An 8th grade education might just be enough....

While I've been doodling here down in the rabbit hole of high technology, debating whether my soul can be digitally remastered, Obama has decided that the business of education is to ensure "our children are developing the skills they need to compete with any worker in the world for any job."

High falutin' sound bites look great. When you actually look at what that particular string of words means, though, it makes about as much sense as the NCLB's goal of having all students "reach high standards, at a minimum attaining proficiency or better in reading/language arts and mathematics" by 2014."

(I will pause a moment to let you re-read Obama's statement.)

Meanwhile, the Amish are kicking butt in the world of small business. The New York Times noted today that "despite a lack of even a high school education (the Amish leave school after the eighth grade), hundreds of Amish entrepreneurs have built profitable businesses based on the Amish values of high quality, integrity and hard work"

Ah, I get it--if you want to work for someone else, you need high level skills. If you want to work for yourself, maybe knowing the intricacies of quadratic equations is not essential.

A 2004 Goshen College study reported that the failure rate of Amish businesses is less than 5 percent, compared with a national small-business default rate that is far higher. (According to a federal study, only two-thirds of all small-business start-ups survive the first two years and fewer than half make it to four years.)

NY Times, January 7, 2009

Of course, the Amish cheat. They do not farm their elderly to nursing homes, the church covers their health costs, and they are exempt from Social Security.

Meanwhile, the English here back east in Jersey are expecting our children to master "all types of equations using graphing, computer, and graphing calculator techniques." [Emphasis mine.]

All is a big word. But I guess if each child is to be able to compete with any worker for any job in the world, they will just have to know everything.




Never know when you might need to whip out a quadratic equation--don't want to be bested by some child in Kurdistan.

In the meantime, the Yoder, Klopfenstein, and Stutzman clans will develop the small businesses that will employ the worldly children who can spin quadratic equations on the head of a pin, but who would starve to death if left on their own with 40 acres, a mule, and a decent water supply.

Viruses, computer and otherwise

We come to the last few days of the darkest 6 weeks of the year. I've picked up my own bug to complement the one that ended my dependence on Windows.


In the past few weeks I have too much time fixing things that were supposed to make my life simpler. It's an old lesson, and one you've heard before:

An hour putting in a new CD/DVD (yes, too long, I need to speak to Mr. Dell), about 10 hours trying to clean up the Windows before I gave it up, an hour (or 2 or 3) reading and studying up on Linux before making the jump. A small chunk of time sending out password requests to Wikispaces for my class, then learning their policy had changed, an email I missed because the school server was down, so tonight I will spend a bit more time redoing that.

I've spent more time chatting with folks I've never met than I have with family. This is not sane, and I suspect it's not healthy.

I get cranky when viruses use me as the Love Boat, but something deeper than that is stirring this dark mood.

When did I fall into the rabbit hole?

[And the gods just responded--an error code when I tried to post this.]

Micrograph by Dr. Stephan BielRobert Koch Institut, Berlin, Germany

Public school and left-handed scissors

OK, now for the other side other the coin.

I'm left-handed (surprise, surprise).
So is my love, Leslie.
So are half our children.

We all went through public school (except for my 8 months in the parochial wilderness as a 1st grader--and I might mention I dropped out of kindergarten half-way through).

Back in the 1960's, left-handers were supposed to tilt their papers opposite the direction right handers were.

Think about this.

We were not writing backwards (though most of us can). Our hands were smudged with ink and graphite, and our words often smudged as well. We were writing in the direction completely contrary to physics.

And somewhere along the line some "expert" decided that we could write better if we tilted our papers opposite the way right-handers do.

And we were required to do so. As any left-hander older than 40 years old who went to public school.

And what does this have to do with anything?

Ask the children. Every left-handed child in the 1960's knew that tilting the paper the wrong way only aggravated the situation. Yet we knew enough not to question it--life was tough enough in class.

Today, a child could appeal to a higher authority (what better way to use Google?) and show the teacher why tilting the paper backwards is less than a good idea.

Information (if not education) has become a truly democratic resource. It's messy, it's mixed up, it's often wrong, but it's accessible.

Education is no longer about sharing information--the kiddies already have the keys.

It's about discernment.

And what does this have to do with scissors?

In the 1960's, public schools spent a lot of money providing left-handed children with scissors that had special green rubber coated handles.

Left-handers do not need special green handles--we need the blades crossed the opposite way.

Not one right-handed teacher I met through elementary school had a clue why I could not cut paper without making a mess.

Today we left-handers, alone or buddied with at most 2 others in class, have a forum. We have thousands of voices sharing a similar plaint. Public school, meet the internet.

Still, change is hard in a public institution. Just ask Mrs. Andretti back in 1966 about the new kid in her class struggling to cut paper with "special" scissors.

Mr. Jefferson, meet Mr. Duncan

I grew up in public schools--I lasted less than a year in parochial school, and bailed out a week before my 7th birthday (another story for another day). I went to public college, and public medical school.

My kids went through public school.

I now work in a public school right here in my town of Bloomfield.

I love the concept of public schools. I would like to point out, however, that "public" means just that, and that "education" does not necessarily mean developing the capacity to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I'm old-fashioned, and despite the recent twist towards corporatization of all things civil, some of us still hold Thomas Jefferson in high regard.





He said:

Of all the views of this law [for public education], none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe as they are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty.

And this:

The general objects [of a bill to diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the people] are to provide an education adapted to the years, to the capacity, and the condition of every one, and directed to their freedom and happiness.

And this

This [bill] on education would [raise] the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety and to orderly government, and would [complete] the great object of qualifying them to secure the veritable aristoi for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the pseudalists... I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will... call it up and make it the keystone of the arch of our government.

And this:

The less wealthy people,... by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen.

The reason we educate children is to make the effective citizens, and to help promote their pursuit of happiness. Or so I thought.

Mr. Obama gets a lot of things, and he's bright. I worry, though, that he might not get public education.

In the next few years, the decisions we make about how to educate our children will shape our future for generations to come. And the results aren't just about test scores or statistics, but about whether our children are developing the skills they need to compete with any worker in the world for any job.

From his own website, Change.gov

Please say it ain't so, Mr. President.

Mr. Obama's choice for the new Secretary of Education does not bode well. Mr. Duncan has never taught in a public school classroom. Mr. Duncan has a propensity to twist his district's statistics. I fear Mr. Duncan (and his boss) do not get public education.

Mr. President, come a li'l closer.
That's it--lean in a little more.
Pssstt....The Boston Tea Party was all about sticking it to corporations. It is not the government's charge to raise our children to be fit to work for the East India Tea Company.

Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bush both had a legacy of blue bucks and bad personal judgment before their commitment to inflict the NCLB Act on our children. Alas, they both lack the benefits of a truly public education.

Punahou School, Yale, Harvard, Philips Andover Academy--this is not the world of public schooling.

Punahou, Obama's high school, now costs $16,675 a year.

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Arne Duncan's alma mater, now costs $21,480 a year.

Yeah, I know, Jefferson studied under Reverend James Maury, and he didn't exactly rise from hoi polloi. But he knew the value of an education, and even more important, he knew the value of public education.

Mr. President, come on down and meet your πολλοί--I'll show you how to find a clam, how to temporarily patch a roof (something I was doing just a few hours ago, big fun in January), till a garden, change a flat, snake a blocked sewer pipe, knead dough, and all kinds of other things that we can do with our public education, at least until our public education became a conduit for corporate clones.

This is our country. We want it back.

Industrialism and clams

15 degrees Fahrenheit today--a bit too nippy to clam. The water temperature is down to 39 degrees--the clams are, well, clammed up now, waiting like the rest of us for this nonsense to pass.

Nothing new to write about on this first day of this new year. Clams eat, they grow. My rake resonates against one. I reach into the chill and scoop it up.

Never heard one say "Drat!"

***

Clamming by hand has a cost. I stir up the bottom with my rake, enough that fish will snoop in the area I just disturbed.

I occasionally impale critters not meant for the dinner table--I managed to spear two young horseshoe crabs on a bad afternoon clamming (though a worse day for them).

But I at least knew for a moment the creatures I wounded. Knowing didn't make the agony of the broken horseshoe crabs any less painful, though they at least got a prayer as they sank to their deaths.

We got ourselves tossed out of the Garden a few thousand years ago--clamming is about as close to the Garden as I'm going to get.

I do nothing to deserve the clams, they just are.
I barely need to work to get them, they're abundant at my feet.

I'm just close enough to wilderness to wonder what we lost when we decided to stay home and plant wheat 10,000 years ago.

I work over an area a bit over 500 square yards, and figure about 5000 clams live there. I'll take about 10% of them this year, and next year 5000 clams will still be there, barring any ecological disaster.

Can't think of a better definition of grace than that.

Undeserved love, but given anyway.

***

Rare clammers still make a living raking by hand. They know the critters like you know the sun.

Most clammers today dredge. Water is shot over the clam bed, creating a cloud of slurry, and the dislodged clams are dredged up to daylight.

The clammers will tell you they are oxygenating the water, feeding the fish, and at any rate, are not doing any permanent harm. Still, in a day when a clammer may take over 10 bushels (an old word), he's not going to know one from the other.

The environmentalists will tell you that the bottom of the seas are being scarred, and maybe they're right.

The few of us who can afford to live along the bay will complain about the early morning hours of the clammers, and eventually dredging in shallow waters is banned, and a few more clammers are out of business.

***

I know every clam I eat. I know where it lived. They don't travel horizontally much, maybe a foot or two in a couple of years.

If ever I get sick from a clam, I can tell the DEP where it came from, withing a few dozen yards. (Not that I would ever tell them--I don't sell my clams.)

Beyond the careless destruction of habitat, the sin of the industrial clammer is not knowing the critters he sells. Since most of us are industrial eaters, not knowing where our critters came from, I can hardly blame the clammer. He's just making a living.

I can hardly blame the engineer who designs the hydraulic dredger, nor the driller at Exxon who mines oil for his boat, nor the construction woman who paved the ramp where the clammer launched his boat this morning.

No need to blame anyone or everyone, we are all complicit since we left the Garden. Grace does not dictate the market values, and we all have at least one person to feed, to shelter, to clothe.

***

You're not going to find grace at Whole Foods--you'll find fancy foods at high prices, and a few of the slaughtered beings there may have lived a slightly fancier life than their brethren at Perdue. But you still do not know them.

You pay for the privilege of a fancier form of industry, but you had to earn your dollars somehow. For most of us, earning cash requires participating in an industry.

To know grace you need to see the life drain from the creature you are eating.

Make a resolution to eat something you slaughtered, or at least grew.
Religion has fallen out of favor, and our industrial coccoons shield us from grace.

Grace is never easy, nor cheap.
But it is possible.

Photo of clammers by N. Stope at WeLoveClams.com
Photo of early Perdue farm via the Perdue website

Ibuntu...Ubuntu, too?

I spent most of the day wrestling with my computer. I contracted a nasty army of viruses, then compounded my problems by toying with the registry.

I also managed to snap off the front cover of my CDR, which was jammed beyond fixing with a paper clip.

Armed with a butter knife, a relatively old Linux book from the library, and encouragement from folks here, I finally managed to get Ubuntu installed on my puter.

I lost Windows along the way....but I'm liking what I see with Linux.

Is this just love at first blush, or should I have switched years ago?

Mitochondrion

Part 2 of the last post.
I may have posted this already.

In 6th grade, you labeled your cell diagram, not quite understanding what you were doing, but enjoying picking the colors from your box of crayons, coloring the pill-shaped organelle a Crayola cadet blue.

In 8th grade, you learned that the mitochondrion was where oxidation and the Krebs cycle took place (even though oxidation and Krebs were just sounds to memorize to please the teacher). You learned that this was the cell's power plant. You imagined a tiny engine burning gasoline.

In high school you memorized the Krebs cycle, took the Biology AP Exam, and managed to slip into a decent college. You slogged through biochemistry, and eventually became a pharmacist.

***

Mitochondria reside in our cells--they are sort of us, but not really--they carry their own DNA, and they descend from other mitochondria carried by your mother. And her mother. And her mother's mother.

Coloring them was about as exciting as mitochondria ever got.

***

Three decades ago I sat in the auditorium of the American Museum of Natural History. The teacher had primed our class, so when the serious man on stage asked what energy was, I knew the right words to say.

I raised my hand.
I started to open my mouth--I knew the words, my teacher was already smiling.

I did not say them. I stared at my feet.
"The ability to do work" caught in my craw.
The words explained nothing to me, and still do not.

My teacher's disappointment was once enough motivation for me to answer a stranger's question, even if I did not understand my own words.

At least until 6th grade.

***

Oxygen combines with fuel to release energy--light and heat. The oxygen does not contribute to the energy released--it "simply" accepts electrons, allowing bonds to break and reform.

If this happens fast, you get fire. Oxygen grabs electrons and protons, forming water. Hold your hand over a barbecue--the moisture on your palm is not just sweat. Hold a glass beaker over an open flame--water condenses on the cool glass. Try it.

Oxidation can happen slowly, too. The rusting rims of your child's bicycle left out over winter warms the frigid air as metallic iron morphs into ferric oxide. Rust releases heat. Molecules vibrate more quickly as electrons shift.

I know the words, but still do not trust them.

In 1978 I shoveled iron turnings on the docks, my feet warming up despite thick work boots. Until then I did not believe that rusting iron releases heat. Even more important, I had no reason to believe it--I no longer trusted teachers.

My favorite students are those who do not trust my words now--"show me!"
And I do.

***

The warmth and movement of your lover comes from the sun.
You twist together, heat and motion.
Mitochondria hum.

***

In the morning, the sun rises, as it has, as it will.

The apple I eat courses through my veins as sugar, sugar that feeds the mitochondria.

Heat, water, and carbon dioxide are released. I step outside into the New Year chill, and see my breath. The water vapor dissipates, to return as rain. The carbon dioxide eventually feeds the spring garden, a few molecules going back to the apple tree, where the sun's energy restores a bit of order.

Leslie and I make up our shared bed, laughing at the entropic knot of sheets and blankets.

Our body heat comes from our mitochondria, trillions of symbionts stoking our fires.

If the soul resides anywhere, it resides here in the mitochondria.
After our last agonal gasp, our corpse quickly cools. The change is startling, even to experienced hands.

I've pronounced a lot of dead people, feeling for a pulse, watching for chest movement. Either can fool you. The abrupt onset of cold, however, tells the story. The mitochondria have stopped working.

You are dead.

***

The best parts of science get buried in the details.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

Adenosine triphosphate.

Alpha-ketoglutarate pathway.

My students yawn at the details.

I try to use a 3D model. Nitrogen atoms are, alas, painted blue.
"The red balls are oxygen, the blue balls...."

My frontal lobe edits too slowly today. I have their attention now--"Blue balls, he said blue balls!"--and the room now vibrates with a different kind of heat.

***

I breathe. I eat.
I use the energy released from the food I eat today to start preparing for the spring garden.

A garden is a lovely lie--a pretense of order in the midst of organic chaos.

I teach about the Krebs cycle in a classroom without windows.
I want to stop class, run outside, show my lambs the inexplicable dance outside, where a tiny portion of sunlight happens to hit our world, and carbon dioxide and water happen to get reorganized into food, that we happen to eat, to be.

Grace. Dharma. Science.