The Futility of Average

My two highest level math students complete their class online with a teacher outside of our district. At the same time, everyday, the students log on for a live interactive instruction complete with a live audio and video feed from the North Pole. The technology that is used for these meetings vacillates from mediocre to completely worthless. The district provides this option to students working beyond graduation requirements, so the site teacher (me) may spend her time working to get everyone else through their required math standards. The district’s intention behind offering the online course is excellent.

However, I am continuously finding that my online students are not getting the support they need to be successful in their class. This has created an interesting situation for me. On one hand, I am not teaching the course, so I do not have any idea what and how they are being taught because I am busy teaching my other students. It was not until my students’ test scores were consistently being scored at below proficiency that this teacher reciprocated my communication attempts. (I actually had to raise an issue out of it with the people at District Office, but that is a whole different story in itself.) Now, I spend the last forty-five minutes of my day reviewing with the students what was taught, and going over their homework assignments.

To make the situation even more fun, I do not have a book or teacher’s manual for this class. Furthermore, this “beyond graduation requirements course” is Alegbra I, which I have not had in about ten years. (Most of the math that I had at the college level has yet to appear?) Needless to say, sometimes, it takes me longer than it should to figure out what is going on. [I am a very lucky girl to have a best friend who not only has a degree in math, but is so well-versed in ‘Amanda’ that he can teach me the especially confusing concepts over the phone.]

I abhor it when my students do poorly on assessments. I take it personally because #1. I am in this profession for the students. It is my job to give them the tools they will need to be successful in life. #2 I believe student understanding of concepts are directly related to the quality of classroom instruction, and reflect my ability to decipher and meet each student’s individual needs. Before my students have to take a Chapter Test, we spend the majority of the week reviewing the information they will need to do well on the tests. At least once a week, I hold evening math study sessions. Sometimes, I spend my time creating practice supplemental worksheets that put the problems/concepts into terms that they would see in their everyday lives. I even created an Algebra Bulletin Board for these students that I literally update every other day! One would think that all this extra effort would lead to increased scores, but this is not the case… These two students still are not producing proficient work!

According to the Standards Based System, a student needs to have completed the majority of the course work at an 80% or better to be considered proficient. In theory, this is an awesome concept. Students will not move on to the next level unless they have a median grade of a B… I hate to even entertain the notion, but I cannot help but wonder if some students in some subject areas are not capable of work that is above average.

origins

Ever since the Europeans accidentally came into contact with the New World, people have wondered where the creation of this new place and the origins of the people who live here. Some people theorized that indigenous people of the Americas were one of the ten tribes of Israel; others felt that maybe they were refugees from the lost continent of Atlantis; that these Native people were the descendants of the infamous seafaring Vikings; or as in the case of those that believe in monotheism, that Noah had visited the New World. By the seventeenth century it became difficult to ignore the similarities between people, plants, and animals of Asia in the Old World and those of the New World. As science and technology has advanced through time, compelling evidence has been gathered from geology, archaeology, linguistics, and physical/biological anthropology for suggesting that the ancestors of all indigenous peoples of the New World originated in Asia.


During the Pleistocene or last “ice-age” epoch there were periods of time during where most of earth’s surface sported glaciers, which tied up enough water to allow the sea level to drop at least three-hundred feet, thus exposing a land connection or a “land bridge” between the far east of the Soviet Union and Alaska. Beringia, the land bridge, as it is commonly referred to, was the route by which plants and animals (both human and non-human) moved into and populated the New World, including South, Central, Meso and North America. Between 30,000 and 14,000 years ago Beringia was it its maximum size; and hunters and gatherers unintentionally moved slowly through the generations from Asia into what is now the New World pursuing the game upon which they depended for food, clothing, housing, fuel, and building materials.

Archeological evidence is crux to understanding theories and questions related to the peopling of the New World. Archaeologists have many means by which they can date cultural and associated faunal and floral remains; some are relative dates and other provides absolute data in terms of years before the present. Unfortunately, no known archaeological remains in either Alaska or Canada date older than 12,500 years ago. Additionally problematic is the fact that archaeological cultures cannot be linked directly with known ethnic groups, especially in the absence of human fossil remains. Most Alaskan archeologists, however, would argue that based on comparative tool type analysis there were three or more distinct waves of human migration to the New World.

Historic linguistic evidence also suggests that there were three major migrations of people into the New World from Asia, placing the first one around approximately 15,000 years ago. The science of historical linguistics utilizes its own methods for shaping relative and definite language divergences based on what is referred to as core vocabulary. There is currently no linguistic evidence that supports an absolute relationship between any language spoken by the indigenous peoples of the New World and any existing language of Asia or the Russian far east. New World language diversity does not sustain a theory that they all derived from a common linguistic stock 15,000 years ago. Two or three separate old world linguistic ancestors offer a more likely scenario explaining New World linguistic variations.

Biological anthropologists study clines, which establish the progression of genetic and other biological traits over geographical areas of the world. An additional aspect of human blood systems, Rh negative, also indicates the biological similarity of Native Americans and Asians as distinct from other populations. There are practically no Asians or Native Americans (Indians or Eskimo-Aleuts) which either manifest the Rh negative factors in their blood, or carry the gene for this characteristic. There is also a common dental characteristic of shovel-shaped incisors (incisors with a concave cross section) between all indigenous Native Americans and Asians. Additionally, the sinodont pattern in Eskimo-Aleut, characterized by extremely high frequencies of rooter first lower molars is found principally in south-east Asia. These biological factors, considered in association with nonqualified aspects of general appearance such as hair, form, hair and eye color, epicanthic fold, skin pigmentation, stature and various other biological characteristics indicate the Asian origins of all Native Americans.

Admittedly, there is no single explanation derived from anthropology and linguistics for the peopling of the New World based on geological, anthropological, linguistic, and biological data that is supported by ALL scientists, but the great majority of evidence, research, and data designate an Asian derivation for all indigenous people of the New World.

Candice Berner

This week, I lost a colleague and good friend; she was killed by wolves.

Candice and I were two of the six teachers recruited from Pennsylvania to teach for Lake and Peninsula School District. We both had been drawn to Alaska in search of something new and different, an adventure, driven by our great love for the outdoors.

We bonded over new teacher in-service in Anchorage. We both spent our time avoiding as much unnecessary stress as possible in our preparation for bush life. We helped each other provision. She let me use her Costco card. We went to the post office at obscure hours to avoid lines.

At the October in-service in King Salmon, we left dinner early one night because we were both feeling trapped after being in meetings all day, corralled for meals, and herded to shuttles. We opted to trek the  three miles home to stretch our legs, and get some fresh air. On the walk home, she lectured me for not being diligent with my writing. She enjoyed my writing. Candice was in the south end of the district and me in the north; as well as amusing her, it allowed her to keep up with my bush teaching experience. On that refreshing walk home, we made loose summer plans to work and live together in Alaska, doing something outside, and potentially do some traveling to other parts of the state. By March, plans had altered. Candice felt obligated to help family in Canada for the six weeks after teaching. She wanted to go home to Slippery Rock for awhile, and then wanted to come spend a week with me in Erie, so I could teach her to sail. We were going to return to Alaska together to do some traveling before school started back up. She always wanted to try new things; she loved that I was always game to play.

I have mixed emotions about my friend being killed in such a nightmarish fashion. Initially, I was in shock. Wolves, seriously? My knee-jerk reaction was bullshit. I did some research, and this is only the second time in history a wolf killed a human. A bear would attack a human, not wolves. It seemed too obscure to actually be true. Sometimes, I am angry. There is a part of me that thinks there must be something more to the story, perhaps foul play. Although she was tiny (standing at 4’11 and maybe 100lbs soaking wet), she was also a hunter and a trapper. She was not naïve; she was well aware of the potential hazards that are always lurking in Alaska.

She was tough. She would have fought hard and long if necissary. I just hope it was quick. She would be upset with me if I were to allow myself to become consumed with greif. However, that does not mean I do not frequently weep about the situation. My students provide an amazing distraction, and I find them to be quite therapeutic.

The death of a loved one is always difficult; the loss of a young life is even more grim. However, if you die in a place that makes you happy, doing what you love, is it really a tragedy? Alaska is one of the few places left in the world that is still pristine and wild, which is why we came here. I find it poetic that it was the wild that took her in the end; albeit gruesome and horrifying, her blood was spilled on the landscape, and pumps through the veins of wolves that run wild and free.



http://www.adn.com/2010/03/09/1175725/wolf-blamed-in-death-of-villager.html

Candice's Blog:
http://www.cberner.blogspot.com/