We Still Have That? – Quarter Grades

Date: May 1, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: Uncategorized, We_Still_Have_That
Comments: 3 Replies

Bill Ferriter stole my thunder here with his wonderful post, Are Grade Utterly Useless, but as I mentioned in the first post of this series, it’s time to think a bit about grades.  I hope you take some time to read Bill’s post and perhaps between his and mine we combine to make some sense… or more likely, I am able to add a tiny bit to what Bill had to offer, because he was spot on with his post.

What is so magical about 45 days?

Why, at the end of 45 days do we label a kid an A, B, C, D or F?

Why do we tell kids on day 46, “okay, start over”?

In addition to Bill’s three points, 1. Learning stops 2. Self assessment is forgotten and 3.  Grades mask understanding (or lack thereof) I would like to add one more demon of quarterly grades: they count.

I am not naive enough to think that our system can be changed to the point where we can eliminate grades all together (can we?) but what bothers me most about quarter grades is that there are serious ramifications if students don’t progress at the rate we set by arbitrarily picking the end of the quarter.  Earlier this year, I wrote about the fact that the school my kids attend changed the date of the end of the quarter due to some snow days, but each year, we decide that every forty five days (or sixty if you are trimester) we are going to create a permanent record of student learning.  We choose the dates when kids are supposed to be learned.

Why?

What if it takes me 46 days to understand the quadratic formula?  What if I’m suffering from a illness for the first 60 days of school, or fall victim to unfortunate home circumstances during the 3rd quarter?  What if things go well for three quarters, but during the last 30 days of school the work becomes much more challenging?  What if I need 200 days to understand Physics?

My issue isn’t grades per se*, my issue is the arbitrary nature of picking dates and making impactful judgments on those dates.  We continue to fall into the trappings of time.  By issuing grades on specific days, we are really just saying that this the grade that was earned on this date, not that the student wasn’t capable of earning a different grade if given the opportunity to change the date, and that grade we issue on the date we chose, counts forever on our students’ record, even if it may not accurately reflect their true abilities.

Related Posts:

We Still Have That? – Attendance Failure
What’s So Magical About 70?
Grades as a Byproduct.

 

*When we give assignments in the last week of the quarter to help raise grades, we are cheapening our product.  I once worked with a teacher who assigned a crossworld puzzle on the final days of the quarter awarded 100 points for its completion to give students the opportunity to “raise their grade”.  For those who did, their grades rose slightly, but the one student who did not, lost an entire letter grade.  He didn’t suddenly go from a very good student to not.  He simply forgot to do his homework.  His quarter grade in no way reflected his abilities.

Later I will repost my post from SmartBlogs which will be post #3 in this series, but after that I will tackle the Carnegie Unit.

 

We Still Have That? – Attendance Failure

Date: April 28, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: institution, We_Still_Have_That
Comments: 7 Replies

Attendance SheetThis article about living with less, coupled with a conversation with some family members in Florida about what they would absolutely need to take in the case of a hurricane evacuation, had me thinking a bit about what is necessary in my life.   That became a bit depressing as I thought about all of the stuff I had accumulated, some nice to have, but little absolutely necessary.  Over time, however, I began to think things were no longer necessary in our schools.  That was the genesis of this blog series.

Unfortunately, like myself, schools have a lot of baggage they continue to hold on to, institutional traditions, dogmas, practices, and just plain ole stuff, that are no longer needed.  Some are talked about a lot, standardized tests, textbooks and three-ring binders come to mind.  But some, are talked about less.  Some just continue to linger, perhaps proving that inertia is a tremendous state to overcome.

This blog series, which I have entitled We Still Have That?, will focus on those traditions, practices, beliefs and dogmas that are still present in schools today, despite cultural, societal, and technological changes.  I’m not sure how many posts this will go, but I have about a half dozen in mind as I write this.  More may arise, still others may disappear as I meander through my thinking.  At the very least, I hope to trigger some thinking (and comments).

Without further adieu, post #1:

Attendance Failure

I’ve never fully understood why a student who missed “x” number of classes yet still earned a passing grade must be given an “F”.  I do believe that students need “schooling” (very loosely defined) however, I can’t resolve the following:

Jesse, I know that you got a B+ in Physics this semester, I know that you know your stuff, but because you were sick 10 times, you will be earning an “attendance F”.

Huh?  Jesse know’s Physics, but he’s failing anyway?  Isn’t the Physics teacher’s job to ensure that students are proficient?  If Jesse knows Physics, how are his absences relevant?  Maybe the question is, if Jesse passes your course with a B+ with a bunch of absences, how relevant is your class?

I know the counter arguments.

90% of being successful is showing up.

Okay, fine, but someone needs to define for me what “showing up” means these days.  Just because the majority of educators still show up at a building 5 days a week, doesn’t mean that A. the rest of the world does, or B. our students are going to.  These days, “showing up” and being “present” doesn’t necessarily mean being anywhere specific, it means doing your job. Being present in 2013 is not the same as being present in 1993.  Schools are becoming more blended, corporations are moving toward teleworking and shared “workspaces”, and experts are weighing in more virtually.  Connected technologies have redefined the meaning of “present” yet, as the world becomes more competency-based, our schools continue to focus on who comes everyday (more on that later).

We need to teach kids to be responsible.

There may be research out there that shows that attendance policies result in more responsible citizens, but I have yet to read any.  Truthfully, I think that’s a farce.  I think we coerce kids to show up to a place that they are otherwise not interested in being.  The thing is, we don’t have to coerce passion.  The 25 year old who’s passionate about being a mechanic, or a plumber, or a stock broker, doesn’t need to be coerced to go to work every day.  The writer doesn’t need an attendance policy to write.  The dancer dances because she loves to, not because its 4th period.  The snowplow driver plows when it snows, not because its Tuesday.  There is a big difference between a 15 year old adolescent still learning about commitment and responsibility than a 25 year old entering her field of passion.

They need to come to school to learn

Okay, I don’t totally disagree with this one.  I do believe that schools should be the pillars of learning in our community, but its time we admit that we can’t duplicate everything that life has to offer in our schools.  School no longer hold a monopoly on learning.  If a high school student gets to travel to a different part of the world with a parent on a business trip, we can’t duplicate that experience in our schools.  If a middle school student goes on vacation to the Caribbean with her family, we can’t duplicate that in our schools.  If a student wants to spend a week building houses for Habitat for Humanity, we can’t duplicate that in our schools.  I once had a 7th grade student leave with her family on an RV trip across America in April (through the summer).  I couldn’t duplicate that experience in my classroom.

The large systemic problem here is the way with which our schools are funded.  Funding is still primarily based on attendance.  In New Hampshire, schools funding is determined using a school’s “ADM” – Average Daily Membership.  If kids don’t show up, local schools don’t get their funding.  And, of course, NCLB, RTTT and most other federal programs (ie. funding mechanisms) are tied to attendance.  I get that.  I know that schools are tied to the attendance model for reasons beyond their control.

But, if the role of schools is to help students become more learned, shouldn’t they be funded that instead of putting funding the backs of our students’ attendance, without regard to proficiency?  Apparently, we don’t care that it takes Jesse less time to be proficient in Physics, he has to show up for funding purposes.

I can’t help but think that if we eliminated the “attendance F”, focused on proficiency, and made learning more relevant, our students would still show up.  Not because we are coercing them to do so, but because they want to do so.

 

Next Up:  Quarterly Grades

Related Post:  The Role of the Institution is to Maintain the Institution

Image Credit:  http://www.lacoe.edu/StudentServices/StudentAttendanceEnrollment/SARBPage.aspx

Reflections on a Marathon Tragedy

Date: April 15, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: personal
Comments: 11 Replies

I just need to write, so if you are in the mood to read, I’d appreciate your time.  If not, that’s okay.  Come back when you are. I’m going to ramble a bit, and there are a few different themes.  I hope you don’t mind.

It was nearly 12 years ago when the world was shaken by the 9-11 tragedies.  I remember where I was when I first learned of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.  I remember the chaos of that day, not knowing how extensively the United States was under attack.  I remember having just one TV in our school and I remember the library being closed to students so teachers could go watch news coverage on that TV.  I remember the internet connection being so poor that we waited minutes for CNN.com to refresh, if at all.  I remember the statement generated by the administration that all teachers read to their students to let them know of the tragedy and reassure them that they were safe in our school.

And I remember sending our students home at 2:15 knowing that they were not ready to see what they were going to see on TV that afternoon.

MarathonText

So, at 3:19 today when Kelli sent me this text, and I learned more about the explosions in Boston at CNN.com, I realized that my kids were going home to watch news reports they weren’t ready to see.  The difference of course, was that they didn’t need to turn on the TV.  They had their phones and were seeing reports on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Sure enough, when I got home a bit after 4:00, they were watching the local news with their devices in their hands, trying to understand what they were seeing, reading, and watching. They had already seen the videos of the explosions.  They had already seen some of the carnage.  They had already seen the images of the blood stained sidewalk.  They had already heard the first person accounts of the explosions and pain and angst on the faces of the witnesses.

Dad, is it terrorism?

Dad, do you think it’s North Korea?

Dad, they said there was no radiation, so it’s not nuclear?

Dad, how does a bomb kill you?

Dad, how do people know how to make a bomb?

Dad, why are there terrorists?

Dad, why do people do this?

Dad, what is schrapnel?

Dad, what are limbs?

Dad, why don’t they want you to travel in large packs?

Dad, you and mom ran marathons, right?

Dad, did anything like this happen at those?

Dad, have we ever been Copley Plaza?

Yes. Yes we have.  We have stood on that now blood stained sidewalk.  We have been in Marathon Sports, the site of the first explosion.  We have browsed the Apple Store nearby. We have eaten at Abe and Louie’s, the restaurant near the second blast.  We have stayed at the Lennox, the hotel directly across the street from the explosions.  Yes, both mom and I have run several marathons, including the Marine Corps Marathon just a few weeks after 9-11. Yes, I remember standing, somewhat nervously, with 30,000 other people at the Marine Corps Memorial before the race when the National Park Service helicopter flew overhead, scaring the hell out of all of us.  I have no idea why anyone would do this, I have now idea why they chose Boston, and I have no idea how we are supposed to react to something like this, other than love each other more.

I knew several people who were in Boston today.  Some running.  Some cheering.  Some who live there (including my nephew and his wife).  I am glad to report they are all safe.  But, the story of Ryan, an acquaintance of mine running for his cancer-stricken mother sent chills.   Ryan has used social media to share his marathon story for the past few months, so it appropriate that I first learned of his experience on Facebook.  Here’s what he shared:

Yes I saw the explosion. I ran by about 30 seconds before it went off. But my family, friends and my girlfriend … were standing at the explosion point when watching me run by. And someone’s watching because they were able to walk 100 feet away to the other side of the finish line before the explosion went off. We are okay but very shook, and safe at home. It stinks that this amazing event was ruined by some acts of hatred.

So to Ben, Elisabeth and Emma, I probably can’t adequately answer all of your questions.  I don’t know why Ryan and his family are safe and others are not.  I can’t understand the amount of hate that one must have to have to detonate two bombs on a beautiful day in Boston, or fly planes into buildings in New York, or park a truck full of explosives in front of a federal building in Oklahoma City. I’m sorry that you had to see what you did today.  I’m sorry that these events are becoming too common today. I’m sorry that it doesn’t appear that things will trend the other way anytime soon.

But, the next time you watch those videos, pay attention the number of people that ran toward the explosions.  Count how many people were helping others.  Notice how social media is helping us heal, helping some find temporary housing, and help connect loved ones.  Notice how this event will galvanize Boston and the greater Northeast.  Read the acts of heroism that are sure to be written and pay attention to the use of imagery to honor the casualties and first responders.

But mostly, I want you to remember that when your mom and I kissed you goodnight tonight, and told each you that we loved you, we did so knowing that somewhere in Boston there’s a mom and dad no longer able to do that because their 8 year old son was killed by a coward today.   We did so knowing how lucky we are to have you in our lives.

 

 

My Biggest Regret

Date: April 2, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: local, testing
Comments: 9 Replies

I have written this before, and I have shared this in presentations I have given, but it’s worth reflecting upon it again:

My biggest regret in education is the emphasis I placed on standardized test scores during my time as an administrator in SAU16.

I became known as the “data guy’.  Blech.  I railed against teacher generated assessments and more for the “more scientific” NWEA and NECAP test scores.  Blech.  I complimented those teachers whose students showed improvement, and pushed those whose students did not.  Blech.

As a parent, I could not care less about my children’s test scores because I know they are not true indicators of who they are.

And now, the indictments of Superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 others in the Atlanta School District for manipulating student tests in order to artificially inflate test scores (and receive massive bonuses) force me to reflect upon the culture I may have helped create.  Specifically, this quote from the indictment strikes hard:

Over time, the unreasonable pressure to meet annual APS [Atlanta Public Schools] targets led some employees to cheat on the CRCT [Criterion Referenced Competency Tests].  The refusal of Beverly Hall and her top administrators to accept anything other than satisfying targets created an environment where achieving the desired end result was more important than the students’ education.

I know that I didn’t receive any monetary benefit above and beyond my salary while in SAU16, but did I help create a culture of pressure?  Did I push to the point where anything other than “satisfactory targets” are accepted?  I recently wrote about the email alert I received to get my kids to bed early and feed them a hearty meal in order for them to be able to concentrate on their tests… did I set the tone five years ago that resulted in this thinking?

I can recall chairing a committee when I was the Curriculum Administrator of the Cooperative Middle School designed to bring the school from “Good to Great” (yes, we stole the title).  During the very first meeting, a teacher* asked, “Is this is about improving test scores?  If so, I’m out.”

I wish I asked that question more back then.  I may not be asking it as much today.

*That teacher is now my son’s English teacher…and he’s a better person as a result.

 

Related Posts:

The Role of the Institution is to Maintain the Institution
The Grand(?) Plan
Shame on Me.  Shame on You

 

Responding With Care

Date: April 2, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: Care
Comments: Leave a reply

Whether or not you are a basketball fan, you undoubtedly have heard about the gruesome injury sustained by Kevin Ware, a reserve on the University of Louisville basketball team, during the Midwest Regional Final on Sunday.  I watched it live and it took a replay or two for me to see the severity of the injury.  I don’t care to see it again.

I’m sure it took mere minutes for the video and still images to be posted on the web.  When Joe Theismann broke is leg in 1985, only those who watched the game that night saw what happened.  Very few news outlets showed the replay.  Today, anyone with an internet connection can see that video as many times as they wish.

In 1989, Clint Malarchuk, a goalie for the Buffalo Sabres, had his neck sliced open by St. Louis Blues player Brian Tuttle in a freak pile up in front of the net.  With blood spilling from his neck, Malarchuk and the Sabres trainer quickly made their way off the ice as cameras panned away.  Many spectators fainted, vomited, and it is reported that two individuals suffered a heart attack.  Like Theismann’s injury, it was rarely showed again, that is until it was posted on YouTube.

You can go find and watch each of these, including Ware’s injury, over and over again.  Not me.  I have seen each of them enough.  If this was 15 years ago, I probably would watch them again, but I’m a 40 year old dad now.  I’m a dad of daughters who swim and dance.  I’m a dad of a son who plays contact sports.  I’m a dad that once watched his 2 week year old daughter get a spinal tap, his other daughter receive four stitches above her eye, and his son lose an edge and fall hard into the boards…and not get right back up.

Clint Malarchuk’s mother said that watching her son bleeding out on the ice that night was like, “watching her son die.”  Joe Theismann told his teammates to call his mother and let her know that he was okay before he was carted off the field.  Kevin Ware’s family described the shock of watching their brother’s/son’s leg buckle on national TV and the relief when they saw him comfortable and in good spirits the following day.  As a forty year old, I have seen enough of those scenes to fill whatever appetite I used to have for them and as a parent, my heart goes to other parents who have had to witness their children suffer brutal injuries.

gty_kevin_ware_jef_130401_wgAs a human, however, I choose to remember the humanity in each of these tragedies.  To the left is my indelible image of the Kevin Ware injury.  It’s of Ware on the floor, in obvious pain, with two trainers beginning to stabilize his leg.  Knelt over Ware, patting him on his chest in an attempt to help him relax was his teammate, Luke Hancock.  Those at the scene said they could hear the leg snap.  Many of Ware’s teammates were physically ill or overcome by emotion at the sight of the their teammate’s injury, but not Hancock.  In the midst of gruesomeness, he responded with care for his teammate.  That’s what I choose to remember.  And if you do go back and watch the video’s of those other injuries, notice the trainer who, in Malarchuk’s words, “saved his life” by pinching his carotid artery shut.  Note the panic-stricken Lawrence Taylor, the New York Giant who broke on Theismann’s leg, wave immediately and emphatically for the Redskins trainers to come out.  And note Hancock join his fallen friend on the floor to offer comfort in a time of incomprehensible pain.

 

Photo credit:  http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/social-media-reactions-kevin-wares-gruesome-broken-leg/story?id=18854068#.UVpGG6tAS88

The Role of the Institution is to Maintain the Institution

Date: March 28, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: institution, local
Comments: 5 Replies

Two interesting tidbits from my kids’ school this past week.  Both understandable in nature and quite indicative of the current institutional, test-driven culture of today’s schools.

As a result of 5 late winter snow days, the 3rd quarter at school has been extended a week. If not, the 3rd quarter would be 8 weeks and the 4th quarter would be 10 weeks.  When Lizzy told me about this, I asked her if she was going to learn more as a result.  She first said she would but when pushed further, she realized that she wasn’t going to learn more, just in different quarters.  However, she excitedly said that she had an extra week to get her grade up!  So, really, the decision to change the calendar was all about evening off the quarters for grading purposes.  The cynic in me questions if the 3rd quarter was extended because folks didn’t have enough assignments to give an accurate 3rd quarter grade (if there is such a thing).

Here’s the interesting point about this, however… If Lizzy earns an “A” instead of a “B” this 3rd quarter (or vice versa) it’s in part the result of the decision to move the end of quarter date.  Here’s another way to think about it, any learning taking place during the extended week would not have effected the 3rd quarter grade before, but this year it will.

Just another example of the arbitrary nature of grades under the tyranny of time.  Quarter grades are more a reflection the work produced in an amount of time than the amount of competency attained.  I never really understood why we choose to put a stop watch on learning.  Why is a student a “B” student one week, but an “A” student the next?  Is it just because she turned in another assignment?  Did extra credit?  Does the change from “B” to “A” reflect that much more competency.

I doubt it.

The second story is one that I have heard several times during this test-crazed period we are working and trying to learn in.  Next week, Ben will be completing his NWEA testing*.  We got an email from his school today asking that all students taking the test get a good night sleep and have a hearty breakfast so that they can better “concentrate” on their testing.  I’ve received similar emails letting parents know that their children can chew gum during standardized testing because of “research that shows that chewing gum helps kids concentrate” during their testing.

The obvious question of course is:  If these strategies help students concentrate, why don’t we support them universally?

I’m trying hard to not be so cynical about the institutionalization of our public schools and I remind myself all the time of the amazing people that my kids get to learn from everyday, but when I get notifications of things such as that which I wrote above, I am reminded of how powerful the institutional machine really is.

 

*I’ve said this before, but my biggest regret as a school & district administrator was the emphasis I placed on these tests.

Curating for the “New Elite”

Date: March 25, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: Vison
Comments: 2 Replies

Another gem of a post from Seth Godin today.  You can read the entire post (long by his standards) here, but here’s the quote that stuck with me:

The curated business, then, will ultimately fail because it keeps missing this shoulder, this untapped group of talented, eager, hard-working people shut out by their deliberately closed ecosystem. Over time, the open systems use their embrace of waste to winnow out the masses and end up with a new elite, a self-selected group who demonstrate their talent and hard work and genius over time, not in an audition.

Go ahead and minimize these open systems at your own peril. Point to their negative outliers, inconsistency and errors, sure, but you can only do that if you willfully ignore the real power: some people, some of the time, are going to do amazing and generous work… If we’ll just give them access to tools and get out of their way.

Most of the school systems in which we work are in the curating business.  Our high schools select valedictorians, rank their students and give awards to the top.  Most reward students who comply with the system.  They arrive on time, turn in their homework, follow all rules, cover their books, do both the even and odd math problems, pick up the recycling, use college-ruled line paper and type all of essays in 12 pt, double-spaced, arial font.  They are on the football team, in the National Honor Society, french AND spanish clubs, are Eagle Scouts, and find time to volunteer at a homeless shelter.  And you know what…

They are great kids.

No doubt.

But so are the kids who tinker with motors in their free time, spend time in their British Literature classes drawing plans for their robots, are on sports teams, but are more interested in learning how team members interact than actually winning games, are constantly drawing designs for their first line of clothing, are writing lyrics for their upcoming album, are too busy developing apps to finish their papers on the industrial revolution, are writing the code that powers social media instead of constantly posting on Facebook, and are learning how to write a business plan and secure financing for their yet-to-be-opened small business.

All of our students have the amazing capacity to exceed expectations, but when we curate for the old elite and don’t provide the tools, resources, time, care and love to all, we all too often miss the “amazing and generous work” of the “new elite”.

That’s A Nice Bottle of Wine

Date: March 18, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: local, personal
Comments: 10 Replies

I stopped at a gas station on the way home from work today.  While I was pumping gas, a somewhat disheveled man sheepishly approached me and asked,

Sir, this is embarrassing, but I am trying to get to York, ME and I have no money, is there any way you can give me money for a gallon of gas?

I originally said no and suggested that he check inside.  When he said he had and thanked me (for what I don’t know) and turned away, I said, “hold on” and took out my wallet.  I had a twenty and a five.  I gave him the five and wished him luck.  He thanked me again and returned to his car.  I topped my tank off with seventy dollars worth of gas and drove away.

I thought a lot about that man on my drive home.  I couldn’t help but think about how humbling it had to be for him to approach me.  I thought about how stressful it must have been for him, not knowing if he would make it the next 15 miles to York. I wondered what or who was calling him to Maine.

But mostly, I wondered why I didn’t give him the twenty?  Seriously?  I had no problem spending seventy to fill my SUV, but I only gave him the five.  Why not the twenty?  It’s not a bank-buster and I spend twenty bucks all the time…

on a nice bottle of wine.
on two lunches.
on five coffees.
on ten apps.

And it would have given this man plenty of fuel to get to York without worrying about having to stop again.

In all seriousness, what does twenty bucks mean to me?  If I am short twenty somewhere at the end of my life and it results in tragic consequences, I’ve made larger mistakes than sharing it with a desperate man on a random March afternoon.

I followed Karl Fisch’s lead this past holiday season and made a donation to Kiva.  Today, I wish I remembered the following piece of advice that I got from a parent volunteer about a decade ago.

We were meeting about a relatively large community project that our middle school students were to be involved in to help bring attention to some of the challenges faced in third world countries.  We had some great ideas, but we were limited by our lack of funds.  When we told her this, she offered to pick up materials with her own money and said,

Money is just like cow shit, it’s meant to be spread.

We’re not a wealthy family, but we’re not suffering either.  I suppose there is a chance that this man swindled me out of five bucks, but I’m choosing to assume that his angst was real.  He was in a small, relatively acute way, suffering.  My regret is that I didn’t share enough.  I wish I gave him the twenty.  Actually, I wish I gave him all twenty-five.

I wish that I looked at money more like cow shit, and I wonder if I do enough to teach my kids to do the same.

 

Tangental Post Script:  There’s a really interesting article found here on living with less first tweeted out by Will Richardson.

 

The Danger of Anonymity

Date: March 11, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: communication, local, ownership
Comments: 3 Replies

My son is sick today, so I had to call his school to let them know that he was absent.  To get the school’s phone number, I did a quick google search.  While the school was the first link, the second link was the school’s profile on GreatSchools.org.  I decided to take a quick glance at our school’s Great Schools page.

What struck me was the cowardice with which “parents” have commented on the school.  You can read them all here, but here is just a taste of a few:

Well, we tried to enroll our second child in this school. We were told, “new principal”, and that there was much improvement. It turned out to be the same fetid cesspool of no learning that it was 6 years ago. This time we will pull him out sooner.

 

The administration champions mediocrity.

 

I think this school lost a lot of its already limited prestige by switching to heterogeneous classes. The school has a wonderful program for Special Ed. and other substandard students, but do nothing for those above grade levels.

 

Many teacher’s could care less about the students and do the bare minimum – they are strongly protected by the teacher’s union. There are teachers who consistently finish their last class 15 minutes early so they can pack up and leave for the day with the students.

 

his school is an abomination to the Seacoast. Better to start over. I would strongly advise all parents to discuss with the family whether to pull their kids out of this place. It is that bad.

Reading this reminded me of the school board member who used to say, “I have parents calling me all the time to complain about [fill in whatever buzzword you want here]” yet when asked about specifics regarding the number of parents or whether they were parents of school children, he would fail to offer specifics.  The real danger here is that parents (either hiding behind the school board member or on the GreatSchools.org website where they are anonymously called “a parent”) are spewing these comments without having to take any ownership and potentially modeling such behavior for students*.

Karl Fisch wrote about this years ago, but I think more than ever we need to more appropriately and responsibly model and teach our students not only how to comment on, but also participate in online discussions in an effective and public manner.  Anonymity, and the lack of ownership that accompanies it, has no place in our responsible use of connective technologies.

 

 

*There are anonymous posts from “a student”.  Assuming they are from a student, I would offer that their comments are more balanced than their adult counterparts.

Perhaps I Was Supposed to Be A Car Thief

Date: March 7, 2013
Author: admin
Categories: personal
Comments: Leave a reply

Stephen_King_Misery_coverIn his book Misery, Stephen King writes about an author (Paul Sheldon) who is trapped by his “number one fan” (Annie Wilkes). While imprisoning him, Annie reads Paul’s most recent book, Fast Cars.  Disgusted by Fast Cars, Annie makes Paul destroy his one and only draft (here’s the scene as depicted in the movie) and subsequently write a different book.

The lead character in Fast Cars* was a car thief by the name of Tony Bonasaro from Manchester (NH) High School.

I attended Manchester (NH) High School West.

Ever wonder if your somehow connected to something bigger?

Or, perhaps I was supposed to be a car thief.  

 

*In the movie the book was untitled, but in the book, King titled Sheldon’s draft Fast Cars.