Education News

Anaconda

2008-12-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

An anaconda is a large, non-venomous snake found in tropical South America. Although the name actually applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, which is one of the largest snakes in the world.

Anaconda may refer to:

Any member of the genus Eunectes, a group of large, aquatic snakes found in South America.
Eunectes murinus, a.k.a. the common anaconda, the largest species, found east of the Andes in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and on the island of Trinidad.
Eunectes notaeus, a.k.a. the yellow anaconda, a smaller species found in eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina.

Eunectes deschauenseei, a.k.a. the dark-spotted anaconda, a rare species found in northeastern Brazil and coastal French Guiana.

The giant anaconda, a mythical snake of enormous proportions found in South America.
Any large snake that "crushes" its prey (see Constriction). Applied loosely.

Etymology

The name was first used in the English language in 1768 by R. Edwin in a colorful description of a large snake found in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), most likely a reticulated python, Python reticulatus. The account, which explains how the snake crushes and devours tigers, is full of popular misconceptions, but was much read at the time and so gave rise to the myth of the Anaconda of Ceylon.

Various theories exist regarding the origin of the name itself. One suggests that it was derived from the Sinhala henakandaya. However, this name is used to refer to the brown vine snake, Ahaetulla pulverulenta, a slender arboreal species that grows to five feet (152 cm) at most and feeds only on small vertebrates. Another theory by Yule and Burnell (1886) is based on an entry in the Catalogue of Indian Serpents from the Leyden Museum (Ray, 1693) that reads: Anacondaia Zeylonensibus, id est Bubalorum aliorumque jumentorum membra conterens, meaning "the anacondaia of the Ceylonese, i.e. he that crushes the limbs of buffaloes and yoke beasts." Without a clear Sinhala connection, they suggest one from the Tamil language instead: anai-kondra (anaik-konda), meaning "which killed an elephant

Mars

2008-11-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

This article is about the planet. For other uses, see Mars (disambiguation).

Mars (pronounced /ˈmɑrz/) is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is
named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance. This reddish appearance is due to iron oxide.

Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. It is the site of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon. Furthermore, in June 2008 three articles published in Nature presented evidence of an enormous impact crater in Mars' northern hemisphere, 10 600 km long by 8 500 km wide, or roughly four times larger than the largest impact crater yet discovered, the South Pole-Aitken basin.^[5]^[6] In addition to its geographical features, Mars’ rotational period and seasonal cycles are likewise similar to those of Earth.

Until the first flyby of Mars by Mariner 4 in 1965, many speculated that there might be liquid water on the planet's surface. This was based on observations of periodic variations in light and dark patches, particularly in the polar latitudes, which looked like seas and continents, while long, dark striations were interpreted by some observers as irrigation channels for liquid water. These straight line features were later proven not to exist and were instead explained as optical illusions. Still, of all the planets in the Solar System other than Earth, Mars is the most likely to harbor liquid water, and perhaps life.^[7] Water, in the state of ice, was found by the Phoenix Mars Lander on July 31, 2008.^[8]

Mars is currently host to three functional orbiting spacecraft: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. With the exception of Earth, this is more than any planet in the Solar System. The surface is also home to the two Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) and several inert landers and rovers, both successful and unsuccessful. The Phoenix lander recently completed its mission on the surface. Geological evidence gathered by these and preceding missions suggests that Mars previously had large-scale water coverage, while observations also indicate that small geyser-like water flows have occurred during the past decade.^[9] Observations by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor show evidence that parts of the southern polar ice cap have been receding.^[10]

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Martian Trojan asteroid. Mars can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.9,^[4] a brightness surpassed only by Venus, the Moon, and the Sun, though most of the time Jupiter will appear brighter to the naked eye than Mars.

Amazing Animal Senses

2008-10-10T06:25:00.001-07:00

Some animals have developed amazing adaptations to their environments. Many different types of energy exist in the environment, some of which humans cannot detect. Here are some examples of how some animals sense the outside world and the anatomical structures that allow them to do so.
Ants
Can detect small movement through 5 cm of earth.
Can see polarized light.
Bats
Can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".
Bats can also find food (insects) up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.
Can hear frequencies between 3,000 and 120,000 Hz.
Bees
Can see light between wavelengths 300 nm and 650 nm.
Have chemoreceptors (taste receptors) on their jaws, forelimbs and antennae.
Worker honey bees have 5,500 lenses ("ommatidia") in each eye.
Worker honey bees have a ring of iron oxide ("magnetite") in their abdomens that may be used to detect magnetic fields. They may use this ability to detect changes in the earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation.
Can see polarized light.
Butterfly
Has chemoreceptors (taste receptors) on its feet.
The butterfly has hairs on its wings to detect changes in air pressure.
Using vision, the butterfly Colias can distinguish two points separated by as little as 30 microns. (Humans can distinuguish two points separated by 100 microns.)
Buzzard
Retina has 1 million photoreceptors per sq. mm.
Can see small rodents from a height of 15,000 ft.
Cat
Has hearing range between 100 and 60,000 Hz.
Olfactory membrane about 14 sq. cm. For comparison, humans have an olfactory membrane of about 4 sq. cm.
Chameleon
The eyes of the chameleon can move independently. Therefore, it can see in two different directions at the same time.
Cockroach
Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
Crab
Has hairs on claws and other parts of the body to detect water current and vibration.
Many crabs have their eyes on the end of stalks.
Crayfish
Has sensory hairs that can detect movement of 0.1 microns (at 100 Hz frequency).
Cricket
Can hear using their legs; sound waves vibrate a thin membrane on the cricket's front legs.
Dog
Has olfactory membrane up to 150 sq. cm.
Can hear sound as high as 40,000 Hz.
Dolphin
Like bats, dolphins use echolocation for movement and locating objects.
Can hear frequencies up to at least 100,000 Hz.
Dragonfly
Eye contains 30,000 lenses.
Earthworm
Entire body covered with chemoreceptors (taste receptors).
Eagle
Eyeball length = 35 mm (human eyeball length = 24 mm)
Visual acuity is 2.0 to 3.6 times better (depending on the type of eagel) than that of humans. (Shlaer, R., An eagle's eye: quality of the retinal image, Science, 176:920-922, 1972.)
Elephant
Has hearing range between 1 and 20,000 Hz. The very low frequency sounds are in the "infrasound" range. Humans cannot hear sounds in the infrasound range.
Falcon
Can see a 10 cm. object from a distance of 1.5 km.
Visual acuity is 2.6 times better than human. (Garcia et al., Falcon visual acuity, Science, 192:263-265, 1976.)
Can see sharp images even when diving at 100 miles/hr.
Fish
Some can detect the L-serine (a chemical found in the skin of mammals) diluted to 1 part per billion.
Have a "lateral line" system consisting of sense organs ("neuromasts") in canals along the head and trunk. These receptors are used to detect changes in water pressure and may be used to locate prey and aid movement.
Some fish can see into the infrared wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Fish (Catfish)
Has 3 or 4 pairs of whiskers, called barbels, to find food. The catfish also has approximately 100,000 taste buds. (Humans have only 10,000 taste buds.)
Fish (Deep sea)
Only have rods in the retina: 25 million rods/sq. mm. Perhaps they need this high density of photoreceptors to detect the dim biolumninescence that exists in the ocean depths.
Fish (Drum Fish)
Collects underwater sound vibrations with an air bladder. The signals are then sent from the air bladder to the "weberian apparatus" in the middle ear and then to the inner ear. Hair cells in the inner ear respond to the vibration and transmit sound information to the fish brain.
Fish ("Four-eyed Fish" Anableps microlepis)
Can see in air and water simultaneously. Each eye is divided by flaps, so there is one opening in the air and one in the water.
Fly
Each eye has 3,000 lenses. (Simmons and Young, 1999)
Eye has a flicker fusion rate of 300/sec. Humans have a flicker fusion rate of only 60/sec in bright light and 24/sec in dim light. The flicker fusion rate is the frequency with which the "flicker" of an image cannot be distinguished as an individual event. Like the frame of a movie...if you slowed it down, you would see individual frames. Speed it up and you see a constantly moving image.
The small parasitic fly (Ormia ochracea) can locate sounds within a range of only 2o of the midline. (Mason et al., Nature, 410:686-690, 2001)
Blowflies taste with 3,000 sensory hairs on their feet.
Frog
Has an eardrum (tympanic membrane) on the outside of the body behind the eye.
Giant Squid
Eye is 25 cm in diameter.
Retina can contain up to 1 billion photoreceptors.
Grasshopper
Has hairs ("sensilla") all over the body to detect air movement.
Can hear up to 50,000 Hz.
Hawk
Normal vision for people is 20/20. A hawk's vision is equivalent to 20/5. This means that the hawk can see from 20 feet what most people can see from 5 feet. (Scientific American, April 2001, page 24)
Hawk Buteo
Has 1 million photoreceptor per square millimeter in its retina.
Iguana
Able to detect the temperature of sand within 2 degrees F. This temperature is needed for the iguana to lay its eggs.
Jellyfish
The box jellyfish has 24 eyes. (Nature, 435:201-205, 2005.)
Mice
Can hear frequencies between 1,000 and 100,000 Hz. By comparison, humans can hear frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz.
Star-nosed Mole
Uses its fleshy star nose for hunting. The Star-nosed mole has 100,000 nerve fibers that run from star to the brain. This is almost six times more than the touch receptors in the human hand.
Mosquito
Attracted to host by human body odor (especially foot odor), carbon dioxide, body heat and body humidity.
Moth
Noctuid Moth has a hearing range between 1,000 and 240,000 Hz.
Emperor Moth can detect pheromones up to 5 km. distant.
Silkworm Moth can detect pheromones up to 11 km. distant. This moth can detect pheromones in concentrations as low as 1 molecule of pheromone per 1017 molecules of air. A receptor cell can respond to a single molecule of the pheromone called bombykol and 200 molecules can cause a behavioral response.
Octopus
Retina contains 20 million photoreceptors.
The eye has a flicker fusion frequency of 70/sec in bright light.
The pupil of the eye is rectangular.
Has chemoreceptors (taste receptors) on the suckers of their tentacles. By tasting this way, an octopus does not have to leave the safety of its home.
Penguin
Has a flat cornea that allows for clear vision underwater. Penguins can also see into the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Pig
Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.
Pigeon
With eyes mounted laterally on their heads, pigeons can view 340 degrees...everywhere except in back of their heads.
Can detect sounds as low as 0.1 Hz.
Platypus
Has electric sensors in its bill that can detect 0.05 microvolts. Other receptors in the bill are for touch and temperature detection.
The cochlea of the inner ear is coiled only a quarter of a turn. In man, the cochlea is coiled about 2.7 times.
Rabbit
Tongue contains 17,000 taste buds.
Rat
Has hearing range between 1,000 and 90,000 Hz.
Seahorse
Each eye can move independently.
Scallop
Has 100 eyes around the edge of the shell. These eyes are probably used to detect shadows of predators such as the starfish.
Scorpion
Can detect air moving at only 0.072 km/hr with special hairs on its pincers.
Can have as many as 12 eyes.
Shark
Has specialized electrosensing receptors with thresholds as low as 0.005 uV/cm. These receptors may be used to locate prey. The dogfish can detect a flounder that is buried under the sand and emitting 4 uAmp of current.
Some sharks can detect fish extracts as concentrations lower than one part in 10 billion.
Some sharks sense light directly through the skull by the pineal body.
The thresher shark has an eye up to 5 inches (12.5 cm) in diameter. The last three facts are from D.Perrine, Sharks and Rays of the World, Stillwater: Voyaguer Press, 1999.
Snakes
Pit-vipers have a heat-sensitive organ between the eyes and the nostrils about 0.5 cm deep. This organ has a membrane containing 7,000 nerve endings that respond to temperature changes as small as 0.002-0.003 degrees centigrade. A rattlesnake can detect a mouse 40 cm away if the mouse is 10 degrees centigrade above the outside temperature.
The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.
Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer". Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.
Snakes have no moveable eyelids. Instead, they have a clear, scale-like membrane covering the eye.
Sparrow
Retina has 400,000 photoreceptors per sq. mm.
Spider
Many spiders have eight eyes.
Starfish
Arms covered with light sensitive cells. Light that projects on an "eyespot" on each arm causes the arm to move.

4 of the More Popular Home Schooling Methods

2008-09-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

By Wesley Beck

The picture for most of home schooling is 2 or 3 kids sitting at the dining room table writing frantically in their notebooks. This is the not the true picture. There are several methods of home schooling, and the method you choose will decide the material and the way you teach it. Some of the more popular methods are discussed below.

The Charlotte Mason method:

Charlotte Mason is known as the founder of the home schooling movement. A home schooled herself, she was very hopeful in her ability to plan out a program for an effective a complete education. A program that would hold the interest of children and still be educational.

This method focuses on the basics with an emphasis placed on classical literature, poetry, fine arts, classical music and craft. Mason used several of books from classical literature; she called these 'Living Books'. This method encourages a passionate awareness of literature. The child is read to daily from the 'Living Books'. Then the child is asked to give an opinion on what was read. This process begins at the age of six, and by ten the child is expected to write her opinions in her book. Mason also suggests the use of a nature diary. After each short and interesting lesson, the child is asked to go to on a nature walk and draw observations from Nature. Thus the child also gains a sense of respect for her environment. Mason believed that development of good character and behavior was essential to the complete development of the child's personality.

The Eclectic Home schooling:

This is a mixture of various home schooling techniques. Here, the parents trust their own judgment and pick out the topics that make the best curriculum for their child. Such parents are continuously on the watch for the best products that will meet the needs of their home schoolers. Most Eclectic home schooling studies are improvised. This means that the basic curriculum is provided. The parents then make changes in the curriculum to meet the needs and interests of their children. The childrens gifts, impermanent, learning style and interests determine the curriculum. Eclectic programs include visits to the museum, libraries and factories.

Unschooling:

A Boston public educator name John Holt laid the beginnings of the unschooling method. He believed that children learned best when they are free to learn at their own pace and when they are guided by their own interests. His message was to 'unschool' the child.

This method is a hands-on approach to learning, where the parent takes definite cues from the children. There is no definite curriculum, schedules or materials. This method is the most unstructured of the various homeschooling techniques.

The Montessori Method:

This method began in Italy, when it was observed that children have acute sensitive periods, during which they undergo periods of intense concentration. During such phases, a child will repeat an activity till he gains a measure of self-satisfaction. The Montessori Method depends on a prepared environment to facilitate learning. All the materials used in this method are designed to satisfy the inner desire for spiritual development of the child. The materials used progress from simple to complex, and are rather expensive.

These are just a few of the methods of homeschooling. Whatever the method, the underlying factor is flexibility and a keen interest in the desires of the child. The secret is to use the childrens desire for knowledge to further his education.

What Research Says On Parental Involvement in Children's Education: Epstein's Framework

2008-09-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

In Relation to Academic Achievement

Source: U.S. Department of Education

Epstein's Six Types of Parent Involvement

Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins University has developed a framework for defining six different types of parent involvement. This framework assists educators in developing school and family partnership programs. “There are many reasons for developing school, family, and community partnerships,” she writes. “The main reason to create such partnerships is to help all youngsters succeed in school and in later life.”

Epstein's framework defines the six types of involvement and lists sample practices or activities to describe the involvement more fully. Her work also describes the challenges inherent in fostering each type of parent involvement as well as the expected results of implementing them for students, parent, and teachers.

Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement

PARENTING: Help all families establish home environments to support children as students.

Parent education and other courses or training for parents (e.g., GED, college credit, family literacy).
Family support programs to assist families with health, nutrition, and other services.
Home visits at transition points to pre-school, elementary, middle, and high school.

COMMUNICATING: Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and children's progress.

Conferences with every parent at least once a year.
Language translators to assist families as needed.
Regular schedule of useful notices, memos, phone calls, newsletters, and other communications.

VOLUNTEERING: Recruit and organize parent help and support.

School and classroom volunteer program to help teachers, administrators, students, and other parents.
Parent room or family center for volunteer work, meetings, and resources for families.
Annual postcard survey to identify all available talents, times, and locations of volunteers.

Healthy School Lunches

2008-08-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

by education.com

Getting your kids to eat well at home is hard enough. But when they're in school and out of your sight? Forget it. You already have a sneaking suspicion they're trading their carrot sticks for Cheetos and dumping their water for Coke. And each day, when their lunchboxes come back half-full of untouched grub, that suspicion only grows... It's time to get covert, parents! True, flax seed and fresh fruit may be media darlings, but if they never make it past your kid's lips and into his belly, who cares? Help your child resist the siren call of the deep fryer and the temptation of her buddy's brownies, by stocking her lunch with smart choices and a few sinful stand-ins that seem like junk food. From snacks, to drinks, to mains, we've got twelve secret weapons that taste great and won't leave kids' stomachs grumbling halfway through the day, plus three homemade recipes that pack a nutritional punch, but still manage to pass the kid taste test. Snacks Guiltless Gourmet Mucho Nacho Tortilla Chips While no chip is exactly health food, Guiltless Gourmet has managed to create something both kids and parents can cheerabout. At a mere 120 calories for 18 full-sized chips, it's easy to pack a sizable portion, without feeling the need to go to confession afterwards. And since these chips are baked, not fried, a lot of the grease of the typical crunch-satisfier is gone, and the chips sport just 3 grams of fat per serving, compared to their 10 or 12-gram brethren in the salty aisle. Kids won't care about that, because they won't notice-- these things taste like Doritos. As they munch away on their fat little handful (made from stone ground organic yellow corn, and ingredients you can actually pronounce), and as they thank you for finally packing them some "junk", try not to gloat. You can smile a guiltless smile, and enjoy their happiness.

Doctor Kracker Sunflower Cheddar Flatbreads
We must say that we were a little dubious when we read the ingredients on the box. Spelt flour? Flax seeds? 8 grams ofwhole grains? What kid in his right mind would touch these things with a ten foot pole? Then we opened the package and changed our tune. With a crunch so robust it might disturb the neighbors in the school cafeteria, and a chunky shape just begging for a swipe of peanut butter, or a dip of hummus, we think this cracker might have just the yum-factor to keep the lunchtime food doldrums at bay. An excellent way to sneak in some whole grain goodness when your kid refuses to eat any bread other than Wonder White.

Snacktrition Salt and Pepper Cashews
These nuts have just enough salt and pepper flavor to pass the kid test for snack-worthiness, while also meeting youguidelines for nutrition. They're oven-roasted, not cooked in oil, which lowers the amount of fat in each serving to a scant 13 grams. Okay, so they're not exactly fat-free, but 13 grams is low for a nut, and keep in mind that they contain the "good" kinds of fats, like omega-3's, which are highly touted for their brain boosting qualities. Cashews are also packed with magnesium, iron, zinc, vitamin K, vitamin B6, not to mention protein, and are naturally free of trans-fats and cholesterol. And these particular nuts are dusted with fiber, giving up some extra love for the digestive system. So get a little nutty. Throw these babies into your child's backpack for some quick brain energy when the going gets tough!

St. Michael's, Auburn: A Case-Study in Pseudo-Traditional Architecture

2008-08-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

by Matthew

I was more than a little astonished by the proposed Saskatoon Cathedral, not because of its apparent futurity, but because on the whole its layout represents the pure form of a mid-sixties liturgical typology that one hardly sees, even in the more progressive new church designs. Instead, we are witnessing the genesis of another, perhaps less problematic, liturgical crisis, but one that nonetheless deserves redress. I speak of what I call pseudo-traditional architecture, the superficial imposition of conservative liturgical window-dressing over a primarily utilitarian and modernistic framework. It is not a calculated ideological statement, either traditionalist or modern, and in some ways represents a genuine if unconscious movement towards a hermeneutic of continuity. However, it is not enough: It is vaguely "church-y" rather than truly ecclesiastical, and even if sincere, its rapprochement with with tradition often falls short of the mark. One example of this contemporary approach to design is the proposed church and parish complex for St. Michael's in Auburn, Alabama, though it could be anywhere. In an age where every new church has the potential to be a test-case for architectural renewal, such architectural acedia is nothing short of a tragedy. And given the increasing numbers of churches built in this compromise style, some quite significant--Houston and Steubenville Cathedrals come to mind--this is not likely to change unless people seriously pay attention to what they are building.

Churches like St. Michael's are characterized, in varying degrees, by four problem areas in their design:

1. The altar and sanctuary. The sanctuary is insufficiently distinguished from the main volume of the church, and may take the form of a broad, low platform at the end of a short, stubby nave. The altar is small and undistinguished, and the general plan resembles a church-in-the-round that has been massaged into a rectilinear geography. It is important, though, to distinguish between church designs where the architect was forced to adopt a more liturgically modernist approach due to pastoral need or diocesan requirements, and projects where a lightly-adapted status quo became the model due to insufficient exposure to traditional models, or simple inertia. In the case of the former, an architect can use clever compositional tricks to overcome or neutralize such requirements, while the latter simply requires a bit more precedent research.
It is important to recall that sanctuaries require careful planning; a whole library could be filled with the books written on the subject during the first Liturgical Movement alone.

Even if diocesan requirements force a a quasi-in-the-round approach, there are numerous ways to overcome this. Architects might have recourse to centralized Baroque or Romanesque plans, or create a sense of directionality by other means. Ethan Anthony's proposed church for St. John Vianney parish in Lafayette, Indiana, overcomes this difficulty by extreme height and length, as well as setting the altar on the axes of the crossing, creating for it a distinct architectural setting. H.H. Menzies, in his beautification of St. Aloysius in New Canaan, Conneticut, added a prominent altar, tabernacle, crucifix and stained-glass reredos to a fan-shaped church, giving focus to an otherwise unfocused fan-shaped church.

In any case, it is important to recall that a church is not an auditorium, and that sacramental objects cannot be placed within it like a box. The architecture itself must enfold them and give them distinct homes within the framework of the design.

2. The dimensions of the nave. Many pseudo-traditional churches have a short, broad nave, sometimes disproportionally small in regards to parochial support spaces. Frequently, the ceiling is quite low, giving a strongly horizontal feeling to the church interior. The new cathedral in Steubenville--a large, low box with Gothic arches pasted onto it--exemplifies the trend, which probably has to do more with cost-effectiveness and packing the people in than any specific ideology. Wide-spaced side-aisles like those at Sir Ninian Comper's St. Philip's, Cosham, might do much to alleviate the dumpiness inherent in such plans. Columns could be slender enough to avoid blocking the altar, but nonetheless convey a sense of structure, plan and shelter to the interior.

Wide-open, broad spaces can often make the faithful feel small and ant-like, rather than the higher proportions of Gothic cathedrals and classical churches, which imply verticality much more literally, or at the very least, are articulated with a more human sense of proportion. The modern fixation with horizontality and vast broad spans--the result of technical prowess--runs counter to human instinct. Broad, long rectangles remind one of bodies lying down, of sleep or death, while the upright proportions of most traditional doorways and spaces convey the more active, normative quality of a standing man.

Church ceilings must be high, or at the very least convey a sense of upward movement. Whether this is through literal verticality or some more subtle trick, it is not sufficient to simply have a roof over the heads of the faithful.

3. Insufficient or inexpertly-handled historical quotations.. Pseudo-traditional architecture is, in some contexts, a welcome sign, in that it often represents a willingness of the parish or the architect to embrace tradition in some small way. However, this is usually in a highly superficial way. Designed by mainstream firms by architects with only a very hazy notion of classical decorum or traditional design, "churchiness" is conveyed by slapping on a cross, punching Gothic openings through a veneer brick wall, or other jumbled historical references. Such designs can run the gamut from very literal, if mishandled references, such as St. Agnes in New York--which The Classicist panned as "Agnes in agony"--to much more figurative or partial quotations.
Traditional architecture of all sorts is rooted in a systematic vocabulary with its own accompanying rules and grammars; certainly it can be rearranged, shaped and molded much like language can, but once it is removed from that context and treated in a superficial manner, rather like the vaunted "decorated sheds" of the postmodern architect Robert Venturi, it loses much of its seriousness and may almost become a parody rather than a quotation. Most of the precedents shown in the pdf detailing the plan (and available here) are uninteresting spaces with cursory ornamentation; even a simple well-proportioned sanctuary with the barest of details would be more appealing than these, so long as the design made an effort to link organically with the past rather than vaguely copying it.

Parishes must be willing to make good design a priority. The Church has never settled for the merely okay. Most classical designers, especially those away from the big cities, are eager and sometimes even starving for work. They understand budgets are tight and can work around them, though any sort of building is going to be expensive, whatever style is chosen. But it is better to spend money on beauty than waste it on mediocrity. A little bit of legwork in finding a traditional architect--either an autodidact, or someone trained in the classical schools at Notre Dame, Miami or abroad--will pay off in the long run. Alternately, local designers must force themselves to set aside their modernist schooling for a little while and come to grips with traditional architecture not as a historic fact but as a living reality that is more than just a cut-and-paste operation. Only then will good design truly flourish.
4. Lack of spatial and design hierarchy. The modernist movement largely destroyed our understanding of spatial and compositional hierarchy by allowing technology and materials to guide aesthetic choice. It is indeed possible to create free-flowing, open plans with multiple uses, but one is faced with a very vicious sort of freedom. The Argentine fantasist Jorge Luis Borges once wrote a very short story about a king condemned to wander in a labyrinth, except the labyrinth was in truth the vast emptiness of a desert. When all spaces are special, nothing is special. This is why, as I have said above, the stubby naves and low sanctuaries of both modern and pseudo-traditional parishes fail to impress their sacrality on the viewer. The differing functions of the church interior are not clearly defined by the architecture, and instead feel a bit like furniture scattered arbitrarily in a room.

The same confusion comes with the overall design of a building. Many new churches also include an extensive range of parochial and social services under the same roof. Certainly a parish hall, some bathrooms, and some relatively simple offices for staff are important, though often they are incorporated into the plan in such a way that they dominate the design. The church building is beating swallowed alive by its dependents.

This happens in two ways. First, the church often has a low ceiling and a broad nave; coupling it with a warren of offices of about the same height and breadth turns it into one amorphous mess. If the church had been given a lofty ceiling and vertical profile, this might have not been such a problem. Secondly, the integrity of the narthex or vestibule is usually compromised. What was for almost 2,000 years a sacred space of preparation, a reflective pause before entering into the nave proper, has been turned into a "gathering space," a sort of ajunct parish hall, that often also serves as circulation space for parish offices. The sacred has become simply the ordinary, or even the social.

The endless parade of student outreach centers, cafes, parish halls, meeting rooms, adult ministries, multiple children's theaters, children's welcome centers, youth theaters, resource rooms, children's classrooms, that attach themselves to the church building in such designs are astonishing. In most cases, such parishes don't even include a school. It would seem to me a better use would be a few simple multi-purpose spaces that could be added to as necessary, unless this is a particularly active parish.

Better to spend the ten to fourteen million slated for this church, and others like it, on a beautiful edifice that will stand the test of time than redundant multiple theaters and assembly rooms which may well stand empty for great stretches of the week. How many auditoria do you need? And why two separate theaters for youth and children? Surely they will not be in use at the same time. A parish could get a very nice classical church for the same price, if you were willing to concentrate on the essential features of the church proper than auxiliary features which will not fire the imagination in the same way a beautiful church will. Even if simplifications in the ornamentation are required, an architect immersed in the past will be able to undertake such alterations with greater sensitivity than someone who has not been exposed to traditional design.
Priorities must be re-examined if any progress is to be made.

The solution here is easy--range the parochial buildings around a courtyard in front of the church, or place the parish hall in the basement, down a discrete but easily accessible staircase. Study the past in great detail. Simplify, but only after you have grasped the substance of traditional design. Look beyond modern prototypes. Prioritize the beautiful, and be willing to build something that will stir hearts in 1,000 years. Build the church first and put the staff in temporary housing, reversing the stereotyped paradigm of building the gymn first. So many parishes that did that are, fifty years later, still lacking a real church and holding the holy mass in a place better suited to shooting baskets. The Catholic Church is not a social club--certainly all those functions are good and well and useful, but they are not the reason we come on Sunday, which is to worship the living God. We can do better than this.

How Does One Consolidate There Student Loans

2008-07-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

Consolidations are very similar to refinancing a loan, such as a mortgage. You can consolidate all loans, just some, or even just one of your college student loans. Consolidating with one of the federal college student loan programs may be a good strategy to help lower your monthly payments or to get out of default, however, it is not always a good idea.

Until July 1, 2006, interest rates on federal college student loans were variable, changing according to a formula every July 1. Consolidations will lock in a fixed rate based on the average interest rates of all the student loans included, creating one student loan with a single rate, and often, significant savings in interest over the life of a student loan. Student loans made after July 1, 2006 have a fixed interest rate of 6.8%, so consolidating newer student loans may not save very much in interest.

A s you weigh the pros and cons of consolidating your student loan, keep in mind that timing is critical. With just a very few exceptions, you get only one chance to consolidate with the government college student loan programs.

It is very dangerous to consolidate federal college student loans into a private student loan consolidation. You will then lose your rights under the federal college student loan programs once you choose to consolidate with a private lender. These rights will include deferment, forbearance, cancellation, and affordable repayment rights. Federal student loan consolidations generally have lower interest rates.

Federal Government Loan Consolidation

Student loan consolidations are available through both the FFEL and Direct Student Loan programs. With a few very important exceptions, the terms of the two consolidation programs will be the same. One of the most important differences is that the Direct Student Loan Program has a more flexible income contingent repayment plan.

Under the Direct Student Loan Consolidation Program, you can consolidate Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford Student Loans, Supplemental Student Loans for Students (SLSs), Federally Insured Student Loans (FISLs), PLUS Loans, Direct Student Loans, Perkins Student Loans, Health Education Assistance Student Loans (HEALs), and just about any other type of federal financial student loan. Student loans that are not eligible for consolidation include state or private student loans that are not federally guaranteed.

Although all of these different student loans may be consolidated, you must have at least one outstanding FFEL or Direct Student Loan to obtain a Direct Student Loan Consolidation. This means, for example, that a Perkins Student Loan on its own cannot be consolidated into a Direct Student Loan. If the qualifying loan is a FFEL student loan, you must also certify that you were unable to obtain a FFEL Consolidation or unable to obtain a FFEL Student Loan Consolidation with acceptable income sensitive repayment terms and that you are eligible for the Income Contingent Repayment Plan.

FFEL Student Loan Consolidation lenders do not have to include non-FFEL student loans in a new consolidation loan. However, they may do so at their discretion. Non-FFEL student loans cannot be consolidated into an FFEL student loan consolidation without an FFEL student loan being included in the consolidation. Many FFEL lenders are no longer making student consolidation loans. You should not let your FFEL student loan lender discourage you from consolidating with the Direct Student Loan program if you think this is a good option for you.

You can consolidate with either program during the grace periods, once you have entered repayment, or during periods of deferment or forbearance. Borrowers in default may also consolidate in some circumstances.

Student loan consolidation was previously available to borrowers while they were still in school. However, Congress eliminated this right in 2006. You can consolidate during the grace periods. Congress has also eliminated joint consolidations for spouses, effective July 1, 2006.

High School Student’s Life Changing Semester Under Sail

2008-07-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

Steve Carey
The following newspaper article, written last week, features a student from our sister Canadian organization, Class Afloat. It details the life changing experience that the high school student went through while on board his semester-long voyage.

Most high school students duck homework assignments or tasks like taking out the garbage. Victoria teen Karl Jensen dodges cyclones.

“In the Northern Atlantic this time of year there’s hurricanes and pretty rough weather,” says Jensen, 17, who just completed a life-altering 145-day tour of duty on the tall ship SV Concordia.

Although they didn’t have to sail through any of those storms, challenges were plentiful.

One night, the order came in to Jensen’s watch to furl all sails because of the weather. It’s not a tough task, provided you have 20 to 30 crew members to climb the four masts and furl more than a dozen sails. The seven members of Jensen’s watch didn’t panic. Instead they rounded up a few more crew mates and did the task, something that would have seemed impossible a few months before.

Accomplishments like this are ingrained in his memory after travelling nearly 15,000 nautical miles with West Island College’s Class Afloat, an East Coast boarding school and sailing adventure for Grade 11, Grade 12 and gap year university students. For the first semester, they attended classes in Lunenburg, N.S., in a schoolhouse built in 1895. During the second semester, the 39 students crewed a 57.5-metre tall ship under the supervision of eight professional staff.

In his five months at sea, Jensen saw things that wouldn’t look out of place in a movie — schools of flying fish smacking the mast and landing on the deck, orange and pink sunsets in the Caribbean, cyclones drifting toward the ship. He played golf on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, drank Amazon estuary water at an equator-crossing ritual and visited Tristan da Cunha, the most remote archipelago in the world.

Jensen, an Oak Bay High School student and avid sailor, saw a poster advertising Class Afloat. He was intrigued, but knew he

couldn’t afford the $39,500 tuition. But he took the initiative, applied for a scholarship, and won.

The sailing coach at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Steve McBride, has coached Jensen and other students who have gone into Class Afloat and the Sail and Life Training Society programs. He says the most profound change is increased confidence and interpersonal skills.

“Karl was a very in-charge, very capable person before he left, but since he came back he’s very relaxed, very comfortable within himself,” says McBride.

The longest stretch the group was away from a port was 29 days. For days, the only distinctive feature was the horizon. If there was a tanker or other boat, everyone rushed on deck. Jensen says it was like being in a separate world, one without time.

While the students were in Namibia, Africa they spent time with orphans and distributed toothbrushes, floss and toys to the kids, as well as condoms to adults in the community to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

While visiting a school house, what stood out was the ripped up alphabet on the wall and the fence outside — covered with barbed wire and glass.

“I asked a teacher what it was about, and she said it was ‘to keep the kids in,’” says Jensen. He also toured a village there, where homes were made of scavenged street signs. Seeing “how people can be completely neglected in an area” has opened Jensen’s eyes to poverty.

“You see the homeless downtown, but you don’t really understand, you pretty much just walk by,” says Jensen. “But here, you’re affected by the people, you develop a relationship with them, and have a conversation about what they’ve done.”

“[Karl] came back with a bunch of cool stories, he learned a ton, and it’s really helped him evolve as a person,” says Alex Dodd, who has known Jensen since they were both five years old.

“He’s realized that life is more than the narrow view of school-work-homework.”

The trip has made Jensen realize how small the world, and Victoria, are. In Lunenburg, Jensen met a former teacher from Oak Bay High and in Africa, he met a man who had moved there from Victoria.

Jensen says the most important thing he learned was how to overcome any challenge.

“At the time, you think it’s the most incredibly difficult thing to wake up in the morning, clean the ship, go do classes, go do manual labour. Eventually you just push past it and really prosper in the environment.”

‘The Silent Conflict’ at Harlow College

2008-06-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

Posted by Aled Dilwyn Fisher

A year ago, teaching staff at Harlow College staged a five-day strike: an unprecedented action for them but one which reflected the desperation of the situation as a politically motivated principalship, led by Colin Hindmarch, played an ideologically driven game with the interests of learners in order to smash the union. The conditions imposed upon teachers included a massive reduction in wages for many with the introduction of a new unqualified ‘tutor’ role, the imposition of an effective 56-hour working week and reduction of holidays from 45 to 30 days a year. This was imposed despite the fact that Hindmarch created more management positions and raised their pay by 11%. However, on top of all this, around 40 experienced teachers were denied opportunities to continue working there because they were deemed to be opposed to the new Teaching and Learning Strategy. A further similar number of teachers opted for voluntary redundancy, unable to accept such a draconian and spiteful regime.

Since the headline-grabbing events of last June, there has been little said and even less printed on the state of affairs at Harlow College. This is not because it has settled down. On the contrary, the situation has become ever more desperate, in particular for the students.

But why the silence? The college principal ship was suffering most due to adverse publicity and news reports which exposed its cruel, politically motivated initiatives; it cleverly contrived a situation which would stifle criticism, in particular from the one source which should have been the most vocal: the Universities and Colleges Union. After the redundancies and the failure to abide by the law to meaningfully negotiate the new contracts, huge pressure from the union and Bill Rammell MP was placed on the college to accept ACAS negotiations. The college accepted this with the proviso that UCU would never publicly criticise the college. This the college foolishly accepted.

In the wake of this agreement, a Working Party was established to find a way forward, due to conclude at Christmas 2007. However, enjoying the continued silence of UCU, the college pushed back this deadline month after month. It is now set to conclude in September. Coupled with a new learner agreement which students were obliged to sign upon enrolment which also prohibited them from making public criticisms, this has meant that the College is now able to bask in relative silence. Only a Guardian article of 18Th March 2008 exposed a hint of the appalling conditions at the college, thanks to the bravery of the president of the local NUS refusing to sign the learner agreement. However, UCU, like the principal, was tragically ‘unavailable for comment’. The college continues to hold its remaining teaching staff and students hostage to a never-ending working party which the union foolishly allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred into accepting.

Now we must turn to the details of what has been happening at the college, tucked away from public scrutiny. The staff turnover rate continues to be alarmingly high; one principal tutor in English resigning after little more than a fortnight in position, a sociology teacher sacked after a month and a psychology teacher given two hours to clear his desk after having joined UCU less than 24 hours previously.

The LSC and Ofsted published damning reports on the college last autumn. Ofsted was most scathing, pointing out their shock at an ICT class of 100 students being taught via a personal address system.

At a public meeting effectively forced upon the Principal and Bill Rammell, Colin Hindmarch claimed that the costs of redundancies were not high, at only around £150,000. When pressed to reveal the actual figures, some months later, he acknowledged that the cost was just under £1 million. Now seeking further clarification, corporation board minutes reveal it to be more like £1.3 million.

Some may argue that this could be justified if the college improves its service to students and achieves better results. But this is perhaps the most tragic story of all. In March 2008, the college delayed releasing its winter A-level exam results to students for almost a week. When finally revealed, no details of grades were published but only a paltry 58% of AS-level exams were passed - a huge decline on the previous year. Following this, the chairman of the Corporation Board, Martin Coleman, said in the local paper, “We are happy with the way things are going.” The significance of these results are that these students have only experienced learning under the Hindmarch regime, including his peculiar ’subject days’ where students learn the same subject once a week but for the whole day.

The college also rigged the elections to the posts of student representatives on the corporation board. Realising that the NUS leader would have won any open contest, they contrived a complicated delegatory system to avoid any public debate and to insulate the corporation board from hearing real concerns and criticisms.

The college is also engaging in the practice of withdrawing students from their exams weeks before they are due to be held. The students are then transferred onto short ICT classes which they cannot fail to pass. This then serves to distort the ’success rate’ data because the student will receive certification and the failure to complete the course which has occupied them for the rest of the year would not be revealed in any figures. Accounts of students begging to be allowed to sit the exams that they have been studying for months, under wholly inadequate conditions, have been rife. Many parents have had pay for private tuition and are bitter that this may be exploited by the college as they may still take credit for the results achieved.

The local MP and minister for the area, Bill Rammell, has been most reluctantly dragged into the dispute and now finds himself accused of complacency and expediency. He once criticised UCU publicly for their methods last year but refused to give details so they could be given an opportunity to justify themselves. He also disassociated himself from the article published in the Guardian but refuses to elaborate on those elements which he considered were untrue. He also claimed that academic opinion on ‘Subject Days’ for FE colleges were mixed, with some claiming they were a good idea. Can any reader enlighten us as to where subject days are deployed successfully?

Last month, Rammell and Hindmarch attempted to pacify critics by inviting a few select individuals around the college to see the wonderful new facilities. This may have made Rammell look good for the taxpayers’ money being invested but most concluded that the college could not blame poor resources for the college’s failures. Because of this, Hindmarch was subjected to wholesale criticism where he even conceded that ’subject days’ were failing, citing the fact that May - a crucial month for exam preparations - has two bank holidays, depriving students of essential learning time for any course they study on Mondays. This was pointed out to him when he first tried to impose ’subject days’ in March 2007, but he simply sacked those who raised such professional concerns.

Scandalously, Bill Rammell still opposes any calls for Colin Hindmarch to resign. He claims that to remove him would be the ‘populist’ thing to do but is not in the interest of the students. Even though Hindmarch has the LSC, Ofsted and the QIA almost constantly in residence, providing stabilisers for this child in blue braces who cannot ride his bike, Rammell insists on protecting him. His majority is only a tiny 97 votes and yet he has spoken up to protect Hindmarch’s position with far greater voracity than he ever did to protect the jobs of around a hundred teachers this time last year. No one believes that Rammell would ever send a child of his to an institution run by Hindmarch and most people are truly shocked at his attitude and downright complacency. The real reason why he will not call for Hindmarch to resign is because Hindmarch will ignore him. This will expose the reality of Rammell’s impotence and failure to properly act upon the incorporated status of colleges which allowed this wholly unaccountable situation to arise.

There is no end in sight for the conflict and it is foolish of Mr Rammell to continually search for the shortest route for a mystical Harlow College paper towel so that he can wipe his hands of the whole affair. The college faces a huge litigation bill when UCU goes to court for protective awards for the college’s failure to meaningfully consult over the redundancies, and there are cases for unfair dismissal and victimisation as well. Harlow College is a tragic saga and its full story will be known one day. This article provides just a glimpse of a curriculum’s worth of lessons that we could all learn from.

Thomas Tull '92 Discusses His Journey From Hamilton to Hollywood

2008-06-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

Thomas Tull '92, founder, chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures (the company jointly responsible for producing the films Batman Begins, Superman Returns and 300), spoke to Hamilton students on April 17 in Wellin Hall about his journey from Hamilton to film production. Tull expressed appreciation for Hamilton's impact on establishing his success, and reciprocated by screening never-before-seen footage of
Legendary Pictures' upcoming Batman sequel, The Dark Knight.

While lecture attendees were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement about the contents of the film clip, audience members were treated to a short scene from the movie featuring Heath Ledger in his last performance as the Joker. Tull mentioned that the lecture required his creative team to bring substantial video and sound equipment up to the Hill to screen the movie, a decision attendees undoubtedly appreciated.

Tull described how "I never in a million years planned to be in the movie business." After growing up in Binghamton, New York, he found arrival at Hamilton a "culture shock" because of other students' broader exposure and the college's close connection to events in the outside world. However, Tull said he is "grateful for the education I received here because it opened up a whole world for me."

Although he had positively planned to be a lawyer after college, Tull cautioned that "almost nobody [at Hamilton] knows exactly what they're going to do," and he found himself establishing a few small businesses that he was able to sell at a profit. After managing a larger deal with a tax company, Tull entered the private equity field, where he started getting contracts related to entertainment. Despite being a lifelong
"film geek" who considers himself enamored with the way films transport the viewer, Tull did not consider entering the film business until he had a conversation with a chairman of a big movie company when Tull started "pontificating about private equity" as a solution to the financial troubles of the film industry. Feeling challenged, he said to himself, "I went to Hamilton," and he realized that he had the ability
to put his idea to work.

After a year-long process of raising money, which he realized was "crazy" only after embarking on the project, he was able to amass $600 million in financing from blue chip investors, with which they produced the Batman and Superman films in collaboration with Warner Brothers. Currently, the company has raised more than $1.5 billion and has shown strong profits.

Tull also shared his thoughts on the movie-making process, which he broke down into two questions that are asked of every film he produces: "Is it a great story?" and "How are you going to market the film?" The moviemaking process is thus dictated by both creativity ("no matter how fascinating the techno toys are, if the story isn't there" people will walk out disappointed) and a need to be financially responsible -- allocating money to projects based on their predicted success.

Ultimately, despite all the research prior to approving a film, Tull described the decision as ultimately based on a "gut feel," as when he took a chance getting Zach Synder (who had previously only directed Dawn of the Dead) to direct 300, a pairing that proved very successful.

Characterizing himself as a "gamer" and wanting to keep his "card in the geek nation," Tull also expressed a sense of personal commitment to Legendary's films, putting things on film that "I want to see." He also regretted that many video games based on films are quickly produced with little regard for detail and has founded a video game company, Brash Entertainment, to specifically address film-to-game conversions.

While he explained that Legendary focuses on commercial projects over independent films, he said that the company seeks to make the stories they tell "elevated" and take the source material seriously. Legendary's roster of upcoming films includes a wide variety of properties, including Watchmen (from the renowned graphic novel), Akira (a remake of the popular Japanese anime film), a Superman sequel (in
Which Tull hopes to invoke more of the image of "an angry god"), Clash of the Titans, Where the Wild Things Are and a film of Paradise Lost (Tull is particularly interested in the "[story] arc of Lucifer"). Tull is also sponsoring the Legendary Film Treatment Challenge, an upcoming opportunity to submit film treatments to Legendary Pictures for consideration.

Tull's advice for aspiring creative professionals was to "be tenacious" since "you're going to hear 'no' a lot" when proposing ideas. However, Tull views Hollywood more than other industries as a meritocracy where "good ideas rise to the top and young people can become popular very quickly."

-- by Kye Lippold '10

Two Education Technology Events to Add to your Calendars!

2008-06-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

I will be speaking about Free Reading and LiteracyisPriceless at the Midwest Tech Forum (Chicago) and Pod camp NYC at the end of this month. If you are interested in learning more about education technologies, blogging for teachers and using online materials for lesson planning purposes, check these events out! -Anna

Midwest Tech Forum

Brought to you by the team behind T&L magazine and the tech learning.com web site, Tech Forum represents “Technology & Learning in action.”

Now in its sixth season, this high-powered, one-day event provides K-12 decision makers with thought-provoking content on the hottest topics of the day in education technology.

An engaging and intimate setting, expert presentations, and plenty of networking opportunities ensure that participants leave with practical tools and key contacts for continued rich communities of practice.

Education 2.0 at Pod camp NYC 2.0

Educators know that technology is changing the way students of all ages learn and access information. Whether it’s doing online research, finding supplemental sources, or participating in social media like Club Penguin or Face book, students have access to more information than ever. Is this information overload a good thing or a bad thing, and how can we use new media to enhance learning at all levels? How do all these tech tools fit together? How do you choose between them?

At Pod camp NYC 2.0, we want to explore how new media is transforming education, from the development of universal design in curriculum to using web-based tools to both supplement and enhance learning, to the most important element of all- enhancing the relationships between Teachers and Students.

We invite you to come present your ideas and experiences on how technology is changing what happens in the classroom , how tools can be used to enhance communication and learning, and how we can use new media to help spread the word about school reform as we all prepare to teach for the future.

Let’s face it. Mandatory education has been around in the US since the late 1800’s, yet today’s world looks nothing like it did in 1885. Compulsory education was enacted to ensure an educated workforce and population, yet the jobs available for students on graduation require radically different skills from those needed even a decade ago. How can we help teachers and schools to prepare students for a competitive, global marketplace, that makes much different demands on them than the same marketplace did on their parents?

At Pod camp NYC 2.0, we want to help you learn about the great tools out there- not just as a new, shiny gadget, but as real tools that will make the lives of students, teachers and families easier. We need to start to transform both the way students learn, and how they express their ideas in a multimedia world.

On this page, we’ll keep a list of sessions and presentations that may be of special interest to educators, and we want you to come, speak and contribute and we explore how to make learning something kids want to do, rather than something they are forced to do.

Develop Good Habits

2008-05-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

Rules, they say, are meant to be broken. Not all the time, of course — we are, after all, trying to have a society here. But while rules help, most of the time, to create an orderly and well-regulated society, sometimes their lack of flexibility hinders our creativity, and thus our ability to solve the problems that confront us.

Months ago, I wrote a post about improvisation advising readers to “Learn the rules, so you can break them.” Too often, people think that the breakability of rules means that they should be broken, early and often — and if that’s the case, it’s not worth bothering to learn them at all.

That’s not the case; in fact, it’s a pretty simple matter to tell the consistent rule-breaking of the ignorant and inexperienced from the proficient rule-breaking of the master. The master’s rule-breaking gains strength from her or his understanding of what the rules do, how they work, and why they are, most of the time, crucial.

There are, one could say, rules for rule-breaking, and it is these rules (along with all the others) that the lasy rule-breaker doesn’t know or understand. Here’s an example:

Break the rules as a last resort. Whether you’re talking about writing and grammar, music composition, artistic composition, marketing, business management, or anything else, the rules that people usually follow exist for a good reason: most of the time, they work. Stepping outside the rules requires more energy, more forethought, more planning, and more creativity — in short, more work — and effective writers, composers, marketers, business people, and people from every other walk of life don’t lightly waste their efforts fixing what already works well. Rule-breaking is the step you turn to when the rules fail to work.
Rule-breaking gains its power from the strength of rules, not their weakness. The ability of the great rule-breakers to shock and amaze us — from Van Gogh to Philip Roth to Ron Paul to Steve jobs — relies on the expectations the rules create. Constant rule-breaking creates the expectation of constant rule-breaking, which pretty soon loses its appeal. Master rule-breakers walk a narrow line between genius and incoherence; inexpert rule-breakers are usually simply incoherent.
For every broken rule there are a dozen unbroken ones. Or a hundred, or a thousand. The ratio doesn’t matter, it’s the fact that the best rule-breakers follow almost all the rules. Consider the rules of grammar and style: almost all great writers know the value of simple sentences, a lack of unnecessary verbiage, and adherence to basic rules of grammar — and their writing is generally built around those principles, because to ignore them is to create a morass of incomprehensible gibberish. A word salad, if you will: throw everything in a bowl, toss it around a little, and slop it onto your plate.
For every broken rule, there is a reason. The inexperienced rule-breaker breaks the rules because s/he doesn’t know any better. The master rule-breaker breaks the rules because, after careful consideration, s/he has decided that the most effective and meaningful way to get something done was to break a rule. They have an explanation for every single step outside the accepted boundaries of the “right and proper”.
Accept the consequences. When called on the carpet to defend his or her choices, the ignorant rule-breaker is defensive and feels put upon. S/he tries to wriggle out of the consequences, seeing them as “The Man’s” effort to keep her or him down. The master, on the other hand, embraces the consequences, knowing that s/he was right to make the decisions s/he made — or that, if those decisions turned out to be wrong, that s/he made them in good faith and for the right reasons.

There’s a scene in Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard that sums up perfectly this approach to the rules. Rabo Karabekian, an artist reknowned for his giant canvases covered with single colors of household latex paint applied with a roller, is talking with his friend Slazinger in his studio:

“Tell me, Rabo–” said Slazinger, “if I put on that same paint with the same roller, would the picture still be a Karabekian?”

“Absolutely,” I said, “provided you have in reserve what Karabekian has in reserve.”

“Like what?” he said.

“Like this,” I said. There was dust in a pothole in the floor, and I picked up some of it on the balls of both my thumbs. Working both thumbs simultaneously, I sketched a caricature of Slazinger’s face on the canvas in thirty seconds.

“Jesus!” he said. “I had no idea you could draw like that!”

“You’re looking at a man who has options,” I said.

For the “wild child” who just can’t be bothered to learn the rules, because they were meant to be broken anyway and because his or her creative spirit is too strong to be held down by rules, man, there are no options. There is only a string of broken rules and all the misunderstanding, chaos, and incoherence that goes along with them. The master, though, knows that the rules are not only options, but usually the best options. And when they aren’t, s/he knows. S/he has in reserve what Karabekian has in reserve: true mastery.

Skills.Equals(null)

2008-05-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

by Jake Vinson

All eyes were on Darrell as he swaggered past the rows of cubicles. Darrell was different than the other developers -- sharply dressed in an expensive suit with designer sunglasses dangling from his breast pocket. He left shortly after arriving with a huge smile on his face.

The interview had gone well. The company -- a midsize logistics software provider out of New England -- had been falling behind schedule and delivering their custom reporting tools with more and more bugs. Darrell had successfully sold himself as the company's savior who could improve code quality and deliver faster than the others.

Darrell was a C# guru who would work for no less than almost double what the other contractors were paid. Even better for Darrell, he'd get to work from home, remitting in to an on-site workstation -- a perk which none of the other contractors received.

Code Freeze

When Darrell returned home, he got right to work. He spent a few hours familiarizing himself with the app he'd be maintaining -- a custom-built system that tracked inventory, scheduling and members for several libraries in the area. After paging through a few files, he knew he had to make changes to several core modules.

He returned to the office the same day to berate the other developers for their unacceptably lousy code. "I'll fix this awful code, but then I need you all to follow my standards," he told them.

Darrell took it up with management, who immediately enacted a code freeze -- for everyone except Darrell. That's give him the opportunity to fix all of the modules that no one had even realized were broken.

So for three days, Darrell coded furiously while the rest of the staff watched You Tube videos and honed their solitaire skills. On a Friday afternoon, he showed up to the office in his characteristic suit and sunglasses, announcing to the staff that he'd finished.

"You guys use your weekend to examine all the changes I made. This is the way experts code! I want all future code to look like mine."

Rogue Trader

Darrell made other so-called improvements to the code. His next change was to re-tab every file in the solution with a code-formatting utility. The merge tool struggled with all of the white space changes, so it was up to the rest of the team to merge the changes: change by change, line by line, file by file.

In an eight-day programming blitz, Darrell checked dozens of files out of the main branch in their source control, and was apparently so busy improving the code that he never got a chance to check them back in. Other developers on the team were getting miffed, because they needed to edit the modules and had no way to access them. Worse still, Darrell had vanished -- he wasn't answering his phone or responding to e-mail. The team was skeptical that he was doing anything.

Complaints eventually bubbled up to management, who summoned Job to join in a conference call with Darrell. And finally, Darrell answered the phone.

"Darrell, we've been noticing some delays in your check-ins," Job's supervisor began.

"Delays? What delays?! Everything done!" exclaimed Darrell. "I've even done next month's work for no extra charge. It's just a lousy connection on your end -- you really need to update your connection. Right now I can't connect or even ping it!"

"Why didn't you let us know about this sooner? I'll restart it now."

"No, don't touch it!" It was too late, though. Job and his supervisor were sitting near Darrell's on-site computer, so Job had reached over to turn the monitor on.

To their surprise, it was in the middle of downloading a torrent. And the cursor was moving.

While Job watched Darrell's session, Darrell kept complaining: "I can't believe you have such old network equipment. I've been trying to connect for hours! Why haven't you bought newer network equipment?"

Darrell opened up an IE window and went to e Trade. He sold a few shares of one of his stocks.

"We haven't been able to get the budget approved," said Job's supervisor. "But maybe you'd be willing to help with the $7,000 in stock you just sold on e Trade."

"..."

Darrell's contract was cancelled that day, and management began requiring more rigorous technical assessments as part of the interview process.

College Student Credit Cards

2008-05-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

Credit Cards for College Students: How to Make the Right Selection.

Credit card companies have changed their marketing strategy recently, electing to go after young consumers instead of targeting folks with established credit history. This is exciting for students, but it can also be a scary proposition. If used responsibly, credit cards can be used as a building block for better credit. If you get the wrong card or you use it without proper discretion, then your credit card could be the beginning of the end for your credit rating.

Start small

As a college student, there is absolutely no reason to go nuts when picking out your first credit card. Sure, a $2,000 credit line might sound nice, why on earth would you ever need that much? Having that much credit is a recipe for disaster if you aren’t used to having a card. Instead of going for the most over the top offer out there, choose a smaller line of credit and work your way up to something more substantial. Once you get the hang of making payments every month and how credit cards work, then you can start using it more.

Reading the Small Print

With so many offers coming in the mail and through email, students might be tempted to bypass the important details that make each card unique. Though they might all have fancy advertising and many of the cards will feature some of the same deals, they are not created equally. Make sure to take the time to read all of the small print and figure out the different details associated with each card. For instance, how long is your grace period? Does the card feature an introductory rate that will change over time? What happens if I am late with a payment? These are all questions that have very important answers and it is in your best interest to make sure that you know each and every answer before signing on with a card company.Stay away from multiple cards

Even if you are the most responsible user of credit out there, having too many cards can make it very difficult for you to gain other types of credit in the future. Everyone knows that late payments and missed payments will take a toll on your credit history over time, but few people talk about the fact that having a lot of credit will make it hard for you to get student loans or more important lines of credit in the future. When it comes time to finance a vehicle or purchase a house, you want lenders to know that they are dealing with a responsible person. Having too much credit tied up in credit cards can detract from that.

Student credit cards can be a blessing or a curse, depending upon what you do with them. Make your choice carefully and when you get your hands on a card, use it responsibly. Otherwise, you could suffer from long term consequences associated with ruining your credit score.

Lousey Death

2008-05-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Some pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) populations in British Columbia, Canada could be wiped out in four years--not by fishing, but by fish farming, scientists say. Researchers report in the journal Science that juvenile pink salmon are being infected with salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis), a naturally-occurring parasite, as they pass fish farms on their way from the river (where they hatch) to the ocean. If current trends continue the researchers predict that these pink salmon populations could go extinct within two salmon generations.

Advocates say aquaculture decreases fishing pressure on wild fish populations by providing another source of fish. "Growth in seafood production almost certainly has to come from aquaculture. The question is what sort of fish do we raise, and where do we raise them?" says Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist at Environmental Defense, an environmental advocacy group.

Scientists have long suspected fish farming can harm wild stocks. "This study is the first time we've been able to quantify what the impact of sea lice is on the wild population," says Martin Krkošek, a graduate student at the University of Alberta and an author on the paper. Krkošek says he expected to see some effect, but what he and his colleagues found "was much more severe than we originally anticipated."

Lice are transmitted fish-to-fish. Adult pink salmon can tolerate lice--but juveniles can die from just one or two of the parasites, Krkošek says. In a natural system, the juvenile salmon have time to grow up--get scales, gain weight--before they encounter the parasites. Because lice can't live in freshwater, where the salmon hatch, the juveniles don't encounter lice-carrying salmon until they go out to sea. "By the time they encounter the sea lice several months later, they are large enough to tolerate them," Krkošek says.

But when salmon are farmed in net pens in inlets along salmon migration routes--as they are in the Broughton Archipelago where this study was conducted--the juvenile salmon can catch lice from their farmed cousins early in life. Krkošek says: "When the wild juvenile salmon enter the ocean the first thing they encounter are the salmon farms and the sea lice. They get infected as they pass the salmon farms, and a lot of them are dying. They aren't making it out to the ocean."

Not everyone agrees with the sea lice diagnosis: The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is responsible for managing aquaculture and protecting wild salmon in Canada, told the Associated Press that sea lice can not be solely blamed for the collapse and that other factors may play a role.

Salmon farms have existed in the Broughton Archipelago since the 1980s, but sea lice only became a problem in 2001. Krkošek suggests that the louse lag is related to the growing density of farms. Since the 1980s, the number of salmon farmed in the Broughton Archipelago has increased from 125,000 fish to 100 million fish, he says.

Since the first louse infestation in 2001, the number of pink salmon migrating past the farms has declined sharply. Krkošek and his colleagues predict that over the course of eight years (we're currently in the fourth year of this decline), the pink salmon populations, which supported fishing before the louse infestations, will suffer a 99 percent collapse, the researchers say.

One solution might be to move the fish farms away from the migration routes offshore. In the United States, there is legislation in the House and Senate advancing offshore aquaculture, Goldburg says. But offshore fish farming comes with another set of environmental concerns, she adds. "The current legislation doesn't include strong legal mandates for environmental protection. If one of the results of offshore fish farming could be harm to marine fisheries, it just doesn't make sense to pursue offshore farming."

--Flora Lichtman

Los Angeles' Combat High School

2008-05-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

"A fight between rival groups of black and Latino students at Locke High School quickly escalated into a campus-wide melee Friday, with as many as 600 students brawling until police restored calm with billy clubs.

The troubled campus in South Los Angeles was locked down after the fight broke out at 12:55 p.m., as students returned from lunch to their fifth-period classes. Overwhelmed school officials called Los Angeles police for help, but students and faculty said it took about half an hour before dozens of officers, many in riot gear, restored order.

"The kids were crazy, running from place to place, jumping on other kids," said Reggie Smith, the school's band director, who said he ran to pull his students from the melee. "Some of my kids were crying because they were walking to class with friends and they got jumped."

Los Angeles Unified School District police said that there are only two officers assigned to Locke but that the school police force brought in about 60 officers after receiving word of the brawl. The Los Angeles Police Department also dispatched more than a dozen patrol cars and about 50 officers.

Susan Cox, an LAUSD spokeswoman, said police arrested four people -- three students for fighting and one non-student for illegal possession of a knife. Four students were treated in the school nurse's office for minor injuries.

The campus at 111th and San Pedro streets has long been one of the city's most troubled. This school year has been particularly difficult, with near-daily fights -- albeit on a much smaller scale -- during much of the fall and winter. Locke is about to be reorganized as a cluster of charter schools run by Green Dot Public Schools, which will take over in July, and some faculty and staff have accused the district of letting the campus drift in its final year as a traditional public school.

"Morale has really dropped because they don't feel like they have everybody behind them," cheer leading coach Marlo Jenkins said recently. "There are just fights upon fights upon fights now."

Faculty members and Green Dot complained that L.A. Unified nearly halved its funding for non-police security aides at the start of the year. The school has been especially plagued by tagging crews -- the school employs two full-time workers just to paint over graffiti, said Green Dot's Kelly Hurley, who is managing the transition.

Faculty members also complained repeatedly about in-school ditching and a massive tardiness problem. Finally, the district restored some of the trimmed security, faculty said, and also dispatched an additional administrator to help restore order. Until then, the district had relied on Principal Travis Kiel, who'd been brought back from retirement. In recent weeks, students and teachers have reported improved conditions -- less ditching, a little less graffiti.

But then came Friday's melee, which students and teachers said was by far the worst of the year, perhaps the worst in years.

Joseph Sherlock, a senior, 17, who has been at Locke for four years, called it "my first actual encounter with a riot." He added: "I've seen fights, and I've seen fights between black and brown, but I've never seen anything like this."

Sherlock, who said he saw police use pepper spray during the melee, said tensions between African American and Latino students have not been a serious problem at the school. With an enrollment of 2,600, Locke is 65% Latino and 35% African American.

"It's not the way it's portrayed in the media; that's not what it's like at all," said Sherlock, who is black. Another black student, Ronald White, said African American and Latino students commonly divide along ethnic lines but aren't necessarily hostile. "Everybody usually just sticks to themselves," he said.

White, a 17-year-old senior, said he had just stepped from a main building into the school's grassy quad when he was met with a scene of chaos.

Hundreds of students were outside, and from what he could see, "Most people was fighting." Eventually, police began to swarm onto the campus, and White said the students began fighting the officers, who responded with their batons.

"I was in the corner, just watching," he said. "I saw a girl get hit by the police and she went down."

Senior Victor Wong, 18, said the brawl grew out of a fight two days earlier between a Latino student and an African American student. Wong said Latino students who are friends of his asked him to participate in a fight planned for Friday that was to pit 10 Latino students against 10 African American students.

"It was a crew-on-crew thing," he said, referring to graffiti gangs. "They asked for my help, but I'm graduating," he said. "I'm done with all that."

Wong said the two groups of instigators met as planned at the school's handball courts, and "all of them started going at it." Within seconds, he said, the fight escalated beyond the original two groups, and people began running throughout the campus fighting.

"They would finish one place and run to another corner and fight," he said.

"Security didn't know where to go," Wong added. "They'd concentrate in one spot and something would happen somewhere else. This is the worst I've seen."

Minor injuries at the scene were treated by the school nurse and L.A. Fire Department personnel. No one required hospitalization, the school district said. There were, however, some descriptions of students being badly beaten.

Wong said he saw one student beaten unconscious on a handball court. Sherlock said he saw one Latino student walking along Saint Street, the road that bisects the campus, when he was surrounded by a large group of black students who began hitting and kicking him. "He was bleeding real bad," Sherlock said. "When they stood him up, he kind of collapsed back down."

Sherlock, who is a member of the Black Student Union and the school's new House of Representatives, which was formed to help guide the transition from traditional school to charter, added that he had tried to stop the fighting, but to little effect. After securing order, authorities rounded up the students who hadn't returned to class and segregated them by race, holding Latinos in the boys gym and African American students in Hobbs Hall, the school's multipurpose room.

Beginning at 2 p.m., school officials began releasing students in small groups to go home. The school remained on lock down until the last group had left about 3:15 p.m.

LAUSD's Cox said that there would be an enhanced police presence at Locke during school hours next week and that the district would send human relations staff to the school to talk to students.

In recent years, melees have broken out periodically at many campuses with a black and Latino presence, including in Los Angeles, Lyn wood and Compton. There have been fights between Latinos and Armenians in other areas that led to campus lock downs.

In nearly all cases, no serious injuries have resulted, but the incidents have frightened students and parents, marred the reputation of schools and hindered the learning of students who frequently already face substantial academic challenges.

"How do you build anything here when something happens and adds to the negativity?" asked band leader Smith.

Higher education

2008-05-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage or post secondary education, is the non-compulsory educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, or gymnasium. Tertiary education is normally taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, as well as vocational education and training. Colleges and universities are the main institutions that provide tertiary education. Collectively, these are sometimes known as tertiary institutions.Tertiary education generally results in the receipt of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees.

Higher education includes teaching, research and social services activities of universities, and within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level (sometimes referred to as tertiary education) and the graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as graduate school). Higher education in that country generally involves work towards a degree-level or foundation degree qualification. In most developed countries a high proportion of the population (up to 50%) now enter higher education at some time in their lives. Higher education is therefore very important to national economies, both as a significant industry in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy.

Adult education

Lifelong, or adult, education has become widespread in many countries.

However, education is still seen by many as something aimed at children, and adult education is often branded as adult learning or lifelong learning. Adult education takes on many forms, from formal class-based learning to self-directed learning. Lending libraries provide inexpensive informal access to books and other self-instructional materials. The rise in computer ownership and internet access has given both adults and children greater access to both formal and informal education. In Scandinavia a unique approach to learning termed folkbildning has long been recognised as contributing to adult education through the use of learning circles. Mode of Education. 1-formal education, 2-informal education , 3-Non formal education.

Formal Education:- the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded education system, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialized programs and institutions for full time technical and professional training.

Informal Education:- The truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitude, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment from family and neighbors, from work and play, from the market place the library and the mass media.

Non-Formal Education

any organized educational activity outside the established formal system- whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives.

Alternative education

Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative (for all age groups and levels of education). This may include both forms of education designed for students with special needs (ranging from teenage pregnancy to intellectual disability) and forms of education designed for a general audience which employ alternative educational philosophies and/or methods. Alternatives of the latter type are often the result of , is a broad term which may be used to refer to all forms of education outside of traditional educationeducation reform and are rooted in various philosophies dissatisfied with certain aspects of that are commonly fundamentally different from those of traditional compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and studentstraditional education. These alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community

20 Tips to Promote Positive Self-Esteem

2008-05-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

Author: Richard Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed.

Value each child as an individual with unique strengths, needs, interests, and skills.
Focus on the child's strengths. Emphasize and celebrate his "islands of competence."
Reject the child's behavior, but never reject the child. Use affectionate terms and nicknames when scolding ("Your room is a mess, honey. Now turn off the TV and make your bed.").
Remember that sincere interest can be more effective and meaningful than praise. Demonstrate a genuine interest in her activities, hobbies, etc.
Establish realistic, achievable goals for your child. Anticipate success.
Avoid using sarcasm with kids; children with language problems often misinterpret it.
When discussing an issue or a problem, avoid bringing up past difficulties.
Never compare one child to another.
Help the child develop decision-making and problem-solving skills.
Understand that mistakes are an inevitable (and valuable) part of any learning experience. Use mistakes as an opportunity to teach and assist.
Divide large tasks into smaller, manageable ones. This will ensure success, mastery, and retention.
Maintain a file of his academic work. Use this to demonstrate his progress and development when he is feeling down.
Encourage him to maintain "collections" (e.g., baseball cards, stamps, rocks, etc.). This allows him to be the resident expert on a topic.
If she does not participate in team sports, promote individual sports (e.g., skiing, golf, swimming). This will provide opportunities for success, exercise, and peer interaction.
Communicate your confidence in the child and in her future.
Permit and encourage the child to follow the normal fads of his peer group (e.g., clothing, music). This will enhance his acceptance at school and in the community.
Emphasize the positive aspects of her behavior or performance, even if the task was not completely successful. Reward direction, not perfection.
Anticipate that the child will have plateaus, failures, backslides, setbacks, and regressions. Support and encourage him at these times. Kids need love most when they deserve it least!
Look for opportunities to offer him choices to allow him to practice decision-making skills.
Never communicate disappointment to your child. The disappointment of an adult may be too great a burden for a child to carry.

Remember:

Your child's self-esteem will be determined by the conditional acceptance that he receives from others - and the unconditional acceptance that he receives from you. Your child's self-esteem will be determined by success and progress in four areas:
- Social (acceptance, friendships)
- Competence (in a skill area)
- Physical (clothing, attractiveness)
- Character (effort, generosity, etc.)

Scientists Help Develop First Single Molecule Transistor

2008-04-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

A scientist at the University of Liverpool has helped to create the world's smallest transistor - by proving that a single molecule can power electric circuits.

Dr Werner Hofer, from the University's Surface Science Research Centre, is one of an international team of scientists who have created a prototype that demonstrates a single charged atom on a silicon surface can regulate the conductivity of a nearby molecule. Computers and other technology based on this concept would require much less energy to power, would produce much less heat, and run much faster.

Currently, most electronic devices are based on silicon. There is, however, a limit to how many transistors can be packed into a given volume of silicon as the currents in these transistors are high and can overheat. By miniaturizing a transistor, the time during which an electron can pass through it is reduced and therefore the device can be operated with much higher frequencies and take up much less space.

Dr Hofer, a theorist, who worked in collaboration with colleagues from the National Institute for Nanotechnology of the National Research Council in Canada and the University of Alberta, provided the theoretical background in an experiment to examine the potential for electrical transistors on a much smaller, molecular scale. Their findings have been published in the journal, Nature.

Molecules are extremely small, on the scale of a nanometre (one billionth of a metre). The team tested the transistor potential of a molecule by using the electrostatic field emanating from a single atom to regulate the conductivity of a molecule, allowing an electric current to flow through the molecule. These effects were easily observed at room temperature, in contrast to previous molecular experiments that had to be conducted at temperatures close to absolute zero, and with much smaller current amplification. Dr Hofer explains: "Our experiments demonstrate that we can control the current through a single molecule by charging a single atom on a silicon surface, while all surrounding atoms remain neutral.

"Our research brings us a step nearer to using molecular electronics which would not only prove more efficient and cheaper than current devices, but would also have the potential to power green technology because of the biodegradable nature of the device."

He added: "Our prototype is a scientific breakthrough in molecular electronics. We have successfully shown the potential for devices of unheard-of smallness and unheard-of efficiency. This is the first time anyone has shown that a molecule is in fact a transistor."

Hutto Independent School District

2008-04-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

By Ronnie Bredahl

Known as a "family oriented community of progress and growth", strong community support and involvement with the local school district are characteristics of life in the city of Hutto.

Located twenty-five miles northeast of Austin, Hutto is one of the fastest-growing cities in the state of Texas. Hutto has experienced incredible growth with its current population of 12,000 representing an almost 1000% increase since the year 2000.

Known to local residents as the "Center of the Universe" due to its easy access to all of Central Texas, Hutto maintains the small town charm for which it has become famous.

With its motto "Moving Forward, Reaching Potential", Hutto Independent School District strives to provide outstanding educational services to its students. Hutto ISD includes four elementary schools (Cottonwood Creek, Hutto, Johnson, and Ray), one middle school (Hutto Middle), and one high school (Hutto High). Hutto ISD added Ray Elementary in August 2007. Additional schools are in the planning stages. Hutto High is currently undergoing renovations to accommodate the rapid growth of the student population.

Known as the Hutto Hippos, Hutto High School has a 3A rating by UIL. The Hutto community strongly supports and participates in Hutto Hippo activities.

The tax rate for Hutto ISD is currently $1.41 per $100 valuation.
Hutto ISD earned on overall rating of Academically Acceptable on the Texas Education Agency Academic Excellence Indicator System for 2007.

TEA awarded Gold Performance Acknowledgments to Hutto Elementary for improvement in math and to Hutto Middle School for attendance, writing, and improvement in math.

Hutto High School was honored by The Texas ACT Council with a 2007 College Readiness Award. This award is given to high schools that have demonstrated significant improvement in the college readiness of their students as reflected by their scores on the ACT test for five consecutive years. Hutto High School was among only 79 schools in the state of Texas to be awarded this honor.

Hutto ISD and the Hutto community embrace the growth and expansion of the Hutto area and are dedicated to maintaining the strong sense of community and small town charm in this dynamic, rapidly growing city.

Families and Teachers on Public School Rankings

2008-04-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

All parents want their children to receive a good-quality education and public school rankings are used as a tool to determine which schools are "best." They may even make choices about which neighborhood to move their family into based on the public school rankings information available. This information can easily be found.

Public School Rankings and Quality of Education

Typically rankings are based on test score results. One could assume that the schools that place highly on rankings lists have the best teachers and those schools who fare poorly are unable to attract and retain good-quality staff members. While the latter statement may have some validity, students and parents also need to do their part.

A teacher may have great lesson plans that present information in an interesting way. If the students are not motivated to learn, for whatever reason, this fact will be reflected on test scores. Some individuals have even gone so far as to suggest that teachers be financially rewarded for high public school rankings. This could be a mistake.

Pressure to Achieve and High Rankings

All students have the right to learn and to be given the opportunity to achieve. Having school funding paid out on the basis of test scores and rankings puts a lot of pressure on both the students and the teachers to perform well on that one task. The concern here is that the testing will become the sole focus of the school curriculum. Teachers may be tempted to teach only what will be on the test and not take the time to explore anything else.

Will students who don't perform well be penalized for bringing the public school rankings down? One would assume that all students would try their best on Test Day, but if they can't or won't, why should that reflect on the teacher or the school itself? The teacher has done his or her job in exposing the students to the information; the students have a responsibility for what they choose to do with that knowledge.

We should want the next generation to get excited about learning for its' own sake, not just to pass a standardized test. My fear is that if public school rankings are being used as the only criteria on which to base funding decisions or whether parents should send their children to a particular place of learning, we are being far too narrow in our view. Too many other factors, other than the skills and abilities of the teachers, go into standardized test results (and public school rankings).

When we think about rankings of schools, let's look at the big picture. The mark of a good school is based on more than just numbers.

Some Kindergartners May Have to Wait to Attend Memphis Schools

2008-04-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

By Patricia Hawke
For lots of kids, all across the United States, turning 5 is a coming of age. They are now old enough to go to school! They can attend Kindergarten, and now, they are big kids! No more preschool, naptime, or blankies. It's the big time.

For future Memphis schools students, their first day of Kindergarten may just have to wait a bit. Legislators are considering a change in the necessary birth date a child must have in order to attend kindergarten at all Tennessee schools, including Memphis schools. Currently, the cutoff is September 30. The proposal would change that date to September 1.

While many children will be disappointed (as will there parents), it is a sound idea. Students attending Memphis schools have high standards to achieve, and starting school too early, in some cases, can actually set them back. They can struggle throughout their Memphis schools careers, and starting a little later, when they are more mature can make all the difference. This is especially true for students hoping to attend Memphis schools which mostly serve the urban area of Memphis, Tennessee. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have been proven to be less prepared for school than their richer counterparts. Their parents may be working two jobs, with little time or energy left to spend getting Junior ready to start a Kindergarten program in Memphis.

Whether or not this is applicable, it is a fact that kids who start out the school year at Memphis schools younger than their peers (For instance, Sally's birthday is September 28, when she will turn 5. She'll still be only 4 when school starts. Judy's birthday was January 28, and she's been 5 for over 6 months now.) can have a harder time learning to "school" than others who are older and more mature.

Emotional maturity is perhaps the most important thing to consider. A child who isn't ready to start Kindergarten at Memphis City may have a harder time adjusting to the new life of "school kid". Crying, separation anxiety, discipline or behavior problems and even toileting and shoe-tying ought to be considered for these future students of Memphis schools.

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, and there are four-year-olds out there who are vastly more mature than their five-year-old peers. This can be due to any number of things; gender, birth order, and their parents' level of completed education all contribute to a child's social and emotional maturity. Even the age of the parents as well as the influence of extended family can impact a child's maturity level.

It seems to me that the best solution for rising Kindergartners of Memphis schools would be to set an optional date. Perhaps students could be admitted to Kindergarten if they meet the September 1st birthday requirement, and a screening process could be instituted for those future students of Memphis schools that may be ready to enter Kindergarten in Memphis schools but have a later birthday in the month of September.

Demolishing Zimbabwe's education system teacher by teacher

2008-04-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

The first to go was the English teacher. Six months later, the commerce teacher followed. The next year, 2005, the trickle turned into an exodus. By 2007, the departures from Mufakose 3 High School were like bricks in a collapsing building: math, science, accounting and many other teachers, all leaving their careers behind to work as cleaners, shop assistants, laborers in other countries.

Zimbabwe's education system, once the best in Africa, is being demolished teacher by teacher.

Some of the teachers at Mufakose 3, outside the capital, Harare, called in sick and were never seen at the school again. Others didn't bother to call and just disappeared.

"You'd come to school and someone's not there and next thing you hear, he's gone," said Knox Sonopai, 43, a history teacher at Mufakose 3.

In 2007, 25,000 teachers fled the country, according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe. In the first two months of this year, 8,000 more disappeared. A staggering 150,000 teaching vacancies can't be filled. The Education Ministry sends out high school graduates with no degree or experience to do the job.

In a country where the official inflation rate is 100,000%, teachers simply can't afford to teach.

Before last month's national elections, teachers went on strike to protest salaries of 500 million Zimbabwean dollars a month -- about $10. Their salaries went up 700% to end the strike (paid, perhaps not coincidentally, just before the vote) but the raise is being gobbled by hyperinflation.

"One hundred percent of teachers have resigned, mentally, even though they remain in schools," said the teachers union president, Takavafira Zhou. "They're no longer interested in teaching. They're just looking for somewhere to go.

"The education system is a vital hub of the country. It has a ripple effect. In the long term, the country will suffer very much."

Francis, a teacher at neighboring Mufakose 1 High School who declined to give his last name for fear of dismissal, said 60 of 110 teachers there left last year.

"Every holiday we lose more teachers," he said.

Last October, history teacher Sonopai and a colleague, Clever Mudadi, 33, gambled their lives crossing the crocodile-infested Limpopo River into South Africa. They tried to get work as teachers but ended up as laborers digging foundations for about $15 a week. In the end, humiliated by the work, they turned around and went home.

"It was bad," Mudadi said. "We lost a lot of weight. We felt hurt. I can't describe it."

"We never expected to do that kind of work, but we had to do it," Sonopai said. "We had no option. We were stranded."

Mudadi, whose first name, Clever, seems to have shaped him from birth to be a teacher, has a young, boyish face and pauses thoughtfully before putting anything into words. Sonopai's face is long and mournful. He is the more talkative of the two.

They're men with calm, cautious voices and soft hands used to chalk dust, not spades and blisters and days of toil. When the pair talk about their South African adventure, they seem almost pained by the memories. There are soft sighs. They stare vacantly. Teachers used to be some of the most respected people in Zimbabwean communities, but now "you are the laughingstock of the community," said primary school teacher Richard Tshuma, 35.

"When you are going to the shops because it is payday for teachers, people laugh at you and say it's better to be a street vendor selling vegetables. You'll make more money."

At rallies before the elections, which saw the ruling ZANU-PF party lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in 28 years of power, President Robert Mugabe made a point of giving out computers to teach children computer literacy.

At Mufakose 1 High School, 10 new computers were donated last year by the government. But only one is still working, and students never get to touch it. It's been taken over by school office workers for typing letters.

Cortines targets dropout rate at L.A. Unified

2008-04-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

Dealing with its alarmingly high dropout rate should be a higher priority than test scores for the Los Angeles Unified School District, Ramon C. Cortines said in his first interview since being named senior deputy superintendent Tuesday.

Because students who drop out often are low achievers, he warned, keeping them in school could well impede -- at least initially -- a rise in test scores.

Indicating that he planned to shake up things, Cortines, 75, said he also would revisit the phonics-based reading program he helped install eight years ago, work to shrink and decentralize the district's much-criticized bureaucracy, improve science and arts instruction and increase student access to college-prep classes.

And he pledged greater openness, saying the district needed to acknowledge its failures as the prelude to addressing them.

"People in the district are afraid if it is bad news," Cortines said. "I'm not afraid. If we don't know what the facts are, how can we prescriptively design an instruction program that meets the needs of the kids?"

Cortines drew widespread praise in 2000 when he served as interim superintendent for six months after the Board of Education ousted then-Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

This time around, he said, his goal is to support Supt. David L. Brewer, who has faced nagging questions about his own performance and an impatient school board. Brewer, a retired vice admiral, had no background in K-12 education before his hiring 17 months ago.

Civic leaders and school board members praised Brewer for his willingness to hire a high-profile, plain-speaking independent as second in command. Cortines has vastly more education experience than his new boss, having headed school districts in New York City, San Francisco, San Jose and Pasadena.

"We needed someone with instruction expertise," board member Marlene Canter said. "This appointment shows that Supt. Brewer puts students' interests ahead of any other agenda."

Cortines says he is motivated by the education challenge alone and has no interest in overshadowing the superintendent. Cortines, who will make $250,000 a year, agreed to an at-will contract, meaning Brewer can dismiss him without notice.

Last year, at a public forum, Cortines complained about how the district's "damn bureaucracy" was withholding tallies of dropouts. Within days of applying public pressure, Cortines got the statistics he sought, but said he remained dissatisfied with the quality and coherence of information.

He said he would insist on getting an accurate picture of how many students drop out and why. Then he will enlist principals and their supervisors to address the problem -- and hold them accountable.

"You can't get to achievement if you don't try to keep the kids in school," he said

In a departure from the top-down structure favored by former Supt. Roy Romer, Cortines said he shared Brewer's desire to give more responsibility to regional administrators and principals: "They're going to have to rise to that. That means making decisions and taking risks."

He also said he would carefully evaluate the phonics-based Open Court reading program. In 2000, in concert with the school board, Cortines required nearly all elementary schools to adopt the program. Open Court was subsequently embraced by Romer, and its use corresponded with a substantial rise in elementary reading scores.

But Cortines always worried about whether the highly structured program was appropriate for students not yet fully proficient in English.

Research shows that these students need much more than skills in decoding words, said Cortines, who added: "I would've modified Open Court so you have managed instruction but more flexibility as it relates to language development."

During his earlier stint, Cortines developed a plan to dramatically shrink the district's central administration while granting sweeping authority to regional superintendents to bring decisions closer to schools and parents.

Now Cortines has another shot -- and a kindred thinker in Brewer. Slashing the central office may become a financial imperative given the state budget vise: The district must identify $460 million in possible cuts.

After leaving L.A. Unified, Cortines worked as a consultant -- often free of charge -- and served on boards, including that of J. Paul Getty Trust. He even tried "sitting by the pool and reading," but as he put it, "I've flunked retirement about five times."

As deputy mayor since August 2006, he was especially valuable to Villaraigosa because he maintained cordial relations with top school district officials and union leaders.

"His hiring will only enhance the partnership between the city of Los Angeles and L.A. Unified, and will accelerate the reforms and change we need now," Villaraigosa said Wednesday. "The timing couldn't be better. Ray brings a deep and profound sense of urgency that I think this school district needs right now."

Retired Long Beach Supt. Carl Cohn, widely regarded as a successful reformer, said Cortines' experience with Villaraigosa boded well for getting along with Brewer, a passionate education advocate who also wants to leave his mark.

In the mayor's office, "Cortines worked out an arrangement with another powerful, larger-than-life figure, and for a period of time, they worked well together," Cohn said. "I think the same thing could happen at the school district."

College rejection isn't the end of the world

2008-04-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

With nearly perfect grades at a prestigious Los Angeles prep school and high SAT scores, Emily Podany should have nailed a spot at Stanford. But when she applied early to study astrophysics at her dream school, the Palo Alto university flat-out rejected her. Podany was crushed.

"When you see the small envelope, you just know it's not good news," said Podany, 18. "I just felt very sad for a couple days. Then that turned into anger at myself for not doing better."

Podany, now a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, is not unlike hundreds of thousands of high-achieving students who failed to get into their first-choice school in recent weeks. It's also the first time many of them have faced rejection, leaving them devastated, depressed and angry.

But today's high school seniors who received envelopes thick and thin this spring from the likes of Harvard, UC Berkeley and USC can learn a thing or two from their brothers and sisters in rejection.

Their worlds did not crumble, and their lives largely worked themselves out -- many grudgingly attended their second choices and surprised themselves by falling in love with campuses they once sneered at. Some immediately began plotting transfers to their first-choice school, and others, such as Meena Madan of Long Beach, decided to work hard for four years in hopes of attending their top choice for grad school.

Madan was obsessed with UC Berkeley because of its stand-out programs in geology and paleobiology. When she was rejected last spring, Madan was happy for one small solace -- she found out while she was alone.

"I hate crying in front of other people," she said. "It was absolutely awful. I was crying and crying. The first thing I did was call my sister [who attends Berkeley], and she was crying too. She felt so bad for me. I was miserable for so long. In the end, it took me a couple of months to stop feeling so bad."

As the fall approached, she girded herself to study earth-system science at UC Irvine.

"It can't be that bad," the freshman recalled telling herself. "This is other people's first choice; there must be something good about it."

The Orange County campus, affable classmates and smart professors grew on Madan. The 18-year-old plans to stay put until grad school.

"People in the dorm I'm living in are really wonderful," she said. "I like it a lot. The only thing that keeps me actually from thinking this school is absolutely amazing is the fact my major is not perfect here; it's more broad than what I wanted. But it's an extremely nice school."

Competition at elite schools such as Berkeley and Stanford has grown because more students than ever are vying for admission -- the population of high school graduates has ballooned and is projected to increase this year and next. Seniors are also applying to more colleges than ever. At Podany's alma mater, the all-girls Marlborough School in Hancock Park, guidance counselors recommend that seniors apply to about 10 colleges; some have been known to apply to two dozen or more.

All this means that universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, USC, UCLA and UC Berkeley received record-high numbers of applications this year. Meanwhile, the number of class seats has remained stable, so schools are reporting record-low acceptance rates. USC admitted 21% of 35,809 applicants this spring. Fifteen years ago, the school accepted 70%.

"We are not able to take, because of space limitations, students whom we love," said Jerry Lucido, USC's vice provost for enrollment policy and management.

Parents and students do not take rejection lightly. Online discussion forums are filled with student angst over denials, pleas for help in crafting appeals, and sympathetic posts aimed at soothing hurt feelings. One anonymous writer, who was accepted at Berkeley and Duke, asked fellow college confidential.com readers where he should enroll and what he could do to ease transfer to Stanford or MIT, both of which rejected him.

"Would I need to write a book, become president of my local chapter of Mensa, secure a patent?" he wrote.

Dennis Murray, 19, understands all too well. He thought he was a shoo-in at USC: The Thousand Oaks student had straight As, scored 1370 on his SATs (when the top score was 1600) and passed five Advanced Placement tests. The flourish on his resume? He was a legacy. His father graduated from USC, and he grew up cheering Trojans football.

So when Murray was rejected, he was confused and hurt.

"The toughest part was the end of senior year when people were talking about where they were going," he said. "I didn't."

Instead of attending one of the four-year institutions that accepted him, including UC San Diego and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Murray decided to attend Moorpark College, a two-year community college.

Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole

2008-04-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

In Walker Percy’s “Love in the Ruins,” the protagonist, a doctor and an inventor, recites what he calls the scientist’s prayer. It goes like this:

“Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men.

“Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to man’s destruction.

“Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Brain be published before the destruction takes place.”

Today we require more than prayers that a scientific experiment will not lead to the end of the world. We demand hard-headed calculations. But whom can we trust to do them?

That question has been raised by the impending start up of the Large Hadron Collider. It starts smashing protons together this summer at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or Cern, outside Geneva, in hopes of grabbing a piece of the primordial fire, forces and particles that may have existed a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

Critics have contended that the machine could produce a black hole that could eat the Earth or something equally catastrophic.

To most physicists, this fear is more science fiction than science fact. At a recent open house weekend, 73,000 visitors, without pitchforks or torches, toured the collider without incident.

Nevertheless, some experts say too much hype and not enough candor on the part of scientists about the promises and perils of what they do could boomerang into a public relations disaster for science, opening the door for charlatans and demagogues.

In a paper published in 2000 with the title “Might a Laboratory Experiment Destroy Planet Earth?” Francesco Calogero, a nuclear physicist at the University of Rome and co-winner of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Pugwash conferences on arms control, deplored a tendency among his colleagues to promulgate a “leave it to the experts” attitude.

“Many, indeed most, of them,” he wrote, “seem to me to be more concerned with the public relations impact of what they, or others, say and write, than in making sure that the facts are presented with complete scientific objectivity.”

One problem is that society has never agreed on a standard of what is safe in these surreal realms when the odds of disaster might be tiny but the stakes are cosmically high. In such situations, probability estimates are often no more than “informed betting odds,” said Martin Rees, a Cambridge University cosmologist, the astronomer royal and the author of “Our Final Hour.” Adrian Kent, also of Cambridge, said in a paper in 2003 reviewing scientists’ failure to calculate adequately and characterize accurately risks to the public, that even the most basic question, “ ‘How improbable does a catastrophe have to be to justify proceeding with an experiment?’ seems never to have been seriously examined.”

Dr. Calogero commented, as did Dr. Kent, in 2000 after a very public battle on the safety of another accelerator, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or Rhic, at the Brook haven National Laboratory on Long Island. Dr. Calogero said he hoped to apply a gentle pressure on Cern to treat these issues with seriousness. “A crusade against it is a danger,” he said of the new collider. “It would not be based on rational argument.”

Fears about the Brookhaven collider first centered on black holes but soon shifted to the danger posed by weird hypothetical particles, strangelets, that critics said could transform the Earth almost instantly into a dead, dense lump. Ultimately, independent studies by two groups of physicists calculated that the chances of this catastrophe were negligible, based on astronomical evidence and assumptions about the physics of the strangelets. One report put the odds of a strangelet disaster at less than one in 50 million, less than a chance of winning some lottery jackpots. Dr. Kent, in a 2003 paper, used the standard insurance company method to calculate expected losses to explore how stringent this bound on danger was. He multiplied the disaster probability times the cost, in this case the loss of the global population, six billion. A result was that, in actuarial terms, the Rhic collider could kill up to 120 people in a decade of operation.

“Put this way, the bound seems far from adequately reassuring,” Dr. Kent wrote.

Alvaro de Rujula of Cern, who was involved in writing a safety report, said extending the insurance formula that way violated common sense. “Applied to all imaginable catastrophes, it would result in World Paralysis,” he wrote.

Besides, the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons.

Doomsday from particle physics is part of the culture.

Next year will see the release of the film version of “Angels and Demons,” the prequel to Dan Brown’s “DaVinci Code,” in which the bad guys use a Cern accelerator to gather antimatter for a bomb to blow up the Vatican, and it includes scenes at Cern.

In Douglas Preston’s “Blasphemy,” a best seller last winter, the operators of a giant particle collider in New Mexico find themselves talking to an entity that sounds like God before religious fanatics descend on the lab and destroy it.

Some physicists, who have been waiting 14 years for the new collider, have proclaimed in papers and press releases increasingly ambitious and unlikely hopes, including proving a long-shot version of string theory by producing microscopic black holes.

Inevitably, these black holes have taken center stage in the latest round of doomsday alarms. Most theorists will say the version of their theory that predicts black holes is extremely unlikely — though not impossible. But the chance that such a black hole would not instantly evaporate according to a theory famously propounded by Stephen Hawking in 1974 is even more weirdly unlikely, the theorists say.

Cern’s most recent safety report, in 2003, focused mostly on refuting the strangelet threat in the hadron collider and devoted just three pages to black holes, saying they “do not present a conceivable risk.” It gave no odds. An anonymous Cern committee is working on a final, more comprehensive report.

Neither Dr. Calogero nor Dr. Rees say they are losing sleep over the collider. Some risk is acceptable, even inevitable, in the pursuit of knowledge, they say, and they trust the physicists who have built it.

But it would be more reassuring in the long run, as Dr. Kent noted, if everybody agreed beforehand how much risk is acceptable, before spending billions of dollars and major political capital.

One popular option to determine acceptable risk is to demand that the chance of a man-made disaster be kept below the chance of a natural disaster like being obliterated by an asteroid. Astronomers estimate that chance as one in 50 million in any given year.

Of course, thanks to those pesky quantum laws, disaster could come anytime. Or not. It could happen that the scientist’s prayer will be answered and your discovery will indeed lead to knowledge, human happiness and a new killer ap for iPhones.

“As in all explorations of uncharted domains, there may be a risk,” Dr. Rees wrote, “but there is a hidden cost of saying no.”