Monday, October 18, 2010

Peace Corps Update/Educational Musings

As far as the PC goes, I found out a while ago that since I bumped my leave date out to October of 2011 (to accommodate for T3 and Lauren's big day on 10/8/11) that the programs I'm eligible for don't open until December. So I am effectively on hold until then. Which is good because I have a TON of stuff to do in the meanwhile.

This weekend, I saw a film called Waiting for Superman about the education system in America. It was eye-opening, frightening, appalling, sad, and inspiring all at the same time. The most appalling part to me was how much power the teachers' unions have and how they are unwilling to use that power to do the most good--to benefit the students. That and the holding tank in New York, where some teachers that are awaiting disciplinary action are held for UP TO THREE YEARS--while receiving full salary and benefits!--represents (to me) the absolute greediest and laziest extremes of American society. The sad part is that for kids (like the kids featured in the film) who are intelligent but stuck in shitty schools--the options are limited. And the few spots that are open to them for the possibility of a better education and a better life are drawn by lottery. It is the only fair option in a desperately unfair situation, but still--it breaks your heart for every kid that loses the lottery--which seemed to be about 90% of them. The other sad part is that I feel like I don't know what I could possibly do to make that situation better. How can you fight some huge bureaucratic institution, like the NEA? How can people who are proud to call themselves teachers not be brave enough to put themselves on the chopping block and accept Michelle Rhee's offer of the choice between a slight pay raise (no matter what) or a big pay raise (6 figure salaries for teachers), based on performance reviews. Raises in most other professions are performance-based. Why not for teachers??? It makes no sense.

Regardless, today, I went and visited New City School, in the Central West End. They are a private school that has been around since 1969, and that has been incorporating Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory into their curriculum since 1988. They have a FANTASTIC new library that incorporates all of the 8 intelligences. Their staff is amazing. Everything about the school wowed me and now I'm thinking--how can I incorporate MI into my own lessons? Obviously it's harder with adult learners--you can't just tell them to go play in the sandbox and call it kinesthetic learning!--and the hardest part, I've discovered, is not having your own classroom where you can keep all the cool stuff. But, I'm determined to look into it more and try to find some sneaky ways to do it anyway.