In One Place

Is it any wonder that the Constitutional ammendment to define marriage passed in Virginia when guys like Virgil Goode are in the leadership? He’s against anything that isn’t just like him and everyone he knows: white, Christian, heterosexual. His way of life is threatened, it seems, and he has no creative response other than to lash out at those he sees as the threat. Oh, for the good old days, when white people were in charge and could always get their way. And, praise the Lord that Virgil was born into the “right” religion and race.

But, in a strange way, Goode’s got it right, too. Neither the Bible nor the Koran have little tolerance for those of other religious faiths, and both books have been the reason behind some pretty horrible deeds at some point in their long careers as holy scripture. We can take whatever advanced liberal view of religion we want, but the hard fact is that there are plenty of people out there–Virgil Goode included–who believe there really is only one God and one holy book. They are not willing to compromise that fact since in doing so, their whole belief structure that they are blessed by God in some special way, would fall apart. Their religion isn’t some comforting set of beliefs about compassion and understanding; Goode sees himself as a warrior for God himself, fighting the infidels who, in attacking the United States, also attacked Christianity. We might laugh about Goode behind his back and dismiss him as a fringe element, but I think he is a dangerous man, wielding the Christian sword in the public square, and I, for one, would like to see some stronger denunciation of this kind of talk from the mainline churches in Virginia. Oh, I forgot…they are too busy splitting into factions over gay rights. Not going to go there for any real tolerance, are we?

Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim – New York Times

The day before Christmas and I am trying to put the old year to rest. Making backups, putting papers in their correct folders, generally saying good-bye to a pretty brutal semester. But I also am looking forward. I think I waste a lot of energy because I don’t have well-developed systems in place for getting certain routine tasks done, such as backups. I do backups now and then but have not regular daily schedule. Since I’m storing all my research stuff like interviews and lit reviews, in some cases, documents that can’t be recreated, I need to know that I’ve got at least one reliable daily backup and then a weekly backup to CD. So, I downloaded Apple’s Backup product and am going to give it a try.

I rearranged a few trays so I have a “to do” pile that is clearly different from the filing pile. And, I’ve got to get on some kind of schedule with doing my books so it isn’t this huge thing every three or four months or so. I don’t know the last time I did my books…probably at least back to August. Oh well, I have time over Christmas and can spread out.

The final thing I need to figure out is a reading journal. I am getting serious about both reviewing for comps and for working on my dissertation. Noter is really the tool for the technical reading in my field, but what about comps? I’m thinking about a wiki…I actually got out a notebook and pen and was going to paper and pencil stuff and I may do some of that, but I’d really like to try out the digital tools including Gliffy.

The Family Foundation

I just got surveyed by this group. Of course, they didn’t tell me that until after the survey was over. However, from the tone of the questions, I figured it was a conservative organization. With I had been able to write them down because it’s hard to explain how the wording might have affected the answers.

For instance, they didn’t ask if I believed in vouchers. Instead, they asked if I thought parents should get tuition tax credits so they could choose the best school for their children. Of course, I want parents to be able to choose the best schools for their children, right? Oh, but that tuition tax credit makes this a different question, doesn’t it? They, of course, asked about whether I believed marriage was between a man and a woman. I was a little surprised by the question about whether I believed a mother should be able to ask to have her unborn fetus given anaesthesia before a second- or third-trimester abortion. What was that about?

One other interesting thing…this was a recorded survey so there was no chance to ask questions or clarify answers. Strictly, yes or no. Frankly, I think that black/white kind of view is one of the root problems of our increasingly uncivil society. There are gray areas but this survey did not offer any chance of that…no strongly agree or agree…just yes or no.

In October 1989, I was in my second year as a high school English teacher in an urban school in eastern Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. We were on strike, and I was trying to make ends meet by working temp jobs. One evening, close to Halloween, a friend called to say that my cat was in her kitchen. But I don’t have a cat. I know, she said, but my husband said I can’t have another one. So I think you should take this one. I vaguely knew that my lease said no pets but often that meant except cats, so I drove over. There she was, in the kitchen, and the first thing she did was arch her back and hiss at us all. I took her home and she’s been with me every since.

What will I remember about Calypso? Her fierce independence…she had probably been out in the wild for a little while before I got her, and she had learned to survive. She was the boss. Somewhere I have a picture of her sitting on the coffee table with three dogs laying on the ground around her. All of 8 pounds soaking west, she could keep our 70 pound black lab Ivy from leaving a room. And she could purr, and wrap herself around you, and settle into your lap, the essence of love and contenment. I loved her for all of that.

She is officially named after Calypso, the witch in the Odyssey who seduced Odysseus and kept him on her island in happy bondage for seven years. But Calypso is also the name of Jacques Cousteau’s boat and since seafood was her favorite–especially shrimp–I think that’s appropriate, too.

Her last winter was a good one. We put in a wood stove and she was in heaven. And this spring, she seemed as sprightly as ever, eating as well as she ever had. She loved sitting in the office window watching the pond and listening to the water.

It’s just so hard to believe that she is gone…

See a picture of her in her younger years

A wonderful friend, my advisor at WM, sent a link to this poem. It will make you cry, but it also touched my heart. (Scroll down when you get there.)

I am an adjunct instructor for a school of education. All last year, I kept up with the adventures of a blogger who called herself “newoldschoolteacher.” She was incredibly unhappy in her master’s program and let everyone know how stupid she thought the whole thing was. I found myself often annoyed with her seeming unwillingness to give any credit to her professors. I know there are plenty of things wrong with what she calls the “education establishment” but there are also plenty of good things happening. I can only hope that at some point in her new career, she encounters a student like herself, one who refuses to find any good, sure she knows better than the teacher and not afraid to say so.

Today, I discovered that she is guest blogging for Eduwonk. In her first post, she comments that this blogging experience will be different, since she will have to read and comment: “For my blog I just spewed out random thoughts that came into my head, which usually consisted of nonsensical cursing at the nearly unbelievable stupidity and wastefulness of the education establishment. Saying something constructive is more difficult.” It seems hard to me to believe that she missed the irony and hypocrisy of that statement. I suppose though if you are just “spewing,” rereading is not a prerequisite. It might have been nice for those of us who are working hard to try to prepare new teachers if she had tried out the “constructive” approach last year.

Reviewing Virginia’s Community of Learning database and listening to The Devil Wears Prada on my iPod. This website–for a web design firm in India–had been submitted. I don’t think I’m going to approve it, but I was intrigued with the description of their business, wondering how it applies to educational technology: “ITdefine provides a one-stop resource center, enabling our clients to focus on their core competencies and use technology as an enabler for lowering operating costs, allowing faster growth, and ensuring higher profitability.”

Is there a definition of instructional technology integration embedded in this description? Core competencies would suggest content, which in most states is defined by curriculum standards. And, of course, the enablers would be different: identifying them would be an interesting exercise for a group of educators? What do we want technology to enable? Enhanced learners, good citizens, creative thinkers.

But, we also have to be careful about making technology too transparent. Media literacy is an important 21st century skill (although I would argue that it’s been an important skill throughout the centuries) that should be addressed in every content area.

This week, I will be visiting with the OEBs, the group of English teachers with whom I started my career as a teacher nearly 20 years ago. What does OEB stand for? I’ll give you the first two words and let you (depending on your high school English experience) figure out the third one: Old English B…. It was a name they adopted when one of them heard a younger English teacher using it as a term of derision towards them in the lunch room. They wear it proudly and definitely represent old school English teachers who believe in the orderliness of grammar and the precision of literature.

For four years, I was one of them, standing over my students with textbook in hand as we read Romeo and Juliet and Great Expectations. I wasn’t as strong a believer in grammar and experimented with writing workshop approaches including sentence combining and journaling. And, by my third and fourth years, I had begun to let my “freak” flag fly, putting up a Peter Gabriel poster, allowing students to use song lyrics as part of the poetry unit, and incorporating music and film as part of the course. Luckily, these were pre-NCLB days when a teacher really could close her door and do what she wanted to a large extent.

When I moved to middle school, the old school approach really seemed out of place, and once I read Nancy Atwell’s book In the Middle, I made some serious changes. For several years, I ran reading workshops in my 7th grade reading class, reserving three days a week for in-class silent reading and journaling. When my OEB buddies complain about the young teachers who try these methods, their biggest concern is over rigor and assessment. Indeed, while running a workshop where students read most of the time seems pretty easy, in order to be effective, there must be a strong underlying structure of classroom management. More importantly, however, the teacher must be actively involved in the reading lives of her students. I was constantly reading myself, working through the shelves of the school library, so I knew which books to recommend to whom. I always seemed to have a reading journal open in my lap, responding to students’ ideas and pushing them to think critically about what they were reading. It was tough work, but those days when it clicked and for 30 minutes my room was full of readers, sprawled on the floor or leaning on desktops, books open, minds engaged, I was glad to do it.

Part of the point of this reminiscence is that I am starting to think about my fall course for elementary school teachers. I get two credits this semester and want to give my students a very personal, exploratory experience of instructional technology. I was considering taking a game approach but now am framing it as a journey. We’ll do some preparation (setting up accounts) then locate helpful resources then head to places like AV Alley and Spreadsheet Street and Podcast Peninsula to learn about technology and see how it can fit in our classrooms. I have taught some version of this class for several years now and just like my English teaching experience, I have moved from a traditional course to a more open ended workshop.

NPR had a story about the 400th birthday of Rembrandt and began by discussing his 1660 self-portrait. Susan Stamberg suggested that if listeners were close to their computers, they could bring up a photo of the painting at the NPR website. Even radio has become “multimedia” these days, and considering its demographics, NPR can probably assume that their listeners are at least near a computer if not actually listening to the broadcast on the web. (That’s how I do it…)

Here’s the story: NPR : Rembrandt’s Unsparing Eye

And here’s another story about Rembrandt from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5182990.stm

Tim from Assorted Stuff linked to this article about the school division in Illinois that has threatened to discipline students for things they publish to the Internet even outside of school hours. It is their way, they claim, to protect the students from themselves. So, students who post pictures of themselves smoking, drinking, or engaging in leud behavior may find themselves with detention or suspended from school. After all, more and more colleges, according to the school division, are investigating students on the web and this poor behavior could influence the rest of their lives. The article ends, “Better to think twice, then, about dancing naked on the bar after the prom ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù somebody out there may not see it as all that funny.”

I don’t disagree with that sentiment; after all, I always talk to my pre-service teachers about how to use blogs appropriately by using pseudonyms or otherwise masking their identity as well as the identities of those they are writing about. Their blog entries aren’t as much personal diary entries as they are journals of their journeys that may be useful to others who are considering education or also pursuing their degrees. So, by all means, we need to sit the kids down and have a long talk about what’s appropriate and what’s not and why. But, at some point, they have to decide what they are going to do. And, since it happens outside of the school day and isn’t published on school servers, it is none of the school’s business. They might, to be helpful, bring particularly bad sites to the attention of a student’s parents, but that’s it. We are trying to bolt 20th century ideas onto 21st century media, and it just doesn’t work. The school’s role is education, education, and more education, helping kids become savvy internet users who benefit from the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff. Let’s help them work to make good decisions, which certainly includes pointing out what we think might be bad decisions.

Gardened here early…raked under the crepe myrtle where I had dug up the periwinkle. Planted hostas behind the myrtle and gladiolas that I rescued from other places in the front. Looks so much better.

We headed to the property around 3 and basically hung out. I staked a spot out by the dip in the road where I’ve been seeing a small bird. Got one good look–birding is about patience–and decided it is an eastern wood peewee. It had pretty clear wing bands unlike the eastern phoebe. Also listened to a Carolina wren and saw at least three of them jumping around the stumps.

Read another whole book today: East of the Mountains by David Guterson. Interesting…don’t like it when animals get hurt as part of the plot…but in saving his dog, he saves himself so it works somehow.

I updated by librarything catalog and have read 17 books so far this year. I’m just two or three behind the pace for 50 in the year and I’ve got plenty of fluffy one-dayers on the shelf. I read plenty of serious stuff, too, so a few good novels move the list along and provide a bit of relief.