Seems like every time someone sticks their head up in Albany the press and public takes a shot at them. Now it’s Cumo. Who’s next? It would really be funny if it weren’t for the fact that with all this stuff going on not a damn thing is being done in the state legislature.
New York State Government aka Whack a Mole
March 8th, 2010Why I Type Funny
March 7th, 2010I want you to understand, the mistakes I make on my posts are not due to lack of spelling or typing skills. I learned both fairly well plus having spell-check helps. The reason for most of these errors can be seen below.
It’s called Dupuytren’s contracture whereby the tenons in my hands become tight which has caused, in the last 10 – 15 years, my pinkie and ring fingers to slowly curl up into my palms. In the pictures I have my fingers extended as far as they can go. This means when I type I will inadvertently hit the wrong keys and, unless I proof carefully some words get misspelled. While most of the time the spell-check catches it, it will not when I hit an “i” for and “o” or “r” for “t” and end up with “our” for “out” or “hot” for “hit”. Often I just miss making these kinds of corrections.
There are several interesting things about this “contracture”. For one, it is inherited. Often called Scottish or Norwegian fisherman’s disease, it is found in populations that have Scandinavian ancestry. In fact, it is used to track the movement of the Vikings in their European conquests since it will appear only in those populations where they left genetic material. Second, it is fairly much incurable. While it can be repaired surgically the cure will only be temporary–one of the reasons I haven’t sought to have it done. Fortunately it does not prevent me from grasping a golf club so I can still pursue that form of torture. Aside from not being able to straighten out my hands, there is no other side effect unless I grab something that I cannot release–then it hurts like hell. I can no longer set a volleyball, BTW. Interestingly too, I seem to be the only member of my extended family that is so inflicted.
If any one else out there has this, I’d be interested in know how you are coping.
The Junk Drawer
March 3rd, 2010My dear wife decided to clean out the junk drawer in the kitchen yesterday. Now this is the drawer everyone has, usually in the kitchen, where you toss little pieces of stuff that you may need at some point but never do. In our case, once she removed the assort tools, appliance instruction booklets, phone book and upper layer of things we knew were there, she unearthed a lot of interesting stuff most of which neither she nor I had an idea of what it was for.
To wit:
A black rubber thing that looks like a spacer between to wires but then could be a bumper for something in either the current refrigerator or refrigerator, dishwasher or microwave we long ago discarded.
A two-piece, inch and a half sliver tube with holes in one end and along one side—one piece slides inside the other. Looks like a whistle but isn’t—I almost herniated myself trying that.
A Kodak AA battery that is no longer has a charged.
A long light bulb that may fit in either our refrigerator or refrigerator freezer—the last time one burned out I bought an extra. Chances are if the current bulb burnt out I’d forgot I had it and go buy another.
A halogen light bulb that might go to the yard light over the garage door—or not.
A small battery and an empty package for a SR41W battery—they maybe go together but the numbers on the bottom of the battery are so small, we can’t read it and even if they do, we have no idea what they are for.
Half a dozen flashlight bulbs that may be good but we don’t have a flashlight that they work in.
Two small light bulbs that may be for the lights that used to be along the sidewalk between the house and garage that we tore out when we remodeled 12 years ago.
Six keys for luggage or brief cases—no idea which or whether we still have them—can’t lock luggage any more anyway.
A bunch of keys for locks or doors or whatever—since none are labeled I will have to try every lock on the place to see if we have someplace they work. Chances are pretty go that, once I toss them, I find one I missed.
A florescent light starter.
Sockets and extensions for a ratchet screwdriver handle that, since the ratchet no longer worked, I think I threw away—maybe.
Several rolls of tape that no longer could be unrolled since it had hardened.
Two tubes of glue that has hardened.
Eight circular key rings—no keys on any of them.
4 fancy key chains—one labeled “to house”—none with keys attached.
A bunch of chain type key chains, all unhooked.
Three ballpoint pen refills that may or may not work that were taken from discarded pens just in case we got another pen that uses the same innards.
A small tack hammer whose head it so loose that it can no longer be used—unless someone fixes it which wasn’t to happen since “someone” didn’t remember it was there.
Two small springs.
Assorted screws, nuts, bolts and small nails—nuts did not necessarily fit bolts.
Two note pads each with a couple of sheets of paper.
Two bicycle pants clips—not something you see every day.
A package of assorted O-rings.
A pad lock with, miracle of miracle, the key attached.
A kitchen cabinet hinge.
A black plastic, T-shaped thing that looks like it belongs on the end of something like a faucet.
With exception of the glue and tape, and because “Hey, you never know.” all of the above were returned to the drawer. I figure in the next millenium some archaeologist is going to be really confused.
Railroad (Double) Crossing–a new novel
February 1st, 2010
My second novel to be published in a year is now available. Like the first one it is set in a fictitious area of NYS and is wrapped around factual events. This time it is the toy train hobby, something I was/am involved with. There is a lot of inside information about the hobby besides the story itself about a brother and sister put in peril because of a toy train they inherited. Warning, however, there is some adult content.
As with Minimum Competency, this novel is available from iuniverse.com, Amazon.com or can be ordered by your neigherhood bookstore. I’ll have copies of the new one available, along with the other of my two books in Bartles in Oxford and First Edition in Norwich.
Catharine’s Diary Ready
October 9th, 2009I’ve finally seen and approved the proof copy so they are ready to go. If you want information about the book see the link in the previous blog entry. The price is $12.95 plus tax and postage from Iuniverse.com or Amazon. I’ll have copies in about a week for $15 each including postage/tax. Also there will be a few copies available locally–First Edition in Norwich and Bartles in Oxford.
Catharine’s Diary
October 3rd, 2009
Front cover
This book is at the printers and I expect to see and approve the copy next week so it should be ready in another week or so. I’ll post when this happens.
To see a bit about the book click here.
NYS Commission of Education
September 12th, 2009This last summer the NYS Board of Regents appointed a new Commission of Education, Dr. David Milton Steiner. Below is a quote from Dr. Steiner in re to the topic of my Sept. 9 blog.
“New York has consistently led the nation in raising academic standards, and it may well be time to do it again,” Steiner said.
He also targeted the state’s 92% average passing rate on a teacher certification test, which state schools chancellor Merryl Tisch highlighted in a recent Daily News op/ed. “Now, we have extraordinary teachers in New York, don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “Nevertheless, it seems to me that a gateway certification test that has that high a pass rate should give us pause, and we need to take a look at that.”
Sounds like more of “same old, same old”.
Of course Dr. Steiner comes with impeccable credentials.
First he was, primarily, raised in Great Britain where he went to private school excepting for one year when he attended PS41 in NYC. Therefore he never had to put up with bullies trying to steal his lunch money or unruly classmates that required his teachers’ attention thus taking away from classroom instruction time. (Unless, of course it was Hogworth’s in which case he will need all the magic he can muster.) He then graduated with his BA and MA in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College at Oxford University and finished up by getting his PHD in political science from Harvard University. All of which certainly qualified him for absolutely nothing but further work in academia and allowed him the credentials to apply for grants. Additionally, like all academics, he published a few books to survive in the hallowed halls.
Then from 1999 to 2004 Dr. Steiner was a professor at Boston University’s School of Education where he taught in the Department of Administration, Training and Policy Studies and the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. I wonder how many of his students were forced to take his courses in order to graduate, how closely he had to hew to curriculum set forth by an outside agency, how long he spent creating lesson plans, writing and correcting tests, and explaining his grading to parents? He then moved to Hunter College where his main concern seems to have been in teaching prospective teachers to teach. I assume these were not any of the 8% that failed the teacher certification test.
(This latter position seems to have been one of the strong points in gaining him the Commissioner’s job since Steiner developed a curriculum at Hunter from 2005 to 2008 that supposedly improved teacher training. Inasmuch as it takes at least 5 years for a new teacher to “prove out” I would be interested to see if this methodology actually holds up and how many of those trained by it are, in fact, good teachers. Since education innovation takes time to work or not, only time will tell whether this experiment is a real breakthrough or just another of those failed novelties dreamed up in the Ivory Tower of academia. Likewise, this “experiment” was, like most of done in the field of education, hardly scientific in that there were no control groups or blind testing.)
My main point is this: Steiner is just one of a long line of educational administrators who are in charge of NYS education and have never spent an iota of time in the classroom. Or, if they have, have been either unhappy in their role of teacher or dismissed from their position. As such they and their ilk have absolutely no idea what is it like to teach. Nor do they realize the problems that teachers have to overcome; from poor parental support, apathy on the part of students, and asinine administrative directives just to being to impart knowledge to their students. Until those in charge of education realize that they need input from teachers in the field, the system will flounder and only succeed in spite of the people at the top, not because of them.
Education and Testing
September 9th, 2009Ok, school’s started so enough with golf and lawn mowing, time for more important stuff like rounding up all the urchins and getting them wedged back into school soon enough so they can be taught for the Regents’ test. For those of you that need information on NYS Regents exams, see my latest book Minimum Competency where I give an extensive history of these exams. (If you don’t have the book, buy one at IUniverse.com, Amazon.com, BarnesandNobel.com, eBay or have your friendly local bookstore order one for you.) At any rate, I was one of those teachers that happened to have liked the idea of these state-wide exams, depending on how they were used.
First they keep teachers and schools on task and up to minimum levels. A teacher has to teach the curriculum not concentrate on one area where he or she feels most comfortable with. An English teach can’t teach just Shakespeare, for example, ignoring literature. Or a history teacher just concentrate on wars because they kept their students interested but has to create interest in the causes and effects. A math teacher can’t emphasize algebra and leave out trigonometry because they feel out of depth with it. A teacher has to be able to get across every aspect of their level or go back to school to become competent in it. Likewise, testing results are a good indication as to where a particular student falls in relation to others in the state. This allows schools of higher learning as well as employees to know what level of knowledge these students have achieved no matter where they learned it. At the same time it allows teachers at the next level to know that the students coming to them have reached a certain plateau in their knowledge—although, admittedly they forgot most of it over the intervening summer—so they have a starting point for the next level. Finally, it gives the students a feeling of confidence just knowing they not only have reached a certain level but are on a par with their peers at that level.
There is a bad side as well. Primarily this comes from reading into the test results things that are not there. For one thing, poor scores are not necessarily indicative of poor teaching or poor learning. Not all students learn at the same rate any more than all of them grow and mature alike. To say that once a student completed a single year in, say algebra at age 14, doesn’t mean they learned everything in that course. Maybe the child needed more time, a different teaching method or outside incentive. A failure in one or the other of these exams may simply mean there needed to be more and/or alternative teaching. Noneducators (by these I mean anyone outside the classroom either administrators, state ed department functionaries, or parents) tend to jump to the wrong conclusion when looking at test scores and blame them on either teachers or students when there can be outside influences to poor scores. These influences include, but are not limited to: a bad test, the testing of material outside the acceptable content of the curricula, the wrong students (or teacher) being expect to learn (or teach) that subject at that point in time.
Even more of a problem is the thinking by those in the Ivory Tower of the Educational Department that not everyone should be able to pass a particular test. But if these tests are designed correctly then all of the students should be able to achieve whatever is considered the minimum score. In other words, if a test is fair then all the students should pass it. While, granted, all don’t, if they or at least a substantial number of them do, then so be it. The problem is that this isn’t the case. Some in the upper echelons of education has recently decided that because the state’s schools are showing marked improvement on the elementary Language Arts, Math and Science exams that these exams are becoming too easy. Maybe it’s time they decide what it is they want; educated students or lower marks. Obviously if, in the beginning, a standard was set then it should remain. Unfortunately too, many people in Albany have too much time to sit around and think of ways to make themselves important at the expense of those in the trenches.
Regents’ Exams or standardized tests are great if they are used correctly. Unfortunately, what is failed to be recognized is that these tests are being taken by many square pegged children who cannot and should not, be fitted into a nice round hole. While it is fairly easy to test to see if every Buick rolling off the assembly line will start, there is not sure way to be sure that every algebra student can graph a straight line. Also, while starting a Buick may be important to its function, graphing a straight line may not be to that child. What should be done are for someone—preferably teachers with classroom experience in the field working with those outside the educational system—to decide what is needed and what the minimum standards should be. Then design a curriculum around these standards and work up testing that, while checking for perfection in the topic, will allow all those who meet these standards to “pass”. Once this test is tweaked so these standards are met, leave it alone and allow children and teachers to move passed them at the student’s rate, even if it means taking more (or less) time than noneducators think it should. That will make testing meaningful.
NY Senate Coup and A Modest Proposal For State Government
June 9th, 2009One thing about the legislation in Albany always has been that it could be safely ignored. For the most part our distinguished representatives appear twice a year: in the fall when they run for reelection and in the spring when they’re taking turns arguring with the governor as to who is causing the budget to be late. Between these two seasons, excepting for an occasional pop-up in the local news when they are pushing some sort of pet project in an attempt to get reelected, they tend to disappear.
Not this year.
Seems the Republicans were unable to come to terms with the fact that, after thirty some years, they had lost their majority in the State Senate. (That it happened last fall and took them nearly seven months to realize this before trying to do something to regain control, comes as no surprise.) At any rate the Republicans came up with a plan whereby they could regain control by bringing a couple of dissatisfied Democrats into their fold (given this is NYS, finding dissatisfied Democrats is just a matter of throwing a rock in any direction. Plus they picked a couple of good ones; one is being investigated for misappropation of funds and the other is under indictment for slashing his girl friend. Do we elect solid citizens or not?). The carrot for this seems to have been promising one of the Democrats, Pedro Estrada, that he would be tempory president of the Senate under this new coalition. (Hey, Pedro, the word is “tempory” how long to do think you’ll hold this position once a couple more Republicans are elected?) Rather than do this last fall when there wasn’t a helova lot of legislation to do, they picked the end of the session to create this brouhaha, effectively ceasing any kind of legislative progress that might have been done before they take their extended summer vacation (and gear up for the fall elections). I especially like the reasoning: The Republicans needed to get control because the current, Democratic-led Senate was not getting anything done. Yeah, right, like they aren’t going to be embroiled in a “He said/ He said” legal fight from now until the end of the session. Plus, of course, the previous 30+ Republican-led Senates weren’t exactly task oriented.
For a long time I’ve felt that there needs to be something done to reduce the number of idiots in the legslative branch of the govenment. To my way of thinking, the best way to do this as well as cut the cost of government was very simple; just double the number of people each State Representative and Senator needed to represent. This would simply slash the number of people in both bodies in half. Not only would the cost drop by at least a third(yeah, a third because those left would need more money) but, hopefully, with twice the number running maybe we’d get a real choice. At least it would retire half of the incumbents that have held the same office for years. When you stop to think about it, the district sizes are formed using arbitrary numbers arrived at back in a time when travel and communication were a problem. In this day of airplanes, helicopters, Interstate highways, television, computers, Twitter, Facebook and whatever, anyone that is interested can be instantly in contact with anyone, anywhere. Any legislator could just as effectively represent 2 people as 1 and their job could easily be down-sized. Of course this would require a change in the state constitution but it would be doable. It could also work for the US House of Representatives as well. All that is needed is someone to get the ball rolling.
OK, We’ll Try Again
June 3rd, 2009
I’ve seen the revised copy and it is corrected so feel free to purchase one at your friendly local book store (they may have to order it unless you can get them to stock it), any on-line book outlet including Barnes and Nobel and Amazon, or from IUnivers.com. Enjoy.
Now on to the next one.