Fight Fire with No. 2 Pencils

I just paid $150 to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). When I was a high school junior, I gave them money for the SAT; in college it was the PRAXIS, so I could get my teaching license. This is a huge profit industry. Yet colleges say they give less and less importance to SAT and ACT scores. And most educators and SAT-prep course instruction will say that standardized test taking skills are just as important as the content knowledge.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the case of the New Haven firefighters has gotten press mostly because of race issues and Judge Sotomayor. But it also raises questions on the use of standardized tests to evaluate current and potential employees. As an educator, it reminds me of the debate and frustration over standardized testing to not only evaluate a student’s knowledge, but also the school’s performance (see: No Child Left Behind). Both cases – the firefighters’ and students’ exams – involve money: the results determine the employees’ salaries and the school’s federal funding. That puts a lot of faith in standardized testing as an accurate measure of skill level and knowledge.

Should these exams carry so much weight? If not, what alternatives does one have when trying to give a fair evaluation that gets universal recognition? Surely licensing boards and college admissions need a standard measure to judge candidates by. And it’s not just in the USA. In France, all high school seniors spend their final days of school taking the BAC, the scores of which then determine what universities and programs the student can enter. The main difference between the SAT and BAC, however, is that the BAC isn’t a multiple choice, scantron test. No bubble filling. All work must be shown, all responses written out. So is it the design of the exam that needs attention, or simply the idea of standardized exams?

Boards and Ballpoints

Aymeric and I made this video in the spring of 2006, when I first lived in France. My intent was to create a souvenir, not show how well I can fall. The filming also became a way for me to hang out with friends at a time when my French didn’t cut it. All the others rollerbladed, but, after a couple of tries, I decided to stick with skateboarding. If I’m gonna fall, I’ll do it on something familiar.

After I got back from France in 2006, I pretty much stopped skating. Now my souvenirs come in writing. I’m an old man, better at falling flat on the page than my face. But writing doesn’t have that same satisfaction – of landing a trick after failing again and again, or weaving with a group of friends through crowds and streets in the city.

Boards and Blades

A grind on rollerblades feels smooth – plastic on a waxed curb or a rail. When I first tried one I fell on my ass. I leaned into the grind, pushed my feet forward a bit, and my legs shot out from under me. Up until then, I’d always done grinds on a skateboard. Metal on metal or a curb. The trucks dig in and grind. Because I’d always had to push the board along, I wasn’t ready for the smoothness of rollerblades.

Even though there’s variety in both, that’s the biggest different between styles: skateboarding is force while rollerblading is finesse. Skateboards pop and snap; you flick the board and catch it. It takes serious coordination, much harder for beginners than rollerblading, and most pros make it look fluid and easy. Usually it’s a rodeo on concrete. Rollerblades glide and cut; you roll through lines and transition between grinds. It also requires serious coordination, but more in a gymnastic sense. The best pros get acknowledged as much for their style and pose as the acrobatic and/or ballsy trick they’re pulling off.

Someone rollerblading for two years will impress the average onlooker more than the skateboarder of two years. Especially at a skatepark. When I’d skateboard with friends, we’d land about 50% or fewer of our tricks. Many afternoons of my teenage years were devoted to a single trick. Just to land it once, with the hope that eventually I’d have it down. But in rollerblading, about 75% or more tricks are “landed.” It’s just a question of whether the style was right, the grind was long enough, etc.

A Blurred Beacon

We sat on the beach – Obama and me. Middle Ages looking castle walls loomed behind us. The beach shrunk as the tide came in, and our little fire flickered brighter under the creeping clouds. We didn’t say much.

The rain started, so we looked for shelter. We left the fire dying and confined within its rusty metal container. The green film on the rampart walls (or was it a castle) stood out as we got closer, and showed how high the sea climbed the charcoal-colored bricks.

I got separated from Obama after we passed through one of the walls. We had some sense of eerie urgency, probably intensified by the tide and clouds. But I don’t know what we needed to do. It was cool to hang out with Obama though.

New Blood

Season two of True Blood started. I watched this week’s episode, the second of the season, earlier today. Reminds me that I should finish writing about vampires. I’ve got a new angle too, since I also got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Funny thing about that show, though, is that it doesn’t agree with my theory.

Buffy’s vampires can look human, but when they feed or fight they show their vampire faces. Not very sexy. And when people get “turned” in the Buffyverse, a demon inhabits their body, making them a vampire. So much for free will.

I just started season four of seven, so we’ll see if I get a new view of the modern vampire. Maybe I’ll have to revise my theory. I guess it’s a good thing I haven’t finished writing about vampires.

Ivory Tower

Today I’m into linguistic anthropology. I read about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the “argument that language shape[s] the world rather than simply reflecting it” (Michael Agar’s Language Shock, p. 66), the example of the difference between how the Hopi and English languages treat time, and the subsequent difference in how their speakers see the world.

I think, “here’s something I can really get into, something I could make part of an academic career.” Then my mind goes on to imagine the studies, the work, and the use of this career. That’s when my excitement wanes. It’s not that I imagine I’d lose interest, but it’s the “use” of that career. I can’t help but think I’d be unsatisfied with its practical productivity, my lack of any “real” skills or knowledge.

Babble

“That’s the thing about emptiness,”

I looked into the Grand Canyon,

“it’s like when you look out at nothing:”

its red cliffs stuffed with air.

“you’re not really seeing nothing”

I tried to imagine nothing,

“cause you can’t see nothing at all.”

and the canyon’s walls surrounded it -

“It’s only when you see something”

sharply sudden and steep.

“that you realize the nothing around it -”

The openness bubbled, vacuumed.

“if you only see nothing,”

I looked to its bottom,

“then you can’t see at all.”

so far down it seemed unreal,

“That’s why when all you feel is emptiness”

and I imagined jumping to it,

“you wonder if you even exist.”

then gripped the rail a bit tighter.

Rulers

Good teachers get their students interested in the subject. That’s the best time to learn – when you want to. Great teachers can intrigue students who wouldn’t care at all otherwise. But when does the teacher decide to give up on motivating, and move to forcing? Surely not every student will get interested in every subject, even with the greatest teachers. So at what point does the teacher say, “Regardless of whether you want to, you’re learning this because you need it”?

Governments must deal with this too. Ideally there’s no discrepancy between what the people want and what they need, but we don’t always pursue what’s best for us. So how long does government try to convince its people to act a certain way before it coerces them? Parents probably face the same thing. Of course, I’m not accounting for bad teachers, governments, or parents – of which there are many – but that’s a different question.

Passage

Nine days ago I drove from New Hampshire to Virginia. Aside from breakfast outside of Boston with Kev, I only stopped once – to fill my gas tank and empty my bladder.

Along the way, I listened to:

The Gaslight Anthem – ’59 Sound
Against Me! – a friend-made mix of early stuff
Wu Tang Clan – 36 Chambers
At the Drive In – Relationship of Command
The Misfits – Collection I
Why? – Alopecia
Weezer – Pinkerton
Blink 182 – Dude Ranch & Enema of the State
Eminem – Curtain Call

And I passed:

a car on fire
(through) a long, super fast tunnel by Baltimore
the 155,000 mile mark on my car
my patience for traffic (somewhere within the Blink 182 block)
the Mason-Dixon line

Mother Tongue

I often got frustrated with my level of French, especially when hanging out with friends and meeting new people. I felt it held me back from being my “real” self.

Now that I’m stateside I don’t have to worry about my language level, but I still get frustrated sometimes about being “real.” Looks like it’s not all words.

Autograph

“Those songs…they just really helped me through some tough times.”

”Oh yeah?”

I looked up from the merchandise table, where I’d put down the vinyl for him to sign.

“It’s a brand new copy, see, cause I’m not gonna play this one.”

He reached over the t-shirts and patches.

“Mmm.”

I noticed that he wrote with his left hand to sign the album, yet I knew he played guitar righty. Just like me.

“Yeah, cause the one I have at home’s all beat up. The cover, that is. I take great care of the record itself.”

He finished writing.

“See, cause I listened to it all the time when I was away. Away from home. And it kept me going – kept me thinking about where I used to be and where I was gonna be.”

He reached over the t-shirts and patches.

“Your lyrics really stuck with me…the music too. I could relate to it all. It all just helped me remember who I was. Who I wanted to be. It filled me up and kept me from drifting away.”

I picked up the autographed album.

“Funny thing though, is that now that I listen to it – now that I’m back – all I can think of is where I was at that time. What I was feeling. You know? I can’t listen to it and not think of everything that was going on there.”

He looked up from the merchandise table, where he’d put down the vinyl he’d signed.

“I’m glad to hear that.”