This was a big week for bicycle stories, and by that I mean there were at least two stories related to bicycles and students. One weird and the other gratifying.
Let's start with the weird one: 60 students, accompanied by police and offered donuts by the mayor, rode three whole miles to school. I know. It's shocking! What is this world coming to when high school students ride their bikes to school? They rode together, they sang the school song, they were accompanied by the police with whom they had coordinate the ride and they were, apparently, celebrated and encouraged by no less than the mayor. But the school principal, ever wary of seniors gone wild, called it a prank and suspended them. Right on! Wait, what???
The principal apparently confused senior celebration with a senior prank and apologized claiming that her overreaction was because she was got so worried about them she was beyond frantic to angry by the time they got to school. . . with a police escort?
On the other hand, the students did not forewarn the principal that a considerable number of students might be late for school on that last day or that they had coordinated their freedom ride with the police department. . . and the mayor. Okay, point taken. But how does a principal miss a police escort for 60 students on bikes? And at what point did bicycle riding become a prank that warranted suspension? Sure, if 60 students had ridden their bikes through the school and classrooms, possibly endangering other students, that might be a different story and might even warrant sending kids home. But this particular act doesn't even move the needle on the prank-o-meter. At all. Yep, principal fail on this one.
Now let's cross the Atlantic Ocean and talk about government intervention (not to be confused with interference, mind you) that made a positive difference. Young women in India's Bihar, one of the poorest states, were given bicycles so they could get to school because their families could not afford public transportation and it was too far to walk. Yep, gave them bicycles. So they could ride to school. Imagine that: hundreds if not thousands of girls biking miles to school and made possible by the government. Keep reading that story because what's even more amazing is that the girls are also given their school uniforms. Even better, the government is looking to expand the program in other parts of India and make it available to boys. Though abuse of the program is only about 1%, the government is looking to add a requirement: attend school at least 75% of the school year or lose privileges. After all, the point of having the bicycle is to get a student to school. Pretty amazing program.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
On being an introvert
Susan Cain. Introvert. Former Wall Street lawyer. Ms. Cain has made a small splash in the media world because of her book and her TED talk on introverts in which she dares to suggest that introversion has some power and meaning. And if you don't want to watch Susan Cain speak on "The Power of Introverts," there is a nice summary here.
As an aside, she reminds me of Rita Rudner. That's meant to be a compliment; I hope it is.
I remember taking the Myers-Briggs years and years ago and being an ENTJ. later, when I was much older and slightly wiser, I took the test again and was an INTJ. Why? More comfortable in my own skin. Less inclined to do what others wanted me to do or expected me to do. More inclined to do what I preferred to do.
Ms. Cain's calls to action should reverberate in classrooms and boardrooms or just plain old meeting rooms. The first is "Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it.." The woman is a genius. For that statement alone I will buy her book. She goes on to say that the office as a comfortable place for the "serendipitous exchange of ideas" is good for both introverts and extroverts, but she also notes that introverts need more privacy, more autonomy, and more freedom at school and at work. I'll come back to this in a minute because she affirmed that kids do need to learn to work well with others; there is no doubt about that.
In fact she said that kids need to learn to work on their own "because that is where deep thought comes from." What immediately flashed through my mind was "complex thinking" and "Common Core." The Common Core State Standards seek to offer a framework for complex thinking--strong critical thinking and problem solving skills. As Heidi Hayes Jacobs said during as ASCD session just recently, the word missing from the Common Core State Standards is "independently" because we do need our kids to be able to work as part of a team, but they also need to be able to work independently.
That whole "autonomy" and "freedom" thing threw me for a minute until she shared her second call to action: "Go to the wilderness. . . . have your own revelations." Earlier she said that all of the spiritual greats went into the wilderness to think, to contemplate, to pray. Introverts need the freedom to be able to go off alone for a little while. Ms. Cain observes that we need to "unplug and get inside our own heads a little more often." I wonder if some don't like to do that because inside our heads can be a scary place sometimes, though, perhaps, sometimes, because it's been neglected, it can be a very empty and lonely place. So much of who we are and can be derives from taking the time to think and reflect. I wonder how much of selves we are ignoring, even starving, by not going into our wilderness, even if only figuratively.
Finally, she says, "Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase and why you put it there." When she was little, Ms. Cain went to summer camp and her mother packed a suitcase of books. Alas, it was not that kind of camp. But what was in her suitcase were the things that helped her express herself, that helped her further discover herself. We all have some sort of suitcase; some of us carry books and some of us carry books and/or other stuff. We all need to be willing to acknowledge what empowers, drives, shapes, and defines us. We need to be more willing to share our suitcases with others and we need to be careful to honor other peoples' suitcases. In this case, "baggage" isn't a pejorative word. In fact, she reminds us that the world needs both introverts and extroverts and the things we each carry.
I take several things from this, but mostly I'm thinking about teachers who are introverts and who feel compelled to teach in ways that are not natural nor comfortable for them. And then I'm thinking about students who are introverts and who are forced to learn in ways that are not comfortable for them, and then who may be chastised or punished or misjudged because they are introverts.
I found Susan Cain's manifesto, the 16 things she believes. This is worth reading and thinking about it. Why? Because of a statistic she casually offered up: 1 in 2 or 3 people is an introvert. Let's just assume it's 1 in 3. A third of the entire population: introverts. And if the number is closer to 1:2? HALF of the entire population: introverts. And if studies show that introverts are better thinkers, smarter people, and have better ideas, well then, it's about time all of those extroverts shut up and listen.
As an aside, she reminds me of Rita Rudner. That's meant to be a compliment; I hope it is.
I remember taking the Myers-Briggs years and years ago and being an ENTJ. later, when I was much older and slightly wiser, I took the test again and was an INTJ. Why? More comfortable in my own skin. Less inclined to do what others wanted me to do or expected me to do. More inclined to do what I preferred to do.
Ms. Cain's calls to action should reverberate in classrooms and boardrooms or just plain old meeting rooms. The first is "Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it.." The woman is a genius. For that statement alone I will buy her book. She goes on to say that the office as a comfortable place for the "serendipitous exchange of ideas" is good for both introverts and extroverts, but she also notes that introverts need more privacy, more autonomy, and more freedom at school and at work. I'll come back to this in a minute because she affirmed that kids do need to learn to work well with others; there is no doubt about that.
In fact she said that kids need to learn to work on their own "because that is where deep thought comes from." What immediately flashed through my mind was "complex thinking" and "Common Core." The Common Core State Standards seek to offer a framework for complex thinking--strong critical thinking and problem solving skills. As Heidi Hayes Jacobs said during as ASCD session just recently, the word missing from the Common Core State Standards is "independently" because we do need our kids to be able to work as part of a team, but they also need to be able to work independently.
That whole "autonomy" and "freedom" thing threw me for a minute until she shared her second call to action: "Go to the wilderness. . . . have your own revelations." Earlier she said that all of the spiritual greats went into the wilderness to think, to contemplate, to pray. Introverts need the freedom to be able to go off alone for a little while. Ms. Cain observes that we need to "unplug and get inside our own heads a little more often." I wonder if some don't like to do that because inside our heads can be a scary place sometimes, though, perhaps, sometimes, because it's been neglected, it can be a very empty and lonely place. So much of who we are and can be derives from taking the time to think and reflect. I wonder how much of selves we are ignoring, even starving, by not going into our wilderness, even if only figuratively.
Finally, she says, "Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase and why you put it there." When she was little, Ms. Cain went to summer camp and her mother packed a suitcase of books. Alas, it was not that kind of camp. But what was in her suitcase were the things that helped her express herself, that helped her further discover herself. We all have some sort of suitcase; some of us carry books and some of us carry books and/or other stuff. We all need to be willing to acknowledge what empowers, drives, shapes, and defines us. We need to be more willing to share our suitcases with others and we need to be careful to honor other peoples' suitcases. In this case, "baggage" isn't a pejorative word. In fact, she reminds us that the world needs both introverts and extroverts and the things we each carry.
I take several things from this, but mostly I'm thinking about teachers who are introverts and who feel compelled to teach in ways that are not natural nor comfortable for them. And then I'm thinking about students who are introverts and who are forced to learn in ways that are not comfortable for them, and then who may be chastised or punished or misjudged because they are introverts.
I found Susan Cain's manifesto, the 16 things she believes. This is worth reading and thinking about it. Why? Because of a statistic she casually offered up: 1 in 2 or 3 people is an introvert. Let's just assume it's 1 in 3. A third of the entire population: introverts. And if the number is closer to 1:2? HALF of the entire population: introverts. And if studies show that introverts are better thinkers, smarter people, and have better ideas, well then, it's about time all of those extroverts shut up and listen.
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