This is a wonderful video posted on YouTube of a cat saving a little boy from a vicious dog.
Does it have any meaning for the world of education? Maybe not. Maybe so, but I won’t strain the obvious metaphor.
Is your child that little boy? Who is the dog? Who is the cat? What is the evidence? Use your critical thinking skills.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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I bought me a cat and the cat pleased me, I fed my cat under yonder tree
Cat said fiddle I fee. . .
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I love this cat, she selflessly protected her adopted humans. The dog obviously represents the Walton Foundation. It’s amazing that the family had so many surveillance cameras, I counted 3 separate views, 3 CCTVs.
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My understanding is that it wasn’t just this family’s camera, but others nearby as well. I could be wrong, however.
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I can’t use my critical thinking. There’s no document to closely read. LOL
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It serves no useful purpose to divide people into good guys and bad guys.
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Greedy, self absorbed vs. Selfless, caring?
Liars, shysters vs. Honest professionals?
Scam artists vs. Dedicated doers? Is that better?
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“It serves no useful purpose to divide people into good guys and bad guys.” Tell that to Chris Christie who constantly demeans, demonizes and swift boats public schools, their teachers and the NJEA. He calls NJ schools failure factories and blames NJ’s economic woes on public employee pensions.
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once again, I agree with FLERP.
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Can’t say who’s to praise and who’s to blame when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgMYQGhfVVQ
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And, once again, I agree with Linda. There are way too many crooks and liars who are playing a con-game with the American people to just let it slide.
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Can’t say who’s to praise and who’s to blame when I’m gone,
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgMYQGhfVVQ
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Like a teacher protecting her students or a mother protecting her child. This was Tara’s kitten and she was going to take care of her kitten no matter what. Truthfully, cats can subdue a single dog fairly readily. They get in trouble if they are kittens themselves or if there are several dogs that surround them. Cats, particularly females take care of those they love. They just are not as obvious about it as dogs are. Have to keep your dignity, you know.
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Now everbody go out and adopt a cat. There are a bunch who need you.
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Around where I live (in the country) we shoot stray cats and dogs. Not because we want to but because idiot people drive out and dump their dogs and cats.
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Warning: Another Animal Lover Here
People left their pets by the farms that I worked at in another country, too, and the locals just killed them there as well. Many foreign workers like me took them in and cared for them –I had a cat and a dog. I found a forever home for the cat, while the dog was hit by a car and died.
Yes, idiots abandon domesticated pets in the wild, but morons kill them instead of setting up shelters and trying to find people who will adopt them.
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How about “Pet Cat Saves Boy from Two Vicious GATORS”?
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Okay, If there is a video that everyone here needs to see, it is this one, which is moving and pertinent to the larger issue of incivility in this country that lets people like Kudlow get away with their egregious behavior. Trust me, see it through to the unexpected conclusion.
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That was great!!
Looking fwd to an episode on Common Core tests.
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Actually, I believe that the only way we will catch the conscience of the people, is with images. We need some very creative filmmakers, and a good script writer to create 5 minute videos that capture the OBSERVABLE REALITY of the classroom teacher. I am a playwright and we dramatists know that it is BEHAVIOR that people watch. Dialogue is the baggage of the play says my mentor…see what the people do.
We need TEACHER’S PLAYHOUSE 2014, THE DRAMA AND THE PATHOS IN THE DAY OF A TEACHER.
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That man is a genius. I cannot say how many times people bump into others in one grocery store we have in one local upscale community here. I usually do not shop there, but on occasion I stop in if I’m in the area. I once got bumped with a woman’s cart, and when she failed to acknowledge her action, I said to her, “I’m so sorry I got in your way” and then walked away. I have no idea what her physical reaction (if any) was, but I can assure you that she never said anything to me.
Not to incite a class war by making generalizations, but this community is not the epitome of neighborly. It is filled with incredibly high-priced McMansions and is notorious for having a school board that could not reach a settlement with the teachers union. An arbitor came in stating that the community could afford the modest increase in the union-proposed contract and still the board refused to negotiate on those terms citing that the taxes would be too high. The people were torn, but the biggest complainers were those who lived in homes with elaborate grounds, three living rooms, five bedrooms, enormous kitchens, game rooms, etc. They were upset that they had to pay more taxes on so much square footage. My answer? Find a smaller home or a larger income. Am I being too harsh on them? If so, I’m sorry! 😛
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Hee ,hee. The entitled class is upset that we the people are picking on them.
What struck me, is how many children I meet are aggressive and unapologetic. They have cut their eye teeth on television which is the great teacher of our culture. It tells kids that if they dream it, they can do it… which offers unrealistic expectations. Just “do it” with no regard for casualties is the guiding principle of the movies and tv cop shows, and see in gall that aggression nd violence does not breed sensitivity in kids.
I have young grandkids, and in one home, I watch the disney channel and other kid channels with them> (the other home allows no tv during the day, or screen time without a parent present…they read or play).
I was astonished by the nasty, conniving, insulting, selfish behaviors of the shows aimed at kids. “Int he Wizards of Waverly Place” the entire plot, most episodes revolves around a nasty creature who does her thing, and apologizes in the end when everyone is hurt.
Parents are almost always absent. I remember one episode of a Disney program, where the mother come home with a $400 pair of shoes, which upsets her husband.
“Don’t worry, ” she assures him,”Iplan to return it…after I wear it….(laugh track!)
We need to watch these programs, because they and the movies the kids see are the teachers… as well as the selfish parents who think that ‘those lazy’ people should not get food stamps, but they should not have to pay taxes on their big houses.
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Agreed. All one has to do is watch any kids’ show or even the current popular kids’ movies. The adults are often portrayed as clueless buffoons, and the characters that make kids laugh the most are those with nasty social skills or the ones who make snide, cheeky and sarcastic remarks that go unanswered. These character traits are promoted by the industry and adopted by our kids. No wonder we have a lot of selfish citizenry. Mixed messages. No more Mary Poppins-like entertainment for today’s kids.
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Larry Kudlow is a truly horrible person but then he gets paid big bucks to be that despicable. That whole crew on CNBC is oligarch central, it’s in service to the top one percent, the hedge fund managers and the Wall Street banksters.
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Cats are awesome. I have three, but I think only one would protect me. He seems to know when I’m sick or if something makes me sad. He appears to comfort me by staying very close. He’s also quite involved in the household and extremely talkative. I swear he says things like,”I would like for you throw my toys to me,” “You must understand that there’s very little food/water left in the bowl–this is an emergency,” and “I have to follow you around the house all day because it’s important that you know I love you, just in case you forget.” The other two cats are a bit too self-absorbed to care about such interactions, but they do show affection.
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My friend has 8 cats, and Ihave owned 2. They have real personalities. My Burmese was like a dog, so affectionate and a constant companion. My orange tabby was aloof, because she grew up in the wild. MY friend’s cats are all different, too, and none of them attack the 2 ferrets who live in the room with them.
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Not much of a cat person, but I salute this feline. Some dogs deserve it! Now how can we get this cat to represent teachers??
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My friend is a vet. She showed me the video this morning. She said: Anyone who thinks cat’s are dumb, are dumb.”
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Laura H. Chapman: touché!
“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.” [Mark Twain]
😎
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Cats are a lot brighter than many of us think. I had a cat who got stuck on a second story roof. I heard him meowing and, after investigating, I concluded that there was no way that I could get up there to rescue him. So, I encouraged him to jump and reached out my arms. He immediately jumped and landed safely in my arms. I was really shocked that he understood me and responded so quickly!
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This illustrates the Drama Triangle which is the connection between responsibility and power, and their relationship to boundaries:
The dog (Persecutor) represents CCSS “reformers” whose goal is to dominate the schools, without regard for the impact on children. Their goal to privatize the schools is motivated by greed, lust for power, and feelings of superiority that are greater than their self control. These are Narcissistic & AntiSocial Behaviors. Their deficits (lack of educational and developmental expertise, lack of empathy for children, lack of honesty and moral convictions, lack of guilt or shame) are being denied via detachment (aloofness and inability to “connect”); therefore, they lack healthy mechanisms that would prevent their possessive behaviors and allow them to behave responsibly.
The cat (Rescuer) represents those who have empathy for children as well as educational expertise, and can recognize the harmful impact of the CCSS Environment. They have moral courage and feel responsible to react and confront the reformers without fear of retaliation and without fear of questioning the status quo.
The child (Victim) represents children who are trapped, powerless, and suffering permanent psychological damage in the CCSS authoritarian environment that uses the same methods of punitive behaviorism that are used for training dogs and zoo animals.
This video illustrates the dysfunctional social interaction created by the CCSS reformers.
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Love the cat’s decision after chasing the dog around the end of the car. It is an excellent visual explanation for the aphorism, “Discretion is the better part of valor.” Stopped the attack. Check. Chased the dog from the scene. Check. Still alive. Check. I’ll just go under this vehicle.
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Now if only we can feed Obama’s boy toy Arne Duncan to this vicious dog . . . . Rescuers need not apply.
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Diane,
Since you are experiencing first hand how your medical coverage works, and we are grateful that you are in one of the best orthopedic hospitals in the country, I though you might be interested in the UFT contract proposal that you endorsed concerning our health care.
As you can see the wording is very open and doesn’t give any teacher (or their family members) much info on how our health coverage will change, but when the City expects billions in savings, the cuts will run deep and our expenses will negate any raises. Hence my belief why we cannot vote for a contract that doesn’t include specific information. It’s like signing a contract before reading the fine print. No one should endorse this without knowing the ramifications of how our health care will be impacted. This is like Obama telling people they can keep their coverage and their doctors. That wasn’t even close to the truth.
Here is the full MOA regarding health:
H. Healthcare Savings
a. The UFT and the City/DOE agree the UFT will exercise its best efforts to have the MLC agree to the following:
i. for fiscal year 2015 (July 1, 2014-June 30, 2015), there shall be $400 million in savings on a city- wide basis in health care costs in the NYC health care program.
ii. for fiscal year 2016 (July 1, 2015-June 30, 2016), there shall be $700 million in savings on a citywide basis in health care costs in the NYC health care program.
iii. for fiscal year 2017 (July 1, 2016-June 30, 2017), there shall be $1 billion in savings on a citywide basis in health care costs in the NYC health care program.
iv. for fiscal year 2018 (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018), there shall be $1.3 billion in savings on a citywide basis in health care costs in the NYC health care program.
v. for every fiscal year thereafter, the savings on a citywide basis in health care costs shall continue on a recurring basis.
vi. The parties agree that the above savings to be achieved on a Citywide basis are a material term of this agreement.
vii. In the event the MLC does not agree to the above citywide targets, the arbitrator shall determine the UFT’s proportional share of the savings tar get and, absent an agreement by these parties, shall implement the process for the satisfaction of these savings targets.
viii. Stabilization Fund: (1) Effective July 1, 2014, the Stabilization Fund shall convey $1 billion to the City of New York to be used in support of the pro rata funding of this agreement.
(2) Commencing on July 1, 2014, $200 million from the Stabilization Fund shall be made available per year to pay for ongoing programs (such as $65 welfare fund contribution, PICA payments, budget relief). In the event the MLC does not agree to provide the funds specified in this paragraph, the arbitrator shall determine the UFT’s proportional share of the Stabilization Fund monies required to be paid under this paragraph.
I. Dispute resolution regarding paragraph H.
a. In the event of any dispute, the parties shall meet and confer in an attempt to resolve the dispute. If the par- ties cannot resolve the dispute, such dispute shall be referred to Arbitrator Martin F. Scheinman for resolution.
b. Such dispute shall be resolved within 90 days.
c. The arbitrator shall have the authority to impose interim relief that is consistent with the parties’ intent.
d. The arbitrator shall have the authority to meet with the parties at such times as the arbitrator determines is appropriate to enforce the terms of this agreement.
e. The parties shall meet and confer to select and retain an impartial health care actuary. If the parties are unable to agree, the arbitrator shall select the impar- tial health care actuary to be retained by the parties.
f. The parties shall share the costs for the arbitrator and the actuary the arbitrator selects.
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Schoolgal,
I don’t know how to compare my insurance plan to yours. I have paid a substantial premium for 20 years. I get good coverage. I am not entitled to it. I paid for it.
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Health insurance is one of the best ways to be paid because you do not have to pay income taxes on it.
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TE,
That may be but it sure is hard to buy groceries with that tax free health insurance coverage.
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I understand that Diane, and I have seen deductibles and premiums grow for my own family members. Obamacare has done little to rectify any of it. But, you had a voice in choosing your plan.
If under this contract we lose more and pay greatly for it, we have no recourse. I am just saying as a rank and file member, we should know what specific cuts are being made before we ratify this contract.
Why is it that my bus driver has that luxury under his union and I don’t? I have no qualms about a paying a higher co-pay, but I would like to know now if I can keep my doctors, surgeons and hospital choices. Only a NO vote on the contract will bring that to light. And, having a union leader saying nothing will change when billions have to be cut has to be the biggest lie perpetrated on NYC teachers. This is why I said to you that endorsing a contract before reading the fine print is irresponsible especially if you are a supporter of due process rights which are also being violated under this contract.
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Duane,
It is hard, but buying groceries is easier if you pay for a very costly health insurance plan that limits out of pocket expenses (that you have to pay with taxed dollars) with before tax dollars.
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The following material is irrelevant to the post, above, but important. So I’m going to post it here anyway.
Almost all language is learned unconsciously. This will come as a surprise to most people, but it’s absolutely the case.
In the first few years of life, children’s brains create an internal model of the grammar (using that term VERY widely to refer to phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax) of their native tongue. This is an automatic and unconscious process, and any explicit teaching of the child done by parents or caretakers or teachers is ALMOST ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO IT.
Now, the internalized grammar that a child creates during that time is very, very complex. Thousands and thousands of incredibly bright linguists around the world have been working for many decades, now, on figuring out the rules for language that a child has internalized by, say, the age of six, but these are so complex that despite literally millions of person hours that have been devoted to this by linguistic scientists, we are still quite far from having a complete model of what a six year old has unconsciously internalized for any natural language.
Now, let me emphasize that EXPLICT INSTRUCTION IS ALMOST ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT to this process. What is relevant is that the child have an ambient spoken linguistic environment that is rich enough to provide the linguistic data from which his or her brain will automatically intuit those rules for the language AND that the child have significant, continual engagement with that linguistic data.
Feral children not exposed to language in the first few years of their lives CAN NEVER LEARN IT beyond the most rudimentary level—a level barely beyond that of what a dog can learn of “language.” They have not retained and built upon the neurological structures necessary for language. The language learning functional mechanisms of the brain are literally reabsorbed if not used. They are pruned.
Now, subsequent work in school—reading and listening and discussion—depends upon the creation of that implicit, internalized grammatical model of the kind that linguists study, which takes the form of actual physical structures—neural networks for doing the functional processing of the language—in the brain of the developing child.
Now, if the child has not built a sufficiently robust implicit internalized model of the language before entering school, no amount of explicit instruction thereafter is going to correct that.
What COULD be done, but is not being done currently ANYWHERE, to my knowledge, is to create for children who have not been exposed to a sufficient robust ambient spoken language environment a version of that environment that the kid missed and to have the child interact in engaged ways with this before his or her innate language model acquisition device (LAD) shuts down.
In other words, what is called for is a compensatory spoken language environment that is SUFFICIENTLY RICH IN STRUCTURE that the LAD has the full complement of material with which it needs to work in order to do its job.
Instead, in the early years in school, we PURPOSEFULLY, because of ignorant pedagogical theories, expose kids from impoverished linguistic environments to an almost exclusive diet of WRITTEN language that is INTENTIONALLY semantically, morphologically, and syntactically IMPOVERISHED–leveled readers, for example.
This will not work and cannot work because the mind is not built to acquire the internal model for a language by such a means, and acquisition of that internal model is PREREQUISITE to explicit learning of later kinds, such as learning to parse fluently and automatically the structures encountered in written language. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT LINGUISTS UNDERSTAND BUT THAT MANY EDUCATORS, INCLUDING READING SPECIALISTS, DO NOT. None of this was reflected, for example, in Reading First, despite there being many, many thousands of “reading specialists” who worked on and in that program.
And, of course, NONE OF WHAT I HAVE SAID HERE IS REFLECTED in the PRESCIENTIFIC new “higher” standards. Instead, those “higher” standards instantiate IGNORANT FOLK MYTHOLOGIES about how language is acquired.
Kids from middle-class homes come into school having heard 30 million more words than low SES kids have heard. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Significantly, they also have not had interactions using spoken language that reflects, robustly, the entire complement of syntactic and morphological structures of the language and range of rules governing relations of these to the SEMANTICS of the language.
The only way to fix that is to have wrap-around services that provide nurturing, rich spoken language environments and interactions FROM BIRTH ON.
We’ll never close the gap until we do that.
And one of the gaps that we need to close is the VAST ONE between what linguists now know about early childhood language acquisition and what is typically understood about such acquisition by education policy makers and education professors–even by ones who specialize in reading.
Certainly, the absolute amateurs who wrote the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic] understood NONE of this (and not much about any of the other ELA domains either).
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a very lucid presentation of a very complex developmental and political matter, thanks!
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Unfortunately, I could not get, in so short a compass, into the very complex issues involved with what kids from those environment DO LEARN and internalize that is NOT VALUED by the cultures of the schools they then attend. I had to stick to the issue at hand, because this is a very, very important matter that is not understood, generally, by people making education policy and not understood, generally, by a lot of very influential edupundits who would really benefit from taking some introductory linguistics classes.
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“None of this was reflected, for example, in Reading First, despite there being many, many thousands of “reading specialists” who worked on and in that program.”
As with the creation of the Common Core standards, the appropriate expertise was expected from the wrong people in Reading First. That was not the case with Early Reading First though.
It’s Early Childhood specialists who are most familiar with the research, as well as best practices, regarding language acquisition during informal interactions in natural environments. Fostering oral language development was one of the primary focuses of the Early Reading First program in which I was involved. A family component was required as well, so that parents received guidance and supports for working effectively in promoting receptive and expressive language, such as in casual daily interactions and when reading to their children. (They received many free books.)
Much was learned from the strategies employed at home by the higher income parents that were professionals in Hart & Risley’s study, which were adopted in Reading First and a lot of other Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs. That includes the use of play-by-plays, for modeling language usage, and the inclusion of rich words accompanied by comprehension asides, such as synonyms and non-verbals, to promote vocabulary development and foster children’s understanding.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A lot of ECE people have expertise in this area. Look at the work of people like William Teale at the University of Illinois in Chicago, David Dickinson at Vanderbilt and Judy Schickedanz at Boston University.
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superb. thanks for this
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Where is this LAD program? Does it work on children with autism? Can it work on students with expressive/receptive language deficiencies?
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The LAD is internal to the child. Read Noam Chomsky’s work in linguistics.
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There’s an enormous spectrum, but it’s very clear that this LAD program, which is in the child’s head, is working for those kids as well. Many have extremely robust internalized language competence that is thwarted in performance. A couple of really good introductory books:
Roeper, Tom. The Prism of Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT P., 2009.
Jackendoff, Ray. Patterns in the Mind. New York: Basic/Perseus, 1994. (an oldie, but a goodie; very lucid general intro to all this from one of the great linguists of our time)
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Oops. The profound little book by Tom Roeper is called The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language Illuminates Humanism
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Have a look at this. Amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shAHJryco_g
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That was really fascinating. Seriously. But which other cat videos have you commented on?
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From May 27, 2012, back when Diane’s blog was just one month old, “Animal Lover Alert:”
“This is my blog, and there’s no rule that says I’m only allowed to write about education.”
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I remember that!
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Oh, and the cat and dog vid is awesome. The other creatures with whom we share this planet grok a lot more than we think they do. We have much to learn there.
Click to access CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
Thanks, Diane!
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Use critical thinking skills . . . hmm, ok, in some cases (for example, wtvr.com/2014/05/15/video-teacher-grabs-student/ ), the local public school is the dog biting the kid, and the cat is like the Walton Foundation or some school choice proponent who knocks the district out of the way and helps the kid escape to a different school.
Or by “critical thinking,” do you mean only someone who agrees with you?
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Right, as if nothing like that would ever happen at charter schools, including those wonderful military style charters, because corporations are your friends.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/17/beagles-rescued-from-lab-play-grass-see-sunshine_n_5344590.html
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Oh, my favorite part was watching them run around with such abandon. Sweet pups–I hope they all got adopted.
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