October 27, 2011: Rotary Log (Dr. Cooper)
Portsmouth Rotary Log
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
Visiting Guests/Portsmouth Rotarian Host
Mark Sykas/Stella Scamman
Tony Coviollo/Eric Weinrieb
Sharon O’Rourke/David McArdle
Justin Finn/Paul Whitcomb
Cliff Hurst/Stella Scamman
Jim White/Frank Nappo
Visiting Rotarian/Visiting Rotarian’s Home Club
Colleen Westcott/Nashua West
Saturday, November 5th the Manchester Monarchs will give a portion of the ticket sales that are bought by Rotarians to help fight polio. Join in the fun and help raise some money for our worthy cause.
In 1945, 49 Rotary club members served in 29 delegations to the UN Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN conferences by sending observers to major meetings and covering the United Nations in its publications.
In fact Saturday, November 5th anyone in the club is welcome to join Dave Underhill in N.Y.C. at the U.N., please let him know if you are interested in going.
Rotarian Aileen Dugan spoke about our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner that we offer every year, she is co-chairing this wonderful event with fellow Rotarians Frank Nappo and Betsy Scott. Again this year it will be hosted at the Greek Church. A special thank you goes out to Nancy Notis and The Portsmouth Regional Hospital for graciously donating all the food, again this year. Aileen reminded us all that this is a Rotary event and they would like to see more Rotary volunteers, in the years past years there have been more non-Rotarians as volunteers. They would like this year to be different and have more Rotarians involved and non-Rotarians used as fill-ins only. Whoever is interested in volunteering please contact Aileen or the other two co-chairs. They are also looking for someone to schedule the volunteers, this is a BIG job and it would be good if someone who does it have support staff in their office to help out.
Rotarian Cathy Edison spoke about the Harvest Fest fundraiser, they are especially looking for cash or checks so please stop by on Friday the 28th of October at the Lafayette Plaza in Portsmouth to donate.
Stella Scamman, our Rotary Club program coordinator, introduced our speaker for today, Dr. Julianne S. Cooper, the Dean of a private high school that she opened called “Liberty Harbor Academy” in Manchester, New Hampshire. Dr. Cooper has an impressive background with many degrees and an impressive professional career with a very strong background in Education.
Dr. Cooper feels the education system in our country shouldn’t be reformed; instead, we need a Revolution. She informed us that our current education system prepared our students to work in factories, it is outdated and antiquated. She cited many different sources to show that this was not based purely on her personal belief system.
She said that students are taught what needs to be learned to take standardized tests and the teachers teach that way as they were taught to do in their own college courses.
She specifically used two books that back-up her theories: “Social Contract” by Rousseau and a book called “Emile”.
The Social Contract was written 35 years before the French Revolution, yet it helped start the French Revolution according to Dr. Cooper.
As she was talking, she mentioned (as she looked out into the audience) that “many of her ideas are probably not well liked” or maybe we were thinking “why is she here talking?”
She went on to describe that we as a whole in our educational system were “failing at fairness”. Title 9 has interfered more than it has helped. Don’t get her wrong, over the years Feminism/Equal Rights for women has helped her in financial terms and others but she doesn’t feel that it always works. She gave an example of her husband who is a Marine who had to help a female soldier carry her tool case to the helicopter while carrying his on at the same time. She couldn’t do the job, but was considered to be equal. She believes in equal pay for men & women doing the same job, but not if they can’t perform all the tasks. She said she is NOT a feminist.
Two things that have to change: change the education systems for teachers and change the department of education so that the towns can develop their own education system that works for them. What works for one isn’t necessarily going to work for all.
The school she developed, Liberty Harbor Academy, will give a classic liberal arts background. They do not teach to tests, their teachers are not graduates of the educational system. All their teachers hold doctoral degrees. The school she founded teaches in the spiral education system, for instance if they are teaching Aristotle then in biology they will apply it, physical sciences they will apply it etc.
Her Academy uses the Phillips Exeter Academy (PEA) math system, where the student gets to go at his or her own pace.
The state of New Hampshire has moved away from the Carnegie method of teaching and is now being competency taught.
At her Academy students are performing versus regurgitating. The faculty to student ratio is five students per one staff member.
According to Dr. Cooper, research has found the frontal lobes are not developed until the early 20’s, and they are necessary to help form our sense of reasoning. Too many parents give in or let their children make their own decisions at the age of 15 or 16 years, well before their reasoning skills have been developed.
Her belief is if you don’t have a place like the Academy, what it takes are disciplined parents and the student can do well anywhere.
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