Archive for February, 2010

‘No Child’ law undermines public education and must be reformed

February 23, 2010

When I was 18, I guided four canoe trips into the wilderness of Ontario’s Algonquin Park. I was in charge of several other teenagers for six days, paddling, carrying a canoe and a pack, navigating, choosing the campsite, cooking and first aid, one to two days travel from the nearest adult.

Today, at 61, experienced and competent, I cannot teach full-time with the nearest other adult a few yards away. For eight years, I have been an active volunteer in math at two high schools. At least 20 times, I have taught when a substitute did not know the material.

I want to do more, and there is great need. My father was a public-school teacher, principal and superintendent. I believe in public education; with liberty and national parks, it is one of three gifts America has given the world. If public education fails, and many legislators hope it does, we will destroy the middle class that is America’s strength.

I now have a substitute certificate. But I want to create a statistics course at a high school that needs one. I have a master’s degree in statistics and taught many semesters at New Mexico State, Pima Community College and other venues.

For four years, I graded the free-response portion of the national Advanced Placement Statistics exam; only three of nearly 400 graders were Arizonans. I have created a syllabus, prepared lessons, taught and graded. I’d teach the course for free if necessary, because I can afford to, and high school students should learn basic statistics.

But I can’t, because of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), even as children are being left behind in droves. I encounter them every day I tutor. I don’t see the many others who need help or mentoring and don’t get it, and those who drop out.

With appallingly inadequate funding, many schools nationwide remove problem students, gaming the system to survive. NCLB is like Clear Skies, Healthy Forests and Clean Coal: the intent of each perverted the name. I believe NCLB’s original intent was to close public schools, outsourcing education to for-profit charters.

Public schools need money, volunteers, evening and weekend hours, and an end to promoting those who aren’t ready. Teacher certification should mean demonstrated competence; demonstrated competence should allow certification.

A former neurologist, I saw many who practiced in my field with nowhere near the eight years of post-college training I had. But to teach full-time, I must return to school despite two advanced degrees and teaching experience using both. Where is the America I served as a shipboard Navy physician, the country that found innovative approaches to solve problems?

Public education, an American invention, needs help. The Iraq war was funded by an off-budget emergency authorization. Public education needs an emergency authorization. I don’t want to hear politicians say “children are our future.”

All I ask is to serve young people and America to my fullest potential. And make NCLB a literal reality.

Michael S. Smith has taught statistics, neurology, reading and astronomy. E-mail him at michaelspinnersmith@gmail.com


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THOUGHTS ABOUT A MATH CURRICULUM

February 13, 2010

(The following was written to the chairman of the math department at CDO High School in Tucson, where I have been a volunteer math tutor for 8 years.)

America has given three great gifts to humanity:  liberty, the national park system, and public education.  All three are under attack, but I will confine myself to the last.

I believe students must be able to do the following before entering high school:

  • Multiplication tables accurately and fast, mentally, with no calculator.
  • Addition and subtraction of all two digit numbers quickly–paper allowed.  No calculator.
  • Ability to add and subtract fractions, including those such as 5 1/8 -3 3/4. Paper allowed.  No calculator.
  • Ability to deal with negative numbers quickly and accurately.  It is inexcusable for students well into ninth grade continue to give “14” for 5 – 9.
  • Know the number of months in a year, days in a year, hours in a day, and minutes in an hour (yes, these are frequently not known.)
  • Know all basic English and metric measures:  these include ounces in a cup, cups in a pint, pints in a quart and quarts in a gallon.  They should know metric and English units of length, area, volume and temperature and be able to convert between them.  They should know sixteenths of an inch on a measuring tape.  They ought to know what a cubic foot of water weighs; maybe then we wouldn’t have drivers going through flowing washes every summer.   It wouldn’t hurt if they knew that 1:60,000 on a map is roughly an inch to a mile.
  • Know the decimal equivalent of all fractions with a denominator less than 10.  Be able to quickly and accurately convert mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice versa.      It is inexcusable for a softball player to require a calculator to figure out her batting average.
  • Be able to estimate square roots of numbers that aren’t perfect squares; many honors geometry students can’t estimate the square root of 5.
  • Know common factors of common numbers, which basically means understanding the multiplication tables.
  • Be able to estimate answers to common problems, including the proper sign and rough idea of the magnitude of the answer.  A quarter or the price scanners in Arizona are inaccurate; cashiers frequently give the wrong change.
  • Be able to work with large numbers using scientific/exponential notation.

American students need to be able to collect, format and interpret data at a basic level.  We have a data driven society:  today’s key issues cannot be addressed without understanding basic science and math.  We have a society where conspiracy theories are not debunked, vaccinations are believed to cause autism, and where a majority do not believe in evolution despite absolutely compelling evidence.   We have the highest percentage of non-believers in global climate change in the world.  More people believe in astrology than in astronomy; few know what a year represents, and fewer still can find ten well known countries on a map.  But my focus is on math.

It is impossible to use a calculator without number sense–some idea of what an answer ought to be.  Calculators give several decimal places when three to four would be sufficient (and better, in the case of scientific work, where the appropriate number of significant figures has to be used).  Inability to estimate an answer means that if a wrong button is pushed, the student will be unaware of it.  Too many graduate without basic skills; 80% of the students entering Pima Community College need remedial math training.  How many children in Pima County, Arizona, and America leave high school unable to do basic math?  We don’t know:  but from my experience in two affluent districts with high graduation rates, I would estimate the number well over 5000 annually.  These students are being left behind not just other Americans but the Singaporeans, Indians, South Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, all of whom recognize that in this century, as in all others, education is the way out of poverty.   They are strong competition, and if they succeed, this country won’t.

I believe if students had a solid background in basic math, they would be able to handle basic financial issues.  One reason we have the current financial crisis is that many cannot understand interest rates, doubling times for debt and money and budgeting skills.

We require students to memorize the alphabet and the numbers.  We practice writing and diction.  We similarly must require memorization, practice and homework in math to learn these basic skills.

I have nearly daily arguments with students about banning all electronic devices in the classroom, except calculators.  I have yet to be in any class in any school, and I am in school 5 days a week, where there isn’t surreptitious texting occurring.  Seniors probably can’t be controlled, but 9th graders should not be allowed to have electronic devices near them in the classroom.  How to do this will be difficult, but if we don’t stop the electromagnetic abuse, learning will continue to deteriorate.  I am well versed in studies of human error and know that multitasking hurts learning and that interruptions require significant time to reconfigure one’s ability to concentrate.  I think far too many are labelled as learning disabled, without seeing what happens with concentration, hard work and one-to-one tutoring.   I am bothered by grading participation, which to me has shown up in high school as loud, wrong guessing.  We need to bring back the concept of school nights, where there aren’t concerts or hanging out.  In these days of instant, easy electronic communication, parents ought to be fully aware of how their child is doing and should be acting upon it.

In passing, I mention the deterioration of dress, language and civility among today’s students.  I think that more formal dress correlates with better civility and a higher likelihood of learning.  I am no longer shocked by what students wear, and I’ve grown to tolerate coarse language, perhaps because of my Navy experience, where I’ve heard everything these students have said and a good deal more.  The lack of civility I have a more difficult time with.  I certainly wasn’t always polite as a student, but there were significant consequences for rudeness that when I violated, I still remember to this day.  The public displays of affection are nothing short of shocking.

Education requires society, not just schools and teachers.  Parents must inculcate their children with the proper values, dress, behavior and desire to learn.  My father was a high school principal, assistant superintendent of schools and superintendent in three cities.  He and my mother accepted nothing less than my best work.   Yes, education is underfunded, and we need to press for more.  But that does not excuse us from doing what we can with the people we have.  And we aren’t doing that.  We need society to be taxed to pay for the public schools.  We also need to stop promoting those who do not earn promotion.  We need volunteers, as I have been for the past 8 years.  And we need the schools to put them to use, in the classroom, library, before, during and after school and on weekends, which has not occurred.  Six schools have never returned my offer to volunteer.  This is unacceptable.  We need competent teachers, and we need competent substitutes, which I hope to be.  I decided to substitute for pay because I was not busy enough and was felt it unfair that I taught when a certified substitute got paid and did nothing.  We need appropriate tests, where to fail them would be so egregious that nobody, even in the Arizona legislature, would pass the student on to the next level.  (I would wonder how many legislators would pass such tests.)  Teachers promote students to high school who are incapable of doing elementary school–yes, elementary school–math.  Eventually, high schools and community colleges end up teaching remedial courses. This must stop.  Watering down AIMS because it upsets people is unacceptable.  Do we want educated students or don’t we?

America’s future at stake.  I am among the 7% of Americans who has served this country in uniform.  We need mandatory national service, some of which could be in the classroom, where we might find our next generation of teachers.  I refuse to let public education fail without a fight, for if it does, we will lose the middle class and this country.  I will continue to speak out on this subject; I will do all I can as a volunteer and as a substitute to teach students the skills that I have been blessed with, not just genetically, but through practice, hard work, and strict demands — timeless values —  made by my parents.

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LILLIPUTIAN LESSONS

February 7, 2010

Foregoing the elevator, I went to the stairwell at the Nairobi Intercontinental, ascending to my third floor room.  When I reached the spacious second floor, there were a dozen hotel workers taking a break.  When I appeared, an old white western guy, the scene got–shall we say–awkward.  Their conversation stopped.

I smiled and said, “Jambo,”  an all purpose Kenyan greeting, one from the heart, my guide, Danson, told me several days later.  I heard several “Jambo’s” in return, and tension left the stairwell like air from a popped balloon.  I continued up the stairs, and they continued their conversation.  Trying to speak the language in another country is a sign of respect.  “Jambo,” told the men that I was cool with the situation, I knew a little KiSwahili and was a guy who respected Kenyans as people, not former colony inhabitants.

One of my big regrets in life is never having learned any foreign language well.  Still, within 12 hours of arriving in Nairobi, I could count, say please and thank you, and “Jambo,” which I used a great deal, along with “Hakuna Matata,” the Kenyan version of “Don’t sweat it.”  My French in France was not appreciated.  But my Spanish worked in Spain (and not badly in Italy, either), and the Filipinos absolutely loved it when I spoke Tagalog, 35 years ago.   I blew one vendor away with my “Hindi ako kumakain nang barbeque dito,” essentially stating I wasn’t interested.

At Lake Nakuru, I showed several lodge staff the annular solar eclipse through solar filtered binoculars, the eclipse being the reason I traveled to Kenya.  I love eclipses, and I love showing them to people and explaining the phenomenon.  Many were flat out amazed a guest would take an interest in making sure they could see something that almost certainly they will never see again (the November 2013 eclipse will be partial in Kenya).  In the short time I was there, many called me “Mr. Mike,” an appellation I particularly like, since it simultaneously shows respect and liking.  I told one waiter my age was sitini na moja, (look it up!)  It took him a few seconds, but he got it, and later (in English) talked to me at length about the lodge.  Danson later told me that I had made a big impression on the staff, one of the nicest compliments I received.

People are people.  Just like me.  The Kenyans have a life, a far more difficult one than I can imagine, but they are still people.  Unlike us, they have a beautiful memorial site for their disaster of 7 August 1998. Also unlike us their cellphones work everywhere.  I texted the eclipse phenomenon in real time back home. My text immediately went through from Jomo Kenyatta airport; it didn’t from Houston’s Intercontinental.  Not infrequently, I get “No Service” from Campbell and Skyline.  So who is Third World?

When I left practice in 1992 to take a leave of absence, I received many notes, cards and letters.  The one I remember the most was from a dietitian, who was also leaving to go to pharmacy school.  She said, “You respected the little people.”  I tried to.  I was taught at a very young age not to beat up on those who can’t defend themselves (nurses, custodians, aides), which I have done and for which I have been ashamed.  I’ve seen too many physicians and others in power who beat up on people, and I remember taking the brunt of it when I was an intern scrubbing on a bypass case.  It was difficult to hold the retractor properly when my eyes were filled with tears.  I was thanked only 5 of the 12 times I scrubbed with those two surgeons.  I was the little people, and I never forgot that treatment.  It was so bad, I got blisters on my hand from learning how to take a hemostat off a piece of wet kleenex with one hand without tearing the kleenex, so I wouldn’t get yelled at in the OR.  And I mean yelled.

I finally got some revenge.  On a later case, with the pair, I had my thumb too far through a hemostat.  “Don’t hold your instruments like that, Smitty,” one yelled (a term I detest), “you don’t hold your silverware like that, do you?”

“I don’t use silverware,” I retorted.  “I use my fingers.”  That was the end of that conversation.  When they quizzed me on anatomy, which I happened to know cold, I spat the correct answer back at them.  After three correct answers in a row, they left me alone.  One later had a nervous breakdown; both must have been incredibly unhappy people.

I always thanked nurses for helping, I tried to clean up after myself, and if you read Code Team on my blog, you will discover what other things I cleaned up in the hospital.  But occasionally I lost my cool.  We all do.  I just tried to remember to apologize when I did.  And if one is polite most of the time, he or she can easily be forgiven for a lapse.  There just can’t be too many of them, and an apology,must be coupled with a change in behavior.

When you’ve been at the bottom as many times as I have–undergraduate, medical school, internship, residency, graduate school and now teaching, you understand a lot better what it’s like being the little people.  That gives you two choices:  to haze those below you or to break the cycle.  I’ve tried to choose the latter.

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