I was out of town this weekend, but, alas, I was not in Bronxville, N.Y, listening with rapt attention to Carmen Ashurst, keynote speaker of the 12th Annual Women’s History Month Conference at Sarah Lawrence College.

Do you know who Carmen Ashurst is? She’s the former president of Def Jam Recordings and Rush Communications, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Selling My Brothers: The Movement, The Media and Me. Ashurst also appeared in the documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.

The ideas/points/questions/answers the conference[link] aimed to cover:

Music has long served social movements as a sound track, as a means of communication, and as its own arena for activism. While multiple generations of feminists have used music in these ways, it has played especially vital roles for those born since the 1970s. This conference will explore the ways in which young feminists have defined and expressed politics through music and musical cultures and communities. Among the questions we will ponder are: How does music reflect sites of agreement and conflict among different groups of feminists? How have movements like Riot Grrrl and Hip Hop feminism attracted young women to feminist activism? How do young feminists’ uses of music compare with those of earlier generations?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

It’s common knowledge that the first year of teaching for a newbie educator is awful. Having the fun and having the ability to calm the fight-or-flight response is out of the question for most. It’s really a question of survival until June, at which point the new teacher takes stock and decides whether to stay or run for the hills.

Joel over at So You Want To Teach has a list of ten interview questions he answered for a former student about his first year of teaching:

1. What discipline methods do you use? How do you get the students involved?

One of the most effective discipline techniques I have found is simply to talk less and play more. This prevents most of the misbehaviors that tend to spring up throughout the class period. Additionally, phone calls and parent contact have been invaluable tools. That also is helpful for encouraging student and parent involvement.

2. Was your first year positive? How?

The biggest positive of my first year was learning that the idealism of the university classroom is rarely the case of the reality of a struggling band program. My junior high band got straight 3s at UIL, and that was an improvement on the previous year. Classroom management was my weakest skills. I went into the year thinking that since I knew a lot about the various instruments, I would automatically be a good director.

I recorded myself teaching and would go home and listen to the recordings and be amazed at how badly the students behaved. There were times throughout my first two years that I seriously considered going back to teaching private lessons. The thing that really kept me going throughout was support and contact with some of my mentors who encouraged me that I was actually a pretty good teacher and who helped me to deal with some of the classroom management struggles I went through.

3. What have you learned that will help you in the future?

How to get students quiet and keep them quiet. I was a “good kid” and so relating to the “bad kids” was a challenge for me initially. I spent the last half of my fourth semester of teaching going through trial and error finding out how to do it.

4. How well did college prepare you for the classroom?

Pedagogically, it prepared me very well. Classroom management preparation was virtually nonexistent. I learned a whole lot more through teaching private lessons, teaching master classes, and observing a wide variety of band programs.

5. Give one piece of advice for a new graduate.

Two things. 1) You don’t know everything. When you find one of the many things you don’t know how to do or how to handle, ask questions. Ask questions from anyone who will give you an answer. Some of the best stuff I picked up came from a science teacher down the hall from me my first two years. 2) Read How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. More…

Further Reading:

The Teachers You Remember
Which Road Do the Quality Teachers Walk In On?
The Manly Art of Teaching
If You’re Pondering a Teaching Career
Teaching the Truth
Eph Teaching Diary
Education Degree Information

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Duke University grad student Ken Ilgunas wrote a sublime piece in Salon.com about his own grand social experiment: He currently (until someone busts him after reading his article) lives in his van in a campus parking lot. Ilgunas went the standard student-loan route for his undergrad degree and hated the resulting loss of freedom he dealt with while working to pay it all off. For grad school at Duke, he’s decided to borrow nothing and graduate owing no one.

In order to pull that off at Duke, home of the $37,000/year tuition special, it becomes necessary to live a severely frugal existence. Seriously: he’s got a van, a few items of clothing, a single-burner camp stove, a sleeping bag, car insurance, and a lot of powdered milk, oatmeal, spaghetti and peanut butter.

From the article:

The more money I had borrowed, I came to realize, the more freedom I had surrendered. Yet, I still considered my education — as costly as it was — to be priceless. So now, motivated to go back to school yet determined not to go back into debt, I had to think outside the box. Or, as Henry David Thoreau might suggest, inside one.

…And so: I decided to buy a van. Though I had never lived in one, I knew I had the personality for it. I had a penchant for rugged living, a sixth sense for cheapness, and an unequaled tolerance for squalor. More…

Have you ever walked around Duke? I lived in Durham for a short while, and spent some non-academic time wandering the campus. Everyone looks very well taken care of. Stanford kids look good, too, but Duke’s population brings it to a shinier level. Which is to say I doubt Mr. Ilgunas blends.

It would be considered a noble and an excellent statement to live in a van while attending Evergreen. You would be applauded and everyone would bring you food and other special perks. (Except for me; I would bring you bleach and wet wipes.) But van living at Duke University may not go over too well.

Regardless of the outcome, I’m rooting for him. I’m hoping he pulls off graduate school minus the staggering debt, and I hope his article makes the rounds and wakes the powers that be the hell up as to the vile and nonsensical pile of money a human seeking higher education must fork over so as to get through the ivory gates.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Again with the slapping. This time it’s for the jackasses in charge of higher education in this country. If you still feel they (the schools, the loan people, and the government) aren’t lacking in smarts and high-moral-ground-standing cojones, then please read this excerpt from WSJ’s Journal Editorial Report.

It’s a conversation between Paul Gigot, Naomi Schaefer Riley, and Dan Henninger regarding the cost of college, who’s in charge of making it cost so damn much, and the three-year-degree option. It’s buried three conversations down in the transcripts, so I’m posting the conversation in its entirety.

Also, when I tried to narrow it down to just the really good, informative chunks, ninety-nine percent of the conversation made my slapping hand twitch, so I figured it needed to be posted in complete form. Not long, not boring, and full of jaw-clenching tidbits about the Orwellian state of higher education. (Spoiler alert: They’re all bastards.)

Gigot: It’s a trend that most parents are keeping an anxious eye on: the skyrocketing cost of a college education. According to a new report by the College Board, those costs continued to rise last year despite a 2.1% decline in the Consumer Price Index. Hit hard by state budget cuts, four-year public colleges raised tuition and fees by an average of 6.5%, while prices at private colleges rose 4.4%. Add room and board, and the average cost of attendance at a public four-year college is now more than $15,000 a year. At private colleges, the price tag is $35,000. The sticker shock has led some, including Tennessee senator and former education secretary Lamar Alexander, to push for a three-year degree program at the college level.

We’re back with Dan Henninger and Steve Moore. And also joining us, The Wall Street Journal’s deputy Taste Page editor, Naomi Schaefer Riley.

Naomi, why do college costs keep rising even if the price level doesn’t for everyone else?

Ms. Riley: Well, it’s a third-party-payer system. I mean basically what you have is, colleges know they can keep raising the price, and they know that the government, through financial aid programs and various grants that they give to universities, both public and private, is basically going to pick up the difference. Unfortunately, for middle-class parents, it doesn’t always work out that way. They’re not picking up all of the difference for them, but colleges keep raising the sticker price.

Gigot: Because there’s income limits on who gets the subsidies, but the subsidies are vast–I mean, the Pell Grants, direct grants for people. There are basically subsidized loans, and then there are subsidies for saving for school too, which is how a lot of middle-class parents help. Are you saying there’s a kind of chasing-your-tail quality here? The tuition goes up, subsidies follow, and then the people say, tuition can go up again, and then subsidies have to go up again?

Ms. Riley: That’s absolutely true. And then in addition to that, you also get a kind of arms race among the colleges. I mean, you get a situation where, first of all, it turns out that parents think the college is better if they raise a price. So if you see a $50,000 cost on college–which by the way, happened this year.

Gigot: Where is that?

Ms. Riley: Middlebury College. It costs $50,000 for tuition, room and board.

Gigot: In Vermont.

Ms. Riley: Yes, for this year. Vermont, you know, a very high-cost-of-living state. And, you know, but parents see that sticker price, and they assume, “Oh that must be a great college education.” So, you know, it’s–all of the wrong incentives are in place. And then colleges are spending money on things like landscaping and fancy food programs and Wi-Fi in the bathrooms and, you know, it’s really hard to sort of figure out where the quality is.

Gigot: I have a hard time imagining. I barely used a PC, Dan.

Henninger: Well, you know, it’s going to get worse, Paul. The College Board just reported that private loans last year for college dropped by 50%, while the public federally subsidized loans rose 15%. Now, we also know that the Congress has taken–is going to disadvantage the private loan program, which means that the federal program is–

Gigot: They’re going to put it out of business.

Henninger: They’re going to put it out of business, right, which means that basically colleges are going to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government. You will never get countervailing price pressure under those circumstances.

Gigot: All right, Steve, is this going to lead to you want to go send your kids to college for only three years?

Moore: Well, you know, Paul, I have an 18- and 16-year-old. I’m listening to these prices that Naomi’s talking about and I’m going to need a big fat pay raise, or else my kids are going to be with me another four years, which is a nightmare.

But look, this is a real issue. It’s going to cost now $200,000 to put a kid through college. You have to start asking yourself the question, “Look, I’ll give you a $200,000 check. Maybe that’s a better way to start your life than going to college.” But Naomi put her finger on the problem. The two areas–I was looking at the inflation rates in health care and education–both of those have booming costs. Education costs have gone triple the rate of inflation over the last decade. And it’s because the people who are getting the service aren’t the ones who are paying for it, and that leads to exploding costs.

Gigot: Naomi?

Ms. Riley: Yeah, I just want to say something about the three-year college costs. You know it’s funny, if you go back to the 1970s, which we’ve been thinking about a lot lately, a lot of colleges actually reduced the length of their semesters, and they said this was to save costs for parents. But of course, the semesters stayed shorter, so kids got less education overall. And the prices never went down. So I think you also have to kind of take these big ideas from schools about saving you money with a grain of salt.

Gigot: The likelihood is that they’d find a way to charge the same amount anyway, even if you only went for three years.

Ms. Riley: Exactly. That’s exactly right.

Henninger: But you get a year earlier to start work and pay back those loans.

Gigot: That would be the benefit. It’s an opportunity cost would be lower. But Dan, the government is going to–isn’t going to change any of this. If anything, they’re increasing the subsidies. they want to make Pell Grants an entitlement. Right now, it has to be passed with annual appropriation. They want to make it automatic.

Henninger: Yeah, and, you know, there is a social aspect to this as well. It’s pretty well proven that the payoff to a college education is higher lifetime earnings. The demand for college now is tremendous. People are just going to these colleges. Probably what we need is either online colleges or more colleges to meet the supply.

Gigot: But which college doesn’t necessarily help, does it?

Ms. Riley: No, no. There are a lot of studies that show, if you are a person who got into both Harvard and, say, the University of Arkansas, and you chose the University of Arkansas, your lifetime earnings would not be that much different. Of course one solution is just improving K-12 education.

Gigot: That would help enormously. And you might get higher returns on people who then don’t go to college or go to community colleges.

Ms. Riley: Yeah, the way it used to be.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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College Scholarships.org has the bad financial news for college students explained simply and graphically below. The immediate effects of student loans are explained, as well as the long-term effects (the ones you thought you’d be done thinking about that many years down the line). I’m hoping that the nationwide foreclosure situation has educated everyone as to what happens when people are allowed to borrow beyond their means.

I get it that paying for college so you can have some decently-paying career options is a big fat Catch-22 as well as a vicious circle. It also just plain sucks a real lot. However, it’s still better to have the information prior to heading into the jungle. No one’s going to make you use the info, but it’s good to at least have it back there in your grey-matter archives, just in case.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(hat tip to jennifer)

I can’t make a single intelligent point of commentary about Obama’s speech to the school kids without the risk of writing reams of unprofessional lines regarding the hysterical fishwife portion of the GOP. Until the Republicans went off their nut, I had not been aware that Socialist bastards are in the habit of telling kids that the adults in their lives can only take them so far and much of the responsibility for getting stuff done in life falls on a person’s own shoulders. I tell my kids that stuff all the time! Son of a—does that make me a Socialist Bastard Mommy?! Crap.

Please read for yourself the Socialist Evil that’s apparently afoot in the White House:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. More…

I’m so relieved that the Seattle Public Schools didn’t start the school year until today (Wednesday), and my daughter therefore missed hearing the President tell her that she is ultimately the person responsible for her life. Dodged that bullet. I’ll be certain to immediately cease and desist with all speeches directed toward my offspring in which I give them the same message.

Starting today, I will take full responsibility for my kids’ education and every other aspect of their lives. I will do their homework, I will take their SATs, I will get them into a top tier college, I will choose their classes, I will interview all potential mates, and I will do all interning, interviewing, and career-goaling.

They are certain to be happier and much more well-adjusted and content if all responsibilities are lifted from their shoulders. And as an added bonus, I get to be the one in charge of the progeny in our house, which is probably what the GOP had in mind all along…

Further Reading:

Obama Speech To Students Draws Conservative Ire
Many Conservatives Enraged Over Obama Speech
Some Parents Oppose Obama School Speech
Obama’s Back-To-School Speech Is Made Public
Obama’s School Speech: Will Overkill Hurt GOP?
Schools Boycott Obama Speech As Critics Abruptly Change Tone
Obama Schoolchildren Speech Drives Right-Wingers Batty
Prepared Remarks of Pres. Barack Obama

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I prefer old-school paper and ink for myself, but I’m in complete agreement with his statement. And I envy the generation that came into the world right after my Gen-X cohort; they were born already marinated in tech-savvy. They knew it because the collective consciousness had just finished learning it. Anything beyond word processing I had to figure out as a twenty-year-old in 1993.

Technology doesn’t evolve backwards; computers aren’t going to go away, and the kids who are comfortable swimming through the digital landscape will have an easier time now and a decade on. Teach them how to be safe and smart on the Net the same way you taught them to ride a bike, cross the street, and deal with strangers. Keep in mind that newness is usually met with fear and anger. Suck it up and let your kids learn something.

Scott McLeod from Dangerously Irrelevant wrote this:

dear parent
teacher
administrator
board member

don’t teach your kids to read
for the Web
to scan
RSS
aggregate
synthesize

don’t teach your kids to write
online

pen and paper aren’t going anywhere
since when do kids need an audience?

no need to hyperlink
make videos
audio
Flash

no connecting, now

no social networking
or online chat
or comments
or PLNs
blogs and twitter?
how self-absorbed
what a bunch of crap

and definitely, absolutely, resolutely, no cell phones

block it all
lock it down
keep it out

it’s evil, you know
there’s bad stuff out there
gotta keep your children safe

don’t you know collaboration is just another word for cheating?
don’t you know how much junk is out there?
haven’t you ever heard of sexting?
of cyberbullying?

a computer 24-7? no thanks
I don’t want them
creating
sharing
thinking
learning
you know they’re just going to look at porn
and hook up with predators
we can’t trust them

don’t do any of it, please

really

’cause I’m doing all of it with my kids

can’t wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two
can you?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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This week’s Teaching Carnival is hosted by AcademHack. The theme is The Future of Education and is worth a thorough perusal. The most intriguing string of thoughts were Jim Moulton’s post about technology in education and what he observed on a recent trip as to India’s attitudes toward education (they are not effing around), and the follow-up comment Rajagopal Yadavalli made as someone who grew up in India, went to the U.S. for university, and is now living back in India. The differences between the two countries vis-á-vis how the students are taught and how they ultimately learn to learn are fascinating.

From Jim Moulton’s post at The Future of Ed Blog:

I did not see technology playing a widespread role in Indian private schools. Any success they have in producing academically strong students must, therefore, come from someplace else. Sure, some of it is simply a game of numbers – with enough people you will have some succeed to high levels. But as I became more aware of “how things worked” in these schools, I came to believe that the following things make a difference:

>>…hard work. Period. Show up, listen, engage, do the work. Including half a day on Saturday.

>>…discipline and organization, as in, “don’t question authority – just do the assignments.” As a result work gets done. By all. And if one does not want to do the work, that 1.2 billion population figure assures someone waiting to take any seat vacated. This discipline was clear in the teacher ranks as well, as they stood when I entered the room, and would stand to answer any question I might put to them during the workshop.

>>…parents’ willingness to sacrifice material comfort to provide the best education they can afford for their children. The vast majority of Indian families do not live beyond their means.

>>…internalization of guilt by the children. Their academic success is a responsibility to their family, and it must be met. Sadly, this guilt was negatively reflected in the several accounts I read of young people taking their lives following release of major exam results.

>>…education as an industry. School, the right school, is heavily marketed as the key to happiness and success. Learning is heavily marketed, and the marketing works. With 1.2 billion people, one is constantly confronted by what it means to not have education. I have to think that a desire to not be part of the endless stream of unskilled citizenry makes it easy for the marketing to stick…

As I return from my trip, I am reminded that there is no digital solution to a fundamentally human challenge, and education is just that. Opportunities to learn must be available, but for the opportunity to translate into accomplishment at any level the individual must want it, the family must want it, and the culture as a whole must want it. The value of the “product” must be clear to all.

From Rajagopal Yadavalli’s Comment:

Interesting analysis presented here on Indian education. As someone who was born and brought up in India, and then studied and lived in USA, and now is back in India.. I completely agree with Jim here.


The importance of education is cultural. The middle class has shown the way over the last 20 years and now more and more believe that success in academics is the key to material success.

… The pressure on the students to do well academically is also all pervasive. As they approach their high school it starts to peak and is at its worst when they attempt the various entrance tests that determine their acceptability into the professional undergraduate programs.


However, what I find missing in the overall process is the application of knowledge. I think today’s education should be more focused on ability to find the information, determine its accuracy and then the ability to apply it to solve everyday problems. I do not find this happening yet in the Indian schools. Most schools are still focused on learning by rote – where discipline can make it happen.


As an graduate student in US University, I was amazed at the knowledge of undergrad students and their ability to solve real life problems with their learning from class. The application of knowledge is not something that is taught at schools in India. This is where the American Universities score big and why they are still the most sought schools of learning.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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For prospective college students who leave high school fully prepped to jump head-first into college, there’s a new money-saving three-year college degree option. Tennessee Senator, Lamar Alexander, likens it to the fuel-efficient car version of a college education. These days, that does seem tempting.

Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY is one of the first schools to offer a three-year degree option, but Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, is hoping more private schools will follow suit:

“Three-year degrees are a very important option, and I think we’ll be seeing more of them,” she said. “They won’t serve a large proportion of students since a three-year degree requires that you finish high school college-ready, enroll full-time and be focused.”

I’m tempted to scoff at the crazed intensity of cramming a college degree into three years, but I think it might be gauche to deride saving $40,000 in this day and age. My only concern, as per usual, is the thought that after thirteen years of working their booties off to get into college, kids who go the three-year-degree route will have no time to stop until they graduate and will then realize there’s a whole world out there that they haven’t had five minutes to really consider. I concede that it’s possible I’m the only one concerned about the mental and emotional well-being of high school and college students, but I feel it’s worth mentioning.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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If you were maybe sticking your head in the sand and hoping to wait this economic slump out by pretending it’s not happening, then don’t read these denial-crushing articles.

The New York Times is reporting that college students (and/or their ‘rents) are paying more for less. Excellent.

College students are covering more of what it costs to educate them, even as most colleges are spending less on students, according to a new study.

The study, based on data that colleges and universities report to the federal government, also found that the share of higher education budgets that goes to instruction has declined, while the portion spent on administrative costs has increased.

And the Associated Press has an equally optimism-crushing article about tuition rates rising at exactly the same time that college-money stockpiles have been decimated by a sucky stock market and limited access to second mortgages.

Most high school seniors and their families have not made final college plans for next fall. But they know this: It’s probably going to cost more than they had planned.

Even in good economic times, states and colleges have largely failed to hold tuition increases in line with inflation. Now as the slumping economy forces states to slash spending, students can expect the sharpest increases in years.

I would advise next year’s freshmen to wait a few years on attending the four-year schools and head to a community college instead. Unfortunately, that’s what everyone else is probably going to do, which means it’ll be hard to get in, let alone get the classes they’ll need. Taking online versions of some general ed courses through a community college would circumvent the overcrowding issue (making sure the credits are transferable is a necessary step in that process).

Taking a gap year doesn’t really work because, you know, that takes money.

The only other option I can see would be for students to head off to college as planned, but to take a light enough course load so that working part-time won’t derail the knowledge absorption.

There’s also the live-at-home, work-at-the-convenience-store option, which will no doubt inspire all takers to higher-education greatness once they’ve escaped and have catapulted themselves into college and beyond. Those kids will do whatever it takes to never ever have to return to either home or minimum wage. See how I pulled that shred of optimism out at the last second?

Related Previous Posts:

“Wobbly Time for College Tuition”
Pokémon Economics
Higher Ed Budget Cuts in California and Washington
Adventures in Education: Paying for College
Investing in Students’ Futures

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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