Book and a Movie: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

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I read The Blind Side as soon as it came out, because Micheal Lewis is one of my favorite journalists. Unlike his other books such as Liar's Poker and Moneyball, Blind Side was truely a "made for Hollywood" story. A homeless, tall, overweight, socially promoted but physically gifted young black man comes into the love, and later the legal guardianship, of an exceptionally wealthy white family and becomes a top college football prospect. The true story of this young man, Michael Oher, is fascinating but also freightening.

Oher, who now plays for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens, went from rags to riches not only thanks to a wealthy family, but also a garage mechanic who saw something in his athletic abilities to get him into a private Christian school. Oher was not even sure he wanted to play football, though Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, Oher's legal guardians, supply ample encouragement.

The book's very good, if you're a football fan who appreciates the finer points of the game. The title, The Blind Side, is for the left tackle, who protects the quarterback's blind side in the game. The left tackle, according to Lewis,is the second-highest paid player on NFL teams.

The book talks about the evolution of the left tackle with anecdotes from the NFL of the eighties. If you're a fan, you'll love the book. But in the movie, all of this is covered at the very beginning in a handful of sentences. If you're a fan you'd probably like the book more than the movie. If you're not, its vice versa.

Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne Touhy in the movie, outshing everyone by far, although several current and former college football coaches play themselves in their race to recruit Oher. She plays tough love to near perfection, but sometimes over-acts. However, the story from the book has been whittled down into more of tear-jerking inspirational film to attract a broader audience. However the real Leigh Anne Touhy was not as domineering in the book, nor was the real Sean Touhy, as passive as he was played by Tim McGraw. The real couple were a stronger, and more interesting, tag team in Oher's social development.

There are some details in the book that are conspicuously absent in the movie. For one thing, Oher was just as socially promoted in the private school as he was in the Memphis public schools. And for another, he did not graduate from high school with the proper grades to accept his college scholarship--the movie says that he worked to get there before graduation--he had to take online character education courses from Brigham Young to raise his high school GPA.

After reading the book and watching the movie I had to wonder what Oher would have done after high school if he had not been a football player.However, to Oher's credit, as of the NFL draft, he was 15 credits shy of earning his degree in criminal justice from Ole Miss. Too many scholarship athletes fail to take advantage of the opportunity.

Community Colleges Manage Early Entry and Transfer to Four-Year Degrees

Today I read a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a study that found that six Texas community colleges successfully facilitated the transfer of students from two-year to four-year colleges.

The study, conducted by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, concluded that these six schools could attribute success to three practices: structured academic pathways that aptly prepare students to enroll at four-year colleges, a student-centered culture that emphasizes personal attention, and culturally sensitive leaders who understand the backgrounds of their students.

The first of these practices, the pathways, is the most interesting. These pathways, according to the story were robust credit-transfer agreements with those institutions, and promoted dual-enrollment programs between their colleges and high schools.

The story mentions one example: a partnership between Trinity Valley Community College and Texas A&M University at Commerce allows students to transfer up to 85 credit hours toward a bachelor of applied arts and science degree. Students then need to complete only 36 hours on the four-year campus.

The story made me wonder: why can't this be a common practice in all states, unless it already is? Students who are serious about earning a bachelor's degree, especially from a publicly supported college, should be able to complete the first two years, possibly more, at any publicly supported community college. There is not enough room for everyone on campus, and the traditional residential college model does not fit well with students who have heavy work or family obligations.

This story also told me that high schools, especially those that serve economically disadvantaged students, do not always have the mechanisms to help their students with the college admissions process. The story mentioned that, in Texas, students can graduate high school with as many as 24 credits towards a college degree, and apply those credits to their high school diploma as well.

I had to wonder if the best "voucher" that we could give to the more dedicated students in the poorest performing schools was subsidized tuition at the community college, in lieu of senior year.

The community colleges not only help their students earn the proper credits, but they also help the students apply them to a bachelor's degree. High school guidance counselors at poor-performing schools would be less capable to do this with their on-campus or online advanced placement courses.

I have written a previous post where I looked into the idea of a three year college degree, but we should consider the value of the senior year in high school, too. Four-year colleges already allow their football recruits to begin classes in the spring, which would normally be the senior year in high school, to get a jump on summer and fall practices as well as the education.

If four-year schools are willing to allow early entry for their football recruits, then why can't community colleges, and possibly four-year public colleges, do the same for other students who are academically ready for college?

Vote on Contriversial Speaker Tucker Max Might Bring a Campus Together

This afternoon I decided to spend some time working in the library at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is five minutes from my home. As I usually do when I use a college library, I pMax writes about being drunk, rude, obnoxious, and offensive to women, and he is quite proud of his reputation.icked up a recent copy of the school paper. The current edition of TCNJ's paper, The Signal, has a feature story about an upcoming vote to bring writer Tucker Max to campus.

To their credit, TCNJ's College Union Board has decided to put the matter to a student vote. Max is a controversial choice. Author of the book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Academically, the man is not an idiot. He graduated from the University of Chicago--noted as the school where fun goes to die--within three years and earned a scholarship to Duke Law School.

However, at TCNJ, Max is considered a "red dot," by at least one university administrator, Jackie Deithch-Stackhouse, coordinator of the Office of Anti-Violence Initiatives. Stackhouse is a leader in the college's Green Dot Initiativem a campus-wide campaign to counter acts of personal violence (red dots) with acts against violence (green dots).

I had to guess that there would need to be many green dots to counter the red dots of a Max speech; the bid for Max to speak is $25,000. Eight organizations on campus have stated their opposition to Max speaking, including the College Democrats and the College Republicans.

I'm surprised that a speaker such as Max was considered by the college's programming board, but this is the second time students are being polled about his coming to campus. The first time the students approved. They're taking the second vote to be sure. I don't blame them; they don't want a $25,000 bomb on their hands.

I have to give the programming board credit for conducting a vote, but I also wonder if, in this case, majority has to rule. It's one thing if the students overwhelming vote no after the opposition have been given adequate time to make their case. Then everyone is happy, including Max, who could then earn a fee from another campus that wants him.

But suppose Max wins 51 percent of the vote, and the students do vote in sufficient numbers. Does it make sense to welcome someone who reportedly offended 49 percent of the student body with no counter-measures? I don't think so.

So, here's a suggestion, since TCNJ and I have already given Tucker Max free publicity. Lower the bid, ask Max to accept (given the publicity he has received), and provide equal funding for more green dots.

Public college campuses are democratic; you cannot simply form a "we don't want to welcome the obnoxious speakers we don't like club," and expect all of your classmates to go along. At the same time, there are causes with worthy messages that deserve equal time.

Book Review: While I'm Falling, a Novel by Laura Moriarty

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Perhaps the best compliment that I can pay a writer is that she makes me read a story that I would not ordinarily read. This was the case with While I'm Falling. I picked up this book because of the educational setting--much of the story takes place at the University of Kansas, home of the Jayhawks--but I got much more from the read.

Moriarty's main character in Falling, Veronica Van Holten, is a junior pre-med student and dormitory resident assistant at the University of Kansas. She is not necessarily happy being a pre-med or a resident assistant but she has been drawn into both orbits through her father. Veronica's parents, Dan and Natalie, have decided to divorce, although the divorce has not been settled.

The story is a chain of events triggered by an auto accident. After promising to house sit for a resident advisor and his girlfriend, and dropping them off at the airport, Veronica crashes their car on an ice-covered highway. Desperate, she calls her mother for a ride home, and her mother refuses. Later, it is her mother who needs help; she "crashes" in her daughter's dorm with her aging dog Bowser.

There are a series of tailspins in the lives of Veronica and Natalie; both have been separated from their families and both are lost in their own ways. Veronica's falling through the daily grind of juggling courses, job and problems is quite believable. I assure you that you will know someone with a similar college experience.

Had I read this story as a college sophomore, I might have steered clear of applying to be a R.A. in a dorm. I was actually offered a position though I turned it down in favor of apartment living, a situation that Veronica faced in this story.

This story is very well-paced, neatly tied and easy to follow. While I am neither mother nor daughter, I give it two thumbs up!

Book Review: A Great Idea at the Time, The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam

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In April, 1952 the University of Chicago and Encyclopedia Britannica launched the mass-marketing of the Great Books, a body of 443 classical works in the arts, humanities, the social sciences, and the mathematical and physical sciences. Two million was invested on the proposition that knowledge could be brought to the masses.

The venture had early success due to shady salesmanship--encyclopedia salesman were reported to have impersonated University of Chicago professors and employees--but later petered out. Classical works might have made for "colorful furniture," in the words of Robert Maynard Hutchins, noted former president of the University of Chicago, but they were simply too difficult to learn.

Three men, two academics and one a successful advertising executive, were the brains behind the selection and launch of the Great Books. As president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins dropped college football--the university played in the Big Ten until 1949--and tried to offload his undergraduate engineering curriculum on Northwestern. While Chicago was a commuter school for undergraduates through the 1920's and 1930's, it had some of the finest graduate schools in the country. Hutchins also introduced the concepts of a two-year undergraduate degree and early entry after the tenth grade. He also introduced, and taught, a General Honors course based on the Great Books.

The second man, Mortimer Adler, was a Columbia-educated academic who had found intellectual satisfaction through the college's General Honors curriculum, which was based around the Great Books. While he had earned a doctorate in psychology, the university had never awarded him a bachelor's degree, because he had failed to take the required swimming test. Adler co-taught General Honors with Hutchins at Chicago. And as Hutchins star rose in the media, General Honors attracted celebrities to Chicago, most prominently actress Gertrude Stein.

The third man, William Benton, was co-founder of the Benton and Bowles advertising agency. In his "retirement," he became a public relations counsel to Hutchins at Chicago. Benton bought Encyclopedia Britannica on behalf of the university; it would eventually become a $60 million nest egg for the school.

While Beam attributes the early success of the sales of the Great Books to celebrity and hucksterism, he also points out that interest in the Great Books declined st first due to the conservative politics of the middle 50's--the idea of Karl Marx in the curriculum frightened them--and increased interest in multi-culturalism, the inclusion of women and minorities, during the late Sixties and through the Seventies. Adler was the only one of the three to live to see interest in the Great Books decline, but also enter into a curious afterlife. He would live through 2001.

In this book, Beam also points out that education in the Great Books now has its champions among conservatives who tie literacy to an strong understanding of the classics, whereas Adler and Hutchins had been more moderate in their politics. He devotes chapters to modern education at Columbia, which stills teaches the General Honors course, and St. John's College (MD), which built its entire degree program around the Great Books. Columbia and St. John's students exposed to these programs do not, according to Beam, appear to be bother by the domination of works by "dead white males."

A Great Idea at the Time, provides a great example of what might happen when prominent academics take the lead in education reforms, and find their ideas grasped by people with greater, as well as lesser, motives.

It Takes a Queen to Call for Education Reform in the U.K.

Today, I read on Telegraph.com about the Queen's Speech which announces proposals for education reform in the United Kingdom. These proposals include a set of legal rights for students and parents, as well as:

+ Five hours of PE and high-quality cultural activities.
+ Force schools to give children one-to-one instruction if they fall behind in the basics.
+ New powers to intervene to shut or take over failing schools.
+ All schools will be required to publish an annual “report card” much like the Adequate Yearly Progress reports required under No Child Left Behind.
+ Introduction of sex education into primary schools.
+ Parents who home school their children will be required to register with local councils.
+ The requirement of a 'license to teach' subject to renewal every five years.

While only the last of these proposals is unique to the U.K., it is interesting to note that the Queen's Speech was delivered under the rule of a more liberal Labour government; similar policies were advanced by the a conservative Bush Administration in the U.S., though they will likely be continued under a more moderate to liberal Obama Administration. It is also interesting, as I read the Telegraph story, that conservatives in the U.K. oppose these proposals.

The five year "check-up" for teachers is an interesting concept, though teachers, according to the story, are subject to reviews just as teachers are in the U.S. If the "check-up" is a license renewal, as opposed to continuing education, it might end up becoming counter-productive.

Imagine that you, as a licensed driver, had to take the same test you took five years ago to keep your license. You would feel resentful of the state government because they are asking you to devote time to relearning what you forgot, and there would be no guarantee that you would remember the driving rules in the event of an emergency.

The same could be true for teachers. Imagine having the daily and after-school responsibilities of teaching in an era of No Child Left Behind, including added assessments and tests. Then, imagine having to take time to re-learn and regurgitate what you had to know to pass your licensing exams the first time. If you were that teacher you would resent it, too.

I can understand asking teachers who have been reassigned into positions where they were not fully qualified--for example, a middle school teacher who was reassigned from secondary schools earlier in their career, or a humanities teacher who took the lead in teaching sex education. In those cases, a teacher should take responsibility for becoming certified in their new assignment as soon as possible, preferably after a year or two. But asking teachers to cram in their past education and take a brain dump is not an assurance that they will become better teachers.

Mississippi Governor Proposes to Consolidate Three Historically Black Schools

Today I read that Mississippi governor Haley Barbour proposes to consolidate the state's three Historically Black Colleges and Universities into a single school. According to his budget proposal, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University would be merged with Jackson State University. I am left to presume that Jackson, as the state capital, would be the flagship campus for the combined school.

Governor Barbour proposes the merger as a cost savings, but he says that no campuses will be closed; the savings would be administrative. I would also guess that cost savings would be found in intercollegiate athletics and corporate identity for the individual schools.

I took a look at the U.S. News numbers for the three schools. Jackson State, with approximately 6,100 undergraduates, has the largest student body, and admits slightly more than sixty percent of all applicants. Alcorn State has approximately 2,700 undergraduates and admits 85 percent of all applicants. Mississippi Valley State has approximately 2,500 students and admits 24 percent of all applicants.

I went to the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning site to see what the undergraduate enrollments were at the start of the decade. In 2000, Jackson State had approximately 4,900 undergraduate students, Alcorn State had 2,400 and Mississippi Valley State had approximately 2,100 enrolled. So, while the country, and Mississippi's economy, have had their ups and downs, enrollment in these three historically black schools has increased.

Governor Barbour has every right to suggest cost savings, just as citizens have a right to question his proposals. From a distance, I can assume that he has already had to cut state support to these schools; practically every governor has faced this dilemma while trying to balance a budget. I can also assume that the historically black schools received their share of cuts.

If these three schools were losing students--Delta State, by comparison has seen its enrollment decline--I could understand a rationale for more cuts. But they have more students, not fewer, and therefore, they do not have fewer needs for academic and student services. You might be able to centralize the office of the president, as well as the president's direct reports, but you would still need people to provide hands-on assistance on campus.

So, there would be some cost savings: one president, one management team for three schools. One admissions office. One fundraising office to raise money for all three campuses. But these schools also have identities that have been developed over time, especially in sports.

Are the cost savings worth taking away their history? And would a centralized development operation raise as much, or more money, to support these three schools as individual offices would? I have no ties to Mississippi or the history of these schools, so I cannot provide answers. I'd love to see a reply from someone who can.