I feel like a broken record, but I have to say it again: when education is being discussed we should refrain from focusing on words like: grades, academics, work, success, and achievement. I think it best to frame our conversations around words like: growth, change, reflection, understanding, honesty, curiosity, and yes love.
As a middle school teacher, I work with students who are still quite fresh and just put into the oven. They are dealing with identity creation, understanding of social norms and expectations; in short they are messed up. I know because when I was thirteen I felt no one understood me, and now 23 years later I am still trying to recover.
I feel this is a critical stage in helping kids understand how to express themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin. This pastoral care guides much of what and how I teach. For the second time in a week, I have been reminded how right I am, and to be honest the validation feels great!
A few students from my old school in Doha are still blogging. I know because I have stayed subscribed to their blogs and continue to get updates. I think it is so amazing that these kids have found a voice and use their blogs for more than completing homework. Anyway, I opened this post from Nadia today and was moved to tears:
Two special people kept me calm and happy. One was my old English teacher. He was an amazing, inspiring person. He helped us to express our emotions, put them on to paper. He reminded me that lots of others have it much worse than we do, and we should be happy about what we have, everyday of our lives. He left us last year but I wish he could have stayed. He helped me become a better person and express myself, I wish he was here to help me now.
Education has a much bigger impact when we are focused more on creating kind beautiful people than collage applicants and corporate job seekers. For the record, I can “teach” a mean set of skills and convey large amounts of content and knowledge when needed. Go on and leave Nadia some advice…show that she has many teachers who care.
I love ongoing online stories that chart a series of connecting events and people. On September 24, I wrote a blog post called Singing Hearts, in which I highlighted a photo essay created by my three-year-old daughter Kaia and the reaction it elicited from @wmchamberlain’s class in Missouri.
I am happy to report that the story has continued in a dramatic way. After reading the story or becoming familiar with it through @wmchamberlain, Dr. John Strange, @drjohnhadley, a Professor of Professional Studies at The University of South Alabama, decided to make my daughter’s blog and experience an assignment for his students.
Shortly after, I began to see a deluge of comments come pouring into Kaia’ blog, which led me to google the term: Kaia Edm 310. I was pleasantly shocked to see over 50 blog posts written about our work. I also set up a Google Alert to try and filter all of the blog posts that were still being written.
Unfortunately I haven’t the time to comment on each individual blog, so I have chosen to write one comment to be shared collectively with the students in EDM: 310
Dear Students,
It was such a pleasure for me to see your reaction to Kaia’s and my experience. I never would have thought that our simple afternoon activity would elicit so much attention. It just goes to show that people are looking for ways to connect. We so often here people comparing “real” life and “virtual” life as if there is really a difference. When in fact we are all simply living our lives and hoping to share them in whatever meaningful ways we can.
That was the real aim of posting Kai’s pictures online- I was hoping that someone somewhere would find our experience relevant, engaging, human. And by the range of responses it is clear that our story was all of those things.
As we share the daily minutia of our lives, we are able to see how small the world really is, and how similar our experience can be, when we stop and look at what we are all doing. People often criticize social media as a vain and narcissistic way to flood the world with the meaningless details of our lives, but I refuse to follow that route. It is in these very details where we are most human and open for connections.
I think Kaia’s blog is a great example; what started off as a simple way to share pictures with family, has blossom into a portal where students in Missouri are connecting with students in Alabama.
I think this episode demonstrates that using technology should not be some kind of administrative mandate. We can all use technology in various ways. Another misconception of technology is that its user are only interested in various ways we can be digitized. Where as I only see these tools as methods of sharing and documenting my non-digital life. I use these tools to help my daughter understand how a camera works. We speak to our pictures to begin learning about story telling and metaphor. I am simply using these tools to slowly teach her to be aware of her world. We would have gone outside and taken photos with or without social media, but social media has allowed us to connect with you.
We should not want our students to learn to blog, use wikis or go on Facebook for sole purpose of using tools. We must teach them to look critically at reality and find ways to share what they see with others so as to have a better understanding of the human experience. I see the Internet as the new novel, except that we are all authors and we are all constantly writing the chapters one blog post, one tweet, one Facebook update at a time.
So what did you write today? How will you teach your students to be open and brave and connected? How will you help them see that their lives are worth sharing?
Regards,
Jabiz Raisdana
In closing, I would like to add that one of the students from Alabama sent me this great clip of her daughter reading Kaia a book.
I was going to beginning by saying that I have another Twitter Tale for my readers, but really when I look at how the following events played out, I realized that Twitter was but only one of the tools that allowed for a group of eighth graders in Missouri to connect with my three year old daughter in Qatar.
Like many stories of connections made across time zones, cultures, and age groups this one involved some risk taking, some curiosity, some opened minds, and I hope some learning. Let me lay out what happened:
A few days ago I started reading The Last Child in the Woods. It sparked in me a sense of panic and guilt about the amount of time my daughter spends outdoors connecting to nature, getting fresh air, and exploring. I decided I wanted us to begin exploring our surroundings together. Even if our immediate surroundings was an empty dry desert field covered in garbage and construction refuse.
We went outside with our cameras in hand to see what we could discover. I wish I had a field recorder, so I could have recorded her excitement and enthusiasm. We spoke of the wind, the setting sun, and how plants can grow with little water. We spoke about the power of art to make the ugly appear beautiful. We asked questions of each other. We guessed at answers. The two of us were a mobile outdoor classroom. Father and daughter in an empty field in the desert.
When we came home I asked her if she wanted to see her pictures on the big screen of the computer and talk about what she had seen. The result was a very simple photo essay. Being the proud dad that I am, I decided to share the experience with my Twitter network. I thought that was the end of it, until last night when I noticed several comments come pouring in. After a quick request as to who was responsible I found out that @wmchamberlain had shared Kaia’s blog post with his class. I suggest you go and read some of the 43 comments.
I immediately got in touch with him through Twitter, and he told me that a few of his students were curious if we had electricity in Doha. I told him, if he was interested, I could Skype into his classroom and answer some quick questions. So there we were, a small classroom in rural Missouri and me in my kitchen talking about our surroundings. We were following our curiosity. We were discovering new things. We were learning, beyond classroom walls, because we had all decided to take risks and be open with our lives. I told wmchamberlain’s students that since Kaia is only three she may have a hard time reading their comments and really grasp what is going on. I suggested they create some video comments. Which they did:
The next day Kaia and I sat in our kitchen and watched their video. She is still too young to really grasp the connections that she is making, but in a few years these connections and this type of interaction will be ubiquitous in her life. I hope that her teachers are ready to help her continue on this journey.
Later I found another comment from a teacher in New Zealand and a Tweet from another teacher in Alaska who was impressed by the work she had observed unfold on Twitter. This story would be pretty cool if it ended here, but I hope that other teachers and other classroom will share this story with their classrooms and parents communities. I hope that this story could not only be a springboard for starting discussion about open pedagogy, taking risks, and connected classrooms, but I also hope that it will open people’s eyes to the themes presented in The Last Child in the Woods. I would love to see people share their stories about how they are taking their kids outdoors. I hope that classrooms will begin to share how they are reconnecting with nature. The irony being that they are using technology to weave their stories together.
In closing and on a different note, this experience was also eye opening for me as a parent, because having Kaia exposed like this made me hyper aware of how vulnerable I am making her. I am sure many of you read Alec Curosa’spost a few month back about his Flickr stalker. I started to think about how much trust we ask that parents put in us as teachers. Kaia’s blog started as a way to share photos with family, it has quickly become a way that we are documenting her life. And now, it is becoming a way that she is connecting with people throughout the world. This is scary. Part of me wants to pull back and keep her our little secret. But if we want our students to feel comfortable and be cautious online, we must be able to do the same with our own children.
As teachers and technology evangelist it is easy to ask parents to allow us to expose their children to a variety of experiences online, but as a parent it can all seem so scary. I agree with many people that if we choose to live open lives online, we must trust that the positive experience will outweigh they dangerous ones, but there is nothing like seeing pictures of your daughter on a youtube video created by someone else to spark up the paranoia. Where can this go? Will I always be able to control it? Should I be able to? These are all important questions to ask as we push the boundaries of our lives and our learning online.
What do you think? What is the value in this experience? Is the risk of exposing ourselves and our children online worth the connections that will be made and the lessons that will be learned?
Back in December I wrote a post about a caterpillar my daughter and I found our roof top:
I live in Doha, Qatar, and I recently planted a few trees on my roof top garden. My daughter and I were on the roof tending to our young tress when she noticed several caterpillars. She was fascinated with our hairy little friends.
I remember being enthralled with the whole process of metamorphosis as a child and wanted to introduce this transformation to my daughter. Sure she is only two-and-a-half, but such a magical event can be appreciated at any age. Right? We took one of the caterpillars, some leaves, a branch and put it all in a jar, hoping that we could watch the entire metamorphosis over a span of a few weeks.
The little guy is doing okay. He is eating the leaves, growing, and dropping a massive amount of poops, which are coming in handy for our other project- potty training. “See the caterpillar goes poo-poo too.”
Well that was away back in December and at the time we felt that we had identified our little friend as a Gastropacha (Stenophylloides) populifolia.
It had been nearly three months, and I had begun to give up on the moth. I was sure it was dead. Just yesterday, my wife said I think the moth is out, and my daughter was so excited to see the moth too. I am sure the concept of metamorphosis is way above her comprehension at the age of two-and-a-half, but you should have seen her face as she spoke to the moth, go on fly now. Can you fly moth?
I am not sharing this story because I think it is cute. There are many lessons here on what learning looks like. The lessons that could be learned if this process were given to older students are immeasurable.
We are always deriding young people of needing instant gratification and having short attention spans, but how often do we give them the chance to slow down to the speed of nature when they are studying it? Forced to cram our time with curricula expectations, we are shortchanging our students by rushing throiugh worksheets to be ready for exams.
If we want them to take the time to really connect with a topic and learn, we have to give the time. After all it takes three months for a caterpillar to transform into a moth.
What are your ideas? Can you see the benefit of expecting students to maintain focus and patience on an idea like this?
I have about five posts brewing in my head, but a Twitter friend has “tagged” me with the latest get to you know assignment, and while I am usually a bit of a scrooge when it comes to these, I thought I would punch-out a quick, first thought best thought, very raw, stream of consciousness thing to maybe get me warmed up for my real writing.
Here are the rules of the seven things I didn’t know about you:
Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.
1. I was born in Iran in 1974 and my family immigrated to California in 1979. October to be exact, the same year Muslim students overtook the US embassy in November. I remember going to the Embassy to get our visas. I remember marches and protests. I remember gunfire. I remember running into taxis. I remember blood in the streets. I remember a revolution. I was five years old when the year my country of birth fell apart at the seams.
2. I am an only child a Gemini/Cancer cusp baby. This causes me to be extremely shy while wanting to be the center of attention. I have been playing air0guitar since I was six and have wanted to be a rock star ever since. I cannot sing and after 15 years can barely put three chords together. I record cover songs for myself, and occasionally embarrass myself on youtube. I love to sing and play guitar, I don’t care that I don’t have the skill or the talent to please other people.
3. I have had three near death experiences. I was passed out when two of my friends had a near fatal car accident when we were nineteen. I was the only person to be unhurt when the same group flipped a car in the Mexican desert years later. I walked/ran for hours to get help. We were air-evacuated the next day, both friend’s sustained severe injuries. I survived the Tsunami in Thailand by a few minutes. I feel I am invincible and that I am here for a reason. I do not believe in god, but feel there is an order to the universe.
4. I believe that human beings are inherently good and I do not believe in original sin or redemption. We are simply weighed down by ignorance and illusion. Once we become more aware and share love, human beings will evolve to the next level.
5. I have had a job since I was fourteen: Baskin Robbins, movie theater guy, mall carousel operator, JC Penny’s shoe salesman, bank teller, bank associate, motorcycle parts salesmen, car valet, pizza delivery guy, dishwasher, busboy, bar back, waiter, teacher.
6. I have been hang gliding, scuba diving, bungee jumping, spelunking, and many other adventures I haven’t the energy to write about at this time.
7. I hate being tagged for these things, because I feel I expose enough of myself online, and if anyone really wants to know me, they would follow the links to my music, books, and writings to see who I am.
I will not tag seven people, because I don’t like to make people feel obligated to do these things, but I recommend you leave a comment with facts about yourself or a link to your seven things or whatever on this post. Drop me a line, let’s connect in more organic and less superficial ways.
