Awake & Curious

I am aware that New years resolutions are rarely actualized. So why make them at all? Well perhaps the reason that they are rarely realized is they are either unrelated to the individuals life, or at worst just completely grandiose and unrealistic.

So my advice to myself this year is to make changes with an eye to how I live, what I really want, and what is most important.

In my life my family and my teaching career are pretty competitive for top billing. So the changes I would like to make are less grandiose than ones my 20 something self would have made.

1. I want to read more, and not on a computer. Laptop life has made me less of a reader, which I was avidly before I entered into a committed relationship with my Powerbook. So I want to read more, I still buy books like an avid reader, but I read much less( my husband now reads and claims most of the books I buy as his own)  and I don’t thing that is good for me period.

2. I want to write more. Here and other places. Responding to blogs, and NYT editorials which I love to do, write my own response and then read what everyone else has written.  I have to admit as much as the blogesphere and it’s self important bloggers have begun to turn me off. The thing is the shared conversation really is something special. I like to read what others have written and see how they think and then express myself. The beauty of the blog or Web 2.0. is in the shared comments. So I want to write more. Here at least 1 a week.

3. I intend on being a more effective teacher.  Now I realize that is  a vague statement. But it means something different  to me In this stage of my career It means being willing to mentor younger teachers as well work directly with students.  I work in the same system as everyone else in New York City  and it plainly sucks.  There is little to no attention to things I believe in passionately , Project Based Learning , utilizing technology to  create learning networks or even simply have students publish work.  I have to be a force of change to some extent, because archaic  policies of the NYCDOE are not. No matter what Klein claims in Australia.

That is all  have for now. I have a few other resolutions but they are more personal and this is not  the place to discuss weight gain. Just lets say Oprah is not the only one with that problem.

Happy New Year.

That sometimes interesting fun filled rag The New York Times has posed another question about the digital shifts: Does Reading online, count as reading?

God not another debate created by the digital shifts. I am too worried about the housing crisis, gas prices and what their meteoric rise will do to food prices, and wrapping my mind around the thought of Barack Obama as Commander in Chief to think about all these questions.

Are photographers really photographers if they digitally alter images in Photoshop?

Is it really a relationship if we have never met anywhere but through Chat?

Do the 4 thousand people listed on my Myspace page as friends really have my best interests at heart?

And Now does reading online count as reading?

These questions are quite simple to me.

No to the Myspace friends question, and a big No to the relationship question ( jesus christ get out a littlle will ya? ) , and as for the photography question, well you may not be Robert Capa, Ansel Adams or Ed Weston or Sebstian Salgado, or Cartier Bresson, but then who the hell is ?

So yes you are still a “real” photographer if you use the clone stamp.

But perhaps you are an artist, just availing yourself of the tools of the day , to express yourself. Anyway for ions photographers have gotten the short shift in the art world, in the beginning of the last century there was an ongoing debate about whether photography was art at all, so at least this is step up for photography, arguing about the tools you use to make an image, rather than whether or not the medium is a valid art form or not. (BTW photography is a valid art form, great photographs even hang in New York’s fabulous Cathedral to ” Real Art” the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for 20 years or more matter of fact, so there!)

But back to the questions, Does reading online count as reading? Simple answer: yes? Simple answer; Not exactly. Depends what you want to glean from reading.

Thing is photography is not painting, though they are both visual arts, relationships in the flesh are vastly different than online relationships though they both connect humans to one another in important ways, and reading online is not like reading Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, or the Sound and the Fury, or Dicken’s Great Expectations (three books that completely altered the way I saw adult life, the way the world worked, and human relationships when I was 14 or so) or any truly great book, but then what is?

The gist of the NYTimes article states that of course online reading is different than reading a book, but the important question for them and the educational world , the crux of the matter if you will is, does it help them score higher on the “Test” ? Ugh!!! Always comes back to the “Test:”

I am going to guess yes reading online does help them score higher on the “Test” but it does not change their life the way Faulkner’s, Dickens’s and a host of other author’s writing changed mine.

One interesting piece of the article:

Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

Brings up something I see in my teaching when we are reading together using remote desktop in my lab, we decide where we want the learning to go. If we are reading about a shipyard in Staten Island that built ships for WWII,( this happened the other day on our SI Northshore blog) we can then search more about the WWII, or submarines, specific types of ships. Learning is not confined by the authors conceived idea of what we need to know.

Another important point the article skates around istthat we need to teach this stuff,

Some Web evangelists say children should be evaluated for their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print reading comprehension. Starting next year, some countries will participate in new international assessments of digital literacy, but the United States, for now, will not.

In my classroom the when we read the article on Bethelam Steel I modeled for them what I do at home when I read an articles on the Internet.. I go to the hyperlinks, ( I hyperlinked WWII in the blog article) and I search for other terms I want to know more about using tabs on my browser. We need to teach/learn how to navigate the Internet for information.

I don’t care about evaluation. I care about teaching. Evaulation is just a fancy word for test, and if educational history has taught us anything it is that if you test for something, some slick grifter like McGraw Hill will figure out how to make a quick buck on products to help “pass the test”.

The big message is that it is changing, schools are not, at least not in pace with the world. No surprise there either.

Small pieced of advice; by all means encourage your kids to be smart avid internet consumers and producers of information. Teach them what a “good ” source of information is and try to give them the skills so they can do this for themselves.

In conclusion, reading online is important and like photography in art a major, viable shift that undoubtedly will prepare kids for an increasingly digital world.

Reading books is food for the soul, and in my estimation part of becoming human and cannot be replaced, and should not be missed.

I assert there is no reason to see either as mutually exclusive of the other. But I know how it works in education. This is exactly what will happen

Can I bring up Whole language Vs Phonics/Skill Based approach to teaching reading debacle that has been going on for 40 years or so? . A cadre of dolts have insisted for years that there is one “best way” to teach reading and these two approaches to reading can never be invited to the same party, as if their names were Capulet or Montague, or Hatfield or McCoy.

Rubbish, but many smart con artists have sold billions of dollars of products based on this pointless debate with the promise of the real “best way to teach reading” so the kids can pass the “Test”. Because it is all about the kids.

Ugh!!!!

In short read everything, everywhere savagely devour as much as your ape brain can manage and don’t miss Faulkner.

First , I am the least faithful blogger, so I can’t complain about lack of readership. I blog rarely or never. Even when I have gotten some readership, good people like Ewan MacIntiosh and Noon and others I don’t blog for 3 months. So no complaints here. There is no consistency.

Anyway this year was great in some ways, we had this cool grant from the S.I Foundation which brought Alan November to our school several times, and gave me a boat load of money to work with teachers to encourage literacy and 21st century skills in the classroom. Some good fruit. We had a fabulous film festival this year with some great efforts by teachers. 18 films in all. Took 2 days to run the festival, but the work was teachers and students purely. I think the thing we got out of Alan and Co. visits was a new shared language. People have a greater understanding of all that Google has to offer, how easy it is to podcast/or screen-cast. How much kids dig these technologies and that the Apps of Web 2.0. are the new pencils, crayons and chalkboards so to speak.

Some of my less tech-savy colleagues that have children in elementary schools (3 to be exact) expressed exasperation that the grades for “writing” on their children’s report cards were mainly talking about hand writing, then made comments,” they are going to be working on keyboards, I would rather a grade in keyboarding skills” or something to that effect. A small shift, but I think our professional development plan clearly made the point, ( helped along by the digital world encroaching around us) that it is essentially a digital world we live in, and perhaps, keyboarding, not handwriting is the new penmanship.

I am a little disillusioned, politics where I work are Machiavellian at best, and incestuously Borgian at worst, and this has sucked some of the life out of me. I am not brimming with enthusiasm right now. However, I am hoping to “get my groove back” this summer. Number of reasons for this, 1. We get a new principal, 2. We are doing a summer literacy cooperative with The Staten Island Foundation. and 3. I am making another pilgrimage to the holy waters of Boston for November’s BLC 08.

High hopes for our literacy project. We have already created a blog, about the North Shore of Staten Island, and have funds to take numerous trips to all the hot cultural spots on the North shore of Staten Island.

The idea is for the kids to create an online travel brouchure extolling the many pleasures, and educational opportunities offered from Howland Hook to the Verazzano Narrows above Forest Avenue to Richmond Terrace. Some history pieces, GoogleEarth, photogaphy and dozens of real reasons for kids to read and write. All crammed into 6 weeks. Should be good.

No other great words of wisdom right now. I do however have a new out look on being politically correct in education. I think it is the equivalent of a severe diabettic eating a box of dough nuts. What is needed is brutal honesty to cleanup the current mess.

I am not a big fan of expensive scripted teaching programs. Our school is an Every Day Math School (The Wright Group) . Our classes departmentalize and we do it for 2 periods a day. We spend a bloody fortune on Every Day Math’s ” expensive supplies” . The first two periods of the the day is dedicated to Every Day Math, a decision made by our administration.

I have noticed that the people who make these decisions , high level/ low-level administrators were usually not , ” master teachers” themselves (if they were they would have stayed in the classroom). Often they were adequate teachers, but the classroom was not where they wanted to be, or where their talents lie. They are good communicators, good at managing people, but few of them has a love affair with the classroom or curriculum. Not completely true in my building, one of our administrators after the fact I think is becoming ” a master teacher” , and has a post classroom love affair with all things curriculum based. You know the geeky stuff real teachers are made of, getting excited about “real learning”, designing an assignment, the execution of that assignment, the creating projects, and observing how that lesson changed the classroom culture, how the classroom culture impacts the lesson, and how the entire encounter impacted it’s participants, both students and teachers..

The thought that you can ever “script” an encounter that complex is ludicrous. It is like trying to script modern dance . Though I admit that great modern dance executed by someone trained in the Russian Ballet can reach dizzying heights. Modern dance is about freedom, a four-way dialogue; between the dancer, his body, the music and the audience. Modern Dance is about true honesty of expression, the fact that you cannot predict outcomes, or would even want to, and ultimately the fact that the body never lies.

The Russian Ballet, historically is a strict, even rigid disciplined dance. Where the “scripted ” technique understands and celebrates the possibility of movement to such an extent, that highest achievements of “personal expression” can only be reached by total submission to the ” Script”. Following the script frees the participant to reach his or her potential, create that magical 4 part dialogue.

That said, I have seen both Michail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev ( I know I am old) perform both modern dance pieces and classical pieces. The classical pieces were beautiful, elegant if predictable, and particularly in Nureyev’s case often thrilling. However all of the moves could have been replicated, taught, and followed. Sort of like “best practices” in dance.

The modern pieces were explosive, sometimes beautiful, as well as horrifying at points, unpredictable, inventive, and I as an observer had to participate. This was not Swan Lake, but something I had never seen before, Modern dance demanded my participation.

Now I love Classical Ballet, ( I will purchase Tickets to the Nutcracker which I have seen 20 + times performed after I finish this blog piece) but Modern dance requires my presence, it does not exalt the script to a level where, diversion is seen as anarchy, and anarchy is always bad. (Often met by a strike with a thin stick across the dancers legs in Russian Studios)

Ok, so I digress. Why compare teaching to Ballet? Or more far fetched, compare the current scripted teaching programs to the classical ballet. Well Ballet is so difficult, having befriended some professional dancers in another life in a Universe far, far away , when I was trying to be an actor in NYC in my teens and very early 20’s, I learned that Ballet on many levels was the most difficult things I think you can do.

A choreographer the one who creates the “scripts” in the ballet must have complete command of the dance and be a genius. A dancer must be dedicated, disciplined, practiced, intuitive and sensitive to all the elements that make the dance; body, mind, audience, and music. A dancer like a teacher is a communicator, and the communication is highly complex.

I think as we flop around like fish in this nation trying to figure out how to create a fool-proof instant out of the box answer to education, we should remember that teaching like dance is a complex art-form. We would find it ridiculous if you they sold “instant scripted programs ” to teach ballet. We should find it equally ridiculous that we think a communication as complex as teaching can be scripted. Teaching/learning can never come out of a box, or be completely predictable.There are always unintended outcomes. Often teaching/learning may benefit from rigorous discipline, but only if this discipline is based in something thouhgtful and brilliant. As in the case of dance it is the dialogue of many elements that give it it’s potency. not a script.

Above Photo By My Husband, R.J. Formica

This year the weather is rainy, far from the idylic weather that morning six years ago, Tuesday, September 11th 2001 .

Well another tuesday falls on September 11th this year 2007 and I am watching Oprah. I know I said I don’t watch Oprah, but she is doing a special on September 11th, and no one else seems to really remember just how much the day that changed the name of the World Trade Center forever to Ground Zero changed our world forever.

I checked the T.V. listings, no specials, save for PBS, normal programing. Most of the kids I teach are too young to remember that day clearly. We had a moment of silence, not the 5 moments we observed last year to remember the times the planes struck buildings, planes crashed into the field and exact time when each building fell.

Attendance at the Ground Zero site memorial was smaller than any other year. I guess people have moved on.

I feel profoundly sad. I don’t know if there is another emotion that would be appropriate for this day. I always thought everyone would always remember, but this year, the sixth anniversary, it is apparent to me that they do not, they have forgotten. No judgement here, just an observation.

Two of my older classes blogged about it. Some of them remembered the day. We talked, and shared our memories. It was the only time I felt right all day.
I do remember that day, it was a day of no answers, but so many questions, many still left unanswered. It was like no other day I had every lived through. It changed my world, and I know my world will never be the same.
Six Years ago on that other tuesday I watched the 2nd tower go down from the waterfront of Staten Island. It just fell and was no more. A building I had once worked in as a clerical worker, that I shopped in the lower level of at least once a month. I remember going to a bank that had a piano and player, there when I was sixteen with my first boyfriend to cash checks from my first job.
I know the world is different. I know it, no matter if any else does.

Before 9/11 New York, the United States, my world was one of innocence. Six years ago on another tuesday in September the World Trade Center became ground zero and we lost more than we realize or remember.
Technorati Tags: /Septembr 11th 9/11,

This is going to be a pretty disjointed post. I am in a strange place, and it is the first week of school in New York City.
Forewarned as they say, you know the rest, so read on only if you are in the mood to cope with a lack of structure and more than a bit of chaotic rambling.

I have had 24 first weeks of school as a teacher and another 10 as a student (dropped out of High School in the 10th grade).
That is 34 first weeks in the NYC school system. Mind-boggling.
Ramble 1. I think George Carlin is brilliant and funny and pinned the tail on the donkey in this piece.
Chris Sessum mentioned it on his blog. It is profane, (much of Carlin is, and in my book anyone who is that sharp can curse till the cows waltz in the wheat fields) but dead on when it come to the failure of the American Education system. It is interesting to me how accurate his observations are about education, NCLB and our present psychotic fascination with testing.

Ramble # 2. I am also Simpson’s fan. No clip here, so I will try to set the scene: A group of T.V. executives in a “creative” meeting all sitting in front of their own T.V’s trying to come up with an “original” idea for a reality show starring Homer. They all kept feverishly surfing channels on their personal t.v.s, watching shows on other networks saying things like,
” Wait I think I am getting an idea”.

I think this is what the T.V. executives must really do to come up with the idea for these some of the shows . How else can you explain that as of last week I count 3 “new” shows on different networks where the premise of the show is to see whether some dolt can win big bucks by finishing the lyrics to Abba’s Dancing Queen?
Back to the Simpsons, they show the “creative genius” of T.V in formula: replicate a show that has a modicum of success again, and again, and again until all the life is beaten out of it, and T.V. veiwer suicide/murder rates skyrocket. Bottom line they never replicate the initial show, it is usually just a watered down imitation, lacking any substance or entertainment value.

An example of this is Oprah and daytime T.V. Think back when Oprah did a tabloid like shock show,( she did you know in her beginning she was not always discussing the philosophy of “giving” with Bill”the rock star” Clinton.)
In ancient times, before Google and YouTube around (1984) she did the kind of show that was closer to Jerry Springer Or Maury Povitch. Hell she is the mother of Springer and Povitch’s daily misery fests. And if you don’t remember, or believe me that Oprah the Good Witch once rode her broom in a more seedy neighborhood, well, as the popular rant on these shows say, , go ahead Oprah “take the test, take the test” you know their your children!

After Oprah’s show became popular the other T.V. executives had “a creative brainstorm” and daytime talk T.V. with a penchant for Freak show suffering was born. Oprah changed her show’s format. ( But Oprah is the mother of this mess no matter how many schools for girls she finances in Africa. )

This desperate insistence on replicating anything that has had slight success runs rampant in the American Education system as well as in T.V. land. We even have a term for it in education, “Best Practices”. “Best Practices” lets replicate their ” Best Practices”.

That is like saying lets replicate William Faulkner’s writing in Absalom Absalom, or ” The Sound and The Fury”.
Fool, you can’t replicate great writing, you can be inspired by great writing. If you try to repeat brilliant writing you will just write a bad book. There are hundreds of books written by the way trying to “replicate” Faulkner’s “best practice” in his writing and not one of them has.
Good if not great writers on their own terms, wearing their own pants and thinking their own thoughts like Cormac McCarthy have been inspired by Faulkner. (As an aside the Oprah The Good Witch “did” McCarthy and his latest book The End on her book club as the first book of last year, maybe their is hope for Springer and Povitch yet.)
You can’t replicate “brilliant teaching” probably for the same reason you can’t replicate T.V. or books. The players, setting, and time is different. I am no Oprah fan but even I know Jerry Springer is no Oprah, and no one will ever be Faulkner, ever!
Teaching is the same, when I see great teaching and I do in my little brick school house in New York City, believe it or not I do. I don’t copy it, I get excited by it . The thought to do exactly what they have done never occurs to me. Yet “Balanced Literacy, Reading First, and Every Day Math are built on this premise that you can “script” and replicate great/ good teaching and learning.
Ramble # 3: As my final ramble on testing I came across a peice written by a guy name Bruce A. Jilk. He plans schools all over the world.
He has some great things to say

“There is something that learning, because of it’s nature, is not the display of a packaged product. Learning is an inner process that is manifested as continual discovery”
Also this:”Nearly all children are born with creative potential. The drawings, singing, play, and place making of young children is in evidence everywhere. As they move through their years of “development” many seem to lose this creative propensity. We have all seen it when we visit schools. The delightful, spirited kindergarten classroom seems to diminish, year by year until you get to the more somber rooms of the 6th grade and beyond. What’s going on here?

For many reasons the teaching process in the US becomes more focused and controlled as students move ahead. This certainly is done for significant reasons. And with the fed’s passing laws that require testing this will become even more evident. The problem is that this also is limiting the creative channels of children. Typically we, planners and designers, respond to our clients by developing teaching environments that are supportive of this emphasis on focus and control. Recent security issues even push those concerns further. I believe this is what we are expected to do, but we can do so much more.”

To recap: I have spent too many years in school buildings, George Carlin is on to something , I watch the Simpsons, I don’t watch Oprah because I know where she comes from, Cormac McCarthy is a good writer, William Faulkner is a great writer (if you have time stop reading blogs and read them), you can’t replicate or package a creative process, ( and teaching/learning Bozos is a creative process) , You can be inspired by the creative, I am all the time and enough with spending billions of dollars on testing as you don’t fatten a cow by weighing it.

Welcome to the 2007-2008 school year.

Chow!

There is a saying that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. My grandmother, Nana Broderick, used to say it a different way usually to my father when he was trying to fix something, ” please don’t fix it if you are just going to break it “. If you look at American history there are plenty examples of “fixing things only to break them”. One is the failure of Public housing, another is a little piece of legislation called NCLB.

Public housing began (as a result of the National Housing Act of 1937) as apartments for middle and working classes. The Great Depression was in full swing and the corner had not been turned to more prosperous times. It’s early advocates believed the private market would fail all but the most affluent third of the population. Over time, however, those with means have departed public housing, leaving behind what amounts to a modern-day version of the 19th-century poorhouse, dominated — except in those projects reserved for the elderly or handicapped — by single mothers and children. Nationwide, only 8 percent of public housing households are two-parent families with children.

Laudable ideals started public housing. However in truth it was a product. In this case “affordable housing” sold to the American public utilizing tax dollars ( my grandmothers tax dollars she worked two jobs in the 20’s, 30, 40’s and 50′, Schraffts downtown Manhattan and Con Edison) . Public housing offered affordable housing to the poor. People who moved into public housing would be given – houses they could afford. The problem was this had not been thought out carefully. They were fixing one problem while creating a host of others. ( I remind you of the words of Nana Broderick)

Sure they had a place to live and tore done functioning poor neighborhoods to build these “places to live “. What they forgot was the neighborhood. There was no plane for a neighborhood to support the buildings. No local jobs for it’s inhabitants, schools, shopping districts, hospitals, churches, police stations, firehouses, recreation centers etc… Yet millions , the equivalent today of billions tax of dollars today went into making these “prisons for the poor”.

Remember this rule, When millions/billions of dollars are spent in the U. S. there is always big payoff for someone. Sometimes these days it is Haliburton in Iraq or New Orleans, or corporate welfare to McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction/Reading Mastery program to the tune of 4.8 billion dollars.

Anyway those of us who have taught inner-city kids who grew up in public housing in the United States are quite aware what a failure and incredible waste of my grandmothers tax dollars public housing has been for the past 50 years. In my own city a city planner named Robert Moses raised “successful” lower income neighborhoods to create these “prisons”

I see a parallel between this and the NCLB standards movement. I realize it is a stretch, but again the American public has been sold a “product” to correct a social ill. Testing, testing and more testing. But it doesn’t end there. They have lots of very expensive educational products They are going to sell you to make sure children do well on these “tests”. That coupled with the not so thinly veiled threats from NCLB that your children better do well on these tests and you have a national disaster in the American Education system comparable to the Public housing disaster of the last 50 years.

Now in schools in this changing 21st century instead of looking at how the world is changing, what new skills the 21st century demands, we are stuck following very expensive pre-packaged educational programs that are after all “researched based” and promise us the only thing that NCLB respects — better test scores. So what if these educational tools are offered at exorbitant prices and completely curtail teacher devlopment,and student thought and creativity, it meets the requirements of NCLB. C.Y.O. A. so to speak.( or as Nana Broderick would have said “Cover your own ass”.

Public housing for all it originators good intentions sentenced generation after generation to a form of “apartheid poverty” that still exists today. I fear the fate will be just as bleak if NCLB ’s testing craze is allowed to go unchecked in the near future. What is worse is this is happening at a time when U. S . schools should be undergoing a revolution based in the demands of globalization, and needs for different kinds of skills, to take center stage in the classroom.

Anyway I return to school tomorrow, and I have the luxury of creating blogs , teaching, film-making, and thinking with our kids. I am not stuck following scripted programs like Every Day Math. In a lot of ways I really feel sorry for our kids, teachers and our country.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 NCLB,

Public housing began (as a result of the National Housing Act of 1937) as apartments for middle and working classes. The Great Depression was in full swing and the corner had not been turned to more prosperous times. It’s early advocates believed the private market would fail all but the most affluent third of the population. Over time, however, those with means have departed public housing, leaving behind what amounts to a modern-day version of the 19th-century poorhouse, dominated — except in those projects reserved for the elderly or handicapped — by single mothers and children. Nationwide, only 8 percent of public housing households are two-parent families with children.

Laudable ideals started public housing. However in truth it was a product. In this case “affordable housing” sold to the American public utilizing tax dollars ( my grandmothers tax dollars she worked two jobs in the 20’s, 30, 40’s and 50′, Schraffts downtown Manhattan and Con Edison) . Public housing offered affordable housing to the poor. People who moved into public housing would be given – houses they could afford. The problem was this had not been thought out carefully. They were fixing one problem while creating a host of others. ( I remind you of the words of Nana Broderick)

Sure they had a place to live and tore done functioning poor neighborhoods to build these “places to live “. What they forgot was the neighborhood. There was no plane for a neighborhood to support the buildings. No local jobs for it’s inhabitants, schools, shopping districts, hospitals, churches, police stations, firehouses, recreation centers etc… Yet millions , the equivalent today of billions tax of dollars today went into making these “prisons for the poor”.

Remember this rule, When millions/billions of dollars are spent in the U. S. there is always big payoff for someone. Sometimes these days it is Haliburton in Iraq or New Orleans, or corporate welfare to McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction/Reading Mastery program to the tune of 4.8 billion dollars.

Anyway those of us who have taught inner-city kids who grew up in public housing in the United States are quite aware what a failure and incredible waste of my grandmothers tax dollars public housing has been for the past 50 years. In my own city a city planner named Robert Moses raised “successful” lower income neighborhoods to create these “prisons”

I see a parallel between this and the NCLB standards movement. I realize it is a stretch, but again the American public has been sold a “product” to correct a social ill. Testing, testing and more testing. But it doesn’t end there. They have lots of very expensive educational products They are going to sell you to make sure children do well on these “tests”. That coupled with the not so thinly veiled threats from NCLB that your children better do well on these tests and you have a national disaster in the American Education system comparable to the Public housing disaster of the last 50 years.

Now in schools in this changing 21st century instead of looking at how the world is changing, what new skills the 21st century demands, we are stuck following very expensive pre-packaged educational programs that are after all “researched based” and promise us the only thing that NCLB respects — better test scores. So what if these educational tools are offered at exorbitant prices and completely curtail teacher devlopment,and student thought and creativity, it meets the requirements of NCLB. C.Y.O. A. so to speak.( or as Nana Broderick would have said “Cover your own ass”.

Public housing for all it originators good intentions sentenced generation after generation to a form of “apartheid poverty” that still exists today. I fear the fate will be just as bleak if NCLB ’s testing craze is allowed to go unchecked in the near future. What is worse is this is happening at a time when U. S . schools should be undergoing a revolution based in the demands of globalization, and needs for different kinds of skills, like to take center stage in the classroom.

Anyway I return to school tomorrow, and I have the luxury of creating blogs , teaching, film-making, and thinking with our kids. I am not stuck following scripted programs like Every Day Math. In a lot of ways I really feel sorry for our kids, teachers and our country.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 NCLB,

Public housing began (as a result of the National Housing Act of 1937) as apartments for middle and working classes. The Great Depression was in full swing and the corner had not been turned to more prosperous times. It’s early advocates believed the private market would fail all but the most affluent third of the population. Over time, however, those with means have departed public housing, leaving behind what amounts to a modern-day version of the 19th-century poorhouse, dominated — except in those projects reserved for the elderly or handicapped — by single mothers and children. Nationwide, only 8 percent of public housing households are two-parent families with children.

Laudable ideals started public housing. However in truth it was a product. In this case “affordable housing” sold to the American public utilizing tax dollars ( my grandmothers tax dollars she worked two jobs in the 20’s, 30, 40’s and 50′, Schraffts downtown Manhattan and Con Edison) . Public housing offered affordable housing to the poor. People who moved into public housing would be given – houses they could afford. The problem was this had not been thought out carefully. They were fixing one problem while creating a host of others. ( I remind you of the words of Nana Broderick)

Sure they had a place to live and tore done functioning poor neighborhoods to build these “places to live “. What they forgot was the neighborhood. There was no plane for a neighborhood to support the buildings. No local jobs for it’s inhabitants, schools, shopping districts, hospitals, churches, police stations, firehouses, recreation centers etc… Yet millions , the equivalent today of billions tax of dollars today went into making these “prisons for the poor”.

Remember this rule, When millions/billions of dollars are spent in the U. S. there is always big payoff for someone. Sometimes these days it is Haliburton in Iraq or New Orleans, or corporate welfare to McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction/Reading Mastery program to the tune of 4.8 billion dollars.

Anyway those of us who have taught inner-city kids who grew up in public housing in the United States are quite aware what a failure and incredible waste of my grandmothers tax dollars public housing has been for the past 50 years. In my own city a city planner named Robert Moses raised “successful” lower income neighborhoods to create these “prisons”

I see a parallel between this and the NCLB standards movement. I realize it is a stretch, but again the American public has been sold a “product” to correct a social ill. Testing, testing and more testing. But it doesn’t end there. They have lots of very expensive educational products They are going to sell you to make sure children do well on these “tests”. That coupled with the not so thinly veiled threats from NCLB that your children better do well on these tests and you have a national disaster in the American Education system comparable to the Public housing disaster of the last 50 years.

Now in schools in this changing 21st century instead of looking at how the world is changing, what new skills the 21st century demands, we are stuck following very expensive pre-packaged educational programs that are after all “researched based” and promise us the only thing that NCLB respects — better test scores. So what if these educational tools are offered at exorbitant prices and completely curtail teacher devlopment,and student thought and creativity, it meets the requirements of NCLB. C.Y.O. A. so to speak.( or as Nana Broderick would have said “Cover your own ass”.

Public housing for all it originators good intentions sentenced generation after generation to a form of “apartheid poverty” that still exists today. I fear the fate will be just as bleak if NCLB ’s testing craze is allowed to go unchecked in the near future. What is worse is this is happening at a time when U. S . schools should be undergoing a revolution based in the demands of globalization, and needs for different kinds of skills, like to take center stage in the classroom.

Anyway I return to school tomorrow, and I have the luxury of creating blogs , teaching, film-making, and thinking with our kids. I am not stuck following scripted programs like Every Day Math. In a lot of ways I really feel sorry for our kids, teachers and our country.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 NCLB,
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 Public Housing,

Chris Sessums posted this video from Youtube from an old Alan Watts talk.. Thoughtful and timely in these data-driven, bottom-line days. So much of teaching is a musical, intuitive, serendipitous affair. Not quantifiable at all. Yet we are always completely concerned with attainment and the bottom-line. Indeed a hoax. Good Stuff.

A post by Chris Lehman was referenced by Rob Mancabelli at his blog which discusses how much control is necessary for schools to I suppose maintain, well the levels of control and safety they now enjoy.

Wow, is not this an old debate?

(Above a piecie of revolutionary technloogy that transformed society)

I think this gets to the heart of the matter of an age old dilemma in public education, what is public educations ultimate concern in a capitalist democracy? Creating controllable citizens that will help the social-political mechanism continue to function, or creating free thinkers who may challenge in disruptive ways the power structure albeit make great advances for society?

Since this is black history month lets take a look at the history of the evolution of equality in Black America in light of educational controls. Well to begin African – American’s were denied access to Gutenberg’s momentous technological invention of the 15th century, (movable type) the book.

This amazing piece of technology had the ability to connect people, and their thoughts managing knowledge in a new a profoundly efficient way. No wonder It was illegal to teach slaves to utilize this piece of technology. No reading or writing.

Then of course came segregation and the “separate but equal folly” which while a step up from no educaton still proved to be a powerful way to control knowlege and just what race would would have it.

I always find it fascinating how truly ” careful and fearful” we are that free thinking may one day enter into k-12 education.

Education and control, how much? Who owns knowledge? It reminds me of something an uncle of mine would always say.

I had an Italian uncle who was a piano maker. Uncle Dan (Cortaza) he was not much fun. He was pretty ancient when I was a kid, made wine, fought in World War I for Italy, and did not smile that much. One thing that I always remember was what he said every time I visited him without fail and in a commanding voice laced with a thick Italian accent ” Meridith the one thing no one can take from you is your knowledge, it the only thing you ever really own and it is the most powerful weapon. Read, and learn it is all you have and it may save your life” Dower words to say to a 7 year old. They however stuck with me my whole life. Uncle Dan taught me that knowledge is power and who controls it is an important question in any society.

So back to Chris and Rob’s problem, however you phrase the question, how high the walls? how much freedom? Who controls what is taught and learned, the government? the schools? the teachers? the parents? the students?

The read-write web is indeed shaking all of this up just about as much as Guttenbergs invention did 500 years ago. After the book life was never the same, and yes it was better. The book offered a dramatically increased ability to manage, and share information. This had a profound effect on the world and ushered in the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and led to the Age of Enlightenment. So the quesitons are old ones. How much control, perhaps that is not the question that teachers should be concerned with. Maybe the question is in an increasingly connected and yes transparent socieity is control possible the way it was tradtionally enjoyed?

Let me tell you before the book in feudal society a few Kings and religious elders controlled everything, and that was that. It was an autocratic world where power was closely guarded. The advance of the book began to organize men around ideas, and indeed eventually killed feudal society . After the book it was almost impossible to contol people as they had been before.

Pol Pot knew this in Cambodia when he attempted to recreate feudal society, and the controls it had by making the population leave the cities and forcablly recreating peasant farm life. Education had no place in Pol Pot’s plan and in fact an infamous school the former, Tuol Svay Prey High School, was used as a place of draconian torture known as S-21.

Back to the question of control in our world. Rob makes a good point when he says “Online interaction between students, parents and other members of the community have already started and will continue whether the school provides space for it or not. At this time, schools are not deciding if their students and parents will be online, they’re just deciding whether they will be central or peripheral to the online experiences of their community members”

I have no answers Moodle, or some other “safe, controlled service to manage the read-write web in the classroom” is probably beside the point. The issue is one of control and just like with the invention of the book, with the read-write web there has been a dramatic shift in who controls knowledge and it’s access. This is a revolutionary change. and I don’t expect anyone to be too comfortable right now, or”know what to do”. History teaches us that no one is very comfortable during a revolution.

Written January 3rd, not posted until the 22nd

Well Maybe not such a big Hello, just Happy New Year. As an educator, I have been faithful to my mission, as blogger less so.

I was just doing my bloglines self assigned reading.  I think I read about 70 tech-ed blogs a week or so.   I was reading what blog guru Will Rich saw as his most important posts of the year. One struck a cord as I look at how faithless I have been to edublogging, Reinvention: I Quit , It was Will’s post on how he quit teaching to write books, present and blog and spend more time with his family.

I don’t know if his post makes me feel better or not. I think in my gut that good teachers, need to be in the classroom, in the schools, etc… So many of them, the good ones leave the classroom, for out of classroom positions or even better district supervisory jobs. I guess we need leaders and perhaps it is impossible to be good at two things at once. Will discusses leaving his job just short of a pension. My cynicism leads me to think presenting must be “lucrative” in order to make such a move.

I met Will at Alan November’s conference (BLC06) last year and he was quite good, I got a lot out of him and his book.

In this coming week I have Alan November coming to talk to my teachers about what classrooms should, could or will look like and anything else that he wants for that matter.

This post is raw and disjointed at best.

A nagging question I have had increasingly is if blogging is so wonderful, and I think it is, and if it is as Will points at very time-consuming how do we get teachers to embrace and actively blog? )It is not like they have a lot of extra time on their hands.)

I am not a gamer at all. I don’t like video games. I could make a sarcastic comment here about how I always found my real life challenging (engaging) enough with unconquerable problems. I did not need simulated problems, that in truth, are easily conquerable. I am not a gamer. That said this is definitely an untapped avenue of learning I need to look at more closely.

Watch the video, I particularly like Henry Jenkins assertion that students” will go to bed not completing there homework because it is “too hard” , but stay up all night if they can’t get past a level on a game platform.” He asserts this is total ‘engagement”. I agree.

But this makes me think of something else we identify as a 21st century skill ’self directed behaviour”. We want self directed learners, citizens, (as we should always remember the real goal of education is to prepare students for citizenship in a democracy, not make a lot of money in a capitalist dictatorship, more sarcasm!!!). Anyway we to develop the trait of self-direction in our kids, who think for themselves, creatively, outside the box and all that nonsense.

But that is not the reality in my school and most schools. The number one trait we encourage for administrators, teachers, and of course students is blind obedience. I know why kids like games past the sexy graphics, lights, bells, whistles and the need for speed. Here what they do finally has power. They are powerful relevant beings in Sim City, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, etc….For a little while they are not kept in the claustrophobic and intellectual sterile confines of classrooms and homework. They get to have power and it might be messy and not be politically correct. What Fun!!

Never forget childhood was an 19th century invention, that protected children from unmentionable horrors , but rendered them completely impotent until they reach legal age. Kids like videogames certainly for the elegants designs filled with violence and speed, but also because there they finally have some power, what they do matters. In real life what kids do has little or no impact on the family survival, or classroom life except when they refuse to play by the rules and remain, obedient and impotent until adulthood sets in. There job is to wait like an indentured servant or apprentice before they can feel like relevant powerful beings. Before they can feel the fire in their belly. Video games make them feel like they and their actions are important.

Reminds me of when a friend of mine became an assistant principal in my school, this was maybe a month later after he started the job. It was cold and we were at dismissal in front of the school. He had I think begun to realize that the “blind obedience” rule applied not only to students and teachers but in many ways mainly to administration. We smiled and he whispered “I can’t wait to get home and play such and such a game”, with a rueful pirate smile. I think it was Grand theft Auto. He wanted power on that chilly day he had spent being a dutiful AP. Aand that is one thing video games give kids’ power’.

In conclusion I am still not a gamer but maybe what I take from this is  I should look at my own classroom, and design my assignments and classroom more like a video game, where students get to have some power, to make choices that have real consequences, maybe a little messy,  and a little less politcally correct.

Technorati Tags: k12online06 k12online

Well I have been participating in the K12 Online conference.On and off I am presently listening/watching the movie
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I am trying to think of what I like best about this conference, well I though David Warlick was very engaging, not mindblowing at first. But I watched his presentation twice and I have reflected again and again on things he talked about.

I listened/watched David Warlick’s Keynote this morning. Without a doubt it is like no other conference. I had a similar kind of experience at Alan Novmember’s bash in July. I have gone back and re-listened to some of the workshops I attended. Which is the beauty of a conference such as this that is not time-constrained. I choose when I learn. Not new. Tivo for students,but really radical in many ways.

To make a point of these observations. I think I got so much more reviewing the workshops

I attended at Novmeber in the privacy/comfort of my own bedroom. The fact that I can 

go back to this again and revisit, get a

new perspective, when I am relaxed or the mood strikes me is a tremendously powerful teaching tool.

Leads me to 2 points, about online learning in general. Point one, anyone can learn, because you can rewind it as many times as you like so to speak and ” get it right” in your own time frame. Secondly, the “teacher” better have something solid and relevant to share, fluff and druff will not do. Online learning will exist for a long time, so if you have said nothing, you may fool some of the people the first time, but chances are you might not fool them the 2nd time they view it. Wow very difficult for a presenter/teacher, makes you feel a little vulnerable I imagine.

I want to make a few other observations, “the sidetrips” David speaks of is where the true learning has always been, good or maybe the word I am looking for is “great” teachers have always known this. The thing is the internet/information/digital tools, just put this concept of “sidetrips’ into over drive. What it reminds me of is the way scientists work, sure they have a rail, in fact they know every inch of the rail, it is branded into their brains, but that is not “learning” that is memorization, the regurgitation of facts or principles is not learning. Real learning takes place on these “sidetrips” when a teacher/coach says something like okay so you know this. or you have these set of facts at your disposal, now where can you, or do you want them to take you? I had a great teacher who used to say about questions of ethics/history/etc..”who is to say?”, Just who is the “Expert” and then he would bellow,(for a very quiet man) “You, you are to say”. It is your job to go find the truth and be the “expert” This information age we are in or entering is allowing this to happen. Here I am sharing my thoughts with everyone who cares to read. Astoundingly powerful stuff.I am getting ready meanwhile for my schools, mock election one

I have not put the time into this blog and I feel rather guilty about that. So I make a commitment to post at least 3 times a week.

Wait this is beginning to sound like one of those pathetic New Years Resolutions to lose weight or stop fighting with your wife. You know you say it, write it and then you just go on doing as you please.

So why don’t I teacher-blog? Well part of it is because I spend a lot of time on my student blog. That is not the real reason. The real reason is I just don’t make the time for here.

The same reason I am 20 pounds overweight. I don’t make the commitment. So I don’t achieve the goal.

Really that is such a simple principle in education and in life, either you make the commitment or not. No excuses.

I really think the Buddhists put this idea out best in some of the Thai forest Theravada texts. Particularly from the teaching of a wonderful monk from this tradition, Ajaan Chah. I remember one story I always liked that to me made the idea of either you do something or not very clear.

Some westerners if my memory serves me were staying at his forest monetary, the conditions were a little rugged to say the least and they were sweeping around their huts in the sweltering heat and bugs of Southeast Asia.

The point of traveling from Harvard, which is where these gentlemen were from, was I think to get less attached. Thereby freeing up the body and mind to ” have a moment that belonged entirely to itself, not memory, not desire, not physical/mental comfort, or pain for that matter.” A moment in the moment so to speak”.
I don’t know If the venerable Ajaan Chah would agree with my summation of what a forest retreat was “supposed to achieve”, and since he is dead since 1992, I suppose there is no way to really know.

Anyway that is what I think the goal was, less attached to everything, (if it can be said Buddhist monks “have goals”.)

One PHD from Harvard I believe was very distressed sweeping in the heat and suffering obviously. This joyful old monk came up behind the man, smiling, really beaming and said with utter delight, “suffering much? Paused and then broke out in laughter and said ” too bad, too attached”.

And there you have it. Either you work toward your goal, or you don’t.

Not a warm, fuzzy fact but an inevitable one. It seems to me with the amazing inventions the information age offers in full swing, and the freedoms that virtual life offers, that some educators/ students would think maybe things would get easier.

Now this seem like as Homer Simpson would “crazy talk” if you think how the invention of the horseless carriage complicated life for the folk of the last century. Yes the car made more things possible, but it did not make “life easier” if anything I think it made it more difficult.

So there you have it, either I commit to this blog and actually reflect on what I am doing my class or I don’t. You really want something you do it, you may fail, but you do it. Or you don’t.

I think the question I have to answer is the one everyone has to answer, including the PhD’s from Harvard being eaten alive by bugs in the forest, what do you want?
Do I want to self reflect on teaching in this new world or not and share my experiences, as this “sharing” seems to be the greatest good” in this “ delicious/myspace/youtube/google-zon” world.
(Is my ambivalence about all this obvious? I am not completely convinced blogging for bloggings sake is that vital to education, though super-edu-bloggers like Will Rich David Warlick,Alan November or my hands down personal favorite, Stephen Downes, make me think perhaps it is, as I learn so damn much at their digs.)
Well stay tuned, if there is something to stay tuned to, and what I “really want” will be revealed in my action or lack of.

Five years later and I remember. Everyone does. Many things have happened since then we have went to war in Iraq. In my opinion loosely based on the the events of 5 years ago, and a reference during a State of the Union address that there was intelligence to indicate that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase enriched uranium.

As a result more Americans have died in the two conficts that resulted from 9/11 then died in the terrorist attacks of 9.11.01 (in Iraq 2,666 soldiers have died and the 333 in Afghanistan, 2973 died that day).

It seems 9/11/01 was a bad day for the American Soldier.

Over 100,000 Iraqi’s are dead, most civilian, and 46,000 of them as a result of military intervention. It seems 9/11/01 was a bad day for Iraq as well.

I live in New York. I teach in New York. I watched the second tower go down five years ago tomorrow. People I grew up with died in the Towers that day. For me there is little else to say.
I remember being in the lunch room at my school, and my friend coming and telling me, ” they just hit the Pentagon”. Then I was told our fighter jets are shooting down hijacked planes in our skys. Thank god that was not true.

I remember saying to myself it is going to be a long day. It was. We were at school till 7:00 pm that day, while we waited for parents to come pick up their kids, who at best could not get home, and at worst were dead. I remember one of my collegues nearly got in a fist fight with a school bus drive who refused to wait after hours at our school, to take home kids who were waiting for there parents to finally get home.

In the weeks that followed when all the rumors, speculation, and outright lies cleared themselves up, we were left with the real story, and far more horrible than anything I could have imagined. I was left speechless. Everyone talked about this endlessly, and I had nothing to say. I remember driving around the city on 9/13 and it was a ghost town.
Tomorrow we will observe moments of silence for each of the attacks in my school.

8:46 Am the first plane Flight 11 hits the North tower.

At 9:03 the South Tower is hit by Flight 175.

9:37 Am Flight Crashes into the side of the Pentagon killing 125 people

9:59 South Tower Collapses

10: 03 Flight 93 Crashes in to a field in Philadelphia

10: 28 Am North Tower Collapses

Five years later still I have nothing to say of much value. Except remember.