The radishes did well this year. Planted in containers on March 29th (in St. Louis, USA), they were harvested one month later. The short, early season means that they’re a workable crop for school. Students can plant, harvest, and consume them all within a semester.
The CDC’s Fruit and Vegetable of the Month website has a little history, some information about the varieties, nutritional information, recipes, and more information about radishes. The University of Illinois Extension also has information about planting and growing.
NutritionData.self.com has some very nice graphical representations of the nutritional value of the food (although their serving size is 1 cup of slices, which seems a bit much).
These sites, however, focus on the radish bulbs, and not on the fact that the leaves are edible. Radish Leaf Pesto is quite good.
Harvested radishes. Both the red bulbs and the green leaves are edible. You'll note that radishes also spot a long tap-root.
The grill entering the final stages of construction by Ryan V. and Robert M.. Photograph by Autumn F.
It took us a little more than half a day to build a grill. It’s a simple thing of cinder blocks and sand, located near the soccer field so it’ll be convenient for bbq’s next year.
It took the highschoolers all morning to dig an outline for the base of the grill and lay in the foundation, despite it being a small, three-quarters of a rectangle shape, and only ten centimeters (4 inches) deep at maximum. The local clay is extremely dense and hard.
The foundations took the longest time to build.
But the foundations were firm, secure, and level.
When the base was done, two middle-schoolers — ably documented by a peer photographer — finished all the visible parts of the structure in just half an hour.
The next day, after I’d given them a presentation on cognitive development during the teenage years that I realized how nice a metaphor the grill construction was for the training of the brain during adolescence. The extensive pruning and myelination that typifies adolescence establish neural pathways are the foundation for future mental growth.
Good, strong, level foundations are the basis for a rich and fulfilling life.
Good foundations require some effort, but they're worth it.
Walter Russell Mead (and his commenters) highlight two articles (here and here) on Virginia Tech’s excellent computer-based learning setup for their mathematics classes. Most of the work is done on the computer, either at home or in a shared Math Emporium where teachers are available to help when necessary; which, except for the computer work, is very much like how my class works. It seems close to the ideal way of using technology to allow flexibility in learning and assessment, and is in many ways similar to New York City’s School of One program.
VT’s approach requires some self-motivation on the part of the students — students are able to use the 24 hour a day Emporium at any time — but the model should fit be a good fit for Montessori middle and high-school students who have much independence in managing how they use their time during the day.
Their assessment method also nice as it allows students to pace themselves and take their tests when they’re ready. It is based on students proving that they’ve learned the material — how they learned it is not important, nor is how many practice tests they took before they get to the test.
Each course is broken up into a series of “modules,” available on Emporium computers or the Internet, that students are required to complete within a certain amount of time. Each module outlines a specific set of mathematic principles and concepts. These are translated into specific examples to review and problems to solve.
Once the module materials are completed, students can take randomly generated practice tests that draw on a central bank of thousands of potential questions. If they get questions wrong, the computer refers them back to the appropriate materials, and there’s no limit to the number of practice tests they can take. When they decide they’re ready, students come to the Emporium to take an official, proctored test that’s generated in exactly the same way as the practice quizzes. Then they move to the next module. Instead of marking progress by time—the number of hours spent in proximity to a lecturer—Emporium courses measure advancement by evidence of learning.
Knap-weed or matfelon and cornflower or bluebottle, by Richard Waller (1689) from The Royal Society's Picture Library.
The Royal Society’s Picture Library is now available online. It contains images from some of the seminal scientific works of the last four centuries. It’s an excellent resource for teachers and students, who, with registration, can get free high-resolution images for presentations and unpublished theses.
I’m particularly attracted to the biological drawings at the moment because I’m trying to get students to practice their scientific drawing and diagramming.
During your adolescence, which lasts from your early teens into your 20’s, the brain changes rapidly, you develop new abilities and capacities, and the habits of mind and skills you develop will last long into adulthood.
Abilities: The last part of the brain to develop is the Frontal Lobe. It’s responsible for reasoning and judgement — aka Executive Function. So, it’s somewhat understandable that teens often have poor impulse control — their Frontal Lobe (the prefrontal cortex in particular) is still developing.
The parts of the adolescent brain.
However that’s not an excuse. It is essential for adolescents to be held to account, because it’s only by practicing responsibility that they get to learn how to use their Executive thinking skills.
Because that’s how we learn — by practicing.
When we’re learning something new, brain cells, called neurons, reach out and connect to form networks. As we practice and focus on specific things — certain patterns of movement or certain ways of thought — some of the unused connections get pruned away, while others become stronger. The axons that connect the most-used pathways get coated in myelin, which acts as an insulator to make sure signals can pass quickly and efficiently.
Neurons in the brain transmit information to each other along long axons and across the synaptic gap.
By reorganizing the connections between brain cells, the brain learns and becomes better at what you’re practicing. Thus we gradually transition from novices to experts.
However, there is a cost.
Making strong pathways makes for quicker thinking about the things we’ve practiced, but makes our brains somewhat less flexible at learning new things. We develop habits of mind that stay with us for a long time.
Some of those habits we might not actually want to keep; and there’s also the possibility that we might not develop some habits of mind that we really would like to have.
The development of the frontal lobe during adolescence opens a window of opportunity for learning good judgement/executive function, but it does not mean we actually will learn it. We need to actually practice it.
So, if you would like to know yourself, want to be able to control yourself, and, especially, want to shape the future person you will become, then you’re going to have to figure out: which habits of mind you want to be practicing and which ones you don’t.
Peter Orszag advocates for increasing the length of the school day by about 2 hours.
As a teacher, I know I would appreciate a little extra time in all my subjects. Based as my experience as the sole teacher in a middle school classroom, I think about how much more we could have done with the extra time to round out the curriculum. But I think it only makes sense to add those two hours if they’re used properly. More of the same — like sitting at desks — is unlikely to help a lot.
Orszag points out that there’s some evidence (see Dobbie and Fryer, 2011 (pdf) and Fryer, 2011 (pdf)) that longer school days have improved student performances. But it’s crucial to note that the longer days are part of extensive changes in the curriculum that I don’t think can be separated from the other changes: “frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations” (Dobbie and Fryer, 2011); “a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations” (Fryer, 2011).
When I think of longer school days, I tend to think of a more apprenticeship model. Giving students time to work on personalized projects, interacting with experts as they need.
Dr. Klaus Schmitt has some utterly amazing photographs that simulate what bees and butterflies can see. They can see ultra-violet wavelengths of light, which we can’t.
Schmitt maps the ultra-violet in the image to blue to make it visible to our eyes.
