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Category Archives: Education

Special Education

03 Aug

When people talk about K-12 education, and they do, the one thing they agree upon is that children do better when parents are involved. Charter, public, private fans may diverge on many issues but they all agree that parents need to be engaged. For some people with the luxury of time and mental energy to spare this goes without saying. For others, perhaps single parents or parents struggling with the storm that is life are tempted to snort; “Hey, it’s a miracle I get them to school each day.”

There are no data to suggest whether the children whose parents don’t engage with the school are benefitting less from the K-12 experience. We can’t really measure who voted in school board elections or who reviews homework each night. It stands to reason that these children have the education experience influenced by the more engaged parents (whether it works for them or not.) Even in a school system comprised of entirely one camp of parent, there is a trickle down effect. Trends develop in educational practices that often stem from community influence. In other words; education does not happen in a vacuum.

Our focus on testing is relatively recent. A flip through the archives will remind us of trends such as; phonics, basic thinking, open classrooms, whole language and new math. The focus may have shifted from learning to teaching but it is still reflective of what the (vocal) community considers effective. Another relatively recent phenomenon is the wrangling for special education resources. Special interest groups would love to get their hands on monies allocated to special services. (These groups are predominantly religious schools.) They argue that public special education services don’t take into account the extra-specialness of their children. On the other end of the ability spectrum there are very engaged parents who seek out special services for their average learners. Procuring a “diagnosis” can result in performance enhancing drug prescriptions and special arrangements for test taking.

In essence, a lot of people want their children to be treated as if they’re special. The fact is that nobody is special. We’re all wonderful (in varying degrees) but not special. Nobody is more entitled to K-12 resources than anyone else. One could argue that the children of the less engaged parents need more. Perhaps. Groups (or individuals) waving the “special” banner should remember that when they do so, they are taking something away from someone less vocal.

 
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Posted by on August 3, 2012 in Education

 

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Parent Orientation

24 Jul

In just a few weeks your child will be leaving for college for the first time. How could this be happening? How could a person who puts empty cartons back into the refrigerator, and doesn’t seem to know there’s an off-position for lights, be ready to go to college? Trust me, he/she is wondering the same exact thing. Have you noticed things have become a bit testy? Are there some old fights/issues cropping up? Have you caught her/him reading Winnie-the-Pooh? Don’t worry, everything’s fine. It’s completely and utterly normal for everyone to be a bit skittish right now. The only reason to worry is if in fact there is something over which to worry. (If your child has health issues [physical or mental] please take their behavior seriously, they may be trying to tell you they’re not ready.) For everyone else there are some pointers to help mitigate the “I can’t wait to get the hell outta here/OMG I’m going to miss you so much” anxiety.

  • Eliminate ambiguity – some anxiety stems from so much unknown. Discuss what your mutual expectations are (i.e., visiting schedules, spending money & how it should be used, academic achievements, communication plans)
  • Take your packing cues from the incoming freshman. Do you really want to spend every waking moment for the next few weeks discussing the state of his/her room? Part of what will make your student feel confident is if he/she has control over his/her domain. Ask if he/she wants you to shop/pack with him/her. If not, go put your feet up.
  • Discuss all incoming requirements (doctors appointments, forms, etc.) and then back away. End the tug of war while getting used to his/her new independence.
  • Discuss sex and personal safety.
  • Discuss drinking and drugs in terms of real danger (i.e., date rape, death) not in terms of your own personal preferences.
  • Discuss how you want their world to be as big as possible and to not do anything that might limit his/her options.
  • Remind him/her how proud you are and how excited you are for them

Now that you’ve done all that, pour yourself a cold glass of something. Make yourself comfortable and try to remember where you keep the rubber bands. Place one on your wrist and snap it hard every time your resolve starts to crumble. When you start reaching for your phone to make his/her physical appointment; Snap! When you find yourself surfing the Bed, Bath & Beyond site; Snap! As you sit sipping, admiring your new bracelet, remember; this is what you dreamed about. You did it! You helped to make a person who is going off into the world, hopefully to leave it better than he/she found it.

 
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Posted by on July 24, 2012 in Childhood, Education

 

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A Letter To A Freshman

25 Jun

Dear Recent High School Graduate – Feels good to be done, doesn’t it?  That ’12 tassel looks kind of cute hanging from your rear view mirror/lamp/mirror/bookcase.  Take a long nostalgic look at it and then turn away.  It’s time to look ahead to a degree which done correctly will make your world as big as you want.  (‘The world is your oyster’, ‘the future is yours’, and every other platitude you read on those cash containers called greeting cards is actually true.  But happy endings are not a given and you need to be in the driver seat.)

You’ve already chosen where you will spend your freshman year.  (You may have chosen the absolutely positively most perfect place for you.  Great!  If that’s not the case however, keep in mind that transferring is always a very viable option.)  You probably have been hearing about the dismal employment prospects for recent graduates.  You may even have an older sibling who is living proof.  However you may have also been hearing from some friends or relatives of questionable maturity, that college should be above all else a social amusement park.  You may have even visited some colleges and universities that bear a striking resemblance to Disney U.  (Hopefully you chose the school that speaks to your goals not the one had the best rides.)  Unless you will never be expected to support yourself, ignore your friends and those relatives chanting ‘Toga Toga” under their breath.  In 2012 (“Yeah! Class of 2012!!”) a college degree should be a tool for job readiness.

To help you achieve that goal here are some key tips:

  • College is your job now.  Show up to class, be prepared and do a good job.
  • Before you choose a major look at job requirements.  Think about the industry or job that appeals to you and find out what course of study and/or credentials are required.  Speak to people in the profession.
  • Before you choose a major consider how far you want to go in your studies.  There are baccalaureate degrees that are meant to be a starting point in higher education and some that are meant to be the finish line.
  • Find the right adviser for you.  You’re paying for this experience.  If the adviser you’re assigned doesn’t work for you, find another, and even another if need be.  Good advising will open up the world to you and could save you from wasting time and money.
  • Get a job.  If it’s a requirement of your work/study package great, if not, go find one.  Even if it’s only 5 hours a week.  A college job will provide you a respite from student life/studies.  A job is also a good way to find out what you absolutely do not want to do.
  • Make a point of getting to know people entirely different from yourself.  (Remember this whole experience is about making your world bigger.)
  • Try something so not you.  Take a class you would never ordinarily consider (you can always drop it after one or two sessions.)  Attend an event that sounds ridiculous to you.  Volunteer for something odd.

You are about to learn so many new things; about the world and yourself.  It’s really just the beginning.  Life above all else is a learning experience.  Take the biggest bite possible out of the next few years.  Don’t worry too much about making any mistakes.  Embarrassing yourself in public or failing an exam or class doesn’t count as mistakes.  The only mistakes that really count at this point are those that limit your choices later on.

 

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2012 in Education

 

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Words and Music

26 Apr

The Yale School of Drama has just announced an $18 million gift.  A gift that substantial (to an arts program!) is newsworthy enough, but this gift is not for a building or other monument to immortality.  The gift is for the creation of new plays and musicals.  Musicals.

Knowing nothing of the details of the gift or of the business dealings that led to such largess (the gift was bequeathed by the late alumnus James Binger) I can only shout “Hurrah!”  Lots of universities, philanthropists and celebrities love to talk about supporting the arts.  (And why not? Who in the world would argue with that sentiment?  It’s right up there with; “children are our future.”)

Financing the development of new works in a university theoretically fosters a purely artistic basis that may not exist in a theatre company.  Even not-for-profit theatre companies have to sell tickets.  The theatre laboratory in a university setting is not entirely novel.  But when is the last time you heard of an Ivy League university investing in musical theatre?  I have nothing but respect for musical theatre.  I am a 100% Sit Down You’re Rockin The Boat, Nothing’s Gonna Harm You, 7 1/2 Cents, If You Could See Me Now, kinda gal.  But in some circles musical theatre is often a punch line.  It’s seen as the goofy cut-up sitting at the grown-up’s table.  Yet, creating an excellent musical is exceedingly difficult and involves collaborations that can only be categorized as alchemic.

During the past decade some truly magical new musical works have made their way to the New York stage.  Spring Awakening and Passing Strange reinvented the concept of book and score to great results.  The Light in the Piazza was a fresh, delicate and beautiful new work in the most traditional of formats.  It is these musicals we must remember when we think of all the movie-to-musical or comic book-to-musical shows dotting the great white way.  (Note: The Light in the Piazza was technically a movie-to-musical but the movie was 50 years old and the musical so self-contained and lovely that aside from the royalty issue, its origins were immaterial.)

Creating a great musical takes a great book, great lyrics, a great score and great choreography.  Collaborations must be created and fostered.  It has been at least a generation since we’ve had a notable musical team.  We still swoon over photos of the creators of West Side Story at work, for that very reason.  Universities (the places that bring us friends for life by virtue of the randomness of roommate assignments or drunken evenings) are the very place to foster these relationships.

Recently we’ve been hearing less than glowing tales of how higher education is serving students.  We know that funds to the arts have been decreasing for some time and we need only take a walk through Times Square to see where innovation in musical theatre stands.  This ($18 million) gift Yale, may in fact be a gift to theatre lovers everywhere.

*Photo: (left to right) Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (seated), Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Education

 

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I Can Read The Writing On The Wall*

02 Apr

Universities, public and private, are wrestling with affirmative action. Not just ‘still’ but seemingly more so than ever.  For most colleges, having a well-rounded student body is a priority.  Efforts are made to seek out and (sometimes) care for students that might not find their way to the institution on their own.  There are development programs, public and private, that partner with higher education to help nurture underrepresented students and increase their chances of academic success.  Universities should always look to create a student body that is representative of the world at large.  But the fact that they must go to the efforts they do (to seek them out) suggests that there are qualified students who are not bubbling up to the top.  Once out of K-12 and nurtured in the university, these recruited students do quite well (why wouldn’t they?)  Interestingly, college and university classes and life are far more challenging than anything in K-12.  Ability is not the issue here, preparation is.

What does it say that in 2012 the K-12 playing field is so clearly inequitable that higher education affirmative action efforts not only need to exist, but need to increase?  Yes, there will always be parents who have the means to throw every enrichment opportunity upon their child.  And yes, there will always be children who simply do not have a stellar academic acumen.  But then there’s everyone else, which really amounts to an awful lot of children.  At a time when as a group we believe that higher education is the path to work-life success, can we allow for such disparities in preparation?  Variety and rigor in science and mathematics courses vary widely across school systems.  There are schools at which writing (not penmanship, but writing) is not taught beyond the rudimentary.  High school students are not always assigned a smattering of classics to read.  Now before the eyes start rolling; the reason an educated child needs to be exposed to the classics is not so they have something to discuss with grandma at Thanksgiving, but because it fosters their understanding of the world and culture and is a building block for higher level studies.

There are school systems that have all the technological bells and whistles that property taxes will allow.  That’s fine, and maybe even results in higher comprehension, but it’s the sizzle of the issue not the steak.  Curriculum and teacher talent is at the heart of the issue.  Are there enough excellent teachers at each and every school in this country?  Are there tutoring opportunities, effective guidance counselors, and an atmosphere of optimism?  If we are sincere about wanting all children to succeed and want our nation to have a robust economy, it might be time to stop ignoring the inequities in public education and leaving it to colleges to amend.

*Kodachrome – Paul Simon (1973)

 
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Posted by on April 2, 2012 in Education

 

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