Amanda Ripley's Blog, page 2
October 16, 2015
Playing Defense Against the Drones
Small, off-the-shelf drones have gotten much better, cheaper and easier to use in the past couple of years. About a million are in circulation worldwide right now; that number could double over the next year.
So what will our lives be like once drones are everywhere? That is the most captivating question about drones, in my opinion—much more interesting than the many gee-whiz stories published about the technology itself.
But speculating about that future is not very interesting; the usual narratives tend toward utopia or apocalypse, neither of which seems likely.
So I decided to spend some time with people who already live in the future. These are people who do not typically hang out together but who have been reckoning with nonmilitary drones in their everyday work. They include security experts, a celebrity-wedding planner, an animal-rights activist and a couple of prison wardens.
I learned a lot from their stories. For one thing, psychology matters as much as technology. There is some comfort in that. I also came to appreciate the usefulness of nets. Large nets, small nets, all kinds of nets.
Things are about to get weird, in other words. Check out the full Atlantic article here.
So what will our lives be like once drones are everywhere? That is the most captivating question about drones, in my opinion—much more interesting than the many gee-whiz stories published about the technology itself.
But speculating about that future is not very interesting; the usual narratives tend toward utopia or apocalypse, neither of which seems likely.
So I decided to spend some time with people who already live in the future. These are people who do not typically hang out together but who have been reckoning with nonmilitary drones in their everyday work. They include security experts, a celebrity-wedding planner, an animal-rights activist and a couple of prison wardens.
I learned a lot from their stories. For one thing, psychology matters as much as technology. There is some comfort in that. I also came to appreciate the usefulness of nets. Large nets, small nets, all kinds of nets.
Things are about to get weird, in other words. Check out the full Atlantic article here.
September 25, 2015
Crowd Crush at the Hajj
Photo: Victims of a crowd crush in Mina in 2006. (Muhammed Muheisen/AP)
It's been nine years since the last major crowd crush at the hajj. I wrote about that tragedy in The Unthinkable as a case study in so-called "panic."
Naively, I was hoping we would not see another mass-casualty disaster like this at the hajj. In the past decade, the Saudis have invested heavily in crowd-management systems and dramatically improved the safety of this very challenging event. But here we are. At least 717 people have been killed, and the New York Times front-page headline today cites "unexplained panic" as the cause.
That is a reckless use of language. People have a tendency to assume that crowd crushes are caused by savage misbehavior of others. But we don't know yet what caused this tragedy, and it is certainly too early to impugn the victims, accusing them of panicking--or of disobeying directions, as the Saudi health minister has now done. "If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided," Khaled al-Falih told El-Ekhbariya television.
Flashback to 2006, when the last major crowd crush happened at the Hajj, killing 364 pilgrims. Here is what a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesperson said then: "Some of the pilgrims were undisciplined and hasty to finish the ritual as soon as possoble."
In 1990, after the deadliest recorded crowd crush in hajj history, Saudi King Fahd called the catastrophe "God's will." Of the 1,426 victims he said, "Had they not died there, they would have died elsewhere."
In fact, the vast majority of crowd crushes, which have occured at big-box stores, soccer stadiums and nightclubs all over the world, are caused by the laws of physics: too many people moving through too small a space too quickly. Almost all are preventable with better crowd management and crowd communication.
Panic is a reaction to a crowd crush, and a perfectly understandable one. It's not the cause. Ironically, crowds at the hajj are better behaved than the drunken hooligans and bargain-shoppers you might encounter in other high-volume crowds. The pilgrims have come to participate in a harmonious, holy ritual, so they tend to act like it.
In most crowd crushes, people die when someone in the front of a crowd trips or otherwise falls down, and the people in the back, unaware of the problem, keep pushing slowly forward. If you don't have about a square yard of space around you, it is very hard to recover from the normal jostling of a crowd. So more people fall. As the pressure builds up, shock waves begin to pulse through the crowd, and people lose control over their movement.
Most people killed in these tragedies die from asphyxiation, not from being trampled upon by others. The pressure of the crowd builds exponentially, making it impossible to breathe. The compounded force of five people can kill a person.
Pressure is the primary horror of a crowd crush. Not panic. And until we accept that, we will keep having more of them. Because blaming the crowd lifts the onus of responsibility off the officials tasked with managing the crowd and puts it on the backs of the dead.
It's been nine years since the last major crowd crush at the hajj. I wrote about that tragedy in The Unthinkable as a case study in so-called "panic."
Naively, I was hoping we would not see another mass-casualty disaster like this at the hajj. In the past decade, the Saudis have invested heavily in crowd-management systems and dramatically improved the safety of this very challenging event. But here we are. At least 717 people have been killed, and the New York Times front-page headline today cites "unexplained panic" as the cause.
That is a reckless use of language. People have a tendency to assume that crowd crushes are caused by savage misbehavior of others. But we don't know yet what caused this tragedy, and it is certainly too early to impugn the victims, accusing them of panicking--or of disobeying directions, as the Saudi health minister has now done. "If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided," Khaled al-Falih told El-Ekhbariya television.
Flashback to 2006, when the last major crowd crush happened at the Hajj, killing 364 pilgrims. Here is what a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesperson said then: "Some of the pilgrims were undisciplined and hasty to finish the ritual as soon as possoble."
In 1990, after the deadliest recorded crowd crush in hajj history, Saudi King Fahd called the catastrophe "God's will." Of the 1,426 victims he said, "Had they not died there, they would have died elsewhere."
In fact, the vast majority of crowd crushes, which have occured at big-box stores, soccer stadiums and nightclubs all over the world, are caused by the laws of physics: too many people moving through too small a space too quickly. Almost all are preventable with better crowd management and crowd communication.
Panic is a reaction to a crowd crush, and a perfectly understandable one. It's not the cause. Ironically, crowds at the hajj are better behaved than the drunken hooligans and bargain-shoppers you might encounter in other high-volume crowds. The pilgrims have come to participate in a harmonious, holy ritual, so they tend to act like it.
In most crowd crushes, people die when someone in the front of a crowd trips or otherwise falls down, and the people in the back, unaware of the problem, keep pushing slowly forward. If you don't have about a square yard of space around you, it is very hard to recover from the normal jostling of a crowd. So more people fall. As the pressure builds up, shock waves begin to pulse through the crowd, and people lose control over their movement.
Most people killed in these tragedies die from asphyxiation, not from being trampled upon by others. The pressure of the crowd builds exponentially, making it impossible to breathe. The compounded force of five people can kill a person.
Pressure is the primary horror of a crowd crush. Not panic. And until we accept that, we will keep having more of them. Because blaming the crowd lifts the onus of responsibility off the officials tasked with managing the crowd and puts it on the backs of the dead.
June 12, 2015
Discussion Questions for The Smartest Kids
Since the book came out, many people have asked if I could supply discussion questions to help provoke interesting conversations in book clubs and classrooms. Here at last are some ideas.
Please Tweet me (@amandaripley) or email me (amanda@amandaripley.com) with great questions from your own discussions so I can make this list better over time.
Thank you for talking about this work and these hard problems. I wish I could be there, listening silently in the corner. This is my next best option:
1. In the initial pages of the Smartest Kids, I questioned the premise of the book: “Did it really matter if [the U.S.] ranked number one in the world in education outcomes? Or even number ten?”
What do you think? Does it matter how students perform relative to other students around the world? In what ways does it matter or not matter?
2. Is it fair to compare the U.S. to a small country like Finland?
Would it be fairer to compare your state or district to Finland instead of the whole country?
3. In the book, I divided the world’s smartest countries into three categories: the Utopia model (Finland), the Pressure Cooker (South Korea) and the Metamorphosis (Poland).
Which model does your community most resemble now? Which model do you aspire to achieve?
4. Did any of the students or other characters in the book remind you of someone you know? Have you had any experiences living in other countries that confirmed or contradicted the stories of the students in the book?
5. The exchange students I followed noticed many differences—positive and negative—between the U.S. and other countries. They admired the interactivity of their U.S. classrooms and the abundance of extracurricular opportunities.
At the same time, they noticed that American students were not generally expected to struggle with the kinds of challenging, higher-order work students encounter in some of the world’s highest-performing education systems. They also complained that teenagers had less autonomy in their U.S. communities.
Which of those observations, good and bad, might apply to your community?
6. Over the course of my reporting, I began to appreciate the importance of the signals that schools and communities send to students and parents. These messages convey the true priorities of a community—and matter far more than the official rhetoric of a school.
For example, when principals send recorded messages to parents about upcoming fundraisers or standardized tests, that communication sends a signal about what is important. When principals send messages reminding parents to read to their young children almost every day—and offer specific tips for how to make that reading more productive—it sends a different signal.
Roughly how many emails, text messages or automated calls went out to parents in your local school last year? What percentage was directly related to learning? What percentage was related to fundraising, sports, or other activities?
What other signals do students and parents receive and send about what matters in your community? Do those signals align with your stated goals and the needs of students in the 21st century? Consider creating an informal “audit” of the messages adults send to kids and parents in your community.
7. In the book and in an Atlantic magazine story, I wrote about the unique role that sports play in U.S. high schools. What is the right balance between sports and academics in your community? How do you know if you are achieving that balance?
In your local school, are students allowed to miss class for games? Do they travel out of state for games? How often do students have a substitute teacher because their normal teacher is coaching?
Do local media outlets cover non-athletic student activities and competitions? If not, why not? If you believe sports should be secondary to learning in your community, what can be done to illustrate that hierarchy in visible ways?
8. One way other countries raise the prestige of teaching and learning is to make teacher-training programs more rigorous, selective and hands-on. In Finland, getting into education college is as difficult as getting into MIT in the U.S.
Any idea which education colleges supply teachers to your district? How much time do the teachers-in-training spend in actual classrooms with strong teachers? Does your school district hire teachers from mediocre education schools? If so, why?
9. Another way to boost the prestige of teaching is to show more people what teaching looks like at its best. Does your community offer opportunities for teachers, parents, students, media members and politicians to see great teachers teach—and to talk about what they are doing and why?
10. How else can a community cultivate a culture of rigor and learning? Can U.S. principals, parents and teachers apply some of the best practices, rituals and norms of sports to higher-order learning? What are other creative ways you could shift some of your community traditions to focus on thinking, learning and lifelong curiosity?
Please Tweet me (@amandaripley) or email me (amanda@amandaripley.com) with great questions from your own discussions so I can make this list better over time.
Thank you for talking about this work and these hard problems. I wish I could be there, listening silently in the corner. This is my next best option:
1. In the initial pages of the Smartest Kids, I questioned the premise of the book: “Did it really matter if [the U.S.] ranked number one in the world in education outcomes? Or even number ten?”
What do you think? Does it matter how students perform relative to other students around the world? In what ways does it matter or not matter?
2. Is it fair to compare the U.S. to a small country like Finland?
Would it be fairer to compare your state or district to Finland instead of the whole country?
3. In the book, I divided the world’s smartest countries into three categories: the Utopia model (Finland), the Pressure Cooker (South Korea) and the Metamorphosis (Poland).
Which model does your community most resemble now? Which model do you aspire to achieve?
4. Did any of the students or other characters in the book remind you of someone you know? Have you had any experiences living in other countries that confirmed or contradicted the stories of the students in the book?
5. The exchange students I followed noticed many differences—positive and negative—between the U.S. and other countries. They admired the interactivity of their U.S. classrooms and the abundance of extracurricular opportunities.
At the same time, they noticed that American students were not generally expected to struggle with the kinds of challenging, higher-order work students encounter in some of the world’s highest-performing education systems. They also complained that teenagers had less autonomy in their U.S. communities.
Which of those observations, good and bad, might apply to your community?
6. Over the course of my reporting, I began to appreciate the importance of the signals that schools and communities send to students and parents. These messages convey the true priorities of a community—and matter far more than the official rhetoric of a school.
For example, when principals send recorded messages to parents about upcoming fundraisers or standardized tests, that communication sends a signal about what is important. When principals send messages reminding parents to read to their young children almost every day—and offer specific tips for how to make that reading more productive—it sends a different signal.
Roughly how many emails, text messages or automated calls went out to parents in your local school last year? What percentage was directly related to learning? What percentage was related to fundraising, sports, or other activities?
What other signals do students and parents receive and send about what matters in your community? Do those signals align with your stated goals and the needs of students in the 21st century? Consider creating an informal “audit” of the messages adults send to kids and parents in your community.
7. In the book and in an Atlantic magazine story, I wrote about the unique role that sports play in U.S. high schools. What is the right balance between sports and academics in your community? How do you know if you are achieving that balance?
In your local school, are students allowed to miss class for games? Do they travel out of state for games? How often do students have a substitute teacher because their normal teacher is coaching?
Do local media outlets cover non-athletic student activities and competitions? If not, why not? If you believe sports should be secondary to learning in your community, what can be done to illustrate that hierarchy in visible ways?
8. One way other countries raise the prestige of teaching and learning is to make teacher-training programs more rigorous, selective and hands-on. In Finland, getting into education college is as difficult as getting into MIT in the U.S.
Any idea which education colleges supply teachers to your district? How much time do the teachers-in-training spend in actual classrooms with strong teachers? Does your school district hire teachers from mediocre education schools? If so, why?
9. Another way to boost the prestige of teaching is to show more people what teaching looks like at its best. Does your community offer opportunities for teachers, parents, students, media members and politicians to see great teachers teach—and to talk about what they are doing and why?
10. How else can a community cultivate a culture of rigor and learning? Can U.S. principals, parents and teachers apply some of the best practices, rituals and norms of sports to higher-order learning? What are other creative ways you could shift some of your community traditions to focus on thinking, learning and lifelong curiosity?
June 2, 2015
Something Strange & Wonderful on Capitol Hill…
I started my career as a reporter on Capitol Hill in 1996. I was so excited to get my press badge and be part of Important Washington. I went out and bought a suit at Filene's Basement (beige, naturally).
On my first assignment, I found myself in a room with 20 other reporters listening to a not-for-attribution staffer read a statement that we already had. We all wrote down what he said, for some reason. I thought to myself, "What the hell?"
I've tried to avoid going back. There are too many reporters covering far too little way too predictably (with a few exceptions).
But yesterday, I made the pilgrimage to the Cannon House Office Building to see something different: a group of students and teachers showing what learning looks like, instead of just talking about it. This is normal in places like Japan, as Elizabeth Green described in her book Building a Better Teacher, but it happens very rarely in the U.S.
In the Caucus Room, there were red velvet curtains, microphones and name plates--all the accouterments of bullshit Washington committee hearings. I started to worry.
But the name plates were for kids, as it turned out. For "Tiara," "Abdoul" and "Saliou" and a half dozen other students imported from New York City for a live demo lesson from Success Academy Charter Schools, one of the most controversial and best performing school networks in the United States.
The program began with a teacher and school leaders from Harlem North Central Middle School holding a planning session in advance of the class, something that happens weekly at Success Academy Schools (and almost no where else in the U.S., where teachers get little planning time and almost never spend that time agonizing over the details with their principals). We got to hear the teacher worry about how her students had done on a problem the day before--and her principal urge her to use the students' mistakes to generate an active discussion. We all had a copy of the math problem, which asked students to figure out which store had the better deal on pet food--but advertised different prices for different volumes of food.
Then the 5th graders filed on stage and took their seats. The teacher projected Tiara's work on the screen and asked her to explain why she had done what she'd done. It was obvious to most of the adults that Tiara's answer was wrong, though I wasn't sure Tiara knew. She walked us through the approach she'd taken, speaking clearly and only a little haltingly into the microphone. Then the teacher asked Saliou to explain why he'd solved the problem differently. Every so often, the principal injected a comment, usually drawing attention to something a student had said.
It felt a little contrived, yes, but also a little awesome. Here we were, a hundred or so badged and suited grown-ups on Capitol Hill, watching kids and their teachers grapple with a real-world math problem in an intellectual way. We could see for ourselves that the principal was coaching the teacher; this was her priority, not managing the facilities. We could see for ourselves that the teacher was resisting the urge to talk; she asked questions but the students did more of the talking. Watching this happen is infinitely more powerful than listening to some "expert witness" tell us about it.
What would education be like if Congressional staffers and reporters spent more time analyzing the science and craft of teaching and learning? If our debates were about the best way to provoke original thinking about mathematics in a 5th grade classroom--instead of about how many charter schools a city should be allowed to have? Success Academy's leaders took a risk in holding this event. Who knew what the kids would say? Or if the teacher, a relative novice, would impress? But in the end, the event was so wonderfully counter-cultural that the details didn't matter that much; the fact that it happened at all was a triumph.
A few minutes later, Tiara, Saliou and the other students had worked out the solution. They concluded that they needed to figure out the price of one can in each store in order to decide which place had the better deal. They came up with three different strategies for doing this, one of which they could do mostly in their heads.
Then as the teacher rushed to wrap up the mini-lesson so the adults could get back on stage, Abdoul chimed in one last time. You could actually solve this problem in an infinite number of ways, he said, not just three.
But we were out of time, and so Abdoul was sent off stage to get his boxed lunch with the other kids so the adults could keep yammering on.
On my first assignment, I found myself in a room with 20 other reporters listening to a not-for-attribution staffer read a statement that we already had. We all wrote down what he said, for some reason. I thought to myself, "What the hell?"
I've tried to avoid going back. There are too many reporters covering far too little way too predictably (with a few exceptions).
But yesterday, I made the pilgrimage to the Cannon House Office Building to see something different: a group of students and teachers showing what learning looks like, instead of just talking about it. This is normal in places like Japan, as Elizabeth Green described in her book Building a Better Teacher, but it happens very rarely in the U.S.
In the Caucus Room, there were red velvet curtains, microphones and name plates--all the accouterments of bullshit Washington committee hearings. I started to worry.
But the name plates were for kids, as it turned out. For "Tiara," "Abdoul" and "Saliou" and a half dozen other students imported from New York City for a live demo lesson from Success Academy Charter Schools, one of the most controversial and best performing school networks in the United States.
The program began with a teacher and school leaders from Harlem North Central Middle School holding a planning session in advance of the class, something that happens weekly at Success Academy Schools (and almost no where else in the U.S., where teachers get little planning time and almost never spend that time agonizing over the details with their principals). We got to hear the teacher worry about how her students had done on a problem the day before--and her principal urge her to use the students' mistakes to generate an active discussion. We all had a copy of the math problem, which asked students to figure out which store had the better deal on pet food--but advertised different prices for different volumes of food.
Then the 5th graders filed on stage and took their seats. The teacher projected Tiara's work on the screen and asked her to explain why she had done what she'd done. It was obvious to most of the adults that Tiara's answer was wrong, though I wasn't sure Tiara knew. She walked us through the approach she'd taken, speaking clearly and only a little haltingly into the microphone. Then the teacher asked Saliou to explain why he'd solved the problem differently. Every so often, the principal injected a comment, usually drawing attention to something a student had said.
It felt a little contrived, yes, but also a little awesome. Here we were, a hundred or so badged and suited grown-ups on Capitol Hill, watching kids and their teachers grapple with a real-world math problem in an intellectual way. We could see for ourselves that the principal was coaching the teacher; this was her priority, not managing the facilities. We could see for ourselves that the teacher was resisting the urge to talk; she asked questions but the students did more of the talking. Watching this happen is infinitely more powerful than listening to some "expert witness" tell us about it.
What would education be like if Congressional staffers and reporters spent more time analyzing the science and craft of teaching and learning? If our debates were about the best way to provoke original thinking about mathematics in a 5th grade classroom--instead of about how many charter schools a city should be allowed to have? Success Academy's leaders took a risk in holding this event. Who knew what the kids would say? Or if the teacher, a relative novice, would impress? But in the end, the event was so wonderfully counter-cultural that the details didn't matter that much; the fact that it happened at all was a triumph.
A few minutes later, Tiara, Saliou and the other students had worked out the solution. They concluded that they needed to figure out the price of one can in each store in order to decide which place had the better deal. They came up with three different strategies for doing this, one of which they could do mostly in their heads.
Then as the teacher rushed to wrap up the mini-lesson so the adults could get back on stage, Abdoul chimed in one last time. You could actually solve this problem in an infinite number of ways, he said, not just three.
But we were out of time, and so Abdoul was sent off stage to get his boxed lunch with the other kids so the adults could keep yammering on.
May 22, 2015
The Smartest Kids in Ohio
My website is alright. But it's not designed by high school students who are learning to be teachers one day.
What if it were?
It turns out that several Lakota East High School juniors in Cincinnati have built websites about The Smartest Kids in the World. All three students are considering becoming teachers one day. I met them through the Future Educators Association, a national organization for high schoolers who are interested in teaching. (I spoke at their annual conference--where I encountered the most fired-up audience I have ever seen at an education event. There were cheers! There was spontaneous applause! There were noise complaints from other hotel guests! It was awesome.)
Anyway, I am honored that they featured the book in this way. They did an excellent job. If you are a teacher or a student looking for ways to provoke discussion about the book, there are some great quizzes, discussion ideas, opinions and resources here:
http://smartestkids-erin.weebly.com/ by Erin
http://thesmartestkids.weebly.com/ by Rachel
http://smartest-kids.weebly.com/ by Maya
Thank you Erin, Rachel and Maya. I hope you do become teachers, for the sake of the rest of us, and I hope you will continue to share your revelations and experiences along the way.
What if it were?
It turns out that several Lakota East High School juniors in Cincinnati have built websites about The Smartest Kids in the World. All three students are considering becoming teachers one day. I met them through the Future Educators Association, a national organization for high schoolers who are interested in teaching. (I spoke at their annual conference--where I encountered the most fired-up audience I have ever seen at an education event. There were cheers! There was spontaneous applause! There were noise complaints from other hotel guests! It was awesome.)
Anyway, I am honored that they featured the book in this way. They did an excellent job. If you are a teacher or a student looking for ways to provoke discussion about the book, there are some great quizzes, discussion ideas, opinions and resources here:
http://smartestkids-erin.weebly.com/ by Erin
http://thesmartestkids.weebly.com/ by Rachel
http://smartest-kids.weebly.com/ by Maya
Thank you Erin, Rachel and Maya. I hope you do become teachers, for the sake of the rest of us, and I hope you will continue to share your revelations and experiences along the way.
April 22, 2015
How to Graduate from Starbucks
Mary Hamm was in pain, though it was hard to tell. She bustled around the Starbucks, pouring drinks, restocking pastries, and greeting customers with an unshakable gaze perfected during 25 years of working in hospitality. Her smile said, How can I help you? Her eyes said, I know you’re going to order a caramel Frappuccino, so let’s do this.
Occupying prime space in a Fredericksburg, Virginia, strip mall, beside a Dixie Bones BBQ Post, this Starbucks pulls in about $40,000 a week. Hamm, 49, had been managing Starbucks stores for 12 years. The problem was her feet. After two decades in the food-service business, they had started to wear out. She had two metal plates in the right one, installed over the course of five surgeries. Now her left foot needed surgery too. She doesn’t like to complain, but when I asked her how often she was in pain, she smiled and said quietly, “All the time.”
According to the Fitbit on her wrist, Hamm had walked six miles back and forth behind the espresso bar during the 13 hours she had been at work that day. For years, doctors had told her she needed to get off her feet, so she had applied for more than 15 corporate jobs, within and outside of Starbucks. Again and again, though, she had been passed over in favor of other candidates with more formal education. This was a woman who had raised three children largely on her own and had started a nonprofit to help homeless people in her area. She had experience, competence, and drive. What she didn’t have—like three-quarters of Starbucks employees, and an equal share of American adults—was a bachelor’s degree.
Thirty-one years ago, Hamm told her parents she wanted to be a nurse. They told her to get married—they had no money for college. By age 19, she was a wife and a mother. Then came more children, a divorce, and medical bills. In 2007, she took out a loan to attend the University of Phoenix, an online, for-profit school. But when the tuition went up, she quit. She is still paying off the loan.
When it comes to college, the central challenge for most Americans in the 21st century is not going; it’s finishing. Thirty-five million Americans now have some college experience but no degree. More Americans than live in Texas, in other words, have spent enough time at college to glimpse the promised land—but not enough to reap the financial bounty. Some are worse off than if they’d never enrolled at all, carrying tens of thousands of dollars in debt, not to mention the scar tissue of regret and self-doubt. [To continue reading my Atlantic story, please click here.]
Occupying prime space in a Fredericksburg, Virginia, strip mall, beside a Dixie Bones BBQ Post, this Starbucks pulls in about $40,000 a week. Hamm, 49, had been managing Starbucks stores for 12 years. The problem was her feet. After two decades in the food-service business, they had started to wear out. She had two metal plates in the right one, installed over the course of five surgeries. Now her left foot needed surgery too. She doesn’t like to complain, but when I asked her how often she was in pain, she smiled and said quietly, “All the time.”
According to the Fitbit on her wrist, Hamm had walked six miles back and forth behind the espresso bar during the 13 hours she had been at work that day. For years, doctors had told her she needed to get off her feet, so she had applied for more than 15 corporate jobs, within and outside of Starbucks. Again and again, though, she had been passed over in favor of other candidates with more formal education. This was a woman who had raised three children largely on her own and had started a nonprofit to help homeless people in her area. She had experience, competence, and drive. What she didn’t have—like three-quarters of Starbucks employees, and an equal share of American adults—was a bachelor’s degree.
Thirty-one years ago, Hamm told her parents she wanted to be a nurse. They told her to get married—they had no money for college. By age 19, she was a wife and a mother. Then came more children, a divorce, and medical bills. In 2007, she took out a loan to attend the University of Phoenix, an online, for-profit school. But when the tuition went up, she quit. She is still paying off the loan.
When it comes to college, the central challenge for most Americans in the 21st century is not going; it’s finishing. Thirty-five million Americans now have some college experience but no degree. More Americans than live in Texas, in other words, have spent enough time at college to glimpse the promised land—but not enough to reap the financial bounty. Some are worse off than if they’d never enrolled at all, carrying tens of thousands of dollars in debt, not to mention the scar tissue of regret and self-doubt. [To continue reading my Atlantic story, please click here.]
March 12, 2015
Why Do American Students Have So Little Power?
For the past four months, a group of Kentucky teenagers has been working to make a one-sentence change to a state law. In the history of student activism, this is not a big ask. They want local school boards to have the option—just the option—of including a student on the committees that screen candidates for superintendent jobs.
That’s it. They aren’t asking to choose the superintendent; the elected school board does that. They just want to have one student sit among the half-dozen adults (including two teachers, a parent, and a principal) who help vet candidates and make recommendations to the board.
"I thought everyone would view it as a no-brainer," said Nicole Fielder, 18. She said this on Tuesday from Frankfort, the state’s capital, where she was missing classes in order to advocate—for the sixth time—for this bill. (Click here to continue reading my story at TheAtlantic.com.)
That’s it. They aren’t asking to choose the superintendent; the elected school board does that. They just want to have one student sit among the half-dozen adults (including two teachers, a parent, and a principal) who help vet candidates and make recommendations to the board.
"I thought everyone would view it as a no-brainer," said Nicole Fielder, 18. She said this on Tuesday from Frankfort, the state’s capital, where she was missing classes in order to advocate—for the sixth time—for this bill. (Click here to continue reading my story at TheAtlantic.com.)
Wy Do American Students Have So Little Power?
For the past four months, a group of Kentucky teenagers has been working to make a one-sentence change to a state law. In the history of student activism, this is not a big ask. They want local school boards to have the option—just the option—of including a student on the committees that screen candidates for superintendent jobs.
That’s it. They aren’t asking to choose the superintendent; the elected school board does that. They just want to have one student sit among the half-dozen adults (including two teachers, a parent, and a principal) who help vet candidates and make recommendations to the board.
"I thought everyone would view it as a no-brainer," said Nicole Fielder, 18. She said this on Tuesday from Frankfort, the state’s capital, where she was missing classes in order to advocate—for the sixth time—for this bill. (Click here to continue reading my story at TheAtlantic.com.)
That’s it. They aren’t asking to choose the superintendent; the elected school board does that. They just want to have one student sit among the half-dozen adults (including two teachers, a parent, and a principal) who help vet candidates and make recommendations to the board.
"I thought everyone would view it as a no-brainer," said Nicole Fielder, 18. She said this on Tuesday from Frankfort, the state’s capital, where she was missing classes in order to advocate—for the sixth time—for this bill. (Click here to continue reading my story at TheAtlantic.com.)
February 27, 2015
First Day Home
Fourteen years ago, I met Jean Sanders on a sidewalk in Harlem. Time Magazine had sent me there to write about former President Bill Clinton's new office space, but Jean, who had just gotten out of prison, turned out to be more interesting.
I ended up following Jean off and on for a year and writing a story about Jean and the half a million Americans who get out of prison each year. Jean and I stayed in touch and became friends. We went out to dinner at Junior's in Brooklyn when he got off parole. Then, four years ago, his demons returned. Depressed and using drugs again, he went back to prison.
The other day, Jean got out again. Soon afterwards, we had dinner at Junior's once again, and we took this photo on a frigid afternoon in Times Square. I asked him to write a guest blog post about that first day of freedom--which was very different from how it is portrayed on TV.
Reading what he wrote, I was struck by his use of the passive voice. "I was placed into a state van," he wrote. And then later: "I was told to have a seat." When you are in prison--and even after you get out--things happen to you much of the time. You are moved; you don't move by yourself. Jean's dispatch from Day 1 captures this powerlessness in a way I could not, and I thank him for sharing it with us here.
First Day Out
By Jean Sanders
ON the morning of January 21, 2015, after four years, three months and three days at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, I was placed into a state van with two corrections officers. I hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. Like most men about to be released from prison, I was haunted by unknowns: Will my family receive me with open arms? How will my parole officer be? Will I get a job? Do I have to go to a shelter? It’s enough to drive a brother crazy.
During the van ride, I paid no attention to the beautiful views of upstate New York going by my window. I kept asking myself, ‘Why are they taking me to the city, instead of Brooklyn, where my mother lives? Are the cops going to re-arrest me?’ I racked my mind, trying to think if I had done something long ago that might come back to me. No, I reminded myself, they would have arrested me at the prison. I’ve seen how the marshals wait outside to take custody of a released prisoner who has an immigration hold or a case in another state.
The corrections officers saw that I was troubled and did their best to calm me down. I knew one from inside the facility, and he talked me through the whole process. He said he was going to stay with me every step of the way.
Before I knew it, I looked up and saw the Empire State building. My mind came rattling back to earth. I tried to do a breathing exercise to control the anxiety. Breathe in through the nose, hold for three, then breathe out through the mouth, repeat.
We pulled up to the parole office, and one of the officers got out and went into the building. I stayed in the locked van, doing my breathing, trying not to hyperventilate. The officer came back and unlocked the door. Then I got out, and they walked me into the parole waiting room. I placed my two bags in a corner, as instructed, and walked through a metal detector. I was told to have a seat and wait for my parole officer. Two and a half hours went by, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
When my parole officer finally called my name, I got up and went into her office. She laid down the 23 conditions of my release: Be home from 7 pm – 7 am. No drinking or drugs. Keep my appointments. Don’t hang out with known felons. Don’t leave the five boroughs of New York City. Take my medication. On and on. I listened, reminding myself that freedom ain’t free.
After that, I was placed into another van with two ladies to go home to Brooklyn. On the way, they kept asking me if I was alright. They said they were going to help me transition back into society. They gave me a $100 gift card to Pathmark and a $10 Subway card.
When we pulled up to my mother’s house, I breathed for the first time. My nephew came out and took my bags into the house. I was home.
Holding back the tears in my eyes, I said goodbye to the nice ladies, thanking them for the ride. I signed the paper work and nodded at their reminders to make my appointments and to take my meds.
Then I came into the house and hugged my mom and nephew. My mom said I was fat, and I laughed. After about an hour or so, she wanted to cook me something to eat. But I said no. Suddenly, I was craving a Subway sandwich. I walked two blocks with my gift card and ordered my first meal home: a roast beef sandwich with all the trimmings and a Dr. Pepper.
I brought it home and ate it at the kitchen table, enjoying every bite. Then I leaned back in my chair and took it all in. I was home. Free and not free.
To Be Continued.
(You can find Jean Sanders on Twitter @jeansanders1.)
I ended up following Jean off and on for a year and writing a story about Jean and the half a million Americans who get out of prison each year. Jean and I stayed in touch and became friends. We went out to dinner at Junior's in Brooklyn when he got off parole. Then, four years ago, his demons returned. Depressed and using drugs again, he went back to prison.
The other day, Jean got out again. Soon afterwards, we had dinner at Junior's once again, and we took this photo on a frigid afternoon in Times Square. I asked him to write a guest blog post about that first day of freedom--which was very different from how it is portrayed on TV.
Reading what he wrote, I was struck by his use of the passive voice. "I was placed into a state van," he wrote. And then later: "I was told to have a seat." When you are in prison--and even after you get out--things happen to you much of the time. You are moved; you don't move by yourself. Jean's dispatch from Day 1 captures this powerlessness in a way I could not, and I thank him for sharing it with us here.
First Day Out
By Jean Sanders
ON the morning of January 21, 2015, after four years, three months and three days at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, I was placed into a state van with two corrections officers. I hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. Like most men about to be released from prison, I was haunted by unknowns: Will my family receive me with open arms? How will my parole officer be? Will I get a job? Do I have to go to a shelter? It’s enough to drive a brother crazy.
During the van ride, I paid no attention to the beautiful views of upstate New York going by my window. I kept asking myself, ‘Why are they taking me to the city, instead of Brooklyn, where my mother lives? Are the cops going to re-arrest me?’ I racked my mind, trying to think if I had done something long ago that might come back to me. No, I reminded myself, they would have arrested me at the prison. I’ve seen how the marshals wait outside to take custody of a released prisoner who has an immigration hold or a case in another state.
The corrections officers saw that I was troubled and did their best to calm me down. I knew one from inside the facility, and he talked me through the whole process. He said he was going to stay with me every step of the way.
Before I knew it, I looked up and saw the Empire State building. My mind came rattling back to earth. I tried to do a breathing exercise to control the anxiety. Breathe in through the nose, hold for three, then breathe out through the mouth, repeat.
We pulled up to the parole office, and one of the officers got out and went into the building. I stayed in the locked van, doing my breathing, trying not to hyperventilate. The officer came back and unlocked the door. Then I got out, and they walked me into the parole waiting room. I placed my two bags in a corner, as instructed, and walked through a metal detector. I was told to have a seat and wait for my parole officer. Two and a half hours went by, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
When my parole officer finally called my name, I got up and went into her office. She laid down the 23 conditions of my release: Be home from 7 pm – 7 am. No drinking or drugs. Keep my appointments. Don’t hang out with known felons. Don’t leave the five boroughs of New York City. Take my medication. On and on. I listened, reminding myself that freedom ain’t free.
After that, I was placed into another van with two ladies to go home to Brooklyn. On the way, they kept asking me if I was alright. They said they were going to help me transition back into society. They gave me a $100 gift card to Pathmark and a $10 Subway card.
When we pulled up to my mother’s house, I breathed for the first time. My nephew came out and took my bags into the house. I was home.
Holding back the tears in my eyes, I said goodbye to the nice ladies, thanking them for the ride. I signed the paper work and nodded at their reminders to make my appointments and to take my meds.
Then I came into the house and hugged my mom and nephew. My mom said I was fat, and I laughed. After about an hour or so, she wanted to cook me something to eat. But I said no. Suddenly, I was craving a Subway sandwich. I walked two blocks with my gift card and ordered my first meal home: a roast beef sandwich with all the trimmings and a Dr. Pepper.
I brought it home and ate it at the kitchen table, enjoying every bite. Then I leaned back in my chair and took it all in. I was home. Free and not free.
To Be Continued.
(You can find Jean Sanders on Twitter @jeansanders1.)
October 1, 2014
Storytelling
What is school like in the smartest countries in the world? Last year, I wrote a book that tried to answer that question from a kid’s point of view. Now fellow journalist Elizabeth Green has a new book out—from the teacher’s point of view.
Building a Better Teacher explains how teachers can get better in any country — and what it will take to finally treat the profession as an intellectual master craft instead of a charity. When people ask me what U.S. education reform should look like in the next decade, I tell them about Elizabeth’s book.
Despite the overlap in our work, I had never met Elizabeth in person. I wanted to know how her reporting had changed the way she thinks about education — and, for that matter, writing. So we met for the first time at a coffee shop in Washington, DC, the other day. We ended up talking for four hours. In this excerpt, we trade notes on hate mail, unicycles at recess and the very real possibilities for reimagining teaching in America.
---
Amanda: Let’s talk first about the reaction to the book. Most people don’t realize that writing about teaching is like writing about gun control. It’s incredibly controversial.
Elizabeth: You’re stepping on landmines that you would never think exist. There are reading wars, math wars, class-size battles. There are so many different sides of the debate you’d need a detailed map to articulate them all.
Amanda: Was there something you thought would be controversial that hasn’t been?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I was concerned about how teachers would react to a book that argues we need to improve teaching. But in that sense it’s been utterly reasonable. Teachers really do want to be better—and so they’re excited to have a conversation for once about what they do every day with kids.
How about you? Any landmines?
Amanda: I have been called some awful names. I have gotten hate mail. And the funny thing is, I’ve written about abortion and terrorism, and I don’t get the same level of vitriol from those stories.
Elizabeth: What is the worst name?
Amanda: I had a teacher in Connecticut call me a cunt. So that was a low moment [laughs].
Elizabeth: I wish I could be surprised but I have the same emails to match your emails.
Amanda: One of the great things about your book is that it doesn’t fit neatly into either of the extremes of this polarized debate about education.
Elizabeth: The big shift for me as a reporter was when I started to encounter this research about teaching. This research was really different. It said, what’s going on inside a teacher’s mind? And in order to illuminate that, the researchers made these records of teaching—not just a video every day for a year but also records of students’ work plus the teachers’ journals plus interviews.
They had this huge forensic operation to get inside the space that is teaching—what the teacher is doing and how that’s affecting what the students are thinking and doing. And seeing those artifacts changed my understanding of teaching...
Click here to read the rest of this conversation on Medium.com.
Building a Better Teacher explains how teachers can get better in any country — and what it will take to finally treat the profession as an intellectual master craft instead of a charity. When people ask me what U.S. education reform should look like in the next decade, I tell them about Elizabeth’s book.
Despite the overlap in our work, I had never met Elizabeth in person. I wanted to know how her reporting had changed the way she thinks about education — and, for that matter, writing. So we met for the first time at a coffee shop in Washington, DC, the other day. We ended up talking for four hours. In this excerpt, we trade notes on hate mail, unicycles at recess and the very real possibilities for reimagining teaching in America.
---
Amanda: Let’s talk first about the reaction to the book. Most people don’t realize that writing about teaching is like writing about gun control. It’s incredibly controversial.
Elizabeth: You’re stepping on landmines that you would never think exist. There are reading wars, math wars, class-size battles. There are so many different sides of the debate you’d need a detailed map to articulate them all.
Amanda: Was there something you thought would be controversial that hasn’t been?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I was concerned about how teachers would react to a book that argues we need to improve teaching. But in that sense it’s been utterly reasonable. Teachers really do want to be better—and so they’re excited to have a conversation for once about what they do every day with kids.
How about you? Any landmines?
Amanda: I have been called some awful names. I have gotten hate mail. And the funny thing is, I’ve written about abortion and terrorism, and I don’t get the same level of vitriol from those stories.
Elizabeth: What is the worst name?
Amanda: I had a teacher in Connecticut call me a cunt. So that was a low moment [laughs].
Elizabeth: I wish I could be surprised but I have the same emails to match your emails.
Amanda: One of the great things about your book is that it doesn’t fit neatly into either of the extremes of this polarized debate about education.
Elizabeth: The big shift for me as a reporter was when I started to encounter this research about teaching. This research was really different. It said, what’s going on inside a teacher’s mind? And in order to illuminate that, the researchers made these records of teaching—not just a video every day for a year but also records of students’ work plus the teachers’ journals plus interviews.
They had this huge forensic operation to get inside the space that is teaching—what the teacher is doing and how that’s affecting what the students are thinking and doing. And seeing those artifacts changed my understanding of teaching...
Click here to read the rest of this conversation on Medium.com.
