Fireworks

Ed and I took in our first fireworks display together last night in DeFuniak. We were going to try out a small restaurant in town, but all the locally-owned places were closed for the holiday. So, we ended up at Pizza Hut and had a large Supreme, thin crust. Have I told you pizza is my favorite food? It's a good thing I don't eat it often. Ed and I polished off the entire pie, then went to find a spot down on the lakeyard for the big show.

The almost-perfectly-round natural lake in the middle of town was ringed by hundreds of folks out to celebrate Independence Day. The Fourth is such a hokey, all-American holiday. When else do you see babies toddling around in diapers and dad toting lawnchairs after dark? It had cooled off some, so we spread out a quilt underneath the pines and waited for the show to start. They shot the fireworks off over the lake and it sounded like remnants of the Civil War, the boom and burst as loud as cannon fire, echoing over the water. DeFuniak is a small town, so it wasn't a fancy presentation or an especially long one, but we enjoyed it. I always think of July 4th as the second in the Summer Holiday Trilogy, bookended by Memorial Day and Labor Day.

I'm doing my last EPI course now, technology, which turns out to be in distance learning format. We met once, the first night, and the rest of the time we're responsible for getting our assignments off the computer and doing the work on our own. There are some lab nights scheduled for people who need extra help. I'm wondering if distance learning is learning at all. I mean, there's no interaction with others or with the instructor (unless I send her an e-mail). It seems like a dirty secret kind of education, just sitting all alone, you and the computer.

Also, I'm still sensitive about the snub I received from my instructor last week. I was in the library, trying to print a Power Point presentation from the online learning web site. I asked the nice librarian for help, but she wasn't sure what to do, so she led me back to my instructor's office (she just happens to be the director of distance learning). The first thing she said to me was, "Call before you come next time." Chagrined, I explained that the librarian had led me back to her office. I explained the problem and that I was trying to print all the course material out so I could peruse it at home, not having Internet access there. She made me run and get my jump drive, then stopped what she was working on so she could put all the presentations on the drive for me.

"That's what happens when you don't have Internet at home," she muttered. I felt lower than dirt. And that's what happens when you spend too much of your life online and take it for granted that so does everyone else. I was stung by her comment, but it did make me conscious of the need to be sensitive to my future students. I wouldn't want any of them to feel the way I did. Not every kid has a computer at home. Not everyone has access to the Internet. Are we so quickly approaching the time when technology further divides us along the lines of haves and have-nots? I shudder to think it's so.

Anyway, I've already encountered the Great Bloom in this course, yet again. He seems like a constant. I'm beginning to be curious about what the guy looked like. I assume he's dead. If you can talk about Bloom's Taxonomy at any interview for a teaching position, you should be okay. At least, that's the reverence the old guy seems to have. I see that the last chapter in the text is on learning theories. Here we go again. Yet another meeting with Piaget. Sigh.

The text makes a point of equitable use of and access to technology. Evidently, AAUW did a famous study years back and found that girls have gotten the short end of the stick. Girls, the text says, are underrepresented in technical careers because they don't have enough exposure to technology in school and at home. I have my own theory about that. Could it be that girls and women are just not interested in the same things that boys and men are? I'm not saying that females can't do math or science or computers, I'm just saying that, generally speaking, maybe they have interests and skills in different areas. Hey, this could explain why 74% of teachers are women. Think about it.

"These visual media help make up for student deficiencies in such prerequisites as reading skills; they help to involve and motivate students by using graphics and other devices students find interesting and attractive." This, too, is from our textbook. So, are they saying little things like reading skills are not important if a kid can use a computer? Or are they perhaps saying that books are not interesting and attractive? Heaven help us.

The final chapter of the text that resurrects Bloom and Piaget also deals with the Great Divide between directed learning and constructivism (we've seen these two beasts before, with different names). Directed learning, basically teacher lecture and the usual pencil and paper assessments, is bad. Constructivist learning, basically having students work in small groups on projects that simulate real life problem-solving, is good. Used to be that people thought there was a certain body of knowledge everyone needed to know and the purpose of education was to transfer this knowledge from teacher to student. Now, we're not so sure that such a body of knowledge exsists, much less that everyone needs to know it if it does. This shift in education mirrors, of course, the changes in our world at large. Postmodernism has sunk it fangs in everywhere. But, here's the rub. In the 1990s, the education system became more focused on accountability measures, standardized testing rolled in with a vengence, and all of a sudden funding depended on how kids did on tests. And it didn't stop there, because if the kids did bad on the test, it must be the fault of the teacher. Either she didn't know what she was doing or she wasn't doing it very well. My question is: how can you teach as a constructivist when directed learning techniques are the ones that yield results on standardized tests? Teachers have to cover more and more material. Teachers are forced to "teach to the tests." Kids are not tested on how they work with others or complete tasks creatively. Basic incompatibility problem if you ask me.

Turns out I'm a pretty good critical reader and that ranks high on Bloom's Taxonomy. Question everything.