From Kurtwood cow to me

Nothing beats the taste and nutritional value of raw milk:  fresh, not cooked unpasteurized, from cows grazing on real pasture -- the kind I drank as a kid, the kind your ancestors drank for thousands of years.  While visiting Vashon Island this weekend, we finally had the chance to stop at Kurtwood Farms, to see real cows and drink real milk.

Kurt Timmermeister was kind enough to show us the pasture, let us touch the cows, and of course buy some of the fresh, clean milk, which he hand-pours into bottles each day -- about 15 gallons worth, from four cows -- a herd he has been raising for the past few years on a small farm in the middle of the island, right there with pigs, sheep, and a field of corn.

He is obsessed with quality and cleanliness. He follows all the regulations, of course, but talking with him I got the sense that he is a meticulous guy anyway, doing this for fun and for the thrill of making a high-quality product.

If you think good food only comes from Whole Foods or gourmet restaurants, there's nothing like a visit to a farm to help you understand what your ancestors knew, that real food comes from sun, water, air, and lots of labor.  I am extremely grateful for the wonderful variety and low costs possible by specialization and industrial scale agriculture and food processing -- that's why I'm not a locavore -- but I think everyone should spend the extra money and indulge now and then in the really good stuff.

Yummy!

The Namesake [film]

 

I can't remember how I heard about this film, but somehow it ended up on my Netflix list and I'm not disappointed. It was an excellent movie on several levels and I give it a lot of stars.

It's about a Bengali family in America, and of course there are the standard struggles of an immigrant family with parents trying to understand their American children. But the ideas in the movie are much deeper, revolving around themes from the Russian novelist Nicolai Gogol and how we live up to (or fail to live up to) our names and identities.

There's no point showing this to elementary school kids, since the light profanity and "adult situations" will overshadow what they get out of the deeper themes, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in culture and what's it's like to live between the cracks.

Why you should not vote

Newsweek calls them "Low Info Voters", the people who don't know or apparently care what issues are at stake in an election. They base their preferences on how much they like a candidate or how they feel about an issue.  I know one person who seriously likes one candidate because "he has nice hair".

 

In a new book I read last week, Bryan Caplan, an associate professor of economics (and blogger) at George Mason University, argues convincingly that the problem is even deeper than it appears. Most political scientists and economists assume that, in general voters in a democracy are rational -- at least over time --favoring policies that improve lives and disfavoring those that cause harm. Caplan disputes this assumption, pointing to four biases, where citizens tend to vote irrationally, for policies that cause greater harm than good.

Many economic policies have effects that are well-known and uncontroversial to anyone who studies the situation carefully.  Experts may disagree on the cost/benefit tradeoffs, but for example all economists (left, right, in-between) understand how lowering the gas tax will tend to make people drive more. Similarly with the following four biases Caplan identifies:

• Antimarket: rent control, minimum wages, etc.
• Antiforeign: immigration, trade, etc.
• Make-work: many people assume that any policy that improves employment is good. But what if the government hired people to run through town breaking windows? This would provide a double-bump to the economy: jobs for those who break the windows and jobs for those who fix them. If you can't explain why this is a bad idea, then you have an irrational make-work bias.
• Pessimism: people assume the worst, even when things are getting better (as they usually are).

Nobody will argue that the right to vote should be taken away from dumb people; how would you ever define "dumb"? A lot of you probably think I'm too dumb to vote -- and who knows, maybe you're right. But at least let me make an appeal to intelligent people who otherwise feel it their civic duty to go to the polls in every election, voting for everything on the ballot no matter how little informed they are about the candidates or issues.

Simply put: if you don't understand the candidate or the issue, please don't vote. Don't go into the poll booth and "guess". Don't decide your vote based on the sound of a name or the gender of the candidate. You'll do more harm than good.

Why Yong Zhao is wrong

While working at Apple Computer long ago, I became good friends with Andy Van Schaack, who later received his PhD in Instructional Technology and knows way more about education -- what works and doesn't -- than I ever will.  Since so many educators on Mercer Island seem enamored with Yong Zhao lately, I wanted to know what Andy thinks.  Here's my edited version of his response to the points made  in my earlier blog  post:

1. It’s not the teachers: they’ve all been trained

Baloney. I teach courses on the use of technology in the classroom at an undergraduate and graduate level. And I present to teachers frequently through in-service training. Generally speaking, teachers don't have the first clue about how to use technology to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of instruction. I can't blame them, though. Teacher educators and educational researchers aren't much better off. There are exceptions which I will describe below.

2. There’s no shortage of great software

Baloney. The vast majority of educational software is ineffective. In fact, I would argue that the use of most educational software is counterproductive... Companies that develop and sell educational software [ought to] demonstrate how much more effective/efficient their software is relative to conventional approaches to meet the instructional objective. And by demonstrate, I'm expecting good, solid scientific research... [like I did in my dissertation].

 

IMPORTANT: It is not enough to say your educational technology is "research-based." Anyone can pull out a research study (of potentially dubious quality), point to it, and say, "Our technology is based on this!" So what? Do the experiment, show me the date, and then we'll talk.

 

This is not really that hard or that expensive to do. I believe the reason companies don't provide this kind of evidence is because their products don't actually work--and either they already know it or are afraid to find out.

3. “computers only help if used less than 3 hrs/day” -- after that it’s wasted.

I'm not sure where this comes from--but certainly it's based on historical data. I'd argue that if the computer is loaded with software developed based on empirically-validated psychological principles AND the software is aligned with the instructional objectives of the school/state AND the software has been validated through experimental studies to produce the outcomes desired THEN I'd use it as much as I could. 3 hours is too much if the software sucks and too little if the software is great. 

4. Need a network of teachers working together, not as individuals

Putting a bunch of uneducated people in a room together is not going to magically produce great tools and/or techniques. (I'm not using the term "uneducated" to belittle teachers, but based on research studies that have examined teacher knowledge of effective instructional practices, most teachers beliefs about what does and does not work in the classroom to produce the best educational outcomes are incorrect. They, very simply, have not been trained well. That's a fault of the teaching colleges/professors, not the teachers themselves.)

5. Connect to existing practices and beliefs

Generally speaking, existing practices and beliefs (i.e. what happens in most classrooms) is seriously flawed. I'd like to see us move away from the current, popular philosophies of education to those that are more grounded in the evidence of what actually produces the outcomes we desire.

6. Find the right niche where technology is natural, not forced

I would never want to force technology into an application where it is not the right solution, but that doesn't mean that the application of effective technology is always going to feel natural. Surgery is not natural, but for many who are seriously ill, it is often the right solution. I don't think teaching and learning should necessarily be "fun." It is work, but you can take enjoyment from work, just as you can be invigorated after a hard workout even though you are sweaty and sore.

Andy suggests two books: "Talks to Teachers" (by Berliner & Rosenshine) and "Evidence-Based Educational Methods" (by Moran & Malott). He also sent some more thoughts on why he disagrees with "the currently popular constructivist philosophy (which advocates that children should independently explore the world in order to create their own knowledge)" versus "the instructivist philosophy (which advocates that teachers should direct the activities of the student through a structured curriculum)".  I've always been sympathetic to the "Where's the Math" campaign, but now Andy's given me a lot more homework that will help me understand more.

As always, I'm eager to hear what you think in the comments.

Grandma and Me

I spent last week with my 92-year-old grandmother.  A lifelong dairy farmer, she grew up in a cabin with a dirt floor, deep in the woods of rural Wisconsin, so it's not surprising that she's extremely tough.  Extremely opinionated too, as I learned 15 years ago when she visited me in Japan and heard her talking about WWII and her work in a bandage factory. On everything from politics to the economy to international relations and the environment, she has the fierce confidence of a woman who knows you need to chop wood to survive a sub-zero Wisconsin winter -- and thinks that what many of you talk about is a bunch of hooey.

She's cut back her coffee drinking in the last few years.  I remember when she used to drink a pot before bedtime to "help her sleep".  And what does she think about organic food?  "Hah!," she says. "That's crazy."  She remembers being glad that they could finally afford pesticides, and she would never go back.  "You ever seen how many bugs you get?"

What about raw milk?  She thinks pasteurization is fine for the city folk, but as someone who drank fresh milk straight from the bulk tank her whole life, she's never heard of anyone getting sick.   When she was a girl, the woods were so thick that the bigger worry was finding pasture land for the cows.  Be thankful for what you have.

Brown your teeth with Crest Pro-Health Rinse

About two months ago, I bought one of those special giant Costco boxes of a mouthwash from Crest.  I've been long convinced by the evidence that anti-bacterial rinses like Listerine decrease your chances of tooth problems, particularly gingivitis, so for many years I've been using as directed, at least once a day.  (No, it doesn't cause cancer -- I checked).

Coincidentally, I also noticed recently that my teeth have been turning color: ugly brown stains all over my mouth.  I assumed it was caused by my Espresso Vivace habit, though it's strange that it appeared suddenly and with such force. But whatever, I'd rather have ugly teeth than give up my morning latte, so I ignored it until today when my dentist asked me if by any chance I was using Crest Pro-Health rinse.  Bingo!

Now I was stunned to see that Crest actually admits that this rinse can brown your teeth!  I'm shocked because Crest's parent company, Procter & Gamble, is ultra-ultra conservative about these things--they test their products interminably, and their healthcare divisions in particular are obsessive about consumer safety.  The web site notes that staining is extremely rare--affecting fewer than 0.001% of people--so I guess I'm just one of those unlucky mouths.

Incidentally, although I won't be using Pro-Health again (anybody want my extra, unopened bottle?), I disagree with people who think the FDA should order a recall. No doubt the product does work for some people, and it's easy enough for me to be informed about it, so it should be up to me (or you, dear reader) to decide whether to use it or not.  Some people find the alcohol-based rinses like Listerine too harsh (I don't) and if you're one of them, you should have every right to buy Pro-Health.

And as their web site notes, if you do happen to get stains on your teeth, you can fix it with Crest Whitestrips!

PTA Advocate of the Year

Look who was recently honored with this year's PTA Outstanding Advocate Award:

 

Quite an achievement, but believe me, you don't know the half of what she advocates.