My Beauty Best Teacher

Sometimes I wonder about what I do. Not me personally- I teach conservative values, solid business relevant skills, and liberal education like history and civics. Not openly, of course- I'm not tenured yet, so I can't do any of those things openly or else I'd risk not keeping my job. No, I wonder what the purpose of public education in our society is.

Education does not teach job skills. Even though businesses continue to ask for more courses in job skills, from what I've seen, classes like art, shop, etc are being cut in favor of more foreign language and math. The focuses of classes is not on job skills- rarely do classes draw clear connections between the real world of work and education. And the whole attitude towards business in education is hostile. So it doesn't teach job skills.

Education does not teach a general liberal education. It misses the boat on hitting the basics of writing, reading, and arithmetic. Look at the latest math results- even though our country is by far the richest and most successful, our state-run education industry lags many other nations in performance. The latest reading results also mirror this- our students can't read- and based on what I have seen, I would contend that our scores are inflated, because they can read, but don't understand what they are reading. In social studies it is worse- the Michigan scores mirror the rest of the nation, and in Michigan, only 33% of students meet the basic standards of social studies education, and based on my experience in a standards setting committee, I would contend that the bar is very low even to meet the standards. So students are learning history, civics, math, or reading.

So what does education do? I would contend that now, education is just be a socialization place, a place where students are kept, occupied, and socialized. But if that is the goal, how good is it doing? Probably doing a fair job at indoctrination of liberal ideas. But I'd have to do some research on bullying, school shootings, teen depression, manners, etc to discover how well it's doing on more traditional socialization.

Audio productions are made or broken by the quality of the recording engineer's ears. The ability to properly discern sounds, identify subtle problems, and act accordingly to apply the necessary fix makes all the difference in the quality of the final tracks and master. The good news is that these crucial skills can be learned. The ability to instantly identify frequencies, hear hidden distortions, and instinctively reconcile conflicts in the EQ of instruments, audio elements, vocals and more are traits of those who have mastered the art of audio production. The best engineers have trained their ears to immediately recognize audio problems that the consumer and those new to recording arts would likely not hear, but that, if left unresolved, would result in an amateurish final product. For more than two decades, students of F. Alton Everest's Critical Listening and Auditory Perception courses have rapidly developed these skills by using the intense lessons found in this book and on the CD. Unfortunately the books and CDs included with the course were usually too expensive for aspiring engineers to purchase and were often available only in colleges, universities, or school libraries. Now for the first time these indispensable training sessions are available with this release of Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals. Through hundreds of illustrations and an accompanying disc containing high-resolution MP3 files with nearly five hours of narration of the entire course, you can acquire the audio discernment skills of a seasoned recording engineer by studying this course at your own pace, in your own home.

 

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In 1987, Mrs Margaret Thatcher flew to Moscow to meet the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In their famous conversations, Gorbachev rounded on her. As she recalled it, “His view was that the British Conservative Party was the party of the 'haves’ in Britain and that our system of 'bourgeois democracy’ was designed to fool people about who really controlled the levers of power.” But she hit back: “I explained that what I was trying to do was to create a society of 'haves’, not a class of them.” (source)

The greatest problem that I run into when confronting liberalism in schools is the idea that there are haves and have-not's- that some kids have it and that others don't. What they have is debatable- some teachers want kids to have intelligence, others want kids to have effort, and other teachers want kids to have the same opinion as they do about topics- but the educational world clearly believes that there are classes out there.

But being the deeply liberal institutions that they are, schools always arrive at the same and incorrect conclusion of how to break down this class system. Schools and the educational world pushes that all students should be equalized by going through education at the same pace (one grade per year), that every student should graduate at the same exact time with the same exact number and sort of classes, that the pace and level of education that is delivered in the classroom should be directed at the average (or even the least) student in the room, that the curriculum that is taught in schools must be exactly the same, that the funding of the school systems should be exactly the same, that classes must be large groups of students all moving at the same pace, and that teachers should be paid the same (or have pay scales that advance the same for everyone, whether they are an effective teacher or not).

The solution that liberals have devised to break down the class system in the education world is a leftist one that attempts to redistribute and equalize effort from those who have it to those who don't- the leftists in education try to use schools to transfer to those students who don't the natural intelligence, curiosity, industry, effort, leadership, communication, writing skills, the right opinions, the right mindset, or whatever that the others students do have. And the result is predictable- an educational establishment that achieves less results with more resources consumed, that falls further behind when measured against the past or other nations, and that does not give students the knowledge and skills to succeed in the future.

The solution in education is not to get rid of those who have it or transfer the stuff that people have to the others, but to create a society in education of people who do have it- to encourage every student to be successful and achieve all that they can be and to push them upwards, not work to keep them from falling behind.

In this new educational system of the conservative future, students will move through grades based on their achievements and skill level, not based on their age. Students (and parents) are free to have choices on what sorts of classes they should take and when they should take them, and will have input into the curriculum that is taught in them as well. In the education of the future that pushes all students upward to grow the pie of effort, achievement, intelligence, and skills, students will receive more individualized instruction that will push them in their own individualized ways- personalized feedback on writing and essays, one-on-one support for math and science skills, and personal attention to their communication of their views and knowledge on subject matters. Funding for schools will be variable, and teachers pay will be flexible and adjustable based on their performance and effectiveness in the classroom. Classrooms will be able to contain a range of different settings to learn the information, and will have more flexible hours and meeting times to meet the needs of the students.

In the educational world, we need to move away from focusing on a class system or pushing this idea that teachers have the knowledge and power and students are just trying to acquire it, and instead move to a culture and society where learning information and new skills is the goal so that students can successfully win jobs and promotions and be hardworking innovation workers and leaders of enterprise for the future. We need to move away from leftist ideas and more towards the right in education, and in so doing, the pie will be grown and our future will be better.

• American Educational Research Journal

  Many educational journals like this one have RSS feeds to notify you when new research comes out. If you want to keep up with research, I highly recommend you use an RSS reader. I use Google reader on my computer and Mr. Reader on my ipad (because it integrates with Diigo.)

  tags: education research learning researcher_thoughtleader

• Toontastic Version: 1.40 Education App | Macworld

  Toontastic is a highly rated site (that is currently free because it is in the app store hall of fame.) Download it now onto those ipads while you can get it. 
  
  It is for cartooning, tell your story and is great for using with digital storytelling. I highly recommend you get it while you can.

  tags: education eduapp learning

• Blogs May Help Teens Reduce Social Stress | Psych Central News

  I have seen this first hand in students and these findings are totally credible to me. Another reason to have kids blogging. Blogging may help teens improve their self-esteem and enhance friendships, a new study suggests. Moreover, the online activity is especially helpful for teens with social anxiety. Researchers believe this use of social networking is especially suitable for teens who spend a vast majority of their time online. ".

  tags: research learning blogging

• Twins are multiplying, raising new questions for the nature vs. nurture debate - On Parenting - The Washington Post

  Lots of talk about twins and more insight into nature versus nurture. "when it came to explaining why a particular group of children ended up with different IQ scores, 75 percent of the variation was due to genetics, not parenting,”

  tags: research learning twins genetics iq

• Do We Learn in Lines or Circles? - Nimble Copy

  We allow students to have struggles in Flat Classroom and expect to coach them through the teachable moment. this research seems to back up that is the right thing to be doing. is your learning environment too perfect? a recent blog post, David Ginsburg talks about the role of struggle in learning: “Frustration is a precursor to deep, lasting learning. That’s right, students’ grasp of new concepts and skills is often better when they struggle through the process of learning those concepts and skills than when teachers error-proof that process.” ".

  tags: learning research problembasedlearning

• Cognitive skills fade at 45, not 60, new research shows | The Australian

  This is a bit depressing but worth knowing about. if you stress, read Brain Rules about the massive impact that exercize has on improving cognitive skills. Again, this is a correlation not causality. is it we get more sedentary so we decline mentally. "Six Flags Great Adventure and Discovery Education are partnering together to offer free admission to the New Jersey theme park for K-6 students who participate in Read to Succeed, an online program geared to encourage students to read outside of the classroom.".

  tags: research learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Due to minimum wage laws, child labor regulations, more restrictions on driving, and additional costs imposed on employers due to laws passed in recent years, many of my students have been unable to find employment. These government-created barriers to their desire to work has prevented them from making money and paying for college expenses, but even worse, these government-erected barriers have prevented these young students from gaining needed work experience and job skills that will help them in the future.

At a recent speech in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich took aim at some of these child labor laws, saying that kid janitors “would be dramatically less expensive than unionized janitors.... I’m not suggesting that they drop out of school and become janitors, I’m talking about working 20 hours a week and being empowered to succeed.”

He went on to call child labor laws “truly stupid” at an appearance at Harvard University, saying that he would propose extraordinarily radical changes to these laws that would fundamentally transform the culture of poverty. He further said that children in the poorest neighborhoods are “trapped in child laws” that prevent them from earning money.

The reaction to his comments has been swift and largely negative. Many have accused him of attacking union jobs, suggesting that only unionized employees have the skill set to accomplish all aspects of being a janitor, but these sorts of accusations are not grounded in reality. Of course it would be essential to have a unionized master janitor to supervise and direct the young kids, but many other tasks (such as sweeping, cleaning boards, picking up trash, etc) could be performed by young students without any sort of prior skills. These students could gain job skills, make a little bit of money, and build pride in their school.

Others have accused Gingrich of being insensitive the to the needs and pressures of young children and have tried to paint him as some sort of evil industrialist suggesting that little kids go to work in the mines. This criticism also is misguided- in their desire to protect children from being taken advantage of in the workplace, these kids are being deprived of a chance to make money and earn skills that they want- prevented from doing so by rules and regulations pushed by well-meaning adults that backfire and instead hold kids back and increase their poverty.

My own theory is that many reacted so negatively to Newt's comments because they are trying to protect the monopoly on education and learning currently enjoyed by schools in America. Teachers, administrators, liberals, and Democrats have for years attempted to limit student's abilities to learn outside the classroom, burdening them with massive amounts of homework, making it difficult for these students to miss class to spend time at internships or job-shadows, and putting in place laws and regulations which prevent them from getting jobs. They do this because they want to control what sorts of education and learning these students receive, and recognize that if students were go get out in the real world and begin paying taxes and earning their way in life, they would no longer be as dependent on their teachers and the educational establishment and would be less controllable by administrators.

Much like the communists in Russia and China recognized the threat that religion represented to their absolute control, the educational establishment reacted negatively to Gingrich's suggestions of reforming child labor laws because it is jealously guarding its territory, trying to block students from learning about the outside world so that they will be forced to learn all their information from unionized teachers in the public school system.

UPDATE 11/29: In response to those who are asking me who I endorse... I already wrote about Ron Paul, I don't think Bachman or Huntsman or Santorum have high enough polling numbers to consider further, and Hermain Cain should drop out of the race now before anything else comes out about him. That leaves Gingrich, Romney, and Perry, and Perry demonstrated an inability to communicate his message combined with horrible stumbles in debates, so it's either Gingrich or Romney.

UPDATE 12/2: So, apparently Newt is continuing to work on this theme- memeorandum has linked to several stories now that go along with Newt's getting kids back to work theme- check out Jonathan Capehart's article in the Washington Post called Newt Gingrich's disgusting remarks about ‘really poor children’ or Nick Kalman of Fox News' article Newt: Poor Children Have “No Habits of Working”.

One of the most astounding things that I let slip to my students is that I believe that minimum wage causes higher unemployment. They usually just shrug that off as some sort of crazy thing that I must be joking about- in fact, if you ever utter in usual society a statement similar to that you'll get the same sort of looks. After all, how in the world could raising the cost to hire employees ever lead to less employees being hired?

It's actually a fairly simple concept though. If you have a job that is low-skill, such as a stock boy or sales staff in the mall or something, they likely bring in little revenue themselves. I mean, you need people stocking and straightening shelves and you need sales staff in malls and in big box stores, but each one individually will bring you such little additional revenue that you have to be careful how many you hire as a business.

Let's say you run a store in the mall, and you budget $50/hour for 'sales staff'- you know, people who can greet people as they come in the door, fold clothes, help out customers, look good in their clothes and thereby encourage others to buy them, etc. If you pay each one $5/hour, you could hire 10 sales staff and gain your store a reputation for great customer service and help and presentation. These employees have few real skills- in fact, since they are willing to work for that pay, it is likely they are the group with the fewest job skills- and so their pay is in line with what they provide. They will gain experience and soon command a higher salary. If no one is willing to work for $5/hour, then you'll have to offer more money, until you attract someone who willingly accepts employment at the amount you offer.

But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.

The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.

I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean.

I do have hard data on unemployment rates, especially unemployment rates with those with lower skill levels. The overall unemployment rate in the United States is now 9.2%, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal article:

Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. The nearby chart chronicles the teen employment percentage over time, including the notable plunge in the last decade. So instead of learning valuable job skills—getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift—millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out.

But Congress has also contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.

So, there you go- raising the minimum wage did result in higher unemployment, especially in low-skill job areas. Nancy Pelosi and the liberals in Congress who voted to increase the minimum wage might be shocked to learn that their policies have led to a black teen jobless rate of 41.6%, but I'm not. A higher minimum wage forced on businesses by government equals higher unemployment.

H/T Conservative Hideout.

People need to have a job- they need to do something good for society and feeling good about themselves and paying taxes and being a productive member of society and not just be a recipient of the forced generosity of those who do work in society. And one policy change that the federal government and state governments that they could implement that would lead to more people having a job is to lower or repeal minimum wages.

Dr. Gary L. Wolfram, a Professor in Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College, wrote in an editorial that was in the Detroit News called Grow jobs, repeal the minimum wage:

...If we could make the poor better off by simply increasing the minimum wage, why not a minimum wage of $1000 per hour?

The U.S. unemployment rate among16-19 year olds is a staggering 25 percent. In Michigan, 28 percent. That's a recipe for frustrated youths. Often they end up in the underground economy, selling drugs.

It has been estimated that nearly half of Detroit's adult population is functionally illiterate. Michigan's minimum wage keeps these unskilled workers from gaining employment and is partly to blame for the city's high unemployment.

If there were no minimum wage, however, then producers could hire the unskilled and train them. Those of us old enough to remember gas station attendants who washed car windows also remember that many a young person got their first job pumping gas. They learned important job skills that improved their productivity and let them move on to higher-paying occupations.

The minimum wage increases of the last 50 years have eliminated these and other entry level jobs and kept large number of the unskilled dependent upon government for subsistence.

Aside from the harsh unintended consequences, there is also a principle of individual liberty at stake. If you are willing to pay me for my labor at the rate we agree upon, then why should the government tell me that I cannot sell you my labor? Why should a state or local government be able to tell me that I cannot work because I can't produce $7.25 or $7.40 an hour worth of goods and services? Individual freedom depends on the right to one's own labor.

It's time that we restored one of our fundamental freedoms by ending the minimum wage.

These are the very points that I made several months ago in my own editorial, a blog post called Higher Minimum Wage Laws Have Resulted in Higher Unemployment Rates? In that post I wrote:

But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.

The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.

I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean. I do have hard data on unemployment rates...

Oh, I know that many out there feel that any job that doesn't pay someone enough to live a life of luxury is a job not worth having- many liberals and progressives are sure to comment that 'you can't feed your family on a sub-minimum wage'. Maybe you can't, but you can feed them a lot better on a sub-minimum wage than you can on no-wage, and while you are doing that you will be doing something productive for our society, earning important job skills, and even giving a little back to society in taxes. Perhaps you need some assistance after that, but that's not the point here- the point is that minimum wage laws act as a barrier for good things happening for those who don't have jobs.

And those people who earn minimum wage right now are usually not earning that wage for a long time- they use their increased skills to secure wage increases and better opportunities and go forward from there, or if they don't, they likely are lucky that they are protected from competition by these laws that artificially force employers to pay them rates higher than they honestly deserve.

Let's be honest- in the name of making themselves feel better because they are guilty for being successful when they really don't deserve it, many liberals and progressives put in place policies that harm those in our society who need the most help; they put in place minimum wage laws that prohibit people from freely making contracts regarding their labor and wages, they put in place controls on businesses and individuals which hurts their attempts to increase their property and wealth, and they make the lives of those who they force to suck down forced charity a little bit less.

Unlike a Senator or a Congressman or a Judge, one of the most important characteristics needed in a President is leadership. Leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources for the attainment of goals- in other words, Presidential leadership is the ability to maximize taxpayer money and government employee's time in order to to accomplish goals like national security, providing a safety net for members of our nation, protecting the borders, issuing permits, enforcing standards, regulating commerce, and others.

I've written about leadership before, as it is a topic that I am interested in since I am a leader in my classroom, in my school, in my union, in my community, and on the internet. For example, in my post 'Red Wings Provide Lesson in Leadership' I looked at the leadership qualities of the two last captains of the successful Red Wings hockey teams, and evaluated some of our political leaders to see if they had some of the leadership traits that I saw in Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom, such as being calm, cool, collected, controlling the highs and lows, working hard, having poise, humility, grace, humility, modesty, and leading through example.

Yesterday I heard some more about leadership from Howard Putnam at the Get Motivated Business Seminar that was held in Auburn Hills (see my post Get Motivated Business Seminar Review: Powell, Giuliani, Cosby, Putnam, Walsh, and More! for my full review). Mr. Putnam rose through the ranks at Southwest Airlines to become CEO of the company, where he led it to great profitability and success.

According to Putnam, there are several principles of leadership. Let's look at each one, and then evaluate whether Obama, Romney, or I follow these rules on how to be an effective leader:

• Honesty- a leader has to be honest with others and say what he means and mean what he says. Those who know me know that I am honest to a fault- I believe that it is important to always tell the truth and not to lie, fib, tell half-truths, dissemble, or obfuscate. Obama on the other hand does not hold closely to this principle- now that we know him after he emerged from obscurity to win the Presidency, we frequently see him lie about things both large and small- he attributes traits and arguments to his opponents that they do not have, he says his health care law isn't a tax but then goes to court to claim it is, he says to be civil in political discourse and then demonizes his opponents, etc. Romney appears to be a more honest person- he says what he means, and this has often gotten him in trouble, especially with the more conservative members of the Republican establishment. He picks and chooses his words carefully, which makes him come off as cautious, but I believe he does this so that he doesn't say things which he does not believe.
• Passion- a leader has to be passionate about their job. Those who know me know that I am passionate about being a teacher- I spend 80 hours a week during the school year working on my lessons and grading papers and improving my own knowledge of the subject matters that I teach and this passion shows through. President Obama also is passionate- but not about all phases of the Presidency- by his own admission, he enjoys and is passionate about the symbolic aspects of the President and is passionate about the legislative aspects of the President's job, but would rather go on vacation and go golfing rather than spend extra time in the office working on being a good executive or commander in chief. Romney also appears to lack full passion for the job- in 2008 he was cautious and did not go fully in when he ran for President and only recently really seems like he wants the job- I'd like to see more passion from him or else he'll be like the cold and boring and unmotivated McCain and lose the next election.
• Vision- a leader must have a vision of how to be successful and stick to that vision. Obama has a vision- his problem is that his vision of the United States is not a vision that most others share because it is extreme, so he must temper his own vision and try to hide his true intentions about where he wants to take our nation. Perhaps if he was more true to his vision, he would be a better leader. Romney's weakest in this area- sometimes I wonder what his true vision is for the United States and what he really pictures when he pictures the America that he wants after he is done being President. Myself, I have a vision- readers of my blog know that I imagine an America based on our Founding Principles and I've getting a reputation in my school for being very picky about making sure everything in my classroom fits my vision of a successful classroom.
• Authentic- a leader must be true to themselves and who they are. In my classroom, this is a problem, because being a conservative teacher means opening oneself up to criticism and attacks from administration and other teachers, and this is a problem on my blog, because I can't reveal my true name. President Obama shares this same problem- as I touched on above, he is an extreme radical, and would rather be a king of America rather than its President, but yet he can't be these things and he knows it. Romney also has a problem being himself- he is stiff and tense sometimes when giving speeches or talking about policy, and I feel that he is deeply concerned that his religion will hurt him with bigoted citizens of our good nation.
• No ego, no arrogance, and no exclusion- a leader must be willing to admit they are wrong, must be willing to be humble, and must try to make everyone feel welcome to express their ideas. Putman once had everyone in the company write him letters offering suggestions on how to improve efficiency, cut waste, use resources more effectively, and run a successful company- he said he read them all, and let people know that he welcomed all their ideas, even if he later said that some were bad and some he didn't take. A good leader has to be open  to listening to others- I take suggestions in my classroom and even though I don't have to, I have my students write an evaluation of my class at the end of the year and I take these suggestions to heart, even if I don't implement all of them. Romney appears to be a humble person too- sometimes almost to a fault as he doesn't speak often enough about his skills, successes, and his track record of doing good and positive things. Obama, on the other hand, is all about ego and arrogance and is running one of the most closed know-it-all White Houses in history, and we can see the results in the lack of leadership and success in our nation.
• People first- a good leader must put people first, and truly care about others. Myself, I care about every student- other teachers laugh at me when I speak honestly about not wanting to leave a single child behind in education and about the difficulties of getting every single person in my classroom to feel cared for and to learn. Romney also seems to put people first- both times that I have met him in person he shook my hand and looked into my eyes and said hello and thanked me for coming to support him, and seemed to genuinely mean it, and his staff and supporters seem to like him for his support and loyalty. Obama though lacks this important leadership skill too- he is aloof and cold towards others, and his staff has deserted him in droves, and in his pettiness he attacks others and demonizes them rather than really trying to move our nation forward.
• Other traits that Putnam talked about for leaders that he really didn't get into were being a continuous learner, having good communication skills, attempting to move forward, being persistent, understanding technology, and having a global mentality. You can on your own evaluate whether Obama or Romney has these skills.

Yesterday I heard on the radio (760 AM) Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop. As they were interviewed by Paul Smith, they talked about the budget situation in Lansing and the problems there were to getting a budget passed. Both of them implied that the problems with Michigan- the budget problems and the government problems- are caused by a lack of leadership at the top. And they are right.

Michigan's budget problems are directly attributed to Democrat Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and her lack of leadership and communication skills.

During the interview, Dillon said that the reason why Bishop waited so long to pass a continuation budget was because Bishop felt that Granholm would accept this budget and then veto the more permanent budgets the legislature was working on. He wanted to give the Governor a finished permanent budget and have her decide on that, fearing that by passing a continuation budget it would make the process of putting together a budget more contentious and bitter. He was right.

Dillon was also asked if Granholm would veto budget bills that the House and Senate both hammered out after long exhausting hours. He said he didn't think she would, but he didn't know- that she hadn't been involved in the process and what little involvement that the Democratic leader of our state had was wishy-washy, uncommitted, and weak. And that lack of leadership had introduced uncertainty and confusion into the entire process. And he was right.

The problems in our state are responsible in part because voters of our state took a chance on an inexperienced politician with few leadership skills. This caused uncertainty, lack of direction, lack of vision, and confusion to radiate through the entire state government. The weakness at the top of our state contributed to the weakness of our state.

This lack of leadership, vision, and the ability to make touch choices and tough decisions is playing out now at the national level. We have a President who runs the nation much like Granholm ran the state of Michigan, and he will run the nation into the ground due to his lack of leadership skills. Voters need to recognize the choices that they made that took us to this point in our state, and in the future, vote for strong leaders, of either party, who are willing to make tough choices and get things done.

Bishop and Dillon both are doing well in this process and should be judged highly- Granholm is doing poorly and should be judged poorly.

Obviously, if you're reading this, you're no stranger to blogs and the blogging process. But do you use blogs in your classroom?

Blogging in the classroom has the potential to impact you, your students, and your students' families in a HUGE way. There are also ways to blog that involve the entire school. It's a form of communication, of social networking, and of expressing ideas (all all practicing practical reading, writing, and technology skills). I am a firm advocate for blogging in the classroom! Read on to see why.

Benefits of Blogging in the Classroom

1. Students learn and develop critical thinking skills. I usually post a question (or series of questions) or a general topic students need to write about. The questions are open-ended, so no answer is a wrong answer, so long as they can defend their view.  It's critical that our students be able to think for themselves and to justify their beliefs. 
2. Students familiarize themselves with the internet. In order to even get to the blog, students need to utilize specific technological skills (getting to the website, logging in, creating a new post, etc.). Most of my students can navigate the internet for gaming or social networking purposes, but this gives them practice navigating it for educational purposes, as well.
3. Students familiarize themselves with the keyboard. This sounds like such a minute detail, but in this day and age, it's almost unheard of for a new employee (or a young one) to not know his/her way around a keyboard. To get a job these days, it's an unwritten request that a person be an adequate typist. Our society is geared toward technology, and most jobs require some knowledge of technology.
4. Students learn "netetiquette." It's essential that students understand how to conduct themselves online. This includes not only the content of their writing, but also the proper usage of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. I have my students respond to at least 2 other students' blogs. Besides going over the regular "be nice to your neighbor" stuff, we talk about how our blogs are open for the world to see, so the superintendent, parents, or even students from across the world could read what we write. It's wise to sound as intelligent as possible when we write, so I encourage "proper" writing, as opposed to "text-speak." My students have also had to learn that TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IS OFFENSIVE BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK THEY'RE GETTING YELLED AT...so some of them have changed that. :) Furthermore, if we can treat this blog like an actual assignment, maybe students will become accustomed to typing in such a manner that would mimic professional documents' writings: resumes, cover letters, scholarship applications, etc.
5. Students get more practice in the writing process. The computer is a fast way to revise (and RE-revise) your writings. Furthermore, simple spellcheck provides help with the editing, so students get used to seeing words spelled in the correct way. 
6. Students get practice at writing to a prompt (if you post prompts). Lots of state tests now require students to write to a prompt, not to mention they must do it nearly every day in college!
7. Students show their knowledge in current classroom topics (if you post questions). You can check for understanding.

These are just the benefits that popped into my head right away. I'm sure if I sat down and brainstormed for a little bit, I'd come up with several more advantages! So it's easy to see why I think blogging in the classroom is a wonderful idea.

I'm on Board; Now How Do I Start?

If you're worried about your students blogging, you can start small. You, the teacher, can create a blog and pose questions/prompts, and students can merely comment their answers. I find this useful for schools whose population is filled with kids who don't have regular access to the internet.  Simply posting comments doesn't take a lot of time, but it still accomplishes most of the above-stated objectives. For this assignment, you can use a number of blogging websites. Blogspot is popular, as is Wordpress and Xanga. I'm sure you could Google "free blog sites" and come up with quite a few others.

If you're ready to dive right in, you could check out KidBlog. I dislike the name because it sounds so juvenile, but the set-up seems to be meant for teachers. A teacher creates an umbrella blog and adds student users. Each student gets his/her own username and password. The teacher can monitor who can see the blogs (everyone? only those logged in? only those who are a part of the class?), what kinds of comments are left, etc. The teacher also has access to each student's blog, in the event of, er...questionable material (it's bound to happen).

Once you've established your blog, you just need to take care of a few things:

1.  Make sure the school district's computers don't blog the website. Sometimes blogging sites are classified as "social networking," they are blocked on campuses. 
2. Decide on the frequency in which you and/or your students will be posting. 
3. Decide on what kinds of questions or prompts (or both!) will be posted by you.
4. Decide on the grading criteria (if you plan to grade them) with which you will use to give the students credit for their blogs. I ask for a minimum word count on KidBlog, since there's a word count conveniently posted at the bottom of the posting page! You may ask for a paragraph, a full-on essay, a couple of sentences, sentence fragments...whatever. 
5. Decide when the blogs will be due each month. (I make mine due at midnight on the last day of each month.)

What are your thoughts on student blogging? Are there ways in which I can improve my students' blogging experience?

P.S. This link can give you a few more ideas as to how you can use blogging in the classroom.

Sub-Saharan Africa's unbalanced educational terrain with a lack of emphasis on technical and vocational training has mitigated its ability to industrialize. Adrian Ziderman's working paper (PDF), "Financing Vocational Training in Sub-Saharan Africa" provides a roadmap for the financing options and alternatives.It states that the goals of education are "...facilitating the development of effective, efficient, competitive,flexible, and responsive (demand-driven)training systems to meet national economic and social needs, and the needs of individuals...Traditional informal sector training markets, characterized by non-structured, within-firm skills acquisition,have served the sector well. However the system is too narrow to cope with the increasing challenges emanating from technical change, the need for skills enhancement, and the widening of geographical markets. Public institutional training has not been able to adapt to the skills needs of the informal sector. Thus, an increasingly central role for specialized training providers (external to the firm) is now seen, both for entry training into new skill areas and developing markets, as well as for informal sector workers and proprietors..."

Here in Detroit, we have been blessed to have had perhaps two of the greatest leaders in the history of hockey, maybe even in all of sports, in Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom. The former and current captain of the Red Wings hockey team demonstrate the qualities that a good leader should have, and I believe that from them we can learn some larger lessons on leadership that we can then apply to many of our current politicians.

The words that have been used to describe the leadership qualities and skills of these two captains include: Calm, cool, collected, controlling the highs and lows, working hard, poise, humility, grace, humility, modesty, and leading through example. These two captains are not the kind that always feel the need to give speeches about their leadership; rather, they lead. And they rarely seek out awards and accolades; in fact, they both appear uncomfortable with the deserved recognition that they receive for their talents and leadership. In addition to winning numerous individual awards, they have also led the Red Wings to many Stanley Cups and have led teams that have dominated their sport for almost 20 years.

The Red Wings are currently locked in an epic battle with the San Jose Sharks in a series that I honestly wish would never end- two mighty teams locked in a titanic struggle of wills, both teams playing the game the right way, both teams giving it their all, showing the world how awesome hockey is- if this series was played for another dozen games I'd be happy! Watch Game 7 on Thursday at 9:00 pm eastern time.

Contrast the leadership of Stever Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom with the qualities of the current leadership in our nation, both Republican and Democrat. Would you describe Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, or John McCain as calm, cool, collected leaders? I wouldn't- although Obama sometimes appears as a icy professor, his eyes give away that behind that icy facade he is burning with a fire and passion that has driven him to success. Pelosi and Reid and Trump and Gingrich and McCain all are excitable and sometimes shrill leaders; leaders yes, but not the collected types who are under control at all times.

Whereas Yzerman and Lidstrom demonstrate poise and grace, those qualities are absent from Trump and Pelosi and McCain and Reid, who all appear to be more emotional and awkward, whether because of bad hair, shrill speaking, politically-incorrect jokes, or incoherent statements.

Yzerman and Lidstrom are modest and humble; contrast that to spotlight grabbing Obama or Palin, who both can't go a day without bragging about what they do and seeking recognition for their successes.

George W Bush had some of these qualities about him, and I think that explains his growing popularity as we move farther away from his Presidency, and Reagan and FDR and Washington all demonstrated during their presidencies these leadership traits of being cool, collected, humble, modest, graceful, and poised, and under their leadership America got better- maybe not as great as many wanted and perhaps made some mistakes along the way, but they all had the kind of Presidencies where after they were done people looked back and were okay with the direction the nation had gone.

Do any of our political leaders have these qualities and skills? Perhaps Hillary Clinton? Perhaps a Mitt Romney?

Our next President should look to these great Red Wings captains for leadership qualities and skills.

UPDATE: Via ABC News, George W Bush comments on the death of bin Laden... and does not spend an entire speech on all that he did, does not highlight all the work he did trying to catch and kill OBL, and does not try to garb himself in some sort of false populist mantle. Here is what he instead says:

Bush said Obama described in detail the secret mission to raid bin Laden's Pakistani compound and the decision he made to put the plan into motion. He told Obama, "Good call."

"The guy is dead. That is good," Bush said of bin Laden. "Osama's death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader."

"The intelligence services deserve a lot of credit. They built a mosaic of information, piece by piece," he said, claiming no credit for himself.

"I met SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan. They are awesome, skilled, talented and brave," he added. "I said, 'I hope you have everything you need. One guy said, 'We need your permission to go into Pakistan and kick ass.'"

Humility, grace, uncomfortable claiming credit, modest, and cool- traits that Obama would do well to emulate if he wants to be half the quality of a leader as President Bush.

John R. Minnis asserts that;

Education policy in sub-Saharan Africa is predicated on human capital assumptions and therefore promotes the expansion of formal education as a way to promote economic growth. As a result, formal education is valued primarily as a private consumer good, a form of cultural capital that allows some to get ahead and stay ahead, rather than as a public good that also benefits the overall society. In the absence of vibrant industrial labor markets, job prospects for school leavers are poor, which places an inflated premium on educational credentials. The collapse of formal economies combined with high population growth rates suggests that higher social rates of return might accrue from more investments in nonformal adult education aimed at improving the skills and labor productivity of rural populations
,SAGEPub.In other words "Many governments in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to expand formal education in times of economic decline, in the hope that more investment in it will stimulate growth. Unfortunately the skills acquired by graduates cannot be used in the absence of vibrant labour markets. Instead, they compete for scarce white collar jobs in already bloated state bureaucracies...money would be better spent on nonformal education that does not lead to credentials but to useful skills and knowledge that could be used to improve agricultural production.",BritishLib.

One of the other school districts that I worked in has a gifted and talented program that I thought would interest some of my readers because it shows how possible and how extensive the liberal agenda can stretch into the government-run schools in our country.

In some schools, gifted and talented programs for students may offer increased enrichment opportunities, ask students to take more leadership on important issues, hold seminars to improve critical thinking skills, or include visits to local museums. But in other schools, just the the program that I observed in a local middle school, the gifted and talented programs instead are serving as laboratories for molding future communist-left-leaning Democrats.

In this government school, gifted and talented students are usually identified in elementary and middle schools and then put into a program apart from other students, where they learn and work on an additional or alternative curriculum. They are told over and over that they are not different from other students, just unique- separate, but equal. Myself, I'd just tell these students the truth- 'hey, you're farther along and advancing more rapidly, so let's put you in a different class or give you additional projects and challenge you.' But the liberals who run the education system instead say to these students 'we're all equal, but we're going to put you in a special class to mold your unique skills.'

And the scary part is what they are trying to mold the best and brightest into. Apparently what this school is trying to mod its most gifted and talented students into is government planners, communists, bureaucrats, and solid liberal Democrats. They do this molding in several ways.

These gifted and talented students have to create and run United Nations type projects. That is, the United Nations projects that are funded with other people's money, unaccountable, full of corruption, and tend to make the situation they are supposed to 'fix' worse. Students work on projects that have to deal with environmentalism (how to force businesses through government power to do certain things, or propose laws to do this, etc.), global appeasement policies (peace on earth, how to stop the war, stop the war in Iraq, how to make friends with France, etc.), tax and spend schemes (pretend money comes from air and isn't stolen from hard working people's pockets, and think up ways to spend it, etc.), wealth-redistribution schemes (collect for charities, can drives, etc.), and focus on human rights abuses (especially caused by the US).

The gifted and talented programs that some government-run school districts are setting up for their impressionable youth steer clear and never mention anything related to individualism, morality, or personal rights. In fact, not a single project touched on those issues. The goal apparently with these programs is to emphasis themes of government control and elitism, but steer clear of morality, individual rights, and individual responsibility.

The students get the time to put together these projects by being pulled out of classes that are deemed 'unimportant' by the liberal elites who run the school- they are pulled out of business or economics classes, they are pulled out of shop, home economics, or auto mechanics classes, and they are pulled out of gym and physical education classes. According to the liberals who run the school, these are 'dumb' classes for the 'dumber students', and the gifted and talented students should instead be learning how to rule us, make decisions for us, and control our behaviors.

Where gifted and talented students could take on more real life examples and challenges, and begin to train to be our future business leaders, and improve their discipline and teamwork skills, and be part of the tradition that made our nation great once- skilled mechanics, dedicated farmers, good shop keepers, smart accountants, and hard-working factory workers- these students instead spend vastly more time talking and learning about government intervention in business and society in the belief that if our country had more lawyers, bureaucrats, and communist leftist pinko's, it would be a better country.

It is a scary thought- in schools all around the nation, our future leaders- our most gifted and talented- are being put into government re-education programs designed to make students into liberal Democrats. Scary indeed.

I recently got the opportunity to review both of Dr. Erica Warren's Following Directions workbooks, and I wanted to tell you what I think.

Before we begin, let me just say that Dr. Warren gave these workbooks to me for free, asking if I would review them on my blog. I am not getting any more compensation than just the workbooks themselves for writing this post, and I would never endorse any product I didn't fully believe in.

With that said, let's talk specifically about Warren's two Following Directions workbooks. The workbooks I sampled are called Following Directions (An Intermediate Workbook 1) and Following Directions: The Easy Way (A Beginner's Workbook 1).

The concept for both of the workbooks is the same: we want to condition our students to pay closer attention to directions and be able to follow directions quickly but accurately. To an extent, these workbooks somewhat reminded me of those "April Fool's Day" following-directions sheets that teachers sometimes give to play a joke on their students, like this:

This (obviously used) April Fool's Day prank was found here.

But unlike the April Fool's Day sheets like the one featured above, Warren's workbooks will not embarrass any student who do not follow the directions precisely (no one has to yell a sentence about their school pride or clap their hands twice during these workbooks! lol).

To help condition students to follow directions, Warren has created a series of worksheet pages with a grid of pictures, numbers, or letters on it. Above the grid is a set of step-by-step instructions as to what the student should do on the grid. Here is a sneak peak at the example page from her Following Directions: The Fun and Easy Way (A Beginners Workbook 1) book:





This is just a simple grid -- the grids and instructions get larger and more complex as you move through the book.

One thing I like about these books is that these grids aren't just practice on following directions. Sure, these worksheets will help students practice following written directions. But I personally think they will also help students exercise their "critical thinking skills" muscle. You see, the directions aren't always clear when you first read them. For instance, one of the directions I saw said, "I am in one of the rows above the second-to-last row." Even as an adult, I had to stop and think about what that really meant. Another line of directions said, "I am a consonant." For this, not only do students need to know the difference between a consonant and a vowel, but they also have to reason that if our answer is a consonant, our answer cannot be a vowel; therefore, we need to cross out all vowels.

As I'm writing this, I'm reminded of the logic grids my 6th grade science teacher used to give us:

This particular puzzle can be found here.

I, for one, love using logic puzzles in the classroom because I feel that most students need to practice those much-needed critical thinking skills, and these are the perfect way to do so. (By the way, Puzzle Baron has actual books you buy that contain paper copies of all of their logic grids. Find one here
.)

Anyway, I think Warren's "Following Directions" workbooks could help students in a variety of ways. There are directional words in almost every line of directions, so students could practice directions and prepositions. There are math words such as "less than," "odd," "trapezoid" with which students will become familiar. There is even some science in these sheets: "I need water to live," and "Sunlight is my food" are two examples. All in all, I think that if you want to give your students practice at following directions (and a few other things), these workbooks are a good buy.

Warren offers a free sample of a Following Directions book on her Teachers Pay Teachers page.

If you'd like to read the reviews and/or purchase one or both of these books, click the images below to be taken to their product listings on Amazon.





Even if you don't want to use these pages as actual activities in your classroom, I think they could still be useful as bellwork or "what to do when you're done" activities for those early-finishers. If nothing else, the critical thinking skills students would build from doing these pages could probably prepare students to achieve higher test scores on those state-mandated exams!

If someone has been wronged or there is some sort of problem, a personal phone call from the President of the United States can be an important piece to improved understanding of the problems and can help to get past any sort of communication issues that are out there. The office of the President is one that is filled with prestige and honor, and a phone call from him that carries the weight of that august office can go far in putting pressure on people to overcome problems or calm down inflamed emotions and right wrongs. But the President's time is valuable and important, so it understandable if his personal touch isn't applied to every situation in the form of a personal phone call and it is okay if he sometimes waits several days before talking to people who are important or who have been wronged.

The important quality for the President of the United States to have is the judgement and decision-making skills to determine who he should take the time to call and when he should decide to just sit it out and not get involved. It is important that the President have the sound judgement to focus on the important issues facing our nation and use his office and the power that goes with it to improve situations and smooth past difficult issues. It is important that the President be able to decide when to use his office to bring light to issues and focus public attention on them with a phone call.

President Barack Obama (Democrat) lacks sound judgement and proper decision making when it comes to making personal phone calls and when to make them.

On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, resulting in a severe oil spill from the ruptured well. BP, which had employed Deepwater Horizon to drill on its Macondo Prospect, immediately began to work with the a range of U.S. federal government agencies and assets to try to reduce the flow of oil into the Gulf, figure out what happened, and try to assess blame and responsibility for the large oil spill. There were a lot of moving and complicated aspects of the US government tied up in this effort, and to coordinate them and make sure that they were used properly at some point the President of the United States should have talked with top level decision makers in BP, including its CEO Tony Hayward.

But for over two months, President Obama did not talk to the CEO of BP and did not make a personal phone call to him to discuss efforts to limit the oil spill, to figure out why the oil spill happened, or to figure out how to overcome the important issues that the spill brought up. This represented an important failure in judgement and a bad decision; a phone call between the President and the CEO of BP could have resulted in more coordination between BP and the US and more understanding of how and why the accident happened, resulting in less oil spilled, less wildlife killed, and a quicker resumption of drilling in the gulf and the lower oil prices and greater economic growth that would have resulted form this. Obama eventually did meet with the CEO, but it took him over two months to do so.

In contrast, two days after radio show host Rush Limbaugh called community activist Sandra Fluke a slut, President Obama took time out of his busy day to make a personal phone call to her to "offer his support to her, he wanted to express his disappointment that she has been the subject of inappropriate personal attacks and to thank her for exercising her rights as a citizen to speak out on an issue of public policy."

The quick personal phone call, especially in light of his two month long wait before calling the CEO of BP after the oil spill earlier, and the fact that he would use the office of the President to call a private citizen and apologize to her for the comments of a private radio host represents a failure of President Barack Obama's judgement and decision making with who receives a personal phone call from the President of the United States. His office phone, rather than being used to coordinate the assets of the United States or figure out how to avoid oil spills in the future, was used instead to make a quick phone call to a private citizen to give official support for their views and to side with her in a controversy between her and a radio host who is trying to generate ratings.

President Obama, rather than following important events around the world and with our economy, clearly is just sitting in the White House listening to talk radio and making phone calls to people mentioned on talk radio stations. The President did not call the CEO of BP earlier about the oil spill, even though he was called many names by bloggers, radio show hosts, and comedians, further demonstrating his poor judgement and poor decision making skills.

Our nation needs someone who understands how and when and why the President of the United States should call people, and these two examples clearly indicate that Barack Obama is lacking in judgement and decision making. We need to- and can- replace him in 2012 with someone with better judgement and decision-making skills, someone who understands that the CEO of BP should have been called in two days and that a private citizen who is called a name by a radio show host should not receive a phone call from the President.

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) is a good Representative to the United States Congress and is a good advocate for libertarian views on public policy positions- but he should in no way be considered for the office of the President of the United States of America. This means that he should not be encouraged or supported in any effort to do so through support in straw polls, campaign donations, or nice comments online, and that he should not fan any sort of flames for a Paul Presidency by running. He should drop out of the race for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party and not even hint or flirt about running for President again.

Ron Paul has no executive experience, and our next President of the United States should have executive experience. This does not mean that Paul doesn't have good ideas- he does have a lot of good ideas- but the proper place for a guy with lots of good ideas in our political system is in our legislative branch, not our executive branch. The President of the United States is essentially a clerk in our system, organizing and leading all the various agencies and departments and satisfying other important roles like chief of state and commander-in-chief. Even in his ability as commander-in-chief though the President is not really a man of ideas and new policies- he is the chief executive officer in charge of our military, providing direction and guidance and leadership but not really driving policies. The main job of the office is simply to oversee the whole process as something like a CEO of our government- and Ron Paul has never done this in any governmental unit, not as Director or Secretary of any agency, not as Governor, and hasn't even had any sort of leadership roles within his party that might prepare him to these tasks. He is simply unqualified to be an executive- much as our President today was, and we see the results of it now.

The President of the United States is expected to be a great communicator, decision maker, leader, and manager; all roles that Ron Paul may be good at, but are not the main reasons why his supporters like him. He can communicate- but is not renowned as a speaker or communicator, and this is something that a President must be able to do very well. President Reagan was a great communicator- President Obama, especially in the absence of his teleprompter and prepared speeches, is not (although he is a great speaker of prepared speeches), and that's why he makes a bad President and why Ron Paul would to.

The President of the United States must be a manager, presiding over the nation's day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year operations. He has to be able to oversee the vast operations of the massive government bureaucracy so that there is no corruption and misuse of funds and missions; and yet he has to be detached enough from the process to be able to see the big picture and provide clear direction and leadership to the operations of the state. Even Ron Paul supporters would be hard pressed to argue that their guy would be great at this aspect of the job- the day-to-day management of the vast enterprise of USA Inc- and yet this is a major aspect of the job of President.

Ron Paul, drop out of the race. Your supporters need to begin to look elsewhere for the next person that will lead our nation, a person who has the skills and competence and demonstrated executive experience to run the vast operations that is America. Your supporters need to begin to evaluate whether the other candidates for the job have the right skills, vision, dedication, and background to successful be a clerk, a CEO, and a manager for our nation, and thereby fill the void that is in the executive branch right now. No longer can (or should) our nation accept incompetence and inexperience masquerading as passion and ideology in the White House- no, we demand a real grown-up in this august office, one who can move the machinery of state and slowly fade back into the background while people with ideas pass laws out of the legislative branch that direct our executive and tell him which way to move the levers of the state.

Ron Paul, be a legislator, and a great one at that; but drop out of the race to be the chief executive of our nation, because it is not the right office for you, and your supporters are needed in helping choose the right person for this job.

To see other posts regarding my thoughts on Ron Paul, check out Ron Paul is Not the Future of the GOP or Abandon the Libertarian Party and 'Tea Party' and other Third Parties- Vote GOP You Fools.

UPDATE: It is amusing to get emails from so-called 'conservatives' and 'libertarians' who want Ron Paul to rule our nation as a king and use his position as executive to jam down his legislative policy on the serfs of our nation. Read Hamilton and Madison and go back and look at the Presidencies of Washington and Jefferson and Madison- they were merely clerks in our system, good managers, and good executives. So you better examine your motives for wanting Ron Paul to be President before you start emailing me- some of you are no better than Obama supporters in that you want a king to rule over us, the only difference is that the king you want is from Texas and talks a good game about libertarian and conservative values.

UPDATE II: My argument is based in part on my reading and understanding of professor Richard Neustadt's book Presidential Power, in which he examined the decision-making process at the highest levels of government. He argued that the President is actually rather weak in the U.S. government, being unable to effect significant change without the approval of the Congress, and that in practice the President must rely on a combination of personal persuasion, professional reputation "inside the Beltway", and public prestige to get things done. These very skills are ones that Paul seems to be lacking in, and thus he would make a poor President. Oh, I know he promises hope and change and speaks a good game, but we've already got a Democratic version of that in the White House, and we can see how badly it is working out, so why would we want a Libertarian or GOP version of hope-and-change-and-rhetoric?


UPDATE III: Please be sure to read my more updated post on this topic called Elect a 'Clerk' For President in 2012 and Restore Founding Father's Vision of Executive Branch? where I argue that our Founding Fathers and modern-day libertarians and Tea Partiers should be supporting a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc, and not a right-wing version of hope-and-change (like Ron Paul). Be sure to read it here!

 Excellence in education includes global collaboration. No doubt about it, students are the greatest textbooks written for each other. 


This fall is the 5 year anniversary of our Flat Classroom projects. Amazingly, in that time, more students and educators have collaborated together through this program than live in my tiny hometown of Camilla, Georgia! 


Global collaboration is never about one person or one organization but has become a movement in many places and through many websites. It is our goal with the Flat Classroom projects to be the best and helping students and educators understand the power of true asynchronous collaboration with as much synchronous as we can get in. The concept of merging classrooms in excellence, collaborative learning experiences is our aim and we believe most of our classrooms are achieving that.


So, you are excited about the possibilities and want to join in? Here are some ways. 


Teachers in the classroom:
See application information in press release by scrolling down.

• High School - Flat Classroom project and/or NetGen Ed to teach your students about the emerging trends in technology with experiential knowledge as well as authentic research and video creation. Read more.
  
• Middle/ early high school - Digiteen project for experiential digital citizenship research (run through our nonprofit) Read more.
  
• Elementary - A week in the life elementary project. Read more.
  
• Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Program. We will run 3 of these in the 2011-2012 school year using our new book, Flattening Classrooms, Expanding Minds. Designed as a rigorous challenge, based process, you will emerge with a project designed with a group of your classmates.  Read more.
  
• Submit your collaborative writing story. If you are using collaborative writing in the classroom, share your story. My second book is on collaborative writing and it will be published with Eye on Education. We've set up a website so you can share your story for review to include in the book. Anything I write will never just be my story but yours too! Please share!

 Anyone

• International book club starting February 1st using our new book on the pedagogy of global collaboration in the classroom. Ben and Neil at @engaginged are going to help us run this book club. Sign up now.
  
• Run a book club with your own group and let us know so we can plan to interact with you, if possible.
  
• Flat Classroom mini-conference at ASB Unplugged in Mumbai, India in February 2012. Bring students or join us for the workshop. Julie, Vicki, and Kim Cofino will be leading workshops for students and teachers at this event.
  
• Sign up to review our book. While we only have a few copies available, we are taking applications for: a) bloggers/ influencers who would like an advance copy of the book to review and b) people who make purchasing decisions and would like an advance copy for potential integration into courses or pd. 
  
• Support us. We have a non-profit that runs our Digiteen project and provides scholarships to students to our Flat Classroom workshops. Feel free to support our organization if it fits with your personal mission.
  
• Read the book. Sign up to get a notice when the book comes out. If you just want to know when the book hits the shelves, mailboxes, and ebook readers, you can fill out the form on our book homepage to have this come to you.
  
• Read stories of global collaboration. Our Flat Classroom certified teachers and project organizers have a lively tumblr blog sharing stories and things to do with global collaboration. You'll want to follow it. http://flatclassroom.tumblr.com/
  
• Join the conversations. We have a Facebook page for announcements and an intimate Facebook group where we plan and talk. Our Flatclassrooms Ning is also a core component of our certified teacher program and the online sharing hub for our new book. Our #flatclass hashtag is also a place where we will share conversation about the pedagogy of global collaboration in the classroom and content around the book. We are also on Twitter at @flatclassroom @digiteen @netgened

<hr>
Current Press Releases for our Projects
Flat Classroom Project Applications Now Open
Applications are invited now for a selection of internationally recognised and award winning global projects run by Flat Classroom® to start in September 2011. Co-founders Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay are excited to be offering these opportunities for classrooms globally to connect, co-create and learn together in a carefully designed and supported digital environment.

The Digiteen™ Project explores digital citizenship through interaction and provides an opportunity for students to not only talk about digital citizenship, but experience via online connection, collaboration, shared research and presentation. It also has an action project component where a classroom designs an action to be carried out in their own school community and then shared back to the global partnership.

The Flat Classroom® Project is designed to develop cultural understanding, skills with Web 2.0 and other software, experience in global collaboration and online learning, awareness of what it means to live and work in a flat world, while researching and discussing the ideas developed in Friedman's book.

The ‘A Week in the Life...’ Project aims to join Elementary School classrooms globally with a view to exploring what life is like in each area/country through discussion, sharing and collecting multimedia to create final products together. The curriculum focus is Interdisciplinary, how we live, how we communicate, cultural understanding and awareness.

Entry to a each project is via application and subscription. In order to help meet the subscription price, teachers can apply for a limited number of sweat equity positions as ‘lead teachers’.

All details for each of these outstanding projects can be found linked from the Flat Classroom® website. We welcome inquiries to fcp@flatclassroom.org


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Flat Classroom Certified Teacher
read the Full details at http://tinyurl.com/flatclassteachercert

Aims of the course 
The Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher course aims to train educators to be able to manage a global collaborative project built upon best practices of student collaboration and co-creation as modeled in the Flat Classroom projects including: Flat Classroom, Eracism, NetGenEd, Digiteen™, and ‘ A Week in the Life...’ projects. It also aims to provide an opportunity for those interested in managing a Flat Classroom Project in the future as part of the lead teacher program beginning in March 2011 to develop skills and experience with all facets of the project.
 
Certified Flat Classroom® teachers will become leaders in global collaboration within their schools and internationally and will be sought as partners by those planning global collaboration because of their proven competencies in the technology, technopersonal skills, and best practices of effective global collaborative projects. Those who earn this designation will have proven their competency through this rigorous course.

Structure
The course will run for approximately three months. Participants will be involved with one or more of the Flat Classroom projects and also complete the “Flat Classroom Fifteen” challenges as will be in the upcoming book (January 2012 launch, Pearson Education) on global collaboration from Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, ‘Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds’. Participants will have exclusive access to private content from the authors and co-creators of the project as part of this program.

FC Certified Teacher 11-2, the following timeline is applicable:

• Application Deadline: September 15
• Online Teacher Information meeting before September 15
• There are Twelve Weeks to this course, September 19-December 9
• There are NINE Modules to complete
• Each module has Flat Classroom® Challenges and Personal Journal work to complete
• There will be an online meeting for each module held in Elluminate
• Participants will get time beyond the 12 weeks to complete all process journal and unit work
• Graduation: January 2012

In addition:

• FCCT 11-3 November 2011 - March 2012
• FCCT 12-1 March - June 2012

Application Process
Educators and education leaders are invited to apply for a course according to the deadlines and starting dates as listed above.

Application Form: http://tinyurl.com/flatclassteachercertapply

Inquiries: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Related Blog Posts

• Flat Classroom Projects applications now open for elementary, middle school, and high school projects (flatclassrooms.ning.com)
• Announcing 3 Flat Classroom Certified Teacher (FCCT) courses in 2011-2012.(flatclassrooms.ning.com)