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So far Maritza Dreux has created 26 blog entries.

My Response to the College Admission Scandal – I know, I’m a Little Late by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |May 17th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|

My response to the College Admission Scandal – I know, I’m a little late. I’m part of the L.A. School Heads network, a group that gets together twice a year for a buffet breakfast of coffee and mediocre muffins, some sort of formal lecture by an area expert, and conversation. For our spring meeting, we were invited to read a biting Atlantic article regarding the college admission scandal, "They Had it Coming," by Caitlin Flanagan. When the college admission scandal story initially broke, I dove into any article I could find, utterly intrigued. At some point, though, my intrigue turned to sadness. The initial titillation and sweet justice of these entitled people getting caught turned saccharin. Thinking about their total lack of ethical behavior; thinking about the cost of these parents’ choices on their children; thinking about the cost on the children across our country who were dutifully and earnestly moving through the behemoth college application process; thinking about the lying, all of the lying. Years ago when I was teaching eleventh and twelfth-grade students, I remember working with Emma, a high school senior, on her college essay. Early that fall, she attended an optional human rights class field trip to see Paul Rusesabagina, the courageous Rwandan hotel manager made famous in Hotel Rwanda, speak. Em went home that night and quickly got writing. The next morning she entered my advisory room, locked eyes with me gripping the paper to her chest, and said seriously, “I think I just wrote my college essay.” It began with the line and I’ll never forget it: “I think I might be spoiled.” It was a beautiful essay. Her voice was authentic and totally hers, the essay had a

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In Context XII: (We)stland by Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |February 21st, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|

I once was in a full-day workshop with Consultant Alison Park several summers ago. She was working with my previous school’s Multicultural Leadership Team and had this moment where she paused, tilted her head, slightly smiled, and—somehow not condescendingly—shared: “Awww. Just so you know… I work with dozens and dozens of schools each year. All of them think they’re extraordinarily special!” I was surprised. It had never occurred to me that other schools thought they were as special as I thought we were special. We ARE particularly special! Everyone else thinks that too? Of course they do! It was a hilarious and troubling piece of humble pie. I want to share something though. If this were a podcast, I think I’d sort of whisper the next line in a mischievous, but nonetheless, sincere tone: I think Westland is particularly special. Here’s why. Several weekends ago I spent my time at the California Association of Independent School’s Annual Trustee – School Head Conference. The last session on Saturday was led by author and independent school legend Robert Evans and local head of school and friend Laura Konigsberg. Their workshop was entitled: “Head/Shrink: Mastering the Psychological Challenges of Leadership.” Rob began the talk by sharing an assertion for the 50 or so heads of school in the hotel conference room: “When you speak, you get to say ‘we.’ Only the head gets to speak for place.” In the margins of my notes I wrote, “Really?!” And then I wrote “Westland,” for the first time noticing that the first two letters of our school name is the word “We.” I thought about raising my hand to disagree, but I had just done that with Robert Evans in the

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In Context XI: “I-don’t-knowing” by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |January 10th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|

I tend to adore the little things in life: A text from my mom on her 79th birthday read, “I wish we could hang right now.” When did she start saying that? Closing out a recent workshop in Oakland, a fellow participant invited us to view silently Lyla June Johnston’s video "All Nations Rise" from beginning to end. That ending. Watching native Californians eat a persimmon like an apple. Who knew? Hearing someone comment on another’s ideas as perhaps a little, “spiritually weird.” Note to self: Use “spiritually weird” in conversation at some point in your life. I love and collect miniature moments. Usually they end there. Moving, charming, or sweet. Sometimes, though, a miniature moment haunts me. Last spring, I had a quick, miniature conversation with two parents in passing. They briefly shared that they had been wondering about their son, who is surrounded by girls in his family, as well as feminism, girl power, and post “times-up” calls to action. They expressed that all of these are causes and messages that align with their family values. They are hearing from their young son, however, that he sometimes feels a bit left out. They are asking themselves, and they asked me: “How do we raise our son to feel good about himself, his gender, and to be a feminist in this new context of ours?” What I wasn’t really brave enough to say at the time was, “Wow. I don’t really totally know.” What I did say was, “I’ll get back to you.” This innocent and small moment became big for me. As such, I read whatever I could get my hands on, which I do when something is perplexing me. As a slight

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In Context X: “Words, Words, Words” by Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |November 1st, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

In kindergarten I vividly remember encountering the word “pop.” I became dazzled by it: how the consonant sound “p” connected with the same consonant sound p again. The way the short o sound felt at the top-back of my mouth. I remember the excitement of understanding that I could reverse the word and it was still the same word. I kept manipulating the first p and the second p back and fourth, on paper and in my head. There was an emotion to the word too. It had movement. This was my breakthrough moment as a reader. I can even tell you I was wearing a too-itchy black and yellow striped sweater and that Mikey Bairde called me a bumblebee that afternoon. It didn’t matter. I was too busy deconstructing the power of p-o-p. To this day I am mesmerized by words. I love language. I oftentimes ask people how they spell their names because when I see folks, I see their corresponding letters in my mind’s eye. I collect delicious words when I read. This past summer my epic book was Katharine Graham’s autobiography, Personal History. I underline words that I don’t know or even just words that I basically know but never use. “Toadying,” “discomfit,” “erudition,” “maladroit,” “vituperative,” and “pulchritude” are some words of Graham’s. (I vow to use “pulchritude” in a future In Context blog.) Right now one’s stance on language is oftentimes controversial. Words pack a punch and as I heard Allison Parks once say last year, words become the currency for the “Woke Olympics.” Parents can feel clueless when their children come home talking about the realities of “cisgender, heteronormative privilege.” And for myriad reasons, eye rolling can ensue when

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In Context IX: “I Do Not Want Children at Westland to Be Happy,” by Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |September 20th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

August 20, 2018 Last June I attended the California Association of Independent Schools’ Heads of School gathering in Santa Barbara. The keynote speaker was Harvard Graduate School’s Richard Weissbourd. An author on parenting and education, Weissbourd shared his current research and pulled out three major purposes of education that he and his team are analyzing how children, educators, and parents prioritize them: 1. Caring: Are our children compassionate and genuinely concerned for others? 2. Achievement: Are our children academically able? 3. Happiness: Are our children happy? His basic thesis was that the Caring category is significantly subordinated by the Achievement and Happiness categories in schools (and homes) across the country, and that our society’s de-emphasis on Caring is, in fact, problematic. Once he presented all his data, Weissbourd urged us heads of school to—please—be more intentional about emphasizing Caring more, because of how divisive these times are, because of a dearth of moral leaders, and because of the fact that his and his team’s research was revealing that the more we want children to achieve academically, the less they do achieve and that the more we want children to be happy, the less happy they are. Weissbourd lamented that there is an over-emphasis on “collective wellbeing” but a shortage of wellness. He shared that 30 percent of the Harvard undergrad student population is medicated for anxiety. Weissbourd invited us educators as well as parents to replace the emphasis on happiness to social emotional learning and moral development. He pinpointed what he saw as the purpose of education—to raise caring, ethical productive citizens. He said, “We don’t have the reflex to remind kids that they have responsibility and obligation to their communities.” I wrote down his

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In Context VIII by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |May 31st, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

I saw Gloria Steinem speak in 1997 when I was a senior at Ohio University. I distinctly remember a dozen or so students leaving the auditorium throughout her talk, too uncomfortable with her message of gender equality. I remember how powerful and glorious she was to me—her name perfect. I was perplexed that Steinem’s message of equality was somehow too radical to those peers who left. The focus of Steinem’s talk that night also centered on the notion that the modeling of equality and democracy begins in our homes - that it is a parent’s job to run a democratic household. Now that I’m a parent, I’ll admit this notion is somewhat radical. I believe in democracy in education through and through. My undergraduate program was centered on democracy in education: empowering children in the classroom to have voice, to have agency, to act. As a pre-service educator I was brought up on Dewey and Deborah Meier - the latter I heard last fall at the Progressive Education Network in Boston. She spoke specifically about democracy. She said, maybe even sort of shouted: “It’s what it means to be a progressive school - a full-scale member responsible for the society we live in, exercising good judgment personally and for the commonwealth - equal as a citizen in some interesting way. That’s the assumption: that we are equals.” Early in my career as a high school teacher, I asked students what they thought their grades should be (they were typically harder on themselves than me) before I assessed them, I integrated service learning into the studying of literature (in my first year teaching when my ninth graders read Of Mice and Men, we studied Appalachia’s particular

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In Context VII by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |March 16th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

Last month a Westland Board Member sent me an Atlantic article with a somewhat surprising title, considering that its author is a college professor: Bryan Caplan’s “The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone.” I do suggest you read it, but in the case that it’s just not a possibility, here are three chunky passages to give you a sense of Caplan’s tone and perspectives: “The conventional view—that education pays because students learn—assumes that the typical student acquires, and retains, a lot of knowledge. She doesn’t. Teachers often lament summer learning loss: Students know less at the end of summer than they did at the beginning. But summer learning loss is only a special case of the problem of fade-out: Human beings have trouble retaining knowledge they rarely use. Of course, some college graduates use what they’ve learned and thus hold on to it—engineers and other quantitative types, for example, retain a lot of math. But when we measure what the average college graduate recalls years later, the results are discouraging, to say the least.” “Educational psychologists have discovered that much of our knowledge is ‘inert.’ Students who excel on exams frequently fail to apply their knowledge to the real world. Take physics. As the Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner writes, ‘Students who receive honor grades in college-level physics courses are frequently unable to solve basic problems and questions encountered in a form slightly different from that on which they have been formally instructed and tested.’” “The college-for-all mentality has fostered neglect of a realistic substitute: vocational education. It takes many guises—classroom training, apprenticeships and other types of on-the-job training, and straight-up work experience—but they have much in common. All vocational education teaches specific

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In Context VI by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |January 9th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|

A parable: Once upon a time in a private school in Los Angeles, probably one that starts with a “W,” there was a mom who opposed generic hand sanitizer. She was like the Erin Brockovich of the anti-hand sanitizer movement. She met with administrators. She emailed links to studies and research. She implored that the leaders and facilities personnel please dispose the campus of all Purell and the like. She was relentless in her drive and communications. She sent samples of alternatives. She checked in often on the school’s progress and process. After independent research, the school concluded that, yes, using a more nontoxic alternative was viable, doable, and healthier for all. The Purell was promptly tossed. The school soon smelled of lavender. Weeks later, the aforementioned parent’s classroom was holding a breakfast potluck. The room parents reminded all parents—multiple times—to please bring breakfast foods containing little to no sugar. The hand sanitizer mom hustled into the morning affair a tad late, holding a baker’s dozen box of donuts, her son beaming. These donuts were no ordinary donuts. Some had M&M’s piled on top. Some, bacon and chocolate! Some had gummy worms appearing to be digging into a soil façade made of crushed Oreos. These were boutique donuts like no other. Four parents involved in the school’s fledgling anti-sugar movement stood askance. One parent let out an audible gasp. I was just talking to a new dad at my church as he held his 4 month old. I asked, kind of smiling, kind of not, “How’s it going?” He knew I meant how was it really going and answered, “It’s rough.” Yep, I replied, thinking about a hilarious Tina Fey piece I once read on

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In Context V by: Melinda Tsapatsaris

By |November 29th, 2017|Categories: Uncategorized|

When it was time to apply for graduate school, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to take the GRE to get in. At that point in my career, I was a young teacher who had already experienced the pitfalls of standardized testing. While a perfectly capable test taker myself, I harkened back to my first year teaching in a small rural high school in the foothills of the Appalachia mountains where I was tasked with supporting the 9th graders who had failed the Ohio Proficiency Test (for which a high school diploma was contingent upon passing all four sections). I worked with 6 boys twice a week on the reading comprehension portion. I remember one session vividly. We were reviewing a passage on tennis, when one of the boys, frustrated, confused, eyes furrowed, said, “Wait, wait, wait…who’s in love with Ace?” Tennis, as you can imagine, isn’t a very popular sport in Appalachia, nor at a school where over 50 percent of the student population lives at or below the poverty level. This moment encapsulated the root of my frustration with the testing frenzy, that has only increased since the late nineties. I watched these boys struggle week to week. I ranted to anyone who would listen. I railed against the big business money component of testing, the politics, the bias in the testing, the origins of that bias, and the negative impact on teachers. I ranted about the fact that tests didn’t capture the creativity, critical thinking, and intelligence that I saw my students demonstrating each day in my classes. And so I decided to walk a major walk and refuse to step into the test rat race for graduate school admissions.

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