Find a small school

Practice Pronunciation

2007-03-05T23:16:00.001-05:00

I am adding this link to www.FreeEnglishLessons.com because some of our students want to practice “Minimal Pairs.” There is a minimum of difference between SHIP and CHIP (just one sound). SHIP and CHEAP have two sounds that are different. PARE, PEAR and PAIR are spelled differently but sound the same.

We recommend pronunciation practice here!

http://www.manythings.org/pp/

An interesting graphic program… Very interactive!

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/wordlists.html

A long list of pairs of words.

http://www.fonetiks.org/shiporsheep/

Here are some more minimal pairs

Can You Explain What You Need To Do in this COLLEGE COURSE?

2007-02-16T04:52:00.003-05:00

Fernando, Sezer, Karim and OTHER STUDENTS:

You will take college courses (university) and I want you to be prepared to meet the challenge. Please look at each sentence and explain to me what each sentence means. You can speak to me or you can write each sentence in your words.

You can make a video to explain the sentences to me.

Underline the words you don’t understand. You can ask other people to explain the words or you can look up the meaning in a dictionary. Pretend that you are preparing to go to this university. What do you need to know?

Course Structure

English 1101 is comprised of six units designed to be taught during a 15-week semester. The first three units focus upon writing experiences that are not research based, while Units 4, 5, and 6 focus upon researched based writing. Those six units are:

UNIT 1: The Narrative Essay

UNIT 2: Expository Writing

UNIT 3: The Argumentative Essay

UNIT 4: The Comparison/Contrast Essay

UNIT 5: Writing a Critical Analysis

UNIT 6: Argumentative Essay Based on Research

Course objectives

After completing this course the student will be able to:

· Write complete and clear sentences.

· Develop unified coherent paragraphs by expressing controlling ideas.

· Support and clarify those ideas with specific evidence and details.

· Plan writing in light of situation, audience and purpose.

· Follow a format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation.

· Write grammatically correct sentences according to standard written English.

· Use correct spelling and punctuation.

· Introduce and close essays while linking paragraphs logically and clearly.

· Write for varied purposes informing, analyzing and arguing.

· Select an organizational approach and style appropriate to varied situational contexts.

· Incorporate information and ideas from more than two sources and explain your conclusions coherently.

· Integrate appropriate information from outside sources in the correct form.

· Use Web search engines to locate information.

· Critically evaluate resources and assess varied perspectives and viewpoints.

· Follow a format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation.

· Critically evaluate sources and assess varied perspectives and viewpoints.

· Synthesize information and ideas from two or more sources and explain conclusion.

SOURCE: http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/ecore/syllabi/engl1101.html

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: You will get TWO POINTS for each essay that you record on video or mp3 audio file. If you actually write the essay, you will get 5 points. If you type the essay, analysis or expository writing, you will receive 9 points. Good luck. Send the essay to steveenglishteacher@yahoo.com.

A Second Level Course of English

2007-02-16T04:52:00.001-05:00

This is the SECOND set of courses that we can practice using. Yes, it is possible to learn grammar and vocabulary when we are doing work in a college classroom. Even students in other countries who read this message can participate. FIRST, write an essay or a report (according to the instructions below) then send the essay or report to Steve (me) at SteveEnglishTeacher@yahoo.com -- and you will get points. 9 points = a prize.

A composition course that develops writing skills beyond the levels of proficiency required by ENGL 1101, that emphasizes interpretation and evaluation, and that incorporates a variety of more advanced research methods.

Course objectives

After completing this course the student will be able to...

1. Learn more about writing academic discourse:

oWrite well-developed and logically organized essays.

oContinue to develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading.

oLearn to critique your own and others' writing.

oExpress thoughtful insights.

oPresent and sustain an argument.

oSynthesize information from multiple texts with your own perspective.

oApply a variety of modes of discourse to achieve complex rhetorical goals.

oWrite with a clear sense of order and completeness.

oDemonstrate refined sentence structure and style.

oUse standard written English.

2. Plan and conduct a research project using a variety of research sources:

oUnderstand the research process as a means of constructing new knowledge.

oCritically evaluate a variety of sources.

oIntegrate sources effectively by summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting material.

oRecognize threads of academic conversation and contribute to the dialogue.

oFollow MLA style. <<< OH, WOW! What is Modern Library Association? http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/legacylib/mla.html

3. Practice and continue to develop critical thinking skills in writing and reading assignments:

oRead and appreciate a variety of texts.

oCorrectly apply literary and rhetorical terms.

oExplain a variety of texts. (Poem, short story, novel)

oApply critical perspectives to a variety of texts.

oAnalyze the elements of an argument.

oUse the writing process to understand different texts.

oExplore the connections between recurrent literary themes and personal experience.

4. Navigate and communicate effectively online:

oRecognize the differences between electronic and printed media.

oEffectively use the communication resources of WebCT, such as Mail and Discussions.

oFind sources with search engines and databases.

oEvaluate web site reliability.

oUse online reference material.

SOURCE: http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/ecore/syllabi/engl1102.html

ARE YOU READY? Write to me at s2314@tmail.com (my cell phone) for a quick reply.

PARENTS: Find a language school and prepare for the FLAT WORLD

2007-02-14T23:05:00.001-05:00

Your children can pick up new words by meeting students from another country. Most Language schools are out of session during school holidays, so you can arrange to entertain or meet with students who are visiting your city. For more ideas, visit www.FreeEnglishLessonsInFlorida.blogspot.com

Why is there a need for languages? Because US students will need to communicate with other people directly, to know what other people are saying. You don’t want a summary, you want to know EXACTLY what others are saying. Dan Pink wrote a book about A WHOLE NEW MIND – we need to expect agile thinking. What can parents, teachers, principals and students expect from each other? What can we do to produce more agile thinking? How can we think inside, outside, on the edge of the box, under and over the box? Before you accept the orthodox ideas, visit www.FindASmallSchool.com and join the Dan Pink revolution. www.danpink.com is another place to visit. Send your comments to Steve at steveEnglishTeacher@yahoo.com

Let's LEARN about a new way to LEARN!

2007-02-08T23:37:00.001-05:00

My student Heinz found a remarkable web site.

http://www.learningstrategies.com/Birkenbihl.asp

YOUR OPTIONAL HOMEWORK: Visit this web site, click on one of the categories at the bottom of the page, then call me to tell me about the category. 954 646 8246

1 PhotoReading

2 Spring Forest Qigong

9 Paraliminals & The Ultimate You Library

10 Natural Brilliance

11 Boundless Renewal

12 Resiliency

13 Euphoria!

14 Million Dollar Vocabulary

15 Four Powers For Greatness

16 EasyLearn Languages

17 Personal Celebration

18 Clear Mind ~ Bright Future

19 Seminars & Training

20 Clearance Table

21 Recommended Reading

-----Original Message-----

From: heinz liener lsinfo@visi.com

HERE IS THE MESSAGE THAT I RECEIVED FROM HEINZ… MANY THANKS TO HEINZ!

Hi, steve!

I was visiting this web site today and really thought you'd find the

information interesting. Here's the link:

http://www.learningstrategies.com/Birkenbihl.asp

heinz

Steve’s opinion: It’s a good idea to change your life and find something remarkable and new, at least once during a language course. Here are TWENTY ONE categories that have something new for you (perhaps). Again, many thanks to Heinz! (This also applies to Small Schools... Keep moving, keep evolving, ... but respect stability!

It is useful to learn a topic (such as another language) while we learn something new. HUH? Yes, I was surprised about this. You will learn more words in a new language if you learn to SCUBA dive than if you stay in my class for 2 weeks. The class is just a start. You need SEVEN exposures to words to get the new words in your head PERMANENTLY. It is unusual to learn something in class immediately. We USUALLY learn after we see and hear and use the word OUTSIDE class

Write to me your opinion… s2314@tmail.com

Who is your FCAT EXPLORER?

2007-02-03T17:33:00.001-05:00

If your family is in Florida, your child has an account in the FCAT system.

There's good news for all students taking the FCAT this year: you can get free reading and math practice on the FCAT Explorer. That's right: free practice for the FCAT at www.fcatexplorer.com.

The FCAT Explorer is an online practice program made for Florida's public school students by the Florida Department of Education. It features three practice programs created especially for middle school students: Reading Island, Reading Boardwalk, and Math Navigator.

All three programs offer practice for the skills tested on the FCAT and feature lots of stuff to help you get the most out of your study time. You'll receive helpful feedback to the answers you choose and a second chance to answer questions and apply what you've learned. The FCAT Explorer also features helpful online tools like a calculator, a formula reference sheet, and a glossary that defines and pronounces the glossary words.

Best of all, the FCAT Explorer is online, which means you can use it on any computer connected to the Internet: at school, at the library, even at home.

Your performance on the test can benefit from the extra time you spend studying math and reading on the FCAT Explorer. To get your free FCAT Explorer sign-in name and password, see your guidance counselor or media specialist, or visit the Web site at www.fcatexplorer.com. Log on today!

Get your sign in name… and password. Free.

What is the FCAT?

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) is the foundation of the statewide educational assessment and accountability program.

What is the purpose of the FCAT?

The purpose of the statewide assessments is to gather information of two kinds:

· Parents, students, and teachers need FCAT data to provide information about student mastery of skills.

· The public needs FCAT data to understand the “educational health” of students and to hold schools and districts accountable for progress.

What is measured by the FCAT? The FCAT measures student knowledge and understanding of reading, writing, science, and mathematics content as described in the Sunshine State Standards. There is a direct connection between the Sunshine State Standards and the questions on the FCAT.

What are the Sunshine State Standards?The Standards are skills and competencies that Florida students should be able to learn from an early age, as defined by practicing classroom teachers, educational specialists, business people, and concerned citizens from Florida.

When do students take the FCAT?

· FCAT writing in February.

· FCAT reading, mathematics, and science in March.

How can students prepare for the FCAT? Teachers should prepare students for success on the FCAT by teaching the important content in the Sunshine State Standards.

Students may also benefit from the free, easy-to-use teaching resource, FCAT Explorer (http://www.fcatexplorer.com), offered via the Internet by the Florida Department of Education or review of the FCAT Sample Test booklets at http://www.firn.edu/doe/sas/fcat/fcatsmpl.htm.

Florida 32399-0400

Test Taking Tips

for Parents to Remember

1) Make sure your child attends school regularly. Remember that tests reflect the overall achievement of your child. The more often the child is in a learning situation, the more likely he/she will do well on tests.

2) Give your child encouragement. Praise him/her for the things done well throughout the year. A child who is afraid of failing is more likely to make a mistake.

3) See that your child has a well-rounded diet. A healthy body leads to a healthy, active mind.

4) See that your child completes homework assignments. Homework supports classroom instruction and can help your child increase his/her comprehension of the classroom work.

5) Meet with your child’s teacher(s) as often as possible to discuss your child’s progress. Parents and teachers should work together to benefit the child.

6) Ask the teacher(s) to suggest activities for you to do at home with your child. Such activities can help your child improve his/her understanding of school work.

7) Make sure your child is well rested on school days. Children who are tired are less likely to pay attention in class or to handle the demands of classwork and tests.

8) Try not to be overly anxious about test scores. Too much emphasis on test scores can be upsetting to children.

9) Find out which tests your child will take and for what purposes. The school principal and counselor should provide you with a schedule of testing for the year and explain the use of the tests.

10) Make sure your child arrives on time for school.

11) See that your child dresses comfortably. Students should wear clothes that are comfortable and appropriate for the weather.

12) If your child wears a hearing aid or glasses, be sure he/she remembers to use them during all testing sessions.

13) Make sure your child receives any necessary test taking accommodations.

Conclusion: if you want to use the “EASY TO USE” FCAT Explorer program, be sure you know the password.

An interesting view of the SAT essay

2007-01-29T01:10:00.001-05:00

This essay appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 2004

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2004

Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?

How several well-known writers (and the Unabomber) would fare on the new SAT

by John Katzman, Andy Lutz & Erik Olson

.....

very year more than a million college-bound high school students spend a Saturday morning taking the SAT. In 2001 the University of California system, led by Richard Atkinson, then its president, threatened to change that by replacing the SAT with a test that measured a student's mastery of advanced high school-level math, did not contain verbal-analogy questions, and included an essay. Since the University of California is the SAT's biggest customer, and has been for more than thirty years, many thought this spelled the beginning of the end for the test.

Writing Contest: Rewrite Shakespeare (March 17, 2004)
The results are in. Read the winning entries of the Princeton Review's Rewrite Shakespeare Contest.

In the summer of 2002 the College Board announced its plans to change the SAT. The new test will (surprise, surprise) contain several higher-level algebra questions, will no longer contain analogies questions, and will—as part of a whole new section on "writing"—include an essay question. It is scheduled to be administered for the first time in March of next year.

The writing section (which will be scored on a scale of 200 to 800, making 2400 the new maximum score on the SAT), will seem familiar to anyone who has taken the SAT II: Writing test (formerly known as the English Composition Achievement test). In its haste to satisfy the University of California, evidently, the College Board has simply tacked the SAT II test onto the SAT I. Students will have an extra half hour to complete the test, which currently lasts three hours.

To grade the roughly 2.5 million student essays the new SAT will generate each year, the College Board will have to hire thousands of readers (mainly high school teachers), who will generally score each essay in a minute or two.

Students will be asked to respond to a vague, platitudinous quotation with an essay that will be graded on a scale of 1 to 6. Essay readers will be trained to grade "holistically," taking into consideration "development of ideas, supporting examples, organization, word choice, and sentence structure." To receive a score of 6, according to the College Board, a paper must demonstrate "clear and consistent competence," though it may have "occasional errors." More specifically, a grade of 6 will indicate that an essay "effectively and insightfully addresses the writing task," "is well organized and fully developed, using clearly appropriate examples to support ideas," and "displays consistent facility in the use of language, demonstrating variety in sentence structure and range of vocabulary." A score of 1, in contrast, will indicate that an essay "demonstrates incompetence" and suffers from one or more of the following weaknesses: "very poor organization," "very thin development," "usage and syntactical errors so severe that meaning is somewhat obscured." (The full version of the SAT grading rubric can be found at www.collegeboard.com.)

We and our colleagues at The Princeton Review have spent many years training students to take the SAT II, and have carefully analyzed the College Board's essay-grading criteria. To receive a high score a student should write a long essay of three or more paragraphs, with each paragraph containing topic and concluding sentences and at least one sentence that includes the words "for example." Whenever possible the student should use polysyllabic words where shorter, clearer words would suffice. The SAT essay will not be a place to take rhetorical chances. Flair will win no points; the highest-scoring essays will be earnest, long-winded, and predictable.

To illustrate how the essays on the "new" SAT will be scored, The Princeton Review has composed some typical essay questions, provided answers from several well-known authors, and applied the College Board's grading criteria to their writing.

Directions: Consider carefully the following quotation and the assignment below it. Then plan and write an essay that explains your ideas as persuasively as possible. Keep in mind that the support you provide—both reasons and examples—will help make your view convincing to the reader.

"Writing is the most demanding of callings, more harrowing than a warrior's, more lonely than a whaling captain's—that, in essence, is the modern writer's message."

—Melvin Maddocks

Assignment: In an essay, discuss your opinion of the quotation above. Support your view with one or more examples from literature, the arts, science, politics, current events, or your personal experience or observations.

riting, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

Reader's evaluation: Although it displays a solid vocabulary, Mr. Hemingway's essay lacks specific examples and clear topic sentences. Too undeveloped to be good. Grade: 3 out of 6

"The four stages of life are infancy, childhood, adolescence, and obsolescence." —Art Linkletter

ll the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Reader's evaluation: This essay is poorly organized, with only one paragraph (though, to Mr. Shakespeare's credit, the topic sentence does speak to what the rest of the sentences in his one paragraph are about). It is riddled with errors in syntax, incomplete sentences being the most noticeable problem. Although his supporting sentences are vivid in their description, they are vague and general, not true examples. And he unfortunately spells "honor" with the extraneous "u." Grade: 2 out of 6

"Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so." —Charles de Gaulle

he Irish lady can say, that to-day is every day. Caesar can say that every day is to-day and they say that every day is as they say.

In this way we have a place to stay and he was not met because he was settled to stay. When I said settled I meant settled to stay. When I said settled to stay I meant settled to stay Saturday. In this way a mouth is a mouth. In this way if in as a mouth if in as a mouth where, if in as a mouth where and there. Believe they have water too. Believe they have that water too and blue when you see blue, is all blue precious too, is all that that is precious too is all that and they meant to absolve you. In this way Cezanne nearly did nearly in this way. Cezanne nearly did nearly did and nearly did. And was I surprised. Was I very surprised. Was I surprised. I was surprised and in that patient, are you patient when you find bees. Bees in a garden make a specialty of honey and so does honey. Honey and prayer. Honey and there. There where the grass can grow nearly four times yearly.

Reader's evaluation: Although Ms. Stein's essay is expressive, it's a bit flaky, lacking any semblance of structure, focus, or examples, and using non-standard syntax to boot. Grade: 1 out of 6

"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

sychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized" to describe such people.

Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

Reader's evaluation: Mr. Kaczynski's essay is well developed, displays an impressive vocabulary, and makes good use of supporting examples. He also demonstrates an understanding of how to use simple, compound, and complex sentences. Grade: 6 out of 6

The URL for this page is http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200403/katzman.

COMMENT BY THE TUTOR: Follow the advice of the Princeton Review team. Or not. A professor at Harvard wonders why so many students don’t submit performance portfolios of their work… If home-school kids submit portfolios, why not your kid?

-- S. Mac

put something useful on that computer

2007-01-26T16:49:00.001-05:00

Put Something
Useful on Your Child's Computer!
A Workshop for Parents and other Adults who care about what kids see

1. Eye-Hand Coordination and video games

2. Social IQ and Daniel Goleman

3. Audio files (great speeches) and other mp3 files.

4. How to find educational podcasts

5. Just enough math

6. Tips about preparing for tests

7. The Purpose of Education and other poems

Steve McCrea is the first teacher in Florida to obtain permission to
distribute for educational use the fun podcast called "Geo Quiz"
from TheWorld.org and broadcasts from OnTheMedia.org (a weekly analysis
of the news). His presentation puts podcasts in the hands of parents
(everyone gets at least one CD). You leave the workshop with an action
plan for more educational uses for the music player and computers in
your home.

His publications include Put Something Useful on That iPod!, The GET
AHEAD Book, Adventures with Skype, Visual and Active SAT Prep, and other
educational DVDs. He maintains MathForArtists.com, VisualAndActive.com,
a test prep web site called TeachersToTeachers.com and
WhyWaitForDetroit.com (an electric car site).

What is mp3? The Motion Pictures Experts Group MPEG came up with
various types of compression. Mp layer 3 (yes, there are mp1 and mp2)
compresses 12 hours of audio into one.

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) is a standard technology and format for
compressing a sound sequence into a very small file (about one-twelfth
the size of the original file) while preserving the original level of
sound quality when it is played. MP3 files (identified with the file
name suffix of ".mp3") are available for downloading from a number of
Web sites. Many Windows users will find that they have a player built
into their operating system. Otherwise, you can download a player from
one of several popular MP3 sites. MP3 files are usually
download-and-play files rather than streaming sound files that you
link-and-listen-to with RealPlayer and similar products (However,
streaming MP3 is possible.)

To create an MP3 file, you use a program called a ripper to get a
selection from a CD onto your hard disk and another program called an
encoder to convert the selection to an MP3 file. Most people, however,
simply download MP3s from someone else and play them.

digital audio is typically created by taking 16 binary digit samples a
second of the analog signal. Since this signal is typically spread out
over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (kHz), this means
that one second of CD quality sound requires 1.4 million bits of data.
Using their knowledge of how people actually perceive sound, the
developers of MP3 devised a compression algorithm that reduces data
about sound that most listeners can not perceive. MP3 is currently the
most powerful algorithm in a series of audio encoding standards
developed under the sponsorship of the Motion Picture Experts Group
(MPEG) and formalized by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO).

Source:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212600,00.html

--s2314@tmail.com
Steve McCrea 954-OH-MUCHO 954.646.8246
Book editing, marketing design
Tutoring

www.LookForPatterns.com
Supporter of the Double Moon Shot (proposed by Thomas Friedman) energy
and education at www.CDsForParents.com

A talk to a PTA group (imagined)

2007-01-25T23:27:00.001-05:00

I am making presentations in a "volunteer" effort to share what
I've seen.

Here's my basic presentation

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Hi, thank you for allowing me to speak with the people who nurture the
future of our country.

I'm a tutor who prepares students for SAT.

I have a wide variety of students but I noticed the following

Some hate math.

Some learn by talking about the subject, social learning

Others learn when I make it a story and they can classify it

Others learn math when it is immersed in something they love, like
horses or football or action (learn by doing, even though it's
mental doing) For example, how do you put out a fire, by shooting the
top of the fire and working down, or by going from bottom up?

I call this style "Looking for Patterns." I look for the pattern of
thinking in the students, I show them how I find a pattern and then they
try it themselves. The SAT is just a bunch of patterns.

I also realized that it isn't I who creates success in the test or in
the improved homework. It's the student who has a support team,
particularly when the parents make an effort to participate.
EXAMPLE -- A PARENT COULD SAY: "Oh, you're learning about
stalactites and stalagmites? I remember that… let's see, c is for
ceiling and g is for ground." StationERy and stationary ..
"A is in Stand and ER is in Letter. What else do I remember that
might help you?"

Much of memory and learning is based on genetics… the genes might not
be YOURs, parent, it might be a grandparent or uncle or aunt. But
somewhere in your family is a pattern. Your child might benefit from
learning how you learned the capital of California or how many neutrons
are in carbon or how to spell "receive.".... Or how to translate
"recibir."

You can create an environment of continued learning, lifelong learning,
because WE HAVE TO … Thomas Friedman says so, the competition from
India and China demand it, most of today's students will have 5 careers,
and what they study in college will not have much connected to what they
will be doing seven or ten years from now. We need to be role models
for lifelong learning.
///////////////////////

I'm going to pause for a moment for a commercial.

I work with Peter, at a language school in fort Lauderdale

Peter was a high school teacher at a small school in New York.
There's a group called Essential Schools and he's going to talk for
a few minutes now about the power he believes in and has seen in a
concept called "Authentic Learning." He has lived it, I have
seen it and recorded the power of small schools and the power of
connecting school work with real world problems and internships. It is
not new, it goes back to John Dewey and the progressive movement of this
country who recall that children learned by doing on farms and in
professions before there was mandatory public schooling.

I've asked Peter to give an example of authentic learning and to give
you an example of his experience as a teacher in a high school here in
Florida as a contrast.

You are then invited to talk with Peter after these presentations and
I'll conclude with a description of the Double Moon shot

Peter….

(then PETER talks about his history about why he loves teaching at CES
and why he isn't currently be a teacher in public schools… but his
energy as a teacher should encourage interested parents to bring their
teens over to CES and ask the students to volunteer as conversation
coaches to our students)

/////////////////////

Thank you Peter,

Now I'll continue speaking…

…………………

This presentation will continue for another 4 minutes with some quotes,
but for those who are tuning out, it's okay, ....... , you want
something sequential or you want something that converges or you want
structure. You'll find it on the free CD that you have at the
back. THIS IS THE POINT OF THIS PRESENTATION>>>> I'm HERE TO URGE
YOU TO PICK UP A CD AND LISTEN TO IT…. Pick up the CDs, call me.
954 OH MUCHO    tonight you might learn something about what you
might do in the Double Moon Shot.   I might know someone who has the
key that your child needs…. To find his or her passion,….

We're in a struggle for our country, Thomas Friedman points it out, we
have a moon shot effort and it started when Bill Gates offered the first
million dollars to break up a school into pieces with 9 principals and a
curriculum based on rigor, relationships and relevance… the new three
Rs.

You can participate in that work, parent, and I invite you to visit my
web site Teachers To Teachers.com and get tips about SAT prep.
Math for Artists.com, ..... Lookforpatterns.com.... And other web
sites... But this is a struggle for all we love.  Italy went through
a struggle over outsourcing and survived, somewhat, by creating a
mystique, they sold some of their land to foreigners who propped up
their economy. But soon Chinese and Indians will make the next Ferrari
and pasta at half the price and what will Italians do?   They'll
import as much as we do…

It begins with learning another language

It begins tonight with a commitment to lifelong learning.

It began when you said, probably four or five years ago that you wanted
to get involved in your school PTA. Because you are the agent of
change and improvement. You, the parents, the original teachers.

Social intelligence is the beginning. Listen to the two CDs by Pat
Harris. Find Goleman's work and read the work on Look For
Patterns.com Social intelligence is more important than

I don't want to put you off by saying "listen to the CDs first,"
but it will help you identify what YOU need and what YOU can contribute
to the moon shot, to the effort to make better schools and give your
child the best education available at this time. You don't have to
move to a small school. You do have to find a way to shape the US
culture that is inside our children's heads and make it a global
culture. Social intelligence begins when your kid sits up when they
hear Peter's accent and become curious and figure out how to engage
him in conversation.

Social intelligence begins when your kids identify and pursue their
passions, no matter what the teachers put on the curriculum.   Social
intelligence begins when you take the work of Dennis Littky and repeat
Littky's name enough to get change in the classroom. It is you, not
Littky and not McCrea who has the power.   And even if the classroom
doesn't change, your child changes because he or she knows that there
are other ways to prepare for college and life.   You have podcasts
here, in this room, ready to deliver concepts, lives, biographies and
vocabulary … the power of one is in you, and it's not anyone else
who can move you forward.

I have no illusions that I can with these speeches change the downward
course of history that pulls, like entropy (such a cool word) our
country and western civilization to a lower level. However, I am one
drop. And you are additional drops because you will talk about these
concepts with your families. And there are other tutors who realize,
like Merlin did, that each student is a future Arthur, a potential
Arthur, needing the right information and encouragement to find the
sleeper inside who one day will awake.

Thank you for allowing me to indulge in hyperbole. (wow, another cool
word) post the kitchen words, talk like that dude McLaughlin on
Channel 2, record and play back segments (no longer than 30 seconds at
first) of stuff from TV. Learn from the Internet. Everything found
here came from the internet and that's where you got it … feel free
to make copies.

Let's learn a little poetry.

We have three segments

Paul Revere
They saw two lanterns in the north church tower

They knew this was to be a fateful hour

For a man to ride and to alarm

Every village and every farm

To awaken them and call to arm

It was the ride of Paul revere.

This is seriously good rap.

I wonder if 200 years ahead

If we will ride or if we'll stay in bed

If faith and freedom within us die

And then we hear the midnight cry

And the hoof beats crossing that moonlit sky

Will we ride with Paul revere?

The purpose of education
Is to see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

If you have lost someone recently or if your dead mentor is still
guiding you, then these words are for you

From the Lion King
They live in you

They live in me

They're watching over everything we see

In every creature

In every star

In your reflection

They live in me.

Thank you.

Steve McCrea

Tutor

Box 30555

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33303

954 646 8246

S2314@tmail.com

Teachers To Teachers.com

There are some of the students at my school that need to practice
English with local people… how about your children? How about you?

--s2314@tmail.com
Steve McCrea 954-OH-MUCHO 954.646.8246
Book editing, marketing design
Tutoring

www.LookForPatterns.com
Supporter of the Double Moon Shot (proposed by Thomas Friedman) energy
and education at www.CDsForParents.com

try this...

2007-01-25T22:30:00.001-05:00

+++++++++++ A List of Activities +++++++++++

Here is a list of activities for International Visitors who are learning English. (Students in local schools can work on these activities with the international visitors)…

Your Name________________________ “Use your imagination!”

Learn more English by doing something you enjoy…

You win points for each task that you complete. When you reach 9 points, you win a prize! Create an activity and win points.

1. Call Steve 954 OHMUCHO

954 646 8246

Some people don’t like talking on the telephone.

It’s okay to leave a message. 1 point each day

2. Send Steve an email message.

S2314@tmail.com First message = 1 point. If the second message is boring, only 1/10 of a point

Create a fr_e web page or a web log (blog). If you don’t know how, ask someone -- Steve has a DVD for you to watch if you want to learn… 2 or 3 points If you know how to create a web page, then show another person how to make a web page.
Take three ph_tos and bring them to class. The photos each need 2 sentences.
Interview a person outside the school. Ask at least 8 questions
Write about your job or a beautiful (interesting) place to visit in your city
Describe a place to visit in Fort Lauderdale. Give tips and suggestions to the reader
How will you use English? Describe a situation and look for 10 difficult words -- Find words that you don’t know in English… “the thing that is between the wheels of a car” or “the thing that holds pieces together” -- What do you know in your language but not in English?
Imagine you are on an airplane. Write a c_nversation (dial__gue) Write at least five questions and answers.
Choose an activity. Use your imagination.

Send your suggestions to Steve at s2314@tmail.com

----------------------

Rafe Esquith teaches with his hair on fire

2007-01-23T12:29:00.001-05:00

Here are materials that appear on NPR.org and students, teachers and parents will find it valuable.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6939776

Excerpt: 'Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire'

by Rafe Esquith

Prologue: Fire in the Classroom

It is a strange feeling to write this book. I am painfully aware that I am not superhuman. I do the same job as thousands of other dedicated teachers who try to make a difference. Like all real teachers, I fail constantly. I don't get enough sleep. I lie awake in the early-morning hours, agonizing over a kid I was unable to reach. Being a teacher can be painful.

For almost a quarter of a century, I have spent the majority of my time in a tiny, leaky classroom in central Los Angeles. Because of a little talent and a lot of luck, I have been fortunate to receive some recognition for my work. Not a day goes by when I do not feel overwhelmed by the attention.

I doubt that any book can truly capture the Hobart Shake-speareans. However, it is certainly possible to share some of the things I've learned over the years that have helped me grow as a teacher, parent, and person. For almost twelve hours a day, six days a week, forty-eight weeks a year, my fifth-graders and I are crowded into our woefully insufficient space, immersed in a world of Shakespeare, algebra, and rock 'n' roll. For the rest of the year, the kids and I are on the road. While my wife believes me to be eccentric, good friends of mine have not been so gentle, going as far as to label me quixotic at best and certifiable at worst.

I don't claim to have all the answers; at times it doesn't feel as if I'm reaching as many students as I succeed with. I'm here only to share some of the ideas I have found useful. Some of them are just plain common sense, and others touch on insanity. But there is a method to this madness. It is my hope that some parents and teachers out there will agree with me that our culture is a disaster. In a world that considers athletes and pop stars more important than research scientists and firefighters, it has become practically impossible to develop kind and brilliant individuals. And yet we've created a different world in Room 56. It's a world where character matters, hard work is respected, humility is valued, and support for one another is unconditional. Perhaps when parents and teachers see this, and realize that my students and I are nothing special, they will get a few ideas and take heart.

I am sad when I see so many good teachers and parents surrender to forces that sap their potential excellence. The demons are everywhere. Those who care deeply often feel outgunned by apathetic or incompetent administrators and politicians. Expectations for children are often ridiculously low. Racism, poverty, and ignorance often reign supreme on campus. Add to this mix ungrateful students, and even mean-spirited people in the teaching profession itself, and the hardiest of souls can be crushed. Each defeat usually means that a child's true potential will not be developed.

I was fortunate to have a ridiculous moment in the classroom that literally lit my way out of the darkness. Years ago, feeling tired and frustrated, I spent a few weeks searching my soul and did something I rarely do—I questioned whether teaching was worth it anymore. A combination of the aforementioned demons had beaten me down, and I was practically down for the count.

But for some reason, when I was guilty of feeling sorry for myself, I spent a day paying extra attention to a kid in class whom I liked very much. She was one of those kids who always seem to be the last one picked for the team, a quiet girl who appeared to have accepted the idea that she could never be special. I was determined to convince her that she was wrong.

I was teaching a chemistry lesson, and the students were excited about working with alcohol lamps. But the girl couldn't get her wick to burn. The rest of the class wanted to move on with their projects, but I told everyone to wait. I was not going to leave her behind, even after she told me to continue with the others and not worry about her.

Normally I do not interfere with science projects, because failure can be part of the learning process. Yet this was simply a matter of faulty equipment; it had nothing to do with the chemical principle we were exploring that morning. I needed to step in. The girl had tears in her eyes, and I felt ashamed of myself for ever having felt like giving up. Suddenly her sadness was all that mattered.

Athletes often refer to getting "into the zone" when they forget about the crowd and the pressure and see only the ball. It can happen in other fields too. For that one moment, the only thing that mattered to me was that this girl should have a successful experiment. She was going to go home that day with a smile on her face. I bent closely over the wick of her alcohol lamp. For some reason the wick was not as long as it should have been—I could barely see it. I leaned as close as I could, and with a long kitchen match tried to reach it. I was so close to the match that I could feel the flame as I tried to ignite the lamp. I was determined to get the lamp working. And it started working! The wick caught fire, and I looked up triumphantly to see the smile I expected on the girl's face.

Instead, she took one look at me and began screaming in fear. Other kids started yelling as well. I did not understand why they were all pointing at me, until I realized that while I was lighting the lamp, the flame had touched my hair; it was now smoldering and scaring the hell out of the children. Several of them ran to me and swiped at my head. Talk about a dream come true—they got to hit their teacher on the head and say they were trying to help him.

A few minutes later, all was well and the experiment pro-ceeded. I felt (and looked) like an idiot. And yet for the first time in weeks, I felt great about being a teacher. I had been able to ignore the crap that all teachers on the front lines face. I had done everything I could to help someone. I didn't do it particularly well, but the effort was there. I thought to myself that if I could care so much about teaching that I didn't even realize my hair was burning, I was moving in the right direction. From that moment, I resolved to always teach like my hair was on fire.

There are so many charlatans in the world of education. They teach for a couple of years, come up with a few clever slogans, build their Web sites, and hit the lecture circuit. In this fast-food society, simple solutions to complex problems are embraced far too often. We can do better. I hope that people who read this book realize that true excellence takes sacrifice, mistakes, and enormous amounts of effort. After all, there are no shortcuts.

-----------------------------

All Things Considered, January 22, 2007 · Rafe Esquith is a trail-blazing, fast-talking, fifth-grade teacher who has racked up a slew of awards for his work at a public school in Los Angeles. Ninety-two percent of the children at the school live in households below the poverty level, but Esquith's students have reached the pinnacle of academic and artistic success. His fifth-graders are already tackling high-school fare: algebra, philosophy and Shakespeare.

Esquith's methods have been so successful that he has been encouraged to leave the classroom to help other instructors. But he has no interest in abandoning his kids. Instead, he wrote Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56, which Esquith likens to a cookbook for teaching in an urban classroom. The title of the book comes from an incident that occurred while he was helping a student in class with a chemistry experiment.

"In trying to get her alcohol burner to light, I set my hair on fire and didn't even know it until the kids started screaming," he says. "But as ridiculous as that was, I actually thought, if I could care so much I didn't even know my hair was on fire, I was moving in the right direction as a teacher — when I realized that you have to ignore all the crap, and the children are the only thing that matter."

He says his teaching tactics, however incendiary, apply to both teachers and parents.

The radio story is by Michelle Norris. Go ahead, visit www.npr.org …

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6939776

CLICK HERE

By the way.. there are no shortcuts. (that’s the name of another book by Rafe).

go

2007-01-22T13:45:00.001-05:00

What can Parents do? Suggestions from a tutor

Learn about the works of Dennis Littky.

Specific chapters from his book "The Big Picture: Education is Everybody's Business."

Chap 6 Real Work in the Real World, pages 111-133; Tests vs. Exhibitions pp. 162-168

Chapter 8 ½ Standardized Tests pp. 171-179

The Benefits of Small Schools pp. 66-70 Visit www.BigPicture.org and www.MetCenter.org

Go to the MetCenter.org and print the questions under "Education":

www.themetschool.org/edu_applied

Ask your child to answer at least one of the questions each evening.

Ask teachers to give a narrative in addition to the letter grade.

Presentations: Ask teachers to allow students to give presentations (exhibitions) in addition to or instead of written tests. (This is particularly helpful for students who are strong in areas other than Linguistic Intelligence).

Learn more about small schools. Read quotes about small schools at the blog: findasmallschool.blogspot.com or click on the link at www.FindASmallSchool.com

Learn more about Multiple Intelligences. Newcityschool.org is a good place to start.

What if I can't find a small school?

What if my child likes the big school where he's at? What if? These actions will enhance your child's schooling.

Bring mentors into school and volunteer as a mentor. Return to the same classroom at least once a month and provide continuity.

Find mentors on video (link on www.FindASmallSchool.com). Get your child into an internship.

Build a portfolio (videos, essays, photos of projects, exhibitions and presentations).

Bring your child to a language school and listen to your child create a discussion with an international student.

Suggested procedure: Most private language schools end at 12:45 or 3:30 p.m. If you stand outside the school, you can introduce yourself to several students, say that you want to learn about their countries and invite them for coffee. Bring an atlas, paper and pen.

If you are interested, call me and I'll arrange for you and your child to meet an international visitor Speak in synonyms. If the visitor doesn't understand a sentence, state it another way.

Put something useful on your child's computer (get the GET AHEAD CD with educational web pages, or go to www.TeachersToTeachers.com and visit the web links).

Turn off music in the car. National Public Radio or get podcasts of ScienceFriday.com, OnTheMedia.org, GeoQuiz (TheWorld.org) and other web pages.

Become a greeter. Students can get in the mind of the visitor. Learn some basic phrases in other languages. Carry a pen and paper to offer. Learn how to draw a map of the area and explain how to find Sawgrass Mall or how to get to a nearby mall.

Post SAT words in your kitchen, in the car and on a table. Use at least one cool word from FreeVocabulary.com.

Learn other languages. Yes, students will pick up something when you learn new words. Let them see you study another way of communicating.

There is no "minimum daily requirement" for using video games. Eye-Hand coordination can be developed in a wide variety of ways. Your child could be learning another skill or listening to audio books instead of playing Grand Theft Auto.

Assume that your child is being prepared for today's economy, not the economy of the future. Then make additions to your child's curriculum.

Don't let school get in the way of your education. Mark Twain

Please send suggestions on how to extend the education of students... s2314@tmail.com

Never Miss an Email Stay connected with Yahoo! Mail on your mobile. Get started!

Fw: Article from Time Magazine

2007-01-22T11:21:00.001-05:00

If you feel the pressure to get into a "big name" university and if you are looking for a good education for your child, why not consider the information presented in Time Magazine in August 2006?

Some KEY POINTS

Are you paying for help getting into a school where the kid probably doesn't belong? Do parents really think there are only 10 great colleges in the country? There are scores of them, hundreds even, honors colleges embedded inside public universities that offer an Ivy education at state-school prices; small liberal-arts colleges that exalt the undergraduate experience in a way that the big schools can't rival. And if they hope to go on to grad school? Getting good grades at a small school looks better than floundering at a famous one. Think they need to be able to tap into the old-boy network to get a job? Chances are, the kid is going to be doing a job that doesn't even exist now, so connections won't do much good. The rules have changed. The world has changed. You have a sign over your office door: COLLEGE IS A MATCH TO BE MADE, NOT A PRIZE TO BE WON.

====================

"The Ivy Leagues just seemed like a very intense four years where I'd get more of the same that I've been through here," he says. "There's such a seek-and-destroy mentality." [Some students] seek out schools like Sarah Lawrence, which has no required courses and few exams but rather research papers and essays. Or Hampshire, where students focus on projects instead of courses and receive detailed evaluations rather than grades.

=========================

Find this article at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1226150,00.html

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006

Who Needs Harvard?

By NANCY GIBBS, Nathan Thornburgh

It's the summer before your senior year, and you're sweating. The college brochures are spread across the table, along with itineraries, SAT review books, downloaded copies of Web pages that let you chart the grades and scores of every kid from your high school who applied to a given college in the past five years and whether they got in or not. You're hunting for a school where the principal oboe player is graduating, or the soccer goalie, so it might be in the market for someone with your particular skills. You can be fifth-generation Princeton or the first in your family to apply to college: it's still the most important decision you've ever made, and the most confounding.

You're a parent watching your child, so proud, and so worried. Your neighbors' son was a nationally ranked swimmer, straight As, great boards, nice kid. Got rejected at his top three choices, wait-listed at two more. Who gets into Yale these days anyway? Maybe they should have sent him to Mali for the summer to dig wells, fight malaria, give him something to write about in his essay.

You're the college counselor at a public school in a hothouse ZIP code, and you wish you could grab the students, grab the parents by the shoulders and shake them. Twenty thousand dollars for a college consultant? They're paying for help getting into a school where the kid probably doesn't belong. Do they really think there are only 10 great colleges in the country? There are scores of them, hundreds even, honors colleges embedded inside public universities that offer an Ivy education at state-school prices; small liberal-arts colleges that exalt the undergraduate experience in a way that the big schools can't rival. And if they hope to go on to grad school? Getting good grades at a small school looks better than floundering at a famous one. Think they need to be able to tap into the old-boy network to get a job? Chances are, the kid is going to be doing a job that doesn't even exist now, so connections won't do much good. The rules have changed. The world has changed. You have a sign over your office door: COLLEGE IS A MATCH TO BE MADE, NOT A PRIZE TO BE WON.

"In my generation," says Bill Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, "America wasted a lot of talent." Applying to college was less brutal mainly because "three-quarters of the population was excluded from these types of schools." Now 62% more students are going to college than did in the '60s, when Fitzsimmons was a Harvard undergrad, and while many of them head off to state universities and community colleges, the top schools are determined to tear down barriers to entry for the brightest of them. Admissions officers from Harvard, Yale and Stanford weave their outreach tours through low-income ZIP codes and remote rural areas, starting new summer academies for promising candidates and waiving their tuition if they do make it in. Harvard's class of 2009 included 22% more students from families who earned under $60,000 than the class of 2008. Like many other colleges, Harvard also gives some preferences to well-connected applicants like legacies (the children of alumni), but Fitzsimmons says his school is making a statement with its broader outreach. "The word has gone out that if you are talented, the sky is the limit," Fitzsimmons says. "If we don't take advantage of that energy, America will languish."

The math is simple: when so many more kids are applying, a smaller percentage get in, which yields the annual headlines about COLLEGE ADMISSIONS INSANITY. Princeton turned down 4 of every 5 of the valedictorians who applied last year, and Dartmouth could have filled its freshman class with students with a perfect score in at least one SAT subject and had some to spare. But in the meantime, partly as a result, partly in response to all kinds of social and economic trends, the rest of the college universe has shifted as well. The parents may be the last ones to come around--but talk to high school teachers and guidance counselors and especially to the students themselves, and you can glimpse a new spirit, almost a liberation, when it comes to thinking about college. "Sometimes I see it with families with their second or third child, and they've learned their lesson with the first," observes Jim Conroy, a college counselor at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill. Their message: while you may not be able to get into Harvard, it also does not matter anymore. Just ask the kids who have chosen to follow a different road.

Small Is Beautiful

The apostle of the alternative way is a white-haired, bespectacled former education editor of the New York Times named Loren Pope, whose book Colleges That Change Lives is the best-selling admissions guide, ahead of A Is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting Into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges. He lays out all the ways in which the past 30 years have smiled on smaller schools. With rising prosperity, their endowments have grown. The number of Ph.D.s doubled from 1968 to 1998, meaning a deeper pool of professors to choose from. And in some ways the small schools gained an advantage over their prestigious rivals: after Sputnik, many colleges became research universities, "and smaller has been better for undergraduate education ever since," Pope says. "At big research universities, professors spend more time researching than teaching."

In a kind of virtuous circle, the "second tier" schools got better as applications rose and they could become choosier in assembling a class--which in turn raised the quality of the whole experience on campus and made the school more attractive to both topflight professors and the next wave of applicants. "Just because you haven't heard of a college doesn't mean it's no good," argues Marilee Jones, the admissions dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an outspoken advocate of the idea that parents need to lighten up. "Just as you've changed and grown since college, colleges are changing and growing."

Once students start Looking Beyond the Ivy League--the title of another Pope book--they see for themselves the advantages that can come with an open mind. They find a school that lets students work with NASA on deep-space experiments, or maintains a year-round ski cabin or funds a full year of traveling in the developing world. Schools once derided as "safeties" stand taller now, as they make the case that excellence is not always a function of exclusivity. Some kids end up getting into Harvard and then turning it down because of the $30,000 tuition or the lecture-hall class sizes or because in the course of the hunt they conclude that they would fit better elsewhere. And in making their choice, they get to make their own statement about what is important in an education, and even teach their parents some lessons.

Investing in the Future

Given the changes in the economy as well as the academy in the past 20 years, advocates for smaller schools argue that they give students a sharper competitive edge. "What most parents are concerned about is providing the best security for their child," says Gay Pepper, head of college guidance at Greens Farms Academy, a private school in Westport, Conn. "Some see going to a brand-name college as providing that security. We have to shift that thinking. A college that is right for the student is the best form of investment."

There's growing evidence to support that claim. The Quarterly Journal of Economics published a study in 2002 showing that students who were accepted at top schools but for various reasons went to less selective ones were earning just as much 20 years later as their peers from more highly selective colleges. Much of the old-boy networking value has diminished in an increasingly performance-based economy: only seven CEOs from the current top 50 FORTUNE 500 companies were Ivy League undergraduates. In an economy in which people typically change jobs seven or eight times and new fields open up all the time, Pope notes, "connections won't do a whole hell of a lot of good. It's your own specific gravity, not the name of the school, that matters."

For students aspiring to go to graduate school, the more personalized education offered at small schools can often provide the best preparation. Pomona College sent a higher percentage of its students to Harvard Law in 2005 than Brown or Duke. The academic might of these less fabled colleges was never a secret, but it's becoming more appreciated than ever before. "Most of the good, small schools were church related to begin with, and it was bad form to beat your chest and brag," Pope says.

James Sanchez, 21, from the dusty high-desert town of Española, N.M., is a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina and an aspiring neuroscientist. He figured that at a bigger school he would have been lucky to spend his lab time washing beakers for the star scientists. At Davidson, where there are no grad students, Sanchez's senior thesis is an integral part of a larger three-year study of memory and learning in rats that may offer new insights into Alzheimer's. His professor anticipates that the research will be published in a top-shelf neuroscience journal, and says that Sanchez will be listed as a co-author. That's a rare honor for an undergraduate, and Sanchez thinks it has given him a boost in his applications to medical school.

Students see a strategy: choose intimacy and attention now, and reach for the world-class research university for grad school. Ashley Rufus, 19, gave up a coveted spot on Harvard's waiting list in favor of Truman State University in rural Kirksville, Mo.: "It started out as a financial issue," says Rufus, who got a full ride to Truman. She loved Harvard when she visited, but she hated the idea of eight years of debt if she were to go on to medical school. Truman was closer to home, had a student-faculty ratio of 15:1, and its graduates have a "very impressive" rate of acceptance to medical schools. Carla Valenzuela, 18, who graduated in the spring from Martin Luther King Academic Magnet school in Nashville, Tenn., applied to 13 schools--and wound up picking her last choice. She turned down Amherst, Wellesley and Dartmouth in favor of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Part of the draw was being near a big city; part was the offer of a Meyerhoff scholarship, a prestigious, four-year grant for talented high school students studying science and related fields. All 52 Meyerhoff scholars from the class of 2005 went on to graduate schools, 45 of them to M.D., Ph.D. or M.D.-Ph.D. combination programs.

"If I wanted to work right after college, I would have gone to a more 'name school' like Dartmouth," Valenzuela says. But she hopes to become a doctor, so she did some research. "I definitely looked at the medical-acceptance rates of each college and how strong their pre-med programs were, and that helped knock out a lot of colleges." Students with clear professional goals will pay more attention to the reputation of a single department than the whole university. Among the artistically inclined, the Rhode Island School of Design has always been pre-eminent, but schools like the Savannah College of Art and Design, Emerson College and Northeastern University are now attracting kids specifically for their arts curriculums. Gabriel Slavitt, 17, who this spring graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica, Calif., says his stepsister "basically flipped out" when she heard he was turning down Brown University in favor of Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. He admits that he applied to Brown for the name, but he concluded that its arts program was not as strong. "For what I want to study, it doesn't mean anything to me to be around students that are going to help me get a job later in life, business students and the like."

Make Me a Match

To see what a more ecumenical approach to college hunting looks like, you have only to drop in on Pope's Colleges That Change Lives tour, a kind of low-key Lollapalooza for freethinking colleges that are looking for liberated students. Last year more than 600 people attended each of the sessions in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Washington. In a crowded Manhattan hotel ballroom, Maria Furtado, director of admissions at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., grabs the wireless microphone in front of a crowd of more than 500 parents, students and college counselors and happily shatters conventional wisdom. "Every spring and every fall, this is what you will see and hear in the media: 'No one gets in anywhere,'" she says. "Gloom and doom. Well, we're here to tell you that people get in everywhere!" She polls the crowd: What percentage of kids do you think get into their first-choice school? One guess is 5%; another is 20%. Furtado beams and announces slowly, so as not to let the Good Word slip out too carelessly: "79.8% of first-year students are at their first-choice school."

Other studies say the number is closer to 70%. But whatever the exact figure, if you want to be one of them, Furtado says, "you have to be brave and bold and explore a school you haven't heard of before." That shouldn't be hard for this crowd. As a group, the kids are unorthodox, outspoken late bloomers. "They're very bright, but they didn't discover it until they were juniors or seniors in high school," says Goucher College president Sanford Ungar, who makes the point that those who find their way to a place like Goucher can be more creative than their highly polished peers. "They haven't been flattened by steamrollers in high school," he says. "They haven't been so bruised in the application process that they are incapable of creative thought. Many kids have been so overgroomed by their parents and others."

Elizabeth Pantone, 17, listens closely as admissions officers make their pitch. She's an aspiring writer in an intense Westchester, N.Y., school, who is both pushing against the culture and admitting that she's working harder now in hopes of aiming higher. Her dad, meanwhile, has been trying to meet her halfway, since no matter what she does she's not likely to make it to the schools he originally had in mind. "It's been quite an education for me," he says. "I was thinking name brand in the beginning, but now I really believe in this match idea."

This can be a slow process, educating parents. "After Colleges That Change Lives came out, I got letters from all around the country from mamas saying 'You saved us,'" Pope says. "Well, more mamas need saving." At Brookline High School in Brookline, Mass., headmaster Bob Weintraub estimates that fully 1 in 3 of his students' parents went to Harvard. That means one of his many jobs is defusing the tension they promote. On their own, students set up a wall by the counseling office where they post their rejection letters. They call it the Wall of Shame, but it's a great way for them to realize they're not alone in having their Ivy dreams dashed. "It's a community of the rejected," jokes Weintraub.

At freshman orientation, Weintraub includes a plea for parents to check their college anxieties at the door. "Their kids are just transitioning into high school," he says. "They're going to be exposed to drugs, sex, lots of changes. Can we just deal with the developmental issues first?" By the time they enter the college hunt, many kids have been conditioned to treat the process more as a race than a romance, a test of who comes in first, not what will make them happy. "You ask students what they want," says Rachel Petrella, a counselor at California's La Jolla Country Day School, "and they say, 'What do you mean, What do I want? What do I get? I've been working for four years without daylight. I'm supposed to go to the most selective school I've earned, right?'"

Actually, no. And thus begins their higher education about higher education. "The more sophisticated kids who take on the search as a research project, they are getting past the prestige," says Petrella. Students see that schools like Vassar, Lehigh, Colgate and Dickinson really care about the quality of undergraduate life, she says. Since many counselors will advise the more anxious students to apply to at least nine schools (three stretches, three matches and three safeties), students run spreadsheets rating various criteria on a scale of 1 to 10, from the food to the student-teacher ratio to rates of acceptance into grad school. And then there are the unquantifiable assets. At Davidson, townspeople and professors bake cakes for the winners of the freshman cake race and students boast that scattered around the campus are dollar bills held down by rocks, tangible evidence of an honor code so entrenched that if a dollar falls on campus soil, it stays there until the owner claims it. Kenyon in Ohio includes a paragraph in its acceptance letter that is entirely personal to the particular student: good job on the essay, nice season in basketball. The big schools can't do that--"and it's making a difference," says Sharon Merrow Cuseo, dean at Los Angeles' Harvard-Westlake Academy. "I think of my students as cynical consumers of college propaganda, but they love that personal touch. They come in and say, 'Jeez, look at this note they wrote me. It's good to be wanted.'" She can map the change in priorities based on the school's spring 2006 college tour. Five years ago, they just did the northeast. This year the group, after visiting a campus or two in New York, split into two parts. The first went south to University of Richmond, Davidson, William and Mary, and George Washington. "People are starting to understand that a lot of the Southern schools in general are great," she says. The second broke north into Canada to visit McGill University in Montreal and the University of Toronto. Cuseo calls Canada "the new frontier."

Who Needs Consultants?

So how do the private consultants fit into all this? As many as 1 in 5 applicants to private four-year colleges get some kind of independent coaching, which can range in price from $469 for Kaplan's three-hour consultation by webcam to $36,000 for four years of hand holding offered by superconsultant Michele Hernandez. Although consultants are easy to caricature for sanding down and varnishing a nice, raw kid, admissions officers insist that they can see past the polishing to the real human being beneath. How useful counselors are may depend as much on the attitude of the client as the approach of the counselor. "Some of them are very helpful and are helping students learn how to tell us about themselves," says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, in a rare defense of the breed. "I don't think it's fair to say they're all negative."

For better or worse, working with a consultant forces students to decide who they are as they shape their self-portraits and what sacrifices they are willing to make in the course of their college search. Emma Robson, 17, a junior in Westport, Conn., found herself wrestling with a consultant who tried to spike her favorite activity of the entire year, her seven weeks at a summer camp on Moose Pond in Maine, where she and a bunch of girls she has known since she was 10 sing campfire songs and canoe and make lanyards. Many of her classmates will be spending their summers racking up achievements, while Robson will be collecting and recollecting, in a very old-fashioned way, memories. "Camp is very dear to me," she says, and she's prepared to give up whatever edge a more intense summer might give her. "It's a time I get to recharge from a pretty stressful school year. If I spent the summer taking extra classes, I would just be worn down by the time school starts."

If parents see college admission as the culmination of years of investment--the homework showdowns and soccer shuttles--it's not hard to find kids like Robson who see it as their deliverance. "I don't really want to continue all this hypercompetitiveness," says Greg Smith, 18, a senior in Charlotte, N.C., who cringes as he notes how, when history projects were announced at his high school, there was a literal footrace to the library to be the first to get the key books. He won a Morehead scholarship to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a full ride offered to the very top students. It was not only the money but also the feel of the place that drew him. "The Ivy Leagues just seemed like a very intense four years where I'd get more of the same that I've been through here," he says. "There's such a seek-and-destroy mentality." Others seek out schools like Sarah Lawrence, which has no required courses and few exams but rather research papers and essays. Or Hampshire, where students focus on projects instead of courses and receive detailed evaluations rather than grades.

College students this spring watched the flameout of Kaavya Viswanathan, the prepackaged Harvard prodigy who published a best seller at 19 and had been exposed as a plagiarist by 20. That's not the way things are supposed to unfold. College is supposed to be about the Best Four Years of Your Life, "the love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books," not to mention pizza and football and long, caffeinated nights of debate and confusion and discovery. All that families have to do to succeed, say veterans of the admissions wars, is let go of some old assumptions and allow themselves to be pleasantly surprised by how much has changed on campuses across the country in the past generation. That ability in the end may be the admissions test that matters most.

Submit questions for M.I.T. admissions dean Marilee Jones at time.com/jones

With reporting by Anne Berryman/ Athens, Jeremy Caplan, Nadia Mustafa/ New York, Theo Emery/ Nashville, Leron Kornreich, Jeanne McDowell/ Los Angeles, Michael Lindenberger/ Louisville, Constance E. Richards/ Asheville, Leslie Whitaker/ Chicago

We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love
(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.

FREE OFFER of CD

2007-01-21T23:42:00.001-05:00

If you want a free CD, contact me at s2314@tmail.com. Let’s figure out a place where I can put 25 copies for you and your neighbors to pick up.

Mention “Dennis Littky” or “What should I know about brain research?” or “What are Mentors On Video?”

Invitation to speak to parents

2007-01-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

The Invitation to speak... The telephone rang. It was 12:10 p.m., Thursday January 18. "Could you come to a PTA meeting in February and talk about school reform?" Sure. I offered to put my CDs and DVDs in the mail for evaluation. As an SAT tutor, my primary focus is (1) reducing stress in students (who don't like tests). I also try to get (2) parents to participate in the test-preparation process (3) I attempt in my tutoring to give my students multiple ways of teaching to reach the multiple styles of learning. A SECOND REQUEST: "I'm inviting you to speak to our PTA meeting in part because of your focus on multiple learning styles. So I compiled my teaching CDs and DVDs, especially the DVD about brain research (The Brain Game). ================ Then I sat at my computer and wrote about "Passions" and how we can help students find their passion... ========== How can we create a place where our children can find and explore their passions? What is the Secret Behind the Met Center in Rhode Island? Hmm. It sounds like any other school. “High Standards” for most of us means “We use expensive textbooks and expect our students to do onerous homework.” At the Met, the standards are for rigorous work in the student’s area of passion. “Advisory” for most schools might mean “we have a guidance department” and “we help students find possible careers.” In the Met, the advisory is the class and the classroom. The advisory appears to be the heart of the program. The advisory system links one adult to 15 students and that adult (the “advisor,” but most of us would call that adult the “teacher”) builds a three- or four-year relationship with the student. There are other teachers, but one advisor guides the student through a mix of subjects. The students look at issues in the advisory, focusing on quantitative reasoning (math), empirical evidence (the scientific process) and communication (language arts). Confused? I was when I first heard of this system. I thought, “How can one teacher teach all subjects?” That’s the wrong question. We should be asking, “In my school, how can a student get a sense of direction when he or she has to deal with at least 5 different teachers each year, 20 teachers through high school? Where is the common thread binding all of these subjects in the student?” At the Met, one adult cares about (focuses on) one student at a time. Five pillars of Big Picture Schools (as interpreted by a math teacher who visited The Met in Providence, RI, part of the Big Picture schools association) 1 Multi-year relationships -- The teacher stays with the same students for three or four years. The teacher teaches more than one subject. In the case of the Met, a high school in Providence, RI, the teacher stays with the students for all four years of high school. 2 The teacher is a facilitator. Teacher = Advisor = “how can I help you?” The teacher coaches the student to choose activities to cover skill areas (language skills, quantitative reasoning, etc.) rather than special subjects, like trigonometry, algebra or chemistry. One of the teacher’s prime activities is finding suitable mentors for the students. 3 Tests are by exhibition. A “stand up” demonstration of understanding is valued above a written test. The students take the state’s standardized tests and other written tests, but the school focuses on the exhibition, which is the product of at least nine weeks of work. 4 Learning through interests – the internships (set up with the teacher) are selected by the student. Academic learning is filtered through the student’s interests. Students interact with mentors. 5 “I’m more than a letter in the alphabet.” Evaluations are made by narratives, not by a letter grade. The teacher can afford time to write two pages of narrative about each student during the grading period because the teacher has only 15 to 20 students to meet with over a nine-week period. (I observed an “advisor” who met with students throughout the class day, asking for updates on on-going projects. This sort of focus can come from a narrow focus of one adult on a small group of students.) A COMMON OBJECTION to SMALL SCHOOLS: “Our schools are focusing on reducing class size, not school size. We seek to provide a student-centered environment.” RESPONSE: Let us emphasize the difference between being a student in a small school and being a student in a small class in a large school. Bill Gates hammers the point of small schools, where kids feel safer and everyone knows your name. It doesn’t matter what size the “student-centered environment” is – when I walk out that classroom door, if I can dissolve into 800 or 1000 other bodies, then I’m not in a small school. I don’t get the small-school benefit that Dennis Littky writes about and that Bill Gates is pursuing with his foundation. How can this “Met Center” model be applied to middle schools? Or to large high schools? >> more hands-on learning >> more interaction with outside mentors >> introduce grading by narrative >> “one classroom schools” – one teacher for several subjects. (See WARNING below.) >> less emphasis on performance on a written test >> expand the standardized test to allow alternative ways of “performing understanding.” >> Every student writes an autobiography of at least 75 pages or videotapes and makes a film bersion of an autobiography. That exercise helps students know where they came from and involves interviewing parents and relatives: “What did I like to do when I was a child?” – Questions like this help to bring into focus what their passions are. Howard Gardner, developer of the Multiple Intelligences theory, makes it clear that there are many ways of learning, so there should be more than one way to assess a person’s mastery of a subject. Some people are inspired speakers and actors, but have a difficult time writing. Some people are good at building teams but do poorly when acting alone. In the real world, these people are called “managers” (because they know how to delegate). They don’t have to know how to do everything well. However, schools test students in a way that guarantees that most people who are good in one area are going to feel terrible about themselves because they can’t perform up to a “standard” in another area. In the work place, employees don’t have to perform in a well-rounded way. That’s why there is division of labor in an organization. Kids in good schools are losing out, too: What makes me cry daily is when I hear a kid describe how he or she was before, and then how they found their passion and it changed their life. It's really about the environment that we built to help the kid find his passion. That comes from having respect for the kid and giving the kid time to learn. Half of our great work is because the kid got there when the kid grew up and got more mature. We were just patient. But in most cases, the kids never get to, they get stopped before they did something stupid or they weren't interested. By having the faith that the kid will learn and by struggling with that through the years, we can see how far they've come. Our secret is that we have the patience and the belief that anything is possible. Whatever you need to help you get passionate about something is what we do. it's the true belief in the student. Every school says that they respect kids. If you give kids work that is not important, you're not respecting them. I think my frustration with the world is that in many suburban districts where parents move to send their kids and the students come home with their As and Bs, the parents are satisfied, but they never look deeper, so they think those are good schools. They have the highest SAT scores, they have the most kids going to Ivy League colleges. Those kids are losing too. They are not dropping out because they are playing the game. When you ask them, "Have you made any decisions in school? Do you care about anything, are you passionate about anything that goes on during the day besides drama club or football after school?" They're getting the short end. They aren't allowed to get engaged with their work and go deeper. "My kid did well at that school." Yeah, but where could your kid really go if your kid got to work with a doctor in 9th grade, following her around, and really going in depth? Dennis Littky ---------------------------------------------------------------- WARNING: I have mentioned one of the key aspects of the Big Picture school to several teachers: “The advisor teaches all of the subjects.” I rejected this idea at first and I have grown to accept it. The reactions of other teachers are consistent: “How can one person teach math, history, a foreign language, chemistry, biology, physics, and English Literature? Where is the rigor?” “How can one teacher be good at all of those subjects?” “I was terrible at (math, history, whatever). I would make a terrible advisor in that system.” Two suggestions: a) Is it so terrible for the student to sit with an adult who has a fear of math or a history of negative results with science? If the student lacks a knack for algebra, who better to teach flexibility and optimism than an adult who failed algebra in 9th grade? b) It might appear impossible to convince a teacher’s union to encourage members to teach a spectrum of subjects instead of “their favorite” or “their special gift.” For some students, an English teacher who hates math might be the perfect adult to guide the student toward understanding quantitative reasoning. A science teacher who can barely write an essay might be the best writing coach for some students. Students needing additional rigor can be assigned to other teachers/advisors for specific needs. In short, The Big Picture method has pushed me to look at alternatives to “how I was taught.” Compiled by small school advocate S. McCrea Call with suggestions 954 646 8246 mistermath@comcast.net www.FindASmallSchool.com Please send me your comments. Potential topics (for discussions at PTA meetings) ============================================ How to create a video portfolio for the college application The Visual and Active Method of Test preparation (using the Multiple Learning Styles) The Vornle Method for College applications (text on www.TeachersToTeachers.com) Brain Research for Parents and Teens (what is the "brain game"?) How to bring electronic books into the classroom How to add technology to classes and the home Put something educational on your child's iPod A review of Multiple Learning Styles. What does Bill Gates say about school size? An invitation to an expanded role for parents and mentors in schools (according to Dennis Littky) Summary of Littky's book "THE BIG PICTURE: Education is Everybody's Business"

What can one parent do?

2007-01-21T17:03:00.000-05:00

You might have heard what Bill Gates says about schools: make the school small so that the students are given attention. The Principal should know every student and their parents. Students need adults "who know them, look out for them and push them to succeed." But let's assume that you can't switch to a small school and you can't change the school to make it small. What can one parent do? After all, "I am only one person." The other way to look at it is..."Before there was nobody, and now there is one. I am here." 1. Build a portfolio of understanding with your child. A letter grade isn't enough... create a portfolio showing progress. 2. In addition to written tests, videotape exhibitions and spoken reports by your child. 3. Bring in mentors. 4. Ask teachers to make the work "Authentic..." Ask for REAL work, not make-work. Internships help. 5. Read www.FindASmallSchool.com and visit www.MetCenter.org. Look at the questions listed on the Met Center's academic page. Ask those questions to your child. Ask your child's teachers to ask those questions. HERE'S AN EXAMPLE 1. Empirical Reasoning "How do I prove it?" This goal is to think like a scientist: to use empirical evidence and a logical process to make decisions and to evaluate hypotheses. It does not reflect specific science content material, but instead can incorporate ideas from physics to sociology to art theory. Questions used to develop a student's project: . What idea do I want to test? (essential question) . What has other research shown? . What is my hypothesis? . How can I test it? . What information (data) do I need to collect? . How will I collect the information? . What will I use as a control in my research? . How good is my information? . What are the results of my research? . What error do I have? . What conclusions can I draw from my research? . How will I present my results? http://www.themetschool.org/edu_applied#empirical Finally, get a copy of Mr. Mac's "THE NEW THREE Rs", a ten minute documentary of small schools.

Find a small school

Practice Pronunciation

Can You Explain What You Need To Do in this COLLEGE COURSE?

Course Structure

Course objectives

A Second Level Course of English

A composition course that develops writing skills beyond the levels of proficiency required by ENGL 1101, that emphasizes interpretation and evaluation, and that incorporates a variety of more advanced research methods.

Course objectives

PARENTS: Find a language school and prepare for the FLAT WORLD

Let's LEARN about a new way to LEARN!

Who is your FCAT EXPLORER?

An interesting view of the SAT essay

Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?

put something useful on that computer

A talk to a PTA group (imagined)

try this...

Rafe Esquith teaches with his hair on fire

go

Fw: Article from Time Magazine

Who Needs Harvard?

FREE OFFER of CD

More questions for your child to answer at home

Invitation to speak to parents

What can one parent do?