Tag Archives: teaching

Becoming a Citizen

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I am still reading this wonderful book called How to Raise a Citizen by Dr. Lindsey Cormack. Today I learned that we (Colorado) are one of the few states that demands a year-long civics course to graduate. Cormack stated that the Colorado Dept. of Education “…developed a set of vocabulary, skills, questions, and content for use in the classroom.”

Unfortunately, the old joke is that the teacher that is usually assigned to teach civics is named “Coach.” That is the person who has an off-season to teach the class. While some coaches are fantastic (I can name a few my son had in middle school and high school), others are just going through the rhetoric and teaching them how to take a test. There is no passion about this subject, and the students may pass the class, but never take it to heart on how to actually be a part of the political world. They may not understand the local political system and how to be involved in it. They may not know how to even register to vote (as evidence from the last election, students showed up at the polls and realizing they had not registered to vote so were turned away). This was disheartening to many young people, and that bad experience may influence their future participation. Some schools take up the mantle and work through the process, sometimes having the County registrars show up at the beginning of the year to the school.

The other service that is valuable in our community is the Youth Advisory Board. Students from grades 6-12 can participate in local government and learn about how the system works. I encourage parents to check this out and help their children become better citizens. Yes, sports are important, but this is life-changing knowledge that will help them navigate the political world, making their own decisions on how they want to be governed. For more information, go to the City of Louisville website and check it out!
https://www.louisvilleco.gov/local-government/government/boards-commissions/youth-advisory-board

I know it’s a hard thing for parents to navigate their child’s needs at the time they need them, but parents need to be more informed and have conversations with their children at an early age on how our government should work. Kids should start learning when they are young what Democracy means. Parents, we have to step up, learn something new, and then pass it on to our children and grandchildren. And grandparents, if you are stepping in as a caregiver, stop drinking the Kool-Aid. (Look it up!) Stop giving misinformation to your grandchildren. Let the parents work with the information necessary to teach their kids how to be proper citizens. They may not agree with your views. That is their prerogative. Enough said.

I love you all and still hoping you will join me in creating peace and changes to the world!

LIFE IS AN EDUCATION-Reflections from School in the 1960s-Wonders of Math-Part III

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Memories of my junior high years were of math and socialization in the dating scene. Although I was not allowed to date until high school, I rationalized to myself that it was a silly ritual and why couldn’t we all just be friends and work together for the common goals – learning and changing the world! Madame Curie was my hero back then. The search for the perfect method interested me more than boys. I wouldn’t discover what that was all about until my senior year.

The earliest memories I have of classroom experiences in math and science were in my primary years. We used a lot of what’s now called math manipulatives in first through third grade, but students called them building blocks, straws, puzzles, and other manipulatives. I knew that I enjoyed math, but I hadn’t made any connections to the real-world problems. I still wasn’t sure what it was all about and why we had to do it. My first through third grade teachers always said that I performed well in all subjects, according to my old report cards. I have little recollection of junior high other than the girlfriend’s discovering boys before I did, and band practice. What was studied during this time was a mystery. You blank out your puberty years because you don’t want to remember them.

Magically, I would soon discover the wonders of Algebra, around seventh grade that put me in love with math and the problem-solving adventures once again! I would go inside my head and forget about the torture of the boy scene. I also loved language and took two years of French. Foreign languages came easy for me. I had a great teacher who took a trip to France one summer and brought back gifts for her favorite students. She also turned us on to pen pals and I corresponded with a French girl my age for years.

Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and even some pre-Calculus classes were the new world that I discovered, and they were like translating a foreign language. We had a trigonometry teacher who had worked on the Manhattan Project in her college years! I continued to enjoy mathematics until my senior year. By that time, my test anxiety had increased tremendously over the high school years, and this anxiety was reflected the most in this advanced math class. During this time, we students were also given lots of achievement tests. Reflecting on this, this was the first look for these teachers at some sort of standardized testing. America was realizing that they needed smarter students and standards for graduation. I never did very well on those tests. No preparation was ever given before these tests. We just had to get out of class and go take the test. I usually felt like a failure after this class. There was too much emphasis on standardized testing (because of lots and lots of money to be made by contractors). It has some benefits for the teachers, and the students get desensitized to these types of tests with proper preparation time and pre-testing.

It’s always hindsight that lets us know where our system has failed us. Although I still believe in the ideal of a balanced education, math and science must eventually be considered as equals in this education process, not greater or lesser. Businesses today are recognizing the importance of science and math education for their future employees. As a result, charter and magnate schools are cropping up everywhere with their sponsorship leaving behind public schools in terms of assistance and funding.

Overall, I lacked the problem-solving skills for the higher sciences and math. Even though I had excellent drill and practice skills, could remember lots of facts, got A’s in all the labs, and intuit lots of answers, I couldn’t get the “part in the middle” or how to show my work, except in my science classes. Those were pure poetry for me. Completing science projects and using the scientific method gave me a sense of accomplishment! I loved to journal, so this was a natural expansion of journaling.

Upon reflection, I feel that’s why I elected to major in psychology, then went on to law enforcement, and finally, crime analysis. I liked having some knowns and rules of the game, but I also liked the challenge of figuring out all the unknowns. Solving crimes, profiling criminals’ behavior, looking at patterns, as well as delinquency issues were puzzles that were exciting and challenging to me. It also gave directions to officers as to what to do with these guys, giving them an understanding that just locking up someone doesn’t always work. I had to prove my work through studies from the real people I constantly worked with. I was able to produce reports that validated my theories of behaviors and crime patterns, thus making predictions for future trends.

For me, this never appeared to be a math and science exercise, but a human nature puzzle. It was exciting work. It was wonderful to create something new or at least new at the time, and work with the experts in the field. Yet even though I was doing real world mathematics and scientific studies, I still had that feeling that I didn’t know it.

Perhaps, if I had been given the opportunity to learn about math and science in the way of the new methods teachers utilize today, I would feel more confident in my abilities. I would naturally assume that the classroom learning relates to the real-world experience. Perhaps today I would just assume the process was not an abstract concept. People do all kinds of math and science every day, in their jobs, in their work at home, and they do this mentally. Women just don’t believe it is math and science.

Perhaps if teachers in our day had approached subject matter as an inter-disciplinary approach, for all students, male or female, we would understand and enjoy all the subjects, even social studies. We would understand that there is math and science in every subject. There are many literature books that include math as part of the subject, woven into a beautiful story. It is as much as part of our lives as the liberal arts are. We don’t need to swing radically to absorbing only math-related subjects. And we should not swing radically in the other direction that excludes math-related information. Reading and literature must blend with math and science to create a so-called well-rounded education.

What I have learned in my experiences is that some teachers are excellent blenders of theory and hands on experiences. Some just know the drills. All front-line educators should be given the resources and time opportunities to combine fact learning with experiential learning. Students should work individually on projects and explore and expand the limits of individual thinking. Admittedly, cooperation is important in today’s societal norms and job market. Group activities can and should be successful learning experiences for all students. Not all students are strong in a group. Some are perfectly content to let others do the work, and we all know that a strong leader always emerges. There needs to be accountability in the group settings so that every individual participates and learns the lesson being taught. Individual creativity is crucial to individual growth, and individual growth leads to new discoveries and the development of new ways of thinking and doing.

Stay tuned for Part IV tomorrow-the final installation of this story!

Love and hugs to everyone who reads this blog and makes a small difference each day they live!

Note: Parts of this post were originally written for a graduate level class in the late 1990s. Some teaching methods have improved over the last two decades. I would love to hear teachers respond to this blog, how they help students learn, and what the new methods are to teach in an integrative learning environment. Thanks to all teachers who are dedicated to the craft in these trying times!

LIFE IS AN EDUCATION-Reflections from School in the 1960s-Part II

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School in the 1960s was a combination of what we saw as ancient teachers who instructed our mothers and relatives – FACTS are FACTS! – and an introduction to innovative ideas from a student teacher who came out of the university for a semester. The old-school teachers taught facts and memorization. The exciting new teachers had a broader base in mathematics and science. Although we had some wonderful literature and art teachers in our midst, the math and science teachers were lacking.

There were no computers or calculators. All the calculations had to be done by hand. We still had slide rules in science! The early calculators were large and expensive and most of the rural areas didn’t have the equipment. I finally bought my first calculator which only did basic computations in my second year in college. It was a Texas Instruments SR10 which cost over $100.00 (a lot of money for me when you considered I made $2.50 an hour at my part-time job and gasoline was $1.00 a gallon)!

Since my primary education years, the drill and practice routine continued through high school. While I think some of these exercises are important, math and science must be as exciting to the student as the arts were in those days.

My curious nature kept me excited about all subjects, so I embraced and loved the research side of things, especially after high school. I competed in the local and state science fairs for two years in high school. The trip to the State Science Fair was great because you got out of school for the week! Although I never won first prize, I placed third in my area for my project, Crystals and Crystallization, and got to meet all the kids who were just like me! It was an exciting time. Years later, when I saw the movie October Sky, I would remember the feelings Homer had in participating in science in the making! Those were my people.

Years ago, I talked to my mother a lot about my dreams and read the things she had collected over the years. I read voraciously and would live in the library if I could. In one of my primary report cards, my mother commented that I would always bring my books home and read them to all members of my immediate family and my mother’s sisters who lived on the same road. Each time I went to the library and checked out a book, I would run up the road and read it to the aunts. They were my mentors during those primary years.

I was also in the band (since fifth grade) and played the clarinet. We had a small orchestra and performed concerts each year during Christmas and at the end of the year. Thinking back to those days, I was simply good at reading music and had rhythm. I don’t know if I could have gone on and created musical compositions or studied music as my lifetime achievement. But today, I have attended concerts put on by the middle school, high school, university, or even to the Denver symphony and relived those blissful memories in the performances these amazing people can give to us. My appreciation for music is the same even if I lapsed in my own practice.

In the Deep South (in my day), things move a little slower, unless you are living in a major metropolitan city. In my neck of the woods, I was a small child in a large world. I lived out in the country, far away from even the small cities, where my girlfriends lived. If I wanted to go anywhere for parties, I had to beg for rides from them or someone who could drive. This became disconcerting when I had dedicated events at school. It was up to me to get there most of the time.

I remember that I really disliked social studies and history – these classes were simply a lot of fill in the blanks. The athletic coaches usually taught these classes, and they weren’t always the best choice for these subjects. There was no excitement in learning about dates and battles and learning facts for tests. I didn’t get great grades in those junior high years (but who does?). I wanted more and would not revisit these subjects with any interest until my senior/adult years. (My husband says I am like every old man talking about books from the world wars. It is one of my current fascinations, and it is not just about the dates! But, more on that later!)

What I do remember of my junior high years was that it was a period of awkwardness and socialization. When the hormones kick in, the brain functions on a totally different level! Our parents were not as prepared to deal with these subjects, and we believed that they never really understood what we were going through.

Today, these feelings are still there. Children are just going through them in a very loud and public way. They turn to the media because sometimes parents just don’t know how to listen to them. They become more isolated because of this same media and their lack of social skills. They believe the media presence instead of the adult. Most parents have been given a certain societal mold by their parents of what their children should conform to. Realistically, parents must change their thoughts and learn to accept what is put in front of them and what their child is becoming. However, having said all of that, I do think parents should also be given a little more credit than what we gave our parents. They are more informed today due to that same media and open discussions. So, this cranky old one would like to give you young people some advice. We sometimes have more knowledge about these subjects than you give us credit for! It’s okay to listen to us about some things that are important to you.

It is my hope that we recognize what teenagers are going through today and have open and honest conversations about who they are inside. Acceptance is hard if your child is different than the norm. It takes time, but you can do it if you are open-minded and don’t let your past cloud your judgement. So read, learn, and talk about these subjects before they leave the nest. I send love out to the universe and hope you can all reach the stars!

-Stay tuned about socialization and more on math in Part III!