Welcome!

Welcome to Laurie Goodman's blog. I use this space to share news and opinions about education and schools in Ridgewood, the state of New Jersey and the nation, in addition to other issues I'm personally interested in. I invite you to share your thoughts, feelings, questions or opinions, too, by posting comments on any blog entry. Please observe basic courtesy -- keep your comments focused on issues, no personal attacks or bullying, please. Contact me directly at: lauriegood@mac.com

Friday, May 27, 2011

BOE and Council meetings broadcast on FIOS!

Finally! I'm so happy to learn that Ridgewood has public access channels on Verizon FIOS. This is something I started working on so long ago with late Councilwoman Annie Zusy, probably in the first month of my term on the Board of Education. From a purely selfish point of view, as a FIOS customer, I wanted to watch Village Council meetings without having to go out to another weeknight meeting. As a BOE member, I wanted to ensure all residents had a chance to see Board of Ed meetings. The Village and Ed Center have now got it all worked out.

Village Council meetings will be broadcast on FIOS Channel 34. BOE meetings will either be on Channel 33 or 34 (the info I saw was unclear...I guess we'll know by the time of the next BOE meeting, which is June 13).

Both BOE and VC meetings will continue to be shown on Cablevision Channel 77.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Back home…and just in time!

I’m back home from my daughter’s college graduation…and just in time for one of my favorite topics -- a free speech discussion – this one courtesy of the Ramsey Board of Education.

Today’s Bergen Record featured a story about Ramsey’s new policy, entitled, “Maintaining a Non-Disruptive Environment in a School Setting,” which prohibits teachers from “campaigning” while on school property during school hours or during officially sanctioned school activities. Campaigning also is prohibited “while in the presence of students or in locations where students are likely to hear such messages.”

The article continued,
The policy defines “campaigning” as engaging in speech, displaying signs, posters or buttons or wearing clothing with a political message. The policy also bars employees from assembling on school property in an “intimidating” manner and handing out leaflets or fliers.
Naturally, the teachers’ union (and some Ramsey residents) are opposed to this, offended by it, and a little upset. They are interpreting the rule to mean that they cannot, for example, talk about their contract negotiations – or even a national election – at the grocery store or on the street, if there might be children nearby who could hear them.

The District claims they are only concerned about potential disruption of classes.

There are a couple of things I find interesting about this. First, the story seems to focus on teachers doing things like putting “settle now” signs in their car windows (in reference to the union contract). This is similar to the actions of some of our Ridgewood teachers in 2005, when many Somerville teachers wore their REA t-shirts on Halloween instead of dressing in costumes, upsetting some kids at the school parade. Would that be considered "disruptive?" I also find the terms “campaigning” or “political” odd when applied to contract negotiations…who are the teachers campaigning, the 5 or 7 school board members?

The main thing that caught my attention in the story was the justification for the policy, that the District enacted the prohibition because such speech might be disruptive to learning. I recall* the landmark school free speech case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), which dealt with students’ rights to free speech at school, and the attempt to censor student speech because it might prove disruptive to learning. One of the key elements of the decision held that speech could not be prohibited (or censored) because the authorities had “a mere desire to avoid discomfort and unpleasantness…” The U.S. Supreme Court held that the authorities cannot prohibit speech just because they are worried...they must have some sort of proof that the speech will be disruptive.

It seems to me that this Ramsey policy is attempting to do the same thing… prevent “speech” (defined pretty broadly, BTW) that might be disruptive. Nowhere in the story did the school board president refer to any actual instances of learning being disrupted.

Now, before you get all crazy and think I’m encouraging teachers to wear union t-shirts on Halloween, complain to students about their contracts during class, undertake job actions (like stop writing college recommendations), and the like, please know that I think all those (and other) actions are wrong. They’re unprofessional. They’re in bad taste, unsporting and petty. But unless they are actually interfering with teaching and learning, I think they’re covered by the First Amendment, just like students' right to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War was protected under Tinker.

*Student free speech issues have interested me, ever since my own run-in with the topic, when I edited my college newspaper. We tested the First Amendment with our annual April Fool’s issue, which contained two pages of jokes from the book Truly Tasteless Jokes. In our youthful envelope-pushing, we managed to offend every possible group – women, minorities, senior citizens, the handicapped, babies. The repercussions were awful: protests, threats, hate mail, many apologies on our part, stuff like that. But it was a great learning experience and, to its credit, the University of Denver supported our right to be tasteless in the exercise of our free speech. I’ve been interested in student free speech, in both high schools and colleges, ever since.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens with the Ramsey policy. The Bergen Record story mentioned a similar policy in Tenafly, which is being challenged legally (and at great District expense) by a teacher there. I’ll keep an eye out for developments.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Graduating.

Heading up to New Hampshire early tomorrow for my daughter's graduation from UNH. Cannot believe how fast these four years went. She'll be graduating with honors, with a BA in Psychology with a minor in Education, and she'll be returning in the Fall to complete her Master's in Education and do her student teaching. (Then she'll probably start her teaching career in NH or Massachusetts.) She's talked about one single career goal for her entire life -- to become a teacher. She's a natural and it's so exciting to see her getting close to that goal. A year or so ago she called in a panic --she was hearing about the politics and trashing of teachers by the governor of New Jersey. "Why am I even becoming a teacher, if everybody hates them...I should find something else to do." Of course, on second thought, there is nothing else she has ever wanted to do, so changing really isn't an option. Truly, she doesn't care about the benefits and the contracts and even the evaluations or whatever. She just wants to get in a classroom and start teaching. The fact is, whatever the rules are when she starts, whatever the contributions to health care, etc., that will be her (and other new teachers') "new normal."

Anyway, we're proud that she's graduating with honors. She has said many times that she felt extremely well-prepared for college, when she got there with her Ridgewood education. I hear this from other college students as well, and apparently the high school HSA had some students visit the last HSA meeting to talk about how they transitioned to college. It's good to know.

So I probably won't be posting for a few days, unless I get inspired and also have a little free time in-between various ceremonies and dinners and such. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The future of the library.

I am re-printing this from Seth Godin's blog...I think it is something important to think about as the Ridgewood Village Council proposes underfunding the Ridgewood Public Library, and as the high school talks about evolving the RHS library/media center into a learning commons.

Click here to read the post in its original location on Seth's blog:

What is a public library for?

First, how we got here:

Before Gutenberg, a book cost about as much as a small house. As a result, only kings and bishops could afford to own a book of their own.

This naturally led to the creation of shared books, of libraries where scholars (everyone else was too busy not starving) could come to read books that they didn't have to own. The library as warehouse for books worth sharing.

Only after that did we invent the librarian.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

After Gutenberg, books got a lot cheaper. More individuals built their own collections. At the same time, though, the number of titles exploded, and the demand for libraries did as well. We definitely needed a warehouse to store all this bounty, and more than ever we needed a librarian to help us find what we needed. The library is a house for the librarian.

Industrialists (particularly Andrew Carnegie) funded the modern American library. The idea was that in a pre-electronic media age, the working man needed to be both entertained and slightly educated. Work all day and become a more civilized member of society by reading at night.

And your kids? Your kids need a place with shared encyclopedias and plenty of fun books, hopefully inculcating a lifelong love of reading, because reading makes all of us more thoughtful, better informed and more productive members of a civil society.

Which was all great, until now.

Want to watch a movie? Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library, than any library in the country. The Netflix librarian knows about every movie, knows what you've seen and what you're likely to want to see. If the goal is to connect viewers with movies, Netflix wins.

This goes further than a mere sideline that most librarians resented anyway. Wikipedia and the huge databanks of information have basically eliminated the library as the best resource for anyone doing amateur research (grade school, middle school, even undergrad). Is there any doubt that online resources will get better and cheaper as the years go by? Kids don't shlep to the library to use an out of date encyclopedia to do a report on FDR. You might want them to, but they won't unless coerced.

They need a librarian more than ever (to figure out creative ways to find and use data). They need a library not at all.

When kids go to the mall instead of the library, it's not that the mall won, it's that the library lost.

And then we need to consider the rise of the Kindle. An ebook costs about $1.60 in 1962 dollars. A thousand ebooks can fit on one device, easily. Easy to store, easy to sort, easy to hand to your neighbor. Five years from now, readers will be as expensive as Gillette razors, and ebooks will cost less than the blades.

Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

Post-Gutenberg, books are finally abundant, hardly scarce, hardly expensive, hardly worth warehousing. Post-Gutenberg, the scarce resource is knowledge and insight, not access to data.

The library is no longer a warehouse for dead books. Just in time for the information economy, the library ought to be the local nerve center for information. (Please don't say I'm anti-book! I think through my actions and career choices, I've demonstrated my pro-book chops. I'm not saying I want paper to go away, I'm merely describing what's inevitably occurring). We all love the vision of the underprivileged kid bootstrapping himself out of poverty with books, but now, (most of the time) the insight and leverage is going to come from being and fast and smart with online resources, not from hiding in the stacks.

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

The next library is a house for the librarian with the guts to invite kids in to teach them how to get better grades while doing less grunt work. And to teach them how to use a soldering iron or take apart something with no user servicable parts inside. And even to challenge them to teach classes on their passions, merely because it's fun. This librarian takes responsibility/blame for any kid who manages to graduate from school without being a first-rate data shark.

The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.

Wouldn't you want to live and work and pay taxes in a town that had a library like that? The vibe of the best Brooklyn coffee shop combined with a passionate raconteur of information? There are one thousands things that could be done in a place like this, all built around one mission: take the world of data, combine it with the people in this community and create value.

We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Toddlers on the fast track to academic stress (um, success).

Did you see the story in Friday’s NY Times about kids as young as 2 years old being tutored in writing, reading and numbers? This is the latest example of parents overreacting and ramping up the pressure on kids to perform, out of fear of being left behind or not getting into Brown or losing a future job to China or some other such fear.

In the classic “don’t confuse me with the facts” American way, the article says, “Research suggests that there is little benefit from this kind of tutoring; that young children learn just as much about math, if not more, fitting mixing bowls together on the kitchen floor.” One mother talks about the result she likes best in her 3- and 5-year olds: “These results translated into a self-esteem boost that I didn’t anticipate…They’ve gotten that there’s a thrill in achieving something.” You need to pay $200 a session to have someone else give your kids a self-esteem boost via worksheet drills? Even better, she adds, “I treat them with more respect now, because I see what they’re capable of intellectually.” So….previously you didn’t respect your children and their ability to learn? Honestly, statements like that make me queasy.

The article goes on to talk about parents who are ambivalent, who say things like, “This isn’t right, 3-year-olds should be playing in the sandbox and putting together mixing bowls,’ but then they’re thinking that maybe if the kid next door is doing it, it’ll be time to go to Harvard and my child won’t have the same advantage.” So they go ahead and sign their kid up because they don’t want to be the ones who step off the merry-go-round.

When people talk about tutoring in Ridgewood, I wonder how much of it is for true help, and how much of it is the fear of falling behind? The fear of not being an achiever? Sort of “preventative tutoring.” A child might be doing just fine, getting As and Bs (or even Bs and Cs), but why not get a tutor and turn those Bs into As, or Cs into Bs? I suspect this happens a lot here. It’s the same thinking that drives the big business of pitching coaches and goalie coaches and one-on-one training for young athletes.

Click here for the full story in the NY Times.

BOE wants to hear from "no" voters.

The Finance Committee of the Board of Ed is inviting any interested voters to the Ed Center (3rd floor) tonight at 7:30 p.m. for an informal discussion about the recent budget vote. They especially want to hear from people who voted "no." Let's try to not be too cynical (you know who you are) and instead I hope you'll take them up on it. I argued for three years that the budget process needed to get input from the public much earlier in the process. The problem has always been that by the time the Board is discussing the budget and parents or taxpayers come to the microphone during public comment, it's basically too late to change anything. There's a tight schedule, dictated by the state, for when the initial budget is presented, when it must be finalized, delivered to the county, etc. It's been a constant source of friction...people come give their opinion about what they feel should be different in the budget, the Board listens, but since the budget has to go the county, and since the administration and Board has already spent weeks or months exploring alternatives, nothing really changes.

In addition, in spite of the District holding additional public meetings on the budget, and inviting questions at those meetings and via special budget emails, there are still many voters who have misconceptions or misinformation about certain facts about the budget and the process. Hopefully this informal conversation tonight will allow some of those questions to be answered.

So here's your chance to start the process for the April 2012 budget earlier...barely two weeks since the last election. Whether you feel this is a watershed moment in BOE history or just a blip in an imperfect process, I hope you'll agree that it's a step in the right direction.

Click here for the story about this meeting in Sunday's Bergen Record.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A crisis in civics education.

Did you see the NY Times story last week about American eighth graders’ failing grade in learning civics? (Click here for the article.) The story began:
Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results released on Wednesday.

At the same time, three-quarters of high school seniors who took the test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were unable to demonstrate skills like identifying the effect of United States foreign policy on other nations or naming a power granted to Congress by the Constitution.

“Today’s NAEP results confirm that we have a crisis on our hands when it comes to civics education,” said Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, who last year founded icivics.org, a nonprofit group that teaches students civics through Web-based games and other tools.
I remember Civics being one of the mandatory classes I took in high school. It was a whole semester of learning about how our government works, holding class debates on various issues of the day. Our teacher was dynamic and really encouraged us to understand government so that we could question it, live within it and change it, if necessary.

I assume that Civics is covered in social studies or history classes today. Ridgewood High School does have two courses – American Government & Politics and Introduction to the Fundamentals of American Government – but these are electives for students in grades 11 and 12. I don’t know if an entire course on Civics or Government was ever required in New Jersey.

What I do know is that this truly is a crisis. Some people might argue that Civics is an “old fashioned” class. On the contrary, I think it’s even more necessary today. In olden times (when I was a teen), government was something that took place in Washington, D.C., or Sacramento and we regular folks could participate by….hmmm…well, we could write letters to the editor, we could write our Congressmen, we could talk amongst ourselves. Not much of a conversation and not much potential for real impact. Today, with the proliferation of blogs and online magazines and sites devoted to social issues, politics, government, ideas, etc., everybody has the opportunity to participate. There are debates going on everywhere. Everybody’s got an opinion. Unfortunately, not everyone knows what they’re talking about. They don’t understand how our government works. They read posts -- often anonymous -- and have no basis for evaluating the credibility or veracity of what they read.

I think we need civics education now more than ever.

Click here to read the full story in the New York Times.

Click here to check out icivics.org, the website founded by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, with the purpose of teaching students about civics.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

RHS fundraising success…and an apology.

Last week, the Ridgewood High School HSA President, Arlene Sarappo, reported that this year’s annual appeal and phone-a-thon raised more than $53,000. (More info click here.) Congratulations to the HSA and Development Committee leadership on a job well done! The money will be used to fund academic and classroom needs, including 24 state-of-the-art digital microscopes and 30 student laptops with charging cart. Thank you to all the parents who worked on the fundraiser and also to all those who pledged funds (including the Ridgewood Education Foundation, which donated a $6,000 challenge grant).

In a blog post on March 30, I hoped to explain to Ridgewood residents who were not familiar with the high school and its budget, why the HSA parents chose to fundraise. I expressed a personal opinion about the challenges of fundraising during the District’s “budget season.” My well-intentioned comments were misunderstood by a few of the very people I had hoped to help, and while I’ve already apologized to them directly, I’d like to do so again now. I am sorry that my comment caused anyone concern or disappointment.

Mostly, I want to acknowledge the immense work, sacrifice, personal commitment and dedication exhibited by the Development Committee and the HSA as a whole. As a parent, taxpayer, former HSA president and Board member, I appreciate everything that they do for our schools and for our children.

Once again, thank you and congratulations to the HSA for this successful effort!

RHS fields receive excellent G-max ratings for safety.

I just saw on the District homepage that the G-max tests that measure the softness (and safety) of the RHS Stadium and Stevens fields came in, and they show that the fields are rated well within the safety levels for artificial turf fields. Those who are worried about the results of flooding possibly affecting the cushioning of the fields can rest a little easier now. There was some dispute at last night's BOE meeting between neighbors who feel important information is being withheld, and there was confusion among some neighbors who felt that G-max tests had something to do with drainage. I haven't had time yet to write anything on this topic this week, but the good news is the fields are playable, they are being cared for according to the recommendations of the turf manufacturer, FieldTurf, and they are safe. This is good news in time for LAX Day, which is this Saturday, May 14, the primary events for which will take place at the RHS fields.

Communication issues were the highlight of last night's BOE meeting.

I attended the Board of Education’s Reorganization Meeting last night…It was a little weird to be sitting there in the audience. I wanted to show my support for the new Board and to wish them well in the new year. Michele Lenhard and Bob Hutton were returned to their offices of President and Vice President, and Michele read a resolution thanking me for my service to the Board. That was really nice and sort of awkward for me to sit there listening to the list things I had contributed to the BOE. They gave me a beautiful orchid and a framed copy of the resolution.

I had planned to just stay for part of the meeting, but decided to stick around for the full experience. A couple highlights for me:

Sheila Brogan suggested that the Board look at its process for public comment, to see if there might be some changes that could be made to make it more inviting and more productive. She mentioned the feeling residents and audience members get when they hear questions asked at the microphone, but don’t ever hear the answers, even if those answers are sent directly to the speaker at a later date. I’m glad to hear that the Board will be taking this up, perhaps over the summer. I have to point out that most of what Sheila said are things I said at my first BOE “retreat” meeting in April 2008 and again in 2009. But whatever, better late than never. I’m just glad they’ll be looking at it again. Change really does take time, doesn’t it?

Bob Hutton said he wants to invite all “no” voters (and even “yes” voters) to come talk about the school budget, share concerns and ideas for what changes they’d like to see, that might influence their support in the future. I think this is an awesome idea…I hope they’ll be able to get the message out. The challenge is always in communicating with those taxpayers who don’t have children in the schools. I hope there will be a mailing to taxpayers or some other way to get the word out…and I hope those of you reading this will pass the word along.

Two meetings will be scheduled. The first session has already been set for Monday May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ed Center. BOE Finance Committee members Michele Lenhard and Bob Hutton will attend, along with Business Administrator Angelo DeSimone. I’m going to try and make it, but might have to wait for the next meeting. Please attend – especially if you want to tell the Board what’s wrong with the current budget.

Those were my main take-aways from last night’s meeting. I don’t know how often I’ll attend in person. I’ll probably watch the streaming webcast online. When (if) the Village ever gets the Verizon FIOS hook-up for community access broadcasts, I’ll watch on my TV, too. (Supposedly this is still inching forward.)

Survey says...

Rather than write this lengthy response as a comment in the previous survey thread, I thought I'd move it to a new post. I wanted to give more detail regarding the previous Board's decision to print only summary comments with the parent survey results.

Within the Communications Committee, as we prepared the first survey, one of the things I argued strongly for was the release of comments received on the survey. I felt that the shared experience of speaking our minds and hearing what other parents said was an important exercise and had value in and of itself. The counter argument focused on protecting confidentiality regarding personnel issues. Certainly in any organization, personnel issues are normally confidential. In a “regular” business, employee performance reviews are not shared with all the other employees plus a company’s customers and vendors. We talked about how teachers or other staff might feel in reading anonymous comments about themselves, with no opportunity to answer or refute or explain or even question veracity.

We also talked about the Board’s relationship with, and obligations to, staff. The State of New Jersey’s Code of Ethics for School Board Members (18A:12-24.1) has three sections that apply:
g.) I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which, if disclosed, would needlessly injure individuals or the schools.
i.) I will support and protect school personnel in proper performance of their duties.
j.) I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution.
Board members’ interpretation of these ethics provisions, among other things, can color how they approach public conversations about staff.

When the comments came in, we endeavored to avoid any issues by removing (from the report) comments in which a staff member’s identity could be discerned. This sounded simple and turned out to be so much more complicated and time consuming. We had committees of staff and parents, we worked in groups, it took forever. But we came up with what we thought were “releasable” comments for each school. We knew this was a dramatic change in District culture, but we thought it was important and we thought we had been sensitive and had succeeded in a solution.

After the reports were released, some administrators immediately began to hear from staff members who were uncomfortable or concerned or upset. This was not something considered “normal” in the District’s culture. We were shown examples of where, in spite of our efforts, we had missed deleting identifiable comments. With such a large number of comments, and a committee of several people assessing, not always consistently, we needed to pause. The comments were quickly removed from the reports, so that the committee and the Board could discuss how to proceed. (Note: each report did retain a summary of comments on key themes.)

I was surprised that we didn’t hear a peep from parents about removing the individual comments from the online reports. It was mentioned in the newspaper, at BOE meetings and at HSA meetings. No one complained. No one seemed to mind. I had expected to hear from someone or to read criticisms on a blog, mine or others, but nope.

As I mentioned before, all the comments were distributed to BOE members, principals and other administrators. Principals reviewed them with staff at faculty meetings.

When it came time to plan the 2nd survey, the committee recommended that the Board not publish the comments in public reports. I had to grudgingly agree that no one had seemed to mind last time, and it would allow us to get the reports out weeks earlier than last year. We hadn’t really had time to address the staff response and how we could keep the process positive for the entire community…my intention at the time was to keep working on this concept and hopefully find a way to evolve to more disclosure with future surveys. The bottom line (for me) was: the most important result was that all the comments be seen by administrators and the BOE.

So that’s the story from my perspective. I don’t know what to say to anonymous claims of “repeat abusers.” Any alleged abuse or misconduct must be reported and the administration is required to address it. There is a clear process that elevates unresolved issues to the BOE (but only after the chain of command has been exhausted). In my experience, BOE members take such reports extremely seriously.

In an earlier comment, I said I would research the legal basis for BOE members not discussing staff members' performance in public. The Code of Ethics sections cited above are part of it, but I'm still researching what Board policies, as well as employment law and state education law, apply.

I'm not sure when the emails for the new survey will go out -- presumably soon -- but I hope all parents will participate and will be free and open with their responses and their comments.

Friday, May 6, 2011

2nd annual parent/guardian survey next week.

Once again, the Ridgewood Public Schools will be conducting a survey to determine parent/guardian opinions on a variety of topics related to the District. Parents should watch their email boxes for the email(s) containing their custom link to the survey.

The purpose of the brief survey is to gather parent and guardian opinions on district schools and the education Ridgewood students receive. The data collected will be shared with the community and will be used by the Board of Education as part of its evaluation of district policies and practices.

Remember, parents will receive the surveys next week via e-mail, and you'll get a separate email -- and separate link -- for each school your children attend.

Responses to survey questions will remain completely confidential and anonymous -- responses are not linked back to individual parents or students.

If you have any questions about the survey, contact the District at survey11@ridgewood.k12.nj.us.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

RHS New Players presents The Arabian Nights.

Ridgewood High School's excellent theater program, New Players, will present The Arabian Nights next weekend. All are welcome to attend and see what talented students we have.

Showtimes are:

Friday 5/13 at 8:00 PM
Saturday May 14 at 2:00 PM
Saturday May 14 at 8:00 PM

In The Little Theater at RHS.

Tickets are $10 for Students/Staff/Senior Citizens and $15 for Adults. For advance purchase, click here.

I'm in awe of these students. The time and effort they give to the theater program, on top of their classes, is amazing. Of course, theater isn't part of the "core curriculum" or the 3 R's, so I worry about the state of the arts in New Jersey schools in general and Ridgewood in particular. For some of these students -- as with athletes, or artists, or TV club members or ___ -- these so-called extracurriculars are the way they connect with school. The arts (and sports, too, for that matter) aren't "extras." They are vital to the Ridgewood education, contributing to our students' overall success, scores, identities, achievement and happiness.

Anyway, looking for something new to do in town on a Friday or Saturday night? Why not take in a show at our own high school Little Theater. You can have some fun and support some talented kids doing what they love.

You (and probably your kids) have no idea how big Africa is.

We've got illiteracy, innumeracy...some are warning that our children are suffering from immappacy, or "insufficient geographical knowledge." To illustrate, check out this cool post and map from the website Good.is, which said:
[Africa is] about 11.7 million square miles, which is really big—big enough to fit the United States, China, India, Japan, and much of Europe within its borders. And that's precisely what Kai Krause did with this inventive map, "The True Size of Africa," which he describes as his contribution to "the fight against rampant Immappacy."


What is immappacy? Krause explains:

In addition to the well known social issues of illiteracy and innumeracy, there also should be such a concept as "immappacy," meaning insufficient geographical knowledge.

A survey of random American schoolkids let them guess the population and land area of their country. Not entirely unexpected, but still rather unsettling, the majority chose "1-2 billion" and "largest in the world," respectively.

Even with Asian and European college students, geographical estimates were often off by factors of 2-3. This is partly due to the highly distored nature of the predominantly used mapping projections (such as Mercator).

A particularly extreme example is the worldwide misjudgment of the true size of Africa. This single image tries to embody the massive scale, which is larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe ... combined!
See the full version of the map here.

First track meet at BF on Saturday.

The new track at Ben Franklin Middle School is being striped today, will need to cure tomorrow and will be ready for the inaugural track meet this Saturday, according to Ridgewood High School track coach Jacob Brown. "Many race winners will come away with new track records, even if short lived," Brown said in an email.

The meet will be an open USATF meet, so it's open to athletes of all ages. I'm not sure how interested runners get entered in races. If I find out anything, I'll update this post with the info.

There will be some opening day words beginning at 9:30 AM, a singing of the Star Spangled Banner, and then at 10:00 the first race will start, with Superintendent Dan Fishbein shooting the gun for the start.

Thank you again to the residents of Ridgewood for approving the referendum that allowed this excellent facility to be built for our students and our community.

Come on down to BF this Saturday to celebrate the beginning of a new era in Ridgewood Track & Field!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Seth Godin wrote something for me?

My husband sent me a link to Seth Godin's blog post for today and I thought he was making it up...Wait, marketing guru Seth Godin actually blogged about losing a school election? Wow. I'm posting the text of Seth's post below. Be warned: if you're not a regular reader of Mr. Godin, you should know that he's a pretty frank writer, doesn't pull punches and features an abundance of common sense that's not always what you might call "politically correct." Here's the post with it's lesson I'm taking to heart this week:
What's the point of popular?

You'd think that it's the most important thing in the world. Homecoming queen, student body president, the most Facebook friends, Oscar winner, how many people are waiting in line at the book signing...

Popular is almost never a measure of impact, or genius, or art. Popular rarely correlates with guts, hard work or a willingness to lead (and be willing to be wrong along the way).

I'll grant you that being popular (at least on one day in November) is a great way to get elected President. But in general, the search for popular is wildly overrated, because it corrupts our work, eats away at our art and makes it likely we'll compromise to please the anonymous masses.

Worth considering is the value of losing school elections and other popularity contests. Losing reminds you that the opinion of unaffiliated strangers is worthless. They don't know you, they're not interested in what you have to offer and you can discover that their rejection actually means nothing. It will empower you to even bigger things in the future...

When you focus on delighting an audience you care about, you strip the masses of their power.

Fields Committee farewell.

Went to my last 7:00 AM meeting of the Fields Committee this morning. Not going to miss the hour, but will definitely regret not being around in the future to witness this monthly example of collaboration and problem-solving. The challenges of scheduling and managing the athletic fields in the Village take a lot of effort to resolve and address efficiently. They are all definitely addressed – not always efficiently, but always with the best intentions.

Today’s meeting had two highlights for me. First, two 4th grade Girl Scouts and their moms/troop leaders came to speak to the Committee about the problem of litter in the Village, particularly on the sports fields. They are asking the sports groups to spread some ideas to coaches and to pass along to kids and other athletes the need to pick-up litter, improve trash can locations, designate team litter monitors, etc. They’ll be posting some handmade, laminated signs on sports field trashcans, too.

The other notable portion of today’s Fields meeting was a conversation with representatives of the Church League softball league. The Church League was started in approx. 1987 and is made up of 250 players on 10 teams (representing 9 churches). Approx. 85% of the players are Ridgewood residents (aka taxpayers) and they are frustrated at the year-after-year reduction in their access to softball diamonds (made considerably worse by the loss of diamonds at BF). They just want to make sure consideration is being given to their program when fields are scheduled. It was helpful for the committee to be reminded of the adult users of our sports fields – too often we think in terms of children only. The number of kids playing all sports has increased over the decades, but let’s not forget that Dads and Moms have a right to use our fields, as well. (In addition to the Church League, there are also Men’s, Mom’s and Adult Leagues playing on Ridgewood fields. These are just softball – there are also adult soccer, flag football and other programs.)

The reps from the Church League did say that they would be communicating their message to the Village Council, as well, since the Council will be determining the use to come at the Schedler property and the Habernickel Horse Farm, etc.

There were plenty of other topics discussed at today’s meeting, including: the upcoming lighting tests at RHS Stadium and Stevens Fields (tentatively scheduled, pending weather, for tomorrow night), the draft Fields Policy being voted-on by the Village Council on May 11, a potential auto-call program to alert parents about field closures, new parking regulations adjacent to Stevens Field on North Irving Street, and the structure and function of the Committee itself (vis-à-vis input by athletic field neighbors). I’m not sure who will be the BOE liaison to the Committee going forward – it will be decided after the Board’s reorganization meeting, which takes place next Monday.