Beyond School

Wow. It’s been a heady 24 hours. My site went down on Friday night around 10pm, and at midnight my neighborhood lost internet service. When I woke this morning, it was still down. It came on at 11 a.m., and I had a new experience: my Blogging Parent Letter: Choose Your Privacy Levels post made the del.icio.us “popular” posts front page. Thank goodness for the PowWeb support folks who fixed my site while I slept.

Now here’s the funny thing: that post was something I knocked off at school in a spare few minutes (I’d already written and distributed the actual parent letter). It was an afterthought. I thought a few people might find it useful.

But the fact that it got such attention - over 300 visits today from del.icio.us/popular and popurls alone in the last 8 hours - speaks volumes about this fact: classroom blogging might be “last year’s news” to all of us who’ve obsessed over “this year’s latest gadgets” (Twitter, UStream, etc.), but we still find it problematic. Put another way, it seems we may have swallowed it, but we’re still trying to digest it.

While I’m honored that so many people found the letter useful - and have Doug Noon, Mark Ahlness, Patrick Higgins, Konrad Glogowski, Chris Watson, Diane Cordell, and many others from a conversation months ago for helping birth it - I can’t help but think that the letter is a secondary issue. Bigger issues - and I’m thinking primarily on the upper secondary (14-18 year-olds) level - deserve more attention than the letter. The letter paves the way for these questions.

And those questions, true to blogging form, started taking shape in the comments section of the Parent Letter post.

I’ve done it before, and I’m doing it again: I’m “promoting” the conversation from the “comment limbo” to “full post” status here for the sake of the 99% of us who don’t leave our aggregators to read the actual post page and comments (when will RSS begin including comments?). Because Diane Cordell, after some prompting on Twitter from Jo McLeay and me, led the conversation where it needs, at least for me, to go.

So I’ll shut up now, and let that conversation speak for itself. I did my best to articulate my response to Diane’s pulse-fingering questions. I hope some of you will add your own perspectives to extend this idea further.

So here’s the (edited) conversation so far:

Diane Cordell // Nov. 9, 2007 at 11:00 am

Hi, Clay!

I really like this concept: you’re not asking parents whether their child can blog but, rather, what some of the components of the blog will be. Give Parents and Students “voice” while preserving the integrity of the medium and the message.

Just curious…are the participants totally free to chose their area of interest. No worries about social or political correctness? (I know you would be open to most topics, but does your administration have any restrictions on student research?)

Keep those kids hopping!

diane

Clay Burell // Nov 9, 2007 at 11:08 am

Diane, I’m as conservative as they come. I don’t let students write about anything against my own beliefs

Seriously, though: as things stand now, it’s an issue of addressing any posts of questionable judgment early - a “trust first, and coach when necessary” approach.

I’m curious to hear more of your thinking here. What scenarios do you have in mind?

Jo McLeay // Nov 9, 2007 at 11:47 am

Hi Clay, I think this is great and I love the idea about a project approach. That the connnected reading and writing has a goal in mind (At the moment my students blog reflectively). I think that the approach of being a guide or coach is better than proscribing topics that they may not write about or have topics that they “must” write about. Just some thoughts.

Clay Burell // Nov 9, 2007 at 11:51 am

Hi Jo. I’m totally with you - and Diane, from what I’ve come to know about her through a few months of interaction now, is probably with you t00. I think Diane is thinking more widely about possible issues that responsible teachers using this approach should think about, and that’s why I really hope she replies soon. In fact, I’ll tweet her now (but I’ve shut down Twitter for the most part - too much distraction for my tastes).

diane // Nov 10, 2007 at 8:31 am

Glad your site is back up!

Knowing my school population, I would anticipate some rather esoteric, if not questionable, choices for inquiry-based research! Our students are interested in the outdoors and, as they themselves put it “Redneck” activities (think rodeo, NASCAR, wrestling). Their vision is narrow and it’s sometimes difficult to suggest viable alternatives.

I let my 9 high school current events kids pick the issues they did a quick PowerPoint on - their choice of medium, not mine - and they did a fair job. Got a bit nervous when one boy started his presentation on underage drinking by stating that “We drink because we want to and you [adults] tell us not to”. He finished by mentioning the tragic accident that took the lives of two of our recent graduates last June. Three young adults died, and there were drugs & alcohol involved. So his work did reflect some thought and judgment.

I think that teachers would have to be very sensitive to community values and careful of allowing comments that were so authentic that they embarrassed or made targets of, the blogger, his classmates, his family, or the school. It’s a fine line we tread when it comes to balancing free expression and social sensitivity. Young adults sometimes lash out without thought for consequences. And those who are given freedom to post publicly need to consider the longevity of their remarks - into the college and career years and beyond!
Clay Burell // Nov 10, 2007 at 2:49 pm

Diane, thanks so much for pushing this conversation forward. It’s really one of the best comments I’ve had in a long time. Lots to respond to, so here goes:

You write:
“Knowing my school population, I would anticipate some rather esoteric, if not questionable, choices for inquiry-based research! Our students are interested in the outdoors and, as they themselves put it “Redneck” activities (think rodeo, NASCAR, wrestling). Their vision is narrow and it’s sometimes difficult to suggest viable alternatives.”

And my response makes even me uncomfortable, but it’s my current state of belief: if they want to write about NASCAR or hunting, let them. Look at the NYTimes. It has blogs for fashion, sports, business, and everything else you can imagine. And then think of the “Long Tail” phenomenon and niche markets: I have a student right now who has a passion for event planning, for example. We searched for bloggers in this niche, and found a couple hundred on Bloglines with that tag - but none of them were that good. So… can’t we see this as an opportunity for this student to compete with these other blogs to “corner the market” in event planning blogs? She can read the best of these other blogs, think of angles that none of them had hit - combining event planning with web 2.0, for example, or a million other creative possibilities - and seriously establish a presence among event planners by virtue of her “upping the game” and becoming a valuable resource, in the real world, for her ideas.

Homework assignments from all her other classes (and mine) will keep her curriculum-driven “research” agenda full enough. Here’s her chance for the education she wishes school would allow her, but doesn’t.

The same goes for students with a passion for gaming, coding, fashion, animals, and anything else - within reasonable (but liberal, if I have my way) limits.

The point is this, as I see it: they have to be able to read and write about something they love, in order to care at all - intrinsically - about what they’re reading and writing. Otherwise, it’s “schooliness” as usual.

Thoughts?

Your second point about the students who addressed their own drinking is fascinating. Granted, they don’t want to reveal their own crimes and misdemeanors in any imprudent way; but think of the heart of their topic: the sociology of adolescence. I want my students to explore their own psychology, their conditioning, their society’s values, the effects of our questionable educational system on their minds, habits, bodies, relationships, lives.

The trick is to guide and coach them into writing about it, again, prudently. I’m not accusing you of believing in what I’m about to say, but simply say what I’ve said so many times in these pages: “critical thinking about safe subjects is an oxymoron” - and it’s the norm in schools. That’s why students so often don’t value their classes: fearful teachers pose irrelevant issues to cover their backsides.

So again, though: this is a tough one. My goal is to authentically assess, through conversation (public in blog comments, private with Diigo stickynotes shared only to the group), students’ attempts to write well and insightfully about their chosen subjects.

As for your last point, you hit it on the head: the “fine line” of “balancing free expression and social sensitivity.” Me? I side with free expression, because progress has only ever come from those with the courage to think critically about social norms. From Socrates to Jesus to Martin Luther to MLK and Muhammed Ali, free thinking has never been popular when it differed from thoughtless social norms. But it’s usually been historically redeemed and cherished later.

Again, it’s all about guidance.

I think there’s more to add: student blogs aren’t widely read, posts can be deleted without anybody usually noticing or caring, and the WayBackMachine doesn’t cache everything. But I could be wrong. I hope more people chime in here.

Thanks again for the push, Diane. You’re the best.

—

That’s it so far. I really hope some of you will take it further. (And Diane really is the best. She’s been getting involved with my students on our AP Lit Ning - it’s open to anybody who wants to talk Shakespeare’s Lear or Milton’s Paradise Lost ((starting next week)) with my seniors. I feel like Diane and I are almost team-teaching this class. It’s nice.)

Anyway - your thoughts? I really need them. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’m trying to take the classroom out of classroom blogging, and replace it with something more authentic. (And for any sloppy readers out there, I’ll re-state: my students are within 8 months of being “legal” adults. We’re not talking about kids here.)

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)