June 18, 2010 Walking from Hamden to New Haven CT

Good newsreaders. We are on the radar.

1. Michael Strickland wrote on the walk: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/17/877020/-Children-are-more-than-test-scores
2. Helen Ubines wrote about the walk in the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Tribune: http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-ubinas-blog-schoolreform0616-20100616,0,2318944.column
3. Children are more than test scores made it to the Washington Post via Valerie Strauss list of groups opposing NCLB/RTTT.
4. Dr. Stephen Krashen, Dr. Jong Zhao, and Richard Larkin twitter updates about the walk.
5. Susan Ohanian put us on her Yahoo Good News page again.
6. 20 more ribbons arrive this week from East Hartford Connecticut, (they came from a teacher in a group of teachers I spoke to about my walk last week).
7. That is Dean Mitchell Sakofs from the School of Education and Professional Studies at Central Connecticut State University in the above picture. He offered great advice and some tech tools to help me out as well.

A quote for thought: President Theodore Roosevelt said: "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
Two Hartford Connecticut voices from the history classroom:
Last week I met two extremely talented middle school history teachers. The first one a young man named Dan a newly tenured teacher from the University of Connecticut  just left his tenured position in the Hartford Public Schools to teach in a suburban district. He said he was leaving, "because they were not letting him teach history. The first year I started off teaching history, and loved it, and my students enjoyed learning about history.  By the end of my second year I was told to stop teaching history, and start teaching writing. The focus shifted to preparing them for the CMTs, (state mastery tests). My students hated it, and so did I. I left to teach history. Kids need to learn history. "

The Roman historian Cicero :” History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illuminates reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity.”
Something is wrong with a middle school that passes over history to work on preparing for mastery testing.

The other middle school history teacher is from one of Hartford's Magnet Schools. He teaches history as a special these days. "In the past Dr. Turner all our students had social studies every year five days a week, the sixth graders learned geography, seventh graders learned world history, and eight graders learned US history all year long. Now with the focus on keeping test scores things have changed. History is not on the test. So two history teachers were let go, and I teach 40 minute hit and run history lessons." He said students may or may not get history. Even when they do it is so condense it makes no sense. "It is a shame, a real shame on America."


Not a shame on America, but a shame on Washington DC. I am perplexed by these NCLB/RTTT reform policies.  Does anyone in Washington understand the impact of their reforms on local schools?  Let me be the first to tell it like it is, if it is not on the test children don't get it...Civics gone and citizenship gone sacrificed to preparing for the test.

Winston Churchill said: "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." A nation without history in its public schools is doomed to fail. There are things more important than Secretary Arne Duncan's data. History is one of them.

My whispered prayer today is that Washington DC's Educational leadership returns to sanity. They need to understand Children are more than test scores. History is a corner stone of public education. A corner stone too big to measured on some bubble sheet. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."   I am walking to DC, because I refuse to live in darkness.

Helen Ubines wrote about the walk in the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Tribune: http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-ubinas-blog-schoolreform0616-20100616,0,2318944.column

Children are more than test scores made it to the Washington Post via Valerie Strauss list of groups opposing NCLB/RTTT. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/arne-duncans-opposition-a-part.html?wprss=answer-sheet

Michael Strickland wrote on the walk: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/17/877020/-Children-are-more-than-test-scores

Susan Ohanian put us on her Yahoo Good News page again: http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=557

Dr. Stephen Krashen, Dr. Yong Zhao, and Richard Lakin twitter updates about the walk to DC regularly.

Who knows maybe our next stop will be on CNN.
I am walking to DC,
Jesse





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A litte before and after picture comparisons for readers. What a difference a year makes. My wife who is a teacher has been walking with me as well. We love this protest walking stuff.

That is June 2009, and this is June 2010.

 So readers walking for what you believe is healthy stuff. Go for it, and remember Children are more than test scores. If anyone between Connecticut and DC would like to share a cup of coffee during my walk to DC let me know?
I am walking to DC,
Jesse
I am walking to DC

My Creative protest walking to DC on June 11, 2010 my birthday.

This is my Grand Nephew, and like all children he was born so much more than a test score. One can only wonder what kind of fools would reduce children to mere numbers on a test.  

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote in his autobiography: “I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest."

I am called to walking as my creative protest. Dr. King’s legacy of service compels me to walk.  I imagine the first time Martin heard James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every voice and sing”. I try to live in Martin’s steps today. His shoes are of course much too big for me. I took his American history lesson with me on my walk today. Principal Johnson’s poem "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was publicly performed first as a poem, as part of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on February 12, 1900 by 500 school children at the segregated Stanton School. In 1919 it would be set to music, and the NAACP adopted the song as "The Negro National Anthem." Principal, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the words to introduce its honored guest Booker T. Washington.
The song provided Dr. King and a nation of African Americans with hope for the future, and pride in their struggle for equality. While walking today from Meriden to North Haven Connecticut Principal James Weldon Johnson’s words gave me strength and filled me with hope as well. There is something powerful about walking, reflecting, and singing that empowers a person. It is no coincidence that the first public reading began with the voices of 500 children. If you open your hearts, and close your eyes you can hear the children singing:
“Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
 Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
 Let our rejoicing rise
 High as the listening skies,
 Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.       
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.”
Today my whispered prayer is for 500 voices singing Principal’s Johnson’s poem whenI arrive in Washington DC on Labor Day.

While reflecting on our government’s obsession with testing, I also reflected on The U.S. Department of Justice 2009 Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey Reported that on Physical Assault Nearly one-half (46.3 percent) of all the children surveyed were physically assaulted within the previous year, and more than one-half (56.7 percent) had been assaulted during their lifetime. I find my self-wondering why our nation’s leaders see standardized testing as the our nation’s number one problem, and not violence? Am I the only one who sees the disconnect here?

On the road this morning. While walking in Meriden I came upon an elderly women walking with a cane. The path was small so I walked off to the side to give her a free path. She smiled, and said: What a good-looking young man you make walking. I said thank you for the complement. She said it is so nice to see people walking to get healthy.  I said my name is Jesse I am walking to DC to protest all the tests children are taking in schools. Well, she just looks at me, and said WHAT!  All the way to DC? In the next few minutes I discover her name is Sharon she is 73 years old, and a retired teacher. She tells me she can’t drive anymore so she walks. She said I have lost over 100 pounds. I smile, and told her that beats my 48 pounds I lost preparing for my walk.  Next she said: Already married I suppose?
The good ones are always taken. Before I leave she tells me "those test were stupid when I taught, and they are still stupid today"
Sharon is the first person I have talked to on the road while walking. Remember I begin my walks at 6:AM to beat the traffic and heat. Not many people out that early. I loved our little talk. Usually it's me, and the morning chorus of birds singing, and the passing cars just rolling along.

About an hour later in Wallingford I pass a beautiful little trailer park.  It really is beautiful, well kept with nice small gardens outside many homes. I see another elderly women with a child outside waiting for the school bus. While passing them the little girl said: “Nice walking stick mister”. I reply "thank you I am walking to DC" Well Grandma’s face lights up, saying” All the way to DC…You must be kidding?”  In less than a minute I explain my protest walk to DC. Grandma tells me she is raising her granddaughter. Her daughter and her husband have addiction problems. Then she tells me when her granddaughter was in the third grade she came home one day angry, so I asked her "what did you do in school today? She is such a sweet girl, and always tells me something nice, but this day she just puffs up, and doesn’t say a word. I pressed again, and the next thing I know is she is crying. She starts saying I am stupid, I can’t do these tests. Well I said you are not stupid those tests are stupid…When you get to Washington DC you tell those people the test are stupid not our children"

Walking along I think yes it is stupid for our nation to spend billions of our tax dollars on more testing when over half of or children report being the victims of violence. We can't afford to let Washington DC educational plicy dictate what happens in our public schools any longer. They just don't get it, and neither does our national media!
When was the last time the national press walked America's roads, and stop to talk to everyday people about No child Left Behind/Race To The Top? 
We need to stand up, speak up, walk, write, and email our policy makers and politicians to stop their foolishness.
Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 
I hear you Martin, and I promise I will not be silent about things that matter.
I am walking to DC,
Jesse