After an incident delayed getting feedback from my students until last Monday, things got extremely busy with preparation for the Renaissance Fair and my Grade 5 Transition Retreats [the subject of a future post]. All this included 3 afternoons out of my classroom at other functions… I blinked and it was Friday afternoon. And only now have I noticed that not everyone has given me feedback yet. What I do see there is very encouraging.

Before reading the feedback, my initial impression was given in my Some Assembly Required post. To expand on that,
I wrote this in a comment (over a month ago) on Kelly Christopherson’s blog.

Carolyn Foote, mentioned above also added this comment after mine:

This is brilliant feedback. It isn’t rocket science for a seasoned teacher that really should know this, but scaffolding that is student directed is something we should all be reminded of from time-to-time. I think that in my excitement to get things started, and my desire to have students choose their own topic, I let technology supersede pedagogy.

I intended to put some student feedback highlights here, but I won’t. If you are interested, READ THEIR WORDS.

Here is a very short summary:
• Students really liked this project. Some of them considered it the best ever!
• They loved that they got to choose their own topics.
• They felt challenged.
• They hated the issues we had dealing with crappy computers, and yet they were willing work through the frustration.
• They thought this was a valuable experience… so much so that many of them wanted to do another similar project and/or suggested that I should do this again next year.
• And finally, using their words: They enjoyed being able to share their ideas, “What I am most proud of the most from the page is when I was how I typed out information to let others read it and learn from what I learned,” and being able to see what others did, “I thought this was a great project because it was always fun, and when you needed inspiration, it was easy to just click on someone else’s page, and see all the neat stuff that they’ve done, and then it makes you want to make your page just as good (or, it did for me).” Also another student commented about how a different group’s project touched him, “I learned a lot of stuff over the period of time that was given. I especially enjoyed learning about the diabetes because my aunt has diabetes so it was interesting to see what she goes through and how she’s affected”.
I’m proud of my students and I am very happy with our first attempt at creating wikis. I believe that for many of my students we truly did bring Science Alive!

1. Scaffolding
Here are some comments: [Their words/spelling/grammar, no editing on my part. Students can't edit a Discussion topic like they can their wiki page.]

Since Carolyn made some great topic development suggestions above, I will look more at some other ideas.

I realize now that I didn’t really give them enough of an outline. This is a challenge for topics like this… especially in a middle school where the students are still young. So many times in my teaching career I have shown a creative exemplar to students and then had a dozen photocopy-like replicas handed in. Also, in all honesty, I didn’t really know what to expect from my students and so it was hard to tell them what it was I expecting! I think that if I spent more time getting them involved with their topic and exploring possibilities early on, some of this stress would have been alleviated.
I did a lot of conferencing with groups and discussing ideas, but often I didn’t relate this back to specific things I wanted to see on their page. [Notice the control-freak teacher in me said "specific things I wanted to see" rather than suggestions that would enhance their learning. This is a learning curve for me as well as them.]
One frustration for me was that I taught Science for just 40 min. classes (a first for me this year having taught 80 min. classes in previous years). Take away login and log out times and sometimes it seemed that I would have just 2 or 3 really good conversations about projects and the class would be over.

Here is a very interesting comment:

The specific thing that I didn’t like in this case was that the experiment that they wanted to do had way too much variability and opportunity for chance to influence their results… this group did the experiment they wanted to do it anyway. Although I don’t think it was a great decision, I am glad they realized that I really did give them a choice.

The task at hand is to offer support to those that need it, and challenge those that don’t – not much different than any other project. The difference from other projects is that criteria is very hard to offer when you open up a project and allow everyone to demonstrate their learning in different ways. (Note Gabriela Sellart‘s and Claudia Ceraso‘s comments on my Some Assembly Required post- found in the reflection section.)

More from my students:

Scaffolding not instructions and criteria lists.

I had no idea how long this project would take. It went longer than it should, but I wanted to give ample notice when I finally did choose a date. Looking back, I gave the students notice on a Monday that it was due the following week Friday, then gave them until the following Monday… a lot of time! Yet, the lack of a stated completion date really seemed to bother students. I would love to see students keep updating their projects even now- why can’t they continue to pursue their interests? However, in the future I will start with a specific due date. Will this light the fire under students’ seats and get many of them on task, and/or more focussed, sooner? I don’t really know?

I had students research who were experts in their fields and intended to have them contact some of these people. Reality sunk in when I realized that I didn’t know these adults and I would have Grade 8 students contacting strangers directly. In the future, I would want to create a specific contact page for field experts to use to contact us. Then I could route initial contact through me. I would also notify parents that this would be happening well in advance of doing it. I think that this could happen in a safe way if it is well thought out, not flying by the seat of my pants as I was doing in this first attempt.
I could also have used some experts of my own. I’ll point again to Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy post, Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models and once again beg for a Web2.0 service like Fieldfindr. (I created this mock site in February and it has had over 1,200 visits since the middle of March… who can make this a reality?

Imagine giving a ‘C’ to a student who writes:

Is a ‘C’ meaningful feedback? What are you telling that student about lifelong learning? What does the mark accomplish?

…And a Happy Note
I can’t get myself to end this post on a sad note, so I will end with a very positive observation:
This year has been cathartic for me.
• I have fully embraced using this blog as a learning tool since about November.
• I have read more and thought more about education in the last 6 months than in any given 5 years of my life.
• I am embracing technology like never before.
• I am engaging students in their learning like never before.
• I believe that we will see some (very exciting) fundamental shifts in education over the next few years.

…And Back to the Science Alive Wiki
If you have any observations that I may have missed, then feel free to be my teacher. Thanks!

I apologize in advance for the clinical nature of my description below… these are students currently in my class, and this blog is open for anyone to read.

Background: Student 1 is male; Students 2 & 3 are female. Student 1 and 2 ‘dated’ earlier in the year. Student 1 and 3 are good friends… “But that’s all!”

The incident: Student 1 (who is in my first class) does not log out of his Science Alive! wiki account. Student 2 (who is in my second class) goes onto the same computer and realizes that Student 1 is not logged out. She writes a wiki mail message that she addresses to all students in Science Alive! (almost 60 kids in 2 classes). Here is the message:

Unfortunately I was not in class when this happened- I was at a Math Learning Team meeting.

This message got to Student 3 (also in the second class) quickly. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and confronted Student 1 about this – she realized it wasn’t him because at the time of the incident he did not have access to a computer. After coming back to class and doing some more digging, she discovered who sent the message. Then this new message came along:

from	[Student 2]
to	members of sciencealive
date	May 3, 2007 2:06 pm
subject	sorry folks
	i sent [student 1's] message totally sorry! i throw myself on [student 3's] & [student 1's] mercy… it was a bad joke swear i won’t do it again!

I find all of this out the same evening via an e-mail from Student 3. She is very upset!

(A little digression here as I look at what makes something an office issue.)

In 9 years as a teacher I have made very few classroom issues into office issues. I have 4 D’s that I think are issues that should be dealt with at an office level. The first two D’s are cut-and-dry/immediate office issues. These are ‘no-brainers’, you break these rules and you go to the office!

1. Drugs- Alcohol is included in this category;

2. Dangerous- Not just weapons, but physical violence too. The best policy is a zero-tolerance policy… We don’t solve problems this way. (Sorry President Bush, but I’d be sending you to the office);

The next 2 D’s have some grey area between being an issue for the office and being an issue that I handle myself. They are:

3. Defiance- an absolute refusal to participate and/or co-operate. If you don’t come to class prepared to learn, or if you aren’t willing to participate with the class… If you can’t offer me 5% of what I am offering you, then that probably hinders my ability to give everyone else the time and attention they deserve. I obviously can’t help you, so there is no reason for you to be here. I’ve only ever had one student absolutely refuse to engage in learning to this point. I honestly felt that it was a disservice to keep him in the class and made this the reason to send him to the office. (I have used this as ‘leverage’ with other students in the past- not an ideal strategy, but sometimes a student needs to know that you have limits);

and the final ‘D’,

4. Disrespect- If you are going to treat me, or others in a way that is hurtful, if you are going to ‘injure’ others emotionally/socially… then we have a problem. Hitting someone, or physically hurting someone puts you in the ‘Dangerous’ category and becomes an immediate office referral. Disrespect on the other hand is a little different. If you emotionally or socially injure someone then you are defying one or two of our school beliefs : Respect and/or Inclusion.

So why was this act of disrespect an office issue? Because it was bullying! It may not satisfy the dictionary definition of bullying, ‘to use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone)’, but it injured someone’s dignity in a very public way. To me bullying of any kind, like physical violence, should have a zero-tolerance policy. If I dealt with this on my own, then I would be offering a perception that this is easily fixed… and it isn’t. From Nails in Fence (from my Teaching Metaphors):

This act, whether done simply as a joke, or with hurtful intentions, was wrong on many levels, from identity theft with the use of Student 1′s account to social embarrassment of Student 3, (and Student 1 as well). It is cyberbullying because it used technology as the medium to bully.

Next, I changed my lesson plans for Science. It was our last day for the project, (talk about putting a damper on the whole thing), and our school dance was scheduled for the afternoon so I thought this would be a great opportunity to have a lesson about bullying and cyberbullying.

Here is my Daily Agenda for Science Alive!

Once I went over the situation, I emphasized that the issue has been taken to the office and is indeed being dealt with appropriately, and that my lesson goes well beyond this one incident.

Why is this an important step? If I don’t do this, then I am a bully too! I am ostracizing Student 2, and I don’t want to do this! She is a wonderful kid who made a bad choice… “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone”. I’ve made some very stupid choices/decisions in my life. In the hockey game we call life, I’d like to think that I have a good plus/minus when it comes to good choices I’ve made versus bad, but that doesn’t negate the bad choices as if they never existed. Student 2 made a bad choice, she is not a bad person!

Next in the agenda, I specifically mentioned other times that we discussed similar topics for two reasons, first to further distance my lesson from the specific issue, and then also to show everyone that this is an important issue that needs to be discussed on a regular basis.

Also, rather than having students reading this agenda on their own computer as I have done in the past, I had this on the projector screen, and I did not scroll down enough for students to see that I was extending the due date of the assignment. I wanted them focused.

So, the lesson involved 3 videos from Youtube, with a discussion after each. Here are the videos:

I think the discussions went well in both classes. I think I made students see that there are many faces to bullying… it is a continuum. I tried to convey that the choices they make influence others, whether we intend for this to happen or not. I hope that I helped students to see that we have a responsibility to make a positive rather than negative difference in the world, and that often we can do so with very little effort.

I also spoke of the etiquette around asking someone to dance, and turning someone down politely. I admitted to being turned down for dances many times in my life, and that I appreciated when it was done in a nice way. I reminded them that saying yes to a dance was a 2-3 minute commitment, not a lifetime one. On the other side of the spectrum, 2-3 minutes is an eternity if someone is groping you or touching you inappropriately- you have every right to stop a dance early in that case. This was a ‘light’ way to end a very heavy conversation, without losing sight of the main ideas I wanted to get across.

An important note: What were student 2′s consequences? She was not permitted to go to the dance. Also, on Monday or Tuesday she must report back to the office, along with Student 3, and state whether they have been able to come to an acceptable resolution. If they haven’t, the next step is that they can choose to have peer mediators involved. Barring that, it will become an office issue again, but I’m confident it won’t get to that point.

A side note: Student 3 stayed back after class and thanked me for giving this the attention that I did.

A final note: It would not have been too hard to handle this situation on my own. However, I think that making a very public issue such as this into an office concern raises the profile of such an incident. It validates that such behavior is simply not tolerated in our school!

I’ve been having this conversation in a few different places, and now I need to put my thoughts together. Here is a summary of some discussions and e-mail messages, a Wesley Fryer’s post “Advice for designing the school of the future” and my comment there, and my forum post in the School 2.0 social network on Ning.

It all started here:
My daughter’s school is going through seismic upgrading. 2 years of noise and upheaval… 1/2 the school sealed off, with the kids in portables, then a year later the other half goes to the portables and the kids in the potables move to the newly revamped wing. They are practically taking the roof off, half a building at a time.
After a PAC meeting I asked the principal what technological improvements were going to be made to the school…
NONE!
Not going wireless (apparently too expensive!?!?)
Not even extra electrical outlets in the rooms!
Certainly not a consideration to redesign a library built to store walls of encyclopedias. (I’ll discuss this point later)

The problem is the financial handcuffs placed on the principal to meaningfully do anything to improve the school at this time. Why? Because money set aside for seismic upgrades is from very different coffers than those of renovations/improvements. What does this mean? It means that we won’t spend $10,000 now to wire the school with extra plugs and create a wireless network… but we will necessarily have to do so, for $25,000 in two years, (when the walls and roof have been seismically upgraded).’ [These costs are an approximate assumption of mine, and not based on any specific research done on my part.]

This well said response was given to me by Brian, our district’s Manager of Information Services. He responded to my e-mail and also wrote a response to my comment on Wesley Fryer’s post:

“I agree wholeheartedly with Wesley’s school 2.0 description and David’s concerns. The culture in bricks and mortor schools and districts takes a long time to shift… The challenge not specifically highlighted in David’s comments though is the how government and / or local district funding rules work. For a seismic project, we are very limited in what else we can “add on” to the overall scope of work. And, there are no other pots off money to draw from to “do the right thing” with the renovation. It’s unfortunate but our reality…That said, our vision for schools would encompass the school 2.0 idea. With time, the vision can be realized.”

Brian has been working on a district learning portal, and so he knows the value of having connected classrooms. But the ‘right thing’ can not be done at this time.

I had an interesting conversation with a former student’s parent a few days ago. She works in construction for a number of different school boards, and has done so for over 15 years. Although she isn’t working specifically on my daughter’s school, she told me how easy it would be to first, make the school wireless (a job that literally would take minutes during the construction), and then also to run the wire to add electrical outlets to the classrooms, while the seismic upgrading is taking place. She agreed with me that financially, this task would be significantly cheaper during construction. And in her words, the reason this won’t happen is because in the case of every district she has worked for:

“They Do. They Think. They Re-Do!”

At first, I took her words in jest, but as the conversation continued, and she went back to that phrase (without exaggeration) over a dozen times. I then realized that she truly was talking from experience. I could see her frustration, she shared my exasperation, but could offer no solutions. Just as has been mentioned above, she reiterated that there is simply no additional money to do these kind of improvements. She stressed that this was especially the case with seismic upgrades because these upgrades have, in the past, been grossly over budget due to ‘add-ons’ that clever principals and district superintendents have added to the upgrades in the past. This has resulted in very strict limits placed on what can be done while this construction is happening.

‘We can’t afford it now, so we will pay significantly more to do the same thing later!’ I find this so asinine.

Another aspect to this has been the design of the school library. My daughter’s school has a computer lab next door to the library, but there is no door between the two rooms. I wonder how hard it would be to place a sliding door, or remove the wall altogether?
In his post “Advice for designing the school of the future” Wesley Fryer suggests:

“I think the school of the future should be centered around the library, and include not only great places to read but also inviting places to collaborate and work together, sort of like a Starbucks atmosphere. I think the library should have a design and performance studio, which would permit students to craft high quality media products for the global stage: the web. I think an educational learning portal should serve as a primary learning centerpiece. One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers: It’s ridiculous for us to attempt to be experts on all the content subjects we teach. We really need to embrace the model of facilitating project-based learning, so the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”

Here is part of my comment/response to his post:

I agree with you, “One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers” however, as you say, “the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”

As someone who is struggling with the availability of technological resources, I can say that the framework really should come first!

A question to you Wesley, what can we do as teachers, as members of society who have seen the outside of Plato’s education cave.. who know that there is more to life than shadows on our school hall walls… what can we do to tear down those walls and build schools that are designed for school2.0 rather than school1890?

I think that the reality is that many brand new schools being built today are not fully embracing the possibilities of the future. Partly because we don’t really know what that future looks like, and partly because of financial constraints.

I posed the following question in the Ning School 2.0 forum:

In my daughter’s school, I will fight for wireless, and I will suggest more power outlets in the classes, (so that eventually if they get, perhaps, a row of computers on a wall, or even a mobile computer lab, at least students can power their computers… but what else would you ask for?

And after a few days I’ve only had one response, (which I will get to in a moment). What I find interesting is that nlowell has an interesting forum post asking, “What is the purpose of the classroom?” Go no further than the very first response to see Heather Burlesson’s poignant statement:

“I don’t think we can continue the industrial model. Today’s students do NOT want to be robots, and they have the tools at hand to reject all our attempts to force them into such a mold.

How can we actively engage them while satisfying the system? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m fairly certain any change will have to start within the classroom itself. Transforming the “brick and mortar” into a place the kids *want* to go to – My*pace for the flesh and blood part of the day – that’s the challenge we are facing at the moment.”

In essence, we may not like the current ‘industrial model’, but we really don’t know where education is going. This makes concrete suggestions difficult… there really is no blue print (no road map as they say) to the classroom of (as little as) 25 years from now.

In the one response to my question above, Librarian Nancy White points me to a David Warlick post.

Here is her entire comment:

I really loved David Warlick’s response to this kind of question on his blog – his proposal? The one non-budget-blowing thing he would do first is put all school furniture on wheels! Think about this –one of the key elements of project based learning and indeed, practicing 21st century skills is student collaboration. Let’s move those desks around – set up collaborative work space, and a place for presentations.

I agree that the school library is the learning and information center of the school – especially in the age of technology. If creating collaborative work spaces in classrooms seems difficult to navigate, then start with the library! This is where you’ll find staff who truely understand the concept of School 2.0 – and how to collaborate with teachers to create incredible learning experiences for students using 21st century tools and resources.

I think that Warlick’s idea of the classes no longer needing to be ‘anchored’ is indeed a good starting point. It invites the opportunity for change, and it prepares us to be prepared to try things in new ways, while also encouraging opportunities for collaboration.

So now that battle must rage on. I will be meeting with my daughter’s school principal next week, and it is my goal to create a ‘wish list’. It may be a moot point, but to me we cannot complain about the situation and then ‘sit idly by’ and allow nothing to happen.

I welcome other suggestions, other wishes, that you would want to see during a ‘renovation’ such as this…

…more on Empathy.

Friday night I camped out at the school with 49 students, each raising a minimum of $50- to earn the opportunity to sleep over at the school. We hosted a 24 hour famine to raise money for our Me to We Club… we are fundraising to build a school in Sierra Leone.

It was fun, and it was exhausting! Three and a half hours of broken sleep… and totally worth it! Some things didn’t quite go as planned, but overall it was a huge success. I’ve done many 30 Hour Famine‘s for World Vision, but this year I wanted the fundraiser to coincide with our school goal of $15,000.00 to build and help supply the Sierra Leone school. The famine itself is a great way to give the students an experience that many kids around the world are ‘inflicted’ with: Hunger!

So, I could go on about the kids that snuck junk food in, and indulged… or how these same girls were disrespectful to the female teacher that helped me out, (something I still have to follow up on Monday), but instead, I want to highlight empathy and compassion. So, enjoy a few tales of the next generation doing good.

Callie: She didn’t collect any money. I saw her leaving the school on Friday and said to her, “I thought this would be something that you would want to do?” Her response: “I wanted to Mr. Truss but I just couldn’t ask anyone else for money.” You see, we just finished a fundraiser selling boxes of chocolate bars – 15 bars in a box, $30 a box. My class sold 16 boxes, Callie on her own sold 22. I gave her a permission slip and where it said ‘you must collect a minimum of $50-’ I added “^ or sell 22 boxes of chocolates… Wow!” You should have been there to see the smile on her face.

Reed: (He sold two boxes of chocolates) “Mr. Truss, I can’t ask anyone else for a donation, I’m just going to donate $50 myself so that I can come. I can afford it.” He ended up donating $85… basically he got $35 in pledges but kept his personal donation at 50.

Sadey and Misha: For the second year in a row they raised $150 each. While some students just got their parents to write a cheque for $50, these girls collected money 1, 2 or 5 dollars at a time.

Braden: As he handed me his required $50 on Wednesday, “I don’t get paid until the weekend, can I donate more after the famine?”

Nicole and Ian: They couldn’t sleep over at the school, but still chose to collect money anyway.

Alexandra: We only had one grade 6 girl in attendance. I saw Alexandra from my (Grade class talking to her when everyone was arriving. I asked her if she new the girl and she said yes. I said do you mind making sure this girl feels included? Her response, “Oh, of course!”

Andy & Carleigh: They are the backbone to our Me to We club. They both plan to go to the Leaders Today Take Action! Academy this summer run by Free the Children. They are two young kids who are thoughtful and compassionate. They are, and they will continue, making the world a better place!

Empathy may not be part of the curriculum, but it certainly can be encouraged in school… by teachers and students alike!

Prelude
Two Brothers, Craig and Marc Kielburger, are my modern day heroes.
Tonight Marc is having dinner with Oprah Winfrey. The brothers’ US office is hosted by Oprah. They have had an audience with Mother Teresa. They have been featured on Oprah, CNN, CBC, BBC, and 60 Minutes. They are sought after speakers that have shared the podium a number of times with former U.S. president Bill Clinton, as well as with such world renowned leaders as Nelson Mandela, Queen Noor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.
But that is not why they are heroes to me.

Take the fame (and the accolades mentioned below) away, and they are still my heroes: Two brothers under 30 years old. Many of their accomplishments began when they were well under 20. In fact, they began to change the world when they were 11 and 13 years of age.

Craig and Marc are the founders of Me to We and Free the Children, the largest organization in the world of children helping children. They inspire kids to “Be the Change”, to make a meaningful difference in the world… and their army of inspired kids have benefited over 1/2 a million needy people in the world… WOW!

Helping Others
I heard Marc speak (for the second time) on Friday. After his talk, he spoke with students and teachers from our school. Our Me to We club is raising money for Free the Children. Under the direction of a teacher, Sarah, our students have raised over $9,000 so far. My 24 Hour Famine/Sleep-Over at the school will raise another 2-3 thousand, and yet another teacher Chris will make at least that much with Freezie sales as the weather warms up.

Last year we bought goats to give families an income and thus help students go to school. This year we are raising money to build a school in Sierra Leone. Sarah wanted to raise between 10 and 15 thousand. Thanks to countless students, their families and all of our staff, it looks like we will surpass that!

In the service of others we learn meaningful lessons ourselves. Mark spoke of developing empathy in kids. In so doing, he wondered if standardized testing ‘taught’ our kids anything meaningful? When do they learn about empathy and love?

They learn this from being in the servicing of others. Listening to Marc, a true hero, has taught me something very valuable.

Helping Me, and My Family
Every night when I put my kids to bed I ask them a question… “What was your favorite part of the day?” My kids will often offer up a list. My oldest daughter is very compassionate, she makes an effort to mention at least one event in which my wife or I are in one of her favorite parts of the day. My younger daughter meanders a bit… she is still learning… sometimes she has a list, sometimes her favorite is tempered with, “But you know what I didn’t like about today?”

When I heard Mark speak, I wondered about another question I have stopped asking: “What did you learn today?” I also thought of the question my friend Mike asks his (older) kids: “What questions did you ask today?” … this is a better question than ‘what did you learn?’, but not one that inspires meaningful answers from my Grade 2 child… even less from my preschooler. After listening to mark, I decided on a new question:

“Who did you help today?”

It is simple. It inspires empathy. It shows what we truly value… and I look forward to the day when my daughters ‘favorite part of the day’ is also the answer to ‘who did you help today’.

My Heroes

Thanks for the inspiration Mark!

Please take the time to find out more about my heroes. Or better yet, GET INVOLVED !

Marc is a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. He, “has been recognized for his vision and leadership with Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 award and has received an Ashoka Fellowship for his innovation and commitment to social change. He is the youngest person ever to be awarded the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate of education from Nipissing University for his work in leadership development. Marc has been honoured as a 2007 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.”

Craig “has received many awards for his work, including the Nelson Mandela Human Rights Award, the World Economic Forum GLT Award, the Roosevelt Freedom Medal, the Governor General’s Medal of Meritorious Service, the Human Rights Award from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations and the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child, also known as the Children’s Nobel Prize.” Oh, and Craig is also a 2002 and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He is a Megastar. (Read this last link to learn about Craig’s inspiration, and a hero in his own right, Iqbal Masih 1982-1995.)

Free the Children has recently been awarded one of ten Million-Dollar Awards from the Skoll Foundation.

Images by carf on flickr. Imprisoned… & Children of the World Unite – I (see comments in my reflection)

Here is the write-up for the 2 hour Professional Development seminar that I ran today for 9 dedicated teachers who showed up on a sunny Saturday, after a full day of Pro-D on Friday.

Start Your Own Blog
A practical session that will introduce you to blogging.
You will see how others use their blogs and you will get a chance to create your own blog.
You will also learn just how easy it is to create links, add pictures and even movies to your blog.
Also, you will learn a bit about web2.0 and very easy to use tools that make your time on the web faster and friendlier.

Start Your Own Blog on Edublogs Wiki on Wikispaces

& a blog post with instructions on how to hyperlink, embed images and videos, as well as tag a post on edublogs,

Making a Splash with Your First Post

I did my best to make these resources that could be: a) used by others to structure their own Pro-D sessions; and b) used as a self help tutorial.

… any feedback would be appreciated.

The power of WE: Special thanks goes to a few people who saved me hours of time by helping me out, and by having great resources already built, so that I didn’t have to create them myself.

• Kris (Wandering Ink) for helping me find worthy links for my example page: A variety of bloggers, blogging mostly about blogs and blogging. Kris also edited my ‘Making a Splash‘ post. I hadn’t published it yet so I threw it into a Google Document, where she edited it. We chatted on MSN throughout and then I cut-and-pasted the edited sections back into my post. It was easy to do – especially with our dialogue via chat. A teacher and a former student collaborating, (late on a Friday night), to create a tool for teachers, in a way that was impossible not too long ago… very cool!

• Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis for 10 Habbits of bloggers that win and How to comment like a king (or queen)… both great posts!

• Mike Temple for his blog Edublog Tutorials. This blog linked to another great resource: MSU (Michigan State University) video tutorial. Mike has done a great job with this blog!

Thank you to these people, and all the wonderful people that I linked to in on the wiki.

-This was the first time I tried to do technology based professional development, beyond introducing a few tools to my staff, and I am happy with how things went.

-We only had about 1:45 minutes and this would be a great 3 hour Pro-D. A typical teacher blunder when trying something out of your comfort zone… pack too much in!

-As a mac user, I need to be a little more familiar with a pc lab.

-I really should have them make their blogs first, as was suggested.

-I only got the e-mail address of 4 of the participants and none of their new blog addresses- I’ll have to hunt these down for a feed I created. I think this is a good idea to offer support and community for new bloggers, and I should make the collection of this information more formal.

* I invite feedback on the Start Your Own Blog tools… and I hope that others will find them useful!

Thanks,

Dave.

So I dedicate this post, (my portion of my Papa’s eulogy), to my grandfather, Leon Bernstein, March 24th, 1924 – December 4th, 2000. He really is the best role model for success that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Like many of you, I know this because he told me so.
Papa wasn’t boasting when he said this, he was just
telling you the way it is. If you were to measure a
man by the legacy he leaves behind Papa would come as
big as they get. In this way he is still a giant and
always will be.

Five children, 13 grandchildren, and a growing number
of great grandchildren, currently at 5 and a half,
make quite a legacy for Papa and Granny. Papa called
his great grandkids his Third Crop. Just on Sunday he
told me, “Boy, if I knew my Third Crop was going to be
this much fun, I would have had them first.”

We all miss Leon Bernstein, Mr. B., Dad, or Papa. But
our lives are so much richer from knowing him. Like
many of you here, I never really thought of living
without him in my life before now. Yet, I feel sorry
not so much for us, but for his Third Crop, for my
daughter, who will not get to know him. I speak to you
today to share with you some of the wisdom Papa has
taught me: some wisdom that needs to be passed on to
Papa’s Third Crop.

So here are some lessons or rules that Papa lived by,
rules that made him the Giant we all know.

Rule #1
“Don’t wait for it to completely break before you fix it.”
Papa would walk into your house and see a loose tile
in the kitchen. Two days later, he would show up with
his tools and mend it before it became a problem.
There is an old saying that says, “Kill a snake when
it is small”. Papa never had to deal with large
snakes.

Rule #2
“Stuff happens, just move on.”
Papa never dwelled on bad things, he would just move
on and, “Call that Wally”. I can not remember Papa
being mad for more than five minutes. He knew there
were much more important things to focus on. Like his
favorite sports team, or making sure everyone saw the
beautiful sunset from his balcony. Or just playing
with his grand and great grand children.

Rule #3
“Don’t waste time on stupidness.”
This rule could also be called, “I look stupid to
you?” or the “What de-yass is dat?” rule. Papa didn’t
have time for stupidity. On this topic, Papa was very
expressive. He always used his time and never wasted
it. On the same note, Papa was always fixing things
and if there was a smarter way to do things, or a
short-cut to use, Papa found it. It was usually just
after one of his time saving discoveries that Papa
beamed, and would say, “Man, Papa is a Giant!”

Rule #4
“Enjoy everything you have.”
For Papa, nothing was too small to be appreciated. He
made it an art to celebrate the little things in life.
From his morning coffee and jumble puzzle to a
handmade birthday card from a grandchild, Papa
appreciated all that life had to offer.

Rule #5
“Business is business and pleasure is pleasure.”
Papa had the amazing ability to put on and take off
his business cap. He never mixed the two. He had the
knack of being small town friendly and big business
savvy without ever letting one get in the way of the
other.

Rule #6
“Be small town friendly.”
I remember going to a shopping plaza early one
morning with Papa. A woman walked pass us as we got
out of the car and she said, “Good morning”. Papa
replied, “Good morning,” and then said, “You’re from
the islands.” The woman stopped and looked up oddly at
Papa wanting to know why he thought she was from the
islands? Papa replied, “Because you said good morning,
in a big city like this, people don’t talk to
strangers in parking lots”. Turns out she was from
Trinidad. Papa loved to get to know people. From a
sales clerk, to a door attendant, to a doctor, to a
President, Papa was a magnet that people could not
help but be drawn to.

Rule #7
“Never retire.”
This is what kept Papa young and fun. He didn’t
retire…He became a tiler, a carpenter, a chauffeur, a
landlord, a banker, a fund-raiser, a board member, a
baseball coach, a plumber, a jack of all trades. He
continued to learn and to grow. He did all this
without spreading himself too thin. He did all this
keeping his family a priority, after all his main job
was as a loving husband, father, grandfather, great
grandfather, and a true friend.

Rule #8
“Smile…a lot.”
With us, his second crop, and his third crop too,
Papa could often be found, laying down on the carpet
with kids playing on and around him. His smile would
light you up. He would nap on the floor in a crowded
room, wake up and pretend to be mad for 10 seconds or
so because his grandchildren put hair ties and clips
on him. We would laugh and then you would see a glint
in Papa’s eyes and a smile that was contagious. Papa
was happiest around family and that happiness was
contagious too.

Rule #9
“Take care of your family.”
If I had to rank these rules, this would be number 1
with Papa. From fixing your toilet, to helping you at
the bank Papa was always looking out for you. As I
look around this room, I think I’d be hard pressed to
find a single person that he didn’t do more for than
they did for him. When it comes to family and friends,
he is the best role model anyone could have.

Rule #10
Always remember… “Papa is a Giant!”

Papa B’s “Crop”, July 2007. His third crop count is now 10… and will continue to grow.

I thought I was going to spend the long weekend reading my book for our book club, but I had a Whole New challenge instead: Putting together a million piece puzzle for my kids to play on in our back yard…. swings, monkey bars, slide, fort, climbing wall, and picnic bench all neatly packed in boxes Ikea style… ‘some’ assembly required!

Today I was back at school and boy has reality hit! Tomorrow morning our Grade 8 team has to get the ball rolling for our yearly Renaissance Fair (coming in May); Tomorrow at lunch I start training a Leadership Crew to run a Grade 5 leadership retreat/afternoon at our feeder schools; Some time in the next two weeks I have to set up an afternoon to introduce this program to other middle school leadership teachers/admin; I am running a Pro-D session on ‘Starting Your Own Blog’ a week from Saturday and I still have a number of hours work to do to set things up; I have a sleepover fundraiser at the school in just over two weeks; and my kids are in musical theatre plays (playing at alternating performances) this Thursday & Friday night as well as two shows Saturday… yikes!

And then there is my class Science Alive! wiki. As I said in a comment earlier this week, “I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.”

I have done a pretty good job of getting my students going… but now as momentum builds I have come to the realization that I don’t have a marking rubric to guide me, or my students, as we move towards a final product.

My class is assembling a lego model without the instructions, or even the image of the final product on the front of the box. This isn’t a problem for the creative/motivated students; they will assembly a better model in ways that I could never have ‘instructed‘ them… but some students need structure, they have been fed it for years and expect it (even from yours truly – this isn’t finger pointing, it is observation).

I let technology supersede pedagogy.

On the bright side, I am a teacher in my 9th year and I’m loving the vitality and enthusiasm my attempts at a 2.0 Classroom have given me. So what if I am out of my comfort zone, as are some of my students. So what if learning is messy. Of course my approach will be more pedagogically sound next time... but as I start putting all the pieces together, I have come to the realization that some things are worth doing… even if some assembly is required!

Feedback and suggestions for the wiki are invited…

—

Images: 050724006lego05 & 050724007lego06 by quadrapop on flickr.

My most recent post, “I’m a mop not a sponge” , highlighted a metaphorical epiphany that one of my students had about his learning style. This post will look at metaphors I have found on my journeys through the blogosphere since then.

I’ll start with Lynn losing her glasses. Her Optical Powercut gave her a new perspective on things:

So, what have I learnt? That it’s good to look at things differently sometimes and everyone is much thinner than I thought!!

I think sometimes even ‘rose coloured glasses’ can impair our view of contrasting colours… and ideas!

Moving outward from personal ‘insight’, Carolyn examines classrooms with glass walls , she wonders about the safety of ‘open’ classrooms, but candidly admits,

One of the debates I’ve been having recently has to do with the publicness of learning through 2.0 tools like blogs. Don’t get me wrong. As someone who’s been blogging for almost nine years, and has a dozen different status messages broadcasting my moods & motions 24/7, I’ve set the bar low when it comes to my own privacy.

So we make ourselves ‘open books’ but justifiably worry about how ‘open’ our classrooms have become.

From our classrooms, Pete tells us about our children, The Wolves of Learning,

Our natural curiosity is like a wild animal; it hunts where it needs to in order to satisfy its deep hunger. As children, we awaken each day with an insatiable appetite to learn. It is in our early years that we are “wolves of learning”. There is a deep, DNA-based, natural connection between learning and survival; call it the burning relevance of the empty stomach.

Pete states that institutionalized learning has tamed, “The wildness of our natural curiosity…” and concludes very powerfully,

Let us find ways to give our children back their birthright, their natural curiosity and facility to learn. There have to be ways that we can organize our learning institutions to accommodate individual curiosity and the standardized curriculum. I believe that thoughtful educators can create environments that are less restrictive and provide much more natural habitat for learning. Let us find ways to foster the wildness and thrill of learning again. Let us answer the “Call of the Wild”.

This reminds me so much of the many links I provide in my metaphorically titled Square Peg, Round Hole post, which -each in their own way- comment rather eloquently on the misgivings of our schools… (Note Warlick’s Alien World and the very appropriate Animal School for other meaningful metaphors on this topic.)

And finally on a larger scale Miss Profe notes, in What Really Makes the World Flat, where the most meaningful ‘bridges’ can be made,

Global bridges are important and necessary. But, what about the bridges that can be built between, say, a suburban school and an urban school within the same community? What about making connections between people who can have a real impact on each other and who may be dealing with similar issues? We can visit and meet face-to-face, and see how mutual suggestions are benefiting each other. One does not need a blog or a wiki to do that.

This reminds me of one of my favorite metaphors I use with students, John Heider’s interpretation of Lao Tzu’s Ripple Effect found in The Tao of Leadership. Our ripples of influence may be far-reaching, but often our greatest influence can be closest to us, where our ripple can be felt most. Miss Profe concludes,

Developing a deeper understanding of one’s community and the people who live there can provide a transformative learning opportunity for students, and in the process, lead to a flatter world in the most profound sense. As we like to say, learning is messy, and there is nothing messier than connecting with The Other within one’s own backyard.

Although I agree with Miss Profe, and value her focus on impacting our own personal communities, I also think that our digital world has made it much easier to have an incredible impact on a global scale.

The world isn’t so much ‘flat’ as it is woven.

…and as I have said before, metaphors teach.

- – - -

Images: Glow by Steve Crane, bifocal by miss oddgers (Karen Rodgers), Celstial Artillery by jpstanley (Jeremy Stanley), Thanks All, you are my favorites by f2g2 (Florian), Divided we fall by mafleen (Kate Robison), Creative Commons by ocean.flynn (maureen Flynn-Burhoe), and CBC ‘Spring Carnival’ detail by Velma’s World (Velma Belchik).

Yesterday, I was in a meeting with a parent and one of my students, (why do teachers have parent meetings about a teenage student’s education and not have the student there too?)

The parent observantly noted that although her son could be physically in a room, he could often ‘disconnect’ and be elsewhere in his mind. For him to be more successful, he would need to engage more in what was going on. I told him, with all honesty, that I too had that problem to the point that my parents worried that I might have been on drugs (I wasn’t). It took until my Grade 13 year (Ontario, Canada) to recognize that I needed to be a participant in the classroom in order to ‘stay connected’.

As I was talking my student interrupted and said, “I just had a flash of insight, I’m a mop not a sponge!”

He got it! And today he proved it. He was a fully engaged participant in my Math lesson. I can hear myself in upcoming classes, “Remember to be the mop”.

We try to get ‘all the way down’ to the bottom of things when really what we need is insight into things. [Uhhhg! A perfect case-in-point: I just finished deleting an overdone, unnecessary paragraph describing this.]

We don’t need to ‘fix’ as much as we need to understand… (deeply, not literally).

We must dance to the music, not count the bars, or get to the final note.

Metaphors are the foundation of our thoughts. They assemble ideas, they construct meaning, they build understanding. They create learning.

Metaphors teach

Some Metaphor Resources:

Tick-Tack-Treat (This leadership lesson plan is a favorite from my retreat!) This includes an introduction to the use of Metaphors and Stories in Leadership Education taken from my Masters Paper.

Teaching Metaphors : Great stories that warm the heart, and teach the soul.

My del.icio.us tagged with ‘metaphor’