Voices and Visions

FIRST YEAR IN RIYADH ENDS -- SUMMER AWAITS IN IOWA

iowamike21@hotmail.com

The 2008-09 school year ends this week, then it's off to Iowa and Arizona for the summer, with a stop in Hollywood to visit Matt as well. We leave Riyadh on June 18 and will head back for the new school year on Aug. 6. In the meantime, we hope to have a productive summer visiting family and friends.

NO PASSAGE TO INDIA

mikekielkopf@hotmail.com

MARY AND I returned from snowy Iowa to sandy Riyadh in late December 2008, a bit earlier than planned, thanks to the indifference displayed by the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. Etihad moved our flight from Abu Dhabi to Delhi back four hours -- but without telling us or our travel agent -- and so we missed our connection to Vadodara and our friend's wedding. Once again we realized how foolish we were to believe we would show up at a particular place at a particular time just because some airline let us buy tickets and plan an itinerary. It somehow seemed a fitting finale for 2008.

But back we are in Saudi Arabia, ready to see what surprises await in 2009. We'll let ya know...

ON TO RIYADH - mike kielkopf

iowamike21@hotmail.com or mikekielkopf@hotmail.com

AFTER TWO interesting years in Venezuela, Mary and I have moved on to Saudi Arabia and the American International School of Riyadh (K-12 student body of about 1,000). Mary is teaching 4th grade and I'm teaching 10th and 11th grade English. We arrived in Riyadh on Aug. 6, and our shipment caught up with us two weeks later. 

So far we've been really busy getting acclimated at school and learning to find our way around Riyadh. We've driven in Cairo, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Bombay, Athens and many other places around the world, but we're finding Riyadh's wild drivers and maze-like road system a worthy challenge. (I say "we," but of course, Mary -- like the rest of the women in Saudi Arabia -- is not allowed to drive here.)

Still, we've managed to find excellent supermarkets, electronics shops and malls. Products from the U.S. are everywhere and are reasonably priced. We left the world's cheapest gasoline in Venezuela (15 cents per gallon) for the world's second cheapest gasoline here: 40 cents per gallon.

We have a 10-day Ramadan-Eid holiday from Sept. 23 through Oct. 3, then our winter break begins early, on Dec. 4. We should be back in Iowa for a holiday visit in time for supper on Dec. 5. So keep the meat loaf and cornbread warm...

Things are going well in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so far. We'll keep you updated...

***

THE SUMMER of 2008 saw Mary and me drive from Waterloo, Iowa, to Mount Rushmore, then on to Jackson, Wyoming, where we spent a week on a wagon train adventure in the Teton National Forest. From there we drove to Los Angeles where we visited Matt for a week. He moved recently from the UCLA-Westwood area of LA to Hollywood where he now works for an Academy-Award winning sound production studio. It was a busy but exciting summer...

Meanwhile, my sixth book -- KINNICK-the novel -- is still on sale at Iowa Book in Iowa City (among other bookstores), and online at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, lulu.com, and most other online booksellers. You can preview the book here: http://iowamike21.typepad.com/kinnickthenovel/

In early August 2007, Mike and his wife, Mary, returned for their second year as members of the teaching staff at Colegio Internacional de Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela. Mike is again serving as chair of the English Department while continuing the student newspaper launched last year and coaching. Mary will once again help sponsor a variety of activities, from International Day to Community Service projects, along with teaching 4th grade.

In May of 2005 Mike completed his contract as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Jacksonville University (Fla.). He has taught for 23 years in Florida, Iowa, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and now Venezuela. He is also an award-winning journalist, working for 10 years as a daily newspaper reporter and editor in addition to recently publishing his first novel. He has also published five non-fiction books.

In the summer of 2006 Mike completed his tenure as head coach of the Weyburn Beavers college summer baseball team in Saskatchewan, Canada. Mike's brother, Blaine, served as assistant coach. Mike, a former scout for the Kansas City Royals, now has a career coaching record of 334-298. His playing career includes starting at second base for the Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes and playing in the College World Series in Omaha. Mike has coached baseball in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in adition to Canada and the U.S.

Before arriving in Saskatchewan, Mike was working as a freelance writer in Casa Grande, Arizona. Among his clients were a national magazine covering college and university adjunct professors, a regional trade magazine for dental professionals, a weekly newspaper in Louisiana, a fitness magazine serving the state of Arizona, and an online newspaper published in Hyderabad, India.

Mike has been honored for outstanding teaching by Tufts and Iowa State universities, and he has been included in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. His editorials were named best in the U.S. in the William Allen White-U of Kansas competition. Mike has also earned writing awards from Writer's Digest magazine, the Associated Press, the Illinois Press Association and the Education Writers Association of the United States and Canada. And he was recently selected for the 2007 edition of the Marquis Who's Who in American Education and the current 60th edition of the internationally recognized Who's Who in America.

In addition to college baseball, Mike also played freshman football for the Hawkeyes and two years of minor league pro football in the Northern States League. He plays basketball regularly and hikes with his wife, Mary. Their son, Matt, earned his BSc. (with Honors) from De Montfort University in Leicester, England, in July of 2007. Matt plans to begin his professional career soon in the field of sound and recording technology.

You may not agree with what Mike writes here, but his ideas may inspire your own thought, and thinking is good.

In early August 2007, Mike and his wife, Mary, returned for their second year as members of the teaching staff at Colegio Internacional de Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela. Mike is again serving as chair of the English Department while continuing the student newspaper launched last year and coaching. Mary will once again help sponsor a variety of activities, from International Day to Community Service projects, along with teaching 4th grade.

In May of 2005 Mike completed his contract as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Jacksonville University (Fla.). He has taught for 23 years in Florida, Iowa, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and now Venezuela. He is also an award-winning journalist, working for 10 years as a daily newspaper reporter and editor in addition to recently publishing his first novel. He has also published five non-fiction books.

In the summer of 2006 Mike completed his tenure as head coach of the Weyburn Beavers college summer baseball team in Saskatchewan, Canada. Mike's brother, Blaine, served as assistant coach. Mike, a former scout for the Kansas City Royals, now has a career coaching record of 334-298. His playing career includes starting at second base for the Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes and playing in the College World Series in Omaha. Mike has coached baseball in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in adition to Canada and the U.S.

Before arriving in Saskatchewan, Mike was working as a freelance writer in Casa Grande, Arizona. Among his clients were a national magazine covering college and university adjunct professors, a regional trade magazine for dental professionals, a weekly newspaper in Louisiana, a fitness magazine serving the state of Arizona, and an online newspaper published in Hyderabad, India.

Mike has been honored for outstanding teaching by Tufts and Iowa State universities, and he has been included in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. His editorials were named best in the U.S. in the William Allen White-U of Kansas competition. Mike has also earned writing awards from Writer's Digest magazine, the Associated Press, the Illinois Press Association and the Education Writers Association of the United States and Canada. And he was recently selected for the 2007 edition of the Marquis Who's Who in American Education and the current 60th edition of the internationally recognized Who's Who in America.

In addition to college baseball, Mike also played freshman football for the Hawkeyes and two years of minor league pro football in the Northern States League. He plays basketball regularly and hikes with his wife, Mary. Their son, Matt, earned his BSc. (with Honors) from De Montfort University in Leicester, England, in July of 2007. Matt plans to begin his professional career soon in the field of sound and recording technology.

You may not agree with what Mike writes here, but his ideas may inspire your own thought, and thinking is good.

In early August 2007, Mike and his wife, Mary, returned for their second year as members of the teaching staff at Colegio Internacional de Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela. Mike is again serving as chair of the English Department while continuing the student newspaper launched last year and coaching. Mary will once again help sponsor a variety of activities, from International Day to Community Service projects, along with teaching 4th grade.

In May of 2005 Mike completed his contract as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Jacksonville University (Fla.). He has taught for 23 years in Florida, Iowa, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and now Venezuela. He is also an award-winning journalist, working for 10 years as a daily newspaper reporter and editor in addition to recently publishing his first novel. He has also published five non-fiction books.

In the summer of 2006 Mike completed his tenure as head coach of the Weyburn Beavers college summer baseball team in Saskatchewan, Canada. Mike's brother, Blaine, served as assistant coach. Mike, a former scout for the Kansas City Royals, now has a career coaching record of 334-298. His playing career includes starting at second base for the Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes and playing in the College World Series in Omaha. Mike has coached baseball in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in adition to Canada and the U.S.

Before arriving in Saskatchewan, Mike was working as a freelance writer in Casa Grande, Arizona. Among his clients were a national magazine covering college and university adjunct professors, a regional trade magazine for dental professionals, a weekly newspaper in Louisiana, a fitness magazine serving the state of Arizona, and an online newspaper published in Hyderabad, India.

Mike has been honored for outstanding teaching by Tufts and Iowa State universities, and he has been included in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. His editorials were named best in the U.S. in the William Allen White-U of Kansas competition. Mike has also earned writing awards from Writer's Digest magazine, the Associated Press, the Illinois Press Association and the Education Writers Association of the United States and Canada. And he was recently selected for the 2007 edition of the Marquis Who's Who in American Education and the current 60th edition of the internationally recognized Who's Who in America.

In addition to college baseball, Mike also played freshman football for the Hawkeyes and two years of minor league pro football in the Northern States League. He plays basketball regularly and hikes with his wife, Mary. Their son, Matt, earned his BSc. (with Honors) from De Montfort University in Leicester, England, in July of 2007. Matt plans to begin his professional career soon in the field of sound and recording technology.

You may not agree with what Mike writes here, but his ideas may inspire your own thought, and thinking is good.

Speaking of Writing...

Remember when you were learning to speak? No? Then maybe you remember watching your child -- or someone's child -- learning to speak. Either way, no doubt you fondly recall how the adult teacher presented the grammar of the English language in all its nuances in order to facilitate the acquisition of spoken language by the young learner. You recall the instruction regarding the proper formation of sentences: "A sentence must have a subject and a predicate. The subject must be a noun or prounoun (the name of a person, place or thing or the word that represents that person, place or thing), and the predicate must be a verb, a word that shows action or state of being, such as 'is'...."

You don't remember that? People don't learn to speak by first studying the conventions of grammar? Really...

Then what makes you -- well, maybe not you, but most folks -- think people should learn to write not by mimicking what writers do, but by studying grammar?

We learn to speak without knowing a SINGLE thing about grammar. Not one whit. Nada. We hear other people talk, and we try to do the same thing. And that's the best way to teach writing. Great writers don't need to know a SINGLE thing about grammar. Not one whit. Nada. All kids -- or anyone else -- learning to write need to do is mimic good writers. Being able to identify a conjunction doesn't make anyone a better writer. Research actually supports that common sense notion.

So knock off with the grammar already. You want to teach kids to write? You want to teach adults to write? Throw away the grammar books. Replace them with examples of the kind of writing the students want to do: a personal essay, a literary analysis, a movie or book review, a sports story, a report, a legal brief, a medical diagnosis... Do that and you'll teach someone to be a great writer, and to love writing.

But if you want to teach someone to be a poor writer and to loathe writing, teach grammar.

Whether it's speaking or writing, we learn best by following good models. Imagine what would happen if we tried to teach kids to talk the way too many people still try to teach them to write...

-- (Copyright) Mike Kielkopf, May 12, 2005

On Honor

            About 2,100 years ago, the Roman philosopher Publilius Syrus asked a question that we are still struggling to answer today, across the U.S. and on the campus of Jacksonville University. “What is left,” Syrus asked, “when honor is lost?”

            Many Americans – including a majority of American college students – are answering that question in ways Syrus may not have expected. What’s left? Higher GPA’s and attendant grad school admissions. Better jobs. Higher profits. Career advancements. Research makes it clear that the vast majority of today’s college students are pragmatic, not idealistic, when it comes to honor. Be honorable and lose? Most college kids today consider that option just plain dumb. And that’s a fact. You could look it up.

            But how did we reach this point? Wasn’t there a time when most Americans, even most American college students, believed honesty really was the best policy, when most college kids really did believe honor was more important than GPA, when it really was more honorable to lose fairly than to win by cheating?

            Honor is not an intuitive human trait. It must be learned. To be learned, it must be taught. That teaching may be indirect, through example, or direct, as in formal lessons at home, at school, in places of worship. A combination is best, for few people become honorable by accident.

            And so if we have an honor crisis in America, including on America’s campuses – and the facts say we do – there are plenty of people and institutions to blame. But one we have control of on this campus is our curriculum. Perhaps the most important required course for all entering JU students should be one in ethics. And perhaps as a culminating act in that course students would be asked, but not required, to sign an honor pledge. Perhaps then JU would be more reflective of the truth embodied in Teddy Roosevelt’s observation: “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” If most JU students arrive on campus without having learned the value of honor, then it would seem incumbent on JU to fill that educational chasm with both example and instruction. It would seem incumbent on JU to do all it can to avoid educating people in a moral and ethical vacuum that unwittingly creates menaces to society. And it would seem the honorable thing to do. After all, if we didn’t know it before, we know now what’s left when honor is lost. -- Mike Kielkopf

On Writing and Teaching...

Please click on book cover to enlarge

... by Mike Kielkopf

The Learning Centered Institution

            We have a new buzz phrase for Ph.D. candidates to investigate: “the learning centered institution.” American education is nothing if not a repository for semantics, posturing and reinvention of the obvious. Any educational institution that is not learning – that is, learner centered – yet takes money from students, is a fraud. And an advanced degree is not required in order to recognize this fundamental fact.

            If so many colleges and universities are only now becoming learning centered institutions, the question is: What have they been all these years?

            At least since Socrates we’ve known that only two things are needed for a person to really learn, and one of those isn’t mandatory. The only thing necessary for anyone to learn anything is self-motivation. Anyone determined to learn will learn. Not even educational institutions can prevent it, although they often try. A guide, a coach, a mentor can be a huge help to a motivated learner, as Socrates was to so many, but that person is not required for learning to take place. That’s one reason why I am such a proponent of home schooling. Perhaps you’ve seen the TV commercial that shows Abraham Lincoln in full stove pipe hat regalia standing humbly in a modern office before a human resources director. That director says something like this: “Mr. Lincoln, you have no formal education? No college degree? No graduate school?” Abe shakes his head. “Well,” the human resources director chuckles, “thanks for coming in.” And Abe dejectedly shuffles away. It’s a tragedy on many levels, not the least of which is that someone self-taught is rejected without ever having the chance to prove what he knows and what he can do solely because he has not jumped through the hoops set up by what we charitably call “formal education.”

            A few centuries back Galileo observed, “No one can teach anyone anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” Indeed. Yet it seems from the current literature, a movement is afoot to obscure Galileo’s observation with new educational jargon in the latest attempt to reinvent the obvious. The scene in K-12 education is littered with these fanciful and failed educational faux pas: Classrooms Without Walls, Cooperative Learning, Madeline Hunter, Strategic Planning, Curriculum Articulation, Tribes, Assertive Discipline, The Five Paragraph Essay, Simulations and my current favorite, Six Traits (Plus One) Writing. Or at least Six Traits was my favorite before the Learning Centered Institution fell from the sky.

            Students who pay money for someone to help guide their learning ought to have all impediments to that learning removed. They should have all requirements removed. Taking people’s money and then telling them what they must learn is simple coercion. If what we teach really is crucial, if people really can’t survive without it, then why must we force people to do it? We don’t have to force people to eat to survive. We don’t have to force people to find shelter. And when you go to buy a car, you shouldn’t go home with the one the dealer wants to sell you. You should go home with the one you want…even if it seems silly to the expert salesman. Even when you visit a doctor, the doctor cannot require you to undergo any kind of treatment. She can cajole and argue and promote, but only you can ultimately decide. So how can educators get away with forcing people to pay for courses they don’t want? It is impossible for any educational institution to truly be student centered if the institution forces the student to pay for courses the student doesn’t wish to take. So that would be a good place for institutions to begin if they wish to be learning centered: ban all required courses. Open the doors the same way the supermarket does, the same way the car dealer does, the same way the doctor does and allow the individual to choose. And the individual will reap the consequences of those decisions. What could be more fair -- or student-centered -- than that?

            Students must be treated as the consumers they are. They must be in charge yet we, the teachers, must be fully prepared and able to help and guide when we’re called on, not unlike the clerks at Best Buy.

            In helping students develop their writing skills, I allow them the freedom to write in their own voices, to say what they have to say in the style they wish to say it. Sure, there are conventions of language that need to be understood and applied, but they must be kept in their places. Grammar, for example, is a tool to promote effective communication. It is not a set of immutable laws that ought to be followed for their own sake. Being freed from the constraints of often illogical grammar rules -- have you ever wondered just exactly why we’ve been taught it’s “wrong” to use a preposition to end a sentence with? – allows students to do what real writers do: They can focus more on their message and less on their mechanics.

            Finally, to be a student centered (learning centered) institution, all the institution has to do is get out of the way.

Church and State

IT'S TIME to get this straight: The phrase, “separation of church and state,” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of the United States. What does appear in the Constitution, in the First Amendment, is this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

So where does that pervasive phrase, “separation of church and state,” come from? It comes from a personal letter Thomas Jefferson wrote on Jan. 1, 1802, in response to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut. But over the last 40 years Jefferson’s phrase has been extricated from its context, stood on its head and then brazenly cited as if it were immutable constitutional law.

The truth is Jefferson applied the “separation” phrase in his personal letter to reassure the Danbury Baptists that there would never be a “Church of America” as there had been a Church of England. And he also wished to reassure the Baptists that freedom of religion – like all fundamental human rights – is God-given, not government-issued. And that being true, the right to free expression of religion could never be revoked in the United States. Jefferson’s clear belief was that “a wall of separation” is necessary to prevent government from meddling in or restricting religion, not to prevent the free exercise of religion in public life: “I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

And yet an Oct. 8, 2004, report by the Jacksonville Times-Union’s Jeff Brumley reconfirmed the inability of the current members of the U.S. Supreme Court to do their jobs, which is to interpret the Constitution, not to rewrite it, and to consult pertinent historical documents – including the personal letters of Thomas Jefferson – in their historical contexts, not to reinvent them. The Court had been asked to hear an appeal by the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore. You may remember Moore’s dastardly deed: He stood up for the Ten Commandments.

That’s right. Moore was deemed unfit to serve the people of Alabama because he believes that displaying the Ten Commandments in a state courthouse is a good – and constitutional – act. He, of course, is right.

Moore is right – and the ethics panel that expelled him, the federal judge who upheld that expulsion, and the U.S. Supreme Court that refuses to hear his appeal – are wrong.

But don’t take my word for it. Instead, consider these words from the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, writing not in a personal letter, but for the majority in Zorach v Clauson (1952):

           “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary… When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities…it follows the best of our traditions… We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion or to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence.” That is Jeffersonian.

Moore, by placing a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama state courthouse, attempted to “widen the effective scope of religious influence.” Douglas would have been proud of Moore but embarrassed by the midgets who have succeeded him on the nation’s highest court. For these justices, swayed not by bedrock constitutional principles but by the revisionist whims of contemporary sociopolitics are, at best, unwitting accomplices to the dismantling of those moral and ethical principles upon which the United States was founded and that are required for the survival and success of American democracy. And so a justice placing a 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama state courthouse, a city council sponsoring a nativity scene on a courthouse lawn in Iowa, or Gov. Jeb Bush providing Torahs, Korans and Bibles for visitors to the statehouse in Tallahassee, are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right of free religious expression under the First Amendment – and under Jefferson’s “separation” concept.

It’s time to get that straight.

                                                                                                            -- Mike Kielkopf

IMAGINE THAT ideas on teaching and writing (ISBN 1-59196-160-2)

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