About two weeks ago I asked the question..."How are we going to kick-start the Michigan economy?" Using my class website and other technological resources the students were to present a 12-15 minute proposal complete with a Social Studies proposal paper & professional brochure.
I became a computer lab hog. I signed up for projectors and lap tops. It was all consuming. Last year when I would take my students to the computer lab it wouldn't fail that at least 5 students would end up playing an internet game or "Halo" before the end of the hour. After five days in the lab not a single game was played...
The ideas these young minds have are amazing. The "Whirlmill Company" designed and manufactured small, efficient, environmentally friendly hydroelectric generators using the old water mill technology of centuries past. Another team, "AutoTracks", designed a Grand Rapids subway system complete with data on cost analysis, jobs created, & gross domestic product effects. "Grand Rapids Energy Entrepreneurs" decided to use Finevera AquaBuoy technology along the Lake Michigan coastline to power cities like Grand Haven, Saugatuck, & Ludington thus reducing carbon emissions and cutting electricity costs. They were using small business, alternative engergy, health care, revival of the auto industry, and mass transit as modes of operation. If only our political and social leaders were as bold and imaginative. The students, without much direction, saw two things...A planet in peril and an economy become a wasteland. Unlike their adult counterparts, they actually seemed concerned that nothing was being done about either.
Within the classroom and community my politics remain hidden save this fact (one that I remind my students of often): On either side of the aisle, why are we concerned with millionaire baseball players and their steroid use? Why did it take a year to finalize a state budget? Why are we more concerned with what is going on in Iraq than with what is going on in our schools? Why are we eliminating physical education in schools and placing pop machines in the hallways when the childhood obesity rate is sky-rocketing? The ineptitude my students see is clear. They are poised and ready to solve these problems.
In front of a panel of judges and their classmates the student presented movies, powerpoints, slide shows, brochures, data, and concept technology. To say I was both exhausted and impressed is an understatement. However, the learning and growing that took place during the last two weeks in undeniable. I have a more efficient, engaged, self-advocating body of students in class where once there were deer in the headlights and dust-collecting text books.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Be the Change...
On Friday I launched an over-arching challenge to all of my students. It was a two-hour delay day (due to the first serious Michigan snow fall) and I blasted them with a few things. First, "How are we going to kick-start Michigan's economy in the 21st Century?" They were to select the topics that most interested them and work in groups to answer the question. They would, however, not be forming their own groups nor would I assign them one either.
In thirty five minutes they were going to fill out a "job" application and create a resume for interviews on Monday. They would apply and interview for their position on an economic innovation team. My Social Studies students were going to form teams with leaders and with me as, no longer the teacher, but the "Project Manager".
The light in their eyes I had seen days before when I declared textbooks off limits was back! They sat up straight and hustled to fill out their extra curricular activities, GPAs, & references on their applications & resumes. They were asking questions like "How do you know if someone is a good reference?" and "Should I exaggerate on my resume?" All things that are valuable real-life issues. Suddenly they were no longer 9th grade Social Studies students, but economic innovators charged with mending our state's broken economy. Even the most dis-interested student was engaged and penciling in their "Other skills & experience".
As of tomorrow, through an interview and conference process, they will form teams that will research and present on such topics as:
Alternative Energy options
Mass transit & infrastructure
Reviving the Auto Industry
Health Care initiatives
Small business start-ups
Not only will they be studying economics, but they will be economics...Over the next two weeks they will research, idea-storm, and submit a proposal to a panel of judges in a multi-media format of their choosing. The outcomes for each team are limitless; the only barrier is their own imaginations.
They will become the change they want to see in this world.
In thirty five minutes they were going to fill out a "job" application and create a resume for interviews on Monday. They would apply and interview for their position on an economic innovation team. My Social Studies students were going to form teams with leaders and with me as, no longer the teacher, but the "Project Manager".
The light in their eyes I had seen days before when I declared textbooks off limits was back! They sat up straight and hustled to fill out their extra curricular activities, GPAs, & references on their applications & resumes. They were asking questions like "How do you know if someone is a good reference?" and "Should I exaggerate on my resume?" All things that are valuable real-life issues. Suddenly they were no longer 9th grade Social Studies students, but economic innovators charged with mending our state's broken economy. Even the most dis-interested student was engaged and penciling in their "Other skills & experience".
As of tomorrow, through an interview and conference process, they will form teams that will research and present on such topics as:
Alternative Energy options
Mass transit & infrastructure
Reviving the Auto Industry
Health Care initiatives
Small business start-ups
Not only will they be studying economics, but they will be economics...Over the next two weeks they will research, idea-storm, and submit a proposal to a panel of judges in a multi-media format of their choosing. The outcomes for each team are limitless; the only barrier is their own imaginations.
They will become the change they want to see in this world.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
A Revelation
This week I launched the use of a digital visualizer in the classroom in conjunction with a new class website...The response has been overwhelming. 125 students, give or take, have signed my guestbook and the students have even voted in our own Presidential Straw poll (Barack Obama & Mike Huckabee are the class leaders respectively). After three days of toggling back and forth between the visualizer & eUniverse I decided to crack our textbooks back open. While all of the students were diligently completing vocabulary & questions about the American banking system and the FDIC, an exclamation arose from the crowd. "Mr. Anderson! My textbook has black mold in it! Gross!" Even though freshman can be known to exaggerate, it was anything but. Sure enough, mold spores had taken hold in the 10-year text. Bewildered and a little embarassed I started thinking...
What if we closed our textbooks and started opening their minds?
The idealist in me saw a vision of Robin Williams in his 1950s prep classroom in "Dead Poet's Society" tearing out the literature book pages. It warmed my heart. When I recovered my senses the following hour (the same course, different class) I apologized to my students. I told them that yes textbooks serve a purpose as backbones for our curriculum, but I assured them that until further notice, not a book would be cracked without a dire need for it.
Have you ever seen a deer in headlights? How about at 70 MPH? That is what these Social Studies freshman looked like. Just then, for that split second, they were mine...And that is where the learning began. We slammed our books on the ground (WE DID NOT TEAR OUT PAGES) and turned on the visualizer. We found our answers, only this time, they were seeking them instead of copying them. On the e-Universe we searched & Googled & traversed from one economic indicator site to the next and back again. We stumbled upon the "Death and Taxes" website featuring President Bush's budget plan for 2008. They were amazed with a few things: First, the amount spent on the military in proportion to other government funded services. Second, they were appalled with the spending on education (HA!). And third, they actually started asking questions like "Why do we spend $15 billion on farm subsidies" and "How come we only spend $1.25 billion on alternative energy research?".
Imagine students asking cerebral questions about our economy. It was a relevation.
What if we closed our textbooks and started opening their minds?
The idealist in me saw a vision of Robin Williams in his 1950s prep classroom in "Dead Poet's Society" tearing out the literature book pages. It warmed my heart. When I recovered my senses the following hour (the same course, different class) I apologized to my students. I told them that yes textbooks serve a purpose as backbones for our curriculum, but I assured them that until further notice, not a book would be cracked without a dire need for it.
Have you ever seen a deer in headlights? How about at 70 MPH? That is what these Social Studies freshman looked like. Just then, for that split second, they were mine...And that is where the learning began. We slammed our books on the ground (WE DID NOT TEAR OUT PAGES) and turned on the visualizer. We found our answers, only this time, they were seeking them instead of copying them. On the e-Universe we searched & Googled & traversed from one economic indicator site to the next and back again. We stumbled upon the "Death and Taxes" website featuring President Bush's budget plan for 2008. They were amazed with a few things: First, the amount spent on the military in proportion to other government funded services. Second, they were appalled with the spending on education (HA!). And third, they actually started asking questions like "Why do we spend $15 billion on farm subsidies" and "How come we only spend $1.25 billion on alternative energy research?".
Imagine students asking cerebral questions about our economy. It was a relevation.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Realizing the Vision 2.0
Paradigm shifts are holy experiences...the world you knew, or thought you knew, ceases to exist. Today I realized, despite being a young professional still pretty fresh off the collegial setting, that I am but a "Zack Morris" cell phone in a land of iPhones. It is not like I have resisted this meteoric launch into the future. To the contrary, my first purchase as new homeowner was a brand new Visio flatscreen HDTV w/DVR capabilities and as a wrestling coach I tend our humble freewebs team site while posting a bi-weekly blog. However, today as I sat watching & absorbing the likes of Will Richardson of Seton Hall and Annette Lamb at a professional development conference pour on about "wikis" and "twitters" and "skypes" my head nearly exploded. Seriously, I felt like Barry Bonds' hat size fresh off an andro hit in the gluteus. It never occurred to me that not only were students, young students, blogging, podcasting, & creating advanced social networks but they were forging the very near future in which our society will reside.
I consider myself a "fisher of men"...my job is to "hook" 15 & 16 year old children into learning United States History, Economics, Civics, Geography, & Organizational skills. The hooks I have used for the job are somewhat equivalent to telegraphing your mother in Morse code to wish her a Happy Mother's Day...Overhead projectors, bulleted powerpoints, lecture notes, a textbook from 1995 (Bill Clinton's presidency is the unfinished chapter at the end of the book) are my tools of the trade. Boy do I feel like a blacksmith in a Honda plant. Today, my vision was realized, a very clear vision at that. First, the world around me changes whether I am or not. Second, I can no longer wonder why my students are sometimes disconnected, unengaged...shuffling papers back and forth is archaic and they know it, why don't we? And third, if I am going to exist in this new paradigm of a "wiki" world I better do like the man on the donkey...
Big Dan..."What did the man who was riding the donkey up the mountain do when his donkey died? He got off his dead ass and started walking..."
It's about time I started walking.
I consider myself a "fisher of men"...my job is to "hook" 15 & 16 year old children into learning United States History, Economics, Civics, Geography, & Organizational skills. The hooks I have used for the job are somewhat equivalent to telegraphing your mother in Morse code to wish her a Happy Mother's Day...Overhead projectors, bulleted powerpoints, lecture notes, a textbook from 1995 (Bill Clinton's presidency is the unfinished chapter at the end of the book) are my tools of the trade. Boy do I feel like a blacksmith in a Honda plant. Today, my vision was realized, a very clear vision at that. First, the world around me changes whether I am or not. Second, I can no longer wonder why my students are sometimes disconnected, unengaged...shuffling papers back and forth is archaic and they know it, why don't we? And third, if I am going to exist in this new paradigm of a "wiki" world I better do like the man on the donkey...
Big Dan..."What did the man who was riding the donkey up the mountain do when his donkey died? He got off his dead ass and started walking..."
It's about time I started walking.
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