Our local district education referendum passed, which should make me happy. There will be adequate funds for books this year, which is a rare and blessed event. Ironically, I'm somewhat depressed about the whole thing. The reason for this has to do with a whining blogger who posted his dark, dreary, unsubstantiated opinions on our local forum. It's kind of ridiculous, really; that I should be affected in any way by his references to the black hole of education funding...and yet I am.
The segment of the population who are so totally convinced that government waste is overwhelming and pervasive baffle me. Education, social services, and a range of other functions that the government undertakes are in many ways impossible tasks. When a company builds a product, it's clear to everyone involved whether it works or not. If your widget does what it is supposed to, then you're happy. If not, you get your money back. It's obviously harder to determine whether the poor have an adequate safety net, or a child has an adequate education. We can't even agree on the characteristics of a well made product, so how can we possibly know whether our system is efficient. The very idea of waste in such a system is problematic.
Which isn't to say that waste isn't part of the deal. Any of us could walk into any government agency and pick away at expenses we deem unnecessary, and we might even reach consensus about something. But my guess is that many of the things we might eliminate are existant to an extraordinary degree in the business world. I don't know. It's just aggravating. We tape the bindings of decrepit paperbacks, need supervisory approval for colored paper, take classes of 39 or more students to labs that have 32 computers...but since test scores are flat we must be wasting money. Test scores, there's a topic for discussion...but not today.
On the positive side, I have 115 intelligent high school students every day that I have a blast working with. There's no question in my mind that they are not a black hole.
Wow...something more constructive is in order.
I had a great moment in class today. My freshmen were supposed to have created a text (which is broadly defined) in response to the novel, The Secret Life of Bees. One of the students wrote a piece of music using the Garage Band software and played it for the class. It was a very haunting piece, reminiscent of George Winston's work. What was really cool was the way that the discussion wove around different elements of the text that were evoked by the music. Another student did a mime performance, which prompted a lengthy discussion in which the students made metaphorical connections between the performance and the struggles of the protagonist, Lily. It was interesting, because the performance was a fairly literal expression of a moment in the text, but the student's response to the performance was almost entirely metaphorical. Although the class really focuses on academic writing, this activity is designed to create a range of abstract responses to the text that the students can synthesize in their writing. It's always a treat when it works the way it's supposed to. :)
Hmm...well, enough for today.
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It's hard to imagine how a classroom engaged in any kind of debate could be wasting time. It's interesting how quickly adults forget that most of our time spent in school can be mind numbingly boring; and how appreciative we are when something interesting happens. The connection between activities and learning is so much more subtle than people give it credit for.
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