The Global Search for Education
“We say education of our youth is the most important thing that we do in terms of the future.”— Randi Weingarten Photo courtesy of Armando Arorizo
In Search of Professionals - Part 2
By C. M. Rubin with
The teaching profession stands at a crossroads. The United States has an opportunity to reform the entire profession and make teaching not only one of America’s most important professions but also one of America’s most respected professions. But first we need to borrow some great ideas from successful educational systems around the world that have already achieved this.
Inspired by Michael Fullan’s and Andrew Hargreaves’ new book, Professional Capital, “The Global Search for Education: In Search of Professionals - Part 1” began to look at what the next generation of American teachers could look like. Today we continue that conversation with someone who understands better than anyone why professional excellence is one of the most vital investments we can make in our children’s future. That person is Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers.
“Countries that outperform us understand that teachers are physicians of the mind.”— Randi Weingarten Photo courtesy of John Muldoon
What are the steps we need to take in order to adopt the Hargreaves and Fullan “teach like a pro” action plan?
We have to think about all the issues as collective work not individual work. That is a very different mentality for the United States.
We have to respect teachers. When someone is not doing a good job there is a way to respect him or her but also let him or her know something needs to be done about the problem.
The bigger problem in the United States is the daunting conditions that many teachers work in. Half of our teachers leave in the first 3 to 5 years on the job. Hargreaves and Fullan observe that to get the return on our investment even now you must have teachers stay in the job for at least 8 years. That’s an enormous waste of resources and brainpower that goes out the door. Combating the teacher attrition number is probably the most important issue to address. We must also address what we can do about training teachers before they come into the profession. That must be followed up with more development and support when teachers are on the job. We need a different mentality, i.e. teachers are not simply born, teachers need to be nurtured. We say education of our youth is the most important thing that we do in terms of the future. We cannot in the same breath say it’s okay to just pop somebody in a classroom and say, “Go do it. We will assess you at the end of the year based on the test scores of your kids.”
What is your view of standardized testing in the US with regard to students and to teachers?
I think we are too fixated on standardized tests. Testing has its role. It’s important as a metric stick to help kids understand what they know and are able to do. It is important for teachers and others because it informs on instruction. It can be used as a tool to illustrate where there are strengths and where there are weaknesses. What’s happened in the United States, unlike almost any other country in the world, is that we are out of alignment, meaning that the tests have more consequences for teachers than they do for students. We need to rebalance it. Part of the problem is that testing goes back to the fundamental deprofessionalization of our profession. There will always be the search for the quick fix, the silver bullet, the sense that you can have one intervention that totally changes education for the positive. That does not happen. The quick fix used to be a teacher proof curriculum. Now the quick fix is if we just use test scores as the be all and end all for everything, we’ll know whether or not we are on the right track. Countries that outperform us understand that teachers are physicians of the mind. We should be working on creating a climate that is conducive to teaching and learning.
“The achievement gap between rich and poor is greater than the achievement gap between black and white.” — Randi Weingarten Photo courtesy of John Muldoon
What changes in the teaching profession need to be made in order to address the achievement gap with the 20% of children in the US that are from poor families?
The achievement gap between rich and poor is greater than the achievement gap between black and white. There is a 40% achievement gap between rich and poor. What we are seeing more and more is that the socio-economic obstacles are very daunting and yet we have an absolute obligation to try to address them. We cannot ignore them. There are several things that have to happen:
Training Training Training.
Support Support Support — once teachers-in-training become teachers.
The countries that outperform us understand that people really have to be prepared to teach in the current environment versus the way teachers were prepared to teach 20 or 30 years ago.
We need to be very prepared to teach 21st century skills, which is not about simply knowing things. It’s also about knowing how to apply knowledge, how to critically think, how to problem solve and how to work with others. Those things are as important. Some of that is training. Some of that is working together and some of that is discovered on the job itself.
What can we do now about getting star teachers into poor schools?
I think you can do several things and I speak from my own personal experience when I was teaching in the Chancellor’s district in New York City. We had a multi-faceted strategy to turn around poor performing schools into performing schools. We did many things at the same time.
We really focused on the capability of the teaching force. We only accepted certified teachers and we made sure they were supported. We built in extra time to train teachers on an ongoing basis and created a curriculum that everybody bought into and trained on. For these particular schools, the curriculum we used in both literacy and math was used schoolwide. Professional development was aligned with curriculum. We also built in additional time for kids so that if they were falling behind, they got immediate tutoring in the areas in which this was happening. We had more parental outreach. Teachers had a choice to stay in these particular schools, and in exchange for their additional time, for making the choice to stay, and for using the approved curriculum, they got paid an additional 15%. We didn’t have a problem with attrition and we saw in a couple of years that all students in the elementary school had been turned around. We created schools where parents wanted to send their kids and teachers wanted to teach. We had leadership that was collaborative and supportive. We had the tools and conditions to get the job done. If you have all these things, whatever the neighborhood and whatever the environment, experienced teachers will stay.
“One of the biggest challenges teachers face is personalizing and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all the students in their classrooms.” — Randi Weingarten Photo courtesy of the American Federation of Teachers
As we move forward into the 21st century, technology continues to play a larger role in teachers’ and students’ lives. What are the positive and negatives of technology with regard to improving student learning and assisting teacher training?
One of the biggest challenges teachers face is personalizing and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all the students in their classrooms. Digital resources and technological tools have tremendous promise to assist in that. Plus, technology offers ways to provide extra supports for struggling students, for extending learning beyond textbooks, and for providing access to engaging content. It can be tremendously empowering of both teachers and students. But we have to remember that really integrating technology into the curriculum requires more, not less of teachers. So we really have to make sure that they have the time, professional development, equipment, and technical support they need to take advantage of that potential for their students. And we can’t forget that while the digital divide is narrowing, it’s still very real. Reliable internet access and bandwidth are still very real issues in too many of our urban and rural communities. So, whether you are talking about student learning or teacher training, it’s not the tool — the technology — it’s how you use it. And it matters whether you have the conditions and support to use it well.
Randi Weingarten and C. M. Rubin
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
The Global Search for Education
“Schooling is a universal right. It is about the right of all young people to have access to ‘powerful knowledge’… ” — Michael Young
Knowledge
By C.M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Fueled by international test scores which indicate that the UK is lagging behind other nations in education, the British education debate has focused on a number of issues. These include the nature of standardized exams and the weakness of the academic core requirements. The national exam system is costly and has lost public support in terms of academic quality (e.g. teachers teaching to the test). At 14, students can drop critical subjects such as the single sciences and foreign languages, and the study of these subjects has fallen dramatically in the past 10 years, with students from low income backgrounds being affected the most.
Professor Michael Young (sociologist of education and Emeritus Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London) comments:
“At best, we still only educate between 40% and 50% of each cohort of young people. From the age of 14, the remainder are allowed to drift onto courses that lead them nowhere – neither to jobs nor to further study. We assume but do not admit that they are, to various degrees, uneducable, and so we don’t care that the courses they take, often carrying a spurious vocational label, are worthless. We also assume that they are incapable of benefiting from continuing their general education. No countries have solved this problem. Some, such as the Nordic, German as well as some Asian countries, achieve more than we do. Such inequalities are ultimately a political issue lying deep in the way most societies have developed. We are not powerless. Schooling is a universal right and this means much more than attendance. It is about the right of all young people to have access to ‘powerful knowledge’ – the knowledge that takes them beyond their experience and enables them to imagine alternatives.”
Professor Young’s research interests are in knowledge, curriculum and qualifications. His most recent book, Bringing Knowledge Back In, won second prize as UK Education Book of the Year (2010).
What kind of educational system will permit a country to have the people skills needed to compete globally?
The influential idea of the ’knowledge society’ means that each occupation will be under pressure to augment its quantum of conceptual knowledge. This is because generalizable innovation relies on conceptual knowledge and it is this kind of innovation that the global economy most prizes. It follows that if a country is to compete, its educational programs, whether general or vocational, must emphasize conceptual rather than contextual skills.
What is your view on standardized testing?
At best, standardized testing can provide a benchmark for how an education system is achieving relative to other systems. The PISA tests are a case in point. They are not perfect but there is a reasonable consensus that their measures can be trusted. However, standardized testing can only inhibit the love of learning and stimulate a pedagogy which focuses on drill and practice. That is why they should be kept in the background and given a relatively low profile except for international comparisons.
“Those who take learning seriously do it because they are motivated…” — Michael Young
If generalization is possible, what elements are missing from the preponderance of current educational systems, such as critical thinking?
I do think generalizations are possible but I think ‘critical thinking’ is a completely meaningless and misconceived idea. It assumes that the process of criticism is independent of what is being criticized and the conceptual basis of the critiques. Any serious enquiry and any serious learning involves critique as one step in reaching a more reliable understanding; but the meaning of critique will depend on the phenomenon being criticized, the concepts that are used to formulate the critique, and the domain of enquiry. Physicists, artists, historians, and cabinet makers engage in critique of their and others’ practice and concepts, but there is nothing useful in abstracting a common notion of being critical.
There is no process or practice called ‘critique’ which people can learn to do and then apply in different contexts and across different domains. A similar argument could be made for problem solving: there are math problems, problems with bringing up children… and only the word is similar.
The other popular educational fad of the moment, ‘learning to learn’, is equally vacuous, and potentially even more dangerous educationally. On the one hand, any researcher, professional, craftsman/woman, musician, artist, and the best managers and administrators learn to learn and how to learn during their careers. On the other hand, if students come to treat ‘learning to learn’ as an important technique to be learned, it can lead them to distrust what they know, be open to every new learning (or training) opportunity, and lose confidence in what they know. When the new is better than the old just because it is new, this is the beginning of commercialism. Students need to learn to trust what they know but be open to its fallibility. There is no generic technique called ‘learning to learn’. Those who take learning seriously do it because they are motivated — either because it is part of their profession or because they find acquiring new knowledge something intrinsically worthwhile.
What can be done to better address the emotional well-being and intellectual potential of the individual, which appear to be suffering under the current system?
I think people’s emotional well-being is harmed when they are bored by routine teaching to the test. Real learning and engaging with powerful new ideas in the humanities or the sciences involves students’ emotional resources as well as their intellectual resources. It is when their intellectual resources become taken over by a testing machine that their emotional well-being is threatened.
From a larger perspective, does your country’s definition of educational excellence take into account artistic and cultural achievements and the quality of life of individuals?
The answer is yes for some, and no for the majority. The elite schools, well resourced and with highly qualified teachers, often but not always with students boarding, offer a flourishing extra curriculum of arts, sporting and other activities where the pupils have large amounts of control over their own learning. A weaker version used to be a feature of state schools but has been undercut by new approaches to teacher workforce development where teachers work for a defined number of hours and are no longer encouraged to engage in extra curricular activities voluntarily. Creating opportunities to broaden students’ experience of different cultural activities requires high paid teachers and a broadening of their professionalism.
Professor Michael Young and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the Beechwood Sacred Heart School UK and Michael Young
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice In Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
THE REAL ALICE IN WONDERLAND INSPIRES
Portrait of Alice Liddell After Lewis Carroll by Vik Muniz
CREATING TREASURES OUT OF TRASH by C.M. Rubin
When you first look at a Muniz work of art, you are probably going to see an image you think you are already familiar with. It is only when you get really close up to the image that you realize the work has been compiled out of surprisingly diverse and original mediums. Vik uses everything, including soil, garbage, peanut butter, chocolate syrup, caviar, cotton wool, thread, wire, and other non traditional art materials to create his original masterpieces.
In Muniz’s magnificent Portrait of Alice Liddell after Lewis Carroll (which can be seen in The Real Alice In Wonderland book by authors C. M. Rubin and Gabriella Rubin), Muniz used little, vividly colored, plastic toys (the kind of toys you might find in party favor bags or even Christmas crackers) to give a playful reality to the world of the child Alice. His recreation of Alice Liddell’s photo is based on the world famous original photograph taken of Alice Liddell when she was a child by Lewis Carroll (see it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City). The photograph is thought to have been inspired by a poem called The Beggar Maid, written by Alfred Tennyson in 1842. It is one of Lewis Carroll’s most celebrated works of art featuring Alice Liddell.
Muniz was born and raised by a working class family in San Paulo, Brazil.
While trying to break up a street fight in his teens, he was shot in the leg. He used the compensation he received for his injuries to pay for a trip to
America. He has lived and worked here since then, and currently resides in New York.
Vik began as a sculptor, but over time became more interested in photographic reproductions. He has been very successful in this medium, so much so that today, his playfully provocative work has been exhibited in galleries all over the world. He has achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success.
Often described as an illusionist, the artist has been quoted as
saying that he is not interested in fooling people. Indeed, he “wants his images to show people a measure of their own belief.”
Read More about Vik Muniz: http://www.vikmuniz.net
Look Inside The Real Alice Book
View the Real Alice Valentine’s Trailer
I Am One in a Million - RARE
I Am One in a Million - RARE is the personal story of Lisa Penry Hirons’ fight to live. The story is told with her friend, author C.M. Rubin, who lives in New York City. Lisa, who lives in Maidenhead, England, has Adrenal Cortical Cancer. She has had surgery, chemotherapy, mitotane (a derivative of DDT), and began taking an experimental drug OSI 906 in a trial beginning October 25, 2010. The drug failed to help Lisa. Please note that as with any trial, it is unclear whether Lisa was given the actual drug or the placebo.
There are approximately 600 new cases per year of Lisa’s Cancer in the U.S.(Adrenocortical Carcinoma: ACC), which developed in one of her adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are responsible for making steroid hormones (aldosterone, cortisol and adrenaline) that enable the body to respond to stress. Lisa’s cancer is both very rare and highly life threatening. It is most common in the first, fourth or fifth decade of life. Five-year survival rates in children are greater than 50 percent. Adults rarely have obvious symptoms, so they often are not diagnosed until the cancer is large and has spread. Although adrenal cancer can be treated in adults, it usually comes back. Once it recurs, it is almost always fatal.
Dear Friends:
It has been a bad week for Lisa, and I am very sad to let you know that she is going downhill every day now. There have been a lot of things that have happened this week.
On Sunday and Monday, Lisa started to become very nauseous overnight, which prompted the decision by the doctors to fit a “syringe driver” to administer her medicines.
On Tuesday, the doctor had to complete the “Do not attempt CPR” form with Lisa, and also informed her that unfortunately, the teams at the Marsden and Hammersmith hospitals have now confirmed that there are definitely no further options available for treatment, and that her life is drawing to an end.
During Tuesday night, Lisa had another terrible time, with severe nausea and pain, that prompted the doctors to double the dosage of medication, which has left Lisa in a much more sedated but comfortable state.
On Wednesday, Lisa had a conversation with the doctor about moving to a hospice in Windsor. After further conversations with her husband Alex, Lisa made the decision to go to the hospice. She thinks the hospice will give her the best chance of regaining her strength.
Lisa was taken there yesterday by ambulance. Please note that unfortunately Lisa is in no condition to receive visitors (unless prior permission is granted by Alex) and the hospice is enforcing this.
Our thoughts are with Lisa, and also with Alex and Ollie. Lisa has always described her relationship with Alex to me as perfect. All they ever want to do is love and care for each other. Ollie and Lisa adore each other. He makes it his job to entertain her and make her laugh at times when her pain is deepest.
It is hard to be in New York when your friend is going through all of this so far away. However, I take solace knowing that Alex and Ollie, good friends and Lisa’s family are close by. I continue to remember our wonderful conversations in early December when Lisa (as always) shared her thoughts and opinions - the ones she shares with me in a very direct way, and the ones she feeds me in a gentler, more subliminal way, making me go over and over them for days afterwards. And I realize again what a wise woman she is. It is in the darkest moments of life that we discover the true character of our friends. Lisa does not want her fate, but Lisa is not afraid. I am so proud of my beautiful, independent, courageous, and dignified friend - Lisa Penry Hirons.
I Am One in a Million - RARE
I Am One in a Million - RARE is the personal story of Lisa Penry Hirons’ fight to live. The story is told with her friend, author C.M. Rubin, who lives in New York City. Lisa, who lives in Maidenhead, England, has Adrenal Cortical Cancer. She has had surgery, chemotherapy, mitotane (a derivative of DDT), and began taking an experimental drug OSI 906 in a trial beginning October 25, 2010. The drug failed to help Lisa. Please note that as with any trial, it is unclear whether Lisa was given the actual drug or the placebo.
There are approximately 600 new cases per year of Lisa’s Cancer in the U.S.(Adrenocortical Carcinoma: ACC), which developed in one of her adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are responsible for making steroid hormones (aldosterone, cortisol and adrenaline) that enable the body to respond to stress. Lisa’s cancer is both very rare and highly life threatening. It is most common in the first, fourth or fifth decade of life. Five-year survival rates in children are greater than 50 percent. Adults rarely have obvious symptoms, so they often are not diagnosed until the cancer is large and has spread. Although adrenal cancer can be treated in adults, it usually comes back. Once it recurs, it is almost always fatal.
A New Year’s message from Lisa Penry Hirons:
Hello and Happy New Year and thank you to everyone, for all your messages of
kindness, support and encouragement.
I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch recently, but I’m using all of my energies for
healing again, no visitors right now, just healing, healing, healing. I’ll be back in
contact as soon as I’m able.
Here’s to a great 2011 all round, for the world and for everyone.
All my love
Lisaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
RARE
The Rare Gift of Love
by C.M.Rubin
During the process of creating The Real Alice In Wonderland book in 2009, I made a rare friend — Nancy Rosin. She is the owner of The Nancy and Henry Rosin Collection: Valentines and Expressions of Love. With Nancy’s assistance and her Victorian Treasury (one chapter of her rare and far reaching Expressions of Love collection), we were able to complete my vision for The Real Alice in Wonderland book: to take the reader on a historic journey through Alice Liddell’s fascinating life story by reproducing her personal photographs, books, papers, and personal effects as authentic Victorian images. Critics took note of our creative efforts and wrote glowing reviews about the book’s art content and artistic execution.
Somewhere along the journey of producing a pictorial biography embellished with cupids, hearts, flowers, fans, antique postcards, poetry, lace, butterflies, ornate frames, embossed cards, and so much more, I also fell in love with a unique 19th century collection of art. It was, first of all, the period (Victorian, referring to the reign of Queen Victoria of England from 1837 to 1901) which will always be one of my favorites in history. But even more important for me was the collection’s veritable theme of Love and the gift and history of Love – it captured my heart.
Nancy explained that like me, she shares a passion for the Victorian era and its dramatic impact on social change. When she started collecting four decades ago, her initial focus was the evolution of the Valentine. However, the more she learned about early Valentines, the more she realized that many other rare and relevant objects were linked historically to this most important tribute of love. She decided to collect these treasures with the goal of assembling a substantial body of material that would be a basis for scholarly research and writing – an uncut documentary about people tied together through the indelible fingerprints of love. The collection consists of love stories of real people, treasured mementos of loving relationships, and expressions of sentimental celebrations and traditions that have brought people together in joy. This collection enables us to learn as much about history and social values as about the passion of the greatest human emotion of all. It reflects the timelessness of love.
And so I asked myself why this collection is relevant today. Certainly it is a rare and exceedingly valuable collection with a breadth and quality beyond any other collection that I have seen. It could be a significant addition to any private collection, library or museum. Nancy feels it should have a home where it can be enjoyed. We have since discussed using it in ways that it can help others in need. I am delighted to share with you on this Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2010, that we plan to collaborate with Nancy to explore ways in which her rare collection can be used to create awareness and to raise funds for curing rare diseases.
In closing, look around you as you gather to celebrate a historic tradition that has brought you together today with family and friends. There is no emotion more powerful than love. Love has stood the test of time, time and time again. Love conquers all and undoubtedly the gift of love will always help us find the Cure.
Nancy Rosin at The Real Alice in Wonderland book launch
Nancy Rosin is the President of the National Valentine Collectors’ Association: www.valentinecollectors.com, and the Vice President of The Ephemera Society of America: www.ephemerasociety.org. She is the owner of the Nancy and Henry Rosin Collection: Valentines and Expressions of Love, as well as the Nancy Rosin Victorian Treasury: www.victoriantreasury
I Am One in a Million - RARE
The Hirons family are in a Christmas state of mind
Rare Day 42 of 42
I Am One in a Million - RARE is the personal story of Lisa Penry Hirons’ fight to live. The story is told with her friend, author C.M. Rubin, who lives in New York City. Lisa, who lives in Maidenhead, England, has Adrenal Cortical Cancer. She has had surgery, chemotherapy, mitotane (a derivative of DDT), and began taking an experimental drug OSI 906 in a trial beginning October 25, 2010. The drug failed to help Lisa. Please note that as with any trial, it is unclear whether Lisa was given the actual drug or the placebo.
There are approximately 600 new cases per year of Lisa’s Cancer in the U.S.(Adrenocortical Carcinoma: ACC), which developed in one of her adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are responsible for making steroid hormones (aldosterone, cortisol and adrenaline) that enable the body to respond to stress. Lisa’s cancer is both very rare and highly life threatening. It is most common in the first, fourth or fifth decade of life. Five-year survival rates in children are greater than 50 percent. Adults rarely have obvious symptoms, so they often are not diagnosed until the cancer is large and has spread. Although adrenal cancer can be treated in adults, it usually comes back. Once it recurs, it is almost always fatal.
Dear Readers:
Today is the 42nd day of Lisa’s Drug Trial. Those of you who have been following CMRUBINWORLD will remember that last month, Lisa had to be taken off the OSI 906 experimental drug due to complications with Lisa’s platelets and cortisol levels. We hoped this would be temporary, however, scans taken last Monday indicate that the main tumor in Lisa’s body has increased in size since the commencement of the trial. Lisa hopes to begin a new drug trial at the Royal Marsden in Sutton, England once her levels are back on track. While every treatment and therapy the doctors have tried on Lisa has not delivered the results we’ve all prayed for, Lisa told me during my visit that the blog has given her a new lease on life. Working on the blog gives her hope - a reason to keep fighting every day. Today I am posting the materials Lisa sent me. Beginning Monday, I am One in a Million – Rare will be expanding its content to include heartwarming holiday stories from celebrities, friends, family, and of course, the ongoing experiences of my friend Lisa and me . We hope you’ll stick around and even share some of your rare and wonderful stories with us. Stories are gifts – gifts that can give life.
Ollie Hirons hopes James Rubin likes Arsenal - James Rubin hopes Ollie Hirons likes the New York Yankees
Alice is feeling dizzy after drinking her Cortisol reducing drug
I Am One in a Million - RARE
Cathy’s Christmas decorations for Lisa’s tree
RareDay 41 of 42
I Am One in a Million - RARE is the personal story of Lisa Penry Hirons’ fight to live. The story is told with her friend, author C.M. Rubin, who lives in New York City. Lisa, who lives in Maidenhead, England, has Adrenal Cortical Cancer. She has had surgery, chemotherapy and has now begun an experimental drug therapy lasting 42 days.
There are approximately 600 new cases per year of Lisa’s Cancer in the U.S.(Adrenocortical Carcinoma: ACC), which developed in one of her adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are responsible for making steroid hormones (aldosterone, cortisol and adrenaline) that enable the body to respond to stress. Lisa’s cancer is both very rare and highly life threatening. It is most common in the first, fourth or fifth decade of life. Five-year survival rates in children are greater than 50 percent. Adults rarely have obvious symptoms, so they often are not diagnosed until the cancer is large and has spread. Although adrenal cancer can be treated in adults, it usually comes back. Once it recurs, it is almost always fatal.
Dear Cathy,
So lovely spending yesterday together. When you left I reminded myself
we’ll be seeing each other again at Christmas - both families. I’m inspired by
the beautiful Christmas decorations you gave me. Alex and I have finished off
our Christmas presents lists and started shopping online. Ollie and I are
putting up the Christmas tree this weekend; I get so excited this time of
year. I’d leave the decorations up all the time if I could. Gay called this
morning to ask if I wanted to go Christmas shopping. I didn’t hesitate to say
yes, especially since the hospital said my blood results were doing well and that
they don’t want to see me again till next week.
I did my usual - took the cortisol reducing drug (now taking four tablets three
times a day) and went back to bed to sleep through the dizzy blurry vision
hours after I take the pills. When Gay saw me, she said what you said. You look
so well. Sometimes I feel like a fraud, Cathy. But once again that’s something I have learned from this experience. Someone can look great on the outside but you never know what they are going through physically, spirtually, or emotionally inside. I now remind myself of that every time I meet a friend or even a stranger. Have a safe flight home, Cathy.
Lisaxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Lisa,
I’m almost home. The taxi just turned onto Park Avenue and I’m driving down past the Christmas trees to 74th Street. When I was little, I overheard our neighbor telling Mum that if she didn’t water her Christmas tree it would die. Since then, can’t tell you how many Christmas trees I have rambled around in the dark
in the middle of the night to water. There’s no point in them being all
sparkly and beautiful on the outside if they’re dying of thirst within. Make sure
you’re drinking lots and lots of water, Lisa. Love Cathyxxxxxxxxxx
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