Do you have a better idea miles? Not being snarky. If you got the goods would be glad if you sent them to Abe. He would probably be glad to receive any good ideas since its all effed just now.
I don't know how good this plan is. Or if its dumbass stupid. I would prefer to live in one of those woulda coulda worlds where none if this happened but at least we are lucky to be in a country where construction skills are crazy awesome.
Reconstruction is kind of like that now. Amazing technical feats. No serious big picture planning. Everything is reactionary. It's frustrating as hell. By contrast NY is amazing awesome (so far).
Chernobyl was entombed in about 7 months. Work started 30 days after the accident. The sarcophagus is problematic and needs constant maintenance but has prevented the release of a great deal of radioactivity into the environment.
Conditions at Fukushima are very different but containment remains the only way to mitigate the situation. Especially the six spent fuel pools that are in precarious condition. These need to be encapsulated and contained before there are any attempts to dismantle them.
Ground water flowing under the plant picks up radiation and flows into the sea, and some kind of system to prevent this is critical. But huge bore holes frozen solid - why not just fill them with waterproof cement? At least concrete will be structurally sound and won't require refrigeration. Not an easy engineering project under any conditions, but to fill a a mile-long trench with water and freeze it seems like a B science fiction film scenario. Quick: wow do you melt ice? With warm flowing water. They've got to be kidding. Even if it was possible it would have to be maintained in perpetuity.
I wish I had some answers. All I see is problems and increasing levels of stupidity. Fukushima has global effects and demands a global effort to mitigate. The idea that Japan is going to handle this on it's own is absurd - it's been 2-1/2 years since the disaster and the problems have only gotten worse.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist or nuclear engineer to figure this out. You just need to be practical and thorough. And expeditious.
@ nam no, i just met one of the guys working on the reconstruction project in NY recently, connected to our work here. I was following the planning work going on there anyway, cuz of my job and my education in planning. Their work with POPS and cycle booster-ing, etc is really amazing. They have such a great head of planning now, with all kinds of innovation going on. the power of political will is wondrous to behold when it works.
@miles, so basically your answer is no, eh. pity. We are all just a few hundred miles from fukushima, so i don't think anyone isn't taking it seriously round here. I've been much closer to the site, when traveling to the reconstruction zone, which was nerve-wracking the first time at least. My colleague is one of the guys who set up the radiation maps you see on google and he said radiation was no problem for us at the time. He was looking at wind blown radiation though, which is a bit of a different story from what is happening now.
I don't know any nuclear power experts but somehow i expect a country that has concretized almost every river in the country would be glad to go the chernobyl route if it made the best sense. Im not so certain they are all morons. cringe-worthy assholes sure, but moronic is harder to assume from where I am sitting. It doesn't make any more sense to me than it does to you though. Im quite curious what the deal is exactly that they feel this is the best way to go.
One thing for sure, Stewart Brand had me sold on nuclear power before but I have so changed my mind now. One mistake and its all crazytown all the time.
Will, I feel the same about Brand. I was feeling overall like the risks of nuclear were acceptable until this happened. Because it seems like all the *identified* risks were acceptable, but then this cascade of unexpected events happened and you're right, it's pure crazytown.
...and it seems to me, Brand supporters (cough Steven cough) that there is a pretty strong parallel to GMO food here. We *think* we know the risks, but do we? And since the whole hunger problem on our planet is due to distribution not technology anyway, doesn't GMO solve a problem we don't have while adding unpredictable problems that we totally can't yet conceive could even exist?
I think it's like putting caulk on a building to prevent water penetration. it's a good idea. i put notes on drawings all the time that say "put caulk here." and in theory it works. but caulk will always fail over time, and it's not that uncommon for the installer to take short cuts and do it wrong. it doesn't seem as uncommon as it should be that if the gun doesn't easily fit behind something, they just leave a gap in the caulk. or after a number years it won't be maintained right.
we know water penetration is a problem. we know it's easy to fix. we don't fix it. it's predictable. all systems fail. the only question is whether it's acceptable to fail. for water penetration, we can tear down the building if it gets too bad (usually there are less extreme remediation measures available). are we prepared for the inevitable failure of our nuclear safety systems? they have tiers of safety measures, so if one fails another steps in to keep things safe. but as you build more nuclear plants with these tiers of safety, the odds increase that all systems will fail at the same time.
Speaking non-metaphorically (i.e., not in reference to nuclear power) I would argue that caulk is not a good solution to any problem, it's only a stopgap temporary fix. And I say this as an architect who just this morning specified caulk for a window installation. It's standard practice, but that doesn't mean it's good.
Kieran Timberlake once stated that they wanted to build complex projects without any use of caulk. This was about 12 years ago. I wonder if they've succeeded?
Thankfully, actor Dick Van Dyke was safely pulled out of his Jaguar which suddenly caught fire on an L.A. freeway as he was going to the dentist. It's good to know he still has his own teeth. They said he was humorous about this situation. I could see that, being that it's Dick Van Dyke, who is kind of a ham.
But, that Jaguar looked fairly new. And they're not cheap.
is the coffee-bar a thing in other cities? they often have very minimal food (although a couple are full-service restaurants)... and it's more bar-like - you typically sit at a bar and watch baristas do different coffee preparations on a huge selection of roasts, and less lounge-y coffee-shop-like where you get a sandwich or pastry and they give you a cup of something that's been sitting around and you sit in an overstuffed chair for the next 7 hours. I've been seeing a lot more of these start popping up recently. I think it might have started with the success of this one place that started doing pour-over a few years back - but I'm wondering if it was imported from somewhere else.
that said - anyone using an aeropress? I'm wondering if it would be more convenient for the office than a french press.
It's funny when my kids say eh too, Sarah. But if you want to be properly entertained you should hear me in full Newfie mode.
Good point about gmo's Donna. We need to be careful to leave room for change/error in all those massively impact-potential decisions. It's something we tend not to do so well when it comes down to it.
Still admire Brand's thinking, Donna, but, yes, there are always questions. It never works for me to establish unalterable opinions because life happens.
My recent quandary is charter schools: I've been against the idea for as long as I've known about them - for all of the usual reasons people have heard - but recently have had my confidence about that opinion start to erode. Going opinionless, now, until I regain confidence.
Have you ever seen those confident self-righteous cause crusaders that just plow forward through any obstacle or question mark? I envy them...
one thing i've learned about always being right is that, on the off chance you might be wrong at some point, you have to be able to switch your opinion real quick. people who are wrong and stay wrong can't be always right.
Those confident self-righteous cause crusaders often tend to get elected to local government, somehow. Frustrating. That said, when it comes to caulk I'll crusade. It's a worthwhile cause, as is demanding that no whiskey made from at least 51% corn aged in charred oak barrels outside of Kentucky be called "bourbon".
Yep, while I'm against funding charter schools at the expense of paying both money *and* attention to public schools, that doesn't mean charter schools are all bad. I may be sending Angus to a local charter high school when the time comes. The best opinion I've heard as fallout from our local school rating system debacle is that Bennett and his cronies, after finding out a school they knew was strong had fared poorly on the rating system, paid special attention to what the school's strong and weak points were, and wouldn't it be great if ALL our schools were able to have that kind of attention, rather than using a non-working one-size-fits-all rating system in the name of economic efficiency? A well-placed charter school with a focused curriculum might be a very good option for some students.
Will, are you a goofy Newfie? Abram and I watched a show on swordfish harpooning, and how it's the cleanest/safest way to fish. You couldnt understand a thing the fisherman they filmed said. Abe said "he sounds like a pirate! Is he a pirate mom?!"
My mentor used to work on the American base up there in the 60s/70s, and he would always say "you know how a Newfie counts, don't ya? One fish, two fish, anudder fish, anudder fish".
As for charter schools, we have good ones and bad ones. I'm only jealous of them because they aren't subject to all the tests that we are. Although, we did get the state to reduce the number of tests this year from 12 down to FIVE! And they've introduced this new legislation to promote careers instead of just college. Trades instead of just academics.
Charter schools are a big scam - only a very small handful of them seem to "perform" well, and that's only because of self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn. They do not require teachers to be licensed (they pay them barely minimum wage - and these schools tend to have really high turn-over), and the "president" of the school makes a shit-load of money at tax-payer expense. I think something like over half of charters are eventually shut down for under-performance (which all the pro-charter reports conveniently leave out - they also neglect to include the failing charters in their performance comparison). Once you start factoring in demographics and socioeconomics of the students between regular ed and charters, the charters actually end up fairing much worse (there's only been one comprehensive study within the past decade - and it was out of berkeley earlier this year).
"stand for children" is the big national group funding the push for charters - they're funded by the owners of walmart, and their main purpose is to 1) completely get rid of or severely cripple teachers unions - and 2) completely privatize public education.
A much better model are pilot schools - they have more autonomy in terms of curricula, yet they bring in professional educators so the instruction tends to be a lot better.
Think of it this way - sending your kid to a charter is like having an unlicensed contractor work on your house.
toaster, self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn is also the only way the good public schools, in my town, are able to perform well. The best teachers want to work there, too, because they know they'll have parental support meaning the kids will come to school ready to learn.
It's a very complex issue, but my over-arching mantra is that we *should* be tossing money at public schools. Could one hope that with the abolition of mandatory minimum sentencing some War on Drugs money could be moved over to actual education?!
No, tint, the high school is a charter. My son is currently in a magnet elementary.
So now my ignorance is shattered and I have to analyze my entire bourbon collection to make sure none of them use GMO corn?! Damn you, Miles Jaffe, damn you.
Oops, I was under the impression that some charter schools were also magnet schools but I just googled it and realized I was wrong. So why will Angus go to this charter school? School is so overly complicated these days.
One good way to free up money for schools is to make some administrators redundant.
Does it matter if liquor is gmo, from a health stand point? Wouldn't the alcohol kill the bacteria anyway? Just curious.
As to schools, the great governor perry wants to eleminate public schools altogether. From my stand point, I wonder what would happen if you outlawed private institutions. I also think they could save a lot of money if they got rid of the people at district dictating how I should teach graphic design and animation. My students won't benefit from getting adobe certifications. Quit trying to force me to teach them software!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yes, I typed all of those exclamation points on purpose.
As to schools, the great governor perry wants to eleminate public schools altogether.
When is he out of office? He's such a "good ole boy" that he will morph into some other high visibility position. Narcissists are addicted to power. I think you have one of the nicer state capitol buildings, though, as far as that genre goes.
Isn't it great to get an oil change? It's like getting a bath. I don't know if anyone else gets turned on by seeing pale, see-through golden motor oil on their dipsticks.
tint, that's exactly where i've been on the charter school issue.
A comment from my friend who was a 30yr educator in public schools:
This a very long post, prompted by a friend's questions about charter schools. I have a lot of friends who could add some nuance and background - and counterpoint - to this dashed-off statement. Please do.
The current fragmentation of public education began with the creation of magnet schools back in the 80s. The underlying premise was fairly sound, it seemed at the time: create schools and curricula that reflect the interests and career goals (there's a rub right there, of course. How many 12 or 15-year-olds really have career goals?) of students and those students will engage more, care more, connect various studies more to their lives. Fair enough. What happened was that the two kinds of magnets most often created first - schools of the arts and 'free-spirit' 'school without walls' types - siphoned off particular groups of students who gave the most to the character of truly diverse schools. They also became havens for kids whose parents took the most interest and control in their children's lives. The draining of a key component of public education - the mixing of all kinds of minds and personalities - began.
Cracks and lies began to appear. I helped start a mini-magnet at my school for students interested in careers in education. It became a safe haven for some kids, driven by their parents, even if they had no real interest in ever teaching. The magnet was not the pedagogical focus, but the separation.
When charter schools began, after magnets, they were most often created with ideological, crypto-religious, lifestyle underpinnings. Often the people attracted to teach or administer in them were less than stellar professionals. But lurking in the shadows, watching, were the colonialists of education looking for a ripe 'third world country' - public schools - to exploit. The list of exploiters is wide and surprising: university schools of education, textbook publishers, testing companies, non-profits, grant providers, tech companies... The list goes on and on. Any number of enterprises could swoop into a school system with a program, a charter idea, a range of systematic texts, a collection of software and get moneys to themselves, start something going - and leave, never caring, really, about the consequences.
When even bigger corporations caught wind of these possibilities, the game heated up. Large and largely secret political force began to be wielded. Corporate-based charters began to appear, along with all the other remaining charter and magnet schools. Ultimately those disenfranchised, underfunded, generalist schools began to decay and explode, which gave the corporate forces more power: "See," they said, "public education is a failure and their teachers are losers and the taxpayers are getting the shaft." No Child Left Behind became a weapon to highlight those perceived failures. It was an easy set-up. Education can make a lot of people rich - even when students are getting robbed.
Can charter schools educate? Oh, sure, sometimes, especially when they are created to woo only the motivated and well-parented. But are they good for the country, for community? Not if they divide, not if they take assets from the disenfranchised, not if they do not nurture a child's connection to the whole and real world, not if they lead to further and further Balkanization of our nation.
That's where he started. Followed by:
My post was meant to delineate how we got here. When the question gets to 'what next?' I get flummoxed. Q_ is going to M_ and we are happy. It is wildly culturally diverse, but underneath the obvious diversity is the self-selected sameness. That sameness actually will help Q, and that's where all my theories break down. Protection and nurturing of one's own in such a world invariably comes first. While calling for diversity and heterogeneity, I have also been an advocate for gifted education. I have seen gifted children stifled and drained by being in dumbed-down curricula and housed with poorly behaved classmates. On the other hand , the not-so-academically gifted benefit in a small, carefully cultivated classroom where students teach each other - directly and by example. And nothing educates like the chance to teach.
There are innovated ways to answer this conundrum. They require small, changeable groups and fluidity between disciplines. They require seat-of-the-pants smart teaching and guidance.
Maybe I should start a charter school.
Neighborhood schools seem so sensible - until you know what the neighborhoods are. The conundrum here is that neighborhood schools means resegregation, of course. Which is harder to do - integrate schools or integrate neighborhoods? Every time I hear about buses, about lines of cars, each waiting to pick up one kid, I get depressed. I know there has to be a better way, but I honestly don't know what it is.
If what I just wrote sounds conflicted and confused, it's because after seeing through the narrative of the education of the past, I cannot see a positive narrative for the future, at least not for the kids on the borders, the edges, the margins. Our kids will do fine.
One observation to really depress or motivate: I can't think of a city in the country that has solved this issue in a satisfactory way.
The ambivalence always works its way in, and that's why this is hard. The conversation these comments came from went all sorts of directions, all supportable in limited ways.
@donna: self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn is also the only way the good public schools, in my town, are able to perform well. The best teachers want to work there, too, because they know they'll have parental support meaning the kids will come to school ready to learn.
right - this is the first step. I think most people tend to get this backwards. If the kids aren't getting support outside of school there's only so much teachers can do - this is why if we want to "fix education" we need to focus on what's going on when kids aren't in the classroom.
ask any urban teacher and they'll tell you "it's poverty, stupid."
Exactly, toaster. It's poverty, which tends to correlate with lack of education in the parents and leads to many more significant stresses for the students than worrying about a test. And there are many many studies that show the negative effect of poverty on successful education - but if you point this out to an anti-public school person they will always respond with the case of Dr. Ben Carson, who makes an AMAZING story and who is absolutely an amazing person - but that's the point: he's a very special, super-smart, super-driven person and not at all the norm for ANY children, poor or not.
It's funny about that magnet school origin. Texas just past what is called "House Bill 5". Basically it states that even though a kid still needs four years of math to graduate, his senior level math class can be career related, i.e. construction math. It's supposed to begin with jr high kids selecting a "career pathway." The problem with this is that, according to the department of labor, melinnials 19-35 y.o. will have careers in at least 9 different INDUSTRIES throughout their lifetime.
Education is a pendulum. It was focused on trades before, then swung hardcore towards academics, and now it's shifting back to trades. Could mean a pay raise for me, though.
Jla, glad to hear from you. Was wondering how you're doing. FYI I'm on the island, too, or will be when I get back from SF next week.
Went to the V.C. Morris Gift Shop. Really terrific and intimate. The entry detailing is to die for. Also a great showing of Hindu and Buddhist art. The Ganesh carved in wood from the 17th century was $45k. I got two. Working on a tour of Greene and Greene's Thorsen house on Tuesday. And lots of lovely Victorian details everywhere of course. Also saw the Diebenkorn exhibit at DeYoung. Great show, good museum, awful building.
Continuously impressed by how well things are managed here. The Muni buses have bike rackes on the front - and they get used. Signage is generally very clear and consistent, so much so that you really notice when it's not. In NY the attitude seems to be we'll fix it by putting up another sign (next to the 3 dozen existing poorly thought out signs).
I don't have a tumblr, but those were awesome. The nerf guns look a lot like ak47s. I think your son would love my animation class. You should download Pencil for him. It's free.
i am indeed from winnipeg (which is not actually a shithole, honestly), but lived on the east coast for awhile. i can mimic the accent very poorly.
when we were in high school some guy came traveling through talking about future shock and such. He said to be careful how we educate ourselves cuz we will have several careers in our lifetime. i think he was saying to stay flexible and don't get too involved in planning our lives cuz the world didn't work that way anymore. So far he has been pretty much right on.
Donna, those piranha comics are great, I'm a follower. Be careful what you follow on Tumblr for your son's sake. There is a lot of NSFW content on Tumblr that is pretty easy to tumble into.
I've had at least 2 careers depending on how you count. Well, more like I combined a few careers. It's awesome, and I agree it's the future. And I am sure Winnipeg is a very nice city. Actually, I did some researching, it looks interesting, didn't realize it was that big.
Loooove the piranhas. Kids like Angus give me hope that regardless of the overall trends, there are students who are going to do amazing things if we keep our eyes open enough to see them doing it.
Miles, are you still in SF? Did you see Nervi's Saint Mary of the Assumption yet? Please do. It's sublime.
Miles, the locals refer to it as Saint Mary of Maytag. It looks like a washing machine agitator. Inside, it's better. It's right across the street from tiny Japantown.
Miles, maybe you can go check out that abandoned Mediterranean style home intended for the UC president in the Berkeley Hills, assuming one can get in. It was featured on here within the last 2 weeks. It's got tourist point of interest written all over it and looks nice.
Question for parents, especially those with high school-aged children: what are your thoughts on the concept of a "flipped classroom" or "flip teaching"?
You can obviously look up more information than this, but the basic concept is to lecture via Internet video (YouTube) at home and then have students work on assignments, worksheets, "homework" at school where the teacher can answer questions, explain concepts further, etc. in the classroom.
Isn't Winnipeg flat like Edmonton? Actually, Edmonton is flat, but has a deep river valley cutting through the middle of it, so the banks are hilly. A neighbor is from Winnipeg. She is very friendly but also nosy, and her Canadian accent, which is more about inflection than words, is thick.
You look at downtown Edmonton and wonder what the hell is in their tall buildings. Besides the standard accountants, lawyers, and financial services, they can't all be oil companies.
Brian, it's funny you say that. I actually SKIPPED that class last week. I like the idea, but I it means the kids HAVE to do the reading or whatever. None of my students would be willing to do that.
Thread Central
I love a good radioactive leak in the morning. MEH!
Classic. Any leak in the morning is good.
It also means you didn't need to take a leak during the night, which is usually not the best sign per the medical encyclopedias.
I don't know how good this plan is. Or if its dumbass stupid. I would prefer to live in one of those woulda coulda worlds where none if this happened but at least we are lucky to be in a country where construction skills are crazy awesome.
Reconstruction is kind of like that now. Amazing technical feats. No serious big picture planning. Everything is reactionary. It's frustrating as hell. By contrast NY is amazing awesome (so far).
Chernobyl was entombed in about 7 months. Work started 30 days after the accident. The sarcophagus is problematic and needs constant maintenance but has prevented the release of a great deal of radioactivity into the environment.
Conditions at Fukushima are very different but containment remains the only way to mitigate the situation. Especially the six spent fuel pools that are in precarious condition. These need to be encapsulated and contained before there are any attempts to dismantle them.
Ground water flowing under the plant picks up radiation and flows into the sea, and some kind of system to prevent this is critical. But huge bore holes frozen solid - why not just fill them with waterproof cement? At least concrete will be structurally sound and won't require refrigeration. Not an easy engineering project under any conditions, but to fill a a mile-long trench with water and freeze it seems like a B science fiction film scenario. Quick: wow do you melt ice? With warm flowing water. They've got to be kidding. Even if it was possible it would have to be maintained in perpetuity.
I wish I had some answers. All I see is problems and increasing levels of stupidity. Fukushima has global effects and demands a global effort to mitigate. The idea that Japan is going to handle this on it's own is absurd - it's been 2-1/2 years since the disaster and the problems have only gotten worse.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist or nuclear engineer to figure this out. You just need to be practical and thorough. And expeditious.
will you in NYC? for work or pleasure?
@ nam no, i just met one of the guys working on the reconstruction project in NY recently, connected to our work here. I was following the planning work going on there anyway, cuz of my job and my education in planning. Their work with POPS and cycle booster-ing, etc is really amazing. They have such a great head of planning now, with all kinds of innovation going on. the power of political will is wondrous to behold when it works.
@miles, so basically your answer is no, eh. pity. We are all just a few hundred miles from fukushima, so i don't think anyone isn't taking it seriously round here. I've been much closer to the site, when traveling to the reconstruction zone, which was nerve-wracking the first time at least. My colleague is one of the guys who set up the radiation maps you see on google and he said radiation was no problem for us at the time. He was looking at wind blown radiation though, which is a bit of a different story from what is happening now.
I don't know any nuclear power experts but somehow i expect a country that has concretized almost every river in the country would be glad to go the chernobyl route if it made the best sense. Im not so certain they are all morons. cringe-worthy assholes sure, but moronic is harder to assume from where I am sitting. It doesn't make any more sense to me than it does to you though. Im quite curious what the deal is exactly that they feel this is the best way to go.
One thing for sure, Stewart Brand had me sold on nuclear power before but I have so changed my mind now. One mistake and its all crazytown all the time.
Will, I feel the same about Brand. I was feeling overall like the risks of nuclear were acceptable until this happened. Because it seems like all the *identified* risks were acceptable, but then this cascade of unexpected events happened and you're right, it's pure crazytown.
...and it seems to me, Brand supporters (cough Steven cough) that there is a pretty strong parallel to GMO food here. We *think* we know the risks, but do we? And since the whole hunger problem on our planet is due to distribution not technology anyway, doesn't GMO solve a problem we don't have while adding unpredictable problems that we totally can't yet conceive could even exist?
I think it's like putting caulk on a building to prevent water penetration. it's a good idea. i put notes on drawings all the time that say "put caulk here." and in theory it works. but caulk will always fail over time, and it's not that uncommon for the installer to take short cuts and do it wrong. it doesn't seem as uncommon as it should be that if the gun doesn't easily fit behind something, they just leave a gap in the caulk. or after a number years it won't be maintained right.
we know water penetration is a problem. we know it's easy to fix. we don't fix it. it's predictable. all systems fail. the only question is whether it's acceptable to fail. for water penetration, we can tear down the building if it gets too bad (usually there are less extreme remediation measures available). are we prepared for the inevitable failure of our nuclear safety systems? they have tiers of safety measures, so if one fails another steps in to keep things safe. but as you build more nuclear plants with these tiers of safety, the odds increase that all systems will fail at the same time.
right - the caulk just doesn't work as well the older it gets.
Speaking non-metaphorically (i.e., not in reference to nuclear power) I would argue that caulk is not a good solution to any problem, it's only a stopgap temporary fix. And I say this as an architect who just this morning specified caulk for a window installation. It's standard practice, but that doesn't mean it's good.
Kieran Timberlake once stated that they wanted to build complex projects without any use of caulk. This was about 12 years ago. I wonder if they've succeeded?
Thankfully, actor Dick Van Dyke was safely pulled out of his Jaguar which suddenly caught fire on an L.A. freeway as he was going to the dentist. It's good to know he still has his own teeth. They said he was humorous about this situation. I could see that, being that it's Dick Van Dyke, who is kind of a ham.
But, that Jaguar looked fairly new. And they're not cheap.
is the coffee-bar a thing in other cities? they often have very minimal food (although a couple are full-service restaurants)... and it's more bar-like - you typically sit at a bar and watch baristas do different coffee preparations on a huge selection of roasts, and less lounge-y coffee-shop-like where you get a sandwich or pastry and they give you a cup of something that's been sitting around and you sit in an overstuffed chair for the next 7 hours. I've been seeing a lot more of these start popping up recently. I think it might have started with the success of this one place that started doing pour-over a few years back - but I'm wondering if it was imported from somewhere else.
that said - anyone using an aeropress? I'm wondering if it would be more convenient for the office than a french press.
Good point about gmo's Donna. We need to be careful to leave room for change/error in all those massively impact-potential decisions. It's something we tend not to do so well when it comes down to it.
everyone, and i mean everyone, knows caulk/sealant = bad, duct tape = american goodness.
My recent quandary is charter schools: I've been against the idea for as long as I've known about them - for all of the usual reasons people have heard - but recently have had my confidence about that opinion start to erode. Going opinionless, now, until I regain confidence.
Have you ever seen those confident self-righteous cause crusaders that just plow forward through any obstacle or question mark? I envy them...
one thing i've learned about always being right is that, on the off chance you might be wrong at some point, you have to be able to switch your opinion real quick. people who are wrong and stay wrong can't be always right.
Those confident self-righteous cause crusaders often tend to get elected to local government, somehow. Frustrating. That said, when it comes to caulk I'll crusade. It's a worthwhile cause, as is demanding that no whiskey made from at least 51% corn aged in charred oak barrels outside of Kentucky be called "bourbon".
Yep, while I'm against funding charter schools at the expense of paying both money *and* attention to public schools, that doesn't mean charter schools are all bad. I may be sending Angus to a local charter high school when the time comes. The best opinion I've heard as fallout from our local school rating system debacle is that Bennett and his cronies, after finding out a school they knew was strong had fared poorly on the rating system, paid special attention to what the school's strong and weak points were, and wouldn't it be great if ALL our schools were able to have that kind of attention, rather than using a non-working one-size-fits-all rating system in the name of economic efficiency? A well-placed charter school with a focused curriculum might be a very good option for some students.
My mentor used to work on the American base up there in the 60s/70s, and he would always say "you know how a Newfie counts, don't ya? One fish, two fish, anudder fish, anudder fish".
As for charter schools, we have good ones and bad ones. I'm only jealous of them because they aren't subject to all the tests that we are. Although, we did get the state to reduce the number of tests this year from 12 down to FIVE! And they've introduced this new legislation to promote careers instead of just college. Trades instead of just academics.
Is this high school a magnet school, Donna?
I think somebody should do a study on all the stress that these tests cause our students and how that effects performances.
I thought Will was from Winnepeg (is a frozen shithole). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs_eMqI1MIQ
@steven:
Charter schools are a big scam - only a very small handful of them seem to "perform" well, and that's only because of self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn. They do not require teachers to be licensed (they pay them barely minimum wage - and these schools tend to have really high turn-over), and the "president" of the school makes a shit-load of money at tax-payer expense. I think something like over half of charters are eventually shut down for under-performance (which all the pro-charter reports conveniently leave out - they also neglect to include the failing charters in their performance comparison). Once you start factoring in demographics and socioeconomics of the students between regular ed and charters, the charters actually end up fairing much worse (there's only been one comprehensive study within the past decade - and it was out of berkeley earlier this year).
"stand for children" is the big national group funding the push for charters - they're funded by the owners of walmart, and their main purpose is to 1) completely get rid of or severely cripple teachers unions - and 2) completely privatize public education.
A much better model are pilot schools - they have more autonomy in terms of curricula, yet they bring in professional educators so the instruction tends to be a lot better.
Think of it this way - sending your kid to a charter is like having an unlicensed contractor work on your house.
Donna, is that GMO corn whiskey?
toaster, self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn is also the only way the good public schools, in my town, are able to perform well. The best teachers want to work there, too, because they know they'll have parental support meaning the kids will come to school ready to learn.
It's a very complex issue, but my over-arching mantra is that we *should* be tossing money at public schools. Could one hope that with the abolition of mandatory minimum sentencing some War on Drugs money could be moved over to actual education?!
No, tint, the high school is a charter. My son is currently in a magnet elementary.
So now my ignorance is shattered and I have to analyze my entire bourbon collection to make sure none of them use GMO corn?! Damn you, Miles Jaffe, damn you.
Oops, I was under the impression that some charter schools were also magnet schools but I just googled it and realized I was wrong. So why will Angus go to this charter school? School is so overly complicated these days.
One good way to free up money for schools is to make some administrators redundant.
As to schools, the great governor perry wants to eleminate public schools altogether. From my stand point, I wonder what would happen if you outlawed private institutions. I also think they could save a lot of money if they got rid of the people at district dictating how I should teach graphic design and animation. My students won't benefit from getting adobe certifications. Quit trying to force me to teach them software!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yes, I typed all of those exclamation points on purpose.
As to schools, the great governor perry wants to eleminate public schools altogether.
When is he out of office? He's such a "good ole boy" that he will morph into some other high visibility position. Narcissists are addicted to power. I think you have one of the nicer state capitol buildings, though, as far as that genre goes.
Isn't it great to get an oil change? It's like getting a bath. I don't know if anyone else gets turned on by seeing pale, see-through golden motor oil on their dipsticks.
tint, that's exactly where i've been on the charter school issue.
A comment from my friend who was a 30yr educator in public schools:
This a very long post, prompted by a friend's questions about charter schools. I have a lot of friends who could add some nuance and background - and counterpoint - to this dashed-off statement. Please do.
The current fragmentation of public education began with the creation of magnet schools back in the 80s. The underlying premise was fairly sound, it seemed at the time: create schools and curricula that reflect the interests and career goals (there's a rub right there, of course. How many 12 or 15-year-olds really have career goals?) of students and those students will engage more, care more, connect various studies more to their lives. Fair enough. What happened was that the two kinds of magnets most often created first - schools of the arts and 'free-spirit' 'school without walls' types - siphoned off particular groups of students who gave the most to the character of truly diverse schools. They also became havens for kids whose parents took the most interest and control in their children's lives. The draining of a key component of public education - the mixing of all kinds of minds and personalities - began.
Cracks and lies began to appear. I helped start a mini-magnet at my school for students interested in careers in education. It became a safe haven for some kids, driven by their parents, even if they had no real interest in ever teaching. The magnet was not the pedagogical focus, but the separation.
When charter schools began, after magnets, they were most often created with ideological, crypto-religious, lifestyle underpinnings. Often the people attracted to teach or administer in them were less than stellar professionals. But lurking in the shadows, watching, were the colonialists of education looking for a ripe 'third world country' - public schools - to exploit. The list of exploiters is wide and surprising: university schools of education, textbook publishers, testing companies, non-profits, grant providers, tech companies... The list goes on and on. Any number of enterprises could swoop into a school system with a program, a charter idea, a range of systematic texts, a collection of software and get moneys to themselves, start something going - and leave, never caring, really, about the consequences.
When even bigger corporations caught wind of these possibilities, the game heated up. Large and largely secret political force began to be wielded. Corporate-based charters began to appear, along with all the other remaining charter and magnet schools. Ultimately those disenfranchised, underfunded, generalist schools began to decay and explode, which gave the corporate forces more power: "See," they said, "public education is a failure and their teachers are losers and the taxpayers are getting the shaft." No Child Left Behind became a weapon to highlight those perceived failures. It was an easy set-up. Education can make a lot of people rich - even when students are getting robbed.
Can charter schools educate? Oh, sure, sometimes, especially when they are created to woo only the motivated and well-parented. But are they good for the country, for community? Not if they divide, not if they take assets from the disenfranchised, not if they do not nurture a child's connection to the whole and real world, not if they lead to further and further Balkanization of our nation.
That's where he started. Followed by:
My post was meant to delineate how we got here. When the question gets to 'what next?' I get flummoxed. Q_ is going to M_ and we are happy. It is wildly culturally diverse, but underneath the obvious diversity is the self-selected sameness. That sameness actually will help Q, and that's where all my theories break down. Protection and nurturing of one's own in such a world invariably comes first. While calling for diversity and heterogeneity, I have also been an advocate for gifted education. I have seen gifted children stifled and drained by being in dumbed-down curricula and housed with poorly behaved classmates. On the other hand , the not-so-academically gifted benefit in a small, carefully cultivated classroom where students teach each other - directly and by example. And nothing educates like the chance to teach.
There are innovated ways to answer this conundrum. They require small, changeable groups and fluidity between disciplines. They require seat-of-the-pants smart teaching and guidance.
Maybe I should start a charter school.
Neighborhood schools seem so sensible - until you know what the neighborhoods are. The conundrum here is that neighborhood schools means resegregation, of course. Which is harder to do - integrate schools or integrate neighborhoods? Every time I hear about buses, about lines of cars, each waiting to pick up one kid, I get depressed. I know there has to be a better way, but I honestly don't know what it is.
If what I just wrote sounds conflicted and confused, it's because after seeing through the narrative of the education of the past, I cannot see a positive narrative for the future, at least not for the kids on the borders, the edges, the margins. Our kids will do fine.
One observation to really depress or motivate: I can't think of a city in the country that has solved this issue in a satisfactory way.
The ambivalence always works its way in, and that's why this is hard. The conversation these comments came from went all sorts of directions, all supportable in limited ways.
@donna: self-selection of parents bringing together a bunch of kids who are motivated to learn is also the only way the good public schools, in my town, are able to perform well. The best teachers want to work there, too, because they know they'll have parental support meaning the kids will come to school ready to learn.
right - this is the first step. I think most people tend to get this backwards. If the kids aren't getting support outside of school there's only so much teachers can do - this is why if we want to "fix education" we need to focus on what's going on when kids aren't in the classroom.
ask any urban teacher and they'll tell you "it's poverty, stupid."
Exactly, toaster. It's poverty, which tends to correlate with lack of education in the parents and leads to many more significant stresses for the students than worrying about a test. And there are many many studies that show the negative effect of poverty on successful education - but if you point this out to an anti-public school person they will always respond with the case of Dr. Ben Carson, who makes an AMAZING story and who is absolutely an amazing person - but that's the point: he's a very special, super-smart, super-driven person and not at all the norm for ANY children, poor or not.
Aw, Mobius strips and GMO food and public schools....I love you guys.
jla-x, I hope you are doing better!
also because his mom placed a high value on education. he had OUTSIDE SUPPORT. this is key.
this website design leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a news aggregator of bad behavior by charters - and it starts to get really depressing after a while.
guess they didn't teach web design or graphic design or UI design at those charter schools....
Education is a pendulum. It was focused on trades before, then swung hardcore towards academics, and now it's shifting back to trades. Could mean a pay raise for me, though.
Does anyone have a Tumblr? My son now does. Pirahna Comix.
Jla, glad to hear from you. Was wondering how you're doing. FYI I'm on the island, too, or will be when I get back from SF next week.
Went to the V.C. Morris Gift Shop. Really terrific and intimate. The entry detailing is to die for. Also a great showing of Hindu and Buddhist art. The Ganesh carved in wood from the 17th century was $45k. I got two. Working on a tour of Greene and Greene's Thorsen house on Tuesday. And lots of lovely Victorian details everywhere of course. Also saw the Diebenkorn exhibit at DeYoung. Great show, good museum, awful building.
Continuously impressed by how well things are managed here. The Muni buses have bike rackes on the front - and they get used. Signage is generally very clear and consistent, so much so that you really notice when it's not. In NY the attitude seems to be we'll fix it by putting up another sign (next to the 3 dozen existing poorly thought out signs).
I don't have a tumblr, but those were awesome. The nerf guns look a lot like ak47s. I think your son would love my animation class. You should download Pencil for him. It's free.
Miles, are you still in SF? Did you see Nervi's Saint Mary of the Assumption yet? Please do. It's sublime.
Thanks, Sarah. When you make a tumblr they ask you to follow five people. I don't know five people on tumblr yet…
i am indeed from winnipeg (which is not actually a shithole, honestly), but lived on the east coast for awhile. i can mimic the accent very poorly.
when we were in high school some guy came traveling through talking about future shock and such. He said to be careful how we educate ourselves cuz we will have several careers in our lifetime. i think he was saying to stay flexible and don't get too involved in planning our lives cuz the world didn't work that way anymore. So far he has been pretty much right on.
I'm following the Piranha now, damn mean ass piranha, blowing up Dolly's and drinking all the coffee.
Donna, those piranha comics are great, I'm a follower. Be careful what you follow on Tumblr for your son's sake. There is a lot of NSFW content on Tumblr that is pretty easy to tumble into.
I've had at least 2 careers depending on how you count. Well, more like I combined a few careers. It's awesome, and I agree it's the future. And I am sure Winnipeg is a very nice city. Actually, I did some researching, it looks interesting, didn't realize it was that big.
Loooove the piranhas. Kids like Angus give me hope that regardless of the overall trends, there are students who are going to do amazing things if we keep our eyes open enough to see them doing it.
Miles, are you still in SF? Did you see Nervi's Saint Mary of the Assumption yet? Please do. It's sublime.
Miles, the locals refer to it as Saint Mary of Maytag. It looks like a washing machine agitator. Inside, it's better. It's right across the street from tiny Japantown.
Miles, maybe you can go check out that abandoned Mediterranean style home intended for the UC president in the Berkeley Hills, assuming one can get in. It was featured on here within the last 2 weeks. It's got tourist point of interest written all over it and looks nice.
Factoid: The Royal Canadian Mint is in Winnipeg and they produce some foreign coinage!
You can obviously look up more information than this, but the basic concept is to lecture via Internet video (YouTube) at home and then have students work on assignments, worksheets, "homework" at school where the teacher can answer questions, explain concepts further, etc. in the classroom.
Isn't Winnipeg flat like Edmonton? Actually, Edmonton is flat, but has a deep river valley cutting through the middle of it, so the banks are hilly. A neighbor is from Winnipeg. She is very friendly but also nosy, and her Canadian accent, which is more about inflection than words, is thick.
You look at downtown Edmonton and wonder what the hell is in their tall buildings. Besides the standard accountants, lawyers, and financial services, they can't all be oil companies.
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