Give proficiency learning a chance
My small, rural school is proficiency-based. My students are placed in courses based on their readiness for the work. They are motivated because they know that their hard work means moving forward with their coursework, their peers and toward the goals we set together.
If more time is needed, they’ve got it. If they need to redo, rework and relearn, we can do that, too. If they are ready, we move on. As a teacher, I provide formative feedback while students are learning and summatively assess how far they have come when we are done.
Students can demonstrate their learning in many ways, including cross-curricular projects with rubrics that they build themselves. They own their learning, and they are proud of the hard work that it takes to reach the high standards we have set. We no longer lump attitudes and behaviors in with academic skills. We rely on brain research to plan our activities and programs. As a result, we are seeing students become more successful.
I challenge the leadership in our state to stay the course. Do not allow leadership positions in education to remain unfilled. Build a team of stakeholders to collaborate and coordinate to help ease the difficulties schools face as they implement proficiency-based education. Expect our state leadership to support our work. Be our partners and not just our critics.
It is time to step permanently away from the industrial model of learning that is no longer relevant. We absolutely must keep moving forward.
Marielle Edgecomb
2017 Hancock County Teacher of the Year
Mount Desert
Don’t block off Bangor’s waterfront
The permanent concert venue proposed for the Bangor waterfront is a bad idea. Bangor has a unique, precious asset in the waterfront and the open space there. Look at all the people who go to the waterfront every day, year round, for a pleasant place to relax for a while. The concert stadium can go anyplace. We only have one river.
Bangor’s downtown is having a renaissance. How about getting tour boats up here for a night at the tables and on the town? Bangor needs to find ways to capitalize on the river. A permanent wall between the city and its river is not how to do it.
Paul Weeks
Bangor
Dodge for House District 97
I met Jan Dodge a few years back at my first Waldo County Retired Teachers Association meeting, where she serves as president. She was so vibrant and well organized. To top it off, her lively, humorous spirit spiced up the gathering for everyone.
She is offering her experience and energy to represent people from Belfast, Northport and Waldo. The more I get to know Dodge, the more I realize that we need her as our legislator for House District 97.
Dodge is a leader. She grew up in Belfast and graduated third in her class from Belfast Area High School. Dodge lives a life of service as a board member for Waldo County Triad and the steering committee chair of Aging Well in Waldo County. She is a musician who taught music in RSU 24 in Down East Maine for 30 years. We are so fortunate that she chose to come home to Belfast after retiring from teaching in 2010.
Dodge worked hard to make sure the Stand Up for Students referendum passed in Maine in 2016. But the battle to fund the law was a tough one. Dodge went to work testifying before the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee. She has been advocating for students in Augusta for many years, and she knows many lawmakers well. When it came to working the hallways of the Legislature, she was clearly experienced and skillful.
My hope is that voters can meet Dodge, a Democrat, and talk with her. Like me, they might even want to help her get elected.
David Smith
Belfast
Protesters silent about drug deaths
In 2017, 418 Mainers died as a result of drug overdoses. Nationally, in 2016 (the most recent year for which there are statistics), the number was 63,600 deaths as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overwhelming majority of these deaths were among those who would otherwise be in the most productive stages of their lives. This doesn’t begin to account for the lives destroyed, families broken or the dollar value of attendant health issues and crime.
So where are the national demonstrations demanding a solution? Where are the demands that politicians and drug manufacturers be held to account? Where are the demands that the narco-terrorist gangs responsible for the distribution of this poison be brought to justice?
One certainly doesn’t see any demands to scuttle any of the provisions of the Bill of Rights as a solution. The silence is deafening, yet it speaks a million words.
Larry Balchen
Jonesport
Protect Maine’s sunshine
Back in the mid-1970s, Congress was seriously looking at having the entire country leap forward one hour and stay there. We in Maine supported the idea. Florida and its parent-teacher groups sobbed it would be dangerous for their children. Their protestations killed the idea.
How ironic that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio just submitted a bill to do this. His Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time permanent throughout the continental United States.
Should that fail, Rubio’s Sunshine State Act would have Congress approve daylight saving time all year for his state alone. He filed both after the Florida Legislature voted overwhelmingly (33 to 2 in the Senate, and 103 to 11 in the House) to seek necessary approval from Congress.
Belatedly, the Florida parent-teacher groups have awakened. Like four decades ago, they are arguing year-round daylight saving time would be unsafe for their children. Kids might have to walk on the edge of the road some mornings in the dark.
It’s unseemly for the Sunshine State to imply kids in northern states are less relevant than their own. Kids up north walk to and from school in the dark. Many of them, too, have no sidewalks. They walk with traffic just inches to their left and with impassible banks of plowed snow on their right.
Tell Rubio and Maine’s members of Congress, let northern kids at least walk home in daylight. Don’t back down this time.
David H. Leake
Hallowell