I was the height of fashion, I tell you

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Me and Minh, my RA at CTY in Claremont, CA

Dori Smith mentioned today that her son Sean just returned from a session of CTY. CTY is a program for Jr. High “…students whose SAT I scores place them in the top one-half of one percent of their age mates.” I was accepted when I was in 7^th^ grade after taking the SAT, through the recommendation of my PACT (Program for the Academically and Creatively Talented) teacher, and went to summer CTY sessions for three years running.

The first year Royce and I both went to a session in Claremont, California (where the picture attached to this post was taken — thanks go to Royce for sending that particular little bit of embarassing history my way — I actually remember that shirt, too, those are little mother-of-pearl snaps instead of buttons…ugh…), and the following two years I went to sessions somewhere in Pennsylvania. They were a lot of fun, too. The CTY sessions are a few weeks long each, and are combinations of summer camp and summer school (summer camp for geeks, I guess). The first year I took Spanish (which I remember precisely nothing of), and the next two years were writing classes.

The best thing those summer sessions did for me, though, was to get me into an environment where I wasn’t ridiculed because I was smarter than your average bear. All of a sudden, I wasn’t the oddball — instead, I was surrounded by other people who had some of the same interests I did, who laughed at the same jokes I did, who knew as much Star Trek as I did (and were equally apprehensive about this new “Next Generation” of Star Trek that was being talked about — a blind pilot? A kid on the bridge? And a bald captain? Oh, come on!?!). Some of them even probably shared my impeccable fashion sense! And most importantly, they allowed me to start the long, long process of coming into my own, and discovering that I had a personality of my own. It was many years afterwards before I was fully able to realize that potential, but had it not been for the open and accepting atmosphere of the CTY program and the possibilities that it opened up to me, I may never have broken out of my shell at all.

It’s a great program, and if you ever have a child who has the chance to participate, it’s a wonderful experience that they really shouldn’t have to miss out on.

Cameras in classrooms

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When students in Biloxi, Miss., show up this morning for the first day of the new school year, a virtual army of digital cameras will be recording every minute of every lesson in every classroom.

Hundreds of Internet-wired video cameras will keep rolling all year long, in the hope that they’ll deter crime and general misbehavior among the district’s 6,300 students — and teachers.

You know, I’m honestly not sure what I think of this. On the one hand, the “Big Brother” aspect of constant video surveillance creeps me out, in a big way. On the other hand, when used effectively, I could see there being some really strong advantages to the technology.

The USA Today article about this is actually surprisingly good, too (is USA Today getting better? I’ve always seen them as the ‘lowest common denominator’ of news. Anyway…).

“It helps honest people be more honest,” says district Superintendent Larry Drawdy, who, along with principals and security officers, can use a password to view classrooms from any computer. In an emergency, police also can tune in.

This is one of the quotes that creeps me out, and I think it’s entirely the wrong attitude to take. If you’re planning on using the cameras to supervise the teachers or students, then just admit it — but trying to put a false positive spin through ridiculous statements like this just raises my hackles. I like to think that I’m a fairly honest person, but a camera isn’t going to help me be more honest. It’s not going to encourage me to be less honest, either. It’s just there, and a mild annoyance.

Though Biloxi’s camera system hasn’t captured serious crimes, Drawdy says it has “prevented a lot of things from happening”…

Another ridiculously empty statment. What has it prevented? Well, we don’t know, because we prevented it. But if the cameras weren’t there, it would have been hell! I swear it! Ugh. I don’t suppose Drawdy learned his PR skills from the Bush administration’s WMD search?

Webcams have popped up in a few Defense Department schools on U.S. military bases, allowing soldiers deployed overseas to look in on their children’s classrooms and even chat via two-way setups. Teachers in London are calling for Webcams in every classroom so parents can see children’s behavior from home.

This is another aspect that gives me the willies. Aren’t kids ever allowed to be out of the eyes of their parents? How are children ever supposed to learn how to interact with each other, with other adults, with the world in general, if they’re not allowed to do so on their own? Today’s society seems so absurdly obsessed with constantly micro-managing every last little aspect of their children’s lives (from cameras in classrooms to playgrounds that, while harmless, are also uniformly bland and boring) that kids don’t ever have a chance to be kids anymore. Sure, they’re going to screw up, get a few bruises, butt heads, and be little shits every so often. But they’re kids. That’s the point. They’ve got to learn, and they’ve got to have some freedom in order to do that.

“I’m there to work; I’m there to do my job,” says R. Scott Page, an earth science and photography teacher at Hanford High School in Richland, Wash. “I don’t have a problem with somebody seeing that I’m doing my job.”

Page, a former biology teacher, granted open access to anyone who wanted to view his classroom, no password required. He says families tuned in regularly and loved it. “You could see if the kid was wearing the same thing they left the house in that morning.”

Page often focused the camera on lab experiments so he and students could monitor them over the weekend. Students would log on when they were home sick, sending messages with questions.

“Any way that you can increase communication between home and school, you’re going to help students,” Page says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Most of what this teacher has to say I like. I’m put off by the suggestion on checking up on the kid’s clothing, but the rest of it is exactly what I think could be good about the availability of classroom cameras. Rather than just shoving the camera in a corner to be an ever-present watchful eye, he incorporated them into his teaching. Monitoring experiments over the weekend from home, letting students who are home sick participate virtually via webcam and IM — these are excellent examples of how to use technology in teaching.

All in all, I guess that’s a lot more cons than pros, isn’t it? Maybe I’m not so undecided on how I feel about this, though I’m not quite ready to commit to a solid stance. I guess it would come down to how any particular administration and teacher dealt with the technology. If it’s simply a Big Brother-style surveillance system, I have serious issues with it. But if a teacher can use the technology to the advantage of the class, that I can support.

Unfortunately, that may be an uncomfortably big “if”.

(via /.)

So subtle

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The 4th Infantry Division said it had launched a new mission, Operation Ivy Lightning, to hunt Saddam loyalists it believed had fled to isolated villages east of Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit to escape repeated U.S. raids. “Ivy Lightning is a surgical strike in remote towns…to isolate and capture non-compliant forces and former regime loyalists who are planning attacks against Coalition forces,” Lt. Col. William MacDonald told reporters in Tikrit. He said the operation was focusing on the area around Qara Tappa, around 80 miles north of Baghdad.

Operation Ivy Lightening, huh? Gee, I’m so glad that we keep getting assured that this war had nothing to do with oil.

(via Atrios)

TypePad User Forums

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Raymond has created a bulletin-board style TypePad User Forum for tips, tricks, questions, and general discussion of TypePad. If you’re a TypePad user, I encourage you to head on over and join in, it looks to be a good resource.

Please remember this is not the official endorsed group of SixApart and that if you have bug reports you should file them with TypePad so that they can be resolved. This group is a good place for discussion, ideas, promotion, meeting other TypePad users, tips and more.

Sufficient Reason

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The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reasons for remaining ashore.

— Vincent Van Gogh (via Dad)

Welcome to Tim's Place!

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I wanted to pass on a friendly welcome to Tim, who has just joined our happy little family here at TypePad. I’ve known Tim for a while now (we go back…way back…well, at least back to Alaska), and he’s a frequent and welcome contributor to discussions here and at my old weblog, usually under the alias “Tim Who?” A good guy, and a great photographer (this photograph amazed me) — feel free to stop by and say hi!

Everybody cut Footloose!

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Today as Prairie and I were wandering up Broadway to return a couple movies I’d rented (last week — I owe another firstborn child now), we noticed that the marquee for the Broadway Performance Hall at Seattle Central Community College was advertising the stage production of Footloose, the Musical. We figured that that’d be fun, and were both curious about just how the movie had been translated to stage, but didn’t think much more of it.

A little further down the street, however, we were stopped by a gentleman who asked us if we liked musical theatre. We allowed that we did, and he asked if we’d be interested in free tickets to the afternoon matinee of Footloose — which started in about twenty minutes. It turns out that the production was being put on by Broadway Bound, a local children’s theatre organization for children 5-18. I was a little hesitant at first (I’d been feeling a little under the weather this weekend), but the guy was a good sell (as any good parent of one of the performers should be!), and we decided that it’d be a fun way to spend the afternoon.

As it turns out, the show was a blast. These kids did an excellent job with the show, and the audience was really into it, cheering and clapping along with more than a few of the numbers. Having been involved with theatre and music (and sometimes both) for many years as a kid, I could really appreciate the work that went into the show. Very impressive, all the way around, especially Brendan Griffin as Willard (the country hick that Ren teaches to dance in the movie) and Ryah Nixon as Rusty (Willard’s love interest, and the best friend of Ariel, the female lead). All of the cast did quite well, but these two were the standouts, in my opinion.

The costuming was a real treat, too. As the story itself isn’t really tied to any one time, I wasn’t sure if they’d keep the 80’s feel of the original movie, but they did indeed. From off-the-shoulder sweaters and legwarmers to 80’s prom dresses that some thrift store must have been thrilled to finally sell, to the metallic shirt and skinny tie that Ren first shows up in, the outfits fit right in with the original mid-80’s setting of the movie.

What was really fascinating for me was just seeing how the story of the film was translated into a stage show. Overall it ended up working out really well — all the hit songs from the soundtrack of the film were incorporated into the show itself as musical numbers, most of them requiring just a little bit of lyrical re-wording in order to ensure that they moved the story along. The second half of the show does drag a little bit — all of the slow, introspective, “what am I doing?” numbers end up there, and the pacing suffers a bit for it — but when the big high-energy numbers kick in, they bring the house down.

Highlights for me included “Somebody’s Eyes”, which went from a song about a jealous ex-girlfriend to the paranoia of an entire town watching for someone to screw up; “Holding Out For a Hero”, as Ariel, Rusty, and their two girlfriends daydream about their perfect men; and what was probably the biggest showstopper, “Let’s Hear it For the Boy”, where the cast teaches Willard how to dance at a country dance club just out of town.

All in all, a great show, and many kudos to all the cast and crew — it was an entirely unexpected way to spend the afternoon, but both Prairie and I had an absolute blast.

Starship and Kickshaw

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If you get a chance to see Starship perform, and it’s cheap, and you don’t have anything pressing going on, it’s not a bad show. The band, of course, is entirely different, and it’s just Mickey Thomas providing the voice that really lets them use the name, but they do a decent job. Not stellar — the drummer wasn’t always on, the harmonies often weren’t very harmonious, and the duets just aren’t the same without Grace Slick — but not horrid, either. Even when it’s not dead-on perfect, it’s still fun to be able to hear “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” live.

You know you’re in trouble when someone’s doing their nails during your set.

— Mickey Thomas, pointing out an audience member during Starship’s set

Now, if you get a chance to see Kickshaw perform, you should, with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. This local acapella powerhouse is flat-out incredible on stage. The things they can do with their voices are just mindblowing, they’ve got great stage presence, and each time I’ve seen them, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely recommended if you get the chance.