Timothy King – Page 4 – Mechanical Sympathy

Free Range Computing

Originally published on Dusty World in October of 2013:

I’d initially gone into teaching computer technology with pi in the sky (sic) daydreams of students working entirely on open source hardware and software that they have assembled and coded themselves, free from the evil influences of corporations. After attending ECOO this year I’m less on the hippy open source bandwagon and more on the inclusivity bandwagon. It isn’t an educator’s job to ignore corporate technology, but it is their responsibility not to indoctrinate students in only one particular company’s technology because it is easier or cheaper for them. Student digital fluency has to drive technology access, not corporate carrots or teacher laziness.

I’ve noticed a real move toward the branding of education (and teachers) by technology interests. This is almost always done to ensure their own monopolistic dominance rather than offering students the widest range of technology experience. In order to indoctrinate students in a single means of access (in order to later capture them as consumers), many boards are locking students into company specific technology, usually because some kind of discount being offered. Selling out student technological fluency in order to appear more cost effective isn’t very pedagogically sound.

Would you trust the literacy teacher who only uses one publishing company and brandishes the logo like a qualification? Does this not call a balanced approach to their discipline into question? How can the same thing not be said for Google Certified or Apple Distinguished?

It’s one thing to get a professional certification from an platform agnostic professional organization that has no interested in monetizing you, it’s another to brand yourself with the name of a profit driven company that is intent on turning you and your students into revenue streams while limiting access to alternatives.

My knee jerk reaction to this is what had me storming off into the woods and getting all back to nature with open source hardware and software:

***

Raspberry Pi, almost fits in your wallet!

I’ve been thinking about the open source technology classroom I wish I could run. Engineering based rather than brand based hardware with accessible, open software. Hardware that could run free, crowd-sourced software.

Raspberry Pi is an obvious starting point. As a way of showing students the basics of computing cheaply (it’ll run a full GUI OS with internet for about thirty bucks per student), it’s something that they can use to get familiar with how software and hardware work with each other.

I wish they’d come up with a Raspberry Pi à la mode, a 1 ghz 2 core unit with a gig of ram, hdmi and 2 usb 3.0 ports. They can toss the video in and separate audio 3.5 jack out (hdmi has audio built in anyway). If they could pull that off and keep it close to the same size I’d think twice about stepping up from the Pi.

***

It’s beyond the Pi that open source hasn’t developed enough high level hardware to take on more advanced learning environments, though having students build digital tools from a variety of components has its own value.

There are plenty of software options, but ready made agnostic hardware is thin on the ground. This is when I started to think about systems that, while branded and corporately developed, might be focused on access to a variety of technology rather than the tyranny of one:

***

In the meantime, from the Pi how do you create a free range system that lets students experience a variety of operating systems and software? The recent nano-desktop round of computers offer some interesting options.

Intel NUC

The NUC (next unit of computing) by Intel is an engineering platform that crams an astonishing amount of processing power into a package the size of a paperback novel. With an i5 processor and up to 16 gigs (!) of ram, this thing is a monster. It would handily outperform any desktop in our school right now.

If we could get a NUC sorted out in some kind of student-proof Otterbox type enclosure we’d have a tough, durable, wickedly fast, open computer that would offer students a totally customizable platform for just over $400. Presumably we could whittle that down to cost (maybe ~$300?).

Having a dock in labs that would allow students to plug their own PCs (personal again!) in would be one means of accessing the box. Offering a plug in touch screen peripheral that could do the job of a screen/mouse/keyboard would be another avenue that would create a very powerful laptop/tablet option. Pica-projectors would be another way to produce screens out of thin air, and they are rapidly becoming smaller and less energy consuming.

The nicest thing about the NUC is that it could work with pretty much any operating system you could want. Students could come to class with a paperback sized computer that could boot into Apple OSx, the Windows flavour of your choice or any of a number of Linux distros (including Chromium). You wouldn’t have Mac labs, or Windows labs, you’d have whatever you wanted/needed to boot into.

A truly agnostic hardware platform that would offer you access to any software on any operating system.

Foxconn Nano PC

Another (cheaper) option is the Foxconn Nano PC, which retails for substantially less (only $219 retail vs. the $420 NUC). The Foxconn unit runs on an AMD processor (not Apple friendly) but offers strong graphics performance from its (Canadian!) graphics subsidiary ATI.

It would still run any flavor of Windows or Linux you could throw at it (including Chromium) and is as svelte as the Intel option. Education purchasing could probably get these down into the $150 range.

***

The real goal would be to create opensourceedtech.org and have educators themselves crowdsource an open, upgradeable, accessible hardware system that is designed to teach students about technology in all its various forms.

The chance to develop personalized learning technology would take us away from the ignorance and learned helplessness we peddle today in education and offer all technology companies a level playing field on which to ply their wares. Our students would experience a wide range of operating environments and software as well as being aware of how hardware impacts those systems.

Thoughts on mastery learning in digital spaces (from my ECOO13 presentation)

Imagine high school graduates who have worked on a variety of operating systems that they have installed and maintained themselves.

Imagine graduates who understand how memory, processor and storage work with software because they’ve experienced hands on changes in this hardware.

Imagine graduates who are able to problem solve and resolve their own technological problems because the breadth of their familiarity with technology is such that any new digital tool they lay their hands on isn’t a mystery to them.

Imagine students and educators who go to the tool they need to get the job done instead of having the tool dictate the job.

Imagine students who have enough familiarity with code that they can appreciate the complexity of the world we’re living instead of being baffled by it.

I was having doubts about putting corporate logos on my office windows, but I don’t any more. Instead of taking down the Google stickers I’ve added Apple, Microsoft, Linux, Toshiba, Dell, Asus, IBM, Lenovo, Arduino, Raspberry Pi and will continue to add others. The point isn’t to run off into the woods and live in vegan austerity on open source hardware, it’s to make all technology available to students so they can appreciate the astonishing variety of systems we’re immersed in, and not be made helpless by it.

2017 Update: Building your #edtech on shifting ground. Not much has changed in terms of corporate control of digital learning in four years since this was first written.

Concours Owners Group

I’ve been told that one of the best parts of owning a Concours is the Concours Owners Group. I just signed up for a year’s membership and I’m already overwhelmed by all the information in the forum.

Looking at the calendar, there is a local meeting tomorrow only a 45 minute ride away. For a group that covers a huge geographical area, they offer a chance to meet face to face around the corner; very cool.

Between COG and the huge aftermarket available, it looks like the Concours is the canvas I’ve been looking for.

Royan’s Delemma

This post originally published on Dusty World, Thursday, 18 July 2013

Royan Lee’s Spicy Learning Blog (it’s in my list of favourites on the side of Dusty World), asks some hard questions as digital technology matures and reaches mass appeal…

“How are we going to do this, folks? How will we foster critical mindsets of what it means to check that I Agree button, especially in regards to students that are in our charge but not our own children?”

My response…

There is something about mass adoption that shifts a market from focusing on literate early adopters to the willfully ignorant masses. When the herd finally adopts a technology it becomes a race to reach the widest range of people (including the lowest denominator).

When they started manufacturing automobiles in the early 1900s each one was hand crafted, almost unique and required either your own personal mechanic or you were the mechanic. As automobiles became more popular, the landscape changed, systems became synchronized, the car became a cookie cuttered piece of mass assembly designed in more complicated ways to ask less of the driver – the only sense of individuality was found in the frantic marketing. The technology itself matured into operator simplicity in order to get even the most incompetent people behind the wheel.

Sound familiar Microsoft? Google? Apple? Fanboy/girlism is one of the clearest signs that we’ve moved past the early adopter stance on digital technology and are now catering to the main stream (I say that in the most derogatory way possible) where marketing dictates sales because the majority of people have no idea how the technology works. It’s in this environment that giant legal documents creep in to user agreements and business finds more insidious ways to make use of the ignorant consumer.

If you look at owner’s manuals from long ago they were full of technological information on how the product worked (so you could fix it). Nowadays you get legalese and idiot diagrams designed to hide the inner workings. The machines themselves are even put together intentionally to prevent you from repairing them.

http://thebikeshed.cc/2013/12/10/christians-exesor/ — Most mechanical sub cultures survive and thrive on a hands-on ethos. Shed Built motorbikes in the current custom scene are a badge of pride.

The only real way to save yourself from the vapid consumerism and accompanying ignorance that drives mass adoption is through the hacking ethos of maker culture; this has never died. Cars are being stamped out for the unwashed masses by multi-nationals but there has always been a thriving underground of maker/hackers who ignore the rules designed for the ignorant and come to relate to the technology in a direct, more complete way.

If you want to save yourself and your students from this ignorant, consumerist relationship with technology then find their inner hacker! Get into the nuts and bolts and bend technology to your will. Using your hands and your head to get inside the machines sold to us frees you from the consumerist trap. Freedom is only a hack away!

Some reading to save your mind:
http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/ a brilliant, modern attack on consumerist thinking and the power of your hands to save you

… and the follow up: http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/new-page-1-1/
I used to have links to the maker manifesto here but evidently it’s been turned into a book and isn’t available online any more. That says something about the current state of the maker movement…

Don’t give up! Just don’t follow the road more travelled, even if it’s paved for you by people determined to monetize you…

MediaSmarts: Battling Consumerism

Pannier Thoughts: Motorbike Repair Kit Gear

Having never had on-bike storage before, or a bike designed to cover big distances, I’m thinking about what I could leave in the bottom of the panniers to keep us on the road.

Here’s the short list so far:

A bike specific multi-tool, this BikeMaster metric device covers a lot of bases in terms of general usefulness.

$16.18 from canadasmotorcycle.ca
300g

Puncture Repair Kit. Many moons ago I used to do this at Canadian Tire, so plugging a tire is nothing new, and if I’ve got the bits I need on the road I’ll be able to get us going again in short order.

$~20 from Canadian Tire
200g

Yukon Steel Multitool. I use a generic one at work all the time. They work well and I don’t need a fancy brand to somehow validate my handiness.

$30 from Canadian Tire
325g

I’m also going to grab a lightweight nylon tarp. You can get tough, camping ready ones that only weigh about 500 grams and fold up into the size of an envelope. Along with a little roll of duct tape, small hand pump, some nylon string and a mini wd40 can, I’d have a very light and small collection of handy bits and pieces that would keep us moving if we ran into a problem.

Binary Thinking

More notes from Phoenix, along with some editorializing:

Education is an analogue, non-linear, complex, biological process because we are non-linear, complex, biological organisms. Data and the technology that produces it are none of those things. Data might point to a vanishingly small piece of this complex puzzle, but it will never explain, justify or encompass education, no matter what vested interests might tell you.

We are such chameleons. The dominant thinking of our time actually changes how we see ourselves. When the social norm was religiously defined we saw ourselves as angels and demons. When industrialization occurred we described ourselves in terms of the machines we were creating. In the information age we define ourselves in terms of digital data. It’s important to remember that we are none of these things, but rather the creator of all of them, and therefor greater than them all.

Digital technology is turning our thinking binary. How do you feel today? A) good B) bad By participating in this data gathering process you have reduced your complex mental state to an absurdity. Every question is reductive, every piece of data a feathery abstraction of a deeper, more complex meaning. Every time education acts on this reductive logic it becomes less a form of human expression and more an act of compliance with digitally limited technology. There is a branch of thinking that suggests that this is simply because technology hasn’t become fast and vast enough to manage the data, but even at its best digital technology will always be limited to how it works. Even at near infinite speeds with infinite amounts of data you’re still reducing reality to ones and zeroes, which it isn’t.

If digital technology forces reductive binary thinking then any cost savings realized from it will come at the cost of our ability to express ourselves in all the ways that we can.

This is a transitional thought, it led to this line of thinking:

Rigour doesn’t exist in data or the statistics derived from it, rigour exists at the limits of human expression. It is never dictated by the limits of hardware or software.

What do I mean by rigour? Thorough and careful – digital data is neither. It is accurate, but only in a very specific sense. We take that fine accuracy and direct it at a far larger array of cause and effect than it could possibly represent, mainly because recognizing the limits of data doesn’t suit the people peddling it. Statistics never encompass the truths they claim to.

Mastery is the result of genuine experience. No one ever gained mastery from taking a test.

If genuine experience is what drives leaning, why do we keep inventing abstractions like testing to drive it?

The answer to that one is obvious: it’s cheaper and easier to manage if we grossly simplify learning to the point of abstraction. Of course, that kind of hypocrisy and self-serving nonsense provokes awkward questions:

If learning is for the learner, why do we do most of what we do in education for everyone else involved? Is education motivated by politics or pedagogy?

The easiest most self-serving way for ‘educators’ to dehumanize students is by reducing them to data. This becomes more self-evident when you realize that most data collected from education is focused on the system rather than improving student learning.

Ronin

Originally published on Dusty World, March, 2014.

The Google Apps for Education (GAFE) ‘Summit’ is this weekend. I’m not there and I’m comfortable with that. There is nothing in Google that I haven’t been able to figure out on my own and I use Google extensively, they make good products.

Last week’s Elearning Ontario Presentation

Last week I presented at elearning Ontario on how to create a diverse digital learning ecosystem. You’d think that educators would want to get their hands on as wide a variety of tools as possible in order to not only provide the best possible digital learning support for their students but to also increase their own comfort zone in educational technology. In the mad rush to digitize the vast majority of people want as little expertise to accompany it as possible, they would much rather find a closed ecosystem in which they can develop a false sense of mastery.

If you hyper focus on one thing you tend to get an inflated sense of your abilities. I wouldn’t trust a mechanic who can only work on Ford brakes or a teacher who can only work out of Pearson textbooks, I’d have to assume they’ve learned by rote rather than developed mastery. I know it’s hard work, but becoming fluent in digital tools requires some time, some curiosity and some humility and that’s ok.

A colleague showed me this last year and it has been
on my mind ever since.

The idea that you get a qualification under a single brand and have somehow become a master of digital learning is misleading. But the limits of evangelizing a single digital learning ecosystem go well beyond questionable professional practices around branding teachers with private company logos. There is also the question of how these technologies are mining education for profit.

If you live within a monopolistic education technology environment you can never be sure what they are doing with the data they are managing for you ‘for free’. That data is worth a lot of money. Even if it’s being stripped of names, the ethics of exchanging student marketing data for a ‘free’ digital learning environment has to be questioned. In a monopolistic situation that questioning doesn’t happen. Only an open, fair digital learning environment allows us to demand higher standards from companies who are otherwise singularly focused on making money in any way that they can.

Wouldn’t an opensource hardware model that allows us
to teach all technology platforms be a nice idea? The Learnbook

Some links to consider:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/04/google_amends_its_terms_on_sca.html
“Google would not answer questions about whether its data-mining practices support the creation of profiles on student users.

Google also confirmed to Education Week that its general terms of service and privacy policy apply to student users of Apps for Education, a stance contrary to the company’s earlier public statements.”

http://www.osapac.org/cms/sites/default/files/Memo%20-%20Contract%20Addendums.pdf

OSAPAC has worked out a deal that doesn’t sell off Ontario Students’ data, but it’s a secret,
and each board has to implement it themselves. The mysteries of information in the information age…

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23gafesummit&src=typd&mode=users
Tweets on this weekend’s GAFE summit in Kitchener/Waterloo… the koolaid tastes good.

ro·nin

ˈrōnən/

noun

historical

1.

(in feudal Japan) a wandering samurai who had no lord or master.

Motorcycle Reading: Red Tape & White Knuckles by Lois Pryce

I read Lois on the Loose a couple of months back so I put Red Tape and White Knuckles on Kindle for a read over the Christmas holidays. Lois’s ride through the Americas was a great read, so Red Tape had a lot to live up to.

If you enjoy well edited, lean writing that is almost pathological in its honesty you’ll love Lois’s writing style. She holds nothing back as she describes her long and arduous route from England to Cape Town. Her vulnerability riding a motorbike colours the entire trip, making this very much a motorcycle focused read.

Now that I’ve read both books I often find myself wondering how the people she ends up travelling with find her depictions of them. She is relentless in her assessment of how people deal with the challenges of adventure travel, and it isn’t always (usually?) flattering.

Lois is equally honest with her own fears and abilities while navigating Africa’s byzantine politics and sometime apocalyptic landscape. Her doubts creep in throughout this difficult ride, but she also explains how she recovers which is a wonderful insight into resiliency.

You’d think that the physical aspects of trying to cross Africa on a motorcycle would be what slows her down, but just when you think that the Sahara Desert will be the ultimate challenge you’re scared to death of what will happen next in the Congo. People are, by far, the most dangerous thing Lois encounters, though they are also often the saving grace.

Like Lois on the Loose before it, Red Tape & White Knuckles has some can’t-put-it-down moments (especially awkward when you’re supposed to be getting off a plane). And like her previous trip this one leaves you feeling like you’ve been on an epic journey where the beginning feels like a distant memory as you finish. Like the best journeys, this one feels like it changes you.

It’s better if it’s a tiger…

Toward the end of the novel Lois has an interesting talk with her husband Austin. Lois’s atheism comes up a number of times during her trip through religion soaked Africa, and her discussion at the end about Austin (also an atheist) praying for her safety was enlightening. It got me thinking about what being an atheist means.

I’d also describe myself as an atheist, but that doesn’t mean I’m lacking in imagination or meaning in my life. If Life of Pi teaches you anything, it’s that you shouldn’t miss the better story or the resiliency offered by an empowered emotional approach to challenging circumstances.

Lois contrasts the dead eyes and mercantile nature of the Congolese with the gentle kindness she finds elsewhere. There is such a thing as being too much of a realist, of allowing the world around you to dictate your reaction to it. We’re powerful creatures able to create our own responses to the circumstances we find ourselves in.

On our recent trip south I found myself putting on my lucky socks before I loaded up my son and all our gear to go for a ride in the Superstition Mountains (I know, right?). Do I really believe these socks are lucky? No, not if I dwell on it, but I like these socks, they make me feel like I’ve got my best kit on, they put my mind at ease, make me feel like I’m ready to do a difficult thing well. That confidence has real world value. Same with that lucky hockey stick, or my lovely motorcycle. Am I superstitious? No, I wouldn’t say I am because I spent most of my young adult life learning that things like fate or luck don’t exist, but I recognize the value of empowering myself with positive thinking.

If Austin found some peace in fraught times worrying about Lois in Africa then this isn’t a repudiation of atheism and reason, it’s an acceptance of the power of hope. These tentative forays into the psychology of adventure riding suggest an untapped opportunity. Lois’s honesty allows her unpack the complex psychology around dealing with fear, nurturing resiliency and developing an effective mental approach to the challenges of travelling off the beaten path. I get the sense that she shies away from this kind of philosophizing, but I hope she doesn’t in the future. If her purpose is to get more people out and about, this would aid in that.

Unfortunately this brings me to the end of Lois’s current works. Fortunately she’s working on another novel due out soon about her riding around Iran…

Around Georgian Bay

Everyone’s busy this weekend so, and to quote Freddie Mercury, I’m going to take a long ride on my motorbike. Time for my first circumnavigation of a Great Lake, I’ll start small with Georgian Bay. From Elora I’ll strike north to Tobermory. There is a 1:30 ferry to Manitoulin Island, that’s the only must get to (gotta get there an hour before departure, so 12:30pm in Tobermory).

I’m aiming for Little Current to overnight. We stopped there last summer and it seems a lovely spot to spend the night, and The Hawberry Motel looks the part. That’ll put me 340kms and a two hour ferry ride into an 873km circumnavigation.

Sunday morning I’m on the winding road up to Espanola and then over to Sudbury before the long ride south. It might seem like a stretch but the ride south includes some time on the 400, so I’ll get to see how the Concours manages highway riding while making some time down the other side of the bay. Once I get back south of the Bay I’ll cut over to the coast and follow it around before heading south out of Wasaga Beach for the final push home.

This ride is the longest I’ve yet done, and it also includes a ferry ride. I’m pretty revved up about it! Friday night will be the pre-flight checks then on the road Saturday morning. My buddy Jeff has said he’ll do the first leg with me up to Tobermory, so I’ll also get to do some miles in formation. Another box checked.

Here are the posts from the trip:
Part 1: To the North
Part 2: An informed ride
Part 3: Highway Miles
Part 4: The Kit
Part 5: Media from the Trip

The Concours is sorted and doing regular duty commuting me to work, time to stretch her legs…

LINKS

The Ferry

The Hawberry Motel

The Map

The Trip Itself

Watching The Sun Rise: Reflections on life and teaching in 2012/13

Stephen Hurley at VoicEd asked for a reflection as the year ends, so I’ll give it a whirl. This is going to be tricky to do without spiraling into Nietzsche’s abyss.

This past school year started with the worst summer of my adult life. I’m still recovering from my mother’s suicide and I probably shouldn’t have resumed teaching in the fall, but I did out of shear stubbornness. Rather than trying to deal with this nightmare in a quiet year I got to do it during one of the most turbulent political periods in Ontario education. You need only look over Dusty World in the fall to see the white water political ride education in general and my board in particular went through.

In a few short weeks, as OSSTF swung from a confrontational stance with the Liberal government that I supported by volunteering on our district executive and attending many rallies, I found myself suddenly muzzled by an organization that I realized I have very little in common with. Rather than standing up for what is right, they would rather do what is expedient. I’ve never been good at bending a knee to bullying, even if it does serve a political end. It’s half a year later and our OLRB complaint against OSSTF for misrepresentation is still awaiting an outcome. Being an idealist I find this very upsetting. It seems any organization is politically self interested before it can stand for anything else.

It’s easy to forget that teachers are people, and the job is a deeply personal one. This past year has had a number of strange confluences both personal and professional for me. As my school and board tried to leverage the suicide of Amanda Todd to address bullying I couldn’t help but feel that this was manipulating misery for some kind of administrative end. The contrite, ‘suicide is bad, don’t bully someone into it’ struck me as simplistic. That cyber-bullying got selected by the media as the cause of her suicide (which a number of anti-technology teachers immediately trumpeted as proof that we should back off on it) was doubly frustrating. That Amanda, like my mother, suffered from years of mental illness tends to be ignored because dealing with something as complicated as mental illness is more than most organizations, no matter how well intentioned, are willing or able to do. That provincial and federal governments have basically bowed out of caring for the mentally ill has put a great deal of stress on already over stressed families. If we’re going to address mental illness it better not be on a poster stuck up in a high school. This trivializes a very complex issue. Suicide is never a simple result of bullying, it’s the most profound, existential decision you’re ever going to make. It deserves more than a soundbite.

Between the fractured politics in education and my own personal baggage 2012/13 has been a difficult year to manage. As the storm subsided and we began our two years of government mandated contract, the school trundled on and extracurriculars resumed, kind of. In a subdued second semester I began to get some closure with my Mum and tried to find ways to get back on my feet again. The first semester was like watching a horse with a broken leg that didn’t have the sense to lay down. At the end of second semester I’m able to stand without it hurting so much.

With some perspective on a year that felt like nastiness was crowding in all around me, I’m able to see the good that happened too. My wonderful wife has done backflips to help me through this, all while battling the same political nonsense and working on her Masters. My spectacular son continues to astonish me with how deep he is getting, even as the education system continues to wring its hands over how not-normal he is. I got a new principal who knows what she’s doing and who appreciates the work I do. I’ve been able to develop my professional interests both as a department head, teacher and online PLN presence. My board has been developing a real 21st Century presence in educational technology and I feel like I’ve played an important part in arguing for that. The year has been very professionally satisfying, if you ignore the Ministry, the union and the media… which is probably good advice.

Even with a nasty political infection, education in Ontario has been able to produce outstanding results, and I’ve been able to develop my professional self in satisfying and challenging ways. No year is ever going to be without challenges, and the challenges of this year have been mighty, but that I’m able to find intense intellectual satisfaction in my profession is a great help when dealing with all the slings and arrows life can throw your way.

Stay On Target

Stay on target… stay on target!

You want to talk about extracurriculars? About how teachers should do them for the love of their job? How they should sacrifice their own family lives so that they can ‘save the children!’ The politics around this are thick, and they do a great job of hiding the real problem.

Education isn’t about extracurriculars, extracurriculars are about education. Royan Lee, the education ninja, asked the question that got right to this during TVO’s The Agenda, last week. He then blogged about it, which might help all those people so tied up in the politics that they’ve lost the plot.

We’re not in education to enrich those students wealthy enough to enjoy extracurriculars. I didn’t do a lot of extracurriculars in school – I had to go to work every day after school from the age of 10 onwards. If you think you’re saving the kids by coaching basketball after school, you’re only saving the ones that can afford it. The fact that extracurriculars usually cost money (bus costs, equipment, etc) many families can’t manage further underlines this unfairness.

Education should offer everyone equal opportunity. It should be the most liberal of social exercises; opportunity for all, regardless of socio-economic status. There is an inherent classism in extracurriculars, but I’m sure all those passionate teachers who are rushing to pick up ECs again don’t want to think about that, they just want to win a few games and demonstrate their ‘passion’.

The teacher as evangelist isn’t helpful in any of this. The martyr teacher only wants to emotionally show how much they care. As a parent, this isn’t what I want from my son’s teachers. Passion is great, but if that’s all you’ve got, then quite frankly, you’re creepy, and ineffective. I’m looking for my son’s teachers to be professionals who are always looking to improve their practice. If they are so thick as to believe that doing extracurriculars doesn’t impact their ability to maximize classroom learning then they have already demonstrated a lack of understanding around the use of limited resources in a time sensitive environment. Zoe mentioned this in the Agenda show, but was quickly shot down by edu-babble around ‘best practices’. There are no ‘best practices’. Teaching is a constant development of a very complicated process. When I see teachers throwing out edu-babble to simplify our work and support political motives, it strikes me as a professional failure.

The Spicy Learning Blog

Royan’s blog post raises the question of what is so special about ECs. If the list to the left are what make ECs so valuable to students, why aren’t these things happening in classrooms? The target of education should be learning. If ECs offer advantages, why aren’t they being integrated everywhere?

As I said in the comments of his great post, the education ship is rusty and running poorly. It’s covered in barnacles like extracurriculars, standardized testing, reduced professional development, government and union politics, social opinion, poor teacher standards and weak administrative development. While Royan is asking why we don’t fix the ship, the other teachers on the show instead go on at length about how important the barnacles are.

Extra curriculars shouldn’t be extra. We shouldn’t be waiting until after school to offer this enriched learning environment to the few students who can or will take advantage of it. We need to fix the damn boat, not get wrapped up in the union/government politics.

If that Agenda episode showed me anything, it’s that teachers are just as caught up in the politics of distraction as the media, government and public are. Stop crying about what the rich kids are missing out on and integrate what makes extracurriculars so fantastic into a public school system everyone can benefit from.

Thank goodness Royan Skywalker got his proton torpedoes on target.