Basically, I am looking to see if their room is student-centered."
Bridget Braney asks the same question, because "it reveals a candidate's vision of what education should be as well as their vision of the educator they would like to be. If they are relaxed enough, they can give us a good picture of their teaching style and professional knowledge."
What is your approach to classroom management and student discipline? Jim DeGenova gets at teachers' classroom management skills by presenting the scenario of a misbehaving student. "After the initial response, I escalate the scenario to a more serious level," he explained. "I keep escalating the scenario until the applicant responds 'at this point, I need some help' Too often teachers don't seek assistance until after a problem has grown bigger than anyone can handle. I seek someone who will admit they don't have all the answers." Why should I hire you over all the other applicants who have the same educational background, attitude, and experience? "One of the key points I always like to hear is something about tenacity, or a stick-to-it-despite-difficulty attitude," said Stokes. On the other hand, one of the things she often hears is 'Well I just love children'
That's nice, Stokes says, but "I usually respond 'Well, I love my beagle too, but that doesn't mean I've been able to do a good job of teaching him.'
"I want to hear more than just a standard pat answer. Believe it or not, I have had numerous applicants say they don't know why I should hire them over someone else."
"I ask this question to try to determine a candidate's personality and its characteristics," said principal Maria Bernardi of Our Lady of Lourdes South School in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). "Teaching is about relationships. Teachers need to make connections with the students, parents, and other staff. If a potential candidate is telling me that they know it all and that they don't need help, that tells me a lot about them. However, if a candidate tells me about their willingness to learn or that they are willing to ask for help, that tells me they are courageous and eager to do what needs to be done to help children or parents."
"I want to hear things about responsibility, integrity, kindness and, most of all, about a love for children and wanting to make a difference in their lives," added Bernardi.
Bernardi also wants to get a sense of professionalism and she wants to hear what is in a teacher's heart. "I think the pressures of teaching are always offset when there is a joy for teaching," she said. "And a sense of humor also helps."
| The Roots of War |
| by Barbara Ehrenreich |
| Only three types of creatures engage in warfare--humans, chimpanzees, and ants. Among humans, warfare is so ubiquitous and historically commonplace that we are often tempted to attribute it to some innate predisposition for slaughter--a gene, perhaps, manifested as a murderous hormone. The earliest archeological evidence of war is from 12,000 years ago, well before such innovations as capitalism and cities and at the very beginning of settled, agricultural life. Sweeping through recorded history, you can find a predilection for warfare among hunter-gatherers, herding and farming peoples, industrial and even post-industrial societies, democracies, and dictatorships. The good old pop-feminist explanation--testosterone--would seem, at first sight, to fit the facts. But war is too complex and collective an activity to be accounted for by any warlike instinct lurking within the individual psyche. Battles, in which the violence occurs, are only one part of war, most of which consists of preparation for battle--training, the manufacture of weapons, the organization of supply lines, etc. There is no plausible instinct, for example, that could impel a man to leave home, cut his hair short, and drill for hours in tight formation. Contrary to the biological theories of war, it is not easy to get men to fight. In recent centuries, men have often gone to great lengths to avoid war--fleeing their homelands, shooting off their index fingers, feigning insanity. So unreliable was the rank and file of the famed eighteenth century Prussian army that military rules forbade camping near wooded areas: The troops would simply melt away into the trees. Even when men are duly assembled for battle, killing is not something that seems to come naturally to them. As Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman argued in his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Little, Brown, 1995), one of the great challenges of military training is to get soldiers to shoot directly at individual enemies. What is it, then, that has made war such an inescapable part of the human experience? Each war, of course, appears to the participants to have an immediate purpose--to crush the "Hun," preserve democracy, disarm Saddam, or whatever--that makes it noble and necessary. But those who study war dispassionately, as a recurrent event with no moral content, have observed a certain mathematical pattern: that of "epidemicity," or the tendency of war to spread in the manner of an infectious disease. Obviously, war is not a symptom of disease or the work of microbes, but it does spread geographically in a disease-like manner, usually as groups take up warfare in response to war-like neighbors. It also spreads through time, as the losses suffered in one war call forth new wars of retaliation. Think of World War I, which breaks out for no good reason at all, draws in most of Europe as well as the United States, and then "reproduces" itself, after a couple of decades, as World War II. In other words, as the Dutch social scientist Henk Houweling puts it, "one of the causes of war is war itself." Wars produce war-like societies, which, in turn, make the world more dangerous for other societies, which are thus recruited into being war-prone themselves. Just as there is no gene for war, neither is there a single type or feature of society--patriarchy or hierarchy--that generates it. War begets war and shapes human societies as it does so. In general, war shapes human societies by requiring that they possess two things: one, some group or class of men (and, in some historical settings, women) who are trained to fight; and, two, the resources to arm and feed them. These requirements have often been compatible with patriarchal cultures dominated by a warrior elite--knights or samurai--as in medieval Europe or Japan. But not always: Different ways of fighting seem to lead to different forms of social and political organization. Historian Victor Hansen has argued that the phalanx formation adopted by the ancient Greeks, with its stress on equality and interdependence, was a factor favoring the emergence of democracy among nonslave Greek males. And there is no question but that the mass, gun-wielding armies that appeared in Europe in the seventeenth century contributed to the development of the modern nation-state--if only as a bureaucratic apparatus to collect the taxes required to support these armies. Marx was wrong, then: It is not only the "means of production" that shape societies, but the means of destruction. In our own time, the costs of war, or war-readiness, are probably larger than at any time in history, in relation to other human needs, due to the pressure on nations not only to maintain a mass standing army--the United States supports about a million men and women at arms--but to keep up with an extremely expensive, ever-changing technology of killing. The cost squeeze has led to a new type of society, perhaps best termed a "depleted" state, in which the military has drained resources from all other social functions. North Korea is a particularly ghoulish example, where starvation coexists with nuclear weapons development. But the USSR also crumbled under the weight of militarism, and the United States brandishes its military might around the world while, at this moment, cutting school lunches and health care for the poor. "Addiction" provides only a pallid and imprecise analogy for the human relationship to war; parasitism--or even predation--is more to the point. However and whenever war began, it has persisted and propagated itself with the terrifying tenacity of a beast attached to the neck of living prey, feeding on human effort and blood. If this is what we are up against, it won't do much good to try to uproot whatever war-like inclinations may dwell within our minds. Abjuring violent speech and imagery, critiquing masculinist culture, and promoting respect for human diversity--all of these are worthy projects, but they will make little contribution to the abolition of war. It would be far better to think of war as something external to ourselves, something which has to be uprooted, everywhere, down to the last weapon and bellicose pageant. The "epidemicity" of war has one other clear implication: War cannot be used as a means to prevent or abolish war. True, for some time to come, urgent threats from other heavily armed states will require at least the threat of armed force in response. But these must be very urgent threats and extremely restrained responses. To indulge, one more time, in the metaphor of war as a kind of living thing, a parasite on human societies: The idea of a war to end war is one of its oldest, and cruelest, tricks. Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The Progressive. She is the author of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" (Metropolitan Books, 2001) and "Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War" (Henry Holt, 1997). |
Banning nuclear weapons, prohibiting the use of poison gases, or outlawing germ warfare will not remove the root causes of war. However important such practical measures obviously are as elements of the peace process, they are in themselves too superficial to exert enduring influence.
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Racism
Racism, one of the most baneful and persistent evils, is a major barrier to peace. Recognition of the oneness of mankind, implemented by appropriate legal measures, must be universally upheld if this problem is to be overcome.
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The extremes of Poverty and Wealth
The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. It is an issue that is bound up not only with the necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty but also with those spiritual verities and understanding of which can produce a new universal attitude. Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part of the solution.
Unbridled Nationalism
Unbridled Nationalism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to a love of humanity as a whole The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. Love of all the worlds peoples does not exclude love of ones country.
Religious Strife
Religious strife, throughout history, has been the cause of innumerable wars and conflicts, a major blight to progress. Followers of all religions must be willing to face the basic questions which this strife raises, and to arrive at clear answers. How are the differences between them to be resolved, both in theory and in practice? The challenge facing the religious leaders of mankind is to contemplate, and to ask themselves whether they cannot, in humility before their Almighty Creator, submerge their theological differences that will enable them to work together for the advancement of human understanding and peace.
The Role of Women
The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one half of the worlds population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations.
Universal Education
Ignorance is indisputably the principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples and the perpetuation of prejudice. No nation can achieve success unless education is accorded all its citizens. The world would do well to consider giving first priority to the education of women and girls, since it is through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can be most effectively and rapidly diffused throughout society.
An international Auxiliary Language
A fundamental lack of communication between peoples seriously undermines efforts towards world peace. Adopting an international auxiliary language would go far to resolving this problem and necessitates the most urgent attention.
Spiritual Solutions for Social Problems
The abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and protocols; it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment to resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of peace. Peace stems from an inner state supported by a spiritual or moral attitude, and it is this attitude that the possibility of enduring solutions can be found. Leaders of governments and all in authority would be well served in their efforts to solve problems if they would first seek to identify the principles involved and then be guided by them.
Global terror, local wars
There's been a tragic surge in international terrorism in recent days - from Chechens seizing a Russian school, to a renewal of tit-for-tat suicide bombings and assassinations in Israel and the continued killings of hostages and US troops in Iraq. One of the most disturbing aspects of these attacks is that some may represent strategic escalation. But this doesn't mean the world has lost ground in a global war on terror. Indeed, this struggle may not be global, or even best described as "war," at all. The main fronts might instead be seen as separate hot spots, each on its own time cycle, each roiled by its own clashes of power and religion, each perhaps better fought in different ways. "The bottom line is they are not connected," says Bruce Hoffman, a terror expert at the RAND Corp. in Washington. "This has been a particularly bad two weeks."
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Terrorism, after all, is not an ideology, such as communism. It is a technique - a tool that employs fear as a means of political coercion. At various times it's been used by anarchists (in the Balkans prior to World War I), anticolonialists (in the 1960s by Algerians in their war for independence from France), radical leftists (the Red Brigades of Europe in the 1970s) and today, increasingly, Islamists.
Its use rises and falls, like the tide.
Only 1.5 percent of terrorism's casualties in 2003 were US citizens. Ninety-eight and a half percent came from elsewhere in the world.
That "is a real indicator this is a global war," said Ambassador Cofer Black, coordinator for counterrorism, at a briefing for reporters earlier this year.
If that struggle is defined as the US vs. Al Qaeda, it is a far-flung war of sorts. Since the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa, the hydra-headed jihadist movement has exported fighters and expertise to indigenous guerrilla groups from the Philippines to Chechnya.
To these groups "Al Qaeda said you must not only fight your near enemy but a terrible distant enemy - the US," says Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on terror atthe Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
Differing political motives
But the raison d'être for these groups remains their own political and social grievances, even for those with Al Qaeda ties. Thus Chechen separatists have carried out a violent battle for independence from Russia for years. Hamas is at heart a Muslim movement, but it has long forsworn attacks against US targets and concentrates its violence on Israelis, whom it sees as occupiers of Palestine.
"I think they're all discrete hot spots with their own issues," says Mr. Hoffman. "Inadvertently with the [phrase] 'global war on terrorism' we've done a lot of the linkage."
Negative developments
That said, the events of recent weeks indicate that terrorism may be evolving in negative ways. Whatever their motivations, the Chechen separatists have demonstrated a terrible capacity for rapid action - carrying out the simultaneous destruction of two airliners over Russia, and a suicide bombing in Moscow, followed by the seizure of schoolchildren in Beslan as hostages.
In the early 1970s, Palestinian terrorists commandeered a small schoolhouse in Israel, and South Moluccan terrorists seized a Dutch school in Indonesia. But even terrorists have generally avoided placing large numbers of children deliberately in danger - until now.
"They've got everybody in Russia thinking, 'What next?' " says Hoffman. "That's what terrorists want. It undermines confidence in the government, and creates an atmosphere of fear and alarm that they hope to manipulate into coercing people to accede to their demands."
But Hoffman adds that terrorists rarely understand their audience - as the Palestinian example so tragically shows.
After a period of relative calm, the sudden explosion of buses in Israel is likely to generate an intense crackdown by Israeli troops, as it did Tuesday with the airstrike in Gaza that killed 14 Hamas militants and wounded some 30 others.
Like sharks in the water, terrorist groups may just have to keep moving forward to survive.
"They've got to be seen to be doing something, not just prosecuting the struggle but escalating it in novel ways to achieve their ends," says Hoffman.
Pressure for spectacular acts
Mr. Gunaratna, for his part, believes that association with members of Al Qaeda has made the Chechen separatists and other groups more brutal. Their basic character, he believes, has changed.
Furthermore, the attacks of Sept. 11 may simply have raised the stakes for terrorists around the world.
"After 9/11 it [became] very important for terrorists to stage spectacular attacks, because they realized that attacking some small place would not get international media attention," says Gunaratna.
