findingEducation’s Digital Teachers’ LoungeTips and insights from the findingEducation team.

Last week, findingEducation interviewed our second anonymous teacher blogger, Mr. B, also known as Bronxteach. Mr. B writes the blog, “Is Our Children Learning?” He also teaches third grade at an unnamed school in the Bronx. Prior to that, Mr. B taught fourth grade for two years at another public school in New York.

When asked why he’s such a tough critic of his own teaching abilities, Mr. B told findingEducation, “I’m doing this because I want the kids to be able to go to college … I just feel like the stakes are really high. I honestly think it’s life or death. That’s how important a good education is for these kids.”

fE: What made you decide to become a teacher?

Mr. B: Towards the end of my senior year of college, my roommate at the time had already been admitted to NYC Teaching Fellows. So he told me about it and I applied. It made sense to me because I’d already done a lot of work volunteering, doing after school tutoring, mentoring and things like that. I thought I would go in and make a difference, so to speak, and then move on to whatever else I found.

fE: Your first year of teaching was a difficult year. Do you think that if you went back and taught the same students that you taught then, you would have a better handle on them now?

Mr. B: Oh definitely! Throughout the year other people would say to me, “Oh, you have just such a tough, such a horrible group.” But I held myself responsible. You set the tone for the environment and the student will get away with as much as you let them get away with. I think it would be a much safer, calmer environment now, but I can think of at least three students who definitely would have been a challenge in any classroom.

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Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Saurabh Das/AP
In this Jan. 19, 2010, photo, a teacher helps children as they learn to use computers at a private school in New Delhi, India. Private education in New Delhi was once a luxury reserved for the upper class. But with government-run schools largely a shambles and the rapidly growing Indian middle class suddenly flush with cash, the demand for private schools has exploded.

The 2008 movie “Slumdog Millionaire” brought attention to the plight of children living in the slums of Mumbai like no other film has. In an economically struggling country with a caste system that makes education difficult to obtain for the poor and lower classes, what is the state of primary and secondary education in India today?

According to a 2005 paper prepared for the National Center on Education and the Economy, India has the second largest education system in the world, after China. In 2004, estimates put 32 percent of India’s population of more than one billion under the age of 15, creating a huge burden on institutions to meet the demand for education.

Even though primary and middle school education is mandatory in India, only 50 percent of children between six and fourteen attend school, the book, “India: A Country Study,” reports. According to figures quoted in the National Center on Education and the Economy paper, males in India finish an average of just 2.9 years of schooling and females only 1.8 years.

Several factors make obtaining a public education in India a challenge. Indian law prohibits children from working in factories, but it does allow children to work in restaurants, households, cottage industries or in agriculture, according to “India: A Country Study.” School attendance varies widely by region and gender, and the quality of instruction varies depending on region and whether the school is a state-supported public school or a fee-based private school.

The caste system still plays a role in India’s primary school system today. As the National Center on Education and the Economy explains, traditional Hindu education catered to the needs of Brahmin boys who were taught by Brahmin teachers; Brahmin is the highest caste group in India. “[E]ven today, the vast majority of students making it through middle school to high school continue to be from high-level castes and middle- to upper class families living in urban areas.”

The Web site Educational Videos provides a glimpse of early education in India, while Explore offers photos from a variety of Indian schools and organizations for children.

Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Schools Around the World

Alex Grossi.

While studying international development in Kenya as part of his final semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Alex Grossi was inspired to find ways to improve the educational opportunities for students there. After returning to the U.S. and graduating from college, he and a few friends created the Kenya School Libraries Program.

FindingEducation interviewed Grossi, now living in Oregon, over the phone last week. “I never went to Kenya with the intention of doing something like this,” he said. “The opportunity just happened upon me and I couldn’t really say no.”

The Kenya School Libraries Program is slated to have 22,000 books delivered to 12 or 13 schools in Kenya by the beginning of the next school year. The organization’s next fundraising event—a dinner, raffle and silent auction—will be held in Denver, Colo., on March 1. The auction will include original artwork from the Maasai tribe of East Africa.

fE: How did the Kenya School Libraries Program get started?

AG: During my time in a place called Maua, which is in central Kenya, I got to know a principal and a librarian. The principal’s name was Nick Nyagah and the librarian’s name was Eliphas Kimathi. They spent a lot of time talking with me about development and where they saw their country going.

We realized that the excessive amount of [educational] material we have in the U.S could be easily transferred to places like rural Kenya. In essence, the plan was not to build libraries but to furnish them.

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Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Shannon McClintock Miller is the district teacher librarian and technology coordinator at the Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa.  In addition to teaching students and teachers about social media and emerging technologies, she is a sponsor for the National Honor Society (NHS) program, and a wife, mother and artist.

Miller spoke to us about how student voices are transforming education, how her students are taking advantage of their 1:1 laptop ratio and the many ways students and faculty are meeting Van Meter’s mission to “think, lead and serve” in their school and their community.

“I feel that Web 2.0 and these new ways to communicate using technology are two of the main ingredients that are transforming education,” Miller said. “We have laptops, but they’re just tools. What’s changed is the way that we’re thinking and the way that we’re teaching.”

Follow Miller on Twitter at shannonmmiller and the Van Meter Library VOICE at vmlibraryvoice.

fE: What made you choose to become a teacher librarian?

SMM: I always had a love for the library. My mom was a teacher until I was born, so we had a great collection. And my sister Heather and I would play library for HOURS. I share a lot of my old books with my students, and I show them my little cards in the front that Heather and I made up.

I went to college (Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa) and I majored in elementary education and art and design. After I graduated from college, I stayed home to raise our three children (ages 15, 13 and 4) for 13 years.

I just started teaching in the last three years. When this job opened, because of my art background and my elementary education background, it was the perfect fit. I teach at my kids’ school because that’s my number one job: being a mom and wife.

I also started back to school right away—because in Iowa you have to have a master’s in library science—and I won a couple different scholarships and awards. I graduate in May.

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Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz/AP
Children play soccer in front of a collapsed school Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010, in Leogane, Haiti, after the devastating earthquake two weeks ago.

Just two days after Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a statement calling for assistance in rebuilding education in Haiti.

“Education is at the core of Haiti’s recovery and is the key to Haiti’s development,” Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, said. “We are determined to mobilize support for temporary emergency educational facilities and for reconstruction. I also urge academia to show solidarity. Universities in the region and beyond should make every effort to take in Haitian students.”

According to a Council on Foreign Relations interview with Mark Schneider, former Peace Corps director during the Clinton administration and senior vice president of the International Crisis Group, the state of public education in Haiti was grim even before the earthquake. Forty percent of kids weren’t enrolled in school prior to the quake, and 80 percent of those that were enrolled were attending private schools that required tuition, “and those schools weren’t very good,” Schneider said.

On Thursday, Ray Rivera reported for The New York Times that “5,000 to 8,000 schools were affected by the earthquake,” displacing as many as 1.8 million children. Though education officials there said that schools not affected by the quake will reopen for the first time on Feb. 1, it remains unclear how many students and teachers will return.

John Henry Telemaque, assistant coordinator for education for President René Préval’s emergency disaster committee, said that up to 97 percent of Port-Au-Prince’s schools alone had been leveled in the earthquake.

“The schools were built without anti seismic systems,” Telemaque said. “In Haiti most of the schools were built with heavy cement block to withstand hurricanes.” (The heavy cement block style of construction is evident in these photos of Haitian schools on the Visual Geography Web site. The site is a project of two photographers and is “dedicated to those studying and teaching about the world.”)

Schneider emphasized that reconstructing Haiti, including its schools, will take decades. “Let’s take the Ministry of Education: What you need to do now is not just put back the same bricks. You need to build a new education policy in Haiti,” he said.

“You need to have a commitment to a public school education system that offers a decent education to the kids in Haiti,” Schneider elaborated. “So you need to have education experts from around the world come and partner with the new Ministry of Education in Haiti.”

Looking to help Haiti? San Francisco Chronicle has a Haiti donation list with information on how each organization is reaching out to Haiti.

Subject: Social Studies, Uncategorized
Tags: Schools Around the World

Miss Brave is an anonymous blogger and second-grade teacher in the New York City School District. A quick look at the “Labels” section on the right of her blog, miss brave teaches nyc, reveals that she’s had some pretty rough days: breakdowns (22), infinite wisdom of the DOE (14) and school politics (24). But tucked among these categories you’ll also find happy thoughts (32) and kid quotes (35). Every morning she manages to start fresh, because “every day is a new opportunity to recover.”

In an e-mail interview with findingEducation, Miss Brave explained a mantra that she adopted from one of her colleagues: “‘Close the door and teach.’ If I want to sing Sesame Street’s ‘The People in Your Neighborhood’ during social studies, or skip word work one day in order to read the class a book about volcanoes, I’ll close the door and teach.”

fE: What made you choose to become a teacher?

MB: My high school required its students to complete community service in order to graduate, and to complete my hours I volunteered as an assistant at my temple’s religious school. At the time, I had never been around small children before and was terrified of them! But over time, I came to enjoy myself and decided to get my teaching certificate in college.

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Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

If you are teacher, librarian or school administrator at a New York public, private or independent school, WE WANT YOU! We are conducting a survey of middle school and high school students’ online research habits, and we’d love for you to participate.

The online surveys are short, painless (we don’t ask sensitive questions), easy to understand and anonymous. They should take about 10 minutes to complete.

Please note: Students will not be asked to provide their names, e-mail addresses or any other identifying information.

Our analysis of survey data will be used to create a report that identifies the strengths and weaknesses of students’ online research habits and strategies for improvement.

The report will also include the recommendations of librarians, teachers and our staff of online research experts. We plan to share both our results and recommendations at several educator conferences this year. 

We will be giving $40 Amazon gift cards to participating teachers/librarians. If you’d like to participate, please let us know by e-mailing Shannon Firth at shannon.firth@dulcineamedia.com.

Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: findingEducation Updates

George Osodi/AP
School children prepare for the day school in Voinjama town, Liberia, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008.

With a new administration in office, there has been a renewed focus on public education in the United States. Teachers and schools are under the microscope, and the news is full of stories on new education initiatives around the country.

But what’s going on in public education in the rest of the world? We start by taking a look at Liberia.

Samuel Doe led a military coup in the country in 1980, the start of a decade of authoritarian rule. In 1989, Charles Taylor organized a rebellion against Doe and his regime, resulting in civil war. After 14 years of war, Taylor resigned and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president through democratic elections in 2005.

The education system in Liberia was destroyed during the country’s civil war. In a 2007 press release, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) explained that a 2003-2004 Liberian Ministry of Education (MOE/UNICEF) study found that 20 percent of schools in Liberia had been destroyed. Many education professionals left the country during the conflict, leaving behind teachers without formal training or qualifications. According to USAID, unqualified teachers have resulted in reduced enrollment.

But as Kevin S. Tydehson wrote for Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), the situation is more complex. Overcrowding in Liberia’s public schools is to blame, he says, along with poverty. “[M]any students are seen every day roaming the streets selling for their parents as bread winners,” he writes. According to Tydehson, both parents and teachers agreed that if food were provided at school, this would be an added incentive to encourage parents to enroll their children in school.

Though enrollment rates had increased in 2007 by 24 percent for girls and 18 percent for boys, USAID stressed that far more had to be done to improve quality. The organization is working with the Liberian Ministry of Education to support planning, teacher training and materials acquisition.

In addition, the Liberian Education Trust, based in Washington, D.C., works “to support the restoration of basic education in Liberia.” The organization is a charitable trust that aims to gather American support to rebuild Liberia’s schools and train Liberia’s teachers. Learn more at the organization’s Web site.

Subject: Social Studies, Uncategorized
Tags: Schools Around the World

Last week, findingEducation spoke with Michael Stephens, an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Ill. As the 2009 CAVAL Visiting Scholar in Australia, Stephens spent five weeks of his fall semester riding camels on the beach, as well as lecturing and researching the impact of the Learning 2.0 self-directed technology program.

Stephens coauthored a column in Library Journal for more than two years. He recently shared a column in Digitale Bibliotheek, a Dutch library journal, with Jan Klerk, and engages with readers on his blog, Tame The Web. In 2001, he published a book, “The Library Internet Trainer’s Toolkit, and between 2006 and 2007, wrote two library technology reports on Web 2.0.

fE: What made you choose to teach library science and why technology skills, specifically?

MS: I spent 15 years working in the public library setting. In 1995, the library that I was in was the second in the world to have a Web page. This was at St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Ind. Some of the jobs that I had there revolved around teaching staff what the Internet was, and what we might do with it. I started doing public classes and found that I liked to introduce people to technology.

I got my Master of Library Science in 1995. I started teaching as an adjunct for Illinois University, and realized that this was something I wanted to pursue more. Luckily an announcement about the program funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) at the University of North Texas came into my inbox with a couple weeks left to apply. They funded 10 people to get a doctorate in information science, so they could go into teaching positions in library schools. I applied and got in!

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Before the holiday break, findingEducation spoke with Sarah Houghton-Jan, also known as the Librarian in Black, about her roles as a blogger, lecturer and the digital futures manager for the San José Public Library.

Houghton-Jan told findingEducation that when she’s teaching a customer or student something new, she tries to pretend she’s speaking to her mother because “the unknown is really creepy. And that causes me to show a certain level of respect and patience,” she said. “[M]aybe that will work for other people [but] only if you like your mother,” she added with a laugh.

Houghton-Jan was chosen as a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal in 2009. She is also a consultant for the Infopeople Project and a member of the Library & Information Technology Association’s Top Technology Trends Committee.

fE: Could you tell us how you became the digital futures manager for the San José Public Library?

SHJ: I started out not even wanting to be a librarian, and not being very techy. I was just handed our library’s Web site, at the university where I went to library school, and they said, “You’re responsible for maintaining this part of the Web site. Have fun!” I had no HTML training. So I did just a lot of self-training. And I took what few Web-based classes were available.

When I got out of library school, I was looking to relocate to the San Francisco area and one of the jobs that was available was for a combination Web site manager and technology trainer.

I’d been a teacher for a while, and I’d also now managed a Web site, so that was perfect.

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Other, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles