Education at its Finest…

Bittersweet emotions flooded me this morning and early afternoon as I met with my current students for the very last time.  Our term ended!  It’s just as simple as that.  Like all things, there’s a beginning and an end.  You know the end coming.  In fact, the very date was forecasted from the start.  Yet, it (the end) many times sneaks up on us.

These students are quite special!  They, alongside all others that I’ve had, leave an erasable etching on my heart.  You see, these students and the innumerable others are nontraditional adult learners who decided, for whatever reason, personal or otherwise, to return to school.  With all of the weight of real responsibility, they attend class, study, prepare for projects and exams, etc.

One may well ask, “isn’t that what being a student is all about?”  Certainly!  However, when I was a freshman, let’s say, even a senior, I didn’t have rent or a mortgage to pay, groceries to buy for a family, a child in college, other children a spouse, and aged parents to attend.  Such is the life of these students and it becomes even more complicated than this.

Nonetheless, they are each fighters determined to make the goals they’ve established crystallize.  As one after the other delivered oral presentations weaving into the contents what the class had meant to them and where they saw themselves going, I reveled in the fact that they’d achieved exactly what the course’s creators had designed, for students to be assisted in acquiring the skills necessary, personal and academic, to be successful, productive, and profitable.

This is indeed education at its finest!

J-Education: Placed Front and Center by Niles ….

The Online Journalism Review

March 6, 2012

What are students really buying in an education?

By Robert Niles

Will journalism education make some of the same mistakes as the journalism industry? It’s a reasonable question to ask because Internet publishing threatens to roil the education industry every bit as much as it disrupted the news publishing business.Fortunately, I’ve heard from several journalism educators who are eager to get into distance learning, and to find ways to use the rise of the Internet to their schools’ advantage, rather than wait for the Internet to change the marketplace so radically that their schools are forced to react. But moving lectures from a classroom to the Internet is simply a medium change. Like newspapers starting websites, that won’t be nearly enough for institutions of higher learning to prosper in the Internet age.

The key to surviving a business disruption is to understand clearly what it is that you’re actually selling. If you want to look at this from the flip side, it’s understanding the customer need that those customers are paying you to resolve.

Newspapers screwed up by thinking that they were selling daily news reports to home subscribers. What too many newspaper managers forgot was that home subscription fees were token payments that barely covered the cost of distribution. Their real customers were the advertisers.

Similarly, educators might believe that their “product,” if you will, is information – the deep knowledge of a subject delivered by an instructor during a class. If so, those educators would be just as wrong as their colleagues in the newspaper business were.

Read More….  Archive Link

Faces of Poverty Changing

http://youtu.be/u7wU-1h8nvw

Poverty knows no boundaries, only faces!  This is a chilling video.

 

Staring Poverty in the Face

Watching poverty snip at anyone is tough!  It is even more so when it ravages the lives of the young and elderly!  Today, “Some 3.5 million seniors live in poverty, according to Census figures, but that number rises to about 6.2 million when health care costs are factored in….and a growing number of Americans of all ages have reported not being able to afford food in the past year.  Nearly 50 percent of all households in the country are a single financial crisis away from the poverty line,” writes Huffington Post’s Alexander Eichler.  The stark reality that surrounds these statistics is that one of us, either you, the reader, or I, the blogger, may well become counted among the 50 percent.  How will we handle that?  Even more poignant, how will we handle the addition of loved ones?

It’s 2012! A Happening Worth Mentioning

Conversations concerning the status of today’s classrooms and their day to day operation are not few.  They don’t often contain much brilliance or even hope.  As a substitute teacher, I’ve had the good fortune of being able to teach, from time to time, rather than monitor and manage behavior.  However, this past week’s experience was huge!

I have to tell you that my chest rose and beamed with delight as I witnessed student after student fully engage their studies and revel in, of all things, LEARNING!!!  I kid you not!  They were alert, excited, interested, and even responsive!  The day was simply magical!

This very special yet unassuming school sits right in the midst of Prince Georges County, Md.  Parents, administrators, faculty, staff, and students, when you read this, don’t take your brilliant beam for granted.  Continue to strive for excellence. Excellence, in turn, will continue to exude from your halls and walls!  It will be a most pleasant fragrance for the soul.  In the end, you will be an attraction that draws others to you.  Perhaps, dear school community, you’ve earned a place in history for “such a time as this.”  I want to personally thank you!

The Iraq Mission: A Case for Numbness?

Eight years of entanglement have now been announced complete.  I ask, are they?  No doubt our troops are leaving.  This, certainly, is a great and marvelous welcome!  Still, after the wrenching reality of the blood spill of more than 100 thousand Iraqi civilians and thousands more of US and ally troops, I remain numb.

Indeed, I’m thankful and at the same time sorrowful for all that our soldiers and their families have given.  I’m also saddened for the losses suffered by those who just happen to have been born in Iraq.  Where is the “shock and awe?”  I submit, it’s forever engraved on our hearts, especially the hearts of those at home and abroad who have graves and flags as their memorials.

At the bare minimum, I hope and I pray that when we encounter someone who may not look like us, whatever that may mean, may need a word of encouragement or a helping hand, that we’d be quick and vigilant to extend kindness.  Not only is it the right and humane thing to do, it could well be that we are doing so to the widow, mother, father, brother, or sibling of one who poured out his or her life for the Iraq Mission.  In doing so, numbness transforms to consciousness and even sensibility.

Salutations to 2011 Nobel Laureates

Congratulations to Liberia, Yemen, and the three women representing both nations!  Today’s donning of the highly esteemed treasure went to Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf  who shared the prize with Liberian human rights activist, Leymah Gbowee and Yemen peace activist, Tawakkul Karman.  All three endorse the non-violent struggle for the safety of women and women’s rights.

It was a stark reminder of  a similar day in 2004 when the late Wangari Maathai (Kenya), was so honored.  Until today, no woman or sub-Saharan African had won the prize since.

Read more:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/10/nobel-peace-prize-_n_1140618.html

Water, Water, Everywhere….. Or, Is It?

Have you ever found yourself in a time warp of sorts? That’s exactly where I was this morning. As I drove down the street zigging and zagging, first to the direction of cones,        ” waterways,” and, finally, workmen, I wondered what the “gush” was all about. Once inside the assigned school for the day, I quickly learned that a broken water main was the source of the chaos, both inside and outside the building.

Although I am frequently and audibly thankful for the lucid gold that I enjoy day in and day out, with just the turn of a faucet, and, remember that millions around the globe don’t have this luxury, this breach cripples a school population that’s approaching 800. Today, students, teachers, and administrators can’t get a drink of water or even go to the bathroom because TODAY, there is absolutely NO water! Add to that the needs of the neighborhood, where many of the homes, according to one parent, have been without water since 4pm, yesterday.

What an object lesson; indeed an opportunity for all of us to walk in the shadows that others live in daily, year in and year out, without signs of change. I, for one, would like to help make a difference for even one school, or one village to have clean and running water. If you’d like to join me, please leave a comment, letting me know and perhaps, together, we not only can, but will!

Army Ranger Killed in Action During 14th Deployment

My heart is aching for the Domeij family. Although Ranger Domeij was a loyal American, were we, to him? Allowing him 14 deployments proves questionable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/tk_n_1035286.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl15|sec1_lnk3|108010

Misinformation and Disinformation: A Case In Point!

A billboard in Costa Mesa, Calif., is getting some attention, but it’s certainly not the kind its sponsors were hoping for.

The sign, paid for by atheist group Backyard Skeptics, includes a quote about Christianity attributed to Thomas Jefferson. But further research reveals there’s no solid evidence that Jefferson ever uttered or wrote the words, the Orange County Register first reported.

The billboard includes a picture of Jefferson with the quote: “I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature. It is founded on fables and mythology.”

Experts at the Jefferson Library Collection at Monticello are constantly asked about the quote, the Orange County Register reports. Some say the former president wrote the words in a letter to a Dr. Wood, but officials cannot find trace of any correspondence to a person by that name.

Bruce Gleason, a member of the group, told the Orange County registrar that he should have done a bit more research before putting the words on the sign. The billboard was unveiled on Wednesday, the newspaper reports. Gleason explained that purpose of this sign and others around the city was to “expunge the myth that this is a Christian nation,” as well as to “share the idea that you can be good and do good without a religion or god.”

~ Huffington Post