All 6 chapters, the entire publication of "Why ________ Matters!" the collected works of the attendees at this summer's Unplugd Canadian Education Summit are now available for download.

I take special pride in the final chapter as that's where my contribution is located. Pearls of wisdom from the most astounding group of educators I've had the privilege to meet! You won't be disappointed.

 

 

 

 

Unplugd11 was an amazing event. Thirty - seven educators from across Canada gathered together for a remarkable experience. We talked, laughed, cried, ate, exercised and got in touch with nature. It was a truly inspirational experience that I will never forget.

We spent time filling up our apple baskets.

At one point in my career I was a volunteer for our provincial teacher association.  My role entailed speaking to teachers across the province on the concept of personal and professional wellness.

I would begin my workshops with a story that set the tone for the session. I called it My Apple Basket. My props were a small wicker basket and a collection of “stress” apples.

 

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeofglamorgan/395893933

 

My Apple Basket

Every teacher has an invisible apple basket. During the summer months as we spend our time recharging our batteries with holidays, family and fun and our apple basket slowly gets filled, perhaps even to the point of over-flowing.

But as teachers re-enter their busy lives at school, they might begin to notice that their apple basket begins to get depleted. Perhaps its the sudden change of assignment or class size - one apple gone; the broken copier just when you need it most - one more apple gone; the sick loved one at home as you start school - one, two or three apples gone, the flat tire or impending vehicle repairs or whatever - more apples gone. Everything that happens to us in our lives that may have a negative consequence big or small all work together to deplete those carefully gathered apples from the summer break.

It’s sometimes hardly noticeable - an apple here, an apple there, but if we go on constantly depleting our apples from the basket before too long we’re running an “apple deficit”. If we keep this up before too long it can begin to have an impact on our health and on our performance in the classroom.

Just imagine you’re getting into “apple deficit”. You keep pushing yourself, getting through the day, moving on. You’ve planned a Friday night “date” with your significant other - dinner out, maybe a movie. But mid-week you notice a tickle in your throat, by Thursday it’s beginning to manifest itself with a cough and perhaps sniffles. By mid-day Friday, you’ve reigned in your plans for an night out instead deciding on take-out and a movie night at home. Later that night, after enjoying the take-out right out of the containers (no dishes to clean up) you both sit down to enjoy the movie. But shortly after the lights are dimmed and the first few minutes of the movie has gone by, your significant other notices your quiet, deep breathing as your body slips into much needed sleep. If you’re both educators, it’s not unlikely that you’re snoring together.

Sound familiar? When I’ve told this anecdote to groups of educators it’s not unusual to have 50 - 60% of the audience admit that this has happened to them.

So what’s the alternative? What must one do to make sure their apple basket never gets into “apple deficit” mode? It’s really quite simple. We need to do things for ourselves that fill up our baskets. For some it might be exercise, for others reading a good book, a craft, a walk, a cup of coffee with friends, laughing out loud, etc.; clearly it’s whatever works for you to replenish your energy levels, to fill your apple basket. 

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sokiara/3546425305/

The important thing we need to remember is this needs to be done on a daily basis. We can’t wait for Christmas or Spring break, or worse yet next summer when we’ll REALLY fill our apple baskets again. It needs to be done now, for you by you. 

At the final group wrap up on the final morning of our Unplugd11 experience, I shared the story of humourous commercial for The Most Interesting Man in the World. The commercial is a running commentary of this supposedly "most interesting man" and his lifestyle. The commercial ends with the promotion of the beer being sold and the line "Stay thirsty my friends!" 

My adaptation of this can be seen below. It's not an endorsement of the product in the commercial, but an endoresement of the improtance of all the teachers I know who are doing their best for the students in their care. Stay healthy my friends and pass me that apple, please! 

 

Way back in the beginning of this year I got my hands on an original iPad.

I promised I would do a workshop for the consultant who graciously loaned me the device to test and discover the possibilities for using it with special needs students. She shared so I would do likewise. The result of this process was the creation of the iPads in Education Livebinder linked here.

 

If you still think that mobile technologies were just a fad, you need to check out this video.

The interesting takeaway from this was the statement that the digital camera is dead since most people are taking photos with their cameras now. (Including your mom BTW!)

Definitely worth a look!

Hat tip to @lee74 for sharing this on Twitter and her leelearning blog.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/einstein_the_parrot_talks_and_squawks.html

Einstein the African Grey parrot was the wrap up presentation at TED 2006. It's amazing how this parrot had the audience (and me) hanging on her every word!

A little bit of humour and a reminder about taking care of our animal friends all rolled into one. If you need a smile over your coffee this morning here's a great place to start!

Have a super Sunday!

John

http://www.ted.com/talks/diana_laufenberg_3_ways_to_teach.html

 

Diana Laufenberg teaches eleventh grade American History at the Science Academy Leadership in Philadelphia. She rocks the house with her presentation at the TEDx MidAtlantic event just a few weeks ago.

She makes many great points in her talk which you'll note as you watch/listen but the one(s) that stood out for me were these as she was describing the discussion of an assignment she had given her students (emphasis is mine):

And then we went to another one -- it didn't have great visuals, but it had great information -- and spent an hour talking about the learning process, because it wasn't about whether or not it was perfect, or whether or not it was what I could create; it asked them to create for themselves. And it allowed them to fail, process, learn from. And when we do another round of this in my class this year, they will do better this time. Because learning has to include an amount of failure, because failure is instructional in the process.

Create: the highest level on Bloom's Taxonomy. I'm certain we don't do enough of this in most classrooms. I tried to when I taught in the classroom but even then time constraints, space, etc. etc. made it easier to not give my students this type of assignment.

There are a million pictures that I could click through here, and had to choose carefully -- this is one of my favorites -- of students learning, of what learning can look like in a landscape where we let go of the idea that kids have to come to school to get the information, but instead, ask them what they can do with it. Ask them really interesting questions. They will not disappoint. Ask them to go to places, to see things for themselves, to actually experience the learning, to play, to inquire. This is one of my favorite photos, because this was taken on Tuesday, when I asked the students to go to the polls. This is Robbie, and this was his first day of voting, and he wanted to share that with everybody and do that. But this is learning too, because we asked them to go out into real spaces.

 

Learning. In the immortal words of Donald S. Cherry, "Ya gotta love it!"  I wish I could be a student in a classroom with a teacher like Diana Fantastic!

Image Credits: Bloom's Revised Taxonomy http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkuropatwa/2098689878/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Have a super Saturday!

PS Today marks my one month anniversary of blogging at The Continuous Learner after a long abscence from the bloggin world. 29 posts and over 3400 site views later, I think I'm hooked. Thanks for reading as I explore my own continuous learning adventure.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/matthew_childs_9_rules_of_rock_climbing.html

 

Matthew Childs relates the 9 life rules that he's learned from over 35 years of rock climbing. I found these to be very intriguing and drew numerous analogies to my life in the classroom, as a school leader and loads of other situations in life.
I'm going to touch on just a few below

Number one: Don't let go -- very sure success(ful) method. But really, truly -- often you think about letting go way before your body does. So hang in there, and you come up with some pretty peculiar solutions.

He's right on here. Too often we think about letting go of whatever it is we're working on at the moment - this is too hard, I don't have the energy to do this, is not really worth my time and effort or I'm not making a difference here. Think of that lesson in the classroom, learning how to infuse that piece of technology, the difficult student or co-worker. It's become pretty easy to just say "whatever" and maneouver around or "let go" of a situation we're faced with. Don't let go.

Rule number three: Have a plan.... You have to plan ahead to get to the top.

This one seems to simplistic yet so important. Having a plan of action for climbing could mean life or death. Yet how often to we have a plan for things. My day always went better when I knew ahead of time how it was supposed to play out. I was more productive. Yet even the US military who plans to the "N"th degree for things knows that no plan survives contact with the "enemy".  During my teaching days the "enemy" seemed to be the constant interruptions that are a part of the daily happenings in a school. In the office it was that phone call or "crisis" situation that could change the course of the day in a heartbeat. In family life it's the sudden change in schedule of a partner or a child that we have to deal with or more currently the trip to the mall for the elusive gift hunt. The original plan(s) may have changed but the overall plan was able to be held intact because of the adaptations I could make to it. The beauty in life is sometimes the turns it takes.

Rule number five: Know how to rest. 

photo © 2006 Kevin Collins | more info (via: Wylio)

 

Rest. Knowing how to rest could be the life-saver for many of us. I used to work with school staff on the principles of personal welleness. It wasn't unusual to have people who were really going to catch up on their rest or take better care of themselves on their upcoming break yet it was only the second week in October. I'll really rest up on summer holidays  - yet months away. We need to plan that "rest" into our daily lives as educators, office workers, parents, etc. What can you do for yourself in a healthy way that's going to help restore your energies and spirit which in turn will make you better able to cope? Exercise is great, a date with your significant other, laughing with a friend or co-worker are great ways to get the "rest" you need in your daily life. I used to love going out and playing with the kids at recesses. They loved it and it built relationships too.

I hope you can find the 5 minutes it will take to watch this TED Talk sometime in the next few days. I'd love to know what analogies you draw from it.

Have a terrific Thursday!

John

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success.html

Richard St. John packs a 2 hour presentation into 3 minutes in this TED Talk. He shares his wisdom on the Secrets of Success gleaned from 7 years and 500 interviews of TEDsters.

I wish I knew these 8 things when I was in high school. Each one is so vital but the one I that caught me this morning was Work, plain hard work. Closely tied to passion I love his statement:

Work! Rupert Murdoch said to me, "It's all hard work. Nothing comes easily. But I have a lot of fun." Did he say fun? Rupert? Yes! TED-sters do have fun working. And they work hard. I figured, they're not workaholics. They're workafrolics.

How about you? I'd like to be thought of as a "workafrolic" - someone who has fun (a lot of fun) doing what they do!

This is another TED Talk that ROCKS in under 4 minutes. I hope you can make it part of your day! Enjoy!

Hope your Tuesday is a great one!

John

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/renny_gleeson_on_antisocial_phone_tricks.html

 

Continuing on in the short and funny theme of TED Talk selections comes this under 4 minute talk by Renny Gleeson.

My take-away from his talk is his focus on the rise of a culture of availability brought about by the proliferation of our mobile devices, which then leads to an expectation of availability and ultimately to an obligation to that availability. If you've got a mobile device yourself, or live with anyone from  8 - 50+ who has one you've lived through the moments he brings up in his presentation. That time when during dinner, a movie, a walk, a conversation or more alarmingly behind the wheel where you or someone else responds to their mobile device. It once was called the BlackBerry prayer when you dipped down at a meeting or dinner to check the last email or text. I've seen it, I've done it, I've been seduced by the flashing light, the vibration or even recently the phantom vibration that makes me disconnect from what I'm doing to check my mobile device.

And when you're standing with someone, and you're on your mobile device, effectively what you're saying to them is, "You are not as important as, literally, almost anything that could come to me through this device."

So their is a paradox -  the devices we love to connect with cause us to disconnect. He ends his talk with a legitimate request:

And so that's the request I have for everybody in this room. We are creating the technology that is going to create the new shared experience, which will create the new world. And so my request is, please, let's make technologies that make people more human, and not less.

There's a lot of good points packed into 4 minutes. Great food for thought!

Have a totally, terrific Tuesday!

John

http://www.ted.com/talks/allison_hunt_gets_a_new_hip.html

It's Friday and it's been a long week so today I'm highlighting a brief and humourous TED Talk by fellow Canadian Allison Hunt.

Allison uses her pain and her ingenuity to get to the front of the line in our Canadian health care system.

Now, word on the street was that it was actually my volunteering that got me to the front of the line. And you know, I'm not even ashamed of that. Two reasons. First of all, I am going to take such good care of this new hip. But also, I intend to stick with the volunteering, which actually leads me to the biggest epiphany of them all. Even when a Canadian cheats the system, they do it in a way that benefits society.

Humourous yet sad and true.

Hope your having a fantastic Friday!

John