A surprisingly progressive school board in Portland, Maine, voted last month to allow students at one middle school to receive contraceptives confidentially from the school’s health clinic.

Parents of students at King Middle School have to give their children written permission to visit the clinic, but anything that happens in the clinic, including prescribing birth control pills, would be private, even from the parents.

True to our democratic process, the policy was suitably debated in public meetings, and the school board by majority vote approved the new policy. Since we have a decentralized educational system in the States, the birth-control policy only affects this one school in this one district.

But sex is an emotional subject in the US of A, and handing out contraceptives to pre-teens and teens is even touchier.

O the horror!

Those guardians of all that is pure and holy, the religious right, had to stick their nose in Portland’s business, of course. A Maine legislator is posturing about the whole affair, proposing new laws making it illegal for schools to hand out contraceptives without specific parental consent.

I suppose they hope to save the nation, and the state of Maine, from eternal hellfire and damnation. These are the same folks who push abstinence-only sex ed, after all.

The King Middle School policy, if you check it out dispassionately, is perfectly sensible. Out of 510 students, only five would actually qualify for contraception, according to The Associated Press. Those five are apparently sexually active.

November 14th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

My latest assignment for my students has been to participate in the Cassini Scientist-for-a-day Essay Content. In the process of working with them, one of my kids told me something I found very disturbing.

She doesn’t care about space and space exploration.

Woof. It’s hard to come back with a short and snappy answer to that comment, other than the standard teacher admonishment, “Well, do the essay anyway.” It was honest, and I suppose a somewhat legitimate reason for not being keen on doing the assignment, but it is simultaneously a sad comment on her intellectual curiosity.

It’s a feeling that is shared by many others, I suppose. It explains why the US public is now so bored by space exploration, almost 40 years after two guys walked on the Moon. The gee-whiz has gone out of space.

[Since writing this post, I discovered Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, blogged on "Why Explore Space?" He answers the question better than I can.]

Cassini is part of a long-term mission to explore Saturn, its moons and its ring system. Its companion probe, Huygens, landed on Titan, the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere. Together the two probes have sent back spectacular images of the ringed planet and its moons since their arrival in July 2004.

To connect students with space exploration, the Cassini team is sponsoring a contest in which students have to argue in a 500-word essay why one of four possible imaging targets is the best. They have to provide evidence that their chosen target would provide the most scientifically useful information.

November 12th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools, Science | Category: Commentary | Comments (1)

We have just finished our first five weeks of school, and my Physics First students have had their first run-ins with three of the most basic, yet most confusing concepts in physics: inertia, velocity and acceleration. After 23 years of teaching the subject, I have come to realize that I need to spend quite a bit of time trying to solidify these concepts in students’ minds.

Blame those stinking preconceptions, or the obtuse explanations in physics texts, but it is just really hard to get students to grasp those three concepts. Sure, they can memorize the definitions, but few really understand what they mean. Without a decent comprehension of them, learning later concepts (like force and momentum) is appreciably harder.

One misconception about inertia is that it is a force. That is, to some students, inertia is a force that keeps you at rest. A passable first definition, but then these students fail to realize that inertia also keeps you going. When the idea of force comes a bit later in the course, then they confuse inertia with real forces like gravitation and friction.

Inertia is a property of matter. It is internal, not external. External forces support an object, or resist other external forces, or push or pull an object. Inertia cannot make an object move by itself; it only maintains the motion that the object already has. If the object is at rest, it “wants” to stay at rest. If it’s moving in some direction at some speed, it “wants” to keep that speed and heading.

September 19th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary, Physics | Comments (2)

After the parent-teacher confab last week, I came home to discover that Turner Classic Movies was coincidentally airing teacher movies, to commemorate the start of school. I unwisely let myself get sucked into the experience. (I overslept the next morning. Oops!)

You know the kind of movie I mean: the slightly schmaltzy, melodramatic kind that features a dedicated, sincere teacher who can see the best in his or her students and brings them (or drags them) to new academic achievements by sheer force of will. The list is practically endless, but there are a few that stand out as really good flicks.

TCM was showing “Goodbye Mr Chips” just as I got home. It wasn’t the silly musical version with Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark from the ’60s, but the original movie version from 1939, starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson. The movie follows the career of Mr Chipping (we never learn his first name) as he reminisces about his life, dozing by the fireside as an old man. It touches on some of the personal sacrifices and obstacles any career teacher makes, without getting too melodramatic about them.

Chips chooses to teach Latin, in some part because he passed over for promotion to housemaster, but largely because he enjoys his craft and working with his form 1’s. Chips seems a stodgy old man, even in middle age, until he falls head over heels for a younger woman, who returns his love. She helps mold Chips into a warmer, less reticent person, in the process opening new avenues of affection between he and his boys with weekly teas. Her death in childbirth leaves Chips stunned, but he soldiers on, leading his classes on the very day of her death, finding solace in the comfortable routine of coaching young minds.

September 10th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

No, not that one. I mean, “What grade does my child have in your class?” Which one did you think I meant?

We just had parents’ night here on Wednesday evening. At my school, this annual event gives the teachers a chance to meet their students’ parents and talk up their courses, and the parents a chance to learn something about what they’ve gotten their kids into. Like many schools, we’ve taken to putting homework assignments and other course materials on a portal. Our vendor, Edline, provides its clients the opportunity to place students’ grades online, so that both students — and parents — can see them.

We, however, do not, for reasons I will get into later.

Since Edline portals do not allow students to complete their homework online, I also use WebAssign to allow my students to do many of their homework assignments online. Most of the students actually like the site, and it permits me to maintain my gradebook online for each kid to see his or her grades. Parents, however, cannot. And therein lies the rub.

One of my parents was quite distressed that she could visit the WebAssign site, but could not sign in, unless she used her daughter’s account. The girl wisely kept that information to herself (well, I hope, anyway). This mother wanted to know why (1) she could not access WebAssign and its gradebook and (2) why we do not upload our grades to Edline.

September 7th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary | Comments (2)

Although her situation in Kuwait is still far from resolved, Katherine Phillips has at least been allowed to leave the country to stay with her parents. Late last month, Phillips, a US educator working in Kuwait, had been banned from leaving the emirate while an angry parent conducted a vendetta against her.

In a letter to the International Schools Review, which had publicized her plight, Phillips  said she had received a text message on her phone that the travel ban had been lifted. Since an earlier lifting had been rescinded, she chose to leave Kuwait immediately. (The complete letter is at the ISR site.)

Meanwhile, she has been officially banned from traveling to any of the Gulf Coast countries, which are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Ministry of Education in Kuwait has also instituted a ban against non-Kuwaitis serving in administrative positions in Kuwaiti schools.

You would think with such a frantic governmental response, Phillips had been charged with child molestation or murder. In fact, according to her and another person close to the situation, she was just following the school’s disciplinary handbook, which all parents presumably signed off on.

In fact, Phillips had sent three fifth-grade boys to in-school suspension last year for fighting in Al Bayan Bilingual School , where she was a deputy principal. Within short order, one of the parents, an influential Kuwaiti, called her on the phone to blast her with insults and threats. She was then charged with “unlawful imprisonment” and prevented from leaving the country.

July 9th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools, The media | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (3)

The International Schools Review has issued a travel and work advisory for teachers intending to visit or work in Kuwait, after a middle school administrator reported a powerful parent was harassing her.

Katherine Phillips of the Al Bayan Bilingual School has been unable to leave the country after an angry, influential parent filed charges of “unlawful imprisonment” against her. Phillips had assigned three fifth graders to in-school suspension last year, after the three were caught fighting in school.

Saying that such harassment is not unusual for teachers in Kuwait, the ISR posted the travel/work advisory on its website, saying in part:

We encourage all teachers/administrators to contact their Kuwaiti Schools, calling for an immediate resolution of Katherine Phillips’ situation, one that will lift her travel ban and allow her to return home to her family.

We further encourage all teachers/administrators in Kuwaiti Schools to consider not returning to Kuwait or honoring their contracts in Kuwait until this situation has been resolved.

The advisory includes Phillips’ original email to ISR, a supporting letter from another teacher who has taught in Kuwait, and a message apparently from a Kuwaiti supporting the charges against Phillips.

ISR sent an email to its subscribers containing letters from Dr. Barbara Spilchuk, a teacher placement advisor at ISR, and from Phillip’s parents in Bahrain. It is reproduced here.

While her plight has not yet made the world mainstream media, both the print versions of the Arab Times and Kuwait Times have covered the story. Meanwhile bloggers like 2:48am, an expat living in Kuwait, are publicizing her situation. Commenters at 2:48am are conducting a lively debate about the issue.

June 27th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools, The media | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (6)

Katherine Phillips, a US citizen in Kuwait, cannot leave the country and is in fear of her life, because her by-the-book punishment of three fifth graders pissed off the wrong kind of parent.In Kuwait, it seems, it is dangerous to make influential parents unhappy, particularly if you are a single female in a position of supposed authority. Phillips is apparently stranded in Kuwait, and US State Department officials seem unable or unwilling to assist her.

“I am in fear for my safety,” she wrote in an email sent today to Internationals School Review. “I do not feel safe. I am not safe.”

Phillips has been middle school vice-principal of the Al-Bayan Bilingual School for six years. In March 2006, she sent three boys to in-school suspension for fighting, a standard school procedure, according to her own account.

That afternoon, one of the boy’s fathers, Fawaz Khalid Al Marzouq, called Phillips and in the course of a very brief, angry conversation threatened to “destroy her.” He did nothing immediately.

In fact, things apparently settled down, after she and the parents met with other school officials. The angry father moved his son to a different school that June. Meanwhile, the education ministry advised the Al-Bayan Bilingual School that in-school suspensions were now forbidden.

Then in February this year, Phillips learned that a case had been filed against her with the local police department. The charge was “illegal detainment” of Al Marzouq’s misbehaving son. After interviews, the situation again seemed to be settled …

June 23rd, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (7)

On Flickr, here. Really, why bother going now?

June 19th, 2007 | Tags: Education & schools, Science | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment