The Cheese Stands Alone

Mother's Day: Missing Mom

When I was growing up the first two weeks of May always meant lots of excitement around our house.  My mother's birthday was May 3, and was followed quickly by Mother's day.  Both were special to us.  My mother passed away in March of 2000 and the beginning of May is now a reminder of a great loss.

My mother was a kind and gentle sprit bred from an incredibly hard, sorrowful childhood.  Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her younger brother, leaving a newborn and my then nearly two-year old mother and six other siblings motherless.  Her father tried to care for them with the help of his sisters-in-law.  He eventually married a woman with two daughters.  After the marriage the family moved to Canada where my grandfather thought he could make a live in the logging camps.

Once in Canada, my grandfather and his wife found a place to live and left the children in the care of the eldest siblings while they went to logging camps as lumberjack and cook.  The children often did not have anything to eat unless they fished or hunted.  The people that lived nearby knew the situation and would quite often bring food to help the children survive.

The marriage broke up and my grandfather placed the younger siblings with aunts and uncles.  My mother was then around 8 years old.  A family that lived in St. Cloud, MN, offered to adopt my mother.  My grandfather allowed that and my mother suddenly had a new family.  Her adoptive parents were very unkind to her and mistreated her.  Her father's sister, Daisy, was living in Dell Rapids, SD  and found about her situation.  She went and got her and took her back to Dell Rapids to live with her.  My mother finished grade school, but her aunt wanted her to stay and work at home instead of going to high school.  My mother found a job with another family and finished high school.

Her life after moving Dell Rapids was much better, however, it was never easy.  My siblings and I never really understood how hard things were until we were adults.  She never let us see the struggle.  I feel this is a great tribute to her strength and the love she had for us.  I miss her greatly and wish every day that I could tell her that. 

So I hope that everyone who can takes advantage of Mother's Day and tells their mother how much she means to them!

Stranger in a Strange Land: TIE Conference April 8, 2008

What's with the title?  The title is a Robert Heinlein novel in which a child (Mike) raised on Mars is returned to earth as an adult.  Mike slowly teaches his body to adapt to the Earth's atmosphere and he begins learning Earth culture and language, which differ enormously from Martian ways of thought.  I though that was a good analogy as many students seem much more at ease with technology than do their teachers. 

What kinds of technology are we talking about? 

• Blogs (Weblogs):  a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer
  • http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/shart/default.aspx
  • Top 100 Education Blogs
  • Weblogg-ed by Will Richardson
  • The Fischbowl by Karl Fisch
• Wiki's:  This is a website that includes the collaboration of work from many different authors. A wiki site allows anyone to edit, delete, or modify the content on the web. (The first wiki creator named the site after a chain of buses in Hawaii; Wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian.) tig.lsc.gov/techglossary.php
  • http://bulldog.pbwiki.com/StanleyTravel
• Digital Storytelling: 
  • Photostory3
  • MovieMaker
  • IMovie
• Podcast:  (iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was coined from "iPod," the predominant portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are mostly verbal, they may contain music.
• RSS Feeds:   In Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place.
  • http://www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en&tab=wy#overview-page
• Audio/Video casting:  One word - YouTube     (or Teacher's Tube)
  
• GoogleTools
  • Google Notebook
  • Google Docs
  • Google Reader
  • Google Books
  • Picassa
    
• Videos to Watch
  • What If?
  • Did You Know III-Updated June 2007
  • 2020 Vision
  • When I grow up
  • Frontline:  Growing Up Online
  • A Vision of K-12 Students Today
    
• Articles to Read
• Proposal to Ban the Pencil by Doug Johnson
• Is it o.k. to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher
• 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have

Under Cover Attack

Today I received this week's issue of Newsweek magazine (Cover).  I am the librarian for a k-12 school and while the cover is probably not offensive to the general public, I once again must consider whether or not to display the issue.  This is not the only magazine that has caused this concern.  It seems every magazine at sometime or other has something on the cover that would cause major disruption in the library!!!

While I am in no way advocating any kind of censorship, I have a realistic expectation of middle school (and some high school) reaction to this cover.  Given the technology available in the 21st century, I don't think it would be unreasonable to provide alternative covers for school libraries. 

If anyone has any suggestions for handling these situations, I would appreciate any input.

The Technology Tango

Our high school is currently discussing the possibility of joining the statewide laptop intitiative.  The state would contribute one dollar for every dollar spent by the school to provide laptops for all high school students.  This brings to mind a lot of discussions in the "past" over calculators, electric typewriters, and not so long ago the internet.

I have many reservations about providing computers for each student -- mainly concerning the cost versus amount of time they will be used.  Another concern I have is that the computers will be used only for things that could be done with pencil, paper, and calculators.  Granted the computers make these tasks much easier, but they have so much more potential.  

I recently watched a video on www.teachertube.com called What If?  It deals with some of the issues in the past and the intial responses.  I also found these quotes on the web and thought they were quite applicable:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processings is a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice-Hall, 1957

"But what...is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Co. 1977
from:  http://ifaq.wap.org/computers/famousquotes.html

So what, if anything, do we learn from the past?????

Little House - the Prequel

Recently, I have been walking down memory lane by reading some of the Little House books.  I discovered the books about the childhood of Laura's mother, Caroline.  The books are called The Caroline Years.  When I first learned of this series, I dismissed it as an attempt to profit from the love children have for the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  However, last summer I read all of these books and found them to be very good follow-ups to the Little House series.  They appear to present the life of Caroline Ingalls very accurately.  I think there were seven books in the series taking Caroline from a girl of 5 to her marriage to Charles Ingalls.

I am now reading The Rose Years, and have found this series to be very true to the life the Wilder's lived in Missouri.  During the same time I was doing research into my family history using Ancestry.com.  I came up with a lot of information (mostly documents of public records such as census reports, marriage and birth certificates, and military service documents).  I decided to try to find the records for the Ingalls and Wilder families as well.  I actually found the census records.  I didn't really look for any other records.  This is what I found:

From Wisconsin in 1860 (this shows Caroline and Charles living with Charles family)

From Kansas in 1870:

From Dakota Territory in 1880:

and from Missouri in 1900:

Just thought I would share for any other Little House junkies!!!!

The Chicken or the Egg?

The local school district is currently in the process of adopting an attendance policy that would allow 10 absences and then require a doctor's note in order for an illness to be excused.

Administrators presented the proposal last month, then revised it in a school board work session last Wednesday to account for suggestions that parents raised in a series of public forums. The revision eased some restrictions but retained the 10-day limit and left intact some points parents had disputed.

Still in place are rules that would make family travel unexcused for a student past the 10-day limit and a possibility that, in some cases, a school secretary's evaluation of a child's health could outweigh a parent's opinion. (Sioux Falls Argus Leader Nov. 13)

This is an ongoing problem in many school districts.  While I would like to believe that all children in attendance WILL learn and that any child who does not attend will NOT learn, I'm afraid that just isn't true.  I think it is more true in elementary school that chronic absence will affect learning.  However, for high school students I am afraid that the truth is that students who are not successful in school miss more school than those who are successful.  This makes me wonder if poor attendance causes low grades or do low grades cause poor attendance. 

Many studies look at students' grade point averages and determine that students with better attendance records have better grades, and students with poor attendance have poor grades.  Therefore, we conclude that improving attendance will improve grades.  However, I think many students do not care about attending school because they feel hopeless, and keeping them in the classroom more than likely will not change that.  While attendance is without a doubt an important factor, I believe other measures need to be taken to improve grades.  I believe the ultimate truth is that once again NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND is driving this policy.  Once again we have to do what is best for the policy, not what is best for the students!!!

Recent Reads

I recently read The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig.  The Whistling Season is narrated by Paul, a seventh grade student in a rural school in Montana.   The story details the events following the sudden departure of the school teacher, and her subsequent replacement by the brother of the mail-order housekeeper hired by Paul's father.  "Can't cook, but doesn't bite" is the intriguing job-wanted ad that appeared in the local newspaper.  The housekeeper stayed true to the ad, but arrived in the company of her "brother."  The gentleman proved to be an enlightening school teacher, especially in Paul's eyes.  Having read nearly all of the books available to him, Paul was quite bored with school.  The new teacher improvised a "gifted program" for Paul by having him study Latin.  I thought the ending of the story to be somewhat contrived, and it did not seem bring a logical conclusion of the story.

The story did, however, bring back many memories for me.  I attended rural schools from 1st through 3rd grade.  Many activities were done with the entire school, or with several classes together.  I always enjoyed the variety of activities always in progress.  As a teacher, I greatly miss the flexibility that teachers had in that setting.  Educators are now tied to standards and testing to a degree that it is now difficult to allow students to pursue any individual interests with any depth. 

Sidenote:  Yesterday I spent some time helping friends (second grader and fourth grader) with a church project.  They were given $4 and had to use the money and their talents to raise money for Heifer International.  Check out what they do--it is a very exciting project.

Happy Birthday, South Dakota

November 2 is the anniversary of South Dakota statehood.  South Dakota and North Dakota both became states on November 2, 1889.  President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the paper before the signed the documents granting statehood to North and South Dakota, so no one knows for if South Dakota was 39th or 40th.  However, usually North Dakota is given the first position as it comes first alphabetically.  So Happy Birthday, North and South Dakota!!!!

South Dakota's Website