Just got shared to me on Facebook and I felt like I had to post it! Make sure you have your tissues ready...

To connect it in some way to "education":
This is a great example of how integrating children with disabilities into mainstream schools affects both sets of children! I am all for getting these kids together because they can all learn from each other, many times without any prompting at all. Kids naturally want to play with other kids, they have the ability to look past physical defects and see "what's on the inside". And you know what? Conner is a pretty cool kid, and so is his brother Cayden.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/boy-cerebral-palsy-competes-triathlon-16909373

As part of my first assignment, I read an article entitled "Cognitive Consequences of Formal and Informal Education" published in 1973 by Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole. It raised a very interesting point, one which remains under utilized (but at least recognized) to this day.

Scribner and Cole observed that in schools, the primary information sharing tool, language, contrasts with the more natural observational learning to which humans are accustomed. People are hard-wired to be able to imitate something by just watching and mimicking someone's movements, something S and C called "observational learning."

In most schools today, a student's "information bandwidth" (my new term) remains untapped to its fullest potential. While schools are getting better at this (what with SMART Boards and PowerPoints) I believe there is still a ways to go.

All it takes is a little extra effort on everyone's part and teachers will be able to triple their students' information bandwitdth.

Schools need to refocus on getting their kids out of the classroom and into physically interacting with the environment about which they are meant to be learning. Granted, this is a little more difficult to plan and could cost some more money, but creating an outdoor learning area is certainly possible (check out the Outdoor Wilderness Learning Zones project to help schools do just that!) as are field trips to local living history centers.

Another option only requires a computer lab! Most of the world's museums have interactive tours and exhibits which put kids inside the exhibits themselves. Many smaller museums are happy to arrange guest speakers to visit and/or a guided virtual tour. See some links below I found after 15 minutes of research!!

The BBC did a great job of creating a 360 degree panorama of Stonehenge!

My fellow cadet and classmate David Holmes and I went off to explore some interesting Oxford landmarks. We made it into the Sheldonian, which is where Oxford graduates receive their degrees (in a ceremony almost completely in Latin), and we also got to explore the Old Bodleian, the Radcliffe Camera, and the tunnels connecting the two!

Can't wait for another great day tomorrow!

Sincerely,
James McManus
The Oxford Observer
Sierra Company, Class of 2016

What a busy day today!

Started with a "Welcome and Introduction" brief by OSAP's President Dr. Robert Schuettinger was surprisingly both substantive and funny! He did a great job keeping everyone's attention throughout his briefing.

Dr. Schuettinger delved into a great amount of detail concerning the devaluation of degrees from institutions of higher learning.
- In 1960, 45.1 percent of high school grads entered college.
- In October of 1997, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported a record high of 67 percent!
- As of October 2012, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that 66.2 percent of the graduating high school class of 2012 were in college.

The more people who go to college, the more degrees are issued to people in their early twenties as they enter the job market. The rest is simple economics: flood the market with product (or in this case graduates), prices (salaries) go down as the demand decreases. More people = more competition for lower paying jobs.

So then what's so special about going to college? What makes you stand out to your employers? Dr. Schuettingertold an interesting story about an anniversary party of all the female Rhodes scholars. Each of these wealthy and now significantly influential people were given a survey to complete in their rooms while unbiased by peer pressure. When answering the question, "Do you think your employers value the institution at which you received your degree?", they unanimously answered "No". They realized that the skills they attained at school were much more important than the actual degree they achieved. Herein lies what should be the new focus of higher education: learning applicable real-world skills which can be marketable in a scarce job market.

The good Dr. Schuettinger also made a few memorable comments, including:
"Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts." - Talleyrand
"You have to do a little walking in Oxford. I personally hate walking, but do as I say, not as I do."
"You have to go out there and meet people. Some of them can be annoying, others may deserve to be slaughtered, but still it's important."

He also explained the difference between normally colleges and Oxford, including important things to keep in mind about Tutors and the Tutorial system.

Overall, it was a great way to start our first day!

More to come about the first day later,
James McManus
The Oxford Observer
Sierra Company, Class of 2016

I recently watched two different TED videos (below) on the blog Collective Evolution that play off each other nicely. The first was by Sir Ken Robinson, whose talk has been viewed over 5,000,000 times on YouTube and many more on TED's website. Sir Robinson raised some interesting points about mavericks who, going through the system now, would now have been classified as ADHD or with some other learning disorder. The second was by 13 year old kid named Logan whose parents decided to pull out of traditional schooling after they saw Sir Robinson's video.

Most of the schools around the world today are, as Sir Robinson puts it, modeled after the industrial revolution. "The Arts", the subjects most likely to get you a well-paying job (by today's standards), are always pushed to the bottom of the list. This is because society forgets to value happiness and healthiness, something Logan has been put back in touch with. So how do we solve this problem? One word: individualism.

America is often thought to be similar to the Roman Empire in many different ways, including in their far-reaching influence and patterns of societal development. The Roman Empire cannot boast to having as many academic innovators as their Greek predecessors. This is surprising considering the Greeks even had their own Dark Ages, where they lapsed into a sort of post-literate world without a written language after the Dorian invasion around 1200 BC. Why then did the Greeks produce so many notable academic pioneers?

While the Roman culture was very much a collectivist culture, the Greeks were champions of individualism. Nowhere is this more evident than in their naming structures.

Roman names had three parts: a praenomen (child name), a nomen (family name) and a cognomen (nickname). There were only about 10 praenomen in the entire Roman world, so as a result they were abbreviated with one letter. The nomen was a family name, passed down throughout generations. "Julius" for example, is the nomen of Julius Caesar (whose full name is Gaius Julius Caesar, or G. Julius Caesar). The cognomen, or nickname, was generally given to one person because of a feat or physical feature and was then passed down to his children and other descendants. "Brutus" ("brute" or "dullard") is a great example of a cognomen, given to Lucius Junius because he apparently feigned stupidity to avoid his uncle Tarquin's wrath. Females took the feminine form of their family name and were differentiated by words which would indicate which number child she was ("Julia Tertia" would have been Caesar's third daughter). In complete contrast, Greek names were individual to each person and passed down only on occasion.

It would stand to reason then, that individualizing education is the road to a more successful system, but that's common sense, right? It would stand to reason that we have to redirect the focus of education from comparing different students' standardized test scores to seeing how many innovators come from each system.

The question then is the biggest one facing educators, parents and society today: "How?"

Yours truly,
James McManus
The Oxford Observer
Sierra Company, Class of 2016

I am here! It hardly seems real in some senses, but in others it's all too real. Having never done what people consider to be a typical "college lifestyle," the whole cooking and maintenance thing is quite foreign to me. I hope I shall be adjusted promptly, otherwise I may run into problems when dealing with both rigorous academics and the confusion accompanying living in a small city.

Pictures of my flat will come later, as will a general rundown of the first full day's activities!

Yesterday my aunt, Libby, helped me find the right place and get where I needed to be, giving me a crash course in Oxford Colleges as well as grocery shopping in the UK.

I moved in and met my roommates after perusing our student handbook which deals with everything from defrosting the freezer to how to write a good tutorial paper and RSVP to formal invitations. My flat is right on the River Thames which has swollen with all the recent rain and flooding, but luckily I'm on the fourth floor so all is good.

The roommate I share a room with, Duncan, is from Canada, which makes things "aboot" as interesting as they can be. The other flatmates are from California (Kyle who goes to Wheaton in Illinois) and Michigan (Patrick who goes to Ogelthorpe in Atlanta). They're all good guys and it will be fun to see how everything works out between us as the semester goes on.

Today I get my Bodlein Library card, which I am greatly looking forward to! I'm excited to start studying and learning (as nerdy as that sounds) and can't wait to see what I'll find out about education this semester!!!

Sincerely,

James McManus

The Oxford Observer

Sierra Company, Class of 2016

What a great way to start my experience at Oxford! I spent a few days (Friday night until Tuesday morning) with my cousins near Dorking, Surrey. We figured out that it has been two years since I've seen them and they have all grown so much in the time that I was gone! I had a lot of fun getting to know them again and having some fun along the way. We went on quite a few errands that I needed to get done for Oxford later today, things like getting a bank account, mobile phone, a bicycle, and a railcard. Fingers crossed we haven't forgotten anything.

I have also been learning about the British education system, which prides itself in being apocalyptically difficult for anyone to understand, even if you've grown up in it! Essentially, their system has years (instead of grades) and has many different levels of tests along the way to judge a student's progress (like GCSEs, SATs, A-levels, and O-levels). Below is a quick rundown of part of what I've learned.

(American = British)
Key-Stage One
Preschool = Reception
Kindergarten = Year One
First Grade = Year Two
Key-Stage Two
Second Grade = Year Three (First Form)
Third Grade = Year Four (Lower Second Form)
Fourth Grade = Year Five (Upper Second Form)
Fifth Grade = Year Six (Lower Third Form)
Sixth Grade = Year Seven (Upper Third Form)
Seventh Grade = Year Eight (Lower Fourth Form)
Eighth Grade = Year Nine (Upper Fourth Form)
Freshman = Year Ten (Lower Fifth Form)
Sophomore = Year Eleven (Upper Fifth Form)
Junior = Year Twelve (Lower Sixth Form)
Senior = Year Thirteen (Upper Sixth Form)
*Years are based on age, similar to grades.

There are also several different classifications of schools: Junior, Primary, Secondary, Private, Public, State, etc. These can rather annoyingly overlap and cause a great deal of confusion, even to those who were raised in the system. There's also a dizzying hierarchy of houses and even a religious system and more within the already fairly ridiculous structure.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go observe some classes in the Surrey Hills Church of England Primary school, in Westcott. After being combined recently with another school at a different site, it now houses up to Year Six (grade 5) but curiously has several classes with both Year Three and Four in the same room, as well as two Year Five and Six classrooms. Because the children are split up into ability groups for maths, the age difference doesn't matter and the school can fit more students into classes.

A large problem I heard about was the sweeping changes in curriculum which happen pretty much every time a new government comes to power. With new Education Ministers comes new lessons for children and teachers alike. However, the main problem a few teachers saw with education is the lack of parent involvement in their child's education, particularly in state schools. Many struggling children lack the support at home to stress the value of education and encourage a culture which values an education.

The British system also has an interesting Special Education system, not quite as extensive as their American counterpart. This is mainly due to the fact that it is not as easy to classify a child as "Special Needs" in England as it is in the US.

I can’t wait to explore this system further as I progress throughout my term!


Yours truly,
James McManus
"The Oxford Observer"
Sierra Company, Class of 2016

I stare at the TV without really even registering what I'm watching. Sheldon Cooper rants on about how uncooked tapioca pudding can kill you. A funny commercial featuring a Thanksgiving Day turkey being thrown across a table.

It's 2300, the night before one of the most exciting journeys of my life begins. A semester studying "Comparative Education" and the
"Sociology of Education" at Oxford University: such a fantastic opportunity. The pressure is on to ensure I make the most of it.

Throughout my experience, I will keep a journal detailing my exploits at Oxford and across England. Please feel free to check back often as I will take care to upload pictures and anecdotes from my travels. I should be able to update from my phone, but we'll see if that will actually work!

I'm looking forward to the adventure, but I'm going to miss my friends and family back here in good old Mendham, New Jersey, and my classmates and company-mates in Charleston, South Carolina. I can't wait, however, to see my friends and family in England again (for the first time in almost two years) and make even more friends.

I made it through knob year: I can make it through anything. Bring it on!

Sincerely,
James McManus
"The Oxford Observer"
Sierra Company, Class of 2016