Indianapolis

I'm writing this post from a hotel in downtown Indianapolis. I've been invited down here to speak tomorrow at the state history education association about the film Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good. As my readers know I'm doing some work for an educational foundation distributing a film about a man who saved 669 children from Prague before the Holocaust. I'd be happy to send a free copy of the film to any educators who want one. I've also posted a wiki about the film that I'm hoping teachers and students will take advantage of. The address http://www.powerofgood.wikispaces.com

It never ceases to amaze me how busy people can keep adding things to their plate and continue to get everything done. I had a drink with one of the organization's board members shortly after I arrived. This man is a classroom teacher, the president elect of the state's social studies council, on the history council board, and active in the Boy Scouts, local community councils and more. I recently read some essays that his students wrote about risk in relation to the film and he's obviously teaching his students.

I love the opportunities that I get to work with teachers since so many of them are interesting people.

Buzz Aldrin on Moon Settlement

Buzz Aldrin and Taylor Dinerman consider issues related to moon exploration and settlement. The article has great potential for integration between science, economics, and civics. Take a look at it.

Lesson Idea

Instead of asking your students questions let them play on the blogosphere for a little while and develop their own questions. Certainly, they can use the questions asked by bloggers as starting points. I've been impressed with the number of intriguing questions that Glen Reynolds, Instapundit, points to.

Egyptian Blogger in Trouble

Extreme Mortman quotes the Washington Post:

A former college student, Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, is sitting in an Egyptian prison, awaiting sentencing tomorrow. His alleged “crime”: expressing his opinions on a blog. His mistake: having the courage to do so under his own name. … Whether or not we agree with the opinions that Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman expressed is not the issue. What matters is a principle: People should be free to express their opinions without fear of being imprisoned or killed. Blogging should not be a crime.

As educational bloggers I wonder if there's any way that we can bring the attention of the world to this individual.

What about having students write their congressman asking for intervention?
What about having students write the Egyptian Embassy?

If it's not this issue, we should really find an issue that as educational bloggers we want to change and do something about it. Truthfully, we've got far more influence than just about any other blogging groups. For most of us have dozens of students whom we work with.

Dough Johnson "Conspiracy Theory"

Doug Johnson and I have gotten into quite a discussion about his post, "Conspiracy Theory," in which he considers the slow/nonexistant nature of educational reform in the U.S. Read Doug's original article here. Last night, I sent him the following email, which he's asked to post on his blog. (I said sure.)


Hi Doug,
>
> In your comment to Diane you mentioned the fact that the medical field
> evolves with innovation.
>
> There's another way to think about school innovation than no
> innovation occurring. In their book on the history of American school
> Tyack and Cuban point out that lots of little innovations have taken
> place. But these innovations did not effect the core processes of
> schooling or the interactions that take place between teacher and
> students. Perhaps we could argue that on the one hand there is too
> much innovation in American schools, every half decade brings a new
> practice or strategy. The problem is that these new practices are rarely well researched or thoughtfully directed.
> They are then given up as soon as the next one comes along.
>
> In medicine it often takes a lot longer for innovations to stretch from
> the laboratory to the doctor's office. There's a lot more testing and
> retesting. But once these innovations reach the practitioner they have
> some level of credibility and are not quickly dispensed with.
>
> If medical innovations were more like educational innovations, doctors
> would not wash their hands between patients in even numbered years.
>
> Just some thoughts.
>
>
> Andy

An Intersection between Science, Economics and Politics

California had allowed hybrid cars to drive in freeway carpool lanes if they have a specific sticker. These lanes are typically reserved for two or more passengers. Hybrid cars starting selling at higher rates. Then California ran out of the stickers. The lanes are over-packed. What should the state do? How does this relate to science? (What's the importance of hybrids?) How about economics? (Why did the car price go up?) How about politics? (Why doesn't the government just produce more stickers?) Read the article!!

Two Party Politics and the Internet

What role will the Internet in general and specifically Web 2.0 play in the future of the two party American political structure? Check out this article!!

Two Georges Speak

Over at Daily Kos there's a very interesting discussion between George W. Bush and George Washington. Imagine such a conversation. They could discuss the meaning of democracy or the role that the common man should play in the electorate. They could discuss African Americans and/or women. Is one right and the other wrong?

Fur Children??

There's been some talk in the blogosphere about "

Presidents Day

A couple of questions that we might ask:
1. What's the point of having a special day to honor presidents?
2. Do all American presidents deserve to be honored? Is there a difference between honoring somebody and respecting somebody? If so, do all American presidents deserve to be respected? Why/why not?
3. Plato discusses the philosopher-ruler. What does it mean to be a philosopher? What does it mean to be a ruler? What is the most important thing for a president to know?
4. Who/what should guide the President of the United States in decision making processes? Who/what should guide you in decision making processes?
5. Ask your students what question they would ask President Bush if they had a chance to speak with him for five minutes.

Looking up Students

Does anybody else ever look up old students on the Internet to see what's become of them?

Britney's Hair

How do you take something so absurd and make it educational? Consider the following questions:

1. Why would Britney have done this?
2. What can we learn about the nature of fame from Britney's behavior?
3. What is hair? Check out Wikipedia?
4. Is it actually fair to call Britney's behavior absurd? Why/why not?

Teaching in the 408

If you haven't seen this blog, see it. The author is incredible with both words and teaching ideas.

An Incredible film

Bud the Teacher writes:

An awful lot of folks are finding Michael Wesch's The Machine is Us/ing Us to be a fascinating look at Web 2.0 and digital text. On the NWP's Tech Liaison listserv, Tonya Witherspoon suggested that it might be interesting for teachers and students to look at a transcript of the text without the accompanying visuals from the video. She kindly prepared the document, and Dr. Wesch approved sharing it. Here's
a link to the transcript. I'd love to know if/how you use it with students.

After I read the post and watched the video, I wrote the following coment.

Bud,

I hadn't seen this before. Thank you very much for pointing
to it. (Incidentally, in the previous sentence I first wrote sharing, which
I then deleted and inserted "pointing to") Since I love developing questions
for learning here are several related to this You Tube video:

1. Ask your students which screen they consider the most important screen in the
video. Encourage them to explain their thoughts.

2. Encourage your students to reorder the images of the video. I'm sure that Dr.Wesch spent considerable time arranging the order of this video. But now it's in public domain, as I believe he would readily acknowledge. How would your students
change this order. (You could have them use the transcript to rearrange it.)

3. If your students had to take one thing out of this video, what would
they take out? Why?

4. If your students had to insert one new idea into this video what would they insert? Why?

Italian Soccer without Fans

Last Friday I wrote about Italian soccer games being played without fans in the stadium. (I'll post this article in several weeks.) But, here's a letter from a reader:

Several schools in this area have had sports events with NO spectators. This practice started several years ago when gangs used sporting events to schedule turf wars. Games would be scheduled on Sat. morning. Some of this has been relaxed in recent years to allow home students to attend.

Leo West
Pittsburgh, PA

Madame President

Yesterday, I wrote a newsletter about the new woman President of Harvard University. I'll post the newsletter in the Living-Textbook in a few weeks. But, I wanted to post a response from a reader today.

For an appealing story about girls seeking their own identity read To Know the Sea, by Frances Gilbert.

The little princess in the high mountain kingdom wants desperately to know the sea, to go to sea, nonsense they tell her, but she won't give up her longing and eventually tiring of her tantrums the king turns the problem over to the queen who advertises for someone to bring the sea to the princess - the traditional three young men try and fail - eventually an old sailor brings the sea to the princess in an unusual way - she sells her tiara buys a ship and sails off into an independent future.

Great for 6-10 year olds, beautifully written and illustrated.

Gillian Collings
Trumbull, Connecticut

The reason for teaching Current Events

I'm a little confused. The other day a school principal sent me a note explaining that her teachers don't have enough time to teach current events on top of their regular curriculum. I was disappointed. For what is the purpose of school? If the purpose of school isn't to help students understand the world in which they live and to help them develop the skills to live productively, what's the point of going to school? (Considering the fact that knowledge grows and changes as quickly as it does, there's no point in going to school to learn uncontextualized knowledge. For facts will change before students have a chance to use them.)

I really believe that if teachers used current events as the center of their curriculum, they could teach about anything that they want to/are required to teach about and simultaneously teach students about the world in which they live. (I use the word teach in the previous sentence, but what I should have written is that if students learn about current events they can learn about everything else as well.)

Let's take an example: In the last year, wiretapping has been an important news topic. Does the Federal Government have the right to wiretap foreign nationals without warrants? Sure this question raises issues of law but it also should raise issues of science. If students are going to effectively understand wiretapping, they should understand how wires have to be used to intercept phone conversations. What is it about wires that give them the ability to transmit voice and data? What does the word "conductivity" mean? I've provided some lesson ideas of my own here. But, I'm not a science person. Science teachers could pick up with this current event and incorporate it into their own lessons.

What do you think?

Current Doesn't Need to be so Current

Over the last few weeks, I've realized that though I write a set of current events lesson ideas each day, lesson ideas that I wrote months ago are still useful. I suspect that they'll be useful next year and next decade as well. What do you think?

Check out this example, entitled All Work No Play!!