"Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover the peculiar bent of the genius of each."
Plato
I am a "putting down roots" type of person. Big, sweeping life changes have never been high on my list of favorite things to do. Nevertheless, I have experienced many such changes in my life, much like most of you I suppose.
Recently I have moved thru yet another of these significant changes. My boys now both off to college, I have made a move of over 700 miles to begin life in North Carolina, leaving behind my sons and the place I called home for nearly 20 years. It was an emotionally difficult move, and at the same time, like many of these big changes, one that brought with it a certain level of excitement and anticipation for the new life ahead.
One of the surprises in store for me would speak directly to my profession as an educator.
Now one thing I have learned about educators in my 14 years in the classroom is that many of us are weary of change. There is a certain cynicism that comes with being told on a seemingly annual basis that there is a "new" educational initiative coming - one that turns out to look distressingly like one or more of the previous initiatives in new clothing.
This time though, I'm wondering if I have not stumbled upon a true paradigm shift in the focus of public education in America. And I honestly believe that last line was not hyperbole.
My new job is as a teacher in an Early College Academy. This program offers incoming high school students the opportunity to attend five years of high school (instead of the normal four) in return for two academic accomplishments at the end - a high school diploma and an Associates Degree in either Arts or Sciences.
This program is a part the New Schools Project in the state of North Carolina. There are currently over 100 such programs in the state, meaning that somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of all such programs in the United States are here in North Carolina. The New Schools Project is an initiative designed to re-think how public education works and what it's goals must be. The program aims to help high schools become "nimble, rigorous and focused institutions that graduate all students prepared for college, careers, and life."
The early college academies are designed primarily with preparing students to earn four year college degrees. Clearly though, this option is not for all students. Fortunately, unlike the seriously flawed No Child Left Behind initiative, this program acknowledges that not all students are preparing for college degrees. Rather than expect this goal from all students, only those who are willing to take on the rigor and challenges of such a program, and who prove such through an application process, are invited to participate.
Other new school projects exist in North Carolina as well. Some are situations where an entire school has been segmented into specific stand-alone programs. Others are simply portions of existing schools that have been focused on a particular program such as Health and Life Sciences, or Science and Engineering.
I'm still new to the experience and the process. But it looks very much to me as though the folks here have taken bold steps to acknowledge and address the fact that kids are different today and that no two of them are the same in their abilities or aspirations.
What a startling concept, eh?
The days of the "one size fits all" approach to public education are hopefully slowly fading away. The good men and women who I have taught alongside for 14 years have long understood that expecting all students to follow the same path and achieve at the same level made little sense. Now, for the first time, I am seeing first hand an effort to meet these kids at the place that, as Plato said, "amuses" them.
Exciting and interesting times, it seems to me.
More to come...
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
King No More...
I'm no big fan of NBA basketball, anyone who knows me will tell you that. At the same time, it is hard to deny the sheer athleticism present in the men who play the game at that level.
I was fortunate enough to be living in the midwest when Michael Jordan transformed the Chicago Bulls from an NBA afterthought to perennial league champions. While I'm not quite old enough to remember and appreciate the talent that existed in the days of Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West, I have had the opportunity to see the likes of Julius Irving, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson make the game of basketball appear to be a thing of grace and elegance.
Michael Jordan was something more.
In a game that, for me at least, can too often turn in to little more than a human ping pong game, Jordan made the game come alive. True that he brought great athleticism to the court, but even more significant was his ability - through tenacity, fierce competitiveness, and sheer force of will - to make those around him greater than they perhaps could or should have been. Jordan lead Chicago, step by step and piece by piece, from nothing to a playoff team, from a playoff team to a contender, and from a contender to a perennial Champion. Despite his frustration in the early years, he stayed with the franchise and allowed the work to be done that would eventually lead to the championship fruit born both by his own labor and the efforts of the team management.
For quite some time it seemed to me that I would likely never see another player who could do what Jordan had done in Chicago. Some have suggested that perhaps Kobe was a player close to Jordan's ability, but what Kobe would always lack was the opportunity to so completely transform a team and a city the way that Jordan did.
And then came LeBron...
I remember the Sports Illustrated issue that had the cover picture of a still High School aged LeBron James, and the story that suggested perhaps we were seeing the dawning of a new NBA king. I remember the high school games broadcast on ESPN, showcasing the amazing physical specimen of LeBron, and how he seemed to be literally a man among boys.
Cleveland was indeed a perfect stage if LeBron were to become the next Jordan. It even had the added storybook factor of becoming a "home town boy makes good" scenario. Surely the Cavaliers were every bit as hapless as the Bulls had been prior to Jordan's arrival. And while there was significantly greater hype surrounding LeBron's arrival to the team than there was with Jordan's arrival in Chicago, it was still certainly a case where the potential success of the Cav's was going to rest heavily on what LeBron would be able and willing to do in the coming years.
Jordan and James do not play the same position. Their games are not really even all that similar except in one respect - both are fierce competitors who hate to lose, and who had shown the ability to make others around them better.
The beginning years of LeBron's NBA career seemed to be unfolding in a very Jordan-esque way. Slowly but surely the Cavaliers began rising in stature in the NBA. The team's management, much in the manner of the Bulls and Jordan, began the process of trying to put the right complimentary pieces around the driving force of their young star. Much in the way of his hero, LeBron bristled at the slow pace of the rebuilding, leaning on the team to work harder at building a better team around him.
Soon there were playoffs on a regular basis, and even an almost surprise NBA finals. Unfortunately, in their first trip to the final series, the Cav's fell short. It was about this time that word began spreading through the media that LeBron would not be patient in Cleveland forever, that perhaps he was destined to move to a bigger media market where his many talents would be even more on display.
When the Cav's made an earlier than expected exit from this year's playoffs, the frenzy was on. Speculation ran rampant throughout the press that now was the time for LeBron to make his move.
And then...the debacle of Thursday nights LeBron Special on ESPN.
It's no surprise that professional athletes have egos. I'm not even sure that it's possible to be an athlete at such a high level without having a certain level of ego and arrogance about your abilities and what you can do. But I think that most of us have an unspoken mental line over which we expect even our professional athletes will not cross.
The LeBron show blew that line away for me.
The fact that one of the best players in the league has chosen a new location to take his game is not the problem. When I was a kid, players played for their team forever, but that reality has been long gone from professional sports since the 70's.
The problem for me is that LeBron has tossed away any chance that he can ever become the new king of NBA basketball. The problem is that no matter what he does in the coming years, LeBron can never claim to have done what his hero Michael Jordan did.
No one will be surprised if Miami wins a championship. Few will be surprised if they don't indeed win several championships.
But LeBron will not have been the driving force that compelled this team to championship status.
He will never be able to lay claim to have perservered and led this team from nothingness to greatness.
We will never be able to marvel at his patience and cooperation in working with this teams owners as they built a perennial NBA championship team.
LeBron James will undoubtedly go down in NBA history as one of the great players in the league.
But I think it's safe to say that we can finally and definitively remove the label "King" from his name.
I was fortunate enough to be living in the midwest when Michael Jordan transformed the Chicago Bulls from an NBA afterthought to perennial league champions. While I'm not quite old enough to remember and appreciate the talent that existed in the days of Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West, I have had the opportunity to see the likes of Julius Irving, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson make the game of basketball appear to be a thing of grace and elegance.
Michael Jordan was something more.
In a game that, for me at least, can too often turn in to little more than a human ping pong game, Jordan made the game come alive. True that he brought great athleticism to the court, but even more significant was his ability - through tenacity, fierce competitiveness, and sheer force of will - to make those around him greater than they perhaps could or should have been. Jordan lead Chicago, step by step and piece by piece, from nothing to a playoff team, from a playoff team to a contender, and from a contender to a perennial Champion. Despite his frustration in the early years, he stayed with the franchise and allowed the work to be done that would eventually lead to the championship fruit born both by his own labor and the efforts of the team management.
For quite some time it seemed to me that I would likely never see another player who could do what Jordan had done in Chicago. Some have suggested that perhaps Kobe was a player close to Jordan's ability, but what Kobe would always lack was the opportunity to so completely transform a team and a city the way that Jordan did.
And then came LeBron...
I remember the Sports Illustrated issue that had the cover picture of a still High School aged LeBron James, and the story that suggested perhaps we were seeing the dawning of a new NBA king. I remember the high school games broadcast on ESPN, showcasing the amazing physical specimen of LeBron, and how he seemed to be literally a man among boys.
Cleveland was indeed a perfect stage if LeBron were to become the next Jordan. It even had the added storybook factor of becoming a "home town boy makes good" scenario. Surely the Cavaliers were every bit as hapless as the Bulls had been prior to Jordan's arrival. And while there was significantly greater hype surrounding LeBron's arrival to the team than there was with Jordan's arrival in Chicago, it was still certainly a case where the potential success of the Cav's was going to rest heavily on what LeBron would be able and willing to do in the coming years.
Jordan and James do not play the same position. Their games are not really even all that similar except in one respect - both are fierce competitors who hate to lose, and who had shown the ability to make others around them better.
The beginning years of LeBron's NBA career seemed to be unfolding in a very Jordan-esque way. Slowly but surely the Cavaliers began rising in stature in the NBA. The team's management, much in the manner of the Bulls and Jordan, began the process of trying to put the right complimentary pieces around the driving force of their young star. Much in the way of his hero, LeBron bristled at the slow pace of the rebuilding, leaning on the team to work harder at building a better team around him.
Soon there were playoffs on a regular basis, and even an almost surprise NBA finals. Unfortunately, in their first trip to the final series, the Cav's fell short. It was about this time that word began spreading through the media that LeBron would not be patient in Cleveland forever, that perhaps he was destined to move to a bigger media market where his many talents would be even more on display.
When the Cav's made an earlier than expected exit from this year's playoffs, the frenzy was on. Speculation ran rampant throughout the press that now was the time for LeBron to make his move.
And then...the debacle of Thursday nights LeBron Special on ESPN.
It's no surprise that professional athletes have egos. I'm not even sure that it's possible to be an athlete at such a high level without having a certain level of ego and arrogance about your abilities and what you can do. But I think that most of us have an unspoken mental line over which we expect even our professional athletes will not cross.
The LeBron show blew that line away for me.
The fact that one of the best players in the league has chosen a new location to take his game is not the problem. When I was a kid, players played for their team forever, but that reality has been long gone from professional sports since the 70's.
The problem for me is that LeBron has tossed away any chance that he can ever become the new king of NBA basketball. The problem is that no matter what he does in the coming years, LeBron can never claim to have done what his hero Michael Jordan did.
No one will be surprised if Miami wins a championship. Few will be surprised if they don't indeed win several championships.
But LeBron will not have been the driving force that compelled this team to championship status.
He will never be able to lay claim to have perservered and led this team from nothingness to greatness.
We will never be able to marvel at his patience and cooperation in working with this teams owners as they built a perennial NBA championship team.
LeBron James will undoubtedly go down in NBA history as one of the great players in the league.
But I think it's safe to say that we can finally and definitively remove the label "King" from his name.
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