I’m one of those people who like watching movie trailers. Just finished watching the trailer for Explicit Ills which tells the story of one Philly neighborhood and its residents’ refusal to live in poverty. I hope it’s as good as it looks:
Month: February 2009
Running, Running
Before, I jump in the shower, I must congratulate the 5 SLA students who showed up this morning for the first long run of our Students Run Philly Style training. It feels like 24 degrees out there with wind gusts of up to 23 mph and they showed up at 8 AM.
Today, we learned that saying, “Good Morning!” to everyone you pass helps keep your mind off everything else.
Thanks to Ros Echols for organizing all of this. I can’t wait to watch them all cross the finish line in November!
It’s Game Time
If anyone follows me on twitter and was paying attention last night, they’ll know I schlepped my way to NYC last night for the opening event of the New York Public Library’s Live series. I’ll write more about what Lawrence Lessig and Shepard Fairey had to say as they were moderated by Steven Johnson later. This post is about something else.
As I watch Lessig’s opposition to Prop 8 or read about his newest effort to end corruption, something strikes me. He’s got a system. It’s what’s lacking in the discussion of what people are looking for, as far as I can see.
In wanting to change Congress, Lessig calls on candidates to do three things:
- Abolish earmarks
- Refuse lobbyist/PAC contributions
- Promote publicly financed campaigns
Many get close. But let’s get closer. Will writes of the use of stimulus money in education:
But if you really want to use that money to improve learning, use it to help the teachers in the schools understand how to help the kids in the classrooms become the readers and writers and mathematicians and scientists that will flourish in a networked world.
Yes, agreed. All for it. Now, let’s talk about how. Not standards or targets or the like. Ideas. Steps. We don’t need a report or a study. We know what we’re unhappy about. Let’s move on.
Here’s the charge, blog or comment with the three shifts, changes, movements we should demand at the national level to move education somewhere. These should be basic, actionable, transparent steps that are taken or not taken. Don’t just blog it, though, talk about it. Bring it up in department meetings, faculty meetings, podcasts, dinner table discussions, the dog park. Take the conversation outside of the echo chamber. Talk about it with people inside and outside of education (we’re all inside, btw). If you put it online, tag it 3steps4ed. If you like, re-post this to your online space, do that.
Follow the tag, write about what feeds your reader. From there, we’ll move forward. If you’ve already written your three down, go back and re-tag it.
Recap:
- Think of the three actionable steps that need to be taken at the national level to move education.
- Talk about them with others. Ask for others’ thoughts first.
- Post, tweet – heck – even photograph you thoughts and tag them 3steps4ed.
More later.
Lucky Number Seven
As of this week, I’m participating in and somehow ended up organizing a f2f/online book group reading Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Full disclosure here, my mom has worked in human resources since I can remember, and 7 Habits was one of the founding doctrines of my childhood. At 12 or 13 I remember sitting at the kitchen table trying to write my mission statement.
Perhaps I’ve shared too much.
I’ve decided to blog as I read to keep track of my thinking for when the group gets together and to expand the conversation.
Forward:
I’m reading the 2004 edition of the book with a revised Forward. The first piece that struck me was Covey’s acknowledgment, “We have transitioned from the Industrial Age into the Information / Knowledge Worker Age – with all of its profound consequences.” This tip of the hat in the first paragraph helps give the text greater credence in my eyes. I was curious when I picked it up if he would turn a conveniently blind eye to the changes we’ve seen in the last 15 years or so or if he would use the habits to frame the impact of those changes.
Covey’s assertion when asked if the text, now 20 years old, is still relevant:
[T]he greater the change and more difficult our challenges, the more relevant the habits become. The reason: our problems and pain are universal and increasing, and the solutions to the problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to ever enduring, prospering society throughout history.
It’s an interestingly strong claim that I’ll keep in mind when I start reading Jared Diamond’s Collapse.
He then moves to list what he sees as our most common human challenges:
- Fear and insecurity
- “I want it now.”
- Blame and victimism
- Hopelessness
- Lack of life balance
- “What’s in it for me?”
- The hunger to be understood
- Conflict and Differences
- Personal Stagnation
Those in bold are the challenges that struck me as particularly relevant in education.
Covey writes, “the children of blame are cynicism and hopelessness,” and it takes me back to every conference I’ve ever attended where broken teachers ask for answers and ideas and help for bringing life back to their practice, then promptly shoot down any answers, ideas or help that are offered.
As to balance, Covey wonders why we find ourselves, “in the ‘thick of thin things'”. It’s something I struggle with frequently, but much less at SLA as Chris works quite hard to keep the minutia off our plates.
Perhaps the most impactful statement for me in the first few pages deals with the hunger to be understood: …[T]he principal of influence is governed by mutual understanding born of the commitment of at least one person to deep listening first.
During on of the EduCon conversations, I listened as one frustrated educator exasperatedly exclaimed that he couldn’t get parents to the table because they didn’t want to have the important conversations about data.
It struck me then, and continues to resonate, that our students’ parents’ ideas of what conversations and, indeed, what data are important contrast sharply with the data he was talking about. Imagine, though, if the first time any teacher interacted with a parent or guardian, it wasn’t to relay information, but to listen deeply. Why don’t we do that?
Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/sr14700/1749833542/
Play by any other name would be as fun
NYT Co
lumnist Rob Walker writes about Amar Bhide’s new book The Venturesome Economy, stating:
American consumers have long shown an “exceptional willingness” to buy, for instance, technology products before their utility is clear. Such “venturesome consumers” help spur companies and entrepreneurs to take the risks that lead to innovation because they know there is a market willing to take a roughly analogous risk that the next new thing will turn out to have been worth buying.
Aside from harkening back to Mrs. Hurie’s 11th grade history class, this makes sense on its own, only it’s much simpler than all that. What Bhide refers to as “venturesomeness” is really just play. What do kids do when they don’t have to consider resources or schedules or usefulness? They play. That’s what’s key here. Playing.
An SLA student recently interviewed me about being a member of our community and what, specifically, set the school apart. To my mind, it’s play. The teachers and students at SLA have the freedom to play with their learning and their ideas.
Dress it up however you’d like, but American venturesomeness is truly just play.
Perhaps that explains why, as Walker points out, iFart was one of the top iPhone apps for so long.
Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/marittime/3165130963/