Real Leaders Sometimes Lose

This post is going to veer away from the usual education focus and slightly into politics, but I think it's related.

The Denver Post ran an editorial today titled, Repeal TABOR? It's not happening, where they said,

Gov. John Hickenlooper told an assembly of school administrators last week what some of them clearly didn't want to hear: that any effort to repeal the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights would be "doomed." But Hickenlooper is very likely right about the odds, and education leaders shouldn't waste their time urging political leaders to undertake the electoral equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Remember the thrashing that Amendment 66, which would have raised the income tax for education, sustained two years ago? Any attempt to repeal TABOR outright could easily face an even worse drubbing.

Hickenlooper was responding to a request by Boulder Superintendent Bruce Messinger that the governor lead a campaign to repeal TABOR, according to Chalkbeat Colorado. "We will need the governor to lead that charge," Messinger said.

To which Hickenlooper replied: "To take on that battle ... right now, that would be a doomed effort."

Indeed it would. Opponents of a repeal effort would have a field day portraying the campaign as contemptuous of popular opinion and bent on huge tax hikes. 

The Denver Post, like many media outlets, pundits, and politicians themselves, has succumbed to the viewpoint that governing (and politics) is always (and only) about winning. It's not.

I find it interesting that nowhere in that article does the Post's editorial board actually discuss the merits of repealing TABOR, it's only about whether it's a winning issue or not. And, to be clear, they are probably right, it would be a long shot to pass. But that's not the point.

What we need is real leadership, from Governor Hickenlooper, the state legislature, and even the Denver Post. Real leadership would realize that TABOR, Gallagher and Amendment 23 all hamstring our elected leaders from actually governing. That they are a horrible way to govern in a representative democracy, and they effectively make it impossible for our state government to operate efficiently and effectively, and to plan and implement policy.

Real leadership would look at the polls, realize it's most likely a losing issue, and take it on anyway. Real leadership would realize that this is so important that it's worth spending a lot of time and effort educating the public on it, even if it loses. Real leadership would propose repealing all three amendments and ask the voters to let their elected leaders actually govern.

It's not "contemptuous of popular opinion" to see a serious problem and then try to educate voters on why it's a problem and propose a solution. How many times in history has "popular opinion" been absolutely, utterly wrong and immoral? Would the Post suggest that Abraham Lincoln, Susan Anthony and Martin Luther King, Jr. (to name just a few) were "wasting their time?"

It may indeed be a doomed effort, but that doesn't mean it's not worth fighting. And sometimes even doomed efforts succeed. After all, I'm sure the Post thought that when a little known junior Senator from Illinois announced his candidacy for President in 2007, it was a "doomed effort." In fact, I bet when a little known bar owner, who was a failed geologist, decided to run for Denver mayor, that was a "doomed effort" as well. I wonder whatever happened to him?

The basic problems with TABOR/Gallagher/Amendment 23 can be easily explained in less than five minutes. What if Governor Hickenlooper spent five minutes explaining those problems each and every day at each and every event he was at? And what if other like-minded leaders in Colorado - on both sides of the aisle - also took five minutes at each and every stop in their day and described the problem? And what if the Denver Post, instead of focusing on winning and losing and the horserace aspects of politics, actually tried advocating for a solution?

So many of our problems today can be traced back to a lack of leadership. Whether it's education policy, the dysfunctional United States Congress, or the Colorado State Government being unwilling to have an honest conversation with the voters of Colorado about how TABOR, Gallagher, and Amendment 23 are crippling their ability to govern, our problems come down to folks being more concerned about political "victories" than actually trying to find solutions and solve problems.

What we need is leadership. Real leaders sometimes lose, but they choose to fight the battle anyway, because they know it's the right thing to do. And because they know that leading sometime means being out in front of the crowd and that, over time, you can bring the crowd along with you. That's not being contemptuous of public opinion, that's leadership.

No More Recess (for Congress)

Just a quick post to point out yet another frustration with the current "high-stakes", "high-standards", "high-accountability" movement in education. This has resulted in the completely predictable outcome that many elementary schools are cutting back on recess in order to cram in more instruction to improve test scores. This despite the fact that there is both educational research and brain research that indicate that physical activity (such as recess) will improve learning and academic achievement. (Of course I don't think that's the only argument for recess - kids should have recess because kids should play.)

So imagine my dismay when I realized that Congress was just on recess last week - again - despite the looming sequester. So here's my not-so-modest proposal: K-12 students should get at least as much recess as Congress does. And Congress should not get any recess until they meet the standard of effective governing (for example, perhaps pass a budget and avoid the sequester).

Dear President Obama and Governor Romney

I watched about the first sixty minutes of the presidential debate last Wednesday night. I've never really thought that a debate was a particularly good way to pick a President - or any politician. Yes, we want our politicians to be able to carry on a coherent conversation and think on their feet a bit, but the conditions of a debate have very little to do with the day-to-day decisions that a President or other politician has to make. (In fact, I see it as very similar to standardized testing, but I digress.)

I found Twitter pretty interesting that night. Several times there would be two tweets in a row, not in reply to each other but from separate conversations, that went something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

Tweet 1: I know. Obama just lies, lies, lies.

Tweet 2: Is everything that comes out of Romney's mouth a lie?

Now, it's not that surprising that people would watch the same thing and have two very different reactions based on their preconceived opinions, but I think we need to always be cognizant of that as we view events through the lens of social media.

But here's the real reason for this post. While I have my own bias and believe that one campaign lies more than the other, both tweeters were correct in the sense that both candidates lied during that debate. Many folks are hesitant to use the "L" word, preferring "stretched the truth" or "misled" or some other euphemism implying that they did tell the truth, must perhaps not the whole truth.

If it was just during the debate, I could almost forgive it, as they are up there without notes and having to respond very quickly and do a lot of political calculations at the same time. (\Which, of course, is one of the reasons I don't think debates are that helpful - do we really want a President that makes decisions without consulting notes or advisors?) But these lies continue into their advertising, their stump speeches, and their media appearances, and that I can't forgive.

I suppose it's probably always been this way in politics, but that doesn't mean it has to be. Especially in these days of instant analysis and fact-checking, I would like our candidates to think and act differently. How about if we had fewer lies (stretches, misleads, whatever), and more exchanges like this:

President Obama: You know Governor, I mispoke earlier when I said you've proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. You've clearly indicated that you are going to close some tax loopholes and end some deductions. So while your actual cuts may total about $5 trillion less in revenue, clearly that's a bit misleading for me to continue to ignore that you are planning on getting some of that back through closing those loopholes and eliminating some deductions. My concern, and my question for you, is exactly what loopholes and deductions are you planning on closing and what's the sum dollar total that will raise to offset the $5 trillion. Because I just don't see how you can close enough loopholes and end enough deductions to make up the shortfall and not increase the deficit?

Governor Romney: Thank you Mr. President, I appreciate that question. You're right, I shouldn't just deny the $5 trillion in cuts, but acknowledge that I am planning on cutting taxes by that amount. I do also plan on closing loopholes and eliminating deductions, but you're also right that I haven't identified specific ones yet and that's a weakness in my proposals. As stated, they will certainly increase the deficit and you're right to call me on it. My belief is . . .

Or something like that. Feel free to reverse the order of the candidates, or change the issue, this was not meant to favor one over the other. But I think the issues they are talking about are too important for them to continue to focus more on winning than on solving the problems we have. (For example, I gave up after sixty minutes, but I don't think there was one question about climate change. Not one. It might be the most serious issue facing not only our country, but the world, and both candidates are trying their best to avoid it.) As someone (I can't recall who) said recently, it would be nice if they focused as much on governing as on winning the race.

So, President Obama and Governor Romney, here's my plea: stop trying to win. Seriously. Have a real discussion. Clearly there are differences in your policies and philosophies, why is it necessary to lie to try to convince people to vote for you? Instead, have a real, serious, educational discussion and then let the voters decide.

Sure, that's probably a bit idealistic. I don't care. That's what leadership is about. It's what we need. It's what we deserve.

We Are Not Just Studying Human History, We Are Shaping It

Warning: Contains mature content and a few brief graphic images.

Update: There are some questions about the credibility of these folks. (And this.) Before my original post I did some brief checking and it seemed legit, and it still appears as though this is a real issue that we should take on, but perhaps the Invisible Children organization is not quite as straightforward as it first appeared.






Update 3-12-12: Invisible Children responds to critics with this video.

Update 3-14-12: And another critique. And more response.

Quotes I'd Like My Future Principal to Ponder: Participatory Media Education and Civic Education Are Inextricable

From the article titled "Head of State" in the print edition (subscription required, although if you are in a school you most likely have access to it through one of your library subscription services) in the November 7th, 2011 issue of Time magazine:

Whereas US Envoys once filed secret cables to Washington late at night, Clinton has pushed her ambassadors to expand the use of Twitter and Facebook - State now has 192 Twitter feeds and 288 Facebook accounts - and her daughter Chelsea calls her TechnoMom. "We are in the age of participation," Clinton said at her husband's charity even in New York City in September, "and the challenge . . . is to figure out how to be responsive, to help catalyze, unleash, channel the kind of participatory eagerness that is there."

Clinton is trying to ensure these changes are permanent: she requires every diplomat who rotates through the foreign-service institute to get training in social media. (p. 31, emphasis mine).

The United States Secretary of State is requiring every diplomat to get training in social media - sure seems like perhaps we should be doing the same with and for our students. Yet typically social media participation is looked down upon in schools and, in fact, banned outright and blocked by our Internet filters. I'd like my future principal to reflect on the above quote and then lead our faculty in a discussion of whether we are truly preparing our students for their future when we block most if not all social media, much less work with our students to help them unleash the potential power of it.

That reminds me of another quote, this one from the National Council for the Social Studies Position Statement on Media Literacy:

The 21st century world is media saturated, technologically dependent, and globally connected. We live in a multimedia age where the majority of information people receive comes less often from print sources and more typically from highly constructed visual images, complex sound arrangements, and multiple media formats. The multimedia age requires new skills for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages within a digital, global, and democratic society. The acquisition and application of critical analysis and media production skills are part of what constitutes media literacy. The Internet and the everyday use of social networking technologies, together with the expansive growth of corporate entertainment media and the integration of popular culture, also require us as social studies educators to link participatory media literacy with civic education. (Emphasis mine.)

If the majority of information people receive comes less often from print sources, then I'd like to see my future principal engage our faculty in a conversation around whether that is also true of our classrooms. If not, should it be, and what might that look like?

And the money quote cited in that same article, from Howard Rheingold:

“In the twenty-first century, participatory media education and civic education are inextricable” (Rheingold, 2008, p. 103)

So, in other words, if we aren't teaching participatory media, then we aren't teaching civics. Since we're required to teach civics, I'm hopeful that my future principal would help us as a faculty figure out how best to incorporate that into our classes.

Upon the People Alone

(Note: This post departs from the usual education-related content of this blog. Politics alert.)

I don't have enough background knowledge to do this justice, but I wanted to take a moment to recommend that folks who care about democracy read Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress - and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig.

Lessig makes a compelling case for how money - both campaign finance money and the money associated with the revolving door of politicians and staffers becoming high-paid lobbyists - has corrupted our representative democracy. For me, one of his key points is how he defines corruption. Like most folks, when I hear corruption I think of the most base form: bribery (or, perhaps less derogatory, quid pro quo).

While that certainly exists, Lessig articulates what I've always believed which is that "corrupt" politicians in that sense are few and far between. That the vast majority of folks who go into politics - even the ones I vehemently disagree with on policy - are good people, and want to do good by performing public service. But that the current system has fostered a second type of corruption, what Lessig refers to as "type 2 corruption" (p. 228), or "dependence corruption." This corruption is not as obvious, and it is not bad people doing bad things, it's good people not always doing the right thing due to being placed in a bad system.

Again, I can't do this justice, but in a very simplified form Lessig argues that our current system has negated perhaps the most important principle of the founders: that our elected representatives would be dependent "upon the People alone." (p. 231, I believe originally from Federalist #52) That the current system of lobbying, and campaign finance, and the revolving door between Congress (both elected representatives and their staffers) and lucrative jobs in the lobbying business, has split the dependence of our elected representatives. True, they are "dependent upon the People alone" on election day, but that's the only day they are dependent upon them. The rest of the time the "People" are second-class citizens to those with money.

If you give money, your phone calls get returned. If you give (a lot of) money, your opinion counts (more) than my opinion.

"Individuals with family incomes over $100,000 represented 11% of the population in 2004, cast 14.9% of the votes and were responsible for approximately 80% of the political contributions over $200." Only 10 percent of American citizens give to political campaigns; less than 0.5 percent are responsible for the majority collected from individuals. (p. 233)

The statistics go on and on, you really need to read the book to get the full scope. (As an aside, I did not find this an "easy" book to read, but it's an important one.)

A second, associated problem, is the perception that money influences our elected representatives. Lessig again makes a compelling case that even if the money wasn't influencing our representatives (and he makes the case that it is), it would still be just as pernicious because the perception of the vast majority of the public is that it does corrupt. This damage to the faith we have in our political institutions is just as serious, as it condemns us to have dysfunctional political institutions that can't perform the roles they need to.

About three-fourths of the way through the book I was pretty darn depressed. In fact, I even tweeted to Mr. Lessig and asked if it would have a "happy ending." To my surprise, he replied

This post is partially due to that reply (up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing). While I have no misconceptions that my blogging will affect much, if perhaps a few more folks read his book and/or begin thinking about these ideas, perhaps it will help.

So what are Lessig's solutions? Well, he outlines several possibilities, but freely admits that they are  mostly long-shots. (Yet it is up to to all of us to try.) These possibilities are the ones I found the most intriguing:

• The Grant and Franklin Project: Each voter gets a $50 "democracy voucher" (Grant) that they can donate to the candidate or candidates of their choice (this money comes from the taxes we already pay). If they don't donate, it gets donated to the party they belong to. If they don't identify with a party, then it supports the "infrastructure of democracy." (p. 266) In addition, each voter could also contribute up to $100 (Franklin) of their own money to any candidate. The only requirement is that the candidates who accept this money must opt into the system, meaning they would only accept this public financing.
  
  
• An Unconventional "Primary" Game: Folks enter races against incumbents for the sole reason of putting pressure on the incumbent to support citizen-owned races. By recruiting prominent people in each state (non-politicians) whose sole desire is to change the process, this could apply enough pressure on candidates to do the right thing.
  
  
• An Unconventional Presidential Game: A candidate runs for President with "a single two-part pledge: if elected, she will (I) hold the government hostage until Congress enacts a program to remove the fundamental corruption that is our government, and (II) once that program is enacted, she will resign." (p. 285) You really have to read this section, it's not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, I would both support and vote for such a candidate.

So, if any of this intrigues you, please read the book. Or watch this 45-minute talk by Lessig about the book if you want a shorter version.







 Republic, Lost from lessig on Vimeo.

If any of you happen to be a prominent, non-politician citizen, consider becoming that primary candidate. Visit rootstrikers.org and VotersFirstPledge to learn more. Demand that your candidates for Congress take a pledge to support small-dollar funded campaigns. Ask them the question, repeatedly (and, if possible, in public - and record and post to YouTube).

So, if this is a long-shot as even Lessig admits, why even bother? I can't say it better than Lessig:

Any sane soul who looked at this cause would have to conclude that the odds are overwhelmingly against us. So, why do it? Why waste your time?

I was asked this question quite pointedly once, after a lecture at Dartmouth. "What's the point?" the sympathetic listener asked. "It all seems so hopeless."

And for the first time in my life, in the middle of a public lecture, I was so choked by emotion that I thought I had to stop. For the picture that came into my head as I struggled for a response to this fair yet devastating question was the image of my (then) six-year-old boy, and the thought, the horror, of a doctor's telling me that he had terminal cancer and that "there was nothing to be done." I painted that picture to that Dartmouth audience. And I then asked this: "Would you give up? Would you do nothing?" (p. 306)

This is not an issue of the Left (keep in mind that Lessig clerked for Scalia and was a Young Republican, before turning to his current Libertarian bent). Or of the Right. It applies just as well to the Tea Party as it does to Occupy Wall Street. It's an American issue. I'd even say a human issue. As Lessig states,

We need to remember how different our forebears were. Two hundred-plus years later, they all look the same to us. But they had very different values and radically different ideas about what their republic should be.

They put those differences aside, and saved their nation from ruin. We must do the same. Not after the next election. Now. (p. 326)

Now.

Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

Will and Bud both have thoughtful posts up about "the speech" next week. I'll just point you to some fifth graders at East Elementary in my school district who will be watching the speech and live blogging it. They'll watch, ask questions, and - knowing their teachers Chris and Niki - have a meaningful discussion about working hard and the importance of a good education.

Huh.

Briefing 2.0

To add on to my earlier Democracy 2.0 post, it turns out the U.S. State Department is already doing Briefing 2.0, allowing anyone to submit video questions via YouTube:

Good afternoon, everybody. I wanted to welcome you to the first edition of Briefing 2.0. Let me first start off by thanking everybody who submitted questions to us, who placed some trust in us, and the fact that we’re going to try to answer your questions. So here we are. We’re going to answer your questions.

I want to respond to one thing up front. In some of the write-ups about this, kind of in the run-up to this briefing, a couple folks remarked on, in my video I said, you know, this is going to be fun. And they said, well, you know, it’s foreign policy; there’s nothing fun about foreign policy. And I just wanted to explain what I meant.

It’s fun for me because this is part of something I started three years ago when I first came in here, and I have a great team that’s been working with me. And it’s one of the things that we want to do is use technology and its applications to try to change the way the State Department communicates, not only with the press but also with the public. And this is an opportunity for the public to directly ask me questions, and maybe somewhere on down the line other people questions, and for you to get answers back.

And I think this is part of a general trend in the way that government and its publics communicate with one another, and it’s going to change over time. I think, inevitably, there has to be more interaction. There can’t be all this change and ferment going on outside the walls of government, and then government kind of continuing to operate as it has for the past 200 years. So that has to change. It’ll change eventually, and hopefully this is one small part of that change.

I’ve brought in a piece of paper. I just want you to know, all it has is the names and the locations of the people asking questions. I don’t know what the questions are, so I’m going to see them for the first time along with you.

Here's the intro video from the U.S. Department of State's YouTube Channel:




And here's the first briefing:




Very, very interesting. They also have a blog.

Brings up a few questions:

1. Social Studies Teachers: Don't you think this gives you some ideas for some assignments? Shouldn't you have your students submitting questions to the State Department?
   
   
2. District Internet Filter Czars: If you're blocking YouTube, isn't this yet another argument why, if you don't unblock it altogether, you at least need teacher overrides for the filter?

Democracy 2.0

In the presentations I’ve been giving over the last six months or so there’s a part where I talk about how schools need to make these changes I’ve been blogging about not just so that students will be effective students and eventually employees in the 21st century, but also so that they can become effective citizens. I’ve pointed to the 2008 presidential election campaign as a prime example, comparing the resources I had available to me growing up to learn about the candidates and the issues with the resources available to students – and voters – today. I’ve talked about YouTube and how you can chart the rise and fall of various campaigns based on the current viral political video, and the plethora of websites where you can find detailed information (and misinformation) about candidates and issues, and the candidates own websites where you can read, hear and watch what the candidates themselves have to say. I’ve pointed out how both campaigns have used the Internet extensively, but that the Obama campaign took it to another level – not just with the unprecedented fundraising, but with the outreach and community building. And I always closed that part of the presentation by saying something like, “When the historians write the history of this election, how big a factor will they say the Internet was? And how are we preparing our students to be successful citizens in such a world?”

Well, that was before we knew the outcome of the election. Now that we do, it appears clear that the answer to the first question is, “Big. The Internet was a very, very big factor.”

From the Denver Post:

Barack Obama's Internet-based campaign has not only made history, it has forever changed the American political process.

. . . Over the past two years, Barack Obama carried Dean's pioneering techniques to an exponentially more sophisticated level. Realizing that America is really thousands of separate if often overlapping communities of interest, Obama used the power of the Internet to identify, organize and unite them. He raised probably more than $800 million when the final numbers come in, and that mostly in small sums from millions of donors. In turn, Obama used much of that cash to convert his virtual communities into a network of field offices and a get-out-the-vote team that brought millions of new voters to the polls.

From The Mercury News:

Former vice president Al Gore said Friday he was overwhelmed by Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election and credited the Internet for the campaign's success.

"The electrifying redemption of America's revolutionary declaration that all human beings are created equal would not have been possible without ... the Internet," Gore said.

From The Guardian:

While most pundits focused on the question of race, one largely overlooked factor was his powerful techno-demographic appeal. . . . It is no coincidence that one of Obama's key strategists was 24-year-old Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder. Hughes masterminded the Obama campaign's highly effective web blitzkrieg on everything from social networking sites to podcasting and mobile messaging.

From U.S. News and World Report:

A key turning point in the long and brutal presidential election involved a YouTube battle between dueling online videos.

It was primary season and Barack Obama was being battered in the press because of his relationship with controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Some of Wright's more inflammatory sermons were captured on video and were flying around YouTube.

Instead of letting the clips fester online, the Obama campaign immediately posted on YouTube the candidate's full rebuttal, a 37-minute-long speech on race he delivered to an audience in Philadelphia.

The video clip helped calm the controversy and attracted around 5.3 million views on the video-viewing website, proving the popularity and impact of a medium that was first used widely this election cycle.

From the NYTimes:

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet.

. . . Mr. Obama used the Internet to organize his supporters in a way that would have in the past required an army of volunteers and paid organizers on the ground, Mr. Trippi said.

“The tools changed between 2004 and 2008. Barack Obama won every single caucus state that matters, and he did it because of those tools, because he was able to move thousands of people to organize.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. Mr. Trippi argued that those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.

“The campaign’s official stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours,” Mr. Trippi said. “To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million.”

There has also been a sea change in fact-checking, with citizens using the Internet to find past speeches that prove a politician wrong and then using the Web to alert their fellow citizens.

From Information Week:

And it's only the beginning, said Trippi. That kind of networking will likely transform the White House. Trippi anticipates Obama will create a similar social networking for his legislative initiatives and recruit supporters to lobby Congress to get his policies enacted into law.

That last quote is key, “It’s only the beginning.” We’ve already got Change.gov, a website for the “Office of the President-Elect,” where the not-campaign-but-not-yet-administration is not only keeping followers updated on what they’re doing, but they are also soliciting input under a section titled “Open Government” with a link titled “It’s Your America: Share Your Ideas.” Does anyone think for a moment that after building up this huge network of supporters that they aren’t going to try to leverage it to help them govern? That they aren’t going to use the incredible community they’ve built to help them drive the conversation and pass legislation? Not to mention, of course, keeping these folks involved so they’re ready, willing and able to going into motion four years from now for Obama-Biden 2.0.

Yes, the issues facing the soon-to-be Obama administration are huge and not quickly or easily solved, and changing governing and politics is a difficult task, but never before has an incoming President had the kind of network and tools at his fingertips that President-Elect Obama has, nor the people who apparently know how to use them well.

So, all this goes back to the second question in the opening paragraph above (and my previous post), how are you helping prepare our students to be successful citizens and participants in Democracy 2.0?

Update 11-14-08: President-Elect Obama is taking the weekly radio address to YouTube as well.

The Next Election

Yes, I know that many folks are glad that this one is finally over (especially getting rid of the campaign ads), but I wanted to reflect briefly on one thing. I teach in a high school with students typically aged 14 to 18. Probably a hundred and fifty or so of our seniors were eligible to vote this year, and I imagine many of them did. But a thought occurred to me this morning – all of our current high school students will be eligible to vote in the next presidential election.

Think about that for just a minute. All of our approximately 2,150 students at Arapahoe – most of whom have never voted – will be eligible to vote in the 2012 elections. And all of the other 17.5 million students currently in U.S. high schools will also be eligible to vote in 2012. Which brings us to the money question (or two or three).

What are we doing to prepare these students to be engaged, intelligent, informed, and competent voters in a world that is very, very, very, very different than the one we grew up in?

How are we preparing them to be successful citizens in a publish-then-filter world?

Are we transforming our classrooms to reflect real-time, instantaneous access to factual and political information?

And I could keep going but, mercifully, I’ll stop now. But if you teach high school, or you have a student that attends high school, or you pay taxes to support high schools, or you care about democracy, I’d like you to consider one thing.

What are you going to do to make sure those 17.5 million students are prepared to be successful participants in our democracy?

Image Citation: Colorado Presidential Ballot, originally uploaded by Chris&Rhiannon.

Presidential Ads Embedded in Video Games?

This definitely qualifies as "unconfirmed," but it's highly intriguing nonetheless. According to this post on GamePolitics.com (Where politics and video games collide) (via a tweet by Andy Blanco):

We've only gotten one report of this, which seems a bit odd, but an Xbox Live gamer who goes by Dragunov765 has posted photos of what appear to be in-game ads for Barack Obama.

Dragunov (we know his real name, too) says he came across the ads while playing Burnout Paradise earlier this week . . .

Very interesting. As GigaOM asks:

Its veracity aside, the virtual billboard raises an interesting question: Are political ads in video games a good idea? In terms of eyeballs, I’d have to say yes. Roughly one-third of American households own an Xbox 360, Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii. In terms of effectiveness, Brandweek recently detailed a survey undertaken by its fellow Nielsen Games division in which 11 percent of gamers said they bought a brand after seeing it advertised in a game.

Some folks will ask how effective this is when so many gamers can't even vote yet. While there are many gamers that aren't yet 18, the average age of gamers is 30, and 37-year-olds buy the most games (as of February 2006 according to David Perry in this TED talk, statistics at about the four minute mark).



When the historians write the history of this election, how big of a feature role will technology have? Internet fundraising and recruiting. YouTube (Obama Girl, clinging to guns and religion, Reverend Wright, a more perfect union, Tina Fey, . . .). Email organizing, energizing, pushing the current campaign message, and rapid response. Social networking and community building. Voter registration. To name just a few aspects.

Meanwhile, back here in K-12 Land . . .

Update 10-14-08: Thanks to BenH in the comments, this story is now confirmed.

Political Debates 2.0

I ran across a couple of interesting posts from ReadWriteWeb that show the changing nature of politics in a read/write, searchable, always-connected world.

First, this points to a post on the Google blog that includes a real-time graph of search terms during the vice-presidential debate.

Many people were simply interested in understanding the meaning of particular terms. Governor Palin called Senator McCain a "maverick" several times, sending many viewers to Google to query definition of maverick, what is a maverick, and define:maverick.

When Biden mentioned that the "theocracy controls the security apparatus" in Iran, users searched for the meaning of theocracy — as they did when he spoke of the windfall profits tax.

Go read the post as they go on to discuss problems with spelling (nuclear, Ahmadinejad, and McClellan/McKiernan), searching for historical references, and checking on which Article of the Constitution actually talks about the executive branch.

Google also has a new post up on last night’s town hall Presidential Debate:

Similar to last Thursday, people sought to understand the meaning of several words mentioned in the debate: morass, commodity, junket, cynicism, and cronyism to name a few. In the chart below you can see four of the most popular queries during the debate. People were quite interested in both Meg Whitman and Warren Buffett, who were mentioned as potential candidates for the Secretary of Treasury, but the biggest rising query was Senator McCain's paraphrasing of Theodore Roosevelt's motto. Both candidates spoke against genocide while discussing the role of the United States as a peacekeeper, and as we saw in the vice presidential debate, nuclear energy and weapons were prominent topics.

They go on to talk about differences in searches from swing states, which reminds me a little bit of one of the things I was thinking about when I created 2020 Vision (Google having access to so much disparate data and the ability to possibly bring it together in unique ways to discover new “truths” – could be used for good or evil, I know). I think both of these are fascinating examples of how our ability to access information in real-time can make substantive changes in the way we do almost everything.

The second post on ReadWriteWeb had to do with CurrentTV and Twitter’s collaborative broadcast of the first presidential debate.

In 1960 seventy million people watched Kennedy and Nixon engage in the first Presidential debate ever broadcast live on TV.

And not a single viewer could post a comment.

These days things are different. Tonight, far fewer people probably watched the Current.tv and Twitter collaborative broadcast of Obama v. McCain - but scores of them participated, 140 characters at a time. It worked very well. You can get some idea from the 1 minute of video embedded below.

I agree that things are definitely different, but I think I would have trouble watching, listening and reading the tweets. It’s that old multitasking thing again, but some folks can probably do it much better than I can. But whether I like it or not, things are definitely changing. I could see a debate in the near future when the “spinners” from each campaign are doing live text commentary overlaid on top of the video.

Even more interesting and useful, I think, would be delayed text commentary (or even audio or video) overlaid on top of the debate. Where you get some very knowledgeable folks with an historical perspective (and not overly partisan) to give insightful commentary (text, audio, or video) as you view the debate, with links embedded for viewers that want to learn more. What a powerful learning experience that could be, whether you watched the debate live and then watched it again, or perhaps even skip the live debate and just watch the "enhanced" version.

While it would take more time to view the debate that way, I think it has the potential to be much more useful. For me, I’ve always wondered about how valuable the debates really are. I know that’s a somewhat heretical view, but I’m not sure how much being a good debater – particularly the way our current political debates are run – is related to being a good President. It’s such an artificial situation – questions that are unknown in advance and often unrelated to each other, with a limited amount of time to answer them, and without being able to tap into other resources (both information and human resources). Which is why the answers always end up being mostly unsatisfying, playing to sound bites and talking points. I sure hope that’s not how our President operates day to day. (And, yes, the parallels to the artificial situations we have in school are striking, and somewhat depressing.)

When you look at our current presidential candidates, neither one is a particularly good debater. Senator Obama gives a good speech but tends to ramble in a debate. Senator McCain does well in town hall situations, but doesn’t do particularly well in a debate, coming off as too rehearsed and too much of a scold. And, like in pretty much all political debates I’ve seen, they often answer a very different question than the one that was asked. While I think debates can provide some insight into the character of each candidate, I really don’t think that completely parallels how good of a Chief Executive they would be. It’s a setting that will not be repeated as they perform their job duties, yet we continue to act as though the debates are the ultimate test of whether a candidate is prepared to be President. Yes, I want them to be able to function in such a setting, but I don’t think the “best” debater is necessarily going to make the best President.

Sorry for the digression. In any event, I think the read/write/searchable/participatory/real-time/always-connected web has great potential to make citizens much more informed and knowledgeable voters. Just like the ability to access information illustrated by the real-time searching on Google, the ability to connect with others anywhere in the world in real-time (or delayed time, for that matter) can also make substantive changes in the way we do almost everything. And doesn’t that mean schools need to help students learn how to do these things really, really well?

Censorship in a Time of War: The Devil's Advocate

On Amanda Crosby's class blog The Devil's Advocate (btw, one of my favorite blog names ever - particularly her tag line: Crosby's Position: A teacher's job is not to tell students what to think. A teacher's job is to encourage students TO think.), the students are having a lively discussion about censorship of the media, particularly in time of war. Viewpoints vary widely:

Emily: My opinion is that I think the government should always have the right to censor news media during a time of war. Otherwise, how will we know if the information we are receiving is accurate?

Sarah: The government wouldn't necessarily sensor the media to make sure it is putting out accurate information. They would sensor it to make sure the press didn't put anything they didn't like out there, and what they don't like isn't unreliable information.

As the conversation continues, it's interesting to see students outside of Ms. Crosby's class (which is a 9th grade U.S. History class) jump in. (I don't know all the students, but I know Ben and Hannah are not in the class. Ben and Hannah, if you read this, please leave a comment about how you discovered the Censorship blog post. Was it from the AHS Start Page or the Learning Network page on the AHS website, or word of mouth, or what?)

I think it would be great if readers of this blog who have an opinion on this topic head on over and leave a comment on The Devil's Advocate. I think extending the conversation through additional perspectives would really help the students as they grapple with this complex topic.

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We’ve talked a lot at my school about how we’d like to do more interdisciplinary teaching. How that helps make everything more meaningful, relevant and engaging for our students, and is more likely to result in deep learning that lasts beyond the end-of-unit test. But we’ve also talked about the obstacles, which include our schedule, our various curricula, and the fact that many of the interdisciplinary topics that most lend themselves to this approach can be controversial topics.

This series of posts has been an attempt to draw in the reader – whether that reader is an educator, other interested adult, or a student at my school – to think about just one topic that lends itself to this approach. I’m not a history or a language arts teacher, so I’m sure these posts could’ve been written much better, with more appropriate quotes or alternative sources or more meaningful connections. But that’s sort of the point. If a former math teacher can put something together that at least made you read this far, imagine what some teachers with some knowledge and talent could do.

Have you read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother yet? You should. (Cory’s day job is contributing to this little blog.) Buy it. Or download it for free. Then get it on your district’s approved literature list, and add it to your unit where you teach 1984 and/or Fahrenheit 451 and/or whatever else you teach in that unit. Have your students also read this. And this. And this. And a bunch of other things I don’t have time to link to at the moment.

Team-teach this in Social Studies and Language Arts - figure out a way to do it. Have students read folks who support and disapprove of current policy (learn more). Have them research both Presidential candidates’ positions (or, if it’s after the election, have them research the winner’s position). Have them find other writers/reporters/bloggers/candidates that have something to say about this. Have them look into the technology of it all. Have them learn about propaganda and persuasion, politics and history, reading and writing, critical thinking and technology. Have them learn enough to take an informed position, then make them argue the other side. Then challenge them to get involved, to try to influence policy. Have them share their knowledge and efforts with others. Have them participate.

Then do it all again with another topic. Immigration. Stem-cell research. Global climate change. Poverty. Real issues that are meaningful, complicated and messy and don't have easy, pre-determined "right answers." Problems that our students actually care about trying to solve and that we actually hope someone will solve. You’re only limited by your imagination.

Nothing less than the future of our democracy depends on a well-informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizenry. Too melodramatic? Perhaps, but I don't care - deal with it. I have an eight-year old daughter and this is what I want for her from her teachers. What do you want for your kid?

Links/sources for quotes in previous posts:

7
1984
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas


6
1984
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

5
1984
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Benjamin Franklin

4
Fahrenheit 451
Bruce Schneier

3
Little Brother
United States Constitution
The Federalist Papers #84
United States Declaration of Independence

2
Little Brother
The Federalist Papers #51
United States Constitution, Bill of Rights

1
Little Brother eBook Introduction
Preserving Life and Liberty (a Department of Justice website)
Daniel Solove (summarizing - and then refuting - the “Nothing to Hide” argument)
ACLU Watch List Counter

Wikipedia Knew VP Picks Before You

The Washington Post has an interesting story about predicting who Senator Obama and Senator McCain would pick as their running mates:

In the days leading up to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate announcement, political junkies glued to broadcasts and blogs for clues of McCain's veep choice might have done better to keep a sharp eye on each candidate's Wikipedia entry.

It turns out that some folks were watching the Wikipedia entries for clues to both picks, and both Biden's and Palin's entries saw the most substantive action in the days before the picks were announced. The story doesn't say whether this is due to insiders updating the entries to get them "accurate" before the announcement ("some of the same wiki users [that were making changes to Palin's page] appeared to be making changes to McCain's page"), or whether this is another Wisdom of Crowds situation, but I suspect it's a little of each.

I also find it interesting that there's a company, called Cyveillance, that has analysts monitoring sites like Wikipedia.

Cyveillance normally trawls the Internet for data on behalf of clients seeking open source information in advance of a corporate acquisition, an important executive hire, or brand awareness.

Now that's an interesting phrase, "seeking open source information," that I'm going to have to ponder for a while.

My Question for Senator Obama

As I posted about previously, the DNC is soliciting questions to be addressed at the convention next week. In that post, I suggested that edubloggers - and everyone reading the post - should submit a question. Well, I began to think that after suggesting that, I probably better go ahead and submit my own question, even if I still didn't feel like I had the perfect question. So, here's the video question I submitted:

Not the perfect question, but perhaps a conversation starter.

What question will you submit? Deadline is August 27th.

Follow-Up to Questions for Senators Obama and McCain

Thanks to Ben Nuebel in the comments, I wanted to include this follow-up to my earlier post about wanting to have a good question ready in case I ran into Senator Obama when he was here in Denver.

Ben points out that the DNC is at least making a show of soliciting questions from all of us:

As part of throwing open the doors to the Convention, we’re inviting Americans from around the country to contribute to the program by asking questions in America’s Town Hall. We want to hear your questions for our elected leaders and national experts. While your thoughts on any topic are welcome, we are particularly interested in hearing your questions and personal stories about how to change politics as usual, fix our economy, make America safer and restore our nation’s standing in the world.

Of the many submissions received, we will select a few questions to use at the Democratic National Convention from August 25-28. These questions will be answered by speakers, live from Denver in front of thousands of delegates in the hall and millions of Americans watching from home. We will also be answering questions online throughout the Convention.

Deadline is August 27th.

Now, they pretty clearly state that they will only be selecting a "few" questions to use at the Convention, so it's pretty unlikely that any of our questions will be addressed (especially if they don't match the message they're trying to deliver - see the four suggested topics above). But, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so - edubloggers (and others) - submit your questions (text, video file, YouTube link, or they may come make a video of you asking the question if you're selected).

Questions for Senators Obama and McCain

So, both the calendar and my jam-packed and very messy office tell me it’s August. In addition to the usual "It’s the beginning of the year how am I ever going to get all the stuff done that I need to get done before the students arrive?" panic attack, I had an additional panic attack. What if I bump into Senator Obama and I don’t have a good question ready?

Seriously, I’m worried about this. I live and work just south of Denver and, as you hopefully know, Denver is hosting this little thing called the Democratic National Convention coming up here at the end of August. While I know that conventions are pretty much completely scripted, Senator Obama doesn’t strike me as a man – or a candidate – who would spend the entire four days in his hotel/the Pepsi Center/Invesco Field at Mile High. So what if I’m at the grocery store and run into him, or what if he decides to visit my school? Hey, it could happen. George Bush (#41, not the current President) spoke at my school when he was Vice-President (before my time, but there are pictures to prove it – and we didn’t own Photoshop then), so I think it would be somewhat symbolic if Senator Obama stopped by.

I’m not very good at the "elevator pitch" - once a conversation gets going I think I get warmed up and can contribute, but put me on the spot for a serious and thoughtful question – not so much. So I’ve started trying to think of the one question I’d ask him if I did bump into him by the blueberries (or walking across our cafeteria).

I mean, there’s the obvious:

When are you going to name Chris Lehmann as your Secretary of Education designate?

Yes, I realize I already volunteered for this position, but sometimes you have to take one for the team.

Or there’s the standard:

Most educators think that NCLB has some serious flaws, and you seem to agree. What would you replace it with?

But then I’d just get the talking points.

Or I could reuse the question I didn’t get to ask Governor Richardson:

You have a statement in your plan about rigor, relevance and relationships. Too often in education I feel like rigor is defined as simply "harder" or "more homework." It seems like folks are saying that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, so let’s just require more of it. Instead, I think often what we should be asking is, "Are we doing the right things in the first place?" Can you talk a little bit more about how you define rigor and what are the key skills, abilities and habits of mind that our students need to be successful in the 21st century?

But I didn’t particularly like that question and it was directed specifically at a statement Governor Richardson had in his own plan.

You see, I’ve read the highlights of both Senator Obama and Senator McCain’s education stances, and looked more deeply at their web sites (Obama's Education Page, McCain's Education Page). And I’ve even listened to these three short NPR pieces on their personal tech literacy and how they would address technology in their administrations. (Apparently it’s a necessity to have a former FCC chair – from your own political party, of course - as a technology adviser. Hmm, if not Secretary of Education, perhaps I could be Senator Obama’s Technology Czar. I’ve never been a Czar.)

But I’d really like to ask that deep, meaningful, thoughtful question that gets to the heart of it all and allows us to really see his baseline, fundamental beliefs about education and what needs to change in order to meet the needs of our students. To help us understand if he thinks education is at a tipping point, and that it’s a different world out there, and schools need to adapt and change to meet it? Or if he believes that, while changes and improvements are always necessary, things are basically good as they are. And a question that gets beyond the usual talking points and helps explore all the ideas we’ve been talking about in our blogs for the last few years.

Now, I don’t mean to be partisan about this, I’d want to ask the same question of Senator McCain, but I just figure that’s it’s more likely I’ll run into Senator Obama here during the Democratic Convention than Senator McCain. (Although Arizona is just a long day’s drive southwest of here, perhaps he could come up for the day.) So, I said to myself, "Myself, you have a blog. Why don’t you ask for some help?" If you’re so inclined, please leave a thoughtful question in the comments for Senator Obama, Senator McCain, or both of them.

This is not a political blog, and I don’t want your "question" to really be a statement of political beliefs. So, if you comment, please honor this post in the spirit in which it's intended. I really want to know the one question you would ask either of these gentlemen that might help us better understand their beliefs on education. A question that hopefully gets away from the talking points and gives us a glimpse of the vision they have – or don’t have. This would help me out if I happen to run into either of them and, frankly, would help me out in case I find myself in an elevator with other important folks. (I’ve been having more of these "opportunities" than usual in the last few months, and have a few more coming up, it’s kind of weird - and I don't think "Hi, how are you?" is quite cutting it.)

Finally, if either Senator’s campaign staff stops by, I’d also like to formally offer to host a conversation between the two Senators regarding education. (Come on, staffers, Colorado may be the swing state, it's the perfect place to do this.) And I chose the word "conversation" very deliberately. I don’t really want to host a debate, at least not what passes for political debate these days – where each candidate takes whatever the question is and morphs it into the same old sound bites. I really would like to see both of these men have a thoughtful conversation about education. A conversation where, yes, we would indeed see the differences between them. But also a conversation where we could see the similarities, the common ground where we are most likely to be able to move forward together. A conversation where they were genuinely looking for solutions, not just trying to score points off one another. And, while I know this is terribly naïve of me, a conversation that perhaps actually generates some new ideas of how we can move forward together. Wouldn’t that be something?

(As a mostly irrelevant side note, I happened to mistype a URL on Senator Obama’s site while testing a link in this post and got the image below, embedded within the frame of his site. I gotta say, it seemed consistent with his campaign and made me smile a little. For the record, Senator McCain’s site gave me the standard 404 Page Cannot Be Found page, without the frame of his site around it.)