PBS is returning $3.5 million to former Enron trader John Arnold, in response to stories by investigative journalist David Sirota about a likely conflict of interest. Arnold was underwriting a series on pension reform, and Sirota warned that PBS was abandoning its impartiality because of Arnold’s strong views.
Archives for the month of: February, 2014
A poem by Richard Lovelace, best known for its last stanza:
When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my Gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The Gods that wanton in the Air,
Know no such Liberty.
When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with Roses bound,
Our hearts with Loyal Flames;
When thirsty grief in Wine we steep,
When Healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the Deep
Know no such Liberty.
When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, Mercy, Majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how Great should be,
Enlargèd Winds, that curl the Flood,
Know no such Liberty.
Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.
Christina Rossetti is a favorite poet.
Here is one of her beautiful poems that is appropriate for today:
I loved you first, by Christina Rossetti.
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? My love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.
This is a terrific article that appeared on the New York Times blog.
Written by Abigail Zuger, M.D., it is titled “The Real World Is Not an Exam.”
Dr. Zuger explains what happens to the brilliant young doctors who aced every standardized test (there were so many of them!), but were flummoxed when it came time to diagnose a complicated real-life problem presented by a patient.
She gives examples of how these hotshots dealt with new situations: Badly.
They looked for the right answer, but there was none. What was needed was judgment and experience, and they didn’t have enough of either.
Dr. Zuger sees these young doctors as victims of linear thinking, a very bad habit caused by taking too many standardized tests with a single right answer.
She writes:
In 2009, a Supreme Court decision upheld the validity of multiple-choice testing for evaluating firefighters for promotion, prompting a heated nationwide discussion. Critics pointed out that test-taking savvy may have little to do with job performance.
Medical educators have been contemplating this possibility for years. But the problem particular to medicine may be the sheer volume of these tests, and the standard hysterical preparation they engender, which constitute a form of training in itself. Educators may not actually teach to the test, but students think to the test, in linear multiple choice.
They learn to recognize key phrases (neck pain) and stock situations (older woman), and they live in dread of unlikely worst-case scenarios. (Dies from heart attack while buying new pillow. You are sued.) Sometimes the actual, three-dimensional patient is not real enough to eradicate all her paper iterations.
Fear of uncertainty is expensive, and my young friend seemed poised to become single-handedly responsible for the high cost of health care in his ZIP code.
Like all victims of the single best answer syndrome, he ordered tests in wild profusion because, in his experience, every question had an answer and a test that would get you there. Options never included “You decide to keep an eye on it for a little while,” “You tell the patient to come back if it gets worse” or “You must make peace with the fact that you are never going to figure this one out.”
Some medical educators have tried to bend the linear algorithms of the multiple-choice experience to the nuances of the actual clinical world. One set, from the Mayo Clinic, specifically set out to teach against the test. Instead of the usual call-and-response questions, the educators took their students through complicated, contradictory cases for which there were no clear “best” strategies, but many reasonably acceptable ones.
Some students appreciated the point; others complained that all the ambiguity took up too much time. One bemoaned “cognitive overload,” and another wrote, “We know that there are many ‘correct’ ways to do things, but I prefer to be taught one way, rather than many.” (A linear thinker, that one, heading for an unhappy collision with the nonlinear world.)
My young friend never veered from his own well-honed habits. I could tell he thought I was remarkably ill trained, and I’d rather not imagine what he muttered about me to his peers. To my own, I muttered about his remarkable lack of sense and judgment until their eyes began to glaze.
From more than one, I got exactly the same response. “How bad could he be?” they said with finality. “He passed his boards, didn’t he?” Of course, that final hurdle in the path out of training consists of nailing a gigantic quantity of single best answer questions.
I have posted about an accidental exchange between teacher John Ogozolek and Professor Laurence Steinberg, and it continued here.
And here is more of the exchange, posted as comments on the blog:
Laurence Steinberg writes:
“I’m the author of the Slate column Diane has critiqued. I think my argument is being mischaracterized both by her and some others.
“The object of my criticism is our schools, not our kids. Nowhere did I say that American teenagers are lazy. What I said is that they aren’t being challenged. That’s very different. As to the claim that the NAEP data aren’t to be believed, I’m willing to buy that, in part. But the data on the high proportion of high school grads who require remedial education in order to handle college, as well as the high proportion who drop out (often, for non-financial reasons, studies say) aren’t made up. And they drain our education budget. Plus, in addition to the NAEP, there are other sources of information that paint a similar picture, including PISA and TIMMS, as well as surveys conducted by Public Agenda and studies by Tom Loveless, John Bishop, and me (all of whom Diane used to commend). (Contrary to what many people think, other PISA participating countries are required to test the full range of students, not just their college-bound ones).
“And as to the anecdotes, that’s exactly what they are. It’s like denying that there’s an obesity epidemic because one knows a couple of thin people, or that there is climate change because it’s been a rough winter in the Northeast and Midwest. Of course there are good teachers, good schools, and good students in the United States. But when 85 percent of American students say they’ve never taken a very difficult class, and when two thirds of American students say school is boring, there clearly is a problem. To pretend otherwise is just plain wrong.
Laurence Steinberg
Professor of Psychology
Temple University”
John Ogozalek writes:
“Many years ago (25+) Dr. Steinberg wrote an op-ed piece for the Times comparing attitudes towards schooling in the U.S. versus cultural differences in Japan.. It was a fascinating article and I used the piece for years because my students were invariably insulted by what Dr. Steinberg wrote and it provoked great classroom discussions. (In fact, I used the article when I went for a job interview back in 1993. The upscale suburban school where I was interviewing wanted me to teach a sample class. That Dr. Steinberg lesson was so good that the principal offered me the job right on the spot. Thanks, Doc! Though, I decided not to take that job and ended up staying at my small, rural school, a decision I’ve never regretted.)
“The first time I used that op-ed piece my kids were so interested that I had them write letters to Dr. Steinberg. This was all prior to the advent of e-mail, blogging, and twitter. We’re talking the last century. And, the good doctor very generously replied in writing, making a point very similar to his comments above -that, yes, data does matter. I really appreciated Dr. Steinberg’s willingness to correspond with my class way back then and I vividly remember reading his comments verbatim and using his letter again and again to teach my kids about how social sciences work. Great.
“But then I picked up a copy of Dr. Steinberg’s 1996 book…”Beyond the Classroom” which expanded on that original Times op-ed piece. And, damn, there was my class -my students!- mentioned in a not so nice way.
“The kids had written letters that, in hindsight, I should have had them revise more and proofread. That was my mistake, my sloppiness -a lesson I learned as a new teacher many years ago. But, boy, the reference to my students in that book was sort of nasty and, if I remember right, kind of factually off base, also. Wow. Had Dr. Steinberg been a bit sloppy, too? I remember being pretty mad. I was hurt because our original correspondence had been so positive and friendly. And, these were great kids! But there we were, amid the ocean of data in that book… one of the few islands of real life people.
“I remember writing Dr. Steinberg repeated letters after that book came out hoping he’d revise later editions of his work. I think I had some of the kids write, too. But then I bought another copy and nothing about my class seemed to be changed. I kept writing Dr. Steinberg so much about the book that, if I remember correctly, he eventually threatened to TELL MY PRINCIPAL ON ME! (Which is still really funny because as union president I was such a pain in the ass to my principal back then that when I went to tell him he might be getting a call from a professor down at Temple University, he just sort of shook his head and said nothing. What next!)
“My wonderful wife remembers all the details of the “Dr. Steinberg affair” much better than me, God bless her. We were talking about it yesterday after Diane posted that great piece based on my original letter to her.
“For years, I kept my copies of Beyond the Classroom really WAY beyond my classroom, stored in a derelict farmhouse we have down the road on the family property. But then, we had to clean out that building and the books and most of the other stuff associated with the “Steinberg Affair” got chucked into a trash truck. Actually wheelbarowed in by one of the students I’d hired to help out. How’s that for irony? Sorry, doc.
“I had to move on. I have so many students I need to worry about every day…kids I care about. I barely have enough time to talk to all the wonderful people I see each morning….kids who are happy or scared or bored or just plain missing from my classroom….where are they? The only reason I have time to be writing this right now is that we have yet another snow day off….otherwise I’d be sitting in my classroom at this moment….6:30 a.m…getting ready for another day.
“I can actually laugh about my much younger self, the great and scary times I had as a beginning teacher and the way the world was back then prior to the internet. But here we are, Dr. Steinberg, still on opposite sides of the same divide.
“Data does matter but we’re not just numbers. We’re people and this system is dehumanizing us.
“To that end, Larry, I really would like to bury the hatchet from years ago. I’m sure you’re a fascinating, intelligent, great guy to talk to. I WOULD buy you lunch.
“But Diane Ravitch, as I wrote to her yesterday, deserves dinner at the best restaurant in town!
“Be well.
-John O.”
VITAE SUMMA BREVIS SPEM NOS VETAT INCOHARE LONGHAM
(The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long – Horace)
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
Ernest Dowson
Edweek reports a new study that concludes kindergarten is too easy.
The little tykes need rigor, not play!
Clearly the kiddies need Common Core and a stiff dose of hard work. Too much play spoils them.
How about a rod?
Peter Greene read a column by a teacher in Arkansas who is enthusiastic about the Common Core standards.
He is not a strident critic of Common Core. Count him as agnostic.
But when a supporter describes the virtues of Common Core, Greene wonders what they were doing before CCSS.
What does it encourage or permit that is new or different?
Andrew Marvell lived from 1621-1678. Today, this poem would be considered sexist. But nonetheless, it is ageless and timeless. I suppose if old Andy spoke that way to me today, I would enjoy the language and laugh out loud. For years, it was a favorite in schoolbooks and is one of the most parodied of poems (aside from “Casbianca,” which begins, “The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all had fled but he…”).
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
A respected researcher recently pointed out to me that there is a vast divide between most economists of education–who devoutly believe (it seems) that whatever matters can be measured, and if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t matter–and education researchers, who tend to think about the real world of students and teachers.
Here is an excellent example of the divide.
Bruce Baker takes issue with the currently fashionable idea that education can be dramatically improved by identifying the “best” teachers, giving them larger classes, and getting rid of the loser teachers.
Or, as he puts it:
“The solution to all of our woes is simple and elegant. Just follow these steps.
Step 1: Identify “really great” teachers (using your best VAM or SGP) who happen to be currently teaching inefficiently small classes of 14 to 17 students.
Step 2: Re-assign to those “really great” teachers another 12 or so students, because whatever losses might occur in relation to increased class size, the benefits of the “really great” teacher will far outweigh those losses.
Step 3: Enter underpants Gnomes.
Step 4. Test Score Awesomeness!”
He has a suggestion: Why not try the same at the fancy private and public schools?.
“One might assert that affluent suburban Westchester and Long Island districts with much smaller average class sizes should give more serious consideration to this proposal, that is, if they are a) willing to accept the assertion that they have both “bad” and “good” teachers and b) that parents in their districts are really willing to permit such experimentation with their children? I remain unconvinced.
“As for leading private independent schools which continue to use small class size as a major selling point (& differentiator from public districts), I’m currently pondering the construction of the double-decker Harkness table, to accommodate 12 students sitting on the backs of 12 others. This will be a disruptive innovation like no other!”
Diane Ravitch's blog 