Equity & Change

America has long promised equal opportunity. Our public schools were to be the portal to a productive and secure future for each American and for America. Unfortunately, since their inception, our public schools have been handicapped by the same social inequities that infiltrated the businesses, homes, and hearts of the communities they serviced. As bungled as it seems, No Child Left Behind attempts to rectify this inequity by demanding that all schools provide all students with a solid foundation in reading and math. Unfortunately, success in a “flat world” requires so much more than being competent and consequently more and more children are being left behind – without even knowing it.

The gross inequities in our public school system as well as the growing concern over our global competitiveness have initiated a call for change. Educational technology may be the catalyst that makes such change possible. When intelligent, reflective, and determined teachers utilize educational technology to transform learning into a highly critical and productive experience for students, we begin to deliver on the promise of equal opportunity for security and success. Technology allows for efficient and productive means of networking, communication, analysis, creativity, and achievement of most competencies. The teacher still remains the most important variable to student learning and when technology is used to enhance a teacher’s understanding of content and pedagogy, we are able to efficiently improve the quality of education.

According to an online report published by Time Magazine, students need to think globally and in innovative ways to remain competitive both as individuals and as a nation. They also need to learn to process information in new ways while developing proper deportment and interpersonal assets. Appropriate and innovative use of educational technology has the potential to achieve those goals by reaching digital natives through instructional methods that appeal to their rewired brain structure. Teachers and everyone else involved in education must reevaluate what our vision of a successful student looks like in a world where information is ubiquitous and genuine thought is a commodity. We must promise to improve education for all students and we must deliver.

Origins 2008 - Countdown Begins

Insist on Yourself

Richard Feynman is one of my idols. I've read most of what he has written or said. I've watched "The Greatest Mind Since Einstein" a few dozen times. He inspires me to think, wonder, and challenge.

A friend shared with me Emerson's Self-Reliance. I didn't make the connection at first, but then later, I realized that it could have been Feynman writing those same words:

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."

I wonder about learning, education, leadership and teaching. I wonder about these things all the time. Annoyingly so. I have little else I can talk about.

But lately, I've wondered specifically about what we are trying to do in education. Do we truly promote "insist on yourself" or do we demand that students "imitate". I want to believe the former is the case, but as a realist, I am compelled to concede that it is most likely the latter. I think all too often: Originality is not cultivated, but decimated & Contrary views are not explored, but ignored.

This is systematic and systemic. Historically the role of public education was to blend America and that legacy seems to continue - although not as effectively (for better or for worse). All of this testing, testing, testing, reinforces the authoritarian nature of education in America and perpetuates our inability to support novel thought and creative expression.

There is a line in the the movie "The American President" where the President says that "...America is advanced citizenship". Education is the prerequisite for this advanced citizenship - and it is unconscionable to deny anyone that opportunity. But America is also formed around the concept of choice - and there is where we seem to fail as a system. We give the impression of choice (would you like to be beaten over the head with a bat or a club) and the illusion of complex thought.

Advisor University - PASC

30 advisors, mostly student government, converged at Penn State Ramada Inn for 24 hours of professional development. Sponsored by PASC, the training program occurs every other year. Advisors from around the state (PA) are hoping to return to their schools with knowledge and skills to improve student leadership programs.

Sent from my iPhone

"Life is a series of choices and consequences." -- KLK

The PBL Launch Pad: Worthwhile Projects for High School Students, Part 1 | Edutopia

The PBL Launch Pad: Worthwhile Projects for High School Students, Part 1 | Edutopia

Blogs in Education

There is a tremendous amount of information contained within the blogs that span the Internet... information that is timely and relevant, not dependent upon a publisher or other establishment to determine when the information will be shared with others. Therein lies the power of blogging in education, to free the collective voice of a generation of students frustrated with "writing for the teacher". Writing for the world, is writing for oneself - similar to the powerful voice the type-set press gave to revolutionaries of the past.

Technology Vision

I have spent considerable time and effort lately, researching the concept of one-to-one computing and learning in schools. I talk with anyone who will listen and share about my concerns - and about my excitement. My concern is that the implementation of such a massive shift in instructional methods requires more focus and finesse than we will afford it. We seem increasingly divided between all of the expectations and obligations placed on a high school today, and one-to-one computing seems to be coming along at the wrong time. My vision for technology integration (adaption) is that we finally realize how little we expect of our students, how inflexible we have become, and how limiting so many of our reform efforts truly are.

Technology, adapted well, has the potential to raise our expectation of all students while allowing for even more success than under lower expectations. Our students are able to maneuver their way through high school avoiding classes that require thinking, problem solving, and reflective thought. Students have become outstanding information regurgitators, but that is rarely a desirable quality any longer. We need to grow outstanding communicators, thinkers, problem solvers and one-to-one computing has been shown to do just that (if adapted well). There needs to be less restriction on communication, more time to think creatively and critically, and students need to have opportunities to solve real problems. This leads to a vision of flexibility.

PA significantly changed graduation guidelines when it developed and adopted the Academic Standards. There are guidelines for days and hours, physical education and health class, and an expectation that whatever else occurs in the schools, students are demonstrating proficiencyon the Standards. Unfortunately, most schools never embraced this change and graduations requirements are almost entirely unchanged. It seems that to be successful, one-to-one needs to truly mean that; every student needs a machine that is theirs. March Prensky points out a similar notion that students need to embrace the one-to-one by personalizing the experience. We currently block email from all students, all social networking sites, and even block regular Google searches in the name of security. The concept of personalization of technology is a HUGE paradigm shift for high schools, especially those in charge of technology at the district level. This often leads to reform that promotes conformity.

Math is a perfect example of reform efforts that seek to control exactly what and when a student is exposed to information. Even at the high school level, technology in math departments is about control and management, not exploration and discovery. I would hope for technology adaption to occur that motivates students to solve real problems using skills developed "along the way". We then have the issue of assessment - which causes me to shudder when I think about integrating one-to-one computing. Even reform efforts related to assessment (ie common assessment and PLC) when implemented are more about control (of students and teachers) than of improving learning. One-to-one learning requires radically new ideas about the form of assessment, and clearly students will need to shake free of the limitations of previous reform attempts.

My vision for technology integration is simple: to always view instruction through my student's eyes. My students want to be challenged, they want to be creative, and they need to not be held down by policy and organizational structures of the status quo.

Les Miserables, part deux

One of my favorite stories is that of Valjean, Javert, and the Bishop Myriel from Les Miserables. When I describe it to my students, I like to simply say that it is a story about the interpretation of "doing the right thing". (of course, the musical Wicked is also a great backdrop for the same theme).

• The Bishop is "good" because he is forgiving, generous, accepting - almost too much so.
• Javert is "good" because he enforces society's rules; innocent or guilty with no in-between.
• Valjean is "good" because he responds to the needs of others, often casting aside the laws or norms of society.

Most of us accept that we cannot be good like the Bishop. We'd like to believe that we're more like Valjean - a champion for those who cannot rise up themselves. But honestly, we mostly behave as Javert... conforming and judging, trusting in the government structures and other protectors of status quo.

After watching Spike Lee's docu-drama on HBO, WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS, I'm again reminded of this pattern of docile obedience supplanting irritating activism. Years from now, history will be taught in classrooms that revises the devastation of Katrina, not as a natural disaster, but as a failure of government to serve its people. But, the history lesson will not stop there, instead it will continue on to point out how the rest of us stood by and watched it happen - satisfied that enough had changed, when in fact, nothing really has. Where is the outrage, the irritating activism that pushes us forward?

In Pennsylvania the lawmakers gave themselves a raise. The result was a tremendous burst of irritating activism that drove the electorate to vote for change. Most analysts will say that the results of the election following these events, were shaped by this force of change - out with the old, in with the new... and by the way, we're watching you!

AND YET, it seems as if two years after Katrina, little has changed for the better - especially at the federal level.


Javert, upon realizing that all of his years of judging and conforming had left him on the wrong side of being right, takes his life, having "fallen from grace". Let us work now to see the wisdom and power of irritating activism - before its too late.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/
http://www.teachingthelevees.org/

The Power of One

Science as a priority in 2007-2008

Habit. Difficult to change.

Science is change. There is little that does not change when examined by a scientific eye. Our future depends upon change and therefore upon science. We cannot continue to use and abuse the natural world the way we have -- and expect to live free of consequence. Habits will not change, but science can help reduce the negative consequences those habits have on nature.

To do so, we need to make science a priority in 2007-2008. We can no longer coast upon the investments made in the 1960's, post-Sputnik era. A new generation of problems face this nation and it is time for a new generation of science-minded leaders to promote the change needed to solve those problems. We need to invest. We need to support. We need to understand natural law.

Make this the year that begins the change. We cannot afford to wait any longer.