LARRY FERLAZZO: Did You Know That THE Key To Saving American Education Is Firing Bad Teachers?

2:04 pm // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (0)

Because I couldn’t say it better myself:

Newsweek’s cover this week proclaimed that “The Key To Saving American Education” was that “we must fire bad teachers.”

Now, that’s what I call a sophisticated analysis of a complex problem….

Yes, there are bad teachers. But, as the saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, than every problem looks like a nail.

Instead of only scapegoating teachers, perhaps a more accurate and non-black/white solution would be to also look at curriculum, school and district leadership, parent engagement, and community pressures like unemployment, safety, and health care. Is it really too much to ask that experienced journalists (and others) recognize that most problems of any kind require a multi-pronged approach?

And it might be helpful if the writers didn’t say that teaching doesn’t attract “the best and the brightest.” Questioning the overall intelligence of teachers is not only insulting, it’s wrong (see Do Teachers REALLY Come From The Bottom Third Of Colleges? Or Is That Statistic A Bunch Of Baloney?)

READ THE REST HERE.

2:04 pm // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (0)

Accidental learning doesn’t require insurance

3:45 am // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (0)

Overheard: “I have Mrs. Allan. We don’t learn anything in that class.”

Well, if you learned you didn’t learn anything, wasn’t that learning?

Too many students measure learning using the following formula: student + worksheet = assignment of worthwhile consequence.

Sad. How did that happen?

Recently, one of my students, writhing in her desk, alternately moaning and whining, groaned out, “Can’t you teach like everyone else? Can’t we just memorize this stuff? You expect us to be able to use it too.”

Me: “No. No. Yes.”

During my brief twenty years of educating high school students, I’ve learned that the most significant learning can be purely accidental. The learning that catches you by surprise years later when an event triggers some memory, for example, and my “you have to know what to do when you don’t know what to do” suddenly makes sense.

Maybe in the yawning midst of the lesson on uses of semi-colons, there’s the lesson in perseverance or patience or possibilities.

I’d like to pat my own back for that particular “accidental” learning, but I can’t. Actually, my role is to provide the opportunity for the serendipity, not to provide the moment it happens.

3:45 am // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (0)

Sewing my life together

2:54 am // Moments of Grace // Comments (0)

Sometimes it seems like the creatures in my head are unraveling stories, like Penelope who stitched by day and unwove by night to ward off obnoxious suitors anxious for Odysseus’ treasures–both in his bank and in his bed.

But the threads fray when I’m frantic to shove them all through the eye of the needle of sanity. I want to make order out of chaos, but the memories and the pictures and the stories waiting to be told are like bolts of lightning–powerful, visible, yet impossible to clutch.

I think this happens most when I’m creatively procrastinating embarking on what will be an emotional archeological dig. The feelings are buried alive, and I’ve been content to ignore them. Hoping, dreaming, praying that logic will suffocate them. But, no. They demand to be noticed. And while I create chaos, thinking I will somehow murder them with inattention, they wait patiently.

And what do I fear? Having to bear the weigh of regret, pain, loss? Even too much sunshine burns and blinds.

But I know I must continue to stitch the stories together, to resist the untangling of the threads, and to listen to the whisper in my soul.

2:54 am // Moments of Grace // Comments (0)

Logical fallacy?

5:34 am // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (8)

You know all those people who scream and yell and rant about teachers being responsible for the dumbing of kids? Um…just wondering…how did “those people” get so smart?

For added entertainment while I’m off dumbing down the next generation, go to VISUWORDS. Enjoy.

5:34 am // ej-oo-key-shuhn // Comments (8)

Because I just can’t say it better than this:

9:31 pm // Uncategorized // Comments (1)

nola.com

Mardi Gras Who Dat Nation just wants to say: Thanks, Drew

By Mark Lorando, The Times-Picayune

February 13, 2010, 11:38PM

st saints parade 0182 Scott Threlkeld / The Times-PicayuneThe Saints Super Bowl parade last week was just a warm-up for Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who will reign Sunday night as Bacchus.

This is what he will hear:

“DREWWWWWW!!! OHMYGOD!!! OHMYGOD!!! RIGHT HERE, DREW!!! I’M OPEN!!! THROW ME SOMETHING, DREW!!! I LOVE YOU, DREWWWWWW!!! WHO DAT, BABY!!! WILL YOU MARRY ME, DREW?!?!?!? I KNOW YOU’RE MARRIED, SO AM I, WE CAN WORK THAT OUT!!! REALLY!!! MY HUSBAND WON’T MIND, HE’S GOT A CRUSH ON YOU, TOO!!! DREWWWWWW!!! DREWWWWWW!!! OHMYGOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?!? HE THREW IT RIGHT TO ME!!! YOU DA MAN, DREWWWWWW!!!”

But that’s not exactly what the Who Dats on the parade route want to say.

It’s hard to be eloquent when a float is rolling past. So little time, so much pressure — you wait seven hours on a curb in the hopes of catching something, ANYTHING, directly from the hand of Super Bowl XLIV MVP and Bacchus 2010 Drew Brees. How can you possibly be expected to get his attention AND snag a flying doubloon AND put everything you’re feeling into words in just a few, fleeting seconds?

You can’t. So Drew is going to have to read between the lines. He’s going to have to know that when we say all of that, what we really want to tell him is this:

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing your broken shoulder to town and rebuilding yourself right alongside us.

Thank you for teaching us how to finish strong.

Thank you for always facing adversity with your shoulders back, your head up, your upper lip stiff, your eyes on fire.

Thank you for giving us Feb. 7 to ease the pain of Aug. 29.

Thank you for reminding every woman in New Orleans, and Katie Couric, how it feels to have a schoolgirl crush. (Katie, sweetheart, we know he’s a dreamboat, but try not to be so obvious next time!)

Thank you for making your beautiful family part of our beautiful city. So many star athletes parachute in for the season and catch the first flight out. You put down roots. That means a lot to us. It makes you one of us.

One suggestion: The next time you play in the Super Bowl (Feb. 6, 2011, in Dallas, see you there!), have Brittany and Baylen watch the game on the sideline on a Mardi Gras ladder. Every time you get flushed out of the pocket, he can scream, “Throw me something, Daddy!”

How cool would that be?
Ted Jackson / The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, with his wife Brittany at left, holds their son Baylen, 1, aloft in celebration after the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. If we’re going to go to the Super Bowl every year, we might as well give it a little New Orleans flavor.

Remember how you felt when you held Baylen in your arms after the Super Bowl? How you held him close and saw all of your hopes and dreams for the future in his little face and you cried?

Well, that’s how the Who Dat Nation feels when we look at you. You are a son of New Orleans now. In you we see the best of ourselves, and a future filled with possibilities, and a pride that moves us to tears, too.

This is the part the national media always gets wrong. They see us crying, and they think it’s because you have “given the people of New Orleans a reason to feel good about themselves.”

If we heard that once last week, we heard it a hundred times.

But that’s not it at all. We’ve always felt good about ourselves. New Orleans is home to some of the most fascinating, fun-loving, hard-working, resilient, creative, smart, sexy, generous, loving, tolerant people on the planet. We have some of the richest culinary, musical, artistic and architectural traditions in the world. What’s not to feel good about? Do Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest look like events organized by people with an inferiority complex?

Please.

We celebrate ourselves from January to December. What we have needed is someone worthy to represent us. Someone the rest of the world can associate with New Orleans who is not on the way to jail, hell, or an NFL Films blooper reel.

The national symbols of New Orleans have too often been laughingstocks and losers. We’ve always known we deserved better.

You’re better.

That’s why we get choked up. Not because we don’t think we deserve you. Because we know how much we deserve each other.

Susan Poag / The Times-Picayune

Right here, big boy. Come to papa.

So, like we said: Thank you. For representing. And for allowing us to go completely overboard about you. We know that nobody could be as good as we’re making you out to be right now. But we’ve been a little bit hero-deprived around here lately. If it’s not too uncomfortable up there, we’d like to keep you on the pedestal a little while longer.

And one last thing, Drew.

You know that fistful of black-and-gold doubloons you’re holding? Right here, big boy. Come to papa. The game is on the line and I’m Jeremy Shockey. Cock that golden arm and let ’em fly. Put them where you’ve put everything since the day you hit town:

Right in the sweet spot.

Features editor Mark Lorando can be reached at mlorando@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3430.

9:31 pm // Uncategorized // Comments (1)

Dream becomes reality. . .it’s RELEASE DAY!

6:04 am // Writing and Wreading // Comments (5)

Check out one of my bizarre writing moments

2:24 pm // Writing and Wreading // Comments (2)

Sharon Ball is being a gracious hostess, so click on over to A Break from the Norm, and find out how my writer brain sometimes (mal)functions!

See you there!

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WHO DAT? WE DAT!!!!

8:05 am // Moments of Grace // Comments (0)

Even after 44 years, dreams can come true. Never give up!!!

8:05 am // Moments of Grace // Comments (0)

Why novelists become hermits

1:32 am // Uncategorized // Comments (0)

Thanks to Lauren B. Davis and her blog View From the Library Window for the heads up on this.

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Finding My Mother: a story of one woman’s search

5:00 pm // Latest News, Limbs on the Family Tree, Moments of Grace // Comments (2)

Over four years ago, my multi-talented web designer friend Natalie Jost, wrote a blog post about her search to find her birth mother. She generously offered one of her books as a giveaway on my blog so that others could read of her challenges and gain hope.

Natalie is one of the most soul-baring, deeply honest, and truly humble women I know. She’s not afraid to rock the boat of complacency if it will move it closer to the shore where Jesus waits. Her book, Finding My Mother, offers hope and courage to other adopted children who are beginning or in the midst of their searches.

Half of all proceeds from the sale of her book and its companion journals will go to support CASA, an organization that uses volunteers to act as advocates for children caught between their birth parents and “the system” trying to help them, and similar organizations.

Please leave a comment to have a chance to be sent this book. Click HERE for information about PDF downloads and journals. And while you’re in her web neighborhood, check out her textiles and paper goods at her Olive Manna store online.