Careful, It Bites

I heard a fascinating piece on the radio this morning about using statistics to help find missing aircrafts. Of course it was part of the flight 340 coverage, but the specific case they cited was the 2009 Air France plane that disappeared in the South Atlantic. It seems that using Bayes' Theorem, a statistical model that can compute a likely outcome when there are many competing variables (like where a missing plane might be), can be helpful.

Coincidentally, I also read an article today about a company that plans to use the data gleaned by tracking kids' responses to computer programs to develop a complete educational profile and action plan for every student. Education happens to be today the most data-mineable industry by far,” says their CEO in this video. "Every single thing in education is correlated to something else."

No doubt, they, too plan to use some iteration of Bayes' ideas to develop their automated response to students' needs. To many, that approach may sound ideal, but Arnold Barnett, a statistician at MIT, included this disclaimer in the radio piece this morning, "Bayes Theorem can't find the plane, period. It can, at best, change the odds."

And in fact, when they applied the theorem to the Air France flight five years ago, they "eliminated huge swaths of ocean floor because nobody heard a signal from the plane's black boxes. But it turned out, against the odds, both of the black boxes were damaged." It took two years to find that plane.

In the words of Colleen Keller, the mathematician working on that case, "Sometimes the probabilities will turn around and bite you."

Look out kids!

Heaven Forbid

"How come the fourth quarter is so much longer than all the others?" a student asked me today when I mentioned that we would be officially three-quarters of the way through our school year in less than a week.

"It's not," I explained, "but we do have spring break in a few weeks, and that adds a little time."

"Really?" She looked at me quizzically. "Isn't it, like, four months?"

"No!" the whole class cried.

"It's not four full months, " I told her as her peers practically writhed in agony at the very thought. "We have just a week in March, then April, May, and part of June."

"Oh," she shrugged, "I thought we went to July."

Daughters of Triton

I recently read that, in what seems to be a trend these days, Sofia Coppola will direct a live-action version of The Little Mermaid. It is rumored to be closer to the original Hans Christian Anderson story, and so much darker than the 1989 Disney cartoon. A screen writer is quoted as saying, it is so beautiful and exquisite and painful, so we absolutely have to have the original ending.

Twenty odd years ago I found myself on a spacious front porch in suburbia with my brother, sister, and our cousin, Sandy. All the outdoor furniture had been pushed aside and a fisher-price cassette player stood at attention on the top step, as we did too. Sandy's 7-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was about to perform an interpretive roller skate routine to the soundtrack of The Little Mermaid.

It was a very expressive performance, and once I got the giggles out, it kind of made me consider the movie in a new light. Personally, I did not find the story of Ariel very moving, but it was plain that Jennifer felt differently. If that resonance was representative of her generation, I'm sure the new, grown-up, movie will be a big hit.

Jennifer is a successful consultant these days, having earned her MBA from Wharton a couple of years ago, but you better believe that doesn't stop us from teasing her about the goofy stuff she did when she was a kid. That little skate show, so beautiful and exquisite and painful, is right at the top of the list.

'Cause that's what cousins are for.

Sunrise, Sunset

We took advantage of the springtime temperatures today to go for a walk. The National Mall and Tidal Basin were packed with like-minded folks, so on a whim I headed over to Haines Point, even though I hadn't been there in years.

IS this the pathway that I walked on?
Is this the place I rode my bike?

It was easy enough to find parking over near the NPS headquarters, although a golf ball from the public course across the way landed just a few yards from our car as we pulled in. We walked a short way over to the one-way road that horseshoes around the point and then crossed to the water.

I don't remember growing older.
When did it?

There was a clear high tide line in the grass leading down to the sidewalk that leads along the river. Obviously the point had been flooded over the winter. The cement of the walk way was in terrible condition. Huge gaps revealed the rebar and yawning holes beneath. Even so, there were quite a few other people strolling and fishing.

When did it get to be so broken?
When was it ever such a hike?

As we picked our way along the uneven trail, I was anxious to get to the end of the point, even though I knew The Awakening was long gone. Despite the beautiful weather and cheerful company, it started to seem like we would never get there. Finally we spied a playground and picnic area with lots of families enjoying the first real evening of spring. There the path turned back toward town, and we followed it back to our car as the sun sank lower in the western sky to our lefts.

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days

Like a Room without a Roof

Fantastic word today that Josh was accepted into the Corcoran School of Art with a pretty nice scholarship.

He and his parents will work out a separate financial aid package, but it looks like this prestigious, private school will probably end up being a better deal for his college education than the state school just down the road.

Everyone who cares about Josh is pretty tickled by the news; the congratulatory texts and emails and facebook posts have been flying all day.

I have to confess, though, that when I read his text this morning, it was definitely a bit of a paradigm shift:

accepted into the Corcoran with a $32k scholarship looks like im living with you guys!

But I quickly recovered and texted him back:

Yay! Congratulations!

Mm Mm Mm

It was impossible to recover my right-before-lunch class for the last ten minutes after one student made a very lewd gesture. Although I asked him to step out into the hall to discuss that particular choice, and despite the fact that they had a pretty engaging activity (if I do say so myself), all anyone wanted to talk about was what did he do!? and what did it mean!?

Some students tried to shrug it off and play it cool. "What?" said one boy. "There's nothing bad about that. It just means one girl likes another girl." Although I appreciated his open mind, I informed him that he was misinformed, and tried again to move on.

I was still a little grumpy a few minutes later when three of my female colleagues joined me for lunch, but at least I had a good story. We rolled our eyes and giggled as I told the entire tale, ending with that other student's remark. "I guess he was sort of on the right track," I shrugged.

"Hey now!" said one of the other teachers, "No need to be so limited! No need at all."

Oh my! My jaw dropped, and I can not remember the last time I blushed so hot and so red, but the four of us almost fell out of our chairs laughing.

Which is probably why we are middle school teachers.

Common

One of the first things I learned when I started teaching is that fair and equal are not synonyms. Perhaps Dr. Richard Curwin, co-author of Discipline with Dignity and contributor to EduTopia, can explain:

Students are not the same. They have different motivations for their choices, different needs, different causes for misbehavior and different goals.

No one would go to a doctor who treats all headaches the same, since the cause for one may be allergies and the other a tumor. Identical treatment for two students who don't do homework for different reasons -- one who has to help at the family business after school, and one who watches too much television -- is no different than that crazy doctor with the single cure for all headaches.

These days, though, there is a hard push toward standardization of everything school-related. Not only are teachers and administrators encouraged, or even required, to treat every student the same in regard to discipline and achievement, but we are also being herded into systems that require considerable homogenization of our teaching practice.

Today a presentation on the merits of common formative assessment was made to our staff by some of our colleagues as part of a school-wide book study. It was a well-intentioned overview of chapter 2, and one of the powerpoint slides offered a couple of definitions of the word "common."

One was, collective, communal, and the other was familiar, popular, general.

All very warm and fuzzy, but as an English teacher I know that's only part of the story. I was struck by the definitions they left out:

ordinary, average, unexceptional

not to mention

uncouth, vulgar, coarse, unrefined, unsophisticated