When the Kettle Calls The Pot , AERA Chicago thoughts....Poetic Children..

I just got back from AERA, and Doug Noon forwarded to me an article from which I want to take a few excerpts to respond....see it here, from USA Today (not that Doug wants this mentioned but I get into that whole world-of-guilt thing otherwise.)

And by the way a great site to read about AERA is here, Paul Baker I'm absolutely sure you should visit, Education PR, if interested in AERA.

But back to the article.......
Excerpt 1

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
The Education Department made big news last July when it released a long-awaited study that compared the test scores of children in more than 7,500 public and private schools. With most other things being equal, public school students often do better and sometimes a lot better than private-schoolers, the research found.
But four days later, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings stood in the expansive hearing room of the House Education Committee to unveil a $100 million proposal to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to send public school students to private schools.

Spellings called the study irrelevant, saying it was small and flawed. Other advocates of vouchers, such as Harvard University researcher Paul Peterson, agreed. Advocates of public schools, including teachers unions, say the Bush administration chose to ignore a study that didn't support its agenda.

In the end, it was a pretty good metaphor for the state of educational research: More than five years after President Bush's No Child Left Behind law told educators to rely on "scientifically based" methods, the science produced is often inconclusive, politically charged or less than useful for classroom teachers. And when it is useful, it often is misused or ignored altogether.

My take on this is....
Actually, I found this fairly informative as a classroom teacher.

AND WHAT WAS THE METAPHOR Made HERE??????

...what Spellings did,
what a study purported...showed,
how it was justified so as to seemingly be ignored,
ignoring the very thing hailed as desired.
Science...

To me that's not metaphorical, that's disingenuous, but I'll float with it awhile as a metaphor for education.
And then construct a few metaphors...of my own.

Let's recall what a metaphor really is and how it operates...wiki?

In literary use, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin rhetorical trope) is defined as an indirect comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects that typically uses "is a" to join the first subjects for example: "Cole Johnson is a cool person, right Jonathan Hsu". A metaphor is commonly confused with a simile which compares two subjects using "like" or "as". An example of a simile: "He was as sly as a fox." In the simplest case, a metaphor takes the form: "The [first subject] is a [second subject]." More generally, a metaphor casts a first subject as being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. This device is known for usage in literature, especially in poetry, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context.

Within rhetorical theory, metaphor is generally considered to be a direct equation of terms that is more forceful and assertive than an analogy, although the two types of tropes are highly similar and often confused. One distinguishing characteristic is that the assertiveness of a metaphor calls into question the underlying category structure, whereas in a rhetorical analogy the comparative differences between the categories remain salient and acknowledged. Similarly, metaphors can be distinguished from other closely related rhetorical concepts such as metonymy, synecdoche, simile, allegory and parable.

The metaphor is sometimes further analyzed in terms of the ground and the tension. The ground consists of the similarities between the tenor and the vehicle. The tension of the metaphor consists of the dissimilarities between the tenor and the vehicle. In the above example, the ground begins to be elucidated from the third line: "They have their exits and their entrances." In the play, Shakespeare continues this metaphor for another twenty lines beyond what is shown here - making it a good example of an extended metaphor.

The corresponding terms to 'tenor' and 'vehicle' in George Lakoff and Mark Turner's terminology are target and source. However, Lakoff and Turner view metaphor as a concept that is pervasive in our thoughts, not just in language (More Than Cool Reason, 1989; 2). Because metaphors are systematic thought structures to Lakoff and Turner, they say that metaphor is the interaction between a target domain and a source domain--an interaction of schemas or concepts, rather than an interaction of two words. In this nomenclature, conceptual metaphors are named using the convention "target domain IS source domain"; in this notation, the metaphor discussed above would state that "LIFE IS A PLAY". As well as being the conceptual metaphor behind the example above, we also use this conceptual metaphor in sayings like, "It's curtains for him," "She's my leading lady," and "She always wants to be in the spotlight" (Lakoff and Turner, 1989; 20). This article primarily views metaphor in terms of its literary usage, rather than its cognitive linguistic usage.

Or truth is what I assert...now I get the reporter's construct. Ms. Spellings can ignore a study as it is not her notion of the truth. Oh...hum...

I hear this metaphorically now...
Again wiki...."

• An absolute or paralogical metaphor (sometimes called an antimetaphor) is one in which there is no discernible point of resemblance between the tenor and the vehicle. Examples:
  • "The couch is the autobahn of the living room."
  • "Six Flags is the aquarium of roller coasters."

• An implicit metaphor is one in which the tenor is not specified but implied. Example: "Shut your trap!" Here, the mouth of the listener is the unspecified tenor. In poetry, an Implicit metaphor is a metaphor implied by the text. Example: In John Donne's "The Bait" there is an implicit fishing metaphor throughout the entire poem.

WE DO WHATEVER WE WANT.

I hear a comparison to "Let them eat cake."
I hear no celebration of public school successes that's for sure.
I hear money goes at the direction of someone wayyyyyyyyy ABOVE Science.

I hear America's children...metaphor....
The immediate metaphor for me isn't the one I saw printed.

"A science of schools is a political football " is mine, tossed by a Margaret on Team Bush being aimed at a wide receiver ready to run with it.....straight to something like this......http://www.amercollege.com/default.asp
Now that's some real science, and makes some money too. Or did I miss that this was free?

I hear .....a game.

I hear .....a strategy.
I hear......a team.
I hear......winning.

Unfortunately I also hear losing.


Excerpt 2

A focus on practicality
As the 88th annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) takes place this week in Chicago, critics say the USA's huge community of education researchers — 14,000 are attending — often studies topics that do little to help schools solve practical problems such as how to train teachers, how to raise skills, how to lower dropout rates and whether smaller classes really make a difference.

This set of examples...."critics say" ,"training teachers", "raising," "skills" ", whether a small size really "works" coincidentally happen to be the "set" that NCLB wants to force as truth. It's a kind of assertion that if you argue it, they win anyway.

A better reporter would COUNT the entire research and see if critics are justified asserting this, would chart AERA's content and determine the validity. I did not yet complete this, but on the surface what I did count connected to social issues of poverty; a tremendously large number of pieces dealt with that and technology. So high, in fact, that the above statement is false. I did not categorize by these ridiculous categories. But I will present my breakdown when I finish counting...mine relate to: literacy, poverty, social justice, technology, improving teacher reflection, promoting success, studying language, studying resiliency, so on...

Embedded in this "critics say" are the notions of "training" , "raising" , so on.
And isn't it so cool that groups such as this one Reid Lyon is involved which "just happen" to assert ownership the "science" of that "position." And for such fair prices they can "fix" you....umm...

Schools have a really big practical problem. POLITICAL FIGURES HAVE TURNED SCHOOLS INTO A FOOTBALL GAME.
Oh yeah, my metaphor again.

WE ARE currently legislated, punished, ruled and forced.

I might suggest studies on the wisdom of this "solution".
Loss of teacher autonomy, the effect on student learning.....sound study-worthy?

Fundamental in the things that might be scientifically interesting to peek at has been the attack on teachers, should we study that? Can we?

Can we study the possibility that a fairly poor representative of higher education in the form of a President might not "get" educational topics or science? ....and here I assert this... and yet in policy setting seems to kind of miss...or disconnect. Umm, was this a fair way to go? Did it help students left behind? Was there a mechanism to turn it off if it "failed"? How was data collected on the efficacy of directing education in this rhetorical manner?


Can we study the notion that along with raising skills, we might need to look at who is succeeding, who isn't, what the orientation itself does to learning?
Maybe study how national policy makers, by failing in dealing with equity, poverty, race and opportunity nationally, are pushing national problems into schools. Expecting a solution they are not delivering.

Might we study the effect of rhetoric on teaching right now?
Could we study polarization as it affects teacher voice?
Can public teachers use research constrained by a system requiring they follow scripts?
Can we study accountability constructs, can they be applied to leadership that fails to use/have any?

I need some graphs.

Excerpt 3

Others defend AERA's work and that of researchers in general but say the patchwork system of public schools makes it hard even for relevant research to reach the classroom.

"We have a separation in that some of us who do the research aren't running the schools," says William Tate, a math researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who will take over as AERA's new president this month.

Quit and teach. Bring on the study of that..oops...it doesn't work either.
Sorry.
Who runs schools?
Valuable point.
How does that work?

Start actively recruiting Superintendents and teachers to your meetings.
Maybe as in CA state legislators and other politicos, Spellings too, I see.
Bush. Local boards. Lots of pieces to this puzzle. Text book makers, business groups....umm.Former Ed. Secretaries with vested interests in outcomes.....
Who runs schools?

UMM...are you aware that in schools many of us can't apply research.
We are working under Standards, states, programs, parents, politics, adoptions, local settings, local issues. Methods that are dictated.....it's a very different world. YES, I know you are very aware.

Excerpt four

No system for dissemination.

Tate points out excellent research, for instance, on dropout prevention, released in February by Columbia University, which identified five cost-effective ways to boost high school graduation rates. The study should be in the hands "of every superintendent in America," Tate says. But they probably won't see it because, unlike in medicine, there's no systematic way for important research to be disseminated.

"We don't have that kind of infrastructure," he says. "It's just not there."

Why would this "infrastructure" not be in place?
Reasons....
Let's leave that a while as valuable as it is to look at....

Supposing the structure was in place.
Power would be in the hands of these researchers, no?
As in medicine, the cutting edge is defined by our best and brightest researching and then disseminated into practice?
This is a world of difference then in education, no?

I saw a group of presenters very far from the place I see in top medical research facilities. A kind of shoe-string look. I enjoyed this enormously, however.
Is Bush able to dictate all heart surgery goes this way for the good of all.....a No Heart Left Behind that writes punishments and scenarios that expect 100% of our population's heart ticking away perfectly by 2014, surely a worthy goal. Doctors to be treated to severe sanctions for failure. This absurdity is exactly what they wrote. They enacted an absurd piece of legislation to regulate schools, with an end point that is an assumption no "science" supports. Furthermore they look ridiculously put out if you mention it.

Science is not driving these things.
But it's nice this is desired. I think AERA can really help set reasonable definitions of how an interface to science might look. I do not think this is it...I don't.
Sorry.
Not the bridge.
That's the toll bridge where we make some money.
I'm not on that riverbank, are you?

Excerpt five

Research budgets limited

Funding also limits research. As with medical research, universities, foundations and corporations all underwrite education research. But federal support for education pales next to medicine.

Education Sciences gets about $234 million for research on regular and special education, which is less than 1% of the $400 billion spent each year on K-12 education, according to the non-partisan Aspen Institute. Aspen compares the funding with the $27 billion received by the National Institutes of Health and recommends doubling Whitehurst's budget.

Tate says he foresees more researchers focusing on the effectiveness of programs, and cost-benefit analyses.

"We're putting a lot of money into this good called education, and people want to know what kind of benefits they're getting from the investment they're making."

In 2002, Whitehurst unveiled the What Works Clearinghouse, which uses a six-point scale to judge programs available to schools such as math and reading curricula and dropout prevention and character education programs.

In the process, it accepts or rejects prior research on each program. After 4½ years and $23 million, it has rated about 50 products, finding 75% of studies unacceptable — and prompting education pundits to call it the "Nothing Works Clearinghouse."

But even this level of skepticism may not satisfy critics.

After the clearinghouse last month found the popular Reading Recovery program showed "positive effects" on student achievement and "potentially positive effects" on comprehension and fluency, critics weighed in. They zoomed in on the fine print and found the endorsement was based on four acceptable studies out of 78.

Whitehurst says progress is slow but steady: "It used to be that the glass was nearly empty, and now it's a quarter full."

My mouth is on my shoe. That's a metaphor, is it not?
What is the glass full of now?


It is not on AERA to deconstruct the "benefits they're getting from the investment".
That is a kind of look at education that frames a move to make it an "industry". I rather assert my metaphors for education are different. And the connection to teacher might consider.....metaphors....

Today I am making poets.

To use Doug Noon, for he steered me to this reading as he often does....
again I have a SI Hawakawa and Alan Hayakawa quote....
they co-wrote Language in Thought and Action

Symbols for Our Times

"Poets," said Shelley, "are the acknowledged legislators of the world."
Poets, by creating new ways of feeling and percieving , help to create the new ways of thinking that bring us to terms with a changing world. Every age finds its appropriate symbols. In medieval times, religious images symbolized what people believed in and lived by" God, the angels, and the saints. In Renaissance times, the prevailing image was that of the human body, which was used in endless ways to symbolize the ideas of an age of humanism.
With what symbols shall the poet bring us to terms with the realities of our own times? In the past few decades, whole new areas of thought and exploration have been opened up by the sciences-by electronics, by astrophysics, by microbiology, by the study of nucleoproteins and their role in genetics, by radioactive tracer studies, and by nuclear physics. Instant communications bring us unsettling news from parts of the world that we never thought about before, Astronauts shoot through space, so that the limits of the planet we live on are no longer the limits of our exploration. We can, and do describe these new developments in the language of science, but how are we to take these new and urgent realities into our hearts as well as our minds, unless poets give us new images with which to experience them?