Room 213

This week’s post is coming at you live from 37,000 feet some where over the skies of Arizona. Pretty cool, huh? As you know, I wasn’t in school on Friday because I took a personal day to go surprise my dad for his 60th birthday. I was able to read more of your blogs while I was on my way there, and while I was there, and now on my way home. I am almost done reading them. Be sure to check yours for comments. I am also aware of the problem that many of you are having in posting responses to my comments. I am trying to solve that. Please continue to be patient. I will send scores of all the blogs I have read via edmodo.

As far as the posts are concerned, I have a mixed reaction. Some are better than I expected and others are not quite where I was hoping they would be. If you wrote one that wasn’t quite where either of us would like it to be, I would recommend that you read some of your peers work. I am working on posting all of the blogs to the class wiki page so you can access them.

To recap the past week, let us go back to the talk we had on Monday morning. Many of you mistook that for a “yell at you” meeting. It was not. Sure, there was constructive criticism there, but that is not yelling at you. When ideas for improvement are brought up, and some flaws are exposed, that is not yelling at you. Speaking for the rest of the teachers on the team, we truly want to help you make this a great year. You have to meet us half way. Chances are, if you are reading this post, you are in the unique position to be a leader in this process. Unfortunately, the message of Monday morning seemed to have faded into the dust by Tuesday afternoon.

Content wise,this past week we continued to explore the idea of equality as a role of government. Hopefully you were left with some cognitive dissonance, as we dove into the dilemma of Meile, Wilson, and Gora. Hopefully you also were able to form your own opinions concerning the care of those three individuals. Now we will begin to make the switch to understanding the various opinions about the role of government in our lives. We will, in the coming week, begin to discuss the differences of opinion between the two major political parties in our country. Hopefully we will also be able to explore the two more recent divisions of opinion as well. If you have time, maybe you should do some research on both the tea party and the occupy wall street movement.

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday for the shortened week. We have a lot to do. Come prepared!

This week’s reflection is coming at you live and direct from my phone. As you all know, we moved into our new house on Thursday and we are still waiting for our Internet to be turned on. Instead of NOT doing my weekly post, I thought about alternative outlets to get the job done. So, my first post as a resident of the town in which I teach is being typed on a tiny touchscreen with annoying autocorrect. However, it IS getting done and I AM sticking to my promise to post once a week.

This past week was an interesting one. Certainly you are now beginning to understand that this class is about thinking. Deeply. Critically. Constantly. From the quotes we discussed, to the ideas of paradox and cognitive dissonance, it should be clear that this class revolves around wrestling with new ideas and questioning old ones that we may be a little too comfortable with. If you come to my class prepared to think (and, if you are willing to think on your own at home) you will be fine. The thing is, you have to be able to express your thinking in order for others to benefit from your thoughts. That usually comes in the form of writing or speaking. We will be doing a lot of that.

In the up coming week we will continue to grapple with the paradoxical statement, “To be free, one must be chained.” In class on Friday we discussed the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as they relate to human nature. The purpose of which was to direct us to thinking about the concept of government. This week we will further explore the roles of governments and begin to learn about various beliefs about what governments should and should not do. Paradoxes abound! Get ready for some cognitive dissonance.

Now, I have to go unpack boxes

We finished our second week (first full week) without breaking a sweat, although that probably had something to do with the fact the we were in the blissful air conditioned computer lab all week

We front loaded a lot of instruction and practice with the technology that we will be using this year. My reason for doing this is simple. I want you to be able to know how to use these tools so that when the work begins, we hit the ground running. Another way to look at it is like building a house. When people begin working on a project of that magnitude, it helps if they already know how to use the tools they will be using on the job. It would take a mighty long time to build that house if you didn’t already know how to use a hammer.

photo by: Purple Phoenix courtesy of Flickr

The same thing applies here. The tools we are using to build our “houses of knowledge” this year are Google Docs, Blogger, Edmodo, and the iPods (among others). I fully understand that not all of us are experts after just one or two times using these tools, and your skill level will increase the more we get a chance to use these tools in authentic settings in class. Don’t worry if you are not confident in your abilities yet. You will improve. I promise.

We ran into some technical difficulties on Friday when setting up Blogger. I have contacted the technology department and we are trying to figure out a solution right now. Those of you who were unable to set up your blogs will be taken care of.

On Monday we will begin our launch into the content of the class. To keep the theme of “houses of knowledge” going – we will be clearing the land and pouring the foundation.

the foundation of our house of knowledge

You will be asked to think about some basic rules of human nature in a manner that is perhaps more philosophical than you might be used to. You will also get some key vocabulary words that help define the course. These are not words that will be on a test, they are far more important than that. Lastly, you will be writing a bit this week. There are three “jumpstarts” this week (I think, there might be more). Everyone will complete those in class in the manner I mentioned on the first day. However, you will then select one of the three to expand upon and polish up and post to your blog. Needless to say, your published piece will be much better than your jumpstart. I hope you are all psyched to be published authors…

I’d like to thank all of you for making this first week one of the best “first weeks” of my career. I know that there is always that grace period at the start of each year when everyone is determined to do their best, and it fades for some as time moves on, however, my gut feeling about this class is that it is going to be fantastic.

Next week we will begin getting acquainted with some of the technology we will be using in school this year (for both my class and Mrs. Bitting’s class). We will take it slow and make sure that everyone understands how to use Google Docs and such. The goal is for you to become proficient at it up front, so that once the content work begins, you can use the technology with as much ease as you have with a pencil…

On Monday we will be having a class discussion about the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Since you were about three at the time (only a year older than my daughter is right now), I would like for you to do the following as homework:

Ask at least two individuals about their experience that day and how they think life has changed in the 10 years since for both Americans and the rest of the World. Be prepared for discussion on Monday. You do not have to write anything formal, but having a list of ideas to talk about is highly encouraged.