(I hope I spelled that right)
This band was on Colbert the 21st. I have to say rarely am I blown away, but yeah, they had such energy to them it was amazing. Their use of more than a few instruments really adds to the depth of the music. Hope they do well.
…apparently Canada hasn’t done away with music and art instruction….. :p
(A note~ I changed the video in the previous blog on Education and Malala)
As you know, I’m dyslexic. I thought I’d pass along this list of symptoms for those who may be similarly affected:
1. Known in family tree.
2. Not speaking by 1st birthday.
3. Twisted Oral Speech – Multiple Syllables (like saying am-in-al for animal or pasghetti for spaghetti — my daughter did this and I thought it was just a cute part of being a little one “dutchy” as my Mom would call it.)
4. Stuttering in early years
5. Cluttering early
6. Articulation Difficulties m/n, r/l, even in adults
7. Chronic Ear Infections (I would say chronic earaches, too. Get this–many of us on the mercury poisoning list have earaches or history of ear infections. When I’m chelating, I always get an earache.)
8. Can’t master tying shoes.
9. Trouble with left/right
10. Late to establish a dominant hand. (I’m not sure why it is important to establish a dominant hand. I would think after all the years of abuse connected with forcing left handed children to use their right hands, that the thought of a dominant hand being important would die away….)
11. Mixed dominance w/hand per task. (Again, I don’t know why such importance is put on this–)
12. Can’t say or write alphabet in sequence.
13. Difficulty spelling last name. (Ha. Try one with four syllables)
14. Address/Phone # difficulty
15. Sequence, Names, and Sounds of alphabet (where one has to keep starting over from the beginning to name all the letters)
16. Sequence Days of the Week and Month (I solved this by creating a picture in my mind of the months and the days of the week–the days look connected like a telephone pole line. The months look like a calendar in my head.)
17. Multiplication facts (Math is difficult because there is no reason. Dyslexics need to have a reason. This really slammed me–one of the things I told my calculus adviser was that the instructors tell you a problem. I wanted to know “why” . I knew by the look she gave me that there was a reason they didn’t do this (in Indiana University, their math program featured books written by women mathematicians that explained it in a way that I (and probably other dyslexics) could understand. We want to know why and if we don’t know why, it gets in the way of solving the problem.
18. Knows a word on page 1, but not on page 3. In the excellent book I got from my PUBLIC Library, it explained that dyslexics get stuck on words that they can’t associate with a picture. This was my daughter’s difficulty, too. I would point to the word “the” and then turn the page and point to it again, and she couldn’t recognize it, even though she just looked at it. This was because a, an, and the don’t stand for any particular object. She could remember words like “ball” because it stood for this round thing that bounced.
19. Won’t try to sound out unknown words.
20. Terrible Spelling – often no vowels. This is the opposite of me–I was an excellent speller. I have lost the ability, however, with the mercury poisoning. I misspell words that I know. (updated 5.2015: I am now recognizing and spelling words better….so there’s progress in that direction.)
21. Terrible Penmanship–dysgraphia. (Again, the opposite of me–I have very nice penmanship. This is explained that dyslexics are highly creative–supposedly, the right side of their brains are larger.)
22. Impacts Visual Memory–3D is the gifted area
23. Handwriting posture – Often head on desk or turning paper. Yup, that would be me.
24. Extreme difficulty with cursive. (Again, not a problem for this dyslexic — nice cursive writing.)
25. Reversals after 2 years of writing practice instruction.
26. Writing Conventions are very poor, but content is okay. (Poor capitalization and paragraphing. Dyslexics need to write first, take a break, and then come back to edit later.)
27. Word retrieval issues
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Seriously, writing this entry, I’ve had to re-type several times because of the backwards letters. Being dyslexic requires more energy–hence the reason they tend to want to give up in frustration. (I’m also chelating, and it’s amazing how much worse my symptoms are….so yeah, you know what I’m thinking–is dyslexia related to mercury/heavy metal poisoning?)
It also should be noted that dyslexics are often treated as if they are stupid, but evidence proves that is not correct. Dyslexics are highly intelligent. My daughter would have been branded stupid for the rest of her life if I had listened to her teacher. I just want to encourage parents that you are the best judge of your child, and to listen to your instincts.
Stoning of women by a group continues in many countries. Be sure to click on the link to the Independent–many countries and religions practiced this barbaric ritual–not just followers of Islam.
Again, the culture is the problem–women not seen as equals, but sub-human. And while I’m reading these stories, I’m wondering why the men who also “committed adultery” are not also stoned?? The article goes on to say that men are stoned, but are buried up to their waists, to allow them to escape, while women are buried up to their chests.
And just because women are not stoned in other cultures does not relieve them of other ways of “stoning” a woman–by words and actions of derogatory nature.
The Cyrus/Thicke misogyny comes to mind. I admire Gloria Steinem for her work on women’s equality, but disagree with her sentiments on Cyrus. As she speaks in the video, saying that it’s too bad that we have to be nearly naked to be noticed, I’m wondering WTH? Gloria knows what it feels like to be degraded as a Playboy bunny. She says we need to change the culture….and I’m thinking the misogyny in the media is a huge part of the problem!! Therefore, Cyrus and Thicke are reinforcing misogyny.
Center for Media and Democracy has this up on what the Koch Brothers and Pete Petersen and their toady Paul Ryan are really after–what they’ve been after all along—Social Security and other “entitlement” programs. I still hate that term”entitlement” as it alludes to a giveaway when folks pay into these programs all their lives.
Here’s the video by Mark Fiore:
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Also from CMD–
Profiting off the poor. With Indiana being All Republican, All the Time in the Legislature, I rather doubt that they have slayed this dragon. I suspect that privatization will be back…probably by backdoor deals.
Also, Indiana will be dropping ISTEP (Indiana Statewide Testing Educational Progress)next year BY FEDERAL REQUIREMENT.
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…and profiting off of our children-–and ultimately, our Democracy. (Just a refresher of the Charter school scams and hedge fund managers/Wall Street making a profit off of schools.)
From the report:
In recent years, there has been an explosion of full-time “virtual” charter schools paid for by the taxpayer. From 2008 to 2012, 157 bills passed in 39 states and territories (including the District of Columbia) that expand online schooling or modify existing regulations. Many of these bills are attributable to American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) politicians.
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I was thinking about this other day while teaching–online is such a ripoff in that you don’t get human interaction. Granted, the Wall St. types probably loathe human interaction…but I really wonder if they’re human to begin with….the rest of us,however, actually want to be around other humans.
Anyway, a teacher can often pick up on cues to help a student “get” a subject that a stupid computer could never do.
A teacher can give encouragement when a student wants to give up. This is especially important for students who are having difficulty–I thought of myself and my daughter being dyslexic. If I hadn’t tried to teach my daughter through Phonics and patiently sitting down with her every night to read, she most likely would not have reached her potential. Again–computers cannot help when there is a learning disability.
Lastly, a teacher is going to lay the hammer down if a student comes in without homework done or starts goofing off during class instead of doing the work they’re supposed to be doing…online courses cannot do that, either. And a teacher is also a sounding board for a student who may be dealing with issues at home…
As I’ve noted before, there is something lost when the classroom lacks discussion and interchange of ideas or more in-depth on the subject.
And, of course, a computer can’t teach art or music the way that it should be done.
The article makes note that the virtual schools enroll kids that never take courses, never answer emails, and so on, but still take tax dollars for them. One had to reimburse the state $800k for “ghost” students. This is a huge red flag in that while the neocons are so very worried about voter ID to “prove” who someone is so they don’t vote twice….well, I don’t see the same concern with these “ghost” students who may or may not even be real persons. Who is checking on them?
And this just made my heart sing:
Affidavits from former K12 Inc. teachers that were incorporated into the complaint paint a devastating picture of an enrollment-driven, profit-driven corporate culture that leaves kids in the dust. (Note to Wall Street: If you want to exploit children, don’t hire a bunch of teachers who actually care about kids.)
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Sadly, I think Wall St. will actually take that advice and will screen teachers who don’t give a rip. Or Wall Streeters will make a construct that they “can’t find any good teachers” so they will be “forced” to plead for the ability to hire non-teachers to….teach.
I am glad that women are speaking out against the misogyny being marketed as music and “entertainment”. It is disturbing that a woman participates in it and even takes pride in being degraded in a live sex show. Like I said in my previous post, I wonder how many women were raped because of Miley Cyrus and others like her. And I’m not letting Thicke off the hook—he is every bit as culpable. Yet, you don’t hear anyone speak out against his misogyny.
Fred Klonsky has an excellent blog covering the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham bombing, the NY Post slam piece on Diane Ravitch, and more.
As I was watching Bill Cosby speak on MSNBC Sunday, I thought of the bombing happening in August….and President Kennedy being killed just a few months later…and Martin Luther King just five years after that…the Kent State and Jackson State shootings…
Dailykos Teacher Ken blog on Diane’s book here.
The end of Clinton/Reagan politics. We can only hope there will be no more Clintons or Clintonites in the White House after Bush, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush…and I don’t agree that Barack Obama has been quite as Clintonite as the author believes–maybe at first, but I really feel he has started to break away from that in his second term. …especially within the last year. And I can do without all the psycho-babble of why people choose political candidates….psychology and sociology theorists would like to put people in packages that suits a scientific measure, when people are much more complex than that. Take me, for example….I am nothing like they would like to pigeonhole me as….
If a person matures psychologically as they get older, they will make their own choices according to their inner voice–not according to outside influences. I think this is especially true if they are a spiritual person.
Challenge for Steve Perry. Wow, it is unbelievable this guy is a Principal! Really on the outer edge in his tweets, rightwinger for sure. So glad that NBC and CNN are supporting the destruction of the public school system. /very snarky, indeed
HIs “no excuses” garbage is just that–just look at the statistics for how many of them his school serves. And making a five year old stand up during lunch period because her mother didn’t send her to school with the proper uniform? Are you kidding me??
Nobody is making excuses…the teachers and parents fighting for the public schools ARE fighting for kids in poverty and in minority neighborhoods who have multitudes of issues to deal with. Not getting shot on the way to school is one of them…
Nancy Flanagan why all the snark?
A word about competition and profits
Rhee tells Philly how to solve problems.
Michelle Rhee penned an article about how to fix the public schools of Philadelphia. She says it is time for performance pay, so that there is “a great teacher” in every classroom.
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Great. let’s start with Michelle Rhee’s performance in D.C. Fail! Or…how about her taping the kdis’ mouths shut and then laughing about it when they peeled the tape off and it tore their delicate skin off, too, leaving them crying and bleeding? Fail! Or…how she is married to a predator?? Not someone I would want in charge of schools.
Be sure to click on the renegade video by an attendee to the *cough* conversation of Michelle Rhee and I think she mentions Steve Perry, too. I love this–passionate public school advocates standing up against the propaganda. Notice that they tell her they are “at the end” of the program and they try to hurry her up to quash her statement…but that is only 7 minutes into the program…it goes on for another 20 minutes!
The man talking (Perry) uses a LOT of emotional language–a red flag he doesn’t have facts to back up what he’s saying. And, as the video asks…who are these “wrong” students Perry is talking about? Not the dreaded poor, disabled, and minority students…that he says he wants to serve and calls Ravitch, et al, racists for not sending them to charters who will dump their butts for not jumping through hoops…..okay, I’m confused….
Also–as the commenter notes–Rhee mocks Hannah Nguyen. Um-hmmm….but, yes, of course Rhee sincerely wants a conversation. bwahahahahaha *snort* bwahahaha
**edited to take off the school finance link. Like I said, I was tired last night, and mistakenly put that up. After viewing one of the videos, it appears that the blog is pro-charter schools. Or perhaps I should say anti-public schools. Sorry for the mistake.
Global News has more Canadian eye candy up here.
Eagle 
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