Leave a comment Posted on binge viewing

No to Binge Viewing

Last week, NetFlix made available to the public the complete first season of their new TV series “House of Cards.”  This meant that a viewer could watch all 13 hours of the show, one after another. And people did.

This is known as binge viewing. Sitting in front of the television for hours on end and consuming an entire season of shows. I’m sure there are people out there who used up an entire weekend watching an entire TV show’s episodes. 

Can you imaging watching all 9 seasons of “Everybody Loves Raymond”? At about 22 episodes a year, 22 minutes in length, that amounts to 72 hours. So, if you started watching Friday night on President’s Day weekend, you could be done by Monday night.  Of course, that would mean not sleeping, going to the bathroom, or living your life.
 
My wife and I did tune in to “House of Cards” mainly due to the positive reviews we read. We were pleasantly surprised at the high quality of writing and acting in the show, especially Kevin Spacey. And because it was well done, we didn’t want to watch all the episodes in one sitting. A couple of times we watch two episodes in a row, but that was sufficient.
 
It’s been nearly 2 weeks since the show premiered and we still haven’t finished all 13 episodes which is fine. Something this good evidently took time to write, produce, and edit. So why should we be TV gluttons and gorge ourselves on it?  It’s definitely not of the “Honey Boo Boo” caliber.   
 
Since so few excellent TV shows exist, viewers should savor a “House of Cards” and make it last. Too often people overdo things they like. There is nothing wrong with waiting for the next good meal, the next good vacation, or the next good TV show. Remember the old saying, “too much of a good thing”?

Leave a comment Posted on influential teacher, teaching

My Mentor, Mr. Sage

I was contacted by an author to contribute an essay to a book on influential teachers. No, I’m not one of the influential teachers; rather, I am writing about one of my influential teachers.

John Sage, my advanced 10th grade English teacher, impacted my life more than any other teacher I had. While a very good teacher, what I remember most about him has little to do with his lesson plans.

I was impressed by the way he approached his job. He was the best dressed teacher at Burroughs High School, always wearing a suit jacket, tie, and shiny shoes. His demeanor was proper; he was a gracious gentleman who loved literature.

When I was hospitalized at age 15 at UCLA’s Medical Center, he visited me twice, each time with a book as a present.

He took me to my first serious dramatic play, Jason Robards reprising his career-making role of Hickey in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.”
 
After graduating high school, we kept in touch. When he retired to a condo in San Clemente, he’d invite me down for dinner. He was a wonderful gourmet cook. When he was in the mood, he would serenade me and other dinner guests with his piano playing and singing.
 
When I was considering teaching as a profession, he patiently listened to my pro and con arguments.
 
No matter how often I saw him socially, I could never call him by his first name. It’s like one’s mother or father — it’s always Mom and Dad.
 
Years ago I heard someone say that each of us is the sum of all the people we encounter in our lives. I am the type of teacher I am today mainly because of Mr. Sage. In fact, I dedicated my first book on teaching to him, even though he died months before its publication.
 
It’s hard for me to believe that right now I’m at the age that Mr. Sage was when I had him as a teacher. And soon I will retire, and hopefully continue receiving visits from former students, as I did with Mr. Sage. I hope I do justice to his memory by writing these words.

Leave a comment Posted on veterans

Remember Our Veterans

Over the MLK holiday I took the family to visit the USS Iowa that is permanently docked down in San Pedro. Ever since it was moved here in October, I wanted to visit the famous battleship. Wanting to avoid the huge crowds that it attracted, I figured a Sunday with two NFL playoff games was a good day to go.

Since the attraction is fairly new, no guided tours are available yet. However, strategically spread around the massive ship are volunteers, including former veterans who speak firsthand about the experiences of being on the Iowa. The information these folks provide is worth the trip itself. It makes such a difference to hear from those who know rather than from those who memorize a script.

Two things we noticed right away. One was the low overhang so that even someone 5’10” would have to lower his head in order to avoid banging it on the ceiling. Also, every time you move from one room to another you have to be careful to step over each of the hatch openings.

While some of these mild hazards may be better marked in the future, it was fairly liberating to notice how little accommodations have been made so far to the ship, preserved as closely as possible to the way it was while in operation.

Walking five stories up and down the steep narrow stairs gives a layperson a better grasp of the living conditions the servicemen dealt with. Being put in the place of a soldier gives visitors an appreciation of the tough job of those who defend our country.

One of the more moving things to see is a plaque dedicated to 47 sailors who lost their lives back in 1987 due to a freak fire that occurred during a basic drill.

Sunday may not have been officially Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day, but for me it was both. Thank you to those who serve.

Leave a comment Posted on fathers, losing a parent

My Father’s Centennial

This past Christmas my father would have turned 100 years old.  This upcoming January is the 40thanniversary of his death.  Two milestones each on the opposite end of the spectrum.

My childhood Christmases had two sides to them. First, was the magical morning of seeing what Santa brought us, tearing open presents, and playing with all the toys and games.

Then, after Mom made a traditional full breakfast with hash browns and bacon, a time came when Dad told us we would have to get dressed to go to his first born’s house (from an earlier marriage) for dinner to celebrate his birthday. 

I resented having to get dressed on such a wondrous day and to leave behind all my new bounty of gifts.  But this was one of the few days of the year when we had to visit my half-sister and her family, wanting to please our dad.

My father loved being a father. He made sure his kids had all they could eat, had a roof over their heads, and presents on their birthdays and Christmas.  It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how much a sacrifice he had to make in order to provide for us in this way.

I was the last born in my family when my Dad was age 45. Smoking leading to lung cancer shortened his life, and when I was 14 years old, shortly after turning 60, Dad died.

Losing a parent at a young age is something that a young child can’t fully get a handle on due to lack of life experience.  Dad’s death was harder on my Mom, brother and sister since they lived more of their lives with him than I did.

As I’ve grown older, I think of him now and then at how he would react to certain events in my life. The memories I have of time spent with Dad seem like old TV shows I used to watch, fading with each passing year.  There aren’t that many photos of him, and whenever one is discovered it’s like buried treasure. We have home movies which have few shots of him since he was the primary cameraman. There are a few reel to reel audio tapes which has his voice on it. But most precious is a note he wrote to me when we had an argument and he wanted to apologize.

Losing a parent is never easy. I have a friend in her 50s whose parents are still living well. I’ve been fatherless for four decades. However, the 14 years of life spent with my Dad have been a flame inside me that has remained lit, and I hope to continue carrying the torch of his fatherly impressions as long as I live.

Leave a comment Posted on Maya Angelou, Public Education, students, teaching

Phenomenal Woman: Maya Angelou

This fall when my students study I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings it won’t be the same due to the passing of Maya Angelou last week.

Just as we all have to deal with the death of loved ones as we live our lives, an English teacher has to deal with the death of writers whose work inspires life lessons in the classroom.  When you teach literature for a quarter of a century, you’re bound to go through some grieving.

I had several former students come by my room to make sure that I knew of Maya Angelou’s death, almost to share in the common grief.  

What also eased my sense of loss was the framed note hanging on the wall behind my classroom desk.

A few years back during a unit I regularly teach on tolerance which includes Angelou’s first memoir Caged Bird, her poems, and a documentary with Bill Moyers, I suggested that my students write letters to the author to let her know how much her work has meant to them.   They were expressionless at first, the thought to contact a writer never crossing their minds.

So, the students wrote, the letters were sent, and soon a reply came.

“It is a wonderful feeling to know that my words have touched you and your students,” Dr. Maya Angelou wrote.  

The kids were ecstatic that such a renowned literary figure took the time to read their letters and write back.  I’m so glad my students did that while she was still living.  How reassuring it must have been for her to know how her writing about racism during the Great Depression affected 21st century teenagers.

When teaching a highly regarded literary work, there is something special knowing that the author is still alive, that a reader could make contact with the soul behind the words.

It’s rewarding to introduce students to Elie Wiesel’s Night, a memoir of his Holocaust experiences, and for them to discover YouTube videos of him speaking today at age 85.

To Kill a Mockingbird’s 88-year-old Harper Lee continues to live with her 102-year-old sister Alice in a nursing home in Alabama.

However, teaching Fahrenheit 451 hasn’t felt the same since Ray Bradbury passed away two years ago.

Also framed on my classroom wall is a signed letter from Robert Mulligan, director of the 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird” based on Lee’s classic novel.   I asked my students to write him after we spent a good deal of time analyzing the movie.  

Two weeks later an envelope arrived.

“I was truly touched by their letters and I ask you to tell them how grateful I am for their kind, thoughtful, and intelligent thoughts,” he wrote.   The students were thrilled.   Eighteen months later, Mr. Mulligan died.  

I use these examples to show my students why it is important to reach out and contact people that have made a difference in their lives, and not to let the moment pass without letting them know.   You never know who may respond. 

Writers have no idea how a reader responds to their words unless they receive feedback since writing and reading are both solitary activities.   Sending a note of thanks is a form of charity, “paying it forward” in today’s vernacular.  

True, an artist’s work lives on past his lifetime, but how much more meaningful it is having that artist living amongst us and being able to make a connection.

Leave a comment Posted on handwriting, Public Education, teaching

The Loss of Handwriting

Signature – a word that appears on legal forms and credit card transactions.  

Yet very soon that word may have to be redefined.

I’m noticing more and more of my high school students do not understand what a signature is, not knowing the difference between printing and signing one’s name.

This trend will continue as schools across the country plow headfirst into the Common Core standards which no longer require the instruction of cursive writing.   The new standardized tests will have students input their answers on computers.

Cursive writing in particular is on the way out.   Certain cultural references such as “the writing is on the wall” will have to evolve into “the tweet is on the screen.”

California is one of the states that has added wording to the standards—“write legibly in cursive or joined italics”—that guarantees some form of cursive instruction remain. I know, I thought the same thing. What is “joined italics”?

A gentleman in the California Department of Education communications department had no clue what it meant. In fact, he asked me to send him what I discovered about the phrase.   I thought about snail mailing him my cursive handwritten response, but thought it was too 20th century.

A spokesperson for Glendale Unified explained that “joined italics” is “the connection of two letters by a line so that the writing flows” but without the loops.  

While the majority of primary grade teachers still teach cursive, it’s at the discretion of the individual teacher.

Some kind of physical writing needs to be taught even if it’s printing. After all, students are still required to handwrite on Advanced Placement tests and the SATs. If a student can’t write legibly in some form, then chances are he will earn a lower score.

There are plenty of studies on why cursive writing is an important skill to teach.

Research shows that the act of continuously moving the pen to connect letters helps develop areas of the brain.

How about the skill of examining someone’s handwriting to ensure the signature is real and not fraudulent?

Sheila Lowe, president of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, says that while a person’s printing can still be analyzed, it tends to cover things up that are present and easier to detect in a person’s cursive handwriting.

Lowe also says that cursive writing helps children with disabilities and is often used as a therapy technique.

She feels that public school students will at a disadvantage since their private school counterparts will continue learning cursive.

I’ll admit that my handwriting (which earned me A’s in the third grade) has denigrated so badly that it appears to be a foreign language. As a teacher, I only print on the board knowing my students would not be able to read my handwriting.

And yet, whenever I give someone a greeting card, I take care in slowly signing my name in cursive.   The “love” may be printed, but never the name.   It just feels more personal that way.  

“Thank you” and “get well” cards and notes work best when written in cursive.   An e-card offering sympathy for one’s loss doesn’t seem human.

Maybe cursive will become a relic from the past, but so is the painting of the Mona Lisa.   Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci lived today and took a cell phone photo of the woman instead of painting her. Just because he could do it doesn’t mean that it is the finest way to capture her essence.

Leave a comment Posted on Public Education, students, teaching

Eye on Alumni

One of the wonders of working with young people is to find out what happened to them years later, and to harken back on the work I did with them.   And when you have taught for nearly a quarter of a century, there is plenty of “years later.”

I recently found out what happened to the absolute best graphic artist the school newspaper ever had, Julian Callos. He is a professional illustrator whose work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times as well as art galleries.

Then there’s Evelyn Baghdasraian who I clearly remembered telling me way back when that she wanted to become a doctor.   Well, one day my wife calls me to say that she met a pediatrician at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills who inquired, upon looking at her employee badge, if she was married to me.

Soon we were reunited, with me bringing yellowed copies of her high school work (she was another student I had both in English class and journalism).

This past week Sev Ohanian paid me a surprise visit. Outside of the shaved head, he was the same old Sev—good natured, smart mind, engaging personality—that I remembered back in 2005.

What has he been up to in the past eight years?   After graduating from USC film school and working on some small projects, he ended up as a co-producer on this summer’s independent feature “Fruitvale Station,” the critically acclaimed film based on the 2008 shooting of an unarmed black man by a white transit officer up in the bay area.

When he asked me how things have been, I lamented the declining enrollment in the school’s journalism program, about 40 percent less than when he attended Hoover. He seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Being editor in chief of the newspaper taught me how to be a leader.”   How precious it is to hear former students realize what all the work was all about.   Teachers rarely get to hear those epiphanies.

Sev graciously invited my student television crew to interview him on the set of his new motion picture shooting in Louisville, Kentucky.   You should have seen how exuberant my kids were about the prospect of flying out there and doing such a piece for Tornado TV.

These are but a few of the students who have spent a short time of their academic lives in my classroom.   No doubt there are other success stories and even more from other teachers in other districts in other states.

If I worked in another profession, I may not have gotten to know these talented young people.   There is something special about seeing them establish themselves in their younger years.

It would be oversimplified for any teacher to claim he was responsible for the success of any former student.   Can Skyline High School drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth take credit for Tom Hanks’ career anymore than a loved one can?   Yes, each of us needs the support of family, friends and teachers, but ultimately it is the individual who must do the work and persevere.

Too often, all the federal mandates, district policies, bureaucracy and incompetence piles on top of a teacher, weighing down the drive and desire to do good with students. Seeing the results of one’s work with former students melts away those burdensome layers, and you come away thinking to yourself, “It’s good being a teacher.”

Leave a comment Posted on college ready, Public Education, students, teaching

Not Ready for College

The phrase “achievement gap” is often referred to the test score discrepancies between white students and non-white students in public schools.   However, the more alarming achievement gap is between high school work and college work.

Plenty of students excel at the high school level, enrolling in advanced placement classes, and maintaining 4.0 GPAs.   Yet something happens when they go to a four-year university where nearly one-third of college freshmen end up taking remedial English and math classes.

Look at the condition of entering freshmen at all levels of colleges in California, as reported by the state’s Legislative Office of Higher Education.

Community Colleges. About 70% were not ready for college-level English in 2009; 85% were not ready for college-level math.

State Universities. In 2009, 58% were “unprepared for college-level writing or math,” with the unprepared rate at an astonishing 90% of those attending CSU Los Angeles and CSU Dominguez Hills.

University of California. Over 25% of freshmen were unprepared in 2010.

The cost of re-educating those college students is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The other problem with college students taking remedial classes is that the courses are not worth any credits meaning that it will take those struggling students longer to complete college.   Often the students who did poorly in the classes in high school continue to do poorly in those at college, even when the courses are offered online (where there is an even higher failure rate).

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s data shows that in California, almost 35% of college freshmen finish their degree in four years, 65% do so in six years.   No one is quite sure of what happens to the other one-third.

Clearly the concept of attending college and exiting with a bachelor’s degree in four years is no longer the norm.

There is plenty of finger pointing to go around. Professors accuse high school teachers of grade inflation, while high school teachers accuse professors of not making material comprehensible so more students can understand it.

Los Angeles Times reporter Kurt Streeter wrote an excellent article in August, “South L.A. student finds a different world at Cal,” about a young man from Los Angeles who struggled in his first year at Berkeley even though the student excelled in high school.   His 4.06 GPA, second highest in his high school class, sunk to a 1.7 GPA in his college freshman year.

These students are faced with assignments untried at the high school level.   For example, professors commonly assign 15-page research papers while high school teachers assign 2-3 page papers, often without any research required. No wonder there is often a disconnect between high school success and college readiness.

Back in the 1990s I was a part of a consortium of high school and community college instructors whose charge was to use career oriented curriculum as a way to reduce the “readiness gap.” Such an endeavor, usually nicknamed K-16 for grades kindergarten through bachelor’s degree, lasted as long as other well-meaning efforts—until the grant money ran out.

There needs to be a joint effort, a once a year “state of the schools” conference where leading teachers and professors meet to compare notes and strategize how best to help students so that crossing the stage at one’s high school graduation is not the only bridge they cross in furthering their education.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teacher appreciation, teaching

Teacher, er, Staff Appreciation Week

May is “thank your local teacher” month: Teacher Appreciation Week (May 5-9), National Teacher Day (May 6) and California’s Day of the Teacher (May 14).

While it is nice to have one’s vocation be singled out, it would be nicer if teaching did not have to be put on the calendar of Hallmark card celebrations. Even See’s Candies designs a Teacher Appreciation Box squeezed among the Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Flag Day assortments.

The unsaid message beneath such recognition is that since teachers are underpaid and underappreciated, scheduling a once a year time to make them feel special makes everyone feel better.

Well, here are some actual trinkets that I’ve received, each with an attached message. While well meaning, they often come across as demeaning:  

–                a penny: “we are the lucky ones”

–                a compact mirror: “you are looking at a VERY SPECIAL PERSON!”

–                a miniature fan: “you are fan-tastic!”

–                a marble: “we think you’re simply marble-lous”

–                a Cup O’Noodles “you are SOUP-er” (at least I could eat that one)

I sincerely do thank all the parents who as part of their local PTA or booster club invest countless hours into showing how much they appreciate their children’s educators. Think about the time it took for a mom or dad to print out all of the tiny pieces of papers, cut and tape each one to each trinket, and sort them in all of the teachers’ mailboxes.  

At least their efforts took more thought than when school districts send out a mass email thanking everybody as if it is just another task to be checked off on a to-do list.

The governor of Georgia once gave each teacher a $100 gift card for office supplies, quite a practical gift considering teachers spend an average of $485 out of their pockets based on a 2012-2013 survey conducted by the National School Supply and Equipment Association.

Recently, corporations have jumped onboard such as Target who sponsors an All-Star Teachers contest that coincides with this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, spotlighting 30 teachers.   Such national recognition is long overdue.

One of the best gifts I ever got came from former principal Don Duncan who gave his faculty members a coupon good for one hour off of work any day of the year (Don would personally cover the classes).   While I didn’t redeem all of the coupons I received, the gesture of allowing a teacher a short breather from the day to day energy drain of teaching was generous.

My main gripe is not with the local parents who participate in making their kids’ teachers feel good, but with the concept of prefabbed, programmed national events, a convenient way out of confronting the long-standing issues in whatever the celebration is about. An artificial annual ritual is no substitute for changing the shortcomings of the teaching profession.   These include teachers getting paid based on how long they’ve been working and not on how well they work, and teachers overlooked for their expertise whenever politicians implement sweeping education changes.

Look, we all like getting recognized for a job well done—an encouraging note, a pat on the back, even a bonus (though not in education).

But let’s put our efforts in reshaping the teaching profession, and make Teacher Appreciation Day obsolete.

1 Comment Posted on Public Education, SAT, students, teaching

A newer, gentler SAT

The high school experience includes several rites of passage for students: getting a driver’s license, going out on a first date, and taking the SAT.   Now the SAT journey has just gotten a little smoother.

Last week, the College Board, the organization behind the SAT as well as the Advanced Placement (AP) exams, announced major changes to the most feared test a teenager has to take: no more mandatory essay, no more penalties for wrong answers, no more difficult vocabulary.   In other words, the kinder, gentler SAT coming in 2016 resembles more the ACT, the SAT’s closest testing competitor that has sold more tests in recent years.

The last major change to the high stakes SAT exam came in 2005 when an essay component was added to the math and verbal sections, each component worth a possible 800 points for a grand total of 2,400.   Now, a perfect score reverts back to the Holy Grail number of 1,600.

Mention the acronym SAT to any grown-up and it sends shivers down one’s spine. After all, an SAT score is a major part of one’s college application used by admission officers in determining acceptance.

I had to go to Glendale Community College to take the 3-hour SAT, so if I wasn’t nervous enough about a test I had only heard about and never seen, I had additional anxiety about navigating my way to the library on a campus I had never visited.   Since I was the first in my family going to college, I had no older sibling or parent lessening my fears of what to expect.

Back then, few kids took SAT prep classes, and fewer took the SAT multiple times. It was a one shot deal.   You scored high, and your future was set.   You scored low, and you might as well apply to GCC before exiting the campus.   And the wait for the scores to arrive in the mail was interminable.

In my case, the less than stellar results did not negatively impact me as I was accepted into UCLA. However, that was a time when a 3.6 grade point average was also decent enough to get into a good college.   Today, with weighted grades, a student would need a 4.6 GPA.

In addition to competing against the ACT, the College Board combats the private companies that charge hundreds of dollars for SAT test preparation courses.   Trying to minimize their impact, the College Board is partnering with Khan Academy, a free video tutoring website that many students access online, to provide test preparation materials so that a student (or parent) wouldn’t feel the need to spend money on private lessons.

Deborah Ellinger, CEO of The Princeton Review, one of the leading test preparation companies, offered this rebuke of the revamped SAT in a press release: “We’ve never seen a test that wasn’t coachable [and] the College Board has never designed a test that we couldn’t help students crack.”   So, that’s what all this is about—figuring a way to beat the test.

The best strategy for parents and teens is to keep in mind that many colleges use a variety of factors in assessing a freshman applicant including grade point average, rigor of coursework, and extracurricular involvement.  

However, give the College Board credit for realizing its diminishing role in the standardized test marketplace by retooling the SAT to more accurately reflect what a student should know.

The origins of the SAT centered on leveling the playing field, so that those gaining entrance to college were not just the rich and privileged but those of merit as well.   Over a century later, the folks running the SAT are still trying to reach that goal.