Fear is in the Eye of the Beholder

Something as simple as using a map is a lost art.  Some people talk in directions (I find that’s men usually… “on the east side of the road”, etc).  My dad did it all his life because it related to his job.  But reading a map is a lost art.  Is it even a skill taught in schools?  I know I had those little 5 question quizzes that tested my map reading skills in 3rd grade.  I, however, never had to REALLY use a map...that was until I started driving with my mom to summer camp in 1994 as a rising senior in high school.  Camp was located in Crossville, TN and my mom and I drove there from Louisiana for the first time to be counselors together.  We embarked for what can be a one day trip and I remember wanting to know where I was at all times to “mark off” the distance and time that had passed.  It was then, aa a soon-to-be-senior in high school, that I learned to really read a map.  Folding a map is one skill (and let’s admit, a hard one to do in a car properly), interpreting a map is a whole new ball game. Where was the next rest stop?  What exit could you get off, but not back on?  What roads were 2 or 4 lane highways, and thus how busy were they?  I came to be good at it and like it.  

When I moved to Northern, VA to live near my then boyfriend, I asked for the old type of bound city and local maps to help me get around.  That thing lived in the front seat of my car with popular destinations marked off for me.  Oh, did I mention I avoided (and still avoid) major interstates like 395 and 495.  Local routes for me still to this day even if that means more time!

That bound book USED to be sold at Sam’s Club and Costco in annual installments with updates.  Not anymore!  That bound book USED to ride shotgun with me.  Not anymore!  Why?  Because now, I’m app-dependent as is probably MOST of the traveling world.  Ideally, we’ll never be lost again!  But why is this so scary?

Why is being lost so scary?  Why is not figuring you way back to you route not seen as an adventure and pertinent problem-solving practice?  Why isn’t practicing using your information around you to find your way applauded?  Why aren’t reading signs and using trial and error seen as building a literacy worth building?  If you haven’t noticed, I just highlighted 3 parts of the PICKLE that could be practiced if all of our map apps were disabled.  Oh and lo and behold, heaven forbid we call someone and TALK to them if we were lost!  Actual connection with a human being!  I know, I sound really cynical and like I’m writing this at midnight, which I am!

But this got me thinking about the dependence we have on the apps/digital world and how The App Generation talked about embracing, or at least understanding the concept of the app/digital world for identity, intimacy, and imagination is really necessary in comprehending the youth we are teaching or are bound to eventually teach.  As I look back on my notes, what truly stands out is the concept of fear.  

Fear of ones’ perception by others online

Fear of who you are not being enough or okay

Fear of being autonomous

Fear of being wrong and thus needing approval or reassurance from others

Fear that causes anxiety

Fear of confrontation with others

Fear of getting too attached

Now, yes, I know that there were many positives that showed up in our “app people” we created.  But when I looked at the negatives (represented as fears above) it makes me worried for our youth.  It seems that trying to avoid scary situations is just making things scarier...or at least more fearful?  But is this because students don’t have resiliency anymore that would come with being lost once or twice in their life?  In college once I took a trip with some friends to a different camp in Alabama at spring break.  We crossed a river and the girls got separated from the boys.  I was lost.  But I kept my wits about me.  I started making paths in the leaves to know which way I had gone.  And then I listened.  I could hear the river flowing and remembered that it needed to be on my right to find the path.  Problem-solving!  Resiliency!  

To me it’s a little which came first, the chicken or the egg.  Do students develop problem solving skills and then figure out how to use them in varied situations like online when they need them, or do they have to be using them in a situation (online) the whole time to be able to access their solving abilities?  Isn’t this called transference or something like that?  I want to believe that if developed, students could problem solve their way out of anything.  Why then do these apps need to exist to solve problems for us?  Are we really just using them to get something done faster so we have time to do yet one more thing on our plate?  

This is obviously a bigger issue than this blog will and can cover.  I know the digital world is here to stay and I have to roll with the punches.  It just seems unfortunate that students have to roll with those punches and the negativity that may come with them too. 

I like how the book made us aware of the effects of an online presence on today’s youth.  I think it made us very aware of the tremendous anxiety that comes with the youth of today and the implications for our classroom.  It did also make us aware of the potential that is out there for positive identity building, intimacy creating, and imagination developing.  It did not truly suggest great ways to do this (thought it didn’t claim to do so in the first place.

That is all.  I have spoken (Star Wars reference here.)  End of rant.  End of blog.

"And I quote..."

I think I’m going to write this blog with all the quotes I pulled (since apparently I did that assignment for no reason. Yes, there is sarcasm there, but I mean it in a funny way.)  I can appreciate the quote “Today’s digital literacies can make the difference between being empowered or manipulated, serene or frenetic.” (p 3)  I think this to be especially true right now in this political scene.  Knowing how to properly search and use information can indeed make one feel empowered, while others seem to be blindly manipulated one direction or another.  I can openly admit to be manipulated as I am one who’s crap detector hasn’t been fully developed. I still need scaffolding. But how do we scaffold for the nation?  On page 77 Rheingold challenges that we should not “refuse to believe; [but] refuse to start out believing. Continue to pursue your investigation after you find the answer.”  I think this is what all the information searching and sorting that we’ve been doing is all about.

“Literacy now means skill plus social competency in using that skill collaboratively.” (p 4)  Isn’t this so true and defends the need for the Portrait of a Graduate skills of communication, collaboration, goal directed/resilient learners, and ethical decision makers.  For students to use their devices for good and not evil, and to use their time effectively and efficiently, students are going to need to know how to navigate the socialness of the online cultural to work with others and capitalize on all that there is out there.  As mentioned in Net Smart “it pays to keep in mind the biological and historical roots of the human drive to cooperate — and how we’ve always invented ways to overcome hurdles to cooperation — when studying the modern arts of mass collaboration.” (p 21) It’s our turn to help others figure out how to jump those hurdles, I guess, encouraging and guiding the cooperation because “our generation has an opportunity, if we seize it, to pause and use our most reflective capacities, to use everything at our disposal to prepare for the formation of what will come next.” (p 35)  

When we think about it “...all people and media are available all the time, and in all places, but relatively few people appear to use ubiquitous informational access and social connectivity politely and productively.” (p 36)  I think this will be one of the biggest hurdles to overcome as “we’ve come to confuse continual connectivity with mak[ing] real connections.  We’re ‘always on’ to everyone. When you actually look more closely, in some ways we’ve lost the time for the conversations that count.” (p 49)  I still can’t convince my students that picking up the phone and actually dialling a phone number is not only quicker (text can go hours without being answered...God forbid) but also more efficient. Tone is properly conveyed and follow-up questions quickly answered.  Connections are formed.  (Heck I can’t even convince my husband to call his sister or brother to make a family decision, don’t know how successful we’re going to be with one.)   

Additionally, the book goes one to state that “if you’re always connected, from the age of eight, your default position is to only be connected and you don’t learn the restorative virtues of solitude.” (p 50)  Isn’t this equally important to teach and learn as well?  My 5 year old daughter is currently on the outside of things in her kindergarten classroom.  She hasn’t seemed to have bonded with anyone and tends to stay on the outside of the play on the playground.  At home, on our local playground, this is not her!  And after conferences I started to wonder about this and I admit, worry a bit.  But then she’s also the type to play by herself if others aren’t available.  She can be in solitude and be content.  Fast forward to teen years, and I need her to be that way then as well.  Don’t we as adults need the “restorative virtues of solitude at times?”  What more motivation do you need to get your information diet in order than for no other reason than solitude!

I also found it amusing that Rheingold says “we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.” (p 52)  I just like the imagery on this one as a social studies teacher who points out her students that the development of agriculture is what began the development and evolution of civilizations.  The quote suggests in a sense that we are moving backwards in time unless we figure out how to effectively move forward.  It’s good thing “our brains are very adaptable and flexible.  Reminiscent of the The Information Diet, Rheingold points out if you change your habits, your brain is very happy to go along.  The hard thing is to change your habits.” (p 54)  This is what we are all trying do at this very moment, isn’t it?  

The Underground Railroad: The Truth Be Told...

So based on blogger’s comments to know more and to know the truth, I went digging.  Forty-five minutes later I find myself down a rabbit hole, but thankfully it’s on Google Scholar, right?  I think I learned a lesson there.  There should be some reliable sources here.  I tried for a long time and read a lot of information in trying to discover what the truth really was.  What have I discovered...it’s still really hard to find the truth.  (Even scholars are admitting that as I read about this topic.)  I did however put my critical thinking skills to great use.  

Apparently much of what is perpetuated out in the world about the secret quilt slave codes is based on the oral retelling of an ancestor’s account of passing these slave codes down.   That person doing the telling was one Ozella McDaniel Williams of Charleston, South Carolina.  One day in a Charleston market in 1994, Jacqueline L. Tobin was passing through, buying wares, and Ms. Williams offered to recount the story to her.  The eventual result was the book Hidden in plain view: The secret story of quilts and the Underground Railroad co-author by Dr. Raymond Dobard of Howard University, coincidentally a known quilter.  The good doctor proposes that the quilt codes and evidence of the quilts is not available due to the fact that quilts were meant to be used (and abused), made from poorly constructed textiles due to what was available to enslaved people, and were washed with lye soap which would cause great damage.  Bottom line, the quilts no longer exist because of the nature of quilts.  And the slave quilt code doesn’t magically appear anywhere else, because well, it was a secret code not meant to be written down for fear of discovery.  This all made perfect sense to me...and well, he’s a doctor of art history with much work in iconography.  What more I could read of the incomplete book (Hidden in Plain View) online seemed valid as there were connections to other African art that had been studied.

But then I went a searchin’.  What did I find?  A bunch of criticisms questioning the validity of the book written by Tobin and Dobard citing the lack of evidence.  Further, I found criticisms of the book’s influence on educational practices and curriculum...claiming that the book was perpetuating false (unproven) information. (Example 1: Did quilts hold codes to the Underground Railroad?  Example 2:Young Readers at Risk: Quilt Patterns and the Underground Railroad ) And then even further...calling into question the time honor tradition (and truthfulness) of the Reading Rainbow special “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and other spirituals that are often cited as songs used to convey codes or messages of enslaved people. Oh no! I had to stop!

I will say that I did not find a source in the 45 minutes of searching that points to the truth of the freedom quilts, or even the mentioning of them prior to 1994, but I am not an art scholar or anthropologist whose job it is to do so.  And of course, I am not privy to the most reliable sources (databases, professional communities) those professionals/scholars would have.  I’m just a teacher right?

So what can I synthesize from all this and your comments?  Teaching the truth is hard.  Finding the truth seems to be harder.  What qualifies something as truth?  How many pieces of evidence are needed to make something the truth?  My yogi-master neighbor would say that a person has their own truth???  I don’t want to leave my students with half-truths or myths like “sagarutera” suggests in their comment.  Possibly the best truth might be just to teach my students to question everything.  Even if that means me!  After all, I’m just a person in the position to give/guide knowledge acquisition.  What they deem important or relevant or the truth may just be up to them to discover themselves?  I can only do my best in the 45 minutes I have.

Copyright Clarity...Let's Break These Chains that Bind Us

It was actually SO freeing to read this book!  And so timely, I might add.  I felt so empowered, yet my heart raced this past weekend on my way up to Jersey for a family trip.  I ALWAYS make family trips educational and this one was no different.  We stopped at Washington’s Crossing Park in Pennsylvania.  There is a very small museum and very large rock commemorating Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on the night of December 24, 1776.  Beautifully maintained grounds!  We arrived just after the start of a 15 minute documentary.  I waited until the next showing...I want to see every last scene...so we toured the museum.  Or at least I did, the 5 and 7 year olds could have cared less.  Thank goodness for an understanding husband!  So 25 minutes later I plopped down into a comfy seat in their very large auditorium and waited for the “ranger” to push play on the small television.  But before he did, I asked “Do you mind if I video this...copyright and all?” He was appalled that would ask such a question; it was deplorable that I had asked such a question in fact.  In my shaky voice after just a couple chapters into Copyright Clarity I said, “Well I’m reading about fair use and how it pertains to situations like this.  No problem.”  In that instance I meant “no problem, I wouldn’t video it” for fear of being in the wrong.  But the second he walked out of the room, my camera was up and videoing the short film.  (Much to my disappointment, the video sucked and it isn’t something I’d want to show my class anyway.)  But it really got me thinking and I’d like to know what you think.

If the video wasn’t in the gift shop for purchase...I checked...is this something that I could show my students for background building purposes?  I can’t take them on a field trip there.  My purpose I would assume is similar (educating my students as they were educating visitors), the nature is the same, and I would have probably shown the whole video.  I’ve done similar things at the Gettysburg Museum.  Again, I look at it as building background knowledge because it’s in a format that students connect to -- its visual! And not MY voice narrating it!  If good conversation/discussion follows, am I in the clear?  It’s not transformative as far as I can tell, but I think based on Dawn’s lecture tonight, showing the video is an affordance winner.  I can’t recreate the battle, but the video can.  Thoughts? 

On another front, the sister-in-law I went to visit in Jersey is also a teacher (formerly of FCPS).  We started talking about this issue.  At the high school/college where she teaches, she was told they couldn’t use anything that was copyrighted.  She teaches sports medicine; she and her colleagues were trying to locate a picture of a skeleton that students could label for an exam.  They couldn’t find anything sophisticated enough that wasn’t copyrighted, so they ditched the questions they wanted to ask.  I think we all understand this frustration.  I can’t wait to lend her the book...and I can’t wait to have a conversation with my very open minded STBS.  (I mean that sincerely. He’s great!)

On that note, I’m looking for some ideas that might be transformative.  I teach social studies, anybody got one?  I thought about having kids search pictures of historical times that we had studied and modern times and having them find connections in some way.  Or matching a historical picture to a modern day song and explain why.  What ideas popped in your head as you read the book?  What will bring learning to life in your world? 

What to Believe?

As a 6th grade history teacher, there are times when I feel like the history I teach is incomplete and I look to spice the curriculum up a bit.  I did that a couple of year ago when studying slavery.  I came across what I thought was cool information about the use of quilt patterns as a form of covert communication between enslaved people.  I found quilt patterns and explanations of the meanings of the patterns and the kids thought it was unique.  For years I shared this information with my students.  Then recently I came across another source that said this was a far-fetched idea.  To think that enslaved people would have had the supplies to create such a thing and for the ideas/patterns to be widely dispersed to be used as part of the Underground Railroad was too good to be true.  So I immediately stopped sharing those slides that I had created.  

Looking back on that experience, I know that I never investigated the truth behind either side of the story.  I either took each for truth when I read them, or didn’t bother to question and research more to figure out the truth.  (Again, who has the time?)  But I know that I need to start. I need to be the promoter of what is true to my students or I’m just as bad as those continuing to teach that Columbus found the new world.  Of course it is never my intent to perpetuate what is incorrect.  My intent needs to be directed more to questioning the validity of the information and source.

But I need the skills to do this!  (And I need FCPS to get off their tushies and add pertinent information to our resources representing other perspectives!)  Page 78 of The Information Diet says, “it means a moral choice for information consumption.”  I can easily get behind this idea.  I like the idea of the truth -- most people do.  I like the idea that one is making a moral choice to pursue this information.  There is honor in that and teaching students to make that moral choice as well.  I have to start by leading by example. 

“Good process leads to good progress."

“Good process leads to good progress.”  This was a quote I found on my husband’s FB feed this past week. (Yes, I hijack his account and follow his friends and acquaintances.)  I thought it was appropriate for this week’s reading and assignments.  Consistently throughout the weeks of class Dawn has talked about a process that is meant to improve the effectiveness and scope of our teaching.  Whether or not we stick EXACTLY to the process, in the long run, I don’t think truly matters.  I think the fact that we are all considering another process period, albeit typically a more complicated process than we might be used to, is good progress for all of our teaching.

The article (The Creative Spirit of Design) acknowledges that “there is no best way, and no one way of proceeding” when tackling the problem of design.  McDonald quotes Davies (1978) in saying that “the order, and manner, [in which design skills are used] depends upon the character of the problem , and the aim in mind.” But nonetheless, the use of design SKILLS are used.  I think this is the progress that we can’t discount.  Being willing to try the new is important.  And not just ANY new; new thinking and processes with new authentic considerations.  And we’re CREATING new as well, according to the article.

Under the creative spirit of design, designer teachers are praised for their creativeness in looking at problems in the classroom and using their imaginations to try what might be untested to solve them; thus always avoiding that which feels like routine.  Addressing a problem means the designer teachers have to be creation-oriented and create ways to test and solve and evaluate their solutions.  And then the designer teacher has to be willing to work with and incorporate other disciplines and specialists into the solution, thereby connecting fields that were previously unconnected.  How powerful this could be for students at the end of it all!

A connection I made with the article is the suggestion that good instructional designers need to be flexible and adaptable.  What? Teachers need future ready (21st C) skills too?  Why of course we do!  That’s what makes us badass in the first place.  But I think this is a different kind of flexibility than the daily flexibility we are required to use in our jobs.  This is a flexibility that I think has to be ignited in some of us, me included.  There needs to be a flexibility in our design thinking -- thinking of the unusual, the previously unthought of or attempted, trying it out, evaluating, and moving on.  Maybe the flexibility comes from looking outside our own discipline for learning techniques?  But maybe that flexibility also comes from flexing some of our own design abilities previously untapped so we become great designers.

I Used to Record “The Young Riders” on VHS

From 1989-1992 I was in love with a television series called “The Young Riders” featuring a young Josh Brolin and Stephen Baldwin, as well as seasoned actors like Melissa Leo and Anthony Zerbe.  I loved it so much that I recorded the episodes on VHS tapes.  I probably had 3-5 full tapes of episodes.  A quick synopsis -- these very attractive young men (thus, why I watched!) were riders for the Pony Express, risking their lives delivering the mail and fighting the bad guys that rode into Sweetwater.  The story of these orphans fascinated me, as did the setting of the ole west.  It featured a part Native American rider, a mute rider (victim of Scarlet Fever) who used sign language to communicate, and a female rider breaking the rules alongside the bad boys who were fast with their guns.  The show lasted 4 seasons, compared to the 19 months of the ACTUAL pony express.  So like everything, it too ran its course.  

The Pony Express’s affordances ran out.  It was no longer the right tool for the job.  It eventually had no use to its users as faster, more reliable tools were developed.  Reminds me of my battle with an overhead projector.  I quite possibly was the last person on staff to let go of my fond friend.  Something else had to come a long that was too good to be true...the Elmo.  It was not a farewell I was happy to make.  After all, whatever would I do with all of those transparencies I had made and saved for use every year?  But the Elmo was a winner to me once I started to use it.  It sure did make it easy to highlight passages in the textbook or share student work or images from my phone on a spur of the moment.  The Elmo had more affordances than the overhead projector for sure!  As Dawn’s reminder in the assignments said “...the more you use a tool, the better you understand the tool.”  I was on my way to happily using the Elmo.

However, that tool she’s talking about is not necessarily a technological one.  In this case I think she means the design document as the tool.  As I filled out a table for the ABC’S in the design document the ideas did start to come.  The resistance to the document I had, and still have, is slowly fading.  I can see the affordance of the document itself.  It is forcing me to think differently and to interact with the curriculum and the desired results in a boarder, more global way.  I don’t enjoy the process, but I can see the benefits.

I also want to say that I appreciate a section of the Bower article that admitted that the process of matching tools with learning tasks as outlined in the article does not take into account “student ability, group allocation, motivation, and assessment” (Bower, 9).  Teachers can’t ignore these factors, ever.  These are always at the forefront of our thinking/designing/planning.

Finally, I feel like to truly understand the affordances of tools, and make wise tool usage choices, teachers have to be immersed in the using of those same tools, which I find hard to do.  There needs to be more tool share fairs happening at the local and county levels.  I know teachers CAN be motivated enough to do their own research and investigations, but some/many aren’t...or lack the time to do so.  This is a problem (lack of time) for which there is no tool.

Nailing Up my Own Theses

Firstly, as a social studies teacher who teaches the era of the telegraph (though not in much detail) I LOVED this book!  There is a museum in Baltimore that has a display there connecting the telegraph (the line from Baltimore and Washington DC) to the railroad system as well as its influence on the Civil War.  A truly great stop if you’re ever in Baltimore and have time to kill.  

As I read The Victorian Internet, I could easily see the connections to the development of the internet.  I was fascinated with the consequences that the invention brought with it.  It made me start to ponder, as I often do, about the changes that technology makes in our lives.  I remember after getting married, that I would never use a check card...writing checks and balancing my checkbook every month like my mother did was a necessity.  Or when we switched to a DVR and could record and watch shows whenever we wanted.  I remember thinking that this was WRONG!  Whatever would this teach my children?!  It pained me to know that they wouldn’t have to wait until the next episode the following week, or feel so disappointed when they missed an episode of a favorite show.  This would be life lessons they wouldn’t learn.  Instead, instant gratification has become the norm!  Binge-watching is the new norm!  I remember growing up when there was nothing on TV we wanted to watch, we went outside and played!  My kids (5 and 7) have figured out the DVR, Apple TV and Netflix!  There’s always something on!  When we watch television in “real time” they get so frustrated that we can’t fast forward the commercials.  Their patience, at times, is so non-existent, I think partly because of the advancement in this technology.  And our phones!  I swore off the new iPhone for a long time, and now, I’m totally addicted!  I think often about how technology has changed us as people… temperament, attention, privacy, morals, etc.  It makes we want for different, slower times in reality.  It makes me think that not all technology is good!  

I know that we can never anticipate the goods and bads that will come from new technology.  With every new invention comes consequences.  No matter the time period, people cope and adapt.  The inventors of the telegraph and printing press could not have foreseen the challenges and changes in society that would occur as that particular technology was developed.  Inventors were simply trying to solve a pressing problem of the time.  It just seems so much harder to balance all life has to offer the more technology creeps in the current era.  I feel that it brings with it unnecessary stress that doesn’t benefit anyone.  Did people “back in the day” feel the same stresses with the onset of new inventions?  Currently, are the effects of technology on our physical and psychological well being worth it?  But who would determine what’s good, beneficial technology and what isn’t?  

(If you couldn’t tell before, I’m kinda the glass-half-empty kind of person...the devil’s advocate on my team.  It’s who I am.)

ABC…Is It As Easy as 1,2,3? (The Knowledge Principle)

Well, is it as easy as 1, 2, 3?  I’d have to say when Dawn is explaining it with examples and ideas pouring out of her mouth, why yes, it does sound as easy as 1, 2, 3…or in this case ABC.  When explained, of course it makes perfect sense to situate students in an authentic situation where they get to practice the skills and develop the knowledge of a true practitioner in the field.  Of course it makes sense to scaffold activities to the extent that students have the opportunity to converse with peers to interact with knowledge as practitioners of that discipline do, and then develop their own meaning within context.  Of course it makes sense for students to then construct something that allows them to manipulate the information so they can prove understanding and share it with others.  But easy to design?  This teacher is not so sure.

As some of us have already put out there, we just don’t feel confident yet to do the designing that is expected of us.  But also, as some have already expressed, we have to start somewhere and we’re willing to try. 

Thus, Dawn is situating us into our own “cognitive experiment” in our own zones of proximal development.  These zones are slightly different for everyone.  She is designing activities that are authentic that are pushing our personal thinking while allowing us the opportunity to participate in collegial discourse further broadening our understanding of design.  She is not sharing ALL information, but some.  It is enough information for us to apply it to our practice, gathering ideas and learning from others, pushing us forward to a deepen cognition of the information.  After we’ve had some time to digest the information, we share it in a blog.  But yet, as Vygotsky says, we’ve only just begun in our learning. (90) Furthermore, on page 90 in Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, “Learning is not development; however, properly organized learning (design) results in mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes that would be impossible apart from learning. Thus learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human, psychological functions.”  In our case, Dawn has properly organized [our] learning [that is] result[ing] in [our] mental development, setting in motion a variety of developmental processes. (90)  She is our “adult guidance” as we “collaborate with more capable peers.” (86)

So I guess I should say “bring it on” to our adult guidance.  Guide us through this process of learning our ABC’s all over again for what [we] can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense more indicative of [our] mental development that what [we] can do alone.” (85)

The Ends Principle -- What can we Justify?

In the novel My Brother Sam is Dead by the Collier brothers, General Israel Putnam of the American army executes an innocent American soldier to make an example of him for others, ideally scaring them enough so that other American soldiers will stop stealing food from citizens to feed their starving soldering selves.  I ask my students every year, do you think the general’s ends justify his means?  My students always need me to explain that phrase.  Does getting the result you want excuse the methods you use to get there? (FYI there’s no proof in the novel that his means deterred anyone.) 

Based on our course reading, I think we have to start asking ourselves, are the methods we’re using getting us the results we want in the end?  In The Saber-Tooth Curriculum it was easy to see the methods failing those wanting to be educated as time passed.  The skills being taught were eventually pointless to society.  In fact, the one skill that started it all -- daring to be different and thought-provoking enough to begin the concept of education, was downright suppressed when traditional methods were questioned.

The readings this week seem to drive home the need to immerse students in learning that is purposeful and real.  The learning needs to be as true to a practitioner’s methods and thinking routines as possible given the constraint of the age of the students being taught.  We have to allow students the ability to create their own learning from within the proper context, i.e., constructivism. This instructional strategy (immersion in the practice/culture of a discipline) is quality instruction.  Giving students the opportunity to converse about what they are learning while they are learning is also vital.  It is from these conversations that more meaning is developed (learner/learner dimension). The spontaneity of group conversations and ideas is responsible for a lot of innovation in our world.  Situating learning in authentic environments has been the way people learned prior to organized schooling...why are we excluding it now?

Knowledge is separate from the actual doing.  My dad went to college, though he had never planned on it. He was a “C” student.  I didn’t know any of this until he drove me up to NOVA when I decided to move here.  I thought (and still think to some degree) that my daddy is one of the smartest men I’ve ever known.  Based on his abilities I thought he was an “A” student.  He could, and still can, engineer anything out of wood, pipe, or sheet metal.  By trade he worked in the water well business and knew all the ins and out of the water systems in our parish (Louisiana).  When I was reading these articles I kept thinking of him.  Here’s a man who could probably take apart any water pump or system you threw at him, fix it, and put it back together.  He didn’t go to school for this knowledge (technically he’s a physical education major).  He learned on the job, in his situated environment.  A student couldn’t do that with just knowledge of how pumps work or look or are designed.  To assess problems, he needed to know the capacity of the water system, the number of houses it fed, etc.  He needed experience working with such a system.  I learned from him that sometimes a wet yard means you have a busted pipe.  Green pipes are for sewer and blue pipes are for water.  There were days I had to ride along with him in his truck full of tools/parts needed for working in his culture.  When the company changed hands and he was looking to retire, I remember his replacement learning in his shadow, as his apprentice in a sense.  He’s retired now, but his company still calls him for his knowledge and experience that no one else has about a housing subdivision.  You see, not all of the maps the company has are correct, and some knowledge and expertise isn’t written down.  Some things only the guy whose been immersed in water up to his shins for 30 years knows how to problem solve.

I also found the information on enculturalization interesting as I sat in church this morning with my 7 and 5 year olds.  I am a single Catholic parent.  My husband isn’t Catholic and works on Sundays, so if I’m going to get to church and want my kids to be Catholic, I have to be the one to get them there.  This can be a daunting task with young children who don’t want to sit there for an hour and who don’t understand most of it, yet.  But this made me think about enculturalization this Sunday as I sat in the pew.  If I want my kids to eventually exhibit proper behaviors in church, I have to expose them to those proper behaviors.  I can’t sit in the cry room with the other children, which might be the easy thing to do.  I have to have them be participants in the main sanctuary where they will “pick up relevant jargon, imitate behavior, and gradually start to act in accordance with its norms.” [Brown, et al] Content (knowledge) can be developed while situated in this context, while additionally learning can happen in their weekly classes as well as at home.  I can’t teach/guide them to doctrine without them worshipping in church, and I can’t have them worshipping without teaching/guiding them to the why.  The two have to go together, just like in the classroom.  We teachers have to lead them to the knowledge within the context that will make sense and let them explore with peers to flesh out meaning.

So, what does this mean for teaching?  If we situate students in authentic problems, they will use their literacy skills to access the information within a culture and context to become knowledgeable enough to learn to be problem solvers to make ethical decisions while participating in their community.  If we can get students to do these things, they will be ready for whatever the future may hold.  Our “means” will hopefully result in the “ends” we want.  

Teachers as Designers (Hangers-on for Life)

I have a quote on my backpack from high school carefully selected when I was a sophomore or junior and painstakingly written in whiteout ink pen on black canvas…

“Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.”

                                                                                  Robert Frost

Being immersed in this course, so many questions now arise from that single quote that I hadn’t been forced to ponder before.

• What do you have to hang on to?
• Will someone help you hang on?
• Who will teach you how to hang on properly?
• What if you have a different method of hanging on different from the norm?
• What if you want to hang on for different durations of time, especially if you get overwhelmed?
• Who determines that you’ve hung on long enough?
• How do you prove you’ve caught on?
• What if the thing you have to “catch” changes mid-hang?
• What do you do with what you’ve caught when you’re done hanging?
• Will what you’ve caught be useful or even relevant once you’ve achieved the catching?
• What if you don’t even enjoy the view while you’re hanging on?
• What if at the end of it all you don’t like what you’ve caught?
• What if you just get tired of hanging around?

Okay, so I really got on a roll there, and honestly I liked the word play.  As I look back on my notes from The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, what I glean was a history of the educational field, though admittedly, I’m not sure of all the educational references that Dr. Peddiwell was making.  What I do get is that education was developed with the sincerest of purposes -- to perpetuate a society by teaching needed skills for that society to thrive.  It was for the “peace, prosperity, security, and happiness of the people.” (p. 50) Ideally it taught skills needed in a real-world situation.  

The problem that surfaced was that education did not seem to evolve as the society did.  And to continue to feel superior and in charge, those at the top of the educational food chain, kept others down by either changing the rules when it fit them or by scaring into submission those that thought differently.  (Coincidentally it was this skill of unique thinking [a skill supposedly taught and originally praised and responsible for the development of education in the first place] that was suppressed.) 

The story theoretically concocted was a great example of explaining the issue facing the educational world today.  The field isn’t evolving as it needs too and at this point, we are far behind where we need to be.  

The different organizations we were directed to (NEA, Common Core State Standards, Partnership for 21st Century Skills) all speak of preparing students for the 21st century without really knowing what this century will truly evolve into.  So for lack of that exact knowledge and exact skills needed, the best direction for education is said to be one in which students are taught skills that will be applicable in all types of local and global situations.  These skills are commonly referred to as the 4Cs… critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.  I don’t disagree!  These skills seem extremely valuable in any job and in the balancing of everyday life.  

I have a couple of concerns though.  Firstly, we seem to be adding to the workload of teachers, though my uncle, a former principal would say to work smarter not harder.  It is possible for teachers to incorporate the teaching and practicing of these skills into their lessons through careful design, i.e, working smarter and not harder.  We as teachers are going to have to be more strategic in our thinking.  If Partnership for 21st Century Skills wants teachers to turn out students with global awareness/diversity, civic literacy, health literacy, financial/economic/business/entrepreneurial literacy, environmental literacy, technological literacy, adaptability, initiative/self-direction, productivity, accountability, leadership, and responsibility we have no choice than to become more efficient designers of curriculum.  It’s either that, or lengthen our school day...or maybe we could eliminate information students are currently being held accountable for.  Let’s think about it...as a history teacher I can’t help but think we need to either let Columbus go, or add a course or two to U.S. history to give important topics their due.  If we keep making history and you want kids to learn history, you have got to stop short changing it. (Off soapbox.)  Oh, and where are these students’ parents?  Initiative/self-direction, productivity, accountability, civic literacy, health literacy, financial literacy...these sound like skills that should have a foundation in the home. (Okay, now I’m off my soapbox.)

If we say these skills are what are most important for students to learn, then we also have to be okay with alternatives to college degrees, as well as alternatives to high school degrees.  If we truly believe that the role of education is to bolster a functioning diverse society, we have to honor diversity of skills and desires, and thus jobs that are needed for the functioning of a society no matter their economic status.  

I also question if innovation in education is occurring at the right level?  No where along the way in my undergraduate career did anyone teach me HOW to teach math or HOW to teach someone to read!  I learned how to take a running record and how to create valid assessments.  But now one taught me HOW to do the most important things.  And honestly, for a while I thought, as a teacher, you either knew how or you didn’t, and usually the “knew how teachers” had good classroom management and the “didn’t know hows” were catastrophes waiting to happen.  Granted, this is 20+ years ago.  This was when you did all that undergrad work and finished your degree off with a one semester practicum under the tutelage of a veteran teacher.  In retrospect, why on earth would one wait to the end of one’s college career to be thrown to the wolves in order to decide if this was the best career path?  How can that be deemed responsible as an educational program?  Maybe it wasn’t, but that’s what was done.  Maybe this is where the innovation needs to be...in the instructional classrooms of future teachers.  

Finally, just once, I want to see this innovation in action!  I want to binge watch a year’s worth of innovative, thoughtfully designed teaching.  I want to see concrete ways in which this evolution of teaching is successful.  I need to be taught how to evolve.  I need to be shown how to hang on until I’ve caught on.