If you where Bhutan you would rank your happiness by the GNH (Gross National Happiness) which is comprised of a variety of wellness factors. If your me…and it’s today you get sucked in and find yourself wondering if Happy Tweets and your new ranking of “Very Happy” 536, based on your twitter conversations is in anyway a reasonable indication of your level of happiness.
Which brings me to wonder….. Are online learning environments generally more positive? How would this be measured?
For some time now my lurkeresk (probably not a word but…) tendency’s have really bothered me. Until now I have yet to find words for my feeling but just like most things it this crazy connected world so one else has. Jim Lebans audio take on lurking sums up what I have been feeling ever since I started blogging, reading blogs and somehow very seldom actually commenting.
I am so thankful for all that post there thoughts online. Even those that I completely disagree with are thought provoking and for that I am thankful. I wonder what the blogesphere will look as more and more digital natives grow and gain perspectives that they want to share?
Spending much of my childhood playing in the woods, lakes and mountains of Northern Idaho my appreciation for nature is deeply rooted. Now living in one of the largest and most polluted cities in the world, Shanghai my perspective on development is multifaceted but to be truthful I would trade the shopping-brunch lifestyle for a PB and J with my feet dangling off the dock on lake Pend D’ Orelle any day.
Obviously there must be a balance between the two and the little N. Idaho town of Sandpoint near where I grew up is doing just that. In a recent article in the New York Times Sandpoint’s initiative to join the Transition Culture movement is explained. In an effort to build a sustainable community the town has embarked on a low energy low impact movement.
In Shanghai on Washan Lu about 20 kilometers from the city center a transition is happening too. Only this one is stark contrast with frenetic development of a transportation (high speed railway, car over passes and subway lines) corridor.
Both cities are moving forward with plans toward a better life in the future but this time the west is taking steps in the opposite direction. In Shanghai to make way for the new transportation corridor the low energy- low impact village style way of life has literally be leveled down and carried away. Homes, businesses and the walking-biking way of life that existed some two years ago are all but distant memories that are drowned out by the cranes and concrete.
As an educator this leaves me thinking how should transition culture be learned from in K-12 education. History and literature set the context but current changes do not seem in most educational models to be worthy of content time until they are long past….but why?
The local charter school in Sandpoint is making great connections with the small town community, engaging students in real time happenings. Here is Shanghai at one of the largest and most well funded private international schools in the world there is very little connection to changes happening around us. It’s almost as if the process of development must happen and only from hind site will constituents be reflective enough to realize whole community involvement is warranted.
I just finished this interesting book:
Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural literacy: what every american needs to know. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.
As one of my classmates stated “Hirsch believes many Americans are lacking “cultural literacy,” or a basic knowledge of any and all topics relevant to our country. He asserts that without background knowledge of cultural literacy, one cannot truly comprehend and think critically about what they read. Throughout this book, Hirsch emphasizes the need for cultural literacy to be taught in the schools, and he states that the schools are not doing enough to support cultural literacy in today’s students.”
I would say that (80%) of the students at my current school I would say are culturally literate on a global level by this I mean they have a good foundation of the basics in all subjects including world history but truly lack the ability to apply their knowledge in innovative and imaginative ways.
The majority of the students are very driven both by themselves and their parents (taking lots of AP’s and studying/cramming intensely for each and every class). Most of the rest say 18% have the ability to think creatively, imagine and innovate but do not do so on a very deep level because they are lacking cultural literacy. The students that truly shine are few and far between but they do so because they have both! Their creativity is build upon a really solid understanding of the basics therefore they don’t reinvent but innovate in totally new ways.
Interestingly enough our HS students are getting their acceptances and fifteen have been accepted into Ivy league schools. Knowing most of them they are the ones that have cultural literacy as a solid foundation and have the ability to apply it in innovative ways. Their ability to put this “Cultural Literacy + Innovative Authentic Application” has provided the outcome of “= Top College Acceptances.” Not that IVY acceptances is the only measurement of K-12 learning sucess but it is certainly held in high regard and provides evidence that both, cultural literacy and innovative, creative authentic expereiences are essential varibles that when put together equal a powerful combination.
My life is spread across the world, well at least more than most. 
This is a screen shot of what my computer looks like a lot on the weekends. My husband (who is currently living on another continent) and I over the past year have grown accustom to hanging out in Skype video chat land so much so that as you can see he is bird watching at the same time he is talking to me:) Of course because our separate in real life situation is temporary we have almost in a weird but fun way enjoyed living a very strange connected relationship via all things 1’s and 0’s. However this morning I video chatted with my grandparents for the first time. They were in awe that from across the world Shanghai to Arizona they could see and hear me and as my gramp’s said “well I guess this technology nonsense is not all that bad if it’s free.” Yep gramps that’s right it’s free and that got me thinking. In his eighty some years of life he has associated information and connectedness with cost. He loves airplanes and cars thus he paid for magazine subscriptions, he loved talking to his six children thus he put up with large long distance phone bills each month.
From an educational standpoint this really gets by mental juices following……how can school add value when being connected now is free….connected to information…..connected to each other…….connected to collaboration and innovation? I think back to what school must have been like for my grandpa in that he went to school to be connected to all the things that I now have access to for free. So what’s the point I’m not sure but at any rate I am truly proud of my grandparents for their attempts to connect to their grandchildren and children through Skype and Facebook and lucky to live in a world where connectedness is a given.
Some days just have themes attached to them and today a bright and sunny Friday is definitely visual literacy. Two amazing events happened at our school today. An presentation by Scott McCloud and the S2SF student film festival.
Scott’s talk was inspiring in that his message taped into an imaginative innovative side that all of us have and some of us need to explore more. Students in the audience asked great questions showcasing that they were empowered by his messages. If you haven’t seen him before he one of those people that is worth time to listen to….
Today as part of a Data in a Day exercise organized by our curriculum team I will be combing the school as part of a team with a student, parent and other faculty to gather data about our schools ESLR’s.
ESLR’s are not something that most schools ever quantify or assess so how can you tell if students are really learning them?
How does you know if the ESLR’s are really truly being embedded into the curriculum in authentic ways or just forced and squeezed into what little time is left over after the core content is learned?
Today hopefully I will be able to provide at least a few ways that this is happening.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experiences and Education. New York, New York, United States of America: Simon and Schuster.
Considered one of the most important educational philosophers of the modern age, John Dewey unpacks, in his 1938 book the importance of viewing education as not purely a term that can be defined but more an ongoing process of experiences that when viewed as long learning is a continuous process of reconstructing experiences for ones lifetime. Written some seventy years ago, the book coherently defines what experience in education ideally is and offers solutions to potential hurdles of its implementation in school settings all of which have tremendous validity and utility in the twenty first century educational context.
John Dewey argues that education is not merely a transfer of information from teacher to student like goods are exchanged from buyer to seller. He further explains that experiences in and of themselves do not hold educational value and thus illustrates two distinct concepts: continuity and interaction as fundamental to the value of an experience (Dewey, 1938, p.25). He argues that an experiential continuum, choosing those experiences that are worth wile from those that are not, done by an outsider, is a source of discrimination. To Dewey social control cannot be completely out of the question to have a valid educational experience. Merely developing schools based on life-experience, is too open-ended and, leads to great inconsistencies. Thus making the point that a teacher’s role is not to be entirely out of the picture but to set the context for the children to come together and cooperatively control the experience in a social way with very little intervention (Dewey, 1938, pp.52-53). He reminds us of the old “stop and think” phase used within a teachable moment to highlight the need for external input on students experiences to strengthen or identify learning opportunities (Dewey, 1938, p. 64). Drawing upon his explanation of education that is provided through experience Dewey explains that subject matter must be in line with life-experiences.
The tone in which this book concludes exemplifies why even seventy years after it was written it still has tremendous value in education today. By tracing the development of the American curriculum overtime liked to a cycle (Tyler, 1949) of analysis, design, implementation and evaluation all contain assumptions that when formalized make up a philosophy (Wiles, 2005, p.77). Utilizing John Dewey’s ideas in the book as a tool to clarify such assumptions uncovers how modern curriculum (goals, objectives and standards) as it is today in the United States have been shaped.
The ideas presented in this book not only clarify educational development from a historical standpoint but also offer a solid foundational approach to the future of education in the twenty first century with the rapid technological context of changing access to information. While this text does not offer up simple how to solutions its utility lies in identifying the inescapable need for education to be a continuous spiral of experiences. This book is a core piece of work that defines and forms scholarly concerns, investigation, and ideals that curriculum leaders can use about the concept of experience education as a reference point to provide understanding for professional communication.
Carbon offsetting our trips around Asia is something that was a pipe dream of mine last year and now is a true reality. At the beginning of the school year I was feeling both excited and guilty while planning upcoming swim team trips around Asia.
A little green and creative thinking cultivated an idea to participate in the local Roots and Shoots program to carbon offset by planting trees in Inner Mongolia. For more specifics about how we are doing it look here.
This idea has trued into a full fledged initiative in which swimmer, parents and coaches are now thinking and flying in a sustainable way as global caring citizens.
