It's quite common that a student or parent will claim that a particular subject isn't important. The student in question doesn't need it for what he plans to do. Oddly, this usually goes along with difficulty in the class. The future truck driver doesn't express this complaint over the home-ec class he has to take. Perhaps he plans to sew new seat covers for his semi?

One of the common majors for college students is business. Suppose you were planning to open a business (or work in someone else's business). You will probably need some specialized skills, but there are some important general skills you will need too. Business Week recently did a piece in which they recommended some classes. Among them: English, psychology, foreign language, economics, and statistics.

At the moment, students seem to have a very vocational focus. As I noted, that is sometimes just to avoid a "tough" course. A lot of it comes because students lack the maturity to see the value of other courses. That's why they need good guidance from teachers and parents. Successful people call on a lot of skills.

Communication is vital. This is the importance of English and Speech courses. In fact, I advise my students to get involved in Speech. Foreign language is good for international business, but it's also good for communication. A good foreign language course forces you to think through how you are communicating. An economics course, as opposed to accounting, teaches about the long-term view. People who live in the moment don't succeed long in business. Those who take the long-term view can ride out the failures and take successes in stride. Naturally, mathematics is important because it teaches students to see things in numbers. Students learn to see mathematical trends when they take the more advanced math courses.

The Business Week article goes into more depth on all these courses.

Tomorrow I want to finish up this topic by talking about science, music, art, and agriculture. That's actually the one I've been researching!

Today I made a guest post on the blog So You Want to Teach? It's called 10 Reasons to Love Rural Schools. As any regular reader knows, I love rural America.

I'm in the process of writing an entry for this blog, but I'm still doing the research. I'm reading about stoplights, traffic circles, and Physics. Hopefully it turns out. I keep getting distracted, though. The traffic information is interesting.

I'm about to pick my Calculus book for next year. I want to recheck a few things, but I think I've made my selection.

The winner is Gilbert Strang's Calculus. Allow me to summarize its good points:

• It is available online for anyone. This is great because I can see everything and my students can access it from anywhere without lugging a great beastly book. I wish more textbooks would do this!
• The hard copy is relatively inexpensive.
• It's an incredibly readable book. I got caught up in a few of the discussions as I perused the book. This is a book that the untrained reader can understand.
• It recognizes the value of technology. Unfortunately, the technology is out of date, but I have a baseline for my own creations. Were I to rewrite these pieces, I'd be less specific to one technology and be more general.
• It covers all of the material it should cover. (and then some)
• It covers the graphical and mathematical link.
• It is well reviewed.

Now, no textbook is perfect. This one suffers several faults. The first is the technology section really is out of date. The second is that it doesn't seem to do enough with numerical methods in Calculus. (This is linked to the older technology.) Finally, I fear that this may be its final version.

Since I've given links to Amazon for the other books, here is Strang's Amazon link.

Other Textbooks

I did look at a few other books. I will disregard the really bad books and focus on the others that were in the running. I actually have hopes that I'm wrong in some way. Here they are, in no particular order.

Finney, Demana, et al with Calculus: Graphical, Numerical, Algebraic

This was a good book I learned about through recommendation. It does as the title promises. Problems in the book cover all three methods of problem solving. The book lends itself well to technology as well. In fact, the authors claim it was one of the first to use graphing calculators. (I don't know enough to evaluate that claim.)

The reading is concise and clear. It is much more "mathematical" than Strang's book, and this was a strike against it. Were I teaching a college course, this would be less of a strike. This is a nice smaller book. A college could make a one-year Calculus sequence from it.

I also saw a disconnect between the reading and the problems. While I do believe students should apply what they have learned, I think that the book expects them to make too many leaps.

Larson, Hostetler, Edwards Calculus of a Single Variable

This book was quite mathematical. Since I am teaching high school students, I see that as a drawback. To prepare students for college, they need to understand the material. I don't think a high school student could easily understand this book.

Other than that, what a great book! It's well written, it's thorough, the problems fit well with the readings, and technology may easily be integrated. Were I to criticize, I might say that it does not have enough of numerical problems.

Each section is followed by many, many problems. The teacher has great flexibility in choosing what to assign. If a class needs lots of practice, it is there. If not, there are some great applications in the chapter. The teacher can differentiate with this book.

Stewart with Calculus

I used this book as a student (an older version). It has changed a bit. Stewart seems to enjoy issuing frequent revisions of his text. He also issues several versions of it. It's a popular book, and I found the most reviews with this text, especially when I checked older versions.

Honestly, I am biased. I remember my frustration with this text. It is at a very high level. In my first college Calculus course, the professor would start class with a prayer. This was followed with, "Any questions on the homework?" That was it. He did not teach at all. This forced me into an intimate acquaintance with the textbook. It is hard to read. I remember my mind swimming around delta and epsilon early on. While reviewing the book as a teacher, my mind did the same thing!

I think Stewart would be good for someone with a strong mathematical background. Of all the books I looked at, Stewart was by far the worst offender in this regard. High school students need context and they need concrete explanation.

Experts solve problems differently than students. To the expert in Calculus, delta and epsilon, limits, and derivatives all go together. To the student, these are three unique topics. Stewart is written well for those who automatically think mathematically. This is what took it out of the running for me.

I did like its selection of problems and its layout.

Saxon Calculus

I saved this book for last. It failed to be a finalist for reasons unrelated to the book. I'll just be mean and identify this as belonging to the company that wanted to "investigate me." It should not be this difficult to get an examination copy. By the way, it's a week later, and they're still not done investigating. Sorry folks, you're out of the running.

Now I do know Saxon. It is worth analyzing their methods because they really are different from anything else out there. I know without looking that this book will cover everything I could possibly need. The company is meticulous about that.

Saxon is based on review and repetition. I may learn to do derivatives of linear equations today. I will practice one or two, but the rest of my homework will be from earlier sections. I also know that I will probably find the derivative of a linear function in one problem on every homework problem from now to the end of the year.

Saxon books are not arranged in units. There is no order. Each section jumps from topic to topic with no relation to the first. Math is learned by practice.

I really liked this when I taught a group of low-skill math students in Algebra I. Repetition was great for them. It's boring or even insulting to more advanced students, at least to the degree that Saxon takes it.

Students are taught to recognize cue words in word problems and to run through mechanical solutions. I don't think that Saxon works well for the better student who needs more.

There are a lot of failing rural schools. Unfortunately, they do not get the press that inner city schools get. National reporters live in cities, so that is what they are familiar with and what they can access easily and still sleep in their own beds. Of course, there are so many stereotypes about rural America that fit right in with failing schools. The failing inner city schools work well because they often provide a great contrast to the wealthy school elsewhere in the same place.

I care about inner city schools, but I don't have anything intelligent to say about them. I'm 100% rural in my experience. I've only visited inner city areas by accident, once in college when some friends took a wrong turn in Pittsburgh and more recently when I visited Rapid City, SD. That last was a joke!

Rural schools fail for a many of the same reasons as inner city schools: poverty, culture, family problems, isolation, and lack of opportunity. Nevertheless, there are a lot of successful schools in rural environments with no advantages.

"These kids will never do anything."

Some teachers actually believe that because the kids live in Goatfart, IA, they're not going to go anywhere with their lives. Apparently they're stupid because they're rural or because they're from a farm or what have you. I've met these teachers and I've lived close to schools that believe this. These teachers and schools won't challenge kids because they don't think the kids will go anywhere.

Science News recently noted that the attitude of teachers is a big part of rural school success. I would add that it's part of the success of any school.

My own school is rural. The district covers over 1000 square miles and has only about 450 students. As I've noted earlier this week, we're adding Calculus to our curriculum. We're doing this because our kids will accomplish things with their lives. We're not a perfect rural school, but we believe in our kids.

Culture

When I go to meetings and classes in the cities, I always run into a teacher who is happy to tell me why he or she won't teach in a rural school. I'll set aside the ones who don't want to live in a small town and focus on the ones who have stereotypes. Some people believe that rural people are isolated, have no ambition, and know nothing about the outside world.

This culture exists. I teach students like this. However, most people use this only as cover. They really are curious, but it's easier to let life wash over them. Rather than confess laziness, they claim to take pride in ignorance. I've found these kids can be reached by asking them to do things and use things. Some respond wonderfully just because I like them (or pretend I do). If I assumed they were ignorant because of where they  live, they would get away with their laziness.

There is a big world out there and most people are curious about it...even if they pretend they are not or pretend that they're too stupid to comprehend it. Sometimes, they've picked up this attitude from family. Remember, these are human beings created in God's image. Let's not treat them like they're ignorant, even if they want us to.

Poverty

Poverty is tough. Some kids rise from it and accomplish things. In other cases, it continues for generation after generation. So what makes kids from the same background different?

Kids who pull out of poverty often have someone in their lives who encouraged them, did not accept excuses, and believed in them. This fits in nicely with what I've said earlier. If it's not a family member, it may well be a teacher.

Now poverty can also bring problems of a full stomach. In many areas, poverty is accompanied by obesity (that's statistics), but it can also be accompanied by kids who aren't eating. Some schools have implemented breakfasts, cafeteria lunches, and even boxed lunches to take home. If you talk to soldiers who have returned from basic training, most recall at least one recruit who loved basic because he had real meals and actual clothes.

Schools may be the only secure place a student has. Poverty can be accompanied by family violence, lack of a permanent home, and a lot of other problems those of us with middle class backgrounds can only imagine. Schools need to ensure that there is discipline on campus and that students can trust teachers. They don't have to like their teachers, but they should respect them and know that their teachers care about them.

I'm feeling a bit long now and the Calculus books are calling my name. I want to talk about this more later.

It as been a number of years since I've chosen a textbook. I remember buying them in college. I liked getting used ones, but sometimes I had to buy new. I remember that sometimes the cost of an individual book approached $100. As a teacher, the books I did choose (early in the century) ranged in price from $35 up to $70.

Now I'm looking at books. I mentioned some of my criteria yesterday. I've begun looking more closely at individual books. Some can be discarded immediately. One huge shock was cost. It's been years since I've had new books. One of the books I like comes in at $133...and that's just a single book. I just can't imagine the cost for a big school. They're all pricey, though one of the books I like is available for free online. It's not pirated. The author made it available! Impressive, though the book itself comes in at $70, and is the cheapest of the lot.

I attempted to get a sample of another textbook.  I was bounced between 4 different people by 3 different phone calls. The last person told me that she needed to investigate me and did not know when they could get back to me. Does that mean they don't think I'm a real teacher? Her first step was to argue with me about my choice of text. I'll try really hard not to let this cloud my evaluation, but I know the bias will stick.

There are some cheaper options. I purchased a Calculus book from Dover publishing for about $20. They issue paperback versions of older texts. I like the book, but I don't think it's viable for my situation. The book is older and is more suitable on either a bookshelf or as a paperweight. It's a fat paperback and I don't think it will stand up to student use. That really is a consideration.

I love buying books. Visiting a book store or a used book store is the only kind of shopping I really enjoy. This process has frustrated me because none of the books are popping out as "good". I want to spend some more time looking at their content tonight. The uncooperative one isn't in the collection.

One bright spot is the help I've gotten from other teachers. The actual math teacher at my school suggested a decent book (the most expensive and one I used in college). I also got some great help from some really good teachers in the middle of the state. No agreement among any of them, but there was some really passionate disagreement over one book: the one which is playing games with me. One teacher told me that it's the absolute worst math curriculum out there. Another loves it.

I'll update on content and maybe post some finalists. I don't like the short notice on picking this book!

I'm back from visiting my family back east and I'm getting ready for a new year. It looks like there will be some changes. My school has hired the man who held my post prior to my taking it. He will be coving Geology and Advanced Biology (two courses we never offered before), as well as Anatomy and a seventh grade health class. He will also be the technology person.

I've lost Anatomy from my schedule (good riddance). I'll be picking up Calculus instead. This came as a surprise. I'd been pushing to have us offer it, but I'd never actually expected to be the one teaching it. It's been nearly 10 years since I've taught the course, so life should be interesting this year.

This puts me in the position of choosing a textbook. While I don't teach straight out of a book, they do make a great resource, especially with a course like Calculus.

I've done some searching and I've contacted some math teachers I know. I'm coming up with a list and I'm assembling a collection of sample texts. Here's what I'm looking for:

• It should be compatible with with AP curriculum. My course is supposed to be dual-credit, so I think that will work.
• It should instruct on several ways to solve problems: analytical, numerical, and graphical
• It should emphasize problem solving, not simply drill of skills
• It should be clearly written so that an intelligent student can use it (too many math books talk right over the heads of their intended audience)
• I'd like to see some small and large projects
• It should contain technology applications (though I can add these myself if needed)
  
• I'd like a book that can realistically be finished in a year: no bloated books to destroy my students' backs
• I'd love it if there was an electronic version I could incorporate into my online "classroom"
  

It will make for a great opportunity. Hopefully I can do my part to improve the curriculum of my school.

I'll be gone until about July 10. I'm visiting family out of state as well as taking two different classes.

I'll be back, hopefully refreshed.

Kids need mothers and they need fathers. I'm not writing about abusive parents or the exceptions. I'm being general. Mothers and fathers bring different things to their children. The balance of two different parents produce healthy children.

What brings this to mind is that today is Father's Day. I was a little depressed that I could not find a suitable card for my own father. Too many were insulting. They seemed to play with the idea that "father" was inept, a clutz, or stupid. There were a few really sappy ones that were supposed to be from daughters. Since I'm male and I'm not sappy, I wasn't going to send one of those! I finally broke down and bought a blank card on Saturday (after the post office closed) and I'll write my own material into that, a bit late.

What I want to talk about today is the importance of fathers in raising children. This is not to denigrate mothers. Rather, it is to emphasize the importance of fathers.

Independence

Watch most small children when they hurt themselves or they struggle. They tend to respond with cries of "Mommy!" Mommy responds with hugs and kisses and lots of attention. Daddy is more likely to respond with, "Well, no bones broken." Though this is a bit of a stereotype, it does illustrate what fathers bring to the raising of children.

Fathers have a tendency to let children fight their own battles. As a teacher, I deal far more with mothers than with fathers. This does not mean that fathers care less. It means that they view problems differently. Fathers are good at teaching children how to take care of themselves. This is an important part of adulthood. Adults take care of themselves and only learn to do so by taking care of themselves. Sometimes, at the beginning, they fall flat on their faces. This teaches them what they did wrong and gives them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Fathers teach children how to take care of themselves and how to rely on themselves.

Protection

Mothers can be quite protective of their children. While the father may say, "Well, the kid needs to study," the mother is more likely to say, "Our child is smart. That teacher is an old grouch." However, the father will protect his children when it really matters. We've all heard of the overprotective father when his daughter begins to date. However, remember that this comes from true protectiveness.

The father knows that sometimes people cannot take care of themselves. Sometimes they're too weak. It's important for children to know that someone is there to protect them.

Love

Much is made of a mother's love. We forget that fathers love as well. Fathers teach their children about one side of love. (Mothers teach the other side.) Fathers teach the type of love that involves loving someone enough to let them go. Fathers love their children so much that they allow them to fail so that they can learn. Sometimes, it takes true love to allow a person to suffer the consequences of his own choices.

Two Parents

Sometimes a father's love expects too much. Sometimes a child isn't ready. That is why a child really does need both a mother and a father. Soon I need to write about the importance of a mother's love.

I've noted before that junior and senior year should include college-level courses for some students. I see these two years as a transition to adulthood. Other students are doing apprenticeships. Anyway, the goal is to get them ready for adulthood.

Years ago, schools recognized that they had students who needed coursework that was more challenging than what was given to regular students. These were the students who would go on to college. The courses that resulted were called "Honors." The result was that some students took "Honors Chemistry" or "Honors English." In times of budget crunch, schools asked the reasonable question as to what the advantage of honors was. These courses would then be cut. A few years later, when the cash was there, they would be brought back.

The thing is, too many of these courses were little different from the regular version. At some schools, the teacher moved through the material faster. At others, the teacher might go into topics in more depth. However, there was no agreement as to what "honors" meant. Furthermore, the students who did not take the honors courses could go to the same colleges as those who did.

Then, some high schools started down the road to my dream school. Some offered "dual-credit" courses. These were courses that offered both college and high school credit. Schools fortunate enough to share a town with a college might bus their students over to the college for certain courses. Other schools brought in either AP or IB courses. These were courses with a recognized curriculum and an end-of-course exam. A high enough score on the exam resulted in college credit.

The result is that honors courses are disappearing. I like the concept, somewhat, at the junior high level, but, really, why take an honors course? The Washington Post recently examined this trend. If I were a high school student I'd much rather take the course that will help me in college. It makes sense. College should not be a brutal shock to students. High school needs to do a better job to transition them to college-level work.

Honors meant very little because it was not defined. AP and IB are well defined. Even dual credit is somewhat defined.

In short, this is a trend I support. It's moving education closer to my "dream school."

My dream classroom won't happen in the near future. Teachers' unions will fight it because it requires fewer teachers. Schools will fight it because it means risk. Students will fight it because it means responsibility and change. I'm not a fan of sudden, radical change anyway. We need to get the culture of education ready.

North Dakota is in a GREAT Position

I am fortunate enough to live in North Dakota. We are facing some serious changes whether we like it or not. By some estimates, over a third of our teaching force will retire in the next 5 years. There are not enough new teachers coming up to replace them. This will force consolidation of schools and will bring in a generational change.

It will also create school districts like mine which cover a massive land area. We're over 1000 square miles, and we're not the largest district in the state. We're bringing in kids from extremely rural places on roads which are of dubious quality. These are kids who could really benefit from an online component to their coursework. I've used online course software with dial-up internet. It's slow, but perfectly doable. As transport prices stay up and it becomes difficult to fill classrooms, many changes I proposed will become more appealing.

Your Classroom (and Mine)

My classroom needs a lot of change. Yours may as well. How much time do you waste? Are you teaching efficiently? Are you teaching or are you merely conveying information? There are a lot of changes we can make in our classrooms even if we're stuck with traditional measures of "seat time."

• Don't read the book to students!

Seriously, your students are intelligent. They can read. Don't spend class time conveying "notes."  Spend the time using the material. Sometimes it would be an activity. Sometimes it would be a "template" for them to fill in their own notes. It might be discussion. There are many USEFUL ways to spend class time. Summarizing the book for them is a waste of their time.

• Lecture on the difficult or obscure.

There are things that are difficult for students. Unless you're a new teacher, you know what they are. If you're a new teacher, I'm afraid textbooks don't help much, so you'll need the experience. Still, the solution is the same. Spend your lectures demonstrating how to do things. Spend your lectures explaining what kids don't understand. (Mine never make the like between Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment and what it says about atomic structure.) Keep these lectures short. Kids have a short attention span.

• Focus on Individuals
  

Some kids need help. While kids are doing these activities instead of taking notes from your lecture, you should be circulating. Help kids. Don't use the time to sit at your desk and catch up on your work. You can provide the targeted extra instruction to students who need it. Maybe you can offer a tutoring session.

• Focus your Curriculum

Your textbook is a nice resource, but it's not a curriculum. Figure out what you're trying to teach from your national and state standards. Create textbook assignments from there. Recognize that just because it's in the book that does not mean it's important. It may even be important, but perhaps not worth teaching.

• Skills, not Facts

A certain body of facts is inevitable in any course. For example, I really do believe kids should know about the parts of an atom. However, too many facts become trivia. Many will be forgotten. What is important is the skills students develop. Can they balance a chemical equation? Can they explain the causes of the Civil War? If you know the skills you want them to take away, this will help inform your choice of facts they must learn.

• Differentiate?

This is a tough one. I have a real problem calling a course "Physics" when it is a different thing for different students. I want students to have the freedom to work at their own pace. At the same time, I teach some lazy students and I teach some students who are not capable. When I put "Physics" on their report card with my name, others who read that should have a good idea what that student learned. This is tough and I don't have a good answer for it yet.

• Don't accept substandard work!

Some students will do just enough to get by. They will turn in papers littered with spelling and grammar errors as well as other serious faults. As long as they get a grade, it's "good enough." It's time for teachers to stand up. Rather than mark off points (which aren't hurting them), insist that they do the work properly. INSIST on good work. This is tough, especially in the face of apathy. Hold your ground and they will do better.

I should note that I'm not a fan of this on tests. When I collect tests, I do look for blank answers and insist that students at least try. However, the danger of redoing tests is that students may see the first one as only a "practice." Possibly you can allow students one retest per quarter or semester. Tests, though, should be a measure of what has been learned. I would much rather see students receive tutoring or extra practice on those parts of the test where they struggled.

Not much of what I proposed today is revolutionary. However, it's amazing how few teachers actually do it. This will be a great in between step on the way to my "dream school."

Previously, I noted that the current structure of schools holds a lot of kids back, directs a lot of kids in a direction that doesn't apply to them, and leaves too many kids behind. I suggested a few innovations, among them:

• Alternative forms of class (online, ITV)
• More options (which goes along with the alternative forms)
• A rigorous course of study for those students not college bound that includes apprenticeships.

I want to look at what such a school would look like. This is my dream-world post. My next post will be about how to implement my dream in a real classroom.

Seat Time

States have requirements of "seat time." Every year, I fill out papers that tell the state exactly how many minutes I spend teaching each course, eating lunch, and as a "prep hour." This is something states can easily measure. It forces a certain minimum, and it makes for nice graphs. The idea is based on the turn of the early 20th century Carnegie Units. Unfortunately, just because a student is in the room, this does not mean he's learning. Karin Chenoweth recently described substandard teaching in an article that was supposed to be about NCLB.

Any reader can recall teachers who wasted some or a lot of class time. In other words, seat time is not a measure of education. I can recall plenty of classes where I just sat there while the teacher read the book. I've even been guilty of being that teacher. I try not to be, but it happens. Seat time requirements hold students back. These requirements also leave some students behind.

In its current structure, schools are stuck with these requirements, but what if they weren't? What if a student could access my syllabus online? What if that student could read the assignments, do the work, and come to the school a few days a week to do labs, get targeted assistance, and to take tests. The school could save money on transport (and classroom space), and the student could move at his own pace. A recent article on Accelerated Math explores how this could work.

My dream school would eliminate measures of seat time altogether. My dream school would measure student education by a combination of course and project grades as well as a standardized test.

Responsibility

In the end, the person responsible for education is the student. I can't make a student learn. However, if the work can be appropriately paced with appropriate amounts of practice, a student is more likely to learn. Some require lots of practice and more time, some require very little practice and a lot less time.

At the same time, these students will be working in the "real world" someday. School needs to prepare them to be self-motivated and responsible. A structure such as I describe would require responsibility at a young age. As I noted before, the junior high and elementary students would still be in regular classes, and hopefully learning about setting goals and deadlines as they prepare for a more independent style of learning later.

My suggestions would require fewer teachers. If I'm not in school every day to write notes on the board for my students to copy down, I could offer more courses. I could also teach at 2 or more schools. I might spend 2 days doing the tutoring and labs at my current school, 2 days at the school 45 miles east, and maybe another day I could teach over ITV to all my students. In less rural areas, it would work out even better!

Class Time

Seat time is not a measure of learning. Nevertheless, I noted that students do need time in class, even in my dream world. Currently, too much instruction (including my own) is retelling the book to the students. This is "lecture" or "sage on a stage." While lecture has its place, it is of only limited utility. Lecture is good for things like explaining a piece of equipment, explaining an obscure or difficult concept, or explaining a particular skill.

Most of class time should involve students DOING the subject. Students in Physics should be doing Physics. This might be labs, it might be solving a problem, or it might be getting some help from me on a difficult concept. When I say "problem" I don't mean doing the homework problems where they practice application of momentum. I mean a more complex problem that involves truly understanding and applying the concept.

Benefits

• Reduced transport costs: students don't have to be delivered to school every day.
• Reduced energy costs: with less students in school, fewer and smaller facilities are required.
• Reduced staffing costs: I can teach more classes by using technology and by using time more efficiently.
• Responsibility: students would be more responsible for their own education.
• Responsibility: teachers would be held accountable for what their students learn rather than the amount of time they spend in the classroom
• Buy-in: students who are not held back or rushed ahead by their classmates are more likely to have a favorable opinion of school. Furthermore, if education is more applicable to their plans, they are more likely to buy into it.
• Targeting: instead of lecturing large groups, teachers can spend the time on difficult concepts and on the instruction individual students need. Student A may need to spend more time to get through Chemistry than Student B.

As a close, I want to relate something about me. I once worked in a fast food restaurant. I was terrible at making soft ice cream cones. Where most people learned the skill in a few days, I took months. I eventually learned it and became quite good at it. By the time I quit the job, my ability to make soft ice cream cones was as good as or better than anyone else there. I just needed more time to develop the skill.

I'm the same way in math. I like math. I can even teach math. It just doesn't come quickly to me. Slow does not mean "stupid." It means slow. Just like fast doesn't mean "smart." We want people in the workforce who are good at their jobs. We don't really care how they got to be good. In grad school, I would turn in proofs that were nothing like those produced by the true math majors in the room. Mine were right, just really different. I look at math differently. Many students do as well, but we've convinced ourselves (and them) that they're less capable.

My dream school allows anyone who desires it to succeed and learn.

Some "children" leave themselves behind. This is a simple truth. I really believe that all children can learn, but not all children will learn. As I've noted before, some schools and teachers move children into this latter category because of their practices or structure. The solution (for most children) is almost magical in its simplicity. Implementation is more difficult. That solution is: choices.

Choices in Education

Not all students will go to college. Not all students will work with their hands. I live in a very rural area, but not all of my students plan to be ranchers. School needs to be structured so that these students can pursue interests based on career choice. At the same time, schools need to retain the flexibility for students to change their minds as they mature and their interests change.

The only way to truly accomplish this is flexibility. Some school districts are large enough to provide this "in house." Many, like mine, are not. My district covers over 1000 square miles and contains only 450 students. We can't offer the choices of a Bismarck or Fargo.

This brings up the other part of flexibility. Not all schools need to hire a teacher of every subject. ITV is one way to deliver courses. Another is online coursework. Neither quite replaces having an actual instructor in the room. However, they provide options. The students in my school can take German through ITV. We will never offer German ourselves. We're too small to employ a full time instructor.

Schools would be able to share teachers, hire specialized teachers, and give students choices. My students are shut out of AP courses right now because we don't have the population to justify AP courses. Online courses would change that.

While we need choices, we also need to set some limits. I would make the junior and senior years the time when students truly branch out and focus. This would also be the time for apprenticeships, internships, and other real work experience. It might also be a time to start taking some college courses.

A few electives would be appropriate at the sophomore and freshman level, but these students are really still figuring out who they are. They aren't ready to specialize.

A Base

We are all citizens of a great nation. Citizens should all have certain things in common. We should all have the ability to better ourselves. We should share certain cultural elements. We should all share certain skills and knowledge. Because of this, students should master certain skills.

Up until the 8th grade, students should share a common curriculum. Now I don't want to hold any student back. I want them to be able to work faster. However, there are certain skills and bodies of knowledge that all should master. Individual students should be able to move beyond this base, but all should have that base. I would only make exceptions for those who are mentally incapable of understanding the base.

For some examples of a common curriculum, look at the standards of Project 2061. This is a good example of a base in science. Science majors and the college bound should move beyond it. Skilled workers will likely move beyond it. However, everyone should have that base.

Conclusion

I recognize that this whole series rambled a bit. In some ways, this blog helps me organize my own thoughts. Let me sum up my main points. In other entries, not in this series, I will try to look at specific issues of implementation.

• Students need choices. A one-size-fits-all curriculum does not serve the needs of all students.
• Students need a base curriculum. There are certain skills and areas of knowledge that we should all share.
• Junior and senior years should start serious specialization. This would include true apprenticeships, college coursework, and various specialized courses.
• School should not lock students into a particular "track". Students are still maturing and deciding who they are.
• No choice should be the "easy" choice.
• ITV and online courses should be expanded so that teachers can specialized.
• Even small rural schools can offer more options.
• The current definition of a school day is out of date. Schools should be measure by results, not "seat time."
• Some students will choose to be "left behind" no matter what the school does.
  

National education standards are out of local control. Some would argue that that is the point. Fordham Foundation has spent a lot of time proving that state standards are weak. I won't argue that point. It's true.

The danger with national standards is that the "little people" like my readers and me don't have any control over them. They are too far away and too removed. Only large or powerful groups will have any influence.

There is no guarantee that the national standards will be any better than what the states have created. Witness the controversy over the national standards created for math by NCTM. The difference will be that the standards would have teeth and none of us will be able to do a thing about them.

This brings back the other danger of national standards. The little people can't influence them, but powerful or determined groups can. California is a case in point. Textbooks are subjected to a laundry list of requirements. Diane Ravitch did a better job than I can in describing this phenomena in California and many other states in her book The Language Police.

What caused me to post this today is a spate of bills in the California legislature. These are bills inspired by special interest groups. They are bills that require special attention to various ethnic groups be put into history books. This includes the Hmong, which is already law, Italians, American Indians, and who knows how many others. Now, in California, this is rather hard to fight. I know because three cowards refused to vote against legislation they opposed. Instead, they abstained.

At the national level, it would be impossible to fight this legislation. The curriculum could become so stuffed with special interest legislation that it would be a mockery.

At the state level, the little people can still control legislation. At the federal level, we lose any control. NCLB was a step in this direction. Let's resist any further steps.

Tomorrow I'll finish up with what schools should look like.

A professor from a northeastern college has described for us what happens to the student who is pushed into college without preparation. Not everyone is ready for college work. Some will never be ready. Students need options. This has been the thrust of my short series on leaving no child behind. Not all students can or even want to go to college.

Why School?

We send students to school to prepare them to be successful adults. School isn't about creating happy children. It isn't about job training. It is about teaching basic knowledge and culture so that students can join America as citizens. It is also about teaching the skills needed to succeed in life and to improve one's condition if desired.

Slave owners in America's south kept their slaves from learning to read. By keeping the slaves ignorant it was possible to keep them from bettering themselves and thus easier to control. This is a desirable goal for slave owners or dictators or other such situations. We might imagine a place where the "peasants" are not taught to read. The peasant cleaning my floor can operate equipment from pictures. By that argument, how much education would really be needed. Such a school is depicted very well in the movie Fahrenheit 451. (The book did not depict the school so well.) In this school we listen to children parroting empty phrases. We teach children to read so that they can learn things for themselves.

America is a land of "free men, not slaves," to quote the old song. We trust our citizens. In return, we expect responsibility from them. Knowledge is needed to be responsible. History, literature, science, math, and art are all part of that knowledge. Until our own experience can teach us, we must rely on the experience and the knowledge of others. I still do. I have no experience with city life. I rely on other people's experience to understand city life as they write about it or make movies about it.

School Structure

My vision for a school is, in many ways, quite traditional. In some ways quite revolutionary. I will outline it today and flesh it out later.

• As Kelly Flynn points out, students are responsible for their own education. This is where the rubber hits the road. There are things schools can do to help students to take responsibility, but ultimately, this is the area schools cannot touch.
• Up to about 8th grade, I believe in a common education. This goes all the way back to the one-room schoolhouse. This is also the time when students who are behind or weak need to be pulled into additional tutoring to catch them up. Negative feelings toward school often stem from a lack of ability.
• Beginning with freshman year, students should be given more choice. This is where they may start taking some vocational courses or some more advanced courses. However, these students are also immature and likely to change their minds. This age is too early to lock them into a career.
• Beginning with junior year, students should be making real choices. Some will choose the academic curriculum as a foundation for college. Others will choose practical work experience. A student who wants to be a mechanic should start some real work experience. He may still be taking academic courses, but a structured internship would be much more useful that filling the day with "fluff" courses.
  

I'll flesh all of this out in my next entry.

Previously, I raised the question of whether it was possible to truly leave no child behind. My answer is "NO." This is a disturbing answer when it comes from an educator and it reeks of elitism or worse. So let me explain.

Goals

Different kids have different goals. This is one of the weaknesses of No Child Left Behind. Currently, education seems focused on college. The truth is that not everyone will go to college. This is not an intelligence issue. It is a personality issue. It is also a practical issue. Not all careers require a college education.

Some sort of post-secondary education should be in most students' plans, but it may take a lot of different forms. Some are very practical: welding, machining, wiring. Others are more theoretical or bookish.

As a culture, we seem to have decided that those who don't go to college are somehow less intelligent or less ambitious. This is not true. Thomas Stanley's book The Millionaire Next Door noted that a surprising number of first generation millionaires do not have college educations. These are people who were successful because they were ambitious, did not give up, could face failure, could take risks, and because they found something they were passionate about. Don Aslett turned a college job as a janitor into a multi-million dollar janitorial service.

Our schools are only serving one segment of their population. NCLB only measures the performance on the goals of that one segment.

Environment

We aren't all privileged to grow up with middle class values. These are values of hard work, self-reliance, and the value of education. Some children are brought up to believe that they are victims of external forces. I have these children in my classes as well as other types.

I teach students who really believe that the grade they get in my class comes from how I feel about them. I've had parents tell me with a straight face that teachers are out to get their family. Apparently the teachers get together at the beginning of the year to choose which kids we're going to pick on for the year. (And you wondered why teachers go back to school before students!)

How does one reach this type of student? It can be done, but it's difficult. I've reached a few. I've also failed. Because of the home environment and other factors, there are students who will not be reached. We try, but they won't.

These students will not buy into our school's mission. In severe cases, such as the inner city or the reservations, these students will resist any attempt to improve in any way. Any change in culture will take a generation or two. Schools rarely plan like that.

Students will be left behind in our current system if they don't have a college focus or if they come from a background that is hostile to education or even success. Naturally, I can't leave it here without proposing solutions. Stay tuned!