Another unlive presentation. The live ones will be back soon. Maybe. We responded to some feedback (thanks, David and yarnspinner!). We talked about how I filled in for a sick Colin on the most recent Halfway Around The World episode. We announced our first contest! We read an article about how the band Smashing Pumpkins’ new bassist is (allegedly) one of the girls on the band’s album from 1993. We discussed a story sent in by Nathan about a teacher who was fired because of her blog. We played some audio from the news reporter who had an on-air “malfunction” and gave our own thoughts. Then it was time for obligatory Bieber news. That was followed up with a song by JacksonsWarehouse. Then we read another story submitted by Nathan about a real Gemini dragon! We finished things up with an announcement of the 10-haiku-per-day project beginning next month.
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Tags: Canadia, DarkCompass, dinosour, Facebook, Halfway Around The World, JacksonsWarehouse, Justin Bieber, music, Nathan Lott, podcast, Robert T. Gasperson, Smashing Pumpkins, Yarnspinners Tales
.tv stands for a small island in the South Pacific named Tuvalu. Thanks for the interesting discussion on the teacher blog article. My uncle originally sent me the link and I forwarded it on to you. This was his comment: “This teacher should be given a national award for standing up for her rights. Her state board of education should be required to solicit input from other teachers and present a report to the taxpayers on how they plan to address the teacher’s legitimate concerns. The administrators who questioned the teacher’s blog posts should apologize to all the teachers in the district, refund two thirds of their last year’s salary, and resign!” I agree with your take on the whole thing. When I first started my Lott’s Thoughts podcast in 2006 I had posted a podcasted rant about my frustrations with teaching music at the time. My mother told me to take it down and it was probably for the best that I did. It was only up for a couple days. Sometimes you really want to air your grievances in a public forum, but you have to be careful how you do it especially when it comes to teaching. A lot of industries and services like teaching still need to come to terms with the Internet and decide how much is too much to share with the world while still giving teachers room to express concerns and their freedom of speech. Very interesting.
I love Jens Haikus.
Is there a plan to do another book, if so what would it be called?
The topic of the teacher’s blog fit nicely into a discussion I was having with a coworker this week (we are not teachers). He had to write a paper on the pros and cons of using technology in the schoolroom. He stated there was plenty of support still around to remove it completely, hence our discussion. My opinion is the current system does not work well with technology and that the current system should be completely changed, thereby creating a teaching system that used technology.
So if we are going to do that, lets revamp the whole education process completely. Brick and mortar schools for the young up to age 10 works and seems to fit the social/education needs of children that age. By the time they are ten they know the basic reading, math, and how to get any information they need, (internet or library or just plain asking) and the skills to know what to do with that information, From ages 10-17 let the community educate the child from broad predetermined areas of basic life needs (growing food-urban garden, fixing things, feeding yourself-a cook etc) basic social skills (working with the elderly, the young, religion, soup kitchens etc) and basic mental needs (arts, sports, philosophy etc). No longer would 1 teacher be responsible for 30 students. It would have to be 365 to the nth teachers having one student a day. The child would have a different teacher everyday, seeing them as that ‘teacher’ relates to their daily life. Yes, the logistics of that is massive, but that’s where all of those with education degrees direct their skills. And yes it would take a major revamp of society’s view of how we educate, instead of putting it all off into one teacher’s back, it is the job of us all.
At age 17 every student would go to a specific class room set up in a local college as their final year. It’s back to the classroom for the last year to learn what we know as basic college skills (how to research, write, study) There could be at the end of this a testing to determine if they can go on to a college, although not the current testing of SAT etc, those are only set up to test how much of the useless information we currently teach teenagers. And colleges would remain the same, I think by the time you are in that part of your education for a specific career, you need the intense book and lecture scenario. And hopefully, after seven years of progressing life lessons, the young adult would have a very good idea of what that career should be.
I’m making two comments, since I had two separate thoughts from the show.
Jen, I liked your comment that you look at pod casts as pieces of art. I had not thought of them that way, but it captured how I feel too without realizing why keeping some of them was so important to me.
I recently realized that I had always hoped to write a book in my lifetime, and that my three year pod cast was just that, my book! I hadn’t really thought I’d be writing a non fiction book, but since my pod cast is more informational (spinning yarn from fibers) that’s how I’d have to classify it.
There’s plenty of other ways to look at pod casts, letters from a friend, a good story from a storyteller, or expressions of life around us beyond those Sunday morning talking heads or newspapers. With so much good going on in pod casts, I can not figure out why they have not caught on with more people.
The situation with the teacher that was fired bothered me on a couple of levels. Before I go any further though, let me say that my mom and uncle are retired teachers and my cousin is currently a teacher. Ok, with that out of the way, I feel like everyone is wrong.
1) The school district should not have fired her. She didn’t disclose any private information and she didn’t insult or slander any specific students. No surprise to me though, like I said I have teachers in the family.
2) Anyone that found her blog should have had the decency to say, this is nothing and then promptly not told anyone about it. People stabbing people in the back for little to no reason doesn’t surprise me anymore though. Those same people getting away with it, just upsets me.
3) The teacher should have been a bit smarter. The teacher was either stupid or naive. Yes people can find your stuff online and yes bad kids, angry parents or malicious coworkers can be evil enough to try to get you fired.
If this was something she only wanted to share with a few friends, she could have emailed it to them or wrote about it on a private, password protected blog. Heck, if she kept her twitter or facebook locked down properly she could even have used those. Ok, maybe not facebook, they like to share everything you have occasionally, but you get my point.
Wow, look at all the comments!
@Nathan I am glad that you enjoyed our discussion about the teacher blog article, which could not have happened if you had not sent me the article in the first place. Thank you for that. I think your uncle had a very interesting comment about the article. I understand what you are saying about not airing one’s grievances in a public place, especially job related ones, (especially if your job is teaching). Honestly, though… I’m not very good at keeping quiet about things that upset me. So, perhaps I got lucky that no one found my podcasts or blogs when I was teaching.
@Rowley Thank you!
It always makes me happy when someone says that he loves my haiku. I know we talked a little about what is going on with my next haiku book in the next episode of Gemini Dragon, but I don’t think I mentioned the title It will be called “Haiku of Frustration: Retail Hell”.
@Yarnspinnerstale I like your ideas about how to change education. Very creative! It seems like a “real world- real skills” approach, which I think is very much needed. It also sounds to me as though yes, you have “written a book”, in the form of your podcasts.
@David I, too, have teachers in my family, who likely would have a lot to say about the teacher blog article. And, I think I pretty much agree with your comments about the article. When I first read the article, it made me completely irate about the whole situation.