PVLD Director's Blog

What did YOU learn in school?

On a day when California's school Academic Performance Index (API) were published, this post from Seth Godin seems particularly a propos:

Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:

• How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

From what I see of our local Palos Verdes Schools, the teachers are really trying to do this...but in the face of shrinking budgets, growing class sizes, and the drumbeat pressure of standardized testing it's a daunting task.

I wish someone had taught this to ME in the 5th grade!

Thank you to Cultural Offering for sharing these great tips on "what to do when you can't figure it out" from 5th-grade teacher Rob Firchau...and for introducing me to Rob's wonderful blog The Hammock Papers .

 

What it says?

What to do if you can't figure it out:

1.    Take a deep breath and refuse to be confused; go back over the problem one step at a time.

2.    Organize what you know.

3.    Act the problem out in your mind.

4.    Doodle - move things into new combinations.

5.    Make a graph or a table.

6.    Work the problem backward.

7.    Solve part of the problem.

8.    Look for a pattern.

9.    Ask "What if. . .?" and follow that reasoning through.

10.  Brainstorm.  Even silly ideas can lead to a helpful solution.

11.  Don't give up.  Don't ever give up.  "If you think you can't, you're right."

E-books in the classroom

Yesterday I received an email from my friend and Palos Verdes Peninsula School District (PVPUSD) Board member Malcolm Sharp outlining a dilemma that our local high schools are facing.

The high schools have developed a "core reading list" of books that students at each grade level are expected to read by the end of the appropriate school year. 

Here at the public library we are very familiar with the core reading lists because of the demand from students (and their parents) to check the books out from the library, or to buy them from our Friends of the Library book sales.  We never have enough copies of these items to meet the demand, and the problem is compounded by the fact that many can now only be purchased in paperback so wear and tear is also an issue.  Our librarians regularly search the book sale rooms for these items as a way of stocking the library collection, but of course that means fewer are available for students to purchase.

The schools are facing a similar dilemma as these are not considered "textbooks" and so have to be funded from discretionary monies.  Many of the copies at the schools are years old and in bad condition, but at a time when budget cuts have meant teacher layoffs there just isn't the money to provide new copies of these books in the schools.

Malcolm's idea, expressed in his email to me and a number of PVPUSD administrators, was that the School District consider the use of e-books. 

I've been mulling over the advantages and disadvantages of e-books for personal use for somee time.  I'm also well aware, as this story about a Boston private school that eliminated it's traditional school library in favor of e-books highlights, that PVPUSD is not the first school to think about moving down this path for more than textbooks...and I confess that I still have not made up my mind about whether this is a good thing or not.

On the one hand, the core reading list is made up of "classics", most of which are available for free online.  It seems foolish to spend scarce money on hard copies when the content is available for free in electronic form.

On the other hand, I am still having a lot of personal difficulty separating the content from the package when it comes to books. It is hard for me to imagine that the experience of reading the words on a computer screen is the same as reading them on the pages of a book, or that making the books available online will foster the kind of classroom discussion that I remember from my long-ago high school days when we all were able to look at the same page as we discussed it. 

I think this is especially true since the free online e-books are accessed via an "old-fashioned" computer, rather than a personal reading device like the Kindle or Sony Reader which is designed to try to mimic many of the features of a real book.

But maybe I am just exhibiting previously hidden Luddite tendancies!

PVPUSD is only thinking about making students and parents aware of the e-books as an option given that the number of copies available via the school or the public library is limited, and not making them the default so it will be interesting to see whether students gravitate to them.

And as always I'd love to know what you think, so post a comment or two!

Tough times for schools

I confess that I spent more time working during my vacation than I probably should have, but I spent a lot of time waiting around...for my nephew to go on rides at Knott's Berry Farm (I am a confirmed coward in his mind since I won't go on anything scarier than the log ride) and while he tried on shoes and clothes (he's a shopper, and I'm definitely not!)so checking my email on my Iphone not only helped pass the time, it made my re-entry today much smoother.

I also had the privilege of attending some of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District's management retreat on Thursday morning while my young visitors slept in.  I appreciated the opportunity to spend time with PVPUSD administrators and Principals, and to learn in more depth about some of the challenges our local schools are facing.

School Superintendent Walker Williams presented the "State of the District and there were many parallels between the PVPUSD tale and ours - from declining revenues to fewer programs to cash flow challenges to what Walker termed "enterprise" efforts to generate revenue through  fee-based programs to the Peninsula Education Foundation's commitment to double their level of support.

At the same time, there were some substantial differences that made me glad I don't have Walker's job.  Per student "average daily attendance" funding from the state has declined 18% over the past two years, and there is every expectation that this could go down even further as the State economy continues its freefall and the expectation is that public agency funding will lag 12-18 months behind the general economic recovery.  PVPUSD relies on the State for 81% of its funding (by comparison only 1% of PVLD's funding comes from the State) so there is little hope of a turnaround any time soon. 

The net result is that despite the Peninsula Education Foundation raising its level of support from $1.1 million to $2 million this school year, and for the first time funding classroom teachers in additional to supplemental programs, PVPUSD will have 40 fewer teachers to support essentially the same number of students. 

Of particular interest to PVLD is that instead of having both library aides and technology aides at the elementary schools, Prinicipals will have funding for less than 15 hours/week of non-classified support staff and will have to choose how to deploy those funds with the likely scenario being another year with unstaffed school libraries.  

Yikes!  

In the face of these tough times both insitutions are facing, PVLD and PVPUSD continue to work together to  coordinate expenditures, to further our shared educational mission, and to enhance the quality of life (and the property values!) on the Peninsula, although with staff in both organizations stretched thin it isn't going to be easy.... 

Legitimizing social media/"Web 2.0"

How do you know that social media are now truly maintstream?  When use of social media is recognized by academic institutions as a valid criteria for gaining tenure.  The University of Maine (my husband's alma mater) recently adopted guidelines for giving academic recognition for contributions to social media  - a sign that even tradition-bound institutions like universities are recognizing the legitimacy of social media.

Another sign?  Encyclopedia Britannica's decision, reported in the Boston Globe, to allow subscribers to edit its contents along the lines of Wikipedia.

When even tradition-bound institutions like universities and 241-year-old encyclopedias (which, by the way, makes Britannica much older than our treasured Dewey Decimal system!) are using social media to transform concepts at the heart of their institutional identities it's a pretty clear signal that libraries should do the same...

The Future of Education - What does it mean for public libraries?

PVLD has worked hard to develop a community awareness of the role public libraries play as a partner in education, and to develop active partnerships with local schools.  As the current economic crisis unfolds and our public schools are forced to lay off school library staff, technology aides, and teachers  our PVLD staff have been wrestling with how best to support students, parents and teachers within the constraints of our own limited resources.  Through the current strategic planning process we've also been wrestling with developing a vision for our future in the face of technological and societal changes.

One of the things that seems certain is that we are almost certainly, as David Lee King put it in a recent blog post, at "The Beginning of a New Normal".  David's post was primarily about the restructuring of our economy with the potential for entire industries to disappear (print media? American automotive manufacturing?), an acceleration of the shift from physical to digital channels of distribution of content, and the growing importance of the "long tail"...and the implications for libraries.

All of that is of great interest, but what grabbed my attention was a link that was somewhat buried in the body of the blog post that triggered David's thoughts. The blog post that got me thinking was Hacking Education (continued) by New York Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson.  It reports on a conversation among a number of leading entrepreneurs and education thinkers on the topic of how education needs to be "hacked" (i.e. broken into and reconfigured).

In the blog post Wilson summarizes a number of trends that I think have significant implications not just for schools, but for libraries.  How will we -

• Support an array of alternative forms of education from home schooling to online learning?  We do some of this already (for example the information literacy class one of our librarians taught to a group of homeschoolers the other day) - but as these forms of education become more popular we probably need to look not just at the services we provide, but the design of our facilities and technology.  At a minimum I can see a need for more computers and more bandwidth, more "learning lab" environments where learners who aren't part of a formal school setting can come together, and staff/collections to support these new forms of education.
• Understand, educate our communities about, and make use of technologies like open courseware, lesson sharing, social networks, and lightweight/public publishing tools that will become an increasingly important part of the education infrastructure?  We need to be better than ever at learning and applying new technologies

In a world where the line between student and teacher is increasingly blurred, we'll need to figure out how to provide the tools for people to develop and publish content and learning (e.g. podcasting, webcasting, courseware etc.) not just get information from the Internet. This probably means moving from computer workstations out in the open to self-contained and sound-proofed learning/production stations.

As education and learning moves from classrooms to home- or office-based and/or online environments, it also will become a round-the-clock activity.  This will increase the pressure on us to uncouple access to our resources and services from our physical facilities.  We'll need to continue to find ways to answer questions, deliver information and content, and provide support to people who aren't at the physical library, and to do it 24/7.

These are challenges for sure, but they may also provide a real opportunity to engage with our local schools in a much more meaningful way to help them navigate these changes and to integrate our respective activities to provide seamless support to the learners in our community - wherever and whenever they need it.   Food for thought....