Who’s responsible for poor kids?













How to raise 12 kids

Eat your vegetables, don’t blame the teacher and learn to clean, cook, sew, assemble a computer and rebuild a car. And pay your own way through college. Those were the lessons Francis L. Thompson and his wife taught their 12 children, who now range in age from 37 to 22. All have college degrees or are in school; most have graduate degrees.


Thompson children started doing chores at the age of 3. They washed their own clothes by 8 and learned to make dinner from a recipe as soon as they could read and double a recipe. Boys and girls learned to sew. 

All the kids were required to take every Advanced Placement class available.


All the children had to play a sport and join a club or some other extracurricular activity. All did community service projects.



At the age of 12, each child built his or her own computer.


Older children helped their younger brothers and sisters.

In the comments, several Thompson children explain how they paid for college. Some started at community college, then transferred to a state university. Others got scholarships. All worked.


Why all kids should watch South Park

South Park kicked off its 17th season with Cartman’s discovery he’s being monitored by the National Security Agency.

All Kids Should be FORCED to Watch South Park!, argue Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Jim Epstein.

Virtually every episode points out the difference between legitimate authority and the abuse of power and scare-mongering. Whether it’s the show’s Jew-baiting jerk Eric Cartman going nuts as a traffic cop or former Vice President Al Gore trying to scare the boys into hysteria over ManBearPig, South Park always emphasizes thinking for yourself rather than blindly following what leaders say.

In addition, South Park respects real diversity.


Finally, one of “South Park’s core values is taking responsibility for one’s actions,” write Gillespie and Epstein. “In the episode where Stan’s father develops a drinking problem and seeks supernatural intervention for a cure, it’s the child who lays out the case for self-control and accountability.”

Esquith’s new book geared to rookie teachers

Rafe Esquith, who teaches Shakespeare to low-income Hispanic and Korean fifth graders in Los Angeles, has come out with a new book, Real Talk for Real Teachers: Advice for Teachers from Rookies to Veterans

It includes a dialog on responsibility on the first day of class, writes Jay Mathews in the Washington Post.

A student asks to go to the bathroom. Esquith asks him whether he’ll run or slide down the stair railing. The student says he’ll walk.

Rafe: Why? Is running a bad thing? I love to run!

Student: Huh?

Rafe: There are wonderful places to run and make noise. Can anyone name some of them?

The class: The playground .?.?. the beach .?.?. the park .?.?.

Rafe: Exactly. So why are we walking quietly to the bathroom?

Student: You don’t want me to get hurt or disturb other classes.

Esquith asks the student if he’ll fool around in the bathroom, perhaps throw a wet paper towel on the ceiling or on the floor. The student says he’ll go, wash his hands with soap, throw the towel in the garbage and return.

Esquith asks what would happen if the student broke his trust by “running, disturbing the school or fooling around in the bathroom?”

 Student: I won’t be able to use the bathroom anymore.

Rafe: Nope. Of course you can go to the bathroom. But you will have to be accompanied by people to watch you, as you would not be ready to do things yourself yet. I think you are. Do you think you are?

Student: Yes.

He lets the student go to the bathroom. (Let’s hope it’s not too late.)

Missed lessons of Monsters U







Is 25 the new 15?





It’s your education



Education is like that too, she writes.





No math, no job

Weak math skills disqualify would-be workers, manufacturers say.






Math teachers know their students will need math knowledge in the real word, writes Darren, a high school math teacher, on Right on the Left Coast. But he’s turned off by the story’s “drooling over Common Core Standards. Many teachers  “doubt . . .  the so-called cure.”



Employers would value those traits too, Darren believes.


Learning irresponsibility

Managing classroom misbehavior takes up way too much time, writes Ilana Garon, who teaches English in a Bronx high school. Students know they can get away with talking in class, hitting each other, walking around the classroom and then talking back to the teacher.

. . . these kids are 16, not six. At some point, no matter how difficult their upbringing, how uninvolved their parents, or how dry the material . . . high school students have to be held accountable for their own behavior. . . .  many times the kids can’t be engaged by even the most fascinating lesson–and, with virtually no consequences for non-violent infractions, teachers’ hands are tied.

New York City’s new discipline code will make it harder to suspend students for “disorderly behavior,” such as swearing and lying to teachers. Instead, principals will use reprimands, parent conferences and lunchtime detentions.

Calling home sometimes helps, but not for long, Garon writes. The school can’t afford supervised detention. Suspension “is often treated as a vacation by the kids.”

Immigrants from Jamaica and Ghana are “often appalled at the behaviors of American-born kids,” who take  education for granted. High school is free in the U.S., so it’s not valued, a Jamaican told her.

Garon dreams of “hard detention” (cleaning the school), suspension and “the threat of expulsion for the toughest repeat offenders.” If there are no consequences, students are taught that “even in their teenage years, they are not responsible for their own behavior.” That’s a dangerous message that will undermine their academic future and their employment prospects, Garon writes.

Teaching students to control their impulses and take responsibility for their actions should start in elementary school.

Teaching math to 11th and 12th graders who’ve failed the seventh-grade-level graduation exam, Michele Kerr has to manage “vortex” and “driftwood” students.

The quintessential disruptive vortex, Deon could single-handledly destroy half the class’s productivity if left undisturbed; his absence or isolation always left most of my “driftwood” students open to the idea of getting some work done.

(Yet) Deon was a math-solving machine who worked fiendishly once I isolated him from all other entertainment.

“Good” kids and “bad” kids “aren’t useful distinctions,” she writes on Larry Cuban’s blog.

Group projects in the real world


From Awful Group Projects at 11D.