Bob Herbert Again!

We have been reading and discussing Bob Herbert's opinion editorial about racial profiling. Below is another op-ed by Herbert. Please read and respond in no less that 150 words with your opinion of his argument. Please make specific reference to his language and how it helps or hinders his opinion.

Due Saturday Feb 27th by midnight.

February 23, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Where the Bar Ought to Be
By BOB HERBERT

Deborah Kenny talks a lot about passion — the passion for teaching, for reading and for learning. She has it. She wants all of her teachers to have it. Above all, she wants her students to have it.

Ms. Kenny has created three phenomenally successful charter schools in Harlem and is in the process of creating more. She’s gotten a great deal of national attention. But for all the talk about improving schools in this country, she thinks we tend to miss the point more often than not.

There is an overemphasis on “the program elements,” she said, “things like curriculum and class size and school size and the longer day.” She understood in 2001, when she was planning the first of the schools that have come to be known as the Harlem Village Academies, that none of those program elements were nearly as important as the quality of the teaching in the schools.

“If you had an amazing teacher who was talented and passionate and given the freedom and support to teach well,” she said, “that was just 100 times more important than anything else.”

This emphasis on program elements is one of the main reasons it has been so difficult to repeat the successes of outstanding schools. As Ms. Kenny put it, “They were trying to replicate programs instead of trying to develop people.”

It’s not that the program elements are unimportant. When I visited a Harlem Village Academy middle school on First Avenue, the first thing I noticed was an apparent paradox: There was a great deal of energy and excitement in the school but not much noise, not even when children were changing classes. The school day is longer. The curriculum is carefully thought out. And discipline is obviously important. Youngsters are not allowed to make fun of one another. And there is no fighting.

When I asked one boy why there were no fights in the school, he replied, “Because it’s not allowed.”

Ms. Kenny’s point is that these programmatic, structural elements in the schools are just the starting points, the foundation that supports the essential mission of any school: to teach.

“I became obsessed with how to develop great teachers,” she said.

The first step in that complex, difficult process is to create a school environment that has standards high enough and challenging enough to appeal to very good people. “You put all of your focus on finding great people,” said Ms. Kenny, “and you establish a culture that helps them constantly learn and grow and become better at what they do. You have to provide a community in the school that supports and respects teachers. And you have to give them the kind of freedom that allows their passion for teaching to flourish.

“We’ve created a culture that brings out the passion of the teachers and they bring out the passion of the kids.”

Charter schools, of course, can fire teachers for poor performance. “Obviously, none of us should be allowed to be in front of children if we’re not doing a good job,” Ms. Kenny said. “But the threat of being fired if you don’t do a good job is not what makes a teacher great.”

Ms. Kenny has established two middle schools and one high school and is in the process of creating three elementary schools. Her track record has been extraordinary.

The majority of the youngsters come into the middle schools performing at three to four years behind their grade levels. Within a very short time, they are on the fast track toward college. In 2008, when the math and science test scores came in, Ms. Kenny’s eighth graders had achieved 100 percent proficiency. It was not a fluke.

What’s ironic is that the teachers are doing everything but teaching to the tests. Ms. Kenny’s goals for the youngsters in her schools are the same as those that she had for her own three children, who grew up in a comfortable suburban environment and are now in college. Merely passing a standardized test was hardly something to aspire to.

“I had five core things in mind for my kids, and that’s what I want for our students,” she said. “I wanted them to be wholesome in character. I wanted them to be compassionate and to see life as a responsibility to give something to the world. I wanted them to have a sophisticated intellect. I wanted them to be avid readers, the kind of person who always has trouble putting a book down. And I raised them to be independent thinkers, to lead reflective and meaningful lives.”

It never crossed Ms. Kenny’s mind that a rich and abiding intellectual life was out of the reach of kids growing up in a tough urban environment.

For My Twilight Lovers

Read the article below (yes Sawyer, I'm actually talking about The Twilight Saga)and write a response with your opinion about the issue. Your response should be anywhere from 100-150 words.
Thanks,

-Ms. K
(This is due Saturday Feb 20th by midnight)

February 8, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Sucking the Quileute Dry
By ANGELA R. RILEY

Los Angeles

ALL the world, it seems, has been bitten by “Twilight.” Conservative estimates place revenue generated from Stephenie Meyer’s vampire chronicles — the books, movies and merchandise — in the billion-dollar range. Scarcely mentioned, however, is the effect that “Twilight” has had on the tiny Quileute Nation, situated on a postage stamp of a reservation, just one square mile, in remote La Push, Wash.

To millions of “Twilight” fans, the Quileute are Indians whose (fictional) ancient treaty transforms young males of the tribe into vampire-fighting wolves. To the nearly 700 remaining Quileute Indians, “Twilight” is the reason they are suddenly drawing extraordinary attention from the outside — while they themselves remain largely excluded from the vampire series’ vast commercial empire.

Just last month, MSN.com issued an apology to the Quileute for intruding on its territory while videotaping a “Twilight” virtual tour in September. MSN.com sought permission from the Chamber of Commerce in nearby Forks, Wash., but didn’t pay the same courtesy to the Quileute. The video team trespassed onto a reservation cemetery and taped Quileute graves, including those of esteemed tribal leaders. These images were then set to macabre music and, in November, posted on MSN.com. The tribe quickly persuaded MSN.com to remove the Quileute images.

But this was only one episode in the story of the tribe’s phenomenal, and apparently increasing, new fame. “Twilight” has made all things Quileute wildly popular: Nordstrom.com sells items from Quileute hoodies to charms bearing a supposed Quileute werewolf tattoo. And a tour company hauls busloads of fans onto the Quileute reservation daily. Yet the tribe has received no payment for this commercial activity. Meanwhile, half of Quileute families still live in poverty.

It’s important to point out that the outside uses of the Quileute name, from the “Twilight” books to the tattoo jewelry, are quite likely legal. American intellectual property laws, except in very specific circumstances, do not protect indigenous peoples’ collective cultural property.

In fact, many businesses use tribal names without involving the Indians themselves. Consider, for example, well-known products like Jeep Cherokee trucks, Oneida flatware and Apache helicopters — none of which are officially associated with Indian tribes. (The Quileute say they have never been contacted by Ms. Meyer or any of those who use the Quileute name for merchandising.)

The most significant federal law that addresses the marketing of Indian cultural goods — the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, passed in 1935 — is meant to ensure truth in advertising. It requires that any artistic products claiming to have a tribal origin are in fact produced by that tribe. Hopi kachina dolls, for example, must be Hopi-made. But it does not come into play for the Quileute hoodies, jewelry or other goods, because there is no claim they were made by the Quileute.

So what can be done? Even absent legal protection, the Quileute should be able to have a say in, and benefit financially from, outsiders’ use of their cultural property.

Many Indian tribes develop markets for their own cultural property — or at least the part of it that is not deemed sacred and therefore private. Some have introduced culturally appropriate commercial products — Navajo rugs, for example, or Potawatomi porcupine-quill earrings — to educate non-Indians about their traditions or to earn a living.

The Quileute are likewise eager to share their tribal culture, even if the interest in it was created primarily by Hollywood. The Quileute welcome outsiders, as my own interactions with them have confirmed. When hordes of “Twilight” fans showed up in La Push in 2008, the tribe, as a sovereign Indian nation, could have closed its reservation, but tribal members chose not to do so.

At the same time, like indigenous peoples around the globe, the Quileute want to be meaningful participants in the treatment of their own cultural property. This means, first and foremost, having their sovereignty and their culture respected by outsiders. The Quileute’s Web site tells visitors about the tribal laws that govern Quileute territory. One of these laws specifies that burial grounds and religious ceremonies are “sacred and not to be entered.” Had MSN acknowledged the tribe as a sovereign government, it might not have broken that rule. The Quileute believe that respect for Indian tribal sovereignty could likewise bridge cultural gaps between other Indian communities and outsiders.

Going forward, the Quileute should be engaged in the “Twilight” phenomenon. They should be able, first, to welcome Ms. Meyer to the reservation and introduce her to the Tribal Council and all the Quileute people. They should be consulted on projects where the Quileute name and culture are used to market products. And Quileute elders should be able to share with the world the true Quileute creation story, in which tribal members were transformed into humans from wolves (not vampire-fighting wolves).

Undoubtedly, the Quileute, whose remote reservation leaves them with few options for economic development, would also welcome “Twilight”-based profit-sharing arrangements or other opportunities to capitalize on the phenomenon. They struggle to maintain adequate tribal housing and to support their tribal school, Elder Center and tribal court, all of which are integral to ensuring that their culture continues for future generations.

The ultimate choice, regarding not only the Quileute but all indigenous peoples, is not simply whether outsiders are free to appropriate tribal cultural property. For the sake of fairness as much as law, indigenous peoples must play a significant role in decisions regarding their cultural property.

Angela R. Riley directs the American Indian Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has informally advised the Quileute Tribe on a voluntary basis.

Abstinence Education

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08mon1.html

Please read the op-ed above. Write a response of at least 200 words that agrees or disagrees with the claim.

Thanks!

Ms. Kavanagh