(Continue reading at San Diego CityBeat...)

But mostly, in my free time, I have opted instead for my many back issues of The New Yorker, for “Downton Abbey” or “Mad Men,” and—as much as I’m loathe to admit my bottom feeding tendencies—I’ve watched some marathon episodes of “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition” (just wait ’til I play you my-husband-as-Ty-Pennington bit!). Indeed: Much to write about.

So I’m going to make an effort to start putting stuff in this space again. Let me begin with something lovely:

I found a new fashion blog. Or, rather, my friend Angie Spacepants (she’s the one up there in the swim cap) turned me onto it. Girls of a Certain Age is a new blog for those of us who might not exactly be in our thirties anymore. We’re certainly not in our twenties. And thank God for that because while it was fun and all, a girl can only go so far on cocaine and night after night of meaningless sex free of relationship responsibility. What, you didn’t do that? Yeah, me either. Ahem.

Anyway. Go visit Kim France. She’s killin’ it with her acute post-forty bird’s-eye-view.

And if you feel the need to thank me later, feel free to send me either this or this.

The Times quickly pointed my attention to the effort taking place at Bearden High School in Knoxville, Tenn., where “physical education teachers are scrambling to incorporate math and writing into activities, since 50 percent of their evaluations will be based on standardized tests, not basketball victories.”

As someone with a degree in Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, I balked at this development. Of course I had to Tweet about about it, and the absurdity kept me up much of the night, an insomnia further fueled by some of the interesting responses to my 140-character scoff. Among them, some ideas to incorporate math:

How many feet are in 2 football fields? Inches? Centimeters? A basketball court? Tennis court? Perimeter of each?

How long does it take to run around the perimeter of a football field if running @10 meters/sec?

How many basketballs would it take, if placed side by side, to fill a basketball court? Tennis balls on tennis court?

Measure each other, then:how high must you jump to touch rim? How high *can* you jump? What’s difference?

some crosscurric is good. Don’t spend all pe time on math but 5-10 min out of an hour not bad idea

This is to say nothing of the writing which should also be incorporated. Perhaps an essay about whether a tennis ball makes any noise when it bounces if nobody is around to see it bounce? Ah, but that is getting into philosophy and there’s no time for that!

One of the more sun-shiney responders (who offered several of the above suggestions) offered this as well:

Racers have to figure out minutes/mile (pace) while training,pace changes on type of run.#important2success

To specific and serious athletes, yes, important to success. But to the average kid in PE class? Hmmmm. I asked him if he had any ideas for third grade MathPE problems. His response?

Sure. How many jumping jacks do they do in a minute if they do one every 2 seconds while warming up?

Critical to success, indeed!

The way I see it, that last problem—or “word sentence,” as Pearson would like us all to know it—is a math problem for a math class. Albeit, one for a creative math teacher whose kids might get up out of their seats to test whether it really does take one minute to do 30 jumping jacks (more if you’re overweight like more than 1/3 of American kids, less if you’re wealthy and your parents can afford after school tennis lessons. Oooh! Do I sense a follow-up math problem to the original problem?). Of course, a third grade teacher might risk being written up for having her students deviate from the all-important worksheet. No jumping jacks in class! Stay in your seats with eyes on the board and quiet hands!

Look, my 6-year old has PE one time each week for a total of 30 minutes. That is one time, for 30 minutes, including the to-and-from-the-classroom time. Every Tuesday at 2:15-ish—after a day of sitting at her desk, then on the carpet, then at her desk, then on the carpet, then back at the desk, then back to the carpet doing math and literacy, math and literacy, math and literacy (not to mention the pathetic district-designed art “class” taught every 6-ish weeks); and after one 15-minute recess at 11:15 ish, and a 30 minute combined lunch and recess, during which my baby usually has to choose between eating or play, since there isn’t enough time for her to do both—she lines up with the other 23 children in her class (slated to be 31 next year) and heads out to PE where she has a smidgen of time to get her pent up ya-yas out. That is her time to exercise her body, the time when running is actually permitted on the playground (for reals).

Where—I respectfully ask certain excessively-upbeat and positive people who think the incorporation of math and writing into PE is an awesome idea—she should do additional math and literacy? Moreover, why? And who does that serve?

We have a very big problem with childhood obesity in this country. And when a child participates in any form of exercise only once a week like many American school children, it can be very hard and not terrifically enjoyable; it can be interpreted as punishment, and is sometimes used as such. Toss in some extra math problems (“gym teacher recently spread playing cards around and had students run to find three that added to 14″) and once more, we are setting our kids up for failure. With rare exposure to (fun) exercise, children tend to develop negative attitudes toward fitness, pervasive and difficult-to-change negative attitudes that have direct impact on their current and future health, both physically and emotionally.

Cross-curriculum teaching can be a good thing. Teaching the whole child is a good thing. But this isn’t about cross-curriculum teaching. And we are a long-ass way away from teaching the whole child, moving ever further from such an ideal. None of this is even about what is best for kids, and advocates of math and writing in PE need to stop pretending that it is.

Like most of what is happening in education right now, this is about power, politics, and money. The kids are simply the collateral damage.

February 16, 2012
Bill Kowba
Superintendent of Schools
San Diego Unified School District
4100 Normal Street, Room 2219
San Diego, CA 92103

Dear Mr. Kowba,

Please accept this letter as our request to excuse our daughter, Ruby, from participation in standardized achievement testing as is allowed in §60615 of the California Education Code. This request includes the state mandated assessments of the California Standardized Testing and Reporting assessment program (STAR/CAT 6), which will begin for our daughter in the 2012-2013 school year, as well as the San Diego Unified School District Benchmark Exam program.

We believe such testing to be unjust, counter-productive, and harmful to the education and development of our daughter; we do not see any intrinsic value in our six-year old spending time transcribing her answers from a test sheet to a Scantron. Timed, one-chance tests do not show regard to variables in context or circumstance affecting student performance on the days of testing. This is further underscored by the fact that, as a student of the Language Academy, our child is currently forced to take tests in English, a language she isn’t yet learning to read.

In addition, we do not wish to participate in mandated programs that coerce school districts into compliance with punishments that adversely affect the resources, standing, and operations of our locally controlled pubic schools. The state oversteps its bounds and does a disservice to the public when it ignores professionals in local schools, arbitrarily making educational decisions (funding, status, and otherwise) based solely upon these one-chance tests.

As parents, we resent being held hostage to tests—which cannot be cheap to administer—while simultaneously suffering absurd cuts to our school, cuts that continue to decimate our staff and much-needed resources.

We understand that it is an educator’s professional duty to assess the learning of each student in the classroom and we fully support our teachers, our principal and our staff. This request is not intended to restrict professional assessment (formative or summative) by the classroom teacher to which our child is assigned. On the contrary, we believe our talented teacher is our child’s benchmark, and that she has the skills and training to do what standardized tests cannot.

Best regards,
Aaryn and Sam Belfer
San Diego, CA

cc: [Our Principal]
Mr. John Lee Evans, President, San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustees
Mr. Tom Torlackson, California Superintendent of Public Instruction

Kia Bowman.

Last Friday like every Friday, I helped out in the classroom. One of my jobs that day included prepping the science kits for my daughter’s class, a task that consisted of putting together 24 one-gallon bags, each with a group of objects:

Oh, hell yes, I whipped out my phone and took photos.

The one-gallon bags were purchased by parents, along with sandwich bags and a multitude of other supplies the teacher asked for early in the year. (I used all but four of the one-gallon bags and my husband is, at this minute, at Costco purchasing more to replenish the classroom). The objects—a square piece of fabric, a small piece of electrical wire, a snippet of plastic tubing, a plastic triangle, a screw, a wood cylinder and a popsicle stick—were sent by the district with instructions.

Not only were there instructions about borrowing and returning the materials (excluding, presumably, the one-gallon bags), but there were instructions—very specific instructions—about how to teach this very interesting unit.

“NOTE: This strategy does not require you to write a note for each student.” I don’t know why, but I really love that part.

Thank GOD these instructions exist because teachers couldn’t possibly come up with a lesson plan as compelling, as intriguing or as as curiosity-building as this one. Nor could they be trusted to do so. After all, they’re only teachers. And, too, I bet the children can’t wait to begin “exploring” the very exciting borrowed materials I placed in the one-gallon bags, materials that need to be returned in the “cleanest most complete condition possible.” Have at it kids! Explore allllll you want….just don’t get so much as a greasy little six-year-old fingerprint on any of those items loaned to you.

This unit is destined to inspire a whole slew of future scientists and instill a life-long love of solids.

]]> http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2012/01/what-does-first-grade-science-look-like.html/feed 5 http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2012/01/we-are-so-so-small.html http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2012/01/we-are-so-so-small.html#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:59:59 +0000 Aaryn http://www.aarynbelfer.com/?p=3558

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo. (h/t Blurbomat)

Tebow sucks