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2006/1/15 In praise of lawyersYes, you read that correctly: in PRAISE of LAWYERS! If you're thinking about all those lawyer jokes that are still (sadly) so popular, I hope you are at least not thinking lawyers are really like that.
My appreciation for lawyers began when my middle daughter enrolled in law school. Law school is not for dummies, so please erase the phrase "stupid lawyers" from your vocabulary. The classes are hard; the competition even harder. Teaching is usually (maybe always?) the Socratic method, which puts the student on the spot, forces him/her to think, rethink, and then think again. Nuances are important, both of thought and of speech. These students not only have to think deeply, they must also be able to express those thoughts in clear, precise language.
Not much looked like fun in the law school experience, but there was some, and that came in the form of Moot Court. If you're not familiar with the term, just think "pretend court." Students argue cases representing one side, then the other, before judges at competitions all over the country. When Diana's team was in Chicago, I had the sheer joy of watching her perform. (And this really is performance art.) Not much thrills a parent as much as seeing one of our children do something well, and Di really excelled at Moot Court. In the Chicago competition, she was named "Best Voice."
Even more fun than watching the competition was getting to hang out with the team. Watching these bright young people discuss virtually anything with skill was more wonderful than I can describe. Law school had trained them already (they were 2nd years) to be able to think logically and to express themselves cogently. These discussions were at a higher level than any I had heard in years, maybe ever. They were ALL so intelligent, so articulate, and so relishing what they could do with their minds,that I found myself wishing all students could spend some time in law school.
Public schools are always worrying about how to teach students to think. Maybe they could add a mandatory law class to the curriculum. I guarantee it would go a long way towards making that happen.
Cogito sum!
2005/11/4 Math... do you love it or hate it?I've never met anyone who didn't have a strong opinion about math. It's truly one of those love it/hate it, but no in-between-opinion subjects.
Our Emily struggled with math all through first, second, and third grade. "D" was her standard grade, and if anyone even mentioned the word MATH, she immediately said, "I hate math."
First report card of the year just arrived, and Emily received an "A" in math! Celebration city!!!!
So, what happened? Noel spent 20 minutes almost every day of summer teaching Emily math...the old fashioned, just plain arithmetic kind. Our school system uses a very sophisticated new math approach to teaching this subject. It's very difficult to understand; I know, I tried. And I'm one of those people who likes math. I received Regents Honors (a program in NY State) for math in high school, earned high grades in college calculus, and I still couldn't quite get the 2nd grade math in our local school. I know, I know, it's meant to teach children the BIG picture about math. Great idea...once they've mastered some arithmetic. So, the work Noel did with Em this summer did the trick.
I just shake my head in wonder at our schools: how they struggle to find just the right curriculum; how, over and over, they miss the point. These kids are only 7, 8, 9 years old, for Pete's sake. They don't need charts, numbers that have to be moved around with arrows to regroup, or whatever they're calling it now. They struggle with that, and no one explains that if you have 12 apples and give 3 of them away, you have 9 apples left.
Anyway, this is Em's first really good report card and she is bursting with pride. Hooray, Emily!! 2005/8/30 KindergartenWith the beginning of the school year upon us, it's an easy trip in memory to my own school days. This photo was taken of my kindergarten class, school year 1947-1948.
I remember very little of kindergarten. Mostly what I remember is that it was in that HUGE building at the top of the hill. We walked, of course, Lois and me, the inseparables. I don't remember the walk, but from what my mother has told me, Lois and I didn't do it straight through, preferring a wandering route that typically got us to school late. Let a child try to get away with that now!
In the photo (there's a larger version below on the page, in my blog photos) , Lois is 2nd from left in middle row; I'm far right in the back row. Just in front of me was our other best friend, Linda. She lived practically next door to the school so wasn't able to participate in our wandering journeys, but the three of us were good friends all the same.
The first thing I noticed when I looked at this photo was the small class size. The only classes that have only 12 students these days are the special education ones. And even those often have more. Wouldn't the kindergarten teachers of 2005 give their right arms to have such a small class? My grandson was in kindergarten last year. I think there were 21 in the class, considered a "small" class by current standards. But that is a whole lot of five year old energy and cluelessness.
I think our class was the first kindergarten one for Coeymans Elementary School. I know for sure my older sister did not attend one. The idea of kindergarten was to help children get ready for the more academic school by first teaching them how to function in groups; how to respond to a non-parent authority figure; how to line up!
The kindergarten I observed through Austin last year was quite different. The academic stuff is already a major part of their young lives. It's not enough to know your colors any more; 5 year olds need to print their names and know their home addresses. I'm pretty sure we didn't. Actually, I still don't know the address of my childhood home. It was just a house on South Main Street. Did we even have house numbers? Everyone knew where I lived.
Austin had to learn to count to 100 in kindergarten! I remember learning that in first grade---and worrying half to death over it. How do you know that after 19 comes 20? All those nine-to-zero transactions threw me for the longest time. And I was a year older.
Sometimes kindergarteners even get homework....to me that is obscene. Homework, at least through third grade, should consist of milk and cookies and a good romp outside. Then maybe they can help set the table or go hang up their clothes.
Teachers tell me that our students now face a more complex world; that they need every minute of academics that can be shoveled down them or they will not do well in life. HA HA HA How can people who spend so much time with children get such nutso ideas?
In Michigan, and probably everywhere else, the Legislature makes a lot of the rules and regs governing education. Thus the statewide disaster known as the MEAP test---Michigan Educational Assessment Program. What a laugh. The purpose, allegedly, was to hold schools accountable. Sure. And no one, but no one was ever to "teach to the test." But, funding depends upon those test scores, so guess what happened? Teachers had to learn to teach to the darned test. How is this educational?
Hmmm, I can see I'm about to start (start??? )ranting and raving about one of my pet peeves, so I'll just stop right here.
But, geez, can't we do better?
2005/5/22 College GraduationIn the state of Michigan, only 25% of the adult population has a college degree. My son-in-law became one of that group today. The graduation ceremony, which ended about 30 minutes ago, moved me to tears more than once; first, when the students and staff processed in to "Pomp and Circumstance." Someone once told me there is only one funeral. After that, they are just repeats, echoes of your grief reawakened. I think it is the same for graduations. Repeats and echoes. Only this time, it is joy that is reawakened; that joyful remembrance of others' graduations. In my case, on a personal level, that is actually only my middle daughter's, as I refused to attend mine for either BA or MA. (I'm not what you'd call a ceremonies kinds of person.) But I also have professional remembrances. At one time my job called for attending adult education graduations. Watching person after person who is the first in her/his family to earn a diploma is almost unbearably sweet. Some of those same people were on the stage today. And of course, I have the high school graduations of all three of my daughters to recall. Vicarious joy is almost the best kind; for a parent it's a chance to feel everything twice. Their pride, my pride; their joy, my joy; their triumph, my triumph. The second time I was moved to tears was when one of the speakers thanked his parents for coming all the way from Zimbabwe to attend his graduation. What strength of family that indicates. So many speakers thanked their mothers; students from the USA, India, Africa, Mexico------all saying almost the identical words. "Mother" is powerful, apparently, in any language, any country. How affirming.
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