Please turn ON your phones ...

Flipped teaching really is a "thing" and it's interesting watching it in action. I'm lucky enough to have great mentors, watching the good and the bad. The "spending more time with students" part is inspiring. The use of technology to do so .... errrrr .... not so much. It really is surprising how far "this" generation teachers are from being digital natives. As an education system outsider (I'm from the IT private sector), from what I've seen so far, the public education system hasn't quite wrapped heads around making online learning welcoming and accessible to all students, regardless of computer experience. As a volunteer in these classrooms, I see teachers struggling to see devices as tools, not distractions, computers as learning resources, not pacifiers. Already, I've been told not to promote an android flashcard resource because it could distract students, and questioned when using the computer to finish math homework. Guys - we need to tell students to turn your phone ON, go to that computer to research your answer to teach critical thinking skills and model using digital toolboxes. THIS is how we start to narrow the digital divide, learner by learner. The lower SES folks use android OS for internet access to far a greater extent that any other class. It's my goal to model that you can do more than game and chat on 'em. Frankly, I find lack of effective introduction to a technology exercise more distracting (you know, where no one can log in because you left it up to digital virgins to figure it out on their own) than the time a student might take away from a scheduled learning e-module to practice a flashcard pack using their phone.

Monkey catchers

Mindfully brooding, final goodbyes to a soul mate looming. Such a warm, beautiful kindred spirit, someone I thought I'd never meet in my life again, who's GFN, but not forever - CUOL, a faithful spirit I will always feel connected to. He'll be moving away in body, 5,000+ miles away, but alive in my laptop glow. An eerie reminder, he, of my first love, over 25 years ago, a gift I always thought came too soon in my life. His groundedness smoothed my rough edges, my musical heart emboldened his. Untamed at 21, I turned us loose. He quickly claims another; I see his name on her bracelet and know, I could never live that life.

Each night, honoring my day, I read a yama lullaby outloud to myself. My favorite - "In the process of catching monkeys, small cages with narrow bars are made and a banana is placed inside the cage. Monkeys come, driven to futilely jimmy the banana out. In the moment when the monkey catchers come, the monkeys are totally free; all they have to do is drop the banana and run away. Yet, so few do."

Opening my heart has always been as hard as dropping that banana. Being claimed, an anathema. Cyber stalking, I find that old love, and know, all these years, I made the right choice. I read the "rate your professor" posts about him, and from that 10,000 foot view, getting that there's no way I could have lived a life more tidy, to have ever fit his cage. Domesticated, diluted, he succumbed to beige, eloquently distilled by freshmen hubris, honest, not always kind. To find the aliveness we had all those years ago in another, I'm now so ready for that gift. And eternally grateful. And totally ready to set us free.

Pitter, pat, click

Aged by your social media, you’re someone’s bigstring security question answer. Dazzling.

Boxful 'o Matches

We're at the 997th step! What started dimly is now "on"; the 2 kids I mentor for computer literacy have the spark and now it's they who dictate the lesson plan, not me ;) Watching them step up, look over the edge, back away, come back, turn and then jump in, no turning back, reminds me why teaching is so, just, well, .... cool. 2 kids, English speaking at a "2" on a scale of 1-10, at a stage where the last thing you want to be is different, who sit quietly and patiently express and fluently construct their stories with software. Honestly, inarticulate, you see life differently through the flickering glow. The caution: "They're both very quiet; their English is not strong"; my thought: "Good!", knowing from my 9-5 life the most pain folks feel with technology is when they try to talk to understand it, instead of just "doing" and "being" with it. Blissfully free from the ravages of language, such a relief to escape the hyper-verbal. During my semi-silent retreat road trip this summer, eating lunch in a Williamsburg bistro, I overhear a self assured W&M student at the next table with his folks, and smile, recognizing myself rewound 25 some odd years. "Mute" to "pause" and rewind about sums up the peace I've made over the years to my abundance. Stunned at times, I think I'm starting to use more laser, less floodlight so that just the right amount comes to and leaves out of me.

Non-English speaking, I think it must be like when you lose a sense, that the others become so much more acute. My 16 year old is working on a creating a PowerPoint "movie", and my 18 year old is all set to create an anime short using the Alice animation software (Thanks Randy and Carnegie Mellon!), both projects we plan to finalize and post to their websites by Christmas.We muddle through, testing using what we're used to, let go, use what works, and it appears. I am beaming ...

1000 steps

So, someone asked Thomas Edison how he felt that he failed 1000 times before getting a light bulb to work (no, this isn't some twisted "how many..." lightbulb joke). And he said, hey, it just took 1000 steps to get it right. Undaunted, this is the reframe I'm gonna use this blog for to chronicle my latest adventure -helping disadvantaged kids get computer literate. And maybe help me too find the fun again in that box on my desk ;p Stay tuned ...