I Can Fix Our Math Problem

 

That is a pretty bold statement considering we are one of the worst countries in the developed world when it comes to math scores.  Years ago, while teaching math at the junior high level, a group of us math teachers came together to decided ‘enough was enough.’  We studied the problems we were having teaching basic math to seventh grade students.  It quickly became clear that the problem was their lack of basic skills when they entered junior high.  Many of them did not even know their multiplication tables.  A larger percentage could not add, subtract, divide or multiply numbers with any consistency. Fractions and negative numbers were considered by most students the equivalent of learning calculus!  Our problem was moving forward in the math curriculum with students who could not do basic math, so this placed us in the proverbial stream without a paddle.

We decided to attack the problem at its source.  The first day of school, we brought all the seventh graders into the multi-purpose room and tested their basic math skills.  If I remember correctly, the test had about four problems in addition, four in subtraction, four in two and three digit multiplication and the same number for two and three digit division.  We collected the test, graded it, and to our astonishment, only about 20% passed!  I remember sitting there with the other math teachers in total shock!  Almost 80% of our seventh graders could not do basic math, and this was almost 20 years ago! For a while we just sat there wondering if this was a fixable problem.  At this point we had little choice but to continue on with our plan, since it was designed to fix this type of problem.

There were about 100 students and five teachers in the class.  We divided the students into five equal groups and headed off to our classrooms.  After three weeks of instruction in basic math, we brought the students back into the cafeteria to test them on basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  The results were catastrophic!   As we teachers sat there in total shock looking at the results of our feeble attempt at teaching basic math, we began to realize the depth of the problem. Three weeks later we tested them on the four basic math groups, with the addition of decimals, with equally dismal results.

This is where we deviated from the norm, requiring every student who did not pass the two tests with an average score of 75% or higher to retake the first unit in basic math.  This amounted to almost 75% of the seventh grade.  The students who passed with a 75% or higher moved on to fractions.  The remaining students were reassigned to a teacher who would re-teach the first unit.  At the end of six weeks we tested them again and promoted them according to whether they passed their test with 75% or higher.

At the end of the year, a mere 12% of students made it through all six units.  Each year our scores and passing rate improved despite the fact we did very little different.  We finally determined that the improvement was coming from the elementary schools teachers who were feeling the backlash from our program.  Students were coming in with better basic skills thus allowing them to move more easily through our units.

Our program lasted five years with steady improvement in our basic math test scores, and then it was scrapped for reasons I cannot remember.  We all knew that we were doing the right thing by ensuring that our students KNEW basic math!  I met one of those students recently; he thanked me for making sure he could do basic math and said that he is amazed at the number of people he meets who could not do simple math.

Here is my solution:

1. I am offering my services to the school system to help teachers develop a math program for the high school to begin fixing the problem. Here is what I propose.

a. all up and coming ninth grade students will be tested on basic math skills.  The test will be developed and checked by the high school math team.  In order to move on to the higher level math classes, they must pass this test.  If they wish, they will be allowed to retake the test during the summer.

b. All students who fail to pass the competency test will be required to enroll in remediation program which will be set up similar to what we did 20 years ago.  Every nine weeks they will have the opportunity to move to the next level of the program.  This would be treated as a general math credit towards graduation with nine weeks being 1/4 credit.

c.   At the end of the year any student who does not pass the remedial math program would be required to retake the class or pass the basic entrance test given prior to the beginning of the program.

d. The four units would be:

Unit 1 – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and decimals

Unit 2- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions with the addition of ratios

Unit  3- All the above with positive and negative numbers

Unit 4- Higher level math to be decided

I make this offer fully aware that the school administration will ignore my proposal.  As an experienced math teacher I know first hand what is going on in our public schools but believe it can be fixed if teachers and administrators are willing to make bold decisions.  What we are doing IS NOT WORKING.  This is no fault of any one person but the result of a complex mixture of social trends leading us down a very steep and slippery slope.  WE CAN FIX IT IF WE REALLY WANT TO.  The initial impact of a program like this would be enormous as the onslaught of unprepared students fail to meet standards, but there has to be a beginning and I can think of no better time than NOW!

While discussing my idea with an fellow math colleges he made the comment that we should do this in the 6th grade!  I believe he is right!

One last thing.  Do not be fooled when you hear that the high school is starting a new math program.  All they are doing is changing the name so that we can not tell what is being taught!

The new names are Math 1, Math 2, Math 3 and Math 4.  How nondescript can you get?

My number is in the phone book.

 

 

North and South Korea Together Again

Okhwan with his bike

Many of us have watched as North Koreans mourned the death of their ruler Kim Jong Il.   Groomed to take his place was his son, Kim Jong Un, who few know anything about.   Since the North Korean press is merely a puppet of the government,  the information we were shown was highly suspect.  In what seemed an unrelated event at the time, my son  noticed a biker near our local market.  He called me to asked me if I wanted to check on him to see if he needed a place to stay.  I jumped into the car and drove up to the market where I saw a lonely biker standing in the dark looking quite forlorn.  I quickly notice he was Oriental  and then saw that he had no seat on his bike.   I introduced myself; he introduced himself as Okhwan; we chatted for a short time, and then feeling comfortable with him, I asked if he needed a place to stay.  He quickly answered ‘yes,’ and then I instructed him to head down the road as I would followed with my lights since it was dark.  Soon we arrived at our home.   Okhwan parked his bike and soon became a guest in our home.  I suggested that he shower and clean up a little while we found something for him to eat.  After a short time we were sitting in the living room, asking questions and getting to know our guest.

The seatless bike

We quickly learned the he is from South Korea and on a very long bike trek for the ‘unification of the Koreas.’  He has been riding his bike for almost TEN YEARS in over 190 countries, covering almost 300,000 miles!  Many of those miles were done without the advantage of a SEAT!  It seems that Okhwan decided early in his ride that removing the seat and increasing his discomfort would convey the pain and misery the splitting of his mother country has endured for over 50 years.  He explained that many families were divided by this split, never to see their relatives again. When I asked him about the crying and sobbing that was shown on TV when Kim Jong iL died, he said it was all staged for the international media, and that most North Koreans were happy that he was dead and very fearful of his son!

Many people ask me why I let strangers into my home.  I cannot count the incredibly enriching evenings we have had with bikers who have stayed with us through the decades.  We have had bikers from all across our country and many parts of the world.  They have blessed us with numerous great stories and infinite wisdom.  We feel that our lives are better because of the exposure to so many different people, their adventures and cultures.  Okhwan is a wonderful person who genuinely believes in peace and that ordinary people can bring about real changes in the world.  The only bad thing about Okhwan’s visit is that he left too soon to be able to meet many of our friends.  He says he will be back some day.  He is currently biking across the mid-west in route to San Francisco where he will board a plane and return to his home in South Korea where he plans to run for Congress.  I wish him all the luck in the world!  He has in his unique way devoted his life to PEACE.

Sue and our Okhwan as he gets ready to continue on his journey

If you wish to read more about Okhwan I have several links you can use.

A recent article after he left our house.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/188198/2/Korean-cyclist-rides-for-peace

His blog.

http://www.okhwanstory.blogspot.com/

A new beginning

Over the last three months I have had the good fortune of working with a young man named Seth.  As a home-bound teacher I am responsible for instructing him in mathematics and science. My wife takes care of the other subjects, like English and History. Teaching Seth math has been an up-hill battle to determine what he knows and what he does not know, but over time I have patched up his math skills and taught him a little science as well.  Seth represents an increasing part of our young population who come from broken homes and are moved from place to place, rarely knowing the feeling of a secure home.  About a year ago his aunt and uncle took him in and gave him a loving and stable home.  They enrolled him in the Hampshire high school but this did not work out well for him.  Because he was Angry, combative and confused Seth was taken from the school environment and placed in a home-schooled environment which better suited his temperament.  From the moment I met Seth I wondered where the angry young man was who had been removed from school because he was polite, witty and sometimes hard-working.  Overall, he was a delightful young man.

His aunt and uncle who are now his legal guardians were advised that the Mountaineer Challenge program would be a good place for Seth to be.  This is a program which takes young adults who may not function well in the public school system and gives them a fast track to their GED and a military career, if they so choose.  The program has been in operation for several years and has helped many young people gain their footing in society and thus become productive citizens.  Many have had successful military careers.

In a couple of weeks Seth will leave for Kingwood, WV, home of the Mountaineer Challenge program, and begin a demanding program to get his GED and early entry into the Navy.  Sue and I want to wish him all the luck in the world and hope that he will occasionally stop by to keep us informed of his journey through life.  The mountain in front of him is very steep and there are many hidden obstacles lurking in the bushes, but with determination, Seth will make it.  A special word of gratitude goes out to his aunt and uncle who given him the chance he needed to leave his past behind and strike out in a new direction.

A Christmas story revisited

Last year, about this time, we were visited by a traveler by the name of Nao from the country of Japan.  It was a very enjoyable visit and I felt I needed to write a short story . Shortly after writing it a friend commented that it was a great Christmas story.  I thought for a moment and said yes, I guess it is.  Like all Christmas stories I felt that this one merited retelling so here it is and I hope all my friends have a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

After Nao returned to Japan, his country suffered a massive earthquake and tsunami which Nao and his family survived with minimal damage.  From his last message he is anxious to hit the road again and explore another part of our planet.

Naotaka Maehara arriving in Augusta

The other day my friend Steve Bailes called me up to ask if I would be interested in housing a young man from Japan for the evening.  He is riding his bike across America, having left from Vancouver 70 days ago.  He was coming from Clarksburg and would arrive on Saturday if things worked out. I agreed, and contacted Nao (pronounced NOW which is short for Naotaka Maehara) by email to invited him to stay with us for the evening. He replied that he would like to stay with us Saturday evening.  The next two days were interesting as I stayed in contact as much as possible via e-mail. If you remember, this past Wednesday and Thursday we experienced our first major snow fall of the season so Nao was right in the middle of it with the continental divide directly in front of him. To make a long, involved story shorter, he made it across the mountains to our home by 4pm on Saturday.  I quickly suggested he take a bath to get warm. He agreed and headed for the bathroom.  About an hour later he emerged, hungry, relaxed and anxious to get to know us.  Steve had asked if he could come over and meet Nao so I suggested that we do dinner ; at about 6pm Steve and Terry arrived.  It was one of those magical evenings that happen so rarely. We talked, exchanged stories and ate until we were ready to pop.  Nao turned out to be charming, pleasant and a very gracious guest.  I will remember the evening for a long time.  With my fading memory that could be months from now.   After dinner, us guys went down stairs to give Nao’s bike some tender loving care, which it needed badly. We reattached the front racks, cleaned and oiled the chain, pumped up the tires, and gave it a quick inspection.  Later Nao and I went upstairs to spend almost two hours planning his route to New York City. He was ready for his journey to continue in the morning. After I went to bed, Sue stayed up until midnight talking with Nao about who knows what.

Relaxing after dinner

The morning came; Nao had several bowls of cereal and began to ready himself and his bike for his journey to New York City where he was scheduled to arrive on December 23. We created a Skype connection so that he could contact us with his computer, if needed.  Shortly thereafter, Nao headed down the driveway.

After Nao had left, we found a note in his bedroom.  In the note was a twenty-dollar bill.  At first I considered getting in the car and catching him to give back the money but after reading the note I decided not to.  This is written in Nao’s own words.  He has only been learning English for three years. I’m impressed!

“I met woman in that time. (before he met us)                                                              She listened my serious talking and gave this $20 to me. She gave money and I received money.  And also I received her kindness.  She said, “I can’t help you now, but use this money and stay in hotel. I want you guys receive this $20.  I mean it is not a staying fee, it means a woman’s kindness.”

I will keep this twenty and pass it forward when the time comes. Experiences like this one only intensify my belief that life is about the people you meet and the memories  you take from those meeting.  My only hope is that someday I will get to see Nao again!

Does Captain Kirk know his times-tables?

 

Engage

I am a Trekkie, which means that I have watched Star Trek since the beginning and probably watched every episode numerous times.  I enjoy Star Trek because it paints a picture of a world in the future where people respect one another and greed is almost non-existent.  It was a great show and prompted many social science research papers by doctoral candidates.

I woke up early this morning with an important question and so went to my computer to bring it to the attention of my readers.  Did captain Kirk know his times-tables?  At first glimpse this may seem like a dumb question, but with a little thought it blossoms into a very interesting query.  Captain Kirk had access to amazing technology, much of which has come to fruition in our time.  He could talk to his computer, which we can also do.  He never had to write or take notes, just scribbled his initials on some report that was handed to him.  Although he professed to read, he did not have to, since anything he wanted could be spoken to him by computer in a pleasing and sometimes sexy voice. I wonder how good his math skills were since he never had to use them much past the conceptual stage.  One has to wonder if the captain knew his times-tables, or did he simply rely on the computer or a small calculator that he probably carried with him to help him through these calculations?

As you may know, I taught Mathematics for much of my teaching career and during that time watched as students knew less and less mathematics. Certainly everyone has his story of how he learned the times tables while attending grade school, but I would raise the question as to whether recent generations will have similar stories.  Like many decisions made in modern education, educational authorities, whoever that might be at the moment, have decided that knowing ones simple times’ tables is not a worthwhile skill in our modern technological society.  Add this to the recent push to eliminate hand writing, and the future looks a little grim.  Sure, some of you will say that Cosmic is stuck in the past, and I am sure there is some truth to that; but I make this simple question, can a strong house be built without a foundation?  Many people like to spout off that Einstein failed eighth grade math.  This may be true, but I bet it was not because he did not know his times tables.  I would wager as well that he was able to pick up a pen and write a note.

I would like to point out that historically, very few human beliefs that were not based on good science survived the test of time.  For example, Earth is not flat nor do planets circle the earth.  It was long believed that taking blood from a sick person made him get better.  Eating wheat and corn, which we use to fatten up our livestock, will make a person thin – and the list goes on.  I believe education has suffered from the same effect.  My generation and several before it benefited from more than a decent education.  Most of us can write, read, add two numbers in our head and know the multiplication tables.  The same cannot be said of students graduating today!  I believe that if we gave a graduating class a ninth grade level test as a gateway to receiving a high school diploma, a very high percentage of seniors, nation wide, would not graduate!

So maybe everything that we have decided is good for education is not!  Maybe teaching six-year olds how to use a computer before they can write their name or use a calculator before they can do simple math is not what is best for our children.  Maybe this huge push to put a computer in the hands of every student will, in the near future, turn out to be a BIG mistake. It is possible that we might decide that building a good foundation is better than skipping to the fun stuff.  Please do not misunderstand me, I LOVE MY COMPUTER. As a comparison, if as a child I was given a Honda four-wheeler before I was given a pedal bike, I doubt that I would be riding a pedal bike today and probably would be a few more pounds over weight.

Cute video called EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.

Testing in our public schools

I did not write this but I think it is important enough post!

It is hard to not say, “I TOLD YOU SO!!”

Posted at 04:00 AM ET, 12/05/2011

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.

 

By Marion Brady

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.

He called me the morning he took the test to say he was sure he hadn’t done well, but had to wait for the results. A couple of days ago, realizing that local school board members don’t seem to be playing much of a role in the current “reform” brouhaha, I asked him what he now thought about the tests he’d taken.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.

“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.

“I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession.

“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”

Here’s the clincher in what he wrote:

“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.

“It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”? How?”

“I can’t escape the conclusion that decisions about the [state test] in particular and standardized tests in general are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.”

There you have it. A concise summary of what’s wrong with present corporately driven education change: Decisions are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.

Those decisions are shaped not by knowledge or understanding of educating, but by ideology, politics, hubris, greed, ignorance, the conventional wisdom, and various combinations thereof. And then they’re sold to the public by the rich and powerful.

All that without so much as a pilot program to see if their simplistic, worn-out ideas work, and without a single procedure in place that imposes on them what they demand of teachers: accountability.

But maybe there’s hope. As I write, a New York Times story by Michael Winerip makes my day. The stupidity of the current test-based thrust of reform has triggered the first revolt of school principals.

Winerip writes: “As of last night, 658 principals around the state (New York) had signed a letter — 488 of them from Long Island, where the insurrection began — protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance.”

One of those school principals, Winerip says, is Bernard Kaplan. Kaplan runs one of the highest-achieving schools in the state, but is required to attend 10 training sessions.

“It’s education by humiliation,” Kaplan said. “I’ve never seen teachers and principals so degraded.”

Carol Burris, named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, has to attend those 10 training sessions.

Katie Zahedi, another principal, said the session she attended was “two days of total nonsense. I have a Ph.D., I’m in a school every day, and some consultant is supposed to be teaching me to do evaluations.”

A fourth principal, Mario Fernandez, called the evaluation process a product of “ludicrous, shallow thinking. They’re expecting a tornado to go through a junkyard and have a brand new Mercedes pop up.”

My school board member-friend concluded his email with this: “I can’t escape the conclusion that those of us who are expected to follow through on decisions that have been made for us are doing something ethically questionable.”

He’s wrong. What they’re being made to do isn’t ethically questionable. It’s ethically unacceptable. Ethically reprehensible. Ethically indefensible.

How many of the approximately 100,000 school principals in the U.S. would join the revolt if their ethical principles trumped their fears of retribution? Why haven’t they been asked?

 

Being bruised

I enjoy answers that are not too complicated, answers that most people can understand.  One such answer is from the question, “What makes us grow up?”  The answer is bruises.  With my own children, when they were young, any time I could allow them to suffer a little pain that might help them avoid more serious pain or injury, I monitored the event and allowed them to experience a little negative feedback.  For instance, we had a fire-place insert in our living room.  Whenever one of my children was learning to explore and became more mobile, the first thing that interested them was the fireplace.  What a spectacular display of colors and lights!  How could anything that great looking possibly be painful?  It was my task to allow them to experience the heat without suffering serious effects.  For some children this might simply involve a walk-by and the intensity of the heat would be deterrent enough.  For other children this was an invitation to something wondrous.  In this case, monitoring became more intensive, and because of the persistent nature of my children, eventually an encounter with the fireplace.  Once they managed to touch the stove and get a small burn they knew forever that the stove was dangerous and to be avoided at all cost.

Occasionally our children would wander off in a mall.  My approach was to follow them as they explored, keeping just out of sight and letting them wander about for a time.  Once they realized that they were lost and became frightened, I approached as if nothing was wrong and asked them what they were crying for.  They would reply that they could not find us.  I would explain that, that is why we wanted them to stay close so that they did not get lost.  I see parents who put their children on leases and walk them like animals!  This is because they are too busy worrying about their own problems rather than allowing the child to explore in a safe manner.

I believe today’s society has decided that no one should experience negative reinforcement.  The talking heads in our society have convinced us that good self-esteem comes from parents and teachers constantly telling the children they are doing well.  THIS IS NOT TRUE and is shown to be such by the ongoing deterioration of our society and school systems which believe everyone should get an “A.”  We are a competitive species, which is why we survived and many of our evolutionary cousins did not.  If we are in a situation that does not create a little tension we get bored!  Think about our history; we are consummate explorers.  At no time in our history were we happy with where we were.  We first left a continent, then crossed oceans, climbed every mountain, and now we are reaching for the planets.  When we do these dangerous things, people get hurt and some die.  The tremendous pain we felt as a culture when the Challenger exploded as it made its way towards space is a good example of our determination to explore the unknown.  Everyone at NASA knew there was the potential for catastrophe with every launch and prayed that it would never happen.  When it did happen, they bowed their heads and grieved for the astronauts and their families, but after a time of comprehensive investigation into the reasons for the shuttle failure, we were back at work preparing for another safer launch.  We learn so much from failure!  Failure is not a bad thing.  Sometimes we do our best work while sitting in the sites of failure.

Long time ago when I was a student, my favorite classes were the ones that challenged me.  If I decided that a class was easy and would do little to make me a better person, I lost interest.  When a class challenged me, I took it very personally and worked harder to achieve.   It is helpful to understand that I was not the best student, in any way, shape or form.  My parents were too busy trying to make a living to spend a lot of time reading to or teaching me.  I was pretty much on my own when it came to education.  Sure, they always wanted to see my report card to praise me if I did well or yell at me if I did poorly, but that was the extent of their involvement.  Somehow I learned to read well at an early age so that when I was about 10, my mother bought me a subscription to the ALL ABOUT BOOK SERIES, which sent a book about science every month. This I read over and over until the next one came.  Because of this I became somewhat knowledgeable in many areas of science.

Because of my background, I experienced much bruising as I grew up.  I learned about failing when I did not make a ball team, when my grade were low and things did not go as I wanted them to go.  In short I learned the consequences of not applying my self-sufficiently.  I became a better, stronger person because I experienced failure; no one kept me from its clutches.

So much in our world is designed to eliminate failure.  Very few of our children are allowed to fail.  To fire incompetent employees is next to impossible.  Teacher are encouraged to not fail students or to give low grades.  Swimming is discouraged unless there is a life guard.   Many activities are not allowed unless the absolute maximum safe guards have been taken.  Many of these restrictions are good for people, but there has to be a limit.  Europeans I have met are amused at our propensity to ensure our safety!  Failure is part of life.  It is what helps us find our way.  A society that has eliminated the possibility of failure is a society with its head in the sand, drifting towards a time when many will long to experience failure simply out of intolerable boredom.

Thank you world for my bruises!

How crazy can it get?

The classroom of tomorrow...or today.

Many of my readers are teachers and so may understand this issue more than others who have not experienced the modern school system.  Let me explain the latest insanity that is occurring at our local high school, and I am sure is happening in schools all across the United States.  It used to be that schools provided education and students brought their lunches from home.  As society began its long, slow decline and the family unit became more stressed, the school picked up the job of making lunch for the children.  Over time this evolved into serving breakfast.

The current classroom has about 45 minutes of total class time for teacher instruction.  Subtract from this the five minutes at the beginning of class to take role and perform various useless activities to keep the state and county administrators happy.  Most students think class is over at least five minutes before the bell rings despite what the teacher says or does.  This leaves us with 35 minutes of actual of class time.  Recently, it came to my attention that we now allow students to take valuable time from their second period class to leave the room to get breakfast if they missed it or did not feel like eating breakfast with the rest of the student population when they arrived at school.  It is hard to imagine that a student on the Hampshire campus, (which is rather spread out) can complete this task in fewer than 10 minutes.  So now we are down to 25 minutes!  Couple this with this with the fact that the students will be eating their breakfast during class, which involves opening containers, rustling bags and throwing things away and generally not concentrating on learning and we have a hyper-dysfunctional class.  If you read my recent blog about our low position in the world with respect to education, one has to wonder what is going on!

Class time is sacred!  How in the world will we ever improve on the use of our instructional time if we allow this kind of intrusion into the instructional day!  When will the parents and teachers stand up and loudly voice their concern over the misuse of instructional time?  It is impossible for me to understand the point of view that continues to be indifferent to the erosion of this special time.  My hope is that sometime in the near future, teachers will insist that their class time is their time and so no one has the right to take it from them!  After all, they are judged by their student’s scores, and yet everybody under the sun has the right to remove children Willi-nillie from a teacher’s classroom.   How can teachers be expected to teach the full curriculum unless they are given their fully allotted time?

If people became half as excited about our education system as they do about sports, we would have the best schools in the world.  I have always said this:  If parents and teachers were half as enthusiastic about our education system as they are about sports, we would have the best schools in the world!  Parents, teachers, it is time to stand up and be counted.  It must be stated to the folks with the power that all instructional time belongs to the teacher and no one else!  This system will get better only when teachers fight to make it better.  If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem!

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Fracking meeting on Wednesday

Be at Hampshire high school on Wednesday the 15th of November, 6pm, to learn about fracking and its potential effect on our county.  This presentation is brought to you by the West Virginia Extension Office.  Hope to see you there!  Help us protect our county now, not when it is too late to do anything!

The biggest conspiracy since bread, sliced or otherwise.

No longer the way to stay healthy

In fact, this on is all about bread!  Most people do not realize that we are the only creature on this planet that suffers from diseases like diabetes, heart disease and gout, just to name a few.  Do you think it might be related to our lifestyle and diet?  I think the answer to this is a resounding YES!  Let’s retrace a little human history.  Before we invented agriculture, we roamed this planet free of disease.  Of course, life was generally short due to ever-present dangerous conditions and day-to-day survival but evidence exists from fossil records that we did not die from any of our modern diseases. In stead we died from being eaten by a predator or getting an infection or freezing to death in a cold winter.  Most anthropologists think there were roughly a million of us around in the first million years.  Our numbers were low due to scarce food supplies and the dangerous environment we lived in.

This type of lifestyle continued for many million years until a very smart human (sarcasm) discovered that we could survive by eating grains, and more important, we could grow this grain in large amounts!  Thus, you have the beginning of the agricultural revolution.  This was a great thing for human-kind because now there was much more food available and it could be stored for the winter to sustain man through frigid weather.  Something else also began to happen.  People became heavier; yes, these were the first obese people on the planet. Most attributed this to increasingly more availability food, but today many are now starting to believe this may have been the beginning of our move to the heftier side of life.  There have been numerous studies (the Mediterranean diet) on isolated groups of people who have no heart disease, no diabetes or no obesity.  Many of these studies have been done with possible predetermined outcomes selecting cultures that do not eat meat with little or no heart disease as well as cultures that eat mostly meat but are never the less very healthy.  I think the answer is too close for us to see, i.e. that we lack sufficient impartiality.   Every culture in the world that have adopting the modern way of eating has developed the same diseases that plague us.  The one food that seems to becoming an ever-increasing part of our diet is processed food.  Remember when grandma and grandpa had eggs and bacon for breakfast almost every day of their long and healthy lives?  Maybe they were closer to being on the right track than we think.

Another way to look at this is from the vantage point of power.  In order to have a large workforce or army one needs a way to feed many people at the same time.  It is very difficult to feed a large number in the more primal non-processed way.  So those in power learned that they could feed lots of people by replacing good, natural foods with processed food made from grain.  Using this agricultural breakthrough, those in control could massively increase population as to have a big army and large workforce.  This worked well when the average age of humans was in the 40s but now that we are living much longer so that the effects of this type of eating are showing themselves.  The average male graduates from high school weighing around 150 pounds.  Eating what is considered a good diet filled with whole wheat grains and carbohydrates, he will gain at least one pound per year during his lifetime.  If he is careful about what he eats, by the time he is 50, he will weigh about 180 pounds.  Since a sedentary man quits adding muscle after his mid 20s, all he is adding is fat. Couple this with the increased tendency to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, life is no longer fun after his 50th birthday. Check this chart out on blood pressure statistics in America.

Age	Men (%)	Women (%)
20-34	9.2	2.2
35-44	21.1	12.6
45-54	36.2	36.2
55-64	50.2	54.4
65-74	64.1	70.8
75 and older	65.0	80.2
All	31.8	30.3

http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm

Note that men and women between 55 and 64 have a 50% chance of high blood pressure!  That means that if doctors and pharmaceutical companies have their way, half  of us Americans over the age of 50 will be taking blood pressure medicine! If this does not strike you as strange, I think you are missing the point.

Folks, this may come as a surprise to many, but you are being hoodwinked.  The big food companies know what is going on and they know what is causing the health problems in our country. TV is telling you how to eat but your health is the last thing they are concerned about!  Please do not just take my word for this!  Do your homework!  Read!  Read!  Read!  If you are one of the many Americans who are watching your waistline grow, your blood pressure rise and sugar levels climb, take action!  Take the time and effort to learn before it is too late.

If you want to learn more about this new approach to eating, go to

www.marksdailyapple.com and read what Mark Sisson has to say.

You can also search out the words Primal Diet or Paleo diet and to see very similar advice.

If you are on one of the many cholesterol medicines, check out this site.

http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/risk/coronary.html

It is never too late to start eating right, so get on board today!