Research on Gun deaths and Oregon

Some research to give thought to the events in Oregon:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/02/forget-oregon-s-gunman-remember-the-hero-who-charged-straight-at-him.html

http://sociologyinfocus.com/2013/06/a-common-sense-guide-to-gun-violence/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/six-facts-about-guns-violence-and-gun-control/

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/12/21/the-truth-about-violence-and-gun-policy-in-the-u-s/

http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/04/do-guns-deter-crime.html

Service Op: Special Olympics Flag Football Sept 27th at SHS

We are currently recruiting volunteers for our Flag Football event on Sunday, September 27th at Stevenson High School. I am not the staff taking the lead on this event nor will I be attending, but offered to help recruit volunteer help. If you could pass along this link to anyone who might be interested we would really appreciate it: http://cerv.is/m?0117x1330 This has all the information and slots we need to fill.

Service Op: Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA)

A former student of mine is now working at the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA).  They provide sporting events for people who need the sport modified in a way so that they can compete, such as wheelchair basketball.  Here is a video about one of their athletes:





If you are interested in sports or physical therapy or special ed, this may be a great opportunity for you. They have a 5K fundraiser coming up that you can volunteer for by clicking here.




 Click here to learn more about opportunities to get involved with GLASA. You can call and ask for Micaela Fedyniak.

Service Op: Feeding the needy at St. Thomas October 13th, 2015

Tuesday October 13, 2015, we can take 5 students from each class to the St. Thomas Soup Kitchen. If there is a large interest, I will have a lottery for students interested. However, you can always reserve a spot for yourself and friends or family on another day by clicking the link below and calling them.  Usually we meet at 3:10 in the lower east commons.  We take a bus together and return by 8.
There is a church in Chicago called St. Thomas of Canterbury. They generously and humbly serve hundreds of meals to those in need each year. From their website:

Our Soup Kitchen is open every Tuesday and Friday throughout the year, except on Christmas Day. We currently serve 175 to 200 people each time. The doors are open to guests from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Volunteer activities include the preparation of meals, setting the tables, serving the meals to our seated guests and, of course, cleaning up!

Jim Eder has been running the soup kitchen for years and he is a really great guy. If interested in volunteering, call Christine, the volunteer scheduler at 773-878-5507. Be sure to visit their volunteering link here for more info.

Life as a high school student

From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/24/teacher-spends-two-days-as-a-student-and-is-shocked-at-what-she-learned/

Key Takeaway #1
Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting.
If I could go back and change my classes now, I would immediately change the following three things:

• mandatory stretch halfway through the class
• put a Nerf basketball hoop on the back of my door and encourage kids to play in the first and final minutes of class
• build in a hands-on, move-around activity into every single class day. Yes, we would sacrifice some content to do this – that’s fine. I was so tired by the end of the day, I wasn’t absorbing most of the content, so I am not sure my previous method of making kids sit through hour-long, sit-down discussions of the texts was all that effective.

Key Takeaway #2
High school students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90 percent of their classes.
If I could go back and change my classes now, I would immediately:

• Offer brief, blitzkrieg-like mini-lessons with engaging, assessment-for-learning-type activities following directly on their heels (e.g. a ten-minute lecture on Whitman’s life and poetry, followed by small-group work in which teams scour new poems of his for the very themes and notions expressed in the lecture, and then share out or perform some of them to the whole group while everyone takes notes on the findings.)
• set an egg timer every time I get up to talk and all eyes are on me. When the timer goes off, I am done. End of story. I can go on and on. I love to hear myself talk. I often cannot shut up. This is not really conducive to my students’ learning, however much I might enjoy it.
• Ask every class to start with students’ Essential Questions or just general questions born of confusion from the previous night’s reading or the previous class’s discussion. I would ask them to come in to class and write them all on the board, and then, as a group, ask them to choose which one we start with and which ones need to be addressed. This is my biggest regret right now – not starting every class this way. I am imagining all the misunderstandings, the engagement, the enthusiasm, the collaborative skills, and the autonomy we missed out on because I didn’t begin every class with fifteen or twenty minutes of this.

Key takeaway #3
You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long.
If I could go back and change my classes now, I would immediately:

• Dig deep into my personal experience as a parent where I found wells of patience and love I never knew I have, and call upon them more often when dealing with students who have questions. Questions are an invitation to know a student better and create a bond with that student. We can open the door wider or shut if forever, and we may not even realize we have shut it.
• I would make my personal goal of “no sarcasm” public and ask the students to hold me accountable for it. I could drop money into a jar for each slip and use it to treat the kids to pizza at the end of the year. In this way, I have both helped create a closer bond with them and shared a very real and personal example of goal-setting for them to use a model in their own thinking about goals.
• I would structure every test or formal activity like the IB exams do – a five-minute reading period in which students can ask all their questions but no one can write until the reading period is finished. This is a simple solution I probably should have tried years ago that would head off a lot (thought, admittedly, not all) of the frustration I felt with constant, repetitive questions.

A follow-up post:

https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/a-ps-to-the-guest-post-on-shadowing-hs-students-and-the-author-revealed/

A few clarifying comments are in order, based on the half million reads and many comments and tweets:

1. I was thus not the author of the piece; there was no attempt on my part to hide behind a mythical person, though many thousands attributed the piece to me (even though my introduction to the post said that I was not the author).
2. There were hundreds of comments about the cause of this HS drudgery being due to NCLB, Common Core, teacher accountability, and standardized tests. OOPS – as I noted early in one of my few replies to comments, Alexis teaches in a private school. Indeed, she teaches overseas in an American International School. So those many reader comments were a bit of projection – which, itself, is perhaps worthy of another post. The fact that such passive learning exists in good private schools (and colleges) only makes the matters raised in her post MORE important: why do we continue to make even elite education so passive when we don’t have to?
3. The overwhelming response to the post was positive. Only a tiny handful of readers trashed the post, the author, me, and/or other commenters who were positive. They felt attacked as educators (though I really believe a fair reading of the piece shows that it was not an attack on teachers but schooling as we have all experienced it).
4. The most poignant comments had to do with Alexis’ observation that the teachers she observed – as well as herself and me on video – are unwittingly more sarcastic than we imagine ourselves to be. Numerous parents picked up on this truth, too. Only 2 commenters tried to defend sarcasm in teachers.
5. Alexis teaches in a school that has a block schedule, as was noted by the post. That made the passivity longer and more tiring – but it also meant that Alexis did not get to visit all the students’ classes (which included art and other more active classes). The good news: Alexis shadowed students in the other block and will report her findings later this week.

Race, biology and forensic evidence

The following text is from Johns Hopkins about cranium structure and race:

In American legal contexts, ancestry is usually at issue as a way of determining the racial affinity of unidentified skeletal remains. Hence, the forensic anthropologist usually tries to make a determination as to whether a skull has features that indicate African, European, Asian or Native American ancestry.
Cranial features are not perfect indicators of ancestry: Forensic anthropologists using multiple features claim at best 85% accuracy in their assessment of racial ancestry. When we know less about the context of a skull, we will be less and less accurate.
Here are some traits that vary between skulls with different race backgrounds. Most of them are on the face or palate.

• Shape of the eye orbits, viewed from the front. Africans tend to a more rectangular shape, East Asians more circular, Europeans tend to have an ``aviator glasses'' shape.
• Nasal sill: Europeans tend to have a pronounced angulation dividing the nasal floor from the anterior surface of the maxilla; Africans tend to lack a sharp angulation, Asians tend to be intermediate.
• Nasal bridge: Africans tend to have an arching, ``Quonset hut'' shape, Europeans tend to have high nasal bones with a peaked angle, Asians tend to have low nasal bones with a slight angulation.
• Nasal aperture: Africans tend to have wide nasal apertures, Europeans narrow.
• Subnasal prognathism: Africans tend to have maxillae that project more anteriorly (prognathic) below the nose, Europeans tend to be less projecting.
• Zygomatic form: Asians tend to have anteriorly projecting cheekbones. The border of the frontal process (lateral to the orbit) faces forward. In Europeans and Africans, these face more laterally and the zygomatic recedes more posteriorly.

Note :  First, the author claims that even with multiple features, forensic anthropologists can only point to a race with 85% accuracy.
Second, note the text that reads, with less "context" we will be less accurate.
And, lastly note that the author is not definitive, but instead uses words like "tend to have" instead of  definitively saying "Europeans have..."
Finally, note that the author is only speaking about Asian, African and White.  What would an Egyptian person be?  Or how about these:  aboriginal Australian, Hawaiian, Alaskan, Berber, Eritrean, Swahili,Yanomano, Nenet people, Koriaks? 

And note this article from the professional organization that studies hair.  It explains that

This study has shown that it is possible to classify the various hair types found worldwide into eight main groups. The approach involves objective descriptors of hair shape, and is more reliable than traditional methods relying on categories such as curly, wavy, and kinky. Applied to worldwide human diversity, it avoids reference to the putative, unclear ethnic origin of subjects. Briefly, a straight hair type I is just that, and whether it originates from a Caucasian or an Asian subject is not at issue. The hair types defined here also more adequately reflect the large variation of hair shape diversity around the world, and may possibly help to trace past mixed origins amongst human subgroups.

Lastly, note that the author of the afore mentioned forensics article is mostly referring to race IN AMERICA.  That is something that often goes unsaid.  They say race, but they really mean race IN AMERICA.  And when you go to another country like Brazil, for example, the information does not apply.  That is the problem with race, people assume it is  biological but it does not apply to other countries.

The fact is that people do look different.  Some people look more similarly to each other such as hair type and cranium structure.  BUT, these looks are not distinguishable into distinct identifiable groups that many people call "race".  It simply is not possible and does not exist.  Before any forensic analysis of "racial" types is done, I would ask the forensic analyst how he determines "race." What are the racial groups?  How many are there?  What determines each group?  There are not answers to these questions because race does not exist biologically.

Special Olympics Bowling Volunteer Op

We are reaching out to you as we are looking for additional Bowling Volunteers for our upcoming event on Sunday, May 31^st at Brunswick Zone in Lake Zurich off of Rand Rd. We have a handful of you already signed up, but wanted to include you to pass along this information to anyone who may be interested. We have two time shifts: 8:00am-12:30pm and 12:00pm-4:00pm for an overlap in time to fit in training.

Volunteers are asked to assist at a lane to ensure Bowling athletes are going in the correct order, assist with retrieving balls, inform the front desk of any lane issues, and record each bowlers final score…it is totaled by a computer, no need to know how to keep score! If anyone is interested you can direct them to me.

All volunteers will receive a lunch and a shirt for the day. We appreciate your continued support and efforts to make events such as this possible. Thank you!

Brenden Cannon | Area 13 Director | Special Olympics Illinois

103 Schelter Rd, Ste 25 | Lincolnshire, IL 60069 | P: 224-377-8378| F: 847-478-0982

www.soill.org 

Hidden in plain sight; protesting violence in minority communities

This post was originally about the protests in Baltimore after the police officers who killed Freddie Grey were acquitted.  However, this post explains the dynamics around protest and how we understand protests like the Black Lives Matter protests.   

Question what you know; the media's role in our understanding
First, the lesson is in the media's role in reporting the events. We have learned the enormous impact the media has on US citizens. This is true in the case of coverage of the events in Baltimore. The coverage remains largely focused on the rioters. However, thousands of people protested peacefully. And hundreds helped to clean the city and unite and work together to make the best of a bad day. Including these preschool kids:

This article from the Baltimore Sun is written by someone who attended the peaceful protests.

And this article from Black Westchester highlights the enormous number of people who protested peacefully.

Despite the large peaceful protest, the media will focus on the color of the rioters and paint a broad racial brush over the incident turning the riot into a condemnation of the black urban poor and all those associated with it. But this rarely happens when those in the majority behave badly. When that happens, the offenders might be denigrated, but not their whole race or their whole social class or culture. Here is a satirical news report demonstrating how silly it would look if the media actually did that:



Putting the cart before the horse; Why are they protesting in the first place? 
Another aspect of Baltimore is the criticism of the rioters without acknowledging the issues that lead people to the outrage that sparks riots.  Here is a quote from Dr. King:

 "But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. Rev. Dr. M.L.King, Jr., March 14, 1968

And this article in the Atlantic that was written by a guy who grew up in Baltimore and knows the dynamics of the community well.  Similar to Dr. King, the author states:

The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.")
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

This article from the Baltimore Sun documents many incidents that have created a feeling of disrespect and not being taken seriously among the poor black community living in Baltimore.

Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson.
Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.
And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims — if charges were filed at all.

The use of unfocused, random violence in the US is a response to not being taken seriously.  It is a response to feelings of being ignored and powerless.  I do not think this is how we should react to those feelings, but I want to point out that our culture creates that reaction.  See this post about masculinity, this post about school shootings, this post about Ferguson, Missouri.  All of these are examples of violent masculinity; that is violence means you are taken seriously and you are to be reckoned with.  The Huffington Post explains that here and Dr. King also talked about that nearly 50 years ago (from Time magazine):

“And I contend that the cry of ‘black power’ is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro...I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”

To be clear, I want to state emphatically that I do not think that destroying property, setting fires, attacking police are helpful and justifiable ways to deal with the frustrations of the community in Baltimore or Ferguson or [you name it].  However, I understand the destruction in terms of the larger cultural forces that promote violence and feelings of helpless powerlessness.  I don't think that anyone should paint a broad brush over the black community any more than you would paint a broad brush over all cops everywhere.  It is just as ridiculous to say that all cops are corrupt or all cops engage in police brutality as it is to say that "all of those people need to simply follow the law" or all of those people need to raise their kids better".

The feeling of disrespect and not being taken seriously is embedded in a long history, see this article tracing that.


Why don't they protest when the crime is black on black?
They do!  This is just a ridiculous meme that gets recycled by people who don't live in the communities where the violence is occurring.  As the meme goes, "Where are the protests over crime within the black community?"  The protests are there, but you won't read about it in mainstream media:
Here's an article addressing it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/why-dont-black-people-protest-black-on-black-violence/255329/

A quick google search turns up loads of hits about protesting the violence:

DNAinfo documents a number of local protests in Chicago against violence.

A Chicago Public School student protests the violence:
http://www.pcsedu.org/news-stories/abc7-chicago-cps-student-launches-peace-campaign

A rapper protests the violence:
http://newsone.com/3011373/chicagos-chance-the-rapper-chicago-violence/

An NBA player protests the violence:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/07/25/joakim-noah-launches-campaign-against-violence/

Civic Leaders protest the violence:
http://abc7chicago.com/news/stop-the-violence-chicago-leaders-call-for-action/173732/

Chicagoans who grew up in the violence risk their lives to fight the violence:
http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/

An NGO protests the violence
http://cureviolence.org/

American Culture and Tuesdays With Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie can be a case study in examining American values.  If we think with sociological mindfulness we can see how these values become a part of who we are and how we help to promote the values.  Then, we can start to choose how and when the values influence us.  This can help us prioritize our life.  Here is a link to a story about priorities.

Death v. Materialism, Individualism
Are Americans afraid of death? Is death a taboo topic? Why do you think this is the case? How might our feelings about death be related to our materialism? I also think that our feelings about death are rooted in our culture's individualism. See this post about the way our culture associates individualism with grieving one's death.  That is why I think most students would say the movie was a sad movie (at least parts of it) even though those same students would admit that Morrie doesn't want them to be sad.  Morrie himself explains,"Don't be so sad because I'm going to die Mitch...Death ends a life but not a relationship..." And Morrie explains, I'll still love you and you'll always love me.


Happiness v. Work, Personal Achievement, Success, Materialism
What are some ways that Mitch values hard work, achievement, success? Is this true for you or your parents? Does this start in high school or even sooner? What ways? Is it possible to obtain a different type of success? Think about (click here for more info) the Nothing assignment and how we connect what we do to who we are as people. Our culture constructs a reality where we are not allowed to just be. We must be doing at all times; it is valuing personal achievement, time, work, competition, materialism and success. Note that happiness is never a apart of the equation.  The hegemonic assumption is that happiness simply comes with those values.  See this post about happiness and it's relationship to money.  Contrast these values with the values that Michael Buettner writes about in his book Thrive.  What are the lessons you learned from Thrive?  How would you like to live your life differently after reading this?  What would be a message you would like to share with the rest of your classmates who don't have the privilege of being in our class?  This value cluster also reminds me of this joke about an American businessman and a Mexican fisherman. 

 Love v. Individualism, Materialism
Do you think that Americans are afraid to love each other, or show that they love each other? If we are afraid to love, why might that be? Does our culture socially construct our reality so that we are afraid to love? What values in our culture might make us feel this way? How can we overcome this? What is the difference between the value of “romantic love” and real love - the love Morrie talks about?   I think these different types of love are related to American values too.  See this post for more on the idea of romantic love vs. real love.  How is this a part of your life?

Understanding the American values of Independence, Freedom, Individualism & Personal Control v. Dependency

1.  Individually, reflect on Tuesdays with Morrie.  What are some examples within the movie of characters being individualistic (as opposed to being dependent)?  How does the value of Individualism combine with the value of personal control?  Cite examples from the movie.

2.  What are some ways that you see the values of individualism and personal control shaping your own life or the lives of your parents/siblings/friends?

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3.    After you discussed number one above in your small group, do you understand how the American cultural values can shape individuals’ lives?

_____Yes

_____No

If yes, what was one example from your group partners that was a good example?

If no, why not?  What questions do you have?

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4.  Close your eyes.  Think of someone influential in your life.  Now write down who you thought about and why you thought about that person.


When you are finished, click here.


In what ways are Americans afraid of being dependent on others? Do you think that this is related to our value of independence and freedom? In what ways do you depend on other people? Does this bother you? Another great example of these values influencing us negatively is explored in this TED talk by Brene Brown. She speaks about vulnerability and our cuture. We want to numb our feelings of vulnerability, but in doing so we also numb our feelings of connection to others and our sense of worthiness which allows us to feel love and happiness.
The feeling of individualism and independence that creates this lack of invulnerability may also detach us from feelings of gratitude that help contribute to our happiness.

Polar plunge 2015!

SHS wins the high school challenge!  Thank you everyone who participated especially girls water polo.  And we even got some press coverage in the Trib with a nice quote by miss  Jordan Landau!