SPidge Tales

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Let's End Pointless Teacher Certification Requirements

“I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile - prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises. The Sisters kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Andy - that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.” Red (Morgan Freeman), The Shawshank Redemption

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) gets sent to prison for a murder he did not commit and spends twenty years in hell, surviving a corrupt warden and gang rapes by the Sisters, finding meaning in life only from the secret escape tunnel he spent every night digging with a spoon and his friendship with wise old prisoner Red. The tunnel finally dug, “Andy crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine.” Andy never should have had to go through this, but he did what was needed to reach his happy ending in Mexico and reunion with Red. Fortunately, I’ve never had a run in with any modern day versions of the Sisters, but I think I can relate to Andy’s personal hell. I have to go through my own personal Shawshank—teaching certification—to reach my light at the end of the tunnel: a decent paying job.

I am not “qualified” to teach in public schools. I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy with a double minor in History and Religious Studies. I have a Masters degree in Theology. I have 125 some undergraduate credits and over 40 grad school credits. I have a year of real teaching experience. I taught 5th through 8th grade religion and 5th grade social studies for an entire school year at a private school where almost every student eventually goes to a private four year college and many go on to Ivy League schools. I have proven capable of doing the job. Yet, I am not allowed to teach social studies in public schools, the majority of which are lesser schools than the place I taught at.

I am no education snob. I do not feel I deserve a teaching position because of my Curriculum Vitae (my Masters degree in Theology from Catholic U is far and away a superior degree than the M.A.’s in Education being doled out by the State of New York, but that is another topic). I believe that public schools should be allowed to hire me based on my merits and abilities.

As someone with a lot of higher education, it is frustrating not being able to find gainful employment; not because I think my degrees should guarantee me work, but because too many jobs require certain degrees or certifications just for the sake of making the company look better. Allow me to explain.

My maternal grandfather spent some time teaching a college class. He never even completed a Bachelors degree. He was hired to teach because—get this!—he could do the job. A generation ago, employees got hired based on their ability to do the job. Now, employees are hired based on how nice their resumes will make the company look. Yes, a person should show some evidence she can perform the required tasks before being hired, but unfortunately companies stick in de facto job requirements for applicants that don’t test whether applicants can do the job but just whether they have the right piece of educational certification paper.

Am I saying a college education is worthless? No. Again, look at my resume. I have two degrees. But college education should not be a modern form of trade school. College, in its traditional sense, is for a broad based education in the liberal arts and humanities. It exists to make you cultured. Trade school in the past was a separate place where people went to train for particular jobs. Today, the two have been merged, forcing college students to choose between narrow parochial degree programs (business, teaching, accounting, etc.) aimed at certain job fields or a broad based education in a humanities field (literature, philosophy, religion, classics) that will get them laughed at for studying something that renders them unemployable.

Of course certain jobs do need specialized training. I want that doctor operating on me to have studied medical textbook after medical textbook. But a job like teaching does not need specialized training. If you can teach, you can teach. If you can’t, you can’t. There are PhD’s who can’t handle managing a classroom, and there are magnificent teachers who struggled to graduate college. The only requirement to be a middle school or high school teacher is mastery of your subject matter. If you are a math teacher, you should know at least all the math that high schoolers will learn. If you are an English teacher, you should know grammar and have a broad based knowledge of literature. Same with the other subjects. The only other “requirement” should be ability to do the job. With this knowledge in your subject matter, either you have the ability to teach and motivate students or you don’t. All those pointless classes and seminars in childhood development and child psychology are not going to help. Either you can relate to kids or you can’t. As a teacher, the only area I need improvement on is classroom discipline, and that will come with experience, not with some inane classes in childhood development that will be outdated in ten years when a new fashionable theory on children is created by the psychologists.

New York State (and many other states) issues these teacher certification requirements not out of a real desire to help kids learn but out of a desire to “show” how much they care about education by making teachers go through a million loopholes in order to teach. New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof said in “Opening Classroom Doors” on April 30, 2006:

“The idea behind teacher certification is that there are special skills that are picked up in teacher training courses — secret snake-charming skills to keep the little vipers calm. But there's no evidence this is so. On the contrary, several new programs have brought outstanding young people into teaching without putting them through conventional training programs, and those teachers have been widely hailed as first-rate.”

The only thing teacher certification does do, says Kristof, is discourage professionals considering a career change from actually becoming teachers due to the loopholes required. The way the system is currently in place, a 35 year old business manager who feels a calling to teach may choose not to because of the requirement for reeducation in the ways of teaching. The real loser? The students, who miss out on learning business math from someone with real world experience.

What am I going to do? I am going to sign up for classes and get those pointless certification requirements out of the way (even knowing that they will do nothing to make me a better teacher; I already know my subject matter and I’ve worked with kids for five summers at camps, one full year as a teacher, and a half year as a substitute teacher). If Andy Dufresne can go through 20 years at Shawshank prison, I can go through my own form of unjust punishment in a world that cares more about image than ability in hiring employees.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Jock Culture

Nothing in life should last more than three hours. Any activity worth doing can be done in under 180 minutes. Imagine life’s precious moments: a nice movie…a candlelight dinner…a slow walk on the beach…a baseball game…a friendly card game…your wedding…the birth of your first baby…making babies. All wonderful joys, but none should last over three hours. No enjoyable leisure activity remains fun when done consecutively for longer than that time span. Which brings me to my recent week at basketball camp.

I worked at basketball camp, Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. I earned a paycheck, but I can’t say it was “fun.” Could it be, that after a summer spent at an overnight camp acting silly and playing the role of gym class hero, I had a letdown in the role of refereeing and coaching, barely getting a chance to show off my “skillz” competing against kids half my age and two feet shorter? That’s certainly part of it, but the bigger issue is witnessing the lack of fun in the kids themselves. Summer camp should be silly, laid back, with a rotation and variety of activities. Instead, they play the same sport for eight hours straight, save the lunch break. Silliness time is limited, because as we all know, basketball is SERIOUS (and so are the other sports, as I’m sure campers at various other sports camps hear). The kids are told to work hard so they can play Division I ball and save 35 thousand dollars a year in tuition through that coveted athletic scholarship. Laid back fun must be replaced with SERIOUSness since basketball camp is infested with Jock Culture.

What is Jock Culture? Jock Culture is simultaneously sanctimonious, superficial, and full of shit. To be a jock is to see your sport or sports as overly important and meaningful, giving a monk-like devotion to excellence in your game (the sanctimony). This monk-like focus does not extend to a jock’s personal life, though. Off the playing field, he considers himself God’s gift to women, letting the girls fawn over him. The rules at school don’t apply to him; the classroom is not for learning but for building up his cult of personality among his peers (the superficiality). Coaches say they recruit hardworking players with good character, guys who are ‘coachable.’ And, sure, this is true for mediocre and average players, but I guaran—damn—tee any coach will take that next McDonald’s All-American with an attitude problem (the bullshit).

And yet I spent my life being a part of Jock Culture. I was the kid who played three varsity sports in high school, and continued in one at the NCAA level in college. Why did I do it? Well, I was (and still am) good at sports. And, in a high school of only 250 kids, I was guaranteed to make all the teams. But there’s definitely more to it than that. I am at heart an introvert. I have improved vastly over the years, but in middle school and early high school I was excessively shy. Big social events such as Friday night football games and basketball games brought out my social awkwardness. By putting on the uniform and standing on the sidelines, I never had to worry about feeling uncomfortable or out of place in the stands.

Also, you know that tall lanky nerdy kid? That was me. In ninth grade, I was 6’1” and 140 pounds soaking wet. I took advanced math and had always been one of the smartest kids in school. I got picked on all through elementary and middle school; while that started to ebb in high school, the teasing still happened. Add that to getting turned down or ignored by the pretty girls, and I had plenty of need for an outlet (sports) to find some acceptance.

I wasn’t the person to pout or join the gothic counter-culture; I used self-deprecating humor and played along when I got picked on. Yeah, I was the smart kid. But I couldn’t use that as an outlet. Being smart ain’t cool (until you go to college, read Kafka and Kundera, knowingly condescend along with Jon Stewart at the backward red-staters, and join that collection of future professors who are ‘intellectually hip’). I had to join Jock Culture and excel in sports.

Don’t get me wrong. Sports were fun. I tremendously enjoyed high school sports. I wouldn’t use big adjectives (tremendously) to show much I enjoyed them if they weren’t really super fun. But I never took sports too seriously. When basketball player Allen Iverson gave that notorious press conference, answering concerns about his work ethic on non-game days, I nodded in agreement at his incredulous response, “it’s practice! We’re talking ‘bout practice.” In high school football, I always hated those kids who had to hit and tackle at full speed and do all that grunting and screaming and head-bumping with helmets on, as if that would make the coaches put them in more during the games. Now, I wasn’t lazy. I always paid attention to the coaches, practiced correct blocking techniques, ran good pass catching routes, and gave my best at end of practice sprints. But I (rightly, I believe) took it easy hitting and tackling in practice, saving the painful body collisions for Friday nights.

In baseball, I enjoyed shooting the breeze with my teammates in the dugout during our turn at-bat. But in college, there are 25 guys on a team (rather than the 13 or 14 in high school), leaving more bench guys vying for playing time. Guys did that constant baseball chatter (“hey number 9!”; “atta-boy”; “way to give him the cheddar”; “nice poke;” etc. etc. blah blah blah) thinking it would make the coach play them more because of their verbal dedication to the team. And unlike in high school, when we only left the dugout to greet people at home plate during homeruns, we had to line up for high fives after every mother loving run scored. As enjoyable as it would have been to stay in the dugout, I couldn’t look like the one guy who didn’t outwardly care, so I grudgingly trudged myself to the field clap line.

In high school basketball, we had to keep the radio off and act somber on bus rides home from away game losses. We had to think about what we did wrong. After all, basketball is not just a game; it would be wrong for teenagers to shrug off a loss and go back to being…umm…teenagers on the bus. On our home court, the leftover pizza, hotdogs, popcorn, and soda from the concession stand were brought into the locker room for us after the game, to be consumer after our coach’s post-game speech. His speeches were quite instructional. I learned that losses never happened because the other team was better; we were lazy in practice the day before or didn’t try hard enough or didn’t want it enough. All those added F words shouted at high decibels definitely helped me learn this lesson. I also learned to start hiding the concession stand leftover food behind the lockers after losses since coach, after one particular defeat, knocked our post-game snack on the floor in a tirade.

Am I suggesting we eliminate school sports, or at least try to get as many students to go watch the debate team as the football team? No way. Sports are fun, both as a player and fan. You can make friends, build camaraderie, and learn how to work and play well with others. Should we eliminate competitiveness? No way! Competition is part of life, whether you are trying to get into a top college or find a job or win the heart of your dream girl. There is nothing wrong with having winners and losers. What needs to go is this Jock Culture. I am very competitive and always tried my hardest to win. And, I took some losses hard, such as my high school baseball team’s loss in extra innings in the state regional game that would have put us in the final four. Nine years later, I still imagine that game tying two run double I hit traveling an extra three feet and clearing the fence, eliminating the later need for extra innings where we lost it. But, after games, I see no need to follow along with Jock Culture and put on that sad face. The game is over, life goes on. Just like at funerals, sometimes you need a drink and a good laugh with friends when sad times hit. Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.

And during games, I always cared how the team was doing. I didn’t need to yell out stupid baseball chatter and cheer loudly from the bench. I liked to—get this!—save my energy for play on the field. You don’t need to show a stressful seriousness to perform well; sometimes a smile and a laid back demeanor are what’s needed. Aren’t sports supposed to be FUN? Those guys who like headbutt teammates with their helmets, scream and shout, and do all that baseball chatter are like the annoying religious people who constantly need to show everyone how pious and holy they are. You can be holy and prayerful in the quiet of your own home. You don’t need to shout it from the rooftops like the hypocrites who want to be seen. And athletes don’t need to do that outward bullshit so they can be seen by their god, their coach.

As for coaches blabbering on about wanting to sign players who are ‘coachable,’ would they really want a bunch of ‘yes’ men who do everything the coach says, never complaining? Isn’t it better to have players who get upset about lack of playing time, who want to make suggestions to the coach about ways in which the team could be run better?

Again, I ask not for the end of competitive sports. I ask for the end of Jock Culture and a rebirth of some authenticity. We can play hard, try to win, be sad after losses, and still have fun. We don’t need to take sports too seriously and put on that fake effort through dugout chatter and pointless over-aggressiveness in practice. We don’t need to make sports a matter of life and death that should consume hours on end of daytime for practice. We can see them for what they are—just another part of life that we can gain enjoyment from if we keep in its proper perspective.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The Stock Market vs. Sports

Boy meets girl. Boy asks girl out. Girl says no. Boy asks out new girl. New girl says no. Boy asks out yet another girl. Yet another girl says no. This happens to boy seven times. If boy is a pessimist, he is probably thinking, “I must have fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. I’m cursed. The next girl will say no, too.” If boy is an optimist, he is probably thinking, “I’m due for a ‘yes.’ I guess I gotta slay a few dragons before I get to my princess.”

Which attitude is better: pessimist or optimist? In reality neither. Either the next girl will like the boy, or she won’t. It will have nothing to do with the past seven girls. Think of a coin that comes up tails seven straight times after I call heads. If I were a pessimist, I’d feel doomed to keep flipping tails. If I were an optimist, I’d consider myself due for a heads. The next flip, though, will be 50/50 for heads (or tails). Odds don’t change based on the past.

In “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” economist Burton G. Malkiel says that the Stock Market is as beholden to chance as that boy’s prospects with the next girl and the coin’s fate of heads or tails. Don’t put your money and trust in the hands of brokers and speculators, says Malkiel. Their guesses are about as informative as the local fortune teller.You can’t tell a company’s future prospects based on past sales. The “fortune 500” companies of 1900 are completely different from the top businesses of 2000. Don’t follow the speculators, either. They tell you to invest based not necessarily on what companies they believe will have good sales, but based on what companies they believe others will start investing in, causing the stock to go up. This leads to false value judgments for companies’ worth’s, ending up in large crashes, such as the tulip-bulb craze in 17th century Holland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) and the United States’ stock market crash of 1929.

If we can’t “handicap” the stock market like horse racing, how are we to know what to invest in, short of insider trading and a quick trip to the Federal Pen with no passing of “Go” or collection of $200? The trick, says Malkiel, is to diversify your portfolio. But what does ‘diversify my portfolio’ mean? Well, most people, says Malkiel, invest in a variety of stocks that tend to rise or fall at similar times and in similar circumstances. For example, if you have stocks in an auto company and a tire company, if the auto company is going through a bad sales period, this will hurt the tire company, too, since a money losing car company won’t be buying many tires. Most people set themselves up in all-or-nothing spots, putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, despite their belief that holding stock in many companies protects them from financial loss.

Diversifying your portfolio means a helluva lot more than just investing in many stocks. It means investing in, yes!, DIVERSE—different—stocks, so that when certain stocks go down in value, you will own other stocks that go up, protecting your overall financial investment. Malkiel’s initial example is a desert island with two businesses, a hotel resort and an umbrella company. Let’s say that during sunny seasons, the hotel does good business, granting you 50% profit, or $0.50 for every $1.00 in hotel resort stock you own, but during rainy seasons, runs at a financial loss of 25%, losing you $0.25 for every $1.00 you invested in hotel resort stock. But fear not! During rainy seasons, the umbrella company turns a 50 profit, garnering you $0.50 for every $1.00 you invested. The umbrella company runs at a loss of 25% during sunny seasons, losing you $0.25 for every $1.00 in umbrella stock you own, but your hotel resort stock balances it all out, granting you an overall guaranteed profit of 12.5 cents for every dollar invested in all stocks, no matter the weather.

Granted, things are more complicated in the real world, where there are more than two companies, and more than just the weather affects the price of stock. But the trick is to set yourself up so that you own stock in companies that are built to profit during periods where other companies you invest in will fail, and vice versa.I think Malkiel’s approach to the stock market can be applied to other areas of life. If I go to a bar, I COULD try to mack it with the prettiest girl in the bar. But if she’s not impressed with the “made in heaven” tag I notice on her shirt or if she’s not impressed with my suggestion to walk by again in case of failure to believe in love at first sight, not only have I lost out on her, but I will probably have killed my chances with her slightly less hot (but probably still very attractive) friends flanking her, upset again that they go unnoticed in lieu of their hotter friend. Instead of chasing that “10,” I should put the moves on her “9.5” friend. This is a virtual ‘can’t lose’ situation. If the slightly less hot friend is receptive, I’ve still done well for myself. And if she’s not, no big deal. Her hotter friend is more likely to be receptive to me since she will see me as mature and concerned with more than looks (true, her friend is pretty, but she is prettier, and she knows it, so if a guy goes for someone else, he MUST care about more than just physical beauty). Or, she will be jealous that I went for another girl, making her HAVE to have me.

Malkiel’s diversified portfolio stock market theory is an excellent strategy for much of life, but--alas--it doesn’t work for everything. It has no value in the world of sports. We may THINK sports victories and losses can be attributed to chance. But we all know that sports are the one area of life beholden to superstition. You may think that no-hitters get broken up because a batter had a good hit or a pitcher threw a bad pitch, but in reality, every no-hitter is broken up because someone, somewhere, broke the taboo against speaking and mentioning that a no-hitter is taking place. You may think the Boston Red Sox went 86 years between World Series Championships because they never had the best team. No, they kept losing because of some curse caused by their owner in 1919 selling a fat baseball player to the New York Yankees. If coin tossing were a sport, the odds of a coin turning up heads (or tails) would not be 50/50. The odds would be biased in one way or another based on whether the head fans kept wearing the same dirty t-shirts they wore when heads first came up or the tail fans mothers promised to tape the championship coin toss but later accidentally taped over the video when they HAD to save the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Thankfully, the stock market is not a sport and not beholden to superstition.