Slaughterhouse Five

This book lived up to the hype that it was one of the best anti-war books ever written. As I described it to Ab last night, the book subtly hits you over the head with its ideology because the way Billy Pilgrim is constructed as a character gives Vonnegut significant freedom to in both dialog and timing. I anticipate reading this book multiple times and the first pass through I don't want to make a fool of myself trying to provide great literary insight, but the striking thing in just having finished the book is the beauty in the book's ending. It's abruptness highlights how human made war is and that there often isn't a climax, it just is, or as Billy Pilgrim would say, "So it goes." Additionally, as I recently got a classical guitar (so that I can play a bit now that apps are in) I've been perusing the interwebs and come across some great stuff and here is one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNw3KkhkopA&feature

Daylight Savings

A difficult part of transitioning to life in Indonesia was the difference in daylight. When I moved in July, I was accustomed to the very long days of New York's summer and consequently, adjusting to a consistent 12 hours of daylight per day was difficult. Now that it's turning from fall into winter back home, my body seems to have naturally calibrated itself to EST and I'm surprised that it's still light out around 5:30. I have no deep insights about this, but just find it interesting. Powerpoint and handouts are prepared for Thursday, I may be going all out, but I've truly enjoyed preparing for this :) and in fact as a part of my preparation, I researched powerful oratory (and thought Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech would fit that category and was more blown away than I expected, check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk)

Juror Incentives

A recent chapter also in the book by Steven Landsburg has to do with changing the incentives for jurors. Yes, it is a complete travesty that on occasion innocent people are sent to jail and guilty people go free and consequently there should be changes in the system, however, Landsburg didn't look at the whole equation. While he focused on doing things to change the incentives of jurors to guarantee they maximize their performance (from providing 'mock' trials where the outcome is already determined - i.e. the defendant readily confessed or the defendant has an air-tight alibi - to provide the potential for financial incentives for jurors determining the correct outcome, to creating some sort of 'penalty' for jurors delivering incorrect verdicts or getting rewards for verdicts that are later substantiated by further evidence) these suggestions seemed overwhelmingly impractical (it's unnecessary to go deeper in the proof that these wouldn't work beyond 'judicial gridlock') and, more problematically, only focused on one piece of the problem. Changing incentives for the evidence gathering body and prosecutors (judged based on conviction rates, not 'truth' substantiated) is just as critical and even though the precise 'prescriptions' provided by Landsburg may fall short, they do shed light on the problem and encourage creative solutions to our problems.

Lastly, this weekend I've been falling in love with Yo-Yo Ma; the articulate manner in which he discusses music, the amazing way in which he plays the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JysJGTUASrQ) and the fact he totally bros it up with James Taylor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkoYcfDmrk)

Tall Presidents bend the Constitution

"Most presidents have been several inches above the norm for their times, with the five tallest being Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and Franklin Roosevelt - suggesting incidentally, that height predicts not just electoral success but perhaps also a propensity to subvert the Constitution. (This statistical anomaly works in the other direction as well; the shortest of American presidents was James Madison, who largely wrote the Constitution.)" - Steven Landsburg

This is in the chapter regarding why beautiful people earn, on average, 5% more and also how being tall is as important a determinant of wages as race or gender. While the defensibility of such a position is pretty ludicrous (especially given the extremely small and unrepresentative sample size of American presidents responding to specific needs of the time - i.e. I doubt Lincoln was thinking to himself after the 1860 election, "Alright! Now I finally get to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a little while, yes!") but does highlight the entertainment that can come from analyses commonly used in economics. Lastly, during our professional development days this coming week (we have 2 days with no kids), everyone who went to a conference or other form of professional development is giving an "echo" talk to have a time where some of the main ideas from the conferences can be shared and discussed by the staff at large. I think this is an amazing way to increase the effectiveness of PD dollars and am very intrigued to see how these will go! My "echoing" of the Solo Conference is going to be a discussion on increasing student investment and so any best practices would be appreciated as I'm putting together the workshop! I hope everyone is doing well!

Population Growth

I enjoy reading books that challenge my views on the world and that has happened tonight as I just finished a chapter advocating unfettered population growth in a book that is similar to Freakonomics. I've long advocated zero population growth for reasons to Warren Buffet; we have no idea how many people the planet physically support, but quality of life on earth would be better for the smaller population. A fault in this argument is that is assumes a zero-sum "happiness" level of the world when in fact happiness may be a compounding factor that actually grows at a rate greater than that of population growth. Furthermore, the greater the population, the great the number of geniuses who can develop the next big thing; agriculturally- to support the great population, technologically- to invent the next wheel or personal computer, medically- to develop the cure for _. Additionally, population growth is a key contributor to economic growth and thus would help sustain the unprecedented levels of economic success experienced over the past 150 years. These are the most robust of the arguments made throughout the chapter, but my optimism is much more guarded because of drastic assumptions made by the author. Foremost is the ability of the family to afford the extra children. There is no better argument against population growth for those who cannot afford it than to analyze the affect it's had on terror cells. In the words of Jed Bartlet, "they weren't born wanting to do this!" That is in reference to the fact that a baby is not born wanting to become a terrorist, but at some point, its innocence is lost and its potential for good is transformed into a potential for evil. Secondly, while things like happiness or wealth are not zero-sum commodities, there are some very valuable commodities that are; land and non-renewable resources (and yes, there is the counter argument that the increase in number of geniuses will solve that problem, but at what point does the earth become completely devoid of all resources?). I'm not completely sold either way, thus may wend my way towards moderation with continued family planning support.

TFA Mission Statement during Political Philosophy Class

Tuesdays after-school, I have been hosting an after-school class. Initially the class was going to be a Model U.N. team, but there weren't enough participants at first and so I transitioned it to a Socratic-style, class on Political Philosophy. Throughout the past few months we've discussed current events, the pros and cons of various forms of government, ways to inhibit corruption, and are currently setting the political agenda for a made-up administration. Today we were ranking the priorities of our policy initiatives, and during the discussion on education, Aldwin said, "No no no no. It should be a right for every kid to get a great education! We don't know where the leaders of tomorrow are going to come from, so it's only fair to have great schools for everyone!" That quote is extremely close to the actual words he said because I was so touched by it, I wrote it down as soon as I could. Hearing this sentiment from a student all the way across the world from where I was last teaching and promoting the importance of amazing public schools gives me great hope for our global future. And that is why I teach for Indonesia :)

Homeroom Challenge!

Last Friday officially started the Mentari Homeroom Challenge and yesterday my class, 9B, became the inaugural champions! I was extremely proud of the way in which they worked in unison and bonded throughout the week and exemplifies the multi-faceted nature of school. Yes, it is important for us to teach content (obviously), but it's equally important to teach team building, peer negotiation, random problem-solving (because the problems of the real world never have "nice" textbook solutions), and support positive character growth. The closing ceremony was a great way to bring us all together at the end as the 10th grade (who organized and facilitated the challenge) handed out individual awards (and at least one student in each grade earned an award, to maximizes the breadth of success) and presented the "free party" certificate to the winning class. It was apparent that the challenge was a success when the student who garnered the loudest applause during the individual awards was Hanif, a 6th grader :). I'm going to buy a bigger USB drive this weekend so I can get the "official" photos from the 10th grade photographer so get excited for some great pics of my students :)