Jeffrey Fuller's Public Library

People with low-to-mid income levels who may own hereditary property, 2nd cars, collections, ATV's and other properties will likely wind up having those things taken away from them.

Aug

20

2010

Córdoba, Spain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/...C%C3%B3rdoba,_Spain

- Preview

Cordoba, Spain, Once the seat of Muslim power over the Iberian Peninsula. Cordoba is a symbol of Islamic conquest. The Mosque project in the shadows of ground zero is known by the code name "The Cordoba Project." - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-08-20

Code name “Cordoba”: Mega Mosque Rises in Shadow of Twin Towers « Counterculture Con HQ

"The $100 million project, called the Cordoba House, is proposed for the old Burlington Coat Factory building at Park Place and Broadway, just two blocks from the World Trade Center site. “I think it will be a wonderful asset to the community,” said committee Chairman Ro Sheffe.

"

countercultureconservative.wordpress.com/...rises-in-shadow-of-twin-towers

- Preview

propoganda nation “cordoba” name code

The $100 million project, called the Cordoba House, is proposed for the old Burlington Coat Factory building at Park Place and Broadway, just two blocks from the World Trade Center site. “I think it will be a wonderful asset to the community,” said committee Chairman Ro Sheffe.

Aug

3

2010

FOXNews.com - Solar Tsunami to Strike Earth

www.foxnews.com/...hern-lights-signals-sun-waking

- Preview

Jul

14

2010

Constructivism

www.funderstanding.com/...constructivism

- Preview

Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences.

Conceptual Change - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology

projects.coe.uga.edu/...index.php

- Preview

Heather's story illustrates a learning process called conceptual change. Conceptual change is generally defined as learning that changes an existing conception (i.e., belief, idea, or way of thinking). In the preceding scenario, Heather experiences conceptual change in her understanding of the cause of seasons. Although her conception does not come completely into line with the scientific explanation, there is a major shift in her understanding of seasons. This shift or restructuring of existing knowledge and beliefs is what distinguishes conceptual change from other types of learning. Learning for conceptual change is not merely accumulating new facts or learning a new skill. In conceptual change, an existing conception is fundamentally changed or even replaced, and becomes the conceptual framework that students use to solve problems, explain phenomena, and function in their world.

Jul

11

2010

The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek

www.newsweek.com/...the-creativity-crisis.html

- Preview

Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance’s data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
11 more annotation(s)...
- Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”
- A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future.
- In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
- When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”
- Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains into bilateral mode, and the more creative they are, the more they dual-activate.
- Charles Limb of Johns Hopkins has found a similar pattern with jazz musicians, and Austrian researchers observed it with professional dancers visualizing an improvised dance. Ansari and Berkowitz now believe the same is true for orators, comedians, and athletes improvising in games.
- What’s common about successful programs is they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages. Real improvement doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop. But when applied to the everyday process of work or school, brain function improves.
- As school stuffs more complex information into their heads, kids get overloaded, and creativity suffers.
- They’re not particularly happy—contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
- lack of creativity—not having loads of it—is the real risk factor. In his research, Runco asks college students, “Think of all the things that could interfere with graduating from college.” Then he instructs them to pick one of those items and to come up with as many solutions for that problem as possible. This is a classic divergent-convergent creativity challenge. A subset of respondents, like the proverbial Murphy, quickly list every imaginable way things can go wrong. But they demonstrate a complete lack of flexibility in finding creative solutions. It’s this inability to conceive of alternative approaches that leads to despair. Runco’s two questions predict suicide ideation—even when controlling for preexisting levels of depression and anxiety.
- In Runco’s subsequent research, those who do better in both problem-finding and problem-solving have better relationships. They are more able to handle stress and overcome the bumps life throws in their way. A similar study of 1,500 middle schoolers found that those high in creative self-efficacy had more confidence about their future and ability to succeed. They were sure that their ability to come up with alternatives would aid them, no matter what problems would arise.

1990 is when the overzealous drive for standardized testing and curriculum began. Go figure. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-07-11
We say that we do the same as far as problem based learning, but our problem is how to get kids to pass a standardized test. In truth, other countries are taking on learning methods that we discarded in the late 1980s, we are taking on a learning approach that they have abandoned after 1000 years of practice. Our own educational leaders are all in denial about this. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-07-11
Edutainers, don't get your hopes up for synchronized dance interpretation of math problems. Using creativity is great, but it must also be relevant. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-07-11

Jul

7

2010

Expanded Images

www.guitarcenter.com/...expandedimage.aspx

- Preview

Jul

5

2010

8 Success Secrets from Motivational Experts - Become a Champion in Life: School for Champions

www.school-for-champions.com/...8_success_secrets.htm

- Preview

Jul

3

2010

jeffreyfuller

sites.google.com/...home

- Preview

jeffreyfuller

sites.google.com/fullerj1968

- Preview

Jun

25

2010

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965: Major Acts of Congress

www.enotes.com/...entary-secondary-education-act

- Preview

ESEA. NCLB

The law became the educational centerpiece of Johnson's legislative agenda, the "Great Society," and in particular, his "War on Poverty" programs. The ESEA was designed to address the problem of inequality in education that had been laid bare by civil rights activists who lobbied for passage of the landmark anti-discrimination statute, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Jun

18

2010

JCEPS: Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies

www.jceps.com/index.php

- Preview

we should consider A Nation At Risk to be the greatest lie that the state has ever produced regarding our America’s public schools
it was the most efficacious educational report ever issued by the federal government, judged in terms of the scope and scale of educational reforms that it engendered over the past twenty years. It was also a well designed and orchestrated propaganda campaign that actually began 18 months prior to its release when Secretary of Education Terrel Bell established the National Commission for Excellence in Education (NCEE).
5 more annotation(s)...
- Goldberg and Harvey admit that this rate of high-profile activity was conducted in order to “create a national audience for the Commission’s work.” They do not report, but we might suspect, that the high-profile of their activities was one of the many lessons that they learned after having “examined the methods that other distinguished national panels had used to generate public and governmental reactions.” [4]
- Elements of their arguments, however, reflect the rhetorical style of those involved in formulating and promulgating the policies contained in NSC 68, the document that came to define US Cold War doctrine.
- This statement bears a startling resemblance to Dean Acheson’s account of the rhetorical maneuvers that he and other “hard liners” in and around the National Security Council deployed to “bludgeon the mass mind of ‘top government’” into believing that the Soviets were a military threat to the US and to world security.
- On the other hand, further evidence could be ushered in to support the conclusion that the methods adopted by the NCEE to generate a public and governmental response were taken from those associated with NSC 68 and the Cold War hysteria used to promote its underlying agenda.
- our once unchallenged lead” in the global economy resulted directly from the conditions described below.

Education at Risk: Fallout from a Flawed Report | Edutopia

www.edutopia.org/k-education-report-nation-risk

- Preview

a political movement that grew out of one seed planted in 1983
a thirty-page political document issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, a group convened by Ronald Reagan's secretary of education, Terrell Bell.
27 more annotation(s)...
- Our Nation is at risk . . . . The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people . . . . If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war . . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament . . . ."
- First, polls indicated that women still tilted toward the Democrats, who owned such close-to-home issues as housing, health, and education. Second, the U.S. economy was tanking. And it wasn't our enemies driving our industries into the ground, but rather our allies, Japan and Germany.
- Through the U.S. Department of Education's National Commission on Excellence in Education, he hoped to link the country's economic woes to the state of our schools. Bell got all he wanted and more.
- the sobering report received immediate publicity for an almost comically accidental reason.
- Gerald Holton recalls, Reagan thanked the commissioners at a White House ceremony for endorsing school prayer, vouchers, and the elimination of the Department of Education.
- report never mentioned these pet passions of the president. "The one important reader of the report had apparently not read it after all," Holton said. Reagan had pulled a fast one, for political gain.
- Although Reagan counselor (and, later, attorney general) Edwin Meese III urged him to reject the report because it undermined the president's basic education agenda -- to get government out of education -- White House advisers Jim Baker and Michael Deaver argued that "A Nation at Risk" provided good campaign fodder.
- The "high political payoff," Bell wrote in his memoir, "stole the education issue from Walter Mondale -- and it cost us nothing."
- The document had, however, been commissioned by the Reagan White House, so conservative Republicans controlled its interpretation and uses.
- What they zeroed in on was the notion of failing schools as a national-security crisis. Republican ideas for school reform became a charge against a shadowy enemy, a kind of war on mediocrity.
- s Peter Schrag later noted in The Nation, Reagan-era conservatives, "with the help of business leaders like IBM chairman Lou Gerstner, managed to convert a whole range of liberally oriented children's issues . . . into a debate focused almost exclusively on education and tougher-standards school reform."
- Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico to document the decline with some actual data.
- "To our surprise, on nearly every measure, we found steady or slightly improving trends."
- Nearly every subgroup -- ethnic minorities, rich kids, poor kids, middle class kids, top students, average students, low-ranked students -- held steady or improved during those years. Yet overall scores dropped
- The average can change in one direction while all the subgroups change in the opposite direction if proportions among the subgroups are changing.
- But during those twenty years, the pool of test takers expanded to include many lower-ranked students.
- only top students took the test.
- Because the proportion of top students to all students was shrinking, the scores inevitably dropped.
- George H.W. Bush campaigned to replace Reagan as president on a promise to confront the crisis. He had just called an education summit to tackle it, so there simply had to be a crisis.
- The government never released the Sandia report. It went into peer review and there died a quiet death.
- In 1989, Bush convened his education summit at the University of Virginia. Astonishingly, no teachers, professional educators, cognitive scientists, or learning experts were invited. The group that met to shape the future of American education consisted entirely of state governors. Education was too important, it seemed, to leave to educators.
- in the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had to promise to outtough Bush on education.
- Only on-site teachers can really make a broad ongoing assessment that gets at a range of achievements and takes the individual into account. By contrast, uniform standardized testing whose outcomes can be expressed as simple numbers allows someone far away to compare whole schools without ever seeing or speaking to an actual student. It facilitates the bureaucratization of education and enables politicians, not educators, to control schools more effectively.
- "educational decisions have been moved as far as possible from the classroom. Federal officials are now in a position to make decisions that would have been unimaginable even two years ago. They've established the criteria for disciplining schools, removing principals and teachers, and even defining appropriate curriculum for American classrooms."
- Actually, reform means nothing more than "alter the form of."
- promote a free-enterprise model for schooling: Anyone who wants education should pay for it and should have the right to buy whatever educational product he or she desires.
- But with some $500 billion per year -- the sum total of all our K-12 education spending in this country -- at stake, and with politicians' hands on all the levers, you can be pretty certain the decision will not be made by those whose field of expertise is learning. It will be made by those whose field of expertise is power.

That's all it ever was, campaign fodder. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-18
With all the knowledge we have of the documents origin and incidental purpose, It is surprising that we still have the majority of today's educational leaders leaning on its assumed legitimacy. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-18
created crisis used for political gain. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-18
In all actuality we have both of these analogies competing with each other on a continual basis. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-18
I believe we must take both of these perspectives into account, but must be realistic with each student and not try to fit them all into the same mold. Our nation needs people with all sorts of skills and abilities, not all sorts of skills and abilities in all people. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-18

Jun

17

2010

The Answer Sheet - What’s wrong with standardized tests?

voices.washingtonpost.com/...s-wrong-with-standardized.html

- Preview

How do tests control curriculum and instruction?
In many districts, raising test scores has become the single most important indicator of school improvement. As a result, teachers and administrators feel enormous pressure to ensure that test scores go up. Schools narrow and change the curriculum to match the test. Teachers teach only what is covered on the test. Methods of teaching conform to the multiple-choice format of the tests. Teaching more and more resembles testing.
If we don’t use standardized tests, how will we know how students and programs are doing?
Better methods of evaluating student needs and progress already exist. Good observational checklists used by trained teachers are more helpful than any screening test. Assessment based on student performance on real learning tasks is more useful and accurate for measuring achievement - and provides more information - than multiple-choice achievement tests.
1 more annotation(s)...
- How do other nations evaluate their students?
  The U.S. is the only economically advanced nation to rely heavily on multiple-choice tests. Other nations use performance-based assessment where students are evaluated on the basis of real work such as essays, projects and activities. Ironically, because these nations do not focus on teaching to multiple-choice tests, they even score higher than U.S. students on those kinds of tests.

And no matter how many times a school claims that this is not the case, you can always count on the contrary. As a matter of fact, the more lip-service delivered denying teaching-to-the-test, the more one can be assured that teaching-to-the-test is actually what is taking place in the curriculum. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-17
This seems to be the way it has been in the past, but for some reason the educational profession has been inundated with mistrust sparked by the "Nation at Risk" report published around 1983 which was based on inflated facts and biased assumptions necessary to get Reagan reelected. Not that I disagree with Reagan's reelection, but I don't think he intended for the report to alter our educational system as drastically as it has. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-17
This does not surprise me. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-17

columns.qx6 - Powered by Google Docs

docs.google.com/viewer

- Preview

It would be good to know how these questions are framed. It also contradicts what I know as a teacher in my daily experiences with parents. - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-17

Jun

12

2010

The Federalist Papers - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

thomas.loc.gov/...fed_01.html

- Preview

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
- Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
  Major, risky decision to be made, and the wrong decision would be a misfortune of mankind.
Add Sticky Note
and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
7 more annotation(s)...
- The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    I think I get it now. The writer is admitting that federalism will mean the loss of some powers at the state level, but for purposes of integrity it was essential to sustain the freedom recently gained from English tyranny.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    Does this mean that too many people wanted too many different things? And how does truth fit in?
  Add Sticky Note
- to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    Weaken power, compensation (?), and authority.
  Add Sticky Note
- perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    Selfless Power Grabbing??
  Add Sticky Note
- It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this nature. I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or ambitious views. Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable--the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    To not judge one personally, but understand their misconception, an be frank toward its inconsistency with federalism.
  Add Sticky Note
- So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    The Right to agree and disagree. Maturity to accept defeat, and courage to challenge ideas without violence
  Add Sticky Note
- And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    acknowledgement that passionate arguments will take place, but adds comment as to the perceived nature of loss of emotional control.
  Add Sticky Note
- In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my fellow-citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them, that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution. Yes, my countrymen, I own to you that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I affect not reserves which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation when I have decided. I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded. The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity. I shall not, however, multiply professions on this head. My motives must remain in the depository of my own breast. My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth.
  - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12
    Warning that others will try to dissuade them with untruths.
  Add Sticky Note

The Right to agree and disagree. Maturity to accept defeat, and courage to challenge ideas without violence - Jeffrey Fuller on 2010-06-12

Jeffrey Fuller's Public Library

Top Tags