New site: Ramon Resa, Inspirational Speaker

Posted on 03. Dec, 2009 by kchristieh in inspirational people, work

Ramon Resa managed to rise above a childhood full of poverty, violence, physical and sexual abuse, alcoholism, and total disregard for education to become a pediatrician. He returned to his roots, and besides running a successful medical practice, he speaks to teens and parent groups about the importance of staying in school and working hard to achieve your dreams.

I recently designed a new website for Ramon. I’ve spoken to him on the phone, but I’ve never met him. Hopefully some day I will, and hopefully my husband will be with me when I do. I think they’d have lots to talk about.

How to kill a teen’s love of reading

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by kchristieh in books, education

Shouldn’t one of the goals of high school English be to emphasize the joy of reading? If so, then the following isn’t likely to achieve that goal:

• Step 1: Tell students which book they have to read. Don’t give them a choice.
• Step 2: Make them read it over the summer.
• Step 3: Require them to annotate at least three comments in the margins of every page.
• Repeat with several more books.

I know someone who’s annotating George Orwell’s this week. Instead of appreciating the greater themes at the pace that the author intended, this teen is slogging through this book so slowly that all the life is being sucked out of it. It’s bittersweet when a kid says, “It actually seems like a really good book, but I’m not able to enjoy it when I do this assignment.” Big Brother, can you hear this?

I told the child that hopefully they’d remember that reading can be fun, and that when they graduate they’ll rediscover that.

Links:

• A explaining why annotating is considered so valuable. I think it’s a recipe for sucking the fun out of reading.
• My list of Non-”Teen” Books for Teens, Plus Books for Boys. Please let me know if you have any books to add.

It’s official: South Pasadena passed its parcel tax

Posted on 20. Jun, 2009 by kchristieh in education

In the past month,

• San Marino passed a parcel tax for $795
• South Pasadena passed a parcel tax for $288

Clearly, the residents of both of these communities are willing to pay to help their public schools.

I hope La Canada’s willing to pass a parcel tax for $150.

If you want to vote for this, get your ballot in NOW. They must be received by June 30th. Postmarks don’t count.

Have questions? Visit www.measurelc.org.

I never ate this well at school

Posted on 16. Jun, 2009 by kchristieh in education, food

Ah, the end of the school year. Finals, stress, searching for lost textbooks, and FOOD! The best food is that which earns extra credit.

Last night my teenage son made a Key Lime Pie all by himself for his end-of-year English class party. He used a recipe from our cookbook and even managed to cut the fancy lime slice to put on top. Maybe last summer’s get-off-the-couch-and-cook deal is paying off.

Sorry the picture’s not better. I figured I was lucky he even let me take one as he ran out the door.

Why I’m voting “YES” on Measure LC, the La Canada parcel tax

Posted on 02. Jun, 2009 by kchristieh in local news

For years I’ve helped raise money for the La Canada public schools. If we didn’t raise private funds, our kids wouldn’t have 20 kids per teacher in Kindergarten – 3rd grade, art, drama and music at the elementary level, computers, or a librarian and a guidance counselor at the upper levels.

Unfortunately, the current California/national/international economic crisis means this isn’t enough. If local residents don’t step up and pass a parcel tax, our schools are going to have to drop programs and positions that are critical to maintaining our schools’ high standards.

Measure LC would raise property taxes a mere $150 per parcel. That’s less than the cost of a postage stamp a day. And yet, it would raise approximately $900K per year for the district. It still isn’t enough to avoid making any cuts, but it sure will help.

Please join me on voting “YES” on this crucial measure. It’s a mail-in vote only, so look for the ballot you probably received in today’s mail and send it in asap. It needs 2/3 majority to pass, so every single vote counts.

You can learn more about Measure LC at www.measurelc.org.

By the way, San Marino just passed a $795 parcel tax, which supplements the $295 parcel tax they already had That’s a community that values education! Let’s show that we are, too!

How to survive sending your child to college

Posted on 14. May, 2009 by kchristieh in education, parenting

I have two high schoolers – a sophomore and a junior – so I truly appreciated today’s college panel at Parent Ed. Our instructor moderated a panel of five mothers of college students, and asked them questions about what to expect when your kid leaves for college.

Here are a few things they said:

• Your family will change once your child leaves for college. It may get quieter or crazier once they leave, depending upon who’s still home, but it’s likely to be different. Also, don’t assume you’ll spend the whole time pining for Junior: several moms said they’ve enjoyed getting to spend more time with their husbands and appreciate the freedom they have to go on vacations and out to dinner whenever they wish.
• The actual first dropoff at school can be difficult. The mother of a Westmont student said that Westmont has a tradition where new freshmen walk up the hill as bagpipers play “Amazing Grace” and people cheer, and then when they graduate they do the same but walking down the hill. She said she would have lost it if she hadn’t seen another kid’s parents totally blubbering. I can barely hear “Amazing Grace” under the best of circumstances without crying, and for that reason have actually written into my will NOT to play that at my funeral. But I digress. Anyway, after the bagpipes play, parents are asked to leave campus within 30 minutes. Yes, that much emotion in that short a timespan would be tough.
• Don’t expect to have a slow, meaningful dinner after you help your child set up his or her dorm room. They’re going to want to meet new friends. It’s best to have that dinner before you arrive on campus.
• Don’t freak out when your kid calls you and makes it sound like the world is about to end. Chances are that within a few hours they’ll be fine. If not, then try to distinguish between a temporary setback and a bigger issue.
• Be on the same page as your child’s other parent. If Junior’s freaking out and wants to come home, and you want to make him stay, make sure the other parent isn’t on Expedia buying the plane ticket back home.
• Don’t let your child have a car at school freshman year. They don’t need it, and colleges generally discourage it anyway. If they do have a car, expect that they will become an airport shuttle service, or worse, a party shuttle service.
• Make sure you talk to your kid about all the difficult but important topics you can think of (i.e., sex, drugs, drinking). This is one of your last best chances to do so. Make sure they know to never accept an open soda can or drink punch.
• Warn them that one of the dangers of playing beer pong is that they can catch mono by sharing cups.
• Don’t expect a big college to inform you if your child is skipping class or having a problem.
• Give your child space so that they can learn to be independent. If you feel like you aren’t communicating enough, try texting. Also, you might want to set up a time each week that you can talk. On the other hand, some kids will call you all the time as they walk between classes.
• Make sure your child knows how to do laundry and balance finances before leaving for college.
• Be sure your child knows what to do if he has a bad roommate or gets sick.
• Most kids will switch majors at least once.
• Although it’s helpful to visit schools before your child applies, don’t sweat it if they don’t. Several parents said they were glad they didn’t waste money on expensive East Coast college trips because their child wound up falling in love with a school in California or Oregon.
• Support your child’s college choice. Wherever they choose, someone will criticize his or her choice. Make sure they know not to take that personally, and that you’re happy they found somewhere they’re excited about. And if they’re not excited at some point, that will probably pass as they make more friends.
• Each time your child returns for break, they’ll probably be different. (Hopefully in increased maturity!) Make sure you lay some expectations out regarding curfews, laundry, working, etc. so everyone’s on the same page. Watch out that you’re not too tough on them, or they may not want to return in the future.
• If you’re religious, keep your child in your prayers. They’ll need it.

I’m sure I’m missing something, since I wasn’t taking notes. Do you have any advice to add?

Apparently our school college counselor puts on a program like this, but with college kids on the panel and aimed at high school students and their parents. I’ll keep an eye out for that this fall!

What high schools should really teach

Posted on 02. May, 2009 by kchristieh in education

Do you use everything you learned in high school? I doubt it. Aren’t there subjects you wish you’d studied in high school, or you wish that your children would learn? If I were in charge, here’s what I’d propose that students learn in high school in order to challenge them, excite them, and teach them lessons and skills that will enrich them and teach them to lead more productive lives:

Math: Teach geometry and algebra, but try to provide more real-life examples of when you’d use them. Instead of automatically moving kids on to trigonometry and calculus after that, encourage them to take logic and statistics. They’re much more useful, even in the teenage years. Can you imagine how cool it would be if a course could actually teach teens to be logical?

English: I wince when my sophomore son says, “I hate reading.” I don’t think he does, but I don’t blame him for saying it when he’s forced to annotate books written in non-standard English with adult themes. English class should teach kids to appreciate the power and beauty of our language, and give them the tools to comprehend and communicate. It’s important that they’re familiar with classic literature, but they’ll lose the joy of reading it if they have to pick it apart sentence by sentence. After all, that’s not what most authors intend when they write. As for contemporary literature, I’d empower kids by giving them choices, or at least not force them to read books with adult themes that perpetuate racial stereotypes. We should also expose our kids to great poetry, songs, speeches, and other forms of communication. As they learn what makes each work great, they should practice writing and speaking their own words and thoughts.

Social Studies: There’s not enough time in high school to cover all the social sciences needed to become an informed and responsible citizen, and I actually think that most high schools do an admirable job of trying. It’s important to take a general social studies course, an American history course (in America), and an economics course. When possible, I’d also recommend European history, world history, or government. I’d incorporate teaching how ethics and religion tie into any of the aforementioned classes.

Science: Instead of just concentrating on biology, chemistry and physics, I love the fact that our high school offers geology and environmental science. The last one is probably most likely to be used in the future by the most students. I’d also include some sort of computer science course in the science curriculum.

Foreign Language: I dream of the day when every American child is bilingual by the time they leave high school. I wish more kids could attend language immersion schools at younger ages, and feel confident in their language abilities by the time they enter high school. But since that’s not likely to happen soon, I’d propose that schools make more of an effort to reduce class sizes in foreign languages. Learning a foreign language requires that kids have the chance to practice it with a seasoned speaker, and that can’t happen when you have 35 kids in a class.

Physical Education: Forget running around the track and doing calisthenics. Kids should do fun activities and sports in P.E. so that they learn to enjoy exercise, and perhaps find something they’ll enjoy doing for the rest of their lives. Also, instead of requiring kids to take P.E. for 5 hours a week for freshman and sophomore years and 0 hours for junior and senior years, require 2.5 hours a week for all four years. Spread it out so that they can continue to stay in shape.

Electives: There are already many fine electives that well-funded American high schools offer, including art, drama and music. Here are a few that are often not taught:

• Accounting: Unless you’re some sort of business major in college, you probably won’t take accounting. And yet, it’s important for most people in their lives and careers. I think many high school students could handle and would benefit from an accounting class.
• Family Life / Health / Sex Ed.: Teach kids the basics of running a household, keeping healthy, and family planning.
• Typing: Supposedly kids learn it in elementary school, but I’m skeptical. Typing is so important to so many careers these days, so I’d make sure kids have this basic skill down pat.

Other notes:

• Class size: In order to implement these suggestions, class sizes would have to be small enough for teachers to give students individual attention in both the classroom and when grading papers.
• # of periods per day: Schools need to divide their school day into more than six periods to accomplish these goals.
• Teacher quality: As I’ve said in this blog before, I wish that schools had more freedom and resources to reward teachers that do a great job, mentor teachers that need help, and let go of teachers that aren’t working out in the classroom. I also wish that there were more ways to give feedback about teacher quality.
• Standardized testing: Find a way to reduce it: kids are spending too much time being tested when they could be learning. For example, if a kid achieves a certain score on the PSAT, don’t make him take the CAHSEE (CA High School Exit Exam). Don’t require the SAT II if a kid is enrolled in an AP class.

This is just a partial list. I’m sure I’d think of more things if I weren’t so determined to post this today. Please add your comments and suggestions!

My favorite online college search sites

Posted on 10. Apr, 2009 by kchristieh in cool websites, education, parenting

This week my family took tours of five colleges and drove through several more, all in the quest to find schools that would match our teenagers’ interests, talents and personalities.

Visiting the schools when classes were in session was invaluable. It was important for my kids to see what the students were like, and to see whether they could imagine themselves fitting in with them. My kids were also very concerned with school energy and spirit, so it was good for them to see which schools shined or failed in that department.

We did lots of research beforehand, also. We purchased several college guides, including one that included student reviews, and copied the relevant pages and brought them with us on our trip. I also looked up all the schools we considered visiting on our trip on the internet. I especially appreciated student review sites. I kept in mind that there will always be disgruntled people at any school, but I looked for trends in the comments.

We’ve only scratched the surface for visiting colleges, so I’ve started a College Resource page on this blog. You can either click here to visit it, or find it in the list of pages to the right. I’ll continue to update it as I find more useful college resource sites. It includes much of the same information that I’ve put on our high school PTSA website, www.lchs912.org.

Hope it helps!

Pink Friday at La Canada High School

Posted on 13. Mar, 2009 by kchristieh in economy, education, local news, shopping

Teachers, students and parents all turned out at La Canada High School to protest that California is cutting even more from public school system budgets. We wore pink because today is “Pink Friday,” the day that teachers who are being laid off must receive their pink slips by.

As I said in my previous post, we’re lucky that La Canada has enough reserves to absorb most of the impact of losing $1.9 million from the state this year. But I learned at this morning’s PTSA meeting that we’re expecting to have to cut $11 million from our spending in the next three years. Ouch.

I found out today that a friend got a pink slip in a nearby town, and another friend who was training new teachers saw all those people get pink slips. She won’t be training new teachers anymore (since there won’t be any) but she’s lucky she’s been around long enough to keep a job with her district.

It’s hard to believe California once took pride in its schools.

In keeping with my tradition of highlighting my favorite Etsy find of the week, here’s the pink slip I wish they were handing out instead.

Wear pink this Friday in support of California’s public schools

Posted on 11. Mar, 2009 by kchristieh in economy, education, local news, politics

As if California’s public schools aren’t already hurting, the new state budget is going to make things even worse. According to Pink Friday,

California’s public schools, colleges and universities are facing more than $11 billion in state budget cuts. These cuts are going to impact an entire generation of kids and alter public education for years to come.

March 13 is the deadline for school districts to issue preliminary pink slips to California’s teachers. Last year, more than 10,000 teachers got pink slips and nearly 5,000 lost their jobs. And this year could be much worse.

“Pink Friday” is a movement to get people to wear pink this Friday, March 13th (how appropriate!) to protest further school budget cuts. Besides wearing pink, you can also attend an event in your area or write to an elected official.

If you live in , you can also help get out the vote for the proposed parcel tax of $150 per property. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what you already pay in taxes, but the schools really need it.

Did you know that San Marino has to trim over $5 million from its already lean $29 million budget. OUCH! Thankfully, La Canada has saved its reserves and isn’t in that situation. But things are tight here, too.

My speech

Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by kchristieh in education, local news

I was honored this evening by the LCF Educational Foundation for doing lots of volunteer work. Some kind folks have asked me to post my speech, so here it is:

I have a confession to make: Last night, when my husband and son went to see the new Watchmen movie, I stayed home and watched House Bunny.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of House Bunny, I’ll spare you the details here. You’ll need to look that up on Wikipedia. Let it suffice that I’m glad my teenaged son wasn’t there watching it with me.

Despite its outward appearances, House Bunny communicated some very good messages. At one point, the main character explains why she volunteers in a nursing home, and the way she phrases it is so eloquent that I paused the DVD and wrote it down:

In other words, she could say all she wants about caring, but if she didn’t put her words into action, it wouldn’t matter much.

At the other end of the cultural spectrum, there’s a similar passage in the Bible:

Whether I’m quoting “House Bunny” or the Bible, the point is that we need to put our time and our money behind our good intentions.

La Canadans are very good at this. Not only do we take care to make sure that our children are doing their homework and setting a high bar for themselves, but we selflessly give our time and money to make sure that all kids have the resources to get a great education.

I’m very honored to be the Spirit of Outstanding Service Award winner this year. It’s been rewarding to see what a difference we can make to our children’s education, and I’ve enjoyed making new friends and working with the seemingly limitless pool of talented volunteers La Canada has to offer.

I wish I could stand up here and say the battle’s over, and that our state government and taxpayers have decided to adequately fund our public schools, but that’s just not the case. Our state budget crisis and our failing national economy portend darker days ahead.

When my friend Paul lived in Mississippi, he ended every letter with a few statistics that Mississippi ranked last on. It’s good he moved back to New Jersey, because these days California has bumped Mississippi from the bottom of the list on many school funding statistics. California ranks 51st, behind even the District of Columbia, on the number of students per school staff member, the number of students per librarian, and the number of students per guidance counselor.

Did you catch those last two? California ranks last on the number of students per librarian and per guidance counselor.  It’s no coincidence that these are two areas where the La Canada Flintridge Educational Foundation has stepped forward to make sure that our kids aren’t left behind. And as you know, there are many more positions and programs that would be lost if it weren’t for the Educational Foundation and other generous school support groups.

In these tough times, it’s more important than ever that all of us do what we can to give our kids one of the greatest gifts of all: an excellent education.

So as I humbly accept tonight’s honors from you, I hope you’ll join me in continuing our commitment of both time and money to make sure that we do all that we can to ensure that the La Canada schools maintain the high quality they’re so well-known for.

Thank you.

Another pathetic California public school statistic

Posted on 02. Mar, 2009 by kchristieh in education, startling statistics, tv

MSNBC reports that

California ranks 48th in the nation in the percentage of high school seniors who go on to a four-year college the next academic year, according to the annual California Educational Opportunity Report — involving UCLA researchers — released Monday.

The near-the-bottom ranking comes despite the fact that the majority of California students who graduate indicate an intention to get a bachelor’s degree, according to the report.

The report goes on to state that California students are

• More likely to attend overcrowded, less personal schools;
• Less likely to have qualified teachers;
• Less likely to take advanced math classes in 11th and 12th grade;
• Getting less than $2000/student to educate them than the national average…and that was BEFORE our budget crisis.

This is so depressing. I’m going to bed. I just watched “24″ so I’ll probably have some pretty wacky dreams. I wonder if Jack Bauer could save the California public schools???

California already ranks last for most school staffing ratios, but it can get worse

Posted on 23. Feb, 2009 by kchristieh in education, startling statistics

My kids are lucky: they’ll graduate from the California public schools before they get even worse. Today’s LA Times reports in “California schools struggling with budget-trimming decisions” that school districts across the state are struggling to find ways to cut back on already tight budgets.

Under the budget approved by the state Thursday, schools and community colleges will be forced to cut $7.4 billion from their budgets this year and $3.2 billion next year. And a $787-billion federal economic stimulus package that is expected to send billions to school districts isn’t enough to backfill deficits, educators say.

Wasn’t California once known for valuing education? Those days are long gone. According to EdSource, California ranks 51st in many student-teacher and student-staff ratios, behind even Washington, DC. When my friend Paul lived in Mississippi he’d (not-so-proudly) note in his Christmas letter all the categories in which his state ranked. Too bad he moved back up north, since I could beat him now.

Here’s the EdSource chart. These figures are already four years old, so I’m guessing we’re in even worse shape now. Maybe if they count Guam or Puerto Rico we can be #52 or #53.

I love my adopted state, I truly do. But this is shameful. I hope we get our act together before even more children suffer.

It’s no wonder our prisons are overcrowded.

If the School Fix-It Fairy came to me

Posted on 12. Jul, 2008 by kchristieh in education, things that bug me

I’ve spent many years raising money for our woefully underfunded public schools. As I noted back in March, our local schools get less than half the funding per pupil that some school districts in other states get. While money won’t solve everything, you can’t have smaller class sizes and better facilities without money.

Even so, if the School Fix-It Fairy came to me and said she’d grant me one wish for California’s public schools, it would be to give principals and districts the power to reward excellence and get rid of teachers that shouldn’t be teaching. Yesterday’s Slate.com story, Hot for the Wrong Teachers: Why are public schools so bad at hiring good instructors? makes the same point.

There are three basic ways to improve a school’s faculty: take greater care in selecting good teachers upfront, throw out the bad ones who are already teaching, and provide training to make current teachers better. In theory, the first two should have more or less the same effect, and it might seem preferable to focus on never hiring unpromising instructors; once entrenched, it’s nearly impossible in most places to remove teachers from their union-protected jobs.

The story talks about a school principal in NYC that got rid of bad teachers (1/3 of all teachers!) at his school by threatening to give them bad reviews unless they requested a transfer to another school. Of course, while this helped his school, the problems just got transferred to other children.

I wish that we could pay teachers what they’re worth, develop better ways of monitoring teacher performance, solicit feedback from students and parents (aka “The Customers”), teach struggling teachers how to teach better and get rid of teachers that can’t or won’t teach. In the end, more quality people would enter the profession, and our children and our nation would benefit.

The more articles like this I read, the more optimistic I become. Unfortunately, my kids will be out of the system in a few years.

“Bloom where you are planted.”

Posted on 29. Apr, 2008 by kchristieh in education, parenting, quotes

That’s my favorite quote from today’s NY Times article about college admissions (or lack thereof): College’s High Cost, Before You Even Apply. The message: kids (and parents) should mellow out and not define themselves by the “prestige” of the college that accepts them.

Students complain about lack of sleep, stomach pain and headaches, but doctors and educators also worry that stress tied to academic achievement can lead to depression, eating disorders and other mental health problems.

“There are some kids who can handle it,” says Denise Pope, a Stanford University education lecturer and author of , a book about stress and academics. “But some of these kids have had college on the brain since sixth or seventh grade or even earlier. When you have that kind of stress over that kind of time, that’s where it starts to worry us.”

Ms. Pope is trying to teach students and parents to get some perspective:

“College admission is how a lot of people are defining success these days,” says Dr. Pope, founder of the group. “We want to challenge people to achieve the healthier form of success, which is about character, well-being, physical and mental health and true engagement with learning”

Amen to that! I hope my children work hard but retain balance in their lives, develop healthy relationships with others, and stay ethical (no cheating or Ritalin!) in their quest for excellence. I hope they’re genuinely excited about where they wind up going to college, and make the most of wherever they go.

Laying off the best teachers hurts California kids

Posted on 19. Apr, 2008 by kchristieh in education, politics

From today’s Associated Press:

SAN DIEGO – Precious Jackson has two years of teaching under her belt and two school teacher-of-the-year awards to show for it. She also has a pink slip.

Now Jackson is a prime target for growing school districts across the country hoping to cherry-pick from thousands of California teachers who have been warned they could be laid off because of state budget woes.

This makes no sense. You’ve got a two-time teacher-of-the-year, and she’s being laid off because she’s got the least seniority. That’s so wrong, but that’s how the union contract works. And ironically, she’s probably also the lowest paid since she’s got less seniority, so the district isn’t getting much bang for the buck letting her go.

I will endorse any politician who can manage to fix that system, no matter what the party. Our kids deserve to be taught by the BEST, not just the most experienced.

Practice vocabulary and feed the world at the same time

Posted on 22. Dec, 2007 by kchristieh in cool websites, education, inspirational people, international, non-profits

Stop wasting your time on Solitaire, Guitar Hero, and Halo. Visit FreeRice.com and test your vocabulary skills. Each time you define a word correctly, 20 grains of rice will be donated to people in need. The rice is paid for by the ads at the bottom of the site.

If you’re competitive like me, you’ll be sucked into trying to increase your vocabulary level score. See if you can beat the 46 I got.

I heard about FreeRice on NPR. The developer, who already operated the website Poverty.com, said he was inspired to start the site by helping his son study for the vocabulary section of the SAT.

All those grains of rice add up. According to the NPR segment,

“FreeRice.com is up to more than 8.2 billion grains of rice, which is one heck of a lot of rice and more than enough to feed 325,000 people for the day,” Parmelee said.

Too much homework for one family isn’t enough for another

Posted on 10. Dec, 2007 by kchristieh in education, parenting, startling statistics

As a serial PTA president, I’ve heard nearly an equal number of parents say their kids have too much homework vs. those who say their kids aren’t challenged enough. Saturday’s LA Times reports in San Marino’s tough assignment: Settle homework beef that a mother has mounted a public campaign to reduce the amount of homework San Marino public schools assign.

“They’re making me out to be a homework-hater,” said Tracy Mason, a former accountant, now stay-at-home mom of a Huntington Middle School sixth-grader. “All I’m saying is, this is a big burden on families. We want [the district] to justify it.”

Mason has spent months poring over studies, interviewing experts and bombarding parents and school officials with research that suggests that homework contributes little to students’ academic prowess.

She wants San Marino district officials to study the issue and consider limiting the amount of work teachers can give.

Her aggressive effort has inspired some parents and annoyed others. And it has revealed an uncomfortable cultural breach in one of the state’s most successful school districts, where 70% of the students are Asian American and high test scores are considered a ticket to the Ivy League.

The elephant in the room is finally acknowledged: San Marino has changed dramatically over the past 25 years due to an increase in the Asian (especially Chinese) population there. We have a similar situation here in La Canada, where 27% of the high school population is Asian (especially Korean.)

I won’t dwell on stereotypes here. They’re often true, but sometimes they’re not. Either way, the bar has been raised for all of our kids. Even if we lower the bar in our local community by requiring minimal homework, kids in other cities and nations will continue to work hard and get ahead.

I don’t want my kids to do make-work homework that has no purpose. I also don’t want them to become sleep-deprived because they have too much homework to do. But they’ve never nearly approached that point, even with after-school sports, and I’m betting that San Marino has a similar level of homework.

I want my kids to be well-rounded, and find productive things they like to do outside the classroom. But academics come first, and by high school I think that homework can enhance classroom learning. I think I’d do my kids a disservice if I campaigned for less homework.

Links:

• See my June, 2006 posting, Chinese Medicine for American Schools, to learn more about how our level of homework compares to China’s.
• U.S. World & News Report ranking of top high schools which ranks San Marino #82 and La Canada #95.
• LA County Library Live Homework Help. It’s free, and covers subjects through high school.

Virtual field trips: cool and pathetic at the same time

Posted on 12. Mar, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, education, my life, technical, travel

My daughter visited North Korea and Africa this weekend. She explored major cities, visited historic monuments, and was amazed at how much access she had to forbidden areas. Thanks to Google Earth, the whole trip was free.

Apparently virtual field trips like this are becoming more popular as California continues to underfund its schools and as more information becomes available over the internet. Today’s Pasadena Star News highlights this trend in “Who needs a school bus?”

Instead of hitting the road, teachers are surfing the net for “virtual reality” field trips.

A trip to Washington’s Lincoln Memorial, analyzing early human cave art in France, or peeking in at sleeping pandas at the Los Angeles Zoo can now all be done in the comfort of any classroom through the Internet.

With one field trip per year, Linda Oaks, a third-grade teacher at Rorimer Elementary School in La Puente, said through virtual field trips her students have “traveled” to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia estate, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and seen alligators interacting at the zoo.

I looked online for virtual field trips, and most were bland, pathetic slide shows. The only semi-decent one I saw was of Mount Vernon, which reminded me of a basic real estate 360-degree room-by-room tour.

I think someone needs to start a professional virtual field trip company with 360-degree tours, live webcams, and people on the other end to answer questions. You could even simulate everyone squishing together at the lunch table, a classmate getting lost, and the best part, the trip to the gift shop. Seriously – this could be pretty cool. No slides allowed: movies only. And of course, you’d have to Photoshop a picture of the class onto the main attraction to commemorate the trip.

And if you want true realism, you can play an endless loop of “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” at the beginning and at the end, along with a teacher asking the kids to shut up.

 

When should kindergarten begin?

Posted on 18. Oct, 2006 by kchristieh in education, my life, parenting

Is it better to be 4.75 years old or 5.75 years old when you start kindergarten? Such is the question posed in today’s NYTimes article, Those Preschoolers Are Looking Older. Apparently the trend in NYC’s private schools is to hold kids back from starting school until they’re older.

Children who turn 5 even in June or earlier are sometimes considered not ready for kindergarten these days, as parents harbor an almost Darwinian desire to ensure that their own child is not the runt of the class. Although a spate of literature in the last few years about boys’ academic difficulties helped prompt some parents to hold their sons back a year, girls, too, are being held back. Yet research on whether the extra year helps is inconclusive.

Fueled by the increasingly rigorous nature of kindergarten and a generation of parents intent on giving their children every edge, the practice is flourishing in New York City private schools and suburban public schools. A crop of 5-year-olds in nursery school and kindergartners pushing 7 are among the most striking results.

Parents do this where we live also. The cutoff for public school here in California is to be 5 by Dec. 2nd, but many kids with fall birthdays are held back from starting until they’re already or nearly 6.

I think it depends upon the kid, the school, and the parents’ own experiences. I include the latter because that definitely influenced our decision to send our son to school when he was 4. His October birthday falls the day after my husband’s, and my husband also entered kindergarten when he was 4. Both have thrived being the youngest in the class.

Whatever you decide, you just have to go with it. There’s no turning back… 

Craigslist is our newest amigo

Posted on 19. Sep, 2006 by kchristieh in education, my life, parenting

Today’s Pasadena Star News sums up my husband’s linguistic background quite well:

“According to researchers from UC Irvine and Princeton University, only 7 percent of Mexican-American immigrants’ grandchildren speak fluent Spanish.”

His parents didn’t teach him Spanish, and the little bit he learned at school isn’t enough to help our daughter in her high school Spanish II class. I took many years of French, but no Spanish, so I can’t help her either.

Her Spanish class is turning out to be really tough. But our daughter really wants to keep up and learn the language well, so when I asked her if she wanted a tutor she said she did. My husband’s office had incredible success last week posting a file clerk position on Craig’s List, so I decided to check there to see if there were any local tutors. I found two, emailed them, and the next morning I heard from a local tutor who recently retired after many years of teaching Spanish. He’s tutored lots of kids of people I know, and I’m sure he’s who I would have found anyway if I’d just emailed friends. My daughter saw him for the first time yesteday, and he’s fabulous.

Viva Craigslist!

Do School Systems Aggravate Differences In Natural Ability?

Posted on 03. Jun, 2006 by kchristieh in articles, education, parenting

I lived in many different towns as a child, so I was never able to find out what happened to all of my childhood friends. I’ve often wondered whether the ones who looked like they were destined for success in kindergarten did indeed wind up doing well.

Yesterday’s Wall St. Journal article titled “Do School Systems Aggravate Differences In Natural Ability?” cites studies that show that babies and toddlers who score high on mental ability are very likely to become teens and adults who do score high also. Here’s an excerpt:

“Now there is evidence that cognitive ability, or intelligence, is set before kids sit up. Developmental psychologist Marc Bornstein of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and colleagues followed children for four years, starting in infancy with 564 four-month olds. Babies’ ability to process information can be tested in a so-called habituation test. They look at a black-on-white pattern until their attention wanes and they look away, or habituate. Later, they’re shown the pattern again. How quickly they sense they’ve seen the image long enough, or have seen it before, is a measure of how quickly, accurately and completely they pick up, assimilate and recall information.

The scientists evaluated the children again at six months, 18 months, 24 months and 49 months. In every case, performance mirrored the relative rankings on the infant test, Dr. Bornstein and colleagues reported this year in the journal Psychological Science. Such stability, he says, “can entice” scientists to conclude that inborn, inherent, even genetic factors determine adult intelligence. But he believes crediting nature alone would be wrong.

For one thing, these tests don’t measure creativity, gumption, character or other ingredients of success. For another, there are many cases of kids catching up, as when Mexican immigrant children in the U.S. start out with math skills well below their U.S.-born white peers but then catch up, says education researcher Sean Reardon of Stanford University. And as those familiar with management training and military training show, it’s possible to turn even the most unpromising candidates into leaders.”

As any parent knows, each child is born different. The key is to do the best you can with the gifts you’ve been given.

And if anyone knows what happened to Richard Fennell, please let me know!