More Info to Scare Parents About Autism

I have come to the conclusion that after the countless studies about the causes of autism and how to “cure” it; we are barely farther along than when we started. And in many ways we are taking steps backwards. In the USA Today article, “Autism tied to autoimmune diseases in immediate family”, another study was released stating that there are ties between autoimmune diseases and causing autism in children. The article started out sounding like progress was being made but by the time I got to the end I found some disheartening information. Not only did it not prove anything, as stated by the researchers themselves, but now there is another news story to scare parents about how to prevent autism.

There has been a large spike in the amount of autism diagnosis in the past few years which has brought with it speculation on the reasons why. Reasons range from genetics to vaccinations to autoimmunity issues to even age of parents. The most talked about of these being vaccines. The controversial issue of childhood immunizations has been debated extensively in recent history with some claiming that it causes autism and others proving that it has no correlation. This Discover Magazine article can fill you in on both sides, but in the end it was determined that it does not cause autism. What does this have to do with education? Well, part of the hysteria of preventing autism is how to treat it. Not only have we not pinned down the cause of autism, we have not determined how to treat it either.

Public schools are required by law to provide services for these children and rightfully so, but it makes it difficult when there are many, many treatments out there that simply are not proven to work. This makes it difficult for the teachers and therapists to help the kids when parents are eager to find a “cure”. Claims have been made that autism is curable but none have been proven. The problem is that these supposed cures take away from the time that could be spent on speech therapy and other proven tactics. People like Jenny McCarthy feed into this by being very publicly vocal about her unprofessional experiences. She ends up influencing other parents which in turn takes away from quality therapy time once again.

While Jenny McCarthy’s anecdotal evidence sounds promising, in the end it only distracts parents from what logic shows to be the best method. It breaks my heart to hear about the struggles that parents have dealing with children that have autism; it pains me even more to see them try every harebrained treatment with no success. I will admit that some people will have some success with these obscure treatments but those cases are few and far between. I only hope that parents will continue to rely on the professionals in schools and hospitals for advice rather than things that end up causing more harm than good and prevent their children from progressing.

Evaluating on More than Just Grades

The idea of grading and evaluating students on grades alone has been a discussion topic for a number of people in this class. There have been issues such as how standardized tests can be a poor indicator of scholastic knowledge or even discriminatory. It is old news that teachers and school districts are being judged based on some of these tests while so many other issues that are important to students are being ignored. The new news is that a company has built a survey that can evaluate some of these traits.

In a USA Today article I have learned about a new type of admissions index that will help evaluate some of the things that can not be determined off a standardized test. The way the system works is a student will invite 5 supervisors or professors to evaluate them on 6 attributes. They are: Knowledge/creativity, Communication skills, Teamwork, Resilience, Planning/organization and Ethics/integrity. This evaluation will then be sent on to an admissions board of the student’s choosing. What is great about this is that it is rewarding students for have the traits that we as teachers try to instill in them. Since the program is still in its early stages it will only be available to students applying for graduate class but it is a step in the right direction.

I have commented in Beth’s blog that because of program cuts due to not making AYP we will miss out teaching many of these issues. These are the same issues that are in many ways more important that academic knowledge. I would like to see more evaluations of these traits in the future. We devote so much of our time as teachers to them that they should get some recognition. Also, it seems to me that in job interviews these traits come up more often than grades on a test.

An article by Richard Rutherford (and nearly every other article I find) states that there are a few key points that every good employee should have. None of these include high test scores. All 6 of the key points from the admissions index stated above can be directly linked to traits that are desired by employers. It is the mission of my school and every school out there to prepare our students for the future. This means molding them into good citizens that can contribute to society. Part of this is to get a quality job. The point I am trying to make is that we cannot put too much emphasis on test scores, even at the college level.

We owe it to our students to prepare them for the future. This means that we should not only continue to teach important life skills such as team work and resilience, but we should start evaluating students on them as well.

Blue Collar and Proud of It

In the area that I teach (technology education) I see many different types of kids come through my door. Some of them will grow up to be doctors and lawyers; some will work construction or learn some other trade skill. In my mind, no path is better than the other and Joe Lamacchia will agree with me. Joe recently published a book called Blue Collar and Proud of It. In the book he makes several points and observations about the job market and the need for people to perform certain jobs, blue collar jobs in particular.

In my district there have been debates on what direction tech education is moving in. Should we focus more on preparing students for engineering jobs or trade jobs? In the past we have definitely focused more on the trade jobs but the current trend to stress engineering. While both paths are great the real issue is are we adequately preparing our students for the future? Joe makes a great point when he states that not all kids are cut out to go to college and that we need people to build roads and bridges. This is an interesting point considering 54% of students who enroll in college drop out. He has issues with how schools tend to stress college but when he looks for plumbers and electricians there are shortages. The first topic of debate is that college earners make so much more money in the long run. While this is true, Joe states that it is not always about money. And besides, plumbers, electricians and garbage men can make 50K, 60K or even 70K a year.

The bottom line is that it feels like we are pushing nearly every student to prepare for college and to get a degree but not every student has a desire or the ability to do so. Again, 54% drop out. Personally, I would like to see school counseling programs do a better job talking to kids and finding out where their interests and ability levels are. It seems asinine to me that so many people go to college not knowing what they want but go just because they are just supposed to.

As an educator, it probably seems strange that I appear to be supporting a society that would encourage kids not to attend college. On the contrary, I support education immensely but not necessarily 4 year colleges for all people. It is my opinion that everyone should receive an education and training for a job but not exclusively at 4 year schools.

Child Obesity

All over the nation we have been hearing about rising obesity rates in our adult and our child population. The adult problem is a whole other issue, but how can I make an impact with my students when it comes to being in shape and fighting obesity? As a coach, it is my job to prepare my athletes for their competitions by learning the sport and getting them in the best shape possible. But how can I do more in the classroom and in my school? I have made efforts to get my kids moving around by adding a few new lessons that require some physical activity, but I am limited in how much I can do. In North Dakota, most of the school year there is snow on the ground and the gyms are almost always being used. A high majority of the job falls onto our physical education department.

As we have discussed in previous weeks, my school and many others across the state/country have been struggling with meeting AYP and other various school wide improvement plans but they typically don’t involve getting our kids healthy. Eberhart Elementary in Chicago is a school that knows this better than most. There they reduced the physical education program down to 40 minutes a week in a very poor and limited gym. They, as many other schools, have been consistently pushing PE farther down the priority list because of pressure to improve standardized test scores. According to a USA Today article, an estimated 21% of the students in Illinois are obese. This puts them fourth highest in the county behind Mississippi, Kentucky and Georgia. After reading this statistic I started thinking, why those states over others? What other factors play a part in obesity other than amount of exercise? I found some interesting information at this website on national statistics. I have found that there is somewhat of a correlation between obesity and crime, economic status and education. States with higher crime, lower graduation rates and higher poverty tend to have a higher obesity rate.
Now I understand that more research should be put in to prove these correlations, but I have come to determine that child health, much like all other aspects of their lives, is the responsibility of their parents. Schools can help guide them in the right direction but ultimately it is the parent’s responsibility to make sure that their kids are playing outside more and playing video games less. It is an unfortunate reality that with new technologies for kids such as playstations and ipods, comes less games like basketball and backyard football.

Cramming Can Be Good

Is cramming for tests or assignments an irresponsible act? Is it a needed skill in society and should it be practiced in school so it can be used more efficiently in the real world? In Taiwan, a 96 year old man put cramming to use to get a graduate degree. He claims that he would wake up at midnight the day before a test and study all night to prepare. He blamed his bad memory for this method. He wanted to make sure that all the information was fresh in his mind so he would not give himself the opportunity to forget. So obviously it worked for him but how about others? It is my opinion that cramming is a necessary skill for nearly all people to have. No matter how much we all try to avoid it, it eventually happens. We get behind the eight ball or we are given a task with a short deadline and cramming kicks in.

I would agree that a majority of time, cramming can and should be avoided. Cramming is actually a descent tool to learn things on a short term basis but learning information so it can be used on a long term basis should be attained through more traditional studying methods. Professor Thomas H. Mentos explains that “What we learn and store is quickly forgotten and that at the end of thirty days a little more than 20 percent of the information is retained.” This means that for things that we want to retain in the long run should be practiced repeatedly over several study sessions. But what about in a job such a repairing cars or doing taxes? Is it necessary to break these tasks up over several days or is it necessary to remember everything you do? In many of these situations I would say no.

Dealing with the pressure of a short deadline is a life skill and I think that cramming could be a very useful tool when dealing with these situations. I am practicing a version of cramming right now. Since I have several other obligations throughout the week I have a difficult time breaking up my work for this class over several nights. Instead I set aside time every Wednesday and Sunday to get my work done. It kind of feels like planned procrastination. I realize that this puts the pressure on me to get things done on one night but I am left with few alternatives. It seems to me that cramming has gotten a bad rap in the education community but I would be in tough shape if I wasn’t somewhat good at it.

PREA: Prison Rape Elimination Act

This summer I am teaching tech ed at the North Dakota Youth Correctional Center (NDYCC). It is a facility that typically houses between 75-100 youth offenders from North Dakota. It is the facility with highest security rating in the state for youth. Most kids that commit felonies or cannot behave in other facilities end up here. As a result our population consists of kids who have been convicted of assault, sex crimes, arson and other high risk/dangerous behaviors. This means that the way I manage my classroom at the NDYCC is significantly different than at my public school. I have received several hours of training on how to interact with the students and how to operate my classroom but today I received training on something I was not even aware existed, the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Since September 4, 2003, PREA has been protecting youth and adult people in correctional facilities. More recently it has become required in North Dakota for all staff members who come into contact with incarcerated people to receive training in this area. After receiving this training I have altered some of my classroom management to better protect my students and myself.

In this training sexual misconduct as pertaining to PREA is specifically laid out and methods on how to deal with and prevent incidents are discussed. Things that directly affect my classroom include:

-Never allow two students (males or females) to be alone in a room without direct supervision. This means no stepping into my office to check an email or grab a book. Incidents can happen in an instant.

-Never allow myself to be alone with a female student (I am male). Some people have a history of falsely accusing staff of inappropriate behaviors. The hopes of accusations such as this are to receive special treatment afterwards and possibly be transferred to a less structured facility. Never allowing this situation to happen will also help eliminate the possibility of it actually happening.

-Never allow two students to be within touching distance of one another where part of their bodies (such as legs under a desk) cannot be seen. Inappropriate touching under tables has occurred.

I understand that these rules would not apply to many of the people reading this blog but there is a community of teachers out there that have to deal with these issues on a full time basis. I plan on using some of this information in my classroom come fall. I do not plan on being this strict in my public classroom but being able to identify potentially dangerous situations can be an advantage. Not to mention the piece of mind that I will have knowing that I am protecting my self as well as students.

It should not be a surprise that congress passed this act with a unanimous vote in 2003. But what are interesting are the comments made by experts in the field of corrections. If you have time you should scan through a few of these comments. One that I find to be particularly powerful is this:

“Teachers cannot be overlooked because our youth are required to spend so much required time in school. They need to be included in thinking about anything you want to do. Sometimes educators come into our setting clueless and can be easily manipulated.”

I don’t want to be “that guy”.

Women and Technology

In the New York Times article “Women are Seen Bridging Gap in Science Opportunities”, studies have shown that girls are now performing as well as boys in math and science but are still under represented in industry. Although these statistics are troubling it is promising to see that progress is being made. I think that this is a direct correlation to different programs that are being offered to girls in an effort to get them more interested in fields such as physics and engineering.

In my tech ed class I have noticed a increase in female students. I think that programs such as the ones offered by the University of North Dakota and also by NASA have helped. These programs are offered only to girls in an effort to put them in an environment that they feel more comfortable. Once there, they focus of technology/engineering topics that are fun and encourage them to pursue them more at their respective schools. These programs have brought a few more girls into my classes. The counselors at my school have also been highly recommending technology classes to girls which have also increased numbers. It is my understanding that tech ed programs around the state are making efforts to get more girls in their classes as well.

In the grand scheme of things girls are progressing at a rapid rate in the field of technology. It wasn’t that long ago (relatively speaking) when all girls took home economics and all boys took shop. The stereotype of girls excelling in English and boys excelling at math are over. As the study shows the math gap between boys and girls is effectively closed. This is a somewhat new occurrence and now the next step is to see girls apply this knowledge to various technology fields. Just as it took several years to get girl’s performance up the level of boy’s, it will take several years to see equality in the work place. We definitely should not be satisfied with the employment level that girls are at now but we should get some satisfaction out of the sense that improvements are being made. As a teacher that makes conscious efforts to make my class “girl friendly” I know that I feel pride in seeing improvement.

As a community we need to make sure that we don’t get hurt patting ourselves on the back too hard though. All of this will be for naught if we don’t continue to encourage girls to actively pursue these fields. In the previously mentioned New York Times article, the number one factor for hiring women for technology related jobs was having women on the hiring board. This doesn’t speak well for us men but it does mean that the growth for hiring women could improve exponentially. Simply put, the more women hired now the more women will be hired in the future.