Size does matter.

I listened to this podcast from the Diane Rehm show today, and it left me feeling completely fed up… specifically the commentary from this Eric Hanushek fellow. Despite his impressive credentials, Hanushek doesn’t seem to have ever taught at anything less than the university level, which makes me wonder how he can possibly be qualified to say so unequivocally that in elementary/middle/high school, class size doesn’t matter as long as you have a good teacher in the classroom. Give the podcast a listen, then come back here to read the rest of my post.

I have been teaching since 2005 (except for 2009). As regular readers of this blog know, I teach English to speakers of other languages, and I have taught in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and South Korea (where I am currently located). I teach at private, extracurricular English language schools. At my current and previous schools, my maximum class size has been 15. I’ve had classes as small as one-on-one, although my average class size is 10. I have taught students of all ages – from first graders through retirees – and I can say without a doubt that the issues a teacher faces while teaching grade school students are vastly different than those faced by those teaching university and adult classes.

At all ages and levels, the smaller the class size the greater the success of my students, but the impact of class size upon student performance is much greater among grade school classes. As much as parents want to believe that their children are little well-behaved angels who sit quietly in class focused on the teacher and the tasks at hand, in reality, even the most well-behaved, studious kids would rather chat with their friends than study if given the chance. (Seriously, think back to when you were in school - how did you act? I was a hyper-motivated straight-A student, but nonetheless, my favorite part of going to school was talking to my friends.) That doesn’t even take into account the kids who misbehave, or the kids who, for one reason or another, simply have trouble paying attention.

And of course, in addition to controlling the behavior of students in the classroom, we teachers are here to actually impart knowledge to our students. In teaching a language, student participation during class time is vital to their improvement. The larger the class, the fewer opportunities each student has to participate, and the fewer opportunities I have to assess each student’s performance. The smaller the class, the better able I am to assess each student’s strengths and weaknesses, and the better able I am to plan lessons which play to their strengths while dealing with those weaknesses. Even in a class of 14-15 students, it is most certainly possible for a weak student to hide behind the skills of his or her classmates until test day arrives. If one of my students needs help with something, I’d rather know it before I give a test. I don’t want my students to fail; I want them to learn.

Making sure all of my students are on the same page (literally and figuratively) is much more difficult with fifteen students than with ten. I cannot even imagine how it must be to work with classes of twenty or thirty. I understand that the United States has (rather belatedly) realized that perhaps operating at such a huge deficit is a bad idea. I understand that states are struggling to balance their budgets. And I understand that things have to be cut. Cutting teachers and increasing class size in order to save money is not the answer, no matter what people such as Eric Hanushek may say. And no matter how good a teacher is, he or she will be a better teacher if his or her classes are smaller.

On a related note, I started teaching a brand new class of first graders on March 2nd. They are incredibly cute. I am also their first English teacher. The class was originally first and second graders – but a huge number signed up: 15!! Trying to wrangle 15 first and second graders into doing anything at the same time was worse than trying to herd cats. Granted, I’m actually pretty good at herding cats, but still! As of today, that class has been split by grade level, leaving me with 10 first graders (Gwen took the second graders) – and it made a huge difference. I was able to be far more efficient, we did many more activities, and everyone got to participate more. Then on my break following this class, I turned on my ipod and listened to the podcast I mentioned above.

Final comment: The last time I taught in Korea (2006-2007) I started teaching a class of brand-new-to-English students in March '07; some of them are now some of the best students at the school. Here’s hoping that some of my current little rugrats follow suit!

I do love me some Carl

1994-1995 was an… interesting period in my life. It was my Sophomore year of high school. It was the time when I developed my first serious crush, suffered my first bout of depression, and was consumed with insecurities. Yet oddly enough, it was also a time of self-confidence, when I fully embraced weirdness, and when I felt as though I could achieve anything. And it was when I fell in love with Carl Sagan [wikipedia].

During my Sophomore year of high school, I devoured everything that he had written – and my favorite of his works was Pale Blue Dot. I read that book numerous times, and wove his words into the fabric of cosmos-related fantasies which pervaded my life at that time. At that time I decided that what I wanted out of life was to become an astronomer… a dream which I held until my first semester at Sewanee, when I discovered that Physics and I were not destined for friendship. (Honestly, it was an incredibly depressing moment when I came to the realization that I would never become an astronomer.)

Nonetheless, my collection of the works of Carl Sagan remained one of my prized possessions until 2009, when in one of the many terrible decisions I made that year, I sold them on Ebay. (Please keep in mind that I was all but unemployed, working 6-10 hours a week at minimum wage, and I had no money but what I could borrow from my mother. This doesn’t so much excuse the act, as explain the motivation behind it.) I almost cried when I packaged the books up and sent them off… and I really did cry rather hysterically when I received a message from their buyer stating that they had been seriously damaged in transport, and he wanted a refund.

Carl Sagan died in 1996… by last Friday he appeared on NPR’s Science Friday, as they were celebrating their 20th anniversary by playing some of their favorite past interviews. I listened to the podcast on my way to work this morning. It brought tears to my eyes, and I’ve been in a funky weird mood ever since. Anyway, you can listen to Carl yourself by clicking here.

Also, would Pale Blue Dot be Голубая Точка or Голубой Пункт? And given the slang connotations of голубой, I wonder how this notion plays in Russia? Oh-бляд-i-oh- бляд-a, life goes on… lalalala life goes on :-)

Epigenetics, BPA, and Can I really live without plastic?

A couple weeks ago, the cover story in TIME magazine was on epigenetics. The whole concept of epigenetics is really fascinating and quite distressing to think about. We all know that evolution is a process which takes a very long time to change a species, so if you think in grand evolutional terms, nothing you do (smoking, drinking, eating a poor diet, etc) will affect your DNA or that of your children…. right? Well, this whole epigenetics thing says pretty much the opposite. There are apparently genetic markers, or switches, which tell certain genes to turn on and others to turn off. Genetic markers for certain things – good and bad – can be turned on and off in response to things such as smoking, drinking, poor diet, etc. And here’s the kicker. If one of these markers is switched on/off in *your* DNA, you will most likely pass on that “switch” to your offspring, and they in turn will most likely pass it on to theirs. It can take several generations for this “switch” to work its way out of your family’s DNA. [Here's what wikipedia has to say on the subject.]

I am certainly not an expert on epigenetics after reading one article, and it does seem to be a rather new field of study, so there’s much in that area still to be learned. However, after reading it, I began thinking very seriously about ways to change things in my life to keep my body healthy – mainly along the lines of eating more fruits and vegetables, keeping in line with my first New Year’s Resolution. Two of my closest friends recently had children, and I guess my biological clock is ticking, because I’ve been wanting to make sure I’m not going to pass on any bizarre DNA switches to any kids *I* might one day have.

Recently I listened to two different podcasts of NPR news shows, both of which addressed the issue of BPA (Bisphenol A) in plastics and its effects (or potential effects) on human health. (The podcasts were Diane Rehm's second hour on January 20, 2010 and Talk of the Nation Science Friday from January 22, 2010. To read about BPA on wikipedia, click here.) Scientists are only just now beginning to understand the effects of BPA upon the human organism, which makes one wonder what *other* chemicals in plastic negatively impact human health. I went grocery shopping right after listening to one podcast, and was in the middle of the other when I pulled into the parking lot. Inspired (or perhaps frightened) by what I’d heard, I decided to try to cut back on the amount of plastics that I purchased.

And I pretty much failed. My one success was buying cream cheese in the cardboard packet, instead of in the plastic tub. Everything else…. well, take a look:

Cookies, in a plastic container, wrapped in plastic.
Should I start baking??

Organic Spinach....
encased in plastic, with the evil number 7 (explained below)

I *love* trail mix. But if I'm not carrying it on the trail (or to class, work, etc) in this bag, what should I carry it in? If I'm ruling out plastic, that rules out Ziploc!

Yogurt.

When you buy veggies at the grocery store,
you're supposed to put them in these bags.

Granola and Triscuits. Should I empty the contents out of the plastic bags and directly into the cardboard boxes?

Again with the organic veggies encased in plastic

One of the scientists I’d heard interviewed on NPR had a tip for finding the “healthier” plastics: Many (but definitely not all) plastics have a recycle symbol with a number in the center. Take a look at the number and remember this little rhyme, “Four, five, one, and two, everything else is bad for you.” Of all the plastic products I’d purchased, only *two* had a recycling symbol with a number: The yogurt had an acceptable 5…. while the organic spinach was encased in a BPA-bearing 7! Additionally, after returning home I was shocked to upend my Nalgene water bottle to discover that it bore a number 7 as well! Nalgene was supposed to be the environmentally healthy way of drinking water, avoiding the waste of plastic water bottles… although apparently it’s been poisoning me with BPA! (A quick google search shows that Nalgene is now marketing BPA-free water bottles.) Then there’s the fact that I cannot drink tap water at my house. Not only do I have city water, but I have old, rusty plumbing. The stuff that comes out of my tap tastes pretty foul. As a result, I use a Brita filtration pitcher – all plastic, with no number on it to give me a clue as to whether or not it’s got any BPA. (According to several sites such as this one, Brita claims its products are made of BPA-free plastic.)

My Brita pitcher and Nalgene bottle

So what do I replace my Nalgene bottle with? Do they make glass or ceramic Brita filtration pitchers? What about Tupperware? Or those new Ziploc super-cheap alternatives to Tupperware? What about plastic wrap? What about all the food I bought, encased in plastic? What about all the plastic Christmas “tins” that I use for my cat and dog food bowls? (Surely if it’s bad for me to ingest, it’s bad for my critters, too, although they bear the number 5, one of the “acceptable” numbers.) Gah! And let’s not even think about the fact that almost all canned foods are in cans that are lined on the inside with a BPA-containing sealant.

If you start thinking about all of the food/beverage related plastics, it suddenly gets really overwhelming. Would it actually be possible to eliminate all of these things from my life? And if so, would it be something affordable, or would I have to spend much, much more in order to do it? (My friend Brenda sent me this link to a place to buy all sorts of glass storage containers. I am going to slowly start collecting them.... too bad I'm so poor!!) If these chemicals are in everything and are so pervasive, would I actually be able to make a difference in my health (and my epigenetics) by getting rid of them?

Politics, Pets and the Policies of Evicting Crack-heads

The other night I went to Justin’s house (Justin is my ten-year old Korean student), to tutor him in English and eat delicious bibimbap with him and his family. Over dinner we had quite an intelligent discussion – mixing English, Korean and Russian – about politics in the US and Kyrgyzstan. His father said that even though he knew very little about the policies of either Obama or McCain, if he were an American he would vote for Obama. His reasoning was that the election of a black man to the US presidency would prove that the US really is a nation of immigrants, a nation for everybody, a nation without prejudice. I heard so many racist comments against blacks when I was in South Korea, that this was a pleasant surprise. (Of course, I’m currently listening to an NPR podcast on race in the current presidential election, which makes it seem as though such an enlightened view might actually be rather rare...)

With regards to politics in Kyrgyzstan, Justin’s parents were telling me about the similarities between Bakiev (Kyrgyzstan’s current president) and Akayev (the president who was ousted in Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 revolution). Nepotism was a huge problem under Akayev, with his children holding prominent places in the government. Apparently the situation under Bakiev is even worse, specifically with the power held by Bakiev’s son, Maxim:

[larger version]

There were local elections here in Bishkek this past Sunday. Very few of my students voted; they all fervently believed that there was no reason to vote as the results had already been pre-determined. It was consensus among my students that whoever could pay the President the most money would earn seats in local government, no matter who received the most votes, so why bother? Several students said that if they lived somewhere where their vote counted, “like the US or Russia” (!!!) they would vote, but here in Kyrgyzstan, there’s just no point.

This guy was one of the candidates:
Doesn't he look like Frodo with a mullet???

And speaking of voting... my ballot arrived! :-) Perhaps I can finally manage to *not* be disenfranchised in a presidential election. I was able to download the mp3 of the most recent debate between Obama and McCain (better late than never; at least I’m not completely out of touch), and while I continue to be amazed by the fact that the Republicans have an intelligent and articulate sounding candidate, I definitely think Obama won. I understand that repeating your message is something politicians do in order to drive their point home, but the way McCain repeated himself verbatim so many times made him seem to me like a doddering old man. And the whole “that one” thing? Sheesh. Also, citing working across the aisle with that party-traitor Joe Lieberman is hardly a good example!

On a totally different note, the theme of the module I’ve been teaching this past week in my advanced class was honesty and dishonesty, which of course meant we did a lot of talking about boyfriends/girlfriends and husbands/wives cheating on each other. Today one of my students said that all husbands will cheat, and that it’s a wife’s duty to ignore the cheating, and not to confront him, but to do her best to be the perfect wife in order to lure him back. Everyone else in the class agreed with her (and there were five women and man in that class). Depressing! (And given recent events, duly so.)

What else? Minsk, my new kitten, continues to have diarrhea. Instead of receiving medicine at the vet, my vet wrote down the name of a medication to buy at the pharmacy – as in the pharmacy where *humans* buy their meds – and instructed me to give the cat 1/6 of a pill twice a day. I hope it works. With the lack of the “good” cat litter at my pet store and five cats in my apartment, Minsk’s digestive problems are definitely raising the odor level in my home. Gross, huh? And of course, I can’t even begin to look for a home for the poor girl until she’s healthy and 100% litter box trained. She uses the box about 90% of the time, which is an improvement over 0%, but still not acceptable. Sigh. But on the plus side, she is incredibly sweet and snuggly – the others are quite jealous!

And finally, the part of the tale you’ve been waiting for: If you’ve been following this blog for a while now, you’ve no doubt heard of Ronnie, my crazy old-guy neighbor in the Waycross ghetto who got high, then took off all his clothes in order to “show me his biologicals” as he said. Anyway, he used to squat in an empty house a block away from my Waycross home. (And I do mean squat: it wasn’t his and had no electricity or running water.) Then, for some reason, my mom hired him to paint this extra house that she owns. (She bought it super-cheap hopes to sell it one day, although given the current financial situation, god knows when that will be.) Anyway, while Ronnie was painting the house (in a style described by my mom as “a fuck-up”), he decided to move in and start squatting there. After all, that house has electricity and running water, and as the painter, he’d been given keys. Then he got arrested for possession of crack. As soon as he got arrested, my advice to my mom was to have the locks changed ASAP. She didn’t. That was a few months ago. A couple days ago she saw Ronnie riding his bike, and decided to make arrangements to have the locks changed. That was when she learned that he’d been out of jail and living in her other house for the past two weeks! Because she’d originally given him the keys and permission to be in there, the police said that they can’t do anything about it. After learning this, my mom drove around the ghetto (that being *my* neighborhood, btw) until she found him, then royally bitched him out until he promised that he’d be out by the end of the week. We shall see. Either way, she's having the locks changed at the end of the week, whether he's gotten his stuff out or not.

The thing is, I’d recently decided to try to sell my house and move into the other house (the one currently inhabited by the crack-head painter/flasher)! At the very least, I’d like to put my four Kyrgyz cats in that house so they won’t have to deal with a two-day world-wide trip followed by introduction to all those cats that live at my house. Neither of those things is going to happen if Ronnie’s living in there. I may well have to move myself and the Bishkek Four straight into the Spartan :-)

What *is* rich?

After the November 15th Democratic debate, when Hillary made that comment about an individual making $97k/yr being middle class, we had a bit of a discussion in the comment section of my post on the debate regarding what *is* middle class and what *is* rich. There was an excellent discussion on this topic on NPR today, which I highly recommend that you listen to.

Oh, Vlad.

You thought our upcoming election was going to be interesting?
We've got nothing on Russia when it comes to interesting.
Listen.

It's All Politics

I love NPR's It's All Politics in general, and they had a pretty good post-debate podcast that you should totally give a listen to by clicking here.

Attention American Citizens!

Please listen to this.
You'll probably learn something.

Russian Orphans

Unbelievably depressing,
although sadly, not entirely surprising.
Click here to listen.

A state of mind [updated]

I listen to a lot of NPR. I also read a lot of blogs. I'm sure that this skews my view on current events quite a bit, especially when I'm overseas and don't have access to your average American TV and radio soundbites. From listening to NPR, it would seem that in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, there has been a lot of discussion back home about mental illness. Is this true? Or is it just NPR? See, my family has a history of mental illness, going back several generations, and I - as the bearer of these high quality genetics - have dealt with this as well. It's a topic that, while certainly discussed in the US more commonly than in the past, is still shunned by the mainstream populace when at all possible. Two of the NPR podcasts that I'd like to recommend on this topic are: Predicting Violence and Forced Treatment. Additionally, if you're coming to this blog looking for information on Korea, let me refer you to a recent post at the Marmot's Hole entitled Coping With Depression and Mental Illness, which addresses that utter lack of mental health care in South Korea.

UPDATE: I'd also like to add Identifying and Treating Severe Mental Illness from the Diane Rehm show to my list of recommended discussions on this topic.

Terrifying.

You need to listen to this. Now.
Especially if you're an American.
Do you find that as terrifying as I do?

Brother One Cell

My internet has been out for the past few days, and I've seriously been going through withdrawl. Yes, I am an internet addict. Anyway, the internet repairman just left (the power supply to my external cable modem had gone kaput and had to be replaced), and I am back online. I am currently listening to an episode of the Diane Rehm Show from a few days ago:

At age 23, Cullen Thomas was arrested in Seoul and sentenced to three-and-one-half years in prison for smuggling hashish into the country. He provides a view of South Korean society few Americans will ever see and describes how his experience transformed him. Listen to it here.

Granted, Thomas was a complete idiot; how stupid can you be to smuggle narcotics into South Korea? But, it's interesting to hear his description of the English-teaching culture here in South Korea back in the mid-1990s. Certainly, things have changed here quite a bit since then, but in many ways it's very, very much the same. Anyway, give it a listen. It's quite fascinating... especially his description of life inside the prison.

Anyhow, Thomas has written a book entitled Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age in South Korea's Prisons.

You know you've been listening to too much NPR when...

...you begin having dreams narrated by the voice of Neal Conan. Given the kind of crazy shit I usually dream about, it's a simply bizarre thing to have happen. But I have been listening to a lot of NPR since the acquisition of my ipod back in January, and I've got a podcast link for you today:

On yesterday's episode of the Diane Rehm Show, the guest was John Sedgwick. He discussed his new book, In My Blood, Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family, which tracks depression and bipolar disorders throughout six generations of his family. If you or anyone in your family or circle of friends has suffered from mental illness, you should definitely download and listen to this podcast. I've already added In My Blood to my Amazon wishlist. (On a depressingly related note, yesterday's episode of Fresh Air addressed psychiatric problems among troops deployed to Iraq and the US military's lack of attention to this problem. Listen here.)