Woodstock CT Café

from Trish Lustila

I just wanted to let everyone know that Tracy has lost her battle with cancer. She passed early this morning. To all that knew her and loved her, she will be forever in our hearts and forever missed.

“For those of you who don’t know her, Tracy was always the smiling face of the special education office at the Woodstock Elementary School…”

from A Student

I just found out that Mrs. Thompson has passed away…. Truly unfortunate that such a wonderful person’s life has been taken away prematurely, especially considering what she had been going through. My condolences to her family; they’ve had a rough few years. I hope that they may find peace soon.

I’ll always remember her as one of my favorite staff members at WES. I believe she was the preschool TA back in the day. She was also a good family friend.

Her service will be at East Woodstock Congregational Church at 10:00 am this Friday.

This was first published on April 25th 2006 at the Cafe in response to Wetzel’s attacks on the K-8 school system. It’s an eloquent one-time statement by an unidentified Cafe’er. Admin

by Cyssan

You ask why parents of school children did not support the Amendment (to repeal Prop 46). I’m sure parents did support the amendment- the question really is, why does it appear as if some parents voted “no” at the polls? Part of the answer to that question is that parents have limited information. The only newspaper in town is littered with inaccuracies. Both sides of an issue are never explored in any depth. Parents can’t get accurate Minutes to town meetings because they are not posted on web sites or easily obtainable. All the parents I know work for a living and can’t attend meetings that run to midnight. They hear (or hear about) uninformed ranting citizens at Town Meetings who have a questionable level of understanding of what Prop 46 actually says. This is about communication; this is not about parents sharing your opinions and questioning accountability.

You appear to be uninformed about public education in general (to Wetzel), but specifically the Woodstock education system. You are not to be blamed for this. The lack of accurate communication is an issue. Your comments suggest to me that you are a business person- with perhaps a finance backround. In my experience, an average citizen with a business backround often assumes that education is a “business”. Likening an educational system to a factory and a child as a product, as you have done, is an inappropirate analogy. Lets stop that. There is no ‘product’ as a result of education and no monetary value in a child. There is no balance sheet at the end of the term that shows profit or loss or cost of goods sold. There is merely a human being who hopefully learned to think, reason, and communicate well enough to perpetuate a responsible society that can best govern its needs. If that was easy to evaluate, there wouldn’t be as many ways to measure how well or how poorly schools live up to their primary task. Quite simply, success is measured differently for each child and schools succeed in some way every day. Some children and some schools may be ‘average’ on one scale and extraordinary on another scale. Success, however measured costs money. Please stop trying to simplify the inherent uniqueness of education. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s not forget that learning a foreign language can open up many possibilities for a career in our global society. I’ll use my grandfather as an example.

from John

I know this from personal experience. I took four years of Latin at Norwalk High and a little bit of French here and there. I was not a great student but I would become a great student in Latin when my Grampa came to visit. We would sit down on the couch and read my Latin lesson together – I remember doing this with Virgil. Then I would go to high school and impress everyone with my fluent Latin translation. “Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris…”

My Grampa, Arthur Leavitt, is one who made a career and life as a linguist. He was a scholarly man who could speak and read at least eight languages. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1902 and got a job in the foreign service as a translator. He was first stationed at the US Embassy in Constantinople. Constantinople became Istambul after the First World War. Read the rest of this entry »

from Newcomer

I’m not a professional educator so this is only my opinion based on my own experiences as a student way back when (to Another Teacher).

I studied a foreign language in public school beginning in grade 7. In those days, the city I was raised in didn’t use today’s middle school system of grades 5-8. We had a junior high system of grades 7-9. Foreign language instruction was part of the daily standard curriculum for all 3 years. All students had their choice of Spanish, Italian, or French.

We didn’t have immersion programs. We studied a language the old fashioned way – by studying vocabulary, conjugating verbs in their various tenses, learning about agreement of nouns to pronouns, etc. It was tedious at times, but I learned a lot more about English by studying Italian than I did in my regular English classes because by grades 7-9, we were diving into literary classics such as Johhny Tremain.

I can certainly understand the concerns that you mentioned but I think the Superintendant’s idea has great potential. I think the key to his idea being successfully implemented will require very careful planning. By that I mean that I think the current English/Reading/Writing (apparently called L.A. nowadays) program should be re-evaluated as well. In my humble opinion, studying a foreign language should complement the study of English. I’d love to know why no one diagrams a sentence anymore. I can remember being taught sentence diagramming for nearly all of grade 4. It’s an extremely basic way to learn grammar and parts of speech. It also makes sentence construction for creative writing a lot easier if you know how to build a sentence, word by word. I keep waiting for one of my kids to bring home sentence diagrams for homework but it hasn’t happened yet. An exercise like that taught either the year before or in the second 1/2 of the year of studying a beginning language and then continuing to 2nd year language would go hand-in-hand if the lessons between the foreign language class and the English/L.A. class are coordinated in advance of instituting these proposed changes. Read the rest of this entry »

from John

I never pass up an opportunity to brag about my cousin Meg’s daughter and her accomplishments as an elite Marathon runner. Meg and I grew up together in Rowayton CT and only re-connected after Becki and I moved to Woodstock in 1996. Although I have not seen Meg since the early 1960s, it has been nice talking to her on the phone and receiving her notes in the mail. One of the best things about moving back to CT from California has been re-uniting with my extended family of 15 cousins and seeing all of my aunts and uncles who were/are still alive and many Rowayton friends. With myself and four siblings, I am the eldest of the 20 cousins and an uncountable number of second cousins including five grandchildren soon to be seven.

Left to right (click to enlarge): Meg with mother Lois and father Rex; sister Phoebe, brother Peter, and brother David sitting on my mother’s lap with me standing in front of my father; and cousin Suzie next to her mother Kate and father Charlie. This event was Christmas in 1952 at our grandparents house in McLean VA.

I’ve been following Meg’s daughter Heidi (now Heidi Westerling Westover at the age of 30) since I heard of her heroics in Track at the University of Rhode Island where she was a leading NCAA long-distance runner. Two years ago, Heidi finished 18th in the 2010 Boston Marathon and 3rd among American women with a time of 2 hours 39 minutes and 14 seconds (2:39:14). This was an improvement over her performance in 2009 when she finished 14th but with a time of 2:43:11. Her time in the 2010 Boston Marathon qualified her to compete for only three spots on the Olympic Marathon team in the Olympic Trials held in Houston and that finish time ranked her 46th among 225 qualifiers for the long-distance Trials this month.

Here is the layout in Houston on January 14th, Saturday, 2012:
Weather: sunny, clear
Temperature: 40F (start); 57F (finish)
Wind: WSW 9-12 mph
Qualifiers = 225
Declared = 188
Starters = 183
Finishers = 152
Prize purse = $20,000 bonus per runner for Olympic Marathon participation, with $50,000 for the Olympic Trials champion.

Heidi’s interview with NH news at WMUR.com a few days before traveling to the Olympic Trials in mid January. Skip the ad to get to her interview.

Heidi finished 15th out of 152 finishers with a time of 2:35:45 her best time in a world-class marathon. No, she didn’t make the Olympic team of three but as you can see from the ages of the top 15 finishers, there is a lot of marathon life after 30. Congrats, Heidi Westover and parents Meg and Tommy Westerling. One thing that makes Heidi stand out among these finishers is that she is a full-time 5th grade teacher in the Charlestown MA school system.

from Kevin

From WA Parent: Curious about Kevin’s (and others’) response to Connecticut receiving a C- and ranking of 26 out of the 50 states on the national report card that was published in the Bulletin and many other sources yesterday. Connecticut has one of the highest average teacher salaries in the country. (I believe only California is higher.) Is it reasonable to expect better results? Tops in spending for an average grade doesn’t seem right.

From JK: WA Parent, I believe the C- rating for teachers was a bit misleading. The rating was for laws related to teaching and teacher evaluations.

That’s a fair question. For those of you who may not have it, here is a link to the report in question:

http://www.edweek.org/media/qualitycounts2012_release.pdf

We are listed as a B+ and ranked fourth for school finance so that is certainly true. As you state we are also a C- in K-12 Achievement as well. Looking at that, two questions immediately come to mind:

- Is a C- particularly bad for K-12 Achievement when compared to the other states?
- What exactly does K-12 Achievement mean in this paper?

To answer the first question we find our C- K-12 Achievement rank is 16th in the nation. Not great but well about the nation’s average score. Most states were in the Ds with only three states in the Bs.

The second question is much more interesting. How does this paper define K-12 Achievement? The paper states:

The K-12 Achievement Index, which evaluates state educational performance on 18 individual indicators that measure: current achievement, improvements over time, and poverty-based disparities or gaps.

So this isn’t just test scores. It is things like funding distribution disparities and improvements over time. Everyone also may not know this but each state has their own standardized tests. That means for any the NCLB tests it is impossible to try and compare scores because the tests are of different difficulty levels.

What I do find very interesting is the category of “Chance for Success.” This is defined as:

The Chance-for-Success Index, which grades the nation and states on 13 indicators capturing the critical role that education plays as a person moves from childhood, through the K-12 system, and into college and the workforce.

Wow, that’s the category I’m interested in. Test scores and funding distribution is all well and good but I want to know how successful we are being in moving the children through the educational system, college and ultimately into their careers. Incidentally Connecticut’s score is a B+, ranked #4 in the nation.

It has always been my position the adequate funding is necessary but not in and of itself sufficient.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.

See comment below.

This is from an email I received this week. If you are able and inclined, please support this cause. Thank you. – Becki

from Kevin

It’s 2012 and I’m going to make a few predictions on what is going to happen on the Board of Education this year. I’ve been watching the issues and votes of the members for several years and have a good idea of the direction that the RTC has been pushing. This is the first year that they will be able to implement their agenda.

1) The Woodstock Academy contract will be passed with the Woodstock Academy substantially getting everything they want (chance of occurring: 80-90%). This will be a travesty for the town.

– The current version is for ten years and keeps auto-renewing for another ten years. It will be very hard to get out of once we realize how large a mistake we made.
– The current version does nothing to protect the town financially. In fact it is much worse as it has a clause that essentially allows them to charge back any capital cost to the town whenever they want to outside of normal tuition cost. They want a new $45M building? Just charge the town. According to the latest version of the contract they can do exactly that. (the contract allows us representation on such a planning committee but says nothing of the makeup of that committee)
– Still no more representation. I unfortunately think that will never change.

2) To the extent that there are any positions that need to be eliminated, the coordinators will be on the chopping block (chance of occurring: 50-70%). I’ve heard time and time again from teachers and administrators how crucial these positions are but they have been a favorite target.

3) The superintendent’s contract will not be renewed or the position will in some other way be eliminated (chance of occurring: 99.9%). They almost did this last year but were thwarted by one vote. This will be one of the last acts in Craig Powers revenge on Dr. Baran for doing his job in relation to SPED and Craig’s child. If he can’t win in court, he will get revenge by going after Dr. Baran. For years Craig has been using Mr. Rosendahl, member of the BOE and the RTC nominating committee, to only allow Republican RTC candidates who are hostile to the Superintendent. Now they have all the votes they need. They will at least not renew his contract and if they can get away with it they will try a more permanent solution earlier before the next election.

Those are my predictions. None of these things will be good for Woodstock. We’ll see if I’m right.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.

An entertaining video about coffee, apparently NOT from Starbucks or the Coffee Lobby – provided by a frequent Cafe’er.

from John

Since I drink a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (2.5 cups) almost every morning and became hooked on coffee, espresso and regular, in 1981 when I moved to Palo Alto CA, I have often wondered about the health effects of coffee. To make matters worse (or better), I usually have two cups of caffeine-laden tea a day. I finally got an opportunity to look into this in the past week. Here is what I learned from reviewing a large body of clinical studies on the health effects of coffee. Everything stated below can be backed up with high level publications of clinical studies and systematic clinical reviews.

Printers’ Inc was the first Coffee House/Book store, just a few blocks from the Pauling Institute and Stanford University. This is where Becki and I hung out on Sunday mornings and where I wrote grant proposals and research papers before power books. We enjoyed the brainiacs and other interesting writers and readers that surrounded us there.

Coffee is a complex mixture of chemicals that provides significant amounts of caffeine and chlorogenic acid to the consumer. Unfiltered coffee such as boiled coffee or espresso coffee is also a significant source of cafestol and kahweol, substances discussed below which are associated with elevated cholesterol. These two latter compounds are removed during paper filtration of percolated coffee. Overall, there is little evidence of health risks and some evidence of health benefits for adults consuming moderate amounts of coffee (3–4 cups/d providing 300–400 mg/day of caffeine).

Impact of coffee drinking on risk of type-2 diabetes

Six out of nine prospective cohort studies found a significant inverse association between the risk of type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and coffee intake.

A prospective study of more than 17,000 Dutch men and women found that the risk of developing type-2 DM was 50% lower in those who consumed at least 7 cups of coffee daily compared to those who drank 2 cups or less.

In Finland, where coffee consumption is among the highest in the world, a study that followed more than 14,000 men and women for an average of 12 years found that men who drank at least 10 cups of coffee daily had a 55% lower risk of developing type-2 DM than men who drank 2 cups or less, while women who drank at least 10 cups daily had a risk of type-2 DM that was 79% lower.

In a cohort of more than 10,000 Finnish twins, those who consumed at least 7 cups of coffee daily had a 35% lower risk of type-2 DM than those who consumed 2 cups or less.

In a smaller cohort of Swedish women followed for 18 years, those who drank at least 3 cups of coffee daily had a risk of type-2 DM that was about 50% lower than the risk for those who consumed less than 2 cups daily.

The two largest prospective cohort studies to examine the relationship between coffee consumption and type-2 DM were the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (41,934 men) and the Nurses’ Health Study (84,276 women) in the USA. Men who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily had a 54% lower risk of developing type-2 DM than men who did not drink coffee, and women who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily had a 29% lower risk than women who did not drink coffee. A more modest inverse association between decaffeinated coffee consumption and the risk of type-2 DM was also observed in both men and women, suggesting that compounds other than caffeine may have protective effects. In contrast, tea consumption was not associated with type-2 DM risk in the Dutch or American cohorts.

Impact of coffee drinking on risk of Parkinson’s disease

Overall, the results of case-control studies suggest that coffee and caffeine intakes are inversely associated with the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Several large prospective cohort studies have also found inverse associations between coffee and caffeine intakes and Parkinson’s disease risk in men. A study of more than 8,000 Japanese-American men found that those who did not drink coffee were 3–5 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease over the next 24–30 years than those who drank at least 28 oz daily. Caffeine intakes from coffee and other sources were also inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk. Similarly, in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, men who regularly consumed at least one cup of coffee daily had a risk of developing Parkinson’s disease over the next 10 years that was about half that of men who did not drink coffee. The consumption of tea and other caffeinated beverages was also inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk. In contrast, inverse associations between coffee and caffeine consumption and Parkinson’s disease risk over a 16-year period were not observed in the Nurses’ Health Study. Similarly, in the Cancer Prevention Study (CPS) II cohort of more than 500,000 men and women in the US, coffee consumption was inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease mortality in men but not women. The failure of prospective studies to find an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease in women may be due to the modifying effect of estrogen replacement therapy.

Further analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study cohort revealed that coffee consumption was inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease risk in women who had never used postmenopausal estrogen, but a significant increase in Parkinson’s disease risk was observed in postmenopausal estrogen users who drank at least 6 cups of coffee daily. In the CPS II cohort, a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease mortality was also observed in women who had never used postmenopausal estrogen, but not in those who used postmenopausal estrogen. Caffeine is largely metabolized by hepatic CYP1A2, and the use of postmenopausal estrogen replacement therapy has been found to inhibit CYP1A2-mediated caffeine metabolism.

Possible mechanism for the effect of caffeine in Parkinson’s disease

Recent research supports the idea that chronic caffeine consumption could reduce Parkinson’s disease risk. Parkinson’s disease is characterized by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra at the base of the brain. Studies in animal models suggest that caffeine consumption decreases the risk of Parkinson’s disease by protecting against dopaminergic neurotoxicity. The effects of caffeine in the central nervous system are related to its activity as an antagonist of the A1 and A2A subtypes of the adenosine receptor. The expression of A2A-receptors in the brain is restricted almost entirely to the striatum, the target of the dopaminergic neurons that degenerate in Parkinson’s disease. Acute toxicity with the neurotoxin, MPTP, can induce Parkinsonism in humans. This story was well documented in the book The Case of the Frozen Addicts and memorialized in the Public Television series NOVA under the same title. Dr. William Langston (a former colleague of mine), the discoverer of the link between MPTP and Parkinsonism, developed a well-established animal model of Parkinson’s disease uses MPTP to induce dopaminergic neurotoxicity in squirrel monkeys that was extended to mice. Caffeine, at doses comparable to typical human exposures, has been found to attenuate MPTP-induced losses of striatal dopamine and dopamine transporter binding sites in mice. Specific A2A-receptor antagonists mimicked the effect of caffeine as did the absence of functional A2A-receptors in A2Areceptor knockout mice. At present, it is not known exactly how A2A-receptor blockade reduces dopaminergic neurotoxicity. Read the rest of this entry »

Lawyer: [reading from Walt's will] And I’d like to leave my 1972 Gran Torino to…
[the lawyer pauses and looks up at Ashley, who smiles expectantly]
Lawyer: …my friend… Thao Vang Lor. On the condition that you don’t chop-top the roof like one of those beaners, don’t paint any idiotic flames on it like some white trash hillbilly, and don’t put a big, gay spoiler on the rear end like you see on all the other zipperheads’ cars. It just looks like hell. If you can refrain from doing any of that… it’s yours.

Novel Stem Cell Treatment for Type I Diabetes.

from Jeff Gordon

As a Hematology-Oncology physician, caring for people with blood disorders, including malignant blood disorders, is what I do. The whole field of bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cell and cord blood transplantations is quite fascinating and has offered for many people the opportunities for either long-term control of their cancers or outright cures. It is not a panacea, however, and there are morbidities and moralities to consider. Not every person is a candidate for a transplant.

Hematopoietic cells in healthy adults come from the bone marrow. Before birth, the spleen and even the liver make such cells, but there is a shift from such soon after birth.

There are different types of levels of stem cells, some “uncommitted” to a defined hematopoietic pathway (such as to make white blood cells, red blood cells or megakaryocytes [these through a process of budding make platelets]) and some more committed.

There are a lot of internal processes in the bone marrow. It is an active organ system and since there is a lot of bone marrow in adults, it is a big organ system. I think technically the skin is the largest organ system. There is a lot of interesting processes outside of the bone marrow that interact with the bone marrow.

At a basic level, I have always found it a wonder that cytotoxic chemotherapy can be given at basically lethal dosing to blank out the bone marrow (and hopefully the malignant blood process as well) and that someone’s own (autologous) or someone else’s (allogenic) bone marrow or stem cells can be given via infusion and these cells know where to go, how to set up shop, and how to repopulate the marrow. Read the rest of this entry »

from LibDem

While the banter between liberals and conservatives in this website is at times interesting and enjoyable, we must begin to recognize that these divisions are obsolete and meaningless. We need to recognize that both political parties are beholden to armies or corporate lobbyists who write the legislation while corporate media controls what we read, watch, and hear. It has imposed on us a relative uniformity of opinion that pits us against each other, while the real elephant in the kitchen is hidden away- cleaning out our refrigerator. The old arguments refer conservatives back to nazi fascism and the liberals back to soviet communism. In these totalitarian states, economics were subordinate to politics. Today, in America, we have a different kind of totalitarianism where economics control politics. Prominent political philosopher Sheldon Wolin refers to this in his newest book Democracy Inc. as a “Reverse Totalitarianism”. This inverse totalitarianism is created by our military-industrial-corporate structure that essentially has bought our government and are beginning to subvert our democratic values while pretending to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution. President Obama and all other politicians are just street punks who are puppets to the real powers that be who pull the strings. When we go after politicians and play into the old tiresome rhetoric between liberalism and conservatism, we are fighting the wrong battle.

But have at it gentlemen, I suppose its better than the majority of Americans who are subdued by the spectacles and diversions of our corporate entertainment industry. I used to say that religion is the opiate of the people, but now I find myself saying that football is the opiate of the people. Ah, and isn’t it just priceless that Woodstock Academy just spent a fortune for new football fields. Its just what our students need to succeed in this world-more football, more diversion, more tools to keep our future generations politically passive while the corporate elite quietly but steadily widdle away at our freedoms, our finances, our resources, and our environment. The progressives,the socialists, and the intellectuals have been predicting this for many many years while the corporate propaganda machine successfully marginalized them, making real debate nearly impossible. Read the rest of this entry »

We saw Ernie Wetzel’s success story (below) in the Marines (WA 2008). Here’s our daughter, Mariah (WA 2006) in a business meeting dressed in a business suit at MN8 near Cincinnati OH yesterday (blue arrow). It would be nice to have information on other WA graduates. MN8 is recruiting individual firefighters.

Here is Danielle Frate (WA 2005), Mariah’s cousin – a Graphic Design Artist at Davis Advertising in Worcester MA. She majored in Graphic Design Art at the Academy. She graduated with high honors from ESCU in 3.5 years.

Taylor Wentworth’s Story in the Bull.

Community members are invited to visit the gymnasium at Woodstock Academy Jan. 31 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. to sign up for the marrow registry. People ages 18 to 60 are eligible.

The testing, which involves a cheek swab, is covered by most insurance carriers, and people are asked to bring insurance cards. A private fund will cover the cost for people who either do not have insurance or whose insurance does not cover the testing.

For more information, call (401) 248-5720 or email marrow@ribc.org.

from John

Just a few thoughts:

• The Right-wing conservatives and the Tea Party element which has a religiosity component has so alienated the electorate that Mit Romney will skate to the nomination.
• I don’t know in which of these groups Newt Gingrich fits but he doesn’t fit in his clothes and his Bain Capital stance will destroy this issue for Obama and strengthen Romney.
• Santorum and Perry have pursuaded everyone who has listened to what they have said that they are not viable candidates.
• Ron Paul is endearing but too old and fundamentally unelectable.
• Bachman and Palin have disqualified themselves because of their stupidity – a nationwide insult to women.
• Cain is an example of what can go wrong in Republican politics – Pizza anyone.
• Cantor will loose favor after the election.
• The sour cream has risen to the top.

The national Republican Party will have great difficulty recovering from this indelible campaign in 2016. Enter Hillary and the rotund Christie.