From Bangladesh to Super Storm Sandy

While listening to Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, and Adam Sandler's irreverent "Hallelujah", at the 12-12-12 Concert for Super Storm Sandy Relief tonight, my mind wanders back to August 1971 and the original relief concert, the Concert for Bangladesh. At the time, that small country endured millions dead from unimaginable famine and political terror. The 1971 concert brought together the best performers of the time including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Phil Spector, and Ringo Starr among many, many others.

The driving force behind the concert was another ex-Beatle, George Harrison, and Indian music legend, Ravi Shankar. It seems like a full turn of wheel of fate that at the same time I am listening to Bon Jovi at the Sandy Concert, I am also mourning the death this week of Mr. Shankar, an ambassador who was able to unite a fractious late 60s and early 70s with quivering sounds from an odd looking, long-necked traditional instrument.

Shankar explained why he reached out to Harrison with the idea for the Bangladesh concert. Admittedly, the proceeds from the concert and subsequent film would be only "a drop in the ocean (of relief need)," he said. In fact, the back of the Bangladesh album booklet (yes, we still have the vinyl three-record album, my wife's college barter for meal tickets) shows an imprint of the check from the concert to the UN Children's Fund for Bangladesh: $243,418.50.

"Maybe it (the proceeds) will take care of (eight million refugees) for only two or three days," Shankar wrote in the album booklet, "but that is not the point. The main issue -- beyond the sum of money we can raise -- is that we feel that all the young people who came to the concerts... were made aware of something very few of them felt or knew clearly."

The point of the concert for Bangladesh, and for Super Storm Sandy 41-years later, is not just the money. According to Shankar, the point of the music and performances, "is trying to ignite -- to pass on the responsibility as much as possible to everyone else." It is a celebration of responsibility and of hope joined together only as music can.

I'd write more, but Clapton, the 2012 version, has just joined the Sandy Concert, and the Stones are next. Rock on!

Tribe of Educators on Twitter

Scanning the latest education tweets today, I discovered "Homework may not equal learning: one to two hours a night may be excessive," "Intricate lessons may not connect to the larger lesson/competencies," "The Power of Collaborative Learning," and "Pinterest has hundreds of resources for educators." And, that is from just 50 minutes of posts.

Rather than lengthy conferences at exotic locales or subscribing to pages and pages of pedagogic papers, teachers turn to Twitter and other social media sites for a constant stream of inspiration and detailed, tested best practices. I can learn more in an hour of reading tweets from "Eye on Education", than from most in-service sessions. Some may argue that face-to-face personal contact is more effective than impersonal digital messages. Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the your comfort with this new training medium. Guru Educator Dave Guymon pointed out advantages in a Dec. 7 blog about education and Twitter:

"With proportionately decreasing budget and increasing demands on classrooms, teachers having access to a tribe of educators on Twitter provides me tools, strategies, and a support system that I can rely on to continually help me to become a better instructional leader and classroom manager... Interest-based groups of educators connect to discuss theoretical questions, classroom practices, and educational reform in a supportive, collaborative online environment."

I can foresee that instead of jetting colleagues off to the latest and greatest, that the best education ideas are brought to the instructor's classroom through webinars, discussion nodes, digital social resources, and Twitter news summaries. This brave new world is efficient, effective, and avoids long lines at the airport security stations. It introduces us to new ideas and keeps us in the classroom in front of our students, which is where we want to be.

Only Enough for Three out of 25

During the last two weeks, I read applications for scholarships to NWTC in a methodical, well-rehearsed, and inspiring process. It was my first go as a reader. I think I would enjoy doing this again.

Each semester, dozens of groups of six readers are assigned 25 student applications from the almost 500 applications that the Foundation Office receives. Readers are asked to rank the applications in five descending categories: Outstanding, Above Average, Average, Below Average, and Why Did You Apply? Out of that group of 25, we are only allowed to award three Outstanding rankings. Those are the leading candidates to divide up $50,000 in scholarship money for the spring semester. The three of 25 become maybe 100 scholarship winners.

The NWTC Foundation recommends a weighted criteria: GPA (high school and college), Personal Essay, Financial Essay and Financial Need, and Letters of Recommendation. The GPA comparison was straightforward, assuming students had some college under their belt. The Financial Essay and Financial Need sections were less easy to consider since all my applicants could really use the extra money. Out of the 25 applications, 10 were an easy first cut for me. They received Average rankings.

The rest I ranked Above Average, and from that group, I planned to pick the Outstanding three. Since I have a writing background, I was especially interested in the personal essays. Unfortunately, some of the essays were more like personal paragraphs texted from a smartphone than well-constructed writing. Ignoring spelling, sentence fragments, misplaced commas and other rude violations of American Standard English, I concentrated on the stories the students had to tell. Those students who provided details and told a compelling story, rather than just fantasize about using their education to solve some fuzzy problem of the world, ranked higher on my list. I then looked to the letters of recommendation to support or add to the personal story of the students.

Out of the 15 applications that I seriously considered, I wanted to give half the Outstanding ranking. The seven were pared down to five, reapplying the GPA criteria, and then down to four. My last cut was very difficult. I hope I made the right choice.

In my opinion, my three Outstanding students demonstrated need, academic ability, and a drive to succeed in what they want to do. In a perfect world, there would be enough scholarship money for anyone who really wants to work for a college degree, but in our world, and on my list, there is only enough for 3 out of 25. That will have to be enough for now.

Randy Pausch and the Plan B

"Well, let's try Plan B."

My students hear this phrase from me a number of times each semester for a variety of reasons: a computer doesn't boot up, books that I thought were in the cabinet are missing at classtime, an assignment or exercise turns out to be a lemon, or other plans that were made in good faith go off the line. Life doesn't go the way we plan. What a surprise. Rather than fret about what should have been in a kinder perfect universe, I shrug and try something else.

Over the years, I have learned that there are many paths to an objective. Just because one path circles back upon itself, is blocked by bureaucracy, or fades into tall grass where I can't see ahead doesn't mean that the objective itself needs to be abandoned. There is rarely a wall in life that cannot be overcome or bypassed. The late great Randy Pausch, who delivered a famous "Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" before his death in 2008, said walls are put in our path to see how bad we want to reach our dreams. He didn't let cancer stop him. Why should our much smaller walls stop us?

I teach students that there are always, always alternative ways to reach their goals. There is rarely a benchmark, a problem, an exercise, an examination, a course, a program so impassable that it can't be scaled with work, persistence, and the help of others. When a student turns away discouraged, it is more from a lack of confidence than from the obstacle itself.

Don't believe me? Take an hour and a quarter to watch Pausch's Last Lecture at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. I would be very surprised if, after hearing Pausch, you did not agree that there is always a Plan B.

"Is this for us too?"

Rather than start last Thursday’s class with my typical overview of the writing lesson, I asked students to follow me out of the classroom. We walked down the hall, around the corner, where a turkey lunch was set up for them outside the canteen: shredded turkey on white rolls, dressing with brown gravy, chopped vegetable salad, and a choice of deserts: cupcakes or squares of a thanksgiving carrot cake, in addition to the student drink staple, Sierra Mist. 

While I am often narrowly focused on student lesson plans and activities for the day, I know school is only a small part of a student’s life. College students often struggle financially, emotionally as well as academically. Instructors know students thrive in a classroom that encourages socialization, enhances self-confidence, and promotes self-respect. Respect is, I think, key to the advance of learning. A student needs to respect himself or herself, as well as the school, instructor, and course work.  

If a student does not respect himself or herself, however, how do they learn it? Thursday’s meal was an model of how the Shawano Regional Learning Center shows that it respects all its students, even those in basic education.

My students work hard during the College Writing Prep and the open lab and often skip or skrimp on lunch in order to attend my noon-2 p.m. class and then continue the open lab afterwards. A hot turkey meal, the week before Thanksgiving, a traditional time for us to gather, did three things: it provided fuel for an afternoon of work, it allowed them to breakdown classmate to classmate barriers and eat sociably together, and it demonstrated, in a simple but concrete way, that they are respected members of the Shawano Center.

Basic education students sometimes have a crisis of confidence; they can’t believe that they are actually college students. As my students joined more than 70 other students from nursing, medical records, non-credit, and general studies courses in Thursday’s free hot meal, they asked, “Is this food for us too?” Of course it was. This gesture showed them that we respect their work. This gives them permission to respect themselves in turn. The meal showed they are as important as any other student within the college.

Kudos to the center for showing respect by action, not just words.

A Little Like Christmas Eve

Two days before open enrollment, it seems a little like Christmas Eve in the Basic Education Lab: the anticipation, the wonder, the magic of a gift too perfect to open. Students are freely chatting with each other, ignoring the algebraic order of operations (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) for the moment, talking about their expectations and plans, and what courses they are planning to sign up for in the spring college term.

I’ll admit that doesn’t sound like a marketable sequel to “The Christmas Story,” but it is inspiring. When the students started in August, they were blocked from enrolling in college classes because their entry scores were below college minimum standards. About one in ten college candidates fall short of the grade levels needed for success in the college classroom. They are disappointed, of course, and sometimes doubt their own ability, but they can’t let that doubt get the best of them.

So, the students get to work. They attend the open Basic Education lab when they can, sign up for College Prep courses in Reading/Writing and Mathematics, and work against odds to raise up their scores so that when they do sit in a college class, they have the best possible chance of success. Unprepared, their failure doesn’t help them or help us as an institution. 

During the past week, a group of my students have now retested, and they have exceeded, equaled or come within a few worksheets of hitting the college standards that beyond their best efforts just a few months ago. Most have achieved minimum college standards. Some have even reached the much higher program standards. Now, rather than facing remedial exercise, they are ready to take their place in a college classroom.

Within the superficial wrapping of college benchmarks and standardized scores, the students will uncover a greater gift: the dream of a college education. And, because of the work that they have put in this semester, they have started to develop the discipline and self-confidence to see this dream through to the end.

The anticipation of Christmas Eve is fun, but Christmas morning is even better.

Mistakes can be Profited By

I just finished the classic SF story, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. I remember reading the story the first time in college as a warning against censorship. Books and the written words are poison in protagonist Montag's world and firemen, like Montag, set fires to books, rather than put them out. It's a reversed view of the world that is prevalent in much of Bradbury's work: take a common idea and twist it 180-degrees to reveal another logical reality.

While the criticism of censorship is still the initial rage for the book, during this reading (it's probably my third or fourth time), the wisdom or folly of our choices seems a more clear underlying theme. Who of us would not like to have an unwise choice brought back? Who of us would not prefer to be braver, stronger, more confident, than we have been in the past? Who of us have not played life safe because we were worried about consequences of bad choices, of mistakes?

But, what if we do make a mistake? Montag's compatriot and conscience, Faber, chided Montag's preference to blend back into the collective rather than risk individuality: "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by."

The Montag's choices unveil a hidden beautiful world to him. The consequences of the choices are hard and brutal, this is not a sugar plum fairy-tale, but, Bradbury seems to say, are well worth the pain. After Montag uses a river to escape,  he dramatically rises from the water:

"He (Montag) stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough."

In the broad strokes of typical Bradbury symbolism, Montag is reborn into a new world and a new purpose. His mistakes opened him up to a world full of hope, even though he knows the world can still be a hurtful, cynical place, and he knows he can still make mistakes. But isn't that a wonderful choice to have?