Hello World - It Begins with You

It's been a while since a song connected with me the way John Legend's If You're Out There did (it became a theme song for our 2008 PASC State Conference). That song was powerful by itself but tied into the experience of planning and experiencing that conference, it moves me every time.

Recently though, "Positive Power" Chad Koontz pointed out Hello World by Aloe Blacc and I keep listening to it over and over. Again, the song is powerful alone. It's filled with similar themes as If You're Out There and has these vocals and rhythms that just pull you in - you can't ignore the song.

As an educator, I connect to the message about potential, about making the most of life and about the power of relationships. The video was effective, using basic stereotypes and common perceptions to shade the lyrics of the song in a slightly different direction.

Hello world, the past is over
It's time for us to come together and make the future right

And

Hello world, the sun is rising
It doesn't matter who you are, the sun still sets the same
Hello world, undivided
Don't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game 

[Chorus]
The world is ours
The world is ours
Seven billion stars

Starting another school year brings one meaning to the song and then watching the events in Ferguson adds even greater urgency to the feelings it stirs.

So to all who remember: Origins, It Begins with You... Vision, Character, Change.

Purpose

Welcoming our new teachers this morning, as I begin year 19 of teaching physics and 13 years in SWEA leadership, humbled me.

When I was hired, principals needed to woo the teacher they wanted. Today, teachers take pay cuts if experienced and first-year teachers face uncertainty. And yet there they were - new South Western teachers. Full of enthusiasm, determination, professional knowledge and, for several, experience.

They will need it. Students today have more access to information and are able to communicate more easily than ever before and yet it seems they struggle, more than ever, to find purpose, relevance, and meaning in the world. How do we, as teachers, balance the external demands with the internal reality of what our students need most. Teachers are not paid for their time but rather for the continuous stream of decisions that must be made every day so that we do what is best, what is just. This decision making is both professional and personal, involving head and heart. There is no way to know what a teacher goes through daily - unless you are a teacher.

And so, I was humbled by those new teachers today. Humbled because teaching was different just 19 years ago. Humbled because America always spoke with reverence about teachers, 19 years ago. Humbled because these dynamic, intelligent professionals had so many choices of careers that would have elevated their status and supported a loftier lifestyle.

I am humbled because they have decided that purpose matters most and damn the rest.

Journey On

“Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves." - Bonaro W. Overstreet

Education, as a public and personal endeavor, should be about discovering the potential and uniqueness of every young person who strides into our classrooms. It should be simultaneously a discovery of self and of others; a journey, impossible to complete but essential to begin.

Graduation. Time ebbs and flows, circles back and crashes forwards at times. I think of faces, of smiles... laughter and tears. I think of dynamic leaders, of compassionate supporters... learners and givers. Some carry more burden along the journey and many journey, too often, alone.

Each of these young hearts deserve our kindness, each of these young minds deserve our dedication, and each of them deserve an education which values creation over imitation.

As we send South Western seniors out to journey on, I hope they have experienced the joy of learning, the discomfort of authentic growth, and the support of an empathetic community. They have shared their talents, their hopes, and their fears. They have written, spoke, danced, sung, planned, lead, volunteered, drawn, calculated, thought, moved, played, questioned, dared, repaired, cared, loved, lost, dreamed...

They have too much to offer the world to remain tethered here but I hope they feel, "Once a Mustang, Always a Mustang".

Congratulations to the Class of 2013.

We are pieces of others

Perspective

Our immune systems, and only our immune systems, prevent us from becoming everyone else all at once.  We are who we are only because we defend ourselves every moment of every day.  And who we are is everything.  We are pieces of others.  Portraits painted somewhere between our brains and thymuses.  We are the dirt we've eaten and the songs we've sung.  We are the light of stars and darknesses old beyond imagining.  We are at once spontaneous fires and sacred water.  We are faith and forgiveness.  We are our own deaths and we are the eternal thoughts of others.

-- Gerald Callahan, Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Combustion:  What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception (New York:  St. Martin's, 2002), p. 227

National Teacher Day: It is not the critic who counts

To my fellow teachers everywhere:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
American 26th US president (1901-09), 1858-1919

As proud public school teachers, you have placed yourself into the arena. You subject yourself to critique. You know that you pursue a worthy cause and you are willing to dare greatly in order to lead your students beyond what they thought was possible. You are motivated by more than high achievement and recognition. For you, it is about a life with purpose; simply, to live a life that counts. And so to the critics, to those with cold and timid souls, who would try to diminish your choice to be a teacher - let us all stand together, as one strong united voice, and let them know that our students are more than numbers or potential profit and that our work cannot be chartered away or virtualized.

Thank you for always being willing to ask why. To ask if there is a better way. To give voice to those who dare not speak. To inspire those who are lost. To be awake while others sleep. To celebrate. To hope. Thank you for all that you do and for all that you are.

QR Codes for Marketing and Communication in Student Council

One powerful marketing concept is to tap into human curiosity. For example, the QR code with text “Check it Out!” captures the attention of students in the hallways. Assuming you’re in a school that allows cell phones in hallways, a students whips out their phone and scans the QR code. It tells them about an upcoming dance. But, here’s the difference - now that information is in their phone!

You can create your own QR code that contains text at a site like http://qrcode.kaywa.com and you can include up to 256 characters of text. Since most phones can scan QR codes and most students always have their phones, using QR codes is a quick and efficient way to transfer information about events and have that information retained in the phone.

QR codes can also store URLs so that when students scan them, their phone takes them to that website. But, you can go a step further. Using Google’s URL shortener ( http://goo.gl/ ) you can not only turn long URLs into short, easy to share URLs but also generate a QR code for that short URL. There’s another aspect to using this tool that is potentially useful: statistics. When you create short URLs and QR codes in Google while logged in to your Google account, there are statistics maintained for you on how many people visit the linked website. You can monitor traffic to your website and make decisions about which resources are most useful.

To create QR codes using Google, follow these directions:

1. Login to your Google account (if you want to track visitors to you website)
2. Go to http://goo.gl/ and enter the URL for the website and click “shorten”
3. Copy the shorten URL (it will look something like this: http://goo.gl/QPtho )
4. Past that shorten URL into a new browser window and add .qr to the end (http://goo.gl/QPtho.qr )
5. Load that page and the QR code is an image that you can save or copy-paste

Now, whenever you’re logged in to your Google account and you visit http://goo.gl/ you’ll see a list of any URLs that you have shortened. Click on “details” for any of the links to see the statistics for the number of people who have followed your shortened link. Statics are recorded whether visitors clicked on the shortened link from a webpage, tweet, or Facebook or if they followed the link using the QR code.

Oppose PA House Bill 855

Franklin Roosevelt said, "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." This captures so much of what we hope to do as teachers and yet simultaneously absolved us of venturing into matters beyond the classroom. The great lesson of history is that groups endure the most severe injustices when good people fail to rise up or speak out.

PA House Bill 855 is not directly about reducing deficit/debt. This is about power. About taking power from workers, from the people, and placing it even more staunchly in the hands of politicians and corporations. This is not an assault on teacher unions - this is an assault on labor, on the workers who built this country, on the middle-class. It is part of a larger effort to reduce the expectations all Americans have for pensions, health care, and security.

Without seniority, a school that is trying to resolve financial issues could furlough one experienced teacher for every two novice teachers and save nearly equally in financial terms. In turn, schools are able to preserve moderate class sizes and programs which reduces resistance from parents. Governors and lawmakers argue that schools need to be able to adopt business-like policies to be more fiscally responsible. If we believe that assertion, then furloughing experienced teachers - regardless of their effectiveness, is the most cost effective solution with minimal impact on other metrics like class size and program availability. Furloughing any teacher is devastating, but without the security of seniority, experienced teachers will be the first to go and with them goes wisdom, influence, and stability.

We cannot guarantee what the future is like for our youth - but if we don't take action, if we don't cry out in protest, we bear the responsibility for the loss of the future that generations before us have fought so hard to build. This is not just about the loss of your job. This is about the extraction of power from the hands of the people and the coalescing of power in the hands of a few.

We can no longer resign ourselves to only preparing our youth for the future; we must also insure that the future is not stolen from our youth.

Please take action against House Bill #855.

Google Voice: A New Approach to the Suggestion Box

Many student councils utilize suggestion boxes to collect feedback and ideas from the student body. The effectiveness of physical suggestion boxes, often located in libraries or other common areas, can vary greatly. One way to potentially increase the amount and timeliness of feedback collected by a “suggestion box” is to replace the physical box with Google Voice.

Google Voice is a powerful tool that blends phone and texting capabilities with voice transcription and message archiving.  Your student council could set up a Google Account and then set up Google Voice that will give your council its own telephone number. You have a lot of choice with this number so that you could potentially create a number that spells out some word or phrase that is easy to market and remember. Once the student body has the number, they can leave suggestions by calling or texting the number. Google Voice will transcribe the phone calls so that you can scan them quickly and keep a text archive along with text messages. You can collect student’s cell phone numbers via Google Voice and even attempt to provide direct responses to their suggestions while maintaining a level of anonymity.

You will want to check with your school’s administration to make sure they are agreeable with the idea of using Google Voice. Also, you will want to make sure that the Google Account that you use to set up Google Voice is a common account for student council rather than someone’s personal Google account.  For more information on Google Voice check out www.google.com/voice. 

Doing Good: Socialbrite.org

December can be a month where we feel more compelled to “do good”. Perhaps it’s residual concerns about Santa’s naughty-or-nice list or more likely it’s a natural extension of the positive feelings that emerge as we take stock of our good fortunes during this holiday season. Whatever motivates us, sometimes simply doing good isn’t so simple.

One web-based resource that is attempting to support our desire to make a difference is Socialbrite.org:

“Socialbrite is a learning hub & sharing community that brings together top experts in social media, causes and online philanthropy. We're here to share insights about tools and best practices that advance the social good. This is an ad-free community learning center.” [ www.socialbrite.org ]

If you use Twitter, follow @socialbrite or check out www.facebook.com/socialbrite in addition to their own website. There’s a wealth of resources and information that channels through Socialbrite, most of which is in support of non-profit organizations’ endeavors to create positive change. Some of the material is also ideal for Student Councils that are interested in increasing their civic engagement and social responsibility. Along the way, students will learn about how technology is changing the landscape of awareness and activism.

Sample of resources available on Socialbrite.org:

12 Steps to Mobilize Your Cause [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/12steps-flyer

10 Mobile Apps for Social Good [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/10mobileapps

40 Hashtags for Social Good [printable PDF]
http://bit.ly/40hashtags

9 Web Platforms to Help You Change the World
http://bit.ly/c7utbo

15 Social Tools for Local Impact
http://bit.ly/baiQts

So check out some of the resources listed above and give one or two a spin. If you find something that works particularly well, post a comment.

curiosity-driven science

This talk is just connecting with me right now...

"Brian Cox explains how curiosity-driven science pays for itself, powering innovation and a profound appreciation of our existence."

------------------------ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 -------------------------

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

------------------------ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 -------------------------