Update

Just a note to update my blog:

I recently finished the book, Real Education by Charles Murray. I plan on reviewing it here when I find time. The book was a breath of fresh air for me as a school administrator because it is a candid discussion on contemporary issues in public education. So rarely are we candid about what works or doesn't... In short, the author debunks 'romantic' ideals motivating the course of public education today.

I am also half way through the sobering history of imperialism that has defined Latin America since the coming of Christopher Columbus. The book is The Open Viens of Latin America. More to come...

And how about that Obama speech in Cairo!

Pirates, Bandits or Desperadoes?

The situation in Somalia has been desperate for decades now. Civil war is common in that part of the world. The forces behind it are mostly man-made -- gun runners, political manipulators, religious insurgents, etc. As a result, there has been famine for years . However, in the news today is the manifestation of that story. And it is being mistaken for the story itself.

The media conveniently uses the term "pirates" because of the sensational images it evokes of seafaring naves doing battle with maritime vessels; only now the buccaneers are black teens and not long-haired outlaws from Europe. They carry AK-47s, not sabres. They are still desperate and lawless. Image if gangs from Oakland to Los Angeles were to go unchecked for years...The Bloods and Crips, or some other gang, could likewise turn the southern coast of California into a playground for boat-cruising stick up men...Because someone will always be there to provide the guns, if nothing else.

Image the international tourist trade possible by maximizing this coast line...

War torn Somali soldiers... They have been fighting for decades now.

When the conflicts were mostly on land, this band of desperadoes on pick-up trucks were known in the media as "technicals." They have traded in their trucks for motor boats, so now they are "pirates."
Women in traditional dress. Possibilities for a better future are based on treatment of the women..."The hand the rocks the cradle rules the world."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nro-jzD7Bwk&feature=rec-HM-rn

OBAMA OPENS UP CUBA

After decades of getting mad at the little kid on the playground for showing us up on the court, President Obama's administration is taking a step toward grown-up diplomacy, by improving our relationship with the people of Cuba. Good for him! Even better for the pro-Cuban lobby, including the Congressional Black Caucus. Their persistence is paying dividends.

The United States has greatly improved relations with communist Viet Nam, despite thousands of American soldiers dead from our interventions. We have always maintained open diplomacy with Russia -- even during the "cold war." And we implore the Chinese to buy our debt, when they purportedly have the worst human rights record of any industrialized nation. Why not Cuba?...

Paying for Grades

The latest gimmick for duping black people into a handout mentality, further undermining our genuine brilliance and drive, is to pay for better grades. This is a farce, and it will not work. As long as education is not pursued for the sake of building basic learning skills, satisfying wonder, and gaining the immense self-confidence that comes from completing an ardous task, there is no reward.

There are many reasons why a public education should stay "free." Compensating children now will undermine their ambition, not increase it. And if you think there is a bullying problem in public schools now...Wait until the science nerd starts hauling in a bigger "pay check" than the woodshop student.

Then again, spending a few million dollars paying the children of the poor for a marginal improvement on their report cards, could muzzle the cry for spending hundreds of millions on job creation for their parents...Hmmmmmm?

National Art Gallery

Last week I visited the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. for the first time. It certainly will not be the last. Infact, one visit was not enough time to see it all. Nevertheless, the gallery was magnificent. On display were some presentations that will make an art enthusiast stop and marvel.

Rededication

Tonight, I informed my "friends" that I was going on hiatus from my Facebook activity. I do not have much liesure time, and what down time I do have I found that I was spending it "keeping in touch" on FB, and not updating my own blog. FB is a very user-friendly platform -- to their credit -- but it was becoming habit forming. Infact, I have yet to finish a draft on education that I started close to a month ago. So, here I go, back to my own blog where I hope to attract dialogue over subjects of greater interest to me. Let's face it, FB has not been found to be a magnet for weighty interests. I have not abandoned FB altogether, however...Just going on hiatus.

I am perplexed over how to garner more attention for my site, so if any of you happenstance readers have worthy tips for me, I am all eyes. I am going to try more pictures with captions, and even some video commentary. Stay tuned. Or perhaps I should say, tune in!

Schooling IV: Defiance

This installment of 'Schooling' was prompted by a teacher at the middle school where I am vice principal. She was compelled to rant after being faced with yet another bout of in-your-face student defiance that occurred during her lunch duty. Willfull disobedience disobedience best describes it. My collegue was justly exasperated from it. This problem can be so pervasive in some schools that it takes on a subculture of its own and it can be difficult to discern. It occurs all over the public school landscape, but it is a particularly a troublesome phenomenon on the middle school level when adolescent children began to assert their will more stridently. Teachers are mostly caught off guard despite the lessons on adolescent development we should know. Now let me not approach this topic sheepishly.

If it is true that public schools in general get a bad rap, then it is especially true that "urban" schools get maligned for the failures they manifest. Dozens of movies have been made with the theme that goes..."Predominatly Black and Hispanic schools are out of control." Dangerous Minds and Lean On Me are two of the most memorable examples of cinema depicting urban schools that are all but unsalvagable. Recent documentaries on Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore Maryland, and Little Rock High School in Arkansas remind us that the problem is not purely ficticious. In fact the issues are prevalent and real. At the core of problems in most of these schools, weather they are large metro schools in Los Angelos or Chicago, or small urban villages such as the middle school where I am assistant principal, is an entrenched subculture of apathy and disrespect for authority connected to poverty.

Sometime we conveniently refer to a variety of societal factors in order to obsolve students for not engaging opportunities that public schools still hold for them. However, few people discuss the impact of individual will on a student's achievement or failure in school. I contend that the law of attraction manifests in school frequently. Just as water and dust find their own levels and collect to create a dominant environment, so to do poverty and apathy. People often over look, or disregard the fact the public school districts are the major employers -- if not the only employers in many low income communities. Consequently, the contrast between community norms and common middle class expectations of most America schools becomes blurred.

In as much as I am an adminstrator of public schools, and a Black person, I am not given over to apathy on the subject, nor am I motivated by self-loathing. Instead I feel compelled to explore answers to these all too familiar phenomenon, and address myself to their installation when I can. That brings me back to my collegue. When there exists in schools an unbridled inclanation by many students to do as they please, without regard to authority, your school has been seriously undermined by social norms that make educational success a virtual impossibility for the school's majority.

When aggregated, student defiance of routine direction from teachers, and their antipathy for rules constitute the majority of infractions in most schools. However, when schools are sizable and obstinance is so frequent that it demoralizes teachers, it can create a stagnant pool for negative norms to culture and grow. Norms that burden a school with the invisible pull of their gravity. In affect, it becomes likely that only a fraction of your most fortuitous students will succeed on par with pupils in schools where a traditional learning environment prevails. Until administrators hold truely high expectations for both the routine and infrequent conduct of pupils, and stand against the enabling behavior of some parents and staff, more lofty aims for academic achievement will be weighted under by a culture that works against them. Novel prescriptions like school uniforms and affirming speeches will never be more affective then a persistent expectation for mutual consideration and respect.