The Canary Problem

What did you guys think of the Canary Problem (pages 86-on)? Had you heard of it before?

I loved the way that Finkel shows how to build on the example with other scenarios and examples. It would be all too easy just to give the problem, and then immediately offer the solution. Even if you had your students work in small groups for fifteen minutes, just calling them back in and solving the problem would be a real shame. Finkel demonstrates how you can extend the process and make the learning much more meaningful as a result.

What's your discipline? I'm thinking that the Canary Problem, if tweaked and adapted, could be used in a lot of different disciplines. How might you adapt it for your specific discipline?

Teaching Through Writing

The idea that instructors teach through their own writing (page 70) is a natural for those of us that teach online; but even in face-to-face teaching, our writing serves multiple purposes.

Instead of lecturing to your students, why not give your students the written lecture the class before? That way, your students could have a chance to read it ahead of time, and you could spend the class period discussing the lecture.

One thing Finkel did that I'm not sure I agree with: writing long letters to your students (page 74). Do any of you do this? I'm not convinced that students read long letters. When I comment on students' work, I generally cut myself off after 3 sentences, at most. What do you think? Do students appreciate long letters?

Inquiry: The Instructor's Role

Finkel summarizes the "five main jobs" that instructors interested in inquiry-centered teaching have (page 59). Keep these tasks in mind:

1. Organize the inquiry

2. Develop ways to help students engage with the text (without giving them the answers)

3. Develop students inquiry skills

4. Evaluate students' work

5. Participate in the inquiry process along with the students (i.e. serve as a model)

This is really good stuff, me thinks.

Inquiry-Centered Teaching

Chapter 4 (pages 51-69) left an impression on me. We talk a lot about engaging the student and putting learning into context. That's what inquiry-centered teaching is all about.

I greatly appreciated Finkel's point (page 53) that learning is motivated by disequilibrium. We need tension to grow, but as teachers, we must make sure that the tension isn't so great that students give up.

What did you think about the author's point that all learning is interdisciplinary? (page 55) How could we bring an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning at RCTC?

Questions Trump Answers

If you're like me, you believe that the Question is more important than the Answer (page 40). These days, we live in a culture of the standardized test. We have "course objectives" and "learning benchmarks" and we expect everyone to know certain things at certain points -- either by age level, class level, or course level.

But who's asking about students' ability to ask questions, to think? Who, in other words, is asking about students' ability to be creative?

I have the feeling that there's no value placed on creativity any more, but creativity is essential to learning.

Look Here

John Landretti's "On Waste Lonely Places" (pages 154-159) suggests that the place we're looking for is right where we are. We just have to be willing to look.

The problem, Landretti notes, with National Parks is that we feel a certain reverence for them, but then what gets removed is reverence for our own plot of ground.

Landretti comes off as a wanderer in this piece, so it's not as though he's suggesting that everyone should just remain in place. It's fine to travel around, but pay as much attention to your journey as you do the destination. And, don't come home needing a vacation from your vacation. That may only blind you to the neglected, but important "book nobody reads" (158).

Anyone want to go camping at the nearest Clover Leaf this weekend? Sounds like a lot of fun to me. :)

The Prostitution of Tourism

Like many of the articles in this book, I thought Alison Hawthorne Deming's "The Edges of the Civilized World" (pages 143-153) was trying to have it both ways. But perhaps Deming acknowledges this best when she says, "Each one of us is at the center of the civilized world and on its edge" (page 150).

The article reminded me of my first real trip outside the United States. In 2001, my wife and I visited the tourist trap of Dunns River Falls in Jamaica. About 200 mainly white tourists held hands with each other and the native guides as we climbed the Falls to the top.

Once at the top of the Falls, the tourists had to walk through a maze of shops in order to get back to the minivan. I was in graduate school, and we didn't have any money for trinkets, but the sellers were aggressive, even to the point of blaming us for not making it possible for their children to have any Christmas presents that year.

When they saw us, they saw rich Americans, and we were rich, comparatively. The whole experience saddened me, though. There are a lot of gated "resorts" for foreigners in places like Jamaica, but I have little interest in going to a country and not seeing the country. Then again, what does it say about a place so desperate for money that it prostitutes out its best locations. Are tourists no better than johns?

Niagara's Lie

Ginger Strand's "Faux Falls" (pages 131-142) looks at the "collateral damage" caused by hydro-electric power.

The article notes that 7% of electricity in the United States comes from hydro, whereas 70% comes from burning fossil fuels. On the surface, hydro doesn't seem to have any nasty byproducts.

Strand's article makes it clear, however, that where there's a cheap source of electricity, pollution will follow -- i.e. through the build up of factories along the river banks.

And something that I hadn't realized before: This is where Love Canal happened.

Can Niagara be blamed for Love Canal? That's a bit of stretch to me; Strand's point, though, is that actions have consequences. Niagara Falls is now a "man-made" tourist trap, and we have the power to literally turn off the falls. Ironically, tourists might be the only thing that "saved" the Falls.

The Knowledge Paradox

I love the idea of turning the class entirely over to the students (page 35); well, not entirely, of course, but the idea of shutting up and letting students figure things out for themselves... that's powerful.

Students do have the idea that the instructor is the expert. And the instructor should know more than students about the particular discipline, it's our duty to help convince students that the inquiry process is the best way to learn. Knowledge cannot just be given from instructor to students.

Teaching Through The Brothers Karamazov?

Have you read The Brothers Karamazov? If not, go pick it up. It's about 750 pages, and I'm sure you can read it in your spare moments.But seriously, this is a great book (yes, I've read it).

How many of our students would connect to it? Many none, we think. But maybe a lot more than we think, if we "provide structure and activities to help ... students attend carefully to the book" (17). That seems to be a key point.

Do we just assign a book, and expect our students to read it? If that's all we do, then are we really doing our jobs? Don't we need to provide "the way in" to the book for our students? Give them a roadmap and points to ponder as they read?

I Don't Know the Answer

Does it scare you to admit that you don't know it all?

Would you feel afraid to go into a room full of students, admitting to them that you don't know the answers to the questions you're asking them?

I thought Finkel made an interesting point when he suggested that an instructor might actually benefit from not always knowing the answers (page 15) -- i.e. it lets students open up more and speculate more; it also puts the focus on the looking at the problem, rather than always being focused on the solution.

Chapter 2

One thing that I like a lot about the book so far is the fact that Finkel is so practical. The part about the parables and students liking to figure things out really made me think. We just finished poetry, and I hope students felt a sense of achievement by figuring it out, but I always think I end up talking too much. This gives me an idea of how to approach it next time. Hmm...

Books That Speak to You vs. Books That Bore You to Sleep

Chapter 2 of Teaching with Your Mouth Shut contains some good nuggets, and I'd love to hear your reaction.

My initial thoughts: Yes, you need to work for knowledge. How do we train our students to want to work for knowledge, though? If they read something that isn't hitting them in the face with its clarity and obviousness, they either get confused and stop reading, or even worse, they claim to be "bored" and stop reading.

I don't think it's that they're really "bored" as much as they're not willing to work for the knowledge. What's the payoff? How do we make them want to care?

Teaching as Shaping (and Listening)

Finkel's point (page 8) that good teachers "shape" the environment is an interesting one; how many teachers have you had that did nothing to really shape the environment of the classroom?

If you know me, you probably have guessed that I have a bias. I believe that good communication is more about listening than speaking. And Finkel does, too (page 9).

How many of us actively listen to our students? How do we demonstrate that we're listening? I had a professor that always came to class with a legal pad. It was a seminar class, and although he sat at the front of the room (actually, the head of the table), he let the class do most of the talking. And when we spoke, he acted like he was learning from us. He took more notes than anyone in the class, and it modeled his belief that what we said mattered.

I will never forget Dr. Guzlowski for that. He's retired now, but you might be interested in hearing one of his poems -- read by Garrison Keiller himself:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/12/28

Morality and Economics

Is coal really the "the liver of Mother Earth"?

I may be too white to understand that line of thinking, but I'm not too white to agree that we must start infusing some morality into our capitalist system.

Judith Nies' "The Black Mesa Syndrome" (pages 117-128) provides a sickening historical account. Basically, $100 billion dollars in coal is hiding under the ground -- ground controlled by Indians. Nevertheless, what the white man gives, he also takes away (as soon as he finds out its worth something).

Lawyer John Boyden plays the villian in this story, and I have no doubt that he thought he was doing the "right thing" by representing both the interests of the Hopi and Peabody. Of course, he got richly rewarded for doing the right thing, to the tune of at least 2.7 million dollars.

And after all, isn't this a question of "greater good"? Who cares what happens to a few thousand Indians if white capitalists get stinking rich, and if Phoenix and Las Vegas get the energy and water they need?

And one final question: Why are megacities allowed to exist in deserts? How stupid are we to have allowed this to happen?

For more on this story, the following links might be useful:

http://www.blackmesais.org/

www.sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

The Global Warming Experience

One possible problem with Rush Limbaugh is: he talks about things of which he has no direct experience.

Charles Wohlforth's "On Thin Ice" (pages 107-116) goes to the source, the Inupiat. These are the Eskimos of the Barrow, Alaska region, and they are the ones with direct experience as it pertains to global warming.

There's a difference between first-year ice and multi-year ice: only the latter can support a whale carcass. And as the nature of ice continues to change, the fact is, a people's way of life will have to change as well.

People adapt, even Eskimos believe it or not, and it's interesting to read about what some consider to be "true whaling." What the Inupiat have that hopefully will never change is a deep respect for the environment of which they are apart.

Shut Your Mouth -- Opening Reflections

On page 6, Finkel asks us to stop and reflect. More than that, the author asks us to actually write out our response to the following prompt:

Thinking back over your whole life, what were the two or three most significant learning experiences you ever had? That is, list the moments (or events) in which you discovered something of lasting signifance to your life.

Okay, I've actually stopped reading the book at this point to do this writing exercise, and I hope you will too.

I thought about this over the lunch hour, and here's what I came up with.

1. Perhaps the earliest signifant learning experience that comes to mind is learning how to ride a bicycle. I was about 5 years old, and the road outside my house went down a hill. At the end of the hill were some bushes, and beyond the bushes was a pond. The thought of riding my bike straight into the pond always scared me, but even when I forgot to apply my brakes, the bushes always stopped me.

2. In high school, I took Calculus and ended up getting an F. Instead of blaming my teacher, I decided that when I took math in college the following year, I would take Calculus. Although my program only required me to take Algebra, take Calculus I did, and this time I studied hard and earned an A.

I guess the first lesson has to do with overcoming fear, and the second lesson deals with accepting the challenge to live up to my potential. In both cases, I learned to rely on myself -- not expecting others to be there to save me, and not allowing myself to be the victim.

What about you guys? How did you answer this prompt?

Bret

Radioactive Rochester?

Hope Burwell's "Jeremiad for Belarus" (pages 78-90) reminded me about how little I really know about the world.

Chernobyl is in Ukraine; that I knew. But I didn't know that Belarus is the country that has paid the biggest price for the 1986 accident.

I didn't know that the area in Belarus effected by fall-out is equal to 2/3's the size of Iowa.

Belarus is a poor country, and apparently no one in the international community cares about its people. Burwell documented that thousands, if not millions, of people are continuing to be slowly killed by Chernobyl as the world turns a blind eye. These are people that still live in the contaminated zones because they don't have anywhere else to go.

This is a country dying, and no one seems to care.

The only way the author can make us care, it seems, is to suggest that the same thing could happen here, in the United States. If the Duane Arnold facility in Iowa went Chernobyl, for example, the fallout would reach good old Rochester, Minnesota.

Sleep easy tonight. :)

Conservation Refugees

Mark Dowie's "Conservation Refugees" (65-77) shows what happens when conservationists put their own interests and agendas ahead of people.

Does protecting a place mean that the people should be removed? Or, if not removed, what happens to the people that live in the areas we would like to see protected? Do they become somehow "indentured"? Good questions raised in this article.

I was very surprised to learn that there might be as many as 14 million conservation refugees world-wide. Dowie is careful to explain the difference between the terms "conservation refugee" and "environmental refugee," too. The former is a human-made problem, while the latter is simply has natural causes -- floods, fire, etc.

Overall, I'd have to say that I'm enjoying the articles in the "Refugee" section of the book much more than the "Action" section.

How about you? What articles have you read that you like? That you plan to include in your classes this Fall?

Being Human (in a Good Sense)

The interview with Van Jones -- "A Licence to Be Human" (page 53-61) -- was my favorite article from the Action section by far.

Jones talks about stepping back from the "us vs. them" duality. Yes, people get passionate about issues, but people also get blinded by anger, which he describes as "a messay fuel" (54).

Solving the world's problems requires looking in as well as looking out. How many people attack George W. Bush for his administration's policies? Well, at least half the country. But how many people take the time to see that Bush is a scapegoat for problems that we all are partially responsible for?

I loved Jones's message that we need "a wiser kind of warrior" (56) and that we're not always David against Goliath -- and that sometimes, we need to figure out a way to secure Goliath's help rather than fight him.

This is a brillant interview, full of insight...