Is This Who We Are?

I collect a lot of bits and pieces of information.  Years ago I kept a box of clippings from newspapers and magazines, as well as copies of something I might have read, or scribbles of something I heard and wrote down.  Today with the Internet, I cut and paste snippets from articles I have come across, or download things that I want to remember or return to at some point.  As I was sorting through some of my “treasures” I came across a statement that I cut and pasted during the time of the New Orleans Saints “bounty-gate scandal” when coaches and players conspired to deliberately injure opposing players for cash during NFL football games.  The quote comes from an article written by my favorite sports columnist, Jason Whitlock from Fox Sports.  Here it is:

“Payton, Williams, Jonathan Vilma and all the Saints reflect what is true about modern American society. We’re cold, ruthless and unashamed in pursuit of the things we want. We no longer pretend fair play is important or valued. We condone torture. We’ve lost the courage to compromise, surrendering our national discourse to left and right extremists.”

Boy! That is a pretty strong indictment of the society we live in, and when I look at politics, it does ring very true.  Politicians have lost all sense of decorum, including our Supreme Court justices who make very derogatory public comments after rulings, which is something that has not happened in our nation’s history until recently.  Name-calling is basically accepted on the floor of our congress, and in the media it happens on a daily basis.  It seems that in every political race of importance, rules are bent and candidates will say whatever they need to in order to garner a few more votes.  In speeches things are said that have no factual basis without apology or remorse.

It goes beyond politics.  How many times in recent years has the media published something that is wrong in order to win the race to be the first?  For most of our history there was a great deal of pride in the integrity of journalism, but now the competition for being first with a story has erased all sense of integrity.  Major college athletic programs are rift with cheating and scandal all in the name of victories, which leads to money and television appearances.  What more needs to be said about banks and Wall Street? 

Unfortunately this mentality has invaded our homes as well.  Parents cover up for their children’s missteps, some of them following the philosophy of “it isn’t illegal/wrong if you don’t get caught.”  Some choose to move their children around from one district to another in order to get them on a better team or with a better coach.  I have had one coaching friend told by a parent that he was not to “mess with his son’s pitching mechanics because he pays for professional pitching instruction.”  Other parents take a great deal of pride of being someone who “says what’s on their mind” regardless of whether it is appropriate and regardless of who may hear it or who it may hurt.  Kind of like Nike’s Just Do It mantra, we now live in a society that also seems to advocate Just Say It!

I believe that we are better than this.  But I also recognize that there is a huge hill to climb.  In this country, and in our community, there are many people with strong moral character, who do things the right way.  They have not been tainted by the “win at all costs” mentality, or by Just Do It.  We need those people to step forward and lead.  If they aren’t willing to do that on their own, then we need to encourage them to do so.  By the same token, in our schools we need to do a better job of including character development in everything that we do.  Winning with honor is a much better motto to live by than winning at all costs.  Being respectful and courteous will take us a lot further in life.  Just Do The Right Thing!

Iowa Board Strikes a Blow For Local Control

Good news came out today in an email from the Iowa Association for School Boards.  The Iowa Board of Education rejected Governor Branstad’s attempt to force schools to give up local control on setting the start date for the school year.  I have written about this before so I won’t present my argument again, but while I am an advocate of a later start to the school year, I salute the Board of Education’s decision to vote against the proposed rule changes.  Branstad was kowtowing to the demands of lobbyists for the tourism industry and state fair.  Fortunately, our leaders on the state board have not let demands from business and cronyism determine the schedule for education.  The state fair folks claim that they want increased attendance, which is a smokescreen for wanting more kids to serve as cheap, minimum wage labor in the concession trailers and doing grunt work for the fair.  Waterpark and theme park owners want to bleed a couple more weeks work out of kids rather than have them start their education.  It all reeks of greed and self-interest, and is a blatant case of hypocrisy on behalf of the governor who claims to be putting in place an educational program that will improve learning for Iowa school children.  How does starting school a couple of weeks later improve education?

For those of you that regularly read my blog, you know that I advocate a later start in the school year, and actually go further and advocate year-round school.  Until every school building in Iowa is air conditioned, it makes a lot more sense to have kids in these buildings in June than in the furnaces they become in August.  Plus, with school-sponsored sports in Iowa taking place in the summer, there is nothing wrong with giving families the month of August for family time.  I would love to see a rule that bans all school practices, camps and rehearsals in the month of August, but that is for another day!  I could go on and on with my argument.  However, I don’t want to lose my fundamental point: the Iowa Board of Education did not bow to political pressure and the influence of big business.  A couple of board members stated that they have never received as many emails and letters on an issue as they had on this school start matter.  It’s nice to know we have educational leaders that represent the people and did not take another chunk out of local control.   

Is Summer Too Busy For The Kids?

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.  That’s an old saying that comes to mind when I hear people talking about how busy their kids are during the summer.  I think back to my summers as a high school student and I was just as busy as the kids are today, though it was a different kind of busy.  Most of my days were spent getting up around 5:30 in the morning, but rather than hitting the weight room and participating in a conditioning program, I got picked up in front of my house by Kenny Dobenecker and went to work for him, most often tinning barns or shingling houses.  We had an hour lunch break and if we came back to town I would grab a sandwich and head to the baseball field to hit in the batting cage with our baseball coach who was always up there from 11:00 to 1:00 to give us a chance to take some swings.  Back to work after that and then depending on whether I had a game that night or practice, I usually got off around 4:00.  Somehow I worked chores in there as we had 4-H livestock and spent a number of weekends at calf shows.

I hear a lot of people say that our kids are too busy in the summer, and I hear kids say that they don’t want to play baseball or softball because they want to take time off.  And we have kids that don’t come into the school to spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half in our strength and conditioning program.  And yet, I know a number of these same kids are not holding down a full-time job either.  So are kids too busy in the summer, or does it just seem that they are going in a number of different directions because everyone wants a piece of them?  I will give you that as on a recent day my own daughter did strength and conditioning, did some running to work on conditioning for cross country, shot some baskets and played a couple of softball games.  She doesn’t hold down a summer job because she already has plenty to do, but is she any busier than I was some 30+ years ago?

Perhaps the biggest difference between our kid’s summers and the one’s we had years ago is the level of organization and the number of people pulling them.  In some respects, I think that the demands placed on the kids include the parents by default because in some instances they have to help them get where they are going, and of course they want to attend games and other events.  However, I think we need to ask ourselves whether we want our kids busy and doing something productive, or do we want them sitting at home playing video games all day.  Whether it is happening in your home or not, it is going on in a lot of places.  There are a lot of kids wasting away the summer.  Toss in the fact that not as many kids are holding down summer jobs as there once was and I would suggest that keeping kids as busy as we can is also keeping them out of trouble.  While it may stress us as parents, I believe that busy is a good thing!  Yes, there is a limit, but for the most part I believe that kids want to be busy and doing something.  We certainly don’t want them hanging out in that fella’s workshop!

Too Many Projects!

In a meeting I had with a set of parents recently, I was struck by a comment that was made.  Before I go any further, this is not an attempt to discredit or criticize the parents for their comment.  Rather, I am going to use it to make a few points that I believe are very important relative to education as we now know it and as we go forward.  Basically, their comment was “Why are their so many projects?  What is going on with all of these projects?  Why aren’t kids just taking tests?”

The disconnect was a bit surprising because we school folk had apparently not done as good of a job as I thought we had of sharing information about what works and what doesn’t in education to parents and the community.  There are a number of different kinds of assessment, but one type that is being used more and more in the classrooms is project-based assessments.  They take many different forms, but the bottom line is that in most instances they give students a better chance to demonstrate what they have learned.  There is a purpose to traditional pencil and paper tests, but it is just one type of measure and some kids just don’t do well with that kind of assessment.

However, what really struck me was the reason that was given for being upset about the number of projects their child had to do: the burden on the parents!  This brought up a whole new set of issues that started running through my mind.  How is this a burden on the parents?  Are they doing the projects?  Are they writing the papers?  Do their kids stay up later at night working on a project than they do studying for a test?  Are the students grouchier working on a project than when they have to take a test?  The reality is that a child must be responsible for his or her education.  It is my opinion that teachers in our school are working hard to integrate better methods of instruction that lead to better learning.  We aren’t there yet, but we are getting closer.  At the same time, I have always said, learning is a partnership and if students do not own it, then they are not going to learn.  If there is a concern about too many projects, the reality is that this type of learning and assessment is only going to become more common.  

Thoughts on the Class of 2013

Fortunately for everyone that attends our annual graduation ceremony, I have established the goal of completing the ceremony in an hour or less.  This year we just came in under that self-imposed deadline, and in future years with more graduates, we will have to be a little more efficient if we are to get it done.  When I say fortunate what I mean is because of this goal, I really work had to keep my remarks very brief, which for those of you that have taken the opportunity to talk to me, know that it is very difficult for me to be brief any time I am talking!  So as not to take a whole lot of time standing up there and risking that some in the audience will nod off, I set a limit to the length of my remarks based upon how much I can type on the script in 16-point font.  What is frustrating when I take on this task really came to a head this year as there was a lot more that I wanted to say about the Class of 2013 than I was able to in the time allotted.  So, I will do some of that now.

For those of you at our commencement ceremony, you will remember that my general theme was “talent.”  This group of graduates is perhaps one of the most talented classes of students that I have had the opportunity to work with in my years as an administrator.  I can think of a class of students when I was a teacher somewhere around twenty-five years ago that had tremendous talent as well, and as the years have gone by, many of them have done tremendous things.  This group reminds me a bit of them, and thus I have tremendous hope for them.  I generally end my remarks at graduation with a challenge to leave a positive mark on the world, and I honestly believe that each student can do that.  Basically, I believe we can all have a positive impact on others, and while one of these kids may not come up with the next Facebook or Twitter, there is no question that they can make life better for other people. 

When I speak publicly, I learned a long time ago that when you list names, you run a huge risk of leaving people out.  My last year as a teacher at Galva-Holstein I was asked to give the commencement address and I decided that I was going to mention every graduate in the speech.  I went over that speech twenty times and had a list of the graduates right next to me, checking names off.  And dang it if I didn’t miss one!  Actually, his name was in the speech, I just skipped over it when I was reading it.  I did feel bad about that, so I hesitate to try and include lists of people when I put something out to the public for fear of leaving someone out.  It is for that reason that I was somewhat vague in my references with the speech and am so here as well.  However, these kids really do exist!

As we work with a class of students at high school, they generally take on some characteristics as they come through.  Some come in with “reputations,” which generally change as they work their way through high school, due mostly to maturity and the inevitable changes that adolescents go through.  The Class of 2013 was somewhat non-descript when they arrived at NFHS.  I remember a couple of loud, funny young men that stumbled their way through that awkward first year, but for the most part, as a class there was a not a lot that they did that drew attention to them.  But, as they grew up, people really started to take notice!

I spoke of writers, musicians, and performers when I spoke at graduation, and in my mind, that is where this group starts.  I recall sitting with a couple of them listening to them read some of what they had written and was truly moved by their words and ideas.  Writing is tough!  Yet with some of our students in this class, they make it look easy.  Another part of writing is that you want to get it right when the public is going to read it.  When you write about other people, you have a responsibility to the subject(s) to tell their story, which is something that members of this class have done as well as can be seen in publications with our student’s work.

On stage these kids have excelled!  Whether it is singing, playing, acting, or just “yucking-it-up,” we have had the opportunity to be truly entertained.  It pains me that in this day of cable television and the Internet that we can’t seem to get anyone other than parents and grandparents to come to a program at school, so what these kids have done is really somewhat of a secret.  I guarantee that for your entertainment dollar, folks who have come to watch the performances at the high school the past four years have gotten a lot more of a return than what others who have stayed home in front of a screen have received.  Hey, I am a TV fanatic, and yet there has not been one time that I walked out of the PAC disappointed by what I saw and heard.  Plus, I can watch my favorite shows on Hulu the next day. 

I’ve wandered off my intended path, which is another reason to limit my time, so back to the point!  What is a little frustrating to me is that it does not appear that at this point when I have inquired that many of these kids are going to pursue these areas where they have demonstrated so much talent.  Yes, a couple of them look like they are headed in the direction of writing and communications, and I don’t have a problem with others playing it safe or having a fall back plan.  I certainly get it.  I also know that things change, and there is that saying that comes up time and again that people need to find out what they are passionate about and do it.  That way you never have to “work” a day in your life because you love what you are doing.  Because many of us have loved what these kids have done the past four years, I hope that at least for a few of them the passion will continue to burn and they keep doing it!