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

Michael Ryan is an 11th-grade English teacher at Wilsonville High School in Wilsonville, Ore. He earned his master’s degree in education at the University of Florida and has been teaching for eight years.

When it came time to cover transcendentalism in class, Ryan was looking for a way to truly engage his students and make the material relevant to their lives. The Right Action project was the perfect answer. Developed by his friend and fellow Wilsonville High teacher, Jay Rishel, the Right Action project focuses on the principles of transcendentalism and asks students to make a positive change in their lives or their world.

“The kids LOVE this project, although it’s a test for many of them,” Ryan said. “They see their lives and identities as not being static but something that they have a great deal of control over.”

fE: What aspects of transcendentalism do you cover with your class?

MR: We study Thoreau, Whitman and Emerson and focus on the three principles of the transcendentalists: Unity (”We are part and particle of God and the universe”), Inwardness (”Self-Reliance” in all its forms), and Right Action.

fE: How did the Right Action project come about?

MR: The transcendentalists believed that action was more important than contemplation. The highest form of man was one who 1) accepted oneself as you were, 2) cultivated the observational powers and talents within you, and 3) believed in the self as the highest authority—’trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string’—we know what is right and wrong for us and within us.

So as a fun project, we challenge the students to trust themselves to make a positive change. They can select something that they know needs to be changed in their lives or in their world.

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Tags: Educator Profiles

Photo by Margaret Fox.

Marilyn Johnson was first introduced to libraries in high school, when she worked as a page at the Chardon Public Library in Ohio. She loved climbing into the attic to get back issues of old newspapers, but quit after being refused a nickel-an-hour raise.

Years later she wrote “This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All,” examining and extolling the unseen faces and facets of the library world, and tearing down long-held stereotypes.

“[T]he truth is, with all librarians that I meet, if you think you know what type they are, if you stand there and talk to them for a little while, they’re each spectacularly individual,” Johnson told findingEducation.

Through her profiles of missionary librarians, virtual librarians, specialist librarians, archivists and even anarchist librarians, Johnson proves not only that librarians are each one of a kind, but also that they are truly irreplaceable.

To learn more about Johnson and her work visit her Web sites: This Book Is Overdue and MarilynJohnson.net.

fE: While researching your first book, “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries,” you were consistently drawn to the stories of librarians and found the seed for your next book. Why librarians?

MJ: I read a ton of librarian obituaries, and every one was different. I read about a music librarian who served the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and a British librarian who helped get films online. There was also a librarian who was a sailor on the Maine coast, and she remembered people’s favorite books 50 years after they had come to her library. She was the heart and soul of her community. (Read about more of the librarian obituaries that inspired Johnson.)

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Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

FindingEducation was delighted to spend some time chatting with Buffy Hamilton, also known as The Unquiet Librarian. We met Buffy after attending her presentation at the Internet@Schools conference in Washington, D.C., in early April. Hamilton has been an educator in the Cherokee County School District, an hour north of Atlanta, Ga., for 18 years, and a librarian for six.

Hamilton talked about the Media 21 project, a collaborative, interdisciplinary project she and her colleague Susan Lester developed in their school. Hamilton examined the impact this project has had on her students. “There’s one student who was in that group that was out of their comfort zone. She didn’t have a lot of confidence [before] and she has just blossomed … Even if you only impact a few students that way, it’s very powerful.”

Hamilton, a frequent speaker, blogger and thought leader, earned her graduate degree at the University of Georgia. She tweets @buffyjhamilton.

fE: What brought you into libraries?

BH: In the beginning of my career, I taught high school English. After seven or eight years, I took a position in our district’s technology services department where I got exposure to a lot of schools and age groups, but I also missed being attached to one school.

Around 2000, I realized that being a librarian would be the perfect marriage of my love of reading and books as well as technology. I’ve been a school librarian a little over six years. People often ask me do I miss being in the classroom. (I actually did teach English classes at night school up until last year.) I love being a classroom teacher but it seems like as a librarian, I’m more able to be a change agent. I can be an avenue for helping teachers introduce inquiry and help them to see that you can address the standards for learning and improve student achievement, without necessarily having to be tied to all those traditional ways of learning. I’m not saying that the traditional ways are bad but you can add to the learning toolbox.

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FindingEducation met Rachel Borchardt, a science librarian at American University, at the 2010 Computers in Libraries conference in Washington, D.C. She and Jason Puckett, the instructional technology librarian at Georgia State University, gave a presentation about podcasting.

This week, we chatted with Borchardt over the phone about why she loves teaching, how her library is taking information literacy to the next tier and what podcasts can do for libraries.

Along with Puckett and Anna Van Scoyoc, a librarian in Mercer County, N.J., Borchardt hosts the monthly podcast Adventures in Library Instruction. “All three of us left [Emory University] to work in other libraries. We miss each other a lot, and we all enjoy bouncing ideas about teaching off each other. So Jason thought, ‘Hey, why don’t we start a podcast?’”

Borchardt earned her master’s degree in library science at the University of Pittsburgh, then worked for three years at the Emory University library in Atlanta, Ga., before coming to American University.

She tweets @butternutsquash.

fE: What preconceptions did you have about librarians before you became one?

RB: I thought that we would just sit at the desk all day and answer questions, which I was really excited about. I had no idea that you would spend so much time in meetings and at your cubicle working on other stuff.

I also thought there would be a lot more introverts. So it surprised me when I went to graduate school and everyone I talked to was super outgoing.

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

RB: I worked in a science library my freshman year as an undergraduate, and I really liked it. After college—I graduated with a degree in neuroscience and psychology—I worked at a cognitive psychology lab at Carnegie Mellon doing MRI research for a couple of years, but it wasn’t really my thing. Being a science librarian seemed like a good way to be involved in science, without having to do the same thing everyday.

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Geeta Rajan always knew she wanted to be a teacher. As an English teacher at St. Mark’s Public School, Meera Bagh in New Delhi for the last 16 years, Rajan has focused on making her instruction relevant to current issues while reaching out in a global environment. Through ePals, she’s involved in the Global Coalition Project, started by Bill Reilly in 2001. Right now, her students are working on a low carbon diet project with a school in Singapore. Last year, her students attended a Climate Camp in Copenhagen through an organization called Bright Green Youth.

“For me, my students are my inspiration,” she told findingEducation. “My organizing committee is designing a poster for Earth Day, and they won’t let me sleep until I approve of the changes, additions and deletions. We will have a good end product and that makes me happy, being part of kids’ excitement. I love their energy. And when I see them charged up, I get charged up too!”

fE: What inspired you to teach?

GR: I have always loved teaching. I spent a lot of my time with a neighbor’s family, which had three sisters who were older, and all were teachers. I also used to play teacher to the smaller ones in the neighborhood. I liked the writing on the blackboard, the use of chalk and then making lines to walk kids to their music classes. And if they weren’t around, I used to just act all by myself. Height of passion it was!!

fE: Why did you want to teach English?

GR: The three sisters—Shyamala, Kamal and Jaya—always used to get nice English books and magazines for me, hence I fancied English

fE: Describe some of the projects your students are involved in right now.

GR: Right now we are doing projects on climate change and sustainable development. We are planning eco cities for the future. The students will be ready with their presentations by April 23, when they will finally be judged by noted scientists. The purpose of the project is to encourage youthful ideas on preparing a more livable city. No pollution, more comfort, less diseases.

And we are sharing our information (with other schools) on a low carbon diet that focuses on how students can eat more nutritious food. No junk food. The students are doing this project with a Singaporean school.

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Lauren Pressley is the instructional design librarian at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. In addition to her role as a librarian, Pressley is an author, a blogger and a frequent presenter.

Pressley was named a Mover and Shaker by School Library Journal in 2009, and was sponsored by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Board to participate in the American Library Association (ALA) Emerging Leaders Program in 2007. She also recently developed a very popular toolkit of short videos (two to three minutes long), which answer patrons’ frequent questions.

In a phone interview last week, Pressley told findingEducation about the impact online networks have had on her personally and professionally. “As a quiet person … I’ve been able to find my voice online,” she said. “It’s opened up a lot of doors that wouldn’t have been open to me otherwise.”

Learn more about Lauren Pressley at Lauren’s Library Blog.

fE: This past fall, Michael Porter and David Lee King published a collection of librarian essays for a project they called Library 101. In your essay, you describe the disappointment you felt after taking a personality test that listed librarian as one of the last possible careers for you to consider. What did it suggest you do instead?

LP: It actually said I should practice law or be a “professional philosopher.” I have no idea what that means. So the thing that is sort of interesting to me about that test is that all the qualities that it said that I had that would have made me a poor fit as a librarian were because they were assuming that the person needs to be really rigid and rule-following and not necessarily friendly. But the things that make me good at my job are actually the very things that that test thought would make me bad.

It’s indicative of how the field has changed, that people have such a clear idea of what librarians were and make assumptions based on that.

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Tags: Educator Profiles

Photo courtesy of UNESCO.
Paul Diamond, center, on the beach outside of Praia, the capital city of the Cape Verde Islands, showing teachers how to use simple tools such as broom sticks to measure wave heights.

This week, findingEducation spoke with Paul Diamond, codirector of the Sandwatch project, a UNESCO project supported in great part by the Denmark Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sandwatch aims to make communities more aware of their marine and coastal environments.

Dr. Gillian Cambers, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) formally established the Sandwatch program in 2001. Diamond joined a few years later and helped expand the program’s reach by building a Web site, and holding teacher trainings sessions on various island and coastal countries.

Born in Scotland, Diamond was raised in Canada where he studied archeology at the University of Toronto. He then spent several seasons in Belize at dig sites before crossing into the technology field. He helped IBM build computer labs throughout the Caribbean. Recognizing the need for technology instruction, he began teaching on the small island of Virgin Gorda before moving to Saint Kitts and Nevis, south of Puerto Rico.

In his work for Sandwatch, Diamond helps teachers create grassroots environmental projects in their schools and communities. As the senior technical director for the Nevis Historical & Conservation Society, Diamond keeps a watchful eye on the island’s beaches and historical grounds, while teaching students about biodiversity and technology.

fE: What attracted you to teaching?

PD: I did some teaching when I was in Toronto, but I didn’t really get into any teaching until I came here. I came originally to build computer labs for schools and quickly found out that governments would spend a lot of money—millions of dollars—to put in a computer lab, but then they wouldn’t give a few thousand dollars to train teachers how to use them. So very often, modern, state-of-the-art labs sit idle.

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Stephanie Chasteen.

Dr. Stephanie Chasteen, who blogs at sciencegeekgirl, is a physicist, a writer, an education consultant and an audiophile who climbs mountains in her spare time.

While earning her doctorate in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Chasteen got restless. She realized that though she loved science, research wasn’t her bag; she wanted to communicate science to the public. She began taking journalism classes and freelancing while continuing her physics courses and research. After being selected for a prestigious science communication fellowship through the AAAS, she was placed at NPR’s science desk in Washington, D.C., as an intern.

Upon graduation, Chasteen landed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, where she helped teach science to K-12 teachers, and created science podcasts on teaching tips for K-12 teachers. Chasteen now works at the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying how people learn physics.

In an interview with findingEducation, Chasteen likened her career path to that of heat-seeking bacteria: “I looked for what seemed interesting and intellectually ‘warm’ and moved in that direction and then reassessed.”

fE: When did you first become interested in science?

SC: Back in middle school. I remember, ironically enough in home economics class, hearing a physicist described as “somebody who learned how the world works” and I thought that sounded pretty cool. So I thought, “Oh. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.” I also came from an academic family so it wasn’t that big of a leap for me to consider going into science.

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Subject: Other Science, Physics & Astronomy, Science
Tags: Educator Profiles

As the founder of the Global Coalition Project, Bill Reilly has united classrooms around the globe through his vision to promote peace and global understanding. A social studies teacher at Bethlehem Central Middle School in Delmar, N.Y., for the last 16 years, Reilly was named one of Disney’s Educators of the Year in 2006 for his exceptional ability to teach “real world” lessons. Two years prior to that, he was chosen by the American Councils for International Education to represent the United States in a Eurasian/American teacher exchange in Azerbaijan.

FindingEducation met Reilly while attending the New York State Council for the Social Studies (NYSCSS) conference last week. Reilly described watching his students meet another group of students in Belize for the first time through an online video conference. “It was like two groups meeting aliens for the first time,” he said. “They were such different and diverse cultures, and they had such an interest in learning about each other.”

fE: What made you become a teacher?

BR: I was an archeologist for a few years and then an owner of a rare coin store. So I always had a love for history. I then walked into a children’s home one summer, thinking that I would work with kids for a summer until I decided what business to go into, and I never left working with children after that. I teach ancient history to sixth graders.

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Subject: History, Social Studies
Tags: Educator Profiles

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