THERE IS NOTHING WRONG HERE

At the beginning of the school year I decided that I would blog at least one a week and I was able to up for about a month and as I got more busy I blogged less and less. I still have plenty to say, but less time. I still don’t know how some bloggers do it everyday. I know they are teaching or are traveling so it must just be the commitment.

I have been developing a Ning - edtechleader.ning.com to use with the Teaching and Learning online course I will moderated starting on the 25th. I am starting to “get” what Ning is about and the power of social networks.

Some students in the PREP program blogged for the first time on Friday. They posted to blog at a school in England. I am not sure they understood what they were doing until they saw their post on the blog. I didn’t edit them and a couple were pretty rough. Many misspelling and poor grammar.  I am hoping that realizing that hundreds of people will read what they say will at least get them to have a teacher edit the blog post.

We had to put our Hannah dog to sleep today. Sleep is a good description for her because she has been sleeping 20 hours a day. Hannah would have been 16 years old in February and she was really feeling her age. As happens to many dogs her rear hips were going and it was getting more and more difficult for her to walk much less stand. She was only about 35 pounds so we could carry her up the stairs. She so wanted to go for a walk, but to the mail box and back was enough for her. She has always been a picky eater, but she had stopped eating and was getting thin.

We have had Hannah since she was a puppy. She was a Chow/Lab and had the best of each breed. She really enjoyed being with other dogs and could never figure out why some dogs just wanted to fight. When we went camping she became the guardian of the camp site and watched the woods for any threats. She enjoyed going on trips and made friends where ever we went. Hannah loved going cross country skiing and would come home with snowballs stuck in her fur. She tolerated our cats, her best friend was our cat Nellie who will miss Hannah as we all will.

The emotional release has been interesting. Nena and I feel deep sadness mixed with a sense of relief that something is completed. For the last year Hannah has been like living with an elderly aunt. We could never leave her alone for long and trying to find a food she could eat and would eat was a constant worry. As every responsible dog owner knows, they are not far from your thoughts everyday. If you can not take your dog with you, even for a day, it limits your options. Nena and I have had a lot of dogs and it seems like the last one we had was the best.

Remember when Christmas used to be fun? We were children and we did not have to worry about what to get our co-workers or aunt Mary. But, when we gage our national financial health by Black Friday and how well Wal-Mart does, times have changed. Everyone complains about the Christmas shopping madness, still we keep walking like consumer zombies to the malls. Who are we trying to please. That child of the past who still got excited about Christmas morning? Is this a yearly effort to relive childhood fantasies? Christmas at its heart is a religious holiday. Does Santa represent a more accessible God?  Could we change this madness, most adults complain about the commercialization of Christmas and its loss of religious significance. So why do we keep doing what we say we don’t want to do?

The photo is of Nena, my wife, and her brother Gary.

My 94 year-old father had a heart attack over the weekend (8/4)and is still in the hospital. He is recovering and he should go home in a few days. This is hard because we live in Massachusetts and he lives in New Mexico, so there are a lot of phone calls.

Before my parents moved into an assisted living complex I communicated with my dad through email. He has had a computer for about 5 years and it became another source of connection between us. Not only the electronic connection, but the connection of a shared experience with technology. Whenever I would go to NM to see my parents I would spend time with dad at his computer installing some software or trying to fix something he had screwed up. He is a tinker at heart, like me, and can not leave well enough alone. And, of course, mom would complain that he spent too much time on the computer.

We have had conversation about how much the world has changed since 1913. Dad grew up in Pittsburgh, my grandfather was a draftsman and worked for the steel companies. So my father grew up during the growth of the American industrial revolution, the end of WWI to the end of WWII. He saw the explosion of the auto industry (he became an auto mechanic), the interstate highway system, the airlines, the electric grid, communication systems, TV, and computers. I remember the first TV my parents bought and the first time I saw a transistor radio. My father grew up at a time when most people in the US did not have a telephone now we all carry one in our pocket. Before WW II most people did not travel far from home, now the skies are crowded. It took days to send a letter to a friend, now email is almost instantaneous.

I don’t think we realize how much people of my parents generation (born 1910-1930) have had to adapt to a changing “flatting world”. For most of their childhood and early adulthood their world changed very little and what changes there were came slowly. By the end of WW II that change had began to speed up and has continued to increase.

As an adult and educator living at the beginning of the 21th century I have to make my own adaptations to the rapidly changing world of technology. The “digital natives” in my classroom seem to be adapting to the ever quickening pace of technological innovation. Watching my peers try to adapt to the digital age has given me a new appreciation for my father. He has had fun learning to use a new tool/toy and maybe that is a key to living a long life, have fun and adapt.

Both Nena and I recently read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. For those who don’t know about the book it is the story of how Greg, who was attempting to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world, ending up building dozens of school in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book is on the best sellers list and we have been telling everyone we can to read it.

His story is so compelling for two reasons. The first is the old theme of a person’s struggle to overcome adversity. In Greg’s case the adversity takes many forms; personal, physical, and cultural. The second reason is it tells the story of the people living in tribal areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. Greg give these people a humanity that balances the demonization of them that has happened in this country since 9/11.

His book is compelling because it show how the efforts of one man can change the lives of thousands of people. He has not only changed the lives of the people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the lives of anyone who reads the book. By bringing some understanding and humanity to people half-a-world away, maybe we can find ways to solve problem without using violence.

Greg started the Central Asia Institute to build school using local resources and labor. Many of the schools are for girls. The girls are more likely to stay in remote villages as the young men leave. By training the girls in basic hygiene, the death rate of children can be cut significantly.

As a teacher I was struck by the story of the children gathering in a open field to do their lesson; they were writing in the dirt because they did not have any writing materials. The village was so poor they had to split the $1.00 a-day fee for the teacher with another village.