On CPTV, when they need money, they make an appeal on the air. Then some big donor promises to give a big chunk of money, but only if other donors make contributions to match their promise.
I have found it interesting that some politicians seem to think that money in the form of tax breaks is good, but money spent on government programs is a black hole. News flash--probably more of the goverment spending goes back into the economy. Government workers pay mortages and purchase groceries, all the paper for the paperwork has to be bought, which helps employ paper mill workers, lumberjacks, truck drivers, etc. So, both tax cuts and government spending stimulate the economy.
However, at this point we all probably recognise that the government is in bad shape--almost as bad as the recent unemployed college graduate who has acquired $100K plus in student loans in hopes of enhanced future earnings. If, as a country, we don't learn to match expenditures with revenues, we are in for major troubles in the future. Denial is not just a river in Egypt (and look what's happening there).
On one of my visits to my wife's homeland, Greece, I visited a small village on the Mani peninsula. One morning, while enjoying a coffee at the zaharoplastion, I observed a shopkeeper sweeping up in front of his store. She swept up all the dire and garbage . . . and then swept it in front of the shop next door and went inside for a day of business. About 20 minutes later the adjacent shopkeeper came out with a broom and swept up all the dirt and garbage and deposited it back in front of the original shopkeepers storefront. I suspect that these people might have a rosy future in American politics (if they could get a visa).
Our "shopkeepers" in Washington behave in a similar manner. Republicans want to "put more money in the pockets of the people" (with the people with the biggest pockets getting the most money) by cutting taxes (reducing government revenues) and getting back to even by cutting spending (which takes money out of the pockets of people and reduces important services). Democrats want to increase (restore) taxes and pay lip service to spending cuts. They argue back and forth about which approach is right and get nothing done.
So, here's the pitch. Create a matching program. Every dollar saved by a spending cut has to be matched by a dollar of increased tax revenues. Everybody gets to feel the pain of coming to terms with our profligate ways. Both actions are deflationary, so we need to exercise caution about how rapidly we proceed, but proceed we must. Both shopkeepers have to dispose of the garbage--not just sweep it to the other side of the isle.
This idea probably makes too much sense to work in Washington, though how we keep electing fools who won't pick up the garbage is beyond me.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken – A Disciplinary Journey
by Curtis Brand
A weary traveler, clothing torn and legs bleeding from the thorns and thistles encountered in the disciplinary wilderness, stumbles along the road. Overwhelmed by the challenges of unruly students, the traveler wanders the world in search of effective techniques that he can use to instill discipline in his charges.
On his journey, he has sat in the presence of many self-proclaimed prophets and listened to their alluring words. Alas, they have all been false prophets, for, despite following their teachings, his disciplinary problems still remain problematic and his quest unfulfilled. His quest is to find the True Prophet of Discipline, to sit at the feet of the Prophet, and to learn the secrets of taming the souls of children.
By the side of the road, dressed in a robe of regal blue, eyes concealed behind dark glasses and fingers drawing soulful music from the strings of a guitar, sits an older man. His eyes are dim and sightless, but his hands nimble. As the traveler approaches, his spirits lift, for finally, he believes, he is in the presence of the Prophet.
"Are you, good sir," the traveler asks, "the True Prophet of Discipline, for I have roamed many a mile to find you?"
"Well," replies the elderly sage, "I am a blues singer. I guess that kind of makes me a prophet. 'Round here I'm known as 'Blind Discipline'."
"But are you the True Prophet of Discipline?" questions the traveler.
"Close as anyone's ever going to get," responds the Prophet, striking a few minor cords.
"At last!" exclaims the weary wayfarer with jubilation. "I once was lost but now am found! Please, Master, answer for me these nagging questions."
"I suppose," replies the Prophet, his fingers deftly executing pentatonic scale arpeggios as he sits, blind and knowing, before the expectant traveler.
The wanderer begins. "When I am trying to teach a lesson to my class, some of my students don't pay attention.
Blind Discipline raises his hand, motioning to the traveler to stop. "Perhaps this describes your situation," he says. He lays down a lick and then begins to sing:
My whole class
Got no motivation,
Driving me crazy
With the things that they do.
Teach me some techniques
That will be my salvation.
Come on, Oh Prophet
I'm depending on you.
When I hear the school bell ringing
My hands begin to sweat,
But the promise of discipline has my heart singing.
I'll master those street imps yet.
"Yes, Master, that's it exactly" exclaims the traveler, feeling both validated and understood. "Let me repeat the question. When I am trying to teach a lesson to my class, some of my students don't pay attention. They will pass notes among themselves, whisper, and fool around. I can't get them to do what I want them to do? What am I to do?"
The Prophet pauses for a moment, gazes unseeingly skyward, and then speaks in a knowing voice. "This is what we call the do-do question. Making students do what you want them to do but what they don't want to do is as simple as pushing a rope."
The prophet reaches within his flowing robe and draws forth a length of rope. With a supple flick of his wrist, he lays the rope out on the ground before the traveler. "Just grasp this rope and push it across the road," he instructs.
The traveler takes hold of the rope with both hands and, as instructed, attempts to push the rope. He pushes this way and he pushes that, grunting and groaning and toiling with such energy that he works up quite a sweat.
"Well?" the Prophet asks. "How's it going?"
"I am not encountering success, master," the disciple responds in a halting voice, ashamed by his lack of accomplishment. He changes his grip and tries one last time. He sighs, and his shoulders slump in defeat. "No matter how hard I try, I end up with the same results. When I try to push the rope, it simply folds up and goes nowhere."
"You must be holding the rope incorrectly," states the Prophet, mildly exasperated at his new disciple's incompetence. "Unfortunately, since I am blind, I cannot provide you with specific corrections required to improve your rope pushing technique. But trust me, with intensive training, regular practice, escallating effort, the appropriate state certification,and a lengthy, unpaid supervised internship, you will learn to master the pushing of the rope. Let us move on to the next question."
The traveler, unenlightened but nevertheless still in awe in the presence of the Prophet, produces the next question. "Why are children so much more difficult today than they were when we were in school?"
"Again, allow me to rephrase the question in a song."
Why . . . can't the children
Be the way I used to be,
Because, when I was a children,
I did everything my teacher asked of me.
I did my homework all night long,
Knew all the words to the school song,
And only spoke when I was spoken to.
I sat quietly upon my chair,
And never whined when things weren't fair,
And even cleaned the lunchroom table, too.
"And the answer, Master?" the traveler inquires expectantly.
"Sometimes, my son, the best answer is a good question", responds the Prophet. He tilts his head, turning his ear skyward, and listens intently, remaining silent and prophetically inscrutable. Returning his attention to the wanderer, he says, "Now that you understand the importance of a good question, let me test your learning and ask a question of you."
"I hope I am worthy, Master," humbly demurs the disciple.
"If you have a student who is defiant and disrespectful every time you try to make demands upon him, what should you do?" the Prophet queries, and suggests three possible choices.
The disciple, brow knotted in deep thought, reviews all he has learned from the Master. Finally, his face brightens. "C?" he responds hopefully.
"C is correct," the prophet glows. "Don't you just love multiple choice exams?" The Prophet gives his disciple a supportive touch on the arm and remarks supportively, "You have proven yourself worthy to become a Prophet of Discipline yourself."
Drawing a blue robe from his gig bag, the Prophet ceremoniously drapes it over his disciple's shoulders. "Walk with me and join me in imparting the techinques of True Discipline to the weary world."
As they start down the road, the blind prophet leading, the disciple inquires, "So master, using these techniques will help teachers to better impart learning to their students?"
"Learning?" The blind Prophet gives his disciple a blind quizical look as they walk toward the setting sun. "You didn't say anything about learning. I thought you just wanted them to behave. . . ."
Learning and Behaving
In this day and age, we have no shortage of Prophets of Discipline. A vast array of articles, books, and monographs describing disciplinary techniques in a variety of scholarly, authoritative, or down-to-earth manners are available to anyone who feels lost and is looking for guidance. Without intending to be disrespectful to any of the purveyors of behavioral techniques, I strongly believe that before we start applying techniques, we need to think about exactly what we are trying to accomplish in our schools. Before we decide how we are going to deal with our students, we need to ask some basic questions regarding the purpose of our schools and what sorts of lessons we are trying to impart to our students:
· Are our schools centers for learning or are they correctional facilities?
· Are we teaching children to learn or are we civilizing the little guys?
· Are we teaching them good judgment or are we teaching blind obedience?
By not making up our minds, by not making a clear choice about the purpose of public education, we risk condemning our schools to be not particularly good at either correction or learning. In our large and often unwieldy public schools, I am struck by the amount of time and energy that is invested in crowd control. Is an orderly and regimented environment most conducive to effective learning, producing problem solvers who are creative, persistent and effective, efficiently turning out energetic learners like so many Big Macs? Or, do effective learners, like good food, require something more than mass production techniques?
Could regimentation evolve more from the needs of the institution than from the needs of the learner? Perhaps we should consider that the drive for quiet and order comes not from the demands of the learning process, but from the group based, one size fits all, mass production model of education. These children become masters of the Internet without the benefit of carefully structured lesson plans. They learn to please or aggravate adults without an approved formal curriculum. They learn about subjects they think are important in an effective and energetic manner. Perhaps we need to examine the structure of our instruction and consider that teacher dominated lesson plans, by focusing on the "what" of learning rather than on the "how," may actually interfere with the process of learning.
In the forward march of public education, many students are left out of the parade, dissatisfied, disinterested, disaffected, and often disrespectful. From disaffected students' perspective, teacher attempts to manipulate and control them are not viewed appreciatively as efforts to facilitate the learning process. Rather, these efforts are viewed and reacted to as acts of repression.
Can we be surprised that students react to this perceived repression with resentment? Can we be surprised when their resentment becomes retribution, transforming the student into an academic terrorist? Disillusioned with teachers, disconnected from schools, and disenfranchised from the learning process, caught in a cycle of repression and resentment, they have given up on getting ahead and have become satisfied with getting even.
Getting students interested in what we, as educators, think is important, is not an impossible task. If we want our students to walk faster, we can harangue them, verbally pushing them to pick up the pace. Or, we might firmly grasp them by the ear and march along faster, making it very uncomfortable for their bodies not to keep up with their ears. We can expect neither of these interventions to be particularly joyfully received, and both are almost sure to initiate a resentment-resistance cycle.
If we wish to be more effective at increasing their speed, we can simply walk along beside them, carrying on a pleasant and engaging conversation and adjusting our pace to match theirs. Then, very gradually, we can increase our pace, making each step a little more rapid than the previous one. Without applying pressure and without encountering resistance, the students will walk more rapidly. Go out and try it with a student or a colleague. It works every time. In hypnotherapy, this technique is called "Pace and Lead." First, join with the individual, meeting her at her level, and then gradually shift, bringing the person along to the desired condition. This instructional process can be applied to an endless variety of topics and lessons.
Educationally, the principle of pace and lead suggests that, in order to move children along, we first need to meet them where they are. Stated in another fashion, we need to begin instruction with subject material that is highly interesting to them and gradually move them to an investigation and awareness of the material we think they should know. We must learn how to give them enough of what they want so we can, at the same time, give them what we think they need.
What's the catch? The catch is that we need to know our students well enough to know what they want. We need to know about their world – indeed we need to participate in their world -- in order to get them to connect to ours.
I would ask you to consider the notion that effective discipline does not rely upon the external application of consequences designed to elicit compliance. We don't need to make students do something that they want to do. We need to figure out how to get them to want to do it. When desire drives activity and discipline comes from within, when good judgment is valued over blind obedience, the students develop a self-dedication that allows them to forego short-term pleasures in the pursuit of loftier goals, goals which are more difficult and distant. Viola, the self-motivated learner!
Or we can just keep pushing the rope.
by Curtis Brand
A weary traveler, clothing torn and legs bleeding from the thorns and thistles encountered in the disciplinary wilderness, stumbles along the road. Overwhelmed by the challenges of unruly students, the traveler wanders the world in search of effective techniques that he can use to instill discipline in his charges.
On his journey, he has sat in the presence of many self-proclaimed prophets and listened to their alluring words. Alas, they have all been false prophets, for, despite following their teachings, his disciplinary problems still remain problematic and his quest unfulfilled. His quest is to find the True Prophet of Discipline, to sit at the feet of the Prophet, and to learn the secrets of taming the souls of children.
By the side of the road, dressed in a robe of regal blue, eyes concealed behind dark glasses and fingers drawing soulful music from the strings of a guitar, sits an older man. His eyes are dim and sightless, but his hands nimble. As the traveler approaches, his spirits lift, for finally, he believes, he is in the presence of the Prophet.
"Are you, good sir," the traveler asks, "the True Prophet of Discipline, for I have roamed many a mile to find you?"
"Well," replies the elderly sage, "I am a blues singer. I guess that kind of makes me a prophet. 'Round here I'm known as 'Blind Discipline'."
"But are you the True Prophet of Discipline?" questions the traveler.
"Close as anyone's ever going to get," responds the Prophet, striking a few minor cords.
"At last!" exclaims the weary wayfarer with jubilation. "I once was lost but now am found! Please, Master, answer for me these nagging questions."
"I suppose," replies the Prophet, his fingers deftly executing pentatonic scale arpeggios as he sits, blind and knowing, before the expectant traveler.
The wanderer begins. "When I am trying to teach a lesson to my class, some of my students don't pay attention.
Blind Discipline raises his hand, motioning to the traveler to stop. "Perhaps this describes your situation," he says. He lays down a lick and then begins to sing:
My whole class
Got no motivation,
Driving me crazy
With the things that they do.
Teach me some techniques
That will be my salvation.
Come on, Oh Prophet
I'm depending on you.
When I hear the school bell ringing
My hands begin to sweat,
But the promise of discipline has my heart singing.
I'll master those street imps yet.
"Yes, Master, that's it exactly" exclaims the traveler, feeling both validated and understood. "Let me repeat the question. When I am trying to teach a lesson to my class, some of my students don't pay attention. They will pass notes among themselves, whisper, and fool around. I can't get them to do what I want them to do? What am I to do?"
The Prophet pauses for a moment, gazes unseeingly skyward, and then speaks in a knowing voice. "This is what we call the do-do question. Making students do what you want them to do but what they don't want to do is as simple as pushing a rope."
The prophet reaches within his flowing robe and draws forth a length of rope. With a supple flick of his wrist, he lays the rope out on the ground before the traveler. "Just grasp this rope and push it across the road," he instructs.
The traveler takes hold of the rope with both hands and, as instructed, attempts to push the rope. He pushes this way and he pushes that, grunting and groaning and toiling with such energy that he works up quite a sweat.
"Well?" the Prophet asks. "How's it going?"
"I am not encountering success, master," the disciple responds in a halting voice, ashamed by his lack of accomplishment. He changes his grip and tries one last time. He sighs, and his shoulders slump in defeat. "No matter how hard I try, I end up with the same results. When I try to push the rope, it simply folds up and goes nowhere."
"You must be holding the rope incorrectly," states the Prophet, mildly exasperated at his new disciple's incompetence. "Unfortunately, since I am blind, I cannot provide you with specific corrections required to improve your rope pushing technique. But trust me, with intensive training, regular practice, escallating effort, the appropriate state certification,and a lengthy, unpaid supervised internship, you will learn to master the pushing of the rope. Let us move on to the next question."
The traveler, unenlightened but nevertheless still in awe in the presence of the Prophet, produces the next question. "Why are children so much more difficult today than they were when we were in school?"
"Again, allow me to rephrase the question in a song."
Why . . . can't the children
Be the way I used to be,
Because, when I was a children,
I did everything my teacher asked of me.
I did my homework all night long,
Knew all the words to the school song,
And only spoke when I was spoken to.
I sat quietly upon my chair,
And never whined when things weren't fair,
And even cleaned the lunchroom table, too.
"And the answer, Master?" the traveler inquires expectantly.
"Sometimes, my son, the best answer is a good question", responds the Prophet. He tilts his head, turning his ear skyward, and listens intently, remaining silent and prophetically inscrutable. Returning his attention to the wanderer, he says, "Now that you understand the importance of a good question, let me test your learning and ask a question of you."
"I hope I am worthy, Master," humbly demurs the disciple.
"If you have a student who is defiant and disrespectful every time you try to make demands upon him, what should you do?" the Prophet queries, and suggests three possible choices.
The disciple, brow knotted in deep thought, reviews all he has learned from the Master. Finally, his face brightens. "C?" he responds hopefully.
"C is correct," the prophet glows. "Don't you just love multiple choice exams?" The Prophet gives his disciple a supportive touch on the arm and remarks supportively, "You have proven yourself worthy to become a Prophet of Discipline yourself."
Drawing a blue robe from his gig bag, the Prophet ceremoniously drapes it over his disciple's shoulders. "Walk with me and join me in imparting the techinques of True Discipline to the weary world."
As they start down the road, the blind prophet leading, the disciple inquires, "So master, using these techniques will help teachers to better impart learning to their students?"
"Learning?" The blind Prophet gives his disciple a blind quizical look as they walk toward the setting sun. "You didn't say anything about learning. I thought you just wanted them to behave. . . ."
Learning and Behaving
In this day and age, we have no shortage of Prophets of Discipline. A vast array of articles, books, and monographs describing disciplinary techniques in a variety of scholarly, authoritative, or down-to-earth manners are available to anyone who feels lost and is looking for guidance. Without intending to be disrespectful to any of the purveyors of behavioral techniques, I strongly believe that before we start applying techniques, we need to think about exactly what we are trying to accomplish in our schools. Before we decide how we are going to deal with our students, we need to ask some basic questions regarding the purpose of our schools and what sorts of lessons we are trying to impart to our students:
· Are our schools centers for learning or are they correctional facilities?
· Are we teaching children to learn or are we civilizing the little guys?
· Are we teaching them good judgment or are we teaching blind obedience?
By not making up our minds, by not making a clear choice about the purpose of public education, we risk condemning our schools to be not particularly good at either correction or learning. In our large and often unwieldy public schools, I am struck by the amount of time and energy that is invested in crowd control. Is an orderly and regimented environment most conducive to effective learning, producing problem solvers who are creative, persistent and effective, efficiently turning out energetic learners like so many Big Macs? Or, do effective learners, like good food, require something more than mass production techniques?
Could regimentation evolve more from the needs of the institution than from the needs of the learner? Perhaps we should consider that the drive for quiet and order comes not from the demands of the learning process, but from the group based, one size fits all, mass production model of education. These children become masters of the Internet without the benefit of carefully structured lesson plans. They learn to please or aggravate adults without an approved formal curriculum. They learn about subjects they think are important in an effective and energetic manner. Perhaps we need to examine the structure of our instruction and consider that teacher dominated lesson plans, by focusing on the "what" of learning rather than on the "how," may actually interfere with the process of learning.
In the forward march of public education, many students are left out of the parade, dissatisfied, disinterested, disaffected, and often disrespectful. From disaffected students' perspective, teacher attempts to manipulate and control them are not viewed appreciatively as efforts to facilitate the learning process. Rather, these efforts are viewed and reacted to as acts of repression.
Can we be surprised that students react to this perceived repression with resentment? Can we be surprised when their resentment becomes retribution, transforming the student into an academic terrorist? Disillusioned with teachers, disconnected from schools, and disenfranchised from the learning process, caught in a cycle of repression and resentment, they have given up on getting ahead and have become satisfied with getting even.
Getting students interested in what we, as educators, think is important, is not an impossible task. If we want our students to walk faster, we can harangue them, verbally pushing them to pick up the pace. Or, we might firmly grasp them by the ear and march along faster, making it very uncomfortable for their bodies not to keep up with their ears. We can expect neither of these interventions to be particularly joyfully received, and both are almost sure to initiate a resentment-resistance cycle.
If we wish to be more effective at increasing their speed, we can simply walk along beside them, carrying on a pleasant and engaging conversation and adjusting our pace to match theirs. Then, very gradually, we can increase our pace, making each step a little more rapid than the previous one. Without applying pressure and without encountering resistance, the students will walk more rapidly. Go out and try it with a student or a colleague. It works every time. In hypnotherapy, this technique is called "Pace and Lead." First, join with the individual, meeting her at her level, and then gradually shift, bringing the person along to the desired condition. This instructional process can be applied to an endless variety of topics and lessons.
Educationally, the principle of pace and lead suggests that, in order to move children along, we first need to meet them where they are. Stated in another fashion, we need to begin instruction with subject material that is highly interesting to them and gradually move them to an investigation and awareness of the material we think they should know. We must learn how to give them enough of what they want so we can, at the same time, give them what we think they need.
What's the catch? The catch is that we need to know our students well enough to know what they want. We need to know about their world – indeed we need to participate in their world -- in order to get them to connect to ours.
I would ask you to consider the notion that effective discipline does not rely upon the external application of consequences designed to elicit compliance. We don't need to make students do something that they want to do. We need to figure out how to get them to want to do it. When desire drives activity and discipline comes from within, when good judgment is valued over blind obedience, the students develop a self-dedication that allows them to forego short-term pleasures in the pursuit of loftier goals, goals which are more difficult and distant. Viola, the self-motivated learner!
Or we can just keep pushing the rope.
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