Security

"No Radio, Beeper, Camera, Cellular, GPS - NOTHING IN CAR!!"

Fall hike

Today I went on a hike with the Columbia Hiking Club along where the old Dunneburg Spiral Railway used to be in upstate New York. After 4 1/2 hours of enjoying the breathtaking foliage, we went apple picking before heading back to school. I picked about 4 lbs. of apples, and ended up with an apple turnover and a few cider doughnuts as well. Mmmmm, delicious fall!

Problems in academia: Solved at TC

Those of you who have been out of the classroom for a while possibly don't remember what the average college professor is like. Many schools put pressure on their professors to conduct research and publish a set number of articles/books in a given time period. Most professors are also required to serve as advisors to students. It's understandable, then that many are not good teachers; they are juggling a lot of priorities, and staying up late to read about classroom methods is not at the top of their lists. Add to this the fact that some are interested only in the research side of things and teach a class or two because that's the only way the university will keep them on staff, and you get a recipe for, well, the stereotypical college professor. It's been my experience that the ones in the sciences are particularly bad.

Not so at TC. Just like (mostly) at Peabody, Vanderbilt's school of ed., the professors know how to teach because, well, that's what they teach. My advisor, mentor, and professor Dr. Masullo, for example, has a knack for pausing right after she's said something important, and has yet to start making another point until the very instant I've finished writing down the gist of her last comment. I'm not the only one whose note-taking timing matches up with her lecture style either apparently, because she's hardly ever asked to repeat what she just said. She somehow manages to be both light and informative at the same time, and backs up her lectures with useful study guides and relevant video clips.

Just one more thing to like about TC.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, came to speak at Columbia today. I tried to read a bit about him before going, wanting a bit of background, but Wikipedia (my scholarly source for all information) was surprisingly tight-lipped about him. The article talked about his biography but didn't say a thing about his philosophy. I know more about Michelle Ree, the superintendent of D.C. schools who didn't actually get chosen to be the secretary of education. So I was particularly interested in hearing what he had to say.

In introducing Duncan, Susan Fuhrman, the president of TC, went over some of his more impressive feats while he was superintendent of Chicago schools – huge increases in student achievement and graduation rates, tripled applications for teaching positions in the district, etc. Impressive, but I have to say I'm a little put out that he's never taught himself and has had only administrative and policy-making experience.

Some of his more memorable points:

-Schools of education (not TC of course) are doing an inadequate job of preparing teachers for the classroom.

-Schools of education are the "Rodney Dangerfields" of the academic world because they "get no respect."

-Universities often use schools of education as "cash cows," collecting lots of tuition from education students and redirecting it to more expensive (and more academically impressive programs) like chemistry, physics, etc.

-Approves of teacher training programs that have students in real classrooms, not lecture halls, as much as possible.

-Would like to see continuous, valuable professional development in schools where experienced teachers serve as mentors.

-Stressed that money is not the best way to reward good teachers and schools, although it is a small factor, and that more important to teacher satisfaction are things like adequate time for group planning and student assessment, high quality administrators who give them full support, and the resources they need to do their jobs.

Hard to argue with any of that, really. Very like a politician, except that he didn't feel slimy like some politicians can.

For the full transcript of his speech (or the webcast), follow this link: http://www.tc.edu/duncanwebcast.

Local flavor

Spotted in Central Park: three dog walkers stopped for a break at a pretzel stand holding the leashes of no fewer than SEVENTEEN dogs between them.

(Not my picture, by the way. Thanks, Google Images!)

Bad boys, bad boys

One of the teachers at Heritage had a cell phone stolen today. She said it was in her back pocket, which was a little alarming (they can pick pockets?!), but later decided it had been in her coat pocket and that she'd put her coat on a chair while she was writing on the board. Ms. P.'s phone, which she uses to time the kids while they're reading, was taken off her desk about two weeks ago. It was too bad, but this other teacher was much more upset than Ms. P. That particular class is made up of juniors, some of whom she's been teaching for the last three years. She felt they had a good relationship. Ms. P's phone was taken during a freshman class, so while it's annoying, it's not hurtful.

A teacher in the staff room was talking about the last high school she worked, where the kids would "steal anything that wasn't nailed down," including overhead projectors, laptops, whatever. I can't imagine working at a place where you couldn't leave your purse behind your desk without worrying about what was going to happen to it. Granted, I had a camera stolen at McGavock, but I shouldn't have left it on my desk, I guess. And theft wasn't really a schoolwide problem like it seems to be at Heritage. It really speaks to the lack of respect the kids have for their teachers when things like that happen. This woman seems very smart and capable, and I'm sure she could find an easier job that paid her a bit more and didn't carry with it the risk of losing personal possessions. She's one of the few who talks about nothing but planning and kids in the teachers' lounge, and although I've never seen her teach, I can tell she works hard to be as good as she can. It's disappointing that at least one of her students doesn't appreciate her for that.

My education

...is not limited to what I'm learning in classrooms either here at TC or at Heritage. My new friend Ferran, who is from Barcelona, taught me today that people with my complexion are called gambas, or prawns, in Spain. When we arrive we are all white but after being exposed to heat for a while, we turn pink. Yeesh. I'll never look at a shrimp cocktail the same way again.

Baby, it's cold outside

Over the past few weeks, I haven't been able to get enough of running in Central Park. The first time I ventured out I did about 3.5 miles and was sore the next day. Now I'm up to 7 miles with no soreness and virtually no lingering fatigue afterwards. However, I'm coming up against a hurdle (get it?) that's never been an issue for me while running: the cold. For the first time in my life, I was shivering instead of steaming at the end of yesterday's run. I wore spandex running tights that came down to mid-calf, a spandex tank top, and a cotton long-sleeved shirt. For the first half mile, I was freezing. As I continued, I got comfortably warm and then uncomfortably warm except for the hand that was holding my iPod which was freezing. At the end of my run, my usual cooldown block did its job a little too well - I was chilly and uncomfortable by the time I got to my dorm.

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg (get it?). It was probably in the mid-fifties yesterday, and today is colder still, 44 degrees at 11 A.M. Soon I'll be contending with piles of snow and temperatures that are 20 degrees lower or more. Yes, Columbia has a gym equipped with rows of treadmills, but I simply can't abide the idea of spending over an hour on one. It's hot in the gym, the scenery doesn't change, and there isn't a single squirrel to toss acorns down at me as I jog along.

Thank goodness I live in the information age. I put up a plea for tips on cold weather running on Facebook and have gotten lots of good responses from friends. Mistake #1: cotton. Part of the reason I got so cold was that my shirt got damp as I was running. Jenny suggests dri-weave. Mistake #2: not wearing gloves. Phillip, who obviously has a rather low opinion of my mental capacity, recommends not bulky ski gloves but thin ones that will protect against the wind. Although it wasn't cold enough for my ears to start stinging, Mario recommends an ear warmer for future months, which will prevent me from overheating by exposing the top of my head but will keep my ears toasty warm. A bonus feature from which Mario does not benefit: my hair will stay out of my face! He said also that something that zips up is nice because it can be unzipped as I overheat, then zipped back up when I get cold. Running on a track in Visalia is one thing - I was always confident that a sweatshirt tossed off to the side would be waiting for me whenever I returned for it. Central Park is another matter altogether. I have to plan never to see an article of clothing again if I leave it off to the side somewhere, so the idea of cooling off without actually taking anything off is appealing. Another idea: while climbing Mt. Shasta, I discovered how useful underarm zipper vents can be. I'd always thought they looked kind of goofy, never having been in a position to actually use them for their intended purpose before. I'll have to look for a light fleece that has them, and possibly pants with vents that can be unzipped as well.

I knew that life in New York would present new challenges, but the ones that are throwing me the most off track are the ones I didn't ever think would be a problem. I haven't gotten lost and I'm doing a reasonable job of staying on budget, both of which I thought would be tricky. However, I'd never have suspected that simply going for a run would present so many problems!

Yours truly, Helpless in Harlem

As a Zankel Fellow, I have to post a blog entry to a group blog page fortnightly (I jump on any excuse to use this word) about my experiences. To give you an idea of some of the issues I'm grappling with there, as well as to save myself time typing something up about it later, here's what I posted today:

"Teaching reading is hard enough, but when the task is compounded by environmental hurdles like the ones at Heritage High School, it seems nearly impossible to be successful. Some cases are extreme: the bipolar girl who doesn't get the therapy she needs, the mother all the teachers are afraid to call because of how badly she'll beat her child for his bad behavior, the twins whose father refuses to allow them to be placed into the special education classes for which they so clearly qualify. Luckily, kids in these sorts of situations are in the minority at Heritage. Still, it's safe to say that education is not a priority for the vast majority of the student body. They demonstrate this by ignoring their teachers, texting or listening to music in class, coming to school late, and being chronically absent. They're clearly not a priority in some homes either; today, a girl's mother called her daughter during class and refused to wait until after class to talk to her. The girl sighed and took the phone into the hallway, her serene expression as she returned proving that this hadn't been any sort of emergency. As I observe Ms. P. administer the day's lesson, I wrack my brain for ways the reading curriculum could be improved. It's hard to concentrate, though; all I can think about are the constant discipline issues that plague just about every moment. I'm getting a taste of what it must feel like to be a motivated student in this classroom, really wanting to accomplish something but unable to concentrate.

"Interestingly, the tasks the students seem most to enjoy are also the most drudgerous. I would predict that worksheets onto which they regurgitate the few scraps of information they manage to hear over the din would be enough to make them give up on school completely. Yet the stimulating conversations Ms. P. tries to have with her classes cause them to tune out, and they stay that way until yet another dull worksheet has them hooked. Ms. P. says it's because the worksheets are easy and they like being right. Is participating in a discussion really all that difficult? Perhaps it is. I remember leading my students at a similar high school in what I'd think was a really meaningful discussion, only to have an absent student reappear the next day and be told that the class did "nothing" the day before. Ouch. We discussed this issue at length in one of the undergraduate education courses I took, and my professor pointed out the similarity between mindless schoolwork given in remedial classes and the low-level jobs graduates of those classes usually secure for themselves. It really is a chicken-and-egg question: does one really cause the other? Ms. P. said that kids who are taking reading classes in high school are pretty likely to be the ones with menial jobs down the road. The realist in me sees her point, while the idealist in me is outraged by comments like that."

Mood music

I am studying in the student dining hall at the moment. I'd been here for about an hour when this guy (a student I'm guessing, although I don't know who he is) sat down at the piano in the corner. He's been playing stellar jazz for the last 45 minutes and instead of glancing restlessly at my watch every few minutes, I suddenly feel like I could sit here all night.

Literature Festival and open house at the Apollo

My friend Julia and I had a great day last Sunday. (I'm writing this on Saturday night, so it's not technically a week old and is therefore totally kosher.) We met at 10:00 in the morning and headed over to the main campus where the New York Times, among other businesses, was sponsoring a children's literature festival. After getting over the awkardness of being the only ones there with no children in tow, we had a fantastic time. There were tents with sign-ups for all kinds of giveaways - I'm still waiting for Lufthansa to contact me about those free tickets to Europe - tents were you could have authors sign your books if you had either the money to purchase them there or the foresight to bring your copy along (we had neither); a tent where you could buy children/adolescent literature which did NOT stock any of the crap that's so dishearteningly popular lately (no novel versions of Gossip Girl in sight!); the kind of live performances of music aimed at children that makes me pretty sure I'll never reproduce; and a story-reading stage. The latter was our favorite. I love knowing about what's newly published, and Julia is a big Broadway fan and was excited to see lot of the stars of hit shows reading to the kids. Most notable was a young black woman who's starring in a show whose name I can't remember. She read a book called _Jazz Baby_, which I didn't really like, but the whole book is a series of illustrated song lyrics and she sang it. It was absolutely phenomenal. Julia swore that she'd hire Broadway stars to read to her kids someday after that. I also liked a chapter book called _Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things_. The narrator, an undersized elementary school student, is hysterical.

After a quick stop at the farmer's market, where Julia recommended a type of apple called Honeycrisp that is good enough to lend credibility to anything else she ever tells me, we headed uptown.

The Apollo Theater is in Harlem. They had a free open house for their 75th anniversary. I had no idea what to expect, but we had a blast. When we arrived, they were showing a film about the history of the theater which included a segment featuring some of the many, many famous people who have performed there, everyone from Nat King Cole to Korn. We got to go up onto the stage and "rub the stump", a remanent of a tree that used to stand in front of the theater when it was first built; every performer who's been onstage has rubbed it for luck before their performances. Then there was a series of live performances, some singing, some dancing, some of both, and a few hip-hop artists. It was fun to get to know a bit more about a place that's such a landmark, but which I really didn't know a thing about before that day.

I wrapped up the day with a trip to the upper east side to have mediocre Indian food with Dave, then walked about three miles back to campus while on the phone with my parents. My route took me along 5th Avenue which borders Central Park. It was dark and not too many people were around, so I got the shadowy trees, dim facades of buildings, and two or three stars bright enough to penetrate the light pollution mostly to myself. Gotta love this city.

A Perfect 10! (Er, 5)

I got back my very first assignment as a graduate student today! Five whole points out of the five possible. Booyah. I plan to take myself out tonight to celebrate my current perfect record here at TC (and I have to act fast, because it's unlikely to last long).

Bureaucrats

Suddenly, I'm feeling a little less festive.

"Dear Elizabeth, This email is to ask whether the fruit and vegetable items lying in the corridor outside your room doorway are yours? If so, even though I must admit they are very charming, and quite an amusement to me when I'm on my rounds, can i ask that you please place them inside your room/the kitchen? I only say this because any items left in the hallway constitute a fire (exit) hazard, and so are in violation of our own stipulated fire code. Please let me know if you have any questions about either this email, or our fire policy, as I'm always happy to hear from residents about these and other matters. I hope you can understand our position on this. Thanks and best wishes, Ruaridh M."

Heritage High School

As an Arthur Zankel Urban Fellow, I've been assigned to put in ten hours a week working at Heritage High School in east Harlem.

Heritage is exactly two miles away from my dorm. I can walk there in about 40 minutes, or I can take a bus which takes about 35, so I've been walking and will continue to as long as the weather holds out. I go through Morningside Park and then along the perimeter of Central Park for about 90% of the time, so it's quite nice (and I save $10 a week on bus fare). I work with the reading teacher there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, arriving around 9:00 and knocking off at 2:00.

The school occupies only the third and fourth floors of this building. The enrollment is 300-something; quite small, although it feels huge when all the kids are in the halls between classes. I like the kids a lot. They remind me of my students at McGavock. Ms. P*, the reading teacher, has around 15 students per class, giving her about 75 per day. Of those, only two are white. The school is mostly populated by Latino and African American students. Some are recent immigrants. They come from mostly from nearby low-income housing. Almost all of them read below grade level.

My students at McGavock were far from compliant, but compared to the kids at Heritage, they seem like angels. Not that the kids themselves are different, but the discipline and expectations at the schools are like night and day. On Wednesday, I watched a security guard in uniform urging a group of girls to get to class; none of the girls so much as looked at her, despite her firm tone and shiny badge. I watched a teacher chase a student down the hall, calling his name, only to be ignored as well. I watched a teacher give dire warnings about the consequences of using a cell phone in class, only to have one of her students actually get up and walk into the hall five minutes later to take a phone call. He paid no attention to her scolding, pleading, or threats. My kids at McGavock did not always ask "How high?" when I told them to jump, but they certainly hopped to it when security told them to get moving; they'd have landed themselves in In-School Suspension if they hadn't. It's no wonder the students at Heritage don't seem to be learning much.

Ms. P. spends a lot of time talking over her classes instead of insisting on quiet. To my surprise on the first day, though, once she was finished giving them instructions and turned them loose to get to work, a hush fell over the room as they began. They're a very task-oriented bunch, the type that loves worksheets and probably can't handle a discussion to save their souls.

My job is mostly to observe, although I jump in to help out whenever I'm needed. I partnered up with a few kids for a reading exercise they did the other day, and I tested two girls in phoneme awareness, sight word reading, and spelling as well. I like the kids, and I'm looking forward to being more involved and getting to know them. So far, I've had to do no prep work or assessment - Ms. P. takes care of all that, thank goodness. I hope it stays that way, and I have a feeling it will.

I've been assigned my tutee for my first practicum as well. I'm going to call him Ricky, again because we've been threatened with crucifiction if we leak any information about these kids' real identities. His mother speaks a fair amount of English, although Spanish is her language of choice. He's in 4th grade, and I'm going to meet with him for the first time on Tuesday, first to assess his status and then to start working on his reading skills. I'll see him twice a week for 80-minute sessions in our on-campus reading clinic for the rest of the semester. (One of the things I really love about TC is how many connections they have to the community. Although this one-on-one tutoring can cost a lot, if families can demonstrate financial need, they'll pay as little as $5 a week for the service. Apparently the waiting list is about a mile long. The clinic, called CEPS which stands for...something, is just one of a myriad ways TC has us out there with our sleeves rolled up, putting to practice what we learn.) A lot of the girls in my program are pretty nervous about getting started, but I'm not especially, perhaps because I've done quite a lot of tutoring before, or perhaps because I just can't seem to be intimidated by a 9-year-old.

*To protect the innocent, I'm not going to use her real name, nor will I use any students' real names if I refer to them individually in future blogs. Normally, just for fun, I'd concoct outlandish pseudonyms for them, but since their real names are already pretty exotic, I'll have to call them things like Stuart and Mary.