"Partnership for 19th Century Skills"

Ever wonder who funds and is on the board of Partnership for 21st Century Skills?

Ever wonder when the major essential question of schooling became this:

"How do we create the schools America needs to remain competitive?"

Do you remember when the major goal was this:

"How do we create the schools America needs to create responsible citizens?

Diane Ravitch speaks to another side of learning at Common Core.

Susan Ohanian's take on this.

Also see earlier post: 22nd Century Learning

ACT - Professional Association for Citizenship Teaching (UK)

Succinct - 5 Minutes with Chris Lehmann

"It's not about the work-force, it's about a citizenry." ~ Chris Lehmann




Practical Theory - A View from the Classroom

ArtReach at Telstar Middle

Last Wednesday evening I had the opportunity to observe part of the ArtReach project at Telstar Middle School that this year is centering its work and learning on helping to support the Harvest Hills Animal Shelter in Fryeburg. Under the leadership of art teacher, Melissa Prescott, students had earlier visited the shelter, interviewed the staff, and created a polished video documenting the experience using the laptop iMovie program. The evening events started with a presentation of the documentary and then continued with an auction of donated works of art by area artists as well as the sale of student art with school superintendent, David Murphy, acting as auctioneer. Subsequently, student musicians, under the leadership of Tom Coolidge, performed for the audience.



















There are great connections here. It is a powerful model for what education should be all about, with the integration of real-world needs, community involvement, citizenship, empowering technology, inspired teachers, and engaged students. Congratulations, Telstar!

Sun Journal Article
Melissa Prescott's Classroom Project Blog
Melissa's Art Portaportal
Digital Storytelling
Video 1 Workshop
Video 2 Workshop

There Ought to Be a Law

I had the opportunity to talk with Laura Richter today and learned of her latest powerful project. You might recall that I posted her notebook on doing local/oral history last week. If you think that was great, you must see this latest work:


There Ought to Be a Law

Educational Tools for the Movie

The Noteshare Notebook for the Movie

There Ought to Be a Law is an award-winning documentary by Anita Clearfield, Shoshana Hoose and Geoffrey Leighton on the theme of average citizen versus the government.

Anna Marshall - Artwork
Skowhegan Area Middle School

Related Noteshare Posts

Diffusion of Authority

"A distinguishing characteristic of our nation — and a great strength
— is the development of our institutions within the concept of
individual worth and dignity. Our schools are among the guardians of that principle. Consequently . . . and deliberately their control and
support throughout our history have been — and are — a state and
local responsibility. . . . Thus was established a fundamental
element of the American public school system — local direction by
boards of education responsible immediately to the parents of
children. Diffusion of authority among tens of thousands of school
districts is a safeguard against centralized control and abuse of the
educational system that must be maintained. We believe that to take
away the responsibility of communities and states in educating our
children is to undermine not only a basic element of our freedoms but
a basic right of our citizens. "

~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Was Ike right or are his ideas outmoded?

Citizenship

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ~Lord Acton

Maine Learning Results Guiding Principle:
A responsible and involved citizen who:

• Participates positively in the community and designs creative solutions to meet human needs and wants;
• Accepts responsibility for personal decisions and actions;
• Demonstrates ethical behavior and the moral courage to sustain it;
• Understands and respects diversity;
• Displays global awareness and economic and civic literacy; and
• Demonstrates awareness of personal and community health and wellness;

Citizenship Resources
Micro-society Resources
Rights & Responsibilities Resources
Diversity Resources

Persuasion

“It may take forever to win men's minds by persuasion, but that's quicker than you can do it by force”

How do we sell our ideas? How do others sell their ideas to us? How do we remain respectful of others who have different ideas and perspectives than our own? To me, this is a much more important topic than many of the other subjects that are expected to be taught in our schools.

For several years I moderated a conference on a FirstClass BBS in a Maine school district. The conference was called Speak-Out. Topics were offered by mostly high school students but also by a few interested teachers, and then replies were made. In the heat of the argument, how easy it was for students to regress to subtle and not so subtle namecalling,put-downs, baiting and innuendo. Now I ran quite a tight ship for the space for blatant trangressions of the AUP, but sometimes it was obvious that students just didn't know any other way of expressing themselves. And who could blame them as there is a constant flow of rudeness everywhere around them . . . from radio talk shows to T.V. sitcoms and reality shows to discussion list on the Internet . . . to our national leaders.

I found that as long as I was present (meaning checking in regularly), discourse was civil. (Perhaps because I had the power to discontinue their accounts :) but I really think there was more to it than that.) If, however, the conference was left unattended by adult supervision for a long period of time, discussion would tend to head for the lowest common denominator.

Last year, although I was no longer the moderator of the conference, I reluctantly stepped in with this:

"I certainly agree that namecalling and personal attacks have no place in this conference . . . and certainly violate the user agreement that all have signed who are on the BBS. Sure it is okay to have positive or negative opinions on an issue, BUT that does not include character assassination of people who disagree with us. Loss of BBS privileges for infractions seems very appropriate to me.

In reading the posts in speak-out, I sense that for some it seems to be simply a game to annoy others in an attempt to feel more self-important. This is commonly referred to as baiting. There is an arrogance here that ultimately is self-defeating and hurtful not only to others but to the initiator as well. We use this tactic when feeling inadequate in making legitimate persuasive comments. In other words, when we don't have anything to back up our view or have anything else to say, we lower ourselves by attacking the person with whom we disagree. Not good . . . but all too prevalent in our culture at large as well. We need to be both intelligent in what we say and caring for those we are saying it to . . . even those with whom we disagree. As my grandmothers use to say, "If you can't say something good about somebody, say nothing at all."

For other people, there seems to be a misunderstanding of what civil discourse includes and what bogus argument is. Using "I" statements are much better than "They" and "You" statements. "I believe" or " I think" work much better than "You are . . . they are" constructs. Below find some resources that will help you understand this a bit better. Writing like this takes a bit of practice and experience to understand the spirit of it. Give it a try.

There are times when all of us will cross over the line in life. I know I have . . . and still do on occasion. We all make mistakes, but we have an obligation to ourselves and others to point ourselves in the right direction and do our best in making rational discourse an important means of making a better world.

So . . . what is the next issue to discuss?"

Someone somewhere is going to have to start modeling civility and perhaps focus more on empowering our young ones with the art of respectful dialogue.

Who is it going to be? What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

Some pertinent links:

Logical Fallacy Resources
Propaganda & Advertising
Persuasive Writing Resources
Citizenship Resources