It's a MIRACLE!

Generate your own "miracles."

Lighten up...

How can we redouble our commitment to business-oriented schooling? If necessary, we can outsource some of the learning to students in Asia, who will memorize more facts for lower grades. And we can complete the process, already begun in spirit, of making universities’ education departments subsidiaries of their business schools. More generally, we must put an end to pointless talk about students’ “interest” in learning and instead focus on skills that will contribute to the bottom line. Again, we’re delighted to report that this shift is already underway, thanks to those who keep reminding us about the importance of 21st-century schooling. Alfie Kohn, "When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal"

So I’ve been wondering about how to incorporate play into research as a way of tapping into more creative serendipitous approaches. Carolyn Foote in "Play and Libraries" (See also link to Helene Blowers presentation on fun in libraries.)

Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what new designs they come up with. This year we're inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme "What I Wish for the World."

Those of us of Scandanavian heritage and epecially those of us still living in places where it doesn't get above freezing for an entire month and expecially toward the end of that month and where the snow that fell on the driveway in December is there but in the form of ice and especially for those of us who suffer from that light deprevation thing and especially those of us who think that if they eat one more meal that is primarily white in color and lacking any seasoning other than salt tend to have a bit of gloomy outlook on things now and then. It's a character flaw we acknowledge and do our best to live with it and try not to make it a problem for others.

This self-awareness keeps us on the lookout for those things that may lift our drooping spirits, such as the resources cited at the beginning of this post. Kohn's bit of satire is a hoot and should be widely shared; we should all engage in Foote's quest for fun in our libraries; and every student to should be encouraged to compete in Google's contest.

Humor, fun, and irreverance are the best weapons of all closet subversives in education. Make a kid or another teacher chuckle today.

And improve school.

___________________

* Hi Doug!

Here is the link to Helene's post and fabulous Slideshare presentation!

http://www.librarybytes.com/2008/12/my-24th-final-for-year.html

I think you will love it!

Best,
Buffy :-)

A novel bailout plan

As we all know, lax writing practices earlier this decade led to irresponsible writing and irresponsible reading. This simply put too many families into books they could not finish. We are seeing the impact on readers and neighborhoods, with five million Americans now behind on their reading. Some are just walking away from novels they should never have been reading in the first place. What began as a subprime reading problem has spread to other, less-risky readers and contributed to excess inventories.

These troubled novels are now parked, or frozen, on the shelves of libraries, bookstores and other reading institutions, preventing these institutions from financing readable novels. The normal buying and selling of nearly all types of literature has become challenged. from The Plot Curdles By JULIAN GOUGH, New York Time, January 4, 2009