i’m riding my bike to portland!

i don’t know how this happened, but i got suckered into doing STP - an annual event where 10,o00 people from all over the world lather on butt cream, put on spandex shorts, and hop on their bike for a 200 mile ride from seattle to portland.

it was never my intent to do anything remotely serious with cycling when i bought my first bike a few years ago — a hybrid road/mountain bike for a couple hundred bucks at target. generally speaking, i would go for maybe 10 miles per ride  (15 if it was a really nice day, or if i had a lot of soul-searching to do). i would usually ride at night when there weren’t many cyclists out on the trails (the big groups that rode during the day were too intimidating), and i would usually ride because i wanted some quiet space to process dennis’s death. it was more for my spiritual/psychological health than for anything physical.

a couple months ago, my friend started bugging me about signing up for STP. every time i saw him, he’d try to get me to sign up, telling me how fun it would be, how it’d be an adventure. initially i refused — almost entirely because i didn’t think it was possible for me. 200 miles is really far. i was certain i didn’t have it in me. but he kept pushing. then i finally gave in. i didn’t come to any new conclusions, and nothing had really changed. i just simply caved.

Filed under: personal, sports

rethinking the charter school…

an interesting read from a cool education blog — here’s stanford’s credo report on the impact of charter schools on students (compared with traditional public schools). among the findings: there is a 2:1 ratio of bad charter schools to “good” charter schools.

some highlights:

The results suggest that new charter school students have an initial loss of learning in reading from charter school attendance compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools, and receive no impact in math. In subsequent years, charter school students have no significant impact in reading from charter school attendance compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools and an initial gain in math (p. 4).

The results show that in the District, Blacks enrolled in charter schools do about the same in reading and math compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools (p. 5).

Hispanics enrolled in charter schools also do about the same in reading and math compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools (p. 5).

As shown in the figure above, students in poverty enrolled in charter schools receive no significant benefit in reading or math compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools (p. 6).

Special Education students in charter schools in the District receive no significant benefit from charter school attendance compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools in either reading or math (p. 7).

English Language Learner students in charter schools in the District receive no significant benefit from charter school attendance compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools in reading or math (p. 8).

Retained students in charter schools in the District receive no significant benefit from charter school attendance compared to their counterparts in traditional public schools in reading or math (p. 9).

For students in the District, figures 8.a and 8.b show that charter schools are not creating significantly different results for students compared to their virtual peers from traditional public schools in either math or reading (p. 11).

Filed under: random

a cog in a machine

my time at the uw has taught me a lot of valuable things, but there is a lot that i’m not prepared for, including just how small my place is in the world.

most of my peers will never write a ny times best seller. most of us will never get to be the chancellor of a big school district or act as secretary of education for the whole country. instead, most of us will have an impact on a more modest scale. for me, i need to think about student x and how he’ll earn enough credits to advance in grade next fall; student y’s boyfriend drama; and student z, who needs help finding scholarship money for college. being a teacher requires you to think about one person at a time.

none of us wants to think of ourselves as small potatoes, but it can be quite difficult not to feel like a white-collared cog in an enormous machine that many (most?) feel is failing on multiple level. how could it be otherwise? there are a ton of teachers out there, and many more waiting in the wings (like me) to join a school system where around half the kids in big cities don’t graduate high school on time. the future of education in america is dependent on a system made up of millions of people, not on any single individual within it. practically everyone is replaceable in this big ol’ machine that tries to sputter forward.

Filed under: education, personal

hooray!

after two (fast) years, i am now a master of education =).

i’m going to miss the friends and faculty members at the college of education that made my experience so meaningful. i am now able to step into a crowded & chaotic classroom of youth and experience it as something not only meaningful but sacred. i’d like to think that my program prepared me to care and sacrifice for my students in a gazillion small, unsexy ways, over and over again, every day.

can’t wait to get started in september.

Filed under: education, personal

HS3

there’s been a lotta local news coverage of the teacher lay-offs in response to the $800 million of public-school funding cut by the state. most of the teachers being “RIFed” are young, energetic recent graduates who are excited to be serving in public schools but have nowhere to work. 

carrie and i have been lucky (so far). even though carrie’s only been teaching a couple years, she’ll still have her job this fall. and even though i haven’t even graduated yet, i’ll have a full slate of classes to teach, too. 

i’ll be joining the staff at health sciences & human services high school (HS3), as a general Language Arts teacher and special education teacher. HS3 is part of the coalition of essential schools, a national network of schools marked by their small sizes (high schools have less than 400 students) and favorable teacher-to-student ratios. i had the chance to do some student teaching at another CES school last spring, and was really impressed to see how far fewer students “fall through the cracks” in that kinda learning community. 

needless to say, i’m excited about working at the school because 1) i was not expecting to use my whole degree (english and special ed) right away, 2) the school is doing some  innovative things in the field of education, 3) i hear the staff is fun, and 4) it serves a dynamic, diverse community (white center).

this is exactly the type of situation i hoped to be in, and i’m amazed to find myself actually here in light of everything that’s happening. i hope by this time next year, i’ll have shown myself worthy of being brought on board.

Filed under: education, personal

i wanna indoctrinate my students

i made an off-hand remark/joke today that i indoctrinate the students in my class with my beliefs.

it was a joke, but it was only half a joke. while i want to teach reading, writing, and critical thinking skills, i also want my students to come away with a set of values & beliefs. i want them to believe racism is wrong. homophobia is wrong. violence is wrong. i want them to think critically about the american dream and ask hard questions of their history text books. this means that if one of my students writes an essay in support of hateful beliefs, i will unapologetically do everything i can to change those beliefs. 

some folks think that the classroom should be a values-neutral space. if a student writes a homophobic paper, the teacher should simply encourage that student to write it more persuasively. it’s not the teachers place to teach values. but i would respond by saying that students are bombarded with value-laden messages everywhere they turn, and the classroom is one of many discourses competing for the kids’ mind. 

so i was surprised to hear some of my classmates shocked and dismayed, and “offended” by my comments. i suppose the word “indoctrinate” created some unfavorable images in their minds, but the real contentious issue was not simply my word choice, but the idea that a teacher should not impose certain beliefs or ways of thinking upon their students, no matter how good or true those ways of thinking may be. 

certainly, i acknowledge that there is a slippery slope here, and it’s not hard to imagine how this approach i propose could go awry. my sense though is that this is how almost every single liberal arts program in the country is characterized, and i’m not certain i agree that such things can’t also find a home in high schools. as mlk jr argued, intelligence is not enough. the true goal of education ought to be intelligence plus character.

Filed under: education

happy 31st birthday dennis,

not a single day has gone by where i didn’t think of you.

Filed under: personal

so one of my students

came to school today and decided to get into a fight in the middle of class. it didn’t get too far thankfully, but it was definitely a tough way to start my day. 

i talked to my cooperating teacher today about the incident, and he informed me that:

1) she’s been violently raped by a family member.

2) she’s currently working the streets.

3) she’s involved with a lot more stuff than just a lil weed.

now, i’m wondering if showing her how to write a good literary essay is really the best way to be serving her right now.

i’m not sure what it means to be a christian teacher to her.

Filed under: education

aurgh!

talking about race and education always makes me so incredibly angry. i’m speechless. 

i need to take a walk or something.

Filed under: education

the only animal

this morning
I stood once again
in this world, the garden
ark and vacant
tomb of what
I can’t imagine,
between twin eternities,
some sort of wings,
more or less equidistantly
exiled from both,
hovering in the dreaming called
being awake, where
You gave me
in secret one thing
to perceive, the
tall blue starry
strangeness of being
here at all.

You gave us each in secret something to perceive.

Furless now, upright, My banished
and experimental
child

You said, though your own heart condemn you

I do not condemn you.

[franz wright - walking to martha's vineyard]

Filed under: poetry