It is difficult to live where I do and not be reminded from time to time of the 1918 Willa Cather classic, “My Ántonia”. Today was one such day. As I drove to work through the gently rolling prairie hills of north central Kansas, I saw mile after mile of this:

All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero’s death—heroes who died young and gloriously. It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up of day.

-Willa Cather, “My Ántonia” 1918

Ninety-one years after this was written, you can still see the copper-red grass in the fall, although the prairie has long since been carved up into little plots. This year, my awareness of the land in which I live has been heightened greatly thanks in no small part to the book “PrairieErth: A Deep Map” by William Least Heat-Moon. Published a decade ago, I only first heard of it this year, thanks to an online friend Ira Socol who is fascinated with its unique approach to research.

I highly recommend both of these books, especially if you love the prairie. My Ántonia can be downloaded for free on Project Gutenberg. PrairieErth is still available on Amazon.com.

Saw this on a co-worker’s Facebook page. Thought I’d share it here as it is worth spending 1:51 minutes of your life looking at. I found the animation & videography compelling, and the poem’s not bad either!

(Frank McCourt photo by David Shankbone)

This week I was saddened to learn of the passing of Frank McCourt. Professionally, Mr. McCourt was a teacher for more than 30 years, but he wasn’t known for his life’s work of teaching. He was better known as the author of the autobiographical “Angela’s Ashes.” I actually read his three books in reverse order, reading his final book “Teacher Man” first. Once I read this man’s approach to teaching, I was hooked.

In Teacher Man, he describes his first day in the classroom, completely unprepared for the world that he had just entered. The students were having an argument, tempers flared, and someone threw a sandwich that landed at McCourt’s feet. So he did the only thing that he could think of, he picked it up and ate it. Throughout his book, Frank McCourt describes in delightful detail the joys & pains of learning the profession of teaching. Without formal teacher training, he simply did what came naturally, usually bringing out the very best in his students. One of my favorite writing activities that he describes is “write an excuse note from Adam & Eve to God”.

McCourt experienced and dealt with the very same things that teachers today are faced with. He writes:

I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher-ups, who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tolerate their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of study.

Frank McCourt taught using his strengths and he really didn’t care a great deal what others thought about his methods, because everything he did was ultimately for the benefit of his students and their learning. He should be an example to teachers everywhere. Read his book!

This spring I have been researching about the origins of federal aid to education—the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 in the Eisenhower Presidential Library. If you care about No Child Left Behind, whether you agree or disagree, you should know that all federal aid to education including NCLB can be traced to the original federal education funding of NDEA in 1958.

Because the launch of Sputnik spooked the American public, supporters of federal aid to public schools were able to get the ball rolling by tying school funding to a perceived national crisis; thus the National Defense Education Act was born.

Not everyone bought into the need for federal funding for schools. For instance Sen. Barry Goldwater wrote the following brief opinion about the NDEA:

This bill and the foregoing remarks of the majority remind me of an old Arabian proverb:

If the camel once get his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.

If adopted, the legislation will mark the inception of aid, supervision, and ultimately control of education in this country by Federal authorities.

To continue the precedent of state and local control, and to ensure its passage, the law was very explicit in ensuring that the federal government would have no control over public schools.

Sec. 102. Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution or school system (National Defense Education Act of 1958)

Indeed the law did pass when President Eisenhower signed the bill. Here is the statement he made at the time:

You will notice that Ike was also a strong supporter of decentralized control of schools. He notes that the NDEA was only intended to be a short-term remedy to a national crisis when the nation needed more scientists and technologists, with a planned end for the program after four years.

The NDEA did have the intended effect, spurring great strides in math & science education. America ultimately did land a man on the moon, and survive the threat of the cold war.

Kansas primary school students studying science with hands-on experiments.

Kansas High School students learning “Binary Numbers,” the basis upon which digital computer work.

However, since 1958 federal aid to public schools has remained a steady part of the public school landscape—but the original hands-off, decentralized control aspect has become a distant memory. Under federal direction, our schools have become focused upon narrow standards, primarily in math and reading. When I asked my daughter’s teacher about the science that they do in first grade this year, he told me he that the time available is limited because of the push for testing in math and reading.

Also interesting, my daughter recently mentioned to me that her “painting shirt” was wasted this year because they didn’t get the paints out even once this year! This is not a complaint against her teacher at all. He does an excellent job. I spent a day watching him work, and I may go back again soon if I can work it into my schedule before school lets out. But this is a very strong complaint against a system that I believe is headed down the wrong path.

I’m not worried for my daughter. She lives in a very enriched home environment. We think about and talk about a broad variety of things at our house. I am worried for the kids who don’t live in such a place, who depend on the school to provide an excellent, broad education. All of the focus on the testing and accountability isn’t heading us in the right direction.

I know plenty of people think the same way. But what can be done when all of our schools are dependent upon federal dollars to operate and those federal dollars come with strings attached? I wonder if the congressional leaders who voted in 1958 for that first NDEA law could see where we are today, would they have still passed the bill that ultimately changed the way American schools operate?

Tags: NCLB, NDEA

It’s only one week until Murders R Us is coming to the Brown Grand Theatre to host “Who Dunnit to Elvis?”. If you read my Happy Birthday Elvis post last January, you know I’m a huge Elvis fan. The show is audience participation live theatre and I’m in it playing the role of Elvis #2. The interesting thing is that we have one rehearsal day before the performance. We don’t have a script, and at this point don’t even really know much about the story line. It is a little daunting for me, but I actually think it is great teacher training. Many times a classroom teacher has to “improv” when things don’t quite go as planned.

I just finished co-authoring a paper for the National Society for Engineering Educators conference this summer about using digital video to enhance student learning. (It will be published by ASEE so I can’t share it here.) While researching, I learned some interesting things about how acting training improves memory. I even read one article in which Alan Alda used improv acting with engineering students to help their own understanding of engineering.

I would like to learn more about this idea of using acting & improvisation to help teach engineering. First, I’ll need to get some help with improvisation games, and how they can be related to the engineering concepts in my classes.

I’m really looking forward to next week’s play at the Brown Grand. Performing on stage really forces me out of my comfort zone and although I couldn’t prove it, I believe it helps me with my teaching by helping me to think on my feet.

I’m wondering if any readers of this blog have similar experiences and activities that you do which on the surface seem to have nothing to do with your profession, but actually do help you be the best you can be?

You can create simulated 3-D stereoscope photograph by wiggling two slightly different angles of the same pictures, as shown in this picture of my wife & daughter. I’ve been wanting to experiment with this for some time after reading about Wiggle Stereoscopy. I have created this image by showing two successive images in an animated gif picture made with ImageReady.

The two images I am using were not made with this technique in mind, but when I viewed them together it seemed to work. I think it might work better if I kept the camera on the same horizontal plane, rather than changing both horizontal and vertical viewing angle. But like I said, the two images were accidentally made.

We are able to see in 3-D because our two eyes see the world from slightly different angles. A Viewmaster toy is a good example of a true 3-D stereoscope. This technique is only simulated because you aren’t viewing both images at the same time. It’s still pretty cool, isn’t it? What do you think?

While I rarely read a fictional novel, I will sometimes read biographies and other works of non-fiction for entertainment. This week I’m reading Alan Alda’s “Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself“. The book caught my eye in the school library because I’m a fan of the TV show M*A*S*H, in which Alda starred. I wasn’t really expecting to find much there to write about in my blog, only something interesting to read.

But I had forgotten that Mr. Alda hosted the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers and has a keen interest in science. While reading his book, I discovered a new brother– someone who appreciates both art and science, and constantly looks for connections between the two. I discovered a kinship with someone who shares with me a similar view of the world and of life. He writes:

Allowing this childish curiosity to continue on through my whole life has given me satisfaction and maybe even a sense of meaning. It stimulates a part of my brain that registers pleasure; and whether it has meaning or not, it feels as though it does. No matter how old I get, I have the feeling that if I can keep this curiosity flame lit, I’ll see the world in a way that never gets stale…

That’s it! That is precisely how I feel! I never want to stop learning and I don’t care if what I am learning about has a practical value or not as long as I am enjoying what I am learning. How can I convey this love of learning to my students? I can certainly identify with having apathy. I wasn’t always an eager student. It took me many years in the “University of Hard Knocks” to discover that I did have what it takes to be a successful student and an eager learner. How can I help my students bypass the drudgery and get to the love of learning straight away?

Interestingly, in a graduation speech (Alda’s book is full of graduation speeches) to a group of CalTech graduates, Alan Alda has some recommendations:

I’m asking you today to devote some significant part of your life to figuring out how to share your love of science with the rest of us…

Like the young man so head over heels about his sweetheart, he can’t stop talking about her; like the young woman so in love with her young man, she wants everyone to know how wonderful he is… show us pictures, tell us stories, make us crave to meet your beloved.

Don’t just tell us science is good for us and therefore, we ought to fund you for it… be lovers!

Look, we’re accustomed in our culture to know when a commercial is coming. We know how to turn it off. But love we can’t resist. (read the full text of his speech here)

This is where so many teachers go wrong; it’s where I’ve gone wrong. We get so caught up in being taken seriously. We want to be viewed as the expert. We want to wow them with our knowledge, and we forget to show them our love and our passion for what we are doing.

I have decided that to show my passion for what I do, I will no longer be afraid to have a little fun and to be a little silly to make my love for my subject known to my students. If I lose some credibility with some because of it, I’m not worried because I am being my genuine self. I am a little silly, I do like to have fun, and I do love learning! I want my students to see that the stuff I teach doesn’t have to be tedious and boring. I think we can have deep, serious learning while still being a little silly at the same time.

It is an interesting paradox. Recall the young man and young woman in love that Mr. Alda speaks of– few people are sillier than when they are first enjoying a new love, but few people are more serious at the same time. Somehow if we can only convey the romance, the excitement, and the true joy of learning, how can we fail as teachers?

Thanksgiving

Elizabeth Layton was a Kansas native artist who battled depression until she took up drawing at the age of sixty-eight. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, and numerous other exhibits around the USA. Although she is gone now, her memory continues on. You can visit her website at http://elizabethlayton.com/.

One of my favorite pictures by Grandma Elizabeth Layton is the one shown here entitled “Thanks-giving”. She doesn’t like to cook, so the family gets carry-out Kentucky Fried Chicken for the holiday meal. How many harried mothers and grandmothers dream of doing this one year, saying to heck with it, I’m not cooking this year?

Although I am typically not one for discarding traditions, I am starting to wonder about this holiday we call “Thanksgiving” and it’s associated myths. Native Americans don’t like the holiday and what it represents to their people. They don’t like how it perpetuates stereotypes about Indians, and they certainly don’t like how Europeans went on to treat the indigenous people on this continent after that first “Thanksgiving” feast.

GENOCIDE OF AMERICAN INDIAN

Judging from this picture, one can guess that Elizabeth Layton probably would not have a problem with taking the Pilgrims and Indians completely out of Thanksgiving. She was a person of great empathy for the plight of others, providing much in the way of social commentary in her work.

Here’s the thing about Thanksgiving with my family. I don’t recall ever having any discussions of Pilgrims and Indians and that “First Thanksgiving” meal. Any of those sort of myths in my recollection were perpetuated at school, not in my church or in my family gatherings. For my family, Thanksgiving has always been a special time of coming together as a family, and truly being thankful for the blessings we have received.

In a world where people are increasingly feeling entitled, having a holiday that fosters an attitude of gratitude can’t be all bad in my mind. And as Grandma Layton shows us, it doesn’t matter what the meal is, as long as families and friends can come together and be grateful for what we have been given.

Perhaps it is time to think about ways in which we can reinvent the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m not talking about a complete abandonment of traditions, but only a change of course that acknowledges and tries to fix some of the flaws in how we celebrate. For example, in the USA, November is Native American Heritage Month. Instead of keeping the Pilgrim/Indian myths alive, why not replace that tradition with learning something about actual Native American history and culture?

One of the things I most enjoy is discovering relationships between art and technology, and one such relationship exists in Pointillism. Each year I do a Pointillism project with my students , with some pretty cool results as they discover the process by which a digital camera makes a photograph by recording thousands of tiny little dots of color.

I really think it is fascinating that Georges Seurat explored the possibilities of optical blending of color in his Pointillist paintings over a hundred years ago, and our most modern of technologies, the digital camera, uses a similar concept.

I will never forget standing in front of the “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” painting by Seurat at the Chicago Art Institute staring in amazement. It is so big, and powerful; it sucks you in. It is posted online, and they have a tool with which you can zoom in to have a closer look, but you really must see it in person to fully appreciate it.

I do my best to convey a sense of appreciation for the past while exploring technology in these Pixel Pointillism projects. When we make these pictures as a class, it is always fun to watch the students as the pieces come together and they attempt to identify who or what is in the picture.

Marilyn and Mt. Rushmore were drawn by hand with paper and pencil, while Elvis and Jack Nicholson were printed on a laser printer from a computer. All projects are composites, with multiple students contributing a piece of the work, not knowing what the end result would be. I think the paper and pencil ones are more distinctive and interesting because while each person has an individual style and interpretation of how the pixels should be drawn, when all of the parts are put together, it still works out nicely.

Tags: art, digital photography, Pointillism