I once saw a documentary piece on Pixar and how Steve Jobs had instructed the architect who was building HQ to physically design the building so that nooks and crannies were hard to find and “collision points” were everywhere. Why did he do this? Because he felt that the best ideas often came when people were walking down the hall and bumped into other people… because in that moment of collision (or was it serendipity) excellent ideas were born via unscheduled, relaxed, low-pressure conversation and collaboration.

Whenever I leave NCTE it often feels as if this has happened to me. And nowadays, the week before I venture there, I just sense that somehow, someway, through some sort of some-thing, I will have an offhand encounter that will lead to an offhand conversation that will ultimately result into an explosion of personal insight.

Here’s a Jim Burke story to illustrate the point:

A bunch of years ago at NCTE Jim and I sat down for a coffee. We used to meet for dinner every year until “scheduled dinners” stole away our ability to do this (and boy do I miss our sushi date, Jim, if you are reading this). Anyway, during this coffee break I ran a kooky new book idea up Jim’s flagpole.

All I really had was a title at the time and a small premise.

“I have an idea for a new YA book of fiction, a comedy,” I said.

“If I may be so bold to ask, what is it?” Jim replied. (Jim is always unfailingly polite… unlike the blustery moi.)

“Well, here’s the title… ERECTION! It’s about a middle school boy who gets busted with a boner in math class.”

Jim broke out laughing. Now the thing is, none of this was premeditated. I do not even think I arrived at the conference planning on pitching Jim an idea for a book, one that I sensed would certainly engage boy readers. (The holy grail, in a way, these days.)

However, the moment Jim busted out with a belly laugh I had a flash of insight that this book was even funnier than I suspected. And would be relatable in a way that was more than I expected. And would be touching the taboo yet staying within bounds in a way that was more than I expected. And that’s when I knew I had to write this book. Jim’s sensibilities weren’t offended at all. (My fear.) And humor, as I suspected, held the potential to carry the day when it came to tackling a difficult subject. (Like male puberty.) Jim literally was the first person I told about this idea and even though that was years ago, a seed was planted at NCTE that afternoon which I knew I’d one day HAVE to harvest. (NOTE: this idea morphed into my new book THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING UP which has garnered the first starred review of my fiction writing career.)

Of course, all of this happened by happenstance, by running into one another when we each had a moment. Though I have no idea whether or not Steve Jobs would have liked my book, I do think he would have knowingly nodded at how the idea was born and cemented.

Attending conferences live and in the flesh will deliver a plethora of tremendous insights for those who make the trek to Chicago this week. Perhaps it will be a lesson plan that unlocks a kid who has previously been a really tough nut to crack? Perhaps it will be a person you meet while waiting in line for a mid-day snack that makes you remember why you love being a professional educator deep in your bones? Perhaps it will be a book editor who gives you your first break, a principal who offers you a new job or an online friend who suddenly becomes more than a mere avatar. Heck, you might even learn something while sitting in one of the sessions listening to one of the tremendous presenters. (Shocking, I know.)

So why should folks attend more conferences. Because serendipity awaits.

I just don’t get the whole Joe Paterno thing.

On one hand, if he is in any way complicit to sheltering a monster (see The Sandusky Child Abuse scandal) then why in the world would the university allow him to be on the sidelines this Saturday… and for the rest of the football season?

And if he is not liable – legally or morally – in any manner, then why resign?

One thing which seems clear is that Joe Pa appears to be tone deaf to the severity of this atrocity. I mean why even head to football practice the other day when the news broke? Why not say something like, “Ya know what, I am 100% innocent of any and all allegations but still, since I recognize how heinous this crime is, I am going to show my compassion and understanding by putting football on the back-burner while more serious matters take precedence and sort themselves out a bit.”

After all, the abuse did happen under the umbrella of your football program, Joe – and no one in the history of college football has ever owned a bigger NCAA football umbrella than you, Mr. “Pa” – so take a moment, think about the victims and at least sit out a practice – or even a game or two – simply out of a sense of “doing the right thing”, huh?

That’s what I don’t get. If you are innocent of any and all charges and you sit out for a little bit, then all you did was the right thing while matters sorted themselves out. (And considering the type of crime we are talking about here, it’s hardly something one could consider an “exceptional, undue sacrifice” at all.)

And if things sort out in a way that doesn’t favor you – and goodness knows, we all hope they do not – then you do not deserve to be on the practice field for even one more snap.

But going on with “business as usual”? Especially when it seems that the number one concern by the athletic department was to protect the reputation of the athletic department.

You are an educator, Mr. Paterno. All college coaches are. And what is the lesson being taught by you right now? (Really, I just don’t understand how your actions translate in a positive ways for those sodomized young boys.) I mean look at this paragraph as taken from a news release written after you just had a chance to meet with your team.

Paterno met with his coaching staff and players for about 10-15 minutes in an auditorium of the football facility. Standing at a podium, he told them he was leaving and broke down in tears.

Players gave him a standing ovation when he walked out.

Junior quarterback Stephon Morris said some players also were nearly in tears as Paterno spoke.

“I still can’t believe it,” Morris said. “I’ve never seen Coach Paterno like that in my life.”

Asked what was the main message of Paterno’s talk, Morris said: “Beat Nebraska.”

“Beat Nebraska” is the main message these young men should take from this discussion? I’m dumbfounded.

And is there another “educator” in the land that would have the luxury of being able to return to work with such questions hanging over their head. There’s not a 7th grade social studies teacher in the country who’d be back teaching a lesson on the Bill of Rights if the school district where they worked was bathed in a similar stench. Is this a case of “above the law”? Certainly, by returning for the rest of the season, you are acting like it.

And Penn State, by allowing him to return, you are worse. Where’s your own moral compass in this whole thing. Don’t let Joe retire; let him clear his name and then invite him to coach until he’s 125 years old. But until his actions are scrutinized and cleared, why in the world are you allowing him back to “represent your university and lead your program”?

I just don’t get this whole Joe Paterno thing. As a parent, I am freaked. As an educator, I am freaked. As a citizen of this country, I am freaked. As a fan of college football, Joe Paterno, and sports in general, yep… I am freaked. Can someone please explain to me what is going on right now?

Are teachers justified in cheating? This article in the L.A. Times seems to be tinted with a subtext that says, “Okay, we cheat but really, they are forcing us to do so which means that, well… it’s there fault, not ours.”

Not sure that I buy that.

Sure, the standardized testing pressures are unfair and oppressive. And yes, the bubble tests are being used by clowns to make sweeping generalizations that are tragic in their shortcomings and egregious in their mis-information but still, rationalizing cheating?

Boycott the bubble tests. Protest. Stage a revolution and get every teacher on campus to RESIST! But cheat? It just submarines any potential credibility an educator can one day have in standing up as a force for good in fighting this maniacal bubble-test nonsense. Active resistance is much more sensible than passive/aggressive protest, particularly when the means of being passive/aggressive are molded by the stench of moral convenience.

Teachers as cheaters open up the whole, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” faucet – and I am not sure there is ever a win to be had by traveling down that road. It also opens up the question of what kind of role models are we rolling out for our kids if the teachers feel that cheating on the tests is the only way to get what it is they want from a situation. I mean, why shouldn’t the kids take this same road for the Pop Quiz in period 2? (i.e. They don’t like the teacher’s assessment system and feel legitimized in turning to deception in order to 1) make their point and 2) get what it is that they want from the situation. What classroom teacher ever buys that from a kid who gets busted cheating on a test?)

Sure, teachers are going to cheat on these tests and yes, the high-stakes pressure is certainly a reason for why this will happen more and more going forward. But when you irrationally turn the screws on folks, people respond in kooky, irrational ways. That’s on them. However, do us all a favor, Teach: if you do get busted, at least buck and and own the consequences. Just say, “Yep, I cheated and yep, you caught me. I did the crime and now I must do the time.” Really, don’t try to justify your actions… it rings hollow and taints every other educator in the land.

No matter how you slice it, when a teacher cheats, the bad guys win.

I was asked be be the guest blogger for the International Reading Association (IRA) last week. This is a reprint of my esteemed literary contribution.

Time for a Pop Quiz. Question: What do you called kindergarten without art or music?

Answer: High school.

(All right, all right, if you said middle school, it’s worth half-credit.)

Now to some of us the little Q & A above delivers a small chuckle. However, to others it represents a brutal reality. The fact is schools are bludgeoning today’s kids with flavorless, sanitized, exuberant-less content nowadays – more so than we ever have ever done before– and too many classrooms are plagued by a contagion of joylessness in the pursuit of standardized, homogenized ideals.

Me, if I ever get a chance to dictate our nation’s educational policy, I am going to bring back that extra-cheesy, covered in orange grease, stored under the heat lamp, pepperoni pizza I used to be able to scarf down at lunchtime (you know, the slices that got thrown under the bus by the politically correct helicopter moms who wanted their little angels to eat tree bark and locally grown organic berries for mid-day nutrition) and mandate that the first and foremost rule of educational policy – particularly when it comes to advancing literacy skills – is that KIDS MUST TASTE ACADEMIC FUN! That’s right, I believe in the power of joy to bring out the best in student work and learning.

Now stay with me here because no, I am not about to kick rigor to the curb. And no, I do not think that “fun” represents the penultimate aspiration for teaching and learning. And bzzp, my proposal does not warrant a lowering of scholarly expectations, either. In fact, I think the contrary. Extensive experience has shown me that students who enjoy their studies will learn more than students who don’t give a poop. (Note: I can back that up with hard research for all the data wonks out there.)

Indeed, it’s time we collectively go to bat more officially for the power of joy as it relates to learning. Why? Well, to paraphrase a semi-famous theater hack, “Let me count the ways”.

1) The vice grip approach of turning the screws on low performing students through a drill-n-kill line of attack on elevating skills is contributing to America’s egregious drop out rate and exacerbating the Achievement Gap it actually aims to alleviate. That’s right, our current methodology is creating more of the problems we are supposedly purporting to solve. Really, who does that? (Note: Feel free to fill in your own snarky government/big corporation/family relative’s name here __________________ ).

2) Making learning a pleasurable experience requires no more cost than making learning a tedious one… except that it learns the little ones a whole lot better. See, joy, smiles and delight in school are free. (Not to mention highly effective.) This is key these days because when you look at how the budget cuts have decimated our classroom supplies, eviscerated our nation’s librarians and levied a full frontal assault on every corner of education in our country, creatively solving problems with a sober recognition of the fact that “there ain’t no money” requires all of us to use the tools we do have instead of complaining about all of the tools we do not.

3) Have you done your professional reading? Readicide, The Book Whisperer, The Reading Zone, Making the Match, What’s the Big Idea?, Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom… I could go on and on.

4) Have we forgotten that the ultimate goal of education is not to be able to bubble in a correct A, B, C, or D answer choice on a standardized test? Sure, the loons who make policy may have lost their goofy minds by over-emphasizing the information which can be gleaned from bubble test scores and then making political hay with cherry-picked information to advance their own personal ambitions, but that doesn’t mean that those on the front lines need to forget that we are dealing with real kids. REAL PEOPLE. The kind who live, eat, breathe and come to our classrooms starving for a meaningful human connection to their school work. In fact, this is why I became a YA author in the first place – to write books that reached real kids. Through humor. Through drama. Through the ageless art of telling salient, “Whoa did I dig that” stories. And what’s my great “here’s how you, too, can learn to reach real kids” secret? Well, understanding that today’s kids are reachable is a good start. (Plus, caffeine helps as well, he added as his left eyelid twitched.)

Fifthly – if that’s even a word – kids like to learn. That’s not a misprint; that’s a fact. And if you don’t know this about today’s young people I’d suggest that you do not know much about today’s students at all. It’s like a great fisherman once said, “You don’t bait the hook with what the fisherman likes; you bait the hook with what the fish likes.” Kids will read. Kids will write. In fact, it could be argued that today’s students are actually doing more reading and writing than any generation prior. (But since we devalue the digital literacy component in the world of academia… okay, okay, I’ll save this tangent for another blog post.)

Now it’s time for points 6 through 2,867 which can best be summarized by connecting a few dots. Fun leads to joy. But fun is like sugar, the high quickly wears off and the need for something more substantive arises. This is where meaningfulness, relevance, accessibility and challenge come into play. This is also where depth, breath, scope and purpose come in. This is also where a sense of self-direction, self-discipline and hard work factor in as well. Kids will do the work hard for objectives they find meaningful (Can anyone say, “Boys who game?”) but they will not do so simply because the task has been legislated. Without a doubt today’s students are eager to grow, learn, give a great effort and demonstrate their aptitudes in mind-blowing ways if they are internally motivated to do so. But if they’re not, they won’t. Reality is a cold beast. Like it or not, smiles, fun, joy and personal fulfillment matter.

BTW, if you require more reading on the subject, check out Drive, Switch, or the thoughts of Sir Ken Robinson. Indeed, they may have killed the orange-oiled pepperoni pizza in our halls of academic but if we let them kill the fun, they will have ripped out our entire soul. And none of us will be the better for it.

I spent my Saturday last weekend at the inaugural Tweens Readin Houston. In many ways, I think it represents a harbinger of many more things to come for people like us who deeply value books, kids, reading, writing and teaching.

Sure, it was an amazing event but it felt like a critical one as well. So many positives were on display that I’m not quite sure where to begin.

First off, the organizers (regular ol’ librarians and English teachers) targeted a specific audience: tweens. This built unofficial parameters into all the choices which were made about how to execute the day. They weren’t going for a “splatter” approach; they sought to rock the house for readers in grades 4-8.

As one could easily see by the faces of the kids, put one in the win column on this front for Tweens Read. It was a knock out day.

Next, they solicited the publishers to send out authors on the publishing house’s dime (as opposed to trying to figure out a way for the festival organizers to foot this bill through sponsorship). Turns out, if you can promise hordes of kids and teachers and librarians, all the major publishing houses have money put aside for this type of PR. Disney footed my travel costs, Penguin footed those of Richard Peck (yes, that Richard Peck!), authors like Obert Skye, Michael Buckley, Lis McMann, Lindsey Levitt, Jason Pinter, Crystal Allen, Kat Falls, Matthew Kirby, Clete, Smith… (okay, you got the point)… we’re talking a day filled with heavies were out in full force. Of course, when heavies are out more kids, teachers, parents and librarians come, too. (Which came first, the reader or the egg?)

This leads to the very smart decision to bring in an independent bookstore to handle all of the sales, title gathering and so on. Another big win for all who were involved. (BTW, is Blue Willow Books not one of the most rockin’ outfits in the nation?) By my count, 5 of my own titles were on sale. As an author, this resulted in me having a line of kids stretching 45 minutes deep and the words “sold out” to be beautifully whispered in my presence. And I didn’t even have the longest line in the building.

Of course the bookstore did a ton of legwork but they certainly wracked up a whole heck of a lotta sales. Were the parents bummed about buying their kids books? If they were, their frowns were being blotted out by the pride and smiles of seeing their own kids so fanatical about getting this super-cool chance to meet real authors, be exposed to new titles and get their hands on personally signed books.

Lifelong readers aren’t built through bludgeoning kids with 6 pound textbooks in core academic classrooms; lifelong readers are built by exposing young readers to the excitement, passion, energy, magic, power and beauty of real books. One parent even told me (with a beaming smile) that her 5^th grade son was whining about how their was some double point Madden X-box tourney or something and he was entirely sour about missing it when she dragged him to the event that morning. At 3:30 in the afternoon that very same kid cajoled his mom out of her last $20 bill so that he could buy a copy of the new title by… (which he just had to have even though she’d already bought him 4 books that day).

What better way is there to build older readers than to start by building younger ones. Tweens Read, you rocked! Thanks for inviting me out.

(Side note: Through me tweeting about this event, the city of Orlando wants to see if they can get something like this going. Tweens do read and I could see something like this catching on in cities across the country. Are reading festivals about to be on the rise?)

I am heading to Tweens Read Book Festival in Houston. This rodeo goes down on Saturday and though it’s my first time appearing there, I am entirely fired up.

How can you not love the celebration of kids reading books? Truly, every major city in the United States of America could take a lesson from the good folks who organized this shin-dig.

Bunches of authors. Scores of librarians. Droves of teachers. And – of course – kids, kids, kids hungry for books, books, books.

As the program rhetorically asks…

Who is invited to participate?

• The target audience is tweens who are in grades 5-8.
• We welcome teachers, librarians, parents, and other advocates for children’s and adolescent literacy attending with their tweens.

What more could a person want? And is there a better way to spend a Saturday? As the good folks ask in TX say, “Y’all fixin’ to come?”

Hope so. As the ridiculous assault on librarians marches forwards by nincompoop politicians, I wonder if there is a more intelligent way to battle the nitwits than through positive experiences such as this?

I sold a new book proposal yesterday. It’s going to be a YA book aimed at boys (particularly at reluctant readers). Truth is, I get emails all the time from fans of my book HOMEBOYZ which constantly ask “for another”. Well, this book isn’t a sequel… but it’s going to be just as hard-edged and raucous.

If my writing career is akin to that of a baseball pitcher, these books book are high heat!

Reaching reluctant readers has really become my life’s work. In the classroom, working with peers in the field, speaking at confs, cranking out fiction.

I’m gonna keep a bunch of it under wraps right now – title won’t hit shelves for another 18-24 months (that’s the way the world of publishing with the big houses works these days – a process which I actually like) but for those who are looking for fresh new material that is gonna get “that kid, that boy” to engage with a text, know that I am right there with ya trying to do my darndest to rock the socks off that kid with the hope of actually “flippin’ him” into becoming a reader.

It can be done. I’ve done it, seen it, know it in my bones. And when the process works, Wow… the joy, magic, beauty and power of reading congeals in a way that is just tremendous.

For those who are interested in the actual “behind the scenes writing process” I’ve got a chunk of it written and a top-notch outline in place which drew tons of praise from a host of publishers, but at the end of the day, I am gonna do it under the Hyperion banner. (i.e. Disney – which means this will now be my 8th book with them. Essentially my editor at Disney is just so amazing that the grass is not – nor will ever be – greener. I’m really fortunate in this regard.)

Stay tuned… more to come as things evolve.

Been laying low on the blog front for the past few weeks cause lots of stuff is on the plate. All exciting. Lots good. Challenges galore. Hey, it’s life – and while there have been many times in the past when I felt a bit numb, as if days were “just passing” in uneventful, unremarkable ways, this certainly has changed for me. It’s pedal to the metal at this point of my life and in that mindset I am finding more fulfillment than ever before.

Weird how, like a magnet, I have always been drawn to people who find deep meaning in (and hold great passion for) their work. My best teachers always reflected that. The people I idolized as a kid always seemed to represent this. And though it’s taken me way, way longer than I ever would have imagined to “get comfortable in my own skin” the dawn of this phenomenon is upon me. The older I get, the shorter life seems, yet the richer and more wonderful, too. No one is exempt from pain in this world but freeing myself from self-inflicted pain and having stopped being my own worst adversary really has helped me a ton.

It’s a skill I wish someone would have taught me a long, long time ago. (Oh Common Core, the shortcomings you have.)

Indeed I am reading, reading, reading all the time but the thing about all the reading I am doing is that it never feels like I am getting the chance to read enough. (I even wonder if I get to write enough, which is another reason I have pulled back on blogging so prolifically. I was cranking 5,000 blog words a week there for almost two years… but I think that ship is sailing for me. The deeper writing of constructing meaningful stories for young readers beckons more than any other type of writing right now and with so many hours in the day, one must make choices, right?)

Family, literature, friends, yoga, good food, meaningful work, an occasional glass of wine and travel. The math of my mid-life is adding up to these things. Low key yet rewarding. Simple, for the first time ever, suffices. More than suffices, actually. Simple rocks! And the fact is, I am lucky to be able to have all that I do. (Side note: 20 years ago, I probably would have said “bo-ring”. Nowadays, exotic seems way over-rated.)

Amazon’s announcement of the new Kindle Fire has certainly caused a ton of people to weigh in in all sorts of ways on the implications for us “user folks”. Some will be right, some will be wrong but one thing which I think we can all bank on is that tablet-based education where schools get rid of textbooks is certainly on the horizon.

When? I know not. However, there is an inevitability to tablet education that seems all but assured to me right now. The “race to the bottom” cost factor is only making these devices more inexpensive every year. Just do the 2011 math.

A 7 pound textbook costs $99 for each subject area. Assuming at least 5 subject areas per kid (ELA, Science, Math, History, and 1 odd duck – could be foreign language, could be Health, and so on) and we are looking at $495 per student per school… not inclduing the cost of the class set the schools often buy.

At $199 for the Kindle Fire that leaves at least $300 per kid for content per subject area. Put another way, it allows for about $60 dollars per kid per class for content. Considering an average ebook costs about $10 bucks, for any school that goes the tablet route, they get 6 books per class PLUS THE ENTIRE INTERNET in the hands of their kids.

For the same price as a set of textbooks.

Additionally, they get access to every text in public domain. (The textbook companies include public domain material in their materials all the time and yet they charge the schools for its inclusion, Huh? I know.) And every educational image in the Smithsonian, every wonderful video on School Tube, every archived article in TIME magazine… the list goes on and on and on as to what kids get with the Kindle Fire that they do not get with textbooks.

Of course, we are a slow group to adapt in public education and textbook adoptions will still take place “as they always have” but I’d venture a guess that a less of them will because tablet-based education just inched that much closer to being a very smart, if not innovative, alternative to a very tired and “has seen its best days” curricular tool.

I was just interviewed in WIRED magazine by Geekdad. Truly, I am tickled by how it came out.

Also, now that I read the final product, I wonder if by wearing this hat of advocating for literacy in this type of format (it’s my first time in this publication), it’s sort of a good “hit ‘em from the flank” approach to advocating for teaching, kids, books, education and all the stuff I frequently speak to. In other words, it’s a ton of the same message which often flies out of my pen and mouth yet it’s re-packaged and in a different forum.

Sometimes, I admit, I often feel a problem of those who are “speaking on behalf of literacy” spend too much preaching to the choir. Indeed, literacy matters a ton. However, those who often hear how much it matters are people who often already appreciate how much it matters.

How do we break out of the bubble?

Hey, ya gotta swing the bat, right?