Happy almost Christmas...
I saw this offer for teachers on the web. Seems pretty cool. The folks at participate.net are giving away copies of An Incovenient Truth, the Al Gore, movie. I think they have something like 50,000 to give away. Check it out!!!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
My Final Multimedia Project
I ended up using googlepages to make my website rather than freewebs. I have to admit that the issue of ad banners was my only consideration. I just hate them. I feel that both programs are user-friendly and have good options. I chose to write about revision and editing on my website, because it is an area that I have done a lot of work with, and that I felt I could make the most comprehensive and useful contribution in. They say to write what you know, and this topic is something I have really learned about. I wanted to supply a resource that others might find useful, rather than a website that was for me personally. In retrospect, I wish I had dressed my site up a bit more. The topic of how to teach revision and editing is not terribly exciting, but some of the activities and strategies were actually exciting for me as a student teacher. I feel like I can help students with their writing with confidence now, and that's pretty exciting for English geeks like me (us). So I could definitely have given my website more of an exciting vibe. I think I will probably go back and tweek it a bit somewhere down the road
On my second go through googlepages, I felt really confident about the program. Making a website is far from the mysterious and technical process it once was for me. I do have alot to learn, but I feel like this class has given me a new perspective on access to the web. You can do just about everything you want to do on the web, as long as you look in the right places and have the motivation. Just the simple process of getting out there and making a website or two, making a blog, making and contributing to a wiki has really demystified the whole process. It makes it even harder to figure out the old school of teachers that are so afraid of the web. I feel like a couple of simple assignments for each of these teachers to do over the summer or something, would completely wipe away their apprehension toward cyberspace. Why don't administrators try that? I guess its because the administrators themselves usually don't feel it will be useful either.
On my second go through googlepages, I felt really confident about the program. Making a website is far from the mysterious and technical process it once was for me. I do have alot to learn, but I feel like this class has given me a new perspective on access to the web. You can do just about everything you want to do on the web, as long as you look in the right places and have the motivation. Just the simple process of getting out there and making a website or two, making a blog, making and contributing to a wiki has really demystified the whole process. It makes it even harder to figure out the old school of teachers that are so afraid of the web. I feel like a couple of simple assignments for each of these teachers to do over the summer or something, would completely wipe away their apprehension toward cyberspace. Why don't administrators try that? I guess its because the administrators themselves usually don't feel it will be useful either.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Map maker, map maker, make me a map...
506 has definitely redrawn my personal map of what is possible and practical in the classroom. I have always been a fan of the internet and of digital technology in general, but I had never given serious thought to the ways I could put this affinity to use in my classroom. Above all, 506 has forced me to address the issue of computers and their increasingly undeniable relationship to English teaching. Before this semester, I had never had a blog before, and I had never even been a regular contributor to or reader of someone else’s blog. My exposure to the blogosphere through 506 has been fantastic. I am officially in love with the read/write web. Even the class wiki, which I have only recently gotten into and primarily because it will help my grade, has the potential to be an excellent learning tool. I have become a major supporter of Wikipedia as well. I used to go to Wikipedia once in awhile as change of pace or as a last resort when I couldn’t find what I was looking for through more traditional web resources. Now, I view it as the absolute best way to access encyclopedia-friendly information. It is my go to, my first choice. (Digression: I particularly love going to Wikipedia for info about narrow or obscure bits of pop culture…because wiki pages for no name musicians and stuff are usually produced by the band’s biggest fan they are often more comprehensive than anything you could get otherwise, even from the bands own website in many cases) I think that wikis can work as a way to supercharge group activities and group learning. They offer flexibility (by allowing students who have computers at home to work on their own schedule) and freedom, two things that appeal to increasingly quick thinking and busy youngsters.
But the thing I am most excited about is the use of blogs. I strongly believe that blogging can be a great way to extend class discussions, and have new discussions that might otherwise be impossible in the classroom. Anyone, who still has doubts about using blogs with your classes need only check out the stuff Chris is doing with his classes. Those blogs are fantastic, educational and really fun. In fact, the confluence of education and fun may be the mostly unsung benefit of these read/write technologies. It is a great answer for teachers who are having trouble connecting with or engaging their students. Not to mention the street cred you can get from having a really sweet class blog!!! I love the individual freedom to express that characterizes the blogs, and I think freedom can be a wonderful thing in an English class. I think the lack of freedom to interpret and invent that marks traditional English pedagogy has probably been the discipline’s biggest mistake all these years. The writing James did on his personal website has inspired me to rediscover the basics of English teaching. We need to think about what it is about literature that we love and impart these things to our students. People didn’t start writing and reading because they had to for class, or because they knew it would help them get a job. They did it because of the universal human desire to express, to interact and to share in life’s beautiful struggle with other people. It sounds funny, but in this sense, the internet might be able to help us get back to basics. If we can find ways to produce eager readers and writers all the other BS- Regents et al -will take care of itself.
Now the one thing I have to admit I am not yet excited about, is the Multimedia Apps and their usefulness in the classroom. My experience to this point indicates that the relationship between multimedia projects and teaching English is vague at best. And the time they require is almost prohibitive. Even the stuff we saw from Shade Gomez’s classes was less than inspiring. The videos and stuff were cool, some displayed a lot of talent and creativity, but I still can’t see devoting weeks and weeks of class time to it. Maybe once a year or something. I’m not even that excited about their benefit for us in 506. I think a class that focused on the power of the internet and emerging read/write technologies could be just as useful. Now it is true that I was trumping up the idea of “fun” a mere paragraph ago, and the multimedia apps can certainly be that. But we have to be able to marry the fun to learning. We have to be producing better readers and writers and critical thinkers and I am not sure I have seen a strong case for that to this point with making an IMovie. That being said I am glad for the experience. And I am inspired to use these kinds of apps in my private life after 506. I just can’t see their value in the classroom as clearly as I would like to. In the sense that any new technology requires one to think critically and problem-solve, multimedia apps are useful. But to me this isn’t a compelling argument for their use in an English classroom.
I want to give a shout out to one of my favorite people, Sarah Ostrom. Her "link happy" post inspired me to get a little link happy with this one. Thanks Sarah!!
But the thing I am most excited about is the use of blogs. I strongly believe that blogging can be a great way to extend class discussions, and have new discussions that might otherwise be impossible in the classroom. Anyone, who still has doubts about using blogs with your classes need only check out the stuff Chris is doing with his classes. Those blogs are fantastic, educational and really fun. In fact, the confluence of education and fun may be the mostly unsung benefit of these read/write technologies. It is a great answer for teachers who are having trouble connecting with or engaging their students. Not to mention the street cred you can get from having a really sweet class blog!!! I love the individual freedom to express that characterizes the blogs, and I think freedom can be a wonderful thing in an English class. I think the lack of freedom to interpret and invent that marks traditional English pedagogy has probably been the discipline’s biggest mistake all these years. The writing James did on his personal website has inspired me to rediscover the basics of English teaching. We need to think about what it is about literature that we love and impart these things to our students. People didn’t start writing and reading because they had to for class, or because they knew it would help them get a job. They did it because of the universal human desire to express, to interact and to share in life’s beautiful struggle with other people. It sounds funny, but in this sense, the internet might be able to help us get back to basics. If we can find ways to produce eager readers and writers all the other BS- Regents et al -will take care of itself.
Now the one thing I have to admit I am not yet excited about, is the Multimedia Apps and their usefulness in the classroom. My experience to this point indicates that the relationship between multimedia projects and teaching English is vague at best. And the time they require is almost prohibitive. Even the stuff we saw from Shade Gomez’s classes was less than inspiring. The videos and stuff were cool, some displayed a lot of talent and creativity, but I still can’t see devoting weeks and weeks of class time to it. Maybe once a year or something. I’m not even that excited about their benefit for us in 506. I think a class that focused on the power of the internet and emerging read/write technologies could be just as useful. Now it is true that I was trumping up the idea of “fun” a mere paragraph ago, and the multimedia apps can certainly be that. But we have to be able to marry the fun to learning. We have to be producing better readers and writers and critical thinkers and I am not sure I have seen a strong case for that to this point with making an IMovie. That being said I am glad for the experience. And I am inspired to use these kinds of apps in my private life after 506. I just can’t see their value in the classroom as clearly as I would like to. In the sense that any new technology requires one to think critically and problem-solve, multimedia apps are useful. But to me this isn’t a compelling argument for their use in an English classroom.
I want to give a shout out to one of my favorite people, Sarah Ostrom. Her "link happy" post inspired me to get a little link happy with this one. Thanks Sarah!!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Shared Experience
Ok so a topic came up in 541 the other night that is near and dear to my heart. As a lit devotee for many a year now, I have come to certain realizations about the nature of the written media. It is, the reading of it is, an isolated event. We read the book; we think about it. Perhaps, later, we are lucky enough to discuss it with someone who knows it as well as we do and whose opinion can serve to enlighten ours. But this happens after we have already experienced the text, it is a reflective exercise. Nonetheless, this is part of what draws all of us English Majors to the discipline, that discussion wherein we all learn a little bit more about the books we read, the ways in which we read them and perhaps a bit more about ourselves as readers. It is that opportunity that is so important: to turn the private and personal and rewarding nature of reading into a shared experience. I remember the professor at Rutgers, Vesterman, who first showed me how to close read, who helped me take my appreciation for literature to a new level. The books we read in his course are still among my favorites, if only for the fond memories they hold. The discussion in those classes challenged me to explore my own abilities as a reader. The texts were challenging, my peers were competent and eager and my professor was excellent. I learned why reading and discussing books was my academic passion in that class. Now years later, I have nurtured many other interests that often compete with my desire and time for reading. I love to watch movies and good TV, I listen to music so often and so loudly that I often feel that there is nothing else in the world but that song. And I hurl myself into credit card debt in order to ensure a certain level of aural quality in my car and my apartment. In fact, the stereo in my Subaru is certainly worth more than rusty old, beaten up station wagon that houses it. My point is that nearly everything else I enjoy in life besides reading, can be shared with others in real time, in the moment. Many of these things are in fact better because of it. As anyone can plainly tell, I am a very social person. Most people thrive on personal contact with others, I am a fanatic. The little connections and interactions between other souls and myself is what charges my batteries. I love people. Thus, those other media sources like film and music that lend themselves so well to common experience, to simultaneous and shared enjoyment are very valuable to me.
I had an epiphany one night a couple of years ago, as I sat listening to music with friends of mine. Among mostly close friends, who I knew to be lovers of literature, I wondered aloud why we were always bound to the same activities when indoors. Why couldn't we read a book together or a poem. It sounds stupid or crazy to most people, but then, you goofy English teachers who read my blog are not most people. What happened after that is that we did... we read a book. We took turns, actually, reading aloud and discussing what each person had chosen to read. Since that day, I have incorporated reading aloud into my social circles and party time as often as possible. It is usually difficult, it requires a bit of focus and dedication from all involved. It is not nearly as passive as watching even the most demanding film. But when it happens, it is fantastic. My girlfriend and I have actually completed a novel aloud together, Of Mice and Men, and we are in the midst of numerous others. One of my favorite shows on NPR is Selected Shorts, where a professional actor reads a classic short story to a live audience. To me, this is about the coolest thing in the world. People actually pay to go see these people read. I know that reading aloud is going to be a major part of my relationship with my children when I become a father, and I want it to be a major part of my classroom when I become a teacher.
This brings us to the class discussion in 541. The topic of reading aloud came up, and I felt that my opinion was in the minority. There seems already to be a stigma attached to reading aloud in the classroom. I have heard many an MAT student remark with disdain that one or another host teacher spent entire periods reading from the book, to sighs, yawns and eye rolls from the audience. Or the class who spent six weeks reading Shakespeare aloud and doing nothing else. I agree that this is BS, it is a time filler and, in my opinion, a waste of time. Even the survey we conducted in 505 with Kennedy indicated that the majority of students had a negative attitude toward reading aloud in class. But none of this changes my attitude toward reading aloud with my students. I want my students to get used to reading aloud, and to me reading to them. People say that many students are mortified by reading aloud, that it is cruel to force them. People say that many student readers are not very good at reading aloud, which turns off everyone involved and can make the student doing the reading feel even worse. Worse still some students are terrible readers and don't know or don't care, they are the first ones to raise their hand for the activity and they are the most difficult ones to shut up. I recognize that these are legitimate hurdles for a teacher like myself, but I am afraid of being discouraged by these hurdles. I don't want to give up this ideal. I want to get to a point, in my classroom and in my personal life where reading a book aloud is commonplace. And where it is accepted and looked forward to by a majority. I want to figure it out. I apologize for this inordinately long post, and for the parts that may seem pretentious or self indulgent, but these things are important to me. I am hoping that you English teachers will understand where I am coming from, if you guys don't then the hurdles I speak of are even greater than I imagined. Am I crazy? Will anyone want to join me? Does anyone have success stories about reading aloud in the classroom? If books can be more powerful and emotionally involving than movies, even music, why shouldn't they be shared in that initial moment of power and emotion by more people than the one holding the book.
Here's Kerouac reading from On the Road...
I had an epiphany one night a couple of years ago, as I sat listening to music with friends of mine. Among mostly close friends, who I knew to be lovers of literature, I wondered aloud why we were always bound to the same activities when indoors. Why couldn't we read a book together or a poem. It sounds stupid or crazy to most people, but then, you goofy English teachers who read my blog are not most people. What happened after that is that we did... we read a book. We took turns, actually, reading aloud and discussing what each person had chosen to read. Since that day, I have incorporated reading aloud into my social circles and party time as often as possible. It is usually difficult, it requires a bit of focus and dedication from all involved. It is not nearly as passive as watching even the most demanding film. But when it happens, it is fantastic. My girlfriend and I have actually completed a novel aloud together, Of Mice and Men, and we are in the midst of numerous others. One of my favorite shows on NPR is Selected Shorts, where a professional actor reads a classic short story to a live audience. To me, this is about the coolest thing in the world. People actually pay to go see these people read. I know that reading aloud is going to be a major part of my relationship with my children when I become a father, and I want it to be a major part of my classroom when I become a teacher.
This brings us to the class discussion in 541. The topic of reading aloud came up, and I felt that my opinion was in the minority. There seems already to be a stigma attached to reading aloud in the classroom. I have heard many an MAT student remark with disdain that one or another host teacher spent entire periods reading from the book, to sighs, yawns and eye rolls from the audience. Or the class who spent six weeks reading Shakespeare aloud and doing nothing else. I agree that this is BS, it is a time filler and, in my opinion, a waste of time. Even the survey we conducted in 505 with Kennedy indicated that the majority of students had a negative attitude toward reading aloud in class. But none of this changes my attitude toward reading aloud with my students. I want my students to get used to reading aloud, and to me reading to them. People say that many students are mortified by reading aloud, that it is cruel to force them. People say that many student readers are not very good at reading aloud, which turns off everyone involved and can make the student doing the reading feel even worse. Worse still some students are terrible readers and don't know or don't care, they are the first ones to raise their hand for the activity and they are the most difficult ones to shut up. I recognize that these are legitimate hurdles for a teacher like myself, but I am afraid of being discouraged by these hurdles. I don't want to give up this ideal. I want to get to a point, in my classroom and in my personal life where reading a book aloud is commonplace. And where it is accepted and looked forward to by a majority. I want to figure it out. I apologize for this inordinately long post, and for the parts that may seem pretentious or self indulgent, but these things are important to me. I am hoping that you English teachers will understand where I am coming from, if you guys don't then the hurdles I speak of are even greater than I imagined. Am I crazy? Will anyone want to join me? Does anyone have success stories about reading aloud in the classroom? If books can be more powerful and emotionally involving than movies, even music, why shouldn't they be shared in that initial moment of power and emotion by more people than the one holding the book.
Here's Kerouac reading from On the Road...
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
My website project...
Well I finished up my website and published it. I used GooglePages which was really user-friendly, I don't think I had to consult the Help menu a single time. I just fooled around until I figured out how to do what I needed. I am pretty happy with it and think I could use a version of this site for my actual professional website. At the very least, I am now confident that I can make a decent website using the free internet software and systems. I tried to resist the urge to be personal and honest as much as possible, but a fair amount of me made it onto the site I think. Here tis...joefoxiv.googlepages.com
Monday, November 06, 2006
Apologies...
"If you can think about something like birds, you can get outside of yourself, and it doesn't hurt as much. That's the whole idea. That's the whole challenge for the human race. Think about that. Put your thinking cap on, Sam. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! But I can barely get to the point where I can be a self to get out of."
"If you can think about something like birds, you can get outside of yourself, and it doesn't hurt as much. That's the whole idea. That's the whole challenge for the human race. Think about that. Put your thinking cap on, Sam. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! But I can barely get to the point where I can be a self to get out of."
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Call for Change
Hello fellow Americans...I am having a hard time concentrating on school right now and on 506...and I figured instead of allowing my contribution level to suffer in silence, I would just write about what's on my mind, I'm pretty sure that's the point of this whole blog business anyway. Last night I spent 2 or 3 hours at the local office of MoveOn.org in Ithaca. It is on the first floor of the Dewitt Mall, directly upstairs from the cafe if any locals would like to check it out. For those of you who don't know, MoveOn is something of a progressive and aggressive answer to Karl Rove. They are not supported by any particular candidate, but rather work independently to expose Republican corruption, ineptitude and failure and in the process help elect Democrats. My apologies to any Republican readers of my blog. I want you to know that the philosophical differences between Conservative and Liberal visions of what government should look like are legitimate points of debate. I am a liberal, but I can understand the mentality of the Conservative mind in some cases. That being said, what is going on in this country and to this country under the Bu@*sh%$ regime is nothing short of an absolute outrage. It no longer has anything to do with traditional party politics. It has to do with electing people, who are willing to stand up to this moron.
Failure to Prevent 911 despite serious and detailed intelligence reports, failure to Catch Osama Bin Laden over a 5 year period with the most awesome and technologically sophisticated military the world has ever known and the support and assistance (in the beginning at least) of the entire world, dragging us into the midst of a protracted War in Iraq that was clearly based on faulty/fabricated intelligence and which has brought about the worst civil and political strife that country has seen in decades, and which has utterly exhausted, divided and distracted a U.S. military from the true pursuit of terrorists and killed untold 100's of thousands of innocent civilians, and a humiliating and pathetic Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster this country has seen, at least in a hundred years if not ever...these things are simply the highlights of a long list of perhaps the biggest failures in Presidential/American history. Whew...sorry for that.
The point is I believe that we need oversight and the reemergence of a system of checks and balances that can only be provided by a Democratic majority in Congress. So, this upcoming election in 14 days!! is the reason I cannot concentrate on school and the reason I went to MoveOn last night. They have a plan that you can check out online called Call for Change. They have identified 30 Congressional districts that are likely to be closely contested in a couple of weeks, and where Republicans were winning and are now tied or behind, or where Republicans have traditionally won, and generated an extensive list of progressive voter phone numbers in these areas. By going to Callforchange.org and signing up you can become a volunteer and an active member of our fading Democracy. They provide you with a scripted message which is tailored to the district you are calling as well as information sheets about both candidates in that district and you basically just follow the prompts reminding them to vote and to vote Democrat, it is a super simple system of clicking buttons on your monitor screen that correlate to their responses to your prompts and guide you step-by-step through the call. You can spend as little or as much time calling voters as you want (they recommenend an hour a week for the next couple, and then like an hour a day or as much as possible during the final days).
For someone like me who has alot to say about this stuff and lives in a community of mostly like minded people, and has about as busy a schedule as you can imagine, I was beginning to feel helpless about the fates of Democrats in far flung districts and the organizational power of Rove and his henchmen. MoveOn has empowered me, and I am excited to be able to reach so many voters in crucial districts. Last night I was calling current MoveOn members and giving them a similar speech to the one you guys just read and trying to enlist them to go to the website and volunteer to make calls. Then I realized that I can just start telling people that I know already, who would be interested, and then I realized I could just post it to my blog, and reach that many more people in the span of half and hour of typing. The internet really is pretty cool, just what I am doing right now is cool, and what MoveOn has accomplished with the power of connectivity is freakin amazing. Ideally, I would elaborate on how this internet networking relates directly to what we are talking about in 506, and what Friedman is talking about in his book, but I have to go hurry and try to throw some crap together for 541 before our class starts. Maybe you folks can elaborate for me in your comments, or maybe I'll just write a follow up post later.
So get out there and do something, it's either that or move to Europe. And some of us are in school still, ya know. Here is the link...check it out..callforchange.org
Failure to Prevent 911 despite serious and detailed intelligence reports, failure to Catch Osama Bin Laden over a 5 year period with the most awesome and technologically sophisticated military the world has ever known and the support and assistance (in the beginning at least) of the entire world, dragging us into the midst of a protracted War in Iraq that was clearly based on faulty/fabricated intelligence and which has brought about the worst civil and political strife that country has seen in decades, and which has utterly exhausted, divided and distracted a U.S. military from the true pursuit of terrorists and killed untold 100's of thousands of innocent civilians, and a humiliating and pathetic Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster this country has seen, at least in a hundred years if not ever...these things are simply the highlights of a long list of perhaps the biggest failures in Presidential/American history. Whew...sorry for that.
The point is I believe that we need oversight and the reemergence of a system of checks and balances that can only be provided by a Democratic majority in Congress. So, this upcoming election in 14 days!! is the reason I cannot concentrate on school and the reason I went to MoveOn last night. They have a plan that you can check out online called Call for Change. They have identified 30 Congressional districts that are likely to be closely contested in a couple of weeks, and where Republicans were winning and are now tied or behind, or where Republicans have traditionally won, and generated an extensive list of progressive voter phone numbers in these areas. By going to Callforchange.org and signing up you can become a volunteer and an active member of our fading Democracy. They provide you with a scripted message which is tailored to the district you are calling as well as information sheets about both candidates in that district and you basically just follow the prompts reminding them to vote and to vote Democrat, it is a super simple system of clicking buttons on your monitor screen that correlate to their responses to your prompts and guide you step-by-step through the call. You can spend as little or as much time calling voters as you want (they recommenend an hour a week for the next couple, and then like an hour a day or as much as possible during the final days).
For someone like me who has alot to say about this stuff and lives in a community of mostly like minded people, and has about as busy a schedule as you can imagine, I was beginning to feel helpless about the fates of Democrats in far flung districts and the organizational power of Rove and his henchmen. MoveOn has empowered me, and I am excited to be able to reach so many voters in crucial districts. Last night I was calling current MoveOn members and giving them a similar speech to the one you guys just read and trying to enlist them to go to the website and volunteer to make calls. Then I realized that I can just start telling people that I know already, who would be interested, and then I realized I could just post it to my blog, and reach that many more people in the span of half and hour of typing. The internet really is pretty cool, just what I am doing right now is cool, and what MoveOn has accomplished with the power of connectivity is freakin amazing. Ideally, I would elaborate on how this internet networking relates directly to what we are talking about in 506, and what Friedman is talking about in his book, but I have to go hurry and try to throw some crap together for 541 before our class starts. Maybe you folks can elaborate for me in your comments, or maybe I'll just write a follow up post later.
So get out there and do something, it's either that or move to Europe. And some of us are in school still, ya know. Here is the link...check it out..callforchange.org
Monday, October 23, 2006
More Stuff
Here is another cool video about the fate of the planet...a tad bit more bleak...and a good bit less PG...but also quite funny...check out "The End of the World"
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Sustainability 101
I am planning to do a mini teach-in on sustainable development and communities for my course project. I hope to approach the concept from the basic levels of definitions and examples, and gradually work up to practical advice, a discussion of the Eco-village at Ithaca and its role as something of a pioneer in developing sustainable communities. I would like to provide useful links and references for people who are interested in getting involved in sustainable work in their own community. The final analysis will be involved with various ways that we as teachers can promote sustainability and suatainable living in our own classrooms. I feel that we, as teachers. are in a great position to be the torch bearers of the global initiaitive to promote and support, and even develop a sustainable (or should I say more sustainable) global community. Like so many wonderful causes it is a big job with even bigger consequences, and I think that teachers can be major players in the fight for this planet. I found this cool, funny flash animation that helps make the point, check it out, it's superfresh!! Enjoy the Wombat of Oneness!!!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Savage Inequalities
So I went to see Jonathan Kozol speak at Cornell last week, and it was pretty fantastic. I have read one of his books, The Shame of the Nation, and figured his talk was going to be a super-depressing, statistic-packed diatribe against racism and the resegregation of American public schools. The talk turned out to be very anecdotal and almost as funny as depressing. I learned a lot about the man himself, his roots in the civil rights movement, his roots as a High School English teacher, and his family. The recording that I got seems to be pretty good, I got really good seats and sat almost directly under the PA system in the high,vaulted ceiling. At 4:15 maybe an hour or so before he went on, the place was nearly empty. Courtney and I waltzed down to our ideal seats like we were 20 minutes early for Flubber , but by 5 the place was packed and by the time Kozol actually went on at 5:10 or so there were people standing all over the aisles. My girlfriend and I estimated that there were far more women than men there, like maybe 3:1 or at least 2:1, and not too many African-Americans. His talk went a little over an hour and there was no time for question and answer afterwards.
The biggest thing that I got out of the lecture was a renewed interest in Teach-for-America or a related program. My primary objective as a teacher is to make a difference and I think starting in poor underprivileged communities is a great way to do that. It is certainly not for everyone, it might not even be for me. But the greatest injustices that we as Americans serve to our fellow Americans comes in the form of school segregation, inequitable funding strategies, and depriving millions of young children of the opportunity to a sound education simply because of their income level or skin color. Kozol believes that universal education should be guaranteed to each and every American as a fundamental right, to be included even in the Bill of Rights. And I for one, agree with him. If these inner-city schools are never funded appropriately they are far less likely to attract the kinds of teachers necessary to help affect change. Just think about how the NCLB sanctions for low test scores are rooted in funding, and try to figure out how schools that are doing poorly because of a lack of funding can possible benefit from losing more funding, they can't. The whole idea is ridiculous, cruel and to me unacceptable. So here's a link to Teach for America, for those of you who don't know what it is or would like to find out more. By the way Kozol didn't really plug Teach-For-America, but a local Chapter at Cornell helped sponsor the event and a spokeswoman for them talked for a minute after he was done.
The biggest thing that I got out of the lecture was a renewed interest in Teach-for-America or a related program. My primary objective as a teacher is to make a difference and I think starting in poor underprivileged communities is a great way to do that. It is certainly not for everyone, it might not even be for me. But the greatest injustices that we as Americans serve to our fellow Americans comes in the form of school segregation, inequitable funding strategies, and depriving millions of young children of the opportunity to a sound education simply because of their income level or skin color. Kozol believes that universal education should be guaranteed to each and every American as a fundamental right, to be included even in the Bill of Rights. And I for one, agree with him. If these inner-city schools are never funded appropriately they are far less likely to attract the kinds of teachers necessary to help affect change. Just think about how the NCLB sanctions for low test scores are rooted in funding, and try to figure out how schools that are doing poorly because of a lack of funding can possible benefit from losing more funding, they can't. The whole idea is ridiculous, cruel and to me unacceptable. So here's a link to Teach for America, for those of you who don't know what it is or would like to find out more. By the way Kozol didn't really plug Teach-For-America, but a local Chapter at Cornell helped sponsor the event and a spokeswoman for them talked for a minute after he was done.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The world still seems pretty round to me...
That is to say that this whole technology thing is a bit intimidating still. It is amazing that I can spend so much time on the internet, or at least log onto to the internet many times in the course of a day and still be so unaware of the diverse opportunities that the web represents. So much of what is available on the web, lay dormant to the average web surfer. Getting turned on to new websites is tricky business. Ironically, I find that tips about how to better surf the web most often come to me from printed media, like magazines and newspapers. If anyone has some tips about how to find good websites, I'd love it. Anyway, the point is that this course is opening my eyes to many resources I did not even know existed. It is crazy how easy it is, relatively, to start a blog, and use resources like flickr and del.icio.us to make things look cool. And we all know that looking cool is very important. Let's hope I can manage to look cool to the folks who are handing out grades in this class by December.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Thanks You's all around
I would like to thank Dave Emke for expressing the consternation we are all feeling regarding some of the work done in this program..in a public forum it's nice to have support for the craziness that sometimes is the Cortland MAT in English...That being said the things I have already learned (and there is clearly more to come...) in 506 have changed my whole perception of the Web...I think an intensive, structured. and well-supported system like a college course is precisely what some of us (like me!) are gonna need to get the ball really rolling with regard to computers.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
My very first blog entry is dedicated to my stepfather who loved chatrooms way back in the early nineties when loving chatrooms was not yet creepy. The same man who set me up with my very first e-mail address with the dreaded AOL, which I still have (sort of). He was my own personal internet pioneer and when he sees where I have risen to he will look on my fledgling blog with a great sense of pride and satisfaction. Yet another job well done. Let's hope (pray?) that I have the courage to produce something he will truly be proud of.
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