[regional_school] Re: The Disciplines

Fantine - I Dreamed a Dream - Lyrics  :-)


[Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute]

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
Ellen Weber (PhD) 
Director - MITA International Brain Based Center
PO Box 347, Pittsford, NY 14534 
MITA Brain Leaders and learners  blog: www.Brainleadersandlearners.com 
MITA Brain Based Center Web Site  at www.mitaleadership.com 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: William Cala 
To: regional school 
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 9:00 AM
Subject: [regional_school] Re: The Disciplines


Oh Yes!!!  I agree!!  The video really choked me up.  I never watch any of the 
Idol programs for a bunch of reasons, but this was spectacular.  I'd also like 
to get the words to the song she was singing.  They were prophetic!  
Thanks for sharing.

Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellen Weber" <eweber1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "regional school" <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 1:55:15 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [regional_school] Re: The Disciplines

 
Bravo -- spoken like a pro. In similar ways we can do movements like "social 
justice" to the detriment of learners' growth. Key is to draw out student's 
unique offerings as tools for their unique growth - and it's doable daily. It 
starts with listening and ends with valuing what all students bring to any 
table. This YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk suggests only 
the tip of talents one finds when we mine for and help to polish students' 
gems. The process carries them meaningfully into the process - and they can 
lead real justice for their entire community. Agree? 


Ellen Weber (PhD) 
Director - MITA International Brain Based Center
PO Box 347, Pittsford, NY 14534 
MITA Brain Leaders and learners  blog: www.Brainleadersandlearners.com 
MITA Brain Based Center Web Site  at www.mitaleadership.com 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: William Cala 
To: regional 
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 9:18 AM
Subject: [regional_school] The Disciplines


If you were at my presentation on the Regional School on September 22nd, you 
heard me speak at length of the problems in which we teach the disciplines.  
The article below should be a reminder that teaching the way we have been made 
to teach will push students further from where we want them to go.

Bill

SCIENCE IS FAILING TO INSPIRE SOME:
PROMINENT EDITOR CALLS FOR OVERHAUL OF HOW DISCIPLINES ARE TAUGHT
Houston Chronicle -- April 10, 2009
By Eric Berger

Across the land, students in science class diligently memorize human 
cell components like DNA, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. They 
learn to rigidly order the natural world, from kingdom down to species.

And - most disturbingly, say a growing number of scientists - they learn 
to hate science.

Advocates cite many problems with science education, such as teachers 
lacking a science background. But perhaps the most critical issue, they 
say, is standardized testing that forces students to memorize and 
regurgitate.

"Students don't need to know what an endoplasmic reticulum is," said 
Bruce Alberts, editor of the journal Science and former president of the 
National Academies of Science, who has called for a "revolution" in 
science education.

"Bad tests are forcing a trivialization of science education and drive 
most students away from science. Real science is exciting. It's 
completely different from these textbooks."

Yet change may be afoot in Texas, with some legislators calling for a 
re-evaluation of the influence of TAKS testing. And some science 
educators see opportunities to change science class from a dull exercise 
in memorization to inquiry-based learning.

There's no shortage of smart people tackling the issue, like Nobel 
Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, who argues that children should 
be taught physics first in high school in order to grasp the broad 
outlines of the natural world.

"I've been working at it for a long time," he said. "We're not doing 
well. Meaningless testing is a bad thing. If we want scientific 
literacy, then we want teachers to teach the beauty of science, the fun 
in it, the humor in it, and to bring examples of modern science into the 
classroom."

U.S. Falls Behind

American students finish near dead last among developed countries in 
math and science testing, and they're turned off at an early age. 
Foreign students now earn six out of every 10 engineering doctorates at 
U.S. universities. Just one-third of U.S. undergraduates earn a degree 
in science and engineering, while nearly two-thirds of Chinese and 
Japanese students do so.

A recent report on U.S. economic prospects in the 21st century, /Rising 
Above the Gathering Storm/, concluded that leadership in scientific 
endeavors was crucial to success. By extension, the report found it was 
necessary to "vastly improve" America's talent pool through science, 
math and technology education.

Some schools are trying to do it differently.

At the Houston Independent School District's Cornelius Elementary 
recently, groups of fifth-graders were seated around tables where one 
student wore a name tag that said, "principal investigator."

Each table received a white coffee filter filled with mealworms, a type 
of beetle larvae. They examined the worms with magnifying glasses, and 
not a minute passed without the teacher asking a question. Hands shot up 
each time in response.

Given pieces of wet and dry paper, a stopwatch and a metric ruler, the 
students were then instructed to devise and conduct their own 
experiment. Their choices varied, such as whether mealworms traveled 
faster or slower over wet paper, or how far they could go in one minute.

This was science. It was fun and engaging.

"The science lab allows the student to have a hands-on opportunity," 
said Sandra Antalis, HISD's elementary science curriculum manager.

In 2004, HISD began spending $4 million to put science labs on all of 
its 189 elementary school campuses, and fifth-graders beat the statewide 
average in recent standardized testing, she said.

Problems with TAKS

But the system's still not ideal. At magnet schools like Cornelius, 
there's a lab teacher for each grade providing specialized, interactive 
instruction. At most schools, there's just one lab teacher for all grades.

Additionally, educators remain concerned there's only so much 
inquiry-based learning that can be done in a system that rewards high 
test scores.

One issue is the timing and subject matter of tests, said Michael 
Baldwin, a biology teacher at Hanna High School in Brownsville and 
president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. The 11th-grade 
science test, which students must pass to graduate, covers a disparate 
amount of material, from biology to Earth sciences. Yet students often 
are taking physics during that year.

"So maybe a month before the test, or even as early as December, instead 
of teaching physics class, the teachers are reviewing biology and 
chemistry," Baldwin said. "It puts huge pressure on teachers to abandon 
their curriculum. The students pass the TAKS test, but then don't have 
enough physics for a proper foundation in college."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6367232.html

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