By Kayla Gahagan

In the midst of an economic meltdown and ongoing budget woes in the Rapid City School District’s operating budget, I had to read in amazement at how a Pocatello, Idaho economics teacher handled his district’s budget problems.

The teacher at the school struck a deal with a local pizza shop to cover expenses in the classroom. Every handout and test given to students has “Molto’s Pizza 14″ 1 topping just $5″ written on the bottom of every page.

The teacher said ads are sold for the yearbook and for the school newspaper - why not the classroom?

While this is a great idea, it open up all sorts of questions about classroom distractions for students, the time a teacher might spend pitching a product instead of teaching, and more so, whose responsibilities is it - the community’s, parents’, the state - to make sure that the people in the classroom are not having to grovel for money.

Don’t we want the people in front of our students doing what they do best - teaching? Finding money to fund that should be left to others. When it’s not getting done, I have to applaud this teacher who took it into his own hands. I hope it serves as a shot of reality for this community and lawmakers, and not as a precedent, with other teachers soon to follow.

We ran the story in our print edition last week, and while I’m hoping you already read it there, you can check it out here too.

By Barbara Soderlin

If you’re a teacher (or a sociologist) you’ve probably heard about the Iowa teacher and her famous blue eyes/brown eyes experiment. Jane Elliott, after the 1968 shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., wanted to teacher her students what it felt like to be discriminated against for something they couldn’t help, like race, or in her case, eye color. So she started treating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children differently, with fascinating and painful results. The experiment has always been controversial, but it illustrates how children live up to our expectations for them.

Here’s an interesting story in which a girl who grew up in Iowa, an Asian girl adopted by white parents, tells how the experiment affected her, and interviews Elliott on her thoughts on race in light of the Obama presidency.

“Elliott was the first white person I ever heard who admitted to the privileges of whites, acknowledging that visible differences affect how the world perceives us,” wrote Corina Knoll in the L.A. Times. “Her words sparked a hunger in me for more.

“My first year in college, I took courses on race and ethnicity and Asian American history. Race, I learned, permeated everything, and it was OK to say so. I found myself with strong opinions and a circle of outspoken black and Asian friends with whom to share. The world felt bigger, and I felt empowered.

“Much of my decision to move to Los Angeles eight years ago was to answer a longing to live somewhere diverse. When I discovered Elliott quietly living nearby, it seemed fortuitous that I had become a reporter. I could interview the woman who unknowingly sent me in a new direction.”