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Opinion
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Written by Geoffery Henderson
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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Here we go 'round in circles.
A recent editorial in The Oregonian on the re-establishment of neighborhood schools is reminding me of that Billy Preston song. The neighborhood high schools proposal is a recycling educational pedagogy.
I began my career with Portland Public Schools in 1978, and I've seen our schools go through a number of recycled ideas. It started with the "Adams experiment." It was the questionable "schools within a school" concept. Today we call them "smaller learning communities." Students were required to attend neighborhood schools with one exception: students in the Jefferson neighborhood were allowed to transfer for desegregation purposes.
First Adams closed, and traditional high school programs became the norm. A few years later, Jackson and Washington high schools closed. Until Measure 5 in 1991, PPS had traditional high schools. They worked relatively well until we had drops in enrollment and severe funding shortages. Since Measure 5 we abandoned programs that helped train 65 percent of our students and narrowed our focus to almost exclusively college prep curriculum.
The reason why we were forced to change still exists. There is not enough money to fund neighborhood high schools. We must decide if we want neighborhood high schools that are unable to meet the needs of most of our students, or change the way we deliver services. Reverting back to traditional high schools without changes in pedagogy will increase costs, reduce every high school's curriculum offerings, elevate dropout rates and further ethnic and economic segregation.
If you ask our senior classes how many of them plan to attend college, roughly 70 percent will affirm. How many actually attend is closer to 55 percent. Only half who attend will graduate. Based on Madison High School's demographic profile, approximately 45 percent or less of its students will attend college and only half of that group will graduate.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports that 30 percent of all jobs available require a college education. In Oregon, the average line worker for PPL is 53 years old. Underwater welders make almost three times what an average teacher earns. We have shortages in almost every vocational field, and outrageously expensive and ineffective vocational training schools are the only option for low-income, less-educated workers.
The nonprofit Business Education Compact provides a few mentorship opportunities for high school and community college students. As far as I know, they, along with a few Portland Community College programs, are all that serve the majority of our students. Relevant high school models need something other than cookie-cutter approaches. PPS should offer traditional high school curriculum for two years. The junior and senior years require very different approaches.
Junior-year students who select vocational training should spend half the day learning curriculum specific to their career choices and half the day at a training site. Three strategically placed schools could be redesigned for specific basic skills training. Additional training sites could be included by creating partnerships with PCC, unions and private industry. Juniors choosing college prep could continue at three alternative sites, and we'd need one traditional high school for transitional purposes.
Senior-year vocational students could spend their first and last nine weeks at a job site training with a mentor. Seniors involved in vocational mentorship's could be paid a minimum salary during their training. The middle weeks would include every other day on-site training and alternate days learning life skills, career placement, math, science, social studies and English specific to their vocation.
I am not referring to the traditional shop classes. Banking, hospitality services, real estate, heating and air conditioning and computer technology are examples of living-wage careers that students could choose.
The first question I would ask is how we keep counselors and teachers from pushing all the poor and minority kids into the vocational track. Students and their parents/guardians make the choice. They can ask counselors and teachers for advice, but the ultimate decision is made by the student. After two years of high school, most students know if they want to go to college or find a living-wage job.
How would a student choose a vocational career? Every student before completing his or her sophomore year would complete a semester class called the wheel, which is six three-week mini-trainings on careers of their choosing.
What if a student changes his/her mind? Several choices are available. An additional year of high school and/or evening classes while they try to make up their minds are two alternatives.
How does this affect college-prep classes? Almost every student is following a pathway of their choosing. If everyone in class is there because they want to go to college, you do not have disaffected students disrupting the classroom. Students in vocational classes will not have college-bound students involved in horseplay at their work sites. Classes will be smaller and consolidation into three high schools allows a full complement of AP and IB classes.
Another question is how do we pay for this? Set-up costs and rebuilding training labs could come from a variety of sources that include federal, state and private grants, PPS school levy and industries looking for trained workers.
We can continue recycling our antiquated pedagogy or promote the general welfare of our children.
Geoffrey Henderson is a teacher at Grant High School.
Retrieved from:
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/high_school_reform_a_different.html |
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Written by Ally Bray
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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“Some people live their lives on Facebook,” says social studies teacher David Lickey. And he’s right. Facebook estimates that 50 percent of some 350 million active users log on every day, and the average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook. Every month, more than 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to the site, in addition to 3.5 billion “pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.)” which are, according to Facebook, shared every week.
Lickey joined Facebook in order to make contact with former high school classmates before an upcoming reunion, but has stayed active on the site, logging in several times a week. Similarly, English teacher Mary Rodeback first joined so as to keep in touch with distant friends.
There are countless websites hailing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as potential educational tools. With students logging on sometimes daily, many experts feel that sites like these could provide good ways for teachers to stay in touch with students and to remind them about upcoming assignments or give advice on homework outside of the classroom.
Lickey says that although he has never really considered using Facebook as an educational tool, the Constitution Team has experimented with using it as a way to keep in contact. Although the method has not been “formally embraced” by the adults involved, all of the coaches have ‘friended’ their team members. Rodeback, on the other hand, firmly believes that Facebook is not an appropriate method for students and teachers to keep in touch outside of the classroom. “To me, Facebook is something social,” she says. She does, however, allow her students to text her with their questions, in addition to keeping a running blog with information for both parents and students.
Above all, Facebook is a site used primarily for communication between friends, and, as Rodeback suggests, there is some concern about the meshing of personal and ‘professional’ lives. She believes “it is important to preserve a boundary between the social and the academic.”
Encountering incriminating evidence against students posted on Facebook is another reason Rodeback does not ‘friend’ her current students. “As teachers, we have a legal mandate to report illegal activities students are involved in,” she explains. By refraining from friending her students, Rodeback altogether avoids any potentially sticky situations.
Lickey, on the other hand, suggests that “it is a good thing adults are closer to the lives of kids.” He does take the time to stress that he would never use Facebook as a way to get kids in trouble, although he believes it is a good “avenue for intervention or influence” which doesn’t necessarily need to remain as formal as it might in the classroom.
Disciplinary focus in school is starting to switch from intimidating students in the hopes of inspiring obedience to befriending them in the hopes of getting a better look into what they are up to. As Lickey explains, Facebook provides another way for the adults in a kid’s life to keep track of what is going on. “If I got concerned, I could look and see [if there is a problem],” he elaborates.
However, the fact that some students are willing to even consider "friending" their teachers is a good sign to Lickey. He calls it a sign for a “hopeful America,” adding that students back in his day probably would not have trusted adults enough to let them into their personal lives. Lickey believes that “it shows genuine respect and regard when a student friends their teacher,” and a willingness to accept guidance and correction.
That being said, he rarely comments on the things his students post, unless they are within his comfort zone - mainly things having to do with politics, history, or philosophy. “If it’s somebody burning their cat or something, then I ‘hide’ them.” |
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Written by The Grantonian
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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On Sunday, January 17, The Oregonian published a three-page spadea covering the front page and imitating its layout. The spadea proclaimed the Oregonian Editorial Board’s urge that “voters vote no on Measures 66 and 67.” The insert was visually presented as a news story, and consisted of quote after quote describing the damage these bills would do to Oregon’s economy if passed. With the news-like presentation, each claim appeared factual. However, faintly printed at the top of each page appeared the words “Paid Advertisement.”
The Grantonian is a school newspaper. We, and schools like us, would be significant benefactors of the $733 million Measures 66 and 67 would raise. The money that the Oregonian received for publishing the “Oregonians against job-killing taxes” ad pales in comparison to the amount Grant High School would receive if the measures pass. And yet we have decided not to replace our front page with a pro-Measure 66 and 67 ad. The Oregonian’s ad quoted an unnamed economist saying the bills will cut 70,000 jobs. It bemoaned the suffering Measure 67 would incur on small businesses. It claimed that $259 million of the money raised would fund higher salaries and benefits for state employees. It called Oregon’s income tax one of the highest in the nation.
The Grantonian chose not to publish an ad in response to the Oregonian’s not because we couldn’t find unnamed economists promoting Measures 66 and 67 or because Measure 67 primarily targets corporations with revenue over a million dollars. Our deterrent wasn’t the fact that in reality, raises and benefits of public workers are negotiated and settled by unions, and set in stone long before the proposal of these bills. We were not discouraged by the fact that seven states have no income tax, two have taxes limited to dividends too low to bracket and that multiple other states have income taxes higher than Oregon’s. We opted not to publish a pro-66 and 67 ad because we feel that ads of this nature abdicate the responsibility of newspapers. We feel that the duty of a newspaper is to present readers with information that will help them become more informed citizens, not obfuscate facts at the will of advertisers. We see newspapers as a necessary check on government activities, not as a tool for promoting political bias through propaganda. While the Grantonian supports Measures 66 and 67, we urge our readers that however they vote, they make their decision an informed one based on facts. Thank you. |
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Written by Patrick Streckert
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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Dear Grantonian,
Ninety-seven percent of Grant High School seniors would say that 80 percent of the time, school days are unproductive. The fact of the matter is that spending so much time in the classroom is a waste of our time when there is work to be done. Some teachers and administrators agree with this. Especially for students with rigorous college courses, the amount of time required of them to be at school is unreasonable. When there is work that needs doing, our time would be better spent working on it than sitting in class, which very often accomplishes nothing. Many students, myself included, feel that they are pressed for time to finish their assignments at home because they had to go to school.
Because of this, I propose that seniors are no longer required to attend classes on a regular schedule. When a teacher wants to give a lecture, they can notify the class to attend at a time determined by the teacher. Give us the assignment, and we will get it done. Over the last three years of high school almost all of us have learned the organizational skills necessary for independent productivity, and are motivated enough to accomplish the tasks given to us. Under this proposed system, if we required assistance we could visit our teachers when we would normally be in class. For teachers, senior class periods would be like their office hours, allowing them to attend to students’ inquiries and to get their own work done. Many teachers resort to grading projects and papers at home, and are not paid for their labor. This proposal caters to the needs of both the students and teachers alike.
We’re high schoolers. We don’t need our hands held anymore. It’s our responsibility to do the work, and we can handle it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some homework to do. |
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Written by Dylan Leeman
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Monday, 04 January 2010 |
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Shortly after the Halloween issue of the Grantonian, I opened my school mailbox to find a copy of Mackenzie Quinn’s article carefully cut from the backpage. An anonymous critic had highlighted all the so-called bad words: boob, hump, horny, and slut. There was no note, just the highlighted words, as if that said it all.
This letter then is to the cowardly would-be censor and word-miser.
When writing poetry, I teach my students to favor words we inherit from the old German over the less evocative Latinate options, talk over converse, dirt over soil, and yes, if necessary, slut over promiscuous.
But more importantly, Ms. Quinn’s column was a deft and nuanced criticism of the complicated social forces faced by teen girls today. Her brutal honesty and real language questioned the popularity of “slutty” Halloween costumes while owning the ways in which she was not immune to the pressures herself. You highlighted “hump” but missed the fact that she was critical of contemporary teen dances when she referenced Vice Principal Brian Chatard’s now-famous quote about the “hot sweaty hump mass.” You highlighted “boob,” but missed the implied social criticism of the forces that tell girls how to look, eat, dress, and sell-short or question the value of their own bodies.
In one deft column, Ms. Quinn questioned the readiness of her peers to sweat on “their lab partners and math tutors,” and explored the need of girls to feel beautiful and be looked at. Her column complicated slutty in a way censorship cannot. And let’s not pretend slutty isn’t a complicated word. Originally meaning dirty, the word is evocative of the worst female archtypes. It is evocative simultaneously of thousands of years of men telling women how to dress, and then objectifying them in other contexts.
I try to teach my English students not just to read, but to read; to go beyond the most simplistic definitions of words and think about connotation and context.
Likewise, I try to teach my student journalists to use their power for good, to think big, to ask big questions, to challenge the status quo, to engage the Grant population in an intelligent discourse on important issues.
I think Ms. Quinn’s column last month was good enough to have been published for a national audience. It dealt with real issues in a real way.
Let’s have a dialogue, not words highlighted in cowardly anonymity like old soviet-era censorship, but rather let’s be a society of letters, write the Grantonian and tell us what you think.
Do the old words offend you? Let’s have a conversation. No, that’s too Latinate for me. Let’s talk. I’ll start by signing my name.
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