Interview #5
Aug. 30th, 2004 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
memeslayer:
1. When and why did you first start your LiveJournal(or equivalent, if
you used something before LJ).
2. If you could learn any language instantly, what would it be and why?
3. If you could own one item that can be bought normally(ie, on
amazon.com), without regard to price, storage requirements, or other such
limitations, what would it be?
4. What do you think is the single best thing that could be done to
improve public education in the United States, from an administrative
perspective? If you have some time to kill, give separate answers for the
federal, state, district, and school levels.
5. What do you think is my biggest flaw, if any? :)
1) My first entry is on July 17, 2001. I had two reasons for starting it, back in the beginning; one was that a number of people had asked me what my personal website was, and were startled that I didn't have one. I figured that a pseudo-blog would do. The other was that someone else I knew - I don't remember who; I think it might have beentheoldone - had recently started a LiveJournal and was suggesting that other people sign on. It seemed like an interesting idea, so I did. I didn't get my first comment until September 2nd. I pretty much got swamped with work later that month and didn't start posting regularly until the next March.
2) Irish Gaelic. I tried learning it once and didn't do so hot. It seems a pity to let a language die, and it's a perfectly reasonable liturgical language for a lot of what I do liturgy for.
3) An antique rosewood four-poster canopy bed, with a featherbed topper and drawers with carved handles for linen storage below the box-spring platform. I'm actually describing a piece of furniture that exists, and either is still in the family or was up until this winter; unfortunately, I have little chance of purchasing said item from Dad's family's inheritance - it's probably worth more than three months' salary for me. But I have a lot of good memories associated with it, and I've seen similar items in antique shows, albeit without the feather mattress topper.
4) Raise the entry requirements for every job in the educational career ladder, from the paraprofessionals and secretaries up to the Secretary of Education. Teacher is at least as difficult and socially weighty a job as physician; they should both require a doctorate or the equivalent. (After all, that's what "doctor" really means. Yeah, technically that lets me out, but if that had been required I'd've done it.) If every teacher had that much invested in the job before they started, I think we'd have many fewer problems with insufficient content preparation, with losses from the profession, and with idjits who think this is "just a job" and not a career, a profession, or a vocation. A Superintendent should have to have another doctorate's worth of managerial and diplomatic training on top of that. The State Commissioner of Education should have to have at least twenty years' experience - ten years teaching, and another ten in district administration. The Secretary should have to have served as a state Commissioner or the equivalent for five years. No one in the hierarchy should have been hired from "the business world" with grotesque ideas about "profitability."
The second thing would be to throw out the godsdamned testing system, but first things first. If we get strong instruction in every classroom all the way up, and administrators who know what's going on in the classroom, the tests will become obviously unnecessary and unravel themselves. Then we can deal with societal issues like the anti-intellectualism in USian culture that makes it okay to be bad in math, or normal to never read a book, or acceptable to hate school.
5) [biting back the obvious snappy rejoinder] (You mean, other than that you're usually not here, and that you just told me you're thinking about dumping all of us here permanently at some point? Well, those aren't personality flaws; those are situational, and I assume you meant personal.) Hmm . . . you often seem to want to say something fascinating and interesting, and then "think better of it" and say something you think will be amusing instead. I don't mind being amused, but I don't require it - and I suspect that I, personally, would be far more edified by the interesting thing you chose not to say. (Is that a flaw? It seems like one to me.)
memeslayer:1. When and why did you first start your LiveJournal(or equivalent, if
you used something before LJ).
2. If you could learn any language instantly, what would it be and why?
3. If you could own one item that can be bought normally(ie, on
amazon.com), without regard to price, storage requirements, or other such
limitations, what would it be?
4. What do you think is the single best thing that could be done to
improve public education in the United States, from an administrative
perspective? If you have some time to kill, give separate answers for the
federal, state, district, and school levels.
5. What do you think is my biggest flaw, if any? :)
1) My first entry is on July 17, 2001. I had two reasons for starting it, back in the beginning; one was that a number of people had asked me what my personal website was, and were startled that I didn't have one. I figured that a pseudo-blog would do. The other was that someone else I knew - I don't remember who; I think it might have been
theoldone - had recently started a LiveJournal and was suggesting that other people sign on. It seemed like an interesting idea, so I did. I didn't get my first comment until September 2nd. I pretty much got swamped with work later that month and didn't start posting regularly until the next March.2) Irish Gaelic. I tried learning it once and didn't do so hot. It seems a pity to let a language die, and it's a perfectly reasonable liturgical language for a lot of what I do liturgy for.
3) An antique rosewood four-poster canopy bed, with a featherbed topper and drawers with carved handles for linen storage below the box-spring platform. I'm actually describing a piece of furniture that exists, and either is still in the family or was up until this winter; unfortunately, I have little chance of purchasing said item from Dad's family's inheritance - it's probably worth more than three months' salary for me. But I have a lot of good memories associated with it, and I've seen similar items in antique shows, albeit without the feather mattress topper.
4) Raise the entry requirements for every job in the educational career ladder, from the paraprofessionals and secretaries up to the Secretary of Education. Teacher is at least as difficult and socially weighty a job as physician; they should both require a doctorate or the equivalent. (After all, that's what "doctor" really means. Yeah, technically that lets me out, but if that had been required I'd've done it.) If every teacher had that much invested in the job before they started, I think we'd have many fewer problems with insufficient content preparation, with losses from the profession, and with idjits who think this is "just a job" and not a career, a profession, or a vocation. A Superintendent should have to have another doctorate's worth of managerial and diplomatic training on top of that. The State Commissioner of Education should have to have at least twenty years' experience - ten years teaching, and another ten in district administration. The Secretary should have to have served as a state Commissioner or the equivalent for five years. No one in the hierarchy should have been hired from "the business world" with grotesque ideas about "profitability."
The second thing would be to throw out the godsdamned testing system, but first things first. If we get strong instruction in every classroom all the way up, and administrators who know what's going on in the classroom, the tests will become obviously unnecessary and unravel themselves. Then we can deal with societal issues like the anti-intellectualism in USian culture that makes it okay to be bad in math, or normal to never read a book, or acceptable to hate school.
5) [biting back the obvious snappy rejoinder] (You mean, other than that you're usually not here, and that you just told me you're thinking about dumping all of us here permanently at some point? Well, those aren't personality flaws; those are situational, and I assume you meant personal.) Hmm . . . you often seem to want to say something fascinating and interesting, and then "think better of it" and say something you think will be amusing instead. I don't mind being amused, but I don't require it - and I suspect that I, personally, would be far more edified by the interesting thing you chose not to say. (Is that a flaw? It seems like one to me.)
