Theater, or the importance of imagination

(This one really isn't about education....or is it?) When I see the pictures in the news, over social media, in TikTok channel videos of goons (is there a better word?) dressed in Amazon-bought ICE-labeled tactical vests and balacava-covered faces, I'm reminded of the persistent and important role that theater plays in human history. We adore a pagaent, a spectacle of repressentation where no one has to be themselves and where our fantasies -- good and evil -- can live as reality if just for a brief moment. We can denigrate cosplay all we want but it is profoundly impactful and influentioal to our thoughts and subsequent actions. Right now the stage is large and every one of us has a role to play. Theater is our imagination come to life and we can only become in real life that which we have the capacity to imagine. So our question as a people is whether we can imagine any future other than the one represented and inhabited by the would-be oppressors playing out their fantasy of domination and cruelty. Can we imagine a future that does not demonize others for who they are, that prizes learning and curiosity, that exhibits care for even those we might cast as "undeserving"? I had the fortune(?) to grow up indoctrinated in a faith that preached radical love for others, minding the plank in your own eye, keeping your viture quiet and your deeds loud. It's not a vision you can live up to fully, but it imagines a better way -- or at least that's what I took from those many years of constant messaging. It's radical because it doesn't depend on a supernatural bogeyman or enforcer, but on human acquisition of more knowlege, deeper understanding, more quiet, more listening. In a way, it is the opposite of theater, or perhaps more theater turned inward, but it relies on public imagination even so. There is no way to that vision except to see it acted out over and over in tiny ways. Some might say we need less theater in our public spaces -- I say we need more -- more of the sort that acts what could be. That shows us glimpses of a tomorrow that is actually better for all. My wiser, more accomplished firends indulgently tell me I'm a dreamer, an unrealistic idealist. I say that may be true, but without the capacity to dream of difference we are sentenced to an ugly and cruel sameness that i simply won't accept. So please, join me and the other dreamers on Saturday at a No Kings rally to act out how the world CAN be better. Bring your best cosplay game as a citizen of a place that welcomes the stranger, feeds the hungry, encourages the curious, accepts the different, and builds a sustainable future.

The problem with the "unconquered" soul ideal

Recently the school where I teach has launched an initiative to put emphasis on developing “grit” in students. (Yes, I know this is about 10 years behind the curve, but bear with me here. There’s a reason Mark Twain wanted to be here at the end of the world). As part of this initiative, and to tie faith development to the push, an alumnus and board member began writing and producing as videos with the help of some staff, a number of sermons built around the idea that what we want students to become is an “unconquerable soul,” a phrase taken from William Henley’s 19th century poem “Invictus”. The “unconquerable soul” is in many ways an admirable image -- a spirit unbowed in the face of tremendous odds -- the sort of heroic stoicism that many of us fantasize about possessing. It’s the imagined state of so many of our heroes and martyrs, especially in the Catholic tradition of lurid ends faced by those who would not renounce their religion in the face of evil forces requiring capitulation. It’s even part of that imagined “sanctified by suffering” perspective applied to the victims of the Holocaust, regardless of their other foibles or humanities. Who doesn’t want to imagine themselves on that solitary pinnacle of self-possession against the most daunting odds? Hell, it’s even, arguably, the trope we pursue when we battle in a video game (my recent experiences with Super Smash Brothers come to mind). And I suppose there’s nothing much wrong with it as something to teach children to aspire to. We want our kids to be unbowed, to come out on top, to conquer the world….oh. There it is. To conquer the world, the flip side of being unconquerable ourselves. In a world that insists so stridently on the dialectic in thinking, in the bifurcation of gender identities and the polarization of positions in all things from sports to politics, it ought to be understood that to be unconquerable is to conquer. Now, you might say that all that’s being conquered in this scenario is fear and self-doubt, and you may be right. But there is another perspective that I think this whole approach neglects, either purposefully or accidentally, that has potential for real harm. In the “unconquerable soul” scenario, the focus is wholly on the individual -- bravely battling against a world full of dirty adversaries, whether they be unfavorable financial circumstances, unfair work or housing situations, personal cruelty or unjust treatment. It’s a lone wolf relying on their inner resources (we should read faith here) to overcome personal challenges and come out on top. While this makes for great movie plots, it really doesn’t reflect the reality of living in a society composed of other beings presumably engaged in their own heroic battles. We run the risk of selling the message that if it’s possible to be one of these “unconquered souls” then anyone who is “conquered” is somehow a lesser human, perhaps deserving of any fate that befalls them. Is that really what the example of Jesus calls us to? It’s a comfortable position for sure, because we can always pity those who are less than, we can always be magnanimous toward them out of our abundant kindness, but we are not going to be inconvenienced by any need to identify with them, to address the injustices that they have battled “unsuccessfully” or to make, indeed, any kind of change to the status quo of the world around us. It’s the ultimate feel-good playbook if it’s presented as “the true path” to seeking students. It can be used to justify feelings of superiority -- even in the aggregate ("my ancestors persevered and look at me today"). It can be used to justify authoritarianism (only unconquerable souls are worthy of leadership or respect) and it does not encourage any examination of systemic flaws, inadequacies or injustices. It looks at the long arc of history and says, “Well, everybody had to overcome something, so I guess you just have to put up with second class citizen status or a greater chance of being impacted by public health concerns, or whatever.” It’s a simple solution in an unutterably complex world. Yes, hold on. I can hear the defenses of “grit” gearing up already. Of course we want kids to see that they must not, of necessity, be ruled or defined solely by their challenges. Of course we want them to persevere in the face of difficulties in all aspects of life. But if we value empathy as a trait of Christ to emulate, we need to develop that by acknowledging, exploring and questioning where those challenges and circumstances that they and their fellow students must “battle” stem from in the first place. Are they mysterious and inevitable? Or can they be identified, challenged and changed for the better? Certainly this “grit” mindset and the idea of “unconquered souls” don’t have to preclude that exploration and acknowledgement of the origin of difficulties, but without explicit effort to show how we can be “unconquered” together, in solidarity with those not in our faith-group, our economic status, our ethnic heritage, our gender identity, our political positions, this ideal becomes just window dressing for apathy around the problems of the world. It’s a virtuous screen for the selfish short sightedness that comes from years of denying that systems might have embedded in their makeup rules, laws, even mores which render those systems inequitable and racist, sexist, and homophobic.

A New Lease on the American Experiment

Let’s just imagine a better future for a moment or two. What could it be like if we defeat fascism and start to repair the core issues that plague our society and keep people from realizing their full potential? Let’s make it ok to be an idealist, and a visionary, and let’s not settle for the austerity (thanks, JYS, for this characterization) that we’ve been told is a necessary part of life on this planet (unless you somehow manage to win the genetic lottery). What if we were to abolish that relic of slave days, the Electoral College, and allow the president to be elected by the popular vote? What if we were to strictly limit the amount of money that can be spent on electioneering and campaigning? What if we put a timeframe around campaigning that limited it to a month or so before an election, and ensured that all federal representative and presidential races included a policy-only debate before the vote? What if we were to limit terms to 2-3 per person, and require that presidential candidates pass at the very least a citizenship test? What if we were to abolish ICE and the DHS, and re-vamp our immigration laws, so that anyone with a sincere desire to become part of our country could come to the border and request admittance, then be admitted with a clearly laid out path to citizenship? What if “dreamers” were no longer a thing – just citizens? What if we were to re-imagine the concept of law enforcement? Add a couple of years to the training of officers, delineate their roles so that they would clearly be protecting and serving the community, not the few. Provide a more nuanced approach to needed services to deal with crises that community members face – like fear for others’ welfare, mental health crises, traffic law issues, lost or loose pets. What if we were to re-examine drug laws to decriminalize most drug offenses, and to provide health care intervention when warranted? What if we were to “un-privatize” prisons and re-focus them on the goal of rehabilitation to re-join the community after time served, making job training, and mental health treatment a big part of time “inside”? What if we were to examine the effects of permanent stigma after time served, and remove the barriers to resuming or becoming productive community members after incarceration? What if we were to focus education on best practices and brain science, and equitably fund preK-college so that our graduates have a firm grasp of civics, ethics, and sorting information from rubbish? What if we were to consciously teach about the true, white supremacist history of the country with a goal to becoming anti-racist for the future? What if our workers were paid a living wage, and housing was affordable and available to all, so that if you work a full time job, you do not have to choose whether you or your children will eat or you will pay the rent. What if our communities had lots of gardens and neighborhoods grew food in front yards that could be shared with all? What if we were to write industry regulations that kept the air clean, the water potable, and plant and animal diversity strong? What if we would pursue green energy solutions that would provide jobs and a sustainable energy future? What if we made healthcare part of the basic fabric of life in this country? What if old people (or any people) didn’t have to choose between their medication and food on their table? What if we consciously, every day, were asked by, and asked of, our legislators and community leaders: What are we doing today to advance the stated goals of our country: liberty and justice and equality for all? It’s NOT too much to ask. We have put people on the moon, off of this planet. We have developed incredibly ingenious and hideous ways to kill others. We have engineered genocides and systemic racism. These goals are NOT beyond our human imagination, nor our human capability to make them happen. They seem to be, for now, only beyond our collective will. We can change that. We must change that if we want this grand experiment to survive and thrive into the future

New year, new career

So the new school year is about to start, and with it my "next phase" career: back in the classroom after 13 years away. Away but not removed, as I've tried to make those years about collaboration and co-teaching and teaching my own lessons in other people's classrooms -- and as I write this, it occurs to me how teacher-centered that really is. So the challenge this year is to stay focused on student learning in my 4 classes and to manage to run a viable library program at the same time. My guiding lights for this adventure will be the surprisingly current (for my situation, at least)Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Postman and Weingartner, Mindset by Carol Dweck, Readicide by Kelly Gallagher, Do I Really Have to Teach Reading by Cris Tovani, and A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. As part of my daily practice in the reading seminar class, I will be blogging my reflections on the learning I'm doing about collaborating with students to guide their learning, collaborating with peers to enhance student learning, and balancing the needs of the library program and my classroom teaching. Comments encouraged!

Leaping into collegiality

Heeding Karl Fisch's urging to follow Seth Goodin's advice to "write poorly. In public" here I am. Tomorrow marks a big day in our professional growth as a school, and I'm eager to see how we will respond to the challenge. The difficult leap we are trying to take is one that we've been contemplating in one way or another for the last seven years. You see, we've had a one to one laptop program for that long, and while many things have changed about the way we go about education, it's been a source of puzzlement to me why, despite this marvelous tool, academic life really hasn't changed much from when I went to high school thirty years ago.
Fresh from library school I was a true believer in the concept of teacher collaboration, and saw myself as a willing collaborator with the teachers in my building. Perhaps it was my blind enthusiasm, or my naive assumption that what I was doing with people was collaborating, but I really thought it happened. Then I moved to a new school, thinking I would continue in this mode. Maybe it was age, maybe it was those pesky laptops, maybe it was a borderline personality disorder, but that role ended, except for a few notable instances. And it puzzled me, this situation, until, after some discussions with a colleague I went looking for some literature and came across "Getting to No: Building True Collegiality in Schools" by Robert Evans in the Winter 2012 issue of Independent Schools Then the light came on. What we had, as a school culture, was congeniality, not collegiality! It explains so much about why we have struggled so to address a whole spectrum of important things, from transformative use of technology, to curriculum mapping, to authentic assessment, to Common Core, to library and information skills, to professional evaluation.
So, tomorrow, we're discussing the article. All of us. Together. Specifically. And we're really going to try to effect change in our school, and to build a real learning community. I am guardedly optimistic. But perhaps that's part of the problem. One cannot be guardedly anything if any progress is to be made. We just have to leap.

My daughter just returned from her college orientation, and the information she brought is interestingly similar to my last post (many moons ago). They require a freshman seminar course, built around a common theme/interest (students choose from the available seminars, rather than building their own), that helps students get used to college learning, build their academic "muscle" as it were, and introduces them to research and resources offered by the college. Hmmm. Maybe it WAS a worthwhile idea after all!

Would this work as a freshman year frame

We've begun the senior project, and we're finding out so many things about what kids need to prepare them to be successful. Our freshman course needs work...could this sort of thing form a springboard to get those skills started??

A seminar course for the purpose of developing academic “muscle,” information literacy proficiency and digital citizenship

Personal identity as learners/scholars
Articulate a statement of purpose for the classroom and for individual
Select an area of personal interest over which the rest of the course will be laid.
Process is first area of focus. Read several articles and excerpts and discuss how processes work.
Work through the digital toolbox
• Library catalogs, tagging and electronic books – read at least one full length book on selected topic. Use available methods to tag, annotate, take notes, mark passages. Introduce and reinforce content reading strategies. Introduce and apply citation of books. Begin to keep an annotated bibliography in MLA format. Use appropriate digital tools to assist this process.

• Reflective writing will be part of each section. Select appropriate tools for this purpose – could use Word, OneNote, a blog, a class wiki, etc.

• Online databases will be explored next. Searching, annotating, using features of the databases will be explored. Again, reflection, new information, connections, etc. should be noted and written about. Close reading for bias, missing information and spin should be part of this section as well.

• Other online sources will also be addressed. Advanced searching in Google, critical use of Wikipedia, building a link library and personal web portal will be addressed. Diigo will be used, along with Delicious to create an annotated collection of links related to the topic being explored. Reflections will move to a blog at this point, so that sharing and effective commenting will be able to be addressed.

• Digital tools for sharing acquired knowledge will form the next focus of the seminar. Decisions will have to be made about how to share what’s been learned, and how to answer questions that have been raised by the reading and listening the students have done thus far on their area of interest. Tools for digital storytelling and other online methods of sharing knowledge will be explored. The ethical use of information, images, music and the creation and sharing of those things with the larger world will be discussed and acted upon.

The seminar culminates in a public exhibition of the work that has been done over the course of the semester. (A thoughtful point is made by Dean Shareski about the stages of sharing academic work) Attendees will be encouraged not only to listen to and watch presentations, but to ask questions and engage students In dialogue and debate about their work.
A final reflection about the experience will be the last component of the class. It will include a revised statement of purpose for the individual as learner/scholar.

Here's something to chew on

If the last few months of increasing political/cultural polarization have concerned you, this should really give you pause: http://diigo.com/0iv8w

There is now NO EXCUSE -- read, NONE -- for anyone who is an educator to ignore, overlook or minimize the necessity for kids to build a positive, proactive and principled social media presence. Even less of an excuse for educators themselves to neglect this.

Amazon Alters Rules for Kindles in School Libraries

Amazon Alters Rules for Kindles in School Libraries

Clearing the cobwebs

Found this as I was cleaning files, and as it still rings true to me, will post it.

In twenty years in this “business” of schooling, I've only gradually come to the full realization that all the while I was trying to perfect my lesson plans, trying to understand how I could to come to that nirvana of the full filing cabinet of pre-made, already prepared lessons, I was pursuing failure. I’d mistaken effectiveness for efficiency, denied the inherent messiness crucial to any creative endeavor. I think, sometimes, that the biggest trouble with schooling – the reason that real innovation usually eludes us, is the field's self-perpetuating nature. Those who did best under the industrial era model are now running the show. These are the “good” students – you know, the ones who don't ask questions, don't rock the boat with “unusual” notions. Pair that tendency to complacency with a healthy dose of fear/respect for “authority” and it's a pretty reliable recipe for keeping to the quantifiable. Even when we know (and we do, most of us) that this isn't working to the benefit of our students, we frequently lack the imagination or the guts (or in some cases, both) to make it different. And if we succeed in small ways, we rarely know it – so we’re drawn to what “proves” the worth of what we’re doing – the test scores, the scholarships, the numbers game.
I recently had cause to pull out some old notes from students, (those all-too-rare and precious things you keep in the folder marked Sunshine and read when the darkness is really intimidating). Reading them over, I was struck by a refrain – it goes something like this: “You made it interesting” “I finally began to want to understand” “I used to hate English” and my all-time personal favorite, “You really wanted to know what we were thinking.” Looking back, yes, I did want to know – but that was a pretty suspect position. Why would we want to know what the students think? Don't we know what they ought to think?

So how do we overcome the fear, the layers of “good student” behavior that keep us lockstepping, leaving no children behind the numbers. We're born and/or borne, as Fitzgerald would have it, ceaselessly into the past – trying to create the schools we came from, perhaps consciously, perhaps not. Education rarely enters into schooling. Then, too, we often lack the intellectual stimulation necessary to successfully entertain new notions. Our own educations stagnate and stagger, victims of time, responsibilities and the numbers game. If our students are bored with our lessons as they so frequently claim, how much more so must we be if we've done the same thing for years on end?


There isn't a lesson plan on paper in this universe that can make that happen. All the precision planning and pursuit of test scores will not ever gain for us what we say we want as educators – to make a difference in the life of a child. Will a child remember that in your class you had beautiful lessons? Only if those lessons are true

Professional Time Wasters?

Ok, so I’m surprised. The complaint du jour this morning in the coffee room was the professional development/workshop push in my school this year. The take was that the new administration values professional development or attendance at workshops above classroom teaching. Since most of those expressing this viewpoint are people older than me, who have , mostly, been teaching longer than me (I have 25 years) maybe I’ve not been around long enough to believe that my attendance at a workshop will add nothing to my practice upon my return . Maybe I have yet to be convinced that my presence in the classroom is utterly vital for student learning every day. (Ironically, today, I’m subbing in a foreign language class for a teacher who is away (though not at a workshop), and if the assignment left is any indication, maybe teacher presence IS utterly vital to any learning.)
I know that they will bitch no matter what, and that bitching doesn’t necessarily indicate a deep level of resistance, but what does that complaining really say? It says that
A. their experience of professional development or workshops has been largely negative, and
B. that they see no connection between their learning and their students’ learning, and
C. that all the lip service we pay to “developing lifelong learners” is just that: lip service.
Yes, there’s plenty of worthless professional development out there. Just as there is plenty of worthless classroom practice.
Another thing I find disturbing is found in this remark: “Just tell me where to go and I’ll go there” -- no agency of the learner/teacher in this case at all. There’s no desire to learn being expressed, no excitement about learning, and no effort to seek out opportunities for learning. Wake up, folks. We have no reason to complain about our students’ apathy toward learning if they see it reflected in us every day!
So there are some things to tackle here – both locally and in the big picture.
Issues for us – clarifying the intent of the professional development focus, strengthening the expectation, and finding worthwhile opportunities so change can be modeled.
Issues for education at large: improving the quality of available professional development , creating a school year schedule that doesn’t require robbing classroom time to make room for PD activities.

Describing Elephants

I'm feeling rather like one of the blind men describing the elephant. When I proposed this workshop, I had a vision, probably similar to the visions I've had for the classes I taught back 10 years or more ago when I was in the regular classroom. I know enough to understand I had to expect that that vision would be altered by the reality of the kids in front of me, but wow. This has thrown me far more than I expected.

When I proposed and described the workshop, I envisioned educators who had assigned a research project to their students for several years running deciding that the project needed a facelift, a little extra umph, a little more relevance. I thought I'd get some folks who'd decided that they needed to introduce a little project based learning into their class, so they were thinking of adding a project to their study of.....

In other words, I made the fatal mistake of assuming my class would be coming with all the pre-requisites for learning that tend to make educational experiences worthwhile. But they're like the kids...(see the lightbulb?) So, hmm. I'm glad I asked, but how am I going to fit all this into one day? What are the MOST important things for us to explore? How will I offer something worthwhile to the collaborative team working on strengthening a portfolio research project (whatever that is) and something equally useful to the individual who wants to make a powerpoint about classroom rules? Good reminder for me about the challenges of the classroom.

Musings on Project-Based Learning

As a student, I hated projects. As a teacher, I love them. Why did I hate them? We rarely had time to work on them in class – lots of homework never made me happy. There was too much opportunity to procrastinate, which I did all too often, then ended up miserably trying to cram it all into the last minute. I was not always clearly aware of why the project was assigned, nor of what I was expected to produce. And frequently, the project consisted of collecting things/facts/pictures and presenting them in some “fancy” or “artistic” way. Kids with fewer siblings and more competitive parents always ended up with the beautiful posterboards enhanced with store-bought stickers and letters, while mine always had that “not so skillful DIY” look.

Teachers I know hate assigning projects. They are too frequently disappointed in the outcomes, but for some very basic reasons
1. “Their presentation/speaking skills are awful! I just can’t stand to listen to all this drivel” Well…they need to be taught this as well as the content that they’ll be presenting! A walk-through for a mini-audience, a chance to pre-present before the teacher can do wonders for the final product. This is where schools need to spend some time, in my opinion. From little on, kids need to get up and present and be given age-appropriate, gentle feedback on their effectiveness. Sure, it’s hard. It’s school. It’s supposed to be!
2. “Group work is a nightmare. One kid carries the group and the rest skate and goof off” They need to be taught group skills, too. Don’t come to the library, or give class time for project work, and use that time yourself to grade papers or have an extra cup of coffee in the teachers’ room. Your involved presence alone will do a lot to ensure that they stay on task.
3. “But I do circulate…” And ask task-related questions? Ask each student to log his or her activity during the class period? Give feedback on how they are working, what they’re choosing to focus on? Reserve a few minutes at the end of each period for groups to record their progress and share it with you?
4. “I clearly told them what to do, and they just aren’t living up to my high standards” Is there a prototype? Do they know what a successful project looks like? What about a not-so-successful project? Do they understand what they are supposed to be learning, and why you assigned the project? Did they help to develop the rubric for defining success? Did you help them to employ and work through a research-process model?
5. “I’m embarrassed. They made so many mistakes” Hello? School? This is where you make mistakes, so you can learn. If there are no mistakes made, no learning is taking place. That being said, there needs to be a refining process in place that allows for feedback before the “final product” stage. Substantial feedback, multiple times. There is NO final draft – just the best version so far.


At bottom, there is nothing that can salvage a project with which the assigning teacher is bored. Teacher enthusiasm for the subject matter, and clear, obvious interest in student learning and mastery go very far in ensuring a project’s success with students. If you don’t believe these things are valuable, how on earth do you expect your students to value the experience?

It's a flakey world

(wrote this quite a while ago, and now I'm wondering if we have made any progress in using these tools this year)


Just finished with guiding 8 classes of freshmen and one class of juniors through setting up their own web portal. For now, it's a pretty toy for the most part, but with the steps we're taking in trying to really use the technology in transformative ways, it should become more and more useful to them.

It's one of those chicken and egg moments. Do we wait until their teachers begin making assignments and asking for research that demands an understanding of and use of a variety of web tools, or do we introduce the tools to students (and thereby teachers)

wow. just ....wow.

I'm totally blown away by the controversy over President Obama's scheduled speech to students. How is this in ANY way controversial?? It strikes me as mildly positive, perhaps a bit mundane, but far from controversial. The absolute "threat" that some people seem to feel about simply hearing a speech, is enough to give one pause. I'm afraid that folks must be afeared that their offspring are as addlepated as themselves. Junior will be suddenly "polluted" in his mind after twenty minutes of speaking by a politician, albeit a politician elected to the office of President, and a pretty fine orator. Good heavens!

I asked a serious question about this topic on a very large listserv of which I am a member, which elicited a number of fine, thoughtful responses. Interestingly, those responses were primarily in support of allowing students to hear and discuss the President's address. I also garnered a number of responses that were heated, and probably sincere, but woefully lacking in logic. My request had been for logical, reason-based arguments against allowing students to listen to the live speech. I got nothing that I could put into that category.

And so we head into the weekend. What a week it has been. wow. Just...wow.

How long is too long?

Very interesting comment today by a bright and quite thoughtful young person. She said words to this effect (I may not have the exact wording) "The way I look at it, if I can't figure it out in 15 minutes, it's not worth learning." Some background: we were talking about new presentation tools (e.g. NOT PowerPoint) so her remark was addressed to learning new technological tools. But so interesting. If this were the case for me, I'm afraid I would not know much of anything about the tools I've learned to use.

Her expectations are quite high, both for the tools (they should be entirely intuitive) and for herself (I should get this quickly). Not sure how I think about this. Maybe it's just a natural outgrowth of her expected level of comfort with technology, or maybe her constant technological experience leads her to believe that things should come fast and easily.

So where does intellectual persistence enter into this? Is it important? Should we be concerned about this attitude? Does it apply only in the realm of trying to master new tools, or is it just as prevalent when trying to grasp new concepts or ideas? This might involve me for days to come.

Thinking about thinking about social networks

I had an interesting conversation with a fearful parent today centered around social networking, and its potential for endangering kids. In trying to remain professional and clear-eyed, and to resist knee-jerk reactions, I tried hard to see her viewpoint, which, if I understood correctly, was that a school needs to take a position on (read "against") the use of social networks, not just within the building, but outside of it in everyday life as well. She agreed that education about social networking was important for the school to provide, but I think that we parted ways in our understanding of what "education about social networking" means.

My understanding of that is exposure to and education about proactively building a profile or "digital footprint" if you will, that accurately and safely reflects both the person that a student is today, and who she hopes to become. The temptations are many, and the carelessness and invincibility of youth may indeed lead to indiscretions online, but this is certainly as true or more true in the offline world.

In truth, it boils down to this: can we trust ourselves to teach and lead our students and our children in the right directions, and can we trust them to make good choices? Those are both frightening leaps at times, but necessary ones. We can neither abdicate our responsibility to lead them in this digital world by "opting out," nor refuse to allow them to use their sometimes tentative but often surprising decision making skills.

So, to my thinking, far from avoiding and demonizing social networking which shows no signs of going away any time soon, we need to be working with students to develop their "google results" to show who they are without overexposing their personal lives, and what they stand for without compromising their values. They need tools and options for dealing with the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the downright wrong, so that they can be effective citizens in the global community.

What's at risk when we react in a fearful, strident way to a medium that's part and parcel of their (social)lives or their peers'(social)lives, is their dismissal of the very valuable viewpoint that we need to share with them. All those little risk-taking, hormone driven impulses just decry our staid caution as "unable to understand" how the whole thing works. And once they've dismissed us, that's when we need to worry.

danah boyd, in a recent, very thoughtful post said this: "Technology is a wonderful tool but it is not a panacea. It cannot solve all societal ills just by its mere existence." Indeed. Nor can its mere existence cause societal ills. And the sooner we understand that in this corner of the world, the better off we and our children will be.

Fresh Summer Perspective

Let's talk about the fiction of the 9 month contract. Whenever friends and family members make that "Isn't it so cool that you don't have to work 3 months of the year" comment, I just roll my eyes. True, most days I don't have to fight commuter traffic, or be dressed and out of the house at a specific time, but there is rarely a day that some school work does not get done, and many days that are devoted entirely to school work -- when I'm not doing my summer job.

Perhaps part of the reason that teachers still have a hard time being viewed by the community as true professionals is that perception of "summers off". So many excellent teachers already spend their summers learning, preparing and creating for their students, but off the radar and on their own dime. Seems to me there needs to come a time, if this 9 month school cycle is to remain the norm, when teachers' summer time is openly acknowledged as that learning and preparing time that is vital to effective classroom practice. As much as students' "what I did this summer" fall essays, teachers need to be encouraged, and if paid, required, to share the fruits of their summer's intellectual labors.

In tough economic times, (or, let's be honest, ANY time) it's unpopular to suggest spending more on education, but if teacher excellence is the best indicator of success for students in school, doesn't it make sense to pay a summer stipend and require effective teacher learning and planning?? Isn't time the one thing that everyone cites as a stumbling block to school innovation, creativity, collaboration and change? Make it unnecessary for teachers to take on summer jobs, and pay them for the work that many of them know is essential for the success of their students. Just seems to make sense to me as I'm contemplating a long list of school work, and the necessity of putting in hours at my summer employment...

Reading

Just wondering what purpose people put to reading, and what they require of something they read -- must it be gripping, IMPORTANT, something that matches their values, something with which they wholeheartedly agree? Ought we only to read things that fit those criteria? Is there value to be gained from reading that challenges our assumptions, or is outside our comfort zone, that disagrees with our values, or tells a story we don't like? And should teachers denigrate the reading of certain materials -- makes me wonder if they have given students carte blanche to say "your assignment was not worth my effort -- sorry, I couldn't get into it, so I quit..."

Trying not to be sad about the attempts at sabotaging the all school reading this year.

What works

Yahoo Briefcase is closing -- and so I had to clean out some files from a while back. Found this -- and thought it might be worth sharing.
What works – there are education journals and websites and pundits all in pursuit of this, and anyone in education for longer than 15 minutes can attest to the dizzying array of fads and “one size fits all” approaches to teaching everything from the square root of pi to basic literacy skills. And what does it all come down to? Getting kids excited about the world around them. How we do it is pretty immaterial – and certainly what works for one leaves the next one cold.

Picture the perfect school library. Students work on projects and papers at tables, some use computers to complete assignments or check for work on the school’s online system. Several browse the stacks, and use the computer catalog to locate books. Another group makes decisions about a research project, and still others craft a multi-media product blending print, audio and video resources to explain the significance of past events for present people.

Where? Here. While I can hardly claim that this is the case every day, at times it really gels. Kids do care about learning. One young woman teased a friend, “This is the first school project in your life you’ve ever cared about!” He agreed, and I could tell you from my experiences working with him that it’s probably the first one that’s convinced him that he was competent and in control of the product. The highlight of my day was when he asked, “Do you think I could get this whole book at the public library? Library cards are free, aren’t they?” He had been working with excerpts from a personal narrative. After I explained that a parent or guardian would have to sign for it if he was under 18, he became notably less enthusiastic, and I was forced to consider again a world in which a student might not be able to count on any adult for something as simple as a signature on a library card.

I found the book on my shelf at home, so he’ll have it tomorrow – but what care we have to take with these fledgling scholars – to work around those factors that could clip their wings and limit their worlds.