At Considerable Cost

When I was an Elementary Education major at university, I was asked to serve as a student representative on a committee of the College of Education.   The committee's purpose was to improve practical classroom experience for education majors and to strengthen our relationship with the cooperating classroom teachers who served as our mentors.   The best part of being on that committee was the time before the meetings when I had a chance to speak with two classroom teachers who were also on the committee.   One day, the topic of conversation turned to math instruction.   I was in college when the use of manipulatives was being integrated into instruction to replace rote instruction alone.   It was the first time in my life that math excited me and I wished I could have been taught in that manner.   Topics were introduced through concrete activities, with real-world connections and then paper-and-pencil practice would follow....

"Comes a time when you've got to get down on your knees."   This is one of my favorite quotes from the movie, I Remember Mama , adapted for screen from the play of the same name.   It is based on one of my favorite childhood novels, Mama's Bank Account .   In this scene , Mama is consumed with worry and frustration as her youngest child lies in a hospital recovering from successful surgery.   At that time, parents were not allowed to see their children for the first twenty-four hours following surgery and Mama cannot bear the thought of not being there when her baby, Dagmar, wakes.   So, home, and to her knees, to scrub the floor, pray, and wait for a solution, which does indeed come. Pope John Paul II reminded the world often of the dignity of all work, especially that of manual labor.   As a young man, he was a laborer in a work camp during the Nazi occupation of his native Poland.   It was a different envi...