Since this article appeared on June 5, I have been thinking a lot about the question of whether more money is the way to change the quality of teachers and education in this country. The comments on this article are also worth reading. What stood out most to me in the article was the following statement: “The school, called the Equity Project, is premised on the theory that excellent teachers — and not revolutionary technology, talented principals or small class size — are the critical ingredient for success.”

In thinking about this idea, I remembered back to being in a school when “Smart Boards” were starting to appear. I wasn’t sure whether this expensive, electronic board would help me be more effective in the classroom, and I went and observed a colleague using one with his students. I think that a Smart Board might enhance the work of a good teacher, but a Smart Board couldn’t ever make a bad teacher better.

I’ve watched a lot of change happen with technology in schools over the past twenty years, and while I do think that technology has a role in education and that it can enhance what teachers do, nothing can replace the work of a good teacher. Perhaps the key thing to keep in mind is that everything from technology to administrators and class size is only a way to enhance the work of teachers — and the critical things they do to educate kids — and that these other things are never an end onto themselves. I guess then the challenge is to find the people that can be superlative teachers, and maybe that’s more likely to happen if they are offered $125K.

Disclaimer first: I haven’t read the book yet… but I want to!

Just reading about the book made me feel better about the times when I haven’t been a loving, kind, and patient mother. It also got me thinking about the intense judgment of other parents that I am guilty of.

I have to say, though, that I am sometimes surprised by how vicious the Ayelet Waldman detractors are. The stories in Rosalind Wiseman’s QUEEN BEES have nothing on the attacks Waldman has undergone. Talk about mean girls! Wow! Mean, mean, mean.

I am also looking forward to reading the new Michael Lewis book about his experiences as a parent. Loved his other books.

Now back to the point about mean adults — this is related to an idea a friend and I have been talking about recently, which is how parents are as guilty as their kids are of abusing digital tools. There’s so much talk about kids and their compulsive text messaging, their inability to live without technology, their cyber bullying, etc — but who is more likely to take a cell phone call at an inopportune time: a kid or his mom or dad? The person who isn’t worried about being grounded or kicked out of class, I would think. And certainly being a bad mother is deeply connected to ignoring kids when the iphone is calling or buzzing or ringing or whatever it is that the device can do. Then of course there are the snappy and biting comments adults make on blogs — and sometimes, if not often, anonymously. How do these compare with what kids do to each other online? Seems to me that kids don’t have a monopoly on any of this.

Last Friday two copies of my forthcoming novel arrived in the mail. I started writing the book early September, 2006, and now it’s actually a book some 2+ years later. I also just noticed that it will be available on Amazon on April 9 (despite the pub date of May 1). If you want a little peek at the book on my publisher’s site, click here. Today it was featured there, although I imagine that will soon change. If you are in the Chicago area, there will be a book launch party at 57th Street Books on Thursday, May 28 at 6:30 pm. I’ll send out invitations and reminders closer to the date.

A little spot of good weather has come to Chicago! Even though we have to expect at least one more snow and some low temperatures before spring is really here (maybe in May), it was great to run outside this morning.

I used to harbor the false belief that somehow exercise got easier the more you did it. Now I know that raising my heart rate and pushing my body, no matter my fitness level, will always present a challenge — and I guess that’s actually the point. Sigh. A few years back, when I was feeling impassioned about fitness and physical well-being AND incensed about what was happening to physical education programs, I wrote an essay about P.E. I never found a home for the essay until now! I’d love to know other people’s thoughts about some of the ideas here.

P.E. Matters

The weather is starting to change in Hyde Park, and my five-year-old is getting ready for kindergarten. Yesterday he sharpened about a hundred pencils with our electric pencil sharpener. At his new school, he’ll have P.E. and recess every day. That’s great. He’s a little boy who needs to run around. I’m often amazed at how eagerly he will agree to a running race or a soccer game, even on the hottest days of summer, when hardly anybody over ten would be interested.

Of course, my husband and I want him to learn to read and to develop his math ability. After all, we’re both educators. I’m a former English teacher, and my husband is a math teacher turned high school principal. Despite the areas where we’ve worked in schools, we both believe in the importance of physical education. About a year ago, I said to Matt that P.E. ought to be given the same importance we place on reading. After all, what are you left with if you don’t have your physical health? How well can your brain function if your body is failing?

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