LP+Journal

1) What educational outcomes are called for by sustainability problems and challenges? 2) What habits of mind, language and practice need to be undercut for sustainability problems to be recognized and addressed? 3) What experiences and learning are likely to provoke the (cultural) transformations called for by sustainability challenges?


 * January 30, 2013 **

I've been reflecting on the State of the Union address for the past couple of days. Aside from the ridiculous slideshow presentation that made the bullet points appear more like propaganda, one thing that continues to jump out at me are the continuous references to education as skills training. I've been thinking a lot about the word skills and how it's used (four times in President Obama's address - three times below):

"But in this rapidly-changing economy, we have to make sure that every American has the **skills** to fill those jobs." "So tonight, I've asked Vice President Biden to lead an across-the-board reform of America's training programs to make sure they have one mission: train Americans with the **skills** employers need, and match them to good jobs that need to be filled right now." "Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., are making big strides in preparing students with the **skills** for the new economy -- problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, math."

Throughout the speech, skills were framed as integral to filling jobs - the types of capacities needed for the "new economy." President Obama outlines the skills he deems are necessary - STEM + problem solving and critical thinking. This sort of framing of education for economic good is obviously not new - I've listened to friends who have graduated with a technical degree from RPI jeer at individuals who graduated with a degree in Latin Studies - "It's just not practical," they'd say. "Those people will never get jobs." But this framing on skills for jobs is frightening. Critical thinking and problem solving take on new meanings when considered only in the context of technological innovation. I worry how such a discourse will warp learning experiences in ways that prevent them from being transformative.

**February 3, 2014**

I just finished reading about DIY synthetic biology kits for Professor Woodhouse's class. I was left with a dejected feeling. The DIY kit allows for people to "learn about the benefits of synthetic biology" by performing their own synbio experiment to make a plant that glows. Of course, the process never uncovers the incredible risks and uncertainties with synthetic biology, but it certainly has the "cool" factor that will stick in kids' minds. I've heard similar scenarios with fracking companies in schools: http://gawker.com/radio-disney-is-promoting-fracking-at-dozens-of-element-1498113339 Students are bound to be confused when confronted with conflicting curriculums and ideas, and I'm led to wonder how to overcome the paralysis that may ensue. What sorts of curriculums and structures will be needed to get students to question not only what they see in the world, but also the things that they are being taught alongside other curriculums (that often benefit from the "cool" factor)?

**February 11, 2014**

I was really impressed with the "Martin Luther King Jr. and the Common Core" article - primarily because I could imagine using this piece as a succinct and pointed argument for the significance of various forms liberal arts/social science education. The complete absurdity that is highlighted from juxtaposing the points that students are supposed to derive from Martin Luther King's Birmingham letter with the extent that they are permitted to explore it is certainly eye-opening. Most alarmingly, the author writes "What if king had done only a close reading of the letter from the Southern clergymen he was addressing? What if he did not allow his own reading of the world to inform his understanding of the white clergymen's words? What leadership and wisdom would have been lost? Would he have been more sympathetic to their concern about "outside agitators meddling with Birmingham's affairs?" Obviously, it requires significant critical thinking that goes beyond close reading to imagine the kind of changes for which King fought. I think that using a text like this - a quick vignette that, in a blatant and absurdity-illuminating way, reminds why critical thought can be important may work better as an argumentative tool for convincing the significance of social science/liberal arts perspectives than some of the broader and more abstract ethical calls. This argument is difficult to retort.


 * February 18, 2014 **

Notes from Greenwashing Workshop: The physical set up of the room, I think, hindered students from being forthcoming during discussion. With 6 students involved and a horseshoe shaped table set-up, students were facing each other, but there was a huge gap separating them, so the conversation was directed to the front rather than towards each other. With smaller groups, we really should make an effort to pull them in closer together.

Back when I first got interested in ICT4D, I wrote a [|blog post about Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall project] and how it compared to my experience teaching computers in Tanzania. I cringe now reading what I wrote (actually I think that the first comment in the thread is such a wonderful critique), but it's interesting to reflect on in this new context. Sugata Mitra set forth the idea that, in unstructured, self-organized groups, surrounding one computer, students could learn on their own. I think that the "free-to-roam" research and the (semi)-lack of structure to the design your own satire activity, along with having three kids huddled around one computer, somewhat modeled Mitra's ideals. However, I keep coming back to the one issue that manifests every time I'm in these settings - there's always one student who remains less engaged than other students. I find much more value in Mitra's model now than I did back in 2011 (except, of course, when it is used to justify the removal of teachers - there is a time and place for this model), but I still think that some structure and direction is needed to make sure that everyone in the group has equal opportunity to learn - not just the ones with the audacity to grab the mouse first.


 * March 6, 2014**

I found it super challenging to write a memo on counties and habitats. First, when I typed in "habitats in x county," I was given mostly links on Habitat for Humanity - an organization that is often considered at the county level. This points to a need to inculcate in students an ability to sift through online information in order to locate what will be useful to them (that is - without establishing blinders where they cannot pick up on new and interesting information). The main trouble is that there are not a lot of people/organizations producing information on habitats (amongst other categories) at //specifically// the county level, so teaching students to find that information on the Internet is challenging. We can direct them to look at a certain city or township in the county, but that may not be representative of the entire county. Further, since the counties are so diverse it often felt as though I should be asking different memo questions for different counties/regions.


 * march 7, 2014 - Teachable moment? **

Conflicting Data http://www.city-data.com/county/Otsego_County-NY.html Disclaimer at the bottom: //Home sales trends information powered by Onboard Informatics // //© 2012 Onboard Informatics. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">City-data.com does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of any information on this site. Use at your own risk. // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Website © 2003-2013 Advameg, Inc. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Vs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">http://www.otsegocounty.com/depts/pln/documents/03-CountyProfile.pdf

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Disclaimer from Otsego County website: //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">NOTICE: Although considerable effort has been applied in ensuring the information in this Web Site is accurate and up to date, Otsego County does not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained herein; therefore, use the information AT YOUR OWN RISK. The County of Otsego may provide links to other sites, but has no control over the content, reliability or volatility of those sites. Otsego County DISCLAIMS any and all liability therefore. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is actually really difficult to find county data that is (or could be considered) reliable/accurate. This would totally be a teachable moment about the "sheer limits of knowledge" and the limits of data practices, but I struggle to get over my own sense of paralysis in this instance. I'm not sure where to direct them for reliable data.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Affordances of Prezi


 * March 19, 2014**

I couldn't help but notice, as the third graders were working through the systems stories today, that they never mentioned their own personal role within the system - that they, themselves, were discrete units that made each of the systems work and could also cause problems. Of course, they would say that "students" composed the school system, but there was a degree of separation between the category, //students//, and their own role as a student. I didn't get the sense that they could place themselves in the story.

There's already tension that exists between being both an analyst of a system and acknowledging oneself as a component within it. In a partially similar way, anthropologists deal with this analyst vs. component tension constantly. Yet, one of the literacy goals is to have students recognize their how their own actions implicate environmental concerns. How do we go about bridging this gap - to get students to consider the significance of both their role as an analyst and their role as a component within the system, bearing in mind how these roles are constantly playing on each other? One method may be to have the students work through the systems story once as we have been doing, and then work through it again with an explicit focus on their personal role within the system - //How do I strengthen/weaken the system? What work does the system do for me, and what problems does the system cause for me?// Drawing out the distinction between their role as an analyst and their role as a component may also make clearer why the model is significant.


 * March 27, 2014**

Observation from writing with the Tamarac 1st graders: As we were moving their writing from the draft pages to the final pages, I was having the students read to me what they wrote so that I could write it on the final pages. Whenever they hit a word that began with 'p' that they didn't automatically know, they would guess 'pollution.' For instance, one line read "The plants all died, and the dirt got yucky." When the boy reading hit the word 'plants,' he didn't know it, stumbled, and then said 'pollution.'

So a part of this is just great - pollution is in the back of their mind, in their arsenal of topics to fall back to, and they're attributing it to our lessons. At the same time though, there seems to be a disconnect in its ability to make meaning for them. Knowing the word but not knowing it in context or applying it arbitrarily suggests that the word has less depth of meaning than we would like it to. I imagine that this can be a symptom of the extent of literacy that students have obtained. I assume that being able to both read a word off the page at the same time as they connect it with meaning happens with practice. At the same time, the continuous fallback to pollution may suggest that they are purposely trying to work within the frame that we've established for them. I would wonder whether the same suggestion under different circumstances.


 * April 2, 2014**

The students in Mrs. Seaver's class had state testing today. You could tell that they were a bit rowdier than usual. I had a chance to speak with her about the test today, and she told me an eye-opening anecdote. One of the stories that the students needed to read and respond to on the test went something like this: //A man saves a snake that's trapped under a rock. As a reward for saving the snake, the man is given the option of comprehending, in English, everything that that the animals say. But he is the only one given this power. At first the man hears the mice, and he laughs, and no one can understand why he's laughing. His wife asks about it, but he tells her she wouldn't understand. Then the man hears the crows and he laughs, and no one can understand why he's laughing. His wife asks about it again and demands to know right away why he is laughing.//

Multiple choice question: What best describes the wife's emotion in response to her husband? A. Anger B. Confusion C. xxxxx D. xxxxx

I remember taking these tests. They often include the instructions, //choose the letter that best answers the question.//

Yet this question is highly subjective and open to interpretation. Plus, who could know the wife's emotions better than the wife? In one sense, labeling this emotion for her seems super problematic. In another sense, giving students a question where multiple answers could be correct under the instance where only the "best" answer will be rewarded with points completely destroys a student's capacity to understand complexity. It boils complexity to objectivity - a single answer - and kills epistemological pluralism. This is not a good measure of a student's capacity for critical thinking whatsoever.


 * April 24, 2014**

The FCC's turnaround on net neutrality is so deeply disturbing, and I think that it will affect students to an incredible extent. With commercial telecommunications companies now having capacity to block or increase the speed of sites that are willing to pay more, the content that students will have access to will no longer represent an open and unbiased information repository. Instead, it will reflect that which the richest content providers want to show. Barbara Stripling describes this in her article: http://www.wired.com/2014/01/killing-net-neutrality-means-killing-economic-equality-access/

What are we to do as Disney and oil companies pay for their content to outstrip that of challengers on the Internet.