Virtuality High School

MUTUALITY

2011-06-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

"Mutuality"

http://tinyurl.com/6gpvz9l

The guy who is quoted second in the beginning of the first chapter, Paolo Freire, a Brazilian democratic humanist, is one of my earliest inspirations for Harrington. My success teaching in print, wood, auto, and metal shop classes as a long –term sub often depended on what the students knew about the machines and the material; we had to combine what they brought to the shop, with my “adultness” which often was the only thing I had to contribute. This dynamic of mutualism was reinforced during my 7 years of Harriton Theatre Company faculty producer time — the kids knew more about what was going on than I did, so they had to explain to me, and convince me that what they were going to do was worth my contribution of just “being there”. This is so essential in these times of the "screenager", when the adult in the room is no longer the gatekeeper of knowledge. Actualization by a 17-,18-,19-year old gets lost in the high stakes testing that is perpetrated by the deep thinkers who have already actualized themselves, and who need to justify their own actualization. Where is the craft in that?

"...education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility for themselves as beings capable of knowing — of knowing that they know and knowing that they don't."
--P. Freire

“Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously students and teachers.” -- P. Freire

Rejected/Reject

2011-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with a student who was rejected by school and who rejected school:

"I showed it to my teacher, and he didn't like it. He said I couldn't do it because I had already done it. I guess I'll have to figure out something else to do. I really thought I could do this."

Ok, I realize, out of context, this teenager's comment seems more cryptic than, well, some of the stuff a teenager says. But even out of context, the tone of it speaks gigabytes: as with many new experiences of the Information Age, we fail to recognize, fail to capitalize on, fail to understand how the schema of the place of learning has changed, and therefor...aw heck, I'm not sure I have words to describe this thing that has happened! I'll have to start over...

See? Since information technology can alter the time spent on task, I have to wonder why the teacher was uncomfortable with revisiting a student's solution to a problem -- revisiting it over and over, as the context shifts with each new revisit. I guess the teacher's intention was to have the student start all over from scratch -- a valid decision for any educator with a curricular agenda to follow.

But I feel a complacency at work here, a negative, regressive energy that stems from the tedium of living too long inside one's comfort zone. Maybe it's me. Helen Keller:

" Life is nothing, if not a great adventure."

I say, how much can you discover in a single grain of sand?

Twenty First Century Decisions

2010-02-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Launching the virtual high school classroom game with all the possibilities available: I was offered many bells and whistles, many formats, many options. I still return to the same game. "What is your heart's desire? What went through your mind when an adult asked you what you wanted to be when you were all grown up? What if you were -- without instigating crime, and with all of your personal needs taken care -- given a city block to develop? Start a bakery? Have a mall of stores? Run the airport? Be a famous author living and working in your dream house? Sporting goods store? Basketball team? Boxing gym? Lawyer? Hospital? Bookstore? Gas station? High rise condo with river views? Publishing company? Build a school? NASCAR race track?" Those were some virtualizations of this senior class. Class of 2010. I'm not sure how "online" this will be. They will decide. Already, some have declared themselves "mayor", and "governor", one actually hogging the board and telling each person what they wanted to be, writing it on the board. THAT wont' last very long, already the energy against being "told" rising. They won't get away with that attitude tomorrow."I want to start a police station. I don't want to write the rules, but I sure don't want them to tell me what the rules are. Is she/he going to write the rules? No? Good! We get to write the rules." For a classroom teacher, these are the scary moments -- control put in the hands of the controlled. Always a little bit of faith needed. Always an adventure of discovery. After more than a dozen generations of Harrington City, the first revelation of the power inside those minds is still humbling, still awesome.

सेच्कोन्द Life

2009-06-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

We, in my school district, had just begun to toy with the idea of acquiring some un-real estate in Second Life, when those of us who could actually, maybe, get it done, decided to retire from public service. That's a bit over-wrought, of course, as I am sure there are some others around who are of a virtual education bent, and who will pick up the slack, carry on the momentum towards the inevitable.

My "this year" seniors have stepped off into the world, and one by one, each benefited from being able to realize the power of their own inspirations। They ventured into the virtual reality of their interior landscapes to seek an ecology of the mind.

With or without a cartoon avatar, when we in education engage our students in seeking their own truths, the outcomes are always releases of enormous energy, coupled with growing self-realization that the only real empowerment for doing things comes from within ourselves.

This year, one kid was headed for finishing up high school with nothing to show for all that time, and he knew it. Was not even considering taking on any more frustration by going to college.

The word-for-word exchange between us:

"What are you interested in?"

"I like to walk in the woods."

"So, go build yourself a park. You know, like a national park or something, if that's what you have in mind?"

"Really?"

The next thing I knew, (next month) he's asking me for college recommendations to five schools near wilderness centers in the Rocky Mountains. The next thing I knew(two months later) he's handing me a copy of his published journal on hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Pennsylvania.

It just occurred to me, writing this post, it's kind of like the joke us Boomers have about how the world used to be all black and white, like Pleasantville

Reflection on the Nature of the Creative Workplace

2009-03-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

It's Monday,and I'm sifting through the older posts, and going back and forth with Gardner's The Undisciplined Mind, and, very randomly, but with purposeful randomness, I have been reflecting on the curricular fact that my classes have been watching Shakespeare in Love, noting the constructiveness of the medium that was the Shakespearean theatre -- was "school" for the times: the question of his authorship, not really in doubt, for me, as the lively classroom of those times in that place seem analogous to these times: much to borrow from, much to be made anew, for all time to come. The creative workplace, the discipline of creativity, in the face of boundless resources, the 21st Century Classroom. Here I am, my mind adrift in Cyberspace (thanx, Mr. Gibson)

Outcomes

2009-03-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

As I see it, Chapter 6 of Howard Gardner's The Disciplined Mind speaks of the "expert" who continually confronts the "misconceptions" and "inadequate representations" of undisciplined or "unschooled" understanding towards developing "enhanced understanding". This dynamic pushes back at the limits of the traditional, familiar, content-driven curricula. As I see it, Gardner points towards high school as the place to initiate the primary cognitive apprenticeship of adulthood.

Still digesting the "disruptive" nature of the integration of technology into education, there seems to be plenty of opportunity for disruption in these tricky economic times!

"We go forward without the facts; we learn the facts as we go along." Henry Ford

Midterms 0809

2009-01-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

I decided that the time had come to incorporate the Harrington Project with a genuine senior midterm -- after all, nothing to lose at this point. I have been surfing and lurking, and have seen some amazing things. Nothing quite like the Harrington Project, though. Will get back to you on how the midterm worked out.

Welcome Serious Games

2008-08-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

I've been hanging out on the lonely virtual playground for some time, wondering if I'm crazy for being here the way I have been, if I'm using the right "things" -- occasionally, I'll get a brief suggestion that there is somebody else out there who knows what the heck I'm talking about. There doesn't seem to be many ways of putting it into words except for anecdote. I know this stuff works, so I have to be satisfied with that.

Disruptive Innovation and the Infomated Workplace

2008-06-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

One author who set my thinking into "forest fire" mode was Dr. Shoshanna Zuboff: her book The Future of the Workplace was a validation of my thinking about the virtual community as a place where one could really "use" one's imagination. Dr. Zuboff coined the word "infomate" in the spirit of "automate", wherein, an automated workplace amplified the muscle and sinews of the worker; computers and the data stream would amplify the brain and nerve power of the worker in the future workplace.

"Exploiting the 'informated' environment means opening the information base of the organization to members at every level, assuring that each has the knowledge, skills and authority to engage with the information productively." Shoshana Zuboff

"Computerization brings about an essential change in the way the worker can know the world and, with it, a crisis of confidence in the possibility of certain knowledge." Shoshana Zuboff

"The workplace of the future will bear little resemblance to today's centrally administered hierarchies. Work will be more ad hoc, on the fly and responsive. Successful employees won't be afraid of new situations without rules." Shoshana Zuboff

Later, I will try to make the sense that I made out of Dr. Zuboff's vision. For right this red-hot second, though, today, I was browsing the bookshelves and a provocative title called out: Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christiensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson. This was a book that had something that made perfect sense on every random page. As a high school English teacher, I enjoy finding the patterns in diverse pieces of literature. I am going to try to make sense of Zuboff by reading Christiensen, et al.

Origin

2008-06-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

I was browsing the shelves at the local bigbox store and there was a reprint of Elliot Wigginton's first Foxfire -- one of the inspirations for Harrington Project. Redburn Gap, GA. Some kid set his podium on fire. But Wigginton realized that kids need and appreciate limits, but they also need an outlet for their energy. He realized they were capable of bringing to school the knowledge and energy of their lives, and that the role of school is to set some limits for personal, constructive growth. Focus. The classroom is a starting point for personal conceptual growth. We have paid years of lip service to this, but in order to preserve the institution of school, we have encased it in pretty amber.

Today is closing day, and the teachers are filling up the dumpster with raggedy grimey textbooks. Someday, no dumpster will be needed, because everything will be taken home, everything will be recycled into pure energy.

I will be spending more time debriefing here over the summer in preparation to publish somehere. Your comments appreciated.

Virtuality

2008-05-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry, the Barth article appeared in Johns Hopkins Magazine.
http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/994web/culture1.html

"Virtuality"

2008-05-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

In the course of researching a speech I've been tapped to deliver at the upcoming NHS induction ceremony, (subject: "Scholarship"), and following some threads related to Dr. Thomas Pettit's speech, on "The Gutenberg Parenthesis", I came upon an article by the novelist, John Barth, under "Culture", entitled: "Virtuality", containing an early appearance of the word: "virtuality". I like his definition:

"...we can make the (virtual) mountain (virtually) come to us..." John Barth

Superman vs Batman -- A Debate on the Nature of Magic

2008-05-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

During "end of the year" cleaning yesterday, Harrington Founder William H's essay "How I could destroy this game without using magic." bobbed up to the surface of a pile of papers. William and Jai, during that first year of Harrington, hadn't really had much interaction, so what transpired was, to me, the proof of this pudding.

William, a sci fi fantasy fanatic, had asked me how for he could go in creating his suburban village -- the city was getting intense, and there was still plenty of unexplored hinterlands, so I suggested that anyone who was interested should start a suburb. I advised William to go for it -- use his imagination, of course. William's scenario started something like:

"In a secluded meadow, a couple of miles outside of Harrington City, the ground began to glow a strange purple, and out of the ground, rose up in a circle, a dozen darkly hooded and cloaked figures of ancient age. One of them began to speak: 'After eons it is now time for us to reveal ourselves to the rest of the world, and so we will create a village and disguise ourselves as humans and mix with them.'

When William distributed this scenario to the rest of the class, it caused quite a stir, especially with Jai, who was on his way to becoming the first Harrington billionaire. "You can't do that! He can't do that! He can't use magic! There's no such thing as magic and Harrington is all about being real! Magic isn't real! Whatever we create in this game has to be real!"

I really had to step back here. I had committed to a real doozy of a problem: the rule was "anything goes, as long as it's real." However, I had also commited to "imagination: is the key." I didn't want to tell Willam he couldn't implement his obviouly fertile imagination, but then, Jai certainly had a point: magic isn't much help in the concrete world. I'll tell you, I thought these kids had found the fatal flaw! However, luckily, I was working with teenagers! "We need to debate this!"

Jai first: "If he uses magic, all he has to do is go back in time and kill my grandparents, then I don't exist anymore!"

William: "I wouldn't do that! That would destroy the game! I don't need magic to destroy the game! All I need to do is to engineer a virus in my drug company and let it loose. I would never do that! Nobody would do that!"

Jai: "Ok, that would be evil but anybody can deal with evil if it's real! (Jai goes to the blackboard and draws a Batman symbol and a Superman symbol!)The problem is the differnce between Batman and Superman.

(At this point, you would need the perspectve of the academic and behavioral history of these two students -- just picture a string of detentions, suspensions, and not-so-great grades for who knows how far back in their school lives!)

William: "I see what you're getting at."

Me: "What are you getting at?"

Jai: "I can deal with an evil Batman because he only has his utility belt. He's just some guy who is good with his fists. I can just shoot him or something. But I can't deal with an evil Superman. If Superman is evil, he's unstoppable. Bullets bounce off him. We can't have magic."

William: "I have to agree."

At this point, I could have given them their high school diplomas, and sent them on their ways, but that was just the first layer of the cake! The rest of the class actually huddled in a discussion. I kept out of it, because I was ruminating how I had led William astray in encouraging his imagination. But the huddle broke up, and, I forget who was the spokesman, but they all lent their voices: they, as a class had decided to allow magic in Harringon. However, if they chose not to believe what the magic had done, then they didn't have to, and they just carried on. If they believed in the magic that Willam's creatures did, ok. If they didn't, it wouldn't matter. William had his strange little suburban town, and Jai went on to become Harrington's first billionaire.

The Long Cold WInter...

2008-04-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

...has not slowed things down in Harrington City. In fact, committee work has resulted in the development of laws -- I was just looking over the shoulder of a Harrington Citizen who had been doing extensive research into the kinds of civil laws that are at the heart of every municipality -- "We're not really interested in what the national thing is, yet," he told me. "We have to get our community organized first, so things run smoothly close to home." Granting business licenses, marriage licenses, parking regulations, sales and property tax rules, some minor criminal law..."Who are going to be the judges, and how does a municipal court function, and what's the role the police department? Elections! Appointments! Politics!"

Our Resident Novelist announced that she is writing a novel, working with a professor at Bryn Mawr College for her Senior Project -- that is, the final hurdle for high school students in our school district, before they graduate. Seniors choose a field experience and do research and seek an outside facilitator. Our Resident Novelist had decided, in December, after starting up the Harrington Community Center, that she wanted to retire to her mansion and work on her novel. Since anything constructive goes in Harrington, that is what she did. I wish I could convey the high-speed, 180 degree turn involved in this outcome of high school for this particular young lady. I believe it has something to do being able to address one's heart's desire.

Governance 2

2007-12-17T05:03:00.001-08:00

Committees have formed around civic problems: public helath and safety, streets and sidewalks, etc. The debates actually began last week when one committee put forth the proposition for Harrington City to "go green". That committee presented the proposition to only a special interest group: a committee that is studying the street and sidewalk problem and who has already purchased dump trucks that are not "green". They argue that "green" dump trucks would cost $1 million apiece. The "Greening Harrington" committee become discouraged.

However today, this morning, 7:30 to 8:17 am first period, on the last Monday before Winter break, an entrepreneur who is starting a casino, put forth the proposition to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. He has written out his proposition, made enough copies for each memeber of the class to sign, and now, a general debate as begun about how to decide if the proposition should be passed. A list of pros and cons has started at the front black board, (pros: other countries don't have limits, help the economy, the true adult vs the adult "label"; cons: more deaths related to the teen population, 18-21 don't know limits, more crime, more bige drinking). The debate results in a compromise: limit the hours of under-21 drinking, and monitor this for a year, then change or add to the ordinance.

What transpired during this discussion included: parliamentary law review, debate protocol, and no heads down on desks. One student, who asked to go to the breakfast table in the lobby, forgot to go, instead joining in the debate. In fact, this student suggested that this scenario could be written up as a year or two in the future, and the results determine how the ordinance would be decided.

The "Greening of Harrington" committee has asked to present during the next class with a new strategy.

What does this have to do with "literature"? My answer this morning is: they are writing their own literature.

Governance

2007-11-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

Today, the class reached the "governance" stage: two of the young men wrote on a piece of paper in pencil proclamation that they were the rulers of the city and that they were going to be in charge. They ceremoniously taped their proclamation the black board at the front of the classroom. There immediatley arose a clamour from another student -- a young woman -- who loudly voiced her opinion that "they can't just do that!" This alerted others who were going about their business. "Can they just do that?"

My explanation was that no one had made any laws, there was no government in place. The two class mates had gotten together and made something happen. Now, they had to consider one of Harrington's two "Prime Directives": No crime may be instigated. Was there a crime instigated? To decide, I advised them to take a look the history of how governments came into being. One member of the class immediately respnded: "Divine Right!"

I hope their social studies teachers take note.

Starting the Buzz

2007-11-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

Last week, just before Thanksgiving, the most recent class seemed to have reached a plateau -- they had some print outs of pictures of their buildings, and began pen and pencil lists of retail store inventories, service business equipment, some furniture, some rudimentary job descriptions. They didn't automatically word process descriptions, nor had they automatically entered into the realm of the "scenario".

A "scenario" is the term I use to describe the "story" behind the object: How did you decide on that building? What kind of person would you hire for that job, and what would you pay them? Benefits? The scenario is the descriptive narrative that rounds out the inventory of objects that constitute the virtual existence of a participant in a virtual world. The more real the details of the scenario, the more roundedness, the more value in the experience.

The value of research...talking up the choices of details, this began a buzz in the class -- the students were making inquiries and choices that made sense to them, that were of value to them. Instead of waiting around for the last bell to sound and go home to turkey and tv, they were making plans for the future.

Blogs and the Virtual High School

2007-11-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

Social networking:
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=social%20networking&x=&y=

Social Networking Site
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=socialnetworkingsite

Collaborative software
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=collaborativesoftware

Sock puppet
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=sock+puppet

Welcome to Virtuality High School!

2007-10-18T17:57:00.002-07:00

Up and running in Cyberspace (c), finally!

I started a virtual high school role-play community for college and career exploration in 1998, named Harrington City. It was just after Winter Break, and those young men and women in my standard level senior English class were not about to start the last months of public school by reading another novel! I had taught shop on and off for six years, and was much inspired all along by Eliot Wigginton and his Foxfire (c) project in Red Gap, Georgia: my interpretation was: have your students make a study of their immediate world, following their God-given hearts' desires, and their drive to acquire adult vocational competencies, and the curriculum will be served. I will describe this source and the many others that were the inspiration for this, in forth-coming entries. The results have been -- without exception -- spectacular, awesome.

In the coming times, I shall attempt to blog the progress of the efforts of my Harrington Project classes. The Founders Class, that first group of restless, hungry teenagers, are now out there, somewhere. One young man suddenly appeared in front of my desk, one afternoon, two years ago.

"Remember me?"
He had been particularly troubled, from a tragic childhood, and had struggled to just barely fit in to American public high school -- he had an accent, and felt the pull of returning to the European country of his childhood, as soon as he came of age and could get away from his father. He hated being in America, but really hadn't figured out who he was. He was one of the students who was going to make that Spring semester insufferable -- he particularly enjoyed quarreling with spoiled Americans. Back then, when I asked him what he enjoyed doing most, he replied: "I want to sail my sailboat."

And here he was, five years later, telling me he had to come back to thank me.

"You saved my life. I had to come back and tell you and thank you. I just got back with my college debate team from a tour of Europe. I am the captain, and we won more competitions than ever in the history of the university. I also had to tell you that I just won a gold metal in single shell rowing at the Dad Vail Regatta. I'm graduating in a month with a bachelor's in economics, and I going back to Europe to a job that my father and I found together. I'm planning on grad school because the company will pay for it. I was going out of my mind in high school, and then we started playing that game in your class. And I built my marina. I saw that I could sail my boat and make a living. You saved my life, and I wanted to come back and tell you and to thank you."

Welcome to Virtuality High School!

2007-10-18T17:57:00.001-07:00