The day after the State of the Union, in the midst of presidential primaries,  and at the height of school budget (cut) announcements for the coming school year, I find myself itching to mimic Judith Viorst’s classic poem. I even found a handy online form for students — and teachers(?) — to write their own versions modeled in the same format.  Here is my first crack at it. Try one yourself…and pass it on. Maybe even post yours on Facebook (!).

If I were in charge of the world
I’d make thinking something to brag about and write about.
Instead of “like” or “rate,”
The options would be to reason and respond.

If I were in charge of the world
There’d be art and poetry breaks in every office and warehouse,
live music playing in every Walmart,
and open ended questions during every newscast.

If I were in charge of the world
You wouldn’t call any class a “special” or an “elective.”
You wouldn’t make kids choose between chorus and sports.
You wouldn’t have budget cuts
so obviously done without thinking.

If I were in charge of the world.

“The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.”

-Pico Iyer, “The Joy of Quiet” in the New York Times, Dec. 29, 2011

 Amen.

I think a lot about what it means to be in touch, connected, and able to synthesize all that bombards my mind and  screen daily, nightly, weekly, constantly.  I love being able to see and read and listen to so many more voices and images than I could even a decade ago. But I  yearn for the disconnected days Iyer prescribes. As teachers and model learners, we have an extra responsibility to excavate the issue of finding clarity, digging deeply in front of our students (and our own children).

For a moment I indulge in public excavation:

Should being “in touch” occasionally mean something tactile?

Why do some blogs make me long for time to just look at and wonder about things?

How can I seam all the pieces together better?

Do our kids ever have a chance to seam things together or dig deeply to form clarity? Should we artificially require them to do so  or wait for them to feel an intrinsic drive to do so on their own?

School rarely offers the Joy of Quiet. Frenetic School — where most students live a double life, publicly doing what they should while secretly doing what they want below the desk — erases any time for the Joy of Quiet.

Sometimes the lyrics of a song validate my thoughts and provide the seams, stitching clarity. Sometimes it is the words of a character in a novel. More often today, it is a someone’s blog post that starts the sewing machine of my mind. But I know to look for and relish these moments as Joys amid the din. I know to walk away from the screen and take a walk with the sounds of the lake or perhaps an iPod.

Our schools need to facilitate the Joy of Quiet, too. And I don’t mean an old lady whispering “hush” in the library.

I know you. I have known you since you were 7 (or 8 or 10). You can act like an idiot, dress like a hooker, talk like a sailor, and saunter through these school halls flexing your freshly-sprouted muscles, but I knew you when you sat on the floor for story time and whispered in my ear that there really is no Santa Claus.

I am excited for you. I see you questioning who you are and trying out new identities. I see you beginning to dream of a world beyond school. You ask me questions about that world that I cannot answer, but we can explore them together. As long as we who pretend to control your life make our classes seem relevant to that world, you humor us by participating. Occasionally, you let us see that you actually like learning.

Does it matter that I knew you before grade 6? It helps. Could a teacher new to you know you as well? Probably. Does the very act of transition to this middle school  threaten your progress just by removing you from the K-5 learning home where you sat on the floor?  There is a study that says it hurts your academic progress to move to this middle school instead of remaining in the same building where you abandoned Santa Claus. I am fortunate that my job as teacher of gifted spans grades 2-8 in several buildings. So I know you, no matter which grades are in the building around us.

I would argue that it is relationship that defines your learning experience. You need someone who knows you. You need someone who knows that today’s cocktail party outfit is just a trial balloon of your sexuality (and who will tell you when it is not appropriate for school). On the inside, you are still the person who pretended to be a cat for the class play and who likes to read Shel Silverstein poems. You are also the mathematician who showed me a different way to solve that word problem and the computer geek who figured out html as a hobby.

You are the lucky one. You achieve because you have adults who know you and notice you. You have history with us. Your parents who know us, too. No matter how much the experts study and mine the data about you and your classmates, I know you. I cannot wait to see what you become long after our time together here.

If  our students are the digital natives, and policymaking powerful are the arriving settlers in the New Digital World,  what kind of feast are we celebrating this Thanksgiving?

After a long year (or decade) of trying to understand each other and make peace about what learning really is, are we finally sitting around the same table to celebrate a bountiful harvest? As some spokespeople from the Old World seem to be wavering about  using exclusively test-driven methods, we see signs that some have come to appreciate alternate ways of harvesting learning. The corn of this New Digital World is the creating/sharing web. Look at the bountiful spread on the table this Thanksgiving. We truly have much to give thanks for:

• Free tools for teachers and students. Beyond the freemium munchies, we actually have heaping servings of wikispaces and Edmodo and so many dishes we cannot fit them on the table, some without advertising garnish.
• Mashed up potatoes of every kind. The Goo(d)gle Earth has brought forth quite a harvest.
• The centerpiece: A turkey we all agree IS a turkey and need not weigh and measure to tell that is ready. At least for today we can call it learning without measuring its precise statistics. Breathe in the aroma of learning.

Oh yes, the cranberry sauce: the teachers. Without cranberries, the feast lacks color and the catalyst to so many tastes.

May this feast continue and become a tradition. We would have reason to give thanks for a long time.

Where do the best ideas come from? Chinese leaders want to know. U.S. voters  and leaders could benefit from thinking about it, too.

In his post “Teaching Creativity: The Answers Aren’t in the Back of the Book,” Brian Cohen makes an articulate case for arts education and the lessons any student can learn from open ended, achingly prolonged thought that does not lead to a definite answer:

Figuring things out for yourself has a high value. Thinking is the best way to learn. But it’s painful and a lot of work, and lengthy uncertainty is uncomfortable.

His analysis of what students gain from arts programs is dead on: tolerance for ambiguity, willingness to allow a thinking to run beyond the first answer, willingness to risk — then throw away that first answer, recognition that some thought resolutions may be “ugly.” Key to his analysis is a distinction between “knowledge” and “understanding.” (Do I hear Bloom whispering in his ear?). But these lessons need not be reserved just for the arts teachers. All of us should advocate for ambiguity:

As teachers, we imply there are definite answers and that we possess them. Sometimes teachers play a kind of game in which they encourage students to guess the answer in the teacher’s head. It might be better played the other way around.

How often do we encourage ourselves to guess what is inside our students’ heads? How often do we coax students to share the random or strange rumblings that may occur there as we teachers ramble and assign? How often do we ask:

 What do YOU think?

It’s tough to resist the urge to steer students’ answers like cattle drivers funneling the herd into the chutes. Cattle inside fences are easier to manage measure. Besides, we have deadlines, right? As one of the comments on Cohen’s post points out,

we no longer have the luxury of time and uncertainty and having kids think for themselves

Maybe we should “occupy” our schools with our own signs. One benefit: thinking doesn’t cost anything.

A sixth grader in rural Pennsylvania — we’ll call her Hayley — is excited to have an assignment she can do online. Her new social studies teacher has asked her group to create a multimedia presentation explaining the impact of steam power on the economics of 19th century Pennsylvania. The group has two class periods to work together in school and must find the remaining time outside of class. Hayley is one of the 28%*

A second grader in urban anywhere– we’ll call him Sam — needs practice with sight words and phonics sounds. His parents are learning English and are very eager for their son to do well in school. Sam is one of the 3%*

Neither Hayley nor Sam has Internet access at home except for Hayley’s family cell phone.  Their teachers are very understanding and offer an extra 15 minutes during recess and a half hour before or after school for them to use a computer in the classroom, lab,  or library. Sometimes Hayley can even work on her project using the family phone, though she finds it more fun to try texting. The local public library also has a computer for students to use. Problem solved, right?

Now fast forward two or three years.  Sam is in fifth grade, and Hayley is in high school. Their teachers have had extensive inservice and have enthusiastically adopted new teaching strategies. Finally, the world of teaching and learning has moved into the 21st century. Hayley’s high school is encouraging teachers to use collaborative online tools which it has subscribed to, and Sam’s elementary teachers are pressing all students to write on their blogs at least once a week. In a given week, Hayley must complete a group science project, an English blog post, and submit examples of algebra use in the real world. Total online time needed outside of class: at least 5 hours. Sam struggles to word process his longer language arts assignments and spends every recess indoors. The public library has reduced its evening hours to Thursdays only and is never open on Sundays. To make matters worse, the library is a ten mile drive from Hayley’s home and a long bus ride for Sam’s mom and her three other children.

Sam’s parents try to share their new cell phone, but Sam and his siblings compete for a few minutes here or there. The phone is also their family lifeline for their dad’s odd jobs. Sam’s school faculty is considering eliminating online assignments, since so many students lack access. Scheduling the computer time for so many creative ideas and reinforcement activities is too much of a burden on teachers, and there is no one else to help. Sam and his school may simply be “left behind.” Total population of elementary kids needing computer time: 200, times three kids per family… and we have a problem.

Hayley’s school must decide whether to shift back to paper/pencil tasks for all or to ration teachers’ online assignments. There simply are not enough places for so many disconnected students to complete connected assignments. And the cable and phone companies have no plans to expand coverage in such a thinly populated rural area where there is no chance to make a profit. Total disconnected population of 250 times 5 hours each = 1250 needed hours of computer time per week.

Sam and Hayley are individual examples of a massive chasm forming beneath the surface of 21st century learning.  The “haves”  schools (those with a small number of disconnected students) move forward in technology adoption, professional development, and effective use of the tools for learning. The “have nots” (those with many disconnecteds and/or many assignments times fewer disconnecteds) are trying to keep up. Even if successful teacher PD wins over the rural teachers, the students of the “have not” schools are still doomed by their local infrastructure.

Small problems grow. Cracks get bigger. Is anyone watching the chasm beneath the feet of our best efforts?

* related info from T.H.E. Journal http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1105/journal_201110/#/22/OnePage :

I admit it; I was  “jock” in high school.  Actually, I went to an all girls school before Title IX (don’t start doing the math now…). It was OK to be athletic when there were no boys around. I was a good student, too– lots of academic accolades and all that– but my classmates remember me most for being captain of this or that and for getting out of the scary Algebra II teacher’s classes as many afternoons as possible to leave early for games. I did a lot of other activities, from glee club to yearbook, but 3 varsity sports a year really defined my reputation.  As a college freshman, I continued on to the first women’s field hockey and lacrosse teams at a formerly all-male college. I was not afraid to try anything, from sports to being a T.A. for a revered prof. Those who know me now would say that all of this “fits” with what they know of me today. My high school extracurriculars did help define who I became and how I approach adult life.

So I read with great interest on Education Next about the Academic Value of Non-Academics. Unlike many articles that correlate extracurriculars to student/life success, this analysis does a great job of critically analyzing whether either is a cause or effect. It probes into what makes a student decide to participate in an afterschool activity. What makes him/her stick with it? The research about the impact of extracurriculars intrigues me. As budgets shave away at students’ opportunities to participate, I worry. If I had been asked to pay for my activities, would I have chosen to try almost anything? Probably not. There was no extra money in my two-teacher family. My scholarship to the all-girls school was as a “professional courtesy,” and I attended school with many whose families had a hundred times more money. But I had confidence and an identity among them, in part because of being a “jock.” We played on the same team. We lost together (a lot).

EdNext’s article is on the right track in suggesting that the extra adult contact of extracurriculars could be a major factor in why participating students are more successful. But so is the extra contact and social parity of simply being in the same activity with other students you might not otherwise socialize with. We talk a lot now about how social learning really is. Employers want collaborators. Extracurriculars are often a much better suited environment to learn collaboration than a forced “group” project. Being a jock is not a frill. It is part of the same broadbased, personal, and ubiquitous learning that we advocate as “21st century.” I hope the kids who attend schools where “jocks” and bandmembers are being asked to pay up (or even lose the chance to have a team or band altogether) can find another way to play.

There’s nothing like a trip through U.S. Customs to make you stop and think about what it means to be a citizen.  I wish every U.S. middle school student could experience it. If you pay attention, you cannot help but think very seriously about what your citizenship means.

First, you notice all the people in the “non-citizen” line, clutching passports of different colors and  packets of paperwork. No one acts like this is fun. All want to be sure to give the “right” answers to cross the magic line and pass through the security zone.

Then you look at the others in the “U.S. Citizens and Green Card Holders” line. We don’t look as if we’re having fun, either, but we bring certain assumptions to the line with us. We know we have a right to be there. We know we can (respectfully) ask questions about the process. We know that there is a process. We may feel ignorant that we aren’t really sure what that process is. But there is probably a web site where we could have read about it if we had taken the time.

We have the right to know, and we may or may not choose to exercise that right. We also have the responsibility to know.

As often happens, a related experience within 24 hours made me stop and think. I came across this post about a recent report on the need for civics education in the U.S. The recommendations include, of course, a suggestion that the schools be responsible for delivering standards-aligned civics curriculum with assessments. Specifically,  they recommend that we “hold schools and districts accountable for student civic learning achievement.” Hmm. Who is ultimately accountable? The school or the citizen?

A quote from the report’s accompanying message by Justice O’Connor and  former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana really made me question the who and the what of citizenship:

“Each generation of Americans must be taught these basics [of our rights and responsibilities as citizens]. Families and parents have a key role to play, yet our schools remain the one universal experience we all have to gain civic knowledge and skills.”

I agree that schools are our one universal (though wildly diverse) experience.  I agree that civics, or citizenship as I prefer to call it, has been abandoned from curriculum during the NCLB era. We do need to bring it back into our schools. We do need to model it, talk about it, and show that it matters.

But isn’t the whole point that the individual has responsibility to continue to educate him/herself on issues long after leaving school, to question, to look at the other line at Customs, to ask our own children questions and watch the news together as we think aloud so children learn to think themselves? If we simply say.”Let the schools do it,” we will not have any better citizens. We should be saying, “Let every adult model citizenship, at school, at home, and in the line at Customs.” We should be demanding citizenship from our fellow adults, our coworkers, and the people in line with us at Customs or the grocery store. Declare that.

The day before ISTE11 officially began, I attended EduBloggerCon, a marvelously relaxed and genuine opportunity for passionate educators to talk, mull over ideas, focus for an hour at a time on big issues in education and edtech, and just plain think out loud. I have been fortunate to be at all EBC since its inception in Atlanta a few years ago, and I would never miss this chance to renew my faith in grassroots educators as MiracleGro to a thinking society and to positive change. This group avoids the weeds of griping and generates blooming images of “before and after” learning than any educationinfomercial.

One of the discussion topics I chose to join this year was entitled Why isn’t education on the front page of the news? (Let’s talk about strategies to push this important discussion to the forefront in a positive and meaningful way). The gist of the discussion was that yes, we can convince local news to cover a unique event at our school, but that’s the end of it. No one will ever hear positive stories about learning in today’s schools in higher venues. When will positive stories about the bloomin’ good (see previous paragraph) ever gain national notice?  It is much easier (and generates ratings) when the media cover:

a. stories of education failures

b. stats of comparisons to other cultures– limited to the first sentence of the Executive Summary

c. stories of the high cost of education to taxpayers

d. all of the above

Fortunately, this EBC group was pro-active in approach and did not linger in the weeds of  woe-is-us-nobody-likes-teachers. We brainstormed. We generated a very do-able, very positive, and very realistic strategy to make the voices of winning education stories resound beyond the local news: the hashtag #eduwin.

Here is how it works:

• Every time you see a change in a student because of something that clicked, write about it in a tweet or a blog post, hashtagged #eduwin.
• Every time you see another teacher do something that works, share it, hashtagged #eduwin.
• Every time you see a tweet from another educator  about the way students are LEARNING, retweet it or share it on Facebook, hashtagged #eduwin.
• When you’re having a bad day, set up a Twitter search or do one on Google (when they get Real Time working again), looking for items hashtagged #eduwin.
• When you hear people griping about the state of education today, share a story you saw hashtagged #eduwin.
• When your class does projects, shoot some video and upload the clips of kids talking about what they did to YouTube, hashtagged #eduwin (cute kids or kittens can’t hurt…)
• When a parent volunteer wants to be helpful, ask him/her to take some pictures of the good things going on in your class (maybe from the back or close-ups of hands so there is no concern about identifiable pictures) and share them on Flickr or Facebook, hashtagged #eduwin.
• When your kids make glogs, Voicethreads, or other online projects that shout powerful evidence of learning, add the hashtag #eduwin to the very best examples (and resist the urge to put the hashtag on ones that could be appreciated without context)
• When you give awards to your students, us the title EDUWIN on the awards.
• When that one non-reader finally recognizes the sight words, clap and say “EDUWIN!”
• Collaborate every day with teacher colleagues on the digital storytelling of EDUWIN

As an FYI, one of those in the discussion asked whether the tag is Ed-U-Win or eduwin or edUwin or edu-win. It is read as any and all of these, but written simply, #eduwin.  For through #eduwin, you win, our kids win, we all win, and edu wins.

Now you have to pass it on. #eduwin. You’re it.

I spent some time exploring the Webby Award winners this week. Put away your iPad or iPhone (must have Flash) and open this on the biggest screen you can find. Turn up the speakers and turn off everyone and everything else around you.

Then tell me how any school anywhere can question the importance of having Art in every child’s life.

See the miracles of light and color.

Play the world through Monet’s eyes and your hand on the mouse/trackpad. Touch Art.

Whisper your amazement as you live Art, and tell us how the ripples in the water are not “necessary” to being  “productive citizen” or a thinking member of society.

Share this with a child of five or fifty. Then ask how we can cut the Arts from schools. They are no more frivolous or “extra” than light itself. Just ask Monet.

[I cannot include an image with this post. This experience is my image.]