Actor Educator Psychologist Historian

I have been spending some time lately watching TED: Ideas worth spreading, talks and thinking about them. First off for those who don’t know TED is : TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. (from TED)

It is a conference and now a website where there are talks and discussions about different topics. I have been watching several on the uses of statistics, education, creativity, the AIDS epidemic, and a few other topics.

If nothing else these are thought provoking talks that one should listen to and grapple with even if it not one’s topic area. I am not a mathy person but I found the talks on statistics wonderful.

First off the speakers are very talented speakers and in way each one of these talks is a performance which I highly respect them on that level. Every one I have watched has been from someone who was able to make a heady and difficult subject interesting and accessible.

Now I am wondering how some of these talks and ideas could be brought into the classroom as a teacher. Some of the obiovus uses I can think of is to show this video or this video to those students who are being ill served by the traditional school system. (I am thinking artists and writers… or anyone who has talents outside of the traditional school subjects.)

But why limit it there? Why not challenge students to watch some talks on subjects that interest them and then to create a talk of their own? Just because a high school student is “just” a student doesn’t mean that they cannot come up with their own ideas and present them in a talk format. I would love to hear from any teachers  who have done this or a similar activity, or one who would like to try, and hear how that goes. A project such as that would combine many different talents, first off research, critical thinking, public speaking, and writing skills to name a few. Why aren’t we challenging students to do this already?

If we expect our children/students to be the future and come up with new ideas to save and change the world we need to equip them to do so. We need to give them practice at coming up with these kinds of ideas, we need to give them experience at this type of thinking. We cannot expect our students to think outside the box (though even thinking outside the box has become a buzzword that has lost it’s meaning…) if we don’t challenge them to do so?

After having a good discussion with my roommate, I have started to think about our American Attitude.

This all stems from a discussion about the gay marriage debate that is happening in New Hampshire (my home state) right now. To put a long story short the Governor has agreed to sign the gay marriage bill if language to protect religious institutions from performing a ceremony that goes against their beliefs.

Alright, cool let’s put the language in and move on. It is not that easy.

Now surrounding this debate is the reader comments on WMUR (the NH local TV news station’s website). Again to paraphrase the comments that I am concerned with: if a business or individual who does not agree with gay marriage refuses to do business or have anything to do with a gay marriage ceremony they are liable to be sued for discrimination.

Okay, first off, if you refuse to do business with someone because of a group they are a part of (race, creed, sexual orientation, gender, etc.) that is discrimination. That’s pretty much the definition of discrimination.

Secondly for those people who are planning weddings and picking vendors: why on Earth would you insist on doing business with someone who didn’t agree with your service? Why not find another vendor who agrees with you and keep everything about your wedding, what is supposed to be the happiest day of your life (or did we forget?), positive and happy? Why would you take the time, energy, effort, and heartache to take someone to court over the flowers or the cake?

Unfortunately it seems in this day and age we are more likely to sue a vendor for not giving us service and play the victim of “The Man” instead of moving on and resolving the issue in a simple and mature way. Why do we choose to throw a temper tantrum in the courts and demand service or reparations instead of doing the adult thing and give our business to someone who’s values we agree with?

I seriously think as a society we need to GROW UP.

First off here is the link to the CNN video about segregated school assemblies in a couple of cases.

http://tinyurl.com/rc8o98
This is an example of the misuse of the data being gathered by No Child Left Behind (I have accepted that NCLB is a fact of life at this point). As the teacher in the clip said this data is being gathered and aggregated along racial lines and is used in racial terms to help highlight the issue of the achievement gap between white students and minority students. (Asian students buck the trend and do as well or better than white students)

This data should not be used to hold seperate racially segregated assemblies to “motivate them” to do better. I know the principal was trying to do some good, however he failed. I know he was trying to do something good for the students however this is not the way to do it.

The other case where the African American and Latino students were brought in separately because two girls had a fight was so wrong on so many levels. First off if it is an isolated incident between two students: talk to THOSE students. The rest of the school that was uninvolved in the incident and were pulled into an assembly because they shared skin color with the offenders is just wrong. It also sends a message that the entire group is at fault for a single person’s misdoing.

I feel the need to articulate some of my educational thoughts.

For example: There has been a huge swing into standardized testing and “accountability.” Now I believe that standardized tests (ST) test only how well one takes a standardized test. I agree that there needs to be “accountability” in education but I think that out way of going about this is wrong. Teaching to the test and by extension cutting other programs (or telling a music teacher that they must teaching reading skills as well as music) is not doing our students any services.

To expand further: A standardized test is at this time not a fair test. It asks many questions that are based upon experiences that assume a upper-middle class upbringing (things such as asking 2nd graders to do a math word problem based on the price of vegetables… some students may not know what a vegetable is) or have other biases.

Second thought: “Accountability” in education has turned into looking at one student cohort (say the 2008-9 5th graders) of ST scores and saying the next cohort of 2009-10 5th graders have to do 10% better. On the surface that sounds fine, we have to improve the performance of our 5th graders.  However one group of 5th graders is not directly comparable to the next group of 5th graders. Cohorts are inherently different. A more accurate measure would be to track a single group of students over time, such as taking the 09-10 group of 5th graders and tracking how they do throughout middle and high school and see if they improve over time. That would be a more accurate indicator of effective teaching that comparing two totally separate groups of students.

Third Thought: Teaching to the test is a hot button phrase and is greatly hated among educators. Unfortunately many educators are forced to do so. My roommate who is a music teacher to be was told that he will HAVE to teach reading in his class. Not reading music… but basic reading skills. This is not his job. Math teachers are being told they will need to teach reading in their classes. This type of forcing a teacher to teach things that aer A) not their subject and B) not their job is taking away from learning the subject at hand. That is of course if there is a music program left at the school.

This axing of “unnecessary” programs is harmful to students. First off the psychologist in me is screaming multiple intelligences and different people learn in different ways. Secondly studies have shown (I will try to find them and post links) that adding in music or art education into the school day increases ST math and reading scores more than an equal amount of math and reading instruction. With evidence like this it still amazes me that schools are cutting these programs and screaming for higher scores.

So those are three quick thoughts on education please comment and let’s discuss.

Cheers!

Lucas

Hello folks. This is Lucas Cook’s first blog post. I am an Actor, Educator, Psychologist, and Historian. Surprise right? I know! This is my attempt to try and combine all of these different identities of mine into one coherent person and to try and combine these aspects into everything that I do.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Ldcook