Learn Something. Pass It On.

I heard a story on NPR this morning that this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S., is dubbed the National Day of Listening. They are hoping people sit down and talk with a loved one, part of their StoryCorp project. From the National Day of Listening site:

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

In the NPR story, Steve Inskeep (NPR Morning Edition host) talks with his mother. It’s an interesting conversation and I particularly like how it closes:

Maybe I got my desire from [my parents]. The desire to learn something, and pass it on.

That’s a pretty good description of why I blog.

Consider participating on Friday, and ask your students to do so as well. You might learn something. If you do, pass it on.

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.)

Poetry Out Loud (and read to yourself)

I meant to write this a couple of weeks ago right after National Poetry Month ended, but better late than never.

First, this story on NPR lets you hear Shawntay Henry, this year’s winner of the Poetry Out Loud contest, read “Frederick Douglass” by Robert E. Hayden.

Second, you can listen to the winners of AHS’s first iPoem contest. This was a last minute idea, so we didn’t get as much participation as we would’ve liked, but we’ll start earlier next year. First place, for the poem “Cthulu (pronounced ku-thew-lew) Converses with his Master” by Allie Fresch (Video, Text). First runner up, for the poem “Tekel” by Olyver Mycroft (Audio, Text), and second runner up for the poem “The Difference Between Life & Living” by Brittany Knigge (Audio, Text).

Finally, from the Summer 2008 issue of Mountain Rise, the International Journal of Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (published at Western Carolina University), the poem Teachers Must by Joe Mills, North Carolina School of the Arts.

Each fall when the new grapes arrive,
we sift and evaluate them,
trying to determine how best
to help them be what they can be.
Some are thin-skinned and delicate,
others gruff and independent.
Some need oak, others stainless steel.
No single process works for all,
so first we must identify
the grapes for what they are, not what
we wish they were. We also must
believe that careful attention,
time, and the right environment,
can help develop character,
complexity, balance, and depth.
But, most of all, we must have faith
that even when we can’t see them
fundamental transformations
bordering on miraculous
are bubbling under the surface.

The Rise of the Rest

I heard an interesting interview of Fareed Zakaria, a Newsweek columnist and editor of Newsweek International, on NPR the other night. He has a new book titled The Post-American World and this short interview (7 minutes) discusses parallels he sees to the British Empire at the dawn of the 20th century (shades of The Presentation That Shall Not Be Named?) and compares the Boer War and how Great Britain dealt with that with the current U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But before you decide this is just more gloom and doom, he also expresses his optimism that the United States can adapt and take on a new role as “Chairman of the Board” as opposed to dictator of the world. He makes some interesting points about the “rise of the rest”, not just China and India but others as well, and how leadership in the 21st century needs to look a little different than perhaps it did in the late 20th century.

I don’t know if this holds any particular lessons for education (I’d like to find time to read the book to see if he talks about that or not), but my thoughts after listening to the interview were that, once again, we need to make sure our students are engaged on a global level. Not just for economic reasons, but in order to help solve some of the major issues facing all of us today – issues that are global in nature and therefore need input and action from citizens across national boundaries. It makes me wonder that with all the lip service that schools typically give to creating “global citizens” in their mission and vision statements, how many of us are actually actively pursuing this in our classrooms?

Calculus: The Musical!

If your high school or college teaches Calculus, then you need to book these guys.

Calculus: The Musical! is a comic “review” of the concepts and history of calculus. It was born as a teaching tool in Marc’s classroom. He found that setting formulas and rules to music helped his students learn and retain tricky information. “Maxima” and “minima” is an abstract concept to a lot of us, but when sung as a rousing “Can-Can” chorus, it’s fun and easy to remember! A blend of sketch comedy, musical theatre and classroom lecture, MATHEATRE has created a performance piece to show that although calculus is used in rocket science, well…it isn’t exactly rocket science.

I just watched their performance in our theatre and it was very well done. What I also like is that they also provide everything on their website, including lyrics and audio (mp3's), but I think it would be great if you purchased a CD to help support them. You should also check out their tour calendar, as some of the performances are open to the public, or, once again, book them.

Come on, who wouldn't love these lyrics to L'Hopital (I have Calculus in the Heart) - sung to Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart:

L’Hôpital
Every now and then I get a little bit of trouble when I’m taking a limit.
L’Hôpital
Every now and then I get a zero for the numerator and the denominator.
L’Hôpital
Every now and then I get a limit that’s confusing in some kind of indeterminate form.
L’Hôpital
Every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I think of all your advice.
L’Hôpital
Guillaume François Antoine Marquis de
L’Hôpital
Guillaume François Antoine Marquis de L’Hôp!

And that's just the first verse . . .

Cell Phones That Read

I heard this story on NPR today:

Gashel is showing off his new phone in a hotel ballroom filled with people who have come to check it out. Many are holding white canes, and there's a guide dog resting by the wall. Everyone listens to the small silver phone as Gashel holds it a few inches above a green rectangle.

"Taking picture ... detecting orientation," a digitized voice from the phone says. "Processing U.S. currency image, please wait … $20."

The phone is loaded up with software developed by the company Gashel works for —K-NFB Reading Technology, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind.

Besides reading labels and telling a $20 from a $10, the phone can read pages of printed text.

Reading machines have been around for decades — this company already makes a hand-held device. But this reader is the smallest yet — just 4 ounces and a few inches long. And it's in a high-end Nokia phone with features like an MP3 player, high-speed data connection and a GPS navigation system.

If you listen to the NPR broadcast, you can hear what it sounds like when the cell phone "reads" part of a page of text - and the cheers from the audience (about the 1:47 mark). Pretty cool. Oh, by the way, yes it's that same Kurzweil that I reference in Did You Know?/Shift Happens.

Now, it's still very expensive, about $2000 for the cell phone (Nokia N82) and the software, but I imagine that will come down quickly. I'm thinking some schools may have to adjust their cell phone policies pretty soon . . .

Personal Learning Network Presentations

I’ve blogged previously about our forays into the world of Personal Learning Networks. Anne Smith blogs over on Learning and Laptops about the first presentations her ninth graders gave about their personal learning networks.

Last Friday, I had our first group of students present on their personal learning network. I used this rubric to evaluate their presentation as well as had the class access the student blog he/she was referencing to leave real time comments about the presentation (we pulled up the blog and had it appear via our overhead projectors). While the student was speaking, the class reacted to the presentation. The instantaneous feedback the students provided was valuable to the presenter. If a classmate did not feel comfortable offering oral feedback in our class debriefing, the evaluator could reference his/her blog and see what reactions the class had to the presentation.

She then goes on to provide some examples of the feedback from the students – you should check it out.

In a subsequent post, she also links to the audio of some of the students' presentations (recorded with an iPod and an XtremeMac MicroMemo). These were their first attempts at this, so please only offer constructive criticism.

Update: Jessie Comp just posted about her experiences as well.

NECC Reflection #4: Podcast Of Our Session

I suppose I should reflect a little bit on the session we presented at NECC. I talked about this a little in a previous post, that we decided the night before to scrap our original plan and only "present" for 30 minutes, then have 30 minutes of conversation. It seemed to work well, and reinforced what we’ve seen in our staff development efforts at our school – that we learn the most from each other, from the conversations.

Well, it turns out that Kristin Hokanson recorded our session and then kindly uploaded it to the web, so I had a chance to listen to it. The audio quality is pretty good – I was the only one miked, but all of our voices came through pretty well and there are only 2 or 3 questions from the audience that you can’t hear very well. If you’re really interested, you can listen to it online (55 minutes) or download it (mp3, 50 MB).

If you do decide to listen to it, keep a couple of things in mind. First, there are five of us presenting. The order that we appear on the podcast is: Me (I’m miked, so you might want to turn the volume up a little after my initial part is over), then Anne Smith (Language Arts teacher), then Brad Meyer (Social Studies teacher), then Barbara Stahlhut (Math teacher), and then Brian Hatak (Science teacher). After that we are all interspersed, but hopefully you can figure out who’s who.

Second, the podcast starts two or three minutes into our session, so you miss the intro. I think it’s important to know that part before listening to the podcast, so here’s the quick version. We talked about scrapping our plans the night before and leaving more time for conversation as I mentioned above, and we let the audience know that we were counting on them to come through.

Then we talked about why we were offering this session. At NECC 2006 (which was the first any of us had attended), as well as at other conferences, we had all had the experience of seeing some amazing presenters. And while we usually came away with some good ideas, we also came away thinking, "We have no idea how they got there, or how we could get there ourselves." So it was great to get ideas, but we felt like we rarely saw a path we could follow to help our school move forward. So we wanted to give a presentation from the perspective of a school that had gone "this far" (picture me holding my thumb and forefinger about 2 inches apart) along the path. We felt like we could share some approaches that had worked for us in staff development, as well as some classroom examples of the changes we’ve made, and perhaps help others figure out how to chart their own path, to help them see how they could "get there themselves."

It’s always hard to tell (for me, anyway) exactly how well a presentation goes, but from the comments we received we appear to have at least partially succeeded (and only a few folks left before the end, which is a pretty good sign considering we had the 3:30 to 4:30 slot and the room was pretty full). I think what I like most as I listen to our presentation is that you can really hear our passion come through. Thanks Anne, Brad, Barbara and Brian – both for the presentation and for all that you do day in and day out for the teachers and students at our school.