Credit Shredit

October 12, 2008

Dear President Barack Obama,

I’d like to put in my two cents worth on credit card companies and my strong desire for more regulation in the credit card industry. I realize my views may not be the hot political topics of the week, but hey, I call them as I see them.

Way back in the day, as in twenty-five years ago, I was a college student at the University of Hawaii. An older student, all of twenty-five, paying my way through school. I had no credit cards and no debts and the idea of acquiring credit had not yet entered my head. My college roommate had a Liberty House credit card. It got my attention, but to my chagrin I was denied my own when I applied. It seemed that although I had no debts and a solid job cocktailing at Bobby McGee’s, credit card companies were not willing to take a risk on someone with no credit history. I learned by asking that one needed to establish a good credit history to be taken seriously in acquiring credit. My dad cosigned a Sear’s credit application and I had my first card. It had a $300 credit limit. My father explained that I was to use this prudently and to pay it off each month – thus establishing my good credit.

Fast forward twenty-five years later. Our 20 year old daughter who attends the University of Hawaii and whose only job is as a part time nanny (making barely enough money to cover her gas and parking), who shares my car with me, who commutes 45 minutes each way to school because we cannot afford a dorm; yes, this same girl – SHE gets fishing letters from both Chase and Capital One saying she is pre approved and please sign on the dotted line for a card right away. We tear these letters up. She called and asked to be taken off their lists. We went online and signed her up for the no-solicit-me-for-credit-in-the-mail. We still get these letters asking her if she wouldn’t like to go in debt before she even gets out of college.

We have had three occasions on our street with mail getting stolen. Once, we were the victims. The person who stole our mail tried to use my name and address to buy items online in some credit card scam. I have gone online several times and signed up not to be solicited by credit companies. Still, every week several offers for loans and cards arrive by mail.

My 82 year old mother has several credits cards and keeps maxing these out, getting her limits raised, and maxing them out again. This is a woman who inherited two homes and a decent retirement savings from her parents back in the 70’s. She quit her job and lived off the money, then sold one home, then took out a huge mortgage on the other. She eventually lost that home and soon after filed bankruptcy. She pawned off everything worth anything. For many many years now she has lived off a meager income and will NEVER, EVER be able to pay off the debts she is incurring. She knows this and does not care. “Those bills will die with me.” I can live with the fact that she never thought to help her children pay for college, and that she never made sure she would be secure in her retirement. But I cannot sign anything that would make me responsible for my crazy mother, as I am scared to death to someday get stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of dept she has accrued. I blame the crazy credit card companies for giving her credit in the first place when it is obvious to absofuckinglutely anyone with a lick of sense that she will never, ever, be able to pay off her debts.

Maybe this is just too much a common sense point of view, but here goes. Shouldn’t someone want credit enough to figure out how to get it on their own? If someone is incapable of finding the best rate for credit and applying for it, maybe we don’t want that person racking up a lot of debt…

I think credit card companies should not be able to solicit through the mail. I think there should be stricter guidelines for approving credit.

Some of my more conservative friends and I sometimes have friendly discussion on government regulation. I realize they are not fond of it. But here goes. In my opinion, capitalism and commercialism have gone way out of control. The lack of regulation has brought in a tide of unchecked greed and irresponsibility.

Please, Mr. President. I know you are busy, but could you think about moving this item up on your to do list?

Thank-you very much.

Until next week,

Sincerely,

Pseudo

Dear President Barack Obama...

Dear President Barack Obama,

I have been meaning to write you a letter and post it on my blog since the day you were elected. I realize the chances of you, yourself, reading it are slim, despite the fact that you do read some of the letters written to you. Still, I keep getting the internal nudge to do it. I am a strong supporter of you and worked hard for you during the election.

I am going to try and break up all I would like to say into a series of weekly letters to the President. I will mail the original version off to you (you never know – I might get through) and post a version of the letter on my blog that helps me keep my anonymity.

I am a public school teacher in Hawaii. Enough said for why my blog is anonymous.

I have a lot of opinions on education and what needs to be done to improve education, but will save most of those ideas for another time. For this letter I would like to focus on math curriculum and limit the focus to a microscopic perspective as seen from one gifted boy’s experience.

My son went to public elementary school in Hawaii. From third through sixth grade he complained that they were repeating the same math and not teaching him anything new. For fun, he would do his older sister’s algebra. We put him in Kumon after school in order for him to be challenged, move forward on his skills, and not be held back. My cousin in LA put his son in Kumon and his son credits Kumon for his success in high school math, his full scholarship to USC, and his subsequent success as a chemical engineer.

By 7th grade the Kumon teacher/franchise owner told us our son was as high in his skills as her franchise went and that we needed to switch centers if we wanted him to stay in Kumon. She also told us he was the most naturally gifted math student she had ever taught.

When our son was in sixth grade we applied him for private schools. Although he did not get into Punahou (your alma mater), we were asked to come and meet with the Dean of Admissions. At the meeting, the Dean showed us our son’s SSAT scores. His reading and writing were right in line with the students who were accepted into Punahou that year. His math, however, was an entire stanine above most of the students they were taking into Punahou. The Dean explained how excited he was at Son’s math potential; however, Son’s grades were all “C’s” and “B’s” and his teacher recommendations were less than stellar. Son has ADHD and when bored can clown around and generally irritate teachers. The Dean recommended we wait a year and reapply so Son could mature.

The next year I was diagnosed with breast cancer and the costs of treatment and my missing six months of work kept us from reapplying our son for private school. Instead he went through Hawaii public school systems. He switched schools twice and the methods for teaching math varied considerably from school to school. This was also true within a given school, depending on the teacher. There was always an emphasis on “discovery” with practice and drill of basics often removed nearly completely from the curriculum.

So, here we are now. We have a son who was born with an extraordinary gift for math. Whose parents have tried as well as we can to get him into a school or program that would develop his math potential. And he now will have to retake math classes he should have had in high school (competently) when he goes to college. His dreams of being a pre-med major have been smashed and the kid has fallen into a deep depression over his lost potential.

I know I am neither a math teacher nor a math person. So my thoughts are just what make sense to me. I understand that students need to know how to apply their math skills in authentic ways. But I strongly believe that first they need know how to do the basics backwards and forwards and without hesitation.

Like my son, I, too, was gifted in math when I was young. Growing up in pre-proposition 13 California, I was lucky to go to good schools where they had their shit together. In sixth grade we were tested and grouped according to ability. For math I was sent to a class that challenged me. Math books were set up so that one practiced a formula over and over until it was second nature. “Word problems” were always at the end of the chapter and applying the math skills in complex problems and projects only took place after the student was completely competent in the basics.

It seems to me that must have worked just fine because in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s America was number one. From what I have seen of those countries that are passing us by in the math scores these days, an emphasis is put on speed and accuracy of the basics before the complexity and discovery paradigms.

At the school where I work, young teachers are actually told NOT to answer students’ math questions directly, but with another question. In this way the students “discover” the solutions themselves. I truly do not get this. The kids are so ignorant of the basic formulas that they cannot determine what do at all. We have horrible math scores, yet we keep doing the same thing.

So, perhaps, is there some discussion going on at your level for how to get America competitive in math? Any talk of math curriculum? Because I am thinking…. If our son, who had supportive parents who paid for outside intervention to enhance our son’s public education, if our son could lose his potential in the amorphous maze of math education in Hawaii, what about the kids born with the same potential in homes with little or no parental support? How is America to remain competitive if even those born with gifts have such a difficult time getting those gifts developed in our public education system?

Until next week,

Sincerely,

Pseudo

Hope and Change

Sprite’s Keeper Spin this week is poetry. Either share a poem you love or write a poem. I had planned on either writing a poem or sharing an old one. I used to love writing poetry. One of my two publishing claims is a poem I wrote as an undergrad that was selected for the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Review (my other published piece is an educational research article in an educational periodical – yeah even writing that phrase bored the blog world). But my old poetry tended to be dark. And I wanted a poem this week about hope or change or hope and change. And there is a favorite poem of mine that I’ve loved since high school days. So, I’m sharing that instead.

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS
Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.

Well, my hope did ask for some crumbs last Fall. I was very hopeful, but felt the need to put effort into my hope. I spent a few Sundays volunteering my time by making phone calls. The butterflies that come to life in my stomach, the goose bumps I get, the sense of a burden being lifted, all of this every time I hear Obama’s speeches. But that is the work of tomorrow. For today, we have this speech to honor.

Election Day

Rosa sat so Martin could walk

Martin walked so Obama could run

Obama ran so our children could fly

I swiped this badge from Movie

Hunker Down and Hope

My students are 2/3 of the way done with a project. Using scientific inquiry method, historical perspective, researching primary documents, and conducting oral history interviews of family members, they are taking a close look at what has shaped their lives. I can take absolutely no credit for this project. My two collegues on my 10th grade team are master teachers that have been working together for seven years. I joined them last year after my film and reading electives were cancelled. My contribution to the project was to lead the students through writing lessons that would produce a poem for their front page, and a reflective essay for the last pages. The essays are in and I am about to settle down to a weekend of giving teacher feedback.


Their essential question that guided their process of producing their scrapbook was this:

Which factors (beliefs, principles, values, education, environment) have determined who I am? How so? Will these factors predetermine my future? Why or why not?

I guess I'll be busy all weekend. But when I take my breaks and rub my eyes, I will send out hope for this Tuesday's outcome. I will watch this video a few more times, because every time I do I get chicken skin and teary with hope. My heart bleeds with hope for us all.

And in that place, I think about America and those who built it. This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the facelss, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themsleves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.

It is that process I wish to be a part of.

My heart is filled with love for this country.

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

Staying Home

The weekend looms ahead with piles of poems to grade and next week's lessons to plan. In my free time I am planning on volunteering by making phone calls for this man.

Who is running with this man.

Phoenix and Funeral Pyres

I’ve spent the better part of this quarter immersed in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 with 150+ fifteen and sixteen year olds. I didn’t pick this novel; it came with the turf. In public education you take what gets handed down to you and when I moved into 10th grade two years ago I wasn’t head over heels at the idea. I must have read it in high school myself because I knew it was about firemen burning books, but I didn’t read it again in college. And I didn’t remember it well enough or fondly enough to go

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO YES YES YES. I know EXACTLY how I’m going to approach teaching that book.

But I took it home for the summer and read it the first time straight through, while I was flying from Honolulu to NYC (family vacation –first one that wasn’t about family visiting…. hmm… I think I should do a post someday about living so far from home that every time you scrape enough money up for a trip it’s time to visit family again, and of course you love to and want to, but THINK of all those places you don’t get to go).

So. Anyways.

At the end of the school year I have the students do an evaluation, anonymous of course, and ask them stuff like what was your favorite unit, what was your least favorite…etc. Last year, my first year in 10th grade, over 60% of the kids said Fahrenheit was their favorite unit from the entire year. Surprised the hell out of me. I mean, it seemed like they were more engaged than other times, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. They have to appear cool at all times, ya know? I knew I had come to love the book, loved prying into the ideas layered in the subtext, loved the rich figurative language; but I didn’t realize the extent to which they had come to love it too.

This year, with all the media hoopla surrounding the election, it’s even more relevant. The three themes we have been focusing on: the rights and responsibilities of living in a democracy, the dehumanizing effects of mass media on a society, and alienation/loneliness. The kids trip out on the fact that it was written in 1953; it’s, like, ah, the only thing in the class older than their teacher (OK – only by four years – but STILL).

Check this out:

Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself (82).

My students’ last writing ssignment was to respond to this quote by writing about some time when they have seen something wrong; in the world, in America, in Hawaii, or in their community. What is/was it? Did they do something? What could they have done? What would they do if they could go back?

I’m happy to report that most of my students have a lot more empathy and concern than they show on the surface. Here’s a list of topics from their responses.

Teasing/Bullying/Fighting
Drugs and Drinking
Drinking and Driving
Domestic Violence
Global Warming
Littering
The War in Iraq
Animal Abuse

Teasing and bullying came up the most often. Almost every single student that wrote along these lines thought a part of the solution needed to be people sticking up for a victim when they witness someone being teased or bullied. But most of the students admitted that they have not done that. They are too afraid of being the next victim. Some even admitted to going along with the teasing just to avoid being the next victim, but feeling guilty later.

The culture of fear.

Their responses brought out my own feelings of guilt. When we first went to war, after the 911 attacks, I didn’t think we should go to war. I didn’t believe there were weapons of mass destruction. I didn’t want my president (not mine in that I voted for Bush, just mine because afterwards he, unfortunately, now belonged to all of us) taking this path of destruction. I did not think this war would make us more safe. Even back then I thought that this war would impact America negatively.

A few weeks after the war started, I was driving home from Honolulu one afternoon in traffic hour. Along Ala Moana Boulevard, smack in the middle of downtown, there were protesters. Signs and everything. Demonstrating against the War on Iraq. There were only about 10 of them. They looked liked well-aged activists from the 60’s. As I sat in traffic, moving so slowly along that I could have shaken each and every one of their hands had I rolled down my window, I thought they were making a futile attempt. George W Bush and the Republican Party had managed to harness the patriotism following the attacks in such a way that the entire country seemed bent on the notion that going against anything the President and his party did was unpatriotic. Unsupportive of our troops. I let myself flow along with the traffic, amongst the other drones in cars.

What kept me quiet during those times? At the time I told myself that I taught at a school where there are a lot of students from military families and I was afraid of appearing “unsupportive.” But I know that is not good enough.

What would I do if I could go back? Would I park my car and ask for a sign? Would I have my children stand by my side out there and see democracy in action? If everyone who thought like me had done a little something more, would things be better now? Maybe not. George W. Bush had quite a momentum going. But, maybe, yes.

I like the way the novel ends. The hope at the center of an apocalypse. After the nuclear bombs and devastation, the leader of the survivors says this:

There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember every generation (163).

I hope we have picked up enough people over the last eight years.
Obama ‘08

Obama Song

Because I think we could all use something lighter today. And because Obama rocks.



"A nerdfighter is someone that instead of being made out of bones and organs and stuff is made out of awesome"-Hank Green vlogbrothers

To hear the original Llama song click here. So that should help drill out economy anxiety for work on Friday.