Snow Paint

Today we painted with only white. I often isolate a color, offering just one to see what they come up with. The art teacher at my school did something like this with the 3rd year children and it was so festive. This is a tree in our back yard (which we so lovingly call the Charlie Brown tree) covered in new snow. The kids and I agree; this old icy snow needs to go! Looking forward to more fresh, white fluffy snow this weekend.

We spent a lot of time working today, and I took no pictures. We explored the differences and similarities in the pink tower and brown stair. Big sister used the bead stair and colored and decorated a paper to look like one for our art display.

I changed baskets for the materials (just a simple variation, to keep interest) and I'm pleased with them. The handles are so attractive to the tots, who carry them around for a while for fun before working. They are filled with lacing and beading, always a hit with the littles.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Thoughts on Tucson

This isn't an education story, per se. But it's too important to ignore.

The education angle to the recent tragedy in Tucson, Arizona is the fact that the apparent shooter recently attended a local community college. While I think it is unfair to hold Pima Community College responsible for Jared Loughner, this New York Times article and Sunday's Washington Post editorial does raise some smart questions about what could have been done differently, most notably having sought an involuntary mental evaluation of the suspect. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20.

Currently, too much of the public conversation about Tucson is about culpability and about the role of political discourse in fueling the violence. Those are possibly irrelevant or overly simplistic conversations. It is unclear if political discourse had much bearing on Loughner's decision to do what he did. Sunday's New York Times story suggests that his twisted belief that "women should not be allowed to hold positions of power or authority" may have been a crucial factor. Clearly, the accused shooter is responsible (although our justice system will make the official determination of guilt). Is anyone else? His parents? Institutions like his former community college? What about the state of Arizona for having gun laws on the books that allowed Loughner to legally purchase his weapon and ammunition? Fundamentally, taken to it logical end, the finger points directly at the collective 'us'. We have elected leaders who have shaped our current gun laws.

And that's the tougher conversation that no one in power seems to want to have: Our current laws on access to firearms are senseless and extreme when compared to other nations. Semiautomatic weapons (such as the one used by Loughner in this tragedy) and extended magazines have no legitimate place in civil society. Why could someone like Loughner legally purchase a Glock semiautomatic handgun and an extended magazine? Why should anyone be able to for that matter?

Nicholas Kristof recent op-ed in the New York Times (Why Not Regulate Guns As Seriously As Toys?) raised some pointed questions in this regard.

Jared Loughner was considered too mentally unstable to attend community college. He was rejected by the Army. Yet buy a Glock handgun and a 33-round magazine? No problem.

A few suggestions he offered:

[B]an oversize magazines, such as the 33-bullet magazine allegedly used in Tucson. If the shooter had had to reload after firing 10 bullets, he might have been tackled earlier.

We can also learn from Australia, which in 1996 banned assault weapons... [T]he Journal of Public Health Policy notes that after the ban, the firearm suicide rate dropped by half in Australia over the next seven years, and the firearm homicide rate was almost halved.

Where are our political leaders on gun control? No where to be found. They're all still playing duck 'n' cover with the National Rifle Association. Even, in Arizona, they say this incident doesn't change anything. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Of course. [UPDATE: Some lawmakers even want to make the state's gun laws even more lax. Apparently, it isn't enough that Arizona is already one of only three U.S. states that allows residents to carry concealed weapons without training or even a background check.]

Frank Rich hits several nails on their heads in Sunday's New York Times. I'll let his words speak for themselves:

Of the many truths in President Obama’s powerful Tucson speech, none was more indisputable than his statement that no one can know what is in a killer’s mind. So why have we spent so much time debating exactly that?

The answer is classic American denial. It was easier to endlessly parse Jared Lee Loughner’s lunatic library — did he favor “The Communist Manifesto” or Ayn Rand? — than confront the larger and harsher snapshot of our current landscape that emerged after his massacre....

Let’s also face another tragedy: The only two civic reforms that might have actually stopped him — tighter gun control and an effective mental health safety net — won’t materialize even now.

No editorial — or bloodbath — will move Congress to enact serious gun control (which Giffords herself never advocated and Obama has rarely pushed since 2008). Enhanced mental health coverage is also a nonstarter when the highest G.O.P. priority is to repeal the federal expansion of health care. In Arizona, cutbacks are already so severe that terminally ill patients are being denied life-saving organ transplants.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and their families. Here's hoping that some good can come as a result of this tragedy, but I'm not overly optimistic.

Martin Luther King Day, Mommy Moment Post

Click Here: Celebrating Skin Color

I'm very excited to post over at Mommy Moment!

Publish or Perish

(This was cross-posted at Rachel's Rants, Raves, and Recollections.)

I got an essay accepted at truthout. Yay! I wrote about the Obamas' decisions regarding the education of their children and President Obama's statements about that decision in the context of his administration's education policies. (A recent excellent and comprehensive review of Obama's promises on education in contrast to his actual policies can be found here.)

"Mr. President, We Want Your Children's Education, Too" went through many, many drafts and I was very pleased when it was accepted by the first place I sent it. (An aside about the writing/publishing process: Almost all of my publications had been submitted to targeted publications I know well.) I submitted the piece back in November 2010, but the editor I corresponded with warned me it would probably be a while. It happened to come out on January 9, 2010. At first, I was ashamed of its publication date, given it was the day after the shootings in Arizona; it didn't seem to be an appropriate time to be so critical of the Obama administration.

But then I found out that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was butting (yet, again) into D.C. Mayor Gray's DCPS Chancellor selection decision, urging him to permanently appoint Rhee right-hand woman and Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson, of whom he's "huge fan," and in the process by-pass a 2007 DC law which requires a rigorous review process including consulting a panel of teachers, parents, and students. Duncan also dangled the possibility of taking back Race to the Top money the District was awarded if his wish were not granted.

Besides registering my disgust with Duncan's confirmation that Race to the Top is nothing but a bribery scheme, with his interference in local affairs, and with his spitting in the face of transparent and democratic governance, I'll repeat one of the same questions I asked in the essay: If Duncan and his boss are such "big fans" of the reforms and "progress" in D.C.P.S., why do they not send their own children to them?

To those who tell me to mind my own business: Point taken. I'd be happy to. Just as soon as Obama/Duncan change course on the policies that are undermining the quality of my children's education and just as soon as, of course, they mind their own business.


UPDATE 1/20/11: A reader was puzzled about this sentence from the truthout piece:

My DCPS past, warts and all, has made me a different person than I would have been had I gone to a place like Sidwell, different in a way that seems lesser to my current eye. 

Reading it out of the context of the rest of the piece, I can see that the sentence is confusing and needs a re-write. Given the stance that I took, most readers probably knew what I meant, but I hardly want to assume that readers "probably know what I mean." Rather, I want them to know what I mean because my writing is clear. I can't go back and fix it in truthout (and there was never an interaction with an editor about clarity or wording where this might have come up) but just to be clear, what I meant was that:

My DCPS past, warts and all, has made me a different person than I would have been had I gone to a place like Sidwell. Had I gone to a place like Sidwell I think I would have been different in a way that seems lesser to my current eye.

Readers, if you ever see something that gives you pause or puzzles you or that you think may be factually incorrect, even if it's a simple typo, by all means, let me know. I value your feedback and pushback.

iPad's New Secret Tricks

 Gizmodo have produced a youtube video on their discoveries of the iOS 4.3 Beta on the iPad - four and five finger multi-touch gesture support. A pinch brings you to the Home Screen, a swipe up or down reveals and hides the multitasking bar, and swipes left or right allow you to switch between apps. Watch the Gizmodo vid for a good little demo. This will make it easier for both little kids and older users of the iPad.


It is always good to keep abreast of new developments and software updates on iPads, iPods and iPhones. Many people do not install new software updates and then wonder why everybody else's machine is doing something their one is not.

http://www.gizmodo.com

A Little Information Could Go A Long Way

THIS GUEST POST COMES FROM ROBERT KELCHEN, DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY STUDIES AT UW-MADISON.

In a new report, Filling in the Blanks: How Information Can Affect Choice in Higher Education, Andrew Kelly and Mark Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute examine the role that information can play in the college choice process. One thousand parents in five states were asked which of two similar colleges they would recommend to their high school-age child. Half of the parents were given information about the colleges’ six-year graduation rates, while half were not. The researchers found that parents who were provided information about graduation rates were fifteen percentage points more likely to recommend the college with the higher graduation rate to their child, with larger differentials for parents who reported having less information about colleges and who had lower levels of education.

The intervention shows the importance of providing salient information to the parents of high school students. However, because parents in the study were making a theoretical decision instead of an actual decision that would affect their child, they had less of an incentive to think as carefully about their choice. This might result in effects that are larger than in real life, especially where parents have evenmore information about the two colleges being compared. A logical next step would be to repeat this experiment with high school students to see if the results significantly differ. Encouraging or requiring colleges to publicize their graduation rates may lead parents and students to choose colleges at which the student is more likely to graduate, as they take this information into account. In any case, even a small effect of additional information can make this low-cost intervention sound public policy.

Snow Day, Work Day

Cardboard Playhouse, a Christmas Gift from Discovery Store

Finding similarities between materials

 New England got some blizzard action this week, and kept us home for a bit.  Never a dull moment though!  We have been saving our cardboard art house for a snow day, so we were VERY excited to get going on it's decoration.  They had dinner in there.  We even had a cookie/brownie swap with our neighbors.

Bean, age 4.5, is beginning to spontaneously notice the similarities in our materials.   I have been much more (umm...) lax in our ground rules. I'm noticing more creativity and concentration if I let them just go to it.  One of my professors once said that if things get crazy, get low.  Teacher/parent hovering causes heightened energy.  She how messy she is?  But look:  she just discovered that a bead stair is the same exact size as the triangle metal inset.  Here, she's making one for Pumpkin, age 2.5.