With a wife that is a teacher, I hear a lot about the Common Core standards. I've also been hearing a lot about the Common Core from the media, politicians, and my Facebook friends. What I end up seeing is that most people have no clue as to what the Common Core really entails. Most parents seem to have confused Common Core standards with curriculum designed (at least supposedly designed) to help students meet those standards. For example, one of the fourth grade math common core standards is
Solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers using the four operations, including problems in which remainders must be interpreted. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding.
Nowhere in the above statement is it dictated to the teacher how to teach anything. It just states what the student should be able to do by the end of fourth grade. Think of it like the set of requirements in a Boy Scout or Girl Scout handbook for a certain rank. Distilled to the main point, this is what the Common Core standard is all about. It sets goals for each grade level. Unfortunately most of what is touted by the talking heads on TV and shared on Facebook as Common Core, actually deals with curriculum and not the standards. Curriculum is usually set by the local school district or sometimes the state. Because of their size, California and Texas has a tendency to push the direction the US goes on curriculum because the textbook vendors cater to the largest customers. As you can see above, the standards don't say HOW to teach a subject, just what the expected outcome should be. For example, today on the radio, one of the talk radio hosts was ranting because his daughter had been taught three ways to do subtraction and one of them was confusing her. The particular method that she was struggling with was subtraction by addition or "method of complements". The idea behind this method is to make mental math easier. One example of this method in every day life is a skill that a lot of people no longer have because of cash registers.... how to count back change. The bottom line is that a common set of goals for every student in the United States is NOT a bad thing. In fact goals are good things and give us a way to quantitatively evaluate educational policies such as curriculum. Unfortunately text book writers and local curriculum directors have used the Common Core as an excuse to try new methodologies as experiments on our students. Hopefully over time the failed curriculum choices made will be phased out. In the mean time, don't vilify the teachers for teaching what they're told to teach by their management. Instead educate yourself on the curriculum and the standards and lobby your school board and administration to make needed changes so that every student in every school in the United States can excel.
After 34 years living on this planet and revolving around the Sun, I've come to a realization. The world, as in our civilization, is not black and white. Although somethings might have a right and wrong answer like the world is definitely not flat, most things are not as easy as we would like them to be.
Many issues today are polarized between two camps such as pro-life vs. pro-choice, Republican vs Democrat, and Mac vs PC. Ok so some are more important than others, but the idea is the same Both camps dig in with their ideology and tune out anything supporting common ground or the other side.
The more I experience, the more I find that most solutions end up in the middle somewhere. For example, as I get older, I'm finding myself gravitating more and more towards more Libertarian views on topics. This has led to a "liberalization" of my social ideas while I stick to my conservative ideas about the scope of government and how to manage the economy.
Likewise with the Pro-life/Pro-Choice debate I have changed my stance over time. When I was younger, I followed the straight ideology from the Roman Catholic Church. Life is life and under no circumstance should any human take that away. I still fully agree with this when it comes to abortion and embryonic research, but capital punishment is a little less black and white for me. In most cases, I think that life in prison is probably enough, but for some people, I am ok with the death penalty. Osama Bin Laden... yes, Saddam Hussein... yes, some random kid that got mixed up with a gang... probably not.
So what I'm trying to say with my rambling is that we need to take a closer look at a lot of issues in our world. It's time to come to the middle and learn about the other side. We might just find out that there's a bit of truth in the middle. And who knows, maybe we can take our energy and use it for something else like helping to feed the hungry or curing the sick.
Every day in the United States Veterans are laid to rest with military honors. Unfortunately as the demand for military burial details is ever increasing, the budget for the active duty burial details is being cut. One of the most rare resources for these teams is a live bugler to play Taps. In the absence of a live bugler, the teams often turn to recordings on CD players or a "self-playing" bugle.
Thankfully there is an organization that helps make sure that as many Veteran's as possible receive the honor of having a live bugle as part of their funeral service. Bugles Across America was formed to honor our Veterans. Anyone may request a bugler through the organization's website for free. The website then contacts all of the buglers in the area of a request and one will accept the mission. All of the buglers are vetted by the state directors to ensure the quality that the solemn ceremony deserves.
If you're a bugler and want to help, please sign up for an audition today. If you know someone that may need our services, please have them make the request online.
So as an IT guy, I often have things that are supposed to follow a standard that was declared and developed by some industry guru group like the IEEE. Unfortunately some "standards" are only standards because of de facto use. This is when taking widget from company A that uses "standard X" and making it work with widget from company B that also uses "standard X" usually ends up in me going nuts.
So what does this have to do with my non-technical evening project tonight? Well apparently back in the day all door knobs used a 2" hole in the door. At some point, some genius decided that that was silly and that we should all use a new 2 3/8" standard.
This is all fine and dandy until I decided to replace all of the inside door knobs in my house. So my house was built in the late '60s or early '70s which means that all of my doors have 2" holes. Of course all of my new hardware expects a 2 3/8" hole. When you think about it, that means that I need to get rid of 3/16" all the way around a hole. Not a lot of material, but not exactly easy to do.
Thankfully I'm not the first person to do this and some genius came up with a jig that allows you to use a hole 2 3/8" hole saw without any material in the center for the centering bit. So in case you need do this in your house... you need one of these. Oh and this jig can also help if you have a new door to put in the hole for the latch too.
This rant/warning is aimed at the masses that are currently upgrading their iPhones to iOS 7.0 and to anyone before they upgrade anything else. Please backup your device before you upgrade. Software upgrades don't always go smoothly and the data on your phone will suddenly become more valuable than gold when it disappears. For my iPhone friends, it's easy, just plug your phone into iTunes and don't upgrade when prompted. Go to the iPhone view and click on backup. Then once you're backup is done, click upgrade and enjoy.
Another thing to consider is to use the free iCloud service to backup your contacts, bookmarks and other settings on your iPhone. You can also backup photos, but storage beyond the initial freebie is a pay service. Myself I backup my photos to Dropbox automatically when I plug my phone into my computer.
Help us geeks help you, backup so we can recover your data after we fix the problem. :)
A few days ago our deck was removed to make room for a new one. This means that right now our walkout from the basement is uncovered. Yesterday I noticed the outside drain was clogged so I cleaned it out and got water moving again. Unfortunately either the flow was less yesterday or the dead toad appeared today, but either way water started flowing into the basement because the drain was stopped.
Thankfully my parents had bought us a shop vac and it sucks water as well as dead toads. Once the toad was history the drain returned to normal and the basement was left with just a few puddles to clean up. Only one question remains, how the heck did a full grown toad end up under the drain grate?
Since I was born I have been a Roman Catholic. My Mom's family is Italian and as such very Roman Catholic. Growing up I dutifully went to PSR (Parish School of Religion aka CCD aka Sunday School) and learned about my religion. For many years I proceeded with the rule of "they said so, so it must be right" when it came to religion.
By the time I was in Eighth Grade preparing for Confirmation, my view of religion had started to change. I started to ask why and wanted to learn more than the average Baltimore Catechism view of the world. When I was confirmed, I took Bishop Daniel Ryan's charge that we were now adults in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church to heart. I sought to participate fully in the liturgy of the Church by becoming an Eucharistic Minister and soon thereafter a Cantor.
During High School my mission became to find a Parish in which my love of music and the Mass could coexist. Many Parishes in my area were stuck with small repertoires and saw music as something to get through instead as I saw it as a vital part of active participation in the Mass. During this time of "Parish shopping" I was introduced to the Life Teen movement that emphasized music and full participation. Bingo I had found a home! And then doh, the Priest supporting the movement in our area was reassigned and poof it disappeared.
College was a "Golden Age" of sorts for me religion wise and a great reawakening in the faith department. As such it was also when I discovered that religion and faith are not necessarily one in the same for me. I started to discover that my religion had flaws, but I still had faith and in fact it grew. During college I participated in the Newman Center on the campus of Truman State University. At Truman I found community as part of my religious experience. I was able to share with people in the same place in life and learn from the group. It was during this time that a lot of my adult views were formed. The unfortunate part about college was that it was only 4 years long and once I left that community I would be forever searching for a sense of community again.
Between college and last year I was a practicing Roman Catholic in an average Parish. Nothing fancy, nothing too bad, just ho hum. Go to Mass, come home, wait one week, repeat as necessary. Because of the monotony, I started to seek out more knowledge about the Church. I started to read books like Christopher West's Theology of the Body for Beginners and online sources like NCR and Catholic blogs. Through this process I began to see the debates within the Roman Catholic Church and that things aren't black and white. I began to question things and ask why.
One of the things that I learned quite a lot about during my reading was the new English translation of the Roman Missal. At first I was optimistic about this process because I had read texts of the never implemented 1998 translation. Unfortunately as often happens in the Roman Catholic Church, politics trumped the Holy Spirit and the 1998 translation will never see the light of day. Instead the Holy See sought to bring back mystery and "loftiness" to the language of the Mass. The new translation was as close to going back to Latin as they could go. They aimed to make the Mass' language less accessible and less understandable.
Why would they do this? One word... clericalism. It is the same reason that Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses back in 1517 and was shunned. By putting the faith into the common language of the people, you lessen the importance of the "learned" clergy to be able to interpret the Mass and scriptures for the people. In essence, if you control the language of the faith, you control knowledge and thought. What many in the United States don't realize is that the Roman Catholic Church is not a democracy, or even a republic. Instead it is the only true absolute Monarchy left in the world. They don't call the Cardinals the Princes of the Church for nothing.
With this absolute Monarchy comes absolute power and we all know where that leads. Instead of the hierarchy striving to open the liturgy ("work of the people" as translated from Greek to English) it constantly tries to restrict the liturgy to the ruling class' will. One by one, very conservative (to put it nicely) Bishops, Arch Bishops and Cardinals have begun to close the doors of the Church. Various groups have been told that you're no longer welcome whether it be homosexuals, divorcees, "Cafeteria Catholics", or those that support said groups. As such I no longer feel welcome in the Church of my ancestors and of my family.
A year ago I attended my last Roman Catholic Mass as a practicing Roman Catholic. It was Christmas Eve and I went because my family was going and because I knew it would most likely be (Unfortunately I was right.) the last Mass that I would go to with my Grandfather. Before Mass I sung Carols with the families gathered and all was normal. Then the Mass started and I was soon transported to a foreign language (the new translation). I could grin and bear things like "and with your spirit," but at the most important part of the Mass when the Priest would normally say:
Take this, all of you, and eat it:
this is my body which will be given up for you.
When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for ALL so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.
Instead we heard:
TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT,FOR THIS IS MY BODY,WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.
In a similar way, when supper was ended,He takes the chaliceand, holding it slightly raised above the altar, continues:he took the chalice,and, giving you thanks, he said the blessing,and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:
TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT,FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD,THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT,WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANYFOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.
Although there are several changes int he text, it is the change from Jesus' blood being shed for you and for all to being shed for you and for many that hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't that I didn't know it was coming, I had read the debates on the translation of pro multis, but I wasn't ready for the change's impact on my faith. I realized at that moment that I no longer believed what was being said at the Altar by the Priest. I had always had my disagreements with some Church teachings, but this shook me to the core. I believe and will always believe that Jesus Christ came for everyone with no exceptions.
Holding back the tears and anger that I felt at that moment, I was able to make it through the rest of Mass, but after Mass I ran for the car crying. I still had my faith, but I had lost my religion. Some grey haired old men in dresses and pointy hats(as one of my friends is fond of saying) took it from me. I was now a Christian Catholic set afloat looking for a home.
Thankfully my loving wife went with me on this journey and we have found a new home. A vision of church that I believe was what the Holy Spirit was trying to achieve at the Second Vatican Council some 40 years ago. A place where all are truly welcome. This place is the American National Catholic Church.
Unfortunately the nearest Parish is in St. Louis, but thankfully Fr. Phillip helps to keep us connected via social media and YouTube.
