Curriculum Resource: Lesson Plan on the Occupy Movement

Last month I posted an NPR podcast and a dubious news item as resources to use for discussing the Occupy movement with students.  Now you can supplement those with an entire lesson plan developed by C-SPAN to drive students to consider this question:  Should students support or oppose the "Occupy" movement?

The lesson plan is build around some C-SPAN news clips and some current articles, pro and con, by some of the top columnists of leading newspapers.  However, it was low, medium, and high read levels indicated, so it can be used with a wide range of ages/abilities.  It is geared towards having a classroom debate, but the materials could be used on an individual basis and lead to writing a pro or con position paper instead.

It has some high quality resources on a timely subject, and the price is right, because it is FREE.  If you are interested, you can download everything from the C-SPAN Classroom Deliberations website.

Curriculum Resource: The Story of Broke

I found a new resource to use if you are having discussions with your middle schoolers about the Occupy Wall Street (and other cities) movement, the supercommittee, and other things related to our national economic system.  It is a short animated video called The Story of Broke (made by the same people who created the popular video, The Story of Stuff).

This is not an objective, news-type presentation.  Rather, this video represents the point of view of the 99% movement.  However, it does explain the budget and some of our major expenditures in a simple way, and it does support a peaceful and democratic approach to changing the situation.  I would supplement it with other materials, but it can, if nothing else, help explain some of what the Occupy movement is upset about and is trying to change.

You can watch the video below:



PS:  Here is a link to the previous Occupy Wall Street resource I posted last month.

Curriculum Resource: Another Visualization of 7 Billion People

I found another great visualization to help our students imagine a world population of 7 billion people.  This one goes well with yesterday's video on the significance of 7 billion people because it traces the growth from farther back in time, and gives more specific information about how many people there are in specific areas of the world.

This one was produced by Adam Cole for NPR:

Curriculum Resource: Explaining the Significance of a World Population of 7 Billion

While we in America were preoccupied with trick or treating, UN estimates said that we reached a new milestone:  an estimated world population of 7 billion people.  But what does that mean?  I'm not sure that I can visualize 7,000,000,000 people, let alone my middle schooler being able to do so.

But below is a great video that can help.  This video is a TED presentation by Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor and researcher and one of the world's experts on global health issues.  In this 10 minute video, Rosling does a great job presenting a visual representation of global population growth, explains where and why populations are booming, and what we can do to slow the increase.

The Rising Costs of College

For your Halloween-eve enjoyment/terror, I've got something scarier than any ghost, zombie, monster, or masked killer...OK, maybe not the masked killer, but still pretty scary...

Here is a chart by the Freakonomics guys about the rising cost of college tuition between 1978 and 2008:

© 2011 Freakonomics, LLC

The chart only shows private colleges, but I believe the figures are pretty much the same for public ones as well.  And to take away your last hopes, although this chart only goes to 2008, it hasn't gotten any better in the last few years, particularly with all the cuts to state budgets.  According to Freakonomics, here are the figures for college tuitions in 2011-2012:

• The average published in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions was $8,244 in 2011-12, which is 8.3%, or $631, higher than in 2010-11. Average total for tuition, fees, room and board, were $17,131, up 6.0 percent.
• For out-of-state tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities, the published average was $20,770, which is 5.7%, or $1,122, higher than in 2010-11. Average total charges were up 5.2% to $29,657.
• The percentage increase was smaller, but the totals are still higher at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities.  The published tuition and fees averaged $28,500 in 2011-12, which was 4.5%, or $1,235, higher than in 2010-11. The total average charges were up 4.4% to $38,589. 
• The average increase in published in-state tuition and fees at public two-year colleges was even higher.  They totaled $2,963, which is 8.7%, or $236, higher than in 2010-11.The average increase in published in-state tuition and fees at public two-year colleges was even higher.  They totaled $2,963, which is 8.7%, or $236, higher than in 2010-11.
• Holding the line at a mere 3.2% increase were the average published tuition and fees, which were estimated at $14,487 in 2011-12.

The question nobody seems to be able to answer definitely is WHY college tuition is rising at three times the cost of living, higher even than our sky rocketing health care costs.

One silver lining to note, however, is that these figures are the PUBLISHED tuition and fees.  In recent years, many, if not the majority, of students are actually paying substantially less than the published rate, at least for state and nonprofit four-year colleges, due to grants and scholarships and such.  The Obama administration is now requiring colleges to post a calculator on their websites so families can input their income information and such, and get a better idea of the real costs they will be expected to pay.  This at least allows students to better compare colleges on what their real, ultimate costs will be, not just to dismiss certain colleges on their published fees when they would probably be required to pay less.

But I don't think anyone has any good ideas about how to reign in these soaring increases in college costs.

 

Food Day 2011

Did you know that today was the first annual Food Day?  Did you do anything special to celebrate it?

Food Day is an event organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, primarily as a political/policy advocacy day to promote sustainable agriculture and reduce the subsidies, environmental impacts, and marketing power for big factory agribusiness (see their stated goals here).

My observation of the day wasn't too political, beside sending their message to my federal representatives via their website.  Rather, I tried fixing dinner made as much as possible from ingredients from some of our small local farmers.  I figured that if Barbara Kingsolver could eat for a year using only local food, as she described in her wonderful book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, I ought to be able to scrape up a locavore dinner for one night.

But even one entire meal wasn't as easy to do as one might think.  I had to start the project on Saturday morning of the weekend before, when our local farmers markets are open.  I bought my usual supplies from our downtown Cary Farmers Market, but then had to go to the Western Wake Farmers Market as well for some foods the downtown one doesn't carry.  I also had to go to a specialty store to buy some cream and butter from a localish dairy, Homeland Creamery, whose milk-based products are just SO luscious (and without growth hormones and antibiotics and such)!

So I ended up making my own recipes for this "Real Meal" local supper, which I was also trying to keep low sugar, low carbohydrate for my diabetic husband.  As a main course, we had a casserole of zucchini, onions, and nitrite-free sausage, baked in a light sauce of natural cream, eggs, and local raw milk cheese.

I served that with a salad and a roll from a local bakery.

Then for dessert, I served a no-added-sugar, carb-light apple crisp.  I cut up the apples, mixed them with butter and cinnamon and ground cloves, then covered them with some oats, some coconut, and some more cinnamon.

This I served with the thick Homeland Creamery cream beaten to soft peaks, but again without any added sugar.  My husband added some artificial sweetener to his portion, but I honestly thought it was fine just as it was.

I think it ended up being a lovely meal, yet still pretty healthy.  The thing about using the superior local cream, butter, and cheese is that you can use a surprisingly small amount, but because they are so tasty, you think that it is much richer and caloric than it really is.

However, I have to admit that not everything was local.  I got the zucchini, salad greens, and apples from our usual produce source, the Norris farm (which I wrote about previously), and the eggs from Spain Farms, who are at the market with the Norrises.  The spicy nitrite-free sausage was from Fickle Creek Farm in Efland, and the wonderful Eno Mountain Sharp cheese was made by the Hillsborough Cheese Company.  And, of course, the dairy items came from Homeland Creamery.

But I did have to go "conventional" to get the onions, olive oil and vinegar for the salad dressing, the oats, the coconut, and the ground cinnamon and cloves.  So, as I said, I can't claim it to be 100% local, although the major ingredients all were.

It was a great challenge--one I think I will try taking on more often.  Perhaps we'll try making "Food Day" dinner a monthly event.

PS--My son recently asked in his blog for me to do a post on cooking.  So in part, this blog post is for him.

Curriculum Resource: Explaining the Occupy Wall Street Movement

I don't know about you, but I've been having a hard time explaining the Occupy Wall Street movement to my middle schooler because I haven't completely understood it myself.  I don't think the mainstream media has done a great job reporting on what this movement is really all about, preferring to focus on the "sizzle" (growing numbers, celebrity drop-bys, the variety of issues and outfits among participants, etc.) rather than the substance.

However, I found an NPR podcast that I think gives a better background about what is really significant about these protests.  Things may seem disorganized and unfocused to outsiders because while participants disagree about what the MOST egregious problems in modern American policy are, they all agree that we need an entirely different PROCESS to address them.   So while they may all be protesting different specific issues, they are united in not only discussing, but in demonstrating, a different system for making decisions, setting policy, and even allocating resources in a fairer, more democratic, and ultimately better way.

But listen to the enclosed just over 20 minutes podcast to hear a better explanation, including the theory behind a different way to run our entire production system that is known as "participatory economics:"



Plus, come back tomorrow for a teachable moment around this weekend's protest news.

American History in the News

This year, we will be focusing on 20th century history for our social studies.  This is just kind of how it turned out, as we've been approaching history chronologically and thus marching through time year by year.  But with the elections coming next year, I'm glad my son will be exposed to 20th century history this year.  Increasingly, it appears we are facing deep problems in American society that we haven't faced since the early 20th century, and I will be glad for him to know some more about those times as we try to analyze the arguments of the political candidates who are vying for our votes (OK, my vote at least, although he did participate thoughtfully in the Kids Vote program during the last presidential election).  Plus, facing some of the same issues today will, I believe, make our study of those past policies, failed or successful, richer and more meaningful.

There were two articles I read in the Washington Post today that brought this synchronicity home to me.  In one,  Greg Ip, who is the US economics editor of The Economist and author of The Little Book of Economics:  How the Economy Works in the Real World, analyzes the changing beliefs about basic economics by the current Republican party.  Entitled  The Republicans' New Voodoo Economics?,  Ip suggests that some of the most radical Republican candidates are rejecting not just Obama's economic policies, but the entire Keynesian economic theory that has driven most of the US economic policies for the bulk of the 20th century.  Mr. Ip seems not to be in favor of this trend, mentioning, among others, the belief that it was Herbert Hoover's narrow focus on balancing the budget in 1932 that made the Great Depression more severe.

Keynesian economic philosophy is not something that I know enough about that I can talk intelligently as to its success in the past vis a vis other alternatives.  But believe me, it will be something I will be looking into more carefully when we get to the 1930's in our history studies.  And, fortunately, I have some family resources at hand; my father is/was a professional economist, and my brother just visited the Herbert Hoover presidential library, trying to find out what more there was to the man than a one-term President during the Depression.

The other article goes back even further than Keynes and Hoover.  In The Real Grand Bargain Coming Undone, Harvard history professor Alexander Keyssar writes that the current political debate reminds him not of the Depression, but of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century and the reform efforts to balance their power that were passed in the first several decades of the 20th century.  Keyssar, who also is the author of The Right to Vote:  The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, points out that the public outrage over the excesses of unbridled capitalism at the turn of the century were mollified by such laws or programs as the Sherman Antitrust Act, worker safety laws, banking regulations, the rise of the labor movement, and the establishment of the social welfare programs of Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare--most of which are currently under attack by some Republicans.   He argues that it is this agreement between segments of society--that corporates can run up huge profits if workers have a basic level of protection and a social safety net--that is what really is under attack in today's politics.

Anyway, these echoes from the past that are arising in our current political debate promise to make this year's history studies particularly important and fruitful in raising a young man who can participate intelligently in our democratic system.  It reminds me of the all-too-often misquoted Santayana quote, which I think is worthy of being repeated in its entirety here, especially since the first sentence is what many of us need to consider:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, 1905 

Curriculum Resource: IMF International Economics Games

Perhaps it is all this focus on the debt ceiling debate, but our homeschool group has been abuzz about economics education discussions and resources lately.  But when I heard about these two online games by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I knew I had to post them, seeing as I have not just one, but TWO people in my immediate family who have served as the US Executive Director to the IMF!

The IMF has an educational section on its website with curriculum guides for middle school and high school teachers, and some online games for middle school and high school students.  The first game for the middle schoolers is called Where in the World & What in the World is Money?  In this game, students use a time machine to visit cultures around the world at different times in Earth's history, and discover that the units of exchange have varied greatly over time and space.  The other game for this age group is Trading Around the World, which is a little more involved than the first one.  Students choose to play a role based on a trader from different continents across the world.  They your trader goes about trying to sell his/her goods at the best prices, while buying other things at the biggest bargains.  Sometimes the desired trades are blocked by trade barriers, which helps students understand why international organizations like the IMF exist to keep trade flowing.

If you have a high schooler, or an advanced middle schooler, you could also check out the Money Mania game.  It is a quiz on macroeconomics, set as a game show format.  You pick your character, who is competing against a typical uninformed high school student and a college economics major.  But it isn't easy!  In the beginning, I was getting trounced by the college econ major.  But then they asked some questions about policies that my father spent most of his early career working on....so shame on me if I didn't get those right!  Then, at the end, they asked four questions specifically about the IMF itself, all of which, fortunately, I got right (did I mention TWO of my family helped run the IMF?).  But even with those advantages, I ended up tying with the college student.  So I don't know how well most higher schoolers would do, let alone middle schoolers.

Still, these are fun ways to help explain why it might matter whether or not the US defaults on its international loans, and some other aspects of international economics.

Curriculum Resource: US Debt Ceiling Issue

It is hard to teach our middle schoolers what the big debate over raising the debt ceiling is about, in part because it can be hard to understand it ourselves.  But I think the Washington Post has some great resources to help explain the debt problem in a way that even we, I mean, middle schoolers, can understand.

A great place to start is their "Five Myths and Five Truths about the Debt Ceiling" piece.

Here are two great graphics that help explain what has created such a debt crisis (in terms of budget expenditures and economic conditions):

Yellow is Bush Tax Cuts, Blue is Economic Recovery Act,
and Green is cost of  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
(from The Washington Post)

The Washington Post also has a wonderful interactive graphic that shows which US Senators and Representatives voted for the three programs that are driving the big increase in our national deficit.  That Venn Diagram that is is almost exclusively the Democrats who voted for the combination of the wars and the stimulus package, and almost exclusively the Republicans who voted for the wars and the tax cuts.

Another graphic demonstrates that the debt has continued to rise, regardless of which parties controlled either the White House or the Congress:

Why College Tuition Costs Are Rising

An article in the Los Angeles Times (home of the infamous "we can judge teacher performance" article) this weekend addressed the issue of rising college tuition costs.  Entitled "Colleges:  Where the Money Goes," an opinion piece written by the authors of a new book about higher education reform argues that while college tuitions have increased between 1980 and 2010 from about 3 or 4 times the 1980 rate to 11 or 12 times as much, most of the extra money is not going toward a better undergraduate experience.  Four major areas of rising college expenses, according to long-term educators and writers Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, are:
*Sports and Athletic Teams--Collegiate sports teams have proliferated as well as gotten more expensive.  While the number of colleges with football teams has grown to 629 schools, all but 14 of them lose money on the sport.  And other sports get little or no alumni contributions, so they lose even more money.  Even the lesser-known sports expend large sums of money.  For example, each varsity golfer at Duke University (they have a men's team of 8 players and a women's team of 6) costs the school $20,405 per year (you can do the math for the entire squad).  Even worse is crew; at Yale, it costs $112,200 to keep a single rower participating for four years.   In the end, it is student tuition that is underwriting the costs for these expensive athletes, many of whom attend on athletic scholarships and so contribute little or nothing to the collegiate coffers.
*Out-of-line salaries to attract "star" faculty and college presidents--the authors cite the case of the President of Vanderbilt, whose $1.2 million annual stipend is the equivalent of a year's tuition from 31 Vanderbilt students.
*More College Administration that is not directly related to teaching
*Luxurious food and accommodations

As someone who worked in a national educational association, I question some of their claims about unnecessary college expenses.  For example, I know much of the increase of "non-academic" administrative positions is due to legislation passed by Congress requiring colleges to perform, assess, safeguard, or prevent many areas that were previously considered to be outside the purview of college responsibility.  However, many of their complaints make sense to me, particularly in the area of college sports.  I have long been of the opinion that professional sports should run their own talent development programs instead of having colleges do it.  However, I am definitely biased in that area, as I have neither interest nor aptitude in any sport.

None the less, it is generally considered that higher education costs compete with health care costs as the fasting-rising expenses in our economy.  And, like health care, if we can't find a way to put some brakes on the ever-increasing costs, I fear that a college education will become increasingly unaffordable for the average family.

Is Going to College an Economic Mistake?

Another provocative article in the Washington Post last week argues that sending children to college is not a good economic investment.  "Some say bypassing a higher education is smarter than paying for a degree" by Sarah Kaufman suggests that soaring tuition prices are reducing the economic benefits of a college degree.  According to the statistics in the article, the differential in annual salaries between high school graduates and those with a bachelor's degree has narrowed, as has the difference in unemployment rates, particularly now that college graduate unemployment is at an all-time high.  Also, as the article points out, the average college degree earnings hide huge discrepancies between disciplines; the high wages of business majors or accountants look good compared to high school graduates, but those graduating with degrees in anthropology, social work, or preschool education may not be any higher than the compensation for high school graduates.

Compounding the problem, according to these financial advisers, is the burden of debt many young graduates have from their student loans.  Paying off that debt causes many to postpone major steps in their lives:  buying a house, having a family, opening their own business.  Many can't pay and end up defaulting; this not only ruins their credit (and thus, perhaps, their chance to rent an apartment or arrange a car loan), but may prevent them from getting some jobs (or have the government garnish their wages if they do get the job).

What do these experts say parents should do instead?  Invest that money in their children's future.  The $200,000 (minimum) it costs for four years at a highly-competitive private college would, if invested in T bill with 5% interest over 50 years, grow to nearly $3 million by the children's retirement age.  For those with not-such-deep pockets, at least one adviser says to give your children $10,000 to open their own business.  This, he argues, will teach them more life lessons than any college course, and will make them more motivated in whatever college education they do pursue.

Of course, as the article itself admits, there are non-monetary benefits to attending colleges.  It is for the intrinsic value of the college experience that I would want my son to go, not for the guarantee of a job with a big paycheck.  But it is an interesting perspective to keep in mind.  Even in middle school, it is easy to start getting caught up in college-mania, worrying about doing the right test-prep to get high enough scores and taking enough AP classes to ensure our children get into that "perfect" school, whatever it is--Harvard?  MIT?  Stanford?  St. John's?  University of Chicago?  Whatever.  If the voice in your head ever says, "But I'll ruin my children's lives if I don't prepare them well enough to get into (substitute educational Nirvana here)," this article provides some good food for thought.

And regardless of what I think about the article, I just have to ask:  Is there really any bachelor's degree program that is worth a quarter of a million dollars?