One World School House - Final Post

I know my posts are long-winded. This post seeks to break the streak. A quote from one of the last chapters in the book:

“…it was as if they had been taught, in two different lessons, how to use a hammer and how to use a screwdriver. Told to hammer, they could hammer. Told to put in a screw, they could use a screwdriver. But told to build a shelf, they’d be paralyzed even though it was just a combination of concepts they should have learned.”

Here, he outlines yet another issue that I have also noticed in schooling: a lack of cohesiveness between information and application. He outlines some pretty great ways to approach this, so read this book!

This book ends on a pretty inspirational note. I recommend it to everyone who is at all interested in the field of education. Below, I have attached the web address of one of his videos…this one describes how to add and subtract fractions. Also, I have attached a preview for a documentary that this book reminded me of. It’s called “Waiting for Superman,” and it also touches base on some of the concepts described in this book. Namely, it forces people to become curious about the nature of education, and why we teach the way we do. If you want the full documentary, just ask me and I’ll bring it on a jump drive. Enjoy!

Khan Academy - adding and subtracting fractions

Waiting for Superman

Book 3 - The One World School House

It is appropriate that I am reading this book at the same time I am working on edmodo.

In this book, we learn about this guy, Sal Khan, who was asked to help his younger cousin with her studies. Since he lived far away, he had to use youtube as his way of getting the videos to her. Since they could only be ten minutes long in order to be posted, he had to make sure he kept his points short, concise, and interesting. After seeing the results these videos had on his cousin, as well as feedback from random youtubers, he decided to take a deeper look into how his videos became so popular, and why they are were effective.

He brings up so many interesting points, but I would like to focus on just one at the moment. Khan describes what he calls “Swiss Cheese Learning,” which is this amazing concept that I used to talk to my own students about…but I didn’t know it was called Swiss Cheese Learning. 

In my debate classes, I would always play the devil’s advocate. Sometimes, in my quest to prove the seemingly improvable, I would actually convince myself that the nonsense I was saying was actually something to consider. This concept describes one of those moments in my debate class.

If we look at the current educational system, based on the Prussian model, it seems to be pretty reasonably assembled. Children at any given age are put in classes based on their age group, then tracked based on their ability to perform in academic subjects. Everyone graduates around the time they are 18, ready to join the workforce. Job opportunities are, of course, divvied based on academic performance.

It appears to be a fairly just system.

But, when you get down to the brass tacks, there are a few fundamental issues that we never really question. First of all, why is 18 the magical age that we should graduate? It is something we just accept without really questioning, but it is a valid point. Kids are moved around, tracked, and pushed through the system, and what does the system spit out? People approximately the age of 18 with varying levels of competence.

In this situation, the constant is the age, the variable is the degree in which they are educated.

THIS is what Khan refers to as “Swiss Cheese Learning.” All of these little “holes” in our education are put there by the very institute designed to educate us in the first place. And these examples of tracking and such are the more extreme examples. That is to say, they are easily noticeable.

If Billy took AP English and social studies, and Jim graduated late because he stumbled through remedial math, then we expect Billy to be more educated than Jim. So surely this represents the exception, not the rule, yeah?

No.

As teachers, we see this all the time, yet we don’t consider the impact it might have on our kids. Let’s say that Billy and Suzy are in math 100 together their freshman year. He gets 65%, she gets 90%. The following year, they are both in math 200. Now, Billy maintains his 65%, as he is missing a lot of those foundational concepts from the year before, so building on them proves difficult. She also performs comparably. However, they both graduate with the same NYS Regents diploma, at approximately the age of 18.

Imagine this: Education where age is the variable, and education is the constant…I wonder what that looks like?

Technology #2 - Prezi

Honestly, marks out of ten…I give prezi about a 8.0. It has its pits and mounds, but I can say that Prezi is mostly a good thing. As far as presentation software goes, however, Prezi still has some kinks to work out

First and foremost, I have the same issue with this program that I do with Macs: less buttons does not mean more ergonomic. I am not the smartest man in the world by a very long shot. But having an education that cost $42,000 and RISING…if I can’t figure out how to change the color of a circle in your program, there is something horribly wrong with the educational system, or your program is not particularly intuitive. Or both. Either way, this is definitely a frustration factor that is absent in PowerPoint.

Aside from this, though, it is pretty good. Aesthetically, it destroys PowerPoint. The templates are good, and highly customizable. Not to mention the paths, which are just much more interesting as transitions than the tradition slide format. 

Final high point: It is on the internet, and it is FREE. No need to purchase a program and no need to download a reader. It just works, which is rare in the world of software these days. Also, you don’t have to save your presentation to dropbox, or send it in an email. So many days I have shown up to class, with hours worth of work still on a jump drive, hidden and forgotten in a USB port behind my computer. That threat is gone.

In conclusion, prezi is pretty sweet. A little bit of practice, and it is more than sweet. 

Earthship - Final Post (?)

My research for this course has brought me to some interesting places. One of the research librarians at Fredonia was actually kind enough to walk me through the new system of organizing books. When I was your age (…sigh), I was familiar with the Dewey Decimal System, which apparently has now gone the way of the dinosaurs. But this new system is pretty badass, because it organizes things based on how close they are in proximity of topic. That means when you find one book you want, you find all of the books you want at the same time.

So, in looking for books about sustainable food practices and the like, I found a bunch of books about sustainable building as well. This is what actually led me to order and read this book. So now, I have decided to actually put together a few of the concepts I have learned from each book and try applying them.

Since I am not exactly Bob Villa, I am going to start with the basics. One concept that seems to be particularly simplistic is thermal mass. It is, basically, the idea of establishing energy and maintaining it by using mass. So I have peer pressured my friend, a chef, into letting me build an oven on his property, since I am homeless and don’t own land. I found a “blueprint” in a different book, but will apply the principals discussed in this book to the project. Also, I am going to try to build this oven with a budget of fifty dollars. That being said, I have to actually scavenge for most of the materials I will use.

My primary building material is going to be cob. Cob is basically hippie concrete. By mixing together sand, clay, straw and water, I can actually create a structure that will last longer than the average home…at least on paper. What is pretty cool about this stuff is that you can mess around with the proportions of the components to take advantage of their different properties. (For example, you can add more straw to create as insulation, or more clay for something more thermal)    

Assuming the peer pressuring goes as planned, I will continue posting about this project. Hopefully he caves before winter starts.

Book #2 - Earthship

It’s kind of like when you put down your bike as a kid. None of us really remember the transition, but there was a time when it was our primary means of transportation, and then it just wasn’t. Then, as an adult, for one reason or another, you buy one. You buy one not because you think that riding a bike sounds awesome, but because you’re getting fat, and gas and car insurance are expensive, and you expect it to be a miserable, labor intensive reacquainting.

Then you go for your first ride and think, “THIS…IS…AMAZING”

The same thing happened to me last week, but it happened with the library. I have always known that there is a room full of books attached to the place where I buy my coffee. I have even gone in a few times during my adult life, but it was only for the sake of using a computer.

 And a university library, to my experience, is a special flavor of library. For some reason, it attracts droves of freshman that like to gather and talk publicly about their unsavory weekend enterprises. As it is, I know that I have a reputation here as the fat old guy in skinny jeans that gets bent out of shape whenever I am disturbed.

I’m the troll under the bridge.

But on Monday, the library and I made up. I received my first interlibrary loan, and I read it cover to cover. The book is called Earthship, and, while reading it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it is based on concepts that I think everyone should explore at some point.

As an artist, I love the idea of breaking rules. Not for the sake of being difficult, but for the sake of discovery, or sometimes for the sake of evolution. The question “Why?” is something I constantly think about, yet so many of us actually ignore the importance of this question.

Michael Reynolds asks “Why?” He looks at all of the things that we depend on to live, and wonders why they are the way they are, namely the architecture of our homes. In this book, he explains how the way that we are building homes is not only terribly inefficient, but also quite destructive to the atmosphere around it. To counter this, he starts building houses out of garbage.

And they aren’t gimmicky. They aren’t weird hippy structures. They are completely self-sufficient, making their own energy, heating/cooling, water treatment, and even food. So, if you don’t want to readt it, I don’t blame you. An instructional book on how to build a house is not what most consider to be recreational reading, But do yourself a favor and watch the documentary. I have included a link to the full documentary below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnkv_qj1xUc

Kitchen Confidential - Final Post

“

gotta hot nut for that six-top on seven, carbon! It’s been fired for ten fucking minutos, pinche Tortuga. What? You don’t got your meez together, aesino? Get that shit in the window, you seso de pollo pinche grill man – throw it in the fucking jukebox if you have to. The rest of the order my hand! And don’t forget to give it a wipe, and some mota, and a squirt of that red jiz on the way out, I got shit hanging out here and you’re falling in the fucking weeds!”

This quote is how Bourdain ends one of his later chapters. It was one of my favorite because, as someone who is interested in language, it’s pretty funny to think about how strange the roots of kitchen jargon really are. French terminology, because France invented fine dining. Spanish….somehow the native tongue of all affordable, yet capable kitchen labor.

My friend Emerson once told me, (when explaining that, after 2 consecutive months of 70 hour weeks he was finally granted a few days off) “I can’t keep this shit up! I am not a fucking Dominican, I am a human-being, goddamnit!”

He went on to show me pictures in his cell phone of one of his coworker’s arms. Apparently, and entire pot of boiling sauce spilled on his arm, and it was all bubbled up like the toxic avenger. Apparently, the man poured a beer on it, wrapped a shirt around it, finished out service, and didn’t miss a minute of work that day or ever.

Interestingly, it was the ending of this book that prompted me to get a hold of my friend Emerson this past weekend. Bourdain ends on a sort of romanticized vision of him working at his station, arranging his mis en place, hiding kitchen towels from other chefs, chopping herbs for garnish.

As I explained how much I enjoyed the book to my friend, he mentioned, “Dude, I have 10 lbs of Wagyu short ribs that need to be cooked….want to do some real cooking tonight?” So, just like that, we decided to do some Bourdain inspired cooking, and it was awesome.

(Above) Braised Wagyu short rib and fall veg., barley risotto,  mixed greens, and spicy green tomato compote. It didn't suck

Technology Exploration: Edmodo

This is something I have actually used in the past, but not to its full extent.

Korea is , unfortunately, a country that sometimes bases its judgement of how educated a person is on superficial qualifications. They tend to look at titles of schools, certificates awarded, etc. And that is not to say that we don't do the same thing; however, when pairing this way of evaluating people with an educational system that is, arguably, the most competitive in the world, the result is disastrous.

I started toying with Edmodo about a year ago, when our company was releasing its new curriculum. For the sake of market appeal, we were getting rid of our old text books and white boards, and replacing them with tabs and smart TVs. And, of course, the new curriculum had to be visibly impressive. It was...

Homer's The Iliad, Gladwell's The Outliers, to name a few, were some of the big-name titles that were on the roster. Also, a few teaching methods from Harvard professors were at the root of the methodology being used to teach these texts. The problem with this is pretty basic: Reading Homer at 20 years of age was really difficult for me. Teaching Homer at 28 was indescribably difficult. Learning Homer as a 15 year old EFL student in a foreign language proved to be impossible. Across the board, the books were too difficult for the students to get anything out of them. Edmodo offered me a way to talk about the texts, and provide supplementary material to maybe bridge some of the gap in understanding. I had mixed results.

Anyway, I talked to my old boss about using Edmodo with some of his teachers, and trying some new methods. Looking forward to the opportunity to reconnect with some of my foreign students!

Kajder - Ch3 response

On a cynical note, This text is becoming pretty redundant and difficult to muscle through. Anyone else getting that, or is it just me? I digress.

I suppose the 2 points made during this reading that stood out to me the most were simply the ones that discussed the importance of building report and maintaining a human relationship with the students. By that, I mean this:

As stated by Brice in the text, "...I only saw it on the other side...Student-chosen tasks must be supported with appropriate instructional support or scaffolding."(44)

Now, this is not necessarily one of his main points, but what he is stating speaks volumes about using technology in the classroom. Basically, it is trial and error. In order for the upcoming generations to benefit from  lessons designed to teach technological literacy, we are going to have to accept the fact that there really is no existing science to it, and that every classroom is a laboratory.

Second, I really dig  Ed's perspective on things. Of the three people used as examples in this chapter, Ed is the least familiar with technology, yet it is this very shortcoming that allows him to teach his students. Ed approaches aspects of technology by "recognizing what I don't know, and by sitting next to a kid in the classroom and saying 'show me.'"

In essence, his position has changed from a teacher to a proctor, and this transition is an important one. In doing this, his classroom is no longer a place of teaching and learning, but one of mutually beneficial research.

Book Review - Kitchen confidential, Chapters 1-3

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

9-2 Atwell Response

Atwell’s argument in the reading was one that, as a teacher, I have had to deal with many times. She claims that teachers, while stating a lesson concisely and/or using explicit instruction, also teach their students through implicit instruction. That is, it is sometimes the things we don’t say that our students are taking home to ponder.  

To exemplify her thesis, Atwell compiled a list of things that teachers do that are counterintuitive to their mission, one of which I have witnessed countless times. “Teachers are often bored of the literature they want you to read.” (pg 153)

In Korea, they have 2 types of schools: Public and private. But it is not set up the same way as it is in America. Here, we think, well, you go to private school or public school. In Korea, it’s like, you go to public school until 3:00, and then you go to several private academies until 10:00. As a teacher, you have to dig pretty deep to stand in front of a class and enthusiastically explain to exhausted 15 year old middle-schoolers that they are about to read an 800 page Greek poem about shit they don’t care about in a language they barely understand and have been breed into hating. But it is for these same reasons that it is so difficult that makes it so important.

This being said, Atwell’s system to counter this sort of instilled apathy is really quite admirable. Even though she receives scrutiny from peers and parents, she continues to use methodology that is designed around one thing exclusively: the benefit of her students.