Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting. In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance. - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
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Sunday 19th July 2009,
from noon-2.30pm,
at 10715 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA 98133...
to discuss Broad Foundation and other corporate influence in the Seattle Public School District...
SPS Board Director Harium Martin Morris will attend...
All welcome, including children...
For an insight into community concerns re Broad, see:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28765366&postID=8474647497939761140
Also we will begin the SPS Mass Complaint Direct Action campaign.
RSVPs appreciated to 206 297 7511
If numbers necessitate, larger meeting space has been booked at the Library on Yesler Terrace... Notification of a change in venue will be sent out ASAP.
Namaste
Sahila ChangeBringer
AS#1 parent and BLT member
"This decline in both countries may reflect a poor fit between children's developing psychological needs and school settings," Wang said.
As I wrote on another thread, instead of fixing a flawed system, we say our kids are flawed...
How about taking an alternative education approach to this issue - find out what kids are really interested in, allow them to explore those topics, activities to the Nth degree and build in 'core' academics (that are present in everything anyway) into a format that nurtures their passions....
Obviously, we can't do that, but we can draw from all of the brain research that's been done in the last few decades and create a middle school program that might be more likely to keep our students engaged.
My son, some months ago, entering this adolescence shtick, burst into tears one night at dinner, and when I asked why, he said, "I don't know! My body's sad, but I'm not!"
I feel for any teacher who has to deal with this kind of irrationality. Little kids and grownups are bad enough!
I do think, however, that middle school is, sloppy as it is, a waypoint to further schooling. If kids are left behind there, it's really hard to gather them back up again.
I cant copy and paste any of the writing from this introduction to Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline, but this thinking is the difference between Broad and the SPS District's meddling in education and the core of what real education is about....
There is such an eloquent and plainly true description of what education is today and how we are raising our children...
Please go and read it....
and then come back and tell me that what's going on in SPS (and the education system generally) is OK....
No the Education system is not OK but in general is the system we call the industrialized society much better?
When I read this:
"This decline in both countries may reflect a poor fit between children's developing psychological needs and school settings," Wang said.
I thought it could also be the child's place in society.
Senge makes an interesting point that systems themselves create and then perpetuate problems.... that people dont seem to get that the system is merely a collection of people buying into a particular belief system.... that it then becomes some 'concrete' thing with a life of its own... and people dont realise they can change the system and the problems IF they change their thinking about the system and the problems...
It so simple and obvious is laughable to the point of hysteria... except for the part where one realises the incalculable damage done to individuals and the costs to society as a whole...
I wonder if its because there is a perception that biology is seen as a 'soft' (organic = feminine ) science, whereas physics, chemistry and higher math are 'hard' (manipulative = masculine) sciences...
I think its a question of stereotyping and gender-identifying more than computer and video games overuse myself
I thought we were talking about high school subjects, not college.... sociology and psychology arent available as subjects in high school, are they?
I just think that of the science subjects available in high school that might appeal to a testosterone-filled male brain, biology might be seen as 'soft'...