Ponderable Perspectives

I have been delightfully buried in some of my very favorite books and articles addressing education challenges.  Here are some direct quotes from these readings.  They are nothing short of delectable  morsels worth every moment of pondering. Roll them around in your head like you would a fine wine on your tongue.  This is the stuff of which I base my practice.


And because y' all know by now how impossible it is for me to just drop a quote on you without my opinion (you also know how I love to pontificate!), stay tuned to future blogs because each one will be pondered upon by yours truly.  I just know you can't wait!

From The Trouble With Boys by Peg Tyre

"... perfectly smart kids develop at different times."


"Teachers also need to help boys develop emotional vocabulary."


"By fourth grade, though, children who attended academic preschools earned significantly lower grades - behaved worse - then children who attended play-based or mixed approach ones.  The boys who were best able to keep pace wit the girls had attended the child-initiated schools.  The boys who fell farthest behind the girls were the ones who had attended the academic preschools."


"Parenting has become a competitive sport."


"Boys who don't thrive in school, who disengage, and who fail to reach their potential not only are suffering assault to their self-esteem and confidence, but are setting themselves up for a life of economic insecurity."


"... using her high-powered fMRI machine, she found that boys and girls use different neural pathways to decipher simple words.  Inside the "black box" of their skulls, boys and girls use different parts of their brains to read."


"The male literacy deficit is not something that is immutable and hardwired in boys.  It turns out that schools may be teaching them wrong."

From Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn

"The underlying assumption is that there are exactly two alternatives: punitive responses or positive reinforcement, sticks or carrots, slaps or sugar plums."


"The troubling truth is that rewards and punishments are not opposites at all; they are two sides of the same coin.  And that coin does not buy very much."


"Rewards usually improve performance only at extremely simple - indeed mindless - tasks, and even then they improve only quantitative performance."


" 'Do this and you will get that' turns out to be bad news.... Even assuming we have no ethical reservations about manipulating other people's behavior to get them to do what we want, the plain truth is that this strategy is likely to backfire."


"As behaviorists carefully admit, theories about rewards and various practical programs of behavior modification are mostly based on work with rats and pigeons."


"Behaviorist's conception of humans as passive beings whose behavior must be elicited by external motivation in the form of incentives is, by any measure, outdated."


"If it does make sense to measure the effectiveness of rewards on basis of whether they produce lasting change, the research suggests that they fail miserably."


".... what is not always recognized is, first, just how utterly unsuccessful rewards really are across situations, and second, just how devastating in indictment is contained in this fact."

Ponder away.  

Closure Is A Good Thing

I get up this morning at 5ish having slept about 15 minutes the whole night.


I did some laundry and some corresponding, dressed and headed over to school a bit before 8.


I have my ID badge that unlocks the main doors, no room key as principal said it would be open, remember?


Get to school, my badge lets me in.


Go upstairs, my door is locked and as I peer in, I note that it is so full furniture from another classroom I am not sure I will be able to get to my stuff.


Luckily there is major demolition/construction going on to install write boards so I ask one of those guys to let me in.


In I go.  I took very little.  I left so much stuff and realized this is probably how my aunt felt when she was facing terminal cancer.  She just detached form her belongings.


I only took my favorite workbooks to use as examples in my university methods course, my very-own-made-up-and-invented-by- little-old-me-mediation tools.  I was about done hefting all this crap in a laundry basket and a milk crate and wandered over to the big cabinet.


And.    Was.    Horrified.


Blatantly staring at me were three gigondo clear plastic bins filled with junkie toys. One bin labeled, 500 points.  One labeled 1,000 points.  One labeled 1,500 points.  And in each bin the size of the junk items grew in proportion to the number on the corresponding bin.


I actually yelled out, "Oh know!  What the fuck?"


I slammed the doors fast.


At this point may I encourage (insist) you all refer to Alfie Kohn's book, Punished By Rewards and then have a look at Daniel Pink's book, Drive.  


So on with the morning.  I sit at Aunt Sally.  I hang on to her.  I actually stroke her solid, smoothly worn beams.  I cry.  I finally cry.  I realize I am most sad about leaving Aunt Sally.  I apologized to her for not being used last year and that I would do all I could to get her back to kids.


I schlepp my stuff (just three loads) to the front door and hear my phone ring.  Not once, not twice, but three different times.


I load the car, check voice mail and hear the superintendent called and wants me to call him back.  You read that right, SUPERINTENDENT.  Oh brother.


I come home, have a nervous breakdown, talk to Hub and a sister to get my mojo going and return the call to THE SUPERINTENDENT.


Long story short, it was a pleasant call.  We exchanged a few jokes, he addressed all points in my letter to him, apologized (yes, APOLOGIZED) for not getting back to me about the November issue.  He told me he greatly appreciated my work, he even referenced Aunt Sally.  I told him I appreciate him taking the time to call and address my concerns, I wished him well and told him I would be ready and willing  to assist the district in any way.


OK, so it was damage control.


But I will take it.  Closure done professionally.  Too bad my principal couldn't do that.


Ooooh, gotta go, I see another door opening!