Asia Times Online goes there — put on your pearls and prepare to clutch them, edtech evangelists! — in How America made its children crazy:

At a showcase classroom in Arizona’s most wired school district, Matt Richtel reported,

“A seventh-grade English teacher roams among 31 students sitting at their desks or in clumps on the floor. They’re studying Shakespeare’s As You Like It – but not in any traditional way. In this technology-centric classroom, students are bent over laptops, some blogging or building Facebook pages from the perspective of Shakespeare’s characters. One student compiles a song list from the Internet, picking a tune by the rapper Kanye West to express the emotions of Shakespeare’s lovelorn Silvius.”

Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Shakespeare meant by “as you like it.” Web access in this case is simply a pretext to help seventh-graders to reduce Shakespeare to their own level, rather than allow Shakespeare to lift children up to his.

I’m not close to claiming that computers have no educational value, and should be used when the tools are justified. But I’m “closer than right here” to saying that slow, calm, and  focused reading, writing, and talking together has a value that I’m appreciating more and more. The web seems more and more a ghetto for young minds*, but one you can dispel with the closing of a lid.

–
*Even when used for producing work in well-monitored activities, laptops are still an ADHD wonderland instead of a reflective space, as the article above argues.

1 Comments

• At February 10, 2012, Dean Shareski wrote:

  This to me, is the start of a great post. Lots of unfinished but important ideas here. 

Anyway, all that aside, a bit of serendipity and synchronicity (no woo-woo vibes intended) just now. Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish quotes Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie who, in an essay published in Guernica called “The Storytellers of Empire,” makes a somehow related point about the one-eyed perspective of American novelists in relation to the non-American world:

Your soldiers will come to our lands, but your novelists won’t. The unmanned drone hovering over Pakistan, controlled by someone in Langley, is an apt metaphor for America’s imaginative engagement with my nation. … Where is the American writer who looks on his or her country with two eyes, one shaped by the experience of living here, the other filled with the sad knowledge of what this country looks like when it’s not at home. Where is the American writer who can tell you about the places your nation invades or manipulates, brings you into those stories and lets you draw breath with its characters? (Read the rest)

3 Comments

• At February 7, 2012, AMA wrote:

  Better opportunities for catching up on sleep!

• At February 8, 2012, cburell wrote:

  Tee hee. :)

• At February 9, 2012, Victoria wrote:

  But lots of people do skip church!

  Plus, if you decide you don't agree with the doctrine or environment of the church you've been attending, you have every opportunity to 1.) find another one more in keeping with your own style, or 2.) drop out of religion (organized or all) entirely.

It’s interesting to compare this Indian-American guy’s perspective with that of Anglo-American Louie CK — a clearly smart (and NSFW) guy who somehow seemed not to learn about world history in his American education. Watch, and notice how narrow his definition of “the world” is when he imagines time-traveling as a white man:

If he’d gotten out of his time capsule anywhere but Europe (or America), odds are he would have been not deferred to, but laughed at. One reason the Portuguese and Spanish were so violent to other cultures during the Age of Exploration was that the people they encountered found them strikingly unimpressive. Da Gama and others complained in their reports that the goods they brought to impress foreign kings were laughed at for their low quality, as were the religious ideas with which they offered to “save” or otherwise improve their hosts. Indians, Muslims, and Chinese had advanced economies, smooth and respectful international trade relations, reasonably tolerant religious relations, and highly literate cultures. For most of their history, “white men” didn’t.

It’s funny how a guy as smart as Louis CK can’t know that the world laughed at white people until only a few centuries ago, when the industrialization of weapons made that laughter less easy to risk. His view of the world only seems to include Americans — black and white ones — and vague Romans who gave America Jesus.

Again, I love Louis CK’s work and imagination. He’s intelligent as all hell. And that’s sort of the point: intelligent people can still be stunted through a poor or provincial education system.

Imagine how much richer Louis CK’s work would be if he’d been taught about the rest of the planet.

7 Comments

• At February 7, 2012, Simon wrote:

  I’m wondering whether the people in the

  audience are there to be educated or entertained. Its great to be given the

  opportunity to instil some education among the humour but I’m not sure it would

  have gone quite so well with this narrative kicking off the 47th

  second:

  “He’s how great it is to be a white guy…

  I can get in a time machine and go to any

  time…

  Except for the Age

  of Exploration where the Portuguese and Spanish were too violent…

  And obviously the time when Indians,

  Muslims, and Chinese had advanced economies, smooth and respectful

  international trade relations, reasonably tolerant religious relations, and

  highly literate cultures which would make me feel stupid as a “white men”…

  Oh and obviously, I’d have to be

  careful where in the world I ended up too cos there are places and times in

  history where theyfolk would have been most unpleasant to us white folk but

  other than that …

  ..it would be f@$king awesome when I

  got there…”

  Even if you read this with Louis CK’s

  voice in your head I fear its not really setting the joke up particularly well.

  But then that’s just my opinion.

• At February 7, 2012, cburell wrote:

  The Indian guy sort of proves that comedians -- that excludes both of us, right? -- who craft jokes for a living can make history funny.

  If Louis goes into the professor mode as in your example, of course it's not going to work. But if he imagines himself as Da Gama offering an Indian prince some lame-ass wool when the dude is used to Chinese silks, he'd surely be able to take that places as easily as he takes the history he _does_ know.

  Ditto missionaries: the idea of missionaries expecting their ideas to make sense -- "So the creator of the universe made himself a man by getting a virgin pregnant, see, so he could be born...."

  "--Wait a minute. If he created the universe, why didn't he just create his human form. Why all the trouble making a virgin pregnant?"

  --or--

  "And then he made the humans kill him so that his blood would save me, you, and everybody who believed it because it was such a huge sacrifice to die like that. Then he came back to life and rose back up to be with himself in heaven."

  "--[Your comic imagination's response here.]

  --I mean, come on: the comic potential for these cross-cultural conversations is endless. And again, the Indian guy makes the point to some degree.

• At February 7, 2012, edith wrote:

  Louis C.K. is Mexican, a white mexican. That is why he comments on race with that tongue in cheek way of his.

• At February 8, 2012, John Golden wrote:

  Louis is not doing history, he's doing comedy. Furthermore, comedy with a point. It's totally beside the point to argue historical inaccuracy. If there's a point, it's that the audience buys into the premise, which talks about their  education. I think, year 2 - you are a barbarian, hated on sight in many parts of the world. Most people's sense of history is very localized in time.

• At February 8, 2012, Anonymous wrote:

  Hi John,

  I don't get the "I think, year 2 - you are a barbarian" phrase, so I can't comment. As for the rest, the Indian guy is doing comedy too, but his history is less localized - granted, probably because of his ethnic background. As for "most people's sense of history being localize," it's a question of degree as to how far beyond the local that sense encompasses. I can only speak from experience of 5 years in Germany, 6 in China, 3 in Korea, and 3 now in Singapore (and close friendships with Iranians and S. Africans) to make this claim, but in general my talks about history in these countries show a pretty marked contrast in non-local knowledge, compared to Americans in my homeland.

  Is this a roundabout way of saying Americans show a stunted grasp of world history, and of arguing it's a lack that education can fill? You bet.

  But like I say, as a comedian, Louis CK is first-rate. He was just a case to make a point.

• At February 9, 2012, American Novelists Too? | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I got a couple of critical responses to my use of Louis CK as an example of Americans’ having limited knowledge of the world and its history. In retrospect, I should [...]

• At February 10, 2012, Anonymous wrote:

  Hi Edith,

  You piqued my interest so I went to Wikipedia and found:

  "C.K.'s stage name is derived from an approximate English pronunciation of his Hungarian surname, Szekely (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈseːkɛj]). C.K. was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Mary Louise (née Davis), a software engineer, and Luis Szekely, an economist.[2][8] C.K.'s paternal grandfather, a Hungarian Jew, emigrated to Mexico, where he met C.K.'s paternal grandmother, who was a Catholic Mexican of Spanish and Mexican Indian ancestry.[9] C.K.'s father was born in Mexico and C.K.'s mother is an American of Irish Catholic ancestry. The two met at Harvard University while his father was trying to finish his degree during a summer-school program.[1] Although C.K. was born in D.C., he lived in Mexico City until the age of seven.[2] His first language is Spanish, and he still retains Mexican citizenship.[10]"Assuming WP is right, it definitely adds a wrinkle. Packing for a trip to China so no time to say more.

First, Stewart:

Next, China: This is episode 2. The hip 21st century Beijing city girl, age 25, finds herself, Dorothy-in-Oz style, trapped in palace life of the early Qing Dynasty court in the Forbidden City, inhabiting the body of a young candidate for betrothal or concubinage to the Emperor Kangxi or one of his fifty-odd sons. Several of those sons (the “Princes” named by order of birth in the episode below) are as bewitched by her mysteriously unconventional values and conduct (being 21st century) as they are by her beauty. One of the Princes, number 4, as she knows from the history classes she took three centuries later, will end up succeeding to the throne after a period of intense rivalry and intrigue against his brothers.

If it sounds all-too-stodgy and schooly, swab your ears and shoot your expectations: the writers do a great job of adding laughs along the way as our heroine’s modern ways clash with the intensely traditional (and often intensely superior) culture of the Imperial past.

Here it is:

View all 35 episodes, with English subtitles, on Viki.

6 Comments

• At February 6, 2012, Sarah Miller wrote:

  Have you watched all of these yet? I'm on episode 30. Wow!! I've been so obsessed with the Qing dynasty for the past two weeks. Whenever I stare into space my husband asks me if my thoughts are with 4th prince and with Rouxi. In fact, I've started wanting to learn Chinese after learning the words for what they say all the time: "Imperial Father" "please rise" "second miss" "sister" and "yes." My vocabulary right now would make for an awkward conversation! I'm threatening to wait on the "Holocaust" Unit this semester and do an "Asian" Unit instead, and show an episode or two of this. :)

• At February 7, 2012, Anonymous wrote:

  I'm so jealous. I've only been able to watch about 5 or 6. It's cool that you're picking up Mandarin while watching. And cooler that you're getting that Imperial China buzz. I've been high on it for a good three years running now. Just a different planet. And while no means perfect, in many ways arguably no more imperfect than the modern world. But I'll resist the pull to rant on that riff :)

• At February 7, 2012, Sarah Miller wrote:

  Think you might like this. Check out this awesome article in "Low-Tech Magazine" about the Chinese Wheelbarrow--how it is different from Western versions and how it responds to the demands of a crumbling road system, and military uses! Full of historical observations from visitors to China.

  http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html

  Also, what classical Chinese poet do you love most? The poetry in the series is so moving, but I have no idea where it comes from. I would especially love to find poetry teenagers would like. Where should I start? Thanks.... :)

• At February 8, 2012, cburell wrote:

  That is bloody awesome, Sarah, thanks. There's a Daoist parable in the Zhuangzi telling of a farmer who is told by a well-meaning "progressive" of the 3rd C. BCE of a machine that will increase his productivity manifold and reduce his workload at the same time. Short version: he says "no thanks" because he doesn't want to disturb the flow that has worked for him his entire life. Fast forward 2200 years, think "wheelbarrow / Western automobile," and you get my connection.

  Besides that, what a cool article. Bookmarked for future use.

  Here's the link to my Diigo "China" "poetry" bookmarks, so welcome to my online treasury. The Tang Dynasty is China's golden age of poetry -- Li Po (a.k.a. Li Bai) and To Fu (a.k.a. Du Fu) -- are the lyric masters of that age.

  If you go to "Ecstatic Teaching 2: It Helps to Get Drunk", you'll see at the end of that rhapsody several pdf's containing my own favorite poets from the Period of Disunity, China's post-Han Dynasty medieval period of almost 400 years (roughly contemporary with the European early medieval period, but sublimely literate by comparison): Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming), Wang Xizhi, and Ou Yang Xiu.

  Finally, here's a gift: reading from the other great Period of Disunity school, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. (I call them "Confucians Without a Cause," because they were highly literate scholars who refused to serve the degenerate ruling families of the age, and instead retreated into seclusion in the mountains with their friends to enjoy wine, poetry, music, friendship, and Daoist esoterica. For all the world, they're so like the counter-culture of the similarly disaffected college youth of the 1960s, "tuning in, turning on, dropping out"--but 17 centuries earlier, and with more taste and artistic ability. Don't miss Xi Kang's "The Lute: A Rhapsody." And tell me what you think of him and the totally endearing Ran Ji. (The book is the Columbia Anthology of Classical Chinese Literature, I think it's called. Amazing work.)

  Thanks so much for the link. Who the heck are you? Where are you from? What do you teach?

• At February 9, 2012, Sarah Miller wrote:

  Thanks for the gifts. I LOVED the Wang Xizhi Preface to the Orchid Pavilion. I felt such kinship with him. It's funny how this has been one of the internet's gifts to me: I don't feel so alone. Bloggers out there writing about real food or moving beyond schooliness or homesteading...if I hadn't read their thoughts I might have been tempted to feel alone and isolated in my little community...and want to leave. Perhaps this is why perspicacious people always used to move to cities--to be around other people who were also *urbane.* :P

  Responding to some of the poetry I've had a chance to look at: Not to oversimplify the metrical and linguistic complexities that *I'm sure* exist in the original chinese poetry, I LOVE how simple and clear they are. Description of nature, comment on dissolution, emptiness and beauty. Another image from outside. Ahh. I Can Write Those TOO! This is like my MAIN fascination---how life just keeps transforming itself from one form to another, and how we love beauty, and how we will all die. My students think I am SO depressing!! But of course, they are 16. My main philosophy is summed up in this poem:

  http://stellwagen.noaa.gov/gallery/gannetspoem.html

  I teach at a semi-rural public school in North Carolina. It's not bad--we're near 3 universities, and my heart is in the country anyway, so it's a nice mix. I teach World literature (sophomores) 80% of the time and American Lit (juniors) the rest. Most of them are products of a crappy educational system and unmotivated and not planning on going to a major university. (Which is fine with me, because I'm not sure that's there's not more pleasure to be had working with the hands anyway.) They do not think critically and are so uncreative sometimes it hurts. Thanks a lot, mandatory state and federal multiple choice testing every six weeks the entire time they've been in school. On the other hand, they make me laugh so often and I bless them for that! Their drawings to illustrate vocab words are enough to make me want to come back every day. That and reading a cryptic poem to them every day to see what they make of it.

  I am hoping to be able to carry the torch farther into this semester. Usually, the second term rolls around and I start to despair. It doesn't help that I always teach the Holocuast Unit then. (I am a sensitive soul I guess and there's only so many times I can watch footage of bulldozers and corpses before I become existential.) Not this year!! I am going to delve into Asian Literature like never before. I might even teach Siddhartha (I know!! Not Asian) to my regular level sophomores. And definitely Stephen Mitchell's Dao translation. Will they get it? Probably not. But that's ok. :)

  So that's what I teach and if that hasn't answered who the heck am I, then I will say this: I am just a lover of bliss looking for revelation and a better way to bake sourdough. And a garden to call my own. Thanks for your intellectual companionship! Tell me what you think when you get further in the series. It starts becoming a good lesson that those with the most power are sometimes the least free.

  Sarah

• At February 9, 2012, Sarah Miller wrote:

  OH! and in response to Lute. What I noticed (esp see stanza 3) is that they had a sense that the music that comes from the instrument ultimately comes from the earth that made the instrument...the lute music is born from TREES on the "lofty ridges of steep mountains," living in the daily rhythm of "the red glow of the evening sky" and the "morning sun." And the trees wait millenia for the right person to come along and witness, harness and refine their potential beauty. "quietly they repose, forever robust." Is it just me, or do these guys sense the unity of all forms? Perhaps I am reading my own bias into it! really lovely.

  and I liked how he said not everyone can appreciate it. (stanza 11)

  *thinks about own classroom of chuckle heads*

  hah

  Hah!

  HAH!

  I'm sure I will never grasp the finer details of carburetors either.

  Sarah

I’d simply want small groups of students (individuals would be easy) to discuss the big events of the unit like the newly-educated budding subject area experts I’m trying to create — and to do so in a relaxed, informal, and audience-conscious way.

I picture that audience being their parents, and the “synopsis” of their “talk show” to be along these lines:

In today’s episode, the hosts talk about the often mind-bending beginnings of Chinese history, how radically different that history is from all other major civilizations’, and what those other civilizations might learn from China’s ancient beginnings that could still be useful in today’s world — with several detours for laughs along the way.

I picture the audience being maybe their parents, who might be curious to learn from their kids where their tuition dollars are going.

The problem? I don’t know a tool. My school allows Macs and PCs, and I don’t know how three or four students could do an online session with a shared desktop and screencast-recorder that also records conference calls.

Shareski? Ira? Beuhler?

5 Comments

• At January 26, 2012, Sean Nash wrote:

  I see where you are headed...  and I don't have a slick answer. To do this: "something like a recorded Skype conference + screencast," I think I have a roundabout way to get there. Perhaps. Anyway...

  I see this: "relaxed, informal, and audience-conscious way" and this: "shared desktop and screencast-recorder that also records conference calls."

  I'm not sure exactly what you're envisioning. However, if I had to do this tomorrow, I think I'd be empowered by your quest for informal. I also think I know how I'd attempt to go about it.

  I think the screencasting tools in Quicktime allow for more possibility than most people realize. Yes, I'm goofy, but here was a quick and dirty shot at showing some of the screen elements that most people don't think about when screencasting: http://sjsd.schoolwires.net//cms/lib3/MO01001773/Centricity/Domain/542/What is Screencasting.mov (it's a very slow load for sure). If not, you can find it referenced here: http://www.sjsd.k12.mo.us/seannash

  Of course, the text elements could be simply added in-line on the blog, since you mentioned that is a place where it might ultimately be referenced. And the "screencast recorder that records conference calls"...  could you not do a Google Hangout...  all the while recording the event as a screencast in Quicktime.

  Or maybe not. I'm not sure.  Good to "hear" from you. It's been too long...

  Sean

• At January 26, 2012, cburell wrote:

  Nice to hear from you Sean, and thanks for the possible ninja moves. I'll explore. Never used Google hangout before. I'll follow up with the results when the world stops to give me time to experiment :P

  Take care!

• At January 26, 2012, cburell wrote:

  Nice to hear from you Sean, and thanks for the possible ninja moves. I'll explore. Never used Google hangout before. I'll follow up with the results when the world stops to give me time to experiment :P

  Take care!

• At January 27, 2012, David Wees wrote:

  I'd look at Google Hangouts. You can record them using a variety of tools, but here's a post where I describe using a specific tool to record the screen. See http://davidwees.com/content/recording-google-hangouts

• At February 4, 2012, Dean Shareski wrote:

  You have way smarter folks respond than anything I could offer. 

(*Yes, you heard that right.)