A day of walking in Manila

Greetings from Manila. I spent the day yesterday walking - trying to tire myself enought to sleep last night. It worked. It was hot and humid, but the rain held off.

Here are a few shots from the day. In the morning, I did a self-guided tour of the area of Intramuros - the 17th century walled area of Manila and then to the National Museum of the Philippine People. The late afternoon I spend walking along the bay walk - and beyond - further than I had anticipated!

As in many large cities, traffic is a mess. You truly take your life into your own hands legs to cross many streets. I loved the colorful jeepneys, remnants from the US military presence here, that serve as small buses for the majority of the population. This is one of the more tasteful ones.

Manila has preserved its old city walls, some dating back to the 17th century. Manila's, however, are surrounded by a golf course. Intramuros (within the walls) is a good sized area that contains, among other sites, Fort Santiago and the Manila Cathedral.

I love street art. This reminded me of that which was everywhere in Rio de Janeiro. The Hispanic influence?

This smiling guard protects Fort Santigo that once guarded the mouth of the Pasig River and the city. All the police in the Intramuros area were so uniformed, some with realistic looking rifles. One guard assured me they were only cap guns. 

One of those grizzly remnants from the past - a powder room (too wet to be useful) sometimes used as a dungeon. As I remember, one form of execution was to place prisoners in these cells and then allow them to slowly drown as the tide rose.   

Nature will be here long after humans are gone. From the walls of Intramuros. 

I love walled cities - Xian, Rothenberg, Talin - especially those that have been preserved. The completeness of Manila's wall is rather miraculous since with the exception of Warsaw, Manila was the most completely destroyed city of WWII. (The net in the upper right keeps golf balls from hitting the tourists.)

I really enjoyed the National Museum, not just for the AC, but for the attention paid to the indigenous tribe people of islands. These burial jar lids supposedly carry the likeness of the one inside. Hoping to experience a little more of the aspect of the Philippines as I travel in northern Luzon after the workshops. I was amazed by the number (like over 100) separate tribes scattered among the islands. And each with its own language.

Rizal Park is a narrow stretch of greenery, fountains and statues than must be a half mile long in the center of the city. Heavily used by citizens, including these students practicing some kind of dance - or maybe exercise.

I walked the Bay Walk later in the day to watch Manila's reputedly beautiful sunset. Winds were whipping up about 30mph or more but it didn't keep the people in. 

 

This kid was climbing the palm for coconuts along the bay. As with most big cities in Asia, Manila has a fascinating, if always disturbing, street life. Open cook fires on the crowded, crumbling sidewalks, shysters, child and adult beggars, tons of litter, constant noise, and direct sexual solicitations are all a part of it. It's an interesting place to visit, but I don't think I would do well living here. I couldn't climb a palm tree if my life depended on it.

And yes, there was a beautiful sunset - just past the Manila Yacht Club.

So off to Subic this morning. Driver should be here in an hour. Enjoy the photos, but don't give up your subsciption to National Geographic just yet.

A month (and more) of adventure planning

Adventure without risk is Disneyland. 
Doug Coupland 

The Blue Skunk will be quiet - or at least quieter - for the next couple of weeks. In an hour or so I head to the airport for a flight that goes Minneapolis-Seattle-Tokyo-Manila. That's right, I'm heading to the Philippines and I am excited.

I was last there in August of 1988 on trip* with my then 15-year-old daughter where we visited my brother and sister who were both stationed at the Subic naval station. I also met my future and current Philippina sister-in-law.

This fellow is a Bontoc rice god (or rice guard) on a basket that's been in my house since 1988.

A school in Subic asked me some months ago if I would be willing to do a two-day workshop with teachers on technology integration. "Of course," I foolishly replied, not realizing the size of challenge putting together such a long workshop. I pretty much bore myself by the time the weekend is over, so I was (am) a little worried about keeping such a long workshop engaging. 

What I decided is to use the tools I've been advocating that classroom teachers use with their own students. Things like Edmodo, GoogleDocs, Poll Everywhere, Wallwisher, etc. I've divided the workshop into four parts with each part being 1/3 lecture/discussion, 1/3 application demo and sharing, and 1/3 small group or individual task work and reflection. Of course my goal is to have fun and learn something myself. 

So for the past few weekends, I feel like I've been cramming for a big test, learning a lot programs that I probably should have learned months ago. We'll see who I can fool. Getting prepared for the educational adventure this trip entails.

The other part of the planning has been about being a tourist in this developing country. I'll have a day in Manila to see the 16th century Intramorous Spanish site before heading north to the school. After the workshops, I'll have about five days. I'm planning to use them to hike Mt. Pinatubo and then drive a rental car north to Bagio (5 hours from Subic), to Sagada (another 6 hours), then Banaue to see the rice terraces (another 4 hours). It'll be 12 hours back to Manila. But hey, I have five days - and a GPS that I hope works.

It is the rainy season:

So not only will driving be different, but possibly slick a well. (According to the Lonely Planet, hikes of Pinatubo are now required to be finished by early afternoon since tourists have died when their vehicles were washed off roads after a sudden deluge in the past.) 

What the heck. The quote I want to start this post with but I couldn't find goes something like "The less the likelihood of survival the greater the adventure." 

* She still refers to this trip as the "Worst Bathrooms in Asia Tour." China in 1988 was a bit rough.

BFTP: Concerns about creativity

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past.  Original post October 3, 2007. This blog post has morphed into a column and an article that are in the October issue of Library Media Connection.

Piet Mondrian

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. ISTE NETS 2007

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Albert Einstein.

I got the chance this past weekend to visit the new(ish) Museum of Modern Art while in New York City. For anyone in search of creativity, the MOMA is probably the place to start. Lots of works by Mondrian, Warhol, PIcasso, the guy who does all the paint dribbles and drips... The LWW and I also saw two Broadway shows, both just oozing with creativity. Ate in Little Italy and had some creative food. (Even better than the Olive Garden here in Mankato, if you can believe that.) The Cloisters up in Ft. Tyron Park had a bunch of medieval creativity inside in its artworks, outside in its gardens, and surrounding it with a Renaissance Festival with many creatively dressed persons. It was a weekend to basically revel in the creativity of others. NYC is just that kind of place on about a thousand levels.

In an interesting response to one of my earlier blog postings about teacher attitudes toward technology, Clay Burell (who writes the Beyond School blog) from his school in Korea wrote:

I want to test the hypothesis that, if teachers discovered their own creativity, based on the strengths of their "multiple intelligences" profiles, by learning to express that creativity through some "digital art" they don't know about with iLife or the read/write web, then my hope/hunch is this: their excitement at unlocking their own creativity will gradually trickle down into their instruction.

Clay's idea is a really interesting one. Can we hook teachers on technology by tapping into their "inner" Steinbeck or Mozart or O'Keefe?

All this started me reflecting a bit about creativity in schools and education and technology and listing a few concerns:

Concern 1: Creativity isn't always about art. I tend to appreciate creative problem-solvers, as much or more, as those folks who are creative in a more "artistic fashion." Or maybe I should extent 'art" to dealing with people and situations in new and effective ways? The creativity I admire most, especially in my staff, is simply figuring out a way of accomplishing a task in a better way. Or dealing effectively with a problem - mechanical or human. I hope we never narrow what constitutes a "creative" endeavor.

Concern 2:  Creativity must be accompanied by craft and discipline. Most of us when we look at a Jackson Pollock (yes, I do know his name), usually think something like, "Geeze, give a) a monkey, b) a little kid, or c) me a can of paint and I can make a painting like that." You'd be wrong. Even abstract artists understand balance and tone and just plain exhibit great craftsmanship/technical skills. The most original written ideas in the world are inaccessible when locked behind faulty grammar, spelling, syntax or organization. GarageBand will not cure a tin ear. Too many folks, kids especially, think that sufficient creativity will overcome a lack of skill or need for discipline or necessity for practice. Creativity unaccompanied by drive, self-discipline or just hard work and practice ain't worth a lot.

Concern 3: The world is not really interested in your art, but that's OK. Real talent is given to a very few. The rest of us sort of plug away, mostly to please ourselves. I had a couple ancient, maiden aunts who painted what even I as child knew were grotesquely odd versions of things like the Mona Lisa or a badly listing landscape or the portrait of a favorite dog - or maybe it was a cat. Some works hanging about their house may even have been paint-by-number kits. But I think they got great pleasure from the creative process. And they didn't insist on making others look at their work or try to sell it. Neither should you.

Concern 4: If we ask students to demonstrate creativity or innovation, we need some tools to determine whether they have done so. Like pornography, I don't think I can define creativity, but I think I know it when I see it. But that won't cut it in the assessment world. As much as I admire ISTE for including creativity as one of their student tech skill standards, I am not sure it is fair to hold students to account for mastering it - if we can't describe what it looks like, provide models, and be able to somewhat objectively determine whether a kid can "do" creative.

To all the creative people out there - keep up the good work! But no, I don't want to read your novel or watch your interpretive dance. Sorry.