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.