An Honest Discussion

(NOTE: This post evolved from a comment I made on Justin's post yesterday.)

Wednesday, in my class, as my students were supposed to be working on their projects, a discussion broke out. Initially, it was just one group, but it quickly became an entire class discussion, while I looked on in amazement. They were talking about the most recent all school assembly. A speaker had come to talk about bullying and self-harm. This quickly became a discussion about "actions, not words" and how we, as a school community, are so sheltered and "need a reality check" as one of my students put it.

"So many people tweeted about how 'ohhh this was so powerful and changed my life,'" said C, "but you know they are just going to go out and party and forget it in 2 or so weeks."

The rest of the class, to my amazement, agreed with her.

My students commented that this "random routine" doesn't allow for "real learning." (Their words, not mine.) "We need space to talk as a community. There is no school community here," said M.

I found this extremely powerful. For the first time, students were opening up to each other, in a student led discussion, while I, the teacher, looked on and simply listened.

"Can we please have a period like this every day?" asked A, who doesn't normally present as thoughtful, but contributed quite a bit to this discussion. "At the end, we really don't learn anything from taking notes and studying for tests and listening to lectures."

"I'm sorry we didn't get work done today," K apologized at the end of class.

I told her that if we had REALLY needed to get the work done by Friday, I would have stopped the discussion. I mean, it's not like I couldn't hear it. But this was clearly a discussion that needed to happen. And besides, it was as fascinating to me as it was to them!

When are we going to start listening to these discussions? When will there be time to have them? When can we break out of this "complacent routine" and actually start learning?

Community and Hate

If you're on Facebook at all, you've seen tons of red for Marriage Equality.  I cannot tell you how many people I have seen post a status about how excited they are to see all the red on their timelines.

There is a community here, right?  This one even goes across party lines in some cases.  Support Marriage Equality.

It is also Passover.  This story, told to me by my friend Diana, inspired today's post: Diana and her family were invited to a seder by a friend of theirs.  They were walking to their friend's house and a man protesting Marriage Equality walks up to them, holding, as she described it, "a seriously derogatory sign."  He started preaching at them about how "Gays will go to Hell and our Nation will be Damned if we let Gays marry."  Diana politely asked the man to go away. He didn't.  She asked him once again to take his message of hate away from her children.  Thankfully, the light changed, but the man delivered one final message to her and her family as they crossed the street, "You're going to Hell!" 

Diana was, understandably, I think, incensed.  I believe in freedom. I believe in free speech.  I do not believe in preaching.  I believe that people are entitled to their opinion, no matter what mine is.  I do my best to respect their opinions.  I still do not believe in what I call "street Preaching."  Don't preach to someone who doesn't want to hear it.  

I do not deny that it is possible to build a community around hate.  But what happens with that community?  It is, I believe, a competitive "community."  A group united against something, who takes their victories in making others unhappy.  

There have been many studies done that conclude that the best relief for stress and the best thing for your own happiness is to help others.  So what does happen to those who hate so vehemently?  

I don't have answers to those questions.  But I believe that they must be considered as we move forward, both in building education and building communities in general.

Age Quod Agis

From the time I was first starting school, my parents always had one message for me:  "Do Your Best." This didn't mean getting A's.  It meant doing whatever was my best.  B's on math assignments were fine.  That was truly the best I had.  I was a horrible math student.

These days, I have to have constant conversations with my students about doing their best.  Why? Because they are taught that "adequate" is acceptable.  All the time.  A B on an assignment is fine.  Heck, anything that lets them pass.

The high school I went to had one simple motto:  "Age Quod Agis."  It means: "Do what you do." But as we always were reminded, "And Do It As Well As Possible," is implied.

So here's my question:

When did it become acceptable to do less than your best on an assignment?

I cannot stand the culture that says doing less than your best is OK.  To make amazing changes and innovations, you need to do your best on everything.  In order to satisfy customers in your business, you need to do your best on everything all the time.  And we wonder why clothing is made so low quality these days.  Or why you have to take your car in all the time, even when you are sure you just got it fixed.

I am always so excited when I find a plumber I can trust, or a mechanic who always does his best on everything.  And why am I amazed that I found them?  Shouldn't everyone do their best on everything?

So help me out here...Have you seen this culture as well?  What can we do to bring about change and ask everyone's best?

Routines

When I was a child, my parents set routines around the house.  For example, when I came home from school, I could have a snack and relax for 45 minutes before heading up to my room to work on homework.

This was something that happened every day.  As I grew older and got busier, we had to modify it, but there was still a routine in place.  And as my parents set routines, they always gave me a reason--a good reason--as to why we do what we are doing.

To my students these days, there is no concept of routine.  Everything appears random. As I said on Justin's post yesterday:  "One of my students just came in and asked me for advice:  He has a History test, a Chem test, and a speech for Speech Class tomorrow...and no time to study, since he has all of this other homework.  How should he work on this?  "

This is typical of my students--and they are some of the "top students" in the school.  But they have never learned how to study, set routines, self discipline, or even how to outline.  

I spent a long time talking with my student about how to best structure his studying...and by that point other students had come to class.  We had a LONG discussion about what my students' nightly routines were and how they could be more productive while still getting "chill time."  

They thought that this was AMAZING.  We're going to try an experiment: We all promise to try setting routines for ourselves for a month and we see what happens and check in with each other about it.  

I am curious to see what will come of that!!

Do you find setting routines helpful?  Were you a child who had set routines, or did you learn to set them later in life?  Or did you have routines that didn't work for you and you had to find new ones?  Have you had to have similar conversations with your students?  Tell me more!  

Within the Context of the Whole....

So I'm going to start today off with a song.

Did you watch it?  Please watch it.  This will make so much more sense if you do.

So this song is called "Beetz In My Salad," by the amazing artists SJ Tucker and Big Bad Gina.

I love this song for so many reasons, but I guess my favorite is that it talks about supporting community and even brings in a social justice angle.

So, I've talked a lot about being the change and learning to listen and understand.  I've talked about building community and about altrusim.

Let's tie it together a bit.  In order to make the change we want to happen happen, we need to bring our "ingredient of choice" to the proverbial community salad.  In order to make this happen, we must connect with our kindred fish, and even non-kindred fish.  We must listen and try to understand them, and help them to understand us.  Sure this sounds idealistic, but the more people who can bring something to the community salad, even if it's just an open mind, will be what will bring about a positive change in our communities, especially in education. 

As the song says: "We all become important when we realize our goal should be to figure out our role within the context of the whole."  When we can meet at the proverbial community salad bar, and eat something to which we all contributed, our goal will be achieved.

What does this require of us?  Open minds, networking, altruism, and listening.  What is out there?  What is needed to bring about positive change?  What do people want? What do they need?  Henry Ford is famously quoted as saying, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."  So, let me add one more thing: innovation.  The innovation ties in with the other four.  In order to bring about the change that needs to happen, we need to work together, keep open minds, listen to our collaborators, and network with other collaborators.  

Alright, so what are you going to bring to the Community Salad?  And how are we going to create the Community Salad Bar?

Appreciation

Recently, in a conversation with my department head, I was told, "Thank you so much for the work you do.  The only reason that Latin did not die at this school this year is because of you.  And because of you, it will continue.  We all appreciate everything you've done!"

I was flabbergasted.  That was the probably the 4th time in my teaching career that I have received a heartfelt, sincere thank-you from someone who was not a student or a parent.

For once, I truly felt appreciated.  

So what does it mean to be appreciated anyway? 

I don't believe it means spending that one week out of the year to serve teachers coffee and donuts, though the price break on teacher supplies is nice (Thanks OfficeMax/Staples!)  Believe me, I like the donuts and coffee too.  But that doesn't really make me feel valued as a school employee. 

So what does?  Not having to beg for the supplies I need.  Not having to justify everything (within reason) I want to do with my students.  Not being infantilized.  Not being treated with an attitude of, "Well, you're just a teacher...."  Being listened to when I talk, when I ask questions, when I try to start a dialogue. 

My students find this too.  We always talk about appreciation and thankfulness at the beginning of the year.  Often, when I solicit feedback from my students, they tell me that I am the only teacher (or one of the few teachers) who appreciates them as a fellow human being, and not a 2 year old.  (I argue that 2 year olds are human beings too, but you get the idea.)   Why is this?  When I ask, I get responses such as, "Because you listen to us," "because you don't scream at us when we make a mistake," "because you treat us like we're smart, rather than treating us like we're stupid."

And it makes me sad.  What would happen if we built a true community on appreciation and open dialogue and discussion?  How could we do this?  Would we teachers lose our "authority"?  Did we even have it in the first place?

And what would happen for the teachers?  What would it mean for conversations with the administration and between teachers?

What does being appreciated mean for you? How do we create a culture of sincere appreciation for what we all do?

Padawan

My first year teaching, I was working at a private school in a 1 year sabbatical replacement position.  All of the teachers were assigned advisories, a group of 14 students for whom you were the primary contact point, and in-school-parent, for lack of a better term.

One of my advisory students was G, a 7th grade boy.  G was in an unfortunate position: he had an exceptional older brother, but was not "living up to" what his brother could do.  Testing revealed he had a few learning issues, that could be eased with the help of a laptop and provision to type notes, tests, quizzes, and exams.  The school, however, was hesitant.  He "was only in 7th grade," "could try harder," and "would get distracted by the laptop."  His parents recognized that G was different than his brother, and fought hard for him as an individual.  I did as well.  But all the school could think about, it seemed, was his brother, and how G was "a slacker" compared to him.

On one occasion, I had met with the Dean to discuss G's situation.  At the conclusion of our meeting, she said something to the effect of: "I have to tell you, Emily, if you don't stop caring and keep fighting for your students like this, you are going to get yourself in serious trouble."

I was so taken aback, I didn't know what to say.  I simply left her office, hurried back to my classroom, shut the door, and sobbed.

What the hell could that possibly have meant?  I realized then and there that nobody speaks for the students. Nobody speaks for the teachers either.  Even worse, nobody lets the students or the teachers speak for themselves.  If you CARE, you are a PROBLEM.  Why the hell is caring an issue?

Because you are making it hard for Them.  You're being a fire-starter.  God forbid we actually get to know our students, like they tell us to do.  At the time the Dean told me what she told me, I believed I had simply been doing my job--being the advocate for my student that they had told me was my job at the beginning of the year.  I had even made "a personal connection" with my student, via the shared interest of music, as They had told me at the beginning of the year to do.   So why do they tell us this if they don't want us to do it?

(And yet, so often from other teachers, I hear that the students "don't care..."  Think about the conflicting messages here....)

What kind of Padawans are They training us to be?  What do They THINK They are training us to be?  We are told so many conflicting things--sent so many conflicting messages...and we pass them on to our own Padawans.

So how do we end that cycle?  We have to be the change.  And yet, it is so hard when the administrators and even some other teachers still seem to think that caring is a problem.  So how do we learn to break the cycle?

Silenced Voices?

Justin's post yesterday got me thinking about silenced voices in school settings.  He focused on the voices of students being silenced...but I see another issue: the voices of teachers. 

They--"those administrators"--often ask for teacher opinions.  However, in my experience, they want the teachers to say "Yessss, master.  Whatever you wish."  "Those teachers" who go against what They want are rarely listened to, and often silenced.  Sometimes, they are persecuted to the point of them leaving the school. 

How many of us have been there?  How many of us have learned to stoically hold our tongues so that we keep our jobs?

We are the fire-starters, the troublemakers, whatever you want to call us.  Whether we are outspoken or subversive, we are still "causing trouble." Why?  Because we aren't just "going along with it"--shutting up, putting our heads down, and doing the work.  We are making it harder for Them--the administrators.  We're "those Students"--the ones that ask questions and persist and argue until they get an answer. 

I was talking with Justin yesterday and he mentioned that all the teachers and admin at his school want is for their school to be "good and adequate."  I said, "Why not exceptional?" And he replied, "Because exceptional is too hard."  I sighed.  Why can't we shoot for the stars?  Are we really that complacent?  Or do we have that much inertia?  I mean yes, work is hard.  But three Latin quotes push me forward as I think about this:

Ad astra per aspera.  (To the stars through hard times.)
Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.  (There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.)
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam. (I will either find a way or I will make one.)

Google+, Twitter, wherever we find our kindred fish, tell us we are not crazy.  But how hard is it to believe that when we're silenced in our schools?

So it's hard for us to make sure our voices are valued, but how do we make sure that we are not silenced?  What can be done to open the deaf ears of the 20th Century schools?

Community, Networking, and Tech

This post touches on two interesting points of inspiration for me--a rehearsal on Sunday, and Gerol's comment on my post yesterday.

I'll start with the rehearsal.  I am a member of a small Acapella group.   One of the other women in the group, R, often hosts rehearsal at her house.  So I wander in to her house on Sunday, early to rehearsal, and a bit pensive after the CANE meeting.  She and I are chatting before rehearsal starts and I notice a book, which has also recently become topical to my life, lying on her floor.  So I ask her about the book.  She laughs, and says "Oh no!  I forgot to put it away."  We keep talking about the book, and realize that this is now topical to both of us.  "Oh my gods--Can we keep talking about this?" she asks.  "It's so weird to have to approach a huge, life changing decision without someone else to talk to!"  I agreed completely...and voila, we now have each other to talk to. 

Gerol expanded on the topic of connections and networking, with respect to human foundations for the connections we're making.  Yesterday, he wrote: "If students don't learn how to approach each other, or teachers, or peers, or colleagues, they bear a deficit that no video lecture will fill."

Isn't that the truth?!  People need to learn how to approach other people face-to-face as well, or if necessary, to put a personal touch on technological interaction.

We can build communities via technology, sure, but our students need to know how to interact with the face-to-face world as well.  Even for--actually especially for--those "difficult conversations."  In the case of my friend R and I, my one question and a short conversation, built an even stronger friendship and community bond.

Take the case of my co-editor-ship of the CANE newsletter.  In perusing the book selections CANEPress had available, I was just making small talk with a fellow teacher about reaching out to other teachers and how sad it was the the old CANE newsletter had died.  Suddenly, she mentioned she wanted to start a blog, but really didn't want to go it alone...and bam! We were engrossed in what would become a 45 minute conversation about how we would do this and could we make it the new CANE newsletter.  We kept in touch after last years' CANE conference, and made it happen. 

I often bring these stories/experiences back to share with my students.  What happened at the latest conference?  What cool ideas did I get from other teachers?  Like Gerol said, it helps model for the students.

So, in this world, full of technology, how do we build more community?  How do we network?  How do we teach students the importance of networking and personalization? 

Connections

So this weekend was the Annual Classical Association of New England (CANE) conference. It's a Friday-Saturday conference, so, on Thursday, I was explaining to my classes that I wouldn't be there.  I was off to yet another conference.

My students, especially my Juniors and Seniors, were fascinated and curious.  "How do you get all of these connections?" one of them asked me.  "You know soooo many people!" said another.

So I started telling them about how I just started going to conferences as an in-my-first-few-years teacher and talked to people.  I asked presenters about things that worked for them, talked to vendors, and met other people who were friends with people I already knew.

Part of it, I know, was me not being afraid to chat with people, even those I didn't know.  It's how I got involved with The Pericles Group.  I simply said hi, asked them about what they do, where they teach, which invariably led to some interesting connection with what you do, or someone you know, followed up with an email, and just kept in touch.   It's the same way that I became one of the co-editors for the new version of the CANE newsletter.  It all started with a simple conversation with someone I barely knew...

And it occurred to me that my students had no idea of how to network.  Come to think of it, I don't even know where I learned it.  I have a good feeling, though, that it started with my parents, both masters of the personal touch in contacting people.  My parents always stressed writing thank you notes, be it for gifts or for interviews or for people writing recommendations for me.  You get the idea.  "Be sure you personalize it," my mom once said, regarding a thank you note for an interview.  "Try to pick three things out of the conversation you had with the person and highlight them in your note.  Then, they'll know you remember them and you care." 

I tried to get this across to my students.  They were all amazed.  No one had ever told them this.  Ever.  And they hadn't remembered to write thank you notes to their college interviewers.  I felt terrible.  Why are they not learning these skills?

Sometimes, a firm handshake, friendly demeanor, and a personal email/note is all it takes.

Especially in today's world, being able to network with people who can help you market ideas is huge.  If you want to start your own company, networking with the right people and groups is crucial. 

How do we teach students these skills?  How do we model them for students?  Because, especially for today's students, it will be hard to succeed without a good, old fashioned, personal network. 

Exposure

I was intrigued yesterday as I looked at CNN that SXSW was a "trending headline."  So I clicked on it.  It talked about EVERY branch of SXSW...except for EDU.

Obviously, I was surprised--it was such a cool conference.  So I fished around online for a while...and found that even the Chronicle of Higher Ed didn't cover it.  So I got curious.

Why didn't SXSWEDU get coverage when every other branch did?

I discussed this a bit with Justin and Gerol.  We were disturbed about this.  It speaks a lot to deeper issues about education, especially in this country. But what is the culture around education that would make this a non-covered conference?

I'll be fair, here. I am an edu geek. I'm an innovation geek. Alright, put those together and you can see why this bothered me. This is shaping up to be the future of education. Why are so few talking about it?

Ok, so there was some coverage of Bill Gates' keynote address on the last day...but I'll be honest, that was pretty much it. Why was there such little coverage of the amazing work that people who aren't Bill Gates are doing?

I have no answers, here. I don't know what they are. But this just left me with so many, non-rhetorical questions. These days, there are bunches of articles about testing students and dissatisfaction with education today, and here we were at this huge conferences about changing it...and yet no one put it in the public eye. Why? Do we just love to complain, but are not willing and/or ready to be the change we need?

Is it that we, as a country, aren't ready to hear that innovation is needed in education? Do we just simply not care? Is it just not dubbed to be "mainstream" enough? Do we not want to hear it? What gives?

"Connection In an Isolated Age"

I thought of this line a lot at SXSWEdu. It's from the musical RENT, specifically from the song "What You Own."

So what made me think of this? The answer is twofold:

1) People kept talking about how technology can both breed connection and isolation, depending on how you use it;

and

2) There were constant conversations about how we can help students own their learning.

So, in the "all connected" department, I put this together. And I realized that, in order to breed connection rather than isolation, teachers, too, need to own and embrace the technology, in students' and their own teaching.

Yesterday, Gerol shared a fascinating report about technology use among teens. We need to harness this. There is so much more we can do to build learning and community with these students, who can seem so isolated, enveloped in their own little cell-phone world.

Sure, there will be things that need to be done that come from "on high" but perhaps it is time for explicit connections to be made with these messages, rather than the oh-so-often heard "because I said so" type messages that I, and I am sure many others, are used to receiving from administrators.

Yesterday, Laura pointed out that Google+ is where she often finds her "kindred fish." These days, it is much easier for educators to find other kindred fish on platforms like Google + and Twitter. Can we use them to our benefit and our students' benefit even more?

That said, there are so many ways to build community in our classes. Technology can be a barrier to community, but, if used correctly, I believe it can maintain or even build community. Especially with platforms like Edmodo, Google Drive, and Canvas around and available. Using technology because you were told you "had to use technology" - for the sake of simply using technology, without a purpose - is harmful to that community.

How can we build communities with technology and not force students into technology isolation, or allow them to isolate themselves? How can we face the fear that technology sometimes brings with it? What can we do to help both students and ourselves own technology, teaching, and learning?

Coming Back To Reality

With soooo much good coming out of SXSWEdu, sometimes the snap back to reality is really jarring.  If only I could come back to all of the amazing innovations I saw, and those who embraced them.

Back at school this week, I have realized that there are few kindred spirits, especially among the administration.  They were all fascinated by what I told them of my trip, but immediately had excuses for "why it wouldn't work here" or "why we can't do that."

Despite the data I brought back with me, and the data that they have seen, so many teachers and administrators are still *scared* of putting technology into the students' hands or teaching students to think by, well, letting them.  What would happen if, rather than telling students how to do something, or lecturing them, we let them figure it out and gave them personalized feedback along the way?  What if we acknowledged that, say, there is more than one way to solve a particular math problem, or that there is more than one valid way to make a particular argument?  What if we put the resources in the students' hands?

As one colleague told me, "It would be chaos! They would be running all over the place and talking too much!  Besides, it takes way too much time to gather all the resources and work with each student!"

I sighed.  What about things like Writer's Workshop, training other students to be good peer-reviewers?!  What about working with examples, and having students critique the examples? And that's not even to mention teaching them self-control and self-discipline! 

Needless to say, I came back and jumped right in to class, with my students working on writing a response to a story in small groups.

"Where were you?" one of them asked.  I told her.  I realized that my other students were listening too as I described such an amazing conference and great ideas. 

One of my students' eyes went wide.  "Is this where you get ideas that make us think?" she asked.  The lightbulb had turned on.

I nodded.

"It's refreshing to have to think sometimes!"One of my other students commented.  And others grudgingly admitted the same.

And I couldn't help but think about SXSWEdu, where one of the panelists in a session I went to said that she hoped that "the next generation of students would know how to think and problem solve."

Thankfully, there are kindred spirits around, similar fish heading for a new climate.  So, my kindred fish, where do you find other kindred fish?  What keeps you going when you have to go back to reality?

SXSWEdu Thoughts, Part III

Feedback.  It's a word we hear a lot these days in so many contexts.  "We value your feedback," my email informed me this morning, referring to a recent online purchase.  In so many contexts, this is a word met with skepticism.  How often have you heard someone else say or thought yourself, "No!  You're a huge corporation!  You don't care at all about my feedback!"? 

Feedback is important for everyone.  However, as I poll my class about various issues (BYOD, feedback, time, etc...) I find that my students never feel like they get enough feedback from other teachers.  I also know that (and I, too, am guilty of this) students get few chances to give their teachers feedback.  Feedback is a buzzword today in education--and rightfully so, as it is impossible for students to actually improve without it!

I cannot even begin to think about how many times I heard the word "feedback" at SXSWEdu! Everyone was talking about how to give students "personalized feedback." This is especially hard if you have one of those darn grading systems where you can only select comments from the list of provided comments. 

So how do we go about dealing with giving personalized feedback?

As I said on Justin's post yesterday:  "I know that in Operation LAPIS we worked to meld the data with the feedback, and to put the feedback and the data in the students' hands--where it was useful.  Because of our use of Google Docs, we can give students actual, written feedback to go along with each mission they do.  As the students collaborate on Edmodo, we teachers can watch and interject/give feedback as needed.
I think we need to work backwards in a sense here....What do we want the feedback to convey?  Ok, so if we want it to convey that, what data do we need to collect?"

Google Drive has given teachers and students the ability to give and receive real-time feedback.  I know that Canvas also has similar features.  Often, this starts out with teachers giving students feedback, but, I, at least, always leave space for feedback from my students to me as well.  This requires making your students comfortable enough to give you *honest* feedback, but I know you can do that!

I often hear "But it's hard!" or "But I have no time!" Giving personalized feedback might take a little extra time, yes, but wouldn't you say it's worth it? How do we make it easier?

When I think about that dreaded word--grading--and giving feedback, I always try to think backwards. What will I want to be able to help my students with when I give them that feedback?  What do I want my feedback to do for them?  And what do you want their feedback to tell you?  What questions do you need to ask to make it so?

Alright, so that's a lot of questions.  I don't have any answers, since every feedback-giving-and-receiving opportunity is different, but I hope that provides some food for thought. 

Are you a personalized feedback giver?  How do you make it "easier"?

Presenting at SXSWEdu

How many people do you think would show up for a 9 AM session on the LAST day of a conference?

I was REALLY surprised with the number of people we got at our session! We had worked hard for our time there to spread the word about our session...and I am sure the double endorsement from the Advisory Board didn't hurt!!

Now we just had to live up to it.

And, as Gerol says in his post, we did!  Especially after so much talking about games in education, we knew we'd attract attention.  Unlike many others talking about Edugaming, we were not writing small game modules for specific units.  We were talking about actual courses--courses which existed--where the game was the course and the course was the game.  We weren't trying to sell, just to talk about the cool things we were doing, how we got there, and why we did what we did.  Of course, we really wanted to hit the breaking out of factory-model education via collaboration and altruism piece as well.

Did we?  I really say we did!  :)  Here's the podcast of our session!  (I'm the second speaker, but you should, obviously, listen to the whole thing!  Dungeons and Discourse and Tres Columnae are fantastic projects and kindred spirits!) I wish I had pictures...and eventually, I will post the video, but I need to get the pieces of video stitched together first!  :)  The interest was high, the audience was engaged, and the questions at the end were terrific!  I can't for the life of me remember who it was, but someone earlier that week had said that the metric of whether or not you have people interested is what kinds of questions you get.  We got GREAT questions!

I hope you all listen to and enjoy the podcast!  Talk back--ask questions! 

SXSWEdu Thoughts, Part II

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Wednesday was the day I went to 4 sessions, since I only really had time to go to one on Tuesday.  Sure, the speakers and panelists were incredible people with great ideas about education, but that wasn’t actually what I found most impressive.

What amazed me the most about these people is how altruistic they were.  They really seemed to remember their roots—where they had started—and were eager to help individuals and companies just starting out. 

After panels, I found myself talking to panelists, who listened intently to what I told them about what I work on, about Practomime. They answered my questions to the best of their ability, and we always traded cards.  By the end, I was sure I could play some kind of “Card Pokémon,” or maybe even CARDTamen, with the number of cards I collected! 

Everyone I met was fantastic about getting me in touch with “the right people,” whether they were the right people or they had to do some extra work to get me in touch with those who could help me. 

From the conversations, the panels, the people who tracked me down to ask me questions, and the people who were so receptive when I tracked them down to do the same, I learned 3 things:

1) In order to make the future of education go in the right direction, we must all bring a piece to the puzzle.  Sure, maybe this seems obvious, but in today’s world, full of grades, pitting one person, company, school, whatever against another, sometimes, I find, we are blinded by that competitive mindset, taught to us early on.  No one individual or even group is going to solve everyone’s education issues—we innovators need to band together and get going as a team. 

2) We aren’t crazy.  Friends, we are doing something right.  Now, we need to “prove” it.  The hunt for those who believe in what we are doing isn’t as hard as we think it is.  We just need to dive into the sea head first and find the right islands, or at least other fish seeking the same goal. 

3) Don’t wait.  Got a cool idea?  Don’t be afraid of it and don’t wait for a “sunny day” to get to work on it.  Just do it.  Even if you lack funding, and are literally doing this as a volunteer, as my 2 co-panelists and I have been, it is worth it. 

I know I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: Altruism gains respect.  Time to find some kindred spirits and start swimming together. 

SXSWEdu Thoughts, Part I

Perhaps this will be my triumphant return to blogging in my own space, perhaps not. Either way, I have returned from an incredible time at SXSWEdu with a head swimming with ideas. 

Justin, of Tres Columnae, and Gerol, of Dungeons and Discourse, joined me on my adventure to Austin, TX and back.  Rather than confining us to the hotel, Gerol, instead, found us a cool apartment to stay at via AirBnB.  One of the features of this apartment was this fantastic fish:

It's a Barracuda...and it greeted you when you walked into the apartment, as well as when you walked out of the bathroom.  Little scary looking, honestly, when you look at it head on.  It gave me a fright when I walked in the first time, and when I walked out of the bathroom the first time.  

But I couldn't stop staring at it.  And now I realize why.

I have always been a nervous, panicky presenter at conferences.  And yet, this fish made me realize that all of that panic, nervousness, and feeling that everyone would doubt what I was saying, no matter how awesome I was, was silly.  I was always questing for "perfection" in my presentations, and even in my acting and singing.  Anytime I was on a stage. But our friend the fish made me realize I had to get rid of that silliness.

And how did that happen?  Because every time I walked out of the bathroom or into the apartment, I had to confront something slightly scary...face to face. 

And I realized that I wouldn't get anything out of SXSWEdu unless I threw all of that panic, nervousness, and doubt to the wind.  I had to go out there and get out the word about our presentation, as well as talk with other presenters and attendees.  And I had to not worry about our presentation, and panic over the little things. (i.e. not worry about hunting for a word, or not having everything memorized.)

And hey, guess what?  It worked.  I met SO many new people, got lots of ideas, many network connections,  and had some incredible conversations.  People loved our presentation, and I even managed to not beat myself up too much for forgetting a word here and there.

This was a conference filled with lessons, ideas, and connections.  I will write more as the week goes on.  Hey, I have to toss my ideas somewhere, right?

As always, comments are appreciated!  Talk with me, friends! :)