I am making presentations in a "volunteer" effort to share what
I've seen.
Here's my basic presentation
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Hi, thank you for allowing me to speak with the people who nurture the
future of our country.
I'm a tutor who prepares students for SAT.
I have a wide variety of students but I noticed the following
Some hate math.
Some learn by talking about the subject, social learning
Others learn when I make it a story and they can classify it
Others learn math when it is immersed in something they love, like
horses or football or action (learn by doing, even though it's
mental doing) For example, how do you put out a fire, by shooting the
top of the fire and working down, or by going from bottom up?
I call this style "Looking for Patterns." I look for the pattern of
thinking in the students, I show them how I find a pattern and then they
try it themselves. The SAT is just a bunch of patterns.
I also realized that it isn't I who creates success in the test or in
the improved homework. It's the student who has a support team,
particularly when the parents make an effort to participate.
EXAMPLE -- A PARENT COULD SAY: "Oh, you're learning about
stalactites and stalagmites? I remember that… let's see, c is for
ceiling and g is for ground." StationERy and stationary ..
"A is in Stand and ER is in Letter. What else do I remember that
might help you?"
Much of memory and learning is based on genetics… the genes might not
be YOURs, parent, it might be a grandparent or uncle or aunt. But
somewhere in your family is a pattern. Your child might benefit from
learning how you learned the capital of California or how many neutrons
are in carbon or how to spell "receive.".... Or how to translate
"recibir."
You can create an environment of continued learning, lifelong learning,
because WE HAVE TO … Thomas Friedman says so, the competition from
India and China demand it, most of today's students will have 5 careers,
and what they study in college will not have much connected to what they
will be doing seven or ten years from now. We need to be role models
for lifelong learning.
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I'm going to pause for a moment for a commercial.
I work with Peter, at a language school in fort Lauderdale
Peter was a high school teacher at a small school in New York.
There's a group called Essential Schools and he's going to talk for
a few minutes now about the power he believes in and has seen in a
concept called "Authentic Learning." He has lived it, I have
seen it and recorded the power of small schools and the power of
connecting school work with real world problems and internships. It is
not new, it goes back to John Dewey and the progressive movement of this
country who recall that children learned by doing on farms and in
professions before there was mandatory public schooling.
I've asked Peter to give an example of authentic learning and to give
you an example of his experience as a teacher in a high school here in
Florida as a contrast.
You are then invited to talk with Peter after these presentations and
I'll conclude with a description of the Double Moon shot
Peter….
(then PETER talks about his history about why he loves teaching at CES
and why he isn't currently be a teacher in public schools… but his
energy as a teacher should encourage interested parents to bring their
teens over to CES and ask the students to volunteer as conversation
coaches to our students)
/////////////////////
Thank you Peter,
Now I'll continue speaking…
…………………
This presentation will continue for another 4 minutes with some quotes,
but for those who are tuning out, it's okay, ....... , you want
something sequential or you want something that converges or you want
structure. You'll find it on the free CD that you have at the
back. THIS IS THE POINT OF THIS PRESENTATION>>>> I'm HERE TO URGE
YOU TO PICK UP A CD AND LISTEN TO IT…. Pick up the CDs, call me.
954 OH MUCHO tonight you might learn something about what you
might do in the Double Moon Shot. I might know someone who has the
key that your child needs…. To find his or her passion,….
We're in a struggle for our country, Thomas Friedman points it out, we
have a moon shot effort and it started when Bill Gates offered the first
million dollars to break up a school into pieces with 9 principals and a
curriculum based on rigor, relationships and relevance… the new three
Rs.
You can participate in that work, parent, and I invite you to visit my
web site Teachers To Teachers.com and get tips about SAT prep.
Math for Artists.com, ..... Lookforpatterns.com.... And other web
sites... But this is a struggle for all we love. Italy went through
a struggle over outsourcing and survived, somewhat, by creating a
mystique, they sold some of their land to foreigners who propped up
their economy. But soon Chinese and Indians will make the next Ferrari
and pasta at half the price and what will Italians do? They'll
import as much as we do…
It begins with learning another language
It begins tonight with a commitment to lifelong learning.
It began when you said, probably four or five years ago that you wanted
to get involved in your school PTA. Because you are the agent of
change and improvement. You, the parents, the original teachers.
Social intelligence is the beginning. Listen to the two CDs by Pat
Harris. Find Goleman's work and read the work on Look For
Patterns.com Social intelligence is more important than
I don't want to put you off by saying "listen to the CDs first,"
but it will help you identify what YOU need and what YOU can contribute
to the moon shot, to the effort to make better schools and give your
child the best education available at this time. You don't have to
move to a small school. You do have to find a way to shape the US
culture that is inside our children's heads and make it a global
culture. Social intelligence begins when your kid sits up when they
hear Peter's accent and become curious and figure out how to engage
him in conversation.
Social intelligence begins when your kids identify and pursue their
passions, no matter what the teachers put on the curriculum. Social
intelligence begins when you take the work of Dennis Littky and repeat
Littky's name enough to get change in the classroom. It is you, not
Littky and not McCrea who has the power. And even if the classroom
doesn't change, your child changes because he or she knows that there
are other ways to prepare for college and life. You have podcasts
here, in this room, ready to deliver concepts, lives, biographies and
vocabulary … the power of one is in you, and it's not anyone else
who can move you forward.
I have no illusions that I can with these speeches change the downward
course of history that pulls, like entropy (such a cool word) our
country and western civilization to a lower level. However, I am one
drop. And you are additional drops because you will talk about these
concepts with your families. And there are other tutors who realize,
like Merlin did, that each student is a future Arthur, a potential
Arthur, needing the right information and encouragement to find the
sleeper inside who one day will awake.
Thank you for allowing me to indulge in hyperbole. (wow, another cool
word) post the kitchen words, talk like that dude McLaughlin on
Channel 2, record and play back segments (no longer than 30 seconds at
first) of stuff from TV. Learn from the Internet. Everything found
here came from the internet and that's where you got it … feel free
to make copies.
Let's learn a little poetry.
We have three segments
Paul Revere
They saw two lanterns in the north church tower
They knew this was to be a fateful hour
For a man to ride and to alarm
Every village and every farm
To awaken them and call to arm
It was the ride of Paul revere.
This is seriously good rap.
I wonder if 200 years ahead
If we will ride or if we'll stay in bed
If faith and freedom within us die
And then we hear the midnight cry
And the hoof beats crossing that moonlit sky
Will we ride with Paul revere?
The purpose of education
Is to see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
If you have lost someone recently or if your dead mentor is still
guiding you, then these words are for you
From the Lion King
They live in you
They live in me
They're watching over everything we see
In every creature
In every star
In your reflection
They live in me.
Thank you.
Steve McCrea
Tutor
Box 30555
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33303
954 646 8246
S2314@tmail.com
Teachers To Teachers.com
There are some of the students at my school that need to practice
English with local people… how about your children? How about you?
--s2314@tmail.com
Steve McCrea 954-OH-MUCHO 954.646.8246
Book editing, marketing design
Tutoring
www.LookForPatterns.com
Supporter of the Double Moon Shot (proposed by Thomas Friedman) energy
and education at www.CDsForParents.com
very year more than a million college-bound high school students spend a Saturday morning taking the SAT. In 2001 the University of California system, led by Richard Atkinson, then its president, threatened to change that by replacing the SAT with a test that measured a student's mastery of advanced high school-level math, did not contain verbal-analogy questions, and included an essay. Since the 
riting, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. 
ll the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 
he Irish lady can say, that to-day is every day. Caesar can say that every day is to-day and they say that every day is as they say. 
sychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem. 