(See last 4 posts)
The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled land with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background, and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives.
Florence Luscomb
architect and suffragist
1887-1985
My last five posts have encapsulated my worldview on current topics. I think this quote sums it up nicely. I have just a few more topics to touch on.
I watch a lot of TV reruns from the '60's like "I love Lucy", "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Andy Griffith Show." I realized a long time ago that I was still drawn to them because they reminded me of my childhood. I was the same age as Opie Taylor and Richie Petrie so it is like watching those wonderful years all over again. The sense of simplicity and security and love in those shows has always been comforting to me. We all wish for "the good old days" in some respect. But we are not living in those times any longer:
China will soon be the #1 English speaking country in the world.
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
There are 5 times as many words in the English language as they were during Shakespeare's life.
The amount of technical information is doubling every two years.
While reading this - 67 babies were born in the United States, 284 in China and 395 in India.
Students in school now are being prepared for jobs that do not even exist yet.
Wow. I am fully aware that my COEXIST way of thinking is idealistic. It is an ideal, a hope, a dream for the world. But if we have no ideals or dreams we have no hope. I believe those of us who have been blessed to be raised and live in middle class America are often short-sighted and sheltered. We have values that we feel strongly about. But our values do not align with reality sometimes. There is a whole world out there that is nothing like ours - with billions of other human beings - all God's children. As human beings we need to care for each other, resist judging each other and strive for peace.
Guns - kill people. I say - just because it's a right doesn't mean it's right. Same with freedom of speech - when it moves away from civility and respect it's just abuse of a right. I wonder how many people who carry guns around really ever have to defend their lives (with the exception of certain inner city areas). The teenage boy in Florida would still be alive if the self-appointed neighborhood watchman hadn't had a gun. That's just the truth. That boy did nothing to deserve to die. Do we really want to revert back to the Old West?
Global Warming - There is overwhelming evidence and agreement of climate experts that humans are causing global warming. They have been warning us since the 1970's. If people are concerned about the world we are leaving to future generations in terms of economics, why are they not concerned about the planet they will live on?
(The hottest decade on record was 2000-2009 with 2010 being the hottest year on record - in the world - not just where we live.)
I remember years when Lake Erie was too dirty to swim in, but this summer I swam in its crystal clear water. I remember doing reports in school on dozens of endangered animals that are no longer in danger of extinction. Things are better because of agencies like the EPA. Sometimes we need to be saved from ourselves.
If you do not believe in science then I hope you are not going to a doctor or taking medication. It is another case of entitlement - believing we should be able to live the way we want regardless of consequences. I have heard that some believe that God will save us from our consuming ways and abuse of the earth. But when has God ever done that? He does not intervene in tragedy. He does not prevent cancer or tsunamis or accidents - why would he save the planet He entrusted to our care? Human lives are created by our own free will. It's what makes us human. Free will causes pain and suffering. Free will makes mistakes, but it also allows us to choose truth and beauty sometimes.
See 1 Peter 5:2.
So that's all for a while. I have no idea if anyone has even read any of this, but I am proud that I have come to the point in my life that I am able to articulate what I believe and why. There were decades of my life when most of these issues never crossed my mind for various personal reasons. But now I am more aware of the world around me, and more aware of what I have learned over the years.
If you've taken the time to ever read this blog - thank you. God bless you.
COEXIST: Poetry, Books, and Essays by Diane Vogel Ferri
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Did You Know???
I just spent two days at a training for my school building to become an accredited International Baccalaureate (IB)school. IB is a worldwide movement that promotes global learning and student learning from their own inquiry and discoveries. It's very involved, but to me it looks like it may put some joy back in the learning process after over a decade of making learning (and teaching) only preparing to take tests. We still have to give tests, but IB concepts have spread throughout the world for the past several decades and is now spreading through the US.
The following is text from a video you can view on You Tube if you'd prefer. It closely relates to this way of learning. Either way it's worth knowing.
If you're 1 in a million in China there are 1300 people just like you.
China will soon become the #1 English speaking country in the world.
The 25% of India's population with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of the US - translated - India has more honors kids than the US has kids.
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been in invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.
The US Department of Labor estimates that today's learners will have 10-14 jobs by the age 38.
1 in 4 workers has been with their current employers for less than a year. One in two have been there less than 5 years.
1 out of 8 married couples married in the US last year met online.
The #1 ranked country in Broadband Internet Penetration is Bermuda. US is #19, Japan #22.
WE ARE LIVING IN EXPONENTIAL TIMES.
There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006 this number was 2.7 billion.
The first commercial text message was sent on December 1992. Today the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.
Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:
Radio - 38 years.
TV - 13 years
Internet - 4 years
Ipod - 3 years
Facebook - 2 years
There are about 540,000 words in the English language - about 5X as many as during Shakespeare's time.
It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime on the 18th century.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
For students starting a 4 year technical degree this mean that half of what they learning their first year will be outdated by their 3rd year.
By 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain.
While reading this 67 babies were born in the US. 274 babies were born in China. 395 were born in India ----and 694,000 songs were downloaded illegally.
The following is text from a video you can view on You Tube if you'd prefer. It closely relates to this way of learning. Either way it's worth knowing.
If you're 1 in a million in China there are 1300 people just like you.
China will soon become the #1 English speaking country in the world.
The 25% of India's population with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of the US - translated - India has more honors kids than the US has kids.
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been in invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.
The US Department of Labor estimates that today's learners will have 10-14 jobs by the age 38.
1 in 4 workers has been with their current employers for less than a year. One in two have been there less than 5 years.
1 out of 8 married couples married in the US last year met online.
The #1 ranked country in Broadband Internet Penetration is Bermuda. US is #19, Japan #22.
WE ARE LIVING IN EXPONENTIAL TIMES.
There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006 this number was 2.7 billion.
The first commercial text message was sent on December 1992. Today the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.
Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:
Radio - 38 years.
TV - 13 years
Internet - 4 years
Ipod - 3 years
Facebook - 2 years
There are about 540,000 words in the English language - about 5X as many as during Shakespeare's time.
It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime on the 18th century.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
For students starting a 4 year technical degree this mean that half of what they learning their first year will be outdated by their 3rd year.
By 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain.
While reading this 67 babies were born in the US. 274 babies were born in China. 395 were born in India ----and 694,000 songs were downloaded illegally.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
A Reader's Dilemma
I am an avid reader and have always loved books. I love to see my books displayed around my home. Lots of bookshelves. One time a neighbor was at our house and was browsing my bookshelves (where I have them in order - my favorites on the top shelf then moving downward). She noticed that we liked many of the same books and thus was born the neighborhood book club. We've been going strong for 8 years.
But what if all of our books are on a portable device someday?
I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas. Originally I did not want one. I try to stay open to change and technology so I wasn't someone to say that an electronic device to read from is evil. But it wasn't for me. Book lovers love to hold books, love to own books, love to look at their books, lend them to friends and maybe reread their favorites someday. With an electronic device all of those joys are vanished. Our book club may have never come to be if my books had not been regally lined up on their shelves.
For 15 years my husband and I spent many evenings at our local Borders, browsing, reading in a corner, drinking tea and coffee. Browsing leads to finding. You don't have to know what you want - you spy it, you pick it up, you like the cover, the summary sounds interesting and you buy it. (Or maybe write it down and go home and request it from the library.) The point is - how do you browse on Amazon? You go on Amazon when you know what you want.
The Kindle has thousands of free books, thousands of books for less than $3.99, thousands, millions of choices. How would you ever browse through all of that to see something you wanted?
The demise of the big book stores is devastating. My only hope is that small, independent book stores begin to flourish as people miss browsing and discovering an unexpected find, hold it in their hands and take it home.
Best-selling author Jonathan Franzen has spoken of his fear that ebooks will have a detrimental effect on the world - and his belief that serious readers will always prefer print editions.He says a "sense of permanence has always been part of the experience."
How will you hand down your favorite books to your children - by giving them an outdated and obsolete rectangular electronic device? Because surely these reading machines will evolve and change as fast as an iphone.
Now I can get library books on the Kindle. This is something worthwhile. Because library books are borrowed anyway. you don't keep them. But if I ever read a borrowed book that I love so much that belongs on my top shelf, you can bet I will go out and find the print edition so I can keep it, lend it, refer to it, reread it and have it forever.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
21st Century Education
The children I am teaching today have not lived in a world without the Internet. The children I am teaching today have experienced school mostly as a place to hear about tests and take tests with a paper and pencil - and yet, the way they see the rest of the world communicating and gathering information is through Skype, Facebook, iPhones, iPads, teleconferencing and the Internet.
In 1898 The Committee of 10 came together to create education standards for America. They were learned educators who decided there should be 8 core subjects, that students should be in school for 180 days a year with 6 hours of instrcution, that they should graduate with so many years of math and English etc. Sound familiar?? That was over 100 years ago and we still operate by the same standards.
Then a decade ago we threw in No Child Left Behind. The intentions sounded good, but beyond the poor funding by the government that decreed it, this law has been at the expense of preparing children for real world skills. Research shows we have turned out a decade of young people completely unprepared for 21st century employment. They all may be great at taking bubble tests, but this has not taught them critical thinking and problem solving. Tests have taken the joy out of school and removed any opportunity for teachable moments. Teachers have not had any time to delve into any non-tested subjects.
Leading curriculum expert Heidi Hayes Jacobs has researched our educational system and determined that we are preparing out students today for the world of 1991.
Along with integrating the rapidly changing use of technology, schools need to be graduating critical thinkers, collaborators, communicators. Author Daniel Pink says the future will be ruled by right-brained thinkers. He says that American will never lead in manufacturing again, Those days are over. So if America wants a successful future we will value the creators, those with imagination, the problem solvers. (Maybe MFAs will be more desirable than MBAs?)
The building where I teach is working to become an International Baccalaureate School. We will spend the next year as a candidate school and then become official. I am very new to this process, but my first impressions are positive. Sometimes It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and I am not one to jump into every new fad - I've seen too many fail miserably.
But here is the gist: Education in our building will be student-centered, not teacher-led with teachers giving the answers and students regurgitating them out on a test. It will be research-driven, not textbook-driven. It will encourage the use of all available technology and be project-oriented. It will integrate subject matter just as it is in the real world. We're moving from passive learning to active learning. Does this sound logical to you?
The big drawback is that our students will still be taking standardized tests until our legislators come to their senses and admit that these tests have been mandated to measure teacher performance, not student learning.
How will our kids fare after spending a few years actually learning to think and solve problems? That remains to be seen,but I actually feel some inspiration at this new turn in education - something I haven't felt for a long time.
In 1898 The Committee of 10 came together to create education standards for America. They were learned educators who decided there should be 8 core subjects, that students should be in school for 180 days a year with 6 hours of instrcution, that they should graduate with so many years of math and English etc. Sound familiar?? That was over 100 years ago and we still operate by the same standards.
Then a decade ago we threw in No Child Left Behind. The intentions sounded good, but beyond the poor funding by the government that decreed it, this law has been at the expense of preparing children for real world skills. Research shows we have turned out a decade of young people completely unprepared for 21st century employment. They all may be great at taking bubble tests, but this has not taught them critical thinking and problem solving. Tests have taken the joy out of school and removed any opportunity for teachable moments. Teachers have not had any time to delve into any non-tested subjects.
Leading curriculum expert Heidi Hayes Jacobs has researched our educational system and determined that we are preparing out students today for the world of 1991.
Along with integrating the rapidly changing use of technology, schools need to be graduating critical thinkers, collaborators, communicators. Author Daniel Pink says the future will be ruled by right-brained thinkers. He says that American will never lead in manufacturing again, Those days are over. So if America wants a successful future we will value the creators, those with imagination, the problem solvers. (Maybe MFAs will be more desirable than MBAs?)
The building where I teach is working to become an International Baccalaureate School. We will spend the next year as a candidate school and then become official. I am very new to this process, but my first impressions are positive. Sometimes It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and I am not one to jump into every new fad - I've seen too many fail miserably.
But here is the gist: Education in our building will be student-centered, not teacher-led with teachers giving the answers and students regurgitating them out on a test. It will be research-driven, not textbook-driven. It will encourage the use of all available technology and be project-oriented. It will integrate subject matter just as it is in the real world. We're moving from passive learning to active learning. Does this sound logical to you?
The big drawback is that our students will still be taking standardized tests until our legislators come to their senses and admit that these tests have been mandated to measure teacher performance, not student learning.
How will our kids fare after spending a few years actually learning to think and solve problems? That remains to be seen,but I actually feel some inspiration at this new turn in education - something I haven't felt for a long time.
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