The River of Hope

I watched a touching, inspiring story of a government funded organization, Earth Conservation Corps, that supported reform in one of the roughest, most crime and unemployment ridden areas of Washington DC by hiring youth 17 to 25 and leading them in conservation in their community, especially the Anacostia River ecosystem. Through this community based program, youth came off the corners and streets to come together in a meaningful endeavor and along the way learned critical skills for employment, such as tolerance, communication, leadership, technology and research. They developed a more caring, responsible, peaceful community around themselves.

Next, I watched the heartbreaking story of the emotional devastation of the same community when the insidious violence that characterized their area came among them and someone shot and killed the young and promising journalist for the Earth Conservation Corps. These two short videos illustrate the power of social justice and peace in the midst of violence and injustice. The youth were often transformed through this program from hopelessness and self destructive behaviors to caring, responsible members of society working with a meaningful purpose.

Watch The River of Hope

Watch In Memory and Honor of Aaron L. Teeter

Altruism and Game Theory Research

The issue of social justice is addressed in game theory presented in "prisoner's dilemma". Both players are better off if both cooperate and remain silent. The dilemma arises because one can gain an advantage by betraying the other, however, that backfires if both decide to betray each other.

An even more insightful game of social strategy was developed from the prisoner's dilemma game by Robert Axelrod. He created an artificial intelligence tournament (IPD Tournament) where computer programs were set up to play the game repeatedly. Past experience through repeated playing of the game added a new level of social considerations. Axelrod analyzed the top-scoring strategies and outlined several conditions that were necessary for a strategy to be successful over time: being nice initially, retaliating whenever betrayed, forgiving in order not to get stuck in an endless cycle of revenge, and being non-envious because the most successful strategy--being nice--makes it impossible to score more than the other player. Axelrod found that over many repetitions of the game with different strategies, greedy strategies tended to do very poorly and more altruistic strategies did best. Using this model, he theorized about "the evolution of altruistic behavior from mechanisms that are initially purely selfish." This game theory model has also been applied to learning theory such as the development of trust and cooperation within groups. Axelrod wrote The Evolution of Cooperation and its sequel, The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration.

Read the Wikipedia article Prisoner's Dilemma

Read the Wikipedia article The Evolution of Cooperation

Safety and Ethics 2.0

While looking at websites concerning the uses of wikis by teachers, I came across a slide show from a presentation on the safety and ethics of 2.0 technology. When we viewed the links our instructor provided for us to create our blogs, we were introduced to the author of this presentation, Cool Cat Teacher (Vicky Davis). Here she set "the current technology landscape in terms of the hardware that are causing concerns in schools." Teams discussed scenarios and then presented them to the group. In the slide show the technologies are outlined. The point was made that it would be extremely difficult to ban everything that gives students access to possibly problematic content and at the same time banning the technology would put students at greater risk concerning their safety. The author states, "The purpose was to bring all aspects of each ethical dilemma to light so that educators can return to their schools or classrooms and advocate well-informed policy changes." A lot of discussion details are missing from the slide presentation, however, the current technology she discusses is some I have not yet encountered personally and the points made concerning safety and ethics of this technology are interesting and important.

The presentation can be viewed at: Safety and Ethics 2.0

A related presentation by the same author: New Technologies in Education

No Child Left Behind Thwarts Refugees

Padron, the author of the commentary titled No Child Left Behind Thwarts Refugees, points out that the NCLB Act does not address the needs or realities of refugee students, categorized as Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE). According to Padron, "SIFE children enter the district at all grade levels throughout the academic year and are placed according to chronological age. So, a 10-year-old enters at fifth grade and a 15-year-old at 10th grade, depending on birth date. These students spent most of their lives running and in refugee camps where they may have received some but little formal schooling." I do not disagree with placing children according to age. I think inclusion is important for all children and that it promotes peace and social justice as long as the resources for meeting these children's needs are available to their schools and communities.

Concerning both SIFE children and ESL children, the author also points out that "Regardless of country or language, all students receive the one-year waiver and then are given grade-level exams under No Child Left Behind." This aspect of the NCLB must create a lot of stress on any school with SIFE and/or ESL students. Research shows that such children need instruction in their native language as they learn English and that it can take five to seven years to reach the proficiency to learn course content in English. As Padron emphasizes, "Many of these [SIFE] children are suffering from post-traumatic shock disorder and a host of health issues - not to mention their academic needs based on NCLB expectations. This is a fatal shortcoming of NCLB that needs further attention." I'll say!

Read the commentary: No Child Left Behind Thwarts Refugees

Peace Education

There is a website dedicated to compiling sites related to Montessori Peace Education. Being an early childhood Montessori teacher, it is very relevant to me, however, it is also a relevant site generally to anyone interested in peace education.

The book we read and discussed for week 3, The Soul of Education by Rachael Kessler mentions Montessorian Aline Wolf concerning responding to children involving spirituality in schools. In the list of Montessori sites on peace education, Aline Wolf's website is listed. I often read her book The Peaceful Classroom in my classroom and find it especially helpful at the beginning of the school year, however, I make a point to keep referring to it throughout the year. The children relate to the illustrations that are done by Montessori children all over the world. They are excited to know that there are classrooms so much like theirs across the country as well as in other countries on other continents.

Another book by Aline Wolf that is relevant to our topic of "soul in education" is Nurturing the Spirit in Non-Sectarian Classrooms. In Part 3 of this book she discusses a variety of ideas for "nurturing the spirit" of children in classrooms, such as cultivating stillness, wonder, cosmic education, care of the earth, and peace education. She also discusses explaining spiritual nurture to parents.

The website listing Montessori Peace Education sites is http://www.peace.ca/montessorisites.htm

Aline Wolf's website is www.parentchildpress.com

A Useful Website Focusing on Education Reform

The Center for Education Reform hosts a website dedicated to the topic of education reform. Included are news, issues, fast facts, resources, and commentary. It looks like a good source of information.

The CER started in 1993 in the District of Columbia. They describe themselves as "the leading national organization for necessary structural change in American education." It looks like they are a grassroots advocacy group that provides information and support to communities, families, schools, and states.

In the Ed Reform Fast Facts is an overview of school choice and charter programs. States are listed under such headings as Public School Choice Permitted Throughout the State (there are 9 states listed); Charter School States That Have Strong to Medium Strength Laws (Grades A - B), Charter School States That Have Weak Laws (Grades C - F); Publicly-Sponsored Full School Choice (Cleveland, OH; District of Columbia; Milwaukee, WI; Florida); Publicly-Sponsored Secular School Choice (Maine, Vermont).

CER's State-by-State Scorecard compiled April 2006 rates states in a number of categories including their improvement over pre-NCLB performance. It is interesting to see the amount of money per child each state spends. Mississippi spends the least ($5,890 per child) while District of Columbia spends the most ($15,489 per child!)

To explore this website your self, go to http://www.edreform.com/

Governer of Ohio Takes Leadership in Education Reform

The author of the article in the Beacon Journal titled, "Strickland says task is to build a consensus", reports, "Unlike his predecessors, Bob Taft and George Voinovich, Strickland believes the leadership on education reform must come from the governor's office and he will not convene a commission or create a task force to study the issue." This stand keeps the governer imtimately involved with the state education reform issue since he believes, "It may be the most important issue in terms of the long-term well-being of our state, and I don't think it is something that can be delegated to an external group." The author of the article explains that "Strickland said he plans to meet with interested parties, find a common ground and try to reach a consensus."

The journalist, Dennis J. Willard, also reports Governer Strickland's criticism of the state board of education for trying "to include intelligent design in the statewide science curriculum" and for recently adopting "an anti-bullying policy that failed to include taunting for sexual orientation." I agree with the governer's positions on those issues.

In conclusion, the article reports on Governer Strickland's friendly sense of humor in dealing with Republican opposition to "his concerns about the control of charter schools." He plans to give two Ohio Republican leaders, the House Speaker, and the Senate President, softball tee-shirts with relevant symbols on them (when the time is right), using the metaphore of playing softball in government.

The article can be read at: http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/17495241.htm