Happy Birthday, Harper!

"Camping Party"

As "Trixie"

As Wonder Woman!

Wow!  You have had some great birthday parties, daughter of mine.  That's because your mom is an amazing party planner.  When you were 5, you wanted a "camping party" because you had discovered the joys of hiking.  There was a map everyone had to follow and all kinds of treasures to find.  The pinata was a bear cannister.  In the picture above you are crossing the driveway "river."  The cake had a little tent on it.

When you were 6 you wanted a storybook character dress up party.  There was a kid dressed as Cinderella and there was a Cat In the Hat and a Harry Potter and more.  You went as Trixie from a favorite picture book that I thought was more well-known at the time. Too bad for me because you had me go as the 2:00am daddy and the other parents just thought I was a loony unshaven guy in his jammies.  A month later we met Mo Willems himself and it cracked him up.  He even mentioned it on his blog.  The pinata was a princess castle. You had book-covered cupcakes, kids jumping over candlesticks and throwing cows over the moon and we went on a Wild Rumpus.

But wait, there's more.  This year you wanted a superhero party!  We had kids dressed as Mr. Incredible and transformers and Superman and Batgirl and you, of course were rocking that Wonder Woman outfit with the special-ordered real Wonder Woman boots!  The pinata was a big red, white and blue star and the Wonder Woman cake was cool.  Luckily, the weather cleared just in time!  We performed "Feats of Strength" and instead of Pin-the-Tail on the donkey, we had Pin the "KaPow!" on Cat Woman!  This time I got even more suspicious looks from the other parents because I had to be the Super Villian.  I wore a black suit with an eyepatch and my sling.  I cradled a pet skunk (stuffed) and cackled while I dared you and your other hero friends to just try and find all the stolen gold (chocolate) coins I had hidden (among other things) somewhere in the back yard with poisonous (rubber) snakes guarding them!

What a hoot!  It was a crazy amount of work, but it sure was fun and you're totally worth it.

Happy 7th!

New Blogger Template Designs!

I got the heads up from C.B. (my favorite book blog, by the way) that Blogger has a new template design program and it's pretty awesome. Instead of just a handful of templates that can only be tweaked by color or font, you get handful of templates with much more flexibility in terms of format, columns, backgrounds, everything. And they have Pages now! Of course I'm sticking with my minimal layout, but I think it looks better with the new upgrade. If you're on Blogger, give it a whirl.

Blogger in Draft via kwout

Check out Blogger's own blog for more details.

The Blind Watchmaker

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins 1986, 1996.

Michael Ruse: "The closest analogy I can think of is Galileo's Dialogues which made reasonable the Copernican Revolution..."

John Maynard Smith: "Dawkins has done more than anyone else now writing to make evolutionary biology comprehensible and acceptable to a general audience."

The good professor is clearly in love with his subject and you will be as well after reading this. He tackles the stumbling blocks many people have when trying to grasp the concept of evolution through natural selection. The first being, of course, the general misunderstanding of "random" and the importance of understanding the vast amount of time we're talking about here. The other is our propensity to infer design in complex things or ascribe agency where it isn't warranted.

He's a wonderfully down-to-earth companion on the journey, full of good humor, patiently explaining difficult concepts simply. He's a master of just the right metaphor to get across complex ideas.

This book will open your eyes to the wondrous beauty of life around you.

And, if I may, a lengthy quote from the 1996 introduction:

When The Blind Watchmaker was first published in the United States, Norton sent me on a brief tour of the country, and I did a number of radio phone-ins. I had been warned to expect hostile questioning from the fundamentalist listeners and I confess I was looking forward to destroying their arguments. What actually happened was even better. The listeners who telephoned were genuinely interested in the subject of evolution. They were not hostile to it, they simply did not know anything about it. Instead of destroying arguments, I had the more constructive task of educating the innocent. It took only minutes to awaken them to the power of Darwinism as a convincing explanation of life. I got the impression that the only reason they had not seen its possibilities before was that the subject had been totally omitted from their education. Aside from some vague nonsense about 'monkeys', they simply did not know what Darwinism was.

We need to work on this gap in knowledge, and this is one great place to start.

Today in Teacherninja History

On this day in 1974, Mariner 10 became the first probe to fly by Mercury.

It was also the first day, in 2008, we held an Earth Hour.

It's the birthday of biologist and teacherninja Richard Lewontin, born in 1929, winner of the Nobel Prize who helped set the stage for what is now known as molecular evolution. With fellow techerninja Stephen J. Gould he wrote one of the most wonderful papers on evolutionary biology, "The Spandrels of San Marco." Teacheninja John Dennehy has a great post on this here.

It's also the birthday, in 1968, of Lucy Lawless. Teacherninja connection? Her mother was a teacher! And astronomer Mike Brown nicknamed his discovered dwarf planet "Xena" in honor of her famed character.

Oh, and it's also my own Pop's birthday! Hope he digs the Magic Mouse I got him.

Critical Thinking Sunday

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Don't Mess With Textbooks
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Sceptic challenges guru to kill him on live TV from TimesOnline

(tip to Norm)

Don't believe the star ratings at Amazon. Book bullying with Amazon Stars. Creationists use the same tactic on evolutionary biology books. Best strategy: ignore amazon reviewers and read the paid professionals.

And the best way to raise a critical thinker? Read together. A Father-Daughter Bond, Page by Page

Today in Teacherninja History

Today, 28 March, was the birthday in 1905 of Marlin Perkins, zoologist and teacherninja, best known by my brother and I as avid watchers of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. We loved that show!

It was the birthday in 1910, of Frederick Baldwin Adams, Jr., bibliophile, teacherninja and director of the Morgan Library in New York City. Apparently he had the largest personal collections of Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost and Karl Marx works. You gotta love a book nerd.

It's also the birthday of American philosopher and teacherninja Daniel Dennett who wrote the lovely essay, "Thank Goodness!" after a brush with death in 2006. Glad you're still with us Dan!

Today will also mark the 7th birthday party of my daughter, Harper Santana Randolph. So let the craziness ensue!

There's actually a connection here, now that I think about it. Like I said, my brother and I were avid watchers of Marlin Perkins and loved being outdoors as kids. Now Harper also loves these kind of shows and books and wants a "Lanie" American Girl doll for her birthday "because she's a nature girl too." Shhhh, don't tell but we got her one.

This Will Haunt Your Dreams

Alien vs. Pooh! (via Baby Got Books)

I shared this with a friend and she said: "Poor Pooh and friends! I will have nightmares....the worst is that because my oldest was OBSESSED with Pooh I probably logged a million hours of video time with Pooh adventures. So, as I read that charming little story I was reading it hearing their voices!"

Enjoy!

Ok, here's some nicer things:

This is the parking deck for the Kansas City Public Library. Niiiiice.

It's nice to know procrastination is not such a bad thing.

And if you've followed my blog for a while you know I think Daylight Savings Time is a crock. For the uninitiated, here's more evidence that not only does this whole "spring ahead" nonsense make me grumpy, it's costing us money!

Now that we've passed health care, can we look into axing DST?

Have a good weekend!

Library Under Water

You've heard about the freak storm battering Perth, Australia right? Well, it's freaky. And not only that, but the intrepid blogger/educator/reporter Kylie Sturgess is sharing video and pictures of the seriously water-damaged UWA library there. It's all on her PodBlack Cat blog.

I'm sure as soon as the worst is over they'll be needing donations. Just looking at those shelves in the upper left hand corner of the photo suffering from the deluge makes me cringe. According to Kylie, these are the books on education, art, and architecture.

What a loss.

Keep them in your thoughts and I'll keep you up to date when I hear more.

Celebrate World Water Day!

2:29 minute video about the importance of water (with a :30 commercial up front, sorry).

Celebrate World Water Day!

To find out more, go to National Geographic's Water site. Or WaterDay.org!

For tips on what you can do, take action at the Nature Conservancy's Freshwater Conservation site.

Save water (and money!) with these tips.

A great book to share with the kids is Walter Wick's A Drop of Water.

Water really does = Life!

Rumor Has It

David and Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com fame are profiled on NPR, so there's a perfect Critical Thinking bit of brain candy for you.

Can you believe these two people, by themselves, have been battling the forces of internet nonsense since 1995?

I've posted about them before, but there was a time when I relied heavily on their site to cut back on forwarded emails both at home and at school. Especially at school.

We almost never have the forwarded email problem at work anymore. I'd like to think that I helped by always going to Snopes, then replying all with the facts. It did work because after a while people started just sending the crap to me only and asking if it was true. Like I was the only one able to type in "Snopes.com" or something. Kind reminds me of "Let Me Google That For You."

So, yeah, I'd like to think everyone is now completely enlightened and checks it themselves, but I suspect this kind of hoo-ha is going through different channels I tend to ignore (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Much of the stuff they get is political in nature, usually bashing politicos from both sides of the aisle. But their forte is urban legends and internet rumors, mostly the kind that fill up your inbox. Another great online site for this kind of stuff is FactCheck.org, which is a non-partisan group dedicated to fact-checking political speech and journalism. For obvious reasons, they are very busy indeed.

Is National Standardization the Answer?

One Classroom, From Sea to Shining Sea Susan Jacoby

"The real question is whether anything, in the current polarized political climate, can be done about educational disparities that are inseparable from our fragmented system of public schooling. I can imagine at least three baby steps that would pave the way for success."

The Texas Textbook Hubbub Steven Novella

"The Texas BoE is a depressing spectacle – they represent the absolute worst example of abusing authority to promote a personal ideology, betraying the public trust to promote instead high educational standards. But perhaps the spectacle can be put to good use, focusing attention on the broader problem of the quality of education in the US and potential solutions. We need better and more uniform standards, and better textbooks."

The Manly SWEATY Doll Blogger Award!

Last month I was nominated for one of those silly internet meme awards. I am apparently a Fabulous Sugar Doll. The guys over at Boys Rule Boys Read! blog re-purposed it into the Manly SWEATY Doll Blogger Award! Now it has come back around to me in it's newer, smellier incarnation by Peaceful Reader. I'm touched. Really. (In a totally manly way).

I am to answer at least four of the following questions: Tell a couple of things about yourself, the name of your favorite guy book, your favorite sports moment, favorite MANLY MAN movie, favorite manly music, and your Favorite Food with No Nutritional Value.

It's on!

1. I once tied in a swimming race with a guy that went on to swim in the Olympics.

2. I've done something all manly men should do at a certain point in their lives: get a vasectomy!

3. Favorite Guy Book: Moby Dick! Not only is it incredibly manly, Melville puts all the many men in a boat and sends them off to sea for most of the book so he doesn't even have to bother writing about women at all!

4. Favorite Sports Moment: this one: manly! And from the most recent Super Bowl!

5. Favorite Manly Man movie: The Man Who Would Be King! Sean Connery! and Michael Caine! take over all of Afghanistan! (well, before their eventual--but still manly!--downfall)

6. Favorite Manly Music: is there anything manlier than the YMCA!?

7. Favorite Food with No Nutritional Value: Pop-Tarts! But in my manly haste, I often just eat them raw...

If you are reading this, have a blog, and have not already done so; then you, my friend, have just been tagged to participate in this sweaty manliness! Grr!

Paralympians Are Awesome & Other Links

My lack of use of my right paw is nothing compared to what some of these Paralympians have, and they're winning medals! What an inspiring collection of photos. Just awesome.

Other links:

Watch this video of the fashion-challenged but forward thinking Howard Rheingold (via Tim, about 24 minutes long). He wrote up these ideas last summer in an article called "Crap Detection 101," a good summary of why we need to be teaching critical thinking more than ever.

A good pairing with Michael Shermer's summary of Carl Sagan's idea of the Baloney-Detection Kit.

And the rudeness of people asking me about my cast has reminded me of the complete lack of manners people have when expressing their opinions about one's child raising decisions. Two posts from the always interesting Rational Moms this week were things we had to deal with (and still do, in one case) as new parents: having one child and bottle feeding. You may have strong opinions on these subjects yourself, but unless you're asked? You should keep them to yourself. You can never know all the factors and reasons behind decisions like these. Trust me, there's a whole bunch of stuff I have questions about and will be more than happy to ask for opinions on. But having more kids ain't one of 'em.

Broken Update

Now I can type. Mostly. I got that extremely long and tight splint and that annoying sling off today and am now sporting a short black fiberglass cast with much more finger movement possible. My thumb is out as well, but every time I forget and try to use it I end up in nauseating agony, so even when I'm healed I'll probably be walking around like I'm hitchhiking, afraid to use that opposable digit.

Thanks for all the well-wishes!

Most of you got the joke about me asking my wife to type up my graduate work, but just to clarify, I never asked and she, of course, offered. The "I highly object" quote was from a friend who regularly has us snorting liquids through our nostrils with her funny and snarky emails.

I won't even mention the suggestions my brother gave me regarding the use of my right hand. I'm sure you can imagine and maybe you're better off if you can't.

Might have to teach some stuff about bones next week with my students. Let's see...

I've got the Seymour Simon and, of course this Aliki (love her), and our school library has Monster Bones, but I'll definitely be looking for more.

My friend Michael sent me a link to this one-handed keyboard but I already linked to a much simpler one created for pirates. I know I'm a ninja and all, but they might take my ninja card for this un-ninja like broken arm thing...

(image cc buildscharacter)

right distal radius fracture

broke my right wrist, so probably less blogging and definitely no friggin shift key since i'm not loving this left-handed thing. good thing there's a caps lock when i want to really whine...

I STILL HAVE GRAD WORK TO DO! A RESEARCH PAPER, AN INTERNSHIP TO WRITE UP, A GROUP PROJECT TO FINISH! NOT TO MENTION TEACHING!

yea, caps lock. that felt nice. i only went to school this morning to tie up some loose ends. when any kids asked what happened i told them i lost an arm-wrestling match to their teacher so they better shape up. don't think they believed me, but it was fun.

my lovely bride is offering to type up all my work, but a hilarious friend of hers had this to say: "I strongly object to you typing Jim’s grad work. It’s too 1950s/60s dutiful wife helping husband through grad/law school. Think Bob Dole’s 1^st wife. Just say noooooooo! For the sake of your status as a modern woman, Jim must learn to type with his toes."

so now i have that to look forward to...

signed,

lefty

Little Brother

I feel so hip. I finished Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing fame. I can tell you one thing: I would have ate this up in high school. I had hacker friends back then but the internet wasn't nearly as wild as it is now. Actually it was more wild, but there wasn't as much going on. I'm talking late 80s here. We had bulletin boards, but everyone I found in those rabbit holes was either young or crazy and they were all hackers of one stripe or another. Good times.

Of course we didn't have the Patriot Act or the DHS to worry about either.

This roller coaster is part Neal Stephenson and part Ferris Bueller, with a big nod to 1984. My favorite bit was in the afterward when he points to Daniel Pinkwater as an early influence. Sweet! (Particularly Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy form Mars found in 5 Novels).

Yes, it's a bit over the top, but then so was 1984. That's kind of the point of dystopian fiction. It's not especially elegant or deep, but a fun read which touches on some great hot-button issues and well worth sharing with the YA crowd. This would be great paired up with Orwell because it's so much more immediate. I can just imagine the discussions. It'll definitely get kids fired up about the constitution and freedom vs. safety issues.

I read it for free on DailyLit.com I wonder how many other authors are going to use a Creative Commons license for their novels? It's certainly a different way of doing things. I don't know if it's sustainable, but I sure enjoyed it. Mostly they have old public-domain classics on the site. Think I'll try a P. G. Wodehouse next...

Critical Thinking Sunday: Consumer Protection!

Jeff Wagg, Communications Manager for the JREF, is an incredibly engaging guy and did a fun presentation at last year's science and skeptical track of Dragon*Con. He asked the audience what they thought the number one skeptical publication was.

Consumer Reports, baby! When people question the idea of skepticism and critical thinking, you can usually win them over by talking about consumer protection. Nobody likes to be scammed. How better to know what you're getting than to rely on the unbiased reviews of products scientifically tested by the Consumers Union? These guys are the best. I'm not saying that all of their reviews are perfect. Sometimes it's hard to know what and how to test certain things. I don't usually buy what they have to say about digital cameras for instance. But for overall filtering of the wheat from the chaff, Consumer Reports is a great place to start.

While not as comprehensive in scope, I do like ConsumerSearch as well. They're similar to the review aggregator I mentioned last week, metacritic. They scour reviews from all over (including Consumer Reports) and come up with the highest rated products in various categories. Always a good first place to look before buying.

For the geeky tech stuff, I personally tend to lean toward Cnet. But their reviews are also included in ConsumerSearch and unless you like going down the technical spec rabbit hole (and can steel yourself against their "must-have" attitude), then you're probably better off sticking with ConsumerSearch and Consumer Reports.

Don't buy blind. Spend a few minutes benefiting from the advice of the experts.

Texas: Just Secede Already

The Enlightenment Goes Dark Carl Zimmer

The War On Facts onegoodmove

Dear Other 49 States,

There's an easy fix to this problem. Don't buy textbooks. I mean I could hardly teach from a history textbook with a straight face after reading Lies My Teacher Told Me anyway. And think of the savings! We could use the books in the library instead and have a much more interesting discussion. Remember, our job is to teach student how to think, not what to believe. That's the main thing those yahoos on the Texas BOE have forgotten.

Image created by Dr. Phil Plait, back when this same group of yahoos were trying to mess with evolution.

*update: Dr. Plait has his own reaction to the Texas BOE, with updated graphic!

International Relations

I'm supposed to take a small group of my English Language Learning 5th graders into one of the computer labs every morning for a half hour so they can work on a test prep program. I know, I know, but that's not the point of this story.

As they were signing in to the program today, one of them asked, "Why do we have to do this every day?"

I answered that their teachers had requested it, but before I was finished one boy said, "Because we're all Mexicans!"

I didn't know what to say to that. Before I could come up with an appropriate response one girl turned to him and said, "But I'm from Peru!"

The Illustrated

This week's Booking Through Thursday question: "How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?"

I'm not sure I get the question. How could you not love any of those things? Clearly we love them or there wouldn't be so many wonderful examples. Oh sure, some are better than others but we're talking about a whole lot of books here. Walk into any big box bookstore. How many of the books don't have any kind of illustration in them? Most novels (but even many of those have maps, genealogy tables, etc.), and some of the basic nonfiction. That's about it. The great majority of books have drawings, icons, illustrations, photographs, tables, charts, and more.

This is one of the reasons I don't have an e-reader. Can you imagine the work of Allen Say in an e-book? Or pretty much anything from National Geographic? Or the intense magic of Shaun Tan? I can't.

Granted, those are highly illustrated examples. But it's hard not to love books illustrated by the likes of Maira Kalman, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, Gustave Dore, Arthur Rackham, and Edward Gorey. I mean I could write a whole book on just the work of Barry Moser.

So yes, I love the illustrations and photographs, wood-carvings, watercolors, technical schematics, full-color charts, tables, graphs, comics, maps and doodles in my books.

How can I not?

What are some of your favorites?

Critical Thinking Sunday: Movies!

Wanna go to a movie or at least bulk up your Netflix list but don't want to waste time or money? You need to check out one or both of these sites if you haven't already.

Now you may not realize it from reading my blog, but I am a serious movie buff. I was this close to becoming a professional film critic, but there was a problem. I hate having to sit through crappy movies. Film festivals are just confusing masses of mostly junky movies to me. I'd rather wait a week or so and see which movies rise to the top.

Not only do I like movies, but I like reading film criticism. Yes, I like it. But I know not everyone is like me so let me save you some time. First of all: ignore all hype. Movie trailers (preview clips) are pure evil. They make every film look funny or interesting. That means nothing. Just because a boatload of money is spent promoting a film doesn't mean it's any good.

Also, ignore your friends. I know they mean well, but they (and all those Netflix reviewers) don't know diddly about movies. They think they do. Heck, everyone thinks they do (much to the chagrin of professional film critics). But they don't. If they did, then Cop Out wouldn't be making any money. And just because you like that actor or director's last film doesn't mean anything this time around.

I know what you're thinking: but if I listen to the critics I'll be watching boring documentaries and sub-titled foreign films where nothing happens.

No. I'm not saying ignore your own personal taste, just run it through one of these great critical aggregators first. How many of us thought The Lightening Thief looked like it would be relatively awesome? Good cast, action packed, great story. What's to mess up? Well, it's got a 50% (rotten) at Rotten Tomatoes and and even lowlier 47% at Metacritic.

Metacritic is usually a bit better, but either (or both) is fine. RT seems to have inflated scores when movies open. For example, a silly horror/sci-fi movie called The Crazies just opened. It's got a 71% on RT! (Blind Side only has a 70%). At Metacritic it has a more sober 55% rating (of course Blind Side only has a 53% over there). RT does have a nice "certified fresh" section though, which is a good overview of the best stuff out there at the moment.

It's important to remember, though, that you have to combine what they say with your personal taste. 47-50% on a big budget screen version of a popular children's fantasy is abysmal. 50% or so on a kung fu action flick isn't that bad if you're into kung fu action flicks. A black and white subtitled documentary on the ethical implications of modern architecture may get 100% but I'm not going to rush out to see it. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus only has a 65/66% score, but I'm a big Terry Gilliam fan and will add it to my rental queue. Avatar has a whopping 82/84% rating and I have no interest whatsoever (maybe because I've already been forced to sit through Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas so I feel like I've pretty much covered that ground.)

If these sites help you with your future picks, you might want to take the time to at least scan the names of the critics that seem to agree with your taste. Not all the same ones will every time but you will start seeing some patterns which will help you make better choices down the road. That way, when a new movie comes out you can make more informed decisions which will lead to happier movie-watching all around.

More On Grammar (who knew this would be a hot topic?)

To clarify: I think grammar is wonderful. The proper use of the English language is one of the best things I know. I just think we go about teaching it wrong.

Remember, I referenced Stephen Krashen? The man has two Ph.Ds. One of them is in grammar for crying out loud. When a guy who has a Ph.D. in grammar says you're teaching it wrong, you listen.

I don't pretend to have all the answers. I definitely don't pretend to know enough about grammar!

And, for those who enjoy a good sentence diagramming, I give you this. It's a grammarian trying to diagram some words from the former Governor of Alaska. Good luck with that!

(click image to enlarge)

(image from here)

Don't Get Me Started On Grammar...

Too late. The Booking Through Thursday question this week is on that very topic.

I think grammar is important but I think we teach it in exactly the wrong way. I agree with Dr. Stephen Krashen that we shouldn't directly teach grammar at all until high school and then only in an open-book manner.

Right now we're in crunch time at our district, prepping for the infernal high-stakes test next month. The children were just given a benchmark test and our job is to focus on their lowest performing items and focus on those skills for the next month to try to help them do better on the big test.

Many of those items in elementary school are grammar-related. I'm sorry, but I don't think it's developmentally appropriate. Unless a child is walking around speaking in gibberish because they're switching nouns and verbs or something, then there is no point. So what if they can name an adjective or an adverb? Most people don't know or care what torque in their car engine is, but they can still drive. Certainly the students should be learning to express themselves in writing and some basic rules of grammar and punctuation are necessary, but testing them on names of things like adverbs, adjectives, homophones, etc. is just silly.

I won't even go into the dreadful practice of diagramming sentences they get into in middle school, except to say this: the only thing you learn from diagramming sentences is how to diagram sentences.

If you want to learn better grammar and writing style? Read as much well-written writing as you can and endeavor to write as clearly as possible.