Welcome 2010!

Happy New Year!

Sitting at home again, as we have done for many years... we'll make it to midnight only because we're waiting up for our youngest son!

I've often said that learning is important because the world is a fascinating place. As we hear over and over again about the 10 best this of the year and the ten worst that of the decade, NASA puts things in perspective.

The Hubble telescope provides us with this image of hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster M13, one of the brightest globular clusters in the northern sky. It can be found in the winter sky in the constellation Hercules, and can even be seen with the unaided eye under dark skies.

M13 is home to over 100,000 stars and is located at a distance of 25,000 light-years. In other words, the light in the picture left these stars in 22991 BCE! (For historical perspective, Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac in around 1800 BCE. Where will you be in 22991 CE?)

These stars are packed closely together in a ball approximately 150 light-years across, and they spend their entire lives whirling around in the cluster. Near the core, the density of stars is about a hundred times greater than the density in the neighborhood of our sun. These stars are so crowded that they can slam into each other and form a new star, called a "blue straggler." The brightest reddish stars in the cluster are ancient red giants. These aging stars have expanded to many times their original diameters and cooled. The blue-white stars are the hottest in the cluster.

M13 is one of nearly 150 known globular clusters surrounding our Milky Way galaxy. Globular clusters have some of the oldest stars in the universe. Scientists believe they formed before the disk of our Milky Way, so they are older than nearly all other stars in our galaxy including our own sun.

This image is a composite of archival Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: C. Bailyn (Yale University), W. Lewin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), A. Sarajedini (University of Florida), and W. van Altena (Yale University)

Holiday Plagarism

or maybe not, as they cited their sources!

Happy Holidays

Only on the Internet, the most bizarre Nativity scenes... this egg timer is my favorite.

Hope you have a restful winter break... after digging out!

Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind

On Friday, November 20 at the Learning and the Brain Conference, Mara and I heard from Gary Small, MD, author of iBrain, who spoke about Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.

For years we’ve been hearing about the differences between Digital Natives (under 25), who have good tech skills, and Digital Immigrants (their parents), who have weaker tech skills. Small has studied the neural networks of the two groups, and finds that the Digital Natives have much less development in those that control social interaction.

He spoke of the Natives’ relationship to technology is personal, and had us do an experiment exchanging cell phones while we monitored our emotions. For those of us who only turn on our phones when making a call it wasn’t too exciting, but when I replicated the experiment at a faculty meeting, the younger faculty clearly felt the anxiety of disconnection and potential loss of privacy.

No real news here, our brains are changing moment to moment, with neural circuits strengthening with use and weakening with disuse. Giving teachers everywhere hope, Small told us that young brains are missing empathy not because kids are naturally rude, or that societal civility is on the decline, but because that part of their brains has not yet developed.

By adolescence, 60% of connections are pruned, and in a Darwinian twist, between the ages of 8 and 18 is tech time. Our kids have been born with access to limitless information, 24 hour news and entertainment, but with less time for face to face interactions and thus are slowed in their development of empathy and complex reasoning skills.

With social networking (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), they are aware all the time of what everyone is doing, which leaves little time for reflection. As they are constantly reacting to others, their individuality and creativity are stifled. One of my favorite phrases to hear at Nora from kids just sitting around is “I’m bored,” because it means they’re having to create something out of nothing, rather than thoughtlessly respond to external stimuli.

Technology develops the Dopamine pathways which are precursors to addiction. In a 2007 Harris poll, 8.5% of college students showed multiple signs of addiction, including escaping problems through playing games, lying about play length, sensitization to fighting stimuli. The inflamation of these neural pathways is a major reason for Alzheimer’s Disease.

In one of Dr. Small’s studies on these neural pathways, he studied the effect of gaming on face to face interactions. Digital immigrants were better able to rapidly identify emotions than digital natives, who were only able to identify happy faces faster than angry, unless the face displayed violent emotions.

The connection with ADHD is not certain. Does video gaming cause the brain to display symptoms of ADHD, or do people with ADHD gravitate to the fast-paced stimulation of video games? Studies are ongoing.

Next week's field trip to the Corcoran

Edward Burtynsky: Oil from Corcoran Gallery of Art on Vimeo.

Learning and the Brain

Mara and I are just back (at 11 pm last night) from the Learning and the Brain Conference at MIT, where we spent three solid days in workshops. We not only learned about cognitive overload, we experienced it! As I unpack my notes I'll have more to say, but three big take-aways for our practice as teachers, students, parents, and humans, are:
-our brains need quiet time, away from the noise and stimulation of our culture, in order to solidify memory and learning,
-sleep is critical to our ongoing brain development,
-the neural structure of our brains is changed by our cultural stimulation, for which the best antidote is reading (books, not screens),

I'll have more, but right now I have to dig out from three days of missed emails! But later today I promise myself that I'll take a two-minute meditation break.

Schroedinger's Cameraman

From Chicago Public Radio's "This American Life."

If you can't see this, the direct link is here.

3 Bombs

A fascinating op-ed in yesterday's NY Times by Thomas Friedman about the differences between our lives and our children's lives. He compares the nuclear threat from the Soviets that shadowed our (boomer) childhoods with the three threats that he now sees challenging his children's lives: the nuclear threat from terrorists, the economic threat from a government deeply in debt, and the environmental threat from global warming. The element that creates the most anxiety is not knowing exactly when any of these "bombs" will go off, and the fact that only the nuclear threat is being seriously addressed. There are a couple of nice quotes in the article. From environmentalist Rob Watson: "Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology, and physics... Mother nature always bats last, and she always bats a thousand." And from John Holdren: "We're driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heading for a cliff. We know for sure that cliff is out there. We just don't know exactly where it is. Prudence would suggest that we should start putting on the brakes."

One of Tom's most thought-provoking columns.

Scream Trumpet

Apropos of absolutely nothing, here's a video showing one person's ranking of the top 5 high-note movie trumpet solos. In a previous life, I had dreams of being the next Maynard Ferguson.

Whew! September's Over!

Over the past 19 years I've seen the first month of the school year become just as busy and hectic as the final month of the school year, and man, I'm sure glad it's over. We've had one all school hike, two class retreats (with another next week), an expulsion, the beginning of soccer season, assemblies on drugs, recycling, and community service, back-to-school night, an evening poetry reading, an evening college application workshop, and the blending of new students and teachers into a new community. All in all it's been great, quite positive (except for the expulsion), and the new folks are proving to be great additions to our community. Alas, it's still exhausting, in a way that seems more intense than it was in 1991. Perhaps it's having more students, or the general anxiety caused by (choose any 3) the economy, 9-11, health care, angry town halls, our children's future prospects, or any of the myriad of issues we carry with us each day. As the days turn cooler (how do you like living in San Francisco East) our pace will slow a bit, and hopefully allow us to become more reflective and think more deeply about how and why we go about the work we take on. Soon enough the pace will pick up, as we begin to budget and plan for the 2010-2011 school year!

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow

One of the really good thinkers of the past couple of decades, his concept of "Flow" posits that people perform best when they have a high degree of skill and strong (but not unreasonable) challenges. Lots of implications for our teaching, and education in general.



If you're not familiar with the TED conferences, their videos and podcasts are well worth checking out at ted.com.

Convergence

What will the world be like in 20 years, when our students' children are starting school?

More Obama-this time, health care

I'm in a writing frenzy today! It usually takes me weeks to get worked up enough to write!

Lest the wingnuts drive us to think that healthcare is just fine in America, our small business is facing a 20% increase in premiums next year. Tuition went up 2%. You can do the math.

Our broker says that 20% is pretty good... one of our small school compatriots is seeing a 76% increase in their premiums.

Our faculty's average age did not change, nor did any of us have catastrophic illnesses.

My choices: increase the teacher's contribution, weaken the plan we offer, fire all the old teachers and replace them with young teachers.

And we're just one, small, business. Maybe that's why we get hit so hard, where are we going to go? Something needs to be done.

We Survived the Indoctrination!

I'm sure that all of our students' parents are pleased that, despite our president's attempts to indoctrinate us with his socialist message, the school is still standing. A few of my personal highlights are quoted below. My favorite quote with regard to the controversy came from the NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who called the protesters "stupid." Quite right!

"But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. "

"And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it."

"...at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying."

"...the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

"That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

"These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

"No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in."

The latest from the Fringe

How unbelieveable is this... parents don't want their kids to listen to the President of the United States talk about the importance of education because they think he's "trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas" according to the NY Times. I suppose it's no surprise in a country where 40% of the population believe in ghosts, and the value of science is undercut by the value placed on faith. (Personally, I'm comfortable with mystery, and the idea that while not everything can be explained, as time passes more and more can be.)

Oh well, we'll certainly allow our students to listen to the president during lunch on Tuesday, and hope that they take his message of hard work and accomplishment to heart. That, after all, is part of our mission as a school and as parents. And the further some folks move their kids to the fringe, the more room there is for our kids at the top!

We're Ready! Are You?

After a summer of painting and cleaning, and three full days of meetings, we're ready for the school year to finally begin! The place is just too quiet and empty without adolescent energy... remind me I said that come November!

Zero to One Hundred in one day

Well, maybe to 50 in one day... 100 will arrive with the students on the 31st!

After spending three weeks on Cape Cod with my 82 year old father, I'm back in the saddle here at The Nora School preparing for the new school year. Even after doing this for 18 years, I'm amazed at the amount of work that's needed to prepare the building, the faculty, and the families for the upcoming term.

Living life at the pace of an 82-year-old retiree on the Cape certainly is relaxing! Reading, an occasional trip to the beach or the golf course, having all afternoon to prepare dinner... life could hardly be more placid. Returning to school, needing to hire new teachers to manage our over enrollment, going to board meetings of other institutions, having the new bus painted and lettered, getting new lawn furniture, removing the rubble of summer cleanup, preparing for faculty in-service, and planning the creation of a new school community when students arrive, all takes a huge effort, and offers a stark contrast to reading Michael Connolly on the beach!

Perhaps this intensity is now compressed due to my desire to spend time free time with my father and give my sisters a break. Not having spent much time during the winter, spring, and summer breaks to manage the detritus of school life (such as digging out my office) means that when I am here the amount that needs to be done is fairly daunting.

Nonetheless, the world is an amazing place, full of surprises, and in a few days we'll again have the privilege of sharing all these wonders with young people. While my office will probably always be a bit of a mess, my hope is that it goes along with my curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and sharing.

Dad and his cousin Caroline at the Boston Pops concert in Hyannis.

Is planning overrated?

“In all the briefing papers prepared for the famous Clinton Little Rock [economic] summit in late 1992, the word Internet never appeared.”
– Daniel Gross, Newsweek

So, beyond our current recession, what disruptive force are we missing today?
(thanks to Daniel Pink for pointing out the quote)

For your summer reading enjoyment!

Happy Reading! The Nora 2009 Summer List.

For Parents sending kids off to college... The Myth of Maturity, by Terri Apter

By clicking on the links below you can order directly through the Nora Bookstore at Amazon.com.

Good for Everyone... Mindset, by Carol Dweck How intelligence is developed, and The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel, on developing resilience.

Summer Reading Book Groups, please choose ONE.

Dave’s Group: The Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen

Lorraine’s Group: Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson

Hedy’s Group: Life Beyond Measure, by Sidney Pottier

Scott’s Group: The Way Home, by George Pelecanos

Chris’s Group: Gateway, by Frederik Pohl

Mara’s Group: Pictures at an Exhibition, by Sarah Houghteling

Patrick's Group: The Five People You Meet In Heaven, by Mitch Albom

Nic’s Group: Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman

Janette's Group: Into the Blue, by Rebecca Gault

Anthony's Group: Red Sky at Morning, by Richard Bradford

Robert's Group: Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Jay's Group: How Soccer Explains the World, by Franklin Foer

Enjoy!