THIS WEEK'S WILDNESS Dad Gone Wild Nobody reads it, everybody quotes it

 Dad Gone Wild – Nobody reads it, everybody quotes it.

THIS WEEK'S WILDNESS 

Dad Gone Wild 

Nobody reads it, everybody quotes it

CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE

by TC Weber / 21h

“It is a good lesson – though it may often be a hard one – for a man… to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter My daughter has been taking ballet at Nashville Ballet for about 5 years now. It’s been a fantasti

TIME FOR THE NEXT PHASE

by TC Weber / 4d

“For convenience, history is often viewed as a conflict between the instinct for order and the impulse toward chaos. Both are necessary: both are manifestations of the need to survive. Without order, nothing exists: without chaos, nothing grows. And yet the struggle between them sheds more blood than any other war.” ― Stephen R. Donaldson, The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge Today I did some

WHAT YOU SEE, AIN’T ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET

by TC Weber / 7d

“Sometimes I aint so sho who’s got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.” ― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying Recently I’ve spent a lot m

IT IS NOT THE WORDS, IT IS HOW YOU SAY THEM

by TC Weber / 9d

“Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone’s claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.” ― Steven Pinker I’ve just returned from taking the dog on her morning walk. Every morning about this time, we traverse through the neighborhood out to the main road and back. This morning, as expected, was another treacher

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO CONSIDER

by TC Weber / 11d

“It’s not enough to conquer the opposition. In a nonviolent struggle, we are committed to fight on until we win our adversaries as friends.” ― William J. Barber II, The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement A few weeks ago, in the comment section

 Dad Gone Wild – Nobody reads it, everybody quotes it.

ENABLERS AND EXPLOITERS – Dad Gone Wild

ENABLERS AND EXPLOITERS – Dad Gone Wild

ENABLERS AND EXPLOITERS

“When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn’t go back home easily.”

― James Lee Burke, In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead

It took almost 24 hours longer than I predicted, but Saturday morning brought news that former Vice-President Joe Biden had secured the necessary votes to win Pennsylvania. With that win, he secured the Presidency via the electoral college.

A Biden presidency is a reason to cheer on many levels, not the least is that it means the imminent departure of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. There is bipartisan recognition of her reign as an unmitigated failure. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that a Biden presidency will be a vast improvement. After all, the Obama years were nearly as misguided as the DeVos years.

There is a reason for hope though. As president, Biden promises a much larger investment in education. He’s promising to triple funding for Title 1 schools, as well as double the number of psychologists, counselors, nurses, and social workers in schools. Increased spending on school infrastructure is on his radar, as is a dramatic increase in special education funding. All very needed investments.

However, I hope we don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s just money schools need. In order to see improved outcomes, it’s imperative that teachers be given more freedom in addressing student needs and that some of the additional responsibilities that have fallen on their plates are alleviated. Fully fund our schools, has become such a familiar meme, yet nobody ever defines what that CONTINUE READING: ENABLERS AND EXPLOITERS – Dad Gone Wild

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING – Dad Gone Wild

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING – Dad Gone Wild

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

“The dream begins, most of the time,with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth”
― Dan Rathert  

In the wake of last week’s Dodger’s World Series win, I’ve read a lot of analysis about Game 6. The joy of is baseball lies in its ability to emulate life. In this case, unfortunately, it imitated some of the worst tendencies of the education world.

In the 6th inning of the pivotal game 6, the Ray’s were up 1-0. Their pitcher Blake Snell was cruising. He’d faced 18 hitter s and only 3 balls had left the infield, while he’d struck out 9 with no walks. Needing only 73 pitches to get this far meant there was plenty of juice left in his arm.

After getting the first out of the 6th, the Dodger’s Austin Barnes hit a floater to center field for a single. With a man on first Snell was set to face the heart of the Dodger lineup in Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, and Justin Turner. Reason for concern, but collectively they’d struck out 6 times today already. No one was expecting what happened next.

Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash, called time out and made the trek to the mound for what most thought would be a pep talk. Instead, he took the ball from Snell and made a call to the bullpen. Inexplicably, he was removing his ace pitcher, who was cruising, prematurely, and calling for a reliever. The results of the move proved disastrous.

With Barnes on first, Betts — helpless against Snell — ripped a ball down the third baseline, a double to put runners on second and third. When the reliever,  Nick Anderson, uncorked a wild pitch, Barnes scampered home. Tie game. The Dodgers went on to score twice more, winning the game and the World Series.

What happened was that baseball, like education, has become a world dominated by data at the expense of human intuition. While Cash’s pitcher may have claimed he was good, the cyber CONTINUE READING: MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING – Dad Gone Wild

DOING THE RIGHT THING THE WRONG WAY – Dad Gone Wild

DOING THE RIGHT THING THE WRONG WAY – Dad Gone Wild

DOING THE RIGHT THING THE WRONG WAY

“The American political system has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later on.”

― Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World

Last Friday, the Metro Nashville Public School Board held an emergency work session in order to revisit the district’s re-entry plan. Notice I refer to it as a re-entry plan and not a resumption of school plan? That’s intentional, and we’ll talk more about that in a bit.

After Fall Break, MNPS began phasing students back into schools starting with the youngest. Parents were given the option to send their kids virtual or in-person. The numbers were pretty evenly split with a slight nod to in-person.

Fifth and sixth graders were slated to return this week. But, as COVID-19 cases continue to climb and questions mount over the ability to keep teachers and students safe, it was time to re-visit the plan going forth.

Unfortunately, instead of taking charge and providing needed leadership, the board and Director Adrienne Battle once again demonstrated their ability to get it wrong even when they were getting it right. The ultimate decision to pause the re-entry plan is ultimately the right one, but the process to arrive at that conclusion could have been conducted better.

Over the last several years, from the school level to the district level, there has been an increased focus on starting every meeting with a listing of norms and expectations. This board meeting could CONTINUE READING: DOING THE RIGHT THING THE WRONG WAY – Dad Gone Wild