Fingers of firelight on the wall

"This is the best day of my life!" The kindergartner in the front row looked up expectantly. The announcement that I would share a story elicited that exuberant exclamation. While they enjoy being read to, most students LOVE to hear/participate in a good story.

I laughed. My heart leaped up with joy. Seven small words had just altered the course of my entire day.

At school, without any clerical support, I cannot do the job justice. I am often torn between doing those things that make a library functional and those things that make a library soar....those things that focus on individual student needs and things that put the books on the shelf. What makes it possible to carry on is simply those sweet faces looking up expecting that something wonderful will happen within this inadequate space.

I would like my library to be a sanctuary. A place where children can come and seek knowledge or wisdom or imagination without being judged. I know that we must support the mission of learning to read. But that doesn't limit the real work of a library. Library is not a subject -- it is not about a particular type of media --- A library reaffirms that all of human knowledge can be organized and made accessible even to young minds. Its cornerstone is questioning and critical thought which challenges commonly held beliefs of grown-ups.

These lofty goals begin with a young child who loves to hear a story. The old tales and nursery rhymes carry the wisdom of our cultural heritage. The message of truth, faithfulness, unconditional love, justice, and mercy. The library may be the only place that students have the opportunity to experiment with these treasures.

"Who does not remember the old tales? Fingers of firelight on the wall, lances of
sleet on the shutter, Whoever does not remember the old tales has lost the key
that opens the door of life."

It should not come as a surprise that such magic depends less on reality than on a child's anticipation that today will be the best day of her entire life...as the tale begins.

I've done with flags

Last Saturday as I walked among the graves at Mt. Olivet, an ancient Southern cemetery, I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. Next to many gravestones fresh Civil War battle flags were planted. These graves often had bronze plaques telling of their service to country (not the U.S.). They are maintained by Sons of the Confederate War Veterans who rightfully wish to preserve this piece of our heritage. Yet, as I looked around I was certain that some of these stones were also those of citizens who supported the Union (a word carefully avoided on the bronze plaques). Tennessee was the last state to secede and it was the first to re-unite with the Union following the conflict.

War always leaves a trail of death and hatred in its wake --- maybe that is what I was feeling when I wrote this:

I'm done with flags
That in death divide us
Fields of cloth stained red with blood
Charging into battle colors flying
To fields of green
Now soon-to-be stained red with blood

We mark the divides with
Graves that sprout stars and bars
Next to those that would sprout stars and stripes
While the dead lie, oblivious, at peace
Sharing the same earth
Sharing the same sky

It is left to the living
Who are stirred
By blood stained rags
Crying for "justice"
Crying "avenge the wrongs"
So that we, too,

Can charge into battle
Blood-stained colors flying
So that we, too, have their chance
To lie here in the same earth
Under the same sky
At peace with their mortal enemies

I'm done with flags
That in death divide us, the living!

Among the tombs....Shelley

I spent the afternoon with friends wandering among the tombstones in Mt. Olivet Cemetery here in Nashville. The skies were overcast and occassionally spit rain so we began our time together in Confederate Memorial Hall. This building built into the side of the hill was originally where bodies were stored for burial. In this crypt-like structure we learned about the many famous historical figures who were buried in this old cemetary. I was unprepared for how I would feel as I poked about among the graves. When the sun finally forced aside the clouds and the air became warmer, I sat under a beautiful old Magnolia tree listening to the cicadas sing. Unlike the dog days of summer, when they deafen, this song now was anemic rising to a crescendo and then stopping suddenly as if they forgot their purpose.

In the distance I heard the hymn of interstate traffic occassionally punctuated by a truck ratcheting up - shifting gears. As I sat observing, I noticed the old Magnolia was covered with the skeletons of thick vines that had long ago been hacked off at the ground level. There bones formed a thick network and at one time probably posed a threat to the survival of the tree itself. As my eyes traveled down the trunk my attention was caught by tiny green English Ivy all around its base. Some of these tiny ivy were beginning their relentless march up the trunk again. How transitory is the work we do!

It reminds me of the poem my great Uncle Frank used to quote to me as a young adult,

Ozymandias- Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; .

And on the pedestal these words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my works. Ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

My Old Brown Earth; lament in joy

A dear friend died this month, far too young. It was not unexpected. She had cervical cancer years ago and the radiation had left a great deal of scar tissue that damaged her digestive system making it increasingly difficult to process food for her own nourishment. As I looked at her picture, it was hard to imagine a world without that infectious smile and those sparkling eyes. She was beautiful in every respect of the word with a spirit that welcomed, accepted, and encouraged her students and friends. I was deeply mourning the fact that her memorial occurs when I have a commitment at the opposite end of the country....and cannot attend.

Then, tonight, I was listening to a PBS tribute to Pete Seeger. It ended with his song...

To my old brown earth

And to my old blue sky

I'll now give these last few molecules of "I."

And you who sing,

And you who stand nearby,

I do charge you not to cry.

Guard well our human chain,

Watch well you keep it strong,

As long as sun will shine.

And this our home,

Keep pure and sweet and green,

For now I'm yours

And you are also mine.

Farewell dearest Sue. Your molecules are now scattered to the old brown earth and the old blue sky.....you are indeed stardust.....as you were golden.

Another year gone....

Each new school year comes to us unsoiled and fresh - new binders filled with pristine white paper waiting the touch of colorful ink from marvelous new glitter gel pens! Think back to those years when you were a school child getting ready for the excitement of a new school year. There was the organization of your underware and brand new socks that matched your wardrobe. Your clothes meticulously laid out and waiting the dawn. Maybe you loved getting everything organized – ready for that first morning when you arrived and found your name outside of one of the classrooms on a roster….REMEMBER?

It was for me always the idea of a fresh start – what I had failed to accomplish last year could be placed on this year’s to- do list. It was a time to acknowledge connections with the wider community of learners, A time to welcome another year, forgetting what was past and looking hopefully toward the future. It was a time to take stock of things. A time to celebrate all that was possible! All that lay ahead!

As we begin the year, I hear "There is so much to be done! We don't have time to do in depth planning now. It's a bad time of year. " Then by the time December rolls around I hear, " We really have to push for the TCAP (state mandated tests) at the moment. There are so many skills that must be mastered, we just don't have time right now to work on something that isn't directly related to testing." As the end of the year approaches I hear, "We are all so exhausted and all is so unsettled. We are not even sure what assignments we will have next year. It is not a good time to look ahead and plan for next year right now. ."

And so it goes, days pass, years vanish....and we walk sightless among the miracles. Change grinds so slowly, and in a world that values small discrete skills over creativity, imagination, and curiosity there is little incentive for the kind of shift that must take place. The state education agency which has taken over many of our schools because we are not meeting NCLB deadlines says innovation should be set aside until we master the basics --- but I wonder if this approach isn't entirely wrong headed.

When my daughter was in 1st grade and I eagerly attended my first parent teacher conference. I was stunned to learn that while others in her class were in readers, she was not. In my surprise I spoke candidly. "Noelle reads to me each night from the books I used as a second grade reading teacher."

"That's not possible." replied the astonished teacher."She is still having difficulty with diphthongs and ending blends." She pulled out some examples of phonics worksheets. Again in my surprise and candor, I said, "But she is reading fluently. Isn't phonics utilized to help children learn to read? Why would you insist on these phonics worksheets if a child is already reading?" I realized that I had crossed a line. Her demeanor altered and she stiffened noticeably. "All students must have a working knowledge of phonics if they are to succeed in reading" was her response.

It is still the same. Students must demonstrate that they know their letter sounds even if they arrive reading! We seem mired in formulas. There is lip service in technology to reform and using authentic learning experiences where children participate in their education in a more direct way, but this philosophy flies in the face of the back to basics, linear, one size fits all approach that happens in most skills instruction.

Everything we know says children are unique and learn via different modalities. Their learning is paced not by age or grade, but by the interaction of experience, support, and other variables. Students must interact and create meaningful connections with their understanding and new information. How long will it be before teachers receive the kind of support they need to change this teaching model?

We measure what we value?

We have just completed our spring standardized testing rituals at school, and once again I am left with that empty feeling that what we measure is not what we need to be measuring. Many people have warned us about this over the years of the 20th century.

We measure I.Q. and assign vast importance to this figure. Yet, as I grow older I wonder just what it really measures. We force students to take SATs and ACTs and GREs to predict if they can succeed in college. I wonder if these tests really predict success? Here is an amazingly important challenge issued to what we test for during the 1968 presidential election by Robert Kennedy.

Thinking about Metaphors and Monday!

Monday, April 28th, will be a staff development day. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a whole day to spend exploring--listening to inspiring speakers, talking about 21 century education and how it is different from what we are doing, sharing our dreams and our fears! Wouldn't it be great to spend the day getting comfortable and acquainted with some of the ideas that all the new technology is designed to bring us? What happened on Friday brought all these thoughts bubbling to the surface.

A teacher asked for help saving a project that a middle school student had produced and loaded on the school's homepage. Unfortunately, her district machine had been locked down, and she had no rights to download the current edition of Quicktime, to make seeing it possible. I could display the project on my laptop because I had the right software, but I could not burn it to my CD. I tried several different routes, but had no success, and since I'm not permitted the right click I couldn't even trouble shoot. I will have to wait until our faithful technician shows up.

Disappointed, when I told her I couldn't find a way to do it. she said. "I can't believe you couldn't do it." Puzzled, I looked at her and said, "Why, do you say that?" Her response? "You know everything about this stuff."

"How can you say that? There are a million things I don't know," I shot back incredulous! Her reality and mine were certainly at odds. Over the past seven years, I disconnected from technology because of an unsupportive environment. As a result I feel as much of a novice as I did in 1993. Still this teacher thought of me as an expert.

This difference between what is and what we believe to be is one reason we have a critical need for time together to explore what is available, to see places where technology is being integrated wisely, and to try on different technologies to see what fits us.

One of the things we need to explore is this dynamic that someone knows everything --- the guru. The metaphor for technology is a network where everyone contributes. We need to help everyone catch a glimpse of it. We share its blessings and struggle with it curses together -- equally. The truth is that those at the top of the network don't know how to do everything either. Because of increasing complexity, we all need to share what we learn as we become comfortable with it. The Laubach model of literacy applies. Each one teach one.

Playing the Organ is a little like Web 2.0

Incorporating Web 2.0 tools has been a goal for me at school this year. The fact that I am so slow to incorporate these tools places me at the bottom of the food chain of educational technology bloggers. My experience this year has reminded me of a distant time when my husband was studying Organ Performance at Syracuse University. I had been playing the piano for a long time, but certainly not at the level of a keyboarding student at Syracuse. I thought it would be fun to learn to play the organ, too, and Will O. Headlee who was the head of the Organ Department obliged by offering me lessons.



I was thinking how Web 2.0 is very like my experience on the organ. Being a listener or receiver of the beauty of the instrument is what the Internet has been about...but now it is interactive and messy and like an automic reaction as people contribute their gifts....So it was for me. I would contribute, my meager talents to the long line of those who played at this console.

I don't know why Headlee decided to extend himself for me. Perhaps he thought it would be interesting to teach someone so lacking in gifts. Perhaps it was a chance to hone his skills on someone who was a rank beginner. In any case, once a week I went for my lesson on the Magnificent Holtkamp that dominated Crouse Hall. I let my own embarrassment interfere with what might have been a really remarkable experience. I was so embarrassed, I would get up to do my practice on the majestic instrument at 3:00 a.m. on Friday mornings. I wanted to be certain that no one to heard me.

It is not so different now. I deal with teachers who feel embarrassed because they are coming late to the table. I want them to know that there is a place at the table for them and for me. We are all late to dinner. Me because I have been out of the loop for the past seven years, and they because they were not being propelled into technology by our district. They are just beginning to experience some of the blessings that will make them want to be more proficient users.

With luck we will all have a Will O. Headlee of technology who rather than make fun of our foibles will consider it an opportunity to learn and hone her own technology teaching. Above is the Holtcamp Organ being played just this January....It still looks and sounds as awe-inspiring as I remember it!

Ferengi is US - How much am I bid for the future of education?

Bowker published its Annual with some ominous data, and independent publishers discussed the changing landscape where hedgefunds buy and sell them forcing staff cuts and requiring a 25% profit on any book published. In the past, wildly popular books helped to pay for those which were deemed worthwhile, but not so profitable. Harry Potter could have supported several hundred perhaps. Benefit to society? PRICELESS!

Independent bookstores used to buy niche books and stock unusual gems waiting to be discovered, but large chains pushed them out of business. We consoled ourselves with the thought that at least there were a number of national chains - Today I read that Borders may be going under- falling prey to Barnes & Noble. Independence and diversity? Cost to society? PRICELESS!

Libraries once had the buying power to keep independents alive, but Cuts to library funding are ever popular in a world where personal gain is the yardstick by which to measure success. Impact of the Loss of Library purchasing power? PRICELESS

Libraries are pressured to throw out (weed) books that are more than a few years old. They no longer provide an opportunity for authors to be discovered or re-discovered on a dusty shelf by that unique reader. In doing this they are forced to ignore Ranganathan's 2nd & 3rd laws. As a result authors do not have the time needed to find their readers because the time they sit on a shelf waiting for that right reader to arrive is too short. Cost to readers? PRICELESS

I remember the joy of finding Generation of Vipers on my high school library shelf in the late 1960s. Published in 1942, I glimpsed a world that was already disappearing. That book lead me to Wylie's ficitonal classic, When Worlds Collide, published in 1933. My librarian would have been given a warning for having aged tomes on her shelves in today's world. But, thankfully that was a different time, and I, the reader found my books! Today, readers are denied the joy of finding such treasures. Cost to Authors and Publishers and readers? PRICELESS!

As a school librarian I am writing about these issues because reading and learning are individual and personal - they cannot be mass produced - they spread virally. I am writing about this because thinking and learning cannot be reduced to a profit/loss or test/measure mentality.

Finally, I am writing about this because the gift of education is not the sole purview of formal public or private schools and universities!

As a public librarian in Clovis, N.M., in the 1980s, I used to travel to Albuquerque to visit a marvelous children's bookstore, Tresspassers William. It was owned and operated by a free spirit, Gwynne Spencer. She was a beuatiful woman prone to wear Indian bedspreads, trailing long, wild ,curly hair, and effusing about the latest childrens book! I used to look forward to her monthly newsletter filled with the newest and best books, and great ideas to help children respond to them! I learned about storytelling from her after I had started telling tales in my story hour. Her bookstore sponsored workshop after workshop with the finest people in the West! In so doing she provided one of the invaluable services that books,bookstores and libraries provide; they are the University of Life-Long Learning. How can we calculate the economic impact of that? It is truly PRICELESS!

So what does this have to do with the Ferengi? The Ferengi were a race of beings who valued only the material and the ability of each Ferengi to create personal wealth. The concept of greater good did not exist for them! Can America be far behind? Everything we do is based in profit. Education, health care, even prisons are privatized!

As educators we are to educate children so that they can integrate into the workforce and to the extent that we succeed in this task we are deemed to have value. The problem is the workplace and indeed the world is shifting beneath us and we are training a workforce for jobs that will not exist when today's kindergarteners graduate! We continue to measure discrete skills in a world that needs something we are not measuring! The cost of measuring the wrong thing? PRICELESS!

I read with deep sadness that our Mayor, Karl Dean, here in Nashville, (a mayor I voted for) has decided to fully fund "education" (I should be cheering, right?) BUT to do this he is cutting Public Library services. Clearly he and others on the 1% of the LCurve have missed the point. Indeed, he is not fully funding education when he cuts public library funding!

How costly this is to our societey (if we measure using something other than money) would be difficult to assess. I'd like to ask my wise friend, Gwynne how she would do it.

If you find this confusing -- watch this video which is on You Tube -- but I have included it from a new site which allows you to view it in many languages -- how about Esperanto?

Is the Story Enough?

Meaning, in the end, is always a private construct built from the brick of our experience, and the mortar of our mood. In conversation we have opportunities (taken or not) to clarify the speaker's meaning.

Editing allows the print author precision of expression, but still the reader constructs the meaning. Until we can read each others thoughts, communication both oral and written will be problematic. Oral and literate communicatoin rely on completely different skills and yet they are wed in a remarkable way. It is a paradox.

Moving from a pre-literate to a literate culture changed the way in which humans thought. Now we may be moving in the dirction of post-literacy if some of what I have been reading is correct.

At a workshop I atttended recently, the presenter considered the impact technology has on reading and thought. He described a recent event at nearby Vanderbilt University where a student presented his thesis proposal to his professor on a post-it note.

"Y IPL BFD o +"

For those of us for whom text messaging remains a mystery it translates - "Why the Internet is the biggest F____ deal of our lives."

In his research he asked several professors about the declining use of standard English. One told him that she no longer marks down for spelling, punctuation, and errors in grammar. If the student can cogently argue her point it is enough.

It reminds me of the old Jewish story in which the Rabbi, whenever danger threatens, goes into the forest, lights a fire, and recites a prayer after which the danger passes. He is followed by a succession of Rabbis who take up his mantle. Each one forgets a part of the ritual until the last Rabbi can only tell the story -- but God is gracious and the story is enough...and danger is averted.

So for me this past couple of weeks the question has been -- will technology ultimately improve our thinking and deepen it or will it, as Neil Postman suggests, only broaden exposure as we amuse ourselves ourselves to death? Will the story be enough?

Footnote: My thinking is formed here by my experience as a storyteller and observing both the lake of density in oral language and the impact of story on a group of listeners as compared to impact of exposition (most sermons fall into this category) on listeners. Here is a link that summarizes a lot of the thought beginning int he 1960s regarding this oral/literate divide and its implications for society. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/litoral/litoral1.html

Informing my thinking were these books - Savage Mind - Claude Levi-Strauss, Orality& Literacy - Walter Ong, Preface to Plato - Eric Havelock

Words, words, words

Words, Words, Words.....



Eliza Doolittle is talking about love, but the words are equally appropriate for technology in education. For the past 15 years computers and internet connections have dramatically increased in schools, but this doesn’t seem to have improved student outcomes. It is not just the luddites who are questioning the impact of every increasing technology.

Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College said,

A stunning trend is emerging for the first time ever. We test incoming freshmen with a general knowledge instrument, then test them again when they graduate. For the past three years, the majority of our students score higher as freshmen than they do as seniors—on the exact same test. The reality is, many of our students know less when they graduate than when they entered.

Carolyn Wakeman, Professor at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

The most alarming change I have witnessed is in the literacy of our students., Twenty years ago most journalism students were avid readers and testing placed them at a college reading level. We currently have students that read nothing outside of class assignments and a few test as low as third grade reading level.

It is difficult to be in the midst of monumental change and understand what is really happening. As a person of a certain age, I straddle both the digital technology age and the world in which reading and listening to an expert were the beginning of knowledge.

Could the change be as dramatic as the shift in consciousness that occurred between the oral and literate world with the introduction of the printing press? Reading had been around for centuries, but until technology made it possible to mass-produce books the culture remained an oral one. It is no accident that the paintings in the Sistene Chapel “tell” the story of the Bible from beginning to end.
Claude Levi-Strauss who studied the differences between oral and literate cultures pointed out that once people could read and write memory dropped dramtically. One of the unitended consequences of the literate revolution was that human memory atrophied.

It is time to look at the unintended consequences of technology. As McCluhen indicated, are we moving back toward a pre-literate consciousness?
So along with our struggle to move technology into the schools we need to talk also about which of these consequences need to be welcomed and which need to be combated.

My Audacity of HOPE

The darkest hour is just before dawn! The first time I heard this lyric I was a teen listening to the Mamas and the Pappas. I came of age in the turbulant dark hours of the late 60s and early 70s.

Still in the chaos and darkness of assisination and riot, I believed that dawn would arrive. My generation would usher it in! We would end war, poverty, racism, sexism, and wait quiety for the second coming! Well, perhaps I wasn't that optimistic, perhaps, I only had the audacity to be hopeful.

Today in the world of Web 2.0, I feel that same rush of hope that dawn is just over the horizon. In the darkness before this dawn several librarian friends and one technology coach have met for dinner during the deep months of winter to share food, company, and technology. But as I think about the dawn, I am forced to wornder what the light will reveal. How much of the landscape will I recognize?

Fifteen years ago, when I first began to use the Internet I thought about the changes hyptertext made in the way we understand text. The linear tyranny of the author is gone as readers construct meaning in their unique way.

Today, I am stunned by the Web 2.0 tools that speed up the disintegration of the old ladnscape. Then today I ran across this little video on You Tube - http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

In a virtual world what will dawn reveal?

Habits of the High Tech Heart

“We have to abandon the arrogant belief that the world is merely a puzzle to be solved, a machine with instructions for use waiting to be discovered, a body of information to be fed into a computer in the hope that sooner or later it will spit out a universal solution.”

“We have to release from the sphere of private whim and rejuvenate such forces as a natural, unique, and unrepeatable experience of the world, an elementary sense of justice, the ability to see things as others do, a sense of transcendental responsibility, archetypal wisdom, good taste, courage, compassion, and faith in the importance of particular measures that do not aspire to be universal, thus an objective or technical key to salvation.” Vaclav Havel

Habits of the High Tech Heart, a rather scholarly book, by Dr. Quentin Schultze of the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana filled the better part of our car trip to visit Dean's parents in North Carolina this Christmas. While it wasn't escapist fiction, it did gave me material for reflection as we begin the new year.

According to Schultze if we mindlessly employ technology we will be disappointed in the outcome. He lists the following habits as necessary. they are Discernment, Moderation, Wisdom, Humility, Authenticity, and Cosmic diversity.

Two areas seem to apply particularly to schools. The first issue is technology costs both hidden and unintended. "Wasted time, money and natural resources are other moral dimensions of information technology. A survey of companies in 1996 by the Standish Group revealed that American companies spend over $250 billion dollars annually on computer technologies alone. Yet the waste is staggering. The same survey discovered that 42 percent of corporate information technology projects were abandoned before completion. Upgrades can easily cost more than the original systems. " In addition people must be employed to keep the software and hardware functioning.

No one really knows how to determine total information technology costs, because installing computers and digital networks create additional non-measurable costs. When Texas Instruments’ area code in Dallas was changed, the resulting technology costs included roughly $100,000 for operator retraining, directories, cellular number changes, and internal phone system upgrades. But the paper costs for the new stationary, business cards, and various business forms totaled a staggering $1,200,00.”

Another good example of this unexpected cost comes in the form of printing out email! The goal 10 years ago was a paperless office, but now most people waste a great deal of money, energy, and resources by printing out email. There are the constant costs of change-- how much does it cost to adjust to new technology and learn new ways to incorporate it? Each time an operating system is upgraded, or another version of software arrives users must learn or re-learn how to do tasks.

The second issue relates to what happens in a community of users. Most technology is under the control of "routineers," lovers of compulsion and conformity, whose chief concern is to keep the wheels moving smoothly.

These knowledge workers derive their authority from the specialized skills and procedures that enable them to make systems “work.” These specialists gain a broad authority . They are entirely data-driven in making decisions, and ae not influenced by intellectual or moral understanding.

"In other words, many managers are informational technicians who rely on database and communication technologies that are themselves the work of expert technicians. Like technologists these managers aim for greater production and distribution efficiencies and for more control over markets. In short, information managers “specialize” by relying on detached quantitative ways of knowing—what was earlier called informationism. In too many instances , their chief responsibility is to be effective managers of information, not to be responsible stewards of the resources for good purposes. Caught in an informational meritocracy, they elevate technique over moral vision."

We experience this when our it department locks down our laptops to the point that we cannot even control how our desktops appear. This rigidity stiffles creativity and innovation.

The IT departments are creating a monoculture that disrespects culturally diverse traditions of local knowledge. "Walker Percy calls this kind of dichotomy a “misapprehension of the scientific method, an idolatry that results in both the radical and paradoxical loss of sovereignty by the layman” and the “radical impoverishment of human relations.”

Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? – Who controls the controllers? Who shall we invite to the table? Indeed that is the question. Who shall we invite to the table? My highest hope is that technology would empower people to question and learn, to explore in community with those around us. Schultze suggests that we can change this, but admonishes us that if we fail,

"We become impersonal observers of the world rather than intimateparticipants in the world. Information technologies foster statistical ways of perceiving and systematic modes of imagining. Under their influence, we see the world in terms of cybernetic systems composed of measurable causes and effects."

This is unacceptable -- our world is far richer and deeper than a system of causes and effects.

Nine simple words? Use them often!

At school we are consumed teaching basic skills - READIN, WRITIN' and Rithmatic. As we focus on test scores I sometimes think we have lost sight of the child and the relationships that alter life! In Alaska, a bold new initiative is taking root. Educating Hearts struggles to bring community and trust to a school environment that allows many negatives to go unchallenged.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a time when getting an "A" meant you passed the class, and affective education was so important that we even received grades based on our behavior.

I have been blessed as an adult as well. I worked for two people who continued shaping my affective education. Looking back, I realize that the most important parts of my life have always been grounded in the lives of others. I learned some of my most important lessons from these two remarkable individuals. They have changed how I try to live in my library and at school everyday.

Dr. Kenneth Erickson, a professor of education and a K-12 administrator lead by example. When I met Dr. Erickson, he hired me to be a secretary at the University of Oregon. Like many women of my generation I believed that my career aspirations were secondary to my husband’s, and I found myself doing whatever I could to support his educational goals.

Dr. Erickson seemed to good to be true. He was always cheery, and his office staff adored him. I must admit to being a little skeptical. He seemed to place people at the head of the line, but still held them at bay for two hours every morning when his office door was closed. He also taught me everything I know about time management. He managed time like others manage their weight!

When he hired me to be secretary for the Oregon School Study Council, an organization he headed, I had very little experience at typing or managing anything! I was responsible for preparing camera-ready copy for the Quarterly Report and for the monthly monograph series dedicated to issues of concern to school administrators. The person who held the position before me was an architecture student with fine art skills and a good eye for layout. My minimal skills were pitifully evident as I produced my first quarterly. Shortly afterward I had my evaluation. I steeled myself for the worst, but Dr. Erickson quickly put me at ease. He gave me a very positive review and recommended me for a raise!

"I don't want you to change this evaluation, but I know it was not deserved on the merits of what I have done. Why did you give me such a good evaluation?" I asked. I will never forget what he said. He explained that his judgment was not based on what I just produced, but rather on what I would produce in the future! My desire to improve, my willingess to work beyond my 8 hours to try to secure greater quality had impressed him. Dr. Erickson never hired skills, he hired people!

Each year, Dr. Erickson wrote thank you notes at Thanksgiving to the MANY people who had blessed his life. What an example!

The second person was the head librarian for whom I worked in Clovis, New Mexico, Erna Wentland who is pictured above in the library she helped to create! Erna dreamed big dreams for the little library that was housed in an old WPA postoffice. The dreams were not about her, they were about what a library can do for people. Educated at U.C. Berkley, Erna found herself in the dusty New Mexico town, far from the ocean she loved, so she turned her energy to creating a sanctuary of learning and recreation for the community.

The children's room was in the basement near an ancient boiler with only one exit and bars on the windows that were in basement wells. At a time when libraries were largely ignoring children and family services Erna envisioned a library so busy that there could be no question of the need for a new safe and inviting library for children and families!

With no budget, her creativity and commitment began to turn things around. We did crazy things like cutting greens at a local park and spending a Sunday afternoon wiring them together, making bows and creating the first Holiday Happening at the Library. She engaged the local extension agent, school choirs, crafters, church groups, anyone and everyone. Working with her was the joy of my days. She taught me tenacity, but more than that she taught me how much it meant to appreciate people. Her favorite saying was, “has anyone told you today how wonderful you are.”

I would watch with amazement as people visibly changed under the influence of those words, and it was such a small investment. Nine simple words with such amazing returns! If I could live up to the example of these two dear ones--my life would shine.

This Thanksgiving weekend I give thanks for Dr. Kenneth Erickson and Erna Wentland, as I ask you, Has anyone told you how wonderful you are? No? Well, let me be the first!

There are more things in heaven and earth

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

How ironic to use a quote from Hamlet a play that is 400 years old as a springboard to think about technology! Even more amazing is the link to a high school Thinkquest entry that used technology to explore and teach about the play!

As I take these days off from school to clean and prepare for the winter, I am using small chunks of time to explore some of the amazing changes since last I was looking for ways to use technology in my library. Signing up for RSS feeds of some of the blogs I like has been liberating. Using a wiki is fabulous, but seeing some of the games and other applications has made me cautious!

My first-blush innocence is gone and I have some deep concerns for some of the things I have seen this time around. Remember when I began this journey the Internet was primarily the purview of higher education institutions and was text dense! At that time the NSF oversaw the dazzling array of technological wonders which offered so much access to information. At that time the following things promised almost utopian change.

• The Gutenberg project would soon digitize all the world's great public domain literature --available and keyword searchable anywhere on earth!
• Email and listservs put us all in touch with the best minds in our profession. LM_NET was small enough to make it possible for Peter Milbury to answer personal email when I was working on a grant. Collaboration was the highest good!
• Initiatives allowed students from all the four corners of the world to communicate with one another making geography and history come to life!
• Students work would be authentic as they collaborated and published their own findings to be shared and thought about with many other students!
• Technology was going to make it possible for authentic learning to take place driven by the students curiosity and guided by an educator consultant (teacher/librarian)

That vision has not materialized. What concerns me this time round.....

• While the previous Internet was text dense this new landscape is filled with text messaging and images which do not increase the ability to think deeply or communicate more clearly and precisely. The net is moving away from READING based to graphic and auditory based information. We may be moving back toward something akin to preliterate society!
• People are targeted with subtle advertising based on their search histories.
• Rather than a diversity we seem to be moving inexorably toward a singularity.
• Real relationships seem to suffer in the flood of wired - virtual ones.
• Virtual environments may be replacing reality -- amusement replacing deep meaningful thought which traditionally led youth to challenge the status quo.

A recently published study suggests that adults are choosing to read less. It is just one in a growing chrous of warnings about the decline of reading in our cutlure. Publishers and book sellers echo the concern. Much of this is due to the impact of technology. Lest you dismiss this as just a natural progression of change please explore the impact of reading on the mind of humankind. A quick read of the Gutenberg Elegies helps us see how hypertext alters the making of meaning (of course reading is about the contstruction of meaning both by the author and by the reader). Marshall McLuhen , Havelock, Ong and others who have considered the impact of literacy on culture need to be attended and explored. What would a postliterate society be like?

I've just ordered Niel Postman's books from our public library. So I will be getting some of the musings from the dark side. My impression of Postman from the media is one of a crumudgeon so why am I reading him now?

I still believe in the value of technology and its marvelous opportunities. I know that it is a whelming flood that we face. We need to be vigilant and careful not to be subsumed by a culture of consumerism and control. We need those who are the interpreters and supporters of technology to be wise and fully understand the impact of their actions on our world.

Learning from other's mistakes

The first blush of technology gave me a rush of hope. Now, nearly twenty years later, I am more realistic about school change. Human nature does not change with the introduction of new technology or information. We laugh when someone says, "Don't confuse me with the facts!" We laugh because it is true! And since it is ultimately the humans who make or break technology implementation, there are critical issues to be dealt with over and above the complexities of equipment and curriculum.

We are receiving equipment in my current school, a school in which teachers are eager, fearful, overwhelmed and resistent to technology all at the same time. We are poised on this side of all the mistakes facing a nearly blank slate.

How do we keep from messing it up? To answer that question I did the first thing that any good librarian would do, RESEARCH. Curiosity, that ineffable quality that made me a librarian, drove me to ask; What have those districts that have had longitudinal experience learned about technology implementation?

I found great sites and great thoughts. WestEd (originally one of the regional Educational Laboratories funded in the 60s-70s by the Federal Government, and consequently dismantled by the Republican Reformers from 1980 on) is a grant funded non-profit entity serving colleges and K-12 institutions. The list that follows is theirs, but includes my commentary..If you want the unexpurgated version click on the link above.

• a rationale for the technology and related resources --

This is desperately needed. Teachers do not see how technology should change teaching. We need to help understanding that we are not to be dispensers of knowledge, but guides and enccouragers along the path. The very concept of a GURU of technology is antethetical to the model we want to achieve!

• the stakeholders get involved in the decision making process

We are probably a little late for this to happen. So these decisions have already been made and we are receiving equipment. How we can use these tools and add software to grasp the goals of those who made the decisions is really where we are at present.

• a way to promote thinking about the most cost-effective uses of technology

One of the problems in our recent past is that we have had technology but have not used what we had. There are currently computers lying fallow, a bit out of date -- but still able to be upgraded and used in many applications. Is it wasteful to just slough these off?

• assurance that technology applications are aligned with the curriculum

This has been done, but the side that makes it useful -- creating easily accessed applications needs to be addressed. For example in the library we need to have people working on joint lesson plans that can be utilized by any librarian to collaborate with classroom teachers with the help of technology coaches in our district. The concept of everyone inventing the wheel is time consuming and wasteful. We have been shown the technology (wiki) where this collaboration can take place. Now we need coaching to make that happen and time off from our other tasks to give it a chance to happen. I am writing this under the covers as I blow my nose and cough instead of attending church Sunday morning! But there is no time in the school day to make this happen.

We need lots of 45 minute-long lessons using technology that a librarian can grab and download and implement in a small lab setting with the teachers operating alongside. These need to be created by librarians and tech coaches working together. It increases the likelihood that the librarian's AND tech coaches can collaborate and increase the chance that teachers will experience technology is a more positive way.

• help in determining the specific training and assistance needs

Our district is on the right track here....with tech coaches who are available at the point of need! Now we need to put the Librarians in this mix with training and encouraging their teachers to use those applications we identify as useful in helping them get the understanding of themselves as guides. Even though this idea has been taught in colleges of education for a long time (When I got my MA it was taught -- but not modelled by professors 1990) it is not easy to do. Just as our children learn by our example we have learned by the example of all our teachers - who used large group instruction and taught people who wanted to learn what was in the curriculum.

• assurance that existing resources are used in the plan

This is something I don't think we are attempting to do in large part because it is seen as a huge expense. But if we utilize the people that are in place it might be cost effective. I see two parts to this -- a software and a hardware part. In my school I have cultivated AR in the library. Teachers who learn to manage AR for their classes (which has mostly been my job) learn a great many technology skills-- therefore we should consider AR as a part of our technology education plan. On the hardware side -- we have many IMAC computers which our district no longer supports that could be utilized if we added memory (canabalized from dying machines) and updated the system or OS X -- but because they are no longer supported they are simply sitting unused. During most of their lives they were only used to access AR or for CDROM programs --- since they were the only technology that teachers could see much value in)

• a method for determining how to evaluate the impact and progress of the technology

This needs to be done -- and we need some less quantifiable measures --included in the measurement.

• a vehicle for communicating steps for others to follow adapting the plan

This could happen as a part of the collaborative planning that librarians do with grade levels and if it were part of a regularly planned monthly intervention with our technology coaches.

• a process for coordination with other programs and projects

Perhaps planning with PE, Art, Music could happen at regular intervals to involve them in wholistic ways with what is happening in the classrooms. Perhaps each grade level could do a focus like this in nine week segments. That way no one would feel overwhelmed with the way that this kind of learning seems to take away from their direct instruction aimed at testing. Just the planning is bothersome to the teachers who are not really used to doing collaborative planning...

• that the teaching addresses the needs of all learners

It is important to create examples of how technology can be used to help rather than hinder in the classroom - specific plans for various learners would be helpful.

• guidelines and a context for the insertion of new technologies

Seems logical, but need to see examples of this.

I will blog each day this week about an aspect of implementation that might help us -- IF we talk about it ahead of the implementation...We are currently in the beginning of a pilot project, so we are poised to make mistakes, but we should also be poised to learn from those who have already made mistakes.

Training is not Understanding & Knowledge is not Wisdom

Our district is finally making strides with technolgy. For six years I have languished falling behind the times in geometric progression. Now, we are playing catch-up, and I feel like a dinosaur. Last week I was part of a technology “training.” I don’t think it was training in the traditional sense – because I have not gained an understanding of what I am expected to do as a librarian in an elementary school. What it was - seemed to be a group of people who could potentially become a community of learners and sharers who saw how little they know! It was wonderful to be called together in an exploratory manner.

Like the little girl in the Hobyah story, I was wishing I could call in Little Dog Turpy to go and seek out the Hobyahs and eat them up so that I would not have to live in a world with Hobyahs! Technology feels like a Hobyah, even to someone who welcomes it and has been an advocate for many years. Here is why--

1. It would be less so if the world were full of people who were not afraid that their part of it were disappearing and they had to have something to cling to in order to remain viable. (that includes me---)

Because there are no clearly defined roles in the landscape—I find myself constantly tugged in many directions, and without knowing where I am going, I feel that all of them are equal! One of the things I was hoping for at this training was a bit clearer and more easily expressed understanding of where librarians fit in. I need to grasp more of the whole. What do we want to accomplish with the technology and how do librarians play a helpful role?

2. We are putting powerful tools in hands that may have less conceptual understanding of what is expected than I do. Our district has invested millions of dollars in Safari Montage. AND it will look like we are using technology when in reality we may only be showing video clips.

The heady idea, 15 years ago, that technology would lead to a natural evolution in teaching has not materialized. Until the old model of Sage on the Stage is replaced with the Guide on the Side we will continue to reap few benefits from the technologies we install. Teachers showing clips and projecting onto a screen is not substantially different from projecting on an overhead. It looks different, but it isn’t.

Librarians fit naturally into the guide on the side model, because at least at secondary levels that is pretty much what they do. “Send me your tired frustrated searchers yearning to be free of limited sources....we lift our lamps beside the golden door!" (apologies to Lazarus) We traditionally not only helped people locate information, but help them think about the information they find.” As Sven Birkets pointed out in his Gutenberg Elegies, much of the new technology works well with researching information.

Birkerts helps us see the problems and potentials of technology as if we were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking at the millennia of collected history. He makes the big picture in clear relief against my frenzied and frustrated view in the trenches! He was the first person who gave me the understanding of how different the linear approach of a book is compared to hypertext in which it is easy to follow our own curiosity down the rabbit warren.

Birkerts asks philosophical questions about the means and ends of this new technology. He distinguishes between different kinds of knowledge and learning, and even in the best of hyperworlds where all the documentation is accurate and not driven by its design to sell the user some commodity, there are some important questions to answer. The following quote from Chapter 8 illustrate what I am feeling.

Pertinent here is German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey's distinction between the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften), which seek to explain physical events by subsuming them under causal laws, and the so-called sciences of culture (Geisteswissenschaften), which can only understand events in terms of the intentions and meanings that individuals attach to them.
To the former, it would seem, belong the areas of study more hospitable to the new video and computer procedures. Expanded databases and interactive programs can be viewed as tools, pure and simple. They give access to more information, foster cross-referentiality, and by reducing time and labor allow for greater focus on the essentials of a problem. Indeed, any discipline where knowledge is sought for its application rather than for itself could only profit from the implementation of these technologies. To the natural sciences one might add the fields of language study and law.
But there is a danger with these sexy new options–and the rapture with which believers speak warrants the adjective–that we will simply assume that their uses and potentials extend across the educational spectrum into realms where different kinds of knowledge, and hence learning, are at issue. The realms, that is, of Geisteswissenschaften, which have at their center the humanities.

I am reminded of an essay I read in high school, by Aldous Huxley which changed the way I thought about language. Huxley made the point that embedded in the very language was a cultural understanding. He used the difference between alphabetic languages and languages that incorporate pictographs. In Chinese the word for good uses a pictograph which is a mother cradling her child. There is nuanced meaning there. But in a phonetic language, like English, the letters produce the sounds for 'good’ devoid of any nuance.

As we rush headlong into web 2.0. I need to be thinking deeply about the impact of what we are ALL doing. I need time to learn and process and to reflect. I need to be clear about what it is I want to accomplish and what that accomplishment might look like while I am walking on that path. I need a community to surround me in love and work with me as we struggle together.

Teaching old dogs new tricks

Technology

It has been 14 years since I first was introduced to the Internet by a high school student. I was the librarian for a small west Texas school district and there was a computer in the back of the library that had been set up to control a satellite dish for receiving state deaprtment of education broadcasts. The computer had a 300 baud modem. The English teachers son,Kevin, sat glued to the monitor as if some great sports contest were playing out before him.

As I walked up behind him inquiring what he was dooing, I sensed that something important was going on here. He gave me a quick introduction to a non GUI Internet and the "new" World Wide Web. Indeed it was something important, and I soon had my first email address courtesy of the State of Texas. kmcintyre@tenet.edu! I had 45 minutes of computer time with an 1-800 number. I realized that other teachers were not going to use their 45 minutes, and I signed them up for their 45 minutes and found myself with several hours of online time each night. I was quick to realize the potential for my rural library. I could telnet into the Texas Tech Library and find documents, communicate with experts in my field, and other librarians around the world. My high school students communitcated with real people across the world!

Soon the sound of the dial-up connection with its static followed by those bell-like tones was one of the most satisfying sounds in my world! I used that time to explore and learn not only about the technology, but also about how it was changing the most basic understandings of human interaction.

I joined LM_NET when it was still only 5,000 users! I was learning to utilize a computer for many things, and was begining to understand how it worked -- soon I was deleting directories, messing with cmos, and wiping a hard drive infected with a computer virus, stringing wires for a network and using Netware to assign permissions to groups of students and teachers. A large part of my learning came courtesy of IBM's tech support number --- People everywhere were eager to help me learn the skills I needed to be as productive as possible with the technology available to me.

I recall a conversation with my superintendent asked me how this new technology was different from a piece of chalk and a chalkboard....or an overhead projector......hm....Where to begin.....

Yet 14 years later, and a world where ubiquitous use of technology should have changed even education, I find many educators' attitudes toward technology, change, and teaching untouched. The resistance to technology is futile. The refusal to change how we teach is the saddest reality. While the first is a mystery to me the second is clearly rooted in the standardized testing mentality of the current administration.

Those were heady days when the internet was not GUI, when most users were not commercial entities, when there was the sense of riding a sea change in attitudes about sharing information and wisdom as a community of users who believed in the greater good was the paradigm.

Now there seems to be a calloused attitude toward technology and we appear to be no further in the process of integrating it into our daily living at school.

Except, of course for the children!!

Helping Emerging Readers

Children just need enthusiasm and excitement about reading from parents! They need to see parents who enjoy reading! It might be the newspaper, a magazine, or a favorite book, but they will know that reading is important because they see you doing it! One of my favorite photos of our daughter when she was nearing two was of her on the couch. Her little legs would not dangle over its edge --- still she sat with her legs crossed (just like Daddy) "reading" Time Magazine (upside down). She knew that reading was an important grown-up activity.

She also looked forward to the cuddle times at bedtime when we would read books just before she went to sleep. No matter how hectic the day--no matter how frustrated the parents were --- we could all count on this quiet and pleasant interlude between bathtime and sleep.

It calmed her spirit, gave her a sense of personal importance and well being (things revolved around her at this moment in the day), and included the warmth and love that we all wish surrounded us all the time.

Encourage your young reader by --

Having a special place for library books so that they don't get mixed in and lost among other books at home. Having them in a special place also keeps the dog or another younger child from getting them and ruining them.

Having a routine time to read together and enjoy books and stories.

Asking questions about what you read. Remember being able to recall details and connect text to fact is a critical stage in education. Children will be required to read for information, so if you do this you help them cross that bridge easily.

Use every opportunity to learn -- street signs -- alphabet songs and seeing if children can pick out letters in signs. You can label common things around the house with 3X5 cards!

Have a place where children can "write" remember reading and writing are all part of the same circle of communication. Some parents keep a "writing suitcase" in which are kept pencils, crayons, scissors, paper and other things that help students experience writing.

Tell stories! Remember the shape of story --- getting a sense of sequencing are important to reading.

Most importantly --PRAISE-- your child's efforts! If you will take 20 minutes a night for this activity, you will raise a reader!

Can you share an early experience when you were little and wanted to learn to read?