Getting Older

I guess I'm getting older. Still, it surprises me now and then. Like when I read a newspaper article about, say, the mugging of an elderly person and then read on to find out the person is 63. Or when I find an article about a vibrant older person in the AARP magazine only to discover the person is 57. I'm 68.

It surprises me when the dentist tells me that the problem with that tooth is that it's "just old." I get a little annoyed at my annual physical when the list of shots the doctor suggests gets longer every year because "older people" are more susceptible to whatever diseases the vaccines are supposed to counter.

Lately I've been wondering why the news stations on cable TV seem to be hiring high school students as analysts. Or why the adults on TV seem to be retiring. Tom Brokaw. Diane Sawyer. Jay Leno, for heaven's sake. Or why the actresses who always play the young brash girls are getting cast as the mothers of young brash girls.

I just had to give up my "new" computer because it was getting clunky now that Microsoft no longer supports its XP operating system. Didn't I just buy that thing? And why did the IT woman at my last presentation look at it with that funny look while saying "Hmm?"  I won't even mention the last time I tried to use overhead slides and asked for an overhead projector. The tech guy asked, "That's a light bulb, right?"

And I just don't know what to do when someone on the New York subway gets up and offers me a seat. (For the record, this does not happen very often. Maybe twice. Well, once.)

I was in Portland, Oregon last summer and decided to use that mass transit system to get into the city center from my hotel. I was not surprised to find out that being over 65 in Portland makes one eligible for a reduced fare, but was mystified that the designation on the ticket was "Honored Citizen."  Jeez. Once downtown, I discovered at the restaurant where I had lunch a special senior menu for "Honored Guests." I can only assume that someday they'll have an Honored Driver lane on the highway. Think about that.

I've got to admit it, these complaints of mine seems pretty lame. I wonder why I am even thinking about stuff like this. There are certainly more important things to complain about. Or, I could not be complaining at all. How about that? Then the word "curmudgeon"comes to mind, and I'm surprised all over again.

Preparing to Teach

Teaching is really hard. 

The old cliche, "If you can, do. If you can't, teach," could not be more wrong. In order to teach you've got to first know what you're talking about, then get the attention of twenty or thirty kids, then encourage them, cajole them, or inspire them to focus on the work, exert some effort, and take some risks. If you're teaching in a high school, you do this five times a day, each time with a whole new group of students. In elementary schools, the kids stay all day, sure, but in a hour or so you need to switch to a whole new topic.

And the other cliche - "You don't know something until you can teach it," is an oversimplification of something real and true. To teach any concept, you not only have to know and understand it yourself, you've got to be able to see if through the eyes of someone who doesn't. Then bridge that gap.

Oh, and some kids will quit on you because they are scared, others because they don't believe they could learn it anyway, and some because they're fourteen or still act like it.

It Takes Time to Learn to Teach

There is an October 2014 article in the New York Times about a program to help aspiring teachers get a handle on all this by serving in a "residency" under a mentor teacher for a full year before being allowed to take over a classroom by themselves. The article focuses on the approach taken by the Aspire Public Schools, a  charter school network, and also looks briefly at some of the policy and theory behind this approach.

According to the Times:

The idea is that teachers, like doctors in medical residencies, need to practice repeatedly with experienced supervisors before they can be responsible for classes on their own. At Aspire, mentors believe that the most important thing that novice teachers need to master is the seemingly unexciting — but actually quite complex — task of managing a classroom full of children. Once internalized, the thinking goes, such skills make all the difference between calm and bedlam, and can free teachers to focus on student learning.

The article sites some examples of the kinds of skills the residents learn like fist-bumping students at the classroom door and using Popsicle sticks with student names written on them to call on kids. These are, however, single examples of broad areas of teaching practice. The first touches both on how to build relationships with kids and how to start the lesson right away without any down time in the crucial first few minutes. The second deals with issues of maintaining student attention and checking broad student understanding of the lesson.

The article points to the real problem and a real solution. We need to abandon both the idea that anyone can teach and that undergraduate courses alone, or mentoring alone, could prepare someone to master the complexity of the craft. Residencies are a step in the right direction. But what's really needed is a redesign of teacher preparation programs to include:

• rigorous undergraduate preparation in an academic field
• high standards for entry into graduate programs in education
• reliable assessments to ensure that graduates have mastered the theory of teaching
• residency programs for aspiring teachers that slowly relinquish classroom responsibilities to novices
• licensing standards that ensure that novice teachers are ready before being allowed to lead their own classrooms
• ongoing, required professional development to ensure that practicing teachers remain current
• valid performance assessments to ensure that incompetent or mediocre teachers are identified at any point during a career

Many of these steps are defined and explored by Linda Darling-Hammond, at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, whose articles and books are widely recognized as the definitive platform for any discussion of teacher preparation and whose blog looks at this issue from both policy and practice perspectives.

T-Boned by Fate

The sound of metal on metal came first, then the screech of tires. A car crash in my quiet neighborhood. So, of course, everyone came out to see what was going on. My fellow gawkers and I decided the small blue SUV ran a stop sign and clipped the right rear panel of the red pick-up truck crossing the intersection, which then spun out, traveled forty feet or so before crashing into a concrete wall on the property on the corner. We guessed it might have looked like one of those maneuvers cops use to stop fleeing vehicles - steering into the back side of the fleeing car.

Whenever I see an automobile accident, I can't stop thinking about what led up to it. Not the immediate thing, like one car not stopping at a stop sign, but all the little things that had to happen in the lives of the two drivers that day to put them on the exact same spot at the exact same instant.

I wonder if the SUV driver had put the car keys down at home in an unusual spot and had to spend three seconds looking for them, would he not be at the intersection yet when the pick-up passed? If the driver of the pick-up had forgotten his phone and had to go back in the house to get it, would the SUV be long gone before he got there. If the driver of either car had paused to adjust the radio before pulling out, would they have missed each other?

And then there are the other people on the road. If the SUV had been slowed down by a pokey driver before getting to the intersection, would the accident not happen? If the pick-up driver didn't have to tap his breaks for a bicycle weaving into the lane, would he be through the intersection a split second before the SUV?

Then I get to wondering, if there really is a series of events and decisions that inevitably lead to two cars being in the same spot at the same time, has that sequence already started for me today? Could my accident be out there in the near future but already inevitable?

But then I get a little crazy, thinking, well, if I had remembered to buy that toothpaste yesterday when I was at the store, I might not be taking the trip at all. It gets worse.  If I didn't buy the car I did five years ago, and got one with a little more power, would I get to the fateful spot faster and breeze through free and clear?

And then, and then, I think, well, if I didn't take that teaching job in Massachusetts in 1968, would I be living a whole different life in a whole different state, heading toward some other completely different car crash? Then my hair starts to hurt and I stop thinking at all.

Teachers with Guns Scare People with Money

The New York Times reports today that some insurance companies are revoking coverage or raising premiums at schools that arm employees. Schools Seeking to Arm Employees Hit Hurdle on Insurance. This is the market place reinforcing the point that those who object to guns in schools make and that I tried to capture here.

To keep kids safe in schools:

• Lock and secure all entrances
• Train staff, teachers and students to maintain door security and expect that they do it
• Use video in common areas especially outside
• Make sure everyone knows the lock-down and hold-in-place procedures and practice them often
• Work with local law enforcement to develop common protocols, language and communication systems
• Reduce the nationwide trend of cutting funding for local mental health programs.

Tow Job

All I wanted to do was get a couple of cupcakes for dessert.

My wife and I had just finished a really good meal at a local Mexican restaurant and we decided on coffee at home. There is one of those bakeries on the street that sell those high-end cupcakes. Pop in, buy three, and head home.

So what if there is no street parking spaces open, the store next door seems closed and they've got an off street lot. So what if the sign says cars will be towed at the owner's expense, how long can it take to buy three cupcakes?

Long enough for the tow truck driver to get my rear wheels attached to his truck it turns out. Fortunately, I remembered from somewhere that they can't tow a car with people in it, so I say to my wife, "Hop in."

Teachers with Guns

Following the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when twenty children and six adults were killed by an intruder armed with an assault weapon, the N.R.A. proposed putting more guns in schools, in the hands of security officers and teachers.

Learning to Drive

Moving to New York after decades of driving in Boston has meant learning some new rules of the road.