So when I read a story like this, about how students who have repeatedly struggled with a “core class at school” (i.e. they didn’t pass) being able to use computers for credit recovery so that they can graduate, I like the idea.

And I do believe that there is a place and space in public education to address this need in this type of way.

But I also gotta question one basic thing: How do they know the student doing the work online is the student who is getting the credit? I mean, why not just cheat?

Have your brother do it, your sister do it, a cool aunt or uncle. I mean if we are talking about the difference between a relative being able to earn a high school diploma or not, blood’s a little thicker than water on the “please help me front”.

And kids can barter. 10 car washes for an Algebra Class. 6 wash-the-dishes for an English paper. 8 let-me-borrow-your-car for some academic love on the American History front.

Really, where are the safeguards? And though I am sure they are in place to some small extent, let’s be honest, huh? I mean I use online banking but come on, in the back of all our minds we all know that each time we log in we might discover that every freakin’ penny to our name has been absconded with by some Russian hacker with laptop and a bottle of vodka.

If Chase, Bank of America and CitiBank struggle with online deception — as they mightily do, pouring miliions into it every year, fending off thousands of attacks every month — you don’t think America’s alternative high schools and credit recovery departments aren’t going to see a wee bit of fraud?

Of course, the girl in the article certainly seems like she did her work and benefitted from an online learning opportunity. This is no way meant to disparage her. Like I said, for some kids, this is gonna be good stuff.

But at what point does it simply cost a kid 7 “mow-the-lawns” for an Algebra I credit in this country?

Is there such a thing as an English class that doesn’t read a single, real, whole book over the course of the year? I mean I know there is. Some places — WAY TOO MANY in fact — have the The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class

That’s right, they mandate that NO NOVELS be taught.

It’s all excerpts, pieces taken from anthologies, worksheets, scripted programming and… biggest of all, practice tests to prepare for the real tests.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

Every good English teacher I know uses real books in the classroom. From Crime and Punishment to The Outsiders to The Skin I’m In to Old Yeller to Hatchet to The Great Gatsby to The Pearl to The Lord of the Flies to Animal Farm to To Kill a Mockingbird and on and on and on, real books are part of the fabric of what makes for, in my estimation, the essential, core constitution of a real and effective and meaningful ELA class.

When exactly did that stop? (Don’t worry, I know. It’s rhetorical.)

So the question is, forgetting even my own prejudice towards the use of real books (prejudice because 1) I love them and 2) years and years of experience tell me that they work as my BEST tool for accomplishing all the literacy goals both I and my school district have for our students) am I the only one who believes we need to re-double our efforts to start fighting for primary source authentic literature (i.e. real books) in the classroom?

Because real books are under assault from the bean/bubble counters.

Could you teach an entire year as an ELA educator without being able to use one real novel? And if so, do you think that by doing so this would be a methodology that best serve the needs of your kids?

The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class are a menace to the very fabric of our discipline… and isn’t it time that someone stood up to them and explained how the emperor has no clothes?

And a tiny wanker, too.

Sorry, just had to get that last “little one” in. Get it? Little one?

Look, I could rail on and on and on about why I believe it is entirely appropriate to throw a HUGE bash at NCTE to actually celebrate students.

But instead, I am going to let a student do the talking. (Please know that she is but one of the young poets you will see on Saturday night at NCTE in Philly if you come to the event… and when you are done, I’d ask you to reflect upon the question, “Isn’t it about time we did a better job of validating the aptitudes of our kids in our schools?”)

Remember, I was only allotted 50 tickets to attend the bash. Please email Beth at beaton@recordedbooks.com if you would like to be considered for the tix lottery for Saturday night.

Beth has requested that you please include your name, job title, school, state, and email address — and please make sure to put ‘BookJam Bash’ in the subject line. thx.

With a little luck, this will become an annual tradition.

So a really special opportunity has come up for me to offer 50 free tickets to a private literacy bash that is going to be off the chains at NCTE 2009 on Saturday night.

What we are gonna do is celebrate literacy, words, and books the way it oughtta be celebrated.

I wanted to open it up to everyone who wanted to come — all my ning friends — but since the food is free and the drinks will be flowing, my book publishers decided that the cap for my ability to invite my web homies would be set at 50 and they are gonna go the lottery route instead of first come first serve (cause that’s always BS anyway.)

So here’s how to put your name in for some free tix:

Email the ever gracious Beth at beaton@recordedbooks.com and let her know that you are gonna be in Philly and would love to come rock the house with us til the wee hours. (The flier says it ends at 10:00 pm but let’s be honest, when you get this many high energy teachers, writers, book lovers, spoken word artists and the such together, 10:00 is more like a start time. LOL!)

Beth has requested that you please include your name, job title, school, state, and email address — and please make sure to put ‘BookJam Bash’ in the subject line. thx.

Here’s what’s up… wish I could invite everyone. (Maybe next year in Orlando).

Sesame Street turned 40 years old this week. To honor the show which game me my start as a lover of literacy, here’s a big ol’ shout out to Big Bird, Oscar, Ernie & Bert, and of course, the character that still represents to me the height of personal achievement and excellence, COOKIE MONSTER!

Here’s a list of 40 cool things about Sesame Street that is worth a moment if you have one.

And after I read #1 on the list (CBS and NBC rejected Sesame Street before it debuted Nov. 10, 1969, on PBS… I know, WOW! But then again, they probably would have smacked it up anyway so, as Pangloss would say, “All is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.”)

But it got me thinking, passing on Sesame Street is an epic goof. Like historical. So, what are some of the most famous gaffes in history? (Goodness do I love these type of “predictions” — I mean people will shoot off their mouths about almost anything, won’t they?) And where would passing on Seasme Street rank?

Let’s put it this way, missing out on the opportunity to bring this show to kids across the world is a blunder of spectacular proportions. Anyway, in my opinion, it ranks right up there with a few other brilliant prognosticators.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
– Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
– Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

Of course, there are more…

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”
– A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
– Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

And finally, some of the most famous…

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
– Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
– H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

Thanks for everything, Sesame Street. My life, my daughter’s life, our world is a better because of you! I mean yours is a birthday that really warms my heart.

Let’s be honest… I am soft.

I mean I have a wife and a three year old daughter and the idea of setting sail to go to war where there’s a possibility that I may come home in a body bag is a choice I have never had to face. (Thankfully.)

The mere idea of it sends chills up my spine. And really, I am not sure if I have — or would have ever have had — the stomach to do it. And while I am anti-war and all that other “left-wing, Southern California” stuff, the fact is I have never had to face some of the hard decisions that people and families in the military have had to face.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I admire the heck out of them for their sacrifice, guts and convictions.

Forget the politics of it all. (Which is hard because war is politics in so many ways.) Veteran’s Day is a holiday with real meaning for many, many real people.

I mean my own grandfather left a pregnant wife (my grandmother was 7 months along with my father, their first) when he was but 21 years old to go do his duty in WWII.

He slept in foxholes. He ate crappy food. He even did latrine duty cause of his smart-ass mouth. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? LOL!!)

But he lived. (He’ll be 89 on X-Mas day.) Yet I never really understood what any of that meant until I became a dad myself.

Leave my pregnant wife to cross the world and go spend my days getting shot at not knowing if I’ll ever return to see my child or spouse? Uhm…

Veteran’s Day is the day to salute thousands and thousands of people who have made a sacrifice that is, if you think about it, almost mind-numbing in the scope of what it asks and potentially can take.

Hats off to the veterans and their families. Though a dude like me may not often seem to reflect it often enough, I admire the heck of out you.

And I hope it is not an affront for a non-military person to say that I really do salute you.

So what is to be done when a student farts in class?

Hey, don’t laugh, this is a serious academic issue.

The way I see it, there are a coupla options.

1) Try to pretend it didn’t happen. Of course, if it’s stinky one, the boys sitting in and around the — let’s pretend I teach in a church — the boys sitting in and around the “pew” are gonna keep disrupting whatever progress you want to make in your lesson with commentary and insights about the aroma.

Of course, when you try to actually teach an ELA lesson on the need to use precise, descriptive, vibrant vocabulary in English class, you get papers back that lay flat and are filled with bland vanilla. But let a kid break wind and all of a sudden, the vocabulary being bandied about the room would make a lovelorn poet from the Romantic era proud of its richness and poignancy.

2) Scold the perpetrator. Now for me, this one would never work. First of all, I am still immature enough to find farts kinda funny so to actually try and castigate a kid would probably result in me cracking a smile in the middle of trying to keep a stern face. (Note: I think there is a fart joke in almost every book of young adult fiction I’ve yet written. And the new books that’ll be out next year, well… let’s just say it doesn’t look like the streak is in any danger of being broken right now.)

3) Pretend nothing actually happened and keep pressing on with the lesson. Probably the best route, when all is said and done, but meta-cognitively, an educator must know that for up to 180 seconds after student cheese-cutting, a teacher shouldn’t relay any truly valuable academic information — or else you will need to make a plan to re-teach it. After all, one good blasting of some backdoor breeze from a kid in class is enough to render even the most diligent of AP kids out of sorts for a while.

I guess the question I, as the teacher, have to really ask myself before I go down the road of condemnation for public flatulence is, to what end am I going to reprimand a student for this stuff? Am I going to send a kid to the Dean? Am I going to give the kid detention? Come on, let’s be honest, the more I keep the main subject of the classroom on student gas, the more tickled the kids are that we are 1) talking about this and 2) not talking about things like appositive phrases. I mean I have boys that would gladly engage in a 20 minute analysis on the type of wind currents able to be generated through the human digestive tract — the tone, the pitch, the pungency, the types of foods best suited to achieve optimum results — and if I were to give fart homework, I have a feeling my some of my most reluctant students would suddenly turn into verifiable scholars.

You want student engagement in the classroom? Try a Socratic Seminar on bottom blasts from the big brown horn. Guaranteed participation from all kinds of kids.

You want to teach vocabulary? Use farts. They’ll never forget the definition of turgidity again.

And not to be sexist, but how come I’ve never once had a freshman interrupt class with the declaration, “Ew, Kimberly farted!”

I get, “Ew, Michael farted!”
I get, “Ew, Joesph farted!”
I get, “Ew, both Michael and Joseph farted!”

But never the girls. Hmmm… worth more investigation.

The Conundrum of Student Farts… in my opinion, it’s an issue that needs more high level discussion.

There’s a part of me that feels as if the discussion I raised the other day about how using technology in way that simply adds up to “digitalizing worksheets” devolved to a place where I feel I wasn’t quite paying heed to the idea that I really do recognize the potential — if not obvious — merits of technology. I have seen Smartboards, airliners, wikis, webquests, nings and the such used in a manner that absolutely legitimizes the credibility of the argument for 21rst century skills in the classroom… and I am a fan.

I’m sold!

However, everything I’ve seen that I greatly admire has a foundation in real human thought and deep student thinking.

Technology allows students to probe deeper and wider with more expediency and more efficiency (to name but a few of the benefits). Wielded properly, the case for utilizing 21rst century technology tools is virtually inarguable. The stuff rocks.

However… well, the however category might be the biggest technology hurdle out there — and the one that so few are addressing by name. Bigger than the expenditure, the PD needed, the retrofitting of all our current institutions and the investment we are going to need to make on a zillion other fronts is the “However category”.

The “However” category relates to fundamentally asking ourselves, “What is the goal of classroom education?” If technology is not meta-cognitively implemented with an eye on reflectively asking ourselves “what is the learning goal that this tool better empowers me to achieve” then we will quickly find ourselves losing the forest for the trees.

After all, if we do not ask the right questions there is a very low likelihood that we are going to stumble into the right answers.

I know the past few years of NCLB has seen an almost manic mandate to have teachers — especially new teachers — put the day’s “academic objective on the board at the front of the room”. (As if learning is a widget to be easily stamped; today we will be persuasive argument writers, tomorrow precise gerund users, Thursday will see us read Langston Hughes for subtext and Friday will see us master split infinitives. Oh, the buffoonery.)

However, with technology, having a clear, well thought-out student learning objective really is the compass by which one can navigate the use of technology. Now, I don’t want to double dip and plagiarize from myself (can one even be guilty of this?) because I talk address this issue in depth in my Scholastic book Teaching Teens and Reaping Results in Wi-Fi, Hip-Hop, Where Has All the Sanity Gone World, yet, the fact is, when you bring project-based learning into the classroom, you need to know what intellectual goal you are pursuing before you even begin — and you better tenaciously pursue that clear and focused aim because all the bells and whistles available in tech today are like a Siren Temptress of the Sea which can easily lead a teachers onto the calamitous rocks of classroom lesson implosion.

Tech needs a litmus test to justify its incorporation into a classroom. Know your objective and then, think like Einstein who often said, “Simplify, simplify simplify.”

If the tech shoe doesn’t fit, why force it?

There was something exceptionally cool going on in Indianapolis this week during the NMSA annual conference where I just presented. Yet, it was also exceptionally troubling.

In the back of the exhibit hall somebody had set up a “Classroom of the 21rst Century”. Essentially, what they had done was bring in a class of real middle school students from a local Indy school and had them spend the day in an exhibit hall area that had been fashioned into a “21rst century classroom”.

There were laptops on every desk, an interactive whiteboard at the front of the room and all the latest digital gadgets that teachers and students can use for classroom instruction were on display — so that passerbys (and purchasers, of course) could catch a glimpse of education’s future.

And like I said they had brought in real kids to participate in a regular class that was simply being held on location at the conference. (About 25-30 multicultural 7th graders I believe, but it was very much set up as a real classroom.)

And so I watched for about 20 minutes. Like I said, the idea of it was very cool and I salute all the folks for being innovative and trying. However, a part of what I saw freaked me out.

Smartboards, laptops, autoresponders and the such were everywhere. Okay, cool. And lots of teachers and admins were gawking. Well, I was gawking as well… but for a different reason.

Because academic rigor, critical thinking and demanding intellectual thought were almost nowhere to be found. The display was basically “worksheet lessons” that had been digitalized.

Oy vey!

I mean I get the good intentions of everyone but lots of old school educators remain skeptical of drinking the 21rst Century Digital Future Kool-Aid, and though I am a HUGE advocate of 21rst century skills, when I see what I saw, I understand why there is so much recalcitrance.

I watched it take 7 minutes – that’s right, 7 minutes – for a boy to come up to the front of the room and do a “fill in the blank worksheet style problem. Uh huh, a worksheet style problem.

The sentence on the interactive whiteboard was something like, “Libby is a ________________ retriever.” His task, fill in the blank. (I swear, I am not making this up.)

Now being that this was on a Smartboard, they had a picture of a golden retriever. And the teacher could make it bark. (Took him a bit though.) And the task (for the entire class) was to have 1 kid come to the board and write the proper “fill in the blank word” by hand into the blank on the board while 26 other kids watched and learned.

Learned what, I don’t know.

Of course the kid struggled with the digital pen for a wee bit, he accidentally leaned on a part of the board rendering it ineffective, the teacher tried to correct the kid’s mistake but they both found themselves writing at the same time so the board couldn’t respond properly and by the time all was said and done, over seven minutes had passed before this kid had written the word “golden” by hand into the blank… and then the teacher magically transformed the student handwriting into digital text with a press of his magic pen.

The audience went wow.

And I went WTF?

Like I said, seven minutes to fill in a single blank on a glorified, digitalized worksheet with a self-evident answer while the other 26 students did nada but try to remain well behaved.

In a way, being that I am the type of teacher who believes that there is a place for cell phones and the such in the classroom, this is my great fear. Just as some educators have turned computers into nothing more than glorified typewriters and then relaxed into believing they are incorporating technology into their curriculum by having done so, I am also afraid that the gadget craze is going to create a sense of false futurism.

The bells and whistles of technology are not going to replace the need for critical thinking and whether or not you mimeographed your worksheet question “Libby is a ________________ retriever.” in 1950 or you put it up on an interactive whiteboard at the front of a room filled with kids in some kind of one-to-one laptop environment, the actual teaching is still piss-poor.

If you are going to demonstrate a 21rst century classroom, these kids better be doing things like using the tech tools to build inquiry based webquests on the retriever breed or something… not “Libby is a ________________ retriever.”

Otherwise, what’s the point?

And more scary is how I saw the heavy hitting admins and superintendent types in the back almost salivating at the thought of all this 21rst century digital technology.

Lemme tell ya folks, I don’t care if “Libby is a %^#$Q* retriever.” Technology is a tool to wield but if we are not building the brain muscle of our kids, it’s better that these tools just stay on the shelf so that we don’t all dupe ourselves into believing that just because a class has laptops, Smartboards, and gadget up the yin-yang, there is actual learning going on.

And I am sorry if anyone from NMSA takes offense at this but if you are going to demonstrate a classroom lesson for the educational public to see, demonstrating scholarly rigor has got to be your first priority.

Let’s not let our eyes deviate from the real prize, right?

In addition to doing Professional Development for schools and districts, I also do student assemblies (with my YA author hat on.) And the truth is, while I like doing to adult events, the kids just smoke the grown-ups on the “fun for me” scale… it’s not even close.

Anyway, I did a really cool, very well received student assembly last year at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA. Essentially, a great teacher over there named Devon Day nudged and nudged me to come, and when I was able to make the schedule work, I did.

The kids were great. The staff was nice. All in all, it was pretty good stuff.

I only mention it because this is the same Wilson High that has been in the news lately… for all the wrong reasons. Tragically, one of their students was fatally shot and killed after their homecoming game. It was front page stuff out this way.

A big theme of mine that day was about choices and trying to advocate for education over violence. As the author of the really popular YA book Homeboyz, a book many of their students just love, I feel it is essential to make sure kids are crystal clear as to why I wrote the book. It’s a cautionary tale, violent and raw and all too real. Studnets, like moths to the flame, are entranced by gangs in this day and age but this stuff ain’t no joke — that’s part of my presentations. Anway, Devon just sent me the following email as her school wrestles with how to move on in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Alan,

Devon

On one hand, I am thrilled that a great teacher like Devon finds my work worthy enough to bring into her own classroom to try and teach and reach her kids. On the other hand, I am sad and empty.

I mean I live under the delusion that when I do free assemblies like the one I did for Devon’s school that it’s because it’s gonna make an impact and kids are gonna get it and things are going to change. Unfortunately, I do not have nearly the power I wish I did to help young people avoid the violence which plagues young America today.

It’s depressing. No matter what I do I know that individually it will never be enough. (I mean, I am working on 4 hours of sleep as I type this right now and my voice is so raw from teaching and speaking I am scared of creating scar tissue on my vocal cords — but I just haven’t had a break for weeks).

And yet still, we forge on. What more can we all do but forge on? Not give in to cynicism and bitterness. Not turn to anger or hate. All I guess we can do is put one foot in front of the other.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of Melody Ross… and to the community of Long Beach Wilson. As adults in this world, we have got to find a way to do better by our kids.

Blame is easy. Solutions are a whole different matter.

This weekend, let’s all remember that bullets just took another young student’s life and no matter how much I think about it, it really just doesn’t make any sense.

Good luck, Wilson High. Hope you know there are people in your corner everywhere even if you do not see them.