Overnight Zoo Field Trip

So yeah, I spent the night at the Altanta Zoo Tuesday night as a chaperone for my daughter's 2nd grade class field trip.  But it's a big school.  There are nine 2nd grade classes.  Three of them went Tuesday night and the rest were doing it Wednesday.

It was wonderful and crazy.  So you get there, dump you stuff in this big room, then head into an auditorium where they lay out the rules for the kiddos.  The kid I'm sitting next to?  Lost his tooth right there.

Then we split up and our class went into tis room where our guide brought us different creatures to talk about and touch including a six foot python that used it's tail to try and pickpocket her radio.

After some other activities we hiked out at night and saw the Komono dragon, then up to the Reptile house.  Each of the kids were given little squeeze lights of different colors, the lights were left off and they were let loose inside.  It was wonderfully controlled mayhem with these kids seeing all these freaky snakes and snapping turtles being much more active (and creepier) by the glow of little quivering lights.

Then the highlight of the evening, off to the kitchen where the "food" is prepared for the animals.  I'm not going to go into detail on this.  It was awesome.  You should go.

Then we crashed in that huge room with sleeping bags.  I had a little camping pad under mine and smirked at the adults who had gone all out and brought air mattresses. How bourgeois, I thought to myself.  Next morning?  Wished I had one of those dang things!  But it wasn't like I was getting much sleep with the adults snoring and the little kid away-from home nightmares.

How good is my daughter's 2nd grade teacher?  My little friend was freaked to find the tooth fairy had left him a dollar.  At the zoo!  Wow.

Wednesday was the best.  That's the reason to do this trip. You get to run around the zoo with a knowledgeable guide and no massive hoards.  They answer all your questions and, even better, the animals are being fed and very awake and active (except for that lion who was up roaring at night, he was crashed out).

Some hilarious bits:  That lion was spreadeagled with his, um, boy parts getting happily aired out.  One of the kids said, "That's a boy lion!"  The guide smirked, "Clearly."  The kid: "Ya know how I can tell?  Because of his mane!"  Oh. Yeah. That too.

The rhino backed up to a large flat rock and let go an impressive jet of urine.  Guide: "That's how they mark their territory.  That's his rock."  Me: "He can have it!"

A gorilla decided to vigorously scratch his ass. Kids: "Ewww!  Why is he doing that?"  Guide: "It itches."

Guide at the Kangaroo pen: "These are all females with our one intact male." Me: "Intact?"  Guide: "I'm just going to leave it at that."

Fun times!

It's a great program, our guide couldn't have been better and the kids reportedly remember it forever.  Totally worth it.

Atlanta Zoo NightCrawler Program

(Oh, and that picture is one of my many from the trip. It's of the Red Panda which isn't really red or a panda.)

Sneak Peek at the New "Elizabeth Bird Reading App!"

See that icon on the right end there?  That's the icon for the new "Elizabeth Bird Fuse #8 Reading App!"  Yes, of course I stuck it right next to my Angry Birds app just to be silly. (Get it?  Angry Birds?  Elizabeth Bird?  Oh, never mind...)

Here's my daughter interacting with one of the graphically-enhanced read-alouds:

She enjoyed the graphics, the sound, the cartoon characters, everything.  It is definitely pitched a little younger than her age group (she'll be in third grade next year and this seemed to be just about right for preK through 2nd) but it was still fun for her.  We'll definitely recommend it to her younger cousin's family.

Be sure to check out the "Parents and OTher Grown Ups" tab.  There are many booklist, read aloud suggestions and even a KidLit Drink Mix Guide!  Ms. Bird and company have thought of simply everything!

Elizabeth Bird Fuse #8 Reading App

Graduation: Words of Wisdom (like being a geek AND a nerd)

Yesterday was graduation but I couldn't afford the cost or the time for the drive.  It's ok, I walked for my high school diploma and my bachlor's degree in English and American Literature from New College of Florida and my Master's degree in Early Childhood Education from Georgia State University.  I think the University of Georgia will forgive me for missing out on my Specialist in Education in, well, I'm not sure what the degree is in.  They changed the name.  We call it School Library Media but the piece of paper will either say Educational Psychology & Instructional Technology or it might say Learning, Design & Technology.

I don't really care.  I have a job as a librarian where I can commence to follow Dr. Kakalios' advice to become both a geek and a nerd!  Below are links to his convocation and some of the best graduation commencement speeches I've seen.  I know I've probably liked to them all individually as I've come across them, but it's nice to have them all in one place.  Dr. K's is short--less than 8 minutes.  The rest are longer: 15-20 or so.

So bookmark this page and check them out when you get time or need the inspiration.

Thanks!

James Kakalios, "You must be simultaneously a geek and a nerd," U. of Minn. Convocation, 2009

Robert Krulwich, "Tell Me A Story," California Institute of Technology, 2008

J. K. Rowling, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination," Harvard, 2008

Margaret Edson at Smith College, 2008

Steve Jobs at Stanford, 2005

(image cc flickr)

The Thrill of Science

In my last post I gave a brief review of Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish and it got me thinking about a few more things I wanted to mention. Even if you don't read the whole book, pick it up at a bookstore and thumb to the epilogue. It a great little essay on his love of science. He mentions a visit he and his son went on to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. They made their way to the Henry Crown Space Center and he realized he was looking at the actual Apollo 8 Command Module (see it in the link). It knocked him out. He remembered watching this same mission on TV as a kid and it was a big moment for him. It was "a symbol for the power of science to explain and make our universe knowable."

Did you see the 1995 movie Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks? Of course you did because it was awesome. One of my favorite bits is when we see a bunch of engineers put into a room and a box of stuff is dumped on a table in front of them. Socks, duct tape, instruction books, etc. This is everything that the astronauts have and these guys need to use it to design a new air filter so the men can make it back to Earth alive in their damaged ship. And they do it!

Later, Tom Hanks went on to produce the mini-series From the Earth to the Moon. It's pretty great, but two episodes in particular capture that same sense of science and engineering as cool and dramatic. In "Spider" we follow the New Jersey engineers contracted to design and build the lunar lander. It may sound dry, but it could make you cry it's so beautiful. Remember, no one had any idea how to do this or what they would end up with. They were basically like those guys with the socks and duct tape and just really good brains.

Then there's the episode entitled "Galileo Was Right" in which the mission of Apollo 15 was dramatized. You remember the 1971 Apollo 15 mission, right? Of course you don't. Even at the time people were a bit jaded about the whole men-to-the moon thing. Sure, we'd been to the moon and it was a fantastic bit of engineering and all but what about the science? Geologist Jack Schmitt made it onto the mission and convinced his former professor, Lee Silver, to teach his fellow astronauts geology. Again, what could be more boring than guys learning about rocks for crying out loud? I tell you, it's an amazing episode that shows off all the best things about teaching and learning and science all in one.

Just as the moon missions changed how we look up, Neil Shubin and the fields of biology and palentology change how we look at life in general. It really is quite a thrill, if you ask me.

"I can imagine few things more beautiful or intellectually profound than finding the basis for our humanity, and the remedies for many of the ills we suffer, nestled inside some of the most humble creatures that have ever lived on our planet."

--Neil Shubin

(I refreshed my memory with EpisodeGuides.com)

Learning for ALL Students

In response to this article in USA Today, "NSSE changes how colleges judge success, weakness," Priscilla Gutierrez has this to say:

"How ironic that the five keys to learning identified as critical to college-level learning (i.e. academic challenge, active/collaborative learning, student/faculty interaction, enriching experiences, and a supportive environment) are the very same keys to learning for ALL students.

The irony is that Arne Duncan and the Department of Ed don't seem interested in how students actually learn. Rather they are only interested in the pseudo-accountability of what looks good on paper."

BAM! POW!

(via S. D. Krashen's mailing list)

Become Change

"What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable."

-Roger Ebert

See, first Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza wrote this amazing article: Things that Keep Us Up at Night.

Then there was some grumbling about those "absent from the debate."

It's an interesting point, but the comments on that thread are what this is all about. Those absent from the debate are clearly choosing to be.

Buffy Hamilton says she is Refuting Inertness. Yes! I especially like her quote from this post by Oliver Blanchard. He's talking about the types of people that can manage things with all the contingent problems:

"It takes a special kind of person to be able to a) do that kind of work well, and b) love every minute of it.

It isn’t for everybody.

Excuses and blame don’t exist in this little world. There’s only what you did and what you didn’t do.

Sometimes, even the best laid plans just go awry.

For most people, that’s not a good thing…

…and for some of us, that’s when the real fun begins."

Yes!

I also liked what Carolyn Foote had to say when it seemed like the debate was between those embracing technology and those not: "I don't think it's an either or" and she's right. It's not an either/or about just the technology tools.

It's about change. That's the real either/or. Either you embrace change or you don't. "Change" should define the library. Change and curiosity.

(image cc flickr)

How to Teach a Sense of Wonder

From a wonderful Independent interview with professor Richard Dawkins:

He has a clear sense of his debt to a series of inspiring mentors. An old headmaster at his school, called Sanderson, had been enormously enthusiastic about natural history. "And his spirit lived on there. My old biology teacher Ioan Thomas had come to the school specifically because of it. There was one time he came into class and asked: 'What animal feeds on hydra?' We didn't know. He went right around the whole class asking. Everybody was guessing, and then, finally, we said, 'Sir, Sir, what animal does?' And he waited and waited, and then he said, 'I don't know. And I don't think Mr Coulson does either.' He burst into the next room, got Mr Coulson and dragged him out by the arm, and he didn't know either! It was a wonderful lesson, I never forgot it and neither did anyone else: it's OK to not know the answer."

(image cc flickr)

Listening to Speeches

Pam is right, this is getting crazier by the minute. Why are people freaking out about a president giving a speech? I don't care if the president is liberal or conservative or whatever, he is the president and if he's giving a speech to school children I'd probably let them watch it. It could come from President Obama or President Bush, it doesn't matter. At least Ms. Yingling's concerns were more about delivery than content.

This isn't about politics--it's about being rational, thoughtful citizens. We need to be able to listen to differing views and make up our own minds. I personally thought that George W. Bush's first term was illegitimate and that the high court had no business intervening on the election. But if he had stated that he was giving a speech and he wanted the school children to hear it, if I was able to I would have made it available. He's the president for crying out loud. He's not going to tell them to all run around in the streets with water balloons or something. Jeez.

I mean "indoctrinate"? Really? Into what? Being a citizen in a democracy? It's ok, you don't have to agree with everything they say. You don't even have to watch it. But this scaremongering over different points of view are ridiculous. Especially when you haven't even heard them yet.

Let the man give his speech...then if it's loopy you can criticize.

Since we're on the topic of speeches and ideological differences, I want to share another speech. On October 3, 1983 the recently departed senator, Edward Kennedy gave this amazing speech to Jerry Falwell's then-named Liberty Baptist College, now know as Liberty University. Yes, you read that right. The most liberal senator in congress spoke at Jerry Falwell's college during the height of the whole "moral majority" business. He was, like always, warm and funny and unafraid to say what he thought. No matter your personal political views, it's a beautiful thing to watch.

Oh to live in a time and a place in which healthy and reasoned debate are not only accepted, but embraced. If we can't even listen to each other, how can we learn anything?

Retro Talk or Dumbing Down?

There is a post over at the As Time Goes By blog with a meditation on the changes that can happen in our language when we try to purposely dumb it down for the general reader. He mentions about how these kind of references, allusions and big words, used in the right context, can actually increase our knowledge:

"Throughout my lifetime, a good deal of my continuing education has resulted from my elders' use of references I didn't understand and sometimes didn't ask about, not wanting to reveal my ignorance at the moment. But I tracked them down later and learned. I'm pretty sure I wasn't taught about Diogenes in school, but discovered him through such an incident."

I've always picked things like that up through references in song lyrics, essays, and idle overheard talk. Pop culture is richer because of it's constant references to classical culture. Whether it's Deep Purple referencing a Beethoven sonata, Alexander the Great referred to in Die Hard, or even just "that book by Nabokov" slyly alluded to in that Police song it would make our already often tone-deaf culture even more bereft if we consciously removed this kind of thing from our language. I hope it proves to be a Sisyphean effort.

And anyway, who then would cry the tears of Eos?

(Go ahead. Look it up.)

Splendid Elles

Splendid Elles is splendid for many reasons not the least of which is her love of learning and teaching. She's certainly my newest hero. I found this though the Skepchick blog and I wanted to share as well because it sums up so much for me. She volunteers at a Denver Museum of Nature and Science and, well, just check this out:

It really is quite a wonderful feeling sharing knowledge with other people. Occasionally, I’ll take out the spectroscopy cart. Some people may remember their Chemistry classes when the teacher sent electrical charges through little gas tubes and then gave you a spectroscope or little glasses. In case anybody needs a refresher, what happens is that when you have a lot of energy the electrons in the atoms will jump to a higher level of orbit, and when they come back down they release photons of light at different wavelengths depending on how far the electron fell. The spectroscope or little glasses
function as a prism and break down the light released into the wavelengths which
it is being released at. If you have, say, Helium, you’ll see two red bars, a yellow bar, a turquiose bar, a blue bar, and an indigo bar. Every element has a different pattern of bars.
I like to start by asking them if they’ve ever wondered how we know what the stars are made of. Of course they wonder how we know. You can’t exactly go to one… they’re millions of light years away! But, if you look at the light they’re emitting through a spectroscope, you can look at the pattern of bars and tell what is inside. I’ll explain this to them, and turn on a hydrogen or helium gas tube and hold up a short chart of elements and their patterns to let them try to guess. With younger children, it’s pretty much just pretty lights and that’s fine, but older children, even adults, will often have
sudden moments of understanding.

“That’s so cool…” they say, and they don’t just say it the way you say “that’s so cool” when your friend gets a new cell phone. When they say “that’s so cool” it’s almost as if there’s an entirely different definition because their voices are so saturated with awe and wonder. I suspect that they’re not just saying it because of the pretty lights, but as a
way of remarking about how amazed they are that they can understand it. I think that they’re remarking about how simple spectroscopy really is, and how cool
science is when you understand it with little effort.
I absolutely love hearing them say it and seeing their eyes light up. It feels like I should be thanking them as they walk away to their planetarium show.

Of course that's a preface to her dismay at a creationist group coming in there and spreading ignorant information on their own little tour groups. Sigh.

The thing that really kills me about this is that after I read it and poked around her site a bit more I was floored by the information that she's only fifteen.

There's is hope for the future!

Everything Is a Process

Get your tissues out for this one. It's an amazing lesson we all need to be reminded of once in a while. I needed to be reminded of this because I'm in the middle of testing right now and it's like anti-teaching.

Here's the beautiful link to author Liz Scanlon's blog. [thanks to mary lee]

Learn

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn--pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics--why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough." --The Once and Future King, T.H. White