What Education Really Needs: Money

Back in the 1980s, during my first stint as a teacher, I remember watching a movie with Nick Nolte and Judd Hirsch called “Teachers.” It wasn’t critically acclaimed, but I enjoyed the movie as I could relate to some of the characters, at least a little.

Most of the characters were caricatures. There was a teacher they simply called Ditto, because he continually hogged the copy machine. There was the obligatory jelly-spined whiner that couldn’t control his class. And there was the physical education coach whose hobby was getting students pregnant.

The movie was recently released on DVD so I felt compelled to watch it again. Although the movie reflected only a superficial resemblance to school life back in the ‘80s, I was struck by how much teaching has changed over the last two decades.

Back then, I could see how it might happen, despite the movie’s hyperbole. Today, it could easily be a satire.

My second career as a teacher began about four years ago. The students are different, because the environment is different. Instead of teaching average suburban kids in high school, I’m now teaching inner-city eighth graders. But I’ve taught eighth graders before, and there isn’t that much difference.

In the movie, the school is being sued by the parents of a student who graduated without the ability to read or write. He couldn’t even fill out a job application. The mentality of the administration, from the superintendent down to the assistant principal, was that the job of the school was to get as many kids through the system as possible, as quickly as possible, knowing full well that a good number of them would slip through the cracks.

The main goal of the administration was to appease the parents and keep any bad news out of the media. So instead of firing and prosecuting the perverted gym coach, they simply transferred him to a different school.

In the move, the education of the student body, if it occurred at all, was just a positive side effect of self-preservation.

Of course, today, schools and administrators are forced by the No Child Left behind Act into an opposite situation that may be just as detrimental to education. Theoretically, the kids come first with every decision made.

The unfortunate side effect of this policy, however, is that the vast majority of students who are most likely to benefit from a good education are being cheated by a mandatory focus on the underachievers and the incorrigible.

Schools are obliged by law to improve their students test scores and other indicators every year. It’s called Average Yearly Progress, or AYP. If a school fails at this for more than four years straight, the state can come in and take over the school. Schools try to avoid this as it could lead to a lot of jobs being lost.

But it is nearly impossible for some schools and school districts to meet AYP because there is no money to hire enough teachers, to fund needed programs, or to even buy enough basic supplies that teachers need, such as paper. Ditto, from the movie, couldn’t survive in today’s climate.

So, on the one hand, teachers are told they have to find ways to increase test scores and attendance. On the other hand, when a science class has 44 students on the roster in a classroom that was meant to hold 24, the learning environment becomes problematic at best.

If education really is a priority, as it should be, then the state and federal governments must make funding them a priority as well. Whatever it takes, more teachers must be hired to avoid the huge class sizes, science labs must be appropriately equipped, and the blame for poor test scores must be removed from the teachers, who are doing the best job they can under the circumstances, and placed where it belongs. The real blame is a severe lack of funding.

Some say throwing money at the problem won’t make it go away. But if the money is used for the right stuff, I disagree with that assertion. Money, and lots of money, can make the biggest difference in the world. Just look at the success of schools that have it.

Using Signs of the Weather

Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a particular place and time. Lore is a traditional belief. From these two definitions, we get weather lore, which is a collection of proverbs and sayings that have been passed on from generation to generation over hundreds of years, generally in rhyme.

The purpose of weather lore was to instruct early farmers, sailors, herdsmen, and others on how to predict the weather. Its poetic nature made it easier to pass on to later generations. People who make their living outdoors depend on the weather. That has always been the case. Today, meteorologists make use of satellites, weather balloons, super computers, Doppler radar, and a complex communications network to produce reasonably accurate daily weather forecasts.

In earlier times, however, folks had to rely on other weather indicators to advise them on what kind of plans to make. Some of these indicators have a true correlation with factors that do affect the weather. Others have no relationship at all to the weather.

Many weather signs and sayings can really be used as a guide to how the weather is likely to develop 12 to 24 hours in the future. By making correct use of weather lore, you may find yourself with the ability to outguess the real weatherman with your own forecasts. At any rate, it may provide you with a greater appreciation of how the weather is interrelated with other elements of the natural environment.

An example of a saying that might hold some scientific validity concerns the house cat: “If the cat washes her face over the ear, it’s a sign the weather will be fine and clear.”

Cat fur can build up static electric charges when it gets very dry. During times of low humidity and fair weather, especially in the winter time when it is very dry, a cat may lick its fur in order to moisten it. Moist fur will shed electric charge and prevent static discharges, which annoy the cat.

Or consider this one: “When sounds travel far and wide, a stormy day will betide.” Sound travels better in air that is heavily laden with moisture than it does in dry air.

Of course some sayings make no scientific sense at all and if they do predict the weather it is only by accident. For example, many people repeat the old adage that the darker the woolly worm in the fall, the more severe the winter. But there is no scientific evidence that woolly worms know what the winter will bring.

Although weather lore can still be fun, and in some cases even accurate, knowledge of how weather works is much more reliable. Knowing, for instance that weather systems generally move from west to east is helpful if you know what the weather is like to your west.

That knowledge is easy to come by in this day of instant communication via the Internet. The Weather Underground site at wunderground.com is one of several sites that can show you what the weather is like anywhere. It even lists dozens of live outdoor cameras that ordinary people share over the Internet so you can actually see what is happening in any part of the country. I have my own weather camera listed.

I’m still afraid of severe weather, mostly high winds. But I know as long as I stay indoors, lightning is not likely to be a threat. So it’s only high winds that bother me now. The rest of the weather still fascinates me after all these years.

For an extensive list of weather sayings, visit SkyWatch: Signs of the Weather.

Just Two Foods and a Drink Please

Kids are really great at playing make believe. It’s sort of what they do. But even as adults some of us like to imagine various “what if” scenarios. One of my favorites concerns food.

No, it’s not imagining what if I could eat all I wanted of anything without any ill effects on my weight or health. That’s fun to imagine, but it doesn’t involve much thought. A better question that I sometimes ask friends and family is, “If you could pick only two foods and one drink to consume for the rest of your life, what would they be?”

Ok, first some ground rules: Water is not a food product and we will assume, for the purpose of this exercise, that water will always be available. Secondly, condiments are not food products. We can use whatever condiments we wish to dress up our chosen foods. And finally, a food product cannot be an aggregate of several different food products. For example, you cannot select lasagna as one of your chosen foods because lasagna consists of pasta, beef, cheese, and tomatoes. That’s four separate food products.

Now, when I ask people this fun question, I get lots of various answers. Most often, though, people tend to select the foods they like best. My daughter chose chocolate and pasta as her foods with Coke as her drink.

But remember, the game rules state that you must survive on your choices for the rest of your life. That means you should pick items that you’re not likely to get tired of too quickly, that you can prepare in a variety of ways, and most importantly, that will actually sustain your existence.

When I reminded my daughter that neither chocolate nor pasta had any significant vitamins and that she would likely develop scurvy in short order, she had to rethink her choices.

Many people love potatoes. Potatoes can be prepared in myriad different ways, so there is not as much chance you will tire of them over time. You can have baked potatoes, home fires, french fries, mashed, scalloped (but only if your other food choice is cheese and your drink choice is milk), or potato chips. But it’s doubtful you could get the entire spectrum of nutrients from potatoes alone. Still, it might be a good choice, depending on what you pick for your other food and drink.

Pasta is another possibility because, again, it can be prepared in a number of ways. But, like potatoes, pasta is nutrient poor. A lot of the world’s population relies on rice as a staple, so you might think rice would be a perfect choice. But that’s only if you eat the long-grained brown rice, since all of rice’s nutrients are in the husk.

I’ve thought about it, and personally, I’ve decided on two foods that I enjoy eating but can be prepared in numerous ways and are also likely to sustain me for a long time, along with my drink of choice.

The first food I would select is cheese. There are all kinds of cheeses and they can be prepared in a lot of different ways in combination with my second food choice. That second food choice is the egg. I love eggs and I love cheese. So I can make scrambled eggs with cheese, boiled eggs, omelets, pepper jack eggs, and so on. Eggs are perfect protein foods. Cheese has a lot of calcium for my bones and teeth. Eggs have a nice supply of omega-3 fatty acids.

But what about my vitamins? That’s where my drink choice comes in. I love vegetable juice. I would pick V8. It has lots of vitamins and anti-oxidants. Plus I love it.

I had no problem picking cheese as my first food choice, because cheese is one of my favorite foods. But my second choice was a toss up between eggs or fish. I like them both, and fish is probably healthier, but eggs are more versatile. So the scales tipped in the direction of the incredible, edible egg.

Thankfully, though, back in the real world, nobody has to make those choices. I can eat both eggs and fish. But it’s sometimes fun to imagine.