Posts by Jolisa
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Thanks for the kind and insightful comments. Russell's right, this one has been a while brewing, although it was written all in a single sitting and basically posted unedited.
Then I got depressed about it for a day or two, hence the silence.
I did wonder about posting, as it's not clear that this sort of thing follows naturally from National Standards.
On the other hand, I doubt the architects of No Child Left Behind had this outcome in mind. So consider me a canary in someone else's coalmine.
[threadmerge with this alarming thought]
It beats me why schools don't rise up en masse and refuse to comply with the tests any further, as in the UK. As far as I can make out, it's a zero-sum game: the well-scoring schools continue to score well, the failing schools are either shored up or reorganized or ignored according to a shifting (and rather shifty) set of "procedures," and the ones in the middle, like our original crunchy little school, live in a constant state of "I'm a teapot, I'm a teapot."
Above all, what the last three years have taught me is that most parents and teachers care enough about children and their education to lose sleep over it. (But not necessarily enough to lose a job over it). And all feel equally powerless to remedy the situation.
It's really, really sobering to realise how far I've moved from my original starry-eyed hopes about what school could do or be. There was some talk last year about starting up a charter school, with a bunch of similarly unhappy parents - something along the lines of the Unlimited School. But the practical hurdles are huge...
...and the clock is ticking. I'm stunned to note that 1/3 of my older boy's compulsory education is already done. Which still leaves 2/3 to get creative with, but whoah. Childhood, eh? Blink and you miss it. And this is the third that can, save for interventions such as recordari describes, define the rest of one's life.
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Good lord, Gordon, you are extremely well-informed. Thank you for popping in to share the knowledge. What you observe about the tragic effects of NCLB is bang-on. Talk about your "soft bigotry of low expectations" -- Bush was right about that, all right, even if he thought he was performing the opposite.
And Emma, the Unlimited School sounds the total opposite of dodgy. What I wouldn't give to have one of those over here. Actually, a whole bunch of them.
I do think there are extremely significant differences between No Child Left Behind and what's being introduced here -- most notably, the absence of a central test.
The tests here aren't central, in the sense of one test for every child in the US, though. Each state sets its own curriculum; and the tests test children's mastery of that material, except that mostly it's not so much material, per se, as a way of answering questions.
Forgive me being a bit slow, but: the National Standards will still be measured via tests, no?
From the National Party announcement:
Your child will be regularly tested by their school to reliably measure how they are doing in reading, writing and maths. These assessments will be designed to show any problem areas and learning strengths, to inform teaching, and to track progress towards learning goals.
There's a reference to the various different tests in schools, but it's not unreasonable to expect that schools might be sold on the idea of, if not a single standardised test, certainly a handful of tests to choose from? Purely in the interests of streamlining and convenience, of course, as in "here's one I prepared earlier, and here's some test prep material just in case you are a bit busy to make your own."
In which case, the spectre of teaching to the test surely becomes a real live worry?
Please correct me if I'm heading down the wrong track here - just trying to make sense of the NZ policy through my indignant NCLB-goggles, which is to say, through a glass VERY darkly.
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Tim, Mikaere, Gordon and all - thank you! I am working up a blog from an anecdotal perspective about the effects of No Child Left Behind, as we have experienced them, and you are all absolutely on point about what is wrong with this set-up.
Instead of fighting what it is - we need to get on with being better than it.
On that note, I found this article inspiring.
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Why are the rankings Above, At, Below and Well Below? Why isn't there a Well Above, when there's also a current requirement for schools to identify their gifted and talented children and put in place plans to cater for their needs in the same way as they would cater for someone's needs who was Well Below?
What Dave said. So the "bright future" we're allegedly heading towards has a ceiling, and not even a glass one? That's encouraging.
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And for Giovanni who wondered about the difficulties of going to sleep after reading on a screen - apparently there's a reason it's hard:
“Nowadays there are lots of environmental issues that play a role in altering people’s sleep patterns, and the most obvious would be the computer,” said Dr. Nancy Collop, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. “It emits a blue light, which is one of the most stimulating lights to the little receptors we all have in the back of our eyeballs, which send messages to the brain to say whether it’s day or night and whether we should be awake or go to sleep.”
So I won't be sending Mr 8 up to bed with an e-book any time soon, even though he is the sort of child who gets nervous if he does not have one book in his hands and the next two books in the series under his armpits. The sort of child who keeps the book exchange in business and whom the librarians know by name. Made for e-books, he is, but that doesn't mean they are made for him.
It'll be interesting to see how far down the youth demographic these things penetrate and how quickly... and what the eventual physical effects are. It may turn out to be very (ahem) shortsighted of us to jump on the e-reading bandwagon. (I can't be the only pragmatic myopic pessimist whose first thoughts, given any apocalyptic scenario, are of looting an optometrist's to lay in a lifetime supply? By any means necessary, oh yes, and you can take my disposable toric lenses from my cold dead hands).
Again, written and read by the serene blue glow of my shimmering MacBook, from my cell in the Matrix... let me know when The Machine Stops.
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Belated high-five to Danielle, too, for iLiner. I need one of those in my make-up kit at all times. Plus probably some iCream to stop it going all wrinkly.
And: Stephen Fry is our aesthetic overlord and I will be very disappointed if Apple doesn't honour him in his own lifetime with a dedicated device or app. I nominate the iSay, although I don't know yet what it would actually do or look like.
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It doesn't multitask... it doesn't multitask. Just trying to fathom that as I sit here with fifteen different tabs open (weather, invitation to dinner, twitter, news, netflix, shopping, gossip, etc), and iTunes in the background and my e-mail awaiting a reply, and Skype just sitting there in case anyone's awake in NZ, and a blog trying to get written.... and I'm conversing with the nearly-4-year old (today we are Pirate Kangaroos) and plotting dinner and remembering to get to the Post Office.
Thinks to self: must download Freedom, or WriteRoom, or...
I multitask. But do I really need my machine to, as well?
It doesn't multitask. That's so terribly, stupidly, wonderfully old-fashioned. So it's like paper and pen. OR a newspaper. OR a radio. OR a photo album. OR a sketchbook. OR a calculator. OR a Gameboy. OR a recipe book. But just not all at once, because that's just too much for your poor old brain.
I think I might secretly love it for this alone, even if it doesn't fold in the middle or have handles or come in different colours. It does one. thing. at. a. time.
[Deep yogic exhalation.]
D'you think Apple are ahead of the curve on this? Have they had a sit-down with the brain scientists, and this is like voluntarily cutting the nicotine level in cigarettes?
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One thing I'm looking forward to is games, especially two player+ games. It can lie flat on the table and be any game you like. People can sit round these in a way that's not practical for a laptop.
Ooh, now I'm picturing spacies, old-school. New peripheral market for the iPad: cocktail tables with a bespoke niche in them?
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We can agree that Just Thinking is right in general, though, yes? And not just seeking to harsh the iPad mellow in particular.
It is possible to drool over our toys and yet still seek to know how they're made and what the collateral costs might be. In fact, isn't that liberal-eco-cringe-consciousness-responsibility-action nexus a crucial part of the Mac demographic? Just, ah, think of it as your monthly hassle and take it like a man, boys!
I appreciated the nudge, since it caused me to re-discover this alarming article from 2001, and this more recent one that suggests little has changed. No upgrades to speak of for those in Congo, while we quibble over the latest refinements to our desirable coltan-fuelled machines, on our coltan-fuelled machines.
(Typed on my shimmering silvery MacBook, for shame, but I did walk to the shops today and recycled three bins full this week... iFlagellate).
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Another question: where's the beverage cup holder?
I was thinking handles, so it could double as a dinky little tray for breakfast in bed. Tea, poached egg, NY Times... why, thank you, Jeeves. Also useful for keeping those annoying thumbprints off the edge of the screen when you're using it one-handed. As it were.
Also, recipe-followers and bathroom-readers will definitely be needing a wipeable version. The iWater?
The name is remarkably generous for comedic purposes - it just keeps giving and giving (hello, monthly bill of between $15-30 just to use the damn thing? been there, done that, should have bought Tampax shares when I turned 13).
But seriously, Bust has a good take on the default sexism of the marketing presentation so far.
I'm thinking Steve needs to subcontract the Conchords for his next product launch, if he plans to sell to all the ladies of the world.