At the NWAIS Fall Educators Conference we had an index card on which to ruminate about "Redefining Education."  

Below is what I took away from that discussion. (When I got home and looked up my Purpose of Education - which I first wrote 4 years ago, and last revisited 18 months ago - I was happy to find this is a reasonable distillation of those ideas.)

Education is the process through which a culture's past is reinterpreted for the present generation in way that may be useful to their future.

To be well-educated is to demonstrate both the character and mind (/intellect) needed to creatively (/effectively) apply one's education in new contexts as an engaged global citizen.  

(I am not yet sure whether I prefer mind over intellect, or creatively over effectively.  And I am still mulling over where the willingness/disposition to engage comes from.)

Don't surf the web or play video games at school.

From the NY Times:

Your Brain on Computers


Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime
 
 
[me:] We are just not being fair to our students unless we confront the new digital distractions....
 

Scary! Negroponte admits to shortened attention span while reading.

From the NY Times

Attention spans evolve and shorten, as even the most skilled media jugglers can attest. “I love the iPad,” admits Mr. Negroponte, “but my ability to read any long-form narrative has more or less disappeared, as I am constantly tempted to check e-mail, look up words or click through.” And people, every bit as much as technology, shape the churning media ecology.

A balanced diet for 'screen time'

Although we've had TV for a while now, other forms of passive entertainment like video games, the internet, and portable 'screen devices' (e.g. cellphones, gameboys, iPads) are relatively new.  And educators and parents are trying to figure out where they fit in.

With respect to food, there is a clear understanding now among professionals about the elements of a good diet, and and which elements of food lead to ill-health when taken to excess.  It is not an easy task, but government agencies are constantly working on developing guidance to consumers - especially through labeling of nutritional information.

If one now turns to the 'infotainment' diet that the average middle- and high-schooler snacks on all day, I am really hard-pressed to find any guidance (from any source) that is useful to parents or teachers.  Recommendations from the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) on maximum weekly limits for screen-time are a start, but they aren't much better than saying 'too much sugar is bad for you.'

We really need to focus on developing a concept of a balanced diet for digitally-mediated, non-human-to-human interactions.  And we don't have the luxury of 10 years to get going.  Or we will have to deal with a whole generation of 'obese' (in the brain) adults who are stuck with the bad snacking habits from their youth.

Digital .... [Diplomacy]

From the NY Times magazine
Digital Diplomacy
By JESSE LICHTENSTEIN

Published: July 12, 2010

A very interesting piece about two young State Department staff who use Twitter.  I saw some useful parallels with the utilization of emerging digital technologies in the classroom.

Two quotes that capture what I like about this article.

“The problem with his thinking,” he said, “is it neglects the inevitability that this technology is going to spread — so he advocates a very dangerously cautious approach that says it’s dangerous and we shouldn’t play in that space. What the Evgeny Morozovs of the world don’t understand is that whether anybody likes it or not, the private sector is pumping out innovation like crazy.”


 
“All of these tools can be utilized by individuals for .... negative purposes” ...  “but that technology isn’t going anywhere. So we can fear we can’t control it and ignore the space, or we can recognize we can’t control it, but we can influence it.”

The need for play

One can't open a periodical these days without being confronted with new evidence for the importance to children of 'free play.'  Play seems to a strong evolutionary imperative.

Two articles in Scientific American caught my attention while I ate lunch today.


1.  The Serious Need for Play.

But in the 42 years since,  Stuart Brown has interviewed some 6,000 people about their childhoods, and his data suggest that a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults. 

I'll come back to Brown in a moment, but first....

2.  The Ethical Dog.

Professor Marc Bekoff argues that studying play in canids (dogs, wolves, coyotes) can teach us a lot about human socialization.

Morality, as we define it in our book Wild Justice, is a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate social interactions. These behaviors, including altruism, tolerance, forgiveness, reciprocity and fairness, are readily evident in the egalitarian way wolves and coyotes play with one another. 

Here are 4 rules that Bekoff and his students have discerned by video-taping and studying canids playing.

a.  Communicate clearly when you want to play (and not fight).  You are agreeing to a stylized set of rules.

b. Mind your manners. Animals consider their play partners’ abilities and engage in self-handicapping and role reversing to create and maintain equal footing.

c. Admit when you are wrong. After hurting a play-mate, send a message, “Sorry I bit you so hard—this is still play regardless of what I just did. Don’t leave; I’ll play fair.”

d.  Be honest.Individuals who continue to play unfairly or send dishonest signals will quickly find themselves ostracized. This has far greater consequences than simply reduced playtime; for instance, Bekoff’s long-term field research shows that juvenile coyotes who do not play fair often end up leaving their pack and are up to four times more likely to die than those individuals who remain with others.
 
The last rule is especially striking - since Stuart Brown's research (The need for serious play, above) all began with the study of convicted murders, drunk drivers and other violent individuals.

When he left clinical medicine in 1989, Brown began to investigate PLAY, and in 2009 founded the National Institute for Play


Before you watch this wonderful slide-show of a polar bear and a husky dog playing, read The Ethical Dog article so you can understand the role of the 'bow' in canid play (see image above). 

Or just Listen to Stuart Brown (TED, 2008) tell the story, and talk about PLAY.

Math Curricula

It seems likely that there will soon be what amounts to a national K-12 curriculum in Math - thanks to the 46 states and District of Columbia who joined together on the  Common Core State Standards Initiative  via the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA).

Common Core State Standards for Mathematics is a draft that was released for public comment

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has its own set of standards.

The National Science Foundation sponsors its own website to assist schools.


Of the three sites, I find myself leaning towards NCTM (at least at present)