Farm News 01-22-06
Sunday morning, after chores
SEX! (almost)
Tuesday morning, after the geese were fed and given fresh water, Bebe goose climbed into the sex tub. Humans have bath tubs which, at least by Southern Baptists, are not considered appropriate sites for sex, and geese have sex tubs. Domestic geese generally aren't very enthusiastic about swimming but they definitely prefer to mate in water. Here, their favorite erotic environment is a plastic tub about three feet long, two feet wide, and six inches deep. This year, I put their sex tub out on New Year's Day, thinking that they might enjoy the opportunity for an occasional cold weather quickie, but Tuesday morning was the first time I've seen them try to use it.
Bebe's mate is Butch, a very handsome gander but one with an attitude. When Bebe climbed into the tub Butch yelled the goose equivalent of “Whoopee” and jumped on top of her. Bebe seemed to think that she deserved flowers first. I suspect Butch of carrying a flask of peppermint schnapps under his wing and occasionally getting a bit loaded, so I watched to see if he knew the old adage, “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.” Either he didn't know that, didn't care, or was out of schnapps, because no bottle appeared. Instead he grabbed her by the back of the neck and started yanking her head back.
Bebe didn't care for this treatment and started yelling and raising hell. Sarge and Beth, the other two geese, who, like me, were standing there watching, immediately joined in the uproar, honking and screeching. Guy Noir, who was nearby, began gobbling and then Trusty started barking. 'Fro and Claudius, the roosters, both joined in with crows and snarls and the new black doe rabbit began singing an aria from Tristan und Isolde.
It's beginning. The shortest day has passed and now it is time to start thinking about spring and babies. The goats are already pregnant, they took care of that last month, but now the poultry mating season begins.
The fun starts with the male birds. Fresh hot running testosterone makes male birds think they are the toughest guys in the bar. It's amazing to me how males react to other species. The male turkeys, male ducks, male chickens, and male geese all fight or chase each other around but ignore the females. Watching all this makes me wonder if testosterone isn't an anti-civilization hormone. Estrogen driven national leaders are becoming more popular; maybe they will help save the world.
Why would a gander, a tom, a rooster, and a drake consider each other adversaries? Neither they nor the females show any signs of desiring to engage in miscegenation, so it isn't a battle for sex partners, unless they do this to impress their own females with their ability to protect and defend. It's too bad male birds aren't shaped in such a way that we could fit them with holsters and toy guns, I think they'd love them. I can easily imagine this bunch running around in the barnyard shouting, “Pow! You're dead!”
Education
The Kansas Constitution orders the legislature to provide for an appropriate education for all students. As most of the world knows, this state is locked in an on-going argument about whether Intelligent Design should be one of the things taught when providing an appropriate education. However, there is another issue that is possibly even more important. The question is, how much money must the legislature provide, and how is that money to be allocated to districts, in order to fund an appropriate education for each student.
The funding issue ended up before the Kansas Supreme Court, which ordered that the legislature spend more money on education. The immediate response from the flock of self-righteous was that the court was usurping the powers of the legislature. 'Activist judges', right here in Kansas! The conservatives in the legislature are outraged that the Supreme Court decided it has the authority to interpret the constitution.
One big argument is whether very small schools, which lack the economies of scale, should be given more money per student or forced to consolidate with other schools until they gain economy of scale. When you have a bunch of narrow-minded jackasses arguing over money it is almost impossible for them to see the true issues. The Supreme Court says that the small schools receive more money than they need and large schools need more money because they are dealing with more students from poverty backgrounds.
I am not certain that the poverty rate is higher in the cities than it is in the countryside. There is no shortage of low income families in this area. I am certain, though, that one of the reasons that it costs more to educate children from poverty backgrounds in large schools is because the schools are too damned big.
Walt, a neighbor who lives just down the road, had polio when he was six. His left arm is shriveled and useless, dangling from his shoulder. When in high school, Walt lettered two years in a row in football and even played basketball one season. They would tape his left arm to his chest to keep it out of his way and Walt would go out there and give it hell. He admits, though, that he was a terrible basketball player.
Walt went to a small school. They were happy to have a kid who would give it everything he had, even if he only had one arm, because there were barely enough kids to make up a team. Would Walt have been able to play in a school with 2,000 students? Would anyone have noticed him and seen that he was going to succeed regardless of what happened?
The idea of an 'economy of scale' with large schools is pure baloney. There might be an economy of scale in warehousing children, but if the goal is to educate them, every single one of them, then large schools are incredibly inefficient.
Barker and Gump wrote a book titled Big School, Small School in which they presented the results of their research into the differences between big and small schools. They noticed that small schools have as many football teams as big schools, and as many school newspapers and yearbooks. In a small school, though, there are barely enough students and teachers to keep everything running. Every person in a small school becomes valuable, even if they are dumb as a post or missing some limbs, because without them there might not be enough people to get the job done. Sadly, I have never met an educator who has read Big School, Small School.
Many times, I have sat in seminars sponsored by the Kansas Association of School Boards and the National Association of School Boards, and asked, “Where are the numbers that show an economy of scale in school size?” The answer has always been something to the effect, “Well, everybody knows that.” I am convinced that if you look at the full range of services that schools provide, especially education, instead of excluding everything except building costs, you will find that small schools are more efficient.
There are limits, of course. A three student school will have difficulty being efficient. The ideal size for K-8, at least, seems to be 200-250 students. In a school with 250 students it will be quite possible for every adult in the school to know the name of every child in the school, a situation which can greatly enhance student discipline and performance.
At the high school level the primary problem with small schools is that it is harder to put together a winning football team. Football is generally the most important product of a high school. When a school needs a new football coach the search starts, not for a teacher who can coach football, but for a football coach who can at least pretend to teach something. For ten years I tried to change teacher hiring procedures so that teaching position candidates would not be asked if they could coach something until after the hiring decision had been made. There wasn't a chance. Football trumps education every time.
Anyway, what it all cooks down to is this: I'll bet that dealing with the special problems presented by students who are living in poverty can be done more efficiently in small schools than in big schools, and by small school I mean a building with fewer than 300 students. Dividing up a warehouse into 'schools within a school' won't cut it. The object is to reach a point where every adult in the building knows the name of every child in the building. When that state is reached problems become more manageable and children stop falling through the cracks in the bureaucracy.
Book Reviews
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. I can only think of one or two people I know who might enjoy this book, but those few would enjoy it a lot, I think. It was written ten or twelve years ago, so it isn't as up to date with her thinking as Animals in Translation.
Since having West Nile virus I occasionally have patches of windmilling black and white bars appear in my visual field. They seldom amount to much, but occasionally they make it difficult to read. Grandin's book led me to see the similarity of my visual disturbances to the visual problems of a severely autistic young man I once knew.
Although the book is ostensibly about autism it shines a light into the darker corners of the effects of sensory and cognitive disorders and to the relationships between those disorders and animal behavior.
Harvest by Tess Gerritsen. This is a medical thriller about heart transplants. I thought the TV show ER was about doctors behaving badly, but the ones on TV are nothing compared to Gerritsen's docs. Killing children to obtain healthy hearts is a bit much. If you have need open heart surgery this book will convince you to take a gun with you into the OR.
SEX! (almost)
Tuesday morning, after the geese were fed and given fresh water, Bebe goose climbed into the sex tub. Humans have bath tubs which, at least by Southern Baptists, are not considered appropriate sites for sex, and geese have sex tubs. Domestic geese generally aren't very enthusiastic about swimming but they definitely prefer to mate in water. Here, their favorite erotic environment is a plastic tub about three feet long, two feet wide, and six inches deep. This year, I put their sex tub out on New Year's Day, thinking that they might enjoy the opportunity for an occasional cold weather quickie, but Tuesday morning was the first time I've seen them try to use it.
Bebe's mate is Butch, a very handsome gander but one with an attitude. When Bebe climbed into the tub Butch yelled the goose equivalent of “Whoopee” and jumped on top of her. Bebe seemed to think that she deserved flowers first. I suspect Butch of carrying a flask of peppermint schnapps under his wing and occasionally getting a bit loaded, so I watched to see if he knew the old adage, “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.” Either he didn't know that, didn't care, or was out of schnapps, because no bottle appeared. Instead he grabbed her by the back of the neck and started yanking her head back.
Bebe didn't care for this treatment and started yelling and raising hell. Sarge and Beth, the other two geese, who, like me, were standing there watching, immediately joined in the uproar, honking and screeching. Guy Noir, who was nearby, began gobbling and then Trusty started barking. 'Fro and Claudius, the roosters, both joined in with crows and snarls and the new black doe rabbit began singing an aria from Tristan und Isolde.
It's beginning. The shortest day has passed and now it is time to start thinking about spring and babies. The goats are already pregnant, they took care of that last month, but now the poultry mating season begins.
The fun starts with the male birds. Fresh hot running testosterone makes male birds think they are the toughest guys in the bar. It's amazing to me how males react to other species. The male turkeys, male ducks, male chickens, and male geese all fight or chase each other around but ignore the females. Watching all this makes me wonder if testosterone isn't an anti-civilization hormone. Estrogen driven national leaders are becoming more popular; maybe they will help save the world.
Why would a gander, a tom, a rooster, and a drake consider each other adversaries? Neither they nor the females show any signs of desiring to engage in miscegenation, so it isn't a battle for sex partners, unless they do this to impress their own females with their ability to protect and defend. It's too bad male birds aren't shaped in such a way that we could fit them with holsters and toy guns, I think they'd love them. I can easily imagine this bunch running around in the barnyard shouting, “Pow! You're dead!”
Education
The Kansas Constitution orders the legislature to provide for an appropriate education for all students. As most of the world knows, this state is locked in an on-going argument about whether Intelligent Design should be one of the things taught when providing an appropriate education. However, there is another issue that is possibly even more important. The question is, how much money must the legislature provide, and how is that money to be allocated to districts, in order to fund an appropriate education for each student.
The funding issue ended up before the Kansas Supreme Court, which ordered that the legislature spend more money on education. The immediate response from the flock of self-righteous was that the court was usurping the powers of the legislature. 'Activist judges', right here in Kansas! The conservatives in the legislature are outraged that the Supreme Court decided it has the authority to interpret the constitution.
One big argument is whether very small schools, which lack the economies of scale, should be given more money per student or forced to consolidate with other schools until they gain economy of scale. When you have a bunch of narrow-minded jackasses arguing over money it is almost impossible for them to see the true issues. The Supreme Court says that the small schools receive more money than they need and large schools need more money because they are dealing with more students from poverty backgrounds.
I am not certain that the poverty rate is higher in the cities than it is in the countryside. There is no shortage of low income families in this area. I am certain, though, that one of the reasons that it costs more to educate children from poverty backgrounds in large schools is because the schools are too damned big.
Walt, a neighbor who lives just down the road, had polio when he was six. His left arm is shriveled and useless, dangling from his shoulder. When in high school, Walt lettered two years in a row in football and even played basketball one season. They would tape his left arm to his chest to keep it out of his way and Walt would go out there and give it hell. He admits, though, that he was a terrible basketball player.
Walt went to a small school. They were happy to have a kid who would give it everything he had, even if he only had one arm, because there were barely enough kids to make up a team. Would Walt have been able to play in a school with 2,000 students? Would anyone have noticed him and seen that he was going to succeed regardless of what happened?
The idea of an 'economy of scale' with large schools is pure baloney. There might be an economy of scale in warehousing children, but if the goal is to educate them, every single one of them, then large schools are incredibly inefficient.
Barker and Gump wrote a book titled Big School, Small School in which they presented the results of their research into the differences between big and small schools. They noticed that small schools have as many football teams as big schools, and as many school newspapers and yearbooks. In a small school, though, there are barely enough students and teachers to keep everything running. Every person in a small school becomes valuable, even if they are dumb as a post or missing some limbs, because without them there might not be enough people to get the job done. Sadly, I have never met an educator who has read Big School, Small School.
Many times, I have sat in seminars sponsored by the Kansas Association of School Boards and the National Association of School Boards, and asked, “Where are the numbers that show an economy of scale in school size?” The answer has always been something to the effect, “Well, everybody knows that.” I am convinced that if you look at the full range of services that schools provide, especially education, instead of excluding everything except building costs, you will find that small schools are more efficient.
There are limits, of course. A three student school will have difficulty being efficient. The ideal size for K-8, at least, seems to be 200-250 students. In a school with 250 students it will be quite possible for every adult in the school to know the name of every child in the school, a situation which can greatly enhance student discipline and performance.
At the high school level the primary problem with small schools is that it is harder to put together a winning football team. Football is generally the most important product of a high school. When a school needs a new football coach the search starts, not for a teacher who can coach football, but for a football coach who can at least pretend to teach something. For ten years I tried to change teacher hiring procedures so that teaching position candidates would not be asked if they could coach something until after the hiring decision had been made. There wasn't a chance. Football trumps education every time.
Anyway, what it all cooks down to is this: I'll bet that dealing with the special problems presented by students who are living in poverty can be done more efficiently in small schools than in big schools, and by small school I mean a building with fewer than 300 students. Dividing up a warehouse into 'schools within a school' won't cut it. The object is to reach a point where every adult in the building knows the name of every child in the building. When that state is reached problems become more manageable and children stop falling through the cracks in the bureaucracy.
Book Reviews
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. I can only think of one or two people I know who might enjoy this book, but those few would enjoy it a lot, I think. It was written ten or twelve years ago, so it isn't as up to date with her thinking as Animals in Translation.
Since having West Nile virus I occasionally have patches of windmilling black and white bars appear in my visual field. They seldom amount to much, but occasionally they make it difficult to read. Grandin's book led me to see the similarity of my visual disturbances to the visual problems of a severely autistic young man I once knew.
Although the book is ostensibly about autism it shines a light into the darker corners of the effects of sensory and cognitive disorders and to the relationships between those disorders and animal behavior.
Harvest by Tess Gerritsen. This is a medical thriller about heart transplants. I thought the TV show ER was about doctors behaving badly, but the ones on TV are nothing compared to Gerritsen's docs. Killing children to obtain healthy hearts is a bit much. If you have need open heart surgery this book will convince you to take a gun with you into the OR.
posted by The Geezer at 8:27 AM
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