Just One Thing

It’s that time of year: graduation season.  I see former students moving from Middle to Upper/High School, from K-12 to college, from college to life or graduate school – many, many photos of graduation gowns and parties, comments about how much they’ll miss the people with whom they’ve made whatever journey they’ve made, and some trepidation about What’s Next.

At many of the official celebrations, there will be Recognition Time.  Honor students might have an additional cowl, or gold tassel, or some other signifier.  Departmental or athletic honors may be read out.  There may be readings or performances by those at the top of their discipline.  I’ve often thought about the process by which we on the faculty go through to determine who gets which and why.

At one school I worked at, a Quaker institution, the Testimony of Equality led to the belief that no one should be singled out for an achievement – GPA wasn’t important, for example.  I appreciated this, having attended high school during the 70s, at a time in Emma Willard’s life when teachers determined whether a class was A-F or Pass/Fail, thus making GPAs very difficult to calculate (Dance? A-F.  Economics? Pass/Fail.).  Instead of a valedictorian, we voted on one classmate to speak for us.  Friends Seminary didn’t quite do that, but the feeling was the same: we celebrate everyone’s achievement, not single out an individual.

My next school, PCS, did give out awards.  The Middle School was particularly difficult: for years, every member of the 8th grade class got an award (as there were never more than 20 in the class, it was a little easier to arrange than if there had been many, many more).  One year the only boy in the class got the “Most Easygoing” award because we just couldn’t think of anything else.  Needless to say, no one really felt a sense of accomplishment when they were given their awards.

The problem is that everyone wants to be remembered for Just One Thing.  It may be their academic record, or a particular piece of work they are really, really proud of.  It may be an athletic achievement.  Or an artistic one.  It may be that they want to be remembered for their kooky fashion sense, or their ability to always find a parking spot near the door.   Rarely are the various student-voted-on Wills/Testaments or Best Lists what people really want to be remembered by (in public school, I remember the Best Couple breaking up shortly before their Official Photo – imagine looking back at that photo at the end of the school year, much less as an adult!).  Yet we rarely give the students, or ourselves, the opportunity to celebrate their Just One Thing.

The other problem is the ephemeral nature of that One Thing.  Records may be broken.  Memories fade.  Goalposts move (my mother got 1600 on her SAT, a perfect score in the 1950s but today that number gets a “well, there’s always community college” look).  People change.  Do I really want to be remembered as my high school self? Does anyone?

Despite that, I’d love to see schools move away from GPAs and Honor Societies and Best Junior Writing Awards and more towards letting the students choose their award.  Why not list “[name] read every book in the Discworld series this year” or “[name] finally learned to play Chopsticks (as well as eat with them!”? It might surprise everyone how we see ourselves.

Thank yous

Yesterday was National Teacher Appreciation Day. Did you thank a teacher?

As the child of two former teachers (one taught young’uns how to read and write, the other taught college level physics and electronics), I’ve always been aware of teachers and their importance in our lives.   However… not every teacher has been great or even memorable.  I barely remember any teacher before sixth grade, and a handful in my last few years of public school.  I do remember almost every teacher I had in prep school and college, but memorable isn’t always the equivalent of inspiring, learned or any of those other things we want our teachers to be.  Some were memorable because they were so bad or uninspiring!

One of the things people ask of those “celebrating” Teacher Appreciation Day is to write to those teachers who did inspire… or help… or elevate you while you were in their class.  Sadly for librarians, students don’t always think of us as teachers – yet I’ve had my share of thank yous, for which I am grateful (favorite former student comment? a girl having a bad day at 15 found me on Facebook years later and apologized, also thanking me for being so fair to her that day!)

But what about those accidental teachers?  The supervisor who “teaches” you how to do your job, or to behave professionally?  The ballet teacher who made you feel graceful at a time when you were all clumsy limbs and feet?  The teaching assistant who helped you revise a paper or essay for the most difficult class you took in school?

Let’s extend the thank yous to anyone, anywhere, who reached out and taught you.  Don’t they deserve to hear those two words, too?

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, Etc.

• Interesting article asking How can we redefine the book? Where does the “book” stop and the “application” begin?. On the other hand, if it’s an app like this Discworld Mapp… And SassyLibrarian ponders what Untraditional Book Formats Mean for Digital Collections.
• Nicholas Carr worries about the death of deep reading (not sure CCSS will change this, even though it tries to)
• A must read: Barbra Fister on curation and discovery
• Worried about using an e-reader because of the distraction factor? Unclutterer has a guide to low-distraction readers.

School Life

• I’ve never been convinced that iPads are The Answer, but ZIS’ iPads in the Classroom program might change my mine
• As I’ve been going through my E-Learning and Online Teaching coursework, I’ve wondered about the role of the library.  Turns out, CHE has been thinking about libraries and MOOCs.
• A new addition to the self-defense arsenal: your smartphone.
• How can school libraries learn from these 20 Great Public Library Websites or the 100 Libraries to Follow on Twitter?

Tech Related

• When we insist on social media in schools, let’s not forget most of  these (mostly very understandable) 8 Reasons Behind Social Media Ban in Schools and be a little more understanding of those that don’t/can’t.
• Looking for new tools to use or explore over the summer break? Easel.ly, MindNode, Infogr.am and Swipe might be the answer.  So might one of Joyce’s recommended interactive video tools. Or you could use Bamboo DiRT to find something.

Lessons Unlearned

Like so many of us, I was shocked and horrified about the events in Boston last week – Monday, I worried about friends and family who might have run in/been supporting those running the Boston Marathon, and Friday I worried about all of them simply living in Boston and environs.  Having lived through Sept. 11, with good friends (and family) who worked near the World Trade Center, I was terrified.  That day, thanks to a friend in an Alabama militia and another in the Canadian Army, I was able to keep current via AOL Instant Messenger (the school didn’t have good tv reception, and the news websites were unable to keep up with the demand on their servers).  It became part of my job that day to relay information that was as accurate as possible to the students and my colleagues, all of whom were stunned and shocked.

Flash forward to this day of Twitter, Facebook and texting and the ease of sharing information, accurate or not.  As this BBC article points out, the citizen investigators “helping” the FBI got the photo ids wrong. Very wrong. (to its credit, Reddit has apologized for its role. damage is still done, though.)

It’s gone beyond sharing faked photos after Hurricane Sandy to potentially destroying a person’s life.  The 24-hour news channels don’t help, either.  The ratio of real news and information to speculation, outside “experts” (those nowhere near the actual events) and people-on-the-street interviews is increasing, all because the moment something like this happens we Must.Drop.Everything and watch.  Obsessively.

Compare that to this clip from ABS’s coverage of the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan.  It’s clear that this is raw footage, with nothing really known beyond the shooting and some people being injured.  They cut into programming for nearly 10 minutes, then signed off until they knew something more:

And CNN was actually being responsible in their reporting, not wanting to spread inaccurate information.

When we have events like what happened in Boston last week, what message are we sending our students when we obsessively narrate the coverage, asking all and sundry to comment, whether or not they know anything (like the doctors serving in Congress who did a long-distance diagnosis of Terri Schiavo)?  We spend time teaching about digital literacy, showing how to evaluate resources and find quality information.  But do we also take the time to say “just because [news channel/reporter] says something, doesn’t mean you can check your skepticism at the door”?

Imagine how proud I was when one of my students tweeted the following:

Twitter / JohnDemar: Thought I saw the September …

Ok, maybe some of his classes as a journalism student at Emory also had an effect, but still, I got to him first!  My hope is that more people question what they hear during these events, when information is so fluid and our knowledge of the people supplying the information is minimal

Let’s go back to the 1980s, where there still was some sense that important events needed fact-checking and gravitas, not non-stop talking heads.   The way we’re going, lynch mobs attacking innocent people based on false/erroneous information and guesses will become a common event.

Why spend the money?

The other night at dinner a friend mentioned a conversation she had with a former classmate.  My friend is one of the Class Agents for her small liberal arts college – in other words, she calls classmates and asks them to give – and she approached her classmate for this year’s donation.  That classmate’s response went something like this:

I live in [far away state].  My husband and I make a decent living but… we make too much to get good financial aid to send our daughter to [alma mater] and too little to afford to pay full price.  Why hasn’t [alma mater] started to move more into the online world so our daughter can get the [alma mater] education without having to be on campus?

Hmmm…. Ok, I see some of the point.  There’s been a lot of talk about MOOCs and their role in education, with several liberal arts schools (Wellesley, for example) starting to join in.  Rumor has it that “liberal arts colleges are scared of MOOCs“, while other articles talk about the challenges posed to the classic liberal arts education by MOOCs.  I can also understand who someone would want their child to have the wonderful college experience they had, but given the price of tuition (not including incidentals!) be concerned about affording it.

Finding Commons Ground

Is it an information commons or a knowledge commons or a learning commons?  That’s less a question than what one exactly is: does adding a makerspace to your library mean that you’re now a “commons”?  What about redesigning to include collaborative spaces?

The other week I attended a HVLA meeting where two librarians discussed what their schools are doing.  Sarah Couri is the new librarian at the new upper school division of Grace Church School, and Susan Harris is the librarian at Harvey School.  Sarah’s had some input into the design of the new space, and is growing the program as the division grows (right now they have only a 9th grade); Susan’s library is in a long-term (since the 70s) temporary space and her school is redesigning and rethinking the space and the program.  Both spoke about the challenges they’re facing, particularly vis-a-vis administrative insight into the idea of a [something] commons and how the technology department and library department interact.

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, Etc.

• I’m loving the Three Things to Read, Watch and Use blog – what a great idea to get students and teachers to share theirs
• Jessamyn got a Kindle and has some interesting ideas about how to use it (and change it).

School Life

Tech Related

• Google’s How to Stay Safe Online information (something we need to share with teachers and students) via @harbeckc
• On the Day of Digital Learning, the NYTimes ran a piece asking Who Are You Online? great food for thought.
• While this list of 20 Great Public Library Websites is about public libraries, there are ideas we in K-12 can emulate
• Carolyn Foote’s Apps for Libraries slides. ’nuff said.

Speaking Up

A couple of weeks ago, there was a huge uproar about a teacher’s decision to make every student in her class participate, regardless of whether they were an introvert or extrovert. SLJ has a good round-up of the various posts and thoughts. I’d been discussing this (in a way) in my class on instructional design, so I posted the link to see what others in my class thought.  This week, we’re talking about engagement and again, I’m pondering the question of how to ensure engagement across age groups and personality types.

The difference is that my class is focused on online instruction, where engagement and “speaking up” is an entirely different thing.  There’s a lot of evidence that those who don’t speak up during face-to-face classes will often be very engaged in an online situation – a time where they can really think and ponder their responses, choosing the exact words they want, ensuring that their message is not overwhelmed by the more extroverted in the class.

What about the jobs that exist now?

Recently (within the past two weeks) I saw someone on twitter repeat the statement that we need to train students for jobs that don’t yet exist.  Oooookkayy.  I guess.  Here’s the problem: why aren’t we also paying attention to the jobs that not only currently exist but have existed (albeit using different tools, and with perhaps different foci) for millennium.

What jobs?  Doctor.  Teacher.  Author. Reporter. Artist. Repairman. Banker. I could go on.

When we talk about “jobs of the future” we’re talking about things we can’t see – someone 150 years ago could not have possibly imagined “web designer” or “social media director” because the technology needed to support those jobs didn’t exist.  Given the pace of change in technology tools, it makes sense to wonder what jobs our current K-12 students will have available to them and to do our best to help them become comfortable with technology and change so that they can fill whatever positions emerge.  But are we doing this at the expense of training students for those important jobs that exist now, that will continue to exist in the future?

When we push STEM programs, we neglect the arts and humanities.  Without those, we’re going to lose our doodlers, our poets, our authors, dancers, and deep thinkers.  Not recognizing that there is incredible value to reading works of literature from different cultures and learning the history of our, and other, countries and peoples is short-changing our next generation of politicians, reporters and thinkers.  Already we overuse the words “fascist” and “Nazi” (really, that Soup Nazi character – which, admittedly, I’ve never actually seen because I disliked “Seinfeld” – was not a funny idea).  Students don’t understand the Cold War, and how that still affects our daily lives (doesn’t the STEM push come from our Sputnick fears? I think so…).  They see our current gridlock in Congress and the culture that leads to lack of cross-party discourse and see that as normal.  How are we going to show them that it shouldn’t be that way, that it can’t stay that way?

When we cut arts programs, aren’t we showing students that “culture” doesn’t matter?  That no one cares about music, or art, or theatre? Those aren’t as important as computers and science and all those subjects, right?  What we tend to forget about Steve Jobs is that he was not the Big Computer Geek that Woz or Gates were.  Instead, he brought an aesthetic sensibility to the process that led to the cool, “sexy” look of Apple products – where will the next Jobs come from if we’re pushing people away from calligraphy in favor of coding?

All this isn’t to suggest that we drop math and science in favor of arts and humanities.  It’s to say let’s not forget about the current jobs, the current professions and that educating well-rounded K-12 students now (they can specialize later, in college) is critical to our nations health and well-being, let alone all our futures.

 

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, Etc.

• News readers still turning to printed, numbers suggest  (at least, in Canada; wonder if this holds true for US)
• Why a 17th-Century Text Is the Perfect Starting Point for Reinventing the Book  (YES! Need more of these!)

School Life

• Great site with a timeline of the history of information, from cave paintings to the internet!
• Why Writing With Our Hands Is Still Important  and Why handwriting matters (get out and buy yourself some stationery)
• The Atlantic Wire asks: No Teachers, No Class, No Homework. Would You Send Your Kids Here?  (I have a friend who sent her daughter to Sudbury Valley, and there are some definite benefits)
• The Globe & Mails’s advisory panel on how students learn (not the full conversation, but still very interesting)
• I know the “sounds of learning” are what we say we want/like in a library, but Salon makes a good argument for us to bring back shushing librarians: Library users plead for quiet places
• Following up on my post about What’s In a Name, @mytweendom pointed me to this link ‘Girls? Ladies? Folks?’ Here’s A Visual Guide To What You Should Call That Group Of Individuals.

Tech Stuff

• Tricks to keep your twitter archive fresh (plays into the whole personal digital archiving motif).
• Is RebelMouse a better curation tool than Scoop.it, LiveBinder or other new tools?  You decide.
• If you’re a Flipboard fan, you might find this list of 15 uses helpful.
• 12 of the World’s Most Annoying Technologies
• The Financial Times talks about Life after TED (“intellectual jazz” sounds more interesting than many TED talks!)
• Enter a virtual art world with Wondereur app  (could be great in so many cities! what about getting students to create one for theirs?)