Taking Advantage of Summer Down Time Early

Business Update

• Summer is here! Those interested in making appointments for summer should contact us.
• We’d also like to welcome a new tutor to the Perspectives family! Greg Gorden is a former chemistry teacher, so he’s another math-and-science superstar, and of course he’s trained in our proprietary Strategic Tutoring model.

Resources

Get a Job! 
If you’re interested in joining the workforce and you don’t already have working papers, this link should start you off.
http://www.svusd.k12.ca.us/guidance/workpermit.htm

Attention Parents!  Make Tax-deferred College Investments!
Tuition costs for private four-year colleges are up 4.4 percent from last year and for public four-year colleges are up 6.5 percent from last year.  If you don’t already have one, here’s some information about the 529 plan.
http://www.savingforcollege.com/intro_to_529s/what-is-a-529-plan.php

Tips & Strategies

Bridging the Generation Gap of E-mail
I understand that email is for old people, but it is very important that you check it. If you have a phone that can check email, use that. Or get in the routine of checking email every time you check Facebook.

Find SOMEthing to Read!
Tired of reading traditional Steinbeck or endless morose World War Two tales?  Use summer as an opportunity to indulge in reading your own selections on your own time!  Stuck?  Goodreads.com is a wonderful forum where you can read reviews about a book about which you’ve heard, or just browse for recommendations.

News & Research

ADHD: Redefined Again?
The APA is gearing up for its 5th edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible for doctors who diagnose all three subtypes of AD/HD.  The subtypes and diagnostic criteria are under scrutiny.  Here’s a summary.
http://www.dsm5.org/Proposed%20Revision%20Attachments/APA%20Options%20for%20ADHD.pdf

From the “This Needed to Be Said?” Department
In May, the Supreme Court banned life sentences of life without parole for juvenile criminals who do not commit murder.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/opinion/18tue1.html?hp

The Best Online MLA Guide, John Irving's LD, and a Teenager's Sage Words

Business Update

• I'm considering moving the High School Readiness seminars to earlier in the summer (mid-July to mid-August). 
• As we get into warmer days, make sure you grab a sweater when you come to the office - the air conditioning takes its job seriously.

Resources

The folks at Purdue gave their online writing lab a makeover - and it's fabulous!  

For all of you writing research and other papers requiring MLA style, here's your (hopefully not late-night) online source for answers.  You're welcome.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Biology students, especially those of you planning to take the Biology SAT II, do yourselves a favor...!
Spend at least 20 minutes each night noodling around this site. You'll thank yourself later. View videos and web pages - not downloads! - about DNA structure to protein synthesis to genetic mutations. Click on the Inheritance link at the top to get information about meiosis and mitosis, Mendelian genetics, and, obviously, inheritance. Taking the "E" version of the SAT II? Then you MUST click on the Ecology link at the top and review populations, ecological succession, competition, and zebra mussels. :)

http://www.biologycorner.com/bio4/DNA.php

Attention Parents!

I really love Dr. Hallowell's work, particularly the verbs in his advice: "parenting," "superparenting," "raising," "releasing positive energy" - OK that one is a verb phrase.  Anyway, a parent recently reminded me of an excerpt of Driven to Distraction in which author John Irving discusses his learning issues.  Good stuff.

http://www.drhallowell.com/blog/their-beautiful-minds/

Tips & Strategies

Don't be afraid - it's only scary if you ignore it! 

A former client, who is now in college, told me that he no longer "wills papers not to exist," as I often say. Instead of procrastinating and throwing together eleventh-hour efforts with ugly results, he says he now spends calmer time while he's at the gym or walking around campus thinking about his paper and planning his ideas. Wise kid.

Lean on Each Other

Kids, this time of the year, it's easy to linger in the sunlight and lose momentum on your obligations.  I encourage you to cheer for each other, study together, review together, split and distribute your own study guides - assemble a team to get you through!

News & Research

Teachers accused of child abuse no longer get a free ride in my old home town.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the teachers' union announced a deal to reassign most of the teachers now in so-called "rubber rooms" to administrative or nonclassroom work while their cases are pending.  Officials also agreed to increase the number of arbitrators who hear teachers' cases from 23 to 39, and said they hope to catch up with backlogged cases by the end of the year.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100415/FREE/100419917

Forbes clearly used a very different methodology than US News & World Report.  

Scroll down a bit and click on Complete College Rankings for the results of its analysis based on the following types of data: student evaluations of courses and instructors, number of alumni listed among the notable people in Who’s Who in America, amount of student debt at graduation, percentage of students graduating in four years, and the number of students or faculty, who have won nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships or Nobel Prizes.

http://bestcollegerankings.org/popular-rankings/forbes-college-rankings/

The Beginning of the Home Stretch

Business Update

• This August, I will again offer my small-group, highly interactive High School Readiness seminars. More information and a flyer to come, but call or email with inquiries in the meantime.
• I am again seeking guest speakers for June's Real Freshman Orientation presentations.  I'm looking for recent college grads to speak for about 5 minutes about their college experiences.

Resources

Literary Terms for the AP Literature Exam

This site provides super-concise definitions and examples of each literary term via links, so you can quiz yourself.

Interested in Learning or Improving Your Piano-Playing?  

Noreen Wenjen is a well-loved and talented music teacher, a good resource for students who want to apply to college music programs, and an all-around sharp woman.  Click on the link above to learn more about her studio, or check out her fascinating and informative blog at http://wenjenpiano.com/blog/.

Tips & Strategies

New Year's Resolutions - Remember?

Remember those commitments to yourselves I asked you to make at the start of the New Year?  Take a meditative moment and connect with the you who made that commitment.  In the last 14 weeks or so, how well have you kept your promise to yourself?  What has inhibited your fulfillment of your promise to yourself?  What can we do to get you back on track?

Questioning Text

You know when you read something in a textbook that makes no sense, given what you just read in the last section?  Good!  That means you have the ability to connect prior knowledge to new information and to identify inconsistencies.  One of my new missions in my practice is to help all my students develop their text-questioning skills.  Stay tuned.

News & Research

Holy Bad Teacher Behavior, Batman! 

Bergen County representatives of the state teachers union wrote a fiery memo encouraging members to "get some dirt" and "go public," and adds the education commissioner to the "attack list."  Worst of all, they not-so-subtly implied that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie should die.

The Word on the Street about the Wretched Mississippi Community that Wouldn't Let a Lesbian Go to Her Prom

Long story short, and in bullet form. School officials and parents in this dreadful back ass community:

- told a lesbian she couldn't take her girlfriend to the prom

- canceled the prom when the ACLU got involved

- told a judge (who ruled against them) they would hold and invite Constance to an alternate prom

- held another SECRET prom for all the non-Constance supporting Hitler youth

Click here to ask your US Representative to ask him to support the Student Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 4530) that will help to ensure that discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students has no place in our country's public schools.

Magnet Mayhem: Modifying Morality with Magnets? 

"Researchers found that subjects were less able to judge the morality of others' actions when activity in the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) -- a region of the brain located above the right ear -- was disrupted by a strong magnetic field. . . . 'Typically intent is the dominant factor in our moral judgments. What we showed here is that we can interrupt intention processing so people go more with the outcomes,' Young says."

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working." - Pablo Picasso

Business Update

Spring Break

If you haven't already, please email me or Alexis with any cancellations or re-scheduling of regular appointments.  

Website

As you may notice from the tabs above, the website is technically live.  As you may also notice, it looks like a student in a beginner web design class created it.  It is functional and will soon be prettier, as I've hired another web designer to take over.  Stay tuned for instructions on how YOUR CHILD can create his or her own username and password to access the educational materials database.

Resources

Summer Resources

I've added a "Summer Resources" page to the blog.  The link is at the right.  It includes bulleted information about recommended summer programs for community service, language immersion, and college experience.

Affordable Proctored SATs with Wonderfully Detailed Reports

Revolution Prep's "mock tests" are available to students who are not enrolled in their classes:

• 5 exams for $75 or $15 each
• Reports include breakdown of areas of strength and weakness as well as answer key.
• http://www.revolutionprep.com/

Tips & Strategies

Keep the Woo and the Hoo at Bay

I know it's spring.  I know it's about to be Spring Break, (as in "Spring Break - Woo Hoo!").  It doesn't matter.  Aside from your concerns about your grades, college applications, getting content knowledge you'll need for next year, and SAT II subject tests, remember that every page you read, every lecture you hear, every conversation with a teacher can be a source of inspiration of passion for learning for you.  See the title of this blog.
 

News & Research

Itawamba, Mississippi Must Be the Worst Place in the World

A Mississippi federal court ruled that school officials violated a lesbian student’s First Amendment rights when it canceled the high school prom rather than let the student attend with her girlfriend.  However it denied the student's and the ACLU's request for a preliminary injunction stopping the Itawamba County School District from canceling the prom.  The Court supposedly refused to force the school district to hold the prom because of assurances that an alternative “private” prom is being planned by parents and will be open to all students.

Department of "Duh" but Needs to be Said Anyway

Bill Maher, whom many of you know is my hero, made these two very important statements on his show:

1. "The number one predictor of a child's academic success is parental involvement."

2. "It's been proven that just having books in the house makes a huge difference in a child's development."

'Nough said.

Autism and Creative Genius

A professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College in Dublin, said that the relationship between creativity and autism is not a myth, and argued that the characteristics linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were the same as those associated with creative genius.

Cancellation Policy Change, SAT II Link & Big Education News

Business Update

• I'm very excited to welcome Ernie Foote, a fantastic and experienced math, Spanish and SAT tutor, to the PEC team!   He's been an educator for years, including teaching in Los Angeles high schools and tutoring for the Princeton Review.

• IMPORTANT: Cancellation Policy Change 
• I understand that kids get sick and families don't always know 24 hours in advance that their son or daughter needs to get to bed!  At the same time, because our client sessions are limited to after-school hours and Saturdays, last-minute cancellations make it challenging, in general, to accommodate client scheduling requests.  Also, because students are at school all day and therefore unreachable, (and quite busy), a last-minute cancellation generally cannot be re-booked.  Hitherto, we've charged a full hourly fee for no-shows and same-day cancellations.  In order to be more understanding of our clients' needs, we're now launching a trial compromise solution: a flat $45 fee instead of the full hour.  Keep in mind also that if a child is up to it, I'm happy to do a session over the phone or through Dim Dim, an virtual meeting venue.

Resources

Taking or planning to take AP Literature?  

From what I found, this book has received more positive reviews than the others.

Are you taking Biology?  

Are you planning to take the Biology SAT II Subject test?  If so, you must decide whether you'd like to take the E version or the M version. 

• Take Biology E if you feel more comfortable answering questions pertaining to biological communities, populations, and energy flow.
• Take Biology M if you feel more comfortable answering questions pertaining to biochemistry, cellular structure and processes, such as respiration and photosynthesis.

Tips & Strategies

Don't Fall Victim to Spring Break!  

Every year I see kids begin to unravel the weeks or months of hard work they've done.  Stay focused, stay committed, stay honest.  If you're feeling overwhelmed, consider me your "organization sponsor" - call me, email me if you feel yourself slipping or feel overwhelmed.

News & Research

Teacher Calls Student a "Loser"

A teacher writes "loser" on a student's papers.

Accurate Red, Creative Blue: Color Counts, Study Says   

"The color red can make people’s work more accurate, and blue can make people more creative. . . . Researchers at the University of British Columbia conducted tests with 600 people to determine whether cognitive performance varied when people saw red or blue. . . . Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention to detail, like remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation. Blue groups did better on tests requiring imagination, like inventing creative uses for a brick or creating toys from shapes."  It's an article from last year, but so, so interesting.

Big, Big News about Standardizing Education Nationally

"A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation."