BFTP: Is there a place for fear mongering?

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post February 8, 2008. 

Yesterday's keynote speaker at a small tech conference near here was Mike Detloff, a police officer from Moorhead, MN, working in the Crimes Against Children Unit. His topic was, of course, the dangers children face online.

Now I tend to dislike these sorts of presentations for a number of reasons, and Mike's talk was very similar to many I've heard from law enforcement agents - FBI to the local folks. Heavy on the gory stories of the repulsive acts of pedophiles.  The innocent child snatched from the jaws of an online predator in the nick of time. A strange brew of information about online predators, child pornography, child abuse, public masturbators, missing and abducted children and even serial killers. Of today's popular evils, only Bin Laden usually seems to be missing.

Mike's view of the civil rights of criminal suspects was, shall we say, at odds with the ACLU's. Some of the uses of hidden surveillance cameras he bragged about seemed like entrapment to me. His conclusion that reading books about serial killers showed a propensity to become one did not seem exactly logical. (If we become what we read, I should by now be a gumshoe or a space alien.) And since these things were being addressed at a tech conference, all technology was guilty by association.

I guess I am weary of the use of fear by the government and businesses in this country to sell an ideology or a product. Were one to listen only to law enforcement, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or the manufacturers of webblocking/ monitoring software, pedophiles lurk behind every web page and every click pushes a child closer to defilement or death. There are too few objective studies and analyses done in this area to help us gain some perspective. I appreciate the Nancy Willards and Ann Collier's and Larry Magids's The ConnectSafely website has great, less sensational articles about Internet safety.

But Mike made me think as well. More than I really wanted to. I don't want to think about this topic! 

1. Mike asked: If you are heterosexual, how many years of therapy would it take to make you homosexual? If you are homosexual, how many years of therapy would it take to make you heterosexual? If you are a pedophile, how many years of therapy would it take to make you no longer sexually attracted to children? (Why sex offenders are regarded as such for life.)
2. Lonely, neglected children are those most at risk from the solicitations of online predators. His line was memorable - "If you don't tell your children you love them, someone else will." YIkes!
3. He showed the video, The Eleventh Commandment: Honor Thy Children - a wrenching music video on child abuse that is nearly unbearable to watch. (Which also made me feel guilty for ever hollering at my kids.)
4. I don't know how a person like Mike can work in crimes against children field for years. I have the highest regard for his sense of mission and dedication. I know he does this work for his own children's sake as well.

When I do workshops on Internet safety, I tell participants that while I believe the threat of online predators is over blown, even if there is only ONE such creature, we need to help kids learn to guard against such a threat. It's an unpleasant, uncomfortable topic. But it is one we need to acknowledge and understand. Even when we don't really want to.

Did I mention that Moorhead is the sister city to Fargo - just across the Red River? When Mike is working to protect the area's kids, those kids include my two grandsons. We may not agree on a lot of things, but I am awfully glad Mike is on the job.

A creativity rubric by Ric Nudell

A Blue Skunk Reader, Ric Nudell, in reaction to last week's post that wondered if creativity was assessable, wrote:

Your posts on this subject are interesting and thought-provoking. As a Digital Media teacher I do try to help students develop creativity (or creative approaches to problem solving.) So...I do need to give them feedback on it, i.e. assess.

I am attaching one of the rubrics I use with students. It is a synthesis of a lot of research about the characteristics of creativity/creative approaches and forms a framework for conversations. There is more elaborate documentation with it (isn't there always), but the rubric can probably stand alone.

Ric Nudell, Digital Media Arts Instructor
Barre Technical Center
Barre, Vermont 05641
www.barretechnicalcenter.org.

Posted with permission:

___________________________________________________________

Evidence of Creative Problem Solving Rubric (link to better formatted pdf)

Project: __________________________________________

Student: _________________________________________

Category	Indicators in Evidence
Generating Ideas	___ Fluency: generated many ideas ___ Flexibility: looked at problem in a variety of ways ___ Originality: ideas are different than what is already out there ___ Elaboration: adding nuance, making ideas richer ___ Symbolic  Thinking: making connections, comparisons, analogies
Digging Deeper into Ideas	___ Analyzing: thinking about what makes the idea(s) work ___ Synthesizing: putting one or more ideas together ___ Reorganizing/Redefining: modifying the original ideas ___ Resolving ambiguity: clarifying, focusing, refining ideas ___ Working with Complexity: building relationships, levels
Courage to Explore Ideas	___ Problem sensitivity: matching solutions to initial problems ___ Curiosity and Risk Taking: out-of-the-box ideas ___ Humor, playfulness, fantasy, feelings: inner emotional content ___ Integration of dichotomies: inclusion of opposing concepts ___ Growth: working with ideas/places that are personally new
Listening to One’s Inner Voice	___ Sense of purpose: reasons for choices ___ Persistence/Hard work: followed vision to completion ___ Rejects stereotypes: concepts move beyond stereotypes

Student: _______(date)                  Peer: ________ (date)                  Instructor: _______ (date)

Assessment:                   Excellent                  Good                  Fair                  Poor

 ___________________________________________________________

Ric, I am still thinking about this one. It's one of the most thoughtful attempts at measuring creativity I've seen. I really like that it is used, as you write, as "a framework for conversations." 

But my main question still persists: Do we really want to evaluate creativity in and of itself - or do we want to evaluate the impact creativity may have on the effectiveness of a product, a solution, or a task?

I'm guessing you will be asked by many for permission to use this tool!

Thanks again for allowing me to share.

Advice to strivers

Strive not be a success, but rather to be a value.
                                                                   Einstein

Our district-level technology integration specialists, Tracy and Marti - the best evidence one would ever need of the wisdom of hiring people who are smarter than you are - have been holding after school professional development sessions using Google Hangouts. Using this powerful tool, we have teachers from across our 15 school district sharing best practices, doing joint problem-solving, and modeling effective uses of technology for their peers. And having fun. Between them, they have re-energized staff development efforts in technology, moved curriculum and technology into closer collaboration on shared goals, and have even tackled efforts in training district administration in technology uses. It's been amazing. 

Jacob my network manager elegantly solves problems on a daily basis, volunteers for a role in new tasks such as building camera security systems and computerized test monitor training. He's working with our building technicians to optimize their scheduling and prioritize work. Our student information systems manager, Cassandra, this year has headed a centralized registration task force, taken on the management of both the library and data mining programs, and is setting up new calling lists to better inform our staff, families, and public about school closings. Our accounts secretary, Jocelin, has done more to automate ordering in the past year that we had accomplished in the previous 10.

While I would like to think they do all these things just to please me, even I am not that delusional. They do it to make a difference, to challenge themselves, and, yes, to prepare for bigger roles in their careers. I would disappointed if that were not one of their objectives.

These sorts of folks present managers with a dilemma. I want to encourage them to stretch, to succeed, to excel, to advance, to "self actualize." But I don't want them to ever leave - and given the small size of our organization, career paths are short. So, subversively, I encourage them to explore positions outside the district that will allow them to grow.

But I also suggest that one be careful in changing positions. While people often look at salary and title in deciding to move on, I'd base my change on:

• Does the new position allow me to grow? (Will it be challenging? Will it be interesting? Does it fit me?)
• Does the new position require a physical move or long commute? (Commuting and housework are the two biggest causes of unhappiness in modern life - (Buetrner, NPR, 2-18-13) Children do not like to leave friends. Divide any salary bump by 12 and then take out taxes and benefits.)
• Does the new position have a favorable work environment? (Flexible hours, congenial co-workers, supportive supervisor. See Getting the Job You Deserve.)

Last week I was going through some "to-be-read" materials in my Evernote account and ran across Stephen Abram's long but very wise Editorial Commentary: 51 Insights, Perceptions, and a Few Things That I Think Are Important to Professional and Personal Progress, December 11, 2012. These jumped out at me:

it’s not just management’s responsibility to develop staff but that it’s also a staff and personal responsibility to take some ownership of their own careers and personal development. 

...the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because the climate changed, many disappeared because they couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt to the changes.  The one’s that succeeded may have become birds or stayed smaller and more flexible.  Some moved to better environments. 

If you hide your ideas (or worse, start to believe that the only reason your idea is rejected is because you’re ‘hated’), you risk maturing well as a professional leader. 

Make it clear that you want opportunities.  Seek promotion.  Seek developmental opportunities on projects, teams, and committees. ... Don’t let your professional development happen by default.

Your personality is your greatest strength and hiding it too much in a false sense that it is more professional is a mistake.  Not being yourself, or showing too little of your personality, will often just look phony.  On the other hand, fully developed leaders and managers bring many behaviours and styles to work and make choices about when to use which aspects of their personality and when to use which skills. 

Don’t say ‘no’ too often.  When you’re offered the opportunity to stretch yourself at work or in association activity, jump at it. 

... attend every association event you can.  If your employer doesn’t pay, go anyway.  It’s often the cost of a meal and if my experience is any indication, I’ve found positions that increased my pay a lot over the cost of the investment in learning and networking that comes from involvement in associations.

Really focus on building a good professional reputation above and beyond your workplace. ... Write. Blog. Tweet. Share.  ...  Try to remain professional and positive, but don’t shy away from difficult problems and issues.

If you or your team is studying something to death – remember that death was not the original goal! 

Remember the 15% rule Humans have extreme difficulty in actually seeing a comparative difference of less than 15%.  I once read that research shows that when we see the light from 100 candles, we don’t see a difference in brightness until 115 candles are lit.  Interesting – I understand that the same thing is true of sound volume, colour variation, and other matters of human perception.  Indeed, in job evaluation systems, job bands are not considered sufficiently different until there is a 12.5-15% difference in the job’s points.  

I need to understand the user’s context and needs and not project my own them.  For instance, it is likely that the end-user doesn’t actually want ‘information’ but, more likely, wants to be informed, learn, be entertained, taught and/or transformed in some manner. 

 Ask everyone, including your management team and users, the three magic questions:

1. What keeps you awake at night?
2. If you could solve only one problem at work, what would it be?
3. If you could change one thing and one thing only, what would it be?

Don’t overvalue one piece of out-of-context feedback or let it loom out of perspective and balance.  Avoid lasting emotional responses to single instances of both negative and positive feedback.  Feedback is best digested in the aggregate rather than in small doses.  

When you have 100 good ideas to choose from the critical skill isn’t choosing 5 but sacrificing 95.  Learn the skill of temporary sacrifice.  You can store your good ideas in an idea parking lot and bring them forward into the strategic planning process as projects are completed and new priorities are set.

We are often too serious.  Our work is serious and our impact on our communities is enormous!  However, I don’t believe that serious means professional and it gets in the way of progress and teamwork when it is overly evident.  Working creatively, trying new things and being innovative are fun.  Take the time to recognize that and live your life to the fullest.

I hope "my strivers" take these to heart - and of course read all of Mr. Abram's post. 

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