Making Geek Cool Hall of Shame
As a follow-up to my previous post Making Geek Cool Hall of Fame in which I laud people, TV shows or events that improve the coolness factor of geeks, I've started compiling a Hall of Shame list. I actually had a harder time with this one. Maybe it's my inherently nice nature, but I found it easier to rail against the culture as a whole rather than specific elements.
I'm sure, however, that you will not have that problem. I would love to hear additions to my list by comment, email or tweet!
1. Disney Channel—when making my Shame list, it ended up just being a list of Disney and Nickelodeon shows, so I decided just to name the two channels as numbers 1 and 2 on the list. Upper elementary kids are especially susceptible to the anti-geek message from television, so I think these two popular channels should be ashamed. Hannah, Wizards of Waverly Place, Suite LIfe on Deck: Can we just have an intelligent girl or boy in the lead role instead of the "geeky" sidekick or brother?
2. Nickelodeon—see comment above. I did put iCarly on the Fame list, so kuddos there, but it, too, has anti-geek elements.
3. Seventeen magazine and other teen magazines for girls
4. My husband—I hate to say it, and I'm sure he's not the only parent out there, but he has on occasion slipped into the the ‟You don't want to be a nerd so get out there and play some ball...″ fallacy
My almost-middle school daughter thinks being called a nerd is the worst insult ever. I have tried to point out that she attends a school of geeks to no effect. I've pointed out that geeks make more money (a topic of interest for her) with an effect lasting for nanoseconds. I thought about showing her that geek chic is in but was afraid she wouldn't stop laughing and really wanted her to do that homework. I've decided she's just rebelling against her mother, so I'll get back to reading that Wired article on Geek Power.
No posters, please!!!
iCarly has changed our lives. My 10-year-old daughter spends every waking moment with her friends creating their own web show. They brainstorm skits, storyboard them out, gathers costumes and props, rehearses, videotapes and then edits them. She has taught herself to use iMovie and will spend hours messing around with various special effects and transitions.
For my sister's wedding, my daughter created a video in which she interviewed parents, siblings and the groom. The interviews were done in front of a green screen so she could edit in fun backgrounds and memorable photos. The song We Are Family played in the background at the beginning during the hilarious screen credits and then again at the end for the ending slideshow. She spent a lot of time creating this unique video shown at the reception.
When my son needed to learn his math facts faster than I ever learned them, he made a PowerPoint with a math fact on each slide. Besides the fun of using the computer instead of actual flashcards, he could control the pace. As he improved with his facts, he would increase the transition speed.
With media use so ubiquitous, it [is] time to stop arguing over whether it [is] good or bad and accept it as part of children’s environment like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. (Tamar Lewin, "If Your Kids are Awake, They're Probably Online" New York Times, Jan. 20, 2010.)
My kids are obviously not the only media savvy children. So why is it that both of them have been assigned to make posters this year? Posters? That was how my teachers tried to add some visual punch to reports. I understand the teacher not wanting to spend time teaching students how to make movies, but giving them options that would include technology (already available at the school) does not seem like a stretch to me. They use the computers for word processing and make use of resources such as Google Docs, but videos, slideshows and animation hasn't happened. I don't believe they are alone.
Schools and teachers need to accept that children are now techno-savvy and run with it.
Learning on the roof
New City School's River Kids help plant the school's green roof in order to reduce water run-off. The school administrators want to save energy and provide a learning opportunity. Parents like the additional green space for their kids in an urban area. Looks like a winner all around. The segment by KMOV featured above provides some nice video of the plants on the roof. I like that the students worked on planting it instead of having it installed professionally. Kudos to New City School!
Cell phones help teach math?
photo by jtbrennan
Can educators really turn those ubiquitous cell phones into educational tools?
As the year got under way, Scott realized she'd be using her school-issued smartphone -- equipped with a touch screen, digital video recorder, and instant-messaging application -- for more than just solving homework problems with a stylus. She and her classmates had gotten used to passively absorbing teachers' lectures, but the new data-driven curriculum demanded intense participation. "We'd tape up big poster boards, write out how we got the solution to a particular problem, then video ourselves talking about it with the phone." After that, students posted their videos online to aid others who might be vexed by similar problems. ("Cellphonometry" Svoboda)
Whether educators use phones or other devices, I can see advantages to this approach. My daughter already asks her friends for help with her math homework as students have done for ages. Couple the socially driven method with the fearless use of technology, and I think you have a much more efficient update to the telephone. If a student has a question, they can send out a text to the class and ideally get a response right away.
Whether the content is math, history, science... the students could create protected class wikis with videos they make. Instead of using poster boards, the students could use the white board and save their work. If they are doing it at home, they can record their sessions on the computer, or go back to the poster boards or other creative means of communicating.
At Southwest High, every student in one Project K-Nect class notched a 100% proficiency rating in algebra; students in a non-Project K-Nect class with the same teacher averaged 70% proficiency. ("Cellphonometry" Svoboda)
Those are some numbers definitely worth following up.
Making Geek Cool Hall of Fame
Wired magazine believes that making geeks cool could reform education and gives some suggestions for schools. One of the main suggestions was "stamping out youth culture" by surrounding kids by adults. Some good ideas and examples to be sure.
I believe that our whole culture needs to make geeks cool. In that spirit I list my Making Geek Cool Hall of Fame. Since this blog is St. Louis centric, I've added a few local additions.
1. Mythbuster's Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman
2. Jon Stewart—when a late-night comedian makes it cool to follow politics, economics, history...
3. Bill Gates—as much as I want to hate Microsoft, he has shown how geeks do philanthropy. That's cool.
4. Pres. Obama
5. Steve Jobs—brought design to technology
6. Danica McKellar—Hollywood star and mathematician writing math books for middle school girls. Maybe every tween girl should be given this book, and she should be number 1.
7. SciFest
8. Chuck
9. Rex Sinquefield for bringing back chess to St. Louis
10. Mayor Francis Slay for bringing FIRST Robotics Championship to St. Louis
11. iCarly—any time a Nickelodeon show encourages tween girls to spend their time directing movie shorts and editing them on the computer, I will applaud it
12. Rick Riordan—any author that can get my son to read...
If they want to be fabulous and sexy and all that, great. There's no problem with that. But you don't have to give anything up for it. You don't have to give up your brain. (Danica McKellar)
I would love to add to the list if anyone would like to send me their suggestions. I'll also be composing a Hall of Shame, so if you have ideas for that, feel free to send them to me via comments, email or twitter.
Olympics? Who needs it—we landed the Robotics Championship!
Math standards—Lowest Common Denominator?
Photo by ansik
Should Missouri math standards be written as the minimum that students should learn, which would be too low for most students, or should they be written for most students with expectations of extra help for struggling students? Currently, they are written to be the minimum, but a group of math professors believes they should be raised.
Statement in the revised draft as of 18 May 09:
Although the core content, learning goals, and performance indicators specified in this document are intended for ALL students, many Missouri students will be able to move through this content more quickly and will need more mathematics than is outlined here. For that reason, we urge local educational agencies to develop and implement policies and programs serving all students beginning in elementary school, including those who are ready for early advancement and need more mathematics than the material described in this document. As essential support for raising Missouri’s performance in mathematics, specification of core content, learning goals, and performance indicators for fourth-year high school mathematics courses is under development.
math learning goals 051809 - sh - 2
are published, schools will base their curricular decision on these low standards and will already be committed to these curricular decisions." rel="external">Response to Missouri State Board of Education 29 May 09 by Ian Aberbach, professor and director of undergraduate studies, mathematics dept., University of Missouri—Columbia:
If the current standards aimed no higher than to 20th percentile students (ALL) are published, schools will base their curricular decision on these low standards and will already be committed to these curricular decisions.
Yes, the state plans on adding an addendum with supplemental standards for college-bound students, but we should not have a two-tiered approach. All students should graduate from high school prepared for college, whether they choose to continue on or not. The two-tiered approach is not in alignment with Obama’s goals nor is it the best decision to keep Missouri competitive either nationally or internationally.
(Hat tip to Lisa Jones for the links)
Missouri beats Lithuania by one—in math
photo by apesara
Last fall, I blogged about the importance of comparing our students not just to other students locally or to other states but internationally. Ideally, we would have information for individual districts, but until we do, the American Institutes for Research has released a report that allows you to compare individual states with other countries. Missouri, not surprisingly, is right at the U.S. median for both fourth and eighth grade math scores.
At the fourth grade level only six states received a B; by eighth grade only Massachusetts received a B.
“These Asian nations consistently perform at the B+, B, and B- levels,” Phillips [acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics from 1999 to 2002] said. “Their students are learning mathematics not just at a higher level than students in the United States, but at a level that is a quantum leap higher.” The math proficiency average for U.S. students is C+ in grade 4 and C at grade 8. (AIR news release 16 June 2009)
Since Missouri is right behind the U.S. average, we are not competing well against Asian students.
“Our states and school districts should no longer be comparing themselves to their neighbors. They will be competing for jobs and innovations with students around the globe.” (AIR news release 16 June 2009)
I’ve said that before.
our states and school districts fall comparatively further behind in Grade 8 than they do in Grade 4. Although the United States falls further behind in the higher grade, the highest achieving countries maintain their level of performance. AIRInternationalBenchmarks2009
The middle school problem is real in the United States and, apparently, Missouri also. As a culture we are more concerned about their social lives than their academic abilities. Our expectations are not high-- “They can’t think clearly with all those hormones!” --but they obviously work hard in other countries. I would love to see if any of our middle schools are bucking this trend.
Here is the chart showing where Missouri places compared to other countries for eighth grade math. The grey bars are for countries with scores that are considered statistically similar. The interactive chart is fascinating to play with. I eagerly await the time when we can put individual school districts in for comparison.
