Beyond School

It’s been about six weeks since my last update on the ten-week-old Networked Learning class I created with the help of so many of you in the initial Open Thread post and Twitter. Students are still grading themselves and justifying it - and showing the same fondness for grade inflation as so many of our colleagues. They’re also reflecting up a storm on how messy learning is when it’s yours to create and pursue.

Lesson One: Natives Can’t Tweet, and Twits Must Sleep

I’m learning a lot too. I’m learning that students aren’t comfortable with Twitter - another strike against the Digital Natives concept - and don’t adapt to it easily. I’m also learning that the Twitterverse is so much fuller of good will and idealism than it is of time and energy that it’s often unreliable (and I include myself in this charge). I pulled back from that angle when I realized the absence of network input could be an excuse for not generating your own content from good old-fashioned writing (or new-fashioned blogging and multmedia).

Lesson Two: Failure Can Breed Success

But the favorite piece of learning I’m having is this: there is no unit testing involved, no chopping up of learning into opened-then-closed chapters. Instead, there is a lot of time for confusion, drift, frustration, and failure - without the option of quitting. And to me, that’s pregnant with more real-world learning than most stuff on the SAT or AP Literature exam.

Lesson Three: Fall Down Nine Times, Stand Up Ten — Then Slam-Dunk

And here’s some evidence: Jaeho and Younsuk have gone through a lot of challenges as they’ve tried to launch their Basketball without Borders website (I’m withholding the URL until the tell me it’s ready to launch). They’d

had a lot of leads for interviews that fizzled out, were delayed, fell through, and so forth, and had to traverse some really windless seas for a few weeks. We kept busy with more schooly writing exercises and such while waiting for fresh winds, but still - “inspired” and “motivated” are the last words to come to mind when I remember those weeks with this project.

But today they had a slam dunk: K.J. Matsui (Washington Post feature article here), an NCAA basketball standout from Columbia University, agreed to a Skype call from Korea to New York - during our class - to record for a podcast interview for their site. Younsuk skyped me at about 2 this morning to give me the news, chat about his interview questions, and so forth, which is, ah, unusual from almost any student. Then today in class, Matsui was on Skype as promised. (How cool is that from a world-class athlete, by the way?)

How do “inspired” and “motivated” fit these project creators now? You decide. I filmed them just as the interview ended, and interviewed them myself. It’s 4 noteworthy minutes, especially to those who can read body and facial language.

And me? I’m inspired, as a teacher, to help them write as well as they can on this site. I want it to succeed and grow long after they leave me.

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Just a quickie to share a new discovery: I just switched to Flock from Firefox - which I loved, but has been way too buggy lately - and I find it feels just like Firefox, but faster and more stable. Better still, I found a new addon called Split Browser (see a monster list of Flock addons here) that allows me to split my browser window. I know this isn’t new - I used a similar thing years ago when I was a PC user - but I’d somehow forgotten how useful this function could be.

An example: Say you’re reading a a long forum entry on Ning, and you want to be able to reply to it as you read. You can’t do that easily in one browser (and yes, you could simply open another window, but that’s clunky). By splitting my Flock window, it’s easy. See this screenshot for a glimpse of how, and click on the image for a larger view:

Added bonus: Flock seems to really take customer care to new levels via Twitter. See this post from John Larkin for the full, cool scoop.

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One for the MiniLegends

[Update: I was out of the loop preparing for my wedding when Australian Al Upton's MiniLegends and Qatar's Jabiz Raisdana got hit by two shockingly reactionary hammers. Since this podcast features Noel Thomas, an Australian high school principal representing all that is most forward-thinking and impressive about Australia's educational system, I'd like to dedicate this podcast to Al, the MiniLegends, and Jabiz. Noel, I can't help but fantasize that you and Al discover each other and join forces. As you say in the podcast, most teachers will never get it. Al is a teacher who has impressed us all for years with how much he does get it. (h/t to John Connell for the miniLegends badge - John, I hope you don't mind me nicking it?)]

Love This Podcast, or I’ll Eat a Bug

As I say in the intro to this podcast, if you don’t find it the most interesting hour of podcasting I’ve ever done, I’ll eat a bug. (And yes, Los Angelenos, that is a quote from the old Cal Worthington used car commercials of the ’80s.) That intro was hard, by the way: I tried about 8 times to summarize why I’m so excited about the things happening in that podcast, but couldn’t, and did the “eat a bug” intro instead. In retrospect, it sounds silly. But I had to get the thing published.

Creative Destruction Abundant

What walls don’t come down in this hour-long talk? Bye-bye edu-caste system, bye-bye geographic and temporal barriers. My guests are from three continents and four levels of school hierarchy:

• High School Principal Noel Thomas, Toorak College, Melbourne, Australia
• High School Principal (and next year’s Director) Rich Boerner, Korea International School, Seoul, South Korea (my employer)
• Librarian Jenny Luca, Toorak College, Melbourne
• Lara H., high school student, Toorak College
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilber, Punahou High School student (and Students 2.o staff writer), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• and me, high school teacher and tool-guy, Korea International School

(Quicktime free download required)

(right-click and “save target as” here to download enhanced podcast for iTunes)

Table of Contents

If you download to iTunes, you can navigate by these chapter headings:

• Intro: I’ll Eat a Bug
• Audio Snapshots
• Welcome
• Noel Thomas, Toorak College, Melbourne Australia
• Toorak’s Dilemma re: Web Access for Students
• Rich Boerner, Korea Internat’l School, Seoul
• KIS’ Open Web Access for Students
• Factors Favoring Relaxed Filtering at KIS
• Toorak Librarain Jenny Luca: Toorak Change Agent
• Jenny’s Views on the Value of Blogging to Learn
• Toorak and KIS Connect thru Project Global Cooling
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur, Intro (Hawaii Student)
• Student Lindsea Teaching the World
• Lara H., Intro (Australia Student)
• Sustainability at Our Specific Schools
• Broader Issues of Connecting Schools for Learning
• Lindsea on Youthnet: Student-Initiated Global Collaboration via Twitter and Wiki
• How Clay in Korea has Known Lindsea in Hawaii for Almost 2 Years
• Getting Teachers to Accept Student-Led Collaborative Projects
• Getting Students to Rise to the Challenge of Laptop Learning
• KIS Student Patrick Nam as Model of Networked Learning
• Noel’s Approach to Keeping Students Responsible Online
• Jenny’s Approach to Pulling Students In
• Clay on the Importance of Same Time-Zone Partner Schools
• Rich on Importance of Collab AT SCHOOL, not home
• Acceptable Use Policy
• Toward an Eastern Hemisphere Schools Network
• Spreading the Word to Students about Youthnet
• Lindsea as Model for Student Imitation
• Lara: PGC Should Be Easy in Australia
• Difficulties with Projects in Korea
• Media Interest in Project Global Cooling
• Clay’s Parting Shot: This Tech is EASY
• Parting Shots
• Closing Comments: Project Global Cooling Growing: Seoul, Hawaii, Australia in, and Beijing, Los Angeles, and Bangkok Nibbling - Add Your School This Year or Next
• (Name Your Bug)

Links Referenced in Podcast:

• Jenny Luca’s Lucacept (Australia)
• Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed
• Project Global Cooling
• Bill Farren’s Education for Well-Being blog
• Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur’s Love and Logic blog
• Chris Watson’s WatsonCommon blog
• Lindsea’s Youthnet post on Students 2.0
• Jabiz Raisdana’s Intrepid Teacher (stay intrepid, Jabiz)
• Jabiz’ Global Issues class blog
• Youthnet Twitter page
• “Natural” Global Collaboration (my networked learning elective class)
• Youthnet Wikispace
• The 1001 Flat World Tales global collaborative writing project
• KIS Sophomore Patrick Nam’s blog and podcast

Recorded on 3 March 2008

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[Bill Farren posts his third weekly installment on Education for Well-Being (the full series: my intro “Beyond ‘Did You Know?’ - A Video for Viral Times: ‘Did You Ever Wonder?’“; Bill’s first guest-post, “Education for Well-Being“; Bill’s second guest-post, “The Hidden Curriculum“; and Seoul sophomore Patrick Nam’s outstanding podcast interview with Bill for Project Global Cooling). Bill has vital things to say about education, and I'm happy to read more of them in this post. An overdue hat-tip to Jeffrey Dungan in the Dominican Republic for connecting Bill and me.-- Clay]

I’d like to preface this post with something unrelated (but way more important)–An Irish toast to Clay and his wife: May you both live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. Congratulations!

Random Acts of Deceleration

Attempts to decelerate the lives of young people seem to be few and far between. When any significant attempt is made, it is so rare and goes against the grain at such a sharp angle, that it makes national headlines. The New York Times wrote an article about the efforts of principal Paul Richards to address the issue of academic stress at his high school. Mr. Richards states that he is trying to “bring the culture to a healthier place.” For this, according to the article, he has been mocked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno. He has received hate mail from all parts.

While reading Dangerously Irrelevant, I came across this reply to a post about the documentary 2 Million Minutes:

As a senior citizen of a fairly affluent suburb of Boston, I have been shocked at the recent changes taking place in our town’s high school. No homework over vacations; no or little homework over long weekends; no required reading over summers and no publication anywhere of the high school honor roll. However, the super-jocks on all high school sports teams are always written about in the local paper. It’s disgraceful!

Academic achievement has become irrelevant. Our high school principal believes kids already have too much “pressure.” He cites several high school suicides in recent years and blames them on pressure to achieve high grades. [School officials, according to the NYT article, emphasize the suicides were not related to stress.] As a result, our high school has been dumbed down to mediocre, where it will stay until we get rid of our current school committee, superintendent and high school principal - all the while wasting over 50% of the town’s tax revenue on the school system.

Finally, our town’s high school certainly doesn’t appear on U.S. News’ list of the best 100 high schools in the U.S., but 3 towns within 10 miles do, as well as does The Boston Latin School.

(Background: 2 Million Minute’s site asks, “How do most American high school students spend this time? What about students in the rest of the world? How do family, friends and society influence a student’s choices for time allocation? What implications do their choices have on their future and on a country’s economic future?”)

In another random act of deceleration, Harvard Dean Harry Lewis made national headlines when he sent out a letter asking students to slow down, have fun, and reflect on what would truly make them happy in life. It’s disconcerting that students considered paragons of what our educational systems have to offer need to be reminded to have fun and to reflect on what might make them happy in life. That the whole purpose of life can be an afterthought needing a reminder, makes one wonder what happened in the 6 million minutes prior to college. I applaud Dean Lewis for his efforts but at the same time wonder about the system and culture that creates a need for such a letter. Our culture seems to have accepted that stress, unhappiness and distaste for learning is the price worth paying for that ill-defined concept called success.

But I don’t believe we have to enter into such an insolvent arrangement. What is now called hard work and higher standards is too often just an indication of how much suffering students are willing to put up with in dealing with boring, schooly, meaningless lessons in very controlling environments. In the process, we are creating a generation of stressed-out, materialistic and miseducated students, to borrow from the title of Denise Pope’s book.

The better bargain involves removing the speed and stress caused by school by removing the schooliness. My observations point to schoolines as a prime source of stress, speed, and wasted learning opportunities. If we were to remove schooliness and replace it with unschooliness, then well-being and learning would quickly improve for students. Life and work would improve markedly for teachers, parents and administrators as well.

I’m afraid though, what schools often suggest as remedies to stress, burnout, disengagement and “playing the system” (cheating), deal mostly, in very schooly ways, with the symptoms and not the underlying causes. Take cheating for example. Most schools see the student as the source of the problem. In an article about the importance of looking at the context in which students act, Alfie Kohn states, “cheating is relatively rare in classrooms where the learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students and where a commitment to exploring significant ideas hasn’t been eclipsed by a single-minded emphasis on ‘rigor.’” He goes on to say that, “when students perceive that the ultimate goal of learning is to get good grades, they are more likely to see cheating as an acceptable, justifiable behavior”. Most schools, instead of reflecting on what they are doing to cause cheating, throw out a bunch of schooly solutions like using turnitin.com, giving anti-cheating workshops, all the while creating ever more policies and punishments for cheating. Similarly, health texts for students often deal with the issue of stress by correctly suggesting exercise, eating well, and relaxation techniques, but never question the underlying causes of school-related stress. In these obtuse, unreflective environments, stress and speed are bound to thrive.

So, what would happen if we slowed the treadmill down? Would it all unravel? Would students learn less? Would their lives be diminished?

Clearly, it’s an uphill and often thankless struggle to slow down the lives of students today. The belief that faster, harder, and more, produces better learning, will not go away easily. Whether it produces better lives, both in the present and in the future, is seldom asked. Fortunately, as the NYTimes article suggests, small inroads are being made both in the parent community and in the culture at large to improve mental health and school climate.

(I’d like to thank Clay for birthing ¹, elevating, and expanding the idea of schooliness. Once we are aware of it, start to reflect on it, then act to remove it, schools will become more capable instruments of well-being.)

Thanks for reading,

Bill Farren

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1. I think [↩]

Shifts are happening more and more quickly in my world. I’ve seen too many inspired visions crash on the shoals of reality to celebrate these shifts yet, but they do make me hopeful.

They’re happening with a few select students: Lindsea in Hawaii (I often want to call Lindsea “my favorite student,” but I’ve never met her outside of Skype, Twitter, blogs, and the 1001 Flat World Tales workshops where we met a year ago) and Patrick in Seoul are becoming the 21st century students I (we?) need to point to as examples, for teachers who need to see what we can only talk about. I’ve already blogged about them recently, and will return to them soon in more in-depth posts. (But see Jenny Luca’s post about their visits from Hawaii and Seoul into a classroom in Melbourne today to discuss Project Global Cooling with the Australian students: Connecting, creating, collaborating on real-world global citizenship.)

I’m equally tempted by hope because shifts are happening with my school administration. My principal, Rich Boerner (next year’s director), approved my course proposal for an elective class next year - the only one I’ll teach, as I spend the rest of my time as K-12 21st C. Learning Coordinator. I want this class to be a showcase of what the students with the right stuff - confidence, creativity, motivation, vision, courage, playfulness, outside-the-boxedness and beyond-schooliness - can do, given a classroom with an open network, MacBooks for all, and a certain kind of teacher (which means, for better or worse, me).

I was just on “Shanghai Jeff” Utecht’s and “Taiwan Dave” Carpenter’s Shifting Our School’s podcast with Chris Betcher* from Sydney, Australia. I shared my course description there, and Jeff said some listeners on the Ustream chat asked me to post the course description.

So here it is, without any claims to it being a silver bullet. Any feedback between now and next August when this class starts is more than welcome. So are any offers to connect our students next year, without teachers, by simply saying: “There are students in Korea, Hawaii, Australia, and elsewhere following Youthnet on Twitter (and on the Youthnet wikispace). You students wanting to find others to do collaborative projects can find each other there. Let me know if you need feedback on anything.” And then we teachers just focus on the quality of those projects, assessing by “sitting with” and guiding in whatever ways we can. (And in my class? Students will suggest their own grades, and justify them by showing what they learned about creating, collaborating, learning, and communicating, as well as by showing me they were not lazy or dull.)

Here it is:

Advanced Writing and Multimedia Projects:

For real writers and creators: Love to write, to speak, and/or to make films? Wish there was a class where you could work on your own ideas, your own projects, and learn advanced podcasting, film-making, writing/blogging, social networking? This class is for you. You design your project(s). You develop them however you want them to go. And you get feedback from your teacher on the quality of your writing and other multimedia (radio/podcasting, movie-making, blogging, social networking strategies). If you choose, you can learn to market your project for world attention. It will be yours to continue in coming years, when class is over.

Projects can be: creative or non-fiction, text-only, multimedia-only, or mixed. Interaction and collaboration with world students in Australia, the USA, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America via Skype, Twitter, and other tools is encouraged, but not required.

Pre-requisite: By interview only. Bring evidence that you actively write, podcast, make movies, etc; and be able to describe the project idea(s) you want the freedom to work on in school.

We’ll see how this goes. Realistically, I only hope it adds a few more “lighthouse students” to the world stage, like Lindsea and Patrick.

–

Photos: Biandronno’s trampoline by otomatuah; Isle to Red Door by StephanosP

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