I really enjoyed the hell out of it, very easy read. I really think my 14yr old stepson would like it but I doubt he will have time to read a book for fun
with school back in. I'll hold onto it for him in case he wants to check it out during a break or something. Kind of got the reading bug again and went
out to see what some of the more popular or highly rated books from the 21st century were and pulled the trigger on a couple of them on Amazon.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Pretty sure the Sawtelle book was an Oprah book club one about ten years ago but always sounded interesting to me.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Beartown was very good. It's about hockey and rape, so many here should find it interesting.

I just finished this book. There is no secret sauce or major bullet. But the big takeaways I got from this book are:

1) The average dollar spent per student is not a good indicator of success. There is a baseline amount that needs to be spent, but above that the results are no better.
2) Public vs private is not a great indicator either. Yeah I said it. Both ways can work, but it comes down to other factors.
3) High standards are essential. Kids are able to achieve way beyond what most parents believe is possible. We shelter them way too much and do not expose them to rigorous curriculum.
4) Teachers need to be highly trained in much the same way we do with doctors. That means it has to be a tougher profession to enter. They also need long apprenticeships with in class learning and tough evaluations before they ever enter the classroom. Teachers make the biggest difference. In the U.S, it is one of the easiest professions to enter.
5) Class size does not matter much. Better teachers can and do handle larger class sizes without an issue.

The Finland model is the best example of what could work in the U.S. They still have strong unions, so no need to dump those. However, it is very difficult to become a teacher. As such, they are held in very high regard because everyone knows how challenging it was to take that career path.

3&4 are what we need to do. 1, 2 & 5 are just the things found studies outlined in the book.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

yeah, #5 just made the entire book questionable. class size is a huge issue. over 24 or so the mayhem rises exponentially and there is no way in hell you are able to give the lesser-abled kids the additional help they need. you start acting like Saddam Hussein just to maintain any kind of order.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Hatchet, the book is based on research of what successful systems do vs failing ones. It was shown that class size doesn't matter much at all. If you have well trained teachers like in Finland, they are able to handle much larger class sizes with no issue. Plus the money goes a lot further, and you can pay these highly trained teachers more money.

I encourage you to read the book and decide for yourself.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I've taught here in the US in urban and rural schools. Not in Finland. This is not Finland.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

And Finland has the highest scores in PISA exams, and their improvement has come in a short time period. We spend much more money per student than Finland. They have better teachers and higher standards. You teach in a country with terribly mediocre scores and wasted tax dollars.

Class size:

"The number of instructors per 1,000 students has more than doubled since 1960, from 40 to 85.

Gates contends that the K-12 education industry has been steered for five decades by a misguided belief that the way to higher performance is smaller classes. Many states pursued class-size reduction initiatives in the 1990s. California, an example I covered as a reporter, reduced average class size from 30 to 20 in kindergarten through grade 3 in the mid-1990s, at a cost of over $1.5 billion a year.

Over the years, though, the research community has more or less confirmed that class-size reduction doesn't yield significant performance gains. The most expensive education reform is among the least effective.

Gates proposes ending class-size reduction experiments, lifting caps on class size and offering good teachers financial incentives to teach more students."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2011/02/bill_gates_talks_about_teacher.html

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Hawaii (fuck) You

If you took Mr.Finn and put him in a High School Class at Proviso East he wouldn't last 5 minutes before he left the country in tears.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

And why is it ok for Near West suburban kids to be in that environment?

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Because our society is one that distains respect for authority, order, education, achievement, commonality, hard work, etc.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Well amen to that.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

My seventh-grader is reading this to my fourth-grader. Funny little book.

Any suggestions for an autobiography appropriate for a 10 year old girl? Entertaining, funny, and/or interesting are huge pluses. My son read Bobby Orr's for his book report a few years ago and it was the most boring thing on the planet. I should have let him read Roenick's f-bombs and all. TIA

El Deafo. It's a graphic novel, so I'm not sure that that's ok.

I guess interestingness depends on the kid.

'Throw Like A Girl' Finch/Killion

Started the Gentleman Bastards series. Book 1 was good, looking forward to book 2.

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Our society is one that disdains respect for hard work and acheivement?


I disagree.

My daughter liked that one.

1. props for spelling disdains correctly.
2. Kids who are earnest about education and work extra hard in school are outcasts. where'd you do your schoolin?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It didn't sound like you were limiting that to schools. If so, that's a bit more believable. I think adults all up and down the spectrum value hard work.


But I thought the nerdy smart kid is kind of a thing of the past, now.

They are pretty good. I am reading the Riyria books now. The first trilogy (Riyria Revelations) is really good.

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Can't put this down

I think I reviewed this on here before, but I'm reading it again on my new (and awesome) phone: October 1964 by David Halberstam.

Yanks vs. Cards. It's a fun read, very anecdote-y. Not much mention of the actual World Series (30 pages) or even the amazing Phillies collapse, but still fun to read again.

Book begins with a short chapter on Lou Brock as an unhappy (and worried) Cub.

Interesting how cheap the Yankees were and how much of a mess the Cards were in the 1950s. When Busch bought the team, he knew nothing about baseball. Someone else almost bought the team and moved them to Milwaukee.

Such a different culture (in baseball and America).

Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--and America--Forever, by Tim Wendel.

Read the first couple of chapters of this. What an interesting subject--but a poor book. I thought I read it before, but I must not have. It's poorly written and not in depth about anything. If anyone has read it, and it gets better, let me know.

Kurt Cobain would have been one year old in 1968.

ETA: This book blows.

Just started a book on the Black Hand. Never heard of these guys. If you like early 20th Century American history, gangs, and Italians, wow this is your book. I am reading it and thinking what a great NetFlix series it would make.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Name of book and author?

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30971759-the-black-hand


And I just noticed there is a DiCaprio movie on it coming ‘18. When you read it, you will see how easily this could be a great movie.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Just finished World Without End by Ken Follett.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

It actually was required reading almost 30 years ago

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

My wife got me Dr. Sleep for Christmas.

I'm excited to read it.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014