Ode To Sheila
As I told you earlier I’m a sucker for surveys, so every few months I find myself answering questions about the Commuter Rail. I must admit though that the train surveys are disappointing. Unlike the other forms that I fill out that ask different questions every time, the commuter rail always asks the same questions. They’re only interested in whether fares have been collected, stops announced, trains cleaned and whether cars are crowded. There’s never a place for comments.
I guess I’m not the only one who noticed the lack of comment space because there was a note on this latest survey stating that they don’t ask for comments because it would take too long to read them. From what I’ve seen every morning and afternoon, we’re a fairly placid crowd—no real trouble makers in the group but you never know what darkness lurks in the hearts of men. Especially when you’re forced to check boxes even when they don’t tell the whole story and there’s no room for additions.
For instance, even though I check the yes box as to whether announcements are made at every stop, there’s no place to tell them that those announcements are not always understandable. So yes I can hear the conductor saying something but I have no idea what he’s saying sometimes. For all I know he can be telling me last night’s lottery results. And as for the cleanliness box, litter is lumped together with messy windows so how can I tell them that I don’t mind the occasional soda cup but not being able to see out the window drives me crazy?
Sometimes I wonder if they’ll ever ask us what questions we would like to see on these surveys. For instance I would love for them to ask me about the general ambiance of the stations that I wait in. I would tell them about how a person could freeze to death at Back Bay station in the winter and die from the heat in the summer.
I would also love for them to ask me about the times when a train is delayed for an hour and no one bothers to tell you why. Or why there are times when all the seats are taken and yet entire cars are closed off. But the subject that I would really like to get into on these surveys is the ticket taker that rides with me every morning and evening. I never see any questions about that. And to tell you the truth I didn’t really care about it until I lost Sheila.
Who is Sheila you might ask? Sheila was the lovely ticket taker who rode in my car each morning and evening. Every day at 7:08, sunny, rainy, hot, freezing, tsunamis or locusts, she would open the car doors and call out, “Good morning everyone!” And I would always smile back and answer, “Good morning,” even if it wasn’t. In the beginning I would just listen to her conversations with passengers, as she asked after them and their families, or laughed at a joke or simply listened to a passenger’s problem. I actually found myself envying the people she spoke with. Then one day after checking my pass she said, “I’ve noticed that you ride the train everyday. Let me introduce myself, my name is Sheila.”
I happily told her my name and then every day after that we spoke and usually laughed a bit. When I got off in the morning I would wish her a good day, then get on in the afternoon when we would both sigh and say, “Another day, another dollar.” I found myself looking forward to her cheer in the dark mornings and on the days when she wasn’t there I felt bereft. Eventually I told her that I managed a GED program in Boston and we would talk about that. When she was talking to other passengers I found myself listening to her talk about her kids and her holiday plans and the time she went to pick her sister up at the airport.
During the Christmas season when I was buying chocolate gifts for friends and co-workers I suddenly knew that I wanted to get something for Sheila too. I was almost afraid that she would think I was silly, I mean who buys gifts for their ticket taker? But then I realized that she made my day brighter than most of the people that I ran into everyday. Luckily the gift made her happy and I found myself smiling even more.
Then a couple of weeks ago, after our usual exchange of good mornings, she told me that she felt like a change and would be switching to a different shift. I knew a sharp stab of sadness as I told her good-bye, telling her that I hoped she’d come back soon. But it wasn’t until the next day and the next and the one after that, that I really knew how much I missed her. I never knew her last name, where she lived, her favorite foods, or what made her happy or sad. All I knew was her warm smile and her friendly good morning and that was enough. Enough to make me still miss her, all these weeks later and to know that I’ll keep on missing her during every train ride. Where do I put that in my survey?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Clown On A Unicycle
Clown On A Unicycle
Walking to work last Wednesday morning, I was standing at Tremont Street waiting for the light to change so that I could cross. Tremont is the busiest street that I pass on the way to work. Not only does traffic race by at unsafe speeds, but the little pedestrian-guy pictured on the walk sign is usually praying. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that crossing the street when the pedestrian signal is on is probably the least safe time to try to make it to the other side. It all becomes a big joke as in, “Why did the pedestrian cross the road? To get to the hospital.”
It would behoove anyone attempting to make it across in one piece to keep eyes, ears and every other orifice open and fingers crossed. So I was completely floored when I saw a young guy yakking on his cellphone and crossing the street while the light was red, never bothering to look in either direction. Everyone around me held their breath as this jerk almost got run over at least twice. It must be true that God watches over children and idiots.
When he made it safely to our side we all stared at him, this walking miracle, but he didn’t even notice. That must have been one important phone call. It’s funny, I’d almost gotten used to people talking on their cellphones while driving, but watching pedestrians nearly kill themselves is a new thing. A recent article in the Boston Globe (1/17) written by Matt Richtel, talks about the newest phenomenon of walkers injuring themselves while talking on their cellphones:
On the day of the collision last December, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation. Very lost.
“I ran into a truck,’’ Briggs said.
It was parked in a driveway.
Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cell phones to talk and text.
But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking - distracted walking - which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device, and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor, or a parked, sometimes moving car.
It must be embarrassing, to say the least, to get hurt in an altercation involving an inanimate object. I can just imagine the call to a parent from the emergency room. “Mom, could you come get me, I’m at the hospital.”
“Oh my God! My baby, are you all right? Are you seriously hurt? What happened, where are you? Don’t worry darling, mommy’s coming right over.”
“Well I was walking in the street and I walked into a telephone pole. It just came up on me suddenly, mom, really. I have no idea where it came from!”
Silence on the other end of the line. “A telephone pole??? On second thought, you idiot, you can take the bus home!”
But it’s no laughing matter. According to Richtel:
Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell, or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.
Is it too much to ask that people actually look where they’re going when they walk? I’ve given up on drivers who make left turns, back out of their driveways, change lanes or tail gate me as they blithely yak away on their phones. But for some reason this walking-cellphone-talking thing is making me really nuts. Are people so afraid of being alone with their thoughts that even walking down the street has to be avoided? And when did multi-taking become the norm for every waking moment of our lives?
Cognitive psychologists and neurologists are studying the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a desk or the wheel or on foot. Researchers are finding that just talking on a phone takes its own toll on awareness.
Pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people right in front of them. That was the finding of a recent study at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., by a psychology professor, Ira Hyman, and his students.
One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a central square on campus. About half the people walking in the square by themselves said they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for people walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a cellphone said they had, Hyman said.
Up until now I thought that it was merely annoying to see people with electronics attached to their heads. But now I’m learning that it’s dangerous, and not only for them but for everyone around them. We’re no longer a community sharing our outside space with others. We no longer notice, let alone appreciate, our surroundings or the rest of the world. Why should we bother being civil to a stranger when we always have our friends umbilically connected to our ears?
And God forbid if we ever needed someone’s help. We’d have about as much chance of getting their attention as a clown on a unicycle.
Walking to work last Wednesday morning, I was standing at Tremont Street waiting for the light to change so that I could cross. Tremont is the busiest street that I pass on the way to work. Not only does traffic race by at unsafe speeds, but the little pedestrian-guy pictured on the walk sign is usually praying. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that crossing the street when the pedestrian signal is on is probably the least safe time to try to make it to the other side. It all becomes a big joke as in, “Why did the pedestrian cross the road? To get to the hospital.”
It would behoove anyone attempting to make it across in one piece to keep eyes, ears and every other orifice open and fingers crossed. So I was completely floored when I saw a young guy yakking on his cellphone and crossing the street while the light was red, never bothering to look in either direction. Everyone around me held their breath as this jerk almost got run over at least twice. It must be true that God watches over children and idiots.
When he made it safely to our side we all stared at him, this walking miracle, but he didn’t even notice. That must have been one important phone call. It’s funny, I’d almost gotten used to people talking on their cellphones while driving, but watching pedestrians nearly kill themselves is a new thing. A recent article in the Boston Globe (1/17) written by Matt Richtel, talks about the newest phenomenon of walkers injuring themselves while talking on their cellphones:
On the day of the collision last December, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation. Very lost.
“I ran into a truck,’’ Briggs said.
It was parked in a driveway.
Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cell phones to talk and text.
But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking - distracted walking - which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device, and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor, or a parked, sometimes moving car.
It must be embarrassing, to say the least, to get hurt in an altercation involving an inanimate object. I can just imagine the call to a parent from the emergency room. “Mom, could you come get me, I’m at the hospital.”
“Oh my God! My baby, are you all right? Are you seriously hurt? What happened, where are you? Don’t worry darling, mommy’s coming right over.”
“Well I was walking in the street and I walked into a telephone pole. It just came up on me suddenly, mom, really. I have no idea where it came from!”
Silence on the other end of the line. “A telephone pole??? On second thought, you idiot, you can take the bus home!”
But it’s no laughing matter. According to Richtel:
Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell, or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.
Is it too much to ask that people actually look where they’re going when they walk? I’ve given up on drivers who make left turns, back out of their driveways, change lanes or tail gate me as they blithely yak away on their phones. But for some reason this walking-cellphone-talking thing is making me really nuts. Are people so afraid of being alone with their thoughts that even walking down the street has to be avoided? And when did multi-taking become the norm for every waking moment of our lives?
Cognitive psychologists and neurologists are studying the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a desk or the wheel or on foot. Researchers are finding that just talking on a phone takes its own toll on awareness.
Pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people right in front of them. That was the finding of a recent study at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., by a psychology professor, Ira Hyman, and his students.
One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a central square on campus. About half the people walking in the square by themselves said they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for people walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a cellphone said they had, Hyman said.
Up until now I thought that it was merely annoying to see people with electronics attached to their heads. But now I’m learning that it’s dangerous, and not only for them but for everyone around them. We’re no longer a community sharing our outside space with others. We no longer notice, let alone appreciate, our surroundings or the rest of the world. Why should we bother being civil to a stranger when we always have our friends umbilically connected to our ears?
And God forbid if we ever needed someone’s help. We’d have about as much chance of getting their attention as a clown on a unicycle.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A Successful Failure
A Successful Failure
Five years ago when Steve and I visited the western states we fell in love. Not with each other—we’d already done that over 35 years ago—but with Arizona and New Mexico. But though we reveled in the beauty of the natural landscape, it was a man made structure that intrigued us the most--Biosphere 2. Planted in the middle of the Arizona desert it appeared in the wilderness like a mirage. I had never forgotten our visit so when I saw an article on the internet describing how it was finally fulfilling its scientific promise I was relieved, because its mission and sheer beauty had been in danger of disappearing back into the desert.
The name, Biosphere 2, comes from earth’s life system known as Biosphere 1. Built by Space Biosphere Ventures between 1987 and 1991 at a cost of $200 million, it was designed to be a completely sealed off ecological system. Its 3.15 acres was used to explore the web of interactions within ecosystems. It held five natural ecosystems: a rainforest, a tropical ocean with a coral reef, mangrove wetlands, a savannah and a fog desert. There was also an agricultural area and a human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature. (www.wikipedia.com)
Biosphere’s crew was completely sealed off from the world. From 1991-1993 eight researchers were locked inside along with a number of animals including goats, chickens, birds and fish. The agricultural system produced 83% of their total diet, which included crops such as bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, beans, rice, and wheat. (www.b2science.org)
Can you imagine being locked in an enclosed space for two years with seven other people? Not being able to run outside for a quick trip to the library, the mall, the movies? Not being able to open a window? If I’m stuck in the house for a day I already long for fresh air and socialization.
As you might have guessed there were problems both scientific and psychological:
Factions among the researchers developed. Romantic relationships blossomed and died. In terms of science, due to a series of improper calculations, oxygen levels plummeted over the two-year period as carbon dioxide spiked. Ants and cockroaches overran the facility and a great number of the animals died.
Financial and managerial problems plagued the project as well, forcing the facility to shut down altogether in 1994. All in all, if Biosphere 2 was meant to demonstrate a possible future for the human race, that future looked rather bleak. (David Knowles, Biosphere 2’s Second Chapter: Climate Change)
Only one more crew was sealed up and they lasted only seven months. Finally in 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia University who ran it as a research site and campus until 2003. During that time Biosphere was open to visitors for the first time. It was then that Steve and I visited the site.
Imagine traveling on a desert highway, then turning off to suddenly have a huge glass ziggurat appear before you. We would later learn that it enclosed the rainforest but at that moment we felt like we had entered a sci-fi movie. The illusion continued as the rest of the structure came into view. White towers, a glass skin covering different leveled buildings, a geodesic dome and all surrounded by the mountains in the distance. It hung in the desert like a dream.
We visited the compact quarters where the crews had lived, wondering how they lasted for two years. We walked through the ecosystems all surreal yet eerily beautiful. We passed through the rain forest where we could hear birds and small animals skittering through the trees. The mangrove, savannah and the desert were all lovely but it was the ocean that was truly magnificent. Hearing the soft splash of the waves, surrounded by palm trees and yet seeing the Arizona mountains through the glass skin that covered it all, we felt like we had somehow left earth. Our tour guide explained that the ocean had been a favorite get-away spot for the crew members and I could understand why.
We left sadly when we heard that no one knew what would happen to this vital site once Columbia’s lease ran out. But then on June 26, 2007 the University of Arizona took over its management using the site to study climate change among other things. So last week when I read David Knowle’s article I was excited and relieved.
Under Columbia's supervision the focus of the project shifted to the study of how the high concentrations of carbon dioxide inside the structures affected plant life. Biosphere 2, it turned out, was a great laboratory for tracking the effects of climate change on a number of different ecosystems.
"They were able to show that as more carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, coral reefs are endangered and die off," said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona, who now oversees Biosphere 2.
According to Ruiz, Biosphere 2's initial attempts at creating a fully enclosed system have produced a unique tool to study a similarly enclosed environment: Earth's. "We like to say that the Biosphere 2 was built slightly before its time," Ruiz said.
Failure can be beautiful. Not only does it engender learning but it can also plant the seeds for insight and success. And thanks to Biosphere 2, our future may not be as bleak as we feared.
Five years ago when Steve and I visited the western states we fell in love. Not with each other—we’d already done that over 35 years ago—but with Arizona and New Mexico. But though we reveled in the beauty of the natural landscape, it was a man made structure that intrigued us the most--Biosphere 2. Planted in the middle of the Arizona desert it appeared in the wilderness like a mirage. I had never forgotten our visit so when I saw an article on the internet describing how it was finally fulfilling its scientific promise I was relieved, because its mission and sheer beauty had been in danger of disappearing back into the desert.
The name, Biosphere 2, comes from earth’s life system known as Biosphere 1. Built by Space Biosphere Ventures between 1987 and 1991 at a cost of $200 million, it was designed to be a completely sealed off ecological system. Its 3.15 acres was used to explore the web of interactions within ecosystems. It held five natural ecosystems: a rainforest, a tropical ocean with a coral reef, mangrove wetlands, a savannah and a fog desert. There was also an agricultural area and a human living/working space to study the interactions between humans, farming and technology with the rest of nature. (www.wikipedia.com)
Biosphere’s crew was completely sealed off from the world. From 1991-1993 eight researchers were locked inside along with a number of animals including goats, chickens, birds and fish. The agricultural system produced 83% of their total diet, which included crops such as bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, beans, rice, and wheat. (www.b2science.org)
Can you imagine being locked in an enclosed space for two years with seven other people? Not being able to run outside for a quick trip to the library, the mall, the movies? Not being able to open a window? If I’m stuck in the house for a day I already long for fresh air and socialization.
As you might have guessed there were problems both scientific and psychological:
Factions among the researchers developed. Romantic relationships blossomed and died. In terms of science, due to a series of improper calculations, oxygen levels plummeted over the two-year period as carbon dioxide spiked. Ants and cockroaches overran the facility and a great number of the animals died.
Financial and managerial problems plagued the project as well, forcing the facility to shut down altogether in 1994. All in all, if Biosphere 2 was meant to demonstrate a possible future for the human race, that future looked rather bleak. (David Knowles, Biosphere 2’s Second Chapter: Climate Change)
Only one more crew was sealed up and they lasted only seven months. Finally in 1995 the Biosphere 2 owners transferred management to Columbia University who ran it as a research site and campus until 2003. During that time Biosphere was open to visitors for the first time. It was then that Steve and I visited the site.
Imagine traveling on a desert highway, then turning off to suddenly have a huge glass ziggurat appear before you. We would later learn that it enclosed the rainforest but at that moment we felt like we had entered a sci-fi movie. The illusion continued as the rest of the structure came into view. White towers, a glass skin covering different leveled buildings, a geodesic dome and all surrounded by the mountains in the distance. It hung in the desert like a dream.
We visited the compact quarters where the crews had lived, wondering how they lasted for two years. We walked through the ecosystems all surreal yet eerily beautiful. We passed through the rain forest where we could hear birds and small animals skittering through the trees. The mangrove, savannah and the desert were all lovely but it was the ocean that was truly magnificent. Hearing the soft splash of the waves, surrounded by palm trees and yet seeing the Arizona mountains through the glass skin that covered it all, we felt like we had somehow left earth. Our tour guide explained that the ocean had been a favorite get-away spot for the crew members and I could understand why.
We left sadly when we heard that no one knew what would happen to this vital site once Columbia’s lease ran out. But then on June 26, 2007 the University of Arizona took over its management using the site to study climate change among other things. So last week when I read David Knowle’s article I was excited and relieved.
Under Columbia's supervision the focus of the project shifted to the study of how the high concentrations of carbon dioxide inside the structures affected plant life. Biosphere 2, it turned out, was a great laboratory for tracking the effects of climate change on a number of different ecosystems.
"They were able to show that as more carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, coral reefs are endangered and die off," said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona, who now oversees Biosphere 2.
According to Ruiz, Biosphere 2's initial attempts at creating a fully enclosed system have produced a unique tool to study a similarly enclosed environment: Earth's. "We like to say that the Biosphere 2 was built slightly before its time," Ruiz said.
Failure can be beautiful. Not only does it engender learning but it can also plant the seeds for insight and success. And thanks to Biosphere 2, our future may not be as bleak as we feared.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Those Who Can, Teach
Those Who Can, Teach
Everyone thinks they can teach. They think, “What can be so hard about standing in front of a room full of kids and talking?
Before I entered the ranks of teachers I thought the same thing. And then I stood in front of my first class of high school sophomores and I wanted to eat my words, semicolons and all, and then put my head down on my desk and cry.
And everyone thinks they know exactly how to fix schools that don’t “work”.
“Hey you get rid of the “bad” teachers and their pain-in-the-neck unions, lay some discipline on those kids and that’s that.”
The term “bad teacher” always makes me wince. That’s probably why, when I read the following article written by James Vaznis in the January 8th Boston Globe, I wanted to put my head down on my desk once again.
Superintendents would gain broad new powers to make dramatic changes at the state’s worst schools, including the removal of ineffective teachers, under the education bill approved by the House early yesterday.
At a press conference outside his City Hall office yesterday morning, Menino said the bill was “made in heaven. This is a new era for all of us when it comes to public education.”
This “new era” is coming to us courtesy of two converging events: The first:
A January 19 deadline to apply for a portion of $4 billion in new federal stimulus aid reserved for states pursuing dramatic and innovative overhauls of public education. If chosen Massachusetts could reap $250 million from the “Race to the Top’’ fund.
And the second:
A persistent achievement gap among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Massachusetts has one of the widest achievement gaps in the nation even though students as a whole often score the highest on national standardized tests.
Forgive me if I seem a bit skeptical of this latest bill made in heaven and the brave new era that it will usher in. While I agree that there is definitely a need to close the achievement gap, since as a GED school director I grapple with the results of it everyday, I can’t help wonder why people always believe that progress can only be achieved on the backs of teachers. Progress shouldn’t be a polarizing event but a community effort. You can’t fix anything if you don’t look at the big picture.
I embraced teaching, as many of us did, resolved to change the world. I would be the teacher that everyone remembered till their dying day. I would be the eternal light for every weary high school English student, inspiring new Chaucers and Shakespeares. But if I thought that it was hard teaching high school it is only now, teaching adults, that I fully understand how great the challenge truly is.
I have a game that I play with the elementary school kids who come to the Blackstone Community Center’s after school programs. They gather in my computer room before they take off for their various activities and after greeting them I warn them in my most serious tone of voice, “I never want to see you in my program, okay?” The more experienced ones smile at the inside joke about not dropping out of school, while the new kids look at me wondering why I don’t like them. At that point the veterans explain, “She teaches people who never finished school and you don’t want to be like that.”
Yesterday Elena, a fourth grader told me, “You don’t have to worry about me Miss Joan. I’m going to finish high school and then college and then Medical School. I’m going to be a veterinarian!” I wanted to cry but I smiled and said, “And you’re going to be a fantastic one! You go girl!”
When I ask my adults why they left school, I hear as many answers as there are students. They had to work, they were pregnant, bored, they were afraid of the gangs. But one reason that repeats and reverberates is that they felt that nobody really cared if they showed up or not. All the money that was spent, all the testing that was done, all the reorganization that was carried out came down to one simple reality: failed relationships. I use that knowledge in my school. My staff knows that none of our students is allowed to feel alone.
It seems to be working. I’m losing one of my best teachers, Greg, who forged a community out of disparate adults. They come week after week, ready to learn. Greg has them doing projects, research, reading, math, science, and they drink it all down like the water they never had. He calls them when they don’t show up, supports them, cajoles them into wanting to succeed. I subbed for him last week and felt like I was teaching a class filled with sponges. Thankfully I’ve found a new teacher to take his place who seems to have the same fire. Because, cliché or not, that’s what students need—teachers who give a damn. Teachers who respect them because their work is respected. Teachers who are treated as professionals, who are included in decisions that will affect them and their students. One thing they do not need is legislators determined to push through, as David Falcone, a spokesman for Senate President Therese Murray said, “a quick resolution…”
Because building a future is never quick.
Everyone thinks they can teach. They think, “What can be so hard about standing in front of a room full of kids and talking?
Before I entered the ranks of teachers I thought the same thing. And then I stood in front of my first class of high school sophomores and I wanted to eat my words, semicolons and all, and then put my head down on my desk and cry.
And everyone thinks they know exactly how to fix schools that don’t “work”.
“Hey you get rid of the “bad” teachers and their pain-in-the-neck unions, lay some discipline on those kids and that’s that.”
The term “bad teacher” always makes me wince. That’s probably why, when I read the following article written by James Vaznis in the January 8th Boston Globe, I wanted to put my head down on my desk once again.
Superintendents would gain broad new powers to make dramatic changes at the state’s worst schools, including the removal of ineffective teachers, under the education bill approved by the House early yesterday.
At a press conference outside his City Hall office yesterday morning, Menino said the bill was “made in heaven. This is a new era for all of us when it comes to public education.”
This “new era” is coming to us courtesy of two converging events: The first:
A January 19 deadline to apply for a portion of $4 billion in new federal stimulus aid reserved for states pursuing dramatic and innovative overhauls of public education. If chosen Massachusetts could reap $250 million from the “Race to the Top’’ fund.
And the second:
A persistent achievement gap among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Massachusetts has one of the widest achievement gaps in the nation even though students as a whole often score the highest on national standardized tests.
Forgive me if I seem a bit skeptical of this latest bill made in heaven and the brave new era that it will usher in. While I agree that there is definitely a need to close the achievement gap, since as a GED school director I grapple with the results of it everyday, I can’t help wonder why people always believe that progress can only be achieved on the backs of teachers. Progress shouldn’t be a polarizing event but a community effort. You can’t fix anything if you don’t look at the big picture.
I embraced teaching, as many of us did, resolved to change the world. I would be the teacher that everyone remembered till their dying day. I would be the eternal light for every weary high school English student, inspiring new Chaucers and Shakespeares. But if I thought that it was hard teaching high school it is only now, teaching adults, that I fully understand how great the challenge truly is.
I have a game that I play with the elementary school kids who come to the Blackstone Community Center’s after school programs. They gather in my computer room before they take off for their various activities and after greeting them I warn them in my most serious tone of voice, “I never want to see you in my program, okay?” The more experienced ones smile at the inside joke about not dropping out of school, while the new kids look at me wondering why I don’t like them. At that point the veterans explain, “She teaches people who never finished school and you don’t want to be like that.”
Yesterday Elena, a fourth grader told me, “You don’t have to worry about me Miss Joan. I’m going to finish high school and then college and then Medical School. I’m going to be a veterinarian!” I wanted to cry but I smiled and said, “And you’re going to be a fantastic one! You go girl!”
When I ask my adults why they left school, I hear as many answers as there are students. They had to work, they were pregnant, bored, they were afraid of the gangs. But one reason that repeats and reverberates is that they felt that nobody really cared if they showed up or not. All the money that was spent, all the testing that was done, all the reorganization that was carried out came down to one simple reality: failed relationships. I use that knowledge in my school. My staff knows that none of our students is allowed to feel alone.
It seems to be working. I’m losing one of my best teachers, Greg, who forged a community out of disparate adults. They come week after week, ready to learn. Greg has them doing projects, research, reading, math, science, and they drink it all down like the water they never had. He calls them when they don’t show up, supports them, cajoles them into wanting to succeed. I subbed for him last week and felt like I was teaching a class filled with sponges. Thankfully I’ve found a new teacher to take his place who seems to have the same fire. Because, cliché or not, that’s what students need—teachers who give a damn. Teachers who respect them because their work is respected. Teachers who are treated as professionals, who are included in decisions that will affect them and their students. One thing they do not need is legislators determined to push through, as David Falcone, a spokesman for Senate President Therese Murray said, “a quick resolution…”
Because building a future is never quick.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Expert Advice
Expert Advice
Medically it has never been easy to be a woman. During the 5th and 4th centuries in Greece, female hysteria, which stems from the Greek word for uterus, was described extensively in gynecological treatises. Plato describes the uterus wandering throughout a woman’s body, strangling the victim as it reaches the chest. Hysteria continued to be a common diagnosis made in women for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. During the Victorian era women suffering from it supposedly exhibited a wide array of symptoms including a tendency to cause trouble. That would make me the queen of hysteria.
We may be living in the 21st century but women still suffer from the caprices of medical science. For years doctors convinced women that they needed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to combat the symptoms of menopause and to protect them against osteoporosis and heart disease. Then the results of the Women’s Health Initiative were released in 2002. This landmark study followed more than 16,000 women assessing the effects of HRT. The findings revealed that hormone therapy not only failed to protect against heart disease but was shown to increase the risk of heart attack, breast and uterine cancer.
Told to immediately stop HRT, women were confused and angry. For years they had been following their doctors’ orders convinced that they were ensuring their health and longevity. Instead, it seemed, they were ensuring a risk of early demise.
Women have learned many things in recent years: That it’s not true that women do not suffer from heart attacks as much as men--it’s just that our symptoms are different and often go unnoticed. We’re also learning that the reason that urologists brand so many of us with a blanket catchall disorder, interstitial cystitis, or painful bladder syndrome, is because they have no idea what causes it or how to treat it because no one has done any meaningful research on the issue. However that does not prevent doctors from ordering painful, invasive tests and dispensing random medication in the hopes that something might eventually work.
And now we have the latest news to grapple with. For years women have been told that starting at age 40, they should be getting yearly mammograms to detect breast cancer early. But now the Preventative Services Task Force, having completed a five year update of their original study, has concluded that is no longer the case. Their newest recommendation is for women to begin mammograms at age fifty and then every other year thereafter. And once again women are confused and angry, especially since this reversal is taking place during our country’s first major health care overhaul in years.
But this time, unlike the HRT fiasco, women are fighting back with their personal experiences. They are telling their stories of how early detection saved their lives and the lives of their mothers, sisters, daughters and friends and they are not accepting the latest recommendations without a fight. After all, as we all have heartbreakingly learned, these studies are not infallible. We cannot blindly depend on the experts any longer.
Judy Ockene, a disease prevention specialist at UMass Medical School who was a member of the task force, is caught in the center of this maelstrom. As a daughter whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 44 and who has two daughters of her own, she understands the confusion that women are battling because of the latest findings. But as a scientist she feels that scientific evidence should be paramount.
“There was”, Ockene said, “never any contest between personal experience and scientific evaluation as she weighed the evidence on mammograms. Nor, she added, should there be.
“We all have our own stories about cancer but evidence is extremely important in all the work we do in health care. Does it mean it’s more important than all of the personal experiences? Well, I think it does. The evidence has to speak for itself.’’(Boston Globe, 12/28/09, Steven Smith)
Dr. Laura Esserman, a breast cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, believes that “There’s a cultural acceptance that more is always better, and that explains why our health care costs get out of control. We have to understand there are limits to what we can do.’’ (Boston Globe, 12/28/09)
I find myself caught in the middle. While I agree that scientific evidence usually trumps anecdotal evidence, I can’t help thinking of all the scientific evidence that had at one time been accepted as final only to be disproved later on. I believe that there are no absolutes in this universe especially when you’re sitting in a waiting room, dressed in an ill fitting smock, anxiously waiting your turn for a mammogram. There you sit, surrounded by women whose entire world, like yours, has been reduced to those moments and the machine down the hall. Just as in fox holes, there are no atheists in mammogram waiting rooms. You would make a bargain with the devil to ensure a good reading—and scientific evidence is the farthest from your mind.
So we must become our own experts, our own advocates. Only we know what we feel comfortable with and what we need. And we can only hope that the powers that pay for our health care believe in us or our newfound expertise will be in vain, held hostage to the vagaries of research and the bottom line.
Medically it has never been easy to be a woman. During the 5th and 4th centuries in Greece, female hysteria, which stems from the Greek word for uterus, was described extensively in gynecological treatises. Plato describes the uterus wandering throughout a woman’s body, strangling the victim as it reaches the chest. Hysteria continued to be a common diagnosis made in women for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. During the Victorian era women suffering from it supposedly exhibited a wide array of symptoms including a tendency to cause trouble. That would make me the queen of hysteria.
We may be living in the 21st century but women still suffer from the caprices of medical science. For years doctors convinced women that they needed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to combat the symptoms of menopause and to protect them against osteoporosis and heart disease. Then the results of the Women’s Health Initiative were released in 2002. This landmark study followed more than 16,000 women assessing the effects of HRT. The findings revealed that hormone therapy not only failed to protect against heart disease but was shown to increase the risk of heart attack, breast and uterine cancer.
Told to immediately stop HRT, women were confused and angry. For years they had been following their doctors’ orders convinced that they were ensuring their health and longevity. Instead, it seemed, they were ensuring a risk of early demise.
Women have learned many things in recent years: That it’s not true that women do not suffer from heart attacks as much as men--it’s just that our symptoms are different and often go unnoticed. We’re also learning that the reason that urologists brand so many of us with a blanket catchall disorder, interstitial cystitis, or painful bladder syndrome, is because they have no idea what causes it or how to treat it because no one has done any meaningful research on the issue. However that does not prevent doctors from ordering painful, invasive tests and dispensing random medication in the hopes that something might eventually work.
And now we have the latest news to grapple with. For years women have been told that starting at age 40, they should be getting yearly mammograms to detect breast cancer early. But now the Preventative Services Task Force, having completed a five year update of their original study, has concluded that is no longer the case. Their newest recommendation is for women to begin mammograms at age fifty and then every other year thereafter. And once again women are confused and angry, especially since this reversal is taking place during our country’s first major health care overhaul in years.
But this time, unlike the HRT fiasco, women are fighting back with their personal experiences. They are telling their stories of how early detection saved their lives and the lives of their mothers, sisters, daughters and friends and they are not accepting the latest recommendations without a fight. After all, as we all have heartbreakingly learned, these studies are not infallible. We cannot blindly depend on the experts any longer.
Judy Ockene, a disease prevention specialist at UMass Medical School who was a member of the task force, is caught in the center of this maelstrom. As a daughter whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 44 and who has two daughters of her own, she understands the confusion that women are battling because of the latest findings. But as a scientist she feels that scientific evidence should be paramount.
“There was”, Ockene said, “never any contest between personal experience and scientific evaluation as she weighed the evidence on mammograms. Nor, she added, should there be.
“We all have our own stories about cancer but evidence is extremely important in all the work we do in health care. Does it mean it’s more important than all of the personal experiences? Well, I think it does. The evidence has to speak for itself.’’(Boston Globe, 12/28/09, Steven Smith)
Dr. Laura Esserman, a breast cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, believes that “There’s a cultural acceptance that more is always better, and that explains why our health care costs get out of control. We have to understand there are limits to what we can do.’’ (Boston Globe, 12/28/09)
I find myself caught in the middle. While I agree that scientific evidence usually trumps anecdotal evidence, I can’t help thinking of all the scientific evidence that had at one time been accepted as final only to be disproved later on. I believe that there are no absolutes in this universe especially when you’re sitting in a waiting room, dressed in an ill fitting smock, anxiously waiting your turn for a mammogram. There you sit, surrounded by women whose entire world, like yours, has been reduced to those moments and the machine down the hall. Just as in fox holes, there are no atheists in mammogram waiting rooms. You would make a bargain with the devil to ensure a good reading—and scientific evidence is the farthest from your mind.
So we must become our own experts, our own advocates. Only we know what we feel comfortable with and what we need. And we can only hope that the powers that pay for our health care believe in us or our newfound expertise will be in vain, held hostage to the vagaries of research and the bottom line.
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