Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton -- our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship -- in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
Former Croton-Harmon School Board President Dies
A Northern Westchester woman passionate about volunteering for her community died on Saturday, Oct. 22.
Gail Wittkin Sasso of Croton-on-Hudson died at the age of 75, according to her obituary.
Raised on Long Island, in Roslyn Heights, Sasso was heavily involved in her village, serving as a past president of the Croton Harmon Board of Education and a member of the Croton on Hudson Water Control Commission, her obituary said.
Sasso also co-founded the local chapter of CCoHope INDIVISIBLE, a political group. More at Former Croton-Harmon School Board President Dies | Cortlandt Daily Voice
Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
The following letter appears in THE GAZETTE:
To the Editor:
A few years ago, a teacher hauled before the school board and charged with corrupting the local youth defended his lesson plan by saying “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The school board was not impressed, and the teacher’s employment came to an abrupt and permanent end.
Nobody remembers who the teacher’s critics were, and nobody remembers what was at issue. But 2400 years later, that single sentence speaks to us. It would be hard to improve upon that as a vision for our public schools, and the current effort by the Croton-Harmon School Board fails astoundingly.
The “New Vision of Public Schools” endorsed by our Croton educators is best described as; “Siri, live my life.” I doubt people will remember that motto in the year 4422.
I urge everyone to read the AASA School Superintendents Association report “An American Imperative: A New Vision of Public Schools” and watch the videos of Bill Daggett, who co-chaired the “Learning 2025” commission whose “vision” is being implemented in Croton schools. If you want to understand what is wrong with American education today, it is laid out before you in 31 pages. For those of you who attended Mr. Daggett’s speech at the high school last week, the report is a more detailed exposition of the CHHS presentation.
The report uses fancy words in grammatically correct sentences which don’t convey any information. A sample line: “While calling for holistic redesign of our schools, this report provides guardrails for change and simultaneous calls for empowerment of districts and schools to enact change in ways best suited to the unique circumstances of their learners, families, and communities.”
If that sounds like blather generated by a computer program, it is because that is the intent. The key theme of the “New Vision of Public Schools” is that technology is advancing to the point that substantive learning is not only a waste of time, it is counter-productive to human functioning: envision The Matrix written by a committee of school Superintendents.
Mr. Daggett began his presentation at CHHS by noting that we don’t allow students to use smart phones during tests because they will Google the questions and text their classmates for the answers. We are told by Mr. Daggett that what the students are doing by using smart phones is not cheating. Mr. Daggett explains that Googling test answers shows the ability to do research that employers are looking for, and texting their classmates to get the answer shows cooperation skills needed in the workplace.
In the “new vision” pedagogy, students don’t have to know anything. They literally don’t need to lift a finger. Just ask Alexa. Students don’t need any skills except those that cannot be made obsolete by an “algorithm.”
“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that” was the line spoken by HAL 9000 in A Space Odyssey (1968). It remains the most famous fictional representation of the Turing Test—a hypothetical posed by Alan Turing in a 1950 paper. He described a situation where a human subject engaged in dialogue with two unseen parties: one a human and the other a computer program. If the subject could not determine whether the opposite side of the conversation was being typed by a human or by a computer, then the computer program had successfully “imitated” the human mind (this is the origin of the movie title The Imitation Game).
School administrators are fascinated by the Turing Test. In gussied up verbiage, it is known as “GPT-3” and it raises legitimate philosophical and political issues. One of the educational concerns is that as artificial intelligence takes over, our brains turn to mush. Mr. Daggett noted the impact of spellcheck on memory and GPS on spatial navigation skills; he stated that the impact is already seen in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
You might think that this would prompt a discussion about how to raise children to express their humanity and live in a future environment hostile to the human soul. You might think the educator’s vision would guide the student as they move towards their telos. At very least, to give that hippocampus a workout.
Mr. Daggett is not Keanu Reeves, let alone Socrates. Mr. Daggett has no use for telos. He sees no problem with the unexamined life. Daggett is a blue pill guy and his “New Vision of Public Schools” invokes The Algorithm in reverential tones of awe. If technology can do it more efficiently and effectively, that is all that matters.
Remember those videos of people at the World’s Fair exhibits in 1939 and 1964? They marveled at the technologies of the “world of tomorrow.” Mr. Daggett retains that sense of wonder, and that is to his credit as an educator. But talking about artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and algorithms in a PowerPoint does not constitute a new vision for public schooling.
A Croton resident and CHHS alumnus who attended the presentation was asked by a non-attendee to summarize what Mr. Daggett said. The resident shrugged: “The world is changing with all this new technology.” Calling for “holistic redesign of our schools” because the future will be here in the near future seems a bit of a leap of logic.
Mr. Daggett does not even offer the hope of learning a solid skill. He demarcates skills into Cognitive, Interpersonal, Self-Leadership, and Digital. He is critical of what he deems Croton’s focus on cognitive skills. Instead of cognitive development, he says that the biggest student gap in Croton is in self-leadership and interpersonal skills, and criticizes the schools for not offering courses in those skills.
In his CHHS presentation, Mr. Daggett played a clip of people on a Zoom meeting where one of the participants was not wearing pants, implying that this is an example of how young people are insufficiently trained for the technology-driven workplace of the future. He contrasts this with a look back to old-style curriculum, and joked about how if he were to administer a CHHS 12th grade math test, the audience would all fail it because we never used the math skills after we graduated.
Remember the class comedian who told your algebra teacher that he would never need to know this stuff after the Regents? That comedian has grown up and is using the old material, only this time the math teachers are sitting attentively and laughing as their life work is mocked. I am all for the Croton schools incorporating instruction on wearing pants into the 12th grade curriculum, but I don’t see such skills as the foundation of a “New Vision of Public Schools.”
As a Croton resident, you might see the contradiction here. Parents in upscale school districts such as Croton pay a fortune in property taxes and expect Junior to start on that college essay application sometime around fifth grade. For a child to want to become an electrician or plumber or carpenter is many parents’ nightmare: their kid is a “Leader” who will give orders to the non-college worker bees. The last thing parents want is for their school to become 12 years of vocational training, but that is the ideal put forward as the “Learning 2025” goal. That will never entirely happen, but there will be a lot of damage to students during the attempt.
The “new vision” being touted by the Croton-Harmon school district is one which de-emphasizes academics. It prioritizes preparation for the workplace. It mocks love of learning and reduces teachers to career coaches reminding jobseekers to play well with others—and remember to wear pants.
This is the future our school board wants, and it is (inexplicably) what our Croton teachers want. Is it what you as taxpayers and parents want?
One of the most instructive parts of Mr. Daggett’s presentation was when he discussed deepfakes. Fans of The Good Fight might remember Jane Lynch playing an FBI agent using deepfake voice technology to try and trick a suspect. “Deepfake” is akin to Photoshop taken to the next level. Deepfakes are simply a more sophisticated version of unethical behavior that has always been present.
Forgeries have been around since the beginning of time. From Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Newsweek’s Hitler Diaries to the Howard Hughes will, there have always been document fakes which were convincing. Brazilian soccer star Neymar was victimized by a doppelganger who got women to send nude photos which the doppelganger used for blackmail. Are the ethics situational? Dependent on whether the doppelganger is a live human versus a computer-generated virtual human?
For Mr. Daggett, deepfakes are relevant because they show that our schools need to teach “digital ethics.” Old-style unethical behavior is not sufficient to warrant wasting school time instilling ethical values in our children.
Good teachers and parents don’t just teach ethics, they model ethical behavior. The ethics that Aristotle taught his son Nicomachus have value for parents and teachers today. The key difference between Mr. Daggett and Aristotle is that Mr. Daggett sees “digital ethics” as a tool to succeed in the workplace. Aristotle saw ethics as a means of guiding us to a good life.
I think that Aristotle is a better model for today’s educators. It certainly is a model more useful in addressing the alienation of the soul caused by technology. Mental health issues are a serious and growing problem spreading to children even in elementary school.
Technology is a tool. It is a means to an end, not the end itself. The vapid dystopian vision of public schooling put forth by Mr. Daggett and the AASA will not equip students for the future. More importantly, it will exacerbate the student mental health issues.
The school district headed down this path with the current (2017-2022) Strategic Coherence Plan. Hiring Mr. Daggett is the next logical progression, but I question whether our school board’s laser focus on workplace prep is desirable for a high school curriculum, let alone an elementary or middle school.
Teaching is a noble profession not because it reminds students to wear pants on a Zoom call, but rather because a great teacher can open the eyes of a child and set that child on a path towards a life-long journey to find purpose and joy. Life is more than what you do to make a living, and school is more than workplace training.
If you care about the future of our community, it is worth spending a few moments reading the AASA Learning 2025 report and watching Mr. Daggett’s videos. The AASA website is worth a visit: you can see where the “galvanizing change agents” (more commonly known as School Superintendents) are leading your children.
The “new vision” being pitched by the Croton-Harmon school district will have consequences. Ask yourself whether those consequences will help or harm the next generation.
--Paul Steinberg, Croton-on-Hudson
Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
Congratulations to our Volleyball Seniors!!! A big shout to all the volleyball players for volunteering their time to the Harry Chapin Memorial Run Against Hunger Tiger Pride!!! #crotononhudson #chufsdathletics #chufsd #crotonharmonhigh #crotonvolleyball
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Welcome to The New Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools, our houses of worship--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.
38 Halloween drinks and cocktail recipes:
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"4 Spooky Halloween Cocktails for Grown-ups"
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This Witch’s Brew Halloween Punch will make all your goblins grin! It’s an easy sparkling lime punch the whole family will love. Add dry ice to the punch bowl for an extra-spooky effect!
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FUN FAB APPETIZER IDEAS 28 Easy Halloween Appetizers for a Spooky Start to Festivities (today.com)
CROSS CULTURE KOMBUCHA NOW AT NELLA'S NUTRI-BAR
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PER THE OCTOBER NEWSLETTER OF THE ASBURY METHODIST CHURCH (SEE CircuitRider.October2022.pdf (umcchurches.org)...
THE NEXT HOLDAY POP-UP IS 11/4 AND 11/5
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