Parrots!!!

We're moving this weekend (again!), so not much time for writing. But here is Douglas Adams at the University of Santa Barbara!! I haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet, so if he goes into a neo-Nazi screed half way through, I apologize.

Have a great Holy Week!!!

Trevor Hall!!!

A song with so many annoying things about it...and so pretty :)

Discovery Day

On Saturday, Finn and Jack and I went with Julie and Scarlett to Discovery Day at the school where Julie teaches - Moorpark College. Moorepark has an amazing early education center there and they really know how to put together a shindig for a bunch of little kids.

They had cool stations set up all over the place. There were several hammering options like the one above.

All kinds of cool bubble wands.

Play houses.

Reading corners.

More bubbles.

Mad scientist mixing laboratories - Finn's favorite!

Jack preparing to use a real hammer and nails!

Scarlett wondering why the boys got metal hammers and she got stuck with the wooden mallet.

Finn pretending he's a pirate boarding a ship.

Jack showing off his great swinging technique. (The "no-hands" moment that came right after this was a little terrifying.)

A couple of happy kids. These pictures don't quite do this day justice. They really had a lot of amazing things set up for the kids. You could make your own boats out of styrofoam and try racing them, there was home made play dough, jello and even oobliob to muck about with! There were places where kids could do their own face painting in front of a giant mirror. Plus, of course, lots of great play equipment. Finn and Jack and Scarlett were a little worn out by the end, but I think they had a really great time.

Pictures of Felix' birthday party on Sunday are coming soon!

Spring!!!

Happy Spring everyone!!!! And congratulations to President Obama and the Democratic Congress for providing health care to 32 million Americans!!!!!!!

Update: A good Robert Reich article about the win here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-final-health-care-vot_b_507596.html

Treehouses Pt. 2!!!

This Summer we're going to start working on a treehouse for the boys on Peepaw Mike's farm up in Oregon!! So I'm posting pictures that are inspiring me & perhaps making Dad nervous : )

I totally can't remember which of these I've posted before. I was going to say that it's because of old age, but I've always had a terrible memory. Of course I could go back and check, but they're all so great, what the heck?!

And to hopefully make Dad less nervous, here is some classic Manassas!! Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Not Cool Babe.

R.I.P. Alex Chilton.

Sale!!!

We had a great yard sale to raise money for Finn's school this weekend!! It was so awesome that it took up two complete yards!!

The kids had a lemonade stand and turned on the cuteness, and we all had a good time meeting neighbors and selling them stuff : ) Em was amazing and sold a kids pedal car that Panna had donated for $200!!! Final total - $1,200!!!

Lesh!!!

Happy 70th (!!!) birthday to Phil Lesh!!! Lesh was/is the bass player for the Grateful Dead and it's him singing lead on the song above - the beautiful "Box of Rain", which is also his composition (with words by Robert Hunter). It was written as his father was in the last stages of his fatal illness, and is certainly one of the Dead's best loved songs.

We had some important stuff to do here this weekend, but they had a big party for him up in SF this weekend & it would have been fun to go! BTW - no idea what this video is about, but it was the only one that Warner Music hasn't disabled :(

Happy Birthday Phill!!!

Rant!!!

Has anybody else noticed that education reform seems to be the big issue now? I honestly don’t know if I’m just selectively noticing this because I happen to be in the biz, or if this really has become the issue of the day, following health care. But in any case, I just felt like weighing in a little on this beautiful Sunday morning as we try to let Momma recover from the Yard Sale of the Century yesterday (more later!)

Anyway, here are some points that seem relevant to me. I have no research cited for any of this, but isn’t that what makes the Internet great??!!!!

I’ll start with the most important point: Putting all of the accountability for kids’ education, or lack thereof, on the schools and teachers is absurd. It’s like blaming doctors for people living unhealthy lives.

Here is the big truth of the education system: teaching is no worse - and it is probably much better on the whole - than it has ever been. Almost every teacher I know is dedicated, knowledgeable, and hard-working. In addition, we are supported by technological and pedagogical resources that teachers in the past would have given their left arms for.

Of course there are exceptions (see more later). But there have always been exceptions. I can remember many teachers from my school days that would probably make national news now for their horrible practices. I could write a book about the amazing people that I see every day in education – and another on the educational disasters that took place in the 70’s and 80’s. But I am positive that our biggest problem is not, overall, the quality of education.

So what is the problem? In other words, if we are doing so much worse now that in the past, what is different? Here you go:

1. Huge class sizes: I read an article a while ago (I wish that I would have kept it) that said that the only quantifiable variable in education that made a measurable difference for kids on a day-to-day basis is class size. They are very big now.

2. Number of school days: At Dad’s house last Summer I read a great book called Outliers. Among many interesting pieces of statistical information in the book was the fact that main difference between the U.S. and the countries that it is trailing in education is the fewer hours that our kids are in school. I hate this one because I don’t want to work more, but there it is.

Okay, here is the big question: what do 1&2 have in common? If you said, they are both enormously expensive, you are correct!! Shrinking class sizes requires more teachers and newer facilities. These things are hideously expensive, especially in big cities.

Expanding the school year requires paying teachers for working more hours, in addition to paying for the countless people that support the school system (bus drivers, janitors, etc.), plus huge costs such as insurance, water and power, etc. Again, scary money. In addition, how many Americans (including me) are really ready to fight for less vacation time? There you go.

Those are the biggest issues. Anybody who seriously wants change must address them. Good luck!!

By the way, this is completely without statistical support, but what else has changed to impact the education of our children? Here is a really partial list:

Play Station, Wii et al.
Cell phones
Cable TV
DVD players
The Internet
South Park
Flavor of Love
WWF
Texting

Etc. etc. etc. Not to sound too grumpy, but you want Of Mice and Men to compete with these? Good luck.

Okay, so what can we do? Most of the talk these days seems to be focusing on teacher accountability. Again, it all seems a little questionable to me, but overall, not necessarily a bad thing. So here’s what it comes down to:

Everybody wants more teacher accountability (i.e. the ability to fire bad teachers more easily) including many teachers!! That is, everyone wants this except the teachers' unions (who are also huge supporters of politicians). Everyone is down on the unions for this. But it does make sense in a way – the unions’ job is to protect teachers after all.

But everyone is missing something: a great many teachers are completely okay with more teacher accountability, including ideas like merit pay and reviews based on testing data. But these are the ideas that the unions are fighting – why?

Because the unions are run by older teachers. Younger teachers - highly trained, proficient with technology, and brimming with energy – are usually fine with all of these ideas. They can’t wait to try out their assignment using the students’ cell phones to teach binomials, and they are used to the idea of teaching laser-like to state testing standards because they can do it, and they haven’t known anything else.

On the other hand, teachers heading towards the end of their careers, who have done the same thing for years and are often uncomfortable with new technology and pedagogy, are often against many of these proposed changes. For one because they have seen so many that they have grown pretty cynical about the whole thing and two, because they could be fired!!

The veteran teachers are also often the ones most active in the powerful unions, and their concerns (pension and health benefits) are the ones most focused upon. Therefore teachers (in LAUSD at least) have great health benefits and good (if decreasing) retirement packages, but the unions have made themselves the targets of most reform efforts.

Of course the big question here is; even though a teacher may not still keep up with the latest brain-based pedagogy, may not use the Library of Congress Database to help students with research, and may not use every minute of the day preparing student for the state tests, don’t they still have something to offer?

What about experience, a deeper knowledge of their subjects, and a greater familiarity in areas like grammar that newer teachers are notoriously deficient in (see that predicate at the end of the sentence?) Don’t they count for anything?

Who knows? But should the schools be like Glengarry Glen Ross: ruthlessly weeding out the teachers (often older) who are not pulling their weight towards the educational standards? Again, who knows? But that is the big question.

So anyway (and I applaud anyone who has made it this far!!), if real reform is either super expensive, politically unfeasible, or morally questionable, what can be done?

Again, who know? But here are a couple of ideas:

Stop putting all of the weight on the schools. Parents are critical to this process. How about offering tax incentives for succeeding and/or failing students. Finn and Jack are doing well, but if we could get a couple of hundred back at the end of the year???? Why not try it?

Fund Accelerated Reader. This is a big one for me, but more on it later - this is enough for now.

Finally:

RAISE TAXES AND PAY FOR EDUCATION!!!!!!!

Have a great week everyone!!

Get Get Get!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!! We'll be having a yard sale for Finn's school - wish us luck!!!

Big!!!

I thought Dad would especially appreciate this one!!

Dreamgirls!!!

We took a bunch of students to Dreamgirls at the Ahmanson Theater yesterday - it was sooo much fun!! I was fortunate enough to be one of the teachers invited to bring their students on this teriffic field trip! The guy taking the picture is David Levine, our drama teacher who I've done many school things with. He got it all together & invited me along!

The performance was amazing & the kids had a great time!! We got to meet the actors afterwards and talked about the drawbacks and rewards of performing. It was a wonderful day & made me wish (again) that we could do many more field trips!!!

Thanks David!!

Mac!!!

Ok, so sue me, but I was in a Fleetwood Mac mood this weekend!




I had been feeling pretty crummy all week, and by Friday was totally sick! So unfortunately most of Saturday was pretty much of a wash, but I felt better by Sunday when we had a really fun party at Mom and Petur's house for Kenny's 21st b-day and for the Oscars!









Here's a picture from that night:







It was really fun to see my Aunt Patty and her boys - I wish that I had more pictures, but it was pretty crazy with the party and the kids!!



Plus, my family takes the Oscars pretty seriously; we had $10 riding on whoever could get the most awards right! Em & I were doing pretty good considering that we hadn't seen ANY of the movies nominated this year!



So Sunday night was great, and then Monday I felt horrible again : ( Maybe it's just school!



Anyway, back to teaching today. Still not at 100%, but I'm taking a bunch of kids to see Dreamgirls at the Ahmanson Theater tomorrow, so that should be fun!



So some strikes and some gutters. But all in all, Fleetwood Mac was working for me this weekend!

So Vicious!!!

I didn't have much time to write this weekend because we were super busy, but I did manage to dig up this old picture of Jack from the days when he was hanging out at the Factory with Andy and the gang!

Actually, I just got to mess around for a little with a program called Photobucket which has lots of cool effects like this one. Try it out here:

http://photobucket.com/

Have a great week everyone!!!