David Pogue of the New York Times got his hands on the “$100 laptop,” now known as the XO (which I recently blogged about when I found out they go on sale in the US in November), and has his review video up on YouTube.

Link to YouTube video

Among the awesomenesses:

• Mesh networking
• Six-hour battery life
• Designed to be hackable, with a system restore button
• Waterproof, dustproof, and shock-resistant

You have to see Pogue drop the XO on a rock, then pick it right back up and keep using it. Not a scratch.

Will this change the world? I think so.

My school had an assembly on Friday featuring Sister Schools, a local organization that takes clothing and school supplies to students in Africa. The presentation made it clear that there are plenty of schools around the world where the students do not get even one book each - in many schools, they don’t have any materials at all. Students learn by watching and listening, not by reading or doing. In many schools, the teachers paint illustrations from their books on the walls of the school so students can see.

As I commented to someone recently, schools in the US are still paying a fortune every year for information and paper (aka textbooks) when the former is now free and the latter is obsolete. An open platform like the XO could change everything.

XOGiving.org

The “$100 Laptop Project,” formally known as One Laptop Per Child, has long been the holy grail of educational technology for the developing world. Led by Nicholas Negroponte, the project aims to get a laptop into the hands of every child in the developing world.

As specs for these rugged machines became public - hand-crank power, self-networking wifi - people in the developed world started to drool at the $100 price tag; alas, you had to be a government and buy a million of them to qualify. Until now.

OLPC just announced that, starting November 12, you will be able to purchase one of the green machines for yourself for $399. This also pays for a 2nd laptop, to be given to a child in the developing world. The price is, obviously, not at the $100 mark yet, but they’re working on it.

This strategy is incalculably brilliant. We can have something we want (and hey, Americans want a lot of stuff) while paying for someone in the third world to have something they need. It’s not unlike my proposal for the 100% self-tax.

You can sign up for an email reminder now at xogiving.org, and buy two laptops this Christmas. Along with Kiva, this might be the way to give this holiday season.

Davis Wright Tremaine - you guys give lawyers a bad name.

DWT sued the Seattle School District on behalf of a group of parents and prevailed in the Supreme Court. It was a landmark decision, and a highly controversial one. DWT took the case pro bono, and there was no financial award to the plaintiffs, who were seeking (and won) the demise of the race-based tiebreaker, a Seattle School District policy that allowed the District to assign students to schools in a manner that would enhance racial diversity. All else being equal, a student who would be in the minority at a popular school would be granted preference over a student of a majority group at that school.

Suing school districts is not inherently a bad thing, and is sometimes necessary, though I won’t comment on this case.

But now DWT is seeking to recover legal fees from the school district, even though it fought the case for free. They want a staggering $1.8 million, which is several times what the district spent on its own legal fees.

This is not money that would go to the plaintiffs; it’s money that goes to the same lawyers who promised to fight the case for free. This money will not come from insurance; it will come directly from the operating budget of a public school district.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether to award DWT the fees; fortunately, the 9th Circuit sided with the District in the original case, though their decision was overturned by the Supreme Court.

I can’t see how this could be good PR for Davis Wright Tremaine. What kind of firm would sue a school district, supposedly for free, then try to collect fees at the expense of public education?

The Seattle School District’s two levies are up for renewal.

• The operations levy provides 24% of the day-to-day operating budget for the district
• The capital levy provides funds for rebuilding and renovating schools

Neither of these levies is a new tax, and both are essential for providing adequate education in the Seattle School District (while I am an employee of the district, I am writing as a private citizen).

The arguments against renewal of the levies have fallen along two lines:

• The district hasn’t managed funds well in the past, or will not spend these funds on the top priorities
• Taxes should be reduced, not maintained or raised (these levies total nearly a billion dollars over the next four years)

If you’d rather a tax cut than adequately funded schools, I don’t know that you’d have any reason to keep reading. But I’m intrigued by how many people have articulated opposition to the levies using the first argument.

KUOW, our local NPR station, had a story on the levies that I heard on the way to class today. They gave roughly equal airtime to a woman who was in favor of both levies, and a woman who was opposed to the capital levy because of the way the district would spend the money.

The second woman had gripes with specific building projects; for example, she wanted the boiler at Nathan Hale replaced, but there’s no plan to spend any levy funds on this. She said, in essence, “I disagree with the way the school district will spend these capital improvement funds, so I will vote to cut them completely.” Is this a valid argument? I think not.

• If you want to have input on how the funds were spent, sign up to speak at a school board meeting or serve on a committee
• It is not helpful to act in a punitive manner toward a public institution. If we do, we are only hurting those whom that institution serves - namely, our students.
• Making a political point when half a billion education dollars are at stake is childish at best. If you’re looking for an opportunity to take your marbles and go home, look elsewhere.

If you live in Seattle, please vote in the February 6 election - yes on both measures. Absentee ballots have already been mailed - if you got one, send it in.

Dr. Long read this to us one day in Advanced Comp: The worst analogies ever written, collected from high school English teachers by the Washington Post. I’ve bolded a few that I distinctly recognize from that day in 2001.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
(Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
(Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
(Roy Ashley, Washington)

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung=20 by mistake.
(Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
(Unknown)

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
(Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
(Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”
(Russell Beland, Springfield)

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
(Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
(Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
(Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
(Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Newsweek has a list of America’s top 100 high schools, as measured by the ratio of AP or IB courses taken to the number of graduating seniors. While this is a questionable way to measure success (some local high schools are widely criticized for their “everyone takes AP classes” policy), I’m always interested in how the mainstream media sees education.

What really caught my eye, though, was the presence of my alma mater on the list, at position #66: Harding University. Not the Harding University I went to in Searcy, Arkansas, but a Harding University in Charlotte, North Carolina that is really a high school.

Apparently. I thought things called “university” were generally not high schools.

But then, I remember when my high school played Gonzaga College in basketball, not to be confused with Gonzaga University.

Of course, both schools have “Prep” at the end of the name, as in college/university prep. But when that part gets cut off, confusion ensues.

The Generous Orthodoxy Conference is sponsored by three seminaries:

Mars Hill Graduate School, represented by Dwight Friesen

George Fox Seminary, represented by Jules Glanzer

Bakke Graduate University, represented by Brad Smith

(Cross-posted from Teaching for Understanding.com)

I just took Lorraine Zinn’s Philosophy of Education Inventory (PEI), which measures the extent to which one subscribes to five major eucational philosophies (my scores out of 105 are in parentheses):

• Behavioral Education (76)
• Comprehensive Education (83)
• Progressive Education (80)
• Humanistic Education (56)
• Social Change Education (57)

Zinn describes each philosophy as follows (though of course she goes into more depth):

Behavioral Philosophy - “to teach children to comply with certain standards or expectations set by societal leaders or professional experts.”

Comprehensive Philosophy - “liberal arts…to provide a broad-based, general education rather than a specialized or vocational education.”

Progressive Philosophy - “educating people to live responsibly and resolve problems cooperatively within a democratic society.”

Humanistic Philosophy - “education for self-actualization, or self-initiated development of a person’s skills and potential to lead to a fulfilling life of challenge and growth.”

Social Change Philosophy - “education as a primary force for achieving social change, or transforming society.”

The explanation section explicitly says that there is no correct philosophy; each has its merits, and each educator has to decide what s/he believes. I scored most strongly on Progressive, Comprehensive, and Behavioral, but I don’t see these as applying equally to all situations or subjects.

For example, behaviorism seems best suited to mathematics instruction. You have to understand each little piece before moving on to the next, and you need practice, feedback, and correction to achieve mastery. I don’t think there’s a better way to teach math for understanding and proficiency. It may not be a lot of fun, but then, math usually isn’t.

We run into problems when we try to use behavioral approaches to teaching humanistic subjects, like social studies. Since history is a complex subject, the understanding of which depends largely on one’s perspective, using behaviorist techniques to teach it borders on manipulation. Students should have the opportunity to examine historical documents, discuss things, and develop nuanced and deep understanding of historical events.

Conversely, when humanistic approaches are used to teach subjects like math, we run the risk of not actually helping students to develop the skills and understanding they need. When there are right and wrong answers, when drill-and-kill is necessary, when students need feedback and further practice, we do students a disservice by avoiding behaviorist techniques because they are associated with a philosophy that isn’t en vogue at the moment.

In science education, we need a carefully balanced mixture of these approaches. We are trying to help students develop the scientist within (humanist education), a concern for the environment and the welfare of the planet (social change education), a broad base of knowledge that science has uncovered (comprehensive education), finely tuned investigation skills (behavioral education), and real-life problem-solving skills (progressive education).

I find it strange that Zinn makes no mention of how these philosophies are suited to specific subjects, since it would be extremely difficult, for example, to be a social change math teacher. Maybe people from a more modernist worldview stick to just one paradigm, but the PEI measures them all independently (i.e. you don’t have to choose between them), so it’s not surprising that I had similar scores in three of the five philosophies. I find myself making instructional decisions based on the subject matter and my students, rather than which philosophy I feel like drawing on.

Zinn does differentiate between teaching styles and educational philosophies, mentioning that the latter stay fairly constant, while the former change according to the needs of the moment. Duly noted, but I still think the philosophy one holds is determined by the subject one has in mind when, shall we say, philosophizing.