I'm heading to Japan

On January 4, 2007 I will be making a voyage to Kobe, Japan to student teach at the Canadian Academy. I will be on the other side of the world until, at earliest, mid-June. I expect to update this blog more frequently as my time will be soley devoted to student teaching and tutoring. My friends, students, and family will be able to contact me through this blog. I hope all is well with those who view and with those who love life.

Constitution Takes a New Hit From Senators at Gates Hearing

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120706J.shtml

Click above to go to original. The following is a collection of excerpts. Sad. Very sad. May our beloved Constitution rest in peace. 1789-2006

At Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates to be secretary of defense, I felt as though I were paying last respects to the Constitution of the United States. But there was none of the praise customarily given to the deceased. Rather, the bouquets were fulsomely shared round about among the nominee.....

In other news, "A series of particularly brutal attacks across Baghdad Tuesday resulted in at least 54 Iraqis killed and scores wounded," according to the New York Times. The US military announced that three more American soldiers were killed Monday, adding to the 13 killed over the weekend. Ten more US soldiers were killed on Wednesday. And five Marines are expected to be charged today with the killing of 24 Iraqis, many of them women and children, in the village of Haditha in November 2005.

No such bothersome details about this misbegotten war were allowed into evidence yesterday by the stuffed shirts sitting in stuffed seats in a hearing room stuffed with 80 stenographers from our domesticated press. Rather, the hearing room seemed to serve as a kind of funeral parlor for the Constitution. There were plenty of bouquets, but none smelled very genuine...

In one moment of genuine - perhaps unintended - candor, Gates indicated he thought there were no new ideas to be had in addressing the conflict in Iraq. The suggestions made public today by the Iraq Study Group tend to substantiate that sad conclusion.

How about old ideas? Like dispatching more training teams to work with Iraqi security forces. Gates said, "That certainly is an option." And he vowed to show "great deference to the judgment of generals." New emphasis on the training mission is what General John Abizaid told the committee less than three weeks ago is a "major change." Is that the "new" strategy? It is a feckless exercise, as we know from Vietnam. Been there; done that; should have known that....

This makes me wonder what may be in store for Iran, if Cheney solicits help from Gates in making the case for bombing.

CIDI, not such a new idea

Collaborative, inclusive, and differentiated instruction is not simply an intersection of methods and techniques. True, it requires we use certain methods and tactics to foment authenticating education with our students. But if this is where such instruction begins and ends, we still lack a truly effective way to educate both our students and ourselves. We would thus be less able to create and re-create our world to become a better place than the one in which we now live. If these methods and techniques were the alpha and the omega, then the ideas shared in this forum of hope would be nothing but another set of “tricks” or “tools” that we teachers can use in our classrooms. Indeed, there is something more to genuine instruction in our schools than technical reproductions of actions one reads about in a book or educational magazine. What makes Collaborative, Inclusive, and Differentiated Instruction (CIDI) powerful and authentic, is that it helps to inform a way of being that enlightens the way we practice our everyday lives. This way of being demands that we evolve to become more complete women and men in the process of that practice.