From the Cosmic Center

Original Heartfelt Thoughts #2

To find some closure,

I need your thoughts and prayers

To help put it all behind me,

So I can get on with my life.

I guess that about covers it.

I’ll let you be the judge.

It’s not for me to say.

Nobody’s perfect.

Americans are a forgiving people.

I’m sorry if I offended anyone.

Believe me, that was not my intention.

Most of all, I let myself down.

I know better now.

I’ve learned my lesson.

N.B.:  File under Apologies #1, generic. Save as template for future use.  At press conferences with TV cameras rolling, remember raw onion slice in handkerchief for “real” tears finish.  

The Clever Art of Public Apology

Background: I submitted the following essay self-edited for length to The Lantern, my alma mater’s student newspaper. The genesis of the essay concerned the recent transgressions of Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel.

In April of 2010, the coach received e-mails from a Columbus, Ohio attorney alerting Tressel that a few of his star players had sold athletic memorabilia (jerseys, rings, etc.) in exchange for tattoos from a local tattoo parlor. The owner of said establishment was under federal investigation for drug trafficking and other alleged crimes.

Nine months later just prior to the Buckeyes’ scheduled appearance in the Sugar Bowl, OSU and the NCAA sanctioned six players for selling the aforementioned memorabilia. The players were suspended for the first five games the 2011 season but were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl. They did and Ohio State won. OSU then announced they would officially appeal the NCAA sanctions.

Questions as to Tressel role in “tattoo-gate” continued. In January of 2011 while participating in the appeal process, Coach Tressel finally acknowledged knowing way back in April that players may have violated NCAA rules. In addition he violated Ohio State procedures by not informing its athletic director of the original e-mails. Furthermore Coach Tressel lied directly to the NCAA in September when he signed the annual declaration that no staff or players had violated NCAA rules that preseason.

Ohio State promptly fined Tressel $250,000 and suspended him from participation in the first two games of next season’s schedule. The coach was also required to apologize publicly.  Shortly thereafter, the coach’s suspension was extended to five games.

Having been a walk-on varsity athlete at Ohio State, and having tutored for its athletic department, I was personally offended by the resulting damage to my school’s reputation further compounded by Coach Tressel’s feeble attempt at public apology, so I wrote:

FAS

                                      The Clever Art of Public Apology

I hate what passes for public apology these days. Most reduce to a press release and a postscript. Real apologies are rare whenever a microphone or a camera is present—in other words, on the record. Nowadays any repentance with an audience starts by deflecting blame. Look for the ubiquitous if and but. How often have we heard apology attempts begin, “If I offended anyone,” cleverly implying I need not apologize but will generously, graciously offer to anyway? It is deception of the first order.

From there the inevitable denial of intent follows—as if anyone actually lies by accident. Further calculated attempts at contrition strategically position the word but halfway through the discourse—like red pepper on a convict’s scent trail. The court of public opinion should immediately stamp “attempted escape” atop the speaker’s ever-expanding rap sheet.

If these standard deviations from genuine apology do not pass muster with the audience, the truth skirter can always continue in the passive voice. The oft repeated, “Mistakes were made,” acknowledges negative behavior but artfully avoids blame acceptance—as if the lie told itself. Somebody lied. Apparently, that liar’s identity must remain a mystery.

No miscreant speaker needs legal advice to cloak the self-damning I beneath a pompous royal we, echoing the privileged rich and famous. “We did our best,” brings everyone into the act—insuring a chorus of applause from sympathetic co-conspirators. Where is the well-timed, lone-wolf voice of truth openly declaring, “But WE did not lie, YOU did”?

Finally, when all else fails, and our penitent pretender has danced around his duty like a novice ballerina, he can always blame society. This works especially well on college campuses brimming with sociology majors. “Don’t we all share part of the blame when our youth stray?” Surely no fair-minded, empathetic advocate of social justice could argue against that tack. Still, somebody most definitely ought to.

Enough of this pretentious posturing! Real apologies require just three parts. First, clearly state what you did wrong. Next, say you are sorry. Finally, promise not to do it again. In all three declarations, use the word I, “I lied; I cheated; I abused my authority. I am truly sorry. I will not do it again.” Stand up straight, and look the audience straight in the eye. Do not just mouth the words. Mean what you say. There, was that so hard?

My dad taught me the right way to apologize when I was four. It’s never too late for people in the public eye to learn the same, simple lesson. It works equally well for athletes and actors, supervisors and CEOs, politicians and prelates.

Weak, evasive, irresponsible apologies that seem to suffice today fool no one in the long run. Without genuine remorse (evidenced in a real apology) a perpetrator will re-offend. His lack of character will come to light time and again. Apologize right the first time and forgiveness usually follows. Real apologies build genuine character. Anything less, does not.

P.S. Subsequent to my writing the above, new additions to the Tressel tale have surfaced. The coach has now admitted to forwarding the original April e-mails to a man referred to as quarterback Terrelle Pryor’s “mentor,” further tarnishing Tressel’s damaged reputation. Just how far the trail of lies extends, no one knows for certain. The latest speculation, however, points toward Tressel’s termination as OSU head football coach sometime soon. Spring football practice starts in April. Additional NCAA sanctions are still anticipated. Tressel’s deception and cover-up have compromised the reputation of both the program and the institution, embarrassing loyal Buckeyes everywhere. Coach Jim Tressel must go. 

Lies

Lies

A moment misspoken

 Quickly corrected,

Quickly dismissed.

Given time before detection,

Said mistake repeated

Transforms to brazen lie—

A common political process called

Conscience metamorphosis.

The Student Driven Schedule: A Closer Look

On March 3, 2001 the King County Journal ran the op-ed column below. I wrote it out of frustration with the “semesterization” of my own high school’s schedule. It was another top down process unilaterally imposed by administration. There was no faculty input. The process just “evolved” over the course of three or four years. In department meetings whenever I questioned why yearlong classes in English, social studies, math, and science had more and more students transferring to different teachers at semester, I was invariably told it was an administrative scheduling concern. In other words, just shut up and do what you’re told. I saw no academic justification for such a policy shift. No school official ever offered me one, so I wrote.

FAS

The Student Driven Schedule: A Closer Look

Most parents who send their teenagers to a public high school assume the school will focus on academics. Thank goodness that assumption is true in most cases. But in at least one area high school, administrators actually boast their schedule is "student driven." Like the omni-impotent phrase "meeting kids’ needs," "student driven" says to parents "we care" until they get the real translation. "Student driven" is edu-speak for "elective focused."

The "student driven" schedule is a fairy godmother granting wishes. Teenagers get the electives they want BEFORE the academic classes they need. The process placates the restless and the unmotivated but penalizes the conscientious and the college bound. In short, scheduling priorities are reversed. Adolescent choices are reshaping required courses.

Single-semester electives get top priority. Yearlong academic classes scrape bottom. Language arts, the only four-year requirement in high school, is scheduled dead last. Coincidentally, English was also the last required class to coordinate its curriculum by semester or "semesterize." Why abandon the traditional year of algebra, biology, and American history?  Whose interests are best served by doing so?

The curriculum for required academic subjects is supposed to be a year’s course of study. The student catalog says so. Parents and students expect an entire year with the same teacher. Yet to facilitate scheduling, every curriculum has now been "semesterized." That may sound reasonable, even desirable until one factors in academic continuity. When half the student body arbitrarily changes teachers each semester, continuity gets crucified. "Semesterizing" the schedule is educational blasphemy.

School leaders justify their schedule with stats on every potential conflict from overcrowding to planning period preferences. For administrators expedience trumps academic continuity. Teachers have no say in scheduling priorities, but, as always, teachers must cope with the consequences.  The "elective focused" schedule and the division of yearlong classes into semesters were unilateral administrative dictates. So what’s wrong with these policies?

The big shift at semester wastes curriculum time. Teachers must re-establish classroom expectations with every new student. Newcomers must re-acclimate. Teacher-student rapport and trust start from scratch. Academic procedures already engrained in first semester students need repeating for untrained transfers. School begins all over again. The process takes weeks—wasted weeks.

The semester swap undermines the classroom authority of every teacher involved. With each new cast of characters, teachers face behavior problems and territorial challenges. It takes time to set boundaries. It takes time to enforce them consistently. The school year has no time to spare. The WASL (our state-mandated test) looms.

Semester splits are hardest on new teachers. They need YEARS of experience to build classroom confidence, efficiency, and presence. A succession of start-and-stop semesters will never suffice. Where’s the follow through? Starting over each semester doubles the stress but cuts the sense of accomplishment in half. Watch this policy push frustrated young teachers out of the profession.

Experienced teachers don’t fare much better. Veterans create a rhythm with established programs. Units pulse with common thematic accents. The first semester crescendo builds to a second semester grand finale. Vets reserve a pride-and-joy unit, their greatest passion, for June when student effort wanes. Nothing motivates like enthusiasm. Truncate that process; interrupt the crescendo, and the grand finale fizzles. Watch semester scheduling push frustrated veteran teachers out of the profession.

When the elective tail wags the academic dog, standardized test scores drop. Where’s the surprise here? What realistic adult thinks an "elective focused" schedule promotes scholarship? For many teens English class is no more important than jewelry making. If high school somehow morphed into college, most students would major in electives.

Does your high school schedule this way? If so, its educational priorities need a major overhaul. Scheduling should reflect academic importance. To that end, core classes come first. Electives ARE important but secondary. No college, no future employer cares whether a high school graduate took calligraphy or woodworking.

English, social studies, math, and science must be yearlong classes. Educational integrity demands continuity. Semester transfers in core classes should be rare, not de rigueur. When students are accountable to one teacher per subject, anonymity decreases. That makes real caring, not just lip service, possible. Subject mastery becomes an attainable long-term goal, not a fragmented, serendipitous dream.

Parents and teachers cannot afford to acquiesce. The scheduling status quo must change. Current practice sends students a clear anti-intellectual message. The school focus is social not scholastic–fun first, academics last. Student attitudes and behavior reflect the tone set by the schedule, and that tone is stridently off-key.

Principled people must speak out. The elective focused schedule has to go. Administration needs to hear the right message to re-establish the right priorities. A diploma ought to be a high school’s academic seal of approval, a guarantee its graduates are intellectually prepared for adult life. Anything less is institutionalized fraud.

P.S.  When administrators in public schools make unilateral, fundamental changes that negatively impact academics, somebody ought to hold them accountable.  

Weak administrators think happy kids make good schools. Happy kids mean happy parents. Happy parents make for good public relations. Good PR makes a principal’s job easier and more secure. In the meantime, dedicated teachers who witness the steady decline in academic focus and protest end up on the assistant principal’s troublemakers list. Ah, such is the weak, but well-established, chain of command.  

Sound Bites

Sound Bites

Bumper sticker sloganeering,

Shallow processed, cliché driven—

Truth grains lost in slurry.

Still they satiate, still they sway

Contented bovines at the wallow.

Only massive truth,

Blatant and naked,

Truly frees.

Nits and gritty

Fragments

Merely annoy

The focused few,

The intent.

Pronoun Diplomacy

Pronoun Diplomacy

If “Know thine enemy” is

Still a useful admonition,

First, master personal pronouns.

The world divides conveniently into

First person and third person plurals;

That is, we versus they,

Or as case dictates,

Us against them.

The crux and the curse reflect

 1^st person’s inclusion of the speaker.

That’s why the enemy

We talk about is always

 Someone else.

No wonder when we

Don’t really know, we say,

“They killed him.”

On a Lighter Note

In July of 1999 Seattle Seahawk receiver supreme Joey Galloway decided he wasn’t being paid enough four years into a five year contract. He had been a #1 draft choice from Ohio State, my alma mater. In those four years, newer draftees had supplanted Galloway’s place as highest paid wide receiver, so Joey decided to forego training camp and hold out for parity.  Instead of playing in the 1999 season, Galloway lost $5000 a day in missed practice fines and $93,000 a game in unpaid salary. On August 31, the Seattle Times and Ohio State’s Lantern posted the following letter of mine:

FAS

 Dear Mr. Galloway,

In the first eight days of your holdout, you paid more in fines than I earn after 28 years teaching.

Fire your current agent. He is stealing you blind and destroying your future.

Hire me for 1 percent (save 9 percent). We’ll sign ASAP.

The fans will still love you, and I can retire.

Who loves you, baby?

Fred Strine North Bend, WA

OSU, 1971

P.S.  After missing the entire 1999 season, Joey Galloway was traded to the Cowboys, Buccaneers, Patriots, Steelers, and Redskins.  The rest of his career never matched those first four years in Seattle.  Neither did his salary. 

Perspective Check

Perspective Check

One life’s worries used to be plenty.

Then marriage and children

 Compounded the anxiety. Still,

That predated the “Information Age.”

Now worldwide instant access

Means I can share everyone’s worries

Twenty-four hours a day.

Oh, for the good old “Ignorant Age”

When Dad told me to mind my own business.

Assembly-line Teaching

Bellevue, Washington, the 5^th largest city in the state, is home to a nationally recognized school district. Its three high schools rank among the best in the state.  From his arrival in 1996, Superintendent Mike Riley of the Bellevue School District had been a man with a mission. His focus was district curriculum and his goal was to standardize it.  He succeeded admirably as evidenced by Bellevue’s improvement on standardized test scores.  Parents were pleased.  The town was booming.  Mike Riley was living a public relations dream. 

Then he and his top-down curriculum revisions went too far.  At the beginning of the 2007 school year, teacher contract negotiations stalled over salary and curriculum issues.  Though Supt. Riley had left his Bellevue post the previous November, his mandated, standardized daily lesson plans became THE bone of contention. 

Every teacher of a core curriculum class in the district had to teach the same scripted lesson on the same day in exactly the same way.  The Bellevue Education Association voted to strike, postponing the scheduled opening of the 2007 school year. On August 31, 2007 I sent the following letter to the president of the teachers’ association:

FAS

Dear Bellevue Education Association Teachers,

I feel for the teachers in the Bellevue School District, I really do. If you don’t strike now over your district’s mandatory scripted lesson plans, you might as well kiss your classroom autonomy goodbye. The job you agree to return to will never be the same. Welcome to the brave new world of education assembly lines and the mindless pursuit of guaranteed higher test scores.

I’ve seen it all before from the inside. Five years ago my school went assembly line to deal with WASL panic. The “Line” worked great at covering new teachers’ inexperience and proved the ultimate in CYA public relations. It did take a while to weed out independent-minded veterans, who left for other schools that still valued experience and expertise. Lo and behold, this past year (the first with everyone on board) WASL scores dropped 3%! Oops! What now, efficiency experts?

Someone please explain how mass production techniques work with individual minds trying to connect with other individual minds? Since when has uniformity been more important than excellence in independent thought? Surely we Americans still value independent thought, don’t we? Bellevue teachers, don’t let your district demean you and your students this way.

Give in now and you can forget about teaching as a profession. Your calling will become just another position on “The Line.” Forget, too, all your hard-earned money spent on post-grad hours for salary advancement. What good are your years of classroom experience and professional/personal growth? Nothing in your past counts now. You’re just a cog. You’ve allowed the moron who dreamed up one-size-fits-all lesson plans to make an Orwellian nightmare come true.

Teachers in Bellevue, you have a history of education success on your side. Fight for the excellence you’ve already demonstrated. Never settle for uniformity because district hacks value it. If the district wins on this issue, they’ll get their uniform education, but it will be uniformly mediocre. The best of you will leave. I did after 36 years. I’d rather be out of work than become a mindless, spineless, assembly-line lackey.

Teachers, here’s a teaching moment you can’t afford to miss. Teach the Bellevue School District the lesson it MUST learn. Strike hard. Strike now.

Respectfully yours,

Fred A. Strine

P.S. The strike lasted nine days. On September 14, 2007, teachers in the Bellevue School District signed a new contract that gave them a 5% cost of living increase over three years. They also won the right to modify daily lesson plans without prior district approval.  

March of the Cogs

March of the Cogs

Synchronized circumference,

Meshing round  ‘n’ round,

March on egalitarian cog!

Engage your Kameraden.

Feel the power pulse

In united effort gained.

Celebrate the cognate.

Lessen single strain.

Magnify your contribution

Toward the goal of all.

Rejoice in the purpose

Of oneness.

Surrender self.

Be the machine!

The Line

The Line

Sanity shuns anarchy,

Thriving on order.

Inordinate order

Assembly-lines life—

Each spot on the line prescribed,

Each addition, a stamped duplicate—

Certified clones, certainly equal

In every conceivable way

Save freedom.

The Calling

The Calling

For most it begins with a preference.

For others, a duty—expected,

Inherited, without much input.

Responders follow the urge—

Irresistible, unrelenting, obsessive—

Enhancing a talent, with quiet

Rewards from a humble

Sense of accomplishment.

Looking in the mirror

Poses no unanswered questions.

Top Ten Ways to Lose Experienced Teachers

Top Ten Ways

to Lose

Experienced Teachers

We’ve all read the disturbing statistic (usually during legislative debate over salaries) that half of all new teachers quit the profession within five years. After 36 years in the classroom, I feel compelled to ask an equally alarming question: Where have all the experienced teachers gone? If most of your children’s teachers seem to fall within that first five-year category, you may also be wondering what became of the older, experienced teachers. Though baby-boomer retirement certainly accounts for some loss, I’m betting your local school practices some or all of my top ten ways to lose good experienced teachers.

#10  No pay incentives. The good, the bad, and the mediocre all make the same. No raises based on experience after 15 years. Want more money? Take more worthless teacher-training courses. Work more hours on district-approved projects. Fill out more paperwork. The last 21 years of my teaching career DID prepare me for retiring on a FIXED salary. No rewards for excellence.

#9  Hire teachers fresh out of college in preference to experienced teachers. Newbies are cheaper, less secure, and more malleable. Clone them to fit desired administration philosophy. Experienced teachers are harder to fool, harder to clone, and much more likely to challenge or dissent.

#8  Balkanize your faculty into “team players” AKA those newbies “on board” versus the independents or “deadwoods.” If one of those individualists volunteers for a decision-making committee, say it’s full. Warn newbies against associating with those not “on board.” Give the least experienced teachers the most decision-making authority.

#7  Practice the devious art of the Delphi Technique whenever possible at faculty meetings to focus on “consensus building” with dissent suppression the real goal. Promote planning period meetings to divide and conquer. Put controversial agenda items last and hope to be saved by the bell. Summarily dismiss dissent on major agenda items as “ minority” viewpoints. Ignore the voices of experienced teachers who have more practice in BS detecting.

#6  Dump administrative concerns on teachers. Create bureaucratic CYA paper trails for teachers. Force compliance. Hold teachers accountable for weak administrative disciplinary policies. Spread the blame to hide the shame.

#5  Waste valuable classroom time on unnecessary interruptions that could be covered in memos. Promote social agenda items that undermine or disrupt academic goals. Examples would include homework-free days, dress up days, days of silence in support or protest of social concerns. Emphasize student activism. De-emphasize academics.

#4  Eliminate excellence in the classroom as a basis for any deference, priorities, or perks. Do this under the “fairness” doctrine. Give the most desirable schedules to the least experienced teachers. Put the most structured teachers with classes that need the least structure and vice versa. Make the best teachers fight each year for the schedules they want to teach. Most will transfer, retire, or quit in frustration.

#3  Undermine the authority of the teacher in the classroom. Centralize all discipline to the extent that students are no longer accountable to the classroom teacher. Give a disruptive student equal standing with the teacher in disciplinary matters. Question the teacher’s conduct in front of students and/or parents.

#2  Mandate teaching methods. If the latest study says good results have been achieved with the “miracle” method, make sure everybody uses it.  Mandate training in every new idea that comes along. Incorporate checking for the “miracle” method use in teacher evaluations. Jump on every education bandwagon.

#1  Praise only the new and innovative. Honor those publicly. Ignore the continued excellence and refinement of the experienced. When they quit, tell their colleagues they chose to retire.

P.S.   On a personal note, I was able to deal successfully with #10 and #9, managing to stick around for 36+ years. Eventually #8 through #1 got to me with perhaps 5 good years left. I resigned in 2006 with prejudice (in the judicial sense).

Concensus

Consensus

Affirm the weight that marks consensus.

How heavy to equate to truth?

How many in the mob required to

Balance against a lone dissent?

Hide behind your calculated calm,

Your rigged results,

The refuge in your number long enough;

Watch consensus cave.

Block scheduling: Another poor trend in public education

Below is my third op-ed column. It ran at the end of May 2000 in the same Seattle-area papers as its predecessors.  After my first two forays into education editorials, I’d found laminated newspaper columns of my work in my school mailbox. A complimentary note from our district superintendent accompanied each. Made me feel as if I had support within “the system.” Made me proud.  Things were about to change.

I heard rumblings that our district was considering the shift to block scheduling. Experience taught me that such decisions came down from above with little or no faculty input. In passing one day I asked a young administrator if there were any truth to the rumor that block scheduling was in our district’s future. He said it was indeed being discussed. That’s when I knew I had to get in my two-cent’s worth.

I’m reasonably certain our superintendent DID get phone calls after the editorial appeared. She wasn’t happy. I found no congratulatory note in my mailbox. Instead I did find a message to call the superintendent A.S.A.P.  Oops!  The gist of her point was that I should henceforth clear all editorials with her BEFORE I sent them for publication.  I politely but firmly refused by saying the public forum I sought for my professional viewpoint was open to all. If the superintendent disagreed with what I had written, she was free to write a rebuttal.  She was neither persuaded nor amused.  That phone call was the beginning of the end of my teaching career.  I managed another dozen or so articles and letters to the editor.

In the meantime I battled health issues stemming from high blood pressure, sleep apnea, acid-reflux, three vocal cord surgeries, panic attacks, and depression.  My career died, but I’m lucky to be alive.

FAS 

P.S. Our district has still not adopted a block schedule.

Block scheduling: Another poor trend in public education

Has it reached your school? Block scheduling is sweeping the county if not the country, and your district could be next. Blocking is just the latest in a long line of ``progressive'' Band-Aids slapped over education's gaping wounds. Prepare for the sales pitch: ``Mercer Island already has block schedules, and just look at their test scores!'' Careful, that's bandwagon propaganda, a fallacy in logic. You do not buy it when your daughter wants a tattoo just like all her friends. Do not fall for the same line from your local school.

Block scheduling replaces the traditional six-period school day with three double periods, usually on an odd-even, alternating-day basis. To cover the same six classes, students need two consecutive days of school. The con job will continue with, ``Blocking increases teacher-student contact time. Think of all we can accomplish with two-hour periods.''

The truth is just the opposite. Two-hour blocks actually decrease weekly contact time. Half the classes meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a total of six hours. Tuesday-Thursday courses only get four. It takes two successive weeks before blocked periods equal six-period contact time.

Regular weekly tests in any subject won't work. Monday-Wednesday-Friday students will have four days to study while Tuesday-Thursday kids get six, counting the weekend. Of course, total study time eventually evens out -- again after two weeks. Teachers with duplicate classes will need to create two versions of every test; otherwise, Friday testers will share the questions with friends who test on Mondays. Given two extra days and all the questions, cheaters will ace Monday exams. The favor gets returned the following week. Don't be shocked. It's just human nature.

Kids aren't the only ones who will take the easy way out if your school adopts block scheduling. Don't forget to factor in human nature for teachers, too. How many teachers will plan and faithfully execute double lessons for each double period? Some surely will. Most will be veteran teachers who will draw from their wealth of lessons and experience. But, just how many veterans remain in your school?

The cold, hard truth is not positive. Most teachers will complete one lesson then turn students loose to do homework in class. Few have the stamina, the management skills, and the enthusiasm to engage teenagers for two hours of direct instruction. Colleges don't do it, and they teach older students, motivated students who want to be in class and pay big bucks for the privilege. What rational adult believes double periods will be effective in high school?

Most attention spans I deal with barely survive an hour. In a double-period schedule, kids will get weary. They'll need a half-time break. During that break, they'll get antsy. Good luck getting 30 teens back on task. Most teachers will eventually surrender. Students will eagerly take charge, but will they really learn? Ignorance loves company. Block scheduling and human nature will essentially cut teacher-student contact time in half. The 180-day school year might as well be 90.

Students need structure, especially high school freshman. Fourteen-year-olds do not instinctively prepare for class like college students. Ninth-graders arrive without note-taking skills, and sophomores need more practice. Even upperclassmen rarely review their notes daily. All high school students benefit from a consistent study routine. Experience is still the best teacher. A structured, traditional schedule reinforces lessons and study habits daily. Block scheduling doesn't.

How many teenagers have the self-discipline to plan two days ahead? How many are willing to do schoolwork on weekends? Miss a Thursday class and the average student won't start catching up until the following Monday. Learning delayed is learning denied. Dedicated scholars will still succeed, but public schools aren't just for the brightest. Watch the failure rate rise if your school abandons the six-period schedule.

Progressives love the block scam. It perfectly fits their paradigm of student-centered learning. If your district bleats the progressive line, block scheduling is in your future. Anticipate the facilitator hard sell next. Do not buy it. Student-directed discovery, cooperative learning, and group projects will keep kids busy for a double period. But will they learn? When your district hires progressive facilitators for block schedules, they will phase out traditional direct instruction, the best way to learn. Once the scheduling shift is made, traditionalists will have two choices, adapt or quit.

Principals and their assistants love the block charade. It makes their jobs easier. Filling three slots a day with teachers and students is a cinch compared to six. The real appeal to blocking, however, deals with discipline. Most discipline problems flare up between classes. With just three periods, students have fewer chances to cause trouble. That translates into fewer fights to break up, fewer parents to call, and fewer lawsuits to fear. Such a deal for the dean of students!

Truth is, in the block scheme, overt anger and rebellion will go underground. Students will soon erupt in the classroom instead of the hall. The day your school buys blocking, administrator duties decrease. Who picks up the slack? The classroom teacher, who else?

Twenty years ago the best principal I've known reflected on the ``old/bold'' dichotomy during his retirement speech. He declared: ``There are old principals, and there are bold principals. But there are no old/bold principals.'' We chuckled then. Now it's too true to be amusing. Old-bold principals are precisely what we need now -- leaders old enough to remember traditional success, and bold enough to reject the sheep who blindly promote block scheduling.

Is your local principal old enough and bold enough to lead your community's high school where you want it to go? If you reject block scheduling, don't call your favorite teacher to speak out. Teachers have no veto power. Call your local superintendent. Then call your high school principal.

Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Acquiescence votes present

When principle goes on record—

Better to remain anonymous.

Acquiescence abstains

As partisans align for battle—

Better to placate the powerful.

Acquiescence checks

Letting others raise the stakes—

Better to abdicate than risk.

Acquiescence cannot distinguish

Compromise from surrender.

"Best and Brightest" Are Experienced Teachers

My first published essay appeared in the April 17, 1999 editions of the South County Journal and The Eastside Journal, two Washington State newspapers.  The work offered my perspective on the ongoing struggle for a statewide teacher pay raise.  Hindsight reveals references to the struggle traditional teachers faced in opposing “progressive” transformations of public education.  Editors posted it under their title, “TIRED TEACHER: Worn out from fighting the good fight.”

FAS

"Best and Brightest" Are

Experienced Teachers

My father fought in the “Forgotten War,” the one before Korea.  For those who don’t watch “The History Channel,” that was the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II.  Thanks to him and the other veterans of his generation, my battles have only been intellectual.  Still, I can identify with sacrifices made for a forgotten cause.  I know about forgotten.  I’m a veteran teacher in my twenty-eighth year of service.  Unfortunately, during that time, I’ve had to fight more than the temporary ignorance of my students.

When language professionals abandoned phonics, I refused.  When technophiles invaded math, I still drilled times tables.  When progressives mothballed spelling, vocabulary, and grammar, I kept them on active duty. When multi-culturalists scuttled the classics, I maintained them.  When specialists touted process, I shouted, “Content first!”  When “New Age” experts preached cooperative education, I championed old-fashioned individual effort. When egalitarians demanded equal success for all, I only guaranteed opportunity.  When sociologists found excuses for why kids can’t learn, I insisted they could.  When psychologists packaged self-esteem, I barked,  “Earn it!” 

Grade inflation?  Not in my classroom.  An A is rare; so is exceptional achievement.  Discipline problems?  Not in Portable 908.  My charges still call me Mister, and I’m not their buddy.  The classroom is not a cafeteria, and students can’t really concentrate and chew gum at the same time.  Gum loses.

To succeed, a teacher must get results. To survive over a career, a teacher must practice principled insubordination.  Administrators are not amused.  There are no tangible rewards for teachers, no bonuses for the extra effort required to succeed AND survive.  The “profession” cannibalizes its own.  I am amazed how often I hear some new acquaintance admit, “I used to teach.”

Olympia’s latest scheme to placate the W.E.A. calls for boosting base pay to secure the “best and brightest” new teachers. Sorry, guys, wrong again.  The “best and brightest” are experienced teachers, veterans tested under fire.  New recruits learn their survival skills from vets in the trenches, not rear-echelon ed. profs.  Olympia, why have you forgotten us veterans?  After fifteen years service, experience counts for nothing on your salary schedule.  Where is the incentive to continue to “fight the good fight”?  Olympia, how are you going to KEEP the “best and brightest”? 

I’m worn out.  It’s not my students. I’m tired fighting, and I’m tired of being forgotten.  I remember saying in frustration last year, “Don’t anyone offer me two cents, because for two cents, I’d quit this job.”  I recovered over the summer and returned, but it’s no stretch to anticipate saying at the end of this school year, “Don’t anyone offer me two percent, because for two percent, I’d quit this job.”

_________________________________

Two Seattle area papers ran edited versions of this essay in mid-April, 1998.  Two weeks later the state legislature gave veteran teachers 10% over the next two years.  This year’s salary fight is over.  We won and I did something.  I ought to feel proud.  Perhaps I persuaded someone.  Maybe I gave pause to another.  Though I wrote for myself, I hope I spoke for others.  Teachers are not at the front alone.

My R. & R. will come again in the summer. This year’s recovery will be more complete than before.  Support from friends and colleagues have buoyed my spirits.  An encouraging letter from an eighty-four-year-old stranger made my year.  Thank you, Mrs. Fallert.  Most of all this victory has taught me a personal lesson I should have learned long ago.

In my original essay, I used the phrase, “fight the good fight.”  I thought it was Hemingway.  I should have done my homework.  The exhortation from the Apostle Paul to his son in 1 Timothy, 6:12 reads:  “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.”  I now understand why I am a teacher.

The Tree Syndrome

After school one day in 1990, Helen Graf, cherished colleague and English teacher par excellence, entered my room in tears. Our brand new principal had just evaluated her for the first time. With clipboard in hand, he’d check-listed her according to the latest administrator in-service criteria. 

Now, Helen was among those ultra-conscientious, self-motivated, unsung heroes in every profession who can always be counted upon to give their all.  She had. The lesson was creative, perfectly planned, and well executed. The kids were engaged and eager to demonstrate what they had just learned. Light bulbs blazed above each kid’s head.  Did the new principal recognize Helen’s gifted-teacher status? Not a chance.  He cited her for a “T” syndrome violation. 

She had addressed the class primarily from across the front of the room and down the center aisle, hence the “T.”  Helen was stunned and reduced to tears of frustration.  I tried to cheer her up on the spot, but the best I could do at the time was commiserate.  Later that night I wrote the following poem and made sure it was waiting in her mailbox before her first class the next day.  Made her smile—me, too.

Twenty years later my friend, Laurie Rogers, author of Betrayed: How the Education Establishment has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about it liked the poem so much, she included it in her book.  What goes around comes around.  I’ve lost track of Helen. I heard she moved to North Carolina. Hope she’s still teaching.  Every kid needs a Helen Graf for English.

FAS

The Tree Syndrome

Firmly rooted in fertile

Research, the sapling

Sends no buds aloft.

Its destiny lies in the

Stunted undergrowth;

Its only acquaintances—

Scrub of similar stature.

Pity the life not knowing

The forest of towering oaks

To which it ought to aspire.

America's Secret Education War

The essay below was my second published op-ed piece. It ran in August of 1999 in the South County Journal (Kent, WA) and the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, WA) under the editor’s title, “Hang Down Your Head, John Dewey.”  Have things changed for the better in the intervening years?  My writing career was just beginning.  My teaching career had less than a decade left.

FAS

America’s Secret Education War

The most important war nobody noticed began in 1968. Its first hero was Dr. S.I. Hayakawa, president of San Francisco State College. Armed only with the courage of his convictions and a small bullhorn, the diminutive linguist stood alone against a mob of protesting students bent on shutting down the school. The Battle of the Little Bull Horn was a Hayakawa victory, but it became traditional education’s last stand.

In the thirty-one years since, the enemy has won decisive victories on every front. The enemy is progressive education. Inspired word, progressive. Who could be against progress? John Dewey’s progressive model empowers the child. Traditional classrooms with authoritarian taskmasters were just too demanding, too achievement oriented. For Dewey, learning was a natural outgrowth of each child’s innate curiosity. Little wonder why his ideas still appeal. What child would choose drill over play? Though Dewey’s methods failed in experimental schools, a progressive underground survived.

It took the turmoil of the Vietnam War to provide Dewey disciples with the smoke screen they needed to infiltrate college campuses. America’s sons faced death in Vietnam daily. On the home front, the youth of the ’60’s challenged every American tradition. With America’s social fabric being torn apart, who could worry about curriculum?

Required courses were the first casualties in the education war on America’s campuses. The revolutionary battle cry was, "Give us ‘relevant’ courses." Inspired word, relevant. It quickly made converts; especially when students learned relevant was just a euphemism for easy. Soon traditionalists found themselves out-numbered or at least out-shouted. Pandemic rioting forced curriculum surrender. Progressive-inspired anarchy replaced traditional standards on American campuses. Students gained the foothold Dewey zealots needed.

Undergraduates stopped learning facts and started sharing feelings. Rebellious protesters held group therapy "seminars" and called it learning. Empowered by their curriculum victory, hardcore progressives expanded the battlefront. They set their sights on the next generation of teachers. When protesters from the ’60’s became education professors, the hallowed halls of traditional education came a tumblin’ down. Dewey’s ideas now had clout. Traditional education was doomed. Capitulation soon followed.

Structured classrooms were purged. Student-centered learning environments were promoted. The format clicked at the college level. Why stop there? Soon teachers at all levels metamorphosed into facilitators. The new "guide on the side" emerged from the old-fashioned "sage on the stage." Educators everywhere chanted, " I don’t teach subjects. I teach children." Few saw the ironic half-truth of their mantra. Most couldn’t teach grammar, for instance, because they’d never learned any. Traditional requirements for education degrees no longer existed.

Now-a-days memorization is a relic; discovery is the future. Educators eagerly embrace higher level thinking skills—even in primary grades where kids aren’t ready to analyze or synthesize. Everyone blindly accepts that children naturally want to learn. Everyone eagerly agrees that each student must learn at his own pace, in his own learning style. John Dewey’s ideas have won.

Progressives are in charge from the federal level to the local level and most union positions in between. Most traditional teachers have quit or retired by now. A wise minority switched to church schools or private schools. The isolated few who remain in public schools have become the Neanderthals of education.

So why are home-school numbers at an all-time high? Why are most Americans fed up with public education? Because thirty-one years of frivolous fads and techno-panaceas have made NO progress. The work I did in high school thirty-three years ago would pass for college work today. I’d call that REgressive, not PROgressive education.

The latest silver bullet, universal testing, won’t change a thing. My state’s test, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), is a sham because progressives concocted it. Progressives also evaluate it, and public schools will teach to the test until the results prove kids ARE learning what progressives value. It’s a self-fulfilling heresy, and it’s shameful.

If my nine-year-old daughter doesn’t understand the symbolism of the poem on the state-mandated test, I DON’T care. Can she spell? Can she punctuate? If she fails to explain a mathematical process in her essay, so what? I really DON’T care. She’s just a fourth grader! I want her to know her times’ tables. I want her to do her arithmetic without a calculator. The WASL doesn’t test the skills I value.

It’s time for those of us who still believe in traditional education to fight back. Though we seem outnumbered, and we face an entrenched bureaucracy, perhaps our time has finally come. We should start by confronting those addicted to progressive ideas. They need to admit they have a problem. Their methods have never worked.

We should be prepared for widespread denial. Our best intervention tool is Project Follow Through, the most comprehensive education study in history. It PROVES progressive methods don’t work. Follow Through covers the years 1967 through 1995, that is, from around The Battle of the Little Bull Horn until mid-Clinton. Could the timing be more perfect?

Progressives will find it hard to argue with the cold, hard facts. Whole language does NOT work; traditional phonics does. New math does NOT work; traditional drill does. The billion-dollar study says direct instruction gets the best results. Student–centered classrooms flunk. So says the study. So what are we waiting for?   

Public education has sacrificed America’s sons and daughters on the altar of John Dewey’s specious dream. Progressive education has been a monumental mistake. To have a future, the entire system must change. We must re-establish proven traditional methods. We need subject experts in structured classrooms using direct instruction. We need a balance between content and process, and we need high standards. Not everyone will earn an A. Not everyone will have fun. Learning will require hard work. Who said growing up would be easy? Who said life would be easy? Saving public education won’t be easy either.

Great American leaders have always rallied this country behind the great causes of our past. At the beginning of a new century, we need a new leader to rally the public around the great cause of our present. Traditional America must reclaim the public education system. When our public schools abandoned tradition in the sixties, they turned to the left to follow progressives. We’ve been herded their way for over thirty years. Enough! To save our schools, we need to return to traditional methods that we KNOW have worked. That return will require a focus to the right. It’s not just a question of politics. It’s the right course for all Americans. It’s not just the future of American education at stake. It’s the future of America.