Last week, I screened a new documentary, “Most Likely to Succeed,” at the Columbus Museum of Art.

This screening was the culmination of several months of book study meetings about the book of the same title by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith. These group discussions were populated by school superintendents, leaders in education and other educators like myself.

Our mission? To discuss how teaching and learning might improve in K12 schools, what the test environment has wrought and what career readiness means in contemporary society. The book emphasized the differences between credentials and competence and challenged the necessity of a college degree along the way. It also stressed the importance of preparing kids for life vs tests and the price we as a society are paying for trying to change the nation’s schools incrementally rather than radically.

It was exciting, stimulating and beautifully put together.

The documentary features the story and approach of one particular school, High Tech High, in San Diego, California.

The school reminded me a lot of our very own Metro School here in Columbus.

 
Ohio State’s colleges of Arts and Science, Education and Human Ecology, and Engineering contribute to Metro School’s focus on problem-based learning. High Tech High goes even further and has eliminated textbooks and class periods. Instead, they integrate all subjects together.

Often when I meet the author of books like this, I am disappointed. Not so this time! Tony Wagner is as engaging in person as he is in writing. I don’t agree with all his ideas, particularly in terms of colleges of education and teacher prep, but he has some important ideas that we should all pay attention to.

I’d like to consider some of them at the collegiate level as well as in K12. To that end, I will pursue getting that documentary to show here on campus as well.

In the meantime, you might want to take a peek at his book!

The first time I read a book by Edward O. Wilson, I was as an undergraduate student.

Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize author, was already a world renowned biologist at the time. I was interested in animal behavior and he was interested in ants.

Today, Wilson is still considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest biologists and he is still enamored with ants.

His most recent book, The Meaning of Human Existence, however, is a collection of essays that try to answer the following questions:

• Why are we, as humans, the way we are?
• And, what does it matter?

He explores, with wonder, the dominance of microbes, humans’ genetically-based tension of individual selfishness vs group (or tribal) altruism, religion, the possibility of life on other planets and the concept of free will.

But, the reason I recommend this collection of essays, which is a National Book Award finalist, is because of Wilson’s repeated arguments supporting the role of the humanities in this century.

 
If the campus rumor is correct, Ohio State will be reexamining its general education curricular requirements next year. If so, it would be well to consider Wilson’s science vs humanities observations. He believes that scientific discoveries will peak and flatten out this century, but that the humanities will expand beyond everything that history has yet given us. He also believes this will be to the betterment of life for all of humankind.

Science, Wilson says, only explains why humans happened but the humanities explain what make humans who they are. Food for thought whether or not you agree with him. 

Related article: Growing the Supply of Early Learning Opportunities in Columbus
(The White House Blog)

We’re thrilled about the early childhood pipeline, which was announced late last week. 

It has been in development for years and under wraps for months, so I’m pleased to share the story now and give credit where credit is due. 

Over six years ago, we recognized that at the Schoenbaum Family Center (SFC) and through our work with Action for Children, there was a need for more high-quality early childcare providers in our neighborhoods. We also realized that there was an interest among women living in these neighborhoods to develop the skills to host these early childhood centers themselves.

About the same time, Sandy Stroot, interim chair of teaching and learning, and alumna Rhonda Johnson, ’78 MA Education, had a conversation about the need for more licensed early childhood educators in Columbus City Schools preschool classrooms. They sketched a model on what has become the “infamous napkin.” In the meantime, EHE piloted a model at the SFC funded by Barbara Seimer to train our first handful of Weinland Park educators. We learned a lot in the process.

Independent of the work above, Jane Weichel, director for SFC’s community programs and engagement, obtained a $16.5 million Early Headstart Partnership Pilot project grant from the United States Department of Education. EHE coordinates this major project through the SFC, linking 11 childcare/preschools together throughout the city along with many home providers.

The aim of the Early Headstart Partnership is to develop state-of-the-art childcare and early learning experiences for low-income children from birth to age 3, along with health care, social services and workforce development for their parents. SFC staff member Mihaela Gugui is conducting the evaluation. 

Building upon our experience in both of these programs, and with encouragement from the Mayor’s Office, Ohio State was able to knit our efforts into a partner scholarship program that starts with the completion of a Child Development Associate (CDA) certificate from Action for Children.

After gaining the certificate that is worth 15 college credits, it is then transferred to Columbus State to obtain an Associate degree, and finally transferred to our college to complete a bachelor’s degree. 

I’m pleased and proud to recognize our faculty in the Department of Teaching and Learning, in the Human Development and Family Sciences program area and in Associate Dean Bryan Warnick’s Office for Curriculum, who have worked very hard over the past year to design an articulation agreement with Columbus State to make this pipeline possible. 

In addition, they have designed an entirely new degree to serve community education programs. These efforts will also increase the diversity within our teacher preparation program.

If we are lucky, we will be able to admit the first students into the teacher preparation program this Fall 2016 semester. 

The commitment of $3.9 million in scholarship funding came from President Michael V. Drake’s office. It will support up to 20 students per cohort for 5 years, along with additional advising support. 

I like to describe this program as one that is by Columbus, for Columbus, with Columbus. 

This program will help thousands of Columbus youngsters gain the kind of start they need to succeed in school and in life, by providing them with high quality learning experiences during their most important years of brain growth and development. 

We are grateful to the entire village that worked together to bring this dream into fruition.

Application information

Are you interested in applying for one of the College of Education and Human Ecology’s 100 scholarships for early childhood educators? Please contact Jo’Vanna Zanders at zanders.3@osu.edu or (614)292-2825.

Since I traveled over spring break this year, I’m sharing two books this time around

As often happens in airports, I experienced a long wait. I found myself in an airport without any TVs, which I thought was odd right before Super Tuesday.

I settled myself down in the gate lounge and observed a crying child, a family going to Hawaii, a Magic Johnson sportswear shop, a random man trying to pick up a blonde, and a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shop.

There was not much else there except a bathroom with broken faucets and empty soap dispensers.

But during my wait, I was changed for having read, “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel.

You will be changed as well after reading this highly original novel.

 
I hung onto all the words, the tattoos, the mass of humanity staring at their phones and valued them all more than ever before.

It takes you from the present to the future and back again, deepening our appreciation for everything from refrigeration to Shakespeare. Mandel didn’t get everything right, but go with the flow and you will be richly rewarded.

My second book was also fiction and profoundly moving.

Raptors, a bird of prey, such as an eagle, hawk or falcon, have always stirred me. I have never considered before what falconers have to do to capture, raise and train a bird, or the nature of that particular kind of human-animal bond.

In “H is for Hawk,” Helen MacDonald threw herself into the challenge with the same intensity and motivation that Cheryl Strayed did when she walked the Pacific Crest Trail. This book is also beautifully written and I will always remember some of her lines.

For example, when describing small birds in a field, she said “they’re strangely like a 16^th century sleeve sewn with pearls.”

This book does what great literature is supposed to do. It calls the reader to ask and somehow answer what it means to be human?

 
To win and lose, to grieve, to lose and find oneself, to locate a purpose for our heads and hearts and hands.

I invite you to spend time with each of these reads.

I’ve just completed another amazing book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” by Bryan Stevenson.

It has kept me up for two nights straight and I won’t stop thinking about it for years.

Stevenson is an attorney who has given his life to defending the poor, the indigent and the forgotten. Many of whom have been punished for crimes they did not commit or punished in ways that are cruel and unusual for crimes they did commit.

The seasoned lawyer not only explores and reports on the ugliness of death row, but he actually got innocents off of death row. And, he took a case all the way to the Supreme Court to win a judgment of unconstitutionality for 13- and 14-year-olds who had received life imprisonment sentences.

Stevenson is not making himself out as a hero (though he is one). In fact, he writes with humility. He writes to educate us all about the need for social justice and the difficult reality of what it takes to make it happen.

He taught me a lot:

• About the ways media coverage of civil rights work has been “chilled” by law suits
• The numbers and reasons for an increase of women in prison
• Introduced me to the concept of the “prison-industrial complex”
• Shared the unbelievable mercy extended by former convicts for the injustices they have had to endure.

It is an impressive read and would make an outstanding choice for a first-year student experience program. I recommend it highly.

I just finished reading a Forbes article last night entitled, “The Higher Education Highway Needs More Off-Ramps.”

The author, Ryan Craig, waxes sentimental about Route 66 and tries to make the case that universities need to build “more frequent and easier-to-navigate off-ramps,” based on stackable credentials and competency profiles.

He might be right, but he misses the point.

The problem with the three-year superhighway model to a college degree is that it doesn’t accommodate real life or even the desires of many students. The traditional student wants to experience life as a college student and that experience might not fit in three years. Additionally, it might not fit the community college transfer student at all.

My larger concern, however, is that students aren’t cars.

 
Cars don’t have babies, aren’t responsible for elder care, and they don’t have mortgage payments. Sure, college students may proverbially run out of gas, need their battery recharged, or seek some other kind of “repair”. But, most students who want to take a break for a short time aren’t doing it just to “sightsee” as Craig suggests.

They are coping with multiple pressures and complicated life circumstances. They need options to allow them to adapt and be resilient. The three year, “fast track,” super highway to a degree is a theoretic construct created by various kinds of officials who are sitting a safe distance away from our students.

That pathway may be a great pathway for some, but it should never be marketed as the major pathway, the only pathway, the best pathway, or even the right pathway for all.

What do you think?

The controversy about our proposed 2015 Dietary Guidelines and meat consumption has risen to international attention following the publication of The BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, feature article. At heart, the controversy is whether low carbohydrate diets are legitimate.

I, for one, think that the piece raises important issues about particular studies and methods.

That said, I’d like to submit the following notes for consideration:

1. Good science is derived from good questions and good scientists never squelch questioning (even if it makes us wince). Asking questions is not akin to incivility.
2. It doesn’t matter who asks the question or where the question comes from, just that the questions are being asked. It doesn’t matter the age, religion, sexual identity, ethnicity or occupation of the questioner.
3. Good editing matters. Much of the controversy, confusion and complications we have now would have melted if a good editor worked on the DGAC report before its release.
4. The DGAC members are not at fault for the controversy. They were simply volunteers fulfilling a charge. The support staff need to be held accountable now. Our professional organizations and each of us as professionals should help to clarify the questions, discussion and resolution to this controversy.
5. Stop the proxy wars. The Dietary Guidelines are not about global warming, political parties, corporate interests, animal rights, farm practices or which states have the most muscle.They are simply about the food we eat and the effect that food has on our health.

The work we do is predicated on the assumption that all of us as participants enter with sound mind and good will. When that is violated, the process won’t work.

Let’s be fair and mend our ways!

It’s been 35 years since the government launched its Dietary Guidelines for Americans, yet the nation continues to suffer from ever-rising rates of obesity and diabetes.

“We are on the wrong trajectory,” testified Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell this month before a House panel examining the dietary guidelines.

Democrats and Republicans on the House panel also expressed serious concern.

“Have these guidelines failed?” questioned panel member Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa. “They don’t seem like they’re accomplishing their objective.”

The panel’s top Democrat Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota echoed the sentiment: “I just want you to understand from my constituents, most of them don’t believe this stuff anymore … and so that’s why I say I wonder why we’re doing this.”

Members from both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly agreed with what many of us responsible for the science behind the guidelines have known for years — it’s time to take a hard look at how we might have gone wrong.

As a former member of the committee charged with developing the federal government’s dietary guidelines, I can speak from experience when I say that the process to develop the recommendations does not assure that the best science is used.

And this is a major cause for concern. Continue reading Commentary: Rigorous science must decide dietary guidelines to combat health epidemic →

Yanty Wirza is a proud recipient of the 2015 Dr. Charles R. Hancock Graduate Scholarship in Urban Education. She is a PhD student studying Foreign, Second and Multilingual Language Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning.

During our scholarship celebration, Yanty shared her story about how the late Dr. Charles Hancock impacted her life and her research. Continue reading Student Spotlight – Yanty Wirza →