On Teacher Training

I attended one presentation on education in college, in which the presenter, David Stroupe, compared teaching to medical practice. Stroupe, a Phd student in education at the University of Washington, described in detail the absurdity of a very intelligent, recently graduated biology major trying to perform a simple medical procedure. He concluded- correctly- that such an individual would have no idea where to start, before subsequently claiming that sending that same smart upstart to the classroom would have the an equally disastrous result. Teaching, he felt, was a profession that required a careful honing of talent and significant practice.

The context of this opening was a speech about the failings of Teach for America. Mr. Stroupe had not been a Teach for America corps member, but he had participated in an alternative licensure program that had sent him to the classroom totally unprepared. Teach for America, he failed to note, sends its teachers to an intensive training program the summer after they graduate. Students hear from current and former teachers, learn the best instruction methods, and most importantly practice in a classroom. They are taught how to manage a classroom and grade a paper. Though five or six weeks of training may not be enough, it is significantly better than zero days.

I don't know if any studies have been done which confirm the importance of intensive training programs, but I certainly feel more prepared after my four week induction. One of the key lessons I have learned is that boring monotony is bad: students will retain more if lessons are creative and varied. A teacher writing notes on the board is worse than boring for the students; it also decreases the likelihood that the students will learn the material. My practice sessions with real students were invaluable; all teacher training programs at universities should require externships at a local school (most do, in fairness). There is nothing like being in a real classroom with real students; on disciplinary issues I think this is especially important. Before my training program I didn't want to do a seating chart, but after two days of training I realized the folly of my thinking. A well-thought out seating arrangement will lead to better behavior, (making my life easier) and improved comprehension on the part of the students (improving their life come exam time).

I did have some issues with my training. First and foremost, our trainers presented some arguments made by education scholars as fact, when in fact they were not. We were told to adhere to many vague philosophies that had never been tested, and evidence coming from regression models was presented as gospel. There is an enormous amount of bogus social science studies floating about on jstor and google scholar; a researcher displaying his understanding of statistics hardly means his paper is correct, or even close to right. Data on educational attainment is especially spotty, making me even more hesitant to believe some conclusions presented to our team of teachers. In social science fields where statistics are better recorded and more widely available, say political science and economics, there is still considerable disagreement. Changing the parameters of a test or controlling for one variable, can dramatically alter the conclusion. Different datasets on the same topic- say the effect of low interest rates on net exports- can lead to contrasting conclusions. The quantity and quality of studies in these fields has helped teach us a ton about the world we live in, but education is still a new field. Everything needs to be taken, and should be presented, with more than a few grains of salt.

I also thought we should have given more time to plan our curriculum. It would have been nice to develop our long term plans more, especially as first-year teachers. As it is, we have only a rough idea where we will be at the end October, let alone May.

As for Mr. Stroupe, I still find his argument lacking. Teaching is not really comparable to medical practice; there is a reason physicians are required to spend four years in medical school and serve at least three years as a resident. Their jobs, quite frankly, are more complicated and the stakes are higher. The evidence is pretty clear that smarter teachers who thoroughly understand the material they are teaching produce better results than their less brilliant cohorts; thus, it is important to get these people in a classroom. And while Mr. Stroupe and others criticize TFA and other similar teachers for their youth and inexperience, I think these traits can be an asset as well. Young teachers will be more willing to adjust and act flexibly; they will not be set in their (potentially misguided) ways. Moreover, teachers who know they are only in this for a year or two are more likely to work hard and give it their all than a middle-aged man who has been teaching for twenty years and knows they still have twenty more left to go.

That said, my teacher training experience has been positive, and I think every individual who steps in a classroom on the first day of school should at least have been in a comparable situation at some point. Mr. Stroupe is right that teachers need to be taught. All alternative licensing programs in the U.S. and abroad should require at least a month of rigorous in depth training. Installing such programs would benefit teachers, and more importantly, their students. And whatever helps them should guide educational policies.

The Importance of Family

My grandmother, Anne Hatem, has always been the glue that kept our family together. I have always known her as an endearing grandmother: she would serve whatever food I desired, wash my clothes, and on one occasion even played videogames with me. Photos and stories recall a wonderful, but different person. Strikingly beautiful, she was the cool-under-pressure nurse and the no-nonsense mother of six children. Her record stands for itself; her children have gone on to become writers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, and accountants. All have acquired her generosity of spirit and her sense of humor. But even as these successful people went their different ways, her charm and heart have ensured that our family’s ties were not unbound.

In Honduras, families are especially close. They often live in complexes with other family members. For instance, my permanent home is in an apartment above a house where one family lives. Other members of the family live in a house to the left of ours; you enter through the same gate. At my homestay, the situation was the same. Two brothers lived in the same complex as each other; their sons grew up together and are best friends, and their wives exchange cooking materials, parenting tricks, and gossip.  Uncles and nephews may share a father-son like bond; if their age difference is small they may simply be close pals. There are often stories of one member of the family heading to the U.S., but in general families are incredibly close here.

Why is this? If I were to put on my amateur social scientist hat I would theorize that it has to do with the country’s limited economic resources. Everyone falls on tough times; people know that they are not immune to distress or hunger so they want to have a safety blanket if the worst should happen. There is no government safety net here: social security and public health insurance offer minimal to nonexistent protection. People must rely on their families, for housing and food, as well as comfort and guidance.

My family, compared to most Honduran ones, has been incredibly blessed. Our closeness, I think is remarkable considering the different lives that my mother and her siblings have led. Much of the credit for this, as I stated in the first paragraph must go to my grandmother. She was the planet around which we orbited.

Sadly, she died this Friday, August 10^th.  Her funeral is tomorrow. To my regret, I will not be able to attend. But from Honduras, I wish her a fond farewell and a pleasant trip to the other side.

Rest in peace, Grandma. You will be sorely missed.

Heroism and The Dark Knight Rises

One of my biggest fears about coming to Honduras- I kid you not- concerned my ability to view The Dark Knight Rises in English on a big screen. Movies this big and this bold should not be cheapened by crappy voice actors dubbing the film into Spanish, let alone witnessed on a small computer screen via some pirated copy that features a fat guy walking across the screen because he couldn’t hold off on his second tub of popcorn.  I feared that Honduras’s few theatres would only show dubbed versions, and I do not consider English street copies an acceptable substitute.

But two weeks after its US release date, and a week after its Honduran one, I found time and transportation to see The Dark Knight Rises in English.  The film was my most anticipated film in at least five years: after all, the trailers were awesome and The Dark Knight was my favorite film of 2008 (its Oscar snub for The Reader caused the Academy to expand the number of Best Picture nominees to ten to avoid similar future embarrassments). 

The events in Aurora, Colorado considerably dimmed my excitement, at least until a few hours before the screening.  James Holmes- aka the over armed lunatic- managed to strike a frightening chord that resonated deeply. It could have been any one of us in that theatre. An enormous pop cultural moment will forever be stained by his actions; a monumental film will forever have an ugly asterisk by its name. And of course, some family will never see their loved ones again.

But onto the film itself. It was not a disappointment, despite my absurd and unfair expectations. I don’t think the film was as good as The Dark Knight, but few are. The wild card element, tangibly embodied by Heath Ledger, was missing in the final piece of the trilogy. The Joker was the perfect character for director Christopher Nolan, who loves narrative sleight-of-hands (see Memento or The Prestige). With The Dark Knight, Nolan upped the ante: apparently comic book film adaptations are not encoded with DNA that claim they must be predictable.  Very rarely has a genre been so vigorously turned on its head, as the super hero film was in The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight Rises lacks this chaos. There are twists and turns to be sure in Rises, but they are less clever and more predictable than those of its predecessor. But the final installment of Nolan’s trilogy makes up ground with a larger scope and greater emotional pull.  And despite its 160-minute plus running length, The Dark Knight Rises will not have anyone staring at their watches.

Though Nolan cannot coax a Ledger-esque performance out of any of his principals, the film is finely acted all around. Christian Bale turns in his best performance as the Bruce Wayne/the caped crusader; his gritty devotion to the role shines through in every scene. Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Marion Cotillard all acquaint themselves well. Hardy is suitably intimidating; Gordon-Levitt appropriately earnest. Hathaway provides the film’s minimal levity. But best in show, in a deeply moving performance, is Michael Caine. It would have been easy for the veteran actor to phone in a performance- he is only playing Alfred the butler, after all. Caine, however, gives the character his all, in a classy performance that reminds viewers why he is a legend.

The politics of the film are difficult to decipher, but there are some clear messages. Nolan, and his brother Jonathan, who co-wrote the screenplay, clearly have a libertarian streak. They warn against oppressive government, and rally for civil liberties. Moreover, the movie relentlessly reminds us of the power of the individual.

Ron Paul enthusiasts should hold their breath though. The Nolan’s also have a timely message about economic inequality. This did not stem from the Occupy movement; the script was finished several months before protesters appeared at Zuccotti Park. The Nolan’s credibly suggest in Rises that inequality can breed hatred, political instability, and violence. Indeed, there are several references to the French Revolution. If people do not believe in the system, than they may try to destroy it.

Yet the film, more than anything, is a cry for heroism. Bruce Wayne puts everything on the line for Gotham; his body and soul are beaten to a pulp in Rises. And I think Nolan’s willingness to do this to his hero, is the critical ingredient that separates The Dark Knight trilogy from other super hero films. Bruce didn’t get his super powers through some freak accident or genetic enhancement (a la Superman or Spider-Man), and Batman gets no fame or fortune from his heroics (aka Captain America, Iron Man, Thor).  Instead, he gets physically punished, faces the scorn of the city he has protected, and must grapple emotionally with the deaths of those he loves.

Bruce Wayne battles bad guys not because he receives personal gain, but because it is the right thing to do. He protects the city because he loves it, and because he can. I think everyone would be a damn superhero if they only had to get bitten by a spider, and their reward was a relationship with Emma Stone. If it meant incessant training, no sleep, guaranteed bodily harm, and endangering those they cared about it, well then they might decide against it. Yet Bruce, who inherited a fortune, by the way, goes for it anyway. He is a real patriot, and a true hero.

There may no Batman’s in the real world, but Bruce reminds us at a critical juncture in the film that anyone can be a hero. It could be as simple as putting a coat on a boy who just watched his parents get murdered, he says. But it could also be a Honduran cop refusing to take payouts from the local drug gang. Or perhaps a young man covering the body of his girlfriend in a movie theatre turned war zone.

Collectively, we have the power to emulate the hero who has inspired us; now we must show the courage to do so.

Honduran Institutions

I did not intend for my first post did not come across as anti-Honduran, but I understand how it could have been construed as such. After all, I remarked upon a number of less than savory conditions that any Honduran (or gringo in Honduras) must confront: relentless poverty, the high crime rate, the fear that a tarantula will crawl up your leg while you are taking a dump.

But it is important to understand the difference between people and institutions. Let’s use a hypothetical Honduran as an example; we’ll call him Carlos. Our hombre Carlos went to public school throughout his life. Large class sizes and teacher strikes restricted the quality of Carlos’s education, but he still did better than most of his peers and moved on to study engineering at university. He did well in his college courses, but the quality of his education remains far worse than that of a similar graduate in the United States (even though Carlos is smarter than said student). After graduating, Carlos gets married and has two children. To support the family he loves, Carlos takes a position working for the government; his job is to manage and design water systems. Carlos has the natural intelligence to help produce a better system, but his education has left him short of some of the necessary skills. He would be willing to work overtime to figure out a method of improving the water system so it could handle toilet paper, but the government lacks the funds to pay him more than his base salary. The Honduran people, however, frustrated that their water system stops functioning every week, refuse to pay more in taxes. They already have a miniscule income, and the services they get for their hard earned tax dollars are shit.  So they only vote for candidates who will lower taxes, meaning the education system remains terrible and there remains no overtime. Everyone’s actions are fairly logical- and almost everyone like Carlos is a good guy- but there is institutional failure. This thought experiment leaves out a critical variable that dramatically exacerbates the problem- corruption- but it shows how well intentioned people can become a part of an institutional failure.

Honduras can break out of this trap, but it will not be easy.