. But, as we're all well-aware, business should never be allowed near education.
We learned last week, after nearly a full week of "blending," that the 2/3 teacher is "excited" by the coming year. She will scurry between second and third graders throughout the day, shift the third grade to another classroom for social studies, and get the windfall of having an "aid" (read: part-time, no benefits, minimum wage). She will now have students in her class who range in age from 6 to 9 years old. And she has a bigger class too. Twenty-four second graders this year and six third-graders (she had a total of 17 second-graders last year) . But she is still held to the grade-standards set years ago for smaller classes. This "excited" second-third grade teacher offered the very telling explanation that (degree-carrying and certified) teachers "are a luxury" in California's public education system.
Before the current school year California was ranked 51st in the nation for its spending on public education (behind all other states and Puerto Rico). We thought California had hit the bottom before we discovered that the bottom had fallen out of the state economy. Now, California is probing the depths beyond paucity as it "funds" public education, and teachers, we discovered, have become a "luxury."
I can't help but worry over where this is headed: how will California continue to secure federal funding when its students fail to meet federal standards because the students simply cannot pass the tests? How many times will those students who stick with it have to repeat grades? Will all California public school graduates be 22 or older when they finally finish? Where can these "kids" go to college (at similarly strickened California Universities)? And what kind of professions could they possibly enter? Has K-12 education in California become something that only the rich can afford (through private schools)?
Grade-school teachers are a luxury that California has to force itself to indulge.
Last week, during the third week of instruction, one of the second-grade classes at Local Elementary School was "blended" with a third-grade class. Now, second and third grade students share the same classroom, instructor, and instructional time even though they are both held to two different sets of standards. Everyone I know who teaches at post-secondary institutions is familiar with the general notion of a "blended" classroom. We get a diverse array of students with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, who respond at different rates to the material that everyone gets in class. We meet them and their needs and work to expand their skills and knowledge.
Based on my limited observation, this is also the case in a traditional grade school class. Every classroom has kids who read or crunch numbers beyond or behind their peers; others have stayed up late playing video games, and others just daydream. Because of No Child Left Behind and its implementation through State Standards Tests, the grade-school teachers that I know work to get each student to some abstract grade level that is presumably measured by those tests but they also work to expand the skills and imagination of students in ways that can't be measured by tests.
"Blended" classes are not these traditional classes that unite students approximately based on age and ability. In fact, "blends" are not new to California but there are a lot more of them this year because state-lawmakers have proved themselves totally unable to comprehend fiscal and social responsibility. Thus, my local second-grade became a 2/3 blend a couple of weeks after the school-year had started. And, to clarify further, a blended class does not track each child individually, mapping their progress and teaching them how to self-motivate and take charge of daily and weekly assignments. This is not a Montessori-style of blended classroom. Instead, one teacher is responsible for teaching two different, state-approved, grade-level curricula to two different sets of students in one class every single day (until they take their State Standards Test in the Spring). In other words, "blending" is a great business model; when measured in raw numbers we California residents get more grade-schoolers through our public institutions while we spend less educating them. But, as we're all well-aware, business should never be allowed near education.
We learned last week, after nearly a full week of "blending," that the 2/3 teacher is "excited" by the coming year. She will scurry between second and third graders throughout the day, shift the third grade to another classroom for social studies, and get the windfall of having an "aid" (read: part-time, no benefits, minimum wage). She will now have students in her class who range in age from 6 to 9 years old. And she has a bigger class too. Twenty-four second graders this year and six third-graders (she had a total of 17 second-graders last year) . But she is still held to the grade-standards set years ago for smaller classes. This "excited" second-third grade teacher offered the very telling explanation that (degree-carrying and certified) teachers "are a luxury" in California's public education system.
Before the current school year California was ranked 51st in the nation for its spending on public education (behind all other states and Puerto Rico). We thought California had hit the bottom before we discovered that the bottom had fallen out of the state economy. Now, California is probing the depths beyond paucity as it "funds" public education, and teachers, we discovered, have become a "luxury."
I can't help but worry over where this is headed: how will California continue to secure federal funding when its students fail to meet federal standards because the students simply cannot pass the tests? How many times will those students who stick with it have to repeat grades? Will all California public school graduates be 22 or older when they finally finish? Where can these "kids" go to college (at similarly strickened California Universities)? And what kind of professions could they possibly enter? Has K-12 education in California become something that only the rich can afford (through private schools)?
Grade-school teachers are a luxury that California has to force itself to indulge.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
hiatus
Taking a hiatus is nice, but it's a difficult thing to come back from.
I took a blogging hiatus this summer. I took hiatus from a lot of my routine. The four weeks I had planned to spend in Montana grew to six. This was a hiatus from home, not from work. And, as it turns out, I accomplished a lot. I finished a chapter that I had been struggling to complete for months. It became monstrous - in terms of size, not content. Now, Adviser tells me that it is two, not one chapter. Which means one more chapter - the denouement - will suffice for a dissertation. (This, despite the fact that I have grand visions for an additional chapter. It can wait.) I am enjoying a few brief days of levity; it's as if an incredible weight I've been carrying feels a bit lighter. No doubt, I will grow weary under its weight again as I turn to revisions and to the introduction, but I plan to remember this fleeting levity which I'm enjoying at the end of my hiatus.
I took a blogging hiatus this summer. I took hiatus from a lot of my routine. The four weeks I had planned to spend in Montana grew to six. This was a hiatus from home, not from work. And, as it turns out, I accomplished a lot. I finished a chapter that I had been struggling to complete for months. It became monstrous - in terms of size, not content. Now, Adviser tells me that it is two, not one chapter. Which means one more chapter - the denouement - will suffice for a dissertation. (This, despite the fact that I have grand visions for an additional chapter. It can wait.) I am enjoying a few brief days of levity; it's as if an incredible weight I've been carrying feels a bit lighter. No doubt, I will grow weary under its weight again as I turn to revisions and to the introduction, but I plan to remember this fleeting levity which I'm enjoying at the end of my hiatus.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
plugging away
I'm still writing. Always writing....
Here's a maze game I found amid my research documents that I though I would share with anyone who happens by my blog. It's from the Daily Worker (November 1934) and was published under the "Our Young Readers" section. Can you help the angry worker find his nemesis, "Mr. Boss."
And in other news, I get to visit New York next week (for work, unfortunately, so no time to sight-see).
Here's a maze game I found amid my research documents that I though I would share with anyone who happens by my blog. It's from the Daily Worker (November 1934) and was published under the "Our Young Readers" section. Can you help the angry worker find his nemesis, "Mr. Boss."
And in other news, I get to visit New York next week (for work, unfortunately, so no time to sight-see).
Friday, May 22, 2009
fluency
Years ago, when I began to learn a foreign language, I recall hearing that one of the milestones of language acquisition would come to me in my dreams. That is, when I started dreaming in French (for example), then I was really getting somewhere. The premise, I think, is that the sounds and symbols and concepts would become so familiar that I could use them even in my sleep. I used to dream in French; I don't anymore. Now, I dream in dissertation. I wouldn't say that all aspects of the stories I have learned and retell are absolutely, crystal clear to me (just like a foreign-language learner can never shed her accent). But I do think I've achieved some sort of fluency in my dissertation. The strange thing is that now I have no one to talk to.
One of the clearest signs of my emerging fluency is dreaming. But what I welcomed in language learning, I dread with the dissertation process. I don't want to work out the issues I'm struggling with - like state versus federal forms of colonial citizenship - while I sleep because doing so keeps me from sleeping. So, I've been looking for ways to cut the stream of thought and leave my dissertation only to waking hours. I've been lucky to find not one, but two great histories that I can read before going to sleep that allow me to leave everything behind while resting. They're so good they're worth recommending because both are histories that tell engaging stories. Peggy Pascoe and Glenda Gilmore use different styles to tell their tales but they provide enough personal and contextual detail to make for a very engaging read. I like how What Comes Naturally connects the seemingly simple and personal process of getting married to the policing of racial, gender, sexual, and economic boundaries that shored up white supremacy. Laws, lawmakers, and administrators worked hard to make the racial order seem so effortless. Defying Dixie is equally as fascinating because Gilmore connects a vast web of revolutionaries throughout the South to the rest of the U.S. and beyond. Then, she connects that to the modern CRM and shows how it was made possible but also stymied by a radical past. How could I not enjoy reading about a hushed-up revolution? I will take months more to finish these great histories but I am not hesitant to add to my list. I welcome all recommendations for other ways to temper my burgeoning fluency.
One of the clearest signs of my emerging fluency is dreaming. But what I welcomed in language learning, I dread with the dissertation process. I don't want to work out the issues I'm struggling with - like state versus federal forms of colonial citizenship - while I sleep because doing so keeps me from sleeping. So, I've been looking for ways to cut the stream of thought and leave my dissertation only to waking hours. I've been lucky to find not one, but two great histories that I can read before going to sleep that allow me to leave everything behind while resting. They're so good they're worth recommending because both are histories that tell engaging stories. Peggy Pascoe and Glenda Gilmore use different styles to tell their tales but they provide enough personal and contextual detail to make for a very engaging read. I like how What Comes Naturally connects the seemingly simple and personal process of getting married to the policing of racial, gender, sexual, and economic boundaries that shored up white supremacy. Laws, lawmakers, and administrators worked hard to make the racial order seem so effortless. Defying Dixie is equally as fascinating because Gilmore connects a vast web of revolutionaries throughout the South to the rest of the U.S. and beyond. Then, she connects that to the modern CRM and shows how it was made possible but also stymied by a radical past. How could I not enjoy reading about a hushed-up revolution? I will take months more to finish these great histories but I am not hesitant to add to my list. I welcome all recommendations for other ways to temper my burgeoning fluency.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
mind-read
Mind-reading can be a good thing. Like most gifts, it should be assessed on the "Fabulous-to-Frightening" scale. This time, I'm going with Fabulous.
How amazing is this: two University of Wisconsin professors read my mind and wrote a book for me. Actually, it's a collection of essay, but, again, I'm sure they did it for me after reading my mind when I was thinking "there is no concise monograph on the different incarnations of aggressive U.S. imperialism and its impact on the state." (Fortunately, they weren't reading my mind when I was thinking 'what can I do with leftover Pho?'") Wasn't this publication nice of them?
How amazing is this: two University of Wisconsin professors read my mind and wrote a book for me. Actually, it's a collection of essay, but, again, I'm sure they did it for me after reading my mind when I was thinking "there is no concise monograph on the different incarnations of aggressive U.S. imperialism and its impact on the state." (Fortunately, they weren't reading my mind when I was thinking 'what can I do with leftover Pho?'") Wasn't this publication nice of them?
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