Picking Battles, Finding Joy: Creating Community in the Uncontrolled Classroom

Every educator has a handful of students who perpetually push his or her buttons. The challenge of creating a strong, nurturing classroom community is especially difficult if you are an urban school teacher. Not because children in an urban area are inherently more wild or difficult to teach. Rather, there is a mythology about how to best control urban children that infects many city schools. This article discusses ways to control classrooms in urban schools and contains the following sections: (1) The Carrot and the Stick--Behaviorism in the Urban Classroom; (2) The Uncontrolled Urban Class; (3) Classroom Mantras; (4) I Will Treat My Students the Way I Would Want My Own Child Treated; (5) Be Critical of What You Are Teaching/ Kick the Curriculum Up a Notch; (6) Pick Your Battles; (7) Create Another Identity for the Child; (8) Assumptions about Race; (9) Finding Joy at School; (10) Every Day Is Another Chance; (11) Don\u27t Ask Kids To Do What We Don\u27t Ask Adults To Do; and (12) Something Bigger

What Works in Race-Conscious Teacher Education? Reflections from Educators in the Field

This paper presents a study about how schools of education impact their students\u27 ability to be successful in urban schools. What experiences--if any--in teacher education programs shape the development of race-conscious White teachers? To address her goal, the author conducted a qualitative study of six teachers currently employed in urban schools. All were considered excellent White teachers of children of color. Through a series of interviews, the author explored the ways race, culture, and diversity were addressed in their teacher education programs and whether the experiences were meaningful. Participants interacted with schools and communities in several different ways during their preparation. Most only participated in fieldwork as student teachers or during their prepracticum requirements. What was common among all of the participants was that their student teaching and/or prepracticum observations took place in an urban district. Each had experiences in diverse schools. All reported having a positive experience with the students they taught. As teacher educators continue to hone their practice and pedagogy, the feedback from these urban educators provides insights as to what is critical in preparing new teachers for urban schools. They provide an oft-forgotten set of voices that can be instrumental in helping teacher educators think through their work

Unraveling the Myths of Accountability: A Case Study of the California High School Exit Exam

Believing that accountability could be a vehicle for change, the California Department of Education (CDE) requires all high school students to pass the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) in order to graduate. In doing so, California joins many others states in mandating a high school exit exam as a current or future requirement for graduation. In this essay, the authors will argue that this testing approach to school change is based on myths about the role of assessment, the information testing can provide and the impact high stakes testing has on urban schools. Although California is the focus of this analysis, these issues are salient across the county. Testing as a solution to poor student achievement is based on faulty assumptions. It is these assumptions this piece seeks to address

The Presence and Absence of Animal Sacrifice in Jesus Films

This article illuminates an overlooked polemic embedded in many Jesus films. Filmmakers show little comprehension of the architecture of the Jerusalem temple. When the temple does appear, animal sacrifice is either eradicated entirely or grossly misrepresented. Since contemporary audiences are increasingly unfamiliar with animal sacrifice and butchery in general, ancient Jewish rituals can be interpreted as unscrupulous and barbaric. Also, the temple and priesthood are often expressly depicted as greedy and corrupt. A related motif anachronistically attributes the Christian rejection of animal sacrifice to Jesus himself. Some of these mischaracterizations arise from gaps, ambiguities, and ideologies within the written Gospels. Nevertheless, filmmakers and moviegoers should be critical of the ways Jesus films become sites of religious competition by intentionally or unintentionally promoting Christian supersessionism

Stall Detection Using Pseudo-Acoustic Pressure Modulation in Industrial Fans

This work investigates the use of unconventional sensors to measure pressure modulation interpreted as pseudo sound in the near field on the casing of a fan in a view to detect rotating stall. Rotating stall is an aerodynamic issue with a frequency signature usually half the rotor frequency. In low speed turbomachines, such as industrial fans, this turns in very low frequencies, even lower than 10 Hz.Traditional methods use piezoelectric sensors, e.g., pressure transducers or microphones, respectively in the near and far-field, to detect instability from the signal patterns with broad frequency ranges. Recently electret microphones have been proposed, but with a cut-off frequency of 20 Hz as such not suitable for signal in near infrasound region.The sensor used in this work, have a narrower frequency range than more advanced technologies. The authors developed and set-up a measurement system able to acquire low frequency pressure signals using dynamic microphones.In this paper the authors developed a measurement chain based on dynamic microphone and pressure transducer in order to create a stall warning system. They tested the system on a low speed axial fan and they validated the work against state of the art acoustic control techniques. For this reason those devices represent candidate solutions for the detection of the patterns typical of rotating stall in turbomachines

A Resource Guide for Schools and Districts: Addressing Racism in the Education System

This resource guide is designed for schools (public, private, charter, online, home, etc.), and school districts. We imagine it as a jumping off point for professional development about issues of equity, justice and anti-Blackness. Inside, you will find sources and readings to help us better understand and support Black youth. These resources can be used for ongoing professional development, for teacher book groups, with teacher leadership teams, as part of new teacher mentoring, and/or with administrative teams as they are charting new ways to support Black youth in your school

Reliability of Smartphone Inclinometry to Measure Upper Cervical Range of Motion.

Context: Assessment of upper cervical range of motion (UCROM) and mobility is commonly performed in the clinical setting for patients suffering from headache, neck pain and vestibular dysfunction. Reliable and reproducible measurement of this motion is often difficult or too expensive to perform in the clinical setting. Smartphone applications, utilizing the device\u27s internal gyroscope, offer an easy and inexpensive means of measuring UCROM, but their reliability has not been reported in the literature. Objective: Assess the reliability of an inclinometer application, installed on two different devices (iPhone6 (IP), Andriod (AN)), to measure UCROM in a healthy population. Design: Two examiners assessed passive UCROM. Each examiner was assigned to a specific smartphone and a repeated measures design consisting of three trials for each examiner-phone was performed. The order of testing was randomized and the examiners were blinded to UCROM measures. Setting: Laboratory Participants: 38 subjects (19F, 19M; 23.8±1.2 yrs) without pain or injury to the neck and spine for at least 3 months. Intervention: Each examiner passively flexed the head fully and then rotated the head fully in one direction then in another. Peak rotation measures were recorded from each smartphone. Three trials were performed for each phone with a 2-minute break between examiners/phones. Main Outcome Measures: Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) using a two way mixed, absolute agreement model were obtained (1) between each examiner-phone and (2) within each examiner-phone for the measurements in each rotation direction. Results: Inter-phone/examiner reliability comparing average peak and total UCROM for each device were excellent (0.87, 0.81). Intra-phone/examiner reliability, determined across three trials, was also excellent (AN Right Rot. = 0.91, AN Left Rot. 0.96, IP Right Rot. = 0.98, IP Left = 0.95 Rot.). Conclusion: UCROM can be reliably measured using a smartphone inclinometer application

Stall detection using near-field low frequency pressure modulation in turbomachines

This work investigates on the use of unconventional sensors to measure the near field unsteady pressure on the casing of a fan in a view to detect rotating stall. Rotating stall is an aerodynamic issue with a frequency signature usually half the rotor frequency. In low speed turbomachines, such as industrial fan, this turns in very low frequencies, even lower than 10 Hz. The authors developed and set-up a measurement system able to acquire low frequency pressure signals using dynamic microphones. Traditional methods use piezoelectric sensors, e.g. pressure transducers or microphones respectively in the near and far-field, to detect instability from the signal patterns with broad frequency ranges. Recently electret microphones have been proposed, but with a cut-off frequency of 20 Hz as such not suitable for signal in infrasound region. The sensor used in this work, have a narrower frequency range than more advanced technologies. In this paper the authors developed a measurement chain based on dynamic microphone and pressure transducer in order to create a stall warning system. They tested the system on a low speed axial fan and they validated the work against state of the art acoustic control techniques. For this reason those devices represent candidate solutions for the detection of the patterns typical of rotating stall in turbomachines.This work investigates on the use of unconventional sensors to measure the near field unsteady pressure on the casing of a fan in a view to detect rotating stall. Rotating stall is an aerodynamic issue with a frequency signature usually half the rotor frequency. In low speed turbomachines, such as industrial fan, this turns in very low frequencies, even lower than 10 Hz. The authors developed and set-up a measurement system able to acquire low frequency pressure signals using dynamic microphones. Traditional methods use piezoelectric sensors, e.g. pressure transducers or microphones respectively in the near and far-field, to detect instability from the signal patterns with broad frequency ranges. Recently electret microphones have been proposed, but with a cut-off frequency of 20 Hz as such not suitable for signal in infrasound region. The sensor used in this work, have a narrower frequency range than more advanced technologies. In this paper the authors developed a measurement chai