Twitter Magic

My husband handed me this business, Clear Choice Stands, LLC,since it's become increasingly evident to us both that I'm ready to go back to work in some capacity.  He invented a smartphone stand that is nothing short of genius. It enhances the audio in and audio out on a smartphone. There's nothing like it on the market. (patent pending) With all the hype about social media marketing, I joined Twitter. I failed miserably. We haven't had one sale from a Twitter link. I'm not cut out for business. It's not my love. It's not my passion.  It's not even really an interest.  He handed me what is a million dollar idea and I'm working on handing it back, so I'll put one more shameless plug here.


And now onto the good part, the Twitter Magic...


While exploring marketing on Twitter, I stumbled upon so many great minds in the field of education. What luck!  And, because of my disagreement with a now beloved Tweep, @toughloveforx, I met @counterpane.  If you met her on the street, she'd go by Brenda, but she'll also answer to Unicorn.  It is important to note that the first person I had a telephone conversation with and met face to face because of Twitter  is a 70 year old woman, floating through life, making the world a better place everywhere she goes. (Please don't tell her I told you her age, but it makes me smile that I've made a 70 year old friend because of Twitter.)


Now, onto the story.  Brenda came to our preschool cooperative one day to teach us about Souns.  And the rest is history. I'll let the videos tell the stories of Souns in our world.  Each video is only a minute or two long and tell the learning story very well thus far...

*Month 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbIsrhNp1ZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

*Month 2: So far*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlfTgJLPwHI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

*Souns Before Bed (for fun)*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xSu1ln3OUg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

*Isabella's First Word Read

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrCj69m0ek4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Souns is a hands-on phonemic awareness program that teaches sounds first, before letter names. It works. Oh my goodness, it works! And it works so naturally and wonderfully! Children learn to read and write as naturally as they learn to listen and speak using Souns.

Souns is not just for babies. With my background in education, I know it is going to help so many struggling readers. The application beyond 0-3 is limitless. Anyone struggling with fluency, Souns will help. Anyone who is learning the language, Souns will help.  I think back to my days in the classroom. Every year I taught, I worked after school with students, individually or in groups. -It depended on what I was trying to accomplish. The first few years, I worked with struggling readers. These were kids barely reading. I taught 5th grade. One boy in particular comes to mind. One day, when working with him after school, I said, "Tell me the alphabet." ABCDGFGH... Stuck... I calmly walked with him to the car to let his mother and older brother know to work on this with him. I then went into my principal's office and LOST MY MIND. How did he not know this?  Today, knowing what I know now, I would not have lost my mind. I would have grabbed Souns. I would have gone sound by sound with him, figured out what was missing, and we would have taken care of the fluency piece in a much shorter time than over the course of the year.

And so, one day in the car, my husband I and had the conversation. How do you change an entire culture, marketing capital letters and letter names?  Brenda's answer, "The way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time."

The Problem with Products

We have productized everything!  Products are of great value to Americans. Things. Stuff. More. Jones'. We like our stuff. I'm not excluding myself here either. But, when I sit back and evaluate what is going on in public schools and education reform to create solutions, I keep coming back to products.  Products are a problem.

The conversation regarding key elements in education reform is getting somewhere. I am thrilled. Earlier today, I watched today this video, Eric Ries: How The U.S. Education System Is Failing Students . This is following my reading of this article a few months ago.  Steve Denning's Forbes article The Single Best Idea for Reforming K-12 Education. Before this, Jamie Vollmer told his ah-ha moment Blueberry Story to a captive audience when I was teaching, probably around 2002. Yes, it's taken me about 10 years to get it, but I think I finally get it.  And thank you to these three businessmen for helping me get here.

We have made a priority of productizing in our nation and in the process we have productized our children.

If you have read my blog in the past, you may have read about my questioning of standards applied to students. Standards are minimal expectations, established by grade level.  The Orange County Public School's Vision is "To be the Top Producer of Successful Students in the Nation." Producer = Product= Students=My Children  

Standards are for blueberries.

If the root cause of problems in our education system is found in the factory model of management as Steve Denning suggests, this means our students are products and standards determine their quality. The problem is, we're not quite sure what to do or who to blame if the student isn't "up to par." Surely, we wouldn't just send them back like Jamie Vollmer suggested in his blueberry story that he would do with his blueberries that were not up to his standards. But, that is happening.  Every day. In public schools. In charter schools. In private schools. Games are being played. Students are being shuffled. Blame is being pointed at the parent, at the teacher at the school at the world at the nation at the student. 

Enough of the blame.

It's time for some answers.

What do kids need?
They need care.

They need food.

They need shelter.

They need books.
They need other kids.

They need resources.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I do know....

When their bellies are full and their worries are few, learning happens.

Unfortunately, though, learning happens even when their bellies are empty. But the learning that turns the heart cold and the mind to desperate action  is not the kind of ingenuity that I seek as an educator. 

Curiosity sparks

Interest ignites

Passion drives

These are the learning motives that I envision for my children.

Even in the healthiest of bodies, in the safest of homes, something is not quite right.  Tyler Gayheart makes an interesting point. "So, with a combination of a shift in object oriented play (modern day toys) and school’s overall lack of teaching executive function skills, has resulted in children developing slower than 50 years ago."

I wonder, though, if it's the object or misinformed intent of the object that is leading us backwards. I see so much imagination coming out when my girls play with their many objects: dolls,  kitchen, Legos, etc.. But, there are so many early learning toys designed to teach. The problem is, they're teaching our children the wrong way!

I just searched Amazon for early learning toys. An electronic learning toy came up. It has capital letters with buttons a child pushes and it says the letter name. I would have thought this was fine toy, and would have thought it would make a perfectly acceptable gift. That was until I learned Souns...

Open a book. What do you see? Is it filled with capital letters? No. It is mostly filled with lower case letters with a few capital letters starting sentences or identifying proper nouns. Now, read the book. Does knowing those letter names help you read that book? No. It actually does the reverse. It confuses the process. Kids need to learn the sounds, not the letter names first.  Yet every aisle of educational toys teaches in an inefficient way.  Most television shows for children confuse the process and few educational applications offer much insight. 

Now, marketing folk, please, step aside, slow the production lines and allow educators schooled in learning theory to sort this out.

the seed

don't rise to meet my expectations

go beyond them

drive past my wildest dreams and wave

don't keep looking through that window

figure out how to fly

amaze me

surprise me
teach us all

i'll be watching you carefully

Create, Learn, Grow, Discover and Bloom

Physics:Conservation of Energy Theory & #Edreform in Public Schools

My husband and I were discussing public education one day. Raul, my husband  has very different constructs than I do. He is an engineer, loves physics and can sit down and apply calculus equations to real world problems.  I admire that about him.


So one day when I was going on about public education heading in the wrong direction in regards to reform, he proposed a new way of looking for solutions using physics.


He said it's like the Conservation of Energy and went into a Thermal Dynamics Analysis.  He drew a very basic picture illustrating terms of input/ output. I don't remember much of anything about physics, but his thinking makes sense to me. Here is his original drawing and a few notes I made clarifying. 

Basically, he's saying if you fail to address a circumstance or an influence, you won't get something in the desired outcome.  (I see the desired outcome as a vision or purpose for public education.)

I welcome your thoughts!

Beginning Readers Have a 1 in 8 Chance of Reading "cat"

The math behind why Souns works…

cat

Traditionally, we teach children the alphabet first associating each symbol with the letter name.

Children first learn to recognize cat as /See/ /ay/ /tee/

Then, they learn the common phonetic sounds of the letters when they begin to learn to read.  /k/ /a/ /t/

When that child goes to read that word, she has a 1 in 8 chance of getting it right.

/see/ /ay/ /tee/

/see/ /ay/ /t/

/see/ /a/ /tee/

/see/ /a/ /t/

/k/ /ay/ /tee/

/k/ /a/ /tee/

/k/ /ay/ /t/

/k/ /a/ /t/

The solution to making literacy more attainable to every child begins with changing fundamental practice.  If we teach letter-sound association using the most commonly used sounds of each letter (hard consonant sounds and soft vowel sounds) that child has only one possible option when going to sound out the word, cat. This eliminates the unnecessary confusion caused by letter-name association. Increasing literacy and the odds that children will learn how to read is as fundamental as changing the way we teach children their abc’s .

www.souns.org

Steve Jobs, The Constructivist

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." Steve Jobs 

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for your contribution to our world.  

You left others on this earth with many constructs to scaffold upon.

Your creations have connected us in new and powerful ways.

In loving memory...

More Blocks & Constructs = Night 2

Little sis missed big sis's discovery from the night before. She discovered and proved her understanding of square numbers to me in case you missed it. She's 4.

So last night, I asked big sis to show her little sis a square number. She eagerly got to work demonstrating her understanding of what a square number represents.

I did not say a word. I just folded laundry and watched while they explored. One of the original squares big sis built to explain was made with two rows of blue and one of green.
Little sis started building on big sis's blue and green square. First she stretched the pattern into a rectangle. Then, she instructed her sister, "Close your eyes." She quickly build the rest of the square.

"I made a really big one," she giggled.

After little sis made her great square, she said, "Open your eyes." Her big sister did and she counted the giant square.  Big sis declared 25 is a square number.

Blocks & Constructs = True Story

What does Constructivist Theory look like in practice? 

Well, I'll tell you a little story of what happened just before bedtime last night in our house.

Right before we read stories, I practice a little number sense with my girls.  I asked my four year old, "If I have three blocks, you have three blocks and kid #2 has 3 blocks, how many blocks do we all have?"

She took her blocks and made three seperate piles of three, assigning a color to each set. (This was all her doing.)  She answered nine.

Then, she did something that surprised me. She configured them into a square. (Luckily, I had my phone nearby.)  We talked about how three and three and three (in rows like addition) make 9 and how 3 by 3 is nine.

I told her 9 is a square number.  She just proved it.

So I went with this and asked her, "If I have 4 blocks, you have 4 blocks, kid #2 has 4 blocks and Daddy has four blocks, how many would we have all together?"

So, back to work. She figured out 16, and built the square with no prompting. She declared 16 a square number as well.

I was so proud I could barely stand it, and then she took it even further. With no blocks and no prompting. She shouted, 4 is a square number!

"No way. I said. Show me."

And she did. She built her square of 2x2.

And then she went on to build what she declared rectangle numbers. With the exception of straight lines of blocks, (like 5x1), it does apply to all multiples of 2. So, I'd say she's on to something with rectangle numbers.

Since Kid #2 fell asleep early last night and missed all the fun, I'll have my four year old share her discovery before bed tonight.

Michael Josefowicz @toughloveforx synthesized this conclusion at the end of a Twitter conversation.

"Authentic Connections Inspire instead of Expect."

Rubbish Piles of #Blueberries and #EdReform Efforts

Thomas Jefferson had a pretty clear reason for establishing public education. Take a moment to read Raking Geniuses from the Rubbish by Bhaskar Krishnamachari.  For real reform to happen, we must do many things differently. Some of us who have been flirting with this idea, how it may look, what the environment may look like for learning to flourish.  

• Is Jefferson's vision what we continue to see as necessary in our country for our public schools? 
• Or, do we want a democracy of productive, peaceful, well-educated people? 

Really, think about it for a while. If you're not sure, find a school age child, yours or another, and ask him/her the purpose of school. 


If you lean toward the later question, we must implement a system where students are honored and learning is honored.  

And we must  challenge the current purpose for public education  established by Jefferson.

• Do you want a system designed to encourage innovation, creativity and beyond?
• Is our current system acceptable for a society going into the 21st century?

I can promise you this.  The greatest potential innovators are not necessarily the students who are easily identifying as gifted, who receive A's for breakfast, lunch and dinner, who are labeling proficient or advanced by a publishing company or who have badges electronically pinned to their lapels. We are sending a generation of great innovators onto the streets. They are dropping out of high school, running the streets.  And for those who are currently running Wall Street, they aren't doing any better.  


Our current system of public schools ranks and sorts students, throwing some out into the rubbish pile, like #blueberries.  I've been collecting blueberry stories.  If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, read Jamie Vollmer's ah-ha moment. Also, read Steve Denning's article identifying the biggest problem reform faces, the Root Cause: Factory Model of Management . I agree with his conclusion but I will take it a step further and say our schools have a Factory Model of Production, in Jeffersonian tradition, plumping up the "best blueberries" and discarding the rest.


-------BLUEBERRIES
Kid O Talks Back, Eventually "One of the ongoing problems and frustrations that I have faced in advocating for Kid O, has been in getting her an effective and more portable communication device. For years all she had was a two panel talker. A choice between Choice One and Choice Two. I was there at School Number Two when they came to re-evaluate her. They were again recommending a two panel talker."
------
Ms. Katie marched for students turned away from a turnaround school in Chicago. 
------
"Right now, in Detroit Public Schools class sizes are bulging at the seams. This is the situation at our DPS school: A____ now has 52 fifth grade students in her class. They are crammed wall to wall. B____ has 45 fourth graders, and there are 30 kindergartners in each class. All our other classes are at the limit or 5-10 kids over. The 7th and 8th grade classes are at 50 each." -revealed in an article by Nancy Flanagan
------
"When talk-show host Oprah Winfrey handed a $1 million check last September to the principal of New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy, 200 students watched the broadcast from a church and celebrated with a brass band.
Lawrence Melrose, a ninth-grader with learning and emotional disabilities, sat next door in a school office. The staff was concerned his fighting and cursing could be an embarrassment..."- from Oprah-Backed Charter School Denying Disabled Collides With Law
------
"It should be noted—and Guggenheim didn’t note it—that Canada (Waiting for Superman) kicked out his entire first class of middle school students when they didn’t get good enough test scores to satisfy his board of trustees. This sad event was documented by Paul Tough in his laudatory account of Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, Whatever It Takes (2009)." -Diane Ravitch
------BLUEBERRIES
If you run across a blueberry story, a story of students unjustly sorted or tossed out of our public schools, send it my way @dellaccs. I'll include it here.

When is enough, enough?

Who is picking and sorting the blueberries? Due to standards-based reform efforts, big business is picking and sorting our students, our blueberries. Standards-based reform efforts are slowly but surely removing assessment from the hands of teachers and placing reporting power into the hands of publishers.    What does this result in? High stakes assessments scored in 60 seconds! 


I ask  MacGraw Hill and Pearson...

• What happens if reform efforts are not profitable for  your shareholders? 
• Are you willing to support a vision of our country, our world, being a better place for all students? 
• Are your shareholders willing to delay gratification of immediate profits in exchange for authentic students learning, growing into a nation of productivity? 

Will we allow money and politicians who have no educational training grounding them in learning theory, continue reform efforts down this very dismal road?  We are holding students accountable, teachers accountable. Why is no one holding these publishers and politicians accountable for the consequences of these dire reform efforts?


"Let’s pose a question.  If you wanted to “sell” something that a number of people did not need, how would you do it?  You might try setting up a contest where everyone competes for a significant financial prize.  After all, Americans love to compete, especially when money goes to the winner." - taken from Let's Get off the National Standards Train


"I have become increasingly concerned with the trend in education of privatizing services and for-profit companies entering education with the sole purpose of making a profit. Profits by themselves are not bad, but often the goal of the company or organization is to maximize profits rather than to do what is best for the “customer”–in this case, students, parents, teachers, and administrators."Dr. Fuller explains further his concerns in an opinion piece concerns regarding the trend of privatization. 


If we want to work our way up Bloom's Taxonomy (updated for the 21st century) in the area of education reform, let's start with understanding.  Pay attention to each new method a school is using to rank and sort students. We are a nation positively obsessed with contests races, winning and losing.

Currently, my awareness is quite high as the #dmlbadges competition is under way and Common Core Standards are being adopted by most of the nation.  I appreciate Justen Eason's blog We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges on this topic.  Also, a few excellent resources on the topic are Punished by Rewards? and the video on the Science of Motivation. 


Be aware that we have invested $330 million into assessments while we have an epidemic of children in poverty!  Why don't you #askarne why!? Better yet, ask your representative, your governor, President Obama. 

Peace Place

'What do I have to do for people to listen?' Boy, 14, who took his own life after gay taunts and he thanked Lady Gaga in his final post


Jamey Rodemeyer  I am listening. 


Many schools are implementing Bully Proofing Programs, Anti Bullying Programs, etc. 


I read The Secret. It's kinda out there. I'm not as far out as it is, and I don't believe the secret is supposed to bring you lots and lots of money. But the one thing that resonated with me is that the universe doesn't hear you in the negative. When you are yelling "NO BULLYING" The universe is hearing BULLYING. And that is what you are going to get more of. It's true too.  I've done the yelling in similar situations.

When I taught, we had some exceptional social workers. One brought two great programs to the school. One was Peace Place. The other was Peer Mediation.

Peace Place came first.

There was a Peace Place  in every classroom, the lunch room, on the playground, etc. When children had a conflict, they used the Peace Place. It took kids some time to get familiar with it.

Posters guided their language to frame their feelings so that another with heated feelings could hear them. It used I messages and helped free words that might have otherwise become a punch or a wound. 

Peer Mediation came second.

Then, he trained peer mediators who wore vests on the playground. If kids could not resolve a problem themselves. Peer mediators stepped in.

I  believe there are some students with great leadership skills who would make wonderful peer mediators, including students who have made poor choices by bullying.

"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."
Mother Teresa

Peace Place Steps

1.    Ground Rules

·      Agree to solve the problem

·      Take turns talking

·      No put downs

·      Tell the truth

2.  I Message

·      I feel__________when you ____________ because_________________.

3.   Need Message

·      I need you to _____________________________.

4.  Win-Win Solution

·      Maybe next time we could ________________________.

Shake hands and thank the person for working it out.

The Imagination Ball

Let's have an Imagination Ball. (age 4) 

What's imagination? (age 30 +4 something)

Ideas and inventions (age 4)

Yes, let's. (True story)

Constructivist theory  IS Neural plasticity. We have proof? Is it so?

We have PROOF, scientific proof of learning? Of how understanding is constructed? Discuss it. Debate it. Chew it. Is it? 

But TIME, it's of the essence.

THEY will win.

but children are being left behind, shareholders are taking all their resources, gobbling them up

Standards-based reform is TOP down

no

student up, not bottom up

Let students drive instruction, not data

Let them drive us to places unexpected, beyond the expectations of our limited minds

But the distance must be MEASURED, SHOW GROWTH, COLLECT DATA, LONGITUDINAL, DISAGGREGATE, DRIVE INSTRUCTION, RANK, SORT

RACE to the TOP, to the finish.

What happens at the top? We finish learning? That's silly

START the clock.

ON your marks

Take your data. Connect my dots. Can you see my face? Do you see my life? Do you know my possibilities? 

NO, 

you don't.

You can't. You never will. 

Big man in the chair, at a desk, looking down. You will never connect my dots with a birds-eye view. 

Take a seat, listen and learn. I'll connect my own dots.

But I need your help. 

Could you...

 buy me some books?

let me explore?

grant me an art lesson? 

expose me to ballet?

Allow me to bloom.  

Please.