Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE… Okay, class, settle down… After months of painstaking research and asking around, I now feel reasonably comfortable asserting that Kossack and Recommended Diaries denizen teacherken is in fact a teacher named Ken, and not a “tea cherken.” (This would explain the long pauses by Lipton customer service representatives when asked what a cherken does.) Now that we’ve cleared that up, Ken will now teach you a thing or two in  today’s installment of C&J’s never-ending series, Yes, We’re All Staring At YOU! Cheers and Jeers: How long have you been blogging and what brought you to Daily Kos? Teacherken: I started on educational listservs and bulletin boards about a decade back. During 2003 I was posting on Dean’s Blog for America. The weekend after Thanksgiving that year I was in New Hampshire on Dean’s behalf and someone introduced me to Daily Kos, which fascinated me with the mix of the political and the personal, and the interactive nature of the virtual community. I began reading, posting comments, and posted my first diary in January of 2004. Where were you when the networks called the race for Barack Obama and how did you react? I was at National Democratic Club in Washington DC, with my wife and a lot of Democratic activists. The actual call at 11 was somewhat anticlimactic, because there was no doubt in my mind that Obama would win, the only question was the size of the victory.  And when Pennsylvania was called as soon as it closed, we all knew. Still, when it was “official” we were all exuberant, and we all celebrated with a glass of champagne. What must one do to receive detention from teacherken? Why should I be punished by the misbehavior of a student? I don’t hold detention. A student has to be deliberately disruptive for me to have her removed from my class by the administration and put in in-school suspension or sent home, and that it is an admission on my part that I have not been able to reach that student. Since often students misbehave because they don’t understand the work and are embarrassed to admit it, I am likely to have the student come to me for extra help—thus it is supportive, not punitive, which is how I would view detention. What kind of music makes you feel invincible to the GOP horde…a horde, we would note, that now consists of Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and a plumber? I like a broad range of genres of music. I was trained as a classical musician (piano, cello and singing), have made money doing rock, folk, cocktail, and have conducted a capella church choirs. Depending upon my mood, it could be Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Chanticleer, Sviatislav Richter playing Brahms, Andras Schiff playing Bach or Schubert. I suppose if I really wanted to feel invincible, it would be listening to the final three piano sonatas by Beethoven, Opus 109, Opus 110, and Opus 111. If you had the president’s ear, who would you demand he nominate for Education Secretary before you gave it back? I know that some of the names I am hearing I would strongly oppose—Arne Duncan from Chicago, Joel Klein from New York, Roy Romer from LA. I shudder to think what they might mean for the future of public education. But the issue is less the “who” than it is the vision—what is the purpose of our public school system? And how willing are we to radically reexamine how we do schooling in order to achieve meaningful education for all of our students? Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford is a favorite of many in the educational community. Two former state commissioners, Doug Christensen of Nebraska—who was on a panel at Yearly Kos in Chicago—and Peter McWalters of Rhode Island both have demonstrated that it is possible to have high levels of achievement without reducing everything to tests. I would hope that whoever is in charge, that we move away from our obsession with testing and refocus on the learning needs of the individual students. What’s the one book every Kossack must read? I am going to suggest a book about teaching. It is called The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer . It won’t take you that long, and Palmer is a very clear writer. Hopefully it will stretch your mind about the nature of the educational process, and what teaching really involves. What tips do you have for Kossacks who really really really really really want to make it on the Recommended Diaries list? Change your name to Jerome a Paris or nyceve? Finish this sentence: In the kitchen I make a mean… Pile of dirty pots and pans? I do pretty well with an orange beef, and my wife loves my gazpacho. Rarely have time to cook during the school year. As a Quaker, what’s been your reaction to the way the Bush administration has blurred the line between church and state? Do you think Obama will make that line more distinct again? I would quibble a bit. First, my reaction is independent of my being a Quaker. Second, I have no problem with religion having a role in the public square—after all, it was religious people advocating for Civil Rights and before that for Abolition. I see the Bush administration manipulating religion for political purposes, and the blurring to which the question refers is thus more a political stratagem than an explicit theological position. As for Obama, I think he will attempt to affirm the role religions plays in the lives of individuals, and how it shapes their responses. He will certainly acknowledge that people can have a moral basis independent of religious belief or affiliation. And as a former professor of Constitutional Law, I expect he will insist upon his administration maintaining both prongs of religious freedom, no establishment and free expression. And I would also suspect that this area would be of interest in considering appointments to the Supreme and other Federal Courts. No waffling here: dogs or cats? By background and preference I am a dog person. When I was six months old my sister was given a six-week old black cocker spaniel, and Charcoal and I shared everything.  Since then my orientation has been more canine than feline. If how I live and work allowed, what I really want is a large black Newfoundland—and Leaves on the Current (spouse) rightly notes that the relative proportion of a Newf to my current size is an attempt to return to those halcyon days of my early childhood.  I did for more than a decade have a brilliant and wonderful Sheltie named Elspeth. Until I give up teaching, however, I am away from home for too many hours to be fair to a dog. I have become somewhat bispecial—and we are delighted with our five rescued felines, who are the true owners of our household.   I have one question left, but I have to go tutor Sarah Palin on the difference between a country and a continent. Please ask and answer the final question yourself… Name one person from American History with whom you would like to have dinner, and explain why. I go back and forth on this, but I think nowadays it would be Bobby Kennedy, because he grew so much as a person during his adulthood. He started in public life as a staffer to Joe McCarthy, and yet at the end of his life he had become a healer, as we can see in the remarks he made in Indianapolis, informing the crowd of King’s assassination. He was transformed by tragedy, and turned into something special, something that gave hope to many until his own tragic death. It was a sense of hope, of change, illustrated by the changes in his own life. I’d like to learn from that. Gee it’s been great, but if I don’t get the papers graded and returned to my students, perhaps they will give me detention? Peace. Cheers and Jeers starts in There’s Moreville… [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
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Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday