No food in the library

There has been a strict no food in the library rule from the beginning of my five year run as the school librarian. The reasons are fairly obvious, especially when you consider it is a middle school with 950 kids swimming through hormonal changes that account for a large percentage of their behavior. They tend to change direction every minute or so, leaving various items behind as they go, wrappers and crumbs for the vermin, creating the clean-up and maintenance trope that I'm not sounding for this entry. What I am really concerned about is the culture of the school, the blending of many cultures, health issues and respect. I think that food is a much bigger issue than is commonly thought, that in fact it is one of the biggest issues we could ever possibly teach. After all food is one of the few biological necessities for life. If anything should be taken seriously, it is the food we eat.

Food is so central to culture that you can identify a culture simply from the name of one dish alone, such as Pho, tamales or knishes. Rules surrounding food run the gamut from the health department to halal, vegetarianism to the WTO. When cultures mix in a place like a middle school, it seems best to put rules in place that create the least amount of friction between any particular, individual cultures but that maintains the needs of the institution. This is exactly the right place to insert lessons in civility and in yielding to the common good. But that is not what we currently have. What we currently have is confusion generated by mis-guided notions of what diversity means and entails. We have far too little modeling of healthy eating behavior.

In my school there are teachers who eat in front of classrooms full of students (frequently teachers have no time to eat otherwise) just like teachers in the '50s used to smoke in the classroom. Seeing young teens eat smarties for breakfast is not uncommon. Students and teachers can be seen walking down the hallways eating from the cafeteria trays. The problems with food are far more than just public health issues, they are cultural. We are not encouraging a culture of participation, we are encouraging the consumer culture, narrowly defined. But our purpose is not consumerism, it is education.

Ultimately, I think consideration of food is a foundation for respect, respect for life, respect for culture and respect for the people who provide, prepare and clean up when we eat. Eating is a social experience, an educational opportunity. Like it or not food at school is part of the curriculum. The question is: When are we going to start respecting food at school?

The hats conundrum

From an absurdist educator's point of view the issue of hats in school is perfect since it is ultimately insoluble and just won't go away. Recently in a meeting I heard a new no hats rebuttal to my hats position which is all or nothing. Usually I hear about gang affiliation worries or of individuals trying to hide their identity in the crowded hallways as the reasons to ban hats in middle school. But yesterday something new and unexpected presented itself and that was the concern with hygiene, specifically, head lice. Yes, the little devils just love to nestle in those head bands and breed away. The odd thing was the presenter of this view point was a Muslim woman., who admitted that for her to wear her head scarf she needed to be extremely clean. All the while I was thinking, "Hey, I wanna be able to wear a hat like she's doing".

Groups, families and tribes of people find ways to identify each other in the vast swirl of humanity. This is as true of religious groups as it is of gangs. Quite frankly I don't see any difference between hijab, yarmulke or dew-rag, police hats or baseball caps. Identity, self-image, group image. Respect or lack thereof? Oh, and as for the hooded identity hiders, "come on now", you should know your kids!

This hygiene thing really got to me. Hygiene? So isn't her distinction just another double standard? This basic dichotomy or false dichotomy creates the conundrum. Hats are styling, startling and warm. They express culture and identity. Why the push/pull? Well, mine is more right than yours.

No, I don't think so.

The thing about data mining

I'm daily confronted with the problem of trying to help some student get their homework off the cloud using school computers. Those things are heavily filtered understand, so there is a lot of normal seeming stuff that just doesn't work at school, the other universe. The reason commonly given by IT for why students can't use google+ to transfer their files is that Google data mines. I find this rather ironic coming from the school district.

It seems to me that the district pays millions to for-profit companies for the service of data generating assessment tools, more commonly known as standardized tests. The district is paying good money for data that is no better than what Google would gather for free while providing a more useful service than what we are forced to buy because of Federal restrictions for content management systems bearing allegedly confidential information. What it really is is exclusive information. Isn't that where the real value is in data? Or are we supposed to buy the notion that having the data can really help us improve the achievement of the students in our charge?

Gullibility in Education?

One the most unbelieveable facts of public education is that PhDs who work at the district level are some of the most gullible people on earth. Yeah, yeah, you have to supply them with facts garnered from data driven research and give them in-depth analysis that strokes their mighty egos but once you've hooked them they are fierce supporters of whatever they buy. The crop of PhDs down at Seattle Public's central office have sprung for one of the Snake Oil remedies to public education known as MAP testing. They've spent millions on it. The problems this generates are innumerable but today I'm thinking about a collegial argument over the utility of the results for a classroom teacher. Since the gullibility factor has already been engaged by the higher authorities this particular teacher was left with the argument, "I don't know...", in spite of being an ELL teacher who knows the flaws of MAP and that better assessments exist for his specific group of students.

My case had to do with giving our staff the choice to option out of the optional by district policy winter testing cycle but still on our school's Master Calendar with no discussion and thus as yet no possibility of optioning out until someone, namely yours truly, pushes back against the adminstrative oversight of not engaging the democratic process where it is needed. My case is made more difficult when the snake oil is potent and gullibility is high. It spreads confusion and misunderstanding.

We need assessments, people are willing to make and sell them because of this need and because that is what good businesses do, fulfill needs. The MAP remedy has some merit but the part that has been latched onto by the gullible is just the sizzle, the substance doesn't justify the expense. The problem is all of this makes the illusion harder to dispel.

How Long?

The length of time it has taken me to get to post 2 in this blog will not be the standard period between posts. So, in answer to the question, or one of the most likely answers, I'll go with "too long". Too long, because many of the (seemingly to some) oppositional notions I hold have been available in the free market of ideas for decades. There are proposals for middle school reform dating from the 1950s that have never been implemented but should still should be, such as the suggestion to emphasize social and emotional learning over academic learning during this critical time in individual development. These students are trying to understand how their bodies are changing and what that means socially and emotionally but schools insist on force feeding curriculum that does nothing to help them with these understandings. We are doing Just the Opposite and have been for Too Long.