Rising Above, Part 5

This is the fifth post in a six-part series on general education issues.  I was recently invited to be part of a panel discussion after a screening of the film Rise Above the Mark, and these posts will continue that conversation.  This space will not be used for a review or critique of the film, parts of which I agreed with and parts of which I did not.  The film and the discussion it has inspired have, however, brought key education issues into a broader forum, and it is these that I will address in this series.

What is the effect of testing on instruction?

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them around him taught them saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek,
Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are they who thirst for justice.
Blessed are you when you suffer.
Be glad and rejoice for your reward is great in heaven."

Then, Simon Peter said, "Do we have to write this down?"
And, Andrew said, "Are we supposed to know this?"
And, James said, "Will this be on the test?"
And, Phillip said, "I don't have any paper."
And, Bartholomew said, "The other disciples didn't have to learn this."
And, John said, "Do we have to turn this in?"
And, Matthew said, "Can I go to the bathroom?"
And, Judas said, "What does this have to do with real life?"
Then, one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see Jesus' lesson plan and inquired of Jesus: "Where is your anticipatory set of objectives in the cognitive domain?"

And Jesus wept.

I am not sure when someone first brought this piece to my attention, but it has been a source of laughter and tears among teachers for a long time.  While much of the humor derives from thinking of the disciples behaving as modern school children, I want to focus on the reply of James, for of all the other whining complaints, this is the one that grown adults today seem to take seriously.

One of the questions I prepared to answer during the panel discussion for Rise Above the Mark dealt with the effect of testing on teaching and specifically on lost instructional time.  Rather than rely only on my own experience, I conducted highly scientific research to determine precisely the effect of testing on classrooms around Indiana.  In short, I emailed and Facebook messaged a bunch of teacher friends around the state.  Here are their replies.

[At my school] the emphasis on standardized tests has led to common formative assessments.  I firmly believe (from my own experience and from observing PLCs) that all of this emphasis on "delivering a consistent product" ends up stifling the creativity and therefor the enthusiasm of individual teachers.  If I  want to try something different and no one else wants to try it, then I either can't do it or I have to take the risk of falling behind everyone else.  Teachers in my department often seem reluctant to try anything that helps students learn the concepts because there are so many standards that need to be addressed and they feel they don't have the time.  In the end, all that is tested are basic skills and "what gets tested is what gets taught." 

Students lose instructional time not only in the course that is being tested, but also in other courses.  For instance, quite a few of my ... students recently missed my class because they needed to take the English 10 ECA.  Students who took the Biology and Algebra ECA exams in December also missed classes for other subject areas.  

There is a large portion of the instructional calendar dedicated to preview/review for standardized tests.  As a result, it has also caused teachers/departments to reduce some of the content of their teaching, thus removing some of the more engaging topics they can often get students excited about learning.  It is not uncommon to hear even gifted teachers say things like, "I would love to teach this, but it's not part of the test."

Other than an inconsistent and unreliable way of evaluating teacher performance, I have seen little in the way of positive feedback toward instruction.  Although most standardized tests do segment questions into general content areas, this information is not actionable in helping teachers identify what areas of instruction could be improved.  This is compounded by the fact that scores are rarely available in a timely fashion that would allow the data to help the student who took the test.  At best, the standardized test scores could only improve future instruction and have little to no bearing on the student whose scores are being considered. 

[Testing] wears down students, reducing their concentration on other tests.

Here is how important testing is to me.  I would forget to do it if I did not write it down.  This actually happened when I was student teaching.  I had been so engaged in the actual work of teaching that when I glanced at the calendar and saw the end of the term approaching, I flipped out over the realization that I had forgotten to give any tests.

Yes, we want students to synthesize, to pull together their learning in meaningful ways, and there are many avenues to enable this.  Tests, especially the standardized kind, are but one of those avenues, and too often they are more like dark, scary alleys where true learning is mugged.

I am reminded of a part of Cicero's first speech against Catiline, delivered in November, 63 B.C.  To motivate the senators against what he saw as a clear and present danger to Rome, he recalled a past time when Roman virtue was made of sterner stuff.  "Fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac republica virtus...."  "There was, there was once such courage in this republic...."  Taking my stand behind the lectern instead of on the rostrum, I would echo those words.  There was, there was once in our state and country the recognition that testing was merely a tool, and only one of many.  There was an acknowledgment that it should not direct the teaching.   There was a reason why kept testing in its proper, subordinate place of modest importance, and I will let the words of a colleague speak to it.

Individual test results aren't really being used to help the individual student.  Good teachers are consistently collecting data/information/impressions about their students.  It is these individual classroom assessments that are most helpful in terms of day-to-day instruction.

I have rarely had a surprise from a test.  I know my students.  I do not take attendance by calling out their ID numbers.  I know that Maddie and Keeler are the ones who are absent.  We interact as people do.  We know each other.  Because of our daily interaction in meaningful tasks, I am not surprised by their performance on an exam.  What does surprise me is the lengths to which adults will go to diminish the time for students and teachers to walk together on the shared journey of discover that is education.

Rising Above, Part 4

This is the fourth post in a six-part series on general education issues.  I was recently invited to be part of a panel discussion after a screening of the film Rise Above the Mark, and these posts will continue that conversation.  This space will not be used for a review or critique of the film, parts of which I agreed with and parts of which I did not.  The film and the discussion it has inspired have, however, brought key education issues into a broader forum, and it is these that I will address in this series.

How do we hold schools accountable for educating our children?

In my previous post, I suggested a broad understanding of education and a correspondingly broad way of viewing success, one for which tests and data collection are not particularly well suited.  That does raise the question, however, about how we hold schools accountable for educating our children.  After all, public schools are supported by taxes, and taxes are paid by the people.  The people have a right to know what kind of a return they are getting on their investment.  They have paid for a product, and it needs to meet their expectations.

Actually, that is largely nonsense.  While it is true that a community should know what is going on in its schools, it is absurd to treat the issue in a purely commercial fashion.  Education is not something we consume in the way we consume automobiles.  Why, then, would we expect to hold schools accountable with tools like Carfax that simply list raw data?   Such methods are too easy a way out and do not give the full picture.

Truly human endeavors, and by that I mean those that involve human beings working closely with human beings as opposed to working with machines or working alone, are messy.  They involve emotions and thoughts and experiences, all of which change from day to day and can no more be fit into the narrow parameters of assessment and evaluation championed by some than can a vast beach be squeezed into an ice cube tray.

Does that mean that schools must remain black holes, incapable of being analyzed with any ray of light?  It means no such thing.  It means simply that we must use methods suited for this kind of analysis, methods appropriate to assessing the formation of a human life rather than determining the effectiveness of the assembly line.

Before we speak about the #1 best all-around method for evaluating education ever, we do need to acknowledge one more thing.  The same, proper desire for a community to hold its schools accountable is one the schools must share as well.  In other words, schools must talk more about holding their communities accountable, for since education is a truly human endeavor as defined above, no one aspect of the process should be singled out for focus to the exclusion of others.  Children are educated by their teachers who are led by administrators, who serve in particular facilities, and who use certain tools of the trade, e.g. books and "school supplies" and technology.  Children are also educated by their parents who are led by their own life experiences, who live in particular neighborhoods, and who use the tools of the trade, e.g. the loving affirmation or the back of a hand.  They are educated by coaches and businesses, entertainment and advertisements, nurturing and wretched living conditions.  In short, they are educated in the broadest, and therefore the truest, sense of the word by all aspects of their community.

So how do all the members of a community hold each other accountable for the education of children?  They do so by getting involved.  Parents must visit schools for programs and during the day.  Would that mean taking time off from work?  Possibly.  Then again, we take off from work for other things, so why not to see what is really going on during the most important waking hours in the most formative years of the lives of our own children?  There was a day in which teachers visited the homes of their students.  It is not an outlandish proposition today.  Business and community leaders are always welcome to volunteer with children, both during and after the school day.  With this kind of true interaction among the principal players in a child's education, is it possible that the truly bad teacher, the one who mumbles in pig Latin while stating that 2+2=5 and then tests over the Louisiana Purchase using an assessment composed in Greek and written in invisible ink, would long go unnoticed or retain employment?

What will you or those in your organization do to help hold accountable those involved with education in your community?

□ Visit one of my local schools
□ Volunteer at an after-school program
□ Ask my children's teachers/principal what they need
□ Attend a local school board meeting
□ Attend a state school board meeting
□ Attend a congressional session on education
□ Engage in a personal email or phone conversation with someone involved in education

Self-Indulgent Rock 'n' Roll Post

Yes, this is an education blog.  Yes, I am devoting one post to my own musical interest.  As my friend, the 2014 Utah Teacher of the Year Allison Riddle and I would say, #EdZeppelin.

So what occasions this digression from all things pedagogical?  It is the debut release from Sweet & Lynch.  The story has been told countless times around the Internet, but here is the bottom line.  Michael Sweet (Stryper), George Lynch (Dokken and Lynch Mob), Greg Lomenzo (White Lion), and Brian Tichy (Whitesnake), joined forces on the premiere hard rock/metal label Frontiers Records to record an album.  If you know any of those bands, keep reading. If you don't, then I guess this actually is an educational post after all.  Take your seats, kids.  School is in session.

Only To Rise is the album, and it kicks off with "The Wish," a song that makes those of us who remember when fun, lyrical, hard rock & metal first hit the scene realize that we no longer need to wish for such days.  They are back.  This could easily have been on a Stryper album.  Sweet's powerful voice soars, and Lynch's riff-soaked guitar puts a hook in your head that leaves you reaching for your own air axe.

"Dying Rose" is up next, and it is perhaps my favorite track.  It has a mean & dirty blues-based riff that is backed up by a deep, in-your-face rhythm from Lomenzo and Tichy (whom, with Brian Devin as his bass partner in Whitesnake, David Coverdale used to call the Wrecking Crew).  Sweet's vocals have that full-throated swagger that make you just know he has his head and shoulders thrown back as he assaults the mic.

"Love Stays" has the slow groove of a classic power ballad, and the opening lyric is reminiscent of Sweet's "The Cause" from his 2014 solo release I'm Not Your Suicide.  Lynch's guitar and Sweet's vocals almost perform a call-and-response, and once again, there is a bigness to the song that makes you think of arenas and lighters.  While I am not the biggest fan of ballads, Lynch's guitar solo toward the end makes this worth the listen.

"Time Will Tell" brings us back to rock with a great little opening two-second bit from Lynch.  The song quickly turns spartan with the sound being largely carried by Sweet and Tichy and then opening up again to the full band sound.  The Lynch solo has me bending the strings of my air guitar.

"Rescue Me" follows with a big, bad drum opening from Tichy.  A deep, head-banging groove from Lomenzo joins, then come Lynch's string bending and Sweet's big vocals.  Are you noticing some themes here?  These are songs meant to be played live, in an arena, with great lights and a faithful choir singing along.  This could easily have been a Whitesnake song.  Lynch and Tichy battle it out toward the end, and the winner is the listener.

"Me Without You" opens with a haunting, Spanish-influenced guitar and a crystal vocal from Sweet.  While ballads are not my favorite, this one really gets it done.  The full band comes in at about 1:30, and by then you are hooked and want to hear this one through to the end.  This may well be the best interplay between Sweet and Lynch and ends with the same clean, haunting sound as the opening.

"Recover."  Ah, yes.  True rock opening that would have been at home on a Whitesnake album, and a vocal attitude hearkening back to Stryper's Against the Law days.  Sweet finds the top of his vocal range here, and if you are not familiar with it, just know that you could more easily climb K2.  Once more Lomenzo and Tichy provide a rock solid foundation for some of Lynch's most virtuoso playing on the album.

"Divine" starts off with sonic assault from Lynch's axe, and gritty rhythm section quickly backs it up.  There is something about this classic rocker that reminds me of Bon Jovi's "Lay Your Hands on Me," especially during the chorus.  If Sweet & Lynch tour (please say yes! please say yes!), I would expect pyrotechnics shooting off from the stage during Lynch's solo here.  The song ends with a guitar build up that is matched by a crescendo of drums.

"September" is the band's anthem in memory of 9/11.  I'm not sure we can ever have too many songs that recall that day, and to have one with the heavy-hitting sound and rhythm of this serves a real purpose.  It allows us to fight vicariously even as we remember those who have fought and died for real.

"Strength in Numbers" is the kind of song you just don't hear anymore.  It starts out with this big, orchestral sound reminiscent of Zeppelin's "Kashmir," then shifts into a lyric and vocal that calls to mind "Bleeding From Inside Out" on Stryper's Second Coming album.  To me, this is what rock is all about.  It is big (how many times can I use that word in one review?), rich, and full.

"Hero-Zero" opens with a twin guitar-drums attack, but it is the chorus line that really gets me.  "The hero is a zero.  He's just a highwayman.  He'll burn you worse than Nero.  I hope you understand."  I'm a Latin teacher, so when I hear a reference to a Roman emperor in music that I am trying to turn up to 11, well, let's just say I become one happy fan.  This is a solid, driving number that Lomenzo and Tichy really make happen.  With its expansive chorus, all I can say is...I love it!

"Only To Rise," the title track, brings the album to a close in killer fashion.  Once again, I hear an opening that Whitesnake would have loved.  It really comes out and just assaults the senses.  If the previous song drove hard, this one takes a shot of nitrous and simply leaves everything else at the starting line.  The guitar solo evokes Deep Purple's "Highway Star," so the car metaphor is not misplaced.  Listening to this track through headphones as I write, I want to yank them off, throw the disc in the player, and crank the home stereo so the neighbors can enjoy it.

Rising Above, Part 3

This is the third post in a six-part series  on general education issues.  I was recently invited to be part of a panel discussion after a screening of the film Rise Above the Mark, and these posts will continue that conversation.  This space will not be used for a review or critique of the film, parts of which I agreed with and parts of which I did not.  The film and the discussion it has inspired have, however, brought key education issues into a broader forum, and it is these that I will address in this series.

What is the purpose of public education?  What is the goal of K-12 education?  What defines success?

Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement.

So reads Article 8, Section 1, of the Indiana Constitution.  As far as a general purpose for education goes, this is not a bad one.  It states a particular reason for educating people and offers broad strokes for what that kind of education should look like.  The State of Indiana is interested in the mechanism for preserving a free government.  It acknowledges that education is essential to this idea and anchors its view of education in a tradition stretching for more than two thousand years, a tradition we broadly describe as a liberal arts education, for it takes in the widest spectrum of subjects in an effort to free people from the dark prison of ignorance.

Education could, of course, be about many other things.  It could be about developing the skills to complete task X at company Y.  It could be about developing the skills to pursue a hobby while in retirement.  It could be about learning how to pick a person's pocket on the subway without getting detected, how to build a deck on the back of your house, or how to win friends and influence people.  However noble or ignoble these educational goals may be, they share one characteristic.  They are narrow.  They belong to that set of activities for which the prisoners in Plato's cave awarded prizes.  The English word "education" has its roots in the Latin ex + ducere, to lead out, and in this it hearkens back to Plato's famous allegory in reminding us that true education leads us from the small and the dark into the broad light of truth.

In answering the question, then, of what constitutes success in education, we must be clear what we mean by the word "education."  If it is a narrow, limited development of a particular skill, then success can be measured by the performance of that skill.  If the pickpocket, for example, makes a clean theft of someone's wallet, then Fagin can be rated a highly effective teacher and his house an A school.  When we take a broader view of education, however, we must understand success in a correspondingly broader way.

So what does it mean "to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement?"  How will we know that our children have made improvements in these areas?  The unsettling answer is that we will not.  Those of us alive at the moment will have but the most limited glimpse into the success of our efforts relative to the lives of our children.  Our children will know better than we how successful we have been, but it will be years into their own lives and perhaps after some of those who have helped shape those lives have passed from their own.  The true measure of success of real education is the life well lived and the society advanced by the collection of such lives.  Successful education of this kind both secures the legacy of its community and ensures that the story of the human race continues on the shared journey of discovery.  Such success is not measurable by narrow instruments.  Then again, as the Mother Superior once realized, you cannot hold a moonbeam in your hand.

Rising Above, Part 2

This is the second post in a six-part series  on general education issues.  I was recently invited to be part of a panel discussion after a screening of the film Rise Above the Mark, and these posts will continue that conversation.  This space will not be used for a review or critique of the film, parts of which I agreed with and parts of which I did not.  The film and the discussion it has inspired have, however, brought key education issues into a broader forum, and it is these that I will address in this series.

What challenge is created by the perception of teachers derived from traditional and social media?

More than twenty years ago a now iconic cartoon first appeared in The New Yorker.  It featured two canines talking to each other, with one sitting poised at a computer.  The dog with his paws on the keyboard looked at his friend sitting on the floor and said, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

The fact is, of course, that no one knows you're a dog in the op-ed section of the newspaper either, or on bathroom stalls where vandals write their messages.  Since at least the graffiti artists of Pompeii, we have enjoyed being able to speak our minds without anyone knowing who it was doing the speaking.  With the rise of social media, screen names, and profile pics, we have created a dense hedge of protection behind which to hide as we lob the grenades of our pique and rage at those we want desperately to know our thoughts without knowing who thought them.

Enter the current educational melee.  As with much else in our isonected society, where we can remain isolated in our anonymity even as we connect with anyone in any place at any time, we have eschewed civil discourse for the rant and the screed.  "If those teachers over at that school had to work a real job like the rest of us, they wouldn't complain so much.  After all, they get three months PAID vacation during the summer on MY dime!  Signed, A Concerned Taxpayer."

Is it likely that the person who tweets or posts on Facebook or emails the editor such a statement would talk like that when conversing with my friend Julie, who teaches French next door to me, when she has run into the grocery store to pick up some extra milk?  I doubt it.  We talk tough when no one knows who is talking, but in person?  That is a different story.  Even when mainstream media outlets bash teachers, as in the case of the notorious cover of Time magazine, you have to ask whether anyone would have designed that cover who was thinking of a relative, friend, or neighbor who was an actual teacher.

So what is a teacher to do with perception of teachers created through the media?  Ignore it.  Be aware of it, but disregard it.  Seriously, do you really care what people say who lack the spine to sign their names?  Does it even matter people say when they clearly do not know what they are talking about?  Teachers already have an audience for their work whose opinions are true worth, but more on that in a moment.

Ignoring the nonsense does not mean sticking one's head in a hole.  Traditional and social media are wonderful outlets for sharing with the world the great things happening in actual classrooms.  Post pictures of an amazing student project.  Tweet the profound insight a child expressed.  Tell your side of the story, which is, quite simply the only side with up-to-the-minute experience of what is actually taking place in American education.

And just who is your proper audience, the only one that capable of offering the kind of thoughts on your job that are worth considering?  The answer runs from 2:04-2:19, fifteen seconds that will lay to rest all the noisy nonsense about teachers.

Rising Above, Part 1

This is the first post in a six-part series on general education issues.  I was recently invited to be part of a panel discussion after a screening of the film Rise Above the Mark, and these posts will continue that conversation.  This space will not be used for a review or critique of the film, parts of which I agreed with and parts of which I did not.  The film and the discussion it has inspired have, however, brought key education issues into a broader forum, and it is these that I will address in this series.

How do we build mutual respect between teachers and parents, teachers and legislators, and teachers and the community?

When my Latin students read the war writings of Julius Caesar, we spend a bit of time discussing ethnic slurs and why they are so important.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Slurs play an incredibly important role in war, for killing another person is one of the most difficult things to do.  Not only did the Roman army require a centurion to lead units into battle, but it also needed an officer called the optio, who pushed them from behind, for in addition to the blood, bodily waste, and screams surrounding you, you also had to contend with having to kill someone who was a father, a son, or a brother, just like you.  Enter slurs.  It is easier to kill someone who is not the same as you, someone who may not even be human.  Take the word "gook," for example, which has a longer etymological history than you may know.  What does that word mean?  Practically speaking, it is a nonsense word.  To kill someone whose title makes no sense is surely easier than to kill a recognized father or son.

Why is that?  The reason is that slurs represent abstractions, not the real thing.  Yes, it can be argued that the naming of anything involves abstraction (think Postman and Korzybski), but stay with me here.  It is easy to hate hippies, but less easy to hate Bob when he walks up and shakes hands with you.  It is easy to scorn "those rich fat cats," but less easy to scorn CEO Smith when she sits across the table from you to talk about the issues.  And it is so very easy indeed for teachers to blame parents and legislators and for parents to blame teachers and legislators and for legislators to blame teachers and parents when "teacher" and "parent" and "legislator" remain words on a page, abstractions that perform a semantic and emotional role like that of slurs.

So how do we build respect among the primary parties that shape our children's education?  We get involved.  We talk.  We visit schools and homes and legislative offices.  We do not limit ourselves to brash lobbying of verbal grenades from behind the security of social media.  We do not advocate for plans in the abstract that look good on paper but that have little hope of working in the real world, for at the end of the day.  We are talking about flesh and blood people, and as we all know, working directly with people is messy.  It is confusing.  It is not always straightforward.  Logic and emotions and life experiences compete for the right to dictate the terms of discussion.  It is time consuming and expensive.  It is slow going.  Yet for all the momentary satisfaction of pointing a finger at the abstracted source of our ills, this does no good.  In the end, it is the tried and true practice of interacting meaningfully with each other that has the only chance for building respect among these parties.  What will you check on your agenda for tomorrow?

□ Visit one of my local schools
□ Ask to meet with a state legislator
□ Hold a meeting of parents and educators at a school
□ Volunteer at an after-school program
□ Ask my children's teachers/principal what they need
□ Ask my congressperson or senator for information about upcoming bills
□ Attend a local school board meeting
□ Attend a state school board meeting
□ Attend a congressional session on education
□ Engage in a personal email or phone conversation with someone involved in education

Drink Deep or Taste Not

Alexander Pope, 1688-1744

A little learning is a dang'rous thing.

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

"Essay on Criticism," Alexander Pope

While some would take Pasteur's famous dictum that "chance favors the prepared mind" to be a defense of the well-structured lesson plan, I argue that we must be careful not to get lost in the details.  Am I prepared to teach my classes?  I am in that I know my subject matter extremely well and understand how teenage students learn best.  Do I walk into a class with everything scripted?  God forbid.

Take a recent A.P. Latin class.  We were reading the scene in Aeneid, Book VI, in which the hero, Aeneas, enters the underworld.  Vergil describes the Styx, a river on which the gods trembled to take an oath.  He talks of the souls that had to wander its banks for a hundred years because their bodies had not been buried.  All of this prompted questions from the students.  What would happen if the gods swore by the Styx, yet broke their promise?  If someone died by being eaten by a lion, would that count as burial, or would the person have to wait until the lion died and was buried?

We discussed that questions like these are often asked by those who are used to consulting a sacred text on such matters.  Look it up in the Bible or the Koran, we say.  Such textual authority for what amount to rather legalistic questions, however, just does not exist with regard to the Greco-Roman mythology.  Yet I began to wonder.  To what extent was logical or philosophical or theological thought brought to bear on the Greco-Roman divinities and their interaction with the world?  Was there any sort of systematic theology relative to Greco-Roman myth?

So I asked.  I asked friends of mine, including Joe Day (Professor Emeritus, Classics, Wabash College), Stephanie Larson (Professor, Classics, Bucknell University), and Betty Rose Nagle (Professor, Classical Studies, Indiana University).  I immediately got back responses.  I received a discussion on "efforts to organize what was, in religious reality, a vast polytheistic, localist non-system into a more or less coherent system or pantheon" by the likes of Homer and Hesiod and a link to the writings of Xenophon against the traditional Homeric and Hesiodic portrayal.  I even got an answer to what would happen if the gods did not keep their Styx-bound word.  They would suffer ten years of death-like suspended animation.

And then I took that back to the classroom where my students and I spent a bit of time talking about ancient theology before progressing with the Vergil text.

This is education at its finest.  It is as I have so often described it a shared journey of discovery.  I have read the Aeneid countless times, yet every time I read it with students it is new.  We explore together the mysteries and glories of the world.  Classical scholar G.P. Goold once wrote, "An elementary teacher, to reach in due season the end of his curriculum, must every hour turn a [blind] eye to serious problems and refrain from pursuing truth beyond the charted boundaries of the textbook."  ( “Servius and the Helen Episode.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 74 (1970): 115)  I could not disagree more.  The true teacher, the magister can never be so bound, but must, along with the students, pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful, no matter how anfractuous the path.

National Teacher of the Year Finalist

Dr. Scott Hanback, TSC Superintendent

Al Remaly, Harrison HS Principal

Today, January 14, 2015, Kathy Nimmer was announced as a finalist for 2015 National Teacher of the Year.  Kathy is only the fourth teacher in Indiana's history to attain such an honor, following Dan Durbin (1996), Francis Mustapha (1994), and Sue Talbot (1978).  She will now join Ann Marie Corgill (Alabama), Catherine Caine (Hawaii), and Shanna Peeples (Texas) in the competition for National Teacher of the Year, with the winner being announced at the White House later this spring.  Read about all the finalists here.

Kathy's former student

State Superintendent Glenda Ritz

So what does this mean for Kathy?  Take a look at 2014 National Teacher of the Year Sean McComb's blog for pictures, stories, and video of the amazing journey that, for him, has only just started.

What does this mean for Indiana?  Kathy's selection as an NTOY finalist shines a light on her state.  More than ever, those interested in education will look at Indiana to see what sort of state has created a teaching environment in which a master practitioner like Kathy could flourish.  Are there areas for all those involved in the grand mosaic of education to improve?  Of course.  Are there areas that are hidden treasures, practices and opportunities that others would benefit from seeing and knowing?  Without a doubt, and it is here that Kathy's light will shine to the greatest effect, for as people outside the Hoosier state begin to look more closely at what we are doing from the shores of Lake Michigan to the banks of the Ohio River, they will see extraordinary teachers leading this generation on the shared journey of discovery toward the fulfillment of their place in the grand human story.

INTOY Coordinator Sarah Pies, State Superintendent Glenda Ritz, 2014 INTOY Steve Perkins, 2015 INTOY Kathy Nimmer, 2013 INTOY Suzanne Whitton, 2005 INTOY Molly Seward

What does this mean for me?  It means that I may need someone to calm me down, because I am over-the-moon excited!  I am thrilled for my friend to receive this incredible honor, and I cannot wait for the rest of the country to see just what kind of amazing teacher-leaders are serving the children and communities of Indiana.

Scott Hanback, Glenda Ritz, Kathy Nimmer, Al Remaly, Elias (2015 Dog of the Year)

Ancient Efficiency Expert Speaks to Modern Students

Oath of the Horatii, David, 1784, oil-on-canvas

It was a two-hour snow delay, so we did not have much time in each class.  Yet as our Latin II classes began their reading of the Roman historian Livy, I could not help taking some time to explore a life lesson.

Livy wrote of an event during the reign of Tullus Hostilius, who ruled as Rome's third king between 673 and 642 B.C.  Rome was at war with Alba Longa, and as there was a set of triplet brothers in each army, the kings decided to allow the two sets of triplets to fight, with the winning side declaring victory in the war.

Right away two of the Roman triplets were killed, and all three of the Albans sustained wounds.  The one surviving Roman, who was unhurt, now faced a choice.  These are Livy's words.

Ut universis solus nequaqum par, sic adversus singulos ferox.  (Livy, I.25)  "Just as alone he was in no way equal to all of them, so against them individually he was fierce."

On a day when we really did not have time for a digression, we digressed.  We discussed the insanely busy lives of American students, who take a heavy load of classes that are followed by extra-curricular activities, sports, jobs, and home responsibilities, to say nothing of emotional and relational challenges common to their age and often the physical challenges of poverty that should be common to none.  I pointed out that, similar to the Roman hero of the story, they were not equal to all the tasks of their lives at once, but that against them individually, they could be fierce.  We talked about the overwhelming sensation of facing a mountain of homework, but that setting a time limit for each assignment and working only on that, taking a short break, and moving on to the next was a better way to approach the whole.

We continued our reading to see that the Roman, Horatius, turned from his three wounded enemies and began to run.  The Romans thought he was fleeing, but as Horatius looked over his shoulder, he saw that the three wounded Albans were pursuing him at great intervals, with the most severely wounded bringing up the rear.  Suddenly, he turned and attacked the one who was closest to him.

We digressed again.

What was the condition of the Alban in closest pursuit to the Roman?  The students easily observed that he would have been the least wounded.  As Horatius fought each of the three Albans, which fight would have been the most difficult?  Again, they quickly noted that the first would have been most challenging, as that opponent was the least wounded and therefore the strongest of his brothers.

We then talked about the value of approaching the most difficult assignments first.  It is natural to want to put those off to the end, but far better to approach those first when minds are fresh, leaving shorter or easier assignments to the end.

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How do you help students connect what they study directly with their lives?

Into That Good Night

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night.

God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

Alexander Pope

Some may find it odd that my first post of 2015 is about a movie released nearly two months ago and perhaps nearing the end of its run in major theatres.  Those who make it through to the end of this post, and who know me, will perhaps not think it so strange.

This post is an attempt for me to grasp the physics-poem that is Interstellar, starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway.  For 169 minutes, I sat with my eyes wide open, riveted to the unfolding of the mysteries of reality in cinematic metaphor.  Click the link above and head over to IMDB for the synopsis, but know that multiple dimensions, quantum physics, and the beautiful strangeness of space-time are breathtakingly imagined on screen.

In 1994 I was a graduate student in Classics at The University of Texas.  My wife and I had gone to Barton Creek Square Mall, and as was my habit, I headed to the bookstore.  I ended up with CUNY physics professor Michio Kaku's book Hyperspace in my hands, and my life very nearly took a significant turn.  I read a good portion of the book while standing in the bookstore, and when my wife insisted we must leave, I purchased the book and began babbling all the way home about quantum physics and a possible change of graduate work.  Kaku's book led me to everything from Dali's Corpus Hypercubus to Edwin Abbott's Flatland to a Caltech physicist named Kip Thorne, who had published an article about the possibility of time travel.  This sent me running to the physics, math, and astronomy library at U.T. to find the article (I think it was "Wormholes in Spacetime and Their Use for Interstellar Travel:  A Tool for Teaching General Relativity," American Journal of Physics, 56, 395-416, 1988), and suddenly I could think of nothing else but superstrings and multiple dimensions.

Corpus Hypercubus, Dali, 1954, oil-on-canvas

How does a person describe what it is like to catch a glimpse into the possible physical structure of reality?  As I lacked a sufficient physics and mathematics background to do so, one of my few true and deep life regrets, I ended up staying with Classics, a choice I have never regretted.  Still, as Pope famously cautioned, one must be careful of drinking from the Pierian spring.  Once I had sipped this particular elixir of the Muses, I returned numerous times for longer draughts, always savoring certain aspects of physics through metaphor if not through mathematics.

Then came Interstellar.  It was everything I experienced in a Texas bookstore twenty years ago, but brought to life, or as close to life as a three-dimensional representation of the fourth dimension of time can be on a two-dimensional screen.  And as the credits rolled, whose name should appear?  Executive producer Kip Thorne.

So why am I really blogging about this?  The film makes repeated use of Dylan Thomas's famous villanelle, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and for a variety of reasons that would take too long to explore here.  Yet one reason must surely be to push against the dark boundaries of ignorance.  There is so much that we have yet to learn...about everything.  That is what drives me, the unbridled desire and passion to learn.  The darkness in which lies hidden all that we do not know is not a bad darkness.  It is a good night, for it undoubtedly contains much truth, goodness, and beauty, and it is into that good night I am eager to lead my students on our shared journey of discovery.