The Pursuit of Happiness – Learning

Imagine this. A child wakes up wearing the same clothes she had on the day before and the day before that. Actually, it is the only set of clothing she owns. They are tattered and worn – dirty and smelly. Her bed is nothing more than a bunch of plastic bags held together with discarded twine. By the way, this little girl lives in India on the side of the road. Her stomach growls, as it is empty. She had only one meal yesterday. She knows she can get a meal today – a free meal, but only if she walks the great distance – over two miles – to school and spends the mandatory five hours in school – will she’ll be fed. She is hungry and needs food. Her other option is to beg for food, or work the street – selling this or that. She decides to go to school, but not because she yearns to be fed knowledge or to learn a new skill. Instead she goes to be fed food – in order to survive. Let’s face it; doesn’t every child deserve to go to school to get a decent education?

 I love to learn. Ever since I was little I loved going to school. In fact, I remember “playing school” with my friends even before I was old enough to go to school. I don’t think it was the school part, or even the being with my friends’ part, but rather it was the realization that I could get better at something. Whether it was learning to read, taking part in a play or understanding the rules of a team sport, I could develop a part of me that didn’t exist before. To me that is exciting.

 Everybody knows that learning takes place in the classrooms all over the world on any given day. Whether it’s a math problem, a grammar rule, a science experiment or a historical debate, students dedicate their young lives to explore new ideas and understand complex concepts. For many people and cultures, learning in school like this makes sense. In fact, we expect students to thrive from it; after all, it’s their job. For me though, learning shouldn’t be confined to the school setting, and it shouldn’t stop once someone is finished with their traditional schooling.

 In other words, I think some people think that learning is just for students – in school. The reality is that learning takes place all the time keeping life fresh. As adults, people should continue to learn. It is easy to get caught up into the daily routine of work, carpooling the kids, making dinner, cleaning the house – get up and do it all over again. But if you are learning something new, you are exposed to new people, experiences, ideas, and opportunities. This makes life fun and fresh. Recently, I was given the opportunity to go to India. Going to India was a out of the box learning experience for me. According to experts, there are 268 million illiterate people in India, unable to read, write or make a reasoned decision, which makes up almost a third of the world’s total number of illiterates. And women receive on average only 1.8 years of schooling in India. I didn’t realize that not all people are given the opportunity to go to school with the thought of learning. That is, learning in the traditional sense of the word.

 “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live,” claimed Mortimer Adler, the American philosopher and author. As I learn new ways of teaching, new ways of using technology, and the art of photography I am grateful that I am able to continue to learn. Learning is a lifelong pursuit. I can only imagine what kind of a life I would have led had I not had the chance to get a fantastic education. With my educational experience, I have had boundless opportunities made available to me. I have been able to travel the world and make an impact other’s lives. Besides that, I have been lucky enough to have the best job in the world – I am a teacher.

Glog - Freak The Mighty

Let's face it - everybody needs a best friend. A person in your life that keeps you laughing, shares your secrets, and helps you through the tough times. True friends can be themselves around each other. With a best friend you can express your feelings, and even make mistakes without fear of being judged.   A best friend believes in you even though you no longer believe in yourself. He brings the best out in you. This kind of friendship is hard to find. In fact, most people go through life and never find such a friend.  Kevin is this friend to Max. They are blessed to come across each other in Rodman Philbrick's must read novel, Freak the Mighty.

In this book Maxwell Kane, a large, slow, kind-hearted eighth grader, meets his new neighbor, Kevin Avery, an extremely intelligent physically disabled boy (nicknamed Freak), and the two become fast friends. Before Kevin entered Max's life, he was alone, lonely and frightened by life that he felt worthless and dumb. But that all changes when Max starts carrying Kevin on his shoulder - the two become Freak the Mighty - and set out on many grand adventures together conquering anything put in their path. The two run into trouble when Max's criminal father gets paroled and comes looking for Max. But Kevin teaches Max that with courage, hope, and brains he can confront his father with the truth. But as that problem gets resolved, Max is faced with losing his best friend as Kevin's health deteriorates. Max struggles with seeing the glass half empty rather than half full and becomes miserable, lonely and lifeless.   The reader is left wondering will Max learn from Kevin - the example in which he lived his life. Will he take responsibility for his own life and live it the best he can?

            Max's character makes an amazing transformation from trying to be invisible, avoiding his troubles, and hiding out in the "down under" to being a brave knight in King Arthur's court who takes on quests slaying dragons, monsters and evil knights due to the help of his best friend, Kevin .  He defeats the local bully, Tony D., at the pond, returns a stolen wallet to Loretta Lee, and confronts his father surrounding his mother's death. Again as a result of Kevin's influence. Max has to come out of his isolation and self-doubt in order to accomplish these feats. Through all of this Max begins to have hope and faith due to the influences of Kevin's unique view of the world, but his naiveté gets the better of him. Faced with the overwhelming and devastating death of his best friend, Max became depressed and starts to fade back to being invisible. It was not until Loretta Lee told him that doing nothing was a drag that Max realized the unvanquished truth about himself. Kevin was right - he did have a brain and so he wrote their story - Freak the Mighty.

Kevin carries around a dictionary, and frequently has Max look up words he doesn't understand. By doing this, Kevin lets Max know that he isn't as dumb as he or others think he is and that by being curious about words he is learning to read and write. Later, when Kevin is dying in the hospital he gives Max a gift of an empty book and expects him to fill it with their adventures. This empty book represents Max at the beginning of the book - lifeless and apathetic. Max overcome with grief of Kevin's death and still believing he is slow or even brain-less doesn't at first accept the challenge. In fact, Max mopes around for a very long time until one day Grim, his grandfather, tells him that most people go through life never experiencing a friend like Kevin and that he was lucky to have him in his life.  With Loretta Lee's encouraging words, Max writes the book - Freak the Mighty.  It represents Max at his best - full of hope and possibilities.

Technology - how it is changing the pace of life!

    I have continued to think about technology, the pace in which it has entered my life, and the effects this has had on me. I said that you are children of the cyber age, meaning that you are children born in an age where computer technology and electronics run your life. In other words, you are plugged into some electronic device 24/7. But are you aware or have you thought about the effects that it has on you and the surrounding world in which we live in? Do you know the rapid speed in which these new technologies have grown? Or are you immune to it because you are able to acquire the new skills needed to use these new advanced technologies.
    Personally, I find myself sitting at my computer more and more, but I am also not in touch with every latest gadget. I want to be able to do it all, but I also want time to enjoy life and be outdoors away from the computer. I want to hang out with my family and friends.
    At any rate, I think you will enjoy and learn a bit by watching this youtube video entitled Did You Know.  It is very interesting stuff. What do you think?

Come Blog with Me

When I was first approached by my colleagues about creating an RLA blog, my initial response was a huge groan— in fact, I think I let out a colossal ugh. Don't get me wrong. I really like the idea of an educational blog, but. . . well, technology is moving way too fast for me and seems to be overtaking many aspects of my life—the biggest being time. To put it in perspective, I'd like for you to indulge me by listening to a story of when I was your age.

            About 35 years ago, when I was in the sixth grade, I was given an assignment by my teacher to research and try to better understand what life was like when my grandparents were of school age. It would have been helpful to be able to Skype my grandfather, or email him for that matter, but these technologies had not yet been invented. I could have called him, of course, not using a cell phone mind you, but instead using a landline phone, not even cordless, but I didn't do that either as that was too expensive since he lived long distance. Instead I wrote him a letter and mailed it to him, which is referred to nowadays as snail-mail. When was the last time you hand wrote a letter, put a stamp on it and mailed it to someone? Do you even know how to address an envelope? I just read an article yesterday saying that mail delivery will soon cut back to only five days a week. No more Saturday delivery, since personal mail is so rarely used anymore.

            The interesting concepts that I learned from my grandfather (who was born in 1898) was that in his lifetime he saw the inventions of the radio, airplane, car, telephone, the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, refrigerator and black and white television. These were life-changing technologies.  As I write the list, I try imagining what life would be like without them. I take for granted that they have always been around.  And yet, in my life as a teacher I can remember teaching before photocopiers, computers, email, and the internet.

            So this brings me to your generation of new technologies. Wow, Facebook, Twitter, myspace, youtube, ning, ipod, jing, wikipedia. Can you imagine living in an era where the main source of information was books in a library? Can you imagine doing all of your writing with pen and paper? You are children of the cyberage. Computers and the internet come natural to you. But these technologies will also change and become obsolete like my typewriter and Sony Walkman. It's beyond my ability to even fathom what might happen in your lifetimes.

            Back to my colossal ugh and how this affects all of us. When I was a student, the teacher was supposed to be this great fountain of information from which the students drank in knowledge. I'm not sure that was really true back then, but it certainly isn't the way education works today. It is a two-way street—we learn from each other. I'm not sure exactly where this blogging road is going to take us, but I am confident that we are going to learn a great deal from each other along the way. 

What is a blog?

Now that we’ve jumped headfirst into this black hole of blogging, let’s learn a little more about what a blog is. Here’s a videoclip from Commoncraft explaining blogs.

Did that help explain how blogs work? What ideas do you have for how we could use blogs in RLA class?