Kozol and Ice Dancing

I'm only six chapters (or letters) into Kozol's "Letters to a Young Teacher" but already I have a feeling that he would agree with me when I say that Ice Dancing (the ugly cousin of figure skating) is HELLA lame. Any sport with a major skill component called a "swizzle" should be automatically disqualified from any kind of meaningful competition.

Also, while I'm on an Olympics-related rant, why the hey did Bob Costas decide to show the USA-Canada hockey game on MSNBC today? I guess they just really wanted me to be able to watch the local news. Anyway, I didn't bother to go out to watch it. Maybe some day we'll get basic cable and I won't have to go to a bar for every fringe sporting event.

(Currently some Russians are "ice-dancing" in outfits meant to evoke aboriginal cultures. Mostly they just look ridiculous, but it has apparently created no small amount of controversy.)

Back to Kozol for a moment -- It's beginning to become quite clear to me that TFA and the state-standards-driven teaching movement (think over-structured, fairly standardized teaching complete with mandatory posting of lesson objectives on the whiteboard) is in somewhat of direct opposition to the ideas and strategies that many big thinkers in education (including Kozol) extol. Of course, there are also many ideas that overlap (e.g. including and getting to know students' parents), but the tension is certainly there. Kozol has so far referred to "fast-tracking teacher programs" not exactly with disdain but with somewhat negative implications. This will definitely be something to keep an eye on, but thus far Kozol is recommending things that I can certainly get behind: visiting students' homes and being persistent in communication with students' parents; seeking out the advice of veteran teaching staff rather than becoming siloed with other young, like-minded teachers; allow creativity and actually important education to happen and to trump the mandatory pieces enforced by state standards ("skills" > "proficiencies").