John Steinbeck’s Adventure Trip Advice

Posted on May 16, 2013 by bryanjack

Tomorrow morning, the TALONS are driving out to the eastern edge of the Fraser Valley, and setting out in a fleet of Voyageur canoes with our friends at Ridge Wilderness Adventures to travel the Mighty Fraser River. In a few days, we’ll arrive at Fort Langley, and from there will be on bikes, returning to school early next week.

This time of year usually finds me comforted by John Steinbeck and the opening pages of Travels with Charley, a book I read on one of my own epic Canadian Adventures. The story of Steinbeck’s road trip around the US, accompanied by his poodle Charley, begins thus:

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teenagers in new-hatched skin, will not think they invented it.

Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this way a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand.

Northwest Inquiry Radio Documentaries

Posted on May 7, 2013 by bryanjack

Live on @105theHive

Last week, the TALONS classes presented audio documentaries their small groups had been preparing out of individual threads of personal inquiry into the history of the Canadian Northwest (if you’re just joining us, here is a brief introduction to the project). Personal explorations became reflective and highly professional collaborative radio documentaries that were broadcast – via #ds106radio‘s younger sister station 105 the Hive – from the Math Department’s tutorial office back to the classroom, but also onto the wider web. TALONS alumni Jonathan and Andrew played hosts over the course of two days’ radio listening, providing introductions and banter between shows and asking the reporters and producers a few questions after each episode.

If we’d really been on our toes, the Geography & Natural resources public service announcements from the fall would have made excellent transitional material. But here in a blogged archive are a few highlights from last week’s broadcasts, along with some sponsored material:

The Last of Louis Riel

Introduction: a dramatization of the trial of Louis Riel is played, with Christina narrating from the present.

Act I: Justann finishes the introduction and brings us into Act I, which addresses the reasons why Riel left the United States following his exile.

Act II: Natalie then explains why Riel stayed in Canada after certain death, which features audio from an interview with Jean Teillet, Louis Riel’s great grand niece, from CBC’s Ideas.

Act III: After Louis Riel’s execution, Carlin asks whether the execution of Louis Riel would be considered a triumph or mistake and Christina follows up with explaining why Louis Riel’s death came at the right time.

A Message from BC Salmon Farmers

The Great Identity Theft

17th century Canada, bold and bountiful, awaits the exploration and exploitation of those nestled inside the Manifest Destiny. Every valley, forest, and plain awaits a man with a gun in one hand and a bible in the other, ready to “civilize” his new found nation.

“To rid the world of red, and fill it with white”

Somewhere along the way, a people neither European nor Native formed: the Metis. The Metis balanced between two worlds. Like First Nations and Inuit, this nation possessed a distinct culture, with trappers and traders. Again, like First Nations and Inuit, the Metis endured years of oppression from the European settlers. But the theft of land, wealth, and family could not compare to the loss of a culture, spirit, and identity.

Canada’s Economic Action Plan for Diamonds

Confronting Manifest Destiny

Jeff and the gang cover:

Nationalism
Manifest Destiny
Why America didn’t attack Canada
Effects of the potential annexation of Canada by the United States

A Message against the Export of Asbestos

The Controversial 11 Treaties

Our lovely host Isaac M. will bring up some small talk and a current event (The Boston Marathon Bombings: Brothers arrested) like usual, and will then steer the show into the question of the day: “With the original treaties signed (between the Natives and Canada), what do both sides think they have “honoured” and what do they think the other side has failed at?”

From the Friends of Potatoes

A Fresh Perspective on the Northwest

Hosts Marie and Cheslie invite guests Devon and Max to cover people’s shifting perspectives on the Metis, Hudson’s Bay Company and Louis Riel.

You can find the rest of the TALONS Northwest Inquiry podcasts posted here.

Inquiry into the Northwest

Posted on April 21, 2013 by bryanjack

: Organizing Inquiry Topics

These last few weeks, the TALONS have taken their study of Socials 10 west, from the fledgling union of Confederation to Hudson’s Bay, Manitoba, and the resistance that unfolds along the Red River Valley. In seeking out the story of Louis Riel, and how his execution - as well as the subsequent relationship between the government and the Metis, Inuit and other First Nations of the Northwest – fits into modern Canada’s understanding of our origin story, the unit seemed naturally suited to a structure of personal and collaborative inquiry.

In thinking about what shape the inquiry would take, I wondered if Canadian History might borrow a project from a study of personal narratives a few years back. As part of an English essay-writing unit, the personal reflection and critical exploration that came about through each member of the class writing and recording an audio version of This I Believe essays gave way to a crystalline vision of a socially constructed artistic expression.

Really, it was something.

Even the Edward R. Murrow quote from the unit page on the class wiki speaks to something I think we’re teaching no matter what the topic in history:

“..to point to the common meeting grounds of belief, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization.”

Needless to say, perhaps, I’ve been looking to repeat the experience at some point.

Though the TALONS program seldom ‘repeats’ itself very often. There are familiar elements, events and explorations, sure. But to a certain extent, each of the TALONS cohorts walks its own path, and creates its own stories. And as these stories get filtered down between grade tens and nines, survive on the class wikis and archives of blogged assignments now going back four years (!), I look forward to this period of spring when the forms, norms and storms of the fall and winter allow for the present collective of personalities to synthesize their learning in the present community’s own terms.

This year the class’ study of North American history began with Geography and the American Revolution, before taking on a series of discussions on Canadian Confederation, and setting out into the Northwest. But through each of these subjects, there has been much conversation around the role of mythology in our national identity:

How we tell the stories of our inception.
How we internalize our narratives of victory.
And how best to confront the darker corners of our past.

: Northwest Timeline

All of which is the long way of introducing where the class began last week by reading up on the resources and materials created by the TALONS of 2010 and setting out their own directions of inquiry in blog form, which were then sorted into distinct themes:

Cultural Effects of Expansion

“Canada’s a pretty great place today, eh? The Northwest expansion, or basically the years from 1700 – 1900, Canada went through the time that would most influence the country that it is today.

“In looking closer to a specific part of this process, I wondered how the expansion into Rupert’s Land owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company affected the Lower Canadian French people.”

Alyssa

“From 1830 to 1996 Inuit, First Nations, and Metis were torn from their native culture with intentions of assimilating them into the dominant culture through the Residential School System. These schools, run by Christian priests and nuns, raised and abused the indigenous people of Canada in hopes to “kill the Indian in the child”. Some schools in Alberta and British Columbia going so far as the compulsory sterilization OF CHILDREN. Aboriginal children weren’t seen as children, they were seen as seeds of savages to invade the garden of civilizations that were in need of extermination.”

Julie

The Fur Trade

“At the forefront of this (as you all know) was the fur trade. For a set of pelts scraped off the backs of deceased animals you would receive fantastic HBC products such as overly strong perfume, clothing made in China, and other forms of HBC swag decked out in those trademark stripes. Jokes aside, the items up for trade were much more practical, however, not any greater in the quality or value than their modern merchandise. While you could get fabulous point blankets, thunder sticks, and firewater, there had to be room for profit.”

Tyler

“As common knowledge of the Fur trade, Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company were fierce rivals for many years. They both wanted to control the fur trade and were willing to do anything to control the market. This resulted in some company members even willing to murder for better trades. They began fighting and they continued fighting from the 1780′s until 1821. In 1820, both companies began struggling financially. In 1821, Henry Bathurst the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, forced the companies to stop fighting.”

Anthony

The Life and Hard Times of Louis Riel

“Though regarded as a hero in Quebec, Riel was still widely denounced as Thomas Scott’s “murderer”, and a reward of $5000 was offered for his arrest. Sir John A. MacDonald, wanting to avoid political conflict, even offered to provide funds to Riel if he remained in his exile. But Riel eventually returned and joined federal politics. He was quite successful as well, winning in a by-election in 1873 and the general election is 1874. All was well for Riel, until he went to Ottawa to sign the register. Riel was sentenced to two years imprisonment and stripped of his political rights. The federal government finally decided to grant amnesty to Riel, provided he went into a five year banishment. During his banishment, Riel would go on to stay at two asylums in Quebec and a teaching job in Montana.”

Justann

Related Current Events

“Later that year, in May, chat logs revealed 22 year old Bradley Manning’s confession to leaking the video to Wikileaks. Manning was arrested shortly after without a trial and sent to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. There, he suffered harsh living conditions where, as David House, founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, states that Manning “[degraded] over time – physically, mentally, and emotionally.” His mental health, as stated by his lawyer, has been described as “almost gone.””

Christina

“Anyway, so Cyprus was actually surprisingly stable for a long time, rated in the top 50 of the nicest places to live, up until the Eurozone crisis in which everything went to hell heck(Gotta keep things ‘G’). That, as you may or may not remember, happened just last year and is still affecting them today, as we see with Cyprus. Being a small island country, they don’t have a vast amount of resources to trade and sell to help them escape the crisis, which is a primary reason behind their economic downfall.”

Jess

In the photo above – and in these here, here and here - you can see the process by which these various individual threads were woven into different group inquiries that have become (over the course of the last week) the subject of various audio documentaries. Taking as examples the exemplary reporting, editing and storytelling of the folks at Radiolab and This American Life - and coinciding with a particularly timely episode of CBC’s Ideas - groups of three-to-five TALONS have been building collaborative audio documentaries of their individual explorations, soliciting interviews and writing personal reflections on their learning throughout the research process.

All of which we’re hoping to share this week, live on the (web) radio.

Building on a recent English unit that saw the class present audio dramas live in the classroom, the plan for this week is to take the groups’ various produced segments down the hall (to an often-used Math ‘tutorial’ office) and onto the Hive 105 airwaves such that they can be streamed live into the classroom speakers (for that extra bit of radio authenticity), and onto the wider web for listeners across the country, and anywhere else you might like to tune in from [For more information about how to listen to 105 the Hive in your classroom, click here].

You’ll be able to tune into the TALONS Northwest audio documentaries this week on both Wednesday and Thursday (Friday as well, if necessary), with the morning class presenting between 9:00am – 10:10am (PDT), and the afternooners going on between 1:45pm – 3:00pm (exact time to be determined), and join us on Twitter (or a Skype call in, if there’s time…) at @talonsblog during each of the broadcasts.

If you aren’t able to join us live, stay tuned to Defying Normality for the upcoming show notes and audio archive.

On Keeping a Notebook

Posted on March 15, 2013 by bryanjack

Personal Epistemology Assignment in #Philosophy12

Kuhn & Paradigms

I’ve written here before about being a ‘notebook guy,’ someone who cut my creative teeth with pen and paper and has yet to find the same intimacy in digital space that I have had with notebooks and journals going back to my teen years. This isn’t to say that I don’t do some creative thinking on my computer, or my phone – recording brief demos of songs, or typing up lyrics in a Google Doc instead of writing them by hand, for instance – but much of my thinking begins in these books that I still keep with me at (nearly) all times, even if I have never truly put my finger on just what it is this brand of note-taking is facilitating.

Luckily, GNA Garcia came upon this Lifehacker article that pulls from a few different sources to put some of the necessity of notebooks into better context than I’ve been able to. The first of these sources is author Stephen Johnson, whose book Where Good Ideas Come From has been showing up consistently in my Twitter feed, Pro-D sessions and casual discussions for a few years now.

Johnson’s The Spark File talks about how he uses his notebooks to ‘catch’ the hunches and inklings that may (or may not) become one of those Good Ideas:

…most good ideas (whether they’re ideas for narrative structure, a particular twist in the argument, or a broader topic) come into our minds as hunches: small fragments of a larger idea, hints and intimations. Many of these ideas sit around for months or years before they coalesce into something useful, often by colliding with another hunch.

The problem with hunches is that it’s incredibly easy to forget them, precisely because they’re not fully-baked ideas. You’re reading an article, and a little spark of an idea pops into your head, but by the time you’ve finished the article, you’re checking your email, or responding to some urgent request from your colleague, and the next thing you know, you’ve forgotten the hunch for good. And even the ones that you do manage to retain often don’t turn out to be useful to you for months or years, which gives you countless opportunities to lose track of them.

This is why for the past eight years or so I’ve been maintaining a single document where I keep all my hunches: ideas for articles, speeches, software features, startups, ways of framing a chapter I know I’m going to write, even whole books. I now keep it as a Google document so I can update it from wherever I happen to be. There’s no organizing principle to it, no taxonomy – just a chronological list of semi-random ideas that I’ve managed to capture before I forgot them. I call it the spark file.

The Lifehacker author, Elizabeth Spiers, writes in On Keeping a Notebook in the Digital Age about how her:

… note-taking works primarily because I have learned to separate my putative spark file from my task list. If I feel the impulse to make a note to myself about something that needs to be done, I put it somewhere else — my actual to-do list or a list of potential projects.

In Scott Belsky’s book, Making Ideas Happen (also recommended, especially if you manage people in a creative industry), he distinguishes between ideas and “action steps” — separating your notes, sketches, etc., from things that need to be done.

This may not be true of everyone, but I find that I’m the most creatively fruitful when I approach pure creative work and execution separately. If I start with the execution, I’m much more limited in how I think about what I want to accomplish. I won’t pursue a story idea further because I think it’s going to take more time than I have. I won’t explore an article topic because I don’t have all the research at hand. I don’t want potential action steps to make pursuing a new idea seem too intimidating or insurmountable. So I keep separate files for those — mostly task lists associated with specific projects and a master list for overall prioritization.

I’ve kept each of these sorts of books over the years – ideas books, and task-oriented books – but of late have been much freer in veering between the two purposes. The book I’ve been working with this school year is a mix of all of the following: calendars, lists, concept maps, essay and blog post drafts, ideas, songs, sketches and other brainstorms. All of them are necessary parts of my creative workflow, catching, sorting, and implementing the various hunches, inklings and schemes that make up anything I’ve ever thought of as a ‘good’ idea.

What about you? Where do your good ideas come from?

TALONS Panel: Open High School Learning

Posted on March 8, 2013 by bryanjack

I had the great pleasure this morning to speak with TALONS alumni Liam St. Louis, Jonathan Toews, Clayton Dowdell, Megan Edmunds, Zoe Fajber and Iris Hung (along with Verena Roberts & the #ETMOOC crowd via Google Hangout) about the experiments and experiences in Open Learning we’ve embarked on in their four years at Gleneagle.

We mostly worked chronologically from the introduction of the TALONS blogs and RSS feeds (which coincided with Jonathan & Liam’s arrival in grade nine more than four years ago), to the creation of the class blog, Defying Normality, and how these publishing channels contributed to learning in and around the classroom. We talked about publishing work in public, the other mediums that could ‘work’ in lieu of text-only posts, and what it means to blog ‘authentically,’ before moving into a discussion about Philosophy 12′s open structure, Stephen Downes, and the value (and drawbacks) to learning on the open web.

Many thanks to Verena for moderating and inviting us into the #ETMOOC conversation, and to the TALONS who brought their incredible insight and voices to the discussion.

Reflections on the Confederation Discussions

Posted on February 22, 2013 by bryanjack

Colonial Government & the Need for Reform Discussion

As part of the ongoing assessment of personal and collective learning that went into the class’ study of Canadian Confederation, TALONS learners were asked to reflect on their quad’s presentation & facilitation of a discussion topic pulled from the unit, taking into account the Nine Dispositions of Democratic Discussions. As with many of these sorts of assessments / reflections in our classroom, the reflection was built around the familiar Stars (things that went well) and Wishes (things that we would like to improve).

My own reflections on the discussions are posted here, and I think several of the themes in my own observations are reflected by the TALONS who chose to submit their self-assessments as blog posts. Here are a few of the stars and wishes collected on the class blogs this week:

Some stars

From Kim:

I think that something our group did very well at was providing a level of comfort within the talons classroom. Almost everyone participated; even those who normally just listened. I think this was because people were no longer afraid of sharing their opinions in the classroom, as they had a solid fact to base them off of (what was written on the red piece of paper). Also, I think that people were able to fill the shoes of the type of Canadian that they had to portray in the card that they were given. Therefore, people were not only able to participate, but they were able to effectively adopt a new viewpoint on the grievances too.

From Owen:

During our group discussion synthesis, the disposition that I felt was best emphasized was that of mindfulness. I felt the groups communicated well within its members to discuss relevant topics. They helped each other put forth ideas discussed by the group when necessary (the hospitality present was also well-emphasized). When debating inter-group topics, people stayed on the topic that was being discussed and presented arguments to benefit the outcome of the conversation. People were mindful of the importance of each idea, and would debate that instead of ignoring ideas and putting forth their own points. As I was overhearing group discussions, I also felt that members within each group were willing to give everyone’s ideas thought and time.

From Sam F:

The disposition that I thought I was particularly successful at was participation. I felt that the task we got the class to do encouraged everyone to participate. My quad and I separately circulated around the class when the groups were instructed to discuss what group they would vote for, to answer any questions if necessary and to direct the conversation to somewhere the participants would benefit. When I went around to all the quads, I tried to push to help develop ideas in the quad discussions. To do this, I asked questions to generate more thought-process, and tried to direct the conversation to people who generally participated a little less. If needed, I would rephrase ideas and statements, and clarify the differences between the many parties.

From Jeanie:

…as an individual, I feel that I did an acceptable job in the disposition of humility. When playing as “Canada” against “Britain”, there were often moments in which our quad could not argue back against Britain. Even though I did not openly concede that they had brilliant points, I realized our position in the debate and accepted their excellent arguments with peace.

From Tiffany:

In general, I think the one disposition that I had throughout all our discussions was hope. Now, this may be one of the less popular ones people talk about, and it is also the one that many forget about sometimes. Like I’ve mentioned before, this unit was a difficult one for me. I struggled with participating in class, and grasping many concepts of the Confederation, but I never let that get me down. I knew that, somewhere at some time, whether it was the next day or a week later, I would improve on these aspects. I welcomed improvement and failure, and made more room for myself to grow. I built faith in myself, and hoped that my strengths and perseverance would pull through in the end. In my opinion, they did.

From Galen:

One of my strengths that I have shown in this presentation was deliberation. Even when we taught and moderated the discussion in the classroom, I always took my thoughts that I had gathered during our teachings and shared it with others before and after, even writing it down to reflect on. During the debate in our presentation, I didn’t moderate as much as I may have been supposed to, but I was always mindful of questions and problems that others had brought up, and I communicated answers to others helping moderating our debate.

From Max:

Appreciation: The main reason why I feel like I excelled in the disposition of appreciation is because with our activity of forcing the class at large to take on the role of Britain and defend our quad’s accusations of them mistreating the Canadas. With this unique role bestowed upon the class, it forces them to think in a completely different perspective, and puts them into the rarely worn shoes of the antagonist. (Though really, the “antagonist” is subjective; in this case because we’re learning Social Studies in Canada, we see us being mistreated by the British.) With this unique role, the class was able to not only in the position of Britain, but also appreciate their point of view and come up with convincing and unbeatable arguments against Canadas’ grievances.

Some wishes

From Natalie:

Some things I feel I need to work on are Deliberation and Appreciation. The specific aspects of Deliberation that I feel as though I need to work on are seeing other`s viewpoints and not just my own. I find myself often driven to reach a consensual opinion about any given topic, especially one that is detestably controversial as topics often are in the TALONS`social study classes. This point is a nice seg-way into my next point which is that I feel my appreciation for class opinions could be improved. I love hearing about the opinions and different view`s of my peers, however I do still find it somewhat frustrating when someone (or a particular group of people) cannot see that my way is the right way.

From Jeff:

Something I think that I could work on is definitely nurturing more mindful thought through our discussion. Although we went through a lot of concepts, I didn’t really stop the conversation to ask “why?” One example is talking about immigration. Although we understood that Irish and Scottish migrants came to British North America because they disliked the class system, I could have connected that to the class system in Canada at the time and how it was very similar.

From Victoria:

What I think I could improve on was Hospitality. It really is difficult to be hospitable when having a debate with someone…. The whole point of a debate is to argue against the other person. However I feel as though I could have been more hospitable and in turn, this could have helped fostered more discussion. This might have also helped some of the quieter people to join into the conversation because they wouldn’t be intimidated by the fast pace that the debate took.

From Max:

Hospitality: Although initially I tried my best to remind the class to let people who haven’t talked as much do some talking, once the debate got underway and got heated, it was back to the loud people making all the points back and forth. I didn’t create a very hospitable environment for the more timid people to jump in as points were being fired back and forth both rapidly and furiously, which would probably cause people to shy away from talking for fear of being shut down.

From Sam:

I feel I lack in deliberation, always really stubborn with my views and thoughts on things. It’s hard to change my mindset when it’s already fixed on one thing, and it’s a bit of a one-way track in that sense. I’m proud of it sometimes, if only because I know my principals and moral code are set in stone, however; it makes learning things I know even the smallest bit about a teensy bit harder.

From Tiffany:

A disposition that I could have improved on, as an audience member and as a discussion leader is deliberation. I didn’t stop to think more about ideas that could have been branched off and elaborated on. I would just think of an idea, and feel like I was done. It’s almost as if I would do only half the work in my head and believe that I would finish the idea later. However, I think this also improved as I gained more experience with discussions. I would walk into class, being so sure of something, and then one of my quad members would say a completely different point that would make me reconsider my take on the subject. I found that I could learn a lot from my classmates, and I think the people around me have played a part in my improvement as well.

From Jess:

I think that hope is a subject that I need to work on. This is a reflection, so I’ll reflect on both our class and the rest of the week. Hope represents, to me, the hope to progress in work and become better. I probably need to work on that in the sense that I need to encourage others to do it more. While I may not be the best candidate to explain how or why people don’t try to exceed, I felt that during the week, in general, people didn’t stray outside their comfort zones. Those who didn’t were okay with giving the same amount of participation over the course of the week. I wish I could say I knew how to encourage people more, but I don’t. So, while I can try and do this more, I’m not quite sure how successful I’ll be. Of course, there is always the awkward truth of the matter that there’s only so much one person can do.

The Confederation Discussions

Posted on February 16, 2013 by bryanjack

This past week, the TALONS classes have hosted and facilitated half-hour long activities and discussions that have been focused on an exploration of historical contexts and details of Canadian Confederation, as well as an attempt to cultivate the recently discussed Dispositions of Democratic Discussion.

After an initial introduction to the Victorian era in the Canadian colonies, the unit’s focus on dialogue and discussion came about through lengthy collective reflections about each TALONS class’ strengths and areas requiring growth in oral participation and facilitation.

Major themes arising from these goal-setting sessions addressed:

Generating momentum at the beginning of a unit / week / class meeting: using hook-questions, soliciting initial opinions, and establishing a pace that invites broad participation and thinking.

Show people that their responses are relevant and valued within the discussion:

Make connections, follow up, refer to visual notes; demonstrate an appreciation of ideas.

Isolating the key issue, taking what has been said, and synthesizing the main question, issue, or key idea.

Guiding the discussion or lecture with questions and participant-responses, and discovering what types of questions or comments offer the most substance?

Conversation-starters,
Connections to past (or future) discussion points,
Inducing conversation, laughter, ease and comfort.
Allowing for quad/small group chats.
Posing questions generated within the moment.
Providing or soliciting visual notes.

Framing the topic or issue within the group’s existing understanding.

Involving the reluctant speaker by experimenting with the questions being asked, the format of the discussion, or style of engagement and individual participation.

On Monday there will be a traditional exam on the topics covered, and reflection assignments intended to synthesize personal and group learning about the skills and dispositions required for fruitful constructivist learning; it seemed appropriate to attempt to summarize my own observations of the unit.

Stars: Hospitality, Participation & Humility

Each of the different discussions, debates and activities that the quads arranged found unique avenues toward involving a broader range of their classmates in a negotiation of understanding of the topics.

The different role-plays, mock-Parliaments, and small-group discussions created diverse entry-points and opportunities for quieter individuals to engage with their own thinking, that of their peers, and the new comprehension of the topics that came out of the process. The group’s and individuals presenting material or discussion points on the various topics were consistently humble in their own interpretation of the facts, and were quick to invite multiple perspectives into the conversation.

Wishes: Deliberation, Mindfulness & Hope

Going forward, for my part I would like to focus on building on cultivating greater mindfulness and deliberation by exploring the different ways that individuals can document and share their individual understanding (beyond classroom dialogue) in the hope that our time spent in discussion can go beyond the initial concepts to ask more philosophical, or related questions on the topics covered.

I think this synthesis of ideas beyond basic understanding will ask for a more consistently mindful approach to the class’ collective goals. This will require not only that discussion-participants raise the intensity and attentiveness of their own engagement with their ideas and one another, but that our moderators and classroom leaders are able to recognize and articulate the group’s learning intentions with clarity, and provide the modeling and facilitation to bring these goals about.

Opening K12 Education

Posted on February 8, 2013 by bryanjack

: Photo courtesy of @CogDog

Having been exploring technology in the classroom for a few years now, I’ve seen more than a few passing trends in pedagogical circles come and go: blogs, wikis, podcasts; flipped classes, pe(a)rsonalized learning, Twitter, SharePoint, Edublogs, Youtube. Each has garnered momentary ~~Klout~~ clout in the Pedablogisphere before giving way to the Next Big Thing, a trend D’Arcy Norman pointed out in his recently completed masters thesis:

…educational technology can be prone to cycles of hype and fetishism, where new tools and applications are rapidly adopted by individuals who are seen as innovators in the field, with little time for thorough or rigorous investigation of the pedagogical strategies that may be enabled by the affordances of these new tools.

As I’ve seen the timeline of some of these technologies stretch beyond the horizons both ahead and behind us, I’ve sought to synthesize some of what I’ve found meaningful as a classroom teacher, outdoor leader, and an adult learner in physical and digital spheres into a sense of pedagogy that is in line with the rest of my views of teaching, and education.

When it comes to digital technology supporting learning, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the premise of Michael Wesch‘s seminal talk, The Machine is (Changing) Us, where he posits that:

We know ourselves by knowing others.

New ways of knowing others creates new ways of knowing ourselves.

New ways of knowing ourselves create new possibilities of the very idea of the self, and its pursuit.

As an English and History teacher who has helped develop and teach locally developed guitar and philosophy courses at our school, and as someone who has spent six years teaching a gifted program that emphasizes experiential, outdoor education as well as collaborative, social-emotional learning, I have often thought that creating just such possibilities of new ways of knowing ourselves and one another has been the chief concern of education through the ages.

He not busy being born, Bob Dylan tells us, is busy dying, and I have to agree with him and Gardner Campbell, who cites this compulsion to learn, to grow and expand our notions of ourselves and our place in the world as part of the evolutionary purpose of humanity itself. Beginning with Felix Baumgartner’s leap from the edge of space, and building on TS Eliot and the Music of the Spheres, Campbell’s keynote at the Open Education Conference in Vancouver last fall, The Ecologies of Yearning, helped me see the course of action toward Wesch’s call to envision new horizons as one central to the educational trust: to become open, and to be involved in opening oneself, one’s classroom, and one’s mind, to the possibility of building beyond our potential.

Each of these openings, I have to think, is indivisible from the others. An open mind is an open class is an open society. Some might say we are duty bound to go about creating the open society.

“This is what we say we want,” Campbell says of education: “Life long learning, critical thinking, adaptation.”

But in practice, he notes, “In this model, all the bets are off. Even the bets about the bets being off.”

The type of learning Campbell and Wesch are talking about, in other words, is risky business, especially when institutions are concerned, institutions which are bound by one responsibility to the will of the participant, but by another to the upholding of the order of the system itself, a paradox that confronts many stakeholders in modern education systems – K12, Higher Ed, Public, and Independent alike.

But Campbell introduces the work of Gregory Bateson, an “English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist,” whose work with schizophrenia focused on just this sort of paradoxical “Double Bind,” and for which his Hierarchy of Learning serves as a sort of road map that I’ve written about before. Progressing forward from “Learning Zero,” the sort of critical thinking and adaptation included in mission statements and commencement speeches harkens Bateson’s

Learning III, and [the} bringing about [of the] possibility of Learning IV, must be concerned then with what the contexts of learning communicate - in where and how learning is carried out, what is motivating the learner, how the facilitating teacher interacts with the process, etc – but also with providing safe and authentic opportunities to “experience[] breaches in the weave of contextual structure.”

Without wandering headlong into Bateson’s work, I will recommend the paper by Dr. Paul Tosey (2006), Bateson’s Levels Of Learning: a Framework For Transformative Learning? and focus on that last idea there:

Breaches in the weave of contextual structure…

How else to describe our fascination with Google Earth? Chris Hadfield’s Twitter stream? Or Miles Davis & LCD Soundsystem’s perfect harmony?

It is a sort of yearning, that Campbell speaks about, and which elements of digitization put us in touch with, that offer what he calls “some deep experience of the richness, the complexity, the ecologies of yearning that inform our desire to make meaning of our experience, which we must do together.”

And so whether it’s blogs, wikis, podcasts or campfires; videos, GIFs, or walks in the woods, the story of human progress, and knowledge, is about learning to adapt to these “breaches in the weave of contextual structure,” something that the Internet has brought us in spades. That we should be using it to capitalize on the greatest capacities we possess – creativity and self-expression, community-building and collaboration – seems the most genuine of purposes for classroom learning to take on, and something I’ve found in educational opportunities that thrive because of an attitude of openness.

Shotgun style, here are a few places that I think I’ve managed to create digital workplaces that are on the web, true, but are also of the web, itself.

TALONS Class Blog \ TALONS Flickr \ @talonsblog

TALONS Blogs RSS \ Comments RSS

TALONS Socials, Science, English, Math, Planning & Leadership wikis

Music at Gleneagle

Guitar class as Rock band

#Economooc

#Philosophy12

#IntroGuitar

The TALONS Guitar

Posted on February 6, 2013 by bryanjack

All the places we have been: TALONS Guitar Photoset on Flickr. There’s also some pics posted by others under the tag, TalonsGuitar.

Originally posted on the Introduction to Guitar blog, as a response to the Tell the Story of Your Guitar assignment. I’ve added it here so that it can be included as a Digital Storytelling post for this week’s #ETMOOC study.

It’s fitting that two of the TALONS alumni that originally gave me the guitar pictured above are actually in Introduction to Guitar this semester. I’m glad that they’ll get to see some of the story of the TALONS guitar that they might not have been privy to in the last two and a half years of its life here in a post that hopefully gives you here an idea of some of the power of musical instruments as totems of community, of place and of the people that connect them to us.

Clayton was actually the (or, a) prior owner of this guitar as his classmates neared the end of grade nine, and were plotting a year-end present pour moi, he volunteered it as a possible canvas that Immy could adorn with some personal and TALONS-related icons and symbols in paints and felt-tipped markers. A group of about ten or fifteen of the grade nine cohort showed up on a day near the end of June in my office to present the guitar to me, and if I recall, in my gushing surprise, I said something like, “Ohmigod, you wonderful, wonderful children.”

Which they are. Which they were.

Since then the guitar has accompanied me and the ensuing TALONS classes everywhere; it is my and our “travel guitar.” Even if the action is a bit high, and it doesn’t hold its tuning perfectly, it is too pretty to only live indoors. And its story is too good to not introduce it to new people.

One of the first ventures the guitar got to take was back east and into Algonquin Park, at the inaugural Unplug’d Educational Summit. In feeling particularly blessed to be invited along to Unplug’d, where so many of my educational idols were going to be collected, I was proud to bring the class’ guitar to the event, as it has been through my working relationships with TALONS learners these last few years that any of these people would have ever heard of me. Sitting on the dock at the lake, singing Tragically Hip songs in the back of a canoe, and getting to lead a campfire singalong with forty educational leaders from across Canada was a supremely memorable experience, and one that the TALONS guitar played no small part in.

I mean, this picture is was on the Unplug’d website banner:

Somewhere out there on the lake, it was becoming clear that what GNA Garcia had tweeted to me upon seeing a picture of the guitar was true:

The gift of a musical instrument is actually a gift to all of the people that will ever hear it.

What a thing to contemplate: that these objects are conduits for community, and connections between people. I started thinking – although I was only just starting – about what it meant to be someone who wielded one of these instruments, and how musicians can be vessels of sorts as well.

But more on that later… this is about the guitar, not me.

Since then, I’m happy to report, the guitar has made it on plenty of TALONS trips – into the woods on the Sunshine Coast, to Squamish, Hicks Lake – and on a host of my own adventures – family vacations to Vancouver Island, camping on Galiano. It’s the guitar that seems to deserve to be taken on adventures, and played outside, and to acquire more stories.

In its way it is its own entity: a magical and powerful object, and one I’m grateful to have encountered, and to keep encountering, every time I pick it up or hear it played.

Thanks Clayton and Immy for introducing us!

[Photo credits starting at the top: In its natural habitat, by Me; Dr. Alec @courosa Couros playing the guitar by @GiuliaForsythe; Canoe Strumming by @GiuliaForsythe (she was also paddling the canoe); Conservation & Song by @Aforgrave.]

Discussion in a Democratic Classroom

Posted on January 21, 2013 by bryanjack

To promote human growth.

I discovered the above quotation (then highlighted, and apparently even underlined it) in a (photocopy of a) book that Q lent me this week, Discussion as a Way of Teaching. And with each of my classrooms providing affirmations or further questions about various aspects of the introductory chapter, I wanted to see if I could synthesize and share some of my thinking here with the hope that it might lead us somewhere meaningful.

Confluence of Conversation

In one of those subconscious coincidences that arise from time to time, a few different planets have aligned to allow both the TALONS classes, as well as the twenty-odd program alumni that are taking Philosophy 12 this semester, are creating a thorough deconstruction and re-imagining of their views about democracy through their respective current studies. For the TALONS, this has been the American Revolution, where a series of blog posts and comments have charted a thoughtful exploration of both personal and collective interpretations of historical events.

Ironically enough, the TALONS initial reading about the topic came by way of a few of the former class’ bloggers who find themselves discussion Social and Political Philosophy.

In either case, the groups are addressing fundamental questions about the nature of social democracy as it has been practiced since the dawn of the Enlightenment. The younger class (grade nine and ten TALONS learners) are coming to the subject by way of the fight to establish the American republic; there is much discussion around the usual suspects: taxes, representation, unity and propaganda. But there are questions about the future here, too:

If we can see and understand how blatantly unfair it was for people back in the American Revolution, why hasn’t more changed? I will admit that things have gotten a lot better here in America, but what about other places around the world?

The philosophy class spent a few days last week discussing some of the foundations of our thinking about democracy, and brainstormed different framings and questions from which they could interrogate them. The group set about trying to define the roles of idealism, pragmatism, education and the media could (or should) play in a democracy, questioning the value of “true” democracy, the societal safety-net, and how it is that our evolving knowledge of human nature influences group development.

Across digital and in face to face conversations, each of the blocks I am teaching these days is consumed with an inquiry into what it means to be a critic and participant in the democratic process. I’ll admit to getting more than a small kick out of the type of political engagement and discussion I seek out as an adult learner and voter, and something I am privileged to find in my colleagues in the Social Studies department at our school.

Dialogue beyond the classroom

On a given week in the last few years, there has been an ongoing and at times heated exchange of political ideas across members of the Socials department relating to current events, historical interpretations, the “big ideas” that may reside in aspects of the various curricula. With each of the teachers in these email threads possessing disparate ideologies and frameworks of understanding, arguments and perspectives from all points along the political spectrum are often represented in these arguments that serve as serious debate, rhetorical sport, and the sharing of opinion from a variety of personal news and editorial sources.

Such is the influence that these passionate (and often humourous) exchanges bring to the history and political courses at our school, the last year has seen recent graduates instigating, challenging and benefiting from these email conversations (that in some cases have spanned more than 40 responses including tens of thousands of typed words). The vibrancy of our school’s Model United Nations, Political and Debate clubs are certainly signs of a politically ‘awake’ student body (which we probably owe to Steven and Liam more than anything we’ve done as teachers), something that inspires some of the modeling that a few of the teacher debates can supply as a means of exploring the different ways to approach various topics.

One of our school’s History 12 teachers and I are even trying to start a podcast based on the exchanges we have with and for his class.

Democracy and Discussion

I think why my Social Studies colleagues and I get such a charge out of all of this discussion, both inside and out of our classrooms, is because it is an engagement with one of the fundamental functions of democratic schooling: to cultivate and prepare the citizenry that will inherit the reigns and responsibilities of the future.

Discussion and democracy are inseparable because both have the same root purpose – to nurture and promote human growth. By growth we mean roughly the same thing as John Dewy (1916) did: the development of an ever-increasing capacity for learning and an appreciation of and a sensitivity to learning undertaken by others. Democracy and discussion imply a process of giving and taking, speaking and listening, describing and witnessing – all of which help expand horizons and foster mutual understanding.

And something that has struck me this week is that the things that are difficult about bringing about a discussion‘s potential are of a similar nature to the tendencies that limit the possibility of a optimal democracy, and it is for this reason that I agree (along with the authors) with Richard Rorty’s assertion that

…bringing people together in conversation and challenging them to use their imaginations to create new meanings and move toward greater human inclusiveness is, for Rorty (1989), a moral endeavour.

The working definition that Brookfield and Preskill posit of discussion itself extends this morality to affirm the notion of classrooms functioning as democratic laboratories, where students prepare to meet the tasks of political responsibility.

We define discussion as an alternatively serious and playful effort by a group of two or more to share views and engage in mutual and reciprocal critique.

The purposes of discussion are fourfold:

To help participants reach a more critically informed understanding about the topic or topics under consideration,
To enhance participants’ self-awareness and their capacity for self-critique,
To foster an appreciation among participants for the diversity of opinion that invariably emerges when viewpoints are exchanged openly and honestly,
And to act as a catalyst to helping people take informed action in the world.

…empowering students to probe the contradictions and injustices of larger society.

As participants in discussion-based education build a critical awareness of “the ways in which different linguistic, cultural, and philosophical traditions can silence voices,” the macro-micro analogy can become instructive as students and teachers alike can look upon opportunities for learning about improving elements of classroom discussion can build outward into society. To this end the introductory chapter of Discussion as a Way of Teaching highlights nine Dispositions of Democratic Discussion, each of which could serve as an opportunity for reflection for people engaged in this type of learning.

Nine Dispositions of Democratic Discussion

Hospitality

How well does each party in the discussion help foster “an atmosphere in which people feel invited to participate”? I think we often consider our positioning as teachers toward projecting hospitality (for different ideas and perspectives, diverse expressions of the self, as well as challenging arguments and evidence) but having watched and talked to a few of the TALONS who facilitated a class discussion this week, realize that cultivating an awareness of these dispositions – perhaps this first one especially – among students themselves is key to realizing the collaborative potential of the class.

Participation

Similarly, the responsibility to encourage full-participation – in democracy, as in conversation – is something that ultimately falls to each member of the community, who would do well to remember that

the incentive to participate diminishes when what one says or does is ignored or leaves no discernable impact. Everyone in democratic classrooms, but especially the instructor, must work at encouraging widespread participation and finding spaces during class time to receive more than just perfunctory responses from the class. For us this means that we must in some cases ask follow-up questions, at other times rephrase what has just been said, and in still other situations show clearly and assertively how one person’s contribution is related to other ideas already presented.

Mindfulness

Something GNA Garcia has always brought to our conversations about life, learning, teaching and most points in between is an ever-present mindfulness that manifests itself as a reverence for what the authors of Discussion as a Way of Teaching might describe as “the whole conversation – of who has spoken and who has not – and of doing what one can to ensure that the discussion doesn’t get bogged down in the consideration of issues that are of concern only to a very small minority of participants.”

It is important to remember here that “group cohesiveness and the give-and-take of a good discussion are usually more important than any particular thing that we feel compelled to contribute.”

Humility

Central to the process of expanding one’s understanding is the willingness to let go of our prior notions of Truth or objectivity. The authors here remind us that “Humility helps us remember that learning is always an uncertain, even uneasy quest.”

If we admit the limits of our knowledge and opinions, we are more likely to work authentically to create a greater understanding among group members.

Mutuality

“Mutuality means that it is in the interest of all to care as much about each other’s self-development as one’s own.”

This is something that I think we practice in the TALONS classroom with regularity, and in many tasks – especially those centered around our experiential or outdoor learning opportunities – the necessity of each individual contributing to the group’s success is a baseline expectation. But I do think that we might be able to look for ways to improve this sense of mutual responsibility for supporting discourse in the classroom, or on our blogs.

Deliberation

To approach discussion with a disposition toward deliberation, participants must cultivate an awareness that “the ensuing exchange of views may modify their original perspective.” Here, we see the fallibility of the combative talking heads that are presented to explore contentious topics in our print, radio and televised media:

Unless there is a general commitment to deliberative practices that foster reflective and informed judgements, democracy is robbed of its authority and moral meaning.

Which isn’t to say that a capacity for deliberation must be bound to the goal of forming consensus (while that might be ideal); the authors propose that “it may be just as desirable if deliberation results in continuing differences’ being better understood and more readily tolerated.”

Appreciation

As delving into the emotional terrain that many of these conversations hopefully mine can be a daunting and risky enterprise at times, it is important for members of the discussion community to demonstrate appreciation for the sharing of diverse opinion and thought. This is another area that I see teachers concerned with where students and other stakeholders could emphasize their appreciation not only for the different perspectives and viewpoints being shared, but also for the willingness of others to commit to the process of open and honest discussion.

Hope

“Without the hope of reaching new understanding, gaining a helpful perspective, or clarifying the roots of a conflict, there is little reason to go on talking, learning and teaching.”

I think the worst of human behaviours and thoughts come about when individuals and groups have lost this most basic sense of hope toward a resolution of conflicting ideals, values or perspectives even when that resolution seems least likely. Here, the authors again invoke John Dewey and his notion of Democratic Faith:

Democratic faith implies that pooling the talents and abilities of individuals increases the likelyhood that new light will be cast on old difficulties and everyday common sense will be brought to bear on problems said to require technical expertise.

If teachers and classrooms fail to operate atop a foundation of this sort of faith and hope, our schools risk becoming the antithesis of how they are conceived in a democratic society.

Autonomy

In the end, what these dispositions, and what a truly democratic society is capable of nurturing, is a society composed of individuals capable of interrogating their own base beliefs against the paradigm of their culture, and commit to living and behaving authentically and ethically as a result.

Without individuals who are willing to take strong stands and to argue assertively for them, democracy is diminished, and the opportunities for growth and self-development, partly dependent on the clash of contending wills, are greatly weakened.

Adventures in a Gifted Classroom

Musings on Modern Learning

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