Archive for May, 2011
Girls Lacrosse: First Round Score Updates
May 31st, 2011
Abbie Searl, Cami Santor and Nicole Geist each had three goals as Glastonbury beat NFA 21-1 to kick off the Class L girls lacrosse tournament Thursday. The Tomahawks (13-4) opened the first round with goals from 13 different players. But they weren’t the only area team to pick up a lopsided victory in Class L. Cheshire defeated Conard 13-6 with five goals from Kathleen Kalvian and Hall got a 20-5 victory over Shelton as Alannah Boyle had five goals and Olivia Morin and Hayley Mullins each had three. The only other area teams to pick up victories were Granby over Sacred Heart 16-12 and Northwest Catholic 18-11 over East Catholic in Class S. Windsor, Old Lyme, Morgan, Southington, South Windsor and Simsbury all saw the season end Thursday with tough defeats.
Tags: First, Girls Lacrosse
Posted in Education Sport Notes | No Comments »
Houston: Liftoff
May 30th, 2011
Last September I blogged about an unusual assignment. The Houston district superintendent, Terry Grier, wanted to launch a turnaround effort in 9 of their worst schools, in collaboration with Harvard economist Roland Fryers EdLabs.
We were fortunate to have the chance to help out.
MATCH sent a little posse down there. Pictured are Patti, Tim, Cathryn (along with Jeremy, who was the superintendent overseeing all 9 schools). We also sent Christie, Erica, and Eli for shorter stints.
The idea was to help the turnaround effort, called Apollo 20, conceive and launch a program modeled on our MATCH Corps: to recruit (in 6 weeks!) and train 250 full-time math tutors, design a curriculum, etc.
Now, 9 months later, test scores are out. So howd it go? Heres what the Houston Press used as a headline on Friday: HISD Lesson for Today: Tutoring Works, Now What Do We Do?
The HISD press release has the details:
Sixth-grade students who were enrolled at Apollo 20 schools for the entire school year posted an 85 percent passing rate on the TAKS math exam, 22 points higher than sixth graders at those schools in 2010. Their “commended” rate is now 30 percent, an 18-point jump from last year.
Apollo 20 ninth graders enrolled the entire school year also made great strides with the help of the math fellows. These freshmen produced a 72 percent passing rate in math, which is 16 points better than last year’s freshman class. Their “commended” rate is now 20 percent, an 8-point increase from 2010.
.
Roland says kids will do even better next year. I believe him. Moreover, I believe that improvement is critical.
Lets be real. Its great that more kids passed. But the passing bar is low. Even with all that work by kids and tutors, that accomplishment is not nearly enough to change life trajectory for most kids. Those same students could, with the help of Apollo tutors, reach advanced status, which is called commended in Texas.
MATCH definitely learned some lessons in our first year of having full-time tutors (2004-05). HISD and Apollo will too, Im quite sure. Tim (tall guy pictured above) remains in Houston. Best wishes to him, Brandi, Jeremy, Roland, and Terry on helping kids make the Climb To Commended.
Tags: Houston, Houston Liftoff
Posted in School Advisory | No Comments »
More resourceful, empathetic: Faculty, staff recall Peace Corps benefits
May 30th, 2011
PULLMAN, Wash. – Fresh out of college, horticulture degree in hand, Wayne Shull was gung-ho, and wanted to solve the worlds food problems. Gary Collins found himself energized by John F. Kennedys call to action: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. Shull and Collins recently joined fellow WSU employees Sara Schofield and Doug Young to share their Peace Corps experiences with about a dozen prospective WSU student volunteers. After watching a video and learning some facts about the Peace Corps – it is 50 years old this year, the average age of volunteers is 28, more than 200,000 people have served; there are 42 WSU volunteers serving – the audience listened and asked questions about the real life experiences of the WSU staff and faculty panelists.
A gain, not a loss
Dont think of the experience as two years that will be lost out of your life, cautioned Collins, who served in Lome, the capital city of Togo, 1966-68. Instead, Look at the time as a stepping stone to the rest of your life. These sentiments were echoed by Young, who served in Kenya 1968-1970. He said the experience is the start of the rest of your life. It makes your life richer. It certainly was a life enriching experience for Young, who met his future wife on a blind date on a street corner in Nairobi. She was serving with the Norwegian Volunteer Service in Kenya.
Adjusting to a slower pace
What does it take to be a successful Peace Corps volunteer? Literature handed out at the meeting used terms such as flexibility, adaptability, patience and resourcefulness – to handle scenarios such as: two years of showering in cold water in the Andes, living without a hair dryer, using yardsticks and buckets to do science experiments, and setting up for a 10 a.m. meeting and not having anyone show up until noon. Wanting to help people grow and eat better food, Shull worked with large seed manufacturers in the United States to acquire seeds and also got lentils from the Palouse. The Colombian farmers enthusiastically grew the fruits and vegetables and sold them at the market, but continued to eat a diet of beans and rice. Shull had to temper his gung-ho attitude, learning to be “tranquilo,” patient, about what he could realistically accomplish. Getting used to a different concept of productivity and time meant that there was a lot of unbusy time. Volunteers used that time to read, often by lantern or candlelight, and reflect on their lives. Each had periods of adjustment from the fast-paced life in America to the slower rural pace of their host countries. Schofield stopped wearing a watch during her service in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, in 2002-2004. She laughed as she spoke of the fact that they were on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), which she and other volunteers dubbed Gambia Mean Time.
Modern communication eases isolation
Communication for the volunteers serving in the 1960s and 70s differed greatly from Schofields. The major form of communication for the earlier volunteers was letter writing, which meant about a month turnaround from writing the letter to receiving a reply. Often there was only one phone in the village and calls were very expensive. Schofield was able to communicate daily via text messages so she did not have to be out of touch with people at home or other volunteers in-country. Re-entry to the United States was a reverse culture shock for the older volunteers. They experienced anti-war protests, seeing TV again, and driving a car after two years of not doing so. It was like learning to drive all over again, said Shull.
Able to relate to international students
When asked what impact the experience had on their careers at WSU, the common theme was improved ability to relate to international students and their challenges in a country where they are non-native speakers in a different culture. Because of the number of international students at WSU, this understanding has especially helped Schofield, who works in the Athletic Department and Health and Wellness Services, and Young, who has mentored many of these students during his career. Collins returned to the U.S. energized to enter graduate school. Schofield said her supervisor, Dennis Garcia, told her that her Peace Corps experience got her the interview for her job. She was coming from New York, and the search committee did not believe she would move to Pullman. Garcia convinced the committee that if she could survive in West Africa for two years, she could handle Pullman. Shull was able to take advantage of the non-competitive status the Peace Corps service afforded him for government jobs, landing a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on campus. Young, who worked on a United Nations Kenya government livestock survey project, got an opportunity to spend 18 months in Brazil because of his Peace Corps experience. After that stint, he came to WSU and said his experience as a minority in another culture helped him to be a more effective faculty advisor to international students.
Encouraging today’s volunteers
The consensus of these Peace Corps volunteers is that their lives are better for having served for two years in a different country. Shull gives talks to Peace Corps volunteers who are about to leave for their assignments and is considering returning to South America when he retires from WSU. No longer the gung-ho 20-something he was in 1978, he is looking forward to the slower pace of life – tranquilo.
Posted in University Business | No Comments »
As Oregon graduates prepare for finals, anxious dreams surround them
May 29th, 2011
David Snook, 27, Gresham, will graduate from Portland State University this month with a degree in chemistry, but first he must pass finals in ecology, biology and philosophy. He’s not worried and never dreams about the exams. But he did dream — more than once — about instrumental analysis last term. You sit in a classroom and your teacher puts an exam on your desk. English History during the Middle Ages?
You know nothing about it. You forgot you ever signed up for this course. You’ve not cracked a single book. You’ve skipped every class. And if you don’t pass this exam, you don’t get your degree. You reel between dread and panic.
And then you wake. Sometimes sweating.
Seniors in Oregon’s public universities cramming for final exams next week may never have had the exam dream. But chances are they will. In earning a college degree, they’ve become prime candidates for the nightmare for decades to come.
It is among the most common anxiety dreams, says Dr. Alfred Lewy, professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University, probably because everyone spends a chunk of life in school.
The exam is a symbol of a test in waking life, maybe a presentation, job interview, relationship or performance. Lewy says the dream also raises the question, “Is there something that I have overlooked in my life that I should be prepared for that I haven’t prepared for today?”
David Snook, 27, Gresham, will graduate from Portland State University this month with a degree in chemistry, but first he must pass finals in ecology, biology and philosophy. He’s not worried and never dreams about the exams.
But he did dream — more than once — about instrumental analysis last term.
“It was the hardest lab I’ve ever done,” he says.
He had a 15-page lab report packed with tedious measurements of ion concentrations in various solutions. If he didn’t complete it, he wouldn’t complete the lab, and without the lab, he wouldn’t graduate.
In his dream, he finishes, but turns the lab report in a few minutes late. The lab assistant refuses to accept it.
He’s ruined.
Dreams for decades
People have the exam dream or a variation of it long after they take their last final.
“I left law school more than 40 years ago, and I still have that dream and not infrequently, as recently as the last couple of months,” says Paul Kelly, president of the State Board of Higher Education. In his dream, Kelly says, “I realize the week before the exam that I’ve never gone to class. I have no idea what has been covered. I have to read the whole textbook.”
State Sen. Mark Hass of Beaverton, chair of the Senate education committee, connects his exam dream to a persistent fear of flunking when he juggled work and school during his years at the University of Oregon.
“I guess I kept that fear with me,” he says. “I can see an old professor’s face in my dream, and I’m walking into class and everyone is taking this test, and I don’t have a backpack, and I don’t have any paper. I ask, ‘What’s going on?’”
Jim Francesconi, an attorney, vice president of the higher education board and former Portland commissioner, says he has had the exam dream 10 to 15 times over the years, including once in the last year. In his dream, he panics that he’ll disappoint his parents because failing will leave him shy of credits needed to graduate from Stanford University. He also has a dream he’s unprepared to take the state bar exam for his license to practice law.
Richard Lariviere, president of the University of Oregon, says he had a flip version of the exam dream as a young professor. He’s teaching a class, but he can’t find the classroom. “The harder you look, the more confused you get,” he says.
Alyssa Diamond, 22, about to graduate from the University of Oregon, says she’s dreamed the dream: “I wake up way too late and have already slept through half the exam.”
Another variation: Lauren Morency, 25, a junior majoring in psychology and biology at Portland State University, gets the day of the test wrong.
“I also have a dream where I get stuck in traffic and can’t get to my test,” she says.
Freud’s interpretation
The exam dream might return years after class because the body and brain remember the pressure to perform well on tests and use it as a metaphor for fear of failure in waking life, says Patricia Garfield, psychologist, author of 11 books on dreams and co-founder and former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
The dream comes in many versions. Sometimes people show up for an exam naked. Or they might dream they’re unprepared for a part in a play or for a musical recital. It might return when people face a challenge and are unsure how they will perform, says Garfield, who lives near San Francisco.
If the dream recurs, it suggests the dreamer faces an unresolved problem.
The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud interpreted the exam dream as an expression of a sexual test for men worried “they were not going to make the grade,” Garfield says.
The psychologist surveyed 1,000 dreamers around the world for her book, “The Universal Dream Key,” and found 40 percent had the exam dream, making it among the top seven in her survey. Number one was being chased or attacked, followed by falling or drowning.
Dr. Judy Willis, a physician, writes in Psychology Today that the exam dream is common to the past two to three generations in the United States and countries with education systems that use tests with high stakes affecting future opportunities. Argentina does not use such tests, she writes, and of 40 people ages 16 to 66 she interviewed, not one had the exam dream.
In the U.S., the exam dream is most common among adults, and until recently has shown up as early as high school. But with public schools testing more for accountability, Willis writes, parents and teachers report some first graders have disturbing dreams about poor school performance.
Most people never faced in waking lives the disasters they find in the exam dream. So why are circumstances in the dream so dire?
“Dreams are like grand operas,” says Garfield. “Dreams exaggerate dramatically. Part of that is the language of pictures, and it surely gets our attention, which may be the purpose of it. We wouldn’t have dreams unless it serves some biological advantage.
“This is a warning, something that can help guide us to better behavior and more success in our waking life.”
So Oregon college seniors who think you will be seeing your last finals next week
dream on.
Tags: Finals, Finals Anxious
Posted in School Advisory | No Comments »
Girls Lacrosse: Tournament Previews
May 27th, 2011
Since girls lacrosse became a CIAC-sanctioned sport in 2004, the state had declared just two champions: one for Division I and one for Division II That will change this postseason. For the first time in the sport’s history, girls lacrosse will award three titles spread out between Division L, Division M and Division S. The move creates no shortage of drama this season. With the start of the tournaments just three days away, more teams than ever before enter the playoffs with dreams of bringing home a championship. And that can’t be a bad thing, right? Glastonbury, Newtown, Hand, Cheshire, Greenwich, Wilton, Suffield, Haddam-Killingworth, and Weston are among those teams with a real shot at making this a memorable year under the new format.
Tags: Girls Lacrosse, Lacrosse
Posted in Education Sport Notes | No Comments »