6/04/2014

Topeka Cares

Yesterday at the Fairlawn Mall, the City of Topeka had a celebration of all the organizations that provide services to the city of Topeka.  To add to the celebration, the Barbershop Chorus did a fifteen minute set and it went well.  The Chorus was in the entrance to a vacant store and we crowded in a space that was just about the right size to let us all hear each other.  It was kind of hot but a very good place to sing.   Then I got a chance to tour the booths and got to meet a lot of nice people from Topeka.

The Topeka High Alumni Association had a booth and I looked at their displays.  I mentioned that My Uncle, Mr. Lee had been a math teacher there and the person behind the booth said she loved Hazen.  He was one of the best teachers she had in school.  She had gone from a person that hated math to a really good student.  That about says it all for a teacher.  Convert the unwashed masses to your cause and you have done your job.

Speaking of doing their job.  I listened to an NPR discussion about the National Standards for schools and have really mixed feelings.  I have said for years there needed to be a way to have some expectations of the outcome of school and a way to measure what is taught with what is expected at the end.  I guess that the National Standards is trying to do this but it is being done in a short period where I expected it to be over a several year period.  What is really happening is that there is a move for text book alignment at every level and I'm not sure if the steps are as strict as some people are making it.  For example, does understanding decimals in the fifth grade really where it should happen?  I remember seeing a set of drill bits in the 9th grade that were expressed in fractions and in decimals and that was really the first time it all made sense.  Prior to that, I kinds knew fractions and I kind of knew decimals but never had tied them together.   In the end, I understood but where does it say that all children need to understand at each grade level? 

Another area I have trouble with is the method of teaching.  A lot of my school years was spent in a lecture conference type environment.  They talked, we asked questions and did homework.  I managed to graduate from that system but I was more of a group learner and really shined when a group of us would study a subject together and then make presentations.  You really have to know a subject if you are going to teach it.  I think I was lost in the system where they taught Spanish.  Instead of really using it and trying to live it, it was taught like the English classes where we had to know verbs and their tenses without really knowing where to use it as a practical experience.  I hated it and learned more Spanish by accident after that class than I ever did in the class. 

It was kind of funny that one of the Country Western singers here for a concert took a selfies with the Westboro Baptist Group.  He and the news media thought it was a neat thing.  Had they only known that almost every group that ever performed in Topeka did the same thing.   In my humble opinion, they should just ignore those people as they grow in the light and they are really cockroaches that should live in the dark and scurry away in the light.  The sure as hell don't represent the loving and caring city I live in.  They represent religion in the manner of the refuse flushed down a urinal in a bar.  They may have started in the same place but they have gone places, I don't care to go.  They sure as heck say things that I find offensive.  At least the city of Topeka has made them take their sign posts off the signs as they do look a lot like weapons.  Peaceful assembly is without clubs people.

Oh well, better get rolling, miles to go and things to do.   Kiss the kids for us and keep a smile on your face.  Even if it is just to make them wonder what you have been up to.

MUD

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