I Speak of Dreams

A Few More Things About Jacques Littlefield

I was remiss in not mentioning it earlier.  Last night was a sung Requiem Eucharist  for Jacques Littlefield at his home church, Christ Church Episcopal, where he was for many years a member of the choir.  The service was beautifully sung, and very moving. 

The photo above was taken May 16, 2008, at Mike Stallwood's RR Motor Services in Kent, England, and was a celebration of the Churchill Toad's completion.  The Toad is now in the Littlefield Collection at the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation.   The photo is from this article at MilWeb -- photographer either Samuel Penhallow or John Blackman.

One of the things Jumper Girl has said about what she's learned in the last 10 weeks, speaking of the large turn-out for her father's memorial service: "You probably have no idea about the number of people who are fond of you."

The other was, "When in doubt, wear plaid."

Teacher Education: Belief-Based or Science-Based?

This is from an interview between David Boulton and Keith Stanovich at Children of the Code. The whole interview is called Cognitive Science: The Conceptual Components of Reading & What Reading Does for the Mind

David Boulton: In particular, what I'm referring to is the way that we educate teachers. We don't take them into a first-person, grounded understanding of this challenge from which to become scientist-learners in their own right, in their practice of it, and they end up subscribing to belief mechanisms.

Dr. Keith Stanovich: Yes.

David Boulton: And in that sense, it's like competing religions.

Dr. Keith Stanovich: Yes, very much so. They respond to the charismatic people they had in teacher education school and they're not given what I would call discipline-based knowledge. Actually it's not just reading I have an interest in, my other research area is critical thinking. Similar things go on there. You have teachers picking up knowledge from in-service gurus and teaching reading without a knowledge of phonology or orthography or the history of linguistic change, which I see is one of your interests, and what I would call information processing, cognitive psychology, for that matter, relevant issues and cognitive development. This is what I call the discipline-based knowledge that surrounds reading. Very little of it penetrates into reading education.

The point I make is that this is an unfortunately replicable phenomena. It happens in the area of critical thinking as well. Schools have programs they get, again, from commercial packages, in-service gurus, with no grounding in discipline-based knowledge in thinking and reasoning; and I mean discipline-based knowledge in philosophy, decision science, decision theory, cognitive science - where principles of rational thought are being studied empirically and theoretically by philosophers. None of this penetrates education. So, I think it's a recurring problem.

David Boulton: And the biggest danger that I see as I bump into what you're talking about is that teachers are trained out of being learners. There’s such a difference between belief based on somebody else's knowledge...

Dr. Keith Stanovich: Right.

David Boulton: And actually having an appetite to understand something for yourself, striving into your own learning, and then having access to the kind of resources that will support your learning and keeping it going right through your practice in school with kids.

Dr. Keith Stanovich: Well said. Every component of what you've listed is missing from the educational culture. I couldn't agree more.

Go read the whole essay. Then explore Children of the Code (www.childrenofthecode.org)

Misogyny on the Web--Still Here: SXSWi Panel

I haven't written about cyberbullying, online mis-conduct, and related issues for a while. It isn't that the issue is unimportant, just more pressing things to talk about.

There was a panel at SXSWi:

That's Not My Name: Beating Down Misogyny Online

This panel explores the complex and violent ways that women are treated online, specifically feminists when they speak publicly about politics. Presenting some of the lead feminist voices on the internet we will discuss and share our war stories while offering tips for how to survive the anti-feminist internet.

Liz Henry liveblogged the panel. 

I still think that what Dorothea Salo said in 2007 is strong:

But the cycle can be broken. It just has to be broken by men....

So here is what you do, if you’re a man wanting to help. You say, “Um, was that supposed to be funny? Because, not laughing here.” You say, “Hey, could we not use that phrase? I don’t like it.” You say to the main perpetrators, in IRC whispers or private email or whatever, “Hey, would you mind toning down the jokes? That kind of talk really bothers me.”

The key here is to express that the demeaning of women bothers you, you personally.

Previous Posts

• Blog Civility  December 22, 2005
• Take Back the Blog April 2007
• Blogs Can Talk Past Each Other April 14, 2006
• Blog Civility: Online Integrity Pledge May 6, 2006
• Rudeness  February 6 2006
• Craig Weller's Civility in Conflict  April 11 2006
• The Death of Civility January 17 2006
• How To Disagree Online Without Being Disagreeable April 30 2006
• Smart or Happy?  July 3 2004
• Laura at Apt 11D: Disagree or Attack? July 3 2004
• Polarization and Moving the Middle December 4 2004
• My Blogging Principles  December 4 2005

Previous commentary and other folks' work:

• Outline of How To Disagree Without Being Disagreeable
• Blog Civility
• Making An Effective Complaint
• Nancy White: Blog Civility
• Brad Warthen's Civility Posts
• Praxis101: Civility Wiki
• Kathy Sierra: Are "Nice" and "Honest" Mutually Exclusive?
• Kevin Drum: Blog Civility
• Jane Galt: Kevin Drum's Blog Civility
• PubliusTX: Kevin Drum's Blog Civility
• Mike Reed's Flame Warriors
• Teresa Nielsen Hayden: Some things I know about moderating conversations in virtual space
• Dorothea Salo: What Some Folks Can Do, If They Choose

Silver Lining to Economic Slump: Abusive Residential Programs for Teens Shut Down

These programs associated with the World Wide Association of Speciality Programs andSchools (WWASPS) have closed since 2008: Royal Gorge Academy (Colorado), Tranquillity Bay (Jamaica), Spring Creek Lodge (Montana), and Darrington Academy (Georgia). More by Maia Szalavitz at Mother Jones and Huffington Post.

Royal Gorge at I Speak of Dreams

• Royal Gorge Academy closed October 16, 2008
• • January 12, 2007: Randall Hinton, Royal Gorge Academy, Arrested
  • January 13, 2007 Randall Hinton's Qualifications
  • January 29, 2007: Patty Pacheco, Whistleblower at Royal Gorge Academy
  • March 12, 2007: Royal Gorge Academy in the News
  • July 9, 2007: Countersuits from Royal Gorge
  • September 11, 2007: Hinton Convicted
  • November 4, 2007: Testimony from an Alumna of Royal Gorge
  • November 4 2008: Royal Gorge Academy Shuts Down

Royal Gorge coverage at the Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse (CAICA).  Some of the children at Royal Gorge Academy were transferred to Red River Academy, also owned by Octwell LLC.  Details on Red River Academy at AntiWWASPS.

Tranquility Bay coverage at International Survivors Action Committee (ISAC:

• Tranquility Bay confirmed closed as of January 2009.

As of 3/18/09, Brad and Rose Lustick at "Teenpath" (http://www.teenpaths.org/) are still actively marketing

• Tranquility Bay (http://www.teenpaths.org/tranquility_bay/),
• Darrington Academy (http://www.teenpaths.org/darrington/), and
• Spring Creek Lodge (http://www.teenpaths.org/spring_creek_lodge/) .

What do you want to bet that anxious parents are shuffled off to one of the other, still-open, still-abusive programs?

Local news article on the closing of Spring Creek Lodge:

http://www.vp-mi.com/articles/2009/01/14/breaking_news/doc496e176b41949364534296.txt

Spring Creek closes its doors Posted: Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009 - 09:55:42 am MST

Jamie Doran Valley Press Spring Creek Lodge closed its doors for the last time Friday Jan. 9, leaving everyone who had been employed there unemployed and the students at the lodge without a place to go.

Representatives for Spring Creek Lodge could not be reached for comment by the Valley Press before press time.

The lodge first opened its doors about 30 years ago by Nancy and Steve Cawdrey. The lodge was opened as a place to address drug, alcohol and behavioral issues of young people from across the county.

The lodge once had over 500 students enrolled, but during the past several years enrollment dropped down to less than 50.

Thompson Falls Superintendent Jerry Pauli said that while he had no ties to the lodge, the Thompson Falls school system had been impacted by it.

“As their enrollment numbers went down, people who worked there were unemployed, which caused kids to leave our schools because their parents needed to relocate,” he said.

At one point Spring Creek Lodge was the largest employer in Sanders County as it employed about 200 individuals in various positions throughout the lodge.

Pauli said that the Thompson Falls School Board will be holding a special meeting Tuesday Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. to discuss the expansion of their own Alternative Learning Center at Thompson Falls High School.

He said the Alternative Learning Center has been around for years and has had anywhere from 30-43 kids involved either part or full-time in the program.

“What we’re doing is looking to expand that program to pick up some of the kids who were in Spring Creek,” he said.

Pauli said there will likely be some students from Spring Creek that will be picked up by families in the Thompson Falls area and expanding the Alternative Learning Center would be a great way to help accommodate those students.

“At the meeting we’ll be addressing and hopefully making a decision on whether or not we should expand our services and this program to include these students,” he said.

Worthy New Blog: Child Pyschology and Parenting Research

From the editor of Austism Research, Nestor Lopez-Duran:

Child-Psych.org was created by the editor of www.translatingautism.com, to provide commentary on the latest scientific findings on child disorders, parenting, and child development. We will be updating the blog several times per week with reviews of scientific studies, books, films, and discussions on media reports concerning a number of related topics such as child development, parenting, especial education, and neurodevelopmental disorders. We hope that parents, clinicians, and educators find this blog entertaining and informative. If you have any questions please contact us at info@child-psych.org

Exporting Anti-Gay Hysteria

Last night I was reading Box Turtle Bulletin about a truly appalling anti-gay international conference held in Uganda,

The Uganda seminar featuring three American anti-gay activists is starting to attract international attention. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, along with Sexual Minorities Uganda, has issued a press release denouncing the appearance of Nazi revisionist and Watchmen On the Walls co-founder Scott Lively, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer, and Caleb Lee Brundidge of Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation at a conference to be held this weekend in Kampala.

This morning the San Jose Mercury News reports that "anti-gay hate crimes" have increased dramatically.

Homosexual behavior is

Hate crime cases involving anti-gay sentiment shot up in Santa Clara County last year, a striking increase that a leading prosecutor attributes to controversy over Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on gay marriage.

Anti-gay incidents accounted for more than half of hate-crime cases last year — 56 percent — a big jump from only 15 percent in 2007. There were 14 anti-gay cases out of 25 hate-crime cases in 2008, compared with only 3 out of 20 in 2007.

"My belief from having done this work for many years is that surges in types of hate incidents are linked to the headlines and controversies of the day,'' said Deputy District Attorney Jay Boyarsky, who is assigned to monitor hate crimes. "Marriage equality and Proposition 8 have been in the news, and we have seen an increase in gay-bashing.''

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists three groups in California as being specifically anti-gay hate groups:

• Traditional Values Coalition
• Abiding Truth Ministries
• Chalcedon Foundation

Culture War: Pharmacists as Moral Arbiters -- 2009 edition

I wrote about pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions back in 2005 and again in 2007.  In 2005, The Head Nurse wrote What To Do If A Pharmacist Refuses to Fill a Prescription.

Back then, it was about pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions having to do with sexuality (birth control, emergency birth control, and a medication that controls genital herpes).

This time it is a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription for pain control medications. The story starts at Terra Sigillata, with  Pharmacist objection to legitimate MS Contin prescription.  The short story:  A woman who has terminal cancer has a valid prescription for an opiate medication, MS Contin.  The pharmacy at Walgreen's refuses to fill it.

Do You Have A Child Who Struggles Socially? Read This

The more I am in k-5   classrooms, the more I learn.  (For non-USian readers, "k-5" translates as: kindergarten through fifth grade, meaning near 60 months of age (5 years) to children near 11 years.  The appropriate time to start formal schooling and the effect of age and development differentials is a topic for a different post.)

One thing I've really noticed is that students' social skills have a direct effect on learning -- their own and their classmates'.  

Over at The Adventures of Leelo and His Potty-Mouthed Mom, there's a wonderful resource: Helping Peers Understand Our Kids' Social Challenges, a transcription of a talk given by Diane Levinthal of Social Strides

"Social thinking" is associated with kids who have labels -- ADHD, autism spectrum disorders -- but again, many kids -- not those with labels -- could benefit with social thinking skills.

Pertussis (Whooping Cough) Kills Australian Baby

Update: Dana Elizabeth McCaffrey's father writes in Kev's comments:

Dana is my daughter. She IS so beautiful. I’m in tears as I write this. PLEASE INOCULATE. Don’t let others suffer what we are going through. It’s total devastation & heart break.

Governments & health regulatory bodies need to provide support to families by providing information & medical vaccinations to the whole community. We received nothing. The GP didn’t suspect whooping cough, even though there’s an epidemic here, our birthing doctor & hospital didn’t warn us of risks.

From Kev I read of the sad and preventable death of Dana Elizabeth McCaffery, who died at four weeks of age from whooping cough. Why did she get the disease? Because she was too young to be vaccinated, and was exposed to an older child or an adult who had the disease.

“The vaccination rates on the North Coast are the worst in Australia. This is why we have so many incidences in this area compared with other parts of Australia.

“Parents should be alarmed, whooping cough kills little babies. We must get our vaccination rates up so adults don't pass the disease on to babies.”

This is the impetus behind PK Kids' Silence the Sound of Pertussis campaign, and Do It For Your Baby.

Currently in the U.S., there are outbreaks:

• Lee County, Iowa
• Washington State, centered in Kittias County
• Oregon
• Ross and Highland Counties, Ohio

The Fallacy of 21st Century Skills

The crew at Kitchen Table Math have been hitting hard on the latest fad: "21st Century Skills". Roughly stated, the "21st Century Skills" fad de-emphasizes mastery of discrete academic skills in favor of

critical thinking and problem solving, communication, creativity and innovation, collaboration, information and media literacy, and contextual learning.

For all the KTM posts deriding 21st Century Skills, go here.