Blog on Asian American, education, cars, politics, videos, and anything else fun I run across.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Veoh is only at .1% of web users
Veoh is only at 0.1% yet videos posted there get as many or more hits than youtube.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
HU on PI about NCTM and Snake Oil Saleswomen
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/306700_webltrs9.html
March 8, 2007 4:40 p.m. PT
MATH
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has driven theabandonment of basic math skills because their researched purportedto show that minority students can't hack elementary arithmetic. TERCInvestigations is so bad that state parents have gone on YouTube showing kids trying to divide using the plus key.
WASL expects fourth-graders to compute pie charts and find the median, but contains next to no arithmetic and gives credit for explained wrong answers. The WASL is a cruel nightmare that will deny diplomas from 70 percent to 80 percent of poor and minority students whose parents have the least education and income, not if, but whenthey do not match the scores set by children who have more parents with college degrees and big SUVs.
Textbooks from Singapore are filled with math instead of TERC, which includes sheet music to "Happy Birthday," but no long division. We really need to banish snake oil saleswomen such as Bergeson instead of re-electing them. She was a key person behind the 1993 Education Reform Act, which committed the state to the failed vision of outcome-based education. Our kids need a basic education, not an Orwellianvision where all students are equal, but some are more equal thanothers.
Arthur Hu
Bothell
March 8, 2007 4:40 p.m. PT
MATH
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has driven theabandonment of basic math skills because their researched purportedto show that minority students can't hack elementary arithmetic. TERCInvestigations is so bad that state parents have gone on YouTube showing kids trying to divide using the plus key.
WASL expects fourth-graders to compute pie charts and find the median, but contains next to no arithmetic and gives credit for explained wrong answers. The WASL is a cruel nightmare that will deny diplomas from 70 percent to 80 percent of poor and minority students whose parents have the least education and income, not if, but whenthey do not match the scores set by children who have more parents with college degrees and big SUVs.
Textbooks from Singapore are filled with math instead of TERC, which includes sheet music to "Happy Birthday," but no long division. We really need to banish snake oil saleswomen such as Bergeson instead of re-electing them. She was a key person behind the 1993 Education Reform Act, which committed the state to the failed vision of outcome-based education. Our kids need a basic education, not an Orwellianvision where all students are equal, but some are more equal thanothers.
Arthur Hu
Bothell
Hu on PI about NCTM and Snake Oil Saleswomen
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/306700_webltrs9.html
March 8, 2007 4:40 p.m. PT
MATH
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has driven the abandonment of basic math skills because their researched purported to show that minority students can't hack elementary arithmetic. TERC Investigations is so bad that state parents have gone on YouTube showing kids trying to divide using the plus key.
WASL expects fourth-graders to compute pie charts and find the median, but contains next to no arithmetic and gives credit for explained wrong answers. The WASL is a cruel nightmare that will deny diplomas from 70 percent to 80 percent of poor and minority students whose parents have the least education and income, not if, but when they do not match the scores set by children who have more parents with college degrees and big SUVs.
Textbooks from Singapore are filled with math instead of TERC, which includes sheet music to "Happy Birthday," but no long division. We really need to banish snake oil saleswomen such as Bergeson instead of re-electing them. She was a key person behind the 1993 Education Reform Act, which committed the state to the failed vision of outcome-based education. Our kids need a basic education, not an Orwellian vision where all students are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Arthur Hu
Bothell
March 8, 2007 4:40 p.m. PT
MATH
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has driven the abandonment of basic math skills because their researched purported to show that minority students can't hack elementary arithmetic. TERC Investigations is so bad that state parents have gone on YouTube showing kids trying to divide using the plus key.
WASL expects fourth-graders to compute pie charts and find the median, but contains next to no arithmetic and gives credit for explained wrong answers. The WASL is a cruel nightmare that will deny diplomas from 70 percent to 80 percent of poor and minority students whose parents have the least education and income, not if, but when they do not match the scores set by children who have more parents with college degrees and big SUVs.
Textbooks from Singapore are filled with math instead of TERC, which includes sheet music to "Happy Birthday," but no long division. We really need to banish snake oil saleswomen such as Bergeson instead of re-electing them. She was a key person behind the 1993 Education Reform Act, which committed the state to the failed vision of outcome-based education. Our kids need a basic education, not an Orwellian vision where all students are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Arthur Hu
Bothell
John Newton Documentary Amazing Grace
I wish I could remember all the wonderful african names, 20,000 of them
Friday, March 09, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
NY State Regents Abandon Integrated HS math for algebra, geometry after Math A fiasco
http://www.agateny.com/Article_StateRegents.html
NY State Regents Abandon Integrated HS math for algebra, geometry after Math A fiasco
State Regents Adopting New Approach to High School Math
Susan Saulny
New York State's Board of Regents is expected to adopt sweeping changes today in the way high school mathematics is taught, reorganizing the subject into three one-year courses, each with a single focus.
The board will also consider adding a third Regents math exam to the two that are already given, officials said. But according to draft documents about the changes, students would still need to pass only one of the exams to graduate.
The new standards would reverse an approach adopted in the 1980's that emphasized the integration of many different areas of math into each grade. And they put New York back in step with the way most other states teach high school math: freshmen study algebra, sophomores learn geometry, and juniors study algebra II and trigonometry.
The new system is intended to emphasize conceptual understanding over rote learning.
Under the new standards, schools would be encouraged to teach pre-calculus to seniors, but they could opt to teach some other form of math.
If adopted, the changes will begin to take effect in the fall of 2006.
The Board of Regents, which convened its regular monthly meeting yesterday in Albany, began to reconsider the math standards in 2003, when two-thirds of the high school students who took the Regents Math A exam failed, prompting a storm of complaints and criticisms from students, parents and teachers. State education officials eventually rescored the test, a high school graduation requirement, and appointed a math standards committee to analyze what went wrong.
The committee researched math programs around the country and the world and released a draft of its proposal for public comment in November. After receiving more than 2,000 comments - mainly from parents, math professionals and the business community - the committee revised its proposal and submitted it to state education officials in December. The state officials have recommended that the Regents adopt the new standards.
"It is unfortunate that it took a fiasco with the Math A to bring us to the changes in the math program in New York State, but now that we have these changes, it's well worth it," said Dr. Alfred S. Posamentier, a member of the committee who is a professor of mathematics at City College, and the dean of the college's School of Education. "Students completing these three courses will have a solid background knowledge of mathematics, both from a skills point of view as well as a general understanding."
Dr. Posamentier commented on the new standards yesterday after a draft of the document began circulating among teachers.
"The college-bound kid is going to get the proper step toward college, and the noncollege-bound kid is going to get vastly more mathematics than his counterpart of 50 years ago," he said. "And in all grades, there will be a new emphasis on problem-solving."
Dr. William Johnson, the chairman of the Curriculum Committee for the New York State Council of School Superintendents, applauded the return to a three-course curriculum.
"I think in the long term it makes more sense from a content point of view," said Dr. Johnson, who is the superintendent of the Rockville Centre schools on Long Island. "It's easier to structure the courses and to identify ways that we can examine kids at the end of the courses."
Until now, schools lacked a clearly defined plan of instruction for math education, officials said. Schools and districts tried to develop courses that would prepare students for the Math A and Math B Regents exams, but class titles and course content differed from school to school around the state.
The goal of the new standards is to introduce course titles that are clear and widely understood statewide and nationally, and to give each course a yearlong focus that would allow more depth of understanding. And the concepts are more challenging, Dr. Posamentier and others said, incorporating probability and statistics as well as 3-D and transformational geometry - topics that used to be left for college.
Cathy Seeley, the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said she was a little surprised by New York's move back to a course-based curriculum because the state had been among the first to adopt a model similar to what is used in countries where students outperform Americans. Recently, she said, several states have begun to think about using the system that New York is now abandoning.
"It's kind of interesting to see them back away from that decision," Ms. Seeley said of New York.
Separately yesterday, a Regents committee recommended that the full board approve a request by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein to open five new charter schools in New York City next fall. Mr. Klein had initially hoped to open seven schools, but two applications were apparently rescinded at the last minute after it became clear that state officials would urge that they be rejected.
One of the rescinded applications was for a school to be operated by Achievement First, a nonprofit group that runs the acclaimed Amistad Academy middle school in New Haven. The other was for a school to be opened in Brooklyn by KIPP, which operates a middle school in the South Bronx and another in Harlem, part of a network of schools in 15 states. Achievement First and KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, will each open two charter schools in New York in September. The fifth school recommended for approval yesterday will be run by the Future Leaders Institute, a group founded by city teachers in District 3 in Harlem.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Return to Articles Index
NY State Regents Abandon Integrated HS math for algebra, geometry after Math A fiasco
State Regents Adopting New Approach to High School Math
Susan Saulny
New York State's Board of Regents is expected to adopt sweeping changes today in the way high school mathematics is taught, reorganizing the subject into three one-year courses, each with a single focus.
The board will also consider adding a third Regents math exam to the two that are already given, officials said. But according to draft documents about the changes, students would still need to pass only one of the exams to graduate.
The new standards would reverse an approach adopted in the 1980's that emphasized the integration of many different areas of math into each grade. And they put New York back in step with the way most other states teach high school math: freshmen study algebra, sophomores learn geometry, and juniors study algebra II and trigonometry.
The new system is intended to emphasize conceptual understanding over rote learning.
Under the new standards, schools would be encouraged to teach pre-calculus to seniors, but they could opt to teach some other form of math.
If adopted, the changes will begin to take effect in the fall of 2006.
The Board of Regents, which convened its regular monthly meeting yesterday in Albany, began to reconsider the math standards in 2003, when two-thirds of the high school students who took the Regents Math A exam failed, prompting a storm of complaints and criticisms from students, parents and teachers. State education officials eventually rescored the test, a high school graduation requirement, and appointed a math standards committee to analyze what went wrong.
The committee researched math programs around the country and the world and released a draft of its proposal for public comment in November. After receiving more than 2,000 comments - mainly from parents, math professionals and the business community - the committee revised its proposal and submitted it to state education officials in December. The state officials have recommended that the Regents adopt the new standards.
"It is unfortunate that it took a fiasco with the Math A to bring us to the changes in the math program in New York State, but now that we have these changes, it's well worth it," said Dr. Alfred S. Posamentier, a member of the committee who is a professor of mathematics at City College, and the dean of the college's School of Education. "Students completing these three courses will have a solid background knowledge of mathematics, both from a skills point of view as well as a general understanding."
Dr. Posamentier commented on the new standards yesterday after a draft of the document began circulating among teachers.
"The college-bound kid is going to get the proper step toward college, and the noncollege-bound kid is going to get vastly more mathematics than his counterpart of 50 years ago," he said. "And in all grades, there will be a new emphasis on problem-solving."
Dr. William Johnson, the chairman of the Curriculum Committee for the New York State Council of School Superintendents, applauded the return to a three-course curriculum.
"I think in the long term it makes more sense from a content point of view," said Dr. Johnson, who is the superintendent of the Rockville Centre schools on Long Island. "It's easier to structure the courses and to identify ways that we can examine kids at the end of the courses."
Until now, schools lacked a clearly defined plan of instruction for math education, officials said. Schools and districts tried to develop courses that would prepare students for the Math A and Math B Regents exams, but class titles and course content differed from school to school around the state.
The goal of the new standards is to introduce course titles that are clear and widely understood statewide and nationally, and to give each course a yearlong focus that would allow more depth of understanding. And the concepts are more challenging, Dr. Posamentier and others said, incorporating probability and statistics as well as 3-D and transformational geometry - topics that used to be left for college.
Cathy Seeley, the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said she was a little surprised by New York's move back to a course-based curriculum because the state had been among the first to adopt a model similar to what is used in countries where students outperform Americans. Recently, she said, several states have begun to think about using the system that New York is now abandoning.
"It's kind of interesting to see them back away from that decision," Ms. Seeley said of New York.
Separately yesterday, a Regents committee recommended that the full board approve a request by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein to open five new charter schools in New York City next fall. Mr. Klein had initially hoped to open seven schools, but two applications were apparently rescinded at the last minute after it became clear that state officials would urge that they be rejected.
One of the rescinded applications was for a school to be operated by Achievement First, a nonprofit group that runs the acclaimed Amistad Academy middle school in New Haven. The other was for a school to be opened in Brooklyn by KIPP, which operates a middle school in the South Bronx and another in Harlem, part of a network of schools in 15 states. Achievement First and KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, will each open two charter schools in New York in September. The fifth school recommended for approval yesterday will be run by the Future Leaders Institute, a group founded by city teachers in District 3 in Harlem.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Return to Articles Index
Asians over-running US colleges (again?)
Will UC Berkeley become a um, Historically Asian College?
by guest contributor Jeff Yang
Check out this interesting story in the New York Times: “Little Asia On the Hill,” the cover feature of this week’s “Education Life” supplement. It explores something that Californians have been aware of for almost half a decade now–in the wake of the repeal of affirmative action laws, Asian Americans have become an increasingly dominant force at U.S. elite colleges.
UC Berkeley, considered by many to be the best public university in the nation, and perhaps the world, is currently 41 percent Asian, a proportion that’s over three times higher than the percentage of Asian Americans in the California population, and almost 10 times higher than the percentage of Asians in the U.S. And Berkeley is just one example among many; along the bottom of the article runs a ticker-style strip recounting the Asian American percentage on top college campuses across the nation, from 13 percent at Princeton to 27 percent at Wellesley, 17 percent at University of Texas - Austin, and 27 percent at M.I.T.
by guest contributor Jeff Yang
Check out this interesting story in the New York Times: “Little Asia On the Hill,” the cover feature of this week’s “Education Life” supplement. It explores something that Californians have been aware of for almost half a decade now–in the wake of the repeal of affirmative action laws, Asian Americans have become an increasingly dominant force at U.S. elite colleges.
UC Berkeley, considered by many to be the best public university in the nation, and perhaps the world, is currently 41 percent Asian, a proportion that’s over three times higher than the percentage of Asian Americans in the California population, and almost 10 times higher than the percentage of Asians in the U.S. And Berkeley is just one example among many; along the bottom of the article runs a ticker-style strip recounting the Asian American percentage on top college campuses across the nation, from 13 percent at Princeton to 27 percent at Wellesley, 17 percent at University of Texas - Austin, and 27 percent at M.I.T.
Do colleges unfairly favor African immigrants over natives?
Interesting perspective, African mom lets kids play with Asians and Indians, but not native African Americans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/05/AR2007030501296_2.html
Mayaki counts many black Americans as friends, but that was not always so. As a child, she was steered away from black Americans by her protective Yoruban mother, who emigrated from Nigeria in the 1980s.
"My mom wouldn't let me go next door for a sleepover with African American kids, but I could go five houses down to Asian houses. I kind of got along better with foreigners," she said. "You don't go to parties. You don't go to movies. You just study, stay at home, do your chores. My Indian and Asian friends got it. All my other friends, they never got it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/05/AR2007030501296_2.html
Mayaki counts many black Americans as friends, but that was not always so. As a child, she was steered away from black Americans by her protective Yoruban mother, who emigrated from Nigeria in the 1980s.
"My mom wouldn't let me go next door for a sleepover with African American kids, but I could go five houses down to Asian houses. I kind of got along better with foreigners," she said. "You don't go to parties. You don't go to movies. You just study, stay at home, do your chores. My Indian and Asian friends got it. All my other friends, they never got it."
Monday, March 05, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Tanaka Reina, Murakami Megumi,Suzuki Airi - Sukininatchaikenai Hito
Tanaka Reina, Murakami Megumi,Suzuki Airi - Sukininatchaikenai Hito
(田中・村上・鈴木 - 好なっちゃいけない人 Live in ワンダフルハーツ)
(田中・村上・鈴木 - 好なっちゃいけない人 Live in ワンダフルハーツ)
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Freshwater: Why Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana Didn't Meet JFK
Alan Freshwater e-mail to me 12/06:
I thought you might like to hear some of what she told me of what Biuku told her when she last saw him. She also has a recording made of Biuku telling the "Kennedy" story.
Biuku told June that when he was due to go to the US for Kennedy's inauguration, he was not sent because he did not speak English.
It seems that a local family of some influence with the British administrators at the time had persuaded them that Biuku and Eroni would get lost if they were sent. Biuku thought this had been done simply out of envy or spite. Funnily enough it is from a member of the same family I had been trying to retrieve Kennedy's letter.
Anyway, be that as it may, in the end, another local, named Ben Kevu, was sent to the inauguration instead. Kevu was an interpreter for the Americans during the war. It was felt he would be better able to communicate.
When Kevu returned he told Biuku that Kennedy had looked at him for a moment, then told him he was too tall. (Kevu was very tall - Biuku was quite short). Kennedy had told Kevu that he was plainly the wrong person. He knew how tall Biuku was, and Kevu was not Biuku. Kevu told Biuku that Kennedy had made it quite plain to him that he was disappointed and that it was Biuku and Eroni whom Kennedy had wanted to meet again.
Biuku told June that before Kennedy left the Solomons, he had told Biuku that he was going to try to be president one day and that when that happened he would send for Biuku to visit him in the White House. Biuku also told June that Kennedy had said to him that he would take the coconut with him when he went, and would keep it. He told Biuku that one day Biuku would come to visit him, and Kennedy would show the coconut to Biuku again. June says this is exactly what Biuku told her. He said they spoke very rough Pijin to each other at that time. June said that telling the story was always a source of mirth to the family as Biuku imitated the way he and JFK spoke pijin to each other.
I am going to get June to translate the recording and I will send you a copy along with a transcript and translation.
I thought you might like to hear some of what she told me of what Biuku told her when she last saw him. She also has a recording made of Biuku telling the "Kennedy" story.
Biuku told June that when he was due to go to the US for Kennedy's inauguration, he was not sent because he did not speak English.
It seems that a local family of some influence with the British administrators at the time had persuaded them that Biuku and Eroni would get lost if they were sent. Biuku thought this had been done simply out of envy or spite. Funnily enough it is from a member of the same family I had been trying to retrieve Kennedy's letter.
Anyway, be that as it may, in the end, another local, named Ben Kevu, was sent to the inauguration instead. Kevu was an interpreter for the Americans during the war. It was felt he would be better able to communicate.
When Kevu returned he told Biuku that Kennedy had looked at him for a moment, then told him he was too tall. (Kevu was very tall - Biuku was quite short). Kennedy had told Kevu that he was plainly the wrong person. He knew how tall Biuku was, and Kevu was not Biuku. Kevu told Biuku that Kennedy had made it quite plain to him that he was disappointed and that it was Biuku and Eroni whom Kennedy had wanted to meet again.
Biuku told June that before Kennedy left the Solomons, he had told Biuku that he was going to try to be president one day and that when that happened he would send for Biuku to visit him in the White House. Biuku also told June that Kennedy had said to him that he would take the coconut with him when he went, and would keep it. He told Biuku that one day Biuku would come to visit him, and Kennedy would show the coconut to Biuku again. June says this is exactly what Biuku told her. He said they spoke very rough Pijin to each other at that time. June said that telling the story was always a source of mirth to the family as Biuku imitated the way he and JFK spoke pijin to each other.
I am going to get June to translate the recording and I will send you a copy along with a transcript and translation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)