A World Of Inquiry

Look out Anderson Cooper!

2009-08-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Student Reporter Damon Weaver Interviews President Barack Obama:

This kid is great. I bet Obama could still dunk if he wanted to!

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP-695ATg-c

Go Bills,

Colin

2009-07-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

From activist Leonard Fein...

The future is not something we discover around the next corner. It is something we shape, we create, we invent. To hold otherwise would be to view ourselves as an audience to history, and not its authors. History, and even our own lives, cannot always be turned and twisted to make them go exactly where we should like. But there is, for people of energy and purpose, more freedom of movement than most ever exercise. *

*From Reform Is a Verb : Notes on Reform and Reforming Jews (1972), p. 152

Coming Soon...

2009-07-14T12:33:00.001-07:00

Teaser: I will be writing an in-depth rant of the eventual privatization of education in America. I'll be making the correlation to the privatization of health care in the 1980s and what it might mean for America coming soon. Something to think about...we all know what an HMO is right? But do you know what an EMO is? You will....

Tonight at 11.

Go Bills,

Colin

MMJ

2009-07-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

For those that are tired of me talking about this band or this album, sorry.

I was just thinking with the cross-genre nature of the album again and i think that this album, Evil Urges, has produced some of the best, if not the best, songs i heard last year across a few genres. It had an incredible ambient/electronic song (Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1&2), the best alt-country song (I'm Amazed), the best funk/freakout song (Highly Suspicious), the best soft rock James Taylor impersonation (Sec Walkin'), a great guitar heavy rock song (Aluminum Park) and a song that eludes my classification, but is just lyrically and emotively awesome (Smoking From Shooting).

I think such a wide variety of people would appreciate an album like this, especially those who would appreciate the band's effort cross boundaries and make something worth that can't rated with five stars on a toolbar. My buddy talked recently about music becoming "disposable" as we download and borrow more and more. The next time you download a really great album just think, would you go to a museum and take a photo of a beautiful painting or watch cell phone videos of a great play? This album needs to be appreciated and owned by listeners.

I would include some links to these songs but until then go here and buy it the old fashioned way:

http://www.recordarchive.com/

Go Bills,

Colin

Still Alive

2009-07-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

This is promise to write again soon. Thanks to a friend who actually said to me, "Hey I check out your blog." That has inspired me to write a few more entries. That and that I got a new Mac! Here's a cool link to keep anyone who might read this interested....

http://vimeo.com/3558720

Go Bills,

Colin

Policy Design: A Rant

2009-02-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

I wrote this as a reflection for a class I'm taking at the University of Rochester. As far as rants go its pretty benign. I mention a couple of articles which I will try to also post. I hope you get jazzed* up by this as much as I am.

*jazzed=excited/angry/impassioned

Schneider starts by categorizing how and why policy is designed by doing a survey of different theorists. He says that the context of the policy should be a large determinate for its design and implementation. One thing I focused on in Schneider’s article was a component of context Schneider referred to as “citizenship”. When I think citizenship I think of being part of a community, looking over your shoulder for the person next to you. I feel that we have a strong lack of citizenship when it comes to education policy. As Kumashiro might say, we are afraid to be upstanding citizens for this cause because it might threaten people’s own lifestyle. Where are the advocates for education? Who besides some researchers and writers, such as Jonathon Kozol( pictured), are making noise about the inequities that pervade almost every single large urban community? Of the many “tools” in policy design that Schneider discussed, the Hortatory tool seems to be only reserved for policies that would be considered by Wilson as clientist or entrepreneurial, or in other words, policies that have dollar signs attached. Sure there is money to be made in education, just look at the McGraw-Hill cronies of President Bush, but there are far less politicians making public pleas for equitable education funding than there are for a dozen other issues.
It seems that the policy that I can’t escape discussing, No Child Left Behind, only makes use of one of the tools that Schneider discuses in his article, the use of inducements and sanctions. He mentions two other tools to drive policy that to perfectly align to a bit of education policy. It seems to make plain sense that upon implementation there has to be more than one way to unsure a policy does what it is supposed to do. It seems capacity building makes sense because it would empower a municipality or school to make changes for its own well being. The same can be said for the hortatory tools that would engender some outrage in people that might not know about the problems that many under served schools face. I shudder to think this, but are these tools not utilized because it would be too difficult? The fact that our government isn’t doing everything possible, utilizing every tool possible, hints to me that they might want this inequity to remain. Kumashiro would probably agree with this statement. He mentions how Billings thinks of the “Achievement Gap” as a debt rather than a gap. This says to me that our politicians in power have been borrowing against poor black people’s ability to tolerate an unacceptable quality of education.

Questions:

1. Does education policy get more scrutinized than other types of public policy? If so, is it more scrutinized for particular reasons?
2. This week’s unanswerable question: Is there a definitive way to make every person care about the welfare of all children? How long before we see advertisements that prey on people’s guilt by asking for donations for an inner-city school or neighborhood? Advertisements that ask for just “a dollar a day” and look just like the ones with Sally Struthers and the starving children of third world countries!

Kumashiro's Article (shorter)

http://rapidshare.com/files/195796783/03-Kumashiro.pdf.html

Schneider's (long!!)

http://rapidshare.com/files/195797334/02_20-_20Schneider.pdf.html

Go Bills,

Colin

2008-08-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

It's empowering to some and to some I guess it's a scary idea, but you can't deny the interesting applications of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. I think it scares some people who like to believe in the power of the system and that control and transferal of ideas by tradition is the way society should progress. This preference for the status quo definitly brings more comfort to those who might fear the power of the individual. I for one like the idea that big change can come from small groups of people. It's an optimistic, humanistic idea that makes insurmountable challenges (like the education gap) seem less frightening.

I read this book as part of training at my new job, a charter school designed to close the acheivement gap. I found implications in my own life all over the place. It was fun to apply the three "agents change" to the personalities of people you know as well as yourself. Gladwell says that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen are the drivers of social change chronicled in The Tipping Point.

What are you? look at the link and decide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point

I recommend the book if you'd like to make a change in world and feel like there might not be anything you can do.

Go Bills,

Colin

Crows

2008-07-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

Crows are smart. More from TED.

TED: Youtube for those with above average attention spans.

2008-07-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

A friend let me know about this site. It features well-produced lectures for free viewing. So far I've learned about positives of psychology and why a smart ass physicist wants us to explore for live in the outer solar system. Enjoy.

www.ted.com

Go Bills,

Colin

Food Stamps.

2008-07-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

I need food stamps. I am poor.

I might try this again....

2008-06-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Chris and his awesome site (http://bornoutofboredom.blogspot.com/), I might try writing here a bit more. Here is an update on me:

I bought this:

Am obsessed with this song(as well as the rest of MMJ's new album):

http://www.divshare.com/download/4803103-09d

Now work here:

http://www.uncommonschools.org/tnrp/aboutUs/programAndValues.html

Now live here:

But I still love the Bills and BSG.

Go Bills,

Colin

Forget Legalization, Let's just RELAX!

2007-03-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to sit here and say I'm all for legalization of marijuana, although I could point to dozens of reasons why it makes sense. One that strikes me right now is that if was legalized we'd be spared of some legal cases like this one: http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v07/n341/a02.htm?134

This guy tested positive for weed once and was sentenced to life in prison...when he was 17!! He had the bad luck of being young, black, and living in Texas. The proof is in the story. It points out a grossly disproportionate case to provide some sad contrast:

"The drug test and life sentence that followed contrasted sharply with another case in the same judge's court, both of which were profiled last spring by The Dallas Morning News. In the other case, a well-connected white man got probation for murder and, despite several positive tests for cocaine and other violations, still avoided prison. "

This kid was in jail until recently. He's now 34!!!

Another story that suggests we need to take a deep breath (we mostly meaning the media) and re-examine the war on drugs. (both in print and on the streets) is this:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/19/free.speech/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

This one is pretty self-explanatory. True, the kid was dumb and should have gotten some punishment...but does this really need to get all the way to the front page of CNN.com? Bong Hits for Jesus would make a great T-Shirt though....

Go Bills,

Colin

Battlestar Galactica: Coversation Starter or Killer?

2007-03-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Try this: Next time you're at a party or bar, anyplace where 10 or more people are congregating, ask if anyone has heard of the TV show "Battlestar Galactica". I'm willing to bet that at least 9 of those 10 people will avert eye contact and let out a little nervous laugh. Just the name, Battlestar Galactica sounds so amazingly dorky that people will shift uncomfortably in their shoes. I was turned onto the far out space Sci-Fi drama by two kids known affectionately in my circle of friends as Cornbread and Buckles. True, they sound more like two 1950's blatantly racist cartoon characters rather than TV critics, but they were right about this show. IT IS AWESOME! Fracking Awesome! (to use some BSG lingo). Its got great special effects, gripping story lines (bleak, slim odds of survival stuff), and hot cyborg chicks! It's got some quirks, such as paper with trimmed corners ( think octogon-shaped), and phones with cords....in outer space....in the year 3000. The best part is the earnestness of the show. The makers of the show are going for it, not stopping to care if it looks campy or cheesy. As New Yorker TV critic Nancy Franklin put it, "Battlestar Galactica, refreshingly, is as real as science fiction gets". I'm including the link to the review as well as a fan site and a link that my change your life (for as long as it's legal). TV links lets you watch hundreds of TV shows streaming online. There you can watch the entire BSG series, as I have. I hope your like it. So say we all!! (you'll have to watch the show)

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/television/articles/060123crte_television?060123crte_television

http://www.battlestargalactica.com/

http://www.tv-links.co.uk/

Go Bills,

Colin

The "Brain Man"

2007-02-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

I love hearing about geniuses, and this one was really interesting in that he's a sane genius. This guy, known as "Brain Man" to his friends and family, Daniel Tammet, to the world, can recite about 23,000 numbers in Pi, without getting one wrong. I want to try and find the pictures he sees in his mind that represent the numbers, its nuts. Here's the story:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/26/60minutes/main2401846.shtml

And his website: http://www.optimnem.co.uk/

Go Bills,

Colin

Quick, you can still click the back button!

2007-02-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

If one person reads this...it'll be someone I know who I told to "check out my blog".

I want this foray in to world wide web to focus on Education because I believe that's what I want to do with my life (see soon-to-come manifesto-i.e. Jerry Maguire). I promise to make at least three jokes per entry. I promise to never think this "blog" to be anything more than my opinions mixed in with links to interesting (to me) news. I am a teacher and would like other teachers to connect with me through this blog. Also, I promise to make multiple Buffalo Bills references because any mention of them, to me, immediately gives anything credibility (Buffalo Bills Style).

That's what this blog is for now. I should say that The World Of Inquiry was my first school, also known at PS #58, here in Rochester NY.

Go Bills,

Colin