I’m going back to school

The Gist:

  • I got a scholarship to get my master’s degree.
  • It has me thinking about the kind of entitled, empowered learner I’ve become.
  • I wonder if the kind of learner I’ve become will mesh with this online program.

The Whole Deal:

I had something extra to be thankful for this year – I hope.

Tuesday, I received an e-mail from the Liberty Mutual Teachers Program. Through their Learn Return program, I’ve received a scholarship to pursue my master’s degree.

I’m psyched.

I’ve made a few starts at going to grad school. The furthest I’ve come was a program through Walden University just before I moved up to Philly. Turned out moving expenses and tuition expenses aren’t always compatible.

I resigned myself to the idea that I would be getting my master’s as soon as someone offered to pay for it. Who knew that would actually happen.

The folks at Learn Return have told me I’d be getting info. in the next couple of weeks about how to redeem my “scholarship through Pearson Education and its master’s degree partner.”

In a few weeks, the experiment begins.

Last week, while presenting with SLA colleagues and students at Digital is… the National Writing Project’s first annual conference, a participant from a college that will not be named commented, “I worry that we’re not ready for your students.”

I told her they should be worried.

I am a little bit too. SLA students are empowered and entitled. It’s a direct result of Chris empowering and entitling his teachers.

Thusly, I’m an entitled and empowered teacher / learner. I wonder if Pearson Education and its master’s degree partner are ready for me.

It will be a grand experiment.

New Rules

The Gist:

  • For a year of my life I lived by some pretty helpful rules.
  • I’m reviving the experiment in preparation for my next marathon and to apply what some of my students are learning about food.
  • Once a week, I’ll be writing about my progress here.
  • Many of the rules this time around are from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.

The Whole Deal:

When I turned 27, I set some rules for myself.

I’d moved to Philly in a whirlwind the Fall before and still hadn’t regained my bearings in life. The rules were social and wellness based. I eliminated high-fructose corn syrup, I pledged to run 27 races within one calendar year, I worked to cut my use of plastics as much as possible, etc.

It worked. I felt better and life gained some semblance of order.

That year, I ran both the Philadelphia and Chicago marathons within a few weeks of each other. That was a mistake.
Chicago was one of the sunniest, hottest races I’ve run. In Philadelphia, we had to be careful at the water stops because the spilt water had created ice patches on the course. I didn’t really run for a year after.

Now, I’m signed up for the Ocean Drive Marathon in my attempt to get to 10 marathons in 10 years.
Add to that the disjointedness of my eating habits since returning from Africa, and it’s time for new rules.

Not one to do anything boring, I’m adopting Michael Pollan’s rules from In Defense of Food:

  1. Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
  2. Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup.
  3. Avoid products that make health claims.
  4. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay our of the middle.
  5. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.

I’ll also be running every other day w/ the ole Nike+ attached to my iPod to keep track of my ramp up to the race (and those that follow).

As of right now, that’s all I’m working with. I’m open to any suggestions.

The plan is to blog once a week on how it’s all working out. I realized it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment when I couldn’t put the pre-shredded cheese on my eggs this morning.

Tim Best and Matt VanK worked with our seniors on a food unit throughout most of the first quarter. I’m hoping to pick up where they left off and explore the applications of what they learned.

Weighty Words

One of my Grade 12 Students, Bre Bonner, brought me her copy of Eclipse today. As she handed it to me, I observed the relative ease with which I was able to hold it. This led me to pick up some other texts in the room and head down to the physics room. They have all sorts of cool toys. What’s below illustrates what I found.

Here are the standings:

Text

Pg. #

Weight

Dimensions

The Norton Anthology of Poetry 4th Ed. edited by Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy

1998

3.1 lbs.

9.125”x5.625”x2.125”

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

629

1.3 lbs.

8.5”x5.75”x2”

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

652

2.1 lbs.

9.25”x6.25”x1.75”

And, before you ask, I checked, the average length of a full line of text in Eclipse is a little over 3.75″. In Harry Potter, it’s approximately 4.25″.

There’s an easy joke to be made about the literal and figurative weights of these texts measuring up, but I won’t make it.

Why, though, is Eclipse comparable in size to these other texts, but weighing in nearly one and two pounds lighter than Harry Potter and Norton respectively?

Forget anything with an electric charge, let’s work this media literacy first.

And they protested Harry Potter?

The Gist:

Twilight Saga =

Cycle of Abuse

The Whole Deal:

I bought my younger sister Kirstie her copy of Breaking Dawn for her birthday. She was 15. It’s a hard life having an older brother as an English teacher – you’re pretty much guaranteed books as gifts for the rest of your life. She didn’t seem to mind. I would have bought my elder younger sister her copy too, but she was 18 when it came out and went with her friend to the midnight book release.

Today, I feel guilty.

I just got back from New Moon.

No other film in recent memory has reassured me of the necessity of my job teaching students to read texts critically.

I’ve stayed away from reading the Twilight series beyond the first chapter of the first book. It didn’t engage me (read – it was poorly written), and so I opted out.

I don’t remember seeing the first film. I remember leaving and thinking it was bad. I chalked it up to Melissa Rosenberg‘s writing or Catherine Hardwicke‘s directing.

Having seen New Moon, I realize I might have been wrong.

This series is dangerous.

If you’re in the dark, here’s the deal.

Girl falls for guy she can’t have. He can’t resist her. If he gets her, he’ll kill her. They decide to make a go of it. Things go badly, she sits in her room staring catatonically out the window for what the audience is told is three months. Somewhere after the three months, her father steps in and suggests that this behavior is possibly unhealthy. She takes his advice and decides to engage in risky behavior. Whilst beginning to engage in said behavior, she strikes up a relationship with a new guy. He promises to be different than Guy 1,  “I know what he did to you but Bella, I want you to know I will never hurt you.” Turns out she can’t have that guy either. Guy one breaks his promise:

I swore I wasn’t going to get mad, no matter what you said to me. But… I just got so upset that I was going to lose you… that you couldn’t deal with what I am…

Jacob Black, New Moon, Chapter 13, p.312

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Now, I don’t deny Twilight its right to exist. What I wish I could deny are early studio reports that New Moon has the third largest opening in Hollywood history.

Judging only by audience reactions as the movie unfolded, we’ve got cause for worry. Few, if any, of my fellow theatergoers were experiencing the same churning stomachs as I.

Twilight to Girls: By being who you are, you make it hard for boys to resist what they want to do to you.

Girls to Twilight: Awwwwww.

Twilight to Boys: Girls will tempt you to lose control just by being themselves. Make sure you let them know they are leading you to lose control and that losing control will result in them losing their beauty, their souls and / or their lives.

Boys to Twilight: Cool…vampires.

We need to be teaching this book – or at least teaching our students to read this book with questions in their minds.

As I understand it, Girl becomes a vampire at the end of it all. She gets married, of course. So, once she’s lost herself, she loses her soul.

According to author Stephenie Meyer:

Breaking Dawn‘s cover [a queen chess piece] is a metaphor for Bella’s progression throughout the entire saga. She began as the weakest (at least physically, when compared to vampires and werewolves) player on the board: the pawn. She ended as the strongest: the queen. In the end, it’s Bella that brings about the win for the Cullens.

And all it costs her is her soul, her life and individuality.

“You’re overestimating my self-control.” I know the feeling.