Collateral Learning

We’ve made learning too friendly.  Think about it- we’ve abandoned our red pens because they’re too “angry” and started using green and purple so as to not upset students when we have to correct them.  We are careful not to step on anyone’s toes and hurt their feelings by saving them the pain and anguish of ever having to know defeat and failure.  I say enough is enough- time to let them fail and fail with dignity.  Time to fail the way that I’ve failed over and over again and in the end become a stronger, better person for it.  Now, I’m not claiming to have had to walk to school barefooted in the snow uphill both ways with a warm potato in my pocket to keep me warm (having to then eat that cold potato for lunch and pray for a tailwind to help me return home faster in the afternoon), but I did have red pens , teachers’ criticism, and failing grades and I think I turned out just fine (minus a few little quirks and all!)  The catch is: we have to understand that a failure isn’t the end but the beginning of a teachable moment.

“From failure, you learn; from success, not so much.” Disney’s Meet the Robinsons

Our kids will play a video game for hours, trying to jump over the same cavern over and over again, missing each and every time, but they keep pushing forward looking for a new way to succeed after failing dozens of times.  At no point has their fragile little ego been damaged as their avatar has fallen to its virtual doom.  Our children are not scarred for life because it took them a dozen times to complete a puzzling stage.  We spend too much time being afraid of failure.  What we need to be doing is looking for new ways to help our kids learn from failure- not scold them for failure and not protect them from the lessons learned from failure.  We need to ask ourselves is it actually healthy to save our kids from failure and what is the real reason we are doing so?  Are we saving them from failing because we associate something negative with it?  Did we fail and then fail to learn from it and thus failed at failing?  Success and progress are part of the learning process just like failure and mistakes are.  We learn from our mistakes and our failures.  We may learn a million ways not to succeed, but if we had not failed we would never have learned the one way to prevail.

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” Thomas Edison

Teaching our kids to fail is part of the learning process.  Our students may never remember the day World War I began or the monarchs involved in the War of the Roses.  The mundane facts that they can easily look up are pointless if they are unable to apply knowledge and to come to their own conclusions.  When our students leave our classrooms and our children move on to college, will professors still care about their fragile little egos?  Will the workforce modify their workload as to not hurt their feelings?  If we continue to protect our children from learning, what have we actually taught them?

Being that it’s nearing Christmas, I’ve decided to vent a bit:

1. Santa does not need to be praying to your light-up Baby Jesus on your front lawn. Not only is this theologically atrocious, it’s just plain tacky. I’m initiating a restraining order which says Santa cannot be within 25 feet of Baby Jesus. If Santa’s kneeling, it better be to deliver presents.
2. Black Friday is every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas- According to Snopes, the term Black Friday was originally “applied by police and retail workers to the day’s plethora of traffic jams and badly-behaved customers.” I know it’s the season of giving- but do you all have to give such bad attitudes and rude manners? If you can’t play nice in the stores, stay home and shop online.
3. Toy companies purposely create the toy frenzy and parents fall for it every year. If you’re willing to pay $50 for that $10 Zhu Zhu Pet, that doesn’t make you a good parent- that makes you a moron. Buy the kid a gift card and tell them to pick out their own in a couple of weeks when they finally get around to making more.
4. If you have a big house and you celebrate Christmas, decorate it. For Heaven’s sake, do you not realize that it is your duty to entertain the masses of us who do not own big houses? Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, do not leave it to the guy who left his lights up all year to be the only form of Christmas light entertainment that I have for my children.
5. Why on earth do you place a Cross on your front lawn strewn in Christmas lights? The Cross is a symbol of God’s conquering of death through the resurrection, which (I’m not thinking I need my Seminary Degree to figure this one out) is Easter, not Christmas. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus birth- you know: Wise Men, Shepherds, Mary, Joseph, no room in the Inn… not to mention the before-mentioned poorly placed Santa praying to Baby Jesus.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a blessed New Year to everyone (even if you did happen to make my list this year!)

So its taken a bit longer than anticipated, but don’t all great things take time? I’ve been working to rebuild this site for the past few months and I’m just about ready to unveil it. I ended up going with a Joomla! CMS and keeping the Wordpress blog. Each does its own thing in its own way- Joomla! is just a better all around Content Management System and Wordpress is just a better blogging platform- hands down. By next week this site will be up and ready to go!

A nip here and a tuck there- I’m scrapping the old site and building a new one all-together. Although I like Wordpress (as it is quite possibly the best blogging solution out there), it doesn’t really meet my needs any longer. Over the next two weeks I will be rebuilding the site using Joomla! as the CMS and including a few really nice features which will allow the site to be more than just my ideas thrown out for the world to ignore. For the few, proud followers, I thank you and hope that you will keep up with the new site when it is up and ready- until then, it will be a construction zone!

Thanks!
-Bryan

Science Links

Dynamic Periodic Table
This periodic table helps in keeping elements apart. You can highlight them by their aggregate state (solid, liquid, gas, unknown) or group (nonmetals with subgroups and metals with subgroups). Clicking on an element or group will launch a separate window with the matching Wikipedia article  (shhh…. don’t let the Library know I’ve sent you a link to Wikipedia!).

Periodic Table of the Elements
This periodic table is more compact than the previous one and it’s great for a quick summary for each element. As can be seen in the screenshot below, all elements are represented by a matching image and clicking on it launches a small information window.

Molecular Workbench
Includes curriculum ideas for you to use to help incorporate it into your classes.  The software is a stand-alone application that requires Java to run.

Math Link

Mathway
This is an online tool that will help solve your math challenges. Just enter the “problem statement”, select a subject and hit solve for the solution including the steps taken to get there.

Language Arts Links

VerbaLearn
With VerbaLearn you can improve your English vocabulary with online study sessions. The tool learns with you, keeping a record of your progress and weaknesses. You can listen to your study list offline to better memorize the words and practice the pronunciation and online you can read examples of how the word is being used.

Bullfighter (MS Word and PowerPoint Plugin)
Similar To VerbaLearn, this tool is designed to improve your use of the English language. The tool will analyze your texts for jargon. The higher your Bull Composite score, the higher the chance people will actually understand what you are trying to say.

911 Writers Block
I love this site!  You can use this to help generate all sorts of writing ideas.  Need a character to write you story about?  Press “2″ and see what it gives you.  Great starting point for some in-class creative writing projects.

Web 2.0 Tools:

Voicethread
Voicethread is audiovisual tool that gives users the ability to upload images or video files and then add audio or text comments.

Internet Activities:

Internet Hunt Activities
The Internet is an enormous collection of answers. The challenge is to find them. These information scavenger hunts will help you discover how diverse this resource truly is. You will also gain experience harnessing the Internet. There are over 200 activities offered.

Digital Storytelling:

Kerpoof
Kerpoof is a site that provides a variety of creative tools for animation, drawing, and movie creation. Users can choose from a range of preset characters and environmental options, or they can create their own. The site offers drag-and-drop simplicity coupled with advanced animation and editing capabilities.