Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

Change.School

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The first couple of months of this year, I’ve been focused on two things.

First, watching my kid play his senior year of high school basketball, which has been just awesome. (State Champs!)

But a close second has been my resolve to do what I can to raise the level of the conversation around change in schools, to push people past the dime a dozen adjectives (blended, personalized, flipped, etc.) and “Hours of…” this or that, and to put a laser focus on learners and learning instead of students and schooling. Along with my colleague Bruce Dixon, we’ve shipped a pretty challenging whitepaper. We’ve created a new podcast channel with interviews from change leaders doing high-bar change work from around the world. We’ve continued to publish our newsletter, (190 issues total.) We’ve regularly engaged in some really interesting conversation in our Facebook group. And my own presentations at conferences and schools have taken on a harder edge. In short, I just totally believe that it’s time to start a different conversation around change in schools. It has to be reimagination, not a simple rethinking of our work.

Today, Bruce and I and our new partner Missy Emler are taking the next step.

Introducing Change.School. (Yes…that is the address.)

You can get the details on the site, but in a nutshell, Change.School is an 8-week, inquiry-based online community and coaching experience for educational leaders anywhere in the world who are serious (and we mean serious) about truly reimagining their work in schools and classrooms. It’s all about raising the bar on the change conversations we’ve been having, and building the capacity to articulate and drive change forward in relevant and, importantly, sustainable ways. And it’s about using our combined 60+ years of experience in schools with the wisdom of a passionate global community to help leaders create a personal, unique playbook for change in their schools moving forward.

The reality is, the gap between change in the world and our capacity to contextualize those changes into our work in schools in relevant ways is huge and continues to grow. As we state in our whitepaper, the “Why Change?” question now has a pretty compelling answer. And as our 10 Principles of Modern Learning suggest, the “What Does it Look Like?” question is being answered in more and more classrooms around the world.

But the “How” question, as in “How do I create relevant, meaningful change in my school that sustains?” has always been the hardest one.

That’s what we’re aiming to answer at Change.School.

Look, there are a lot of people “reimagining” school by building new ones. And I’m in no way saying that isn’t good work. It is, depending, of course, on what they build. But the reality is that the vast majority of our kids will remain in traditional schools that will need to navigate the very difficult path to being really different, not just “better.” And that’s my passion, and Bruce’s, and Missy’s. How do we help existing schools with deeply rooted traditional narratives of schooling navigate the “How?”

For the record, Change.School is not a course. Change in the way we’re talking about can’t be taught, and there isn’t one, cookie-cutter approach that will work for all. We’re taking a limited number of leaders into our cohort because we want to do a lot of hands on, personal coaching in helping them design and develop change plans that are unique to their schools and districts. We know that 8-weeks isn’t nearly enough time to change a school, and that’s not what this work is about. But 8-weeks is enough time to dramatically build the capacity of leaders to run long-term, sustainable change projects on their own. That’s where we think can help.

Education is at an interesting, challenging place, not just here in the U.S., but around the world. And the conversations are shifting. But the work of real change in schools is really, really hard. We’re not offering any magic formulas. Instead, we’re offering a safe space for inquiry, passion, creation, and expertise to learn together and build solutions.

So, I’d love it if you checked out Change.School, and maybe shared it with a school leader that you know. Hopefully, we can move this work forward together.

From Russia (and Finland) With Tradition

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Now that I’m home from my most excellent, whirlwind trip to Russia, Finland, and Sweden, I want to share a few reflections on what I heard and what I learned. I’ll talk about Russia here, and I’ll be posting my Finland reflections on our ChangeLeadership Facebook group. (Join us!)

Given the political conversation here in the States right now, it was an interesting time to go to Moscow. But to be honest, I never felt any sort of tension. The Russians who I got a chance to spend some time with were in a word, great. Sincere, curious, funny and really helpful to their international guests.

There’s no question that Russia employs a highly traditional approach to schooling despite a lot of discussion about technology, at least at the EdCrunch conference I spoke at. From what I could tell, the focus was around digital literacy, and everyone was excited about being able to “digitize” all aspects of the school curriculum. The speakers mentioned “flipped learning” a number of times, and I heard about a couple of huge roll outs of video curriculum to support it. They want to teach kids “critical thinking,” but they seemed to want to do so via explicit instruction rather than by putting kids in situation where they need to think critically in order to solve a problem or reach a goal they care about. Yet, my questions about how critical thinking or creativity or other skills and dispositions were to be assessed went pretty much unanswered. It’s too hard.

moscowkidsFrom the late night dinner discussions with other speakers, my take is that there is little in the way of a progressive, interesting approach to technology, and, not surprisingly, little coherence around what anyone meant by the word “learning.” (As a side note, I was shocked (but not really shocked) by one high profile speaker in particular who is having a huge influence on the conversation globally couldn’t really articulate a definition that he could actually apply to his own experience.) In general, like most other places I’ve been, the Russians seem to be playing with change. It’s surfacy, driven by tradition and global rankings, proffering a vision that’s grounded in little more than how to deal with the digitalization of the curriculum and the growing ubiquity of devices. 

To that end, one of the most ironic moments was when one of the cute school kids they brought on stage at the beginning of the conference answered “to get a good grade” when the emcee asked him what was the goal of learning. (That and when they gave the kids iPads to look up Newton’s First Law of Physics and the wifi wasn’t connecting. Oi.)

What I enjoyed most about my trip were two things: meeting some really interesting and well-meaning educators from around the world, and hanging out with the university students who were our guides at the conference. My guide, Olga, had never left her country but was dying to come to the United States. And another young man, Kyrril, who personally rushed me to the airport via subways and trains with like six minutes to spare, also aspired to make a visit and see what we were all about. They were nice kids who were very much awed by their foreign guests. (Lots of group selfies.) 

For my take on Finland, skip over to Facebook.

Risky Business

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Reading this most excellent post by Ira Socol this morning got me thinking about the word “risk” and its use in a learning context. So often I hear that we in education need to “take more risks,” or that our kids need to do that, that “risk-taking” is an important part of learning.

And I totally agree.

But what is “risk” exactly? I mean, what’s the bar for “risk-taking?”

surf deleteAt it’s most basic level, as Ira suggests, it’s just doing something different, changing up the lesson, changing the environment, or trying a new technology. While I may not see these as “risky” practices at all, I understand how hard it is for some to do even that much. (Actually, maybe I don’t understand that, unless the adults feel no sense of a culture that supports (or expects) at least these kinds of minor tweaks.)

At it’s most extreme level, I would assume taking a risk would mean to put kids in harm’s way. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of someone doing that, regardless of how you define “harm.” (I’m sure someone will share a story of such “risk-taking” now that I’ve said that.)

So what is the “risk” that we’re really talking about?

Is it the “risk” of failure?

The “risk” of losing control?

The “risk” of not having permission?

I’m sure that’s a part of it, but it’s arguable how “risky” those things really are.

But my sense is this: The real risk people feel in education is around letting kids make decisions for themselves and have agency over their own learning. It’s also a risk to let teachers do that stuff, too, to let them be learners in their own right. That’s just not the way it’s done. We don’t trust “them” enough to learn with us instead of from “us” however you define those groups.

I wonder what we risk by doing that, by not making it about the learning rather than the teaching. I wonder what we risk by not creating cultures where learners are trusted, at every level, from the board to the administration to students to the community, to find and pursue meaningful and interesting questions that matter to them.

I wonder what we risk by not taking risks.

(Image credit: Anton Repponen)

Basketball is Life

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tuck2As some of you may have seen on my Twitter feed Saturday, my son Tucker and his teammates at SportsU won the Under Armour Association 16-U championship in Atlanta this weekend. It’s an elite team in an elite program playing an elite schedule, and I’ve never seen better basketball at the high school level than this spring and summer. (We’re on to Las Vegas this week for the last tournament of the season.)

I’ve been struck by all of the things that Tucker has learned in this experience, things that will serve him his entire life. Let me just say that while he is a very good basketball player, this team that he joined up with this year for the first time is just amazing. The starting five (who have been together for five years now) will almost certainly all be Division 1 players in college, and one is unquestionably an NBA prospect. Suffice to say, this was a real step up for him to play with these kids.

But he did well, was sixth or seventh man in most games, usually got a good amount of playing time against the highest competition, and had varying levels of success on the court. But it’s off the court that I just want to briefly focus on. Here’s his basketball “education” so far this year:

He took a risk. He could have played for any number of AAU teams, but given the chance to be on the best team and play at a higher level of competition, he took it.

He overcame adversity. There were moments this season that he had to prove himself, when things didn’t go as planned. He kept his head up always.

He showed resiliency. In those few really bad moments that almost every player experiences during a season, his reaction was “I gotta work harder.”

He assimilated to a new team and culture. Like I said, this team had been together for a while, and earlier in the season one of the other parents told me that they had been tough over the years on “new kids” joining the team. But she immediately said “They like Tucker, though.”

He gained confidence. Even though there were moments that I knew he wanted to play better, there were very few moments (if any) where he looked like he didn’t belong at that level. He’s much more in tune with his potentials now.

He deepened his passion. There’s no doubt any more what he’s working toward: a Division 1 offer.  He loves to play.

He learned to honestly assess his abilities. Sure, he got feedback from his coach and teammates. But mostly, he did a lot of reflection on what he needs to improve at.

He worked hard on something that matters. I’ll be very happy when he gets his license in about a month because as much as we don’t mind driving him to practices and gyms and games and everything else, he’ll have the freedom to set more of his own workout schedule. Regardless, he’s learning how much hard work it takes to succeed at this level.

And there’s more…lots more. But that’s a start.

And you know what I’m going to say, right? Why can’t he get all of those things and more from his time in school? All that stuff above, that is the stuff that matters in life, the stuff that he’s actually going to need to flourish, yet that’s too often absent with the work he’s being asked to do in the classroom. Please don’t tell me they’re mutually exclusive; they’re not.  And don’t tell me it’s not possible in schools; I’ve seen it. It’s just rare.

Look at how kids learn when they are engaged in things that matter to them. Isn’t that what school ought to be?

Regardless, I’m so thankful that my son has a deep love of the game. I wish all kids could experience that level of passion for something in their lives.

From Changemakers to Changeleaders…Join us!

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(NOTE: I’ve fixed the links to the community below. Sorry for any inconvenience!)

A couple of years ago now, my friend Bruce Dixon and I created ModernLearners.com in an attempt to help educators at all levels build their capacity for the change conversations in schools that are so urgently needed. We’re both amazed at how quickly we built a list of thousands of readers of our newsletter and blog posts, and we’re proud at the impact those efforts seem to be making.  

But while it’s great to have readers, we think it would be even better to have a community of committed educators who are passionate about really changing the way we think about schooling to more effectively serve the modern learners who come to our classrooms each day.

So, to that end, I want to invite you to join our free Global Community of Changeleaders (GCC)  on Facebook, a space where the people who want to push the education conversation to the edges of what’s comfortable can meet to share stories, ask questions, interact directly with us on a regular basis, and learn the best ways to create sustainable change.

A space where the members are working to build a different, not just better experience for the kids in our schools.

14859431605_1fcfc06f74_bThe good news is that “different” is happening more and more each day. In our travels and online, Bruce and I are talking to more and more educators who have fought through their frustration with the current system and begun the hard work of fundamentally rethinking their work in schools.

But we’re also hearing that those change efforts are disconnected. That there is a desire for those seeking “different” to find others engaged in that work, for ideas, for questions, and for support.

That’s why we’re creating the GCC, and we’d love for you to be among the first to join us.

To officially introduce our community, Bruce and I will be on Facebook Live inside the group this Tuesday night at 7 pm US Mountain time, coming to you from the ISTE 2016 conference in Denver. We’ll talk a bit more about our hopes for the community and take some of your questions as well. (And we’ll probably make some vendors mad at us at the same time.)

You won’t want to miss it.

And one other change!

We’re excited to announce that long-time educator and community savant Missy Emler will be joining the Modern Learners team. You can learn more about Missy on our site, and she’ll be a big part of our work in the GCC Facebook community and beyond.

Finally, we all know that making real change happen is hard enough to do when you’re working on your own.

Sharing your experiences in our community will provide a forum where you can be more reflective and benefit from the wisdom and experiences of other changemakers from a diverse range of backgrounds. So please consider becoming a member.

So, join us!

We have great ambitions for where Modern Learners will be going over the next 12 months, and we want you to be part of the journey. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to engaging with you in this new community.

As always, thanks for the support.

(Image credit: **RCB**)

“A Weblog Is…”

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Out of the blue a few days ago, I got a Facebook message from a former student of mine who said that she had found a video that Intel had made about our classroom use of blogs in 2004, one that was shown during a keynote at ISTE (or at that time NECC) in New Orleans that year. I’ve heard quite a few people tell me that this was their first introduction to “Web 2.0” in schools. Click on the pic to have a look. (It’s only 2:30 long.)

intel delete

Now aside from looking about three decades younger than I do now, and the big CRT displays in the background, what’s changed? How many classrooms right now are doing what we were doing a dozen years ago? To be sure, there’s a lot of teacher-centric stuff being discussed in this video. But so much of it still feels “edgy” and “innovative” as compared to current classroom use of technology.

The point is not that I was some amazing teacher; the point is, again, how slowly this stuff happens in schools.

Your thoughts welcomed…

A Year Already…

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So this week marks one year since I left my public school job, and I have to say I’m surprised how little I’ve looked back. Partly because I haven’t had much time to, but mostly because this past year on the road has been such a profoundly great experience in general. I’m truly humbled by the opportunity I’ve been given…it doesn’t happen for most, I know.

What follows are just some random thoughts that I wanted to capture about this first year more for myself than anything else.

The good stuff:

  • Getting a chance to meet and talk to so many teachers and administrators and others who in general, I think, really do want to understand the changes that are occurring. By far the best part has been the people.
  • Expanding my reach…Some very “fuzzy”math suggests that I found myself in front of upwards of 15,000 people last year at around 70 events, and I only got heckled twice! Not too bad.
  • Meeting many of my “teachers” along the way.
  • Learning a great deal about myself, some of it good, some of it not so good. But I’m understanding some of my limitations…and that’s a good thing.
  • Learning a great deal about the realities of education in this country.
  • Feeling, at least, like I am starting some important conversations.

The not so good stuff:

  • Being away from home. My family has been great about the career change, but my being away does leave a lot of stress on my wife and kids. Thinking of how to deal with that better, (though video Skype has helped.)
  • Not having the time to read what’s in my aggregator…probably the biggest change is that I just can’t keep up with all of the bloggers that I used to read, and really, in the last few weeks, I’ve only tracked about 15 feeds on a regular basis.
  • Not having the time to blog…if I don’t read, I don’t write. And to be honest, blogging has become more of a burden than a joy of late. I think it’s because a) I’m doing a crappy job of it, b) my brain is really, really tired and just doesn’t want to expend the energy, and c) I’m not reading.
  • Not having the time to do a lot of the other writing I wanted to do.

Despite the downsides, on balance, it’s been a very good year in just about every way except just generally being unable to keep up. And so what am I going to do now that I have four solid weeks home? Relax, play with the kids, get ready for a 10K the second week of June, read what I can, blog when I want to and just get rested up for a very full summer and fall. (Australia and Shanghai…here we come…)

One last note…I’ve updated my masthead to reflect the shift in my own thinking about this, that the conversation really has to be about learning first and education second. Not that I’m abandoning the whole classroom aspect of the Read/Write Web. But I just don’t know where this is all going to lead schools. I do, however, know where it can lead in terms of personal learning.

Thanks to all of you who have so generously supported my work this year…

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Pokinitis

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So we’re driving to the airport, Tess and I, to start our most excellent weekend adventure to South Dakota. Tomorrow, it’s horse shows, Sunday, Rushmore and Custer, Monday back home after a presentation.

We’re cruising down the interstate and all of a sudden she pokes me from the back seat.

“I can’t help it,” she says. “I have to poke someone every thirty minutes.” She laughs, and I put a fake frown on my face.

But then, I start thinking.

“Hey Tess,” I say. “Remember how we talked about maybe you and Tucker writing books and then being able to send them out for Christmas presents?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, you know, that could be a pretty fun story to make into a book.”

Her faces scrunches up in the rear view mirror. “What? About a girl who has to poke people?”

“Yeah,” I say, with more than a tinge of enthusiasm. “Like, maybe it’s a disease or something, like the flu.”

She looks out the window. “Like the 24 hour-flu,” she says and smiles. “Like Pokinitis.”

I laugh. “Pokinitis,” I say. “Perfect. Maybe she wakes up with Pokinitis…”

“Yeah, and can’t help but poke her mom and her dad and her little brother…”

“And maybe her teacher,” I say. I can see this. It’s got potential. I look in the rear view to see if she feels it too.

“Hey Dad,” she says after a moment. “Could we really make this into a book? Like a real book?”

“Absolutely,” I say, thinking about George Mayo and Lulu and how cool this could be.

“I already wrote a book, you know,” she says.

“I know. You know how many people have read it by now?”

“How many?” she asks.

“Over 1,700,” I say, and I see her face brighten.

“Really?”

“Really. But we could turn Pokinitis into a book that people can put on their bookshelves.”  She looks out the window and the cars passing by.

“Maybe she goes to the school nurse and pokes her too,” she giggles. I laugh.

“So what do you think? You want to try to write it? On the plane maybe?” I’m hoping.

“Maybe…we’ll see.” I deflate a bit.

“You know what else?” I say. “You could write it, draw the pictures for it, and then when it’s all done, we could make a movie of it with you reading it so other kids could even listen to it.” Oy, I think. Overload. The curse of being so invested in all of this. But she’s thinking about it.

“We’ll see,” she says. “We’ll see.”

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June 11, 2001: "Let's see if I can start a log…"

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For a variety of reasons, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about blogging as an act, my love of it, my frustration with it, my history with it. In that spirit, today my brain wandered a bit, trying to reconstruct how exactly I came to blogging, what my first post was, and what the impetus was behind this amazing relationship I’ve had with it. I’d thrown some time at this before, searching through my Blogger archives, the Wayback machine, trying to find the very first words I blogged, but with no success. But today, I had one of those “doh” moments, realized it had been there right in front of my face all along, and finally found it.

So, just so I get the chronology down, I hope you’ll indulge me in a little personal blogging history. (Or not, of course…) Piecing it together now, I find hugely interesting the process I worked through in my own practice with all of this.

So, yeah, June 11, 2001 it starts. Taken out of context, those first words give this whole story a more romantic (if it could be that) feel than it deserves. It turns out the first blog I created was in the “Nerdy Books Journal” which I started during the year I took off from school to help Wendy launch her books. I kept work notes and links as we tried to market and make connections. As it turned out, when I went back to school that fall, the blog pretty much died.

Exactly a month later I started the School Stuff blog which was basically just a personal link/notes blog that I kept up for about six months. Then, on October 23, 2001, I started my first class blog for my Beginning Journalism kids:

Welcome to the journalism blog!

I’ve set this up as a place where you can come if you need to find information about class, about journalism, and about the world. I’ll be posting homework information here regularly; you can find it at the top of the left hand column. I’ll also be posting links, and from time to time I might just throw out some of my own feelings about stuff that’s going on.

You can post here too if you like. Just let me know if you would like to get access. Your names will get posted with each entry, and I have administrative control over content. It would be another way you could contribute to our understanding of journalism and to show effort on your part. Let me know if you want to give it a try.

I’ll be updating this a lot in the next few days, and you guys are going to be my guinea pigs for some other stuff over the next couple of weeks. I know you’re happy. Bear with me, okay?
If you want to set up your own Blog, (I love Blogs!) I’ll be happy to help.

I love how tentative that sounds now, looking back. In all honesty, it makes me nostalgic as all get out, that experimentation phase, not knowing exactly what I was doing or where it was going to go. It’s what I miss most about being in the classroom, without question.

On November 13 of 2001, I started a class portal blog for my Web Pages and Portfolios class.

Please bookmark this spot as it will be the place where you can check for updates on assignments, links to cool sites and information about page creation and design, and links to your own personal weblogs.

Scanning the posts, I remembered that I had them set up their own blogs at Diaryland (which, I’m amazed to say, is still in existence.) They were the first of my students to have blogs.

About a month later, my first really personal blog was born, and I do mean personal. In fact, I’d forgotten just how personal some of the posts were at the very beginning. That was back in the day when I never thought anyone was going to be reading anything I wrote anyway, so I figured baring my soul was perfectly ok. (Um, no, not linking to that one.) After I got my first couple of comments, I changed course pretty quickly. That site did eventually turn into Weblogg-ed about a year later.

Then, on January 25, 2002, I started yet another blog, this one for my Journalism 2 students aimed more toward discussion and actually getting kids involved in a learning community online:

Welcome to the Journalism 2 Weblog where we will carry on a conversation about this class and about journalism as a whole. I’m expecting you to get in here and add to the conversation twice a week. That means an average (read: “C” for you grade grubbers) effort on your part would be around 15-20 meaningful posts over the next nine weeks. The more the better. (Remember the word meaningful,however.) A weekly topic will be posted in the left-hand column to get you started, but if you want the big bonus points, post here on your own. Find interesting articles or links that you think the class would be interested in and add them with a bit of comment or question. For a good example of what I’m talking about, see Metafilter. Debate is encouraged, but remember, be civil. I’ll try to enter the conversation too. So have fun with this and use it as a way to push your learning about journalism, the news, and the world around you.

Oooo…the grade thing hurts! But, I have to tell you, reading through some of those early posts from my kids, I can understand why this whole blogging thing bit me so hard. I mean seriously, read those very first three posts and you’ll see what I mean. And as I quickly scanned through some of the 1,057 posts that we accumulated on that blog in those nine weeks (which is amazing in itself) I am floored by the amount of thinking and linking those kids were doing. That was a very uncertain and scary time (as if today isn’t…) and it’s neat to read the kids working through it.

And that was it…I was hooked. I started blogs for my yearbook kids, my softball team, and the next fall I cajoled the technology guys to install Manila on one of our servers. That September we did the Bees, and my classes went paperless. They’re still serving up over 500 sites at my old school…pretty cool.

(Note: Just in case you got this far, I ended up having to re-templatize most of those old blogs today since they were all pointing at old servers which were long gone. Thank goodness Blogger let me push them back over to Blogspot…)

(Photo “Brace for Impact” by Big-E-Mr-G)

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Proud Husband

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Just a pointer to an incredibly wonderful, fantastic, enjoyable, thoughtful, scintillating, exciting, provocative (did I say fantastic?) 12-minute interview with my wife Wendy on the nationally syndicated EcoTalk show on Air America Radio. Her book about what we can all do to protect the environment has been getting some great press of late and is starting to get some momentum. It’s also constantly challenging me to think carefully about the choices I make in terms of what I consume every day, from using a refillable coffee cup to driving the speed limit to taking shorter showers. I really, really admire her passion for making a difference…

[tags]environment, Wendy_Richardson[/tags]

Playing With my Kids

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School is winding down on what has been a very intense, productive and exhilirating year, one that I will not soon forget. And I’m feeling it in a number of ways, most decidedly by a pull to get back in touch with my kids again and spend more time playing than sitting in front of a computer. I really marvel at the people who can continuously carve out the necessary hours every day to write and comment and continue the discussion. And it is great discussion and thinking that’s moving at such a fast pace that it’s getting really hard to keep up with. I have learned a lot. But let’s face it, there are, many more important things out there than Web logs. And I think I need to take back some of that perspective.

This has been brewing for quite some time, but when I went to a speech by Bill Clinton last night, I was really pushed in my thinking about this complex world in which we live. His world view is one of integration and interdependence, and there is much to be done to make this a better place for my kids. Love him or hate him, what I took away from it was this sentiment: there is no time to check your brain at the door and not become a part of the conversation.

I still want to be a part of this Web log conversation, and I will. But I also want to throw my energies into other areas that are capturing my attention, namely the environment, the dissapearance of the media in this country, and getting rid of what I truly believe is a dangerous group of leaders who are threatening our way of life in many, many ways. With two young children who I don’t spend nearly enough time with, a self-employed wife, a new job, a garden, a renewed passion for running and more, I’m having to choose my priorities. I wish I could do it all, but I can’t, so in case anyone cares, don’t be surprised if posts here become more sporadic. I’ll still report on my successes and failures, and I hope to continue to expand my thinking on how and why Web logs could be great things in my classroom. But I need to take a step back and reasses. Wish me luck.

Off Topic

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I’ve been trying very hard not to do much posting about politics and policy here since a) this space is provided by my employer, b) there is enough free, independent web space out there for the taking, and c) this country is more and more becoming a scary place in terms of intellectual and personal freedoms. The problem is that I just haven’t had time to create some new space, and the idae of another place to keep my thoughts is somehow daunting to me. Still, I read stuff like this and I just get outraged, and I have no outlet for it. (BTW, if I do create that new site, it’s name will be “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.” I saw that on a bumper sticker in Key West and it just rang very true.)

That’s one of the lures of this easy publishing stuff; all of a sudden you have a voice and it’s frustrating when you can’t fully use it. We’ll see…

Takin' a Break

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I’m heading to Key West for five days to reintroduce myself to my wife while the in-laws babysit the kids. This will be the first time in over five years we’ve gotten a chunk of time together, so someone please shoot me if I start posting the rest of this week. I figure having posted 104 of 113 days this year buys me a little rest. Of course the problem is that things are moving so quickly that I know by Monday I’ll feel way behind. Hopefully I won’t be totally left in the dust…I’ll be thinking if not posting. Be well.

Amen, Brother

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Bill Moyers on Patriotism and the Flag:

I put the flag in my lapel tonight. First time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans. Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart’s affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her son’s love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

So what’s this flag doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo — the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. And during the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.

But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war — except in self-defense — is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomatic skill. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.

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Moment of Truth

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It appears today will be a very sad day for those of us holding out any hope of a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi situation. The “president” will be on the tube tonight telling us why we need to start dropping bombs on primarily innocent people in an act that most of the civilized world doesn’t see the need for. He’ll repeat all the usual rhetoric, invoke the name of god eight or nine times, tell us we have no choice, and give the go ahead. I don’t think I’ll watch.

I guess what has irked me most in these final days is the jingoistic jabber that politicians and preachers have been throwing out, specifically god’s role in all of this. It’s obvious that god likes us better than the Iraqis ’cause he’s watching over us. I guess he’s not watching over the children and the elderly and the infirm in Iraq…no one mentions them much. Must be some other god’s dominion. We have to protect Americans, as if we by some birthright are inherently more important or worthy than those born in other places. Our president believes that “the United States was called to bring God’s gift of liberty to ‘every human being in the world.'” Yeah, liberty in the form of two-ton bombs and heavy artillery. Some gift.

This is a sad world, and we’re going to make it sadder tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day. Two million children die of disease in Africa each year. Two billion people on this planet have no water to drink. Twenty five percent of African’s suffer from chronic diarreha because of it. Yet our priorities are to spend billions of dollars and an enormous amount of our reputation to topple a egomaniacal dictator whose closest neighbors don’t even fear.

Excuse me if I don’t get it.

If This is a Start…

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…I don’t want to see the ending. Last night, our president said:

“During the last two years, we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together. To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform which must now be carried out in every school, and in every classroom, so that every child in America can read, and learn and succeed in life. To protect our country, we reorganized our government and created the Department of Homeland Security which is mobilizing against the threats of a new era. To bring our economy out of recession, we delivered the largest tax relief in a generation. To insist on integrity in American business, we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account.

Some might call this a good record. I call it a good start.”

How about this “start”:

  • November and December 2002 unemployment climbed to 6% – the highest since 1994. All told, 1.7 million jobs have been lost since January 2001.
  • Between Dec 29, 2000 and the end of the third quarter of 2002, the total market value of all US equities has dropped by 38% or by $6.65 trillion
  • 1.3 million more Americans slipped below the official poverty line in 2001, the first increase since 1993. 11.7% of all Americans fell below the poverty line in 2001, up from 11.3% in 2000
  • In two years, the U.S. had the highest rate of bankruptcy cases in history, increasing 23% since 2000
  • Requests for emergency shelter increased by an average of 19% in 2002, the largest annual increase in the demand for homeless shelter since 1990
  • A budget surplus of $236 billion in 2000 has evaporated into a $157 billion deficit for 2002, with more red ink projected. Many respected private sector budget forecasters now predict the Bush 2004 deficit to be in the $300 to $350 billion range, meaning a half-trillion-dollar negative change in the government’s fiscal picture since Bush took office. The predicted 2004 deficit of $350 billion would eclipse the previous record deficit level of $290.4 billion set in 1992 by the first President Bush
  • Weeks after the President’s promise to “write a healthy check” for education when signing the “No Child Left Behind Act”, he submitted a 2003 budget that actually cut education the programs within the No Child Left Behind Act by $90 million.
  • Almost 40% of Bush’s first tax cut went to the richest 1% of the country-those making more than $373,000 per year.
  • The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 1.4 million in 2001, after dropping in 1999 and 2000
  • Monthly premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose by 12.7% between spring 2001 and spring 2002, the largest increase since 1990
  • In June 2002, the EPA “warned in a report to the United Nations of significant effects on the environment from climate change” with “changes over the next few decades expected to put Southeastern coastal communities at greater risk of storm surges, prompt more uncomfortable heat waves in cities and reduce snowpack and water supplies in the West.” Nonetheless, “President Bush dismissed the report” suggesting “nothing to deal with heat-trapping ‘greenhouse’ pollution beyond voluntary action by industry
    (All of the above cited here.)

    And on and on and on. I almost threw up when he said this:

    “We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations.”

    How he kept a straight face I will never know. Are you ready for the next 10 years? I don’t think I am…

    • Web Log Relations

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    Just an observation about this Web log thing…

    In my regular morning reading, it struck me that even though I’ve only met two of my Web logging peers face to face, I feel a real sense of community here. Joe‘s loss saddens us, Sarah‘s accomplishments gladden us, our communal struggles frustrate all of us. We Pat each other on the back, and lend a helping hand without any expectation of getting anything back. I worry about Seb and Terry and others when they don’t post for a while. I wonder if they’re just taking a break or if something bad has happened. Just like my real face to face friends, I feel pushed, pulled, appreciated and kicked in the butt.

    I love how Karen puts it: “I write about this because the dry snow that doesn’t stick together reminds me somewhat of our individual blogs. No two blogs are alike, but they are similar in ways. They just don’t stick together…all of our individual blogs right now don’t work together to form snowballs, or snowpeople or igloos. Just like the snow, our blogs are going to need some sunshine, a little heat, to get to the point where we can make snowballs, or snowpeople, or igloos. I think that’s what Pat does (and Will and others). They provide a little sunshine, a little heat, to make us able to stick together to become something else. I’m looking forward to seeing what we become.”

    She’s right…this community is moving somewhere, toward something. I’m looking forward too. It’s definitely time for a.) Karen to post more great stuff to her Web log and, b.) edublogvention!
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    War for Oil

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    Quote: “But when we tell the world that we couldn’t care less about climate change, that we feel entitled to drive whatever big cars we feel like, that we feel entitled to consume however much oil we like, the message we send is that a war for oil in the gulf is not a war to protect the world’s right to economic survival but our right to indulge. Now that will be seen as immoral.”

    Amen.
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    Merry Christmas

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    Nothing like Christmas with little kids…wrapping presents last night…Wendy and I getting our stories straight about Santa and how he does things…getting up at four to create the illusion…Tucker, who has been sick for the last three days, made it up at six to see what Santa brought, making sure to wake up his big sister as well…a fresh blanket of snow on the ground…lots of unwrapping and playing and singing and kissing…nice way to start a day.

    Merry Christmas all. And in these strange days, may we all have Peace on Earth.
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    We're at war; let's party.

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    Thomas Friedman, NYT
    “Friends, we are on the edge of a transforming moment for America in the world. If President Bush uses his enormous mandate to prepare for war-in a way that really deals with our political and economic vulnerabilities, increases our own staying power and convinces the world that we have a positive vision and are responsible global citizens-there is a decent chance we can win at a reasonable cost. But if Mr. Bush simply uses his mandate to drive a hard-right agenda and indulge in more feel-good politics, the world will become an increasingly dangerous place for every American-no matter what war we fight, no matter what war we win.”
    And the chances of this “responsible global citizen” thing is…?
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    Taking a Break

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    Feeling a bit overwhelmed by work and information, and planning to shut the computer off for a few days and just breathe with my kids and family. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
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    Greetings From Dallas

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    Didn’t realize that today was the anniversary of JFK’s demise until I rode past Dealey Plaza on the train and saw all sorts of people milling about at the spot where he was killed. I’m going to try to head to the museum tomorrow.

    At any rate, lots of kids and yearbook companies crammed into the Hyatt and not much in the way of technology being discussed or presented. I’m wondering how many people will show up tomorrow and what their reaction will be.

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