2 posts from October 2009

The blog article, "High Expectations? Not so fast," from (http://garyrubinstein.teachfor.us/2009/08/30/high-expectations-not-so-fast/) argues that while its good for first year teachers to have high expectations, one must be realistic as well.  Specifically, the article argues that overly high standards can actually hurt students because they will constantly fail.  As a second year teacher, I agree with the post completely.  Yes, it is important to have high standards (and the article does not disagree with this), but if I have a classroom of students who are supposedly ready to be in Algebra II and they cannot graph a straight line, it will do no good to teach them the quadratic formula.  

Have real expectations, but don't expect to be a miracle worker.  A student who cannot read should not attempt to dive into Proust, it will just humiliate and discourage them.  Start with Green Eggs and Ham and work your way up.  However, when you do teach Green Eggs and Ham, ensure you have high expectations of the students work based of the book.

Is Mississippi a third world nation?

The Blog post, "Is Part of the United States in the Third World," (http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2009/05/human-development-index-by-state.html) attempts to rank US states in line with the world nations in regards to their human development index (HDI) reading.  In the blog, a list is presented with rankings of nations by their HDI mixed in with nations.  Mississippi is listed at 76th, below Russia and Ecuador.  At first glance, this seems terrible, an American state, down below the home of Siberia and a South American non-powerhouse.  However, the blog is somewhat meaningless, and this is noted in the first paragraph of the post: "The US HDI is not at all comparable to the world HDI.."  What this says is that you cannot directly compare the US state HDI to other nations HDI.  This make the list irrelevant.  

A quick google search paints a more rosy picture for Mississippi.  Ecuador, with a normalized (ppp) GDP per capita of under $8k, is much poorer than Mississippi with a GDP (non normalized) of just under $27k, over three times greater than Ecuador's, and that non adjusted.  It seems silly to state that Mississippi is a third world nation.  Anyone who has been to a poor area of a third world country can easily attest to the abject poverty which makes Mississippi look good.  Kids go hungry in Mississippi and attend shoddy schools.  In third world nations, kids worry about starvation and school is a pipe dream.  By claiming that Mississippi is at the same level as a third world nation unfairly cheapens the term and shows the authors naivety of what a third world country truly is.