My life now.

To do list for tomorrow:

1. Mail short-call substitute form to Cloquet.
2. Do stuff with dog.
3. Vacuum the stairs.
4. Dishes.
5. Go running.
6. Learn how to solve Rubik's Cube
7. Find something to read until I get Catch 22 back.

My brain feels like a gerbil without a wheel! If someone showed up at my doorstep tomorrow morning and asked me to spend a day with thirty empathy-stunted eighth graders, I'd JUMP at the chance. Not that all eighth graders lack empathy, of course.

Bach's Chaconne (Partita No. 2) by Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz - A06 [J S Bach] Chaconne
Uploaded by raphaeldelille. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Public Broadcasting Performance

I listen to MPR and NPR often. I like their programming, and I find that their political commentary programs strive to achieve balanced perspectives by inviting a variety of guests. I certainly prefer getting my news from NPR and my Google Reader than from television news programs. Plus, I hate commercials.

I found an interesting, though borderline outdated, report that supports my decision to get my news from NPR:

A study conducted in 2003 by the polling firm Knowledge Networks and the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes showed that those who get their news and information from public broadcasting (NPR and PBS) are better informed than those whose information comes from other media outlets, including cable and broadcast TV networks and the print media. In particular, 80% of Fox News viewers held at least one of three common misperceptions about the Iraq War; only 23% of NPR listeners and PBS viewers were similarly misinformed. (Wikipedia)

This is the article that Wikipedia cited: Pubcasting helps audience sort fact, fiction

Given that the article was published in Current.org, which discusses public radio and TV in the U.S., there definitely might be some bias present. I'd like to see a study that tries to determine what type of media consumers are the most accurately informed. What mix of media sources results in the most informed viewer/listener/reader? Moreover, are the habits that these most-informed readers have realistic for everyone? I strive to be well-informed on current political and scientific news by getting my information from a variety of sources. I have around fifty articles waiting for me each time I log on to Reader, and the radio in my minivan (don't hate on my minivan) is always tuned to NPR. I'm probably more informed than a lot of people. But I find it difficult to keep up with the news, let alone form opinions that I feel are supported by enough information.

Quotes of the Day

Some ideas and words I picked up while shifting through my RSS feeds today.

"Zombie doctrine" - an ideology that, though "it should be dead," just "keeps on coming." Paul Krugman I'm not qualified to comment upon economic ideology; I just thought this was a great combination of words.

"One other thing is clear: most of the time, the height of the storm is not the best time to predict next month's political weather." Robert Shrum

"'Suaviter in modo, foriter in re.' Gently in the manner, strongly in the substance." David Frum in this editorial from January. Reminds me of Teddy's "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Picked this up on Twitter from NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow.

"RTFA!" You can guess what it stands for by reading the comments posted to this Scientific American article. I feel dirty for encouraging people to read comments - they're depressing.

"Gluon." Now that I know what a gluon does, I realize how hilarious I think its name is.

Cool site I found while reading a SciAm article: http://governmentattic.org/

Why I Want To Be A Substitute Teacher (for a little while)

Some may think it's laziness, fear of responsibility, or some other type of ill-formed thinking, but I think the reasons that I want to be a substitute for a year (instead of a full-time classroom teacher) are fairly sound. I'll begin with my most compelling reason and continue from there.

1. I first became a student when I was five years and three months old. I have been a student ever since. I would like to gain some perspective on the world of working adults before I take on the responsibility of teaching and guiding 150 students for an entire school year.
2. A year working as a substitute teacher will give me experience and confidence that will help me a lot when I first get my own classroom.
3. One of my cooperating teachers said that if he could do it all again, he'd sub for a while before taking on a full-time teaching position.
4. It's a pretty flexible job.
5. It will allow me to encounter a variety of students: all subjects, all grades, all walks of life.
6. I'm going to be leaving in a year to go to somewhere in Alaska to teach. Who wants to hire me for a single year?

If you think of any more reasons, plop them in a comment and post 'em.

Key Advice to New Belize Student Teachers and a Cool Video Eric Showed Me

This was the last piece of advice that I listed in an email to new UMD student teachers going down to Belize this fall. I can tell that all the Thomas Friedman reading I've been doing lately has been having an effect:

Finally, please represent your country, not just your school. This is just my personal opinion, but I believe that any American traveling abroad has the responsibility to, through their actions, present their country of origin in a positive light. It is in the small, daily interpersonal interactions we have that opinions about Americans are formed. Unfortunately, many people in the world have formed unfavorable opinions of Americans. When people across the globe view our country negatively, it makes it more difficult for us to do anything from winning wars to doing business to humanitarian work to tourism. You are what you do. Do good things and leave behind good impressions :)

And the second important thing from today:

Everyone is Going to be Using this Stuff

Unveiled: the newest big project from Google - Google Wave. The actual demo starts at about 8:00

Though 5414 class is over, I can't seem to get myself out of a Flat World way of thinking (which is probably a good thing). I think I understand what Friedman was saying on a new level, maybe the level that he hoped his less-informed readers would reach. After hearing about Google Wave, I realized something. This system is faster than anything we've seen before. It's faster than meeting, than phone conferencing, it's faster than email, instant messanging, and Google Docs - because it includes all of those processes at once. AND it has PLAYBACK! (seen at 13:00-14:00)

Now, I don't think that I had an epiphany, per se, while watching the Wave demo. But I think I felt my new paradigm clicking into place. Everyone is going to be using this stuff! With Wave, Google is giving people a new type of integrated platform for people to use for collaboration. Google strives for products that offer seamless integration for collaborative use. Think about it: I can work with someone from Korea using Google applications, including Wave. I can also see the building in which they work using Google Maps. And they don't even have to have mastered English, since Google will also translate my words for them.

Okay, maybe not yet. But I can see it coming, and it will be here very soon.

I got really excited when I thought about how I could use this in teaching. GW could easily replace Moodle, but it could also be used in ways that I can't think of right now (I'm way too excited). For instance, here's an idea of how Wave could work in teaching:

1. Assign kids any kind of group work. Literature circles, projects, etc.
2. Kids work together from anywhere with an internet connection, since Wave (like other Google Apps) doesn't need to be downloaded onto a computer - it's accessed through one's web browser. Not only can they create Word, PPt, and Excel-like documents, they can also create photo albums, videos, Podcasts...and they can do so easily.
3. Students can chat with me, their teacher, while they're working online to get feedback.
4. I, the teacher, can see which students contributed which content, and assign points as needed (if points are involved).

That doesn't sound nearly as cool if read outside the context of the demo. Watch the demo.

Friedman was right when he said that we are only now going to see the real capabilities of the Internet. Maybe I'm too underqualified to make this claim, but I think that Wave is part of a new generation of collaborative software. As ideas, software, and hardware move forward, the tools that we have available for us to use will be increasingly faster, more integrated, more seamless, and more interesting. More so than Wave, even. Imagine this. Google (just making a prediction, here) comes out with a product similar to Kindle. They release it along with an application called Google Quotes. While you're reading from your Google-Kindle, you keep Google Quotes open on your laptop. While you read, you can highlight sections of the book, article, or paper that you're reading, and using a "throw" button, send it to your laptop by means of a Bluetooth infrared device. The selection shows up on Google Quotes along with a complete citation. Imagine how much faster research would go with a tool like that!

Everything will probably go faster. I mentioned something similar in a previous post of mine. Because we won't have to spend so much time working and waiting with our "thought-supporting" tools, we'll be able to spend more time thinking. We'll be able to think and learn more efficiently. Maybe - maybe - this means that we'll learn more in less time, counteracting educational inflation to a certain extent.

I should close with some values-related thoughts. Should we be teaching our students this stuff? I think that the argument for teaching students the basics of computer design and web editing is a sound one. Using computers and the Web without understanding the basics of their designs is a bit like driving a car and not knowing how gasoline, oil, and transmission fluid help keep it running. Do we need to teach Wave, or teach using Wave? If collaborative apps are becoming increasingly intuitive and seamless, will they some day be so intuitive and seamless that we won't need to teach them?

My stance today is - we need to use technology in education. And I think we need to use technology to make drastic changes in education, much like technology is creating drastic changes in the global marketplace and in our personal (and interpersonal) lives. If the last great revolution was industrial, this one is digital. Our current educational model is industrial; we now need a digital one.

The thing is, there are lingering industrial pressures. We want to be efficient in our education systems; we want the most capable students for the least cost (that's always what it always seems to comes down to - cost-effectiveness). How do we do this today? Is 1 teacher:30 students in a classroom the most cost-effective?

And, since I really don't believe what I said about everything reducing to cost-effectiveness: simply put, is our current model the most effective? A simply put answer is "I don't know!" Because I have nothing with which to compare our current model. We need to open up our schools to the type of innovation that is now happening in the business world. Only then will we develop a new type of education that fits this new, flat world.

Faster, Smoother, Stronger! Better?

This is my last "official" post for EDUC 5414: Technology for the Administrative Tasks of Teaching. Since much of what we examined during class were values regarding technology use, not the tech tools themselves, I want to continue with a discussion I felt we never really had the time to explore in class.

To begin, scroll through these quotes from The World Is Flat (apparently a major invoker of thoughts for me).




The World Is Flat is a lengthy book, and it's possible that I'm pulling these quotes too far away from their original context for them to be taken at face value. But I don't believe that's the case. When I read these quotes, I see a common theme - competition. When I read Friedman's book, I see the same theme. In one way, I see the world that Friedman describes as a fast-paced, hyper-competitive, hyper-connected place. I think it's wise for societies to step back and think along the lines of "should we?" whenever they're about to adopt policies that might drastically change the way governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals work. Take the industrial revolution, for example. Could the industrial revolution have started with cleaner coal if more questions had been raised before its widespread adoption? If so, would we be facing the environmental issues that we currently do?

So, regarding the Flat World, Globalization 3.0, etc., I have some concerns. I also have some answers to those concerns.

Educational Inflation

Educational inflation is the idea that we have to run faster to stay in the same place (Romer, p. 387). Fifty years ago, a high school degree got you to the same place, wage-wise, as an associate's or bachelor's degree does today. I don't think that's a completely accurate comparison, but that's the underlying idea of educational inflation. Yet a bachelor's degree still takes about four years, and it also costs relatively more money than it did thirty years ago. If these trends continue - and based on what Friedman has presented, they probably will - could a person have to obtain an associates's degree simply to maintain an unskilled hourly wage position? I don't see how we can avoid this scenario. People are going to try to be more attractive to employers than other potential employees. There will always be people who are willing to push beyond average.

I feel like a hypocrite when I question the idea of continuously "pushing beyond average." But I wonder about implications for our lives when it's possible that so much of our time will be spent just keeping up with the rest of the workforce. Will the Flat World allow people the time to enjoy genuine quality in their lives outside work - the other parts of life that are important and enjoyable? My mother, for instance, works a decently-paying job at Cargill Kitchen Solutions. She has worked there for more than ten years, and for most of that time she has not had an "eight hour workday." For most of my time in middle and high school, I was only able to spend time with my mom from 6:00 PM until 9:00 or so, when she fell asleep. She was the primary breadwinner since my dad had started a business; she couldn't do much about her situation. Though I believe that kind of situation to be fairly commonplace, I don't want it to be so. But I feel like the flattening of the world might make it the new normal.

Then again, maybe not. Some people value money and high-prestige jobs more than anything else in life, which is fine, but most people don't. I would bet that most people would choose to scale back on their professional commitments if not doing so meant sacrificing too much quality time with families, hobbies, etc. Given this, though the widespread adoption of flat-world practices might rocket competition forward, there might be a time when the fuel starts to fizzle out; in other words, people will be unwilling to invest more time in order to get ahead.

Once again, however, maybe not. Probably not, in fact. I already touched on this idea in another post, but I think the more likely scenario is that it will simply become easier to obtain degrees. Advanced Placement courses are one example of this development. We now see them offered in more schools, in greater numbers, and in more diverse subjects.

Another factor that pushes against the kind of Flat World that worries me - hypercompetitive, hyperconnected - is value. We discussed this briefly one day in class: people value different things. Speaking in generalities, products from China are attractive to people who value low cost, while products from the USA are attractive to people who value companies who compensate their employees well. These conflicting values will always be available on the market, there will always be work available for both companies.

Friedman spoke about "fat" and "walls," terms he used to represent the structures that slow collaboration and productivity. I think it's human nature to desire some fat and walls. They provide comfort and security. Most of the quotes I listed above hint towards a world where economic security is a thing of the past, but I don't think economic security is a dichotomy - there, or not there. We might feel insecure here for a while, but in China and India, people will feel more secure. I think that the global marketplace will eventually balance out, spreading wealth equally, everywhere.

Who knows how long that will take, though.

The Need to Connect With Parents

It is an unfortunate reality, but reality nonetheless: many teachers do not like dealing with their students' parents and guardians. The relationship between teacher and caregiver is complicated and can be difficult for both sides to negotiate. Having never been a parent, I can't speak to the frustrations that parents experience when dealing with teachers, although I'm sure I could name a few (when will those grades be up?! I know that teachers get frustrated with "helicopter" parents who check grades on Infinite Campus four times a day and/or send emails to said teacher on a daily basis. When a teacher sees parents or guardians making decisions about their child that the teacher feels are ill-informed or ill-conceived, that can be another source of frustration. Then, of course, there are the caregivers that "just don't seem to care." Most parents and guardians don't fall into these categories, I think. And most teachers do their best, considering their schedules, to keep their students' families well-informed about their classrooms; it's part of the job, to a certain extent.

Given what I've recently learned about the status of the American education system (compared to the education systems of competing countries), I think it actually needs to be more of the job. We, as a society, keep putting additional responsibilities upon schools. What is the primary responsibility of a school? To instruct. Aside from instruction, schools are also expected to provide meals, athletic facilities, theaters, school dances, counseling, etc. A situation in which schools offer these things is completely fine and often necessary. The problem I often see occurs when school activities - including instruction - no longer have a presence at home. Learning, and the values that come with it, then become the domain of solely the school. I think that most educators (and Thomas Friedman) would agree: that is a bad situation for a 21st century student. Even with a nine-hour school day (after-school activities included), kids spend most of their time at home. Children really are learning all the time; where are they really doing most of their learning?

Some teachers, parents, and guardians like to blame other parents and guardians for this issue, saying that some families simply don't care about supporting their children's education. I don't support this stance. Thankfully, I have met few families who literally don't care about their children's future. When caregivers make poor decisions regarding their children's education, I think it is usually because they simply lack the information to do so. It is a teacher's job to stay up-to-date on what resources students need to succeed, but parents might not know where to look for that information, or they might not even know that they should be looking in the first place.

Unfortunately, our society can no longer afford to have uninformed parents if we are to keep up with the impassioned workforces of the "flattened" world. If we want intelligent, hard-working, creative students and workers, I think that starts with intelligent, hard-working, and creative parents. Friedman takes a harder stance than I do regarding this issue, but let's take a look at what he has to say:

[Parents] need to know in what world their kids are growing up and what it will take for them to thrive. (p. 394)

...if we don't start to reverse [a national sense of entitlement], our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock from the flat world. While a different approach from politicians is necessary, it is not sufficient. (p. 395)

"Public education is producing these remarkable students - so it can be done. Their parents have nurtured them to make sure that they realize their potential." (David Baltimore, p.396)

Our children will increasingly be competing head-to-head with Chinese, Indian, and Asian kids, whose parents have a lot more of Hattie's character-building approach than their own American parents. (p. 397)(

Essentially, what Friedman and his sources say is: "We as a country need to do more, and that won't happen on the scale we need unless parents start doing more." I agree. But imperatives alone generally don't get results. Imperatives combined with resources and plans tend to fare better.

Questions of the Day:
What do parents need to support their children's education?
How will these needs be met?

I want to start this section by discussing the imperative that parents will need. It needs to be an imperative monstrous in scale and voice, for it needs to reach every parent's ears, eyes, and fingers. I think the only way we're going to establish the need for this type of reform is by having President Obama deliver a Kennedy-styled "Man on the Moon" speech to the whole nation. Friedman discusses Kennedy and the moon mission frequently throughout his book, and he is right to do so; yet, of all the sectors in need of reform, I think education (and parenting in support thereof) are most in need of it, and therefore most deserving of a Moon Speech. This speech will need to address much of the economic information Friedman discusses in The World is Flat, as well as the actions parents can take to safeguard their children's futures to the greatest extent possible.

One of the actions the President should discuss is how parents should better inform themselves by accessing the resources provided by their schools. I know that earlier in this post I said that schools are continuously asked to do more, but schools doing more isn't the fundamental problem - the problem is when schools are the only ones doing more, and they aren't given the needed additional resources to compensate. Having educational resources, of which information about supporting education at home is one part, at school makes sense. If reforming education from the home up means that schools have to do more, then so be it as long as the schools get adequate funding to do so.

Parents should easily be able to obtain the information they need to make well-informed decisions about their children's education. We need a national imperative to to accomplish this, but we also need plans. Districts are the implementors of policy in the American education system. I think each district should develop a plan for informing the decision-makers in their students' lives not only about what's happening with at school, but also about what should be happening at home to support the learning that happens at school.

So, I have now discussed the imperative we need and the type of plans we need in order to get parents and students to the same place that Friedman is - the flat world. I'd like to now explore some specifics that I've been milling in my mind since I first read chapter nine of The World is Flat, "This Is Not a Test." This is where technology comes in. I think that many of the technology tools that I've learned about during the past four weeks have great potential to help answer the question of "How will the needs of parents and guardians be met?" Here is a list of the ideas that I've brainstormed over the past few days.

What do parents and guardians need to support their children's education?
- Services currently provided (meals, counseling, materials, space, transportation)
- Information about the role of education
- Information about the current and future socioeconomic environment (The Flat World)
- Information about what students will need to do in order to succeed
- Information about expectations - workload, behavior, assignments, attendance, cheating, etc.
- Expectations for parents?
- Information about what parents/guardians can do
- Information about individual classes (topics to be covered, grading policy, etc.)

How will these needs be met? (These are just ideas)
- Information available by newsletter and DVD
- Lessons and assignments that require adult involvement, especially on the secondary level - Google docs would be a fun one!
- More counselors that can facilitate communication and collaboration between home and school
- Actively trying to bring adults into the classroom - in person, by webcam?
- Welcome collaboration between the home and school - online forums?

Conclusion
I know that many, if not all, of my ideas might fall flat when proposed to a district committee. However, I'm excited by the idea of using some of the ideas I listed here in my own classroom someday. Maybe I'll start the storyboard for my DVD this summer!

K-12 Education: Changes to Expect

Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat gave a depressing analysis of America's economic future: compared to other developed and developing countries, we're not doing so well. Of course, those who have been paying attention already knew the statistics. For me, the most troubling numbers emerge from the field of education. I am biased as an educator, I suppose. However, an educated workforce is a productive and inventive workforce, one that gets to enjoy the benefits of global economic leadership. Craig Barrett, former chairman of Intel, echoes my thoughts in this matter:

Standard of living is related to the average value add of your workforce, and that is related to the average educational level of your workforce. If you downgrade the average educational level of your workforce, relative to your competition, your standard of living will decline. (Friedman p. 372, emphasis added)

In other words, if we invest less into our people than other countries are investing in theirs, we will eventually fall behind. That is exactly the process that is occurring at this point in history. American students increasingly lag behind other countries in test scores, not just in science and math, but also in literacy and composition (p. 353). Proportionally and numerically, we graduate far fewer science, mathematics, and engineering majors than European and Asian frontrunners. There are "gaps" between the emerging American workforce and those developing in Europe and Asia in other productivity-related areas: ambition, funding for research, and infrastructure (p. 343-365). The only thing that has thus far sheltered American citizens from feeling the real effects of these trends is the fact that we have been so far ahead of the world in terms of resources (financial and otherwise) that we've been essentially untouchable. Think of the hare and the tortoise. Remember the part of the story when the hare thinks he can stop to nap and still win the race? The U.S. - representing the hare, obviously - has essentially been napping. What makes our race different from the story's is that while we've been napping the tortoise has strapped on rocket boots. Emerging economies are quickly catching up to us.

I think of the processes involved in global markets the same way as I think of the processes involved in biological evolution. In biological evolution, changes in the environment prompt species to evolve in order to become more fit for survival against their competition in that environment. The environment in which America has thrived is changing; therefore, our country will have to evolve in order to survive and compete.

My question is this: What "adaptations" will educators make in order to help America become better suited for survival in the new global economic environment? I have my own desires regarding what I'd like to see American educators doing, but first I'd like to explore what changes I think we can expect to see in the near future based on what we know about the current economic trends presented in Friedman's book.

Blended Instruction

Clayton M. Christensen, professor at the Harvard Business School, believes that more than 50% of all high school instruction will occur online by 2019 (Trotter, 2008). We've discussed the benefits of blended instruction - teaching that takes place both in a classroom and online - several times in class. Classrooms that have taken a blended approach report that learning is enhanced through the combination of face-to-face and internet time. Blended classrooms outperform both "pure" physical classrooms and "pure" online ones. There are many likely reasons for the academic success of blended classrooms. Online, instructional time isn't interrupted by phone calls, student behavior, or announcements. In a classroom, a teacher has to manage a group of 20+ individuals at once; online, the ratio can be as low as 1:1. This allows teachers to provide more personally tailored instruction for each of their students. Online classes allow students the flexibility to work when they feel most engaged and interested.

I think another factor will drive the widespread adoption of blended instruction, and that is cost. As broadband infrastructure spreads, households (and districts) will find it increasingly cheaper to access high-speed internet. The computers needed to access the broadband network will also become cheaper. Eventually, it might simply become more cost-effective for districts to host many of their classes online. Imagine a school where the students only visited the campus three days a week, and received instruction online during the other two days. Teachers and administrators could potentially work from home. With a system like this, the district could potentially save money on energy, busing, and maintenance bills. Obviously many operational sticking points would have to be resolved before a system like this could be implemented (were is the orchestra going to practice?), but how is that fundamentally different from education now? There are always points of contention; there is also always pressure to reduce operating costs.

Individualization

In The World Is Flat, Friedman often discusses how current technologies empower individuals. Web 2.0 and other tools allow individuals to "globalize" themselves: their work, their beliefs, and their ideas. These same tools also allow institutions and corporations to specialize, or "individualize," their services, advertising, and products. I believe that K-12 educational institutions will soon start taking advantage of "individualizing" tools on a massive scale. I already touched on how teachers can customize their instruction to each one of their students using the power of blended instruction, but this is only one way the internet can help make K-12 education more flexible and student-centered. Let's look at it from an administrative perspective.

To begin, think back to the discussions about electronic medical records that I know you've been hearing and reading about lately. What benefits do electronic medical records offer? There are a couple main ones. First, electronic medical records could theoretically be accessed quickly by any doctor worldwide. Second, these records would exist and be edited in one location - online. The information would therefore be easily transferrable from one doctor or hospital to another doctor or hospital.

Now, imagine a similar system for student records. The Infinite Campus system already does this to a certain degree, allowing teachers within a district to access a student's attendance, academic, and medical records online. Teachers can even access information about students' families and bus routes. Great - that's all useful stuff. But what if we took it further? Imagine a statewide or nationwide archive that tracked this information from kindergarten on, creating individual files for each student. Additional data, such as interests, work samples, hobbies, learning styles, graduation plans, test scores, and even teaching preferences, could also be archived and available for a student's teacher to access. Theoretically, a teacher could learn a lot about new students before even meeting them, which would make transitioning between classrooms, grades, and schools easier for the students. It could also make instructional planning easier for teachers.

I think that individualization will also allow more flexibility in the courses students are able to take. For good or ill, I think we will start to see "testing out" options available for students, at least on the high school level. There were most definitely some required courses in my high school curriculum that were a complete waste of my time - 9th Grade Computing and Technology, for instance. It would have been nice if I had been offered the option of testing out of that course, which presented material I had already mastered, and instead taken something like 10th Grade Biology. To some degree the possibility of "testing out" worries me; the ability to score well on a test about a subject does not always indicate the ability to think deeply and creatively about it. However, "testing out" of a required course could mean providing a portfolio to the appropriate authorities, and it would provide advanced students with the ability to avoid taking courses that won't further their understandings and skills.

Recommendations

At this point I've discussed what changes I believe we can be reasonably certain will affect K-12 education in the near future. Here's what additional changes I'd like to see implemented in K-12 ed. on a large scale.

1. Interdisciplinary Collaboration
I know it's hard to plan, but I think interdisciplinary instruction is simply one of the most powerful tools teachers possess for increasing their students' abilities. Friedman believes that the ability to innovate is to a significant degree grounded in the ability to think and create across disciplines. Interdisciplinary instruction also tends to be authentic; if a student uses math to gain insight about a social issue, they are doing what professional analysts do daily. Plus, interdisciplinary tasks are so much fun! I still vividly remember the big inter-classroom projects that I worked on in high school.

Life Skills
In 8th grade I was required to take a class called "Life Skills." It was essentially the 90s version of home ec. Supposedly I learned how to cook and how to sew. If you were to examine my cooking and my clothing at this point in time, you would quickly understand that I did not gain anything lasting from that class. Sewing in class? Honestly? I like sewing, truly I do, but I don't believe it's a skill that I need to make my life function.

Here are some real life skills:
- The ability to examine and critique one's own values and thinking
- The ability to see connections between ourselves and other individuals and communities
- The ability to draw logical conclusions through rigorous questioning and (re)searching for information (Friedman 2007)

Thirty years ago, the socioeconomic evolutionary forces looked and acted differently than they do today. Today's "life skills," the skills that will enable a person to function on a day-to-day basis, involve the processing of information. Do I, a student, really need to spend a semester learning how to make various egg recipes when I can get cooking information from Google within minutes? Isn't it more important for me to learn how to critique and interpret information that I find on Google, since that's what I'll probably be doing every day in the future?

In the next century it will be more important for students to think than sew. My last thought is that our national education system needs to update its curriculum in order to support students' cognitive growth. We need more technology classes, certainly, but teaching students how to use technology is not enough. Current collaborative technologies are simply ways in which ideas can be transfered. We need to make sure that our students can come up with good ideas.

Sources Cited

Friedman, T. L. (2007) The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York, NY: Picador.

Trotter, A (2008 October 17). Disruptive Innovation. Digital Directions, 2, Retrieved July 16 2009, from http://www.edweek.org/dd/toc/2008/10/20/index.html

Analysis Project 1: How will the "flat" world change teaching?

I think these are some of the most profound words from Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat:

Wealth and power will increasingly accrue to those countries, companies, individuals, universities, and groups who get three basic things right: the infrastructure to connect with this flat-world platform, the education to get more of their people innovating on, working off of, and tapping into this platform, and, finally, the governance to get the best out of this platform and cushion its worst side effects.(2007)

We discussed in class on 7/9/09 how "Web 2.0" is simply a tool; Friedman calls it a platform. Yet it is a revolutionary tool just like nuclear power, electricity, steam engines, sails, and even the wheel were revolutionary tools: each of these inventions significantly changed social landscapes around the world in their time. Whenever one of these inventions became established as a "platform" upon which a new form of society could be built, people were essentially forced to reexamine and restructure their lives to a great degree.

To summarize the main theme of the texts and discussions from EDUC 5414 thus far: we're in for a period of global adjustment, and that's a mild way of phrasing the idea. Though I have many questions about how this adjustment will affect me personally, I have one main concern as a (future) educator: How will this new global platform change what my students (and I) need to know in order to genuinely participate in society?

There's no way to predict the future with 100% accuracy, but Shelly, Cashman, Gunter and Gunter (2008) offer several great answers to this question. For one, students will need to know current technologies so that they may easily become comfortable with future technologies (p.11). This means that teachers today have to incorporate today's technology into their teaching, so that students may gain competency with the foundation on which tomorrow's technology will be constructed.

I agree with Shelly et. al., though I think it's appropriate to voice a cautionary note regarding the use of technology as a teaching Band-Aid. Tony Lockhart, Director of Technology and Operations at Marshall School in Duluth, MN, clarified for me how the potential of technology to improve instruction depends upon the potential of the teacher to appropriately use the technology to that end. "Technology can't make a teacher good, but it can make a good teacher better." (2009) This seems to be common sense, but as we discussed in class, many pieces of expensive technology are being provided to teachers who either lack the ability or the desire to utilize the tech tools in their teaching. A SMART board does not an Erin Gruwell make. However, the pressures that lead schools to install modern technology into potentially unprepared classrooms are not going away. Instead, they are increasing in force.

This leads me to the main question of this analysis post. Do we really need to provide students with constant exposure to advanced technology in order to prepare them for the future? I don't know if we do, and here's why.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills identified many outcomes that the Partnership believes should result from K-12 education today (Shelley et. al., p.14). These include:

1. Core subjects and themes: English, reading, language arts, science, mathematics, foreign languages, civics, government, economics, arts, history, geography, health awareness, and financial and civic literacy. Wow - talk about despecialization! But I'll have to save that for another analysis post.
2. Learning and innovation skills: creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, and communication and collaboration.
3. Information, communications, and technology literacy.
4. Life and career skills: flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility. (Shelley et. al., p. 14-15).

If these are the goals for student learning in the 21st century, I don't believe we need technology to achieve them. However, I do think that we will need to spend more time in school teaching values and effective "habits of mind" (Costa and Kallick 2000). Yes, I believe technology can make teaching easier, even when it comes to values and habits of mind. But I am concerned that in our eagerness (or nervous hurriedness) to compete globally on the new "flat" platform, these very important needs will be lost amongst the push to appear competitive and effective through new technology. Technology is a tool that is constantly changing; it seems like as soon as I master one program, a new version (or new program entirely) is released and quickly becomes an industry standard. I think it's okay for us educators to lag to some degree.

Costa, A and Kallick, B. "Describing 16 Habits of Mind." (2000). Retrieved July 10, 2009 from http://www.habits-of-mind.net/pdf/16HOM2.pdf.
Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New york: Picador, 2007.
Lockhart, Tony. Lecture. Marshall School, Duluth. 7 July 2009.
Peterson, Craig. Lecture. University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth. 8 July 2009.
Shelly, Gary B., Thomas J. Cashman, Glenda A. Gunter, and Randolph E. Gunter. Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom, Fifth Edition Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom (Shelly Cashman Series). Boston: Course Technology, 2007.

EDUC 5414 Technology for the Administrative Tasks of Teaching

So, I have moved on to my next class this summer: Technology for the Administrative Tasks of Teaching. I love this class because I'm getting the opportunity to ask serious, philosophical, value-based questions about the current and future relationship between technology and different parts of society: business, private life, communication, education, government, etc. If you know me, you know I like the serious stuff.

Can "serious" and "stuff" be used seriously in the same sentence?

...

Anyhow. One requirement for this class is posting analyses of our readings and discussions from class on our blogs. I hate complicatedness (I'm allowed to create new words at 12:23 AM) so, unlike some of my classmates, I'm just going to use the good ol' Veggie Burger Blog to host my homework. It seems appropriate to post ramblings about technology here anyway.

Final Exam Question

A question from my Teaching With Technology final exam, and my response.

"Traditionally teachers have used quizzes, paper and pencil tests, and written assignments to find out what students have learned. How can technology be used to provide new options for assessing student learning? Please give specific examples."

There are so many options! Students could turn in wiki articles instead of written reports, blogs instead of papers; students can record their discussions via podcast, video, or forum; students can create movies through xtranormal, presentations using Google Docs. Quizzes themselves take on more meaning when the students have encountered content through a multimedia WebQuest compared to a textbook (not to say textbooks shouldn’t be used – but I think giving students more options to work with would keep them more engaged). Consider two scenarios: one student is asked to write five reports using MS Word, while another student is asked to present the same reports using MS Word, PowerPoint, Wikispaces, Xtranormal, and Inspiration. Which student would you want to be? Heck – which teacher would you want to be? Gosh, it makes me want to start writing grants this very minute!

Web Tools

I have a feeling that I'll be spending a lot more time online now that I've learned to use more digital tools. I find creating websites to be positively addicting.

Speaking of tools, I learned about these cool websites today:

Moonfruit - Build your own website
Dimdim - online meetings
Twist - see trends in Twitter

Gosh, I usually consider myself to be pretty up with the times...but I've learned so much about technology and the internet in the past two weeks, it's completely changed my self-perception. Apparently I'm not nearly as nerdy as I thought I was, and it's kind of disappointing!

Tutorial Video

Teaching through ITV

I did this last Thursday, the 26th:

Oh, the things you can do with the Internet

Remember viewers, comments make me happy!

Anyway, check out this presentation. I created it completely online with a partner using Google Documents. Neither one of us saved anything to our individual computers.

The presentation has to do with the first two ITSE standards. We listed some really cool websites in this presentation - OpenSim (Second Life software), magnetic poetry online, etc. My personal favorite was Epals. I need to look for something like Epals but with a language arts focus instead.

Interwebz

I'm playing around with a lot of internet-related software in my Teaching with Technology class. It's made me really excited about web design and whatnot. I pick up hobbies easily - I collect them like kids collect Pokemon - and it looks like I have another one. I'm really thinking about saving up for a copy of Dreamweaver (if Nvu, a free web design program, doesn't work out) and doing some of my own website design.

Look at the cool stuff I did today!

Flight of the Conchords

Rocky Puzzle

Student Teaching in the States

I am done student teaching in the States.

Since March, I've returned from Belize, taken two PRAXIS tests, and completed an eight-week student teaching placement in a Duluth middle school. From the fact that I'm only now posting about my last student teaching experience, you can deduce that it was a taxing experience. I've never been so busy in my life! Day after day, I would return from school at 4:30 pm, deal with life for an hour or two, work on grading or lesson planning until I passed out at my desk at 9:30 or 10:00, sleep until 4:00 am, work on grading and lesson planning some more, and then head to school at 6:50. Insanity, but I fully expect to put in similar hours during my first year of full-time teaching.

At the Duluth middle school, I worked with three cooperating teachers, split between three classrooms and three grades. I spent 1-2 hours in each classroom, so my day looked somewhat like this:

Advisory: 7th grade

1st period: 7th grade Regular English

2nd period: Prep hour

3rd period: 6th grade Reading

Lunch

4th period: 6th grade Language Arts

5th period: Lunch supervising or prep

6th period: 8th grade Regular English

7th period: 8th grade Regular English

I was all over the school. I had to learn the classroom systems of three teachers, instead of the usual one or two, and I had to learn these systems in 8 weeks' time - a difficult obstacle. Managing the classrooms was tough, as I expected. I feel that I got better at it, but I still feel like I have a long way to go. It's tough, being a student teacher. As a student teacher, you know enough about pedagogy and best practices that you can identify the most effective teachers and, even more important, you can identify what makes that teacher great. However, you can't do it. It was a bit disheartening to leave my apartment for school each day, knowing I'd frequently have my shortcomings mirrored to me. It's not something I'm used to. Learning for me has, by luck and perhaps by design, always been fairly painless for me. I understand new things quickly. Teaching is so complex, though - I don't think it's possible to learn how to do it quickly and painlessly. Just another reason to like it, I suppose. Teaching has been delightfully humbling to me.

After Belize

Too many things to catch up on besides the blog - sorry, my followers. To add to your disappointment, I'll warn you that this will be a short update. 

First:  the Slideshow on my blog is now showing only pictures I took in Belize. I took so many, I put up two shows!

First, my dog, Mesquite, was beside herself when I returned. My mom picked me up at the airport on March 11th (a long time past, I know) and we drove home late at night. My flight had come in at about midnight. We reached Monticello at about 1:30 AM and pulled into the garage. Mom let Mesquite and Curly (her dog) out into the backyard while I remained hidden in the car. After Mom closed the door on the dogs outside, I stepped out of the car and started saying something to her. As soon as words left my lips, Mesquite was pawing at the door and making a general fool of her doggy self.  She welcomed me back by jumping on me, wagging her tail like mad, and yelping. She even went pee a few times. Lucky me!

I didn't feel the need to pee when I was reunited with the States, my family, and my friends. But if I had a tail, it would have been knocking things over.

With limited success I've tried to make some Belizean dishes since I returned. The fry jacks taste fine, but they don't feel or look right. Cohune cabbage is difficult to make without cohune trees. And I'm getting some flak from the pet store when I tell them I want a discount on the iguana. The fact that I want to eat it, not keep it as a pet, doesn't seem to be enough to convince them to give it to me for $5.00 US. I don't get it.

Updates

Well, it's been almost a month since I last posted. I've been quite busy - that's my excuse. I found myself swamped with student work to grade during the last few weeks of my placement. Technically that's my own fault. I shouldn't assign so much graded work! But that's the normal system here in Belize. The students are used to it. I didn't like it so much, and not just because I had a constant, never-shrinking stack of papers on my desk. It's just that the graded assignments a teacher gives should be assessments, and I didn't really achieve that standard. Oh well. Making mistakes and learning from them is what student teaching is about. There's a reason we don't get paid!

I was pretty comfortable in the classroom for my last few weeks. There still were many kinks that needed to be straightened out, even during my last few days, but that's all right. I think that I taught the students a few things about English. I did a reading comprehension unit on John Updike's "A&P" - the male students really liked that story since it dealt with girls in bathing suits. I had my 3rd form students create a letter compendium that contained examples of many different types of letters. I also told the students that they had to actually write and send a letter of appreciation, complaint, request, to the editor, etc. I bought the envelopes and postage. The students really got into it, and it ended up being a lot of fun. 

A few February highlights:

- Cows wandering through campus, mooing while I was trying to give a test

- Belize Minister of Education visited for a groundbreaking ceremony and announced a school holiday. Free day!

- Placencia (again)

- For a skit in his social studies class, one of my students dressed up in a miniskirt. It was pretty funny. 

- A couple UMD professors came down to visit us and treated us to a day of snorkeling and lounging on West Snake Key. While snorkeling, I saw squid, starfish, parrotfish, jellyfish, plain fish fish, and a monster called a Florida Pompano. Somebody saw a stingray at one point, too.

My last few days in Punta Gorda were the most memorable. My last day was Friday Feb. 27th. On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, I came home from school in my usual semi-drained state. I had some food and hung out with Dazha for a little bit. I was planning on going to visit Garnet, who had just come in from Tumul Kin that afternoon. I was delayed because Eric surprised me in my room! He had told me that he wouldn't be able to visit me in Belize. LIE! There he was, in my host mom's house. It turns out that Elana knew the whole time.

But she didn't know about the rest of Eric's plan. After nearly causing me to have a stroke just by showing up, he had me turn around and close my eyes. When I opened them, he was on one knee with a ring in his hand. I'm wearing it right now.

We've been adventuring around Belize for the last few days. Before arriving here in San Pedro, we adventured in San Ignacio for a few days. However, I'll have to tell those stories tomorrow. Right now the sun, the beach, and The Story of English are calling me.

Power Point Outage

Last night, I returned from a short weekend at Placencia. It had rained all of last week, and I needed to get out of PG for a little bit. The bus from Independence returned to PG at about 3:30. Elana had iguana and the best chicken I've ever tasted waiting for me, so I ate some. It took me a long time since there was so much food. I left her house at about 4:50 in order to go to the internet cafe and get some work done.

I was going to do a Power Point presentation on modern advertising today. I say modern, because the stuff in their (poorly edited) copyright 2005 textbook only had examples of text-only advertisements. Really? I think text-only ads comprise the barest, tiniest fraction of the amount of advertising teenagers view. How many text-only ads do you see in Seventeen? Online? Television? Hello?!

How can you expect today's kids to learn to think about modern advertising, which is heavily funded, heavily researched, and heavily persuasive, if you don't teach them using modern advertisements? How hard would it have been to obtain a real magazine ad or two for the textbook?

Anyway, the internet cafes were closed. That was the beginning of my problems. I walked way out to Christina Coc's in order to use her computer for my presentation. I wrote a wicked Power Point at Christina's place. I had Ralph Lauren perfume ads. I had examples of Photoshopped images from Redbook (before and after). I had Subaru. I had Blackberry. I was going to help these kids take them all down. Hoo-rah! I had already arranged for all the technology I was going to need. I asked Ms. Kile for permission to use her laptop for one 40 minute session. I asked the principal, Mr. Chan, if I could use his projector and screen. I asked the computer lab teacher if I could use his extra speakers. I borrowed Eddie's Flash drive so I could transfer everything to Ms. Kile's computer. I was ready to rock.

Unfortunately, it was very late by the time I left Christina's. Like 9:30. I only had to walk a little way, but I dreaded starting the walk. Punta Gorda's citizens are very friendly and safe; unfortunately, people from out of town have started to take advantage of that sense of security. They come in and do things like kidnap cab drivers. Add this to the fact that I was a female walking at night...well, you know.

The first car that I heard on the road thankfully went right by me without even slowing down. I was relieved. Then I heard another one - and he slowed down. Expletives sparked through my brain. I tried to walk away from the road, but it was extremely muddy due to the fact that it had been raining for a week. Yay!

"I don't need a ride," I said.
"Do you need a ride?" he said.
"No. I'm fine."
"You look scared."
That's because it's late at night and some strange guy is offering me a ride..."I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, um, you can leave me alone now."
"Okay..."

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. He drove off. Maybe I was a little harsh. He probably meant well. But honestly, I have yet to see any non-tourist get offered a ride. I don't understand why people keep offering me rides. I'd have to be a flaming idiot. It's not like stories about kidnapped, murdered tourists aren't widely known. They are. If a person's well-meaning, why would they even ask? So that leads me to believe that the only people who ask are not well-meaning.

Okay, so there was that. Then Ms. Kile didn't show up today. At all. I ended up using the sterile textbook examples. Teaching fail.

Despite incidents like these, Belize and teaching are still a lot of fun. Sometimes I don't feel like getting up and going to TCC in the morning. But as soon as I get there, I settle in and start enjoying myself. I wonder how I'll feel about Ordean Middle School in Duluth?

Updates on Teaching

Well, to begin with, the weather hasn't improved. I haven't been to the pier since Sunday, and I'm not missing anything. It's currently very windy and raining occasionally. I ended up buying an umbrella because the cheap poncho I brought with me just got to be too much of a hassle. Taking it on and off takes about a minute of fussing, whereas opening an umbrella takes two seconds. Also, one of my students made fun of me for wearing it at school: "Miss, that's cheap!" Can't be looking cheap in front of my students. I wish he could have seen it in a more positive light: "Miss, that's thrifty, since there's no reason you'd bring a cheap umbrella back to the States, so why buy one and waste money?" Oh well. I'm glad I bought it. Ironically, I left it at home today because it was sunny this morning. Yeah, it rained. Luckily it only rained at times when I didn't have to go outside to travel between classes. I got to stay inside and make posters about grammar!

I have recently learned that there is a laptop-projector combo available on the TCC campus. Teachers can use it, but unfortunately it belongs to the principal. So I can't make regular use of it. I do plan on using it next week for a 2-3 day lesson on advertising. Have you ever seen the Dove ad "Evolution"? Look it up. I love using it with teenagers because it really shocks them. I can't wait - I think it will knock these kids' socks off. In addition to the commercial, I'll create a power point presentation in which I'll place tons of examples of advertising techniques (in the context of advertisements themselves, of course). It's hard to become less dependent on technology, and I became so used to using it back in the States. While I think that a person can be a fantastic and very effective teacher without using computers and the internet, I do feel that technology brings a whole lot of benefits to teaching. And actually, I think that it's going to become more and more difficult to be a competitive and effective teacher without using technology. The fact of the matter is that our students are becoming increasingly involved with computers, the internet, iPods, etc. That's just the way the world is moving. If we don't employ technology in our classrooms, our students are probably going to be at a disadvantage.

Now, the trick is teaching a concept with technology, not teaching the technology itself. For instance, I want to use technology for my advertising lesson because I can use computers/internet to bring very relevant material into play. What's the point of using a mock ad from the textbook when I can discuss the concepts I want to discuss in relation to advertisements made for real products? That's why I dislike English many English textbooks, although they do save time. They don't often present the English language in ways that the students can relate to. They force the students to adapt to a curriculum instead of forcing the curriculum to adapt to the students. We want to teach kids to use the language skills they learn in the classroom out in the "real" world. How can we do that if we don't use "real" material?

Anyway, since I'm already on the topic of teaching, I can happily report that it's going better. I've come to some important conclusions about myself and about professional life. First, I've learned that the better I am at doing something, the more I like doing it. My first few weeks of student teaching were rough, but now I'm getting better at it and behold: I'm having more fun!

I've also learned that teaching is about small steps and small successes. I can't take 40 17-year-olds and teach them how to write fantastic persuasive essays in perfectly formal English in two weeks. In fact, I don't think anyone can (especially when they're throwing folders at each other). But I can get them to use more specifics and evidence in their writing, and I can teach them better ways to develop and organize their ideas. That's respectable progress.

Finally, I've learned that I have to take care of myself. I have to pay attention to the things that are important to me, like yoga, running, reading, writing, and calling the people that I miss (a lot). If I don't do these things, I get depressed pretty quickly. Sad, angry Ellen = bad teacher Ellen. I'm already a pretty wired, jumpy person. I pace around the classroom and dance in the staffroom. I don't need to myself more jumpy through extra stress!

Speaking of stress, however, I do need to do some student-teaching related tasks. If I don't get them done this afternoon, I'll be stressed. So I must bring this post to a close. I will try to post again later this week (with pictures).

3.5 weeks of teaching left! That number is sad and happy at the same time.

Student Teaching Rant

I can't believe that I'll be halfway done with teaching at the end of this week. Honestly, the teaching makes the time just fly by. I always have a lot of grading and preparation to do in the evening. For instance, I'm back at the internet cafe right now because I need to print off examples of letters and persuasive writing. Then I have to make posters of said examples. Then I have to work on grading, and I have a LOT of grading to do. All tonight!

It actually makes me a bit worried for teaching. There is so much extra work beyond just classroom hours. There's lesson planning, and planning and organizing good lessons takes time. You have to plan the content as well as plan for possible management issues. Okay, then you have to seek out the material you need for your lessons. Then you have to put that material into a student-accessible format. You have to plan assessment material like tests, projects, rubrics, etc. Here, you have to grade student work for 100+ students, and in a timely manner because the department head needs them by Friday (for real). In the states, you have to get them up on an e-gradebook so students (and parents, eek!) can access them online. Gasping for breath...

It kind of makes me hesitate at the thought of becoming a teacher. But then I remember how much easier it is to organize things back in the states. Most US teachers don't have to submit requests for copies to the secretary - they do the copies themselves. An American teacher doesn't have to buy their own poster paper, markers, and tape. US teachers don't have to carry their chalk (usually whiteboard markers, now) from class to class. When I return to Duluth, I'll have internet access nearly 100% of the time - I'll easily be able to come up with examples of all kinds of texts for students to look over. And I won't have to carry my paper grade book in a folder - I could put it in Excel! I wish I would have disregarded my professors' advice and brought my laptop. Actually, they're wishing I would have, too.

A Veggie Burger of a Weekend at Placencia

This trip really began Thursday evening when I returned home from the pier. Elana's granddaughter, Deja, was home. As soon as I walked through the door, she yelled at me excitedly and told me to go to the back veranda. Elana was there, along with a few of her many relatives, also excited, and so whatever was back there was something COOL. Turns out, it was a wild IGUANA! A live iguana that Howard had purchased from a vendor alongside the road. It wasn't tied up, but it's legs were placed in a position (behind its back and tail) that apparently discouraged it from struggling. I could pick it up and hold it easily.

The following morning, Elana's relatives killed the iguana and roasted it. They then took it back over to Elana, who made iguana curry. When I returned home after school on Friday in order to pick up my things for the Placencia trip, Elana had iguana curry ready for me. I ate it on the bus, and it was delicious. Iguana really does taste like chicken, although the eggs tasted a bit sweeter and were more moist. Yes, iguana eggs. Pictures coming soon :)

The eight of us (all the UMD students, minus Garnet, but plus a volunteer from Seattle named Matt) took the 3:00 PM James Company bus up to Independence. The ride in the coach bus was bumpy, but comfortable. It took about 1.5 hours for us to reach Independence, where we took a water taxi to the small town of Placencia. I believe that there's a road into Placencia, but it would have taken us much longer to get there by bus. By taking the water taxi, we were able to view the wide expanses of mangroves that make up the lagoons around Placencia. We did not see any crocodiles, but they were doubtlessly present. The taxi driver was exceptionally nice.

When we arrived in Placencia, we looked around for a place to stay. We ended up staying in two cabanas owned by a company called Trade Winds. The cabanas had names: Venus and SeaStar. The cabanas were as close to the ocean as you could possibly get - right on the beach, surrounded by palm trees, and about 30m away from the water. The cost was split between 8 people, so we ended up paying around US$15 per person, per night. I ended up spending $35 total on housing. For a place on the beach, hot water, hammocks, refridgerator and coffee pot included. So, if traveling in Belize, I highly recommend staying with a bunch of people at Trade Winds (if you're looking for good + cheap). The first thing I did when I went inside was throw my things on the floor, change into my suit, and jump in the ocean. I then proceeded to find a big red starfish. I expected it to be squishy, but it wasn't. It was pretty rough and bumpy, like studded leather.

After settling in, we went looking for a place to have dinner. I believe that the name of the place where we dined was called The Amigos Bar. They had a decent menu, and I became excited when I saw the words "veggie burger." Thinking of the delicous wild rice burgers and soy burgers of the Duluth area, I ordered a veggie burger (with cheese added). A culture clash ensued. Afterwards, Matt told me that he had heard the server acknowledge my request for cheese with the phrase "Cheese on vegetables? Okay..." Note to self - ask about food before you order it. What I ended up getting was a bun with cheese and fresh vegetables on it, along with something like McDonald's "special" Big Mac sauce. Exactly like a cheeseburger, but without the burger. I was thinking Why call it a veggie burger? It's got no burger. Just vegetables on a bun. It's a vegetable sandwich.

Well, the veggie "burger" provided a lot of entertainment throughout the rest of the dinner, which was needed because of another cultural difference: in Belizean restaurants, they serve the meals as they are ready. One person gets to start eating while everyone else waits. In American restaurants, they serve a group their meals all at once. So everyone got to laugh at my burger mishap while they were waiting for their food (and likely waiting with increased apprehension as to the possible nature of that food). Eventually, the term "veggie burger" came to be defined as "something that is good, but not quite what you expected."

The VB term actually came to apply to the weekend as a whole. After dinner we returned to our cabana; we planned to go out later that night. Well, then it started raining. Hard. We tried going out, running through the rain in search of a place to have some fun; we were soaked within 5 minutes. I hate being cold and wet more than almost anything else, so I gave up and returned to the cabana. The rest of the group was braver - but definitely wetter. The rain didn't let up until the following night. It wasn't a constant rain, but it rained just often enough and just hard enough to prevent the beach weekend of our fantasies to become reality. Make no mistake - we had a lot of fun. But most of our clothes were wet by the end of Saturday night. Thankfully, it did clear up on Sunday. We spent most of the day in Placencia on Sunday, taking the 4:30 bus out of Independence to return to Punta Gorda. It was enough to get sunburnt, do some snorkeling, and dry out all our clothes.

One other interesting incident was that of the Strange Music-Selling Man. This guy followed Lana back to our residence, which in itself isn't strange since there are many mobile vendors around the island. They stop by all the cabanas in order to sell their goods. This guy was selling CDs. I, having just returned from a run, was feeling pretty good, so I bought an album. No one else showed any interest, so I expected him to take off pretty soon. I headed for the shower, and when I came out - he was still there. He hung around for something like a half hour before he left, just standing in the doorway, watching people play cards...Anyway, that was fine. It was raining, after all. But he returned much later in the evening. We were all inside playing a card game called Hockey, and he just showed up at our door uninvited. We didn't really know what to do. One might judge his behavior as rude by [some] American standards, but Belizean? And really, having random people show up is pretty normal in college parties. Everyone seemed all right with his presence. I, not being one to often go to college parties, was kind of weirded out by this guy. This was especially the case when he ended up joining Lana, Andy, and me at a dance hosted by The Barefoot Bar. And then it got a bit too creepy. So Lana and I ran away (sorry, Andy!)

Well, my time at the internet cafe must soon end. Pictures and more stories about student teaching will be forthcoming. ~LN

Noisy Classes are Noisy

Today I brought the pain. But afterwords, I wished I hadn't.

One of my classes (the one with 39 students, not 41) talks incessantly. It's nearly impossible for them to be silent for more than a few seconds at a time. So, after a weeks' worth of frustration and threats, I finally did something about it. I gave every single student demerits. In hindsight, probably not a good thing. Not every student was talking (though most were). If they won't be quiet for class or for me, they'll hopefully be quiet for each other - that was my thinking. Still, it's too unfair, isn't it? So now I'm going to try to go the positive reinforcement route versus the positive punishment one; I'm going to buy a bag of candy right after I leave the internet cafe from which I'm typing. Next week, I'll use dimes. Hopefully that will work, because I'm running out of ideas!

I will be tutoring a few soccer players starting next week. They're failing English or math (or both) and therefore need tutoring in order to be able to remain on the team. I'm very excited, because tutoring will give me an opportunity to really develop my ability to teach kids reading skills. Once I find things that work with individual students, I can try to develop them into whole-classroom lessons. And the students get to (1) improve their language skills and (2) stay on the soccer team! It's mutually beneficial.

Last thing for today - I saw a rhinoceros beetle! Eddie found it near the school's field. It's monstrous. I took some pictures, and I'll try to get them up next weekend.

Student Teaching and Armadillo

I'd like to begin this post by announcing an important event: I have eaten armadillo.

Elana made some yesterday. She never ceases to amaze me - it's like once she figured out that I will eat pretty much anything, she tries to find weird stuff for me to eat! Armadillo, though certainly a weird food in my book, is quite delicious. The meat tastes unlike anything I've eaten before, which makes sense since I've never eaten any insectivores. I think. Maybe I should keep better track of what I eat. One more thing on the subject of food. Today Elana made fresh-squeezed tangerine juice. I am SPOILED, and I told her so.

I started student teaching yesterday, and it is certainly challenging. I teach from 2-3 hours per day, and already I feel a bit stressed over my classes! I can't imagine what it's like having 5 or 6 different classes per day like some teachers have. I'd go out of my head. I'm sure many of them do, too. Anyway, classes are challenging. I spend my time trying to figure out ways of managing the 40 students per classroom, lesson plans that are both relevant and engaging to my multicultural students, and sending copy requests to the secretaries in the office. I received a dirty look from one of them today. My second day of teaching, and I've already asked them for 120 copies by Friday. Perhaps I should ease up a little.

I've also taken up the voluntary role of "Cafeteria Monitor." Our staffroom is very cramped, and I don't like taking up space from other (more legitimate) teachers, so I head down to the cool cafeteria (cool in temperature and in appearance) in order to get my work done. In doing so, I also get to send students who are skipping class to the vice principal's office. Feels good, being effective at something! Joking aside though, I am liking student teaching. There are good moments and bad moments, but the point of student teaching is to learn from the bad moments. I don't want to sound negative by saying this, but I'm learning a lot!

A few notable events from the last few days:
- I saw jellyfish yesterday
- The rain stopped (although the clouds have returned as I type this)
- The power went out yesterday and today
- We Americans have a new president, and everyone here is stoked even if they're Belizean
- A student at school yesterday caught a very sizable iguana, and I held it. BIG claws!

Finally, some photos!

All right. The bulk of my photos of Belize are in Facebook albums, but here are some highlights of the time I've spent here thus far. None of these are in any particular order.















Garnaches















Lubaantun















I ate this fish...and ate it well.















Flying in to PG on the puddle jumper.

View from the American Airlines jet.

2nd Week In Punta Gorda

Oh, yeah.

I had a very full week since my last post. Linda and Jim, professors from UMD, came down last Friday and guided us as we had a very eventful weekend.

I visited many members of Elana's family last Friday (I think - don't have my written journal handy at the moment). I helped Elana pick fresh grapefruit and tangerines off her sister's trees. Elana made grapefruit juice the following day - amazing!

Last Saturday night I went to the Reef, as they were hosting a Garifuna drumming group. I, and some of the UMD students, had a great time dancing. We left the Reef about midnight and went swimming off the pier.

Sunday was extremely busy. Linda, Jim, the UMD students, and I climbed into a charter van that Linda had arranged for us. We traveled up to Blue Creek (about an hour's drive) where we met with Garnet, who is teaching at Tumul Kin school. We enjoyed a tour of the school's facilities and met with students who were working on Sunday projects: music on the marimba, basket making, dancing, and weaving. Tumul Kin also has a food processing lab where they make products they sell to raise money for the school. Punta Gorda stores sell Tumul Kin products like honey, papaya jam, etc...you can get their products in the US by emailing them. I'll try to get the email address up tomorrow (along with pictures. Really, I mean it!)

After picking up Garnet in Tumul Kin, the group and I went to Lubaantun. Lubaantun is the site of an ancient Maya city; it is also where the mysterious Crystal Skull was found. Unfortunately, the Skull has not been returned to Belize by the family members of the person who found the artifact. It's somewhere in Indiana at the moment. The absence of the Crystal Skull was a bit disappointing, but the experience at Lubaantun was certainly not. The Belizean government has been working on reconstituting the site, rebuilding pieces of architecture that have been reduced to piles of stones over hundreds and hundreds of years.

After Lubaantun, the group and I went back to Blue Creek. On the way we saw an OCELOT jump across the road! We walked along the creek, which is actually tinted blue due to minerals in the water, until we reached our destination - a monstrous cave! I wasn't able to grab any pictures, because I didn't bring my camera. Why didn't I bring my camera...well, because it's not waterproof, and we were going to swim through the cave! The source of Blue Creek is a spring that lies deep within a large, easily accessible cavern. The trip in and out took about two hours of near-constant swimming. The water in the creek was much colder than in the ocean, and it took me a bit to acclimate to the temperature. How quickly my body forgets Minnesota...

After Blue Creek we visited the farm of one of Linda's friends. I was able to drink from a coconut, eat some sugar cane, and snap a few pictures of some parrots. :)

The last week at school has given me more opportunities to teach. Ms. Glendora had to be gone for the last two days, so I picked up all of her classes. I've had a very trying last two days, but that's part of student teaching. I take over two of Ms. Glendora's classes full-time on Monday, and my substitution experience has given me a lot of, shall we say, ammunition for next week. Bring it on, students - I'm ready to TEACH!

Again, I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow! ~LN

First Week in Punta Gorda, Belize

My host mother's son, Owen, is home on break from the University of Houston, TX. He has graciously allowed me to use his computer, enabling me to share with you everything that, until now, has been stowed away in my journal.

My first week of student teaching in PG was busy, exciting, and filled with new things. I arrived last Friday, and the flight in on the Tropic Air puddle-jumper was spectacular. The color of the water along the barrier reef is beautiful. I'll soon have pictures up; be patient!

Over the last week I've become increasingly familiar with my host family: Elana, my host mom; Owen and Howard, her two sons; Deja, Howard's little girl who visits frequently. Elana is the best hostess anyone could ask for. She feeds me WAY too well, WAY too often! I try to repay her by doing the dishes, but I had to fight for that chore. Owen and Howard are great, too. Howard often gives me a ride to school in the morning, which is nice, because sometimes it rains.

It doesn't rain often, though. The climate is wonderful, but very hot. It is always above 80 degrees Farenheit during the day here. So, consequently, the rest of the UMD students and I are always up for a swim. The water is, of course, always perfect. Frigatebirds and brown pelicans are always visible near the shoreline. Inland, hummingbirds are a regular sight, as well as large boat-tailed grackles. I've seen many vultures and many common black hawks.

I've had many adventures during the last week. Last Sunday, Celia Mahung (our host family organizer) arranged for us to go on a kayaking trip up Joe Talyor Creek, a small creek north of town. The trip took about three hours, and we were able to take a dip in the stream halfway through the trip. We were mostly in the middle of the rainforest, surrounded by giant trees and tangled mangroves that grew out of the water. Small crabs clung to the mangrove roots, and we saw an iguana relaxing in the sun. I saw many yellow-crowned night herons, and I may have seen a crocodile...or it was an iguana, but I prefer to think it was a croc!

Thus far, I have completed five days at Toledo Community College, where I will shortly start teaching. My CT's (cooperating teacher) name is Ms. Glendora Guy. She is very intense, and expects a lot from her third and fourth form students. She is also a very good teacher, and I look forward to learning a great deal from her during the next two months. I've already addressed the two classes I will be teaching, and I've almost learned all 80 of their names (40 students per class). Next week I'll teach a couple mini-lessons in order to warm up for the following week, when I will take over two of Ms. Guy's classes full-time. Whoo!

Tomorrow, I will be heading up to Blue Creek and Tamul Kin (sp.?) to visit Garnet Mayo, one of the UMD students. Tamul Kin is a Mayan village. There are also Mayan ruins nearby (SWEET!) Our supervising professors are here to visit until Thursday.

More later!