BEDA 11 - The Blooming of Ideas

While I was thinking of something quick and painless to blog about today, an organic piece of learning happened.

First, I decided to first look at the History Channel web page, http://www.historychannel.com. I like this site because there is a lot of cool multimedia sources and I personally like learning about the past. I clicked on the "This Day in History" link and by watching a short video clip learned that on April 11 1970 (today in history), NASA launched Apollo 13. A couple days after the launch, the crew had to return due to an explosion on board.

Here is the seal for that mission.

A month or two ago, my husband, my 11 year old son, and I watched Ron Howard's 1995 movie named after the mission. This movie starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and some other guys. My son kept asking me through the movie, "do they live? do they make it back?" It was a really good movie based on a very emotional and excited true story. It always makes me cry. I couldn't remember if this movie won any awards, so I looked on the wikipedia page for the movie - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film). It was nominated for a gazillion Oscars and took home two; one for film editing and one for sound mixing.

Here is one of the movie poster pics:

I remembered that NASA had a really good missions page at http://www.nasa.gov/missions/. I explored this page with students earlier in the year. They were learning about manned and unmanned space exploration. This is a difficult concept for some young people because NASA missions are not a much in the spot light as they once were back in the space race/cold war period. Even those awesome pics of MARS escaped notice by many teens.

The NASA missions page is a great place to explore past missions like Apollo 13, current missions like the the Voyager, Interstella Mission, and future missions of the International Space Station. I was amazed at all that NASA is up too on a day to day basis.

Here is a very nice photo collage of Apollo 13 crew and craft from the NASA mission page.

It is interesting how ideas bloom into inquiry. This short, impromptu brainstorming session of mine mimics, I think, real life patters or learning. I learned quite a bit in a few minutes about history, science, and pop culture by connecting new information to previous experiences. I think I have heard about this type of learning somewhere before...

Houston, it is time for bed!

Easily Distrac...

Yeah Baby! BEDA #7 and Going Strong! My flock of followers is overwhelming me with comments and I just can't keep up! Who knew that library and education research would be so intriguing? (thinking ...resist the urge to write edutainment that is snarky, crass, and basically unworthy of my time just as a ploy for more readers.)

So, yesterday I mentioned that I would discuss more about "what I would do differently" if I were in charge of my own school. I alluded that this blog would be about Internet connectivity for students/families who could not afford a line.

Today, I discussed one to one computing and digital divide with one of my peers Kym Kramer, doctoral candidate at IU. Well, calling her my peer is generous to me, because she knows a hell of a lot more than I do about the world of school libraries and also (wondering... should tell these people I am mentioning their names in my blogs...)

Anyway, she mentioned something about the Bush regime causing a greater rift in the digital divide and something like it being more expensive to get Internet connections and therefor is (speculating.... will the evil residue stain of the last 8 years ever wash off our educational system...)

So instead of brainstorming with you, my imaginary audience, and just articulating the "problem" in my head before I go out and get the real information, I am going to pretend I am one of my YA students and multi task and (googling... Bush Digital Divide... is there a better search strand like maybe, oh, here is one...).

Right, it looks like I found an article on edutopia.com that (listening... husband talking about his car battery dying at soccer practice and now he needs too...). Umm, Oh yeah, anyway, discusses how the Bush Regime thinks federal funding is no longer necessary because of the fast rate of growth for Internet usage in America. OK, well, yeah, for the more affluent people (80% of these school children with Internet in their homes) but not for the poverty line households (less than 30% of these school children with Internet in their homes).

It turns out that general statistics of Internet usage in American, without controlling for specific socioeconomic criteria, convinced Conservative leaders that continuous grant funding for technology in homes would not be slated for renewal and instead (thinking... WT!? Where did these people come from? No Rich, White, English Speaking Child Left Behind World. I can picture it now, myspace is a sparkly white testament to our society's abilities to...).

I guess I am not the only one distracted. This article (swearing... I can't find the original publication date, shame on you edutopia, I thought you would have a higher level of ...) and it discussed events "to happen" in 2003. Six years later, what are we doing about the digital divide? Has it been off the agenda since then? Is the Obama administration including this in the stimulus plan? How could I find funding for my "dream school" to make sure all my kids had access? Oh crap, now I have six more research questions to track down and (pondering... I wonder if @cantconcentrate every replied to my DM of if I should RT that request for...).

Oh, hello "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. Don't we have a date tonight?

Still Mucking Around

As I consider my discontent further, and try to find my road to research, I am thinking back on three pieces of advice I have gotten recently.

The first was from my husband (who clearly didn't coin this phrase, but I first heard it from him). He was not talking about public education, but investing in the stock market, which requires a good amount of research in order to be successful.

Invest in what you know.

I would also include ...what you love, and ...what most interests you. At this stage in my life I think all three pretty much connect in one form or another. Please just take my word for it and do NOT make me illustrate with a Venn Diagram. God I hate Venn Diagrams.

I would also argue that a person cannot really and truly "know" something unless they experience this "thing" first-hand on a daily basis (except of course on school vacations and other major holidays...).

This piece of advise is really common sense, but I guess I don't have a whole lot because I needed to hear it. Why would I spend time concentrating on anything else when I will be investing my time, money, and my soul (I think this is a requirement of admissions to a doctoral program) for this research.

So, by following my husband's advice and defining what "know" really means to me, I have narrowed my focus professionally (not personal, my family would be at the top every time) to the short list below (in random order).

High School Education
Library Science
Information Science (including web 2.0)
Literature
Writing (Probably what I know the least but it is more than a passing interest and I am actively involved)

I know a little about cooking, playing guitar and piano, and knitting, but not enough to warrant giving away too much of my time, money, and soul to further my investment. Maybe someday I will be a one woman band while whipping up a souffle and knitting sweater vests, not probably not in the next 100 years.

The second piece of advise was given to me, at different times, by two of my professors at Butler University (Shelly Furuness and Jody Britten).

Isolate the things about your work as a High School Teacher-Librarian that trouble you, that you feel are just not right, then decide if you want to change it.

Notice they didn't say "then decide if you can change it." As master teachers they did not limit my creative problem-based thinking by undermining my confidence. All learners can do that just fine on their own. What learners need is someone to believe in them. I digress...

So, how could I make change? I could stick around where I currently work and try to be a change agent at my school. Or, I could identify other educational environments that are more in-line with my academic ideology and have already implement changes, or are on their way. Regardless, I still need to narrow my focus on those things that rub me the wrong way.

Some people would say that I have another option: leaving the profession. Don't get me wrong, I do have those fantasies of leaving in early June and forgetting to come back in August. I could work at Starbucks (yummm, soy vanilla latte) or work in a Book Store (yummm, soy vanilla latte and that new book smell). I think all teachers AND librarians have at one time or another.

I didn't include leaving as an option because being a YA Teacher-Librarian is not a J.O.B. but a calling. Even if I didn't need the money (which is in no way lucrative or even desirable for most people with my level of education) I am not sure I would be happy doing anything else, at least not in this stage of my life.

The third piece of advise came from Dr. Britten about two months ago.

Articulate why these things are wrong and how you should make changes to the power holders in a way they could understand and not ignore.
Basically, beat them down with it. Leave no room for someone to come along and say, "Brunner does not know what she is talking about." One of my dreams is to start a free public charter school. When I look at research and learning strategies, I always see things through this lens. What would MY school do differently. Even if I was CEO and Principal of a new school, I would still have to answer to many people.

So, in short I am working on articulating what I think is wrong and then the why and how these things can be changed.

The what will come from mostly from my own organic experiences (invest in what you know).

The the why and how will come mostly from those who are much smarter than me and have hopefully done some of the work. (content area professionals, education researchers, master teachers, and proactive librarians) and those that will have the most to gain or to loose from my work.

Often times in education we forget ask the end users key questions: What do you want? What would make things better? What can we do for you? What are your goals?

In my case, the ultimate end users who could benefit or not from my work are are my students, current and future. Second on the list are high school educators including other YA teacher-librarians. Third, the community at large. Every citizen, domestic or global, has a stake in public education.

Tomorrow, what "I" think is wrong and should be changed in public high schools today.