RFArea Newsletter February 2014

RFAREA

Wisconsin Retired Educators' Association

Newsletter

Volume 11          Number 1            February 2014

Message from Marylin

By Marylin Plansky

On April 16th, our regular meeting will feature Carol Ballerstein and Carol Subera.  WREA has divided Wisconsin into five districts, and our local unit is part of District III.  Carol and Carol, who share the responsibilities of being the directors for District II, will present the program at the meeting, which will be a great opportunity to learn more about WREA and to ask questions you have.  We hope to see you at West Wind at 10:30 a.m. in the Lewis Room.

Gene Kreibich has once again arranged for our Scholarship Bake Sale to be held at the River Falls First National Bank.  It will be on the morning of April 17th, so baked goods can be brought to the meeting on the 16th.  Many members support our scholarship fund with monetary donations, and we encourage these to be submitted prior to the bake sale date.  That way we can include them toward matching funds we receive from Royal Neighbors of America.  We will accept monetary donations at the April 16th meeting also or you can mail them to Marylin Planskey, 1614 Golf View Drive, River Falls, WI 54022.  Checks should be made out to RFAREA.

Each year local units are asked to contribute to the WREA Foundation.  This arm of the state organization supports students scholarships, teacher grants, innovative school programs, and community outreach.  At ourJanuary board meeting, the decision was made to collect contributions at our April 16th regular meeting.  hecks should be made out to WREA Foundation.

I heard that an icy, frigid, snowy winter has at times been followed by an abnormally hot summer.  I can't help but wonder what's in store for 2014.

UPCOMING DATES

February 19, 2014   Regular meeting at the West Wind, 10:30 a.m.    One-Room Schools
March 31, 2014        Board meeting at Perkins, 10:00 a.m.
April 16, 2014           Regular Meeting at the West Wind, 10:30 a.m.     WREA District III Directors
April 17, 2014           Bake Sale at 1st National Bank Falls 9:00-­Noon
May 19, 2014            Board Meeting at Perkins, 10:00 a.m.
June 18, 2014           Picnic at Hoffman Park, River Fals, 10:30 a.m.     Antiques Road Show

Minutes of December Meeting

December 4, 2013

West Wind

By Ethel Johnson, Secretary

The meeting was called to order by President Marylin Plansky at 11:00 a.m. The secretary's report was read and
accepted. The treasurer's report was examined and filed for audit. Larry Harred talked about the Koch Brothers as part of the Legislative report. Brian Copp announced a meeting of the Democrats on December 12th at Ready Randy's.
Committee reports followed.

Brian Copp, Program Chair, announced future programs. February will feature adiscussion of the one room school.  In April, a District Director will be the program speaker. June, picnic month,will feature a Show and Tell based on the Antiques Roadshow. Ruth Wood will be the Program Chairman from then on as Brian and family will be moving.  Other new committee members were announced. Laura Zlogar, Membership; Gene Kreibich, Volunteering and Sunshine; By-Laws, Bernie Brohaugh; Educational Issues, Evelyn Klein; Scholarship, Naomi Brandt.  It was announced that a Nominating Committee would be needed.

Bob Pionke was unable to show a tape he had brought of the Koch brothers. A discussion followed about a presentationon this subject at at the library. 

New Business: The Foundation Award was explained. High school principals in the area have been informed of this award.  The meeting was adjourned.

Brian Copp, Ruth Wood, Bernie Brohaugh, and Jane Harred
sing holiday songs at the December meeting.

Ray Anderson, Bob Pionke, and Doug Johnson enjoy the holiday entertainment.

Ethel Johnson, Karen Brohaugh, and Larry Harred

Absence of Reason

By Bernie Brohaugh

We have been informed again and again that U.S. student do not do terribly well in tests measuring math and reading skills of youth in advanced countries.  Sadly, they do no better in tests measuring thinking skills--for a number of reasons.

Most prominent among them seems to be the unfortunate fact that curricula on all levels of education pay little attention, if any, to problem solving and other kinds of think activities except in disciplines in which lab study and the assessment of data occur.  I suspect that most testing at the higher levels still consists of multiple choice questions requring memorization but little or no analysis.  Too many American students have had little mentoring in analysis, and many of them are simply too lazy to memorize.  Hence the embarrassing test results.

Learning begins at home, and too many families in America fail to stimulate the younsters on the household to use their brains productively.  They often set a poor example with their mundane diversions and lack of intellectual curiosity.  And they allow TV, video games, cell phone communications, and music from a variety of sources to distrct their kids from activities that would better stimulate mental activity.

If you want to learn how to think, you've got to know how to read, and it appears that many students don't read very well.  So when their thinking skills are tested, they get questions wrong because they fail to understand prompts the questions are based on.  Too often they choose the answer that is the exact opposite of the right one.

What I find most appalling in this cluster of causes is bad teaching.  Recently, I found a test on the web designed, apparently, by practitioners of critical thinking to evaluate thinking skills.  I was flabbergasted:  It was     full of bad questions.  Here is one of the worst:  "How many ways is it possible to color the faces of a six sided [Note the lack of a hyphen] black cube white?"  The answer given was 13.  I have no idea why--and the "ways" the examiner might have been thinking were not defined.  And, incidentally, are there any cubes that are not six-sided?

Another example:  "You die and the Devil (the one of Biblical proportions) comes to you with the expressed purpose of making your after-life an infinite visit to Dante's Inferno.  The Devil enjoys your fear so much he decides to give you one chance to save yourself.  What two words could you say to him to save yourself for eternity?"  God, help!  Jesus, help!  Get lost!  The right answer is supposed to "Get lost!"  Why?  Search me.

The test is full of questions that have little or nothing to do with thinking, but, instead, determine only whether one is alert.  For example:"Some months have 31 days.  How many have 28?"  The answer, of course, is "They all do."  But do you have to do any reasoning to arrive at that answer?

In my final example, problems arise because of insufficient context and because of an ambiguity in the meaning of a crucial word:  "What was the president's name in the 1950s?  Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton."  The right answer is supposed to be "Bill Clinton."  Why?  Because, we must assume, the question was written in the 1990s and "the president" just be understood to mean "the current president" and not any president during the 1950s or any president at all.

If the so-called experts can't do any better than this, I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on our hapless youth.

Common Core in Wisconsin

Although many of may not have heard of Common Core standards until lately, the program was adopted in Wisconsin in 2010 and is now official policy in 45 states.  Its purpose is to establish a floor of achievement in English and math courses, grades k-12.  Recently, Governor Walker appointed a committee to review and revise the program in order to make it more palatable to its opponents, most of whom seem to be conservatives. 

Walker shares the objection advanced by most conservatives that the present CC standards are not rigorous enough.  Whether he agrees with their objectives is uncertain.  These include (1) their resentment at what they conceive to be the replacement by federal mandates of local control of education, and (2) their vociferous indignation that the program was not developed democratically:  it was designed by a consortium of educators and politicians, funded mainly by the Gates Foundation, endorsed by the Obama administration, and imposed on the public without their consent  Even if these objections have some merit, support for Common Core seems to be very strong among both educators and business professional, having been endorsed by both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.     --CBB