Down and Out: America

A year ago I began this blog. I had hoped to explore intersections between art and learning.  I could not know then that I would come to love composing a blog, nor did I anticipate that I actually might have more than a handful of readers, let alone a readership.  A year later, nearly 16,500 people have visited this blog from 117 countries. I am of course grateful for those who have stopped by and even more so for their comments, links, and references. The learning has been rich, varied, and inspiring.

I gave much thought as to what I wanted to post on this anniversary of sorts. For the last few year I have been making images of people who are down and out in America.  I had hoped that a slide show might help to place those who are largely forgotten in daily lives and certainly forsaken by our politicians (sold out again in debt ceiling deal) more squarely in our view.

The last few years have been particularly harsh for the poor. In the new forward to Nickle and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the toll the last few years have taken on the working poor.

Media attention has focused, understandably enough, on the “nouveau poor” -- formerly middle and even upper-middle class people who lost their jobs, their homes, and/or their investments in the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that followed it, but the brunt of the recession has been borne by the blue-collar working class, which had already been sliding downwards since de-industrialization began in the 1980s.

In 2008 and 2009, for example, blue-collar unemployment was increasing three times as fast as white-collar unemployment, and African American and Latino workers were three times as likely to be unemployed as white workers. Low-wage blue-collar workers, like the people I worked with in this book, were especially hard hit for the simple reason that they had so few assets and savings to fall back on as jobs disappeared.

The poor are hardly part of a national discourse.  They seem not to be visible.  I hope the images I composed during the last few years help to recenter them in our consciousness, make it impossible for any of us to simply walk on by.

The images were made in:

Banner, CA
Winterhaven, CA
Deerfield Beach, FL
Pompano Beach, FL
Osseo, MI
Camden, NJ
Hoboken, NJ
Long Branch, NJ
Morristown NJ
Newark, NJ
Paterson, NJ
Wanaque, NJ
West Milford, NJ
Manhattan (NYC)
Warwick, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Winner, SD
San Antonio, TX

Updated Global 2014 'Back to School' Books

Grades K-2

Ada, Alma Flor. 1993. My Name is María Isabel. Illustrated by K. Dyble Thompson. New York: Aladdin.
María Isabel is the new girl in school and instead of being called by her given name her teacher gives her a substitute name, Mary. A writing assignment provides an opportunity for Maria to express her feelings about her name to her teacher.

Alarcón, Francisco X. 2005. Para soñar el futuro/Dreaming Up the Future in Poems to Dream Together/Poemas para soñar juntos. Illustrated by Paula Barragán. New York: Lee & Low Books.
Lovely poem that explores what children might become in 20 years. Poem is written in Spanish and English.

Alarcón, Francisco X. 1999. Primer día de clases/First Day of School and Ángel de la Guarda/Guardian Angel. From Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems/Los Ángeles Andan en Bicileta y Otros Poemas de Otoño. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
Two poems about the first day of school.

Amado, Elisa. 2011. What Are You Doing? Illustrated by Manuel Monroy. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Before going to school for the first time, Chepito walks about his neighborhood finding all types of people engaged in meaningful reading.

Argueta, Jorge. 2006. Moony Luna: Luna, Lunita, Lunera. Illustrations by Elizabeth Goméz. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
First day of kindergarten for Luna - a bilingual [Spanish/English] picture book.

Ashley, Bernard. 1991. Cleversticks. Illustrated by Derek Brazell. New York: Dragonfly Boooks.
Ling Sung doesn't like school after the first day. Everyone in his class can do things he cannot. But, during the second day, Ling Sung does something only he can do.

Choi, Yangsook. 2001. The Name Jar. New York: Knopf.
Unhei's first days of school and the tribulations and triumphs of name.

Croza, Laurel. 2010. I Know Here. Illustrated by Matt James. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Although not a first day at school book, the little girl who narrates tells of what she knows about her town in northeastern Saskatchewan in an attempt to name what matters as she and her family ready to move to Toronto. Often think this is a powerful book for our time.

Figueredo, D.H. 2003. When This World Was New. Illustrated by Enrique O. Sanchez. New York: Lee & Low Books.
The story of a child's arrival to the United States, his anxiousness about going to school the next day, and the lovely surprise that awaits him when he wakes up.

Herrera, Juan Felipe. 2000. The Upside Down Boy / El niño de cabeza. Illustrated by Elizabeth Gómez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
Jaunito feels everything is upside down when he attends school for the first time. Bilingual [English/Spanish] picture book.

Hole, Stian. 2008. Garmann's Summer. Illustrated by Don Bartlett. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's Books for Young Readers.
At the end of summer, Garmann confronts his worries about change as he readies to go to school.

Kleven, Elisa. 2007. The Apple Doll. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Because she is scared to go to school, Lizzy's mom helps her to make a doll out of an apple she picks from her favorite tree. Great collage work.

Lee, Hyun Young.  2008. Something for School. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller Publisher.
Set in South Korea, a young girl's first day at kindergarten and feelings about being a girl.

Ljungkvist, Laura. 2011. Follow the Line to School. New York: Viking.
This is a continuation in a series of books in which the reader follows a line. In this case the line leads from room to room at a school on the first day.

Léonard, Marie. 2001. Tibili: The Little Boy Who Did Not Want to Go to School. Illustrated by Adrée Prigent. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller Publisher.
A tale about starting school set on the African savannah.

McNaughton, Colin. 2005. Once Upon an Ordinary School Day. Illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura. New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux.
A not-so-ordinary teacher, Mr. Ghee, changes an ordinary school day.

Pak, Soyung. 2003. Sumi's First Day of School. Illustrated by Joung Un Kim. New York: Viking.
First day of school for a Korean child at her new school.


Recorvits, Helen. 2003. My Name is Yoon. Illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
A Korean girl's adjustment to school.

Stock, Catherine. 1993. Where Are You Going, Manyoni? New York: Harper Collins.
A Zimbabwe child walks to school.

Stuve-Bodeen, Stephanie. 2007. Elizabeti's School. Illustrated by
Christy Hale. New York: Lee & Low Books.
Elizabeti's first day of school. While at school she wonders what her family is doing at home. The story is set in Tanzania.


Taulbert, C. L. 2001. Little Cliff's First Day of School. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.
Very reluctant to start school, Little Cliff is helped by his great-grandmother, Mama Pearl.

Young, Cybèle. 2011. A Few Blocks. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Ferdie does not want to go to school. His sister encourages him, bu engaging him in imaginative play, Extraordinary art by visual artists Cybèle Young.

Grades 3-5

Brand, Dionne. 2006. "Skipping Rope Song" in Earth Magic. Illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes. Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Books.
Two poems in this lovely and powerful collection of twenty poems, speak about childhood and school.




Campbell, Nicola I. 2008. Shin-chi's Canoe. Illustrated by Kim LaFave. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
This sequel to Shi-shi-etko, tells the story of brother and sister who are forced to attend a residential school in Canada.

-----------------------. 2005. Shi-shi-etko. Illustrated by Kim LaFave. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
The last four days prior to a young Canadian girl's removal from her family to attend a residential school in order to learn English language and culture. This is a challenging book to read aloud emotionally.

Grimes, Nikki. 2005. Danitra Brown, Class Clown. Illustrated by E.B. Lewis. New york: Harper Collins.
Danitra and her best friend, Zuri Jackson react to the start of school differently.  Told through poems.

Hughes, Langston. 2006. "To You" in Daphne Muse (compiler) The Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance. Illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb. New York: Harry N. Abrahms, Inc.

Jiménez, Francisco. 1998. La mariposa. Illustrated by Simón Silva. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
A son of migrant workers who has difficulty adjusting to a new school.

Khan, Rukhsana. 2009. A New Life. Illustrated by Nasrin Khosravi. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
A novella about an eight year old girl's experience emigrating from Pakistan to Canada, her first days at school, and adjusting to a new home.


Maher, Ramona. 2003. "September" in Alice Yazzie's Year. Illustrated by Shonto Begay. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Press.
An 11-year-old Navajo girl prepares to go to school.

McBier, Page. 2001. Beatrice's Goat. Illustrated by Lori Lohstoeter. New York: Aladdin.
A true story about a nine-year-old Uganda girl who is able to go to school.

Median, Tony. "My Princess Story" From DeShawn Days. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. New York: Lee & Low Books.
Told in verse, this poem about 10-year-old DeShawn tells how he would be the hero helping a neighborhood princess get to school safely through the streets.

Moss, Marissa. 2011. The Name Game! New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Daphne doodles, draws, and documents in her diary the disasters (just got braces, teacher forgets her name) from her first two days of fourth grade.

Nikola-Lisa, W. 2006. How We Are Smart. Illustrated by Sean Qualls. NY: Lee & Low.
Although not book about starting school it may provide a complementary way of thinking about how we are smart by reading aloud these brief biographical sketches.

Perez, L. King. 2002. First Day in the Grapes. Illustrated by Robert Casilla. NY: Lee & Low.
Chico, a 3rd grader's first day in a new school.

Roberts-Davis, Tanya. 2003. We Need to Go to School: Voices of the Rugmark Children. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Writing and drawings by Nepalese children who now attend school instead of being forced workers in carpet factories.

Ruurs, Margaret. 2009. My School in the Rain Forest: How Children Attend School Around the World. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill Press.
Informational text about 14 different school experiences in the world.

Schertle, Alice. 2007. We. Illustrated by Kenneth Addison. New York: Lee and Low.
A striking book-length poem that examines human evolution. An interesting way perhaps of seeing interconnections.

Grades 6 - 8

Burg, Ann E. 2013. Serafina's Promise. New York: Scholastic
Serafina, a Haitian child, wants to go to school to become a doctor. Stunning novel told in verse. Set in Haiti.

Gansworth, Eir. 2013. If I Ever Get Out of Here. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books.
In this novel, Lewis, a young boy from Tuscarora Indian Reservation begins his second year at a mostly white junior high school. A new arrival to the school becomes his friend and helps him to cope with bullies and loneliness.  Takes place in 1975, upper New York state.

Loyie, Larry. 2005. As Long as the River Flows. Illustrated by Heather D. Holmlund, Contributed to by Constance Brissenden. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
First person account of the summer prior to being taken away from his family and forced to attend a residential school.

Walker, Alice. 1998. "Women." From Catherine Clinton (Ed.) I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry. Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn, (p. 122). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Poem that explores lineage.

Wynne-Jones, Tim. 2013.  Rex Zero, the Great Pretender. New York: Farrar.
Un this novel, Rex pretends to go to his new school but instead goes to his former school. Takes place in 1963. Funny.

An Open Letter to Each Researcher Cited by PARCC in their Support of Close Reading

This is a copy of the email I sent to each researcher cited by PARCC as supporting close reading. I am interested in seeing their replies and will post accordingly with permission.

Dear Professor XXX,

I have been reading the Common Core Standards, PARCCs testing frameworks, as well as the cited research that these two groups list as support for close reading as the "guiding principle of the standards" and central focus of assessment for 60 million children. Frankly I am hoping you can explain how a single way of reading represents the whole of such an embodied act.  I'm a mom with a 12 year old son and the narrowness of this approach (imagine this is it for 13 years) makes more than a bit wary.

This is the paragraph that PARCC provides:

Close Reading of Texts

As noted above, the close reading model is a central guiding principle of the standards and as a result will be a central focus of the PARCC Assessment System. The Model Content Frameworks provide guidance for focusing on the close, sustained reading of complex text. Close reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining its meaning thoroughly and methodically. It emphasizes using texts of grade-level-appropriate complexity and focusing student reading on the particular words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs of the author, encouraging students to read and re-read deliberately. By directing student attention on the text itself, close reading empowers students to reflect on the meanings of individual words, the order in which sentences unfold, and the development of ideas over the course of the text — to ultimately arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. A significant body of research links the close reading of complex text—regardless if the student is a struggling reader or advanced—to significant gains in reading proficiency, and finds close reading to be a key component of college and career readiness.5

And this is the 'research' (not sure all of this actually is research) cited:

1. Ericcson, K. A., and W. Kintsch. 1993. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review 100(3):363–406; 
2. Plant, E. A., et al. 2005. Why study time does not predict grade point average across college students: Implications of deliberate practice for academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology 30; 
3. Ericcson, K. A., and W. Kintsch. 1999. The Role of Long Term Working Memory in Text Comprehension. Psychologia;  
4. Kintsch, W. 2009. Learning and constructivism. Constructivist Instruction: Success or failure? eds. Tobias and Duffy. New York: Routledge; 
5. Hampton, S., and E. Kintsch. 2009. Supporting Cumulative Knowledge Building Through Reading. In Adolescent Literacy, Field Tested: Effective Solutions for Every Classroom, eds. Parris, Fisher, and Headley. International Reading Association; 
6. Heller, R., and C. Greenleaf. 2007. Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education; 
7. The Education Trust. 2006. Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students; ACT. 2006. Reading Between the Lines. 

Which text that you've written from this cited list would you recommend that I read that might explain why close reading should be the only approach an entire country adopts for all of its public school children? I am thinking about this as quite recently my husband and I were talking about Seamus Heaney's wonderful book, The Spirit Level.  You may have read it. Heaney closes the book with the poem, Postscript.

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

I was telling my husband that the closing lines of the poem stopped my breath and did what I suspect the poet might have wanted, caught my heart off guard and blew it open. My husband said how when he read the poem--read it aloud, he recalled a rather cool morning in Ireland when the two of us, much younger than we are now, were motoring about, newly in love, and had stopped in at a pub for a bit of hot tea. He was recalling how soothing that morning had been.

I'm pretty sure we weren't having a 'close reading' lesson when we read The Spirit Level. In some ways we might have been following cummings' adage about feelings being first. I worry that this 'read like a detective' (David Coleman's phrase, not mine) dictum will harm my child, narrow his understanding of the many reasons we read, and above all else will dim his pleasure of the text.

I am curious as to what you have to say as it is your work that is cited in support of such a single method of reading to be exclusively used for all children beginning at age 8 until they exit the system at 17 or 18. I await your response.

Sincerely,
Mary Ann Reilly

How Ready Are You for the Connected Child at Your School? In the Classroom?

During the next few weeks, millions of students will return to school. In this post I want to provide a quick glimpse into the at-home world of a connected child in order to ask how teachers and adminsitrators have gotten ready to teach this type of learner. What pedagogical, content, and policy changes are you making at the classroom, school, and district levels to accommodate the connected child?

For the connected child, the world is no longer defined by local geography alone. Instead, the connected child interacts with others from across the globe. For example, one 'news source' of the London riots in our home were three children my son skypes with daily from London who shared impressions they had while living in the city and listening to and learning from their families, friends and through direct observations. These first person accounts occurred as a result of sustained online relationships. How will teachers and administrators continue these relationships at school? Is there a mechanism, a process put into play that even seeks to find out how the connected child interacts in the world? Will school boards permit children, not just high school teenagers, to be connected at school to others they may not at first know? How will you help the connected child to not experience a forced claustrophobia of the 20th century classroom?

For the connected child digital use is on demand, not in a lab or when some more powerful other says it's okay to use technology. Outfitted with a smartphone, s/he thinks through that phone, problem solves, plays, communicates through a variety of forms, and interacts with others. How will smartphone technologies and other Internet-ready devices be employed at your school and in your district? The biggest question: who will control the use of these devices? The connected child has and/or is learning how to responsibly use technology at home. How will this learning be augmented at school?

The connected child has learned to problem solve via peer to peer relationships and online resources. Sharing gaming spaces via multiple player games, the connected child frames and negotiates problems alongside others, sharing control of screens, supporting the world building of self and other, and situating problem solving not in a pass-fail framework more typically found in the testing culture of schools. One doesn't 'fail' in gaming worlds in the same deterministic manner one fails at school. In gaming worlds, 'failing' is a viable option that leads forward. It is not an end. For example, my son asked one of his coplayers to 'kill' him because he needed to be respawned in order to be in better health to enter a cave and engage monsters. He explained that had he entered the cave with the quality of health he had at that moment in the game, he would not have been able to defeat the monsters. Failing in the gaming world may be a strategic step. There's often little to no 'respawning' in the classroom where the plethora of teacher generated quizzes, checks, and tests are one way roads built on the belief that the learner must be able to show what s/he knows at the moment. I have even heard teachers and administrator explain that it would be 'unfair' to allow students the occasion to retake assessments. Further tests and testing environments are to a large degree self determined. Trial and error are an expected method for the connected child. How do you reconcile the connected child who thinks strategically with the monologic classroom?

Further, the connected child uses online resources to solve problems and build important requisite knowledge. Whereas I may still need to remember to use Yelp as opposed to waiting to find a phonebook, my son's reference-finding process has largely been online and he gravitates first to solving problems using online sources, such as YouTube, apps, or skype. It is not unusual on a car trip to hear my son say, "I can skype with X and let you know." How will you facilitate this type of learner in the classroom and the school? How will you react when there is a skype signal for an incoming connection?


The connected child is one who learns via passions. Affinity spaces represent passionate learning spaces of a child, connected or not. According to Wikipedia:

An affinity space is a place where informal learning takes place. According to James Paul Gee, affinity spaces are locations (physical or virtual) where groups of people are drawn together because they share a particular common, strong interest or are engaged in a common activity.[1] Often but not always occurring online, affinity spaces encourage the sharing knowledge or participating in a specific area, but informal learning is another outcome.

The connected child participates in affinity spaces as a regular and reoccurring practice. passionate affinity spaces differ from traditional schooling in some very important ways. According to Gee (2011):

1. People chose to associate with passionate affinity spaces. They can achieve expert status regardless of credentials, age, role, race, gender, ethnicity, sociology-economic status.
2. Usually at least 20% of the people will have a deep passion, not just a passing interest in the learning being composed int he affinity space.
3. People can produce (knowledge, create things, do things), not only consume, in these spaces.
4. People sometimes lead, sometimes follow.
5. Knowledge is distributed: different people know different things and can share their knowledge as they need, when they need.
6. Affinity spaces are open, newcomers are welcome to join at will, not just at prescribed times.
7. Affinity spaces are about people sharing a common endeavor and learning things.

There is deep learning that happens in passionate affinity spaces, not just surface know-how. As a result, the connected child is experienced with learning deeply via sustained playing/participation. For example, as the child of two English teachers we have wanted our son to appreciate and practice accuracy and precision in published work. We have watched as he has learned that accuracy matters as he writes code associated with gaming. "One small error and it won't run," he tells us. "It has to be accurate." Another friend of his has said he is learning about multiplication via the buildings and worlds he is designing and creating. This connected child knows when his designs work--when he has gotten the math right. How will the classroom, school, and district facilitate such choice and depth and inspire precision, accuracy, and self reflection? How will you reconcile the disconnect between mandated standards and passion-based learning?

The connected child is engaged in solving world problems. For example, my son recently asked me to to take a look at something he had designed and built in Minecraft. He showed me a building he designed that rebuilds itself when damaged and a bridge that also is self- repairing. He designed these in order to safeguard his world from those who might want to blow up one of more of his buildings. Through play though he was also to make a connection to social need not located in a game, but in life. My son tells me his designs would be much more complicated in actual life but could be a big help with urban renewal and places where there is war. If I can put all the electric work beneath ground then it could help the poor, he tells me. They wouldn't be dependent on others. They could have places to live that were reliable, self-repairing. In what ways will the connected child's classroom based learning allow him/her to solve real world problems in age appropriate manners?

The connected child expects to communicate with others s/he knows and has yet to meet. After watching hours and hours of video, my son decided to make his own videos about specific aspects of gaming. This is not unique as many others are doing similar self initiated work. This work though requires the learner to know how to make the film using software and or an app, format the film, and upload it to a site where it can be seen. Equally important are all the decisions about what content and processes will be delineated in the film.

The connected child expects to pull an audience, not simply perform in front of a ready made one, such as classmates. I have seen my son advertised his server on Planet Minecraft and Minecraft Forum in order to pull audiences in. He wants other Minecraft players to select his server to play. He thinks about ways to upgrade and manage his server.

At home my husband and I have been wondering about the often 'smallness' of school based learning and the more worldly experience our child enjoys via his connection to others. We wonder if his teachers and principal even are aware of such learning. We wonder how they have been preparing themselves for the connected child and 'readying' the school of the last century for the child of this century. We wonder if the rather rote and increasingly dull exercises that have framed our son's school based learning to date will drive him from a place we know as school as he ages and how we will support such leaving. We worry that the benefits of school will be lost, obfuscated beneath the narrowness of test-based curricula, national standards, and the lost of teacher autonomy.

Instead of issuing readiness tests to students to see if they are 'ready' for school, I wonder if we don't need to test ourselves and see how ready we are for the students.

The Role of Teacher in Passion-Based Learning

I have been considering the role of teacher as we explore the idea of personalization and passion-based learning. I understand the value and necessity of passion-based learning and want to suggest that it does not exist as some absolute and certainly is not simply about a learner and his/her interest.  Instead, imagine passion-based learning as dialogue that occurs among learners, teachers, mentors, and community-based others.  Passion-based learning isn't about our interests, but rather about the ideas, curiosities, mysteries, and possibilities that are engendered in juxtaposition with one another. At the center of such engagements are the learner and the teacher.

The definition of teacher is important to name as we wade into less anchored times where the idea of teacher is being challenged as being necessary. Consider for example, Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011) who offer this vision of learning:

In the new culture of learning, people learn through their interaction and participation with one another in fluid relationships that are the result of shared interests and opportunity. In this environment, the participants all stand on equal ground—no one is assigned to the traditional role of teacher or student. Instead, anyone who has particular knowledge of, or experience with, a given subject may take on the role of mentor at any time. Mentors provide a sense of structure to guide learning, which they may do by listening empathically and by reinforcing intrinsic motivation to help the student discover a voice, a calling, or a passion. Once a particular passion or interest is unleashed, constant interaction among group members, with their varying skills and talents, functions as a kind of peer amplifier, providing numerous outlets, resources, and aids to further an individual’s learning (Kindle Location 587-593).

I appreciate the bold ideas Thomas and Brown offer in A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, but think their vision does not capture well the idea of teacher.  I believe that much will be lost if we abandon the role of teacher in lieu of peer to peer learning or community-based mentorship. Now to be clear, I believe both peer-based learning and community mentors are very important correlates to learning and are under used in our current realization of school.

When I think about teacher, I think of Madeline Grumet's (1995) definition. She writes: 

When we say that we are educating someone, we are introducing that person, young or old, to ways of being and acting in the world that are new to his or her experience (p. 17).

To introduce learners to ways of being and acting in a world new to the learner's experience requires the teacher to act as bricoleur: one who cobbles together materials at hand to serve new uses. The teacher as bricoleur (I've written about this here) is the master teacher as s/he is able to anticipate, occasion, deepen, and complicate learning. Teaching well isn't singularly following a learner's passion and supporting it, however worthy such art and craft might be. Teaching well also means leading the learner into ways of being and acting that are foreign to their experience and as such not yet a passion.  Teaching well means occasioning a learner's intellectual frustration and scaffolding such experiences so that learners come to know the power of ambiguity, uncertainty, loss, and joy.

I have been thinking about this for several reasons: I have been taught by such teachers, have worked alongside such teachers, have married such a teacher, and have friends who are such teachers.  I know via these relationships what it means to be in the company of teachers and would not want that denied to learners regardless of how personalized an education we might be able to offer students. There is something to be said for the unimagined, impossible to plan, and random learning that happens in the company of fine teachers.

So what does this all mean?  Teachers matter. Their brilliance, tentativeness, failures, kindness and courage matter.  I want to say, America, we would be fools to abandon such importance.

A point of illustration: Earlier today I was reading Michael Doyle's (@BHS_Doyle) latest post, Natural World. He's a teacher who teaches high school biology in NJ. He writes:

My goal is for kids to know less by June than they knew in September, a whole lot less. Good science can be as tenuous as the wisp of a shrew's breath.

Until they know this, and it's easier to grasp when entropy takes its toll over the years, as knowledge of your inevitable path creeps into cerebral shadows, I fear I am wasting their time.

Until they know this, maybe pushing them outside, a copy of Seamus Heany's Human Chain in one hand, a cheap plastic magnifying glass in the other, is enough science for a period, for a lifetime.

The path outside with poem book and magnifying glass in hand may not and likely will not be a route learners would claim via their passion.  All the better then to make that road. Know this: Alongside finding one's passion(s) as learning method, we also need to embrace the ambiguity of not knowing & walk that road too.  And yes there will and can be lots of guides.

Nonetheless, the guide I'd most want to walk alongside is a teacher.


Works Cited:
Grumet, Madeline. 1995. The curriculum: What are the basics and are we teaching them? In J.L. Kinchoe & S.R. Steinberg. Thirteen questions: Reframing education's conversation. 2nd edition (pp. 15-21). New York: Peter Lang.


Thomas, Douglas (2011). A New Culture of Learning:  Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (Kindle Locations 587-593). CreateSpace. Kindle Edition.

Not Your Father's PLN

I. Calling London

At first it was a bit disconcerting. My husband, son and I were driving from northern New Jersey to Washington D.C. to participate in the SOS March. From the back of the car I could hear my son talking. I turned and saw him hunkered down in the seat, wearing headphones and holding his phone. He was clearly chatting, not talking to himself.

Who are you talking to?


Tom.


Tom?


Yeah, Tom from London.

Tom from London is a 13 year old boy who plays Minecraft on my son's server. My son is 12. He and a half dozen boys, ranging from 9-years-old to 13-years-old, are avid players of Minecraft. The boys are from London, New Jersey, Russia, and Pennsylvania. In some important ways these boys are a PLN (Personal Learning Network), not that any of them would define themselves in such a manner. But they do learn from one another and do so based on a shared passion.

A few things my son says he has learned a lot about during the last few weeks his server has been up and running include: how to work with others, how to run a good server, how to explain installation process of mods, how to build together, how to give and take ideas, how to build from someone's idea, how to script, how to model, and how to resolve problems when they arise. During this learning, the boys are also learning about one another: siblings, where they live, currency, geography, and all things Minecraft. My son is adamant that this playing is not learning.

It's not like school, he tells me repeatedly.

Sadly, I think he's right.


II. Marking Time

I imagined my mom, deceased these last 11 years, along for the ride to DC and what she might have to say about the technology that allows a 12 year old while in a moving car in the United States to talk with a boy he has never met who is in London.

I can imagine her saying:

But Mary Ann, think of the cost. This must be quite dear.


Not really mom. He's skyping and it is free.

I mark time by death. My mother's passing in 2000 in many ways marks the ushering in of a world she would have delighted in, marveled at, and have been puzzled by--perhaps in the same breath. We live at a time when Internet technologies alter how we live--alter our very definitions of friendship and intimacy. My mom's friends were all people she knew. She would have had no trouble picking out a friend in a crowd. For me such definition no longer works. There are people I have "met" via Twitter who I have shared intimacies with and yet we have never physically met.  Alongside this new knowledge, I also recognize that there is a niggling distrust I carry with me of naming people I have met on line as friends.  This is a fear-based conditioning I am relinquishing as the conversations I have with these new friends morph, take on weight, allow me to adjust my schema.

For my son, the lines between physically meeting and meeting on line are inconsequential, not even a line to traverse. His idea of friend is not based on a singular reality. My son tells me he has no interest in limiting by definition what a friend is.  I push a bit and he says, A friend is someone who isn't mean, shares interests, and makes sense.   Age oddly isn't that important.

III. Seeing in the Dark

Last Tuesday during #EDCHAT, the idea of PLNs were discussed.

I wanted to suggest that the task may be for us, as educators, to recognize students' PLNs as being meaningful and to lean in and try to learn, especially from those learning networks based on student-determined passions and ones that may well reside outside of school. An important task is for us to relinquish definitions we have about learning and school. We need to look at things as they are. 

Wallace Stevens in "The Man with the Blue Guitar," tells us:

Throw away the lights, the definitions,
And say of what you see in the dark


That it is this or that it is that,
But do not use the rotted names.

Rotted names.  I think about this, about our trip to Save Our Schools March, and wonder if the one reform we must do is one that is more personal, less institutional.  What rotted names do we repeat that keep us stuck in a time long gone? How do we allow ourselves to peer in the dark and say what we see?

Surely some of the language we use at schools has rotted. Just as my definition of friendship needs to be updated, stretched, made more inclusive--so too do we need to acknowledge that our students' learning sources will most likely be beyond the purview of school. Internet-based technologies allow for personal learning in ways most of us could not imagine a decade ago. It is simply foolish to shut the door on these actual learning networks simply because they aren't institutionalized.

Our conversation about engendering student-based PLNs, must begin with us acknowledging that alternative learning networks our students already name as their own need to be privileged.

Community Partners in Learning: Grow it Green

Entrance to the Urban Farm at Lafayette

In earlier post, I wrote about the concept of learning walks:

...learning walks are rhizomatic.  They are inherently about being in the middle of things and coming to learn what could not been predetermined. Learning walks are part of the "curriculum" for instructional seminar (which I described here).

In explaining the learning desired via instructional seminar, I wrote:

One of the outcomes sought via instructional seminar from an institutional point of view, is that students will deepen their capacities to read, write, and problem solve. Initially, invited students to seminar have been "identified" by teachers and based on former course and state test performances.  I think of this year as a bridge year: a way to span the great difference between the factory model of lab classes and a more rhizomatic understanding of learning.  As the practice embodied in seminar becomes better established, any student could opt in and out of seminar.  Seminar is not an assigned course as no credit is earned, but rather an academic service. One might think of academic seminar as a learning center.

What is different though about instructional seminar is that tacit knowledge is critical, not ancillary. And so one might ask, how would walking about help a student to read, write, or problem solve better?  These cognitive processes are deeply influenced by our tacit knowledge.  For example, I can engage in complex reading, writing, and problem solving based on the narrative my reading of the images I made on the learning walk suggests. The walk may well anchor future expressions and inquiries.  Instead of beginning with explicit knowledge, learning walks allow for embodied learning. This difference is critical and may well be difficult for many to understand. Learning is not determined but encountered within the experiences and as such is rhizomatic.

'

Farmer Shaun

A few days ago I was visiting Farmer Shaun at the Urban Farm at Lafayette in Morristown, NJ. The Urban Farm is one of two community gardens developed by Grow it Green Morristown. The agricultural teaching farm is located on land owned by the Morris School District. The garden is located about 75 feet from where I park my car most days.  

Urban Farm is described as follows on the Grow it Green website:

Working on land owned by the Morris School District, the garden showcases the transformation of an underutilized former school yard, into a living classroom for the estimated 4,700 children of the Morris School District, as well as our local community.  Additionally, the produce from the garden will be donated to the District and to area food banks. 

The teaching garden is located at the Lafayette Learning Center on Hazel Street, in one of Morristown’s most diverse neighborhoods.  When we envisioned this project,  we had a strong commitment to securing this specific site,  believing that this garden will be so much more than just a place where plants grow.  It will be a place where community grows.  It is our hope that through creating a place of beauty and learning in the heart of this community that people from across the County will come together - people who might otherwise never had the opportunity to meet one another - to share in the experience learning the art and science of growing food.

So the other day while I was at the farm talking with Shaun, I wondered about this site being one of our community partners for Instructional Seminar. I was thinking that this garden might become a destination by some high school students during learning walks.  I discussed the idea with Shaun who was incredibly positive and added that so much could be learned about design in addition to science, mathematics, and history.

Standing among the asparagus, corn, flowers, basil, beets, carrots, sunflowers, okra, kale, and radishes (to name but some)--it seemed to me that the garden is a compelling learning space just waiting for high school students to populate it.  I imagine it as an aesthetic place every bit as much as it is a farm. Paolo Freire wrote:

It is the same for us--whether we are Latin American school-children, students in Asia or university teachers in Europe or America: friend, please never lose your capacity for wonder and astonishment in the world which you regard and in which you live.

Next September when learning walks begin at the high school, I am hopeful that the Urban Farms will become a location students want to visit and dwell.