Letters: Go Global

Credit: Edutopia

Fran Smith's article "Global Superpower: Is the Best of the Best Really the Best?" [1] (November/December 2006) is absolutely right on the mark. As the principal of a small public school and as an educator for the last thirty-six years, I can say that the International Baccalaureate Organization's Primary Years Program (for elementary schools) is the best educational program to make its way to California in some time.

We have been on the IB pathway for nearly three years and are hopeful of gaining formal authorization in July 2007. Yes, it is expensive, but it is worth every cent. Student engagement is up, test scores are up, a second language is provided for every one of my K-5 students, and sensitivity to other cultures is a focus. Students are taking what they have learned from the six broad themes (units) and are applying it to the world as they know it. If we want our young people to become responsible world citizens, student empowerment cannot be overlooked.

The teachers at my school have never worked so hard, but each teacher will tell you that the content of what goes on each day in the classroom has more relevance and meaning for our students.

Thank you for this article. Let us hope it helps this worthwhile program proliferate. California students will benefit greatly from this kind of approach.

Raf Strudley

Color Coding

I appreciated "100 People: A World Portrait" ("Getting to Know Them: Paring the World Population Down to Basics," [2] November/December 2006) and your desire to help overcome ignorance about other countries and cultures, which is so widespread in the United States.

However, I was dismayed to see in the accompanying list titled, "If the World Were 100 People" entries indicating that that population would include "70 nonwhites" and "30 whites." First problem: The idea of whiteness was created by Europeans during the colonial age, and the definition of who is white has changed a lot over the years, depending on what was of use to those in power. For instance, among European groups, for a long time, the Irish were not white to the English, nor were the Finns (my ancestors) white, especially when, as immigrants to the United States, they got involved in union agitation.

Another example: At one time, U.S. courts defined white as Caucasian when, for immigration purposes, they didn't want to recognize fair-skinned people from Asia as white. When someone from India, of historical/linguistic Caucasian origin, appealed, that person was denied entry into the country as white because he was too dark skinned.

So, who is defining white for this list, and who, according to the latest definition, do those thirty include?

Second problem: This division creates a category of nonwhite, the only "non" category on your list. That kind of category has definite overtones of who is in -- who gets to define the categories -- and who is out.

I have seen if-the-world-were-a-village-of-100-people lists before, and they have not included such a distinction as white/nonwhite. I strongly suggest you omit such a list from your publication in the future, as your goal is surely to be inclusive and affirming of the great richness of human culture and experience in the world.

Beth Tamminen

Fighting Funding

At the behest of a friend, I began looking closely at Edutopia and was immediately drawn to the feature "It Takes A Planet: Education Is a Common Thread" [3] (November/December 2006). Thanks for pointing out that we educate for various reasons and that education is the universal language.

However, before anything super-beneficial happens in the educational arena, people must wake up! It seems you have no complaints about how the education system works and how our political and economic systems work. They may be the envy of the world, but although democracy is the best form of government, it does not work!

Military expenditures in the quadrillions -- with no results to show for them -- in a society that claims to be practical surely means that we have not learned.

In light of this, it is a little unclear to me why you won't get at the root of the problem by explaining to your audience what we face: ever-increasing military expenditures that show no sign of letting up. This democracy will not survive this particular pratfall, and most of the politicians go along with it. Are politicians beholden to greater military spending?

It's all connected, and until we have some of our educational minds declaring these truths, things cannot improve very much!

I would be most enthusiastic to see some of Edutopia's authors declare this truth: Education is involved with increasing students' level of preparedness in the world, whereas the military-industrial-prison complex is dependent on the lack thereof.

Charter schools might well be considered the only actual opposition to those large, bumbling bureaucratic behemoths in urban areas of the United States that fight among themselves.

James Mansfield

Let Librarians In

I just received my first copy of Edutopia magazine and looked at your Web site. I found it very interesting, especially the information about other sites and about international educational efforts. However, I find that librarians often are not represented in educational publications. As a librarian in a small community library's Young Adult section, I believe the collaboration between schoolteachers, school media center and library personnel, and public library staff is often critical and too often overlooked. I ask that you think more broadly about education and include more collaborative efforts between teachers and library staff at schools and public libraries.

Sandy Moltz

Blue-Ribbon IB

As a new principal of an International Baccalaureate school, I am learning a lot about this program ("Global Superpower: Is the Best of the Best Really the Best?," [1] November/December 2006), and the controversy about IB discussed in this article has been a topic of discussion recently with other IB educators from other schools. When I showed this article to my teachers, though, they were surprised at the level of negative feelings some IB schools encounter.

I enjoyed reading the article, but I would like to make one correction. Author Fran Smith states inaccurately that only two all-IB public schools exist in the United States. My school is an all-IB school located on the campus of East Hartford High School. We began as a program in the larger, comprehensive EHHS but moved into a separate facility in 2003. We are still listed by the International Baccalaureate Organization as a part of EHHS, but we do have our own identity as a separate school. In fact, this year our school was honored with a Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Department of Education; we are the only all-IB school in the country to win this award.

We have found a definite improvement in student achievement since moving into our own building -- the Blue Ribbon Award is proof of this. It is also vindication of something I have long believed about education: Students do their best in a small, nurturing environment where they can make connections to the school and each other, and when they have the investment that makes them want to do well for themselves and their classmates.

Art Arpin

Behind the Teachers

I am not writing to defend the spineless administrators Evan Chase has had the unfortunate opportunity to work with/for ("Pecking Order: Parent Pressure Is Eclipsing Teacher Control," [4] October 2006). I am writing on behalf of the administrators who work hard to defend the classroom teachers who have to battle pathetic parents and arrogant students daily. There are those of us who have experienced the negative effects of an incompetent administrator firsthand and suffered the consequences of their actions, or lack thereof. I endured two years with one such principal in Washington state a decade ago, and she nearly crippled my career. I had the intestinal fortitude to survive and flourish after a three-year layoff and a move out of state, and I found that it is not the same everywhere.

I am now on the Gulf Coast of Texas working as an administrator and have supported teachers and students. I do not cower, or subscribe to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy when dealing with parents, teachers, or students. The easiest thing to do as an administrator is nothing, but a lot of us are working hard for the teachers and students in our buildings. I suggest that Chase try the Gulf Coast, where teachers get to teach and kids get to learn.

John M. Johnson

Letters to the editor are a vital part of the conversation. Send your thoughts, corrections, or even complaints to letters@edutopia.org [5], or Letters to the Editor, Edutopia magazine, P.O. Box 3494, San Rafael, CA 94912. Be sure to include your name, affiliation, and contact information. Letters may be edited for length and clarity prior to publication.