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Name: Dan
Gender: Male
Interests: the great outdoors, backpacking, rock climbing, bouldering, white water canoeing, biking, writing obviously, Arsenal Gunners, NY Giants, Mets, Rangers, Knicks, progressive and experiential education, Kurh Hahn, Outward Bound, Alfie Kohn, John Dewey, James Neil, Willi Unsoeld, Elliot Smith, John Butler Trio, The Shins, Depeche Mode, The Decemberists, Live, Ben Harper, Led Zeppelin, Jack Johnson, Franz Ferdinand, Billy Joel, Phish, Everclear, The Smiths, Comedy Central, eating kebobs and falafel, New York pizza and bagels, Life cereal, South Africa, world traveling, The Daily Show, Family Guy, Bill Maher, Ferris Beuler's Day Off, Wayne's World, Good Will Hunting, Nick Hornby, Tony Hawks "Traveling Around Ireland with a Fridge," Keroac, "The Town and the City"
Expertise: West African dancing, wilderness first aid, thinking outside the box, doing the unexpected, being laid back, eating cereal, riding Greyhound across America, living abroad,
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
11/20/2003
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| I haven't really written on this for a while. There is a significant record of my life's experiences, thoughts, and emotions on this site. I am greatful that it is here. I am impressed with some of my boldness, and it is interesting to remember the person I was when I last was a frequent blogger on this site. I still have that craving to have an audience for my writing, although most of my more thought out pieces belong to more specific audiences, it is always enjoyable to receive some amount of feedback and recognition. I should write more once I've truly read back and remembered what it is I used to write and who it is I used to be when I so openly posted on this site.
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| Topic: Dems vs. Reps. (a joke)
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so
many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal
Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of
higher taxes to support more government programs ... in other words, the redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch
Republican, a feeling he openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had
participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had
for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher
taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The
self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she
indicated as much to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing
in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA,
and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was
taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no
time to go out and party like many other people she knew. She didn't even
have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because
she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"
She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy
classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular
on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too
hung over."
Her father asked her, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask
him to deduct a 1.0 off of your GPA and give it to your friend Audrey,
who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that
would be a fair and equal distribution of GPAs."
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily
fired back, "That's a crazy idea. How would that be fair? I've worked
really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard
work. Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She has played
while I worked my tail off!"
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently: "Welcome to the
Republican Party."
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| Topic: Serious teacher reflection
My principal, who is somewhat of a visionary given today's principals, puts up quotes every morning for the staff fto read. This was this morning's quote:
"I am entirely certain that
twenty years from now we will look back at
education as it is practiced in most schools
today and wonder that we could have
tolerated anything so primitive." John Gardner
I smiled when I read this, because this thinking is what brought me into teaching in the first place. For years as a student, I felt as though my own education was primitive, stifling to my creativity, and failing to engage me. The reality I now face, is the challenge of bringing the highest educational ideals into the classroom. I recently discovered a book written by a first year NYC Teaching Fellow, named Dan Brown, (The Great Expecations School), and I discovered an interview with him and educator/writer Jonathan Kozol on NPR. Listening to the two of them speak, I recognized in their voices some of the struggles I am experiencing now. I am like 1000s of other teachers, energetic and idealistic about education. But, I am also faced with the same reality that they face, that drive 50% of new teachers out of the profession in the first 3 years. And it's not so much the challenges of student behavior, or clerical work, or lesson planning, although it is in part all of these. But what is in my mind the biggest challenge, is the culture and community in which I work. Few and far between are teachers like one mentioned in the interview, a teacher named Francesca, who brought in her elite education into an underprivilaged 1st grade classroom, and raised test scores by focussing her teaching not on the tests, but on her students learning and development. And it's not because of lack of effort or philosophy, but rather a lack of culture to bring out what many teachers surely hold as a true belief in what education can be.
I've been tinkering at the margins this year, trying to inspire my colleagues about the potential of our curriculum to spark real changes in our students' minds, attitudes, and behaviors. But my energy hasn't caught on, and I'm beginning to witness this year sliding away, and it's only October. How can I be tolerating something so primitive in my very own classroom? I wish it weren't so, but I know that it begins not with students' attitudes changing, but by teachers. More than anything, what I've learned this year from teaching, is the necessity of linking myself to people who can support me in developing truly progressive teaching, and in doing so can help me to bring together others teachers in this same mission.
I'm not quite sure how tomorrow is going to turn out, but I need to re-discover that commitment to bringing the best education possible to my students, despite that overwhelming challenge that is planning, assessment, and classroom management. I've learned that I'm not perfect, and there won't be any movies made of me as a heroic new-teacher. But, I hope to be in this thing for 20 years, as a teacher or otherwise, and I'm hopeful that my experiences today will be history lesson for tomorrow.
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| Topic: 6 weeks in
I'm about 6-weeks into my 2nd year of teaching, and there's a lot to say. I have so much to learn, but what's absolutely killing me is curriculum. My school is unique in that they give teachers a great deal of autonomy to create curriculum. The problem is, to do this succefully a lot has to be done in the summer. There is simply not enough time to synthesize the various standards, teachers manuals, internet materials, and other resources, to develop the type of curriculum that an open-curriculum school such as mine ought to have.
I am putting a lot on my shoulder this year. I am in a unique position where I can implement a lot of the ideas that I've developed about education of the last few years, but am also burdened by being new, by having a lot of theory and practical pedagogy to learn, and by not having the time to sit down with other teachers to put together this curriculum.
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| Topic: Thoughts on "communism,"
I know very little about communism, or communist countries. But a comment was made about something that happened in my classroom involving group rewards. My co-teacher and I had donuts for our students, and were planning to give them out if the whole group was well behaved one afternoon. They weren't, and the issue came up whether or not we should give donuts to the few students who did do the right thing. My philosophy is that in this situation, nobody deserved the donuts, but a colleague of mind responded, "That's communist." She went on to say, "How is it fair to penalize those who are doing the right thing, because some people are making bad decisions."
My roommate and I were further discussing this point. Isn't this like saying, "Why should the government take my money, and pay for people who are making bad decision in their lives?" But the argument I saw, was, it is our responsibility, as a community, to help each other. And if people disagree, then that just further shows that we live in an everyone for themselves society. My classroom might only be my small attempt to create a utopian society, but it does ask the question of what is the best way for a community of people to live?
The conversation continued about how communist countries restrict freedom of speech. "How could they possibly restrict people from doing a google search on democracy?" I wondered. I couldn't imagine having people policing my thoughts, and my words. But there was a small piece of logic I saw. If your goal is to build a community, then you need to weed out those who are interested in the idea of an individual society. But I don't believe in a coerced community. For community to work, just like democracy, there needs to be an effort from the bottom up. In my classroom, I support both democratic education, giving my students voice, and community building, creating a sense of team.
What do you think?
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