Liberating curriculum from what, you might ask? This book seeks to liberate curriculum from numerous ways of thinking that have shackled the growth of curriculum for decades. These ways of thinking include the attempt to reduce curriculum to nothing but a syllabus on the one hand or an efficiency problem on the other. This book also seeks to free curriculum from institutionalized systems that reduce curriculum to an impersonal list of topics divorced from meaning, purpose, and humanity; MUNRO….YES….schools and teachers must have a GREAT AIM……my AIM is to teach students to use education TO UNDERSTAND THE IDEA OF AMERICA….to achieve FREEDOM and to DEFEND THEMSELVES AND KNOW THEIR RIGHTS….if students know the idea of America as understood by the Founders, Lincoln , Theodore Roosevelt and FDR …they will be thrilled and they will gain a great respect and gratitude for the great freedom and opportunities they have. I invite my students to educate themselves NOT FOR ME for FOR THEMSELVES NOT FOR me –I am nothing really – BUT FOR AMERICA and FOR THEIR FAMILIES and FOR THEIR CHILDREN….The meaning of a liberal (Humane) education is to prepare students to live as FREE MEN AND WOMEN. Without such an education, which comes from the home as well as the community- slavery and servility will be their measure as sure as the turning of the sun and the setting of the moon. Yes “curriculum also must deal with community, citizenship, and concern for the common good” . Without civic virtue, without the teaching for examples of great heroes of civic virtue there will be when the hour of crisis and challenge comes –the life and death struggle- it IT WILL COME AYE IT WILL COME…we have seen it and known them…when that hour comes NO NEW LEGIONS WILL COME FROM THE HILLS. “Aye, since you prefer sheep to men” , said the old Highlander, “ let sheep defend you.” If we raise men without chests who laugh at honor and courage should we expect the cardinal virtues from such men? If we raise women to think there is no beauty in modesty and motherhood should we be surpirsed that they are bloated hedonists who embrace a cult of childlessness or near childlessness (O world without uncles, aunts , sisterrs, cousins and brothers…o world ready to fall…o world without big batallions….)
"from utopian dreamers who focus so much on what could be that they forget the reality that curriculum must start with the reality"
ALL EDUCATIONAL REFORM MUST BE JUDGED BY RESULTS...
RE :Thanks for your feedback, Richard! I’m interested in your first sentence about curriculum: “Curriculum consists of all the courses of study offered by a school and their different strands by subject area.” I agree with you that curriculum is about courses of study, but don’t you think curriculum also must and should take into account the practical question of how we should go about teaching these courses of study? CC: interested educators and scholars
Dear Wes:
I suppose I left this out because it is a sore point for me. I am a traditionalist teacher. I lecture, students read aloud IN ENGLISH ONLY, we translate, write down vocabulary and I make commentaries. We do guided essays and worksheets that are created to help them read and write better English.
I do not like too much group work (nor more than once every week or once every two week) because English ceases to be the lingua franca of the class and the kids just chit chat in Spanish (90% plus).
So if I am given a room with only big tables and I am told that an engaged student cannot be listening or taking notes but has to be cutting paper dolls or coloring pictures or doing ‘peer editing” I have to push back. If I am given a room without an American flag or a stained one I will ask for one and if I don’t get one I will buy a new one and let the superintendent and school board know that in VIOLATION of district policies AMERICAN FLAGS ARE NOT in all the classrooms and I was forced to buy one. The public don’t like to find out things like that. Liberal teachers tend to forget in their arrogance WHO IS PAYING THE BILLS (with taxes).
Needless to say I have not have had to buy an American flag for number or years now. But I have been in many a college classroom (UVA; and Bakersfield College that had NO AMERICAN FLAGS; so I brought my own desk top flags with me and added some historic ones for good measure such as the Grand Union Flag and the Rhode Island Flag and the Marine Corps Flag)). When I taught a class at UVA I made a point of placing flags of the commonwealth of Virginia and the USA small ones desk sized ones on the table before me. I told them it was just a token of respect and gratitude).
I hate to be told HOW TO TEACH by progessive educators who in my opinion do not emphasis basic skills like reading, listening, taking notes and writing. I do much more writing than the average social studies teacher.I consider myself to be a READING teacher and a LANGUAGE TEACHER. In English I emphasize WRITING and vocabulary…in SOCIAL STUDIES I emphasize READING, OUTLINES , CULTURAL LITERACY and CONCEPTS
Peer editing is OK if you have advanced native speakers but my students are not capable of peer editing (not the final draft certainly). I am (perhaps the adult aide who is bilingual and a college student) am the only one who can interpret or explain concepts or terms or advanced vocabulary.
I think the WAY a teacher teaches has a lot to do with their background and personal style. A favorite motto (posted in Spanish, English and Latin) is YOU SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS)
I don’t like uniformity in method. In that I am an eccentric and electic. I use music in my class , proverbs, famous quotations (in Latin, Spanish, English mostly) and of course I will and can sing a song or recite a poem from memory at a tip of a hate….if we teach NATURAL RIGHTS …I sing the WEST’s AWAKE….if we talk about nationalism there is A NATION ONCE AGAIN, later COLUMBIA GEM OF THE OCEAN or the MARINE HYMN….for slavery there are the Negro Spirituals for WWII there is WILLIE MCBRIDE….or FLANDER’S FIELDS….for WWII or (9/11) there are the YOUNG DEAD SOLDIERS (MACLEISH) . I model the power of MEMORIZING CLASSIC POEMS and speeches…..
The young dead soldiers do not speak. Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them? They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts. They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us. They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done. They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours, they will mean what you make them. They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this. We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
by Archibald MacLeish, 1892-1982, American Poet
In our Social Studies department the most important thing is that you follow the basic curriculum –don’t show unauthorized movies…keep videos to a minimum give the benchmark tests….but some teachers use multiiple choice tests EXCLUSIVELY. I give NO MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS AT ALL except for the standarized ones I am forced to give. I prefer SHORT ANSWERS, FILL IN THE BLANK, definitions and short answers. I also my basic students to answer in Spanish and I translate (orally all questions on the tests (which are English only). On request I translate any word which is not a term (terms they have to memorize and they must memorize SPELLING of a TERM other wise in SOCIAL STUDIES I do not mark down for spelling; In my Engilsh (ELD 4 class things are different particually on take home essays with several drafts and a final draft which may be untyped or typed. If they RE-DO essays they MUST re-type them. If an essay is on time they may re-type it for higher credit. I do not accept late work (unless there is serious medical problem or some exceptional situation)
I don’t mind SUGGESTIONS as to how a curriculm should be taught. I LIKE some prepacked materials, overheads, power points etc. But for example I think Power Points are very dull to do over and over. THE SMART BOARD is better because yout can integrate COLORS and large images and SOUND –dvd clips for example with a high quality large project image . But I rarely nowadays show more than 10 minutes of a documentary…the kids just turn off. A movie USUALLY is hopeless EXCEPT in a small class of high achieving level four learners. They get a movie as a treat and as part of their cultural literacy but no more than a two or three a year. At the end of last year I showed YOUNG MR LINCOLN with a study guide and KISS ME KATE (1999 Broadway version) in the Shakespeare Unit. I think KISS ME KATE is a realtively painles introduction to Shakespeare with a few love poems and sonnets. Definitely not KING LEAR OR HAMLET. Those are for mature students. Julius Caesar would be better, in my opinion. Of course McGuffy has only EXCERPTS of great plays heavily annotated and I think that is the way to go. If you look at McGuffy’s last volume it is a virtual liteary anthology (meant for the 8th grade) but few high school seniors could read it with ease today. SEE LOSING OUR LANGUAGE by STOTSKY
Will right some more of course on you blog….I will read it piece by piece…but now you know why I avoided the practical question of HOW to teach. At UVA –where they knew almost ZERO about bilingual education and teaching English langauge learners they hammered me for my traditionalist ideas and did not realize how Imporant I thought it was to make the classes ENGLISH MEDIUM CLASSES as much as possible. Virginia will find out the hard way as they are now being overwhelmed by Spanish speaking immigrants….. They weren’t interested in having a good curriculum either…everything was biased to being PC pro-feminist pro-multicultural and progessive liberal. I think one teacher said my methods and ideas belonged ‘in the long dead 1950’s” . She said that in front of the whole class. I responded that I would let my record as an AP teacher of at risk youth speak for itself. RESULTS and ACHIEVEING AUTHENTIC STANDARDS ARE WHAT MATTERS.
If a student needed private or one on one tutoring that is what office hours were for. In my career I have spend countless afternoons (often until 6PM) and countless Saturdays (8AM to 2PM or beyond) tutoring individual students or small groups (usually AP students). Of course if you have six students your methods can be much different and they can be more give and take like a college seminar. But such students are ambitious and serious and WANT TO PASS AP TESTS. THEY WANT TO BE AP SCHOLARS and NEED TO GET SCHOLARSHIPS. That makes all the difference.
One thing I believe is that studetns MUST READ, WRITE, STUDY, RESEARCH and PREPARE ON THEIR OWN TIME. You cannot do it all in classroom. Only producing in the classroom is giving less than 50% effort in my book. A serious student READS and STUDIES and RE-READS at home. A serious student asks informed questions. A serious student looks up spelling words on their own and only asks questions they can’t look up or need a clarification on.
I also believe the lower level the class the more you must control them and keep them occupied with simple tasks like COPYING the question and COPYING THE TERMS and DEFINITIONS. For these classes MC tests are, in my opinion, poison filled with much false information. MC test are only valid IF the students ALREADY have a high and competent reding level. Low level students don’t even try. For them true false (with space for comments) fill in’s matching , short answer and short essays are better. For very low students I ALWAYS give them the essay topic so they can memorize the key points and reproduce them. NIMSA (Nationalism Imperialism Militarism Secret Alliances ..causes of WWI ) I teach them mnemonic devices. To me this is vital if you are going to raise them up to college prep and indeed college work. Even my lowest students do GUIDED essays with THESIS statements. I GIVE them the thesis statement and they fill in the key facts. They they have to write a complete essay in long hand in English only. If they memorize thesis statement or quotation I give them extra credit. If they memorize the PLEDGE, PREAMBLE or GETTYSGBURG address I give them BONUS QUIZ grades and BONUS TEST GRADES.
As an English teacher (40% of my schedule ) I will let students (once every three weeks) have three days (three periods 55 minutes) to do a simple writing project with that at their only homework. But the final draft is due FRIDAY at the bell. I will not accept late work. I have a homework check on the second to last day to see everyone has a decent rough draft. I read each draft two or three times and then carefully grade the final draft (which they may re-write for full credit). But as a Social Studies teacher (classes are much larger 35-40 students) I do not have the time or the energy to do as many essays. I do only one guided essay (one period) per quarter) and it is modeled. There is less orignality here. They must memorize a series of key facts and reproduce a simple Social Studies essay fact matter more than style and spelling. In social studies I will allow low newcomers to write the essay in Spanish for full credit. In English class I do not allow Spanish in essays or non standard Englsih.
So I know what I am doing – despite the mavins of UVA- but I don’t like to be told HOW to teach or when or where I should use Spanish. If they don’t trust me then they should ask me to leave and I will get a job elsehwere. There is nothing on my lips which is not in my heart.
I think it all comes do to my deep suspicion of the authority and tryanny of the bold state (as exemplfied by the liberal PC elites). I will never forgot who it was who banished the reading of the Psalms and the Bible from the classroom and now who want to bann military recruiters, JROTC, and the national motto IN GOD WE TRUST not to mention the simple honrable PLEDGE OF Allegiances.
I have never made a student say it in more tha 20 years of teaching. But my God they will be quiet and they will stand in respect.
I have seen foreign colors raised in many foreign lands Peru, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Mexico, Ireland, the UK, Italy and I have stood at attention with respect in respect of a sister nation (usually friendly to the USA and usually a free or partially free nation).
If I can stand up and show respect to the Russian colors or the Spanish colors (under Franco) these kids getting a free breakfast, a free lunch, free pencils , free books, free tutoring, free paper can at least stand and show respect. Of course only when the USA colors are raised have I really felt pride. I love other flags too but I feel a man is good for only one oath at a time and I took an oath of allegience to the flag of the USA. For me there is no turning back. I have transferred my loyalty to the USA (but not entirely of course –if the USA became an enemy nation to my family and faith I would not hestitate to become and I do not mince words here being the greatest enemy of a tyrannical ultra secular totalitarian state no matter what flag it flew.) That is always a possiblity. No
Allegience is absolute …not to a free man. It is a two way street.
If my students are so obstinate and so dumb they cannot show gratitude and thank God they are in America that’s they problem.
But if they won’t show respect they make it my problem and I let them know they should be ashamed of themselves.
As I said I don’t ask them to die for the colors or bow down but to just to show respect and a moment of silence if they cannot bring themselves to say the words.
But I make if very clear that men I served with loved Old Glory and though they had only one life they thought enough of the flag and the country and republic it respresented to lay down their lives for it WITHOUT HESITATION and as the old saying goes “THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE THAN TO LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR A FRIEND. No greater love. I remember those who made the supreme sacrifice FOR MY FREEDOM and YOURS every day….how about you…..????
They get the picture. Most say the pledge. Then a lot of them volunteer for military service because they have learned what gratitude and civic virtue are. I am as proud of those men (and a few young women) as I am of those who go to Yale, Bryn Mayr and Berkeley.
Well that is my rant for the day. I can’t stand wimp hedonism, PC wimp liberals (ardent secular social democrats really) and people without any sense of gratitude and PATRIOTISIM.
REMEMBER THE PEOPLE YOU CAME FROM was a saying I was weened on. And of course REMEMBER THE FORTITUDE OF YOUR ANCESTORS. And of course BYDAN FREE ….SAORSA GU BRATH….FOREVER FREE.
When my grandfather first came to America as a bird of passage –he had no intention originally to emigrate –he loved his native land –he had fought for it his brother, his cousins, his mates had died for it and wanted never to leave it – he brought only two things with him a strong faith in God and a strong desire to be free.
Because he wanted to be free and because he wanted his children and grandchildren and their children to be free he decided to become a US citizen at age 50.
He always said “Scotland is a good place to be FROM; it is better with a pocketfull of Yankee dollars or English pounds. But it is best to be in America, home of the free and land of the brave. Aye. God Bless America.” Yes, Auld Pop understood and appreicated America better than most college professors. And he built carriers and liberty ships for Uncle Sam to prove it. Six and seven days a week 1941-1945. If ever a man deserved a social security pension (the only pension he had) it was he. It gave him some dignity at the end of his life and time to spend with his grandchildren. Time he spent educating them. So yes, we feel a real debt of gratitude to FDR of course. Gratitude is gratitude if it is owed you owe it. Period.
Then mem'ries sweet and tender Come like music's plaintive flow, Of someone in Ellan Vannin That lov'd me long ago…...
Aye NE OBLIVISCARIS…DO NOT FORGET…but face firmly towards the future…for us the future is the USA….
THE RIGHTS OF MAN COME NOT FROM THE GENEROSITY OF THE STATE BUT FROM THE HAND OF GOD -John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961
Courage is the supreme virtue...for it guarantees all the others (Churchill)
"NE OBLIVSCARIS*(do not forget) ** Semper Fidelis *** Honos et Virtute "SO THIS IS OUR MOTTO: IN GOD WE TRUST
______________________________________________ When the summer day is over And the busy cares have flown, Then I sit beneath the starlight With a weary heart. alone, And there rises like a vision, Sparkling bright in nature's glee, My own dear Ellan Vannin With its green hills by the sea!
Then I hear the wavelets murmur As they kiss the fairy shore, Then beneath the em'rald waters Sings the mermaid as of yore, And the fair Isle shines with beauty As in youth it dawned on me, My own dear Ellan Vannin With its green hills by the sea.
Then mem'ries sweet and tender Come like music's plaintive flow, Of someone in Ellan Vannin That lov'd me long ago, So I give with tears and blessings, And my fondest thoughts to thee, My own dear Ellan Vannin With its green hills by the sea.
3 comments:
Liberating Curriculum From What? BY WESLEY NULL
Liberating curriculum from what, you might ask? This book seeks to liberate curriculum from numerous ways of thinking that have shackled the growth of curriculum for decades. These ways of thinking include the attempt to reduce curriculum to nothing but a syllabus on the one hand or an efficiency problem on the other. This book also seeks to free curriculum from institutionalized systems that reduce curriculum to an impersonal list of topics divorced from meaning, purpose, and humanity;
MUNRO….YES….schools and teachers must have a GREAT AIM……my AIM is to teach students to use education TO UNDERSTAND THE IDEA OF AMERICA….to achieve FREEDOM and to DEFEND THEMSELVES AND KNOW THEIR RIGHTS….if students know the idea of America as understood by the Founders, Lincoln , Theodore Roosevelt and FDR …they will be thrilled and they will gain a great respect and gratitude for the great freedom and opportunities they have. I invite my students to educate themselves NOT FOR ME for FOR THEMSELVES NOT FOR me –I am nothing really – BUT FOR AMERICA and FOR THEIR FAMILIES and FOR THEIR CHILDREN….The meaning of a liberal (Humane) education is to prepare students to live as FREE MEN AND WOMEN. Without such an education, which comes from the home as well as the community- slavery and servility will be their measure as sure as the turning of the sun and the setting of the moon. Yes “curriculum also must deal with community, citizenship, and concern for the common good” . Without civic virtue, without the teaching for examples of great heroes of civic virtue there will be when the hour of crisis and challenge comes –the life and death struggle- it IT WILL COME AYE IT WILL COME…we have seen it and known them…when that hour comes NO NEW LEGIONS WILL COME FROM THE HILLS. “Aye, since you prefer sheep to men” , said the old Highlander, “ let sheep defend you.” If we raise men without chests who laugh at honor and courage should we expect the cardinal virtues from such men? If we raise women to think there is no beauty in modesty and motherhood should we be surpirsed that they are bloated hedonists who embrace a cult of childlessness or near childlessness (O world without uncles, aunts , sisterrs, cousins and brothers…o world ready to fall…o world without big batallions….)
"from utopian dreamers who focus so much on what could be that they forget the reality that curriculum must start with the reality"
ALL EDUCATIONAL REFORM MUST BE JUDGED BY RESULTS...
RE :Thanks for your feedback, Richard! I’m interested in your first sentence about curriculum: “Curriculum consists of all the courses of study offered by a school and their different strands by subject area.” I agree with you that curriculum is about courses of study, but don’t you think curriculum also must and should take into account the practical question of how we should go about teaching these courses of study?
CC: interested educators and scholars
Dear Wes:
I suppose I left this out because it is a sore point for me. I am a traditionalist teacher. I lecture, students read aloud IN ENGLISH ONLY, we translate, write down vocabulary and I make commentaries. We do guided essays and worksheets that are created to help them read and write better English.
I do not like too much group work (nor more than once every week or once every two week) because English ceases to be the lingua franca of the class and the kids just chit chat in Spanish (90% plus).
So if I am given a room with only big tables and I am told that an engaged student cannot be listening or taking notes but has to be cutting paper dolls or coloring pictures or doing ‘peer editing” I have to push back. If I am given a room without an American flag or a stained one I will ask for one and if I don’t get one I will buy a new one and let the superintendent and school board know that in VIOLATION of district policies AMERICAN FLAGS ARE NOT in all the classrooms and I was forced to buy one. The public don’t like to find out things like that. Liberal teachers tend to forget in their arrogance WHO IS PAYING THE BILLS (with taxes).
Needless to say I have not have had to buy an American flag for number or years now. But I have been in many a college classroom (UVA; and Bakersfield College that had NO AMERICAN FLAGS; so I brought my own desk top flags with me and added some historic ones for good measure such as the Grand Union Flag and the Rhode Island Flag and the Marine Corps Flag)). When I taught a class at UVA I made a point of placing flags of the commonwealth of Virginia and the USA small ones desk sized ones on the table before me. I told them it was just a token of respect and gratitude).
I hate to be told HOW TO TEACH by progessive educators who in my opinion do not emphasis basic skills like reading, listening, taking notes and writing. I do much more writing than the average social studies teacher.I consider myself to be a READING teacher and a LANGUAGE TEACHER. In English I emphasize WRITING and vocabulary…in SOCIAL STUDIES I emphasize READING, OUTLINES , CULTURAL LITERACY and CONCEPTS
Peer editing is OK if you have advanced native speakers but my students are not capable of peer editing (not the final draft certainly). I am (perhaps the adult aide who is bilingual and a college student) am the only one who can interpret or explain concepts or terms or advanced vocabulary.
I think the WAY a teacher teaches has a lot to do with their background and personal style. A favorite motto (posted in Spanish, English and Latin) is YOU SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS)
I don’t like uniformity in method. In that I am an eccentric and electic. I use music in my class , proverbs, famous quotations (in Latin, Spanish, English mostly) and of course I will and can sing a song or recite a poem from memory at a tip of a hate….if we teach NATURAL RIGHTS …I sing the WEST’s AWAKE….if we talk about nationalism there is A NATION ONCE AGAIN, later COLUMBIA GEM OF THE OCEAN or the MARINE HYMN….for slavery there are the Negro Spirituals for WWII there is WILLIE MCBRIDE….or FLANDER’S FIELDS….for WWII or (9/11) there are the YOUNG DEAD SOLDIERS (MACLEISH) . I model the power of MEMORIZING CLASSIC POEMS and speeches…..
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/poems/docs/young_trans.pdf
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
by Archibald MacLeish,
1892-1982, American Poet
In our Social Studies department the most important thing is that you follow the basic curriculum –don’t show unauthorized movies…keep videos to a minimum give the benchmark tests….but some teachers use multiiple choice tests EXCLUSIVELY. I give NO MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS AT ALL except for the standarized ones I am forced to give. I prefer SHORT ANSWERS, FILL IN THE BLANK, definitions and short answers. I also my basic students to answer in Spanish and I translate (orally all questions on the tests (which are English only). On request I translate any word which is not a term (terms they have to memorize and they must memorize SPELLING of a TERM other wise in SOCIAL STUDIES I do not mark down for spelling; In my Engilsh (ELD 4 class things are different particually on take home essays with several drafts and a final draft which may be untyped or typed. If they RE-DO essays they MUST re-type them. If an essay is on time they may re-type it for higher credit. I do not accept late work (unless there is serious medical problem or some exceptional situation)
I don’t mind SUGGESTIONS as to how a curriculm should be taught. I LIKE some prepacked materials, overheads, power points etc. But for example I think Power Points are very dull to do over and over. THE SMART BOARD is better because yout can integrate COLORS and large images and SOUND –dvd clips for example with a high quality large project image . But I rarely nowadays show more than 10 minutes of a documentary…the kids just turn off. A movie USUALLY is hopeless EXCEPT in a small class of high achieving level four learners. They get a movie as a treat and as part of their cultural literacy but no more than a two or three a year. At the end of last year I showed YOUNG MR LINCOLN with a study guide and KISS ME KATE (1999 Broadway version) in the Shakespeare Unit. I think KISS ME KATE is a realtively painles introduction to Shakespeare with a few love poems and sonnets. Definitely not KING LEAR OR HAMLET. Those are for mature students. Julius Caesar would be better, in my opinion. Of course McGuffy has only EXCERPTS of great plays heavily annotated and I think that is the way to go. If you look at McGuffy’s last volume it is a virtual liteary anthology (meant for the 8th grade) but few high school seniors could read it with ease today. SEE LOSING OUR LANGUAGE by STOTSKY
Will right some more of course on you blog….I will read it piece by piece…but now you know why I avoided the practical question of HOW to teach. At UVA –where they knew almost ZERO about bilingual education and teaching English langauge learners they hammered me for my traditionalist ideas and did not realize how Imporant I thought it was to make the classes ENGLISH MEDIUM CLASSES as much as possible. Virginia will find out the hard way as they are now being overwhelmed by Spanish speaking immigrants….. They weren’t interested in having a good curriculum either…everything was biased to being PC pro-feminist pro-multicultural and progessive liberal. I think one teacher said my methods and ideas belonged ‘in the long dead 1950’s” . She said that in front of the whole class. I responded that I would let my record as an AP teacher of at risk youth speak for itself. RESULTS and ACHIEVEING AUTHENTIC STANDARDS ARE WHAT MATTERS.
If a student needed private or one on one tutoring that is what office hours were for. In my career I have spend countless afternoons (often until 6PM) and countless Saturdays (8AM to 2PM or beyond) tutoring individual students or small groups (usually AP students). Of course if you have six students your methods can be much different and they can be more give and take like a college seminar. But such students are ambitious and serious and WANT TO PASS AP TESTS. THEY WANT TO BE AP SCHOLARS and NEED TO GET SCHOLARSHIPS. That makes all the difference.
One thing I believe is that studetns MUST READ, WRITE, STUDY, RESEARCH and PREPARE ON THEIR OWN TIME. You cannot do it all in classroom. Only producing in the classroom is giving less than 50% effort in my book. A serious student READS and STUDIES and RE-READS at home. A serious student asks informed questions. A serious student looks up spelling words on their own and only asks questions they can’t look up or need a clarification on.
I also believe the lower level the class the more you must control them and keep them occupied with simple tasks like COPYING the question and COPYING THE TERMS and DEFINITIONS. For these classes MC tests are, in my opinion, poison filled with much false information. MC test are only valid IF the students ALREADY have a high and competent reding level. Low level students don’t even try. For them true false (with space for comments) fill in’s matching , short answer and short essays are better. For very low students I ALWAYS give them the essay topic so they can memorize the key points and reproduce them. NIMSA (Nationalism Imperialism Militarism Secret Alliances ..causes of WWI ) I teach them mnemonic devices. To me this is vital if you are going to raise them up to college prep and indeed college work. Even my lowest students do GUIDED essays with THESIS statements. I GIVE them the thesis statement and they fill in the key facts. They they have to write a complete essay in long hand in English only. If they memorize thesis statement or quotation I give them extra credit. If they memorize the PLEDGE, PREAMBLE or GETTYSGBURG address I give them BONUS QUIZ grades and BONUS TEST GRADES.
As an English teacher (40% of my schedule ) I will let students (once every three weeks) have three days (three periods 55 minutes) to do a simple writing project with that at their only homework. But the final draft is due FRIDAY at the bell. I will not accept late work. I have a homework check on the second to last day to see everyone has a decent rough draft. I read each draft two or three times and then carefully grade the final draft (which they may re-write for full credit). But as a Social Studies teacher (classes are much larger 35-40 students) I do not have the time or the energy to do as many essays. I do only one guided essay (one period) per quarter) and it is modeled. There is less orignality here. They must memorize a series of key facts and reproduce a simple Social Studies essay fact matter more than style and spelling. In social studies I will allow low newcomers to write the essay in Spanish for full credit. In English class I do not allow Spanish in essays or non standard Englsih.
So I know what I am doing – despite the mavins of UVA- but I don’t like to be told HOW to teach or when or where I should use Spanish. If they don’t trust me then they should ask me to leave and I will get a job elsehwere. There is nothing on my lips which is not in my heart.
I think it all comes do to my deep suspicion of the authority and tryanny of the bold state (as exemplfied by the liberal PC elites). I will never forgot who it was who banished the reading of the Psalms and the Bible from the classroom and now who want to bann military recruiters, JROTC, and the national motto IN GOD WE TRUST not to mention the simple honrable PLEDGE OF Allegiances.
I have never made a student say it in more tha 20 years of teaching. But my God they will be quiet and they will stand in respect.
I have seen foreign colors raised in many foreign lands Peru, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Mexico, Ireland, the UK, Italy and I have stood at attention with respect in respect of a sister nation (usually friendly to the USA and usually a free or partially free nation).
If I can stand up and show respect to the Russian colors or the Spanish colors (under Franco) these kids getting a free breakfast, a free lunch, free pencils , free books, free tutoring, free paper can at least stand and show respect. Of course only when the USA colors are raised have I really felt pride. I love other flags too but I feel a man is good for only one oath at a time and I took an oath of allegience to the flag of the USA. For me there is no turning back. I have transferred my loyalty to the USA (but not entirely of course –if the USA became an enemy nation to my family and faith I would not hestitate to become and I do not mince words here being the greatest enemy of a tyrannical ultra secular totalitarian state no matter what flag it flew.) That is always a possiblity. No
Allegience is absolute …not to a free man. It is a two way street.
If my students are so obstinate and so dumb they cannot show gratitude and thank God they are in America that’s they problem.
But if they won’t show respect they make it my problem and I let them know they should be ashamed of themselves.
As I said I don’t ask them to die for the colors or bow down but to just to show respect and a moment of silence if they cannot bring themselves to say the words.
But I make if very clear that men I served with loved Old Glory and though they had only one life they thought enough of the flag and the country and republic it respresented to lay down their lives for it WITHOUT HESITATION and as the old saying goes “THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE THAN TO LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR A FRIEND. No greater love. I remember those who made the supreme sacrifice FOR MY FREEDOM and YOURS every day….how about you…..????
They get the picture. Most say the pledge. Then a lot of them volunteer for military service because they have learned what gratitude and civic virtue are. I am as proud of those men (and a few young women) as I am of those who go to Yale, Bryn Mayr and Berkeley.
Well that is my rant for the day. I can’t stand wimp hedonism, PC wimp liberals (ardent secular social democrats really) and people without any sense of gratitude and PATRIOTISIM.
REMEMBER THE PEOPLE YOU CAME FROM was a saying I was weened on. And of course REMEMBER THE FORTITUDE OF YOUR ANCESTORS. And of course BYDAN FREE ….SAORSA GU BRATH….FOREVER FREE.
When my grandfather first came to America as a bird of passage –he had no intention originally to emigrate –he loved his native land –he had fought for it his brother, his cousins, his mates had died for it and wanted never to leave it – he brought only two things with him a strong faith in God and a strong desire to be free.
Because he wanted to be free and because he wanted his children and grandchildren and their children to be free he decided to become a US citizen at age 50.
He always said “Scotland is a good place to be FROM; it is better with a pocketfull of Yankee dollars or English pounds. But it is best to be in America, home of the free and land of the brave. Aye. God Bless America.” Yes, Auld Pop understood and appreicated America better than most college professors. And he built carriers and liberty ships for Uncle Sam to prove it. Six and seven days a week 1941-1945. If ever a man deserved a social security pension (the only pension he had) it was he. It gave him some dignity at the end of his life and time to spend with his grandchildren. Time he spent educating them. So yes, we feel a real debt of gratitude to FDR of course. Gratitude is gratitude if it is owed you owe it. Period.
Then mem'ries sweet and tender
Come like music's plaintive flow,
Of someone in Ellan Vannin
That lov'd me long ago…...
Aye NE OBLIVISCARIS…DO NOT FORGET…but face firmly towards the future…for us the future is the USA….
http://www.khsd.k12.ca.us/west/Staff%20Pages/Munro/munro.htm
Richard ("Ricardo") MUNRO
Teacher of English, history and Spanish
Bilingual Certificate of Competence (BCLAD)
Adjunct Faculty (AP Reader) ETS
West High School (Kern HS District)
Home of the Vikings
1200 New Stine Rd
Bakersfield, CA 93309
(661) 832-2822
fax (661) 831-5606
"ONLY THE EDUCATED ARE FREE"
(Epictetus)
LEARNING IS FOOD FOR THE MIND (Cicero)
THE RIGHTS OF MAN COME NOT FROM THE GENEROSITY OF THE STATE BUT FROM THE HAND OF GOD -John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961
Courage is the supreme virtue...for it guarantees all the others (Churchill)
"NE OBLIVSCARIS*(do not forget)
** Semper Fidelis
*** Honos et Virtute
"SO THIS IS OUR MOTTO:
IN GOD WE TRUST
______________________________________________
When the summer day is over
And the busy cares have flown,
Then I sit beneath the starlight
With a weary heart. alone,
And there rises like a vision,
Sparkling bright in nature's glee,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea!
Then I hear the wavelets murmur
As they kiss the fairy shore,
Then beneath the em'rald waters
Sings the mermaid as of yore,
And the fair Isle shines with beauty
As in youth it dawned on me,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea.
Then mem'ries sweet and tender
Come like music's plaintive flow,
Of someone in Ellan Vannin
That lov'd me long ago,
So I give with tears and blessings,
And my fondest thoughts to thee,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea.
NE OBLIVISCARIS..>DO NOT FORGET>>>>l
This is a test to see if I can post.
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