Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Common Core, New Math and the Confusing State of Education

After hearing people bitch about Common Core and New Math I decided upon some web research into the matter.  Looking up the actual policy pages for Common Core I came up with no clear picture of what the hell it was.  It was pointlessly abstruse and said absolutely nothing.  It tries to state that things will be stringent and simple and uphold students to a higher level so they can compete globally.  Specifically there is mention of competition economically in global level.  This is fine but these are skills we teaching to elementary school kids.  I do believe it is important to provide a base of knowledge, skills and most importantly teach methods of thought so that year by year children can increase said proficiencies until they graduate with the hope of being prepared for the real world.  My problem is to strong disconnect with what is stated, its mission plan, and the actions taken.  I remember my sister in law calling my wife while her daughter cried because no one in the household knew what the hell monkey letters were.  There was no explanation.  Nothing on the internet explained it.  My wife, an educator, started blankly as she held the phone.  The fuck are monkey letters?  Apparently it’s when the letters dip below the line. Lower case y’s, j’s, g’s and so on.  Awesome.  Let’s add some stupid phrases that lump stuff together for no apparent reason and confuse the fuck out of the kids.  Oh and not tell the parents.  That will help.

Shifts in academic policy are fine.  I am all for change.  But when change happens there needs to be a proper plan to inform those affected.  Also this new math is awful.  I’ve read the defense of it.  I understand the point but it’s still stupid.  Those unaware of new math I’ll give you an example.  Take 23 and 54.  Increase 23 to a manageable, easier, number.  Say 25.  That’s 2.  Draw a box around 2.  Now increase 25 to the next easy number.  30.  That’s five.  Draw a box.  Now increase to 50.  Draw a box around the 20.  Now increase by 4.  Draw another fucking box.  Add 2, 5, 20 and 4.  It’s 31.  Not wad that paper into a ball and throw it far, far away, wrap your arms tightly around yourself and pretend it never happened.  There is also the line approach.  Which is drawing lines to see difference.  Yes, these are actual methods, that do actually work.  The question is do they work better?  Do they work faster?  And most importantly do they create a process of thought that is better.  By process of thought I mean does this teach critical thinking or proper problem solving skills that will enable a person to use similar methods of thought to conquer other problems.  I’m rather sure the answer is no.  Best of all if a child learns the older math, answers correctly they still score low.  Why?  Because they need to show their work.  This is an old adage from math I always had to deal with and something I agree with (but not in the case).  But they have to show the work the way the curriculum demands with boxes and lines.

I’m sure teachers are not exactly in love with this, they have to learn and enforce rules that seemingly make no sense.  But teaching is still a job and they have to abide by the rules no matter how stupid if they want to keep making a living.  I am increasingly reading more about teachers’ quitting over this.  A long experienced kindergarten teacher quit because of forced changes that had her preparing five year olds for a test.  Five year olds.  I deal with small kids at the dojo and I’m happy when they pay attention and ecstatic when they remember things.  She has to teach them to be ready for a test.

Administrators are probably pissed.  Not all administrators are soulless abominations that exist simply to torture others and enforce pointless policy.  And they have to learn these standards and get the teachers caught up and totally change how they track performance.  Oh good, even more reason to love professional development.  My version of professional development is going out with the team for drinks after work.

Students who don’t know any better don’t really care because they have no frame of reference.  But parents are most likely frothing at the mouth.  So why is it still happening?  Well because the people who implemented this are not those who have to deal with the fallout.  It is generally agreed upon that CCSS (Common Core State Standards) was dreamed up by The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and The National Governors Association (NGA).  The CCSSO is not a group of educators they are officials.  Wiki decribes them as such:

“a non-partisan non-profit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the U.S. states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity and five U.S. territories. CCSSO provides leadership, advocacy and technical assistance on major educational issues.”
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chief_State_School_Officers

I’m not going to say they didn’t involve educators and learned scholars on the subject in crafting the curriculum, they did, however it seems they ran fast and loose with what they wanted from them as well as how they would go about implementing.  Meaning they paid very bright people to give a holistic idea and cherry picked parts of it.  I liken that to designing an archway then only building the parts of it they liked with no real insight as to why it was built in a particular fashion.  Maybe it will hold up or maybe the load above will come crashing down.  Hurray for keystones!

You can read Dr. Moats’ article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-bertin-md/when-will-we-ever-learn_b_4588033.html

So if an untrained eye can see that these standards and practices are out of whack why are so many states (45 states as well as the District of Columbia) irrationally following bad standards?  The answer it seems is federal money.  Not adopting Common Core costs states millions of dollars.  Indiana is one of the few states that initial bought in but is opting out now.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/25/indiana-becomes-first-state-to-drop-common-core-standards/

Here’s a quick reminder of the recent history of education and it has a lot to do with federal and state practices.  Each state is in charge of determining their own standards and curriculum.  All changes, improvements testing (with exception of the S.A.T.) was done by the state.  No federal programs really had traction.  This of course means there will be the best state for education and the worst state for education.  A lot of that has to with funding, how the people in the state want their taxes spent, and various infrastructures.  So as a parent if you cared about education it was best not to live in certain states or it was a good idea to send your kid to a private school.  The problem being this is not exactly beneficial to people with less money.  Less money means less options but that seems to be a constant in life in America.  Scholarships help but only for a small few and only for top performers.  So being an average student in a poor neighborhood in a state with poor national standings probably means a subpar education through no fault of the child.  But there have been programs to try and change this as well as wonderful people who make it their life mission to help educate everyone.

On the national level there has been pressure to change some of this.  I didn’t start with George W. but his No Child Left Behind program hinged on a resurgence of standardized testing.  Obama’s version Race To The Top also has standardized testing at its core.  There is a very big problem with standardized testing.  Testing on its own is not bad.  It’s great to have metrics and measurements to see progress.  It’s great to see where a student is next to others.  The problem comes back to money, or rather funding.  Test scores effect funding.  Administration wants that funding and puts pressure on educators to get scores up.  To get scores up curriculums must be changed to teach subjects covered by the test.  It’s called teaching to the test.  In doing so we have stripped freedom from the teachers to teach as they see fit to make sure the kids know the material for the test above all else.  Gone are the days when kids could be divvied up for special attention.  The kids who excelled in a subject could be grouped together so they would be challenged appropriately for their development speed and not bored.  The kids who are normal developmentally will be on their track and the kids who need more help (this doesn’t mean stupid) will have their own track designed to help them not make them feel like they are under water.  Now it seems we lump everyone together and teach the same.  People learn differently, at different paces and with different styles.  But teachers aren’t allowed to make that call as much.

Teachers are leaving the profession in droves.  I’m seeing countless articles about teachers’ quitting or writing open letters about testing in Kindergarten/the destruction of their profession.  In a sense this could save the states money as those with more seniority and bigger paychecks leave while fresh new recruits come in with smaller salaries.  But the dropout rate for teachers is very high especially first years.  And it’s only going up.  This is not cheap.  Any decent HR person will tell you a revolving door of employees is very expensive in time, training and more.

“CTAF’s findings are a clear indication that America’s teacher dropout problem is spiraling out of control.  Teacher attrition has grown by 50 percent over the past fifteen years.  The national teacher turnover rate has risen to 16.8 percent.  In urban schools it is over 20 percent, and, in some schools and districts, the teacher dropout rate is actually higher than the student dropout rate.  The pilot study shows:

  • The costs of teacher turnover are substantial.
  • At-risk schools spend scarce dollars on teacher turnover.
  • Teacher turnover undermines at-risk schools.
  • At-risk schools could recoup funds by investing in teacher retention.
  • Turnover costs can be identified, aggregated, and analyzed.
  • District data systems are not designed to control the costs of turnover.”


http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/03/08/high-teacher-turnover-rates-are-a-big-problem-for-americas-public-schools/

The funny thing about Common Core is that politicians on both sides hate it, for different reasons, and news organization report on differing reason why it’s awful.  But they agree.  Let that sink in.  Members of the Tea party and members of the Democratic Party agree on this.

A real big problem here is that to fix this we would need a massive overhaul.  And the industry has been having every few years a massive overhaul but never in the right direction.  Teaching and educating in general is in a tumult.  I think it’s time a better solution one that empowers the right people, namely those who actually work in the classroom, is put in place.  But that would be logical and politics it seems rarely uses logic.  But it’s okay, if we fail here it’s only dooming the next generation to failure.

Ben

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/arne-duncan-youre-a-liar-common-core-will-destroy-american-education/
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/08/24/the-biggest-fallacy-of-the-common-core-standards-no-evidence/
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/09/common_core_either_you_re_against_this_new_push_for_academic_standards_and.2.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-core-ravitch/?tid=pm_local_pop

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Social Media Assholes

As we march forward in time one thing stays constant: humanity will always create assholes.  The advent of cell phones created new assholes.  The advent of television created new assholes.  If there is a new cultural milestone or invention there will be new types of assholes.  Humanity has this ingenious way of doing that.

One of the newest breed of asshole has been created by social media.  These people clog up you page with bullshit and remind us maybe we should be doing something better with our free time (at least in that respect go them).  But let me just check if I have any updates real quick...

I don’t have a lot of friends on Facebook for a reason.  Not because I don’t have any (jerk) and not because people don’t like me (dick). And it’s not because I’m grumpy all the time (eater of broken meats* – in case any Elizabethan jerk are around).  I’m actually significantly less grumpy with actual face to face social interactions just ignore the impression my ranting here might give.  The main reason I don’t have a lot of social media friends is that I don’t accept a lot of invites.  And this is where the first asshole comes in, the random dude who wants to be friends.  Maybe I met you at a party through a friend of a friend or we went to camp together for five minutes or maybe you know someone I do but don’t actually know me.  I wish Facebook would change the category from friends to people you may or may not know.  The one thing Google plus has right is that in circles I can place you into the category I call acquaintances or the category called people I block.  However if I spent more than five minutes every month on G+ I might care more.  I’ll get friend requests from people I met that day.  Often I’m undecided if I want to deal with you past our first interaction.  I’m exceptionally judgmental.  You might be a wonderful person well respected and like by many.  That doesn’t matter to me.  I’m picky and I own that quirk.  When I’ve decided I like you then you’re in.  I open the doors to my house, I’ll help you out when you need it, I’ll be the guy you can call at 2 in the morning.  Until then don’t expect much.  But online interactions don’t follow my unique method of dealing with people.  I often feel bad not friending a person but I still do it.  I culled a huge list of my supposed internet friends a while ago.  I stopped letting people I barely know friend me.  Hell, I barely let people I work with friend me.  Deny.  This is even more problematic with LinkedIn.  It’s not Facebook for older people.  It is meant to be a business network.  Stop making it Facebook with ties.

Narcs are not new kinds of assholes.  These are the people who ran to the teacher in first grade to get you in trouble for kissing Cindy.  And now everyone knows Cindy likes boys and makes fun of her.  You’re  a dick little kid who tattles.  Now Cindy is going to go into a shame spiral and twenty years later after bad decision, tattoos visible past the clothing line, a drug addiction and boyfriend who “buys” and sells found items she is just starting to get her life straightened out.  I hope you’re happy.  But that little prick aside it’s weird to be Facebook friends with someone at work.  Facebook is where I post stupid pictures of cats (it’s the Internet so this practice should be not only be accepted but expected) and people will tag me in embarrassing pictures.  Some people use Facebook as a place to rant about politics or the various things they seem to care about.  They seem to forget that social media is not the outlet for serious discussion.  Ranters are these assholes who make you roll your eyes at every other post.  Oh good, let’s see how Obama sucks today, maybe it won’t be totally racist or uninformed or both!  Nope, totally racist.  Also, the responses you’ll get from a heartfelt and intelligent discourse on a serious subject, when it actually happens, will be these:

  Totes agree with you bro
  Those dudes are asshats
  Why are you getting all butthurt??
  Burn
  Butthurt is not cool David
  Whatevs

Do you really need people at work to see you off of work.  These are two worlds that don’t really interact.  Work me and outside work me are not the same.  Work me doesn’t swear, is always polite, and for the most part innocuous.  I’m boring at work and try not to crack too many jokes  or insult people (ignoring those who have a desperate need to be insulted).  Remember kids pain from bludgeoning goes away while a good insult can wound someone deeply forever.  Not saying that I don’t friend certain people at work, I do, but it’s like playing minesweeper blindfolded.  The work mate you think is totally cool could be a stooge.  Unfriend.

I used to work with a lot of supposedly social media savvy people.  They jump on new trends and post articles from people jumping on new trends.   Essentially they are bullshit artists who try to rope you into the nonsense.  They see likes and shares as dollar signs.  They cultivate page views, click through and all this gobbeledy gook and try to peal real metrics from it.  Look we all understand marketing is half mad scientist, half creative insight and half funny numbers.  I’m so happy you are budding social media guru but my page is filled with enough bullshit without you’re plagiarized insights from LinkedIn.  Unfriend.

These guys may also be trying everything in their arsenal to build a brand.  Maybe they are shameless selfpromoters like that douche a with comb over Trump.  If you throw away all values, pride, and believe your own hype you too might become king of douchery and have a bunch of followers you may or may have created/bought.  Some are trying out new companies and promotions.  They’ll have pages for you to like and follow.  You should totally follow my band, and my art gallery, and my cake creating site, and my blog about cats who are really aliens (but indifferent aliens not the conquering ones), and my video series I update twice a year about video games you don’t care about.  Some of these people I actually like so I tolerate it.  And I understand this to an extent.  I post my blog link on Facebook and when I get off my butt and finish my web series I’ll post that too.  Does this make a hypocrite?  Probably.  But I’ll try to not to inundate your feed with constant update from all my pages, especially when they all contain the same thing and cross promote (hey by the way, follow my twitter @benscrotch).  But try not to have more than three Facebook pages.  Possibly unfriend.

This can relate to clogs your pages guy.  This is the guy who feels you need to know everything.  Oh good, he is at CVS and the line is totally long and they aren’t calling up another person to register and the person behind the register is a trainee who looks like zombie version of a drug user.  Okay, that might be interesting.  But he doesn’t post that in one update.  That may be fifteen updates.  Verbal diarrhea should not extend to the internet.  We don’t have to pretend to pay attention on the internet.  I had a few people on my feed that I would pass over.  And I kept doing this over and over again.  I began to wonder just how posts per day they had.  Before I decided I was curious enough to study this phenomenon of arrogance and silliness I decided to simply unfriend them.  If you are arrogant enough to assume that everyone on your list cares deeply about every status update and every little bit of your life you should get a horrible reality show to compete with the Kardashians.  Maybe you’ll post less.  I don’t expect people to read my posts.  You shouldn’t either.

Then there is the asshole who I really dislike.  Like work me I at least try to have veneer of politeness on the internet.  These dicks do not.  Hey, you know that stupid picture of a cat wearing a tie it shouldn’t need a comment talking about animal cruelty.  Hey, that post where I ask about what type of drink to bring to a party you don’t need to talk about roofies.  That posts where I was excited about my new car you don’t need to slam the company I got it from and say they messed up the design.  I paid a bunch of money for the design you think sucks.  If you have something negative to say that isn’t helpful kindly write it on a piece of paper rip it uo scatter in the wind and proceed to go to hell.  DO not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go straight to hell.  Unfriend.

Then there are people who copy your post and steal the credit.  This is the new version of the guy who tells the story that you told him back to you.  Stop taking things from people and pretending they are yours.  Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean you pirate or steal things.  Grow up.  Not that posting song lyrics while giving credit is much better.  It’s a song lyric.  Unless you have commentary other than, “this reminds me of mah gurls, too many exclamation points, smiley face” this is stupid.  Unfriend.

We already know about vague bookers (the jerks who post things that are vague are meant to make you comment but they remain coy and don’t specify, because they need seek attention and figured the easiest way is to be annoying instead of, say doing anything that deserves it) but their cousin is the people who post too much.  Those people who tell us every detail.  Especially if its gross, like placenta gross.  And then aren’t simply satisfied with their post.  The must comment on their post regardless if others have done so or not.  I understand the social aspect of the medium has led to interaction like “lol” and ok see you tomorrow’ being acceptable statements but for fuck sake don’t post just to post.  Remember when people used to write letters?  They would spend time crafting a well worded piece to a friend for correspondence. I’m not saying spend countless hours besides a candle toiling over the best word to use with describe that terrible vine you saw but spend more than five seconds before posting.  Think before you click.  Unfriend.

You ever take one of those annoying quizzes, that’s fine.  You ever post the results, occasionally fine.  You take those quizzes constantly and post constantly and tell me why it’s so awesome… I hate you and everything about you.  Unfriend as hard as possible.

At least that person leaves me alone unlike the poor fools sucked into the casual games.  These people fall in love with this garbage spend too much time playing a boring game that forces you to either watch adverts (at best) or pay to win.  What’s best is it builds in a mechanic that helps you if you sucker in friends.  Go away.
Then there is the one that I was guilty of a few times.  My secret shame, posting food pictures.  Stop taking pictures and eat it.  Those who post give me a bite or shut up.  Also, weren't you on a diet?  But that's fried fat with creamy fat sauce.  Why are you showing twelve pictures of apricot fritters, donuts surrounded by ice cream (ice cream donuts!), cakes, fried everything, and a diet coke.

Or the easiest thing would be to stop going online.  Or let it go and stop complaining.  Dudes who complain about everything are just…

And that concludes my list of assholes for today.

Ben