Author: George Cassutto <nhhs@fred.net> Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:04:22 -0500
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 14:36:53 -0500
Hello Readers,
I would like to announce the future posting of a high school web project on Civil Rights in celebration of Black History Month. My 9th graders have done some research on a variety of black history topics, and we'll be posting our project in about a week (by the end of the first week of March). The URL will be posted to this forum, or you can check at the URL posted below in the sig file.
With the tightening of intellectual property rights both on the web and
within our school systems' guidelines on what can be posted to a school
website, I am finding that locating exciting images to help students
illustrate their work is one of the most challenging aspects of being a
school webmaster.
I have done my best to teach my students the need to respect these
property rights both to avoid liability and because it is the ethically
and morally right thing to do. Still, most of the images on the Civil
Rights movement are copyrighted to a news agency such as AP and UPI, and
while I have asked via e-mail for permission to use the photos for
educational purposes on the website, I have gotten either no response or
responses intended to generate sales of those images, and since we have
no budget for such an endeavor, I am not able to use these offers.
Knowing that we can't just hit the right mouse button and then "upload" anymore, I have instructed my students to develop their own sketches and take their own photographs of the conditions and events taking place around them to embellish their written work. But I am teaching very few 9th grade graphic artists, and since such work is painstakingly time-consuming, I can only help a small percentage of my students get something on the scanner or to develop something original through their own graphics programs.
If you know of a repository of free, public domain images regarding civil rights and black history, feel free to send me the URL. Also, any clarification on these issues would also be helpul, even though I have posted such a class for help in the past and been told that the days of downloading and posting without regard to authorship are over. And this may be to our pedgogical advantage. I am aware of the lessons we must teach our students about honesty and plagiarism. Of course, I want them to be creative and original, but we also would like to have access to resources that might allow us to illustrate our work without violating copyright.
Thanks for reading this far.
Take care,
George Cassutto
Teacher of Social Studies
North Hagerstown High School (MD)
http://www.fred.net/nhhs (Main Page)
http://www.fred.net/nhhs/html/cassutto.html (Personal page)
nhhs@fred.net
georgec@umd5.umd.edu
Author: Cheri C Grinyayev
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 22:09:58 -0600 (CST)
From: Everdell@aol.com > Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 10:55:39 -0500 (EST)
Besides, my own experience suggests, it is much rarer at the K-12 level
to be turned down because of your "race" or your gender.
I would love to try telling this to my mother, who is BF and almost 50.
Although she has a MA in Multicultural Education, she has yet to find a
decent job at the K-12 level. The problem is that while all of the
school systems have been impressed by her credentials on her paper, as
soon as they realize that she's black, she can kiss the job goodbye. My
mother has said that frankly she is tired of interviewing all together
because she is repeatedly asked questions that are not relevant to the
job, such as "How do you think the white students will react to you as a
black teacher?" The fact of the matter is that she is a qualified
teacher and should not be only classed as a black teacher. There is
always a complaint of a lack of qualified black teachers, but when these
predominantly white school systems come across one, they refuse to hire
her. My mother's experiences are far from isolated.
I fear that I will encounter the same kind of prejudice as I am a
graduate student finishing my MA in Russian Area Studies and in the Ph.D.
program in Russian History. When people see my CV, they assume that I'm
half-Russian and have a mental picture of the person who will appear
before them. (Actually, the last name is from ex-husband). In any case,
I am quick to tell people up front that I do not do
African-American/African history or women's history. I do not want to be
pigeonholed. My main fear is that if I do get a job after I finish my
Ph.D, it will be to fill some department's quota for a minority and a
female. I have never considered myself a minority and I feel that I
would not make a good representative of the minority population. What I
am trying to say is that I don't feel that I should be obligated to sit on minority
committees simply because others consider me to be "black." In reality,
I have no racial allegiances whatsoever and identify most closely with
people who are bi-racial/mixed.
Just my $.02.
Cheri C. Grinyayev
Author: "Bob Wheeler C.S.U."
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 23:42:15 -0600 (CST)
X-URL: http://www.bruin.ucla.edu/feature/Research/teaching.html
U.S. Faculty Survey Shows Interest in Teaching
Increasingly Outweighs Research
Posted: 9/09/96
College and university faculty increasingly are dedicating more time
and energy to teaching students and less to research despite a common
public perception otherwise. A new UCLA survey of the nations faculty
also indicates a growing interest in the issues of diversity and
multiculturalism in all aspects of faculty work.
Embracing these topics could reflect the burgeoning commitment to
students at a time of increasing student body diversity, explained
UCLA Professor Alexander Astin, co-author of the study and director of
the Higher Education Research Institute, which conducts the survey.
The survey found that 23 percent of all faculty polled choose topics
related to racial or ethnic minorities when they write or conduct
research. That compares with 18 percent in 1989-90, when the survey
officially became a triennial study. Thirty-nine percent reported
attending racial/cultural awareness workshops in the past two years,
compared with 27 percent in 1989.
These results are especially remarkable, given that most faculty teach
in fields where diversity and multiculturalism would not be topics of
central interest, Astin said.
The survey showed that a whopping 75 percent of the faculty polled
said their interests lean more toward teaching than research. A full
99 percent believe that being a good teacher is a top priority while
only 55 percent consider engaging in research to be a top priority.
The percentage of faculty members who spend five or more hours each
week on research dropped from 52 percent in 1989 to 44 percent in
1995. However, the percentage of faculty publishing journal articles
has remained constant and the percentage of faculty publishing book
chapters is up.
Clearly a strong emphasis on teaching does not diminish faculty
research productivity, said UCLA Assistant Professor Linda Sax,
associate director of HERI and lead author of the faculty study. It
may be that faculty are maintaining their productivity levels, but its
taking them less time to do so thanks to personal computers and to a
growing trend toward multiple-authored work.
The 1995-96 faculty study is the third of its kind to be conducted by
HERI, which is housed at UCLAs Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies. This latest study involved nearly 34,000
full-time faculty members at 384 two-year colleges and four-year
colleges and universities across the country.
According to the study, more of those polled are adopting a
student-centered teaching style than in past years. The use of
collaborative methods, such as group projects, is up, as is
cooperative learning. Lecturing, perhaps the most traditional form of
instruction, is declining, with the number of faculty who lecture
dropping from 56 percent in 1989 to 49 percent in 1995.
Todays faculty are adopting teaching styles that encourage students to
be more active participants in the learning process, Sax said. The use
of student-centered teaching methods is most common among women and
younger faculty, but has increased among all faculty in recent years.
Unfortunately, the increased commitment to students is not without its
price. The survey showed that the number of faculty reporting stress
resulting from students has increased by 22 percent over the studys
six years.
Among the other findings of note in the survey:
* Todays faculty are more likely to believe their institutions are
committed to diversity and multiculturalism, with 50 percent
believing creating a multicultural environment is a priority of
their college, compared with 40 percent in 1989. However, more
faculty perceive low levels of trust between minority student
groups and campus administrations than six years ago (37 percent,
up from 28 percent).
* Looking at gender differences, women were significantly more
stressed than men by nearly all measures, including lack of
personal time, household responsibilities, teaching loads and
subtle discrimination. However, subtle discrimination as a source
of stress showed the greatest decline since 1989 -- down 14
percent, most notably among women. While it is possible that
efforts to improve the climate for women in academe have been
effective, said Sax, the fact still remains that 34 percent of
women -- compared with 18 percent of men -- experience stress from
subtle discrimination.
* Salaries remain an issue for women, with female faculty earning an
average of 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male
colleagues. The same differential was reported six years ago. A
gender gap in salaries remains even when salaries are adjusted to
take womens typically lower academic rankings into account.
* The survey documents the much-discussed aging of American college
and university faculty, with 27 percent of all faculty reporting
being 55 or older, compared with 24 percent in 1989, and 64
percent being 45 or older, compared with 59 percent in 1989. Only
9 percent of all respondents are younger than 35.
The 1995-96 HERI faculty survey involved questionnaires completed by
59,933 faculty and administrators at 446 colleges and universities
nationwide. Of those, 33,986 questionnaires from full-time
undergraduate teaching faculty at 384 institutions were used to
compute the national norms. The numbers were adjusted statistically to
represent the nations total population of approximately 400,000
college and university faculty.
For more information about the survey, call Kit Mahoney at (310)
825-1925.
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Graduate Student
University of Minnesota
H-TEACH FYI: US Faculty Interested in Teaching [press
release]