BlackBoards...a very different world brought into our living room by film

I got this on Amazon after seeing it featured in a list of movies about education.

It is about education...sort of, but not really. There is a man who carries a blackboard on his back and walks in the mountains looking for pupils...but he does very little teaching because most of the children he meets are not interested in learning.

Blackboards -Trailer from Fabrica on Vimeo.

Here is the director, a young female Iranian director named Samira_Makhmalbaf

It is a film that gives you a glimpse into life in the mountains of Kurdistan and the realities of being a minority group caught between Iran and Iraq with...it seems...no place to settle.

It is hard to watch. I'm not sure whether to recommend it or not. You should watch it if you want to experience a lifestyle and a culture that is very hard to related to and understand.

The fact that this movie was made is amazing in itself. How else would we learn about how the Kurds live?

I watched it to the end, but frankly, I need someone to help me understand it. From beginning to end, the movie is full of things I cannot related to or understand the rationale for. There may be good reasons for why the actors do what they do, and say what they say, but it is very hard to follow.

The director is quoted as saying

Makhmalbaf describes it as "something between reality and fiction. Smuggling, being homeless, and people’s efforts to survive are all part of reality... the film, as a whole, is a metaphor."[2]

So...why do those teachers carry those massive blackboards on his backs and roam the mountains looking for pupils? Why does he marry a girl along way suddenly and divorce her shortly after?

The metaphors of the film fill you with ???????

My children were watching it along with me, and they were full of questions. It was a good chance to show them that many children around the world have to work hard to live, and do not have the luxuries that kids in Japan take for granted.

The World Peace Game by John Hunter

This TED talk shows a form of interactive, stimulating education that I hope to achieve in my own classrooms somehow.

John Hunter developed a game called the World Peace Game, and he and his fourth grade class are featured in a movie about how they develop an understanding of the world and practice their communication and critical thinking skills through the game board.

I would like to see more games like this come out, and possible use them as projects or tasks for students to practice their English communication and thinking skills.

From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Manual

I wanted to add this to my blog to raise awareness of this document.

I just learned of this in a NY Times op-ed by Kristof called "The Power of Mockery"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17kristof.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

By "Mockery" Kristof is talking about the non-violent protest methods used in the Middle East to bring down governments such as that in Egypt. Originally, apparently a Serbian youth movement, Otpor, developed a set of methods to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

Young people working together to non-violently protest an injustice can have a lot of power, especially in the age of Twitter and YouTube.

The link to the manual From Dictatorship to Democracy is here.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf

From the Appendix:

“From Dictatorship to Democracy” was written at the request
of the late U Tin Maung Win, a prominent exile Burmese democrat
who was then editor of Khit Pyaing (The New Era Journal).
The preparation of this text was based over forty years of research
and writing on nonviolent struggle, dictatorships, totalitarian
systems, resistance movements, political theory, sociological analysis,
and other fields."

TED Talk: Open-Sourced Blueprint for Civilization by Marcin Jakubowski

The ideas that come out through TED continue to amaze me. And this is just a 4 minute video!

Marcin Jakubowski has a project called the Global Village Construction Set, which aims to provide all know-how necessary for constructing basic tools needed to sustain a small farming community. I can imagine that the potential for helping less developed countries through information like this is immense.

Building a tractor or bulldozer for yourself in a workshop sounds less cost-efficient than buying one created in a factory, but the project claims their products are 8 times less expensive. This seems due to keeping the design simple and matching small scale farming needs. Keeping parts modular and building everything locally will allow for lower long term maintenance as well.

I would hope a project like this will be backed by international development assistance organizations like UNDP.

To me, this project shows the power of what highly skilled, intelligent, and socially responsible persons can begin to achieve. It is the antithesis of highly skilled and intelligent persons who cannot see beyond personal interest or corporate profit. I don't have a project like this that I am directly involved in yet, but I hope to do more; and I definitely want my students to see how important this is.

SoundCloud - the best online voice recorder!

I was just in the process of looking for an easy way to record and share audio online when I noticed that my blues harp teacher Satoru Hiramatsu (link) was using a tool called SoundCloud to share tunes and lessons with his students.

Very nice tool. http://soundcloud.com/

See this embedded audio for an online handout (link) for my Academic Speaking students, for example.

Sound Cloud can create a short link to the recording like this: http://snd.sc/dJksSB

Or, you can embed it like this below:

Check out SoundCloud by Markc0908

It is very, very easy to record and post online. The only problem I have encountered so far is that the process of "transcoding" a recording seems to take a long time sometimes and that delays the availability of the online audio sometimes. I hope the short recording embedded above will finish transcoding soon...it has been going for 5 minutes or so even though it is a very short file...I didn't have any problem with this yesterday when I recorded for several minutes, so maybe it just depends on the traffic load of the server?

I'm hoping my students can use this for English speaking homework such as "record a rehearsal of your upcoming presentation" and share it with your teacher to get advice, or just record a skit or dialogue with a classmate to show that you have mastered the language we studied this week.

TED Talks - Antidote to Apathy by Dave Meslin

I strongly recommend everyone, but especially Japanese young people, to watch this to raise awareness of obstacles to being involved in political activism. Many of the 7 mentioned by Meslin apply to Japan, perhaps even more strongly than in Canada.

Meslin raises awareness of several key points such as how governments fail to effectively invite citizens to become involved in local politics, and how the media sends the message, through the emphasis on commercial content, that materialism is important but activism or advocacy, which does not make money for anybody, is not.

It would be nice if an interactive transcript could be added like other TED videos.
And Japanese subtitles. I just signed up as a TED translator and hope I can work on this one if I get the chance.

Big History by David Christian

A fascinating presentation on the mind-boggling scale of time and space that led to our current complex human civilization, and of the fragility of this complexity.



The Big History Project that Dr. Christian refers to seems very interesting to take a look at. Perhaps we should integrate this into the "Visions of the Future" unit we do in winter term?

Starting a new hobby...my first Blues Harp lesson

This is my beginner's blues harp Suzuki Manji M-20. The sound is very good (when I play it right).

This is my instructor Satoru Hiramatsu. He is both an excellent player and teacher. He helped me figure out a lot in just 90 minutes. Learning music has many things in common with learning a language.

First I need to work on my pronunciation of basic sounds intensively. Then I need to start developing vocabulary and little phrases like do-mi-so, and then I can move on to simple sentences.

Hopefully I'll be a little more fluent before my next lesson later this month. My goal is...

Brainstorming for my ASP Class: Skills for Good Discussions/Meetings

I'll be teaching ICU's Academic Speaking (ASP) class for first year students again this term from next week, and here goes some messy brainstorming to squeeze out some new ideas and make some vague images for new activities a little more concrete...

The goal of the course is to help students become more comfortable with using English in "on campus" situations, with an emphasis on group discussions. Other situations we cover are meeting people, carrying on a conversation, visiting a teacher's office, and giving peer feedback. I think that is a good list of situations, and we just need to teach functional language and concepts and do practices that will help students feel comfortable in those situations.

Lesson 1
Meeting people - We do this just for the first day. How to self-introduce, shake hands, ask a few polite questions, start, continue and leave a conversation...all in 70 minutes. We could do more...I guess...but one period usually does it for introducing the basics.

I'd like to assign a "meet a non-Japanese person on campus" activity like I did five years ago...Samples here. Possibly as a pair work, or in threes? Video would be cool, or at least a photo plus a short report students submit on a Moodle site or class blog.

I should make an example. Take the VADO out on campus or just within the ELP. 3 minutes should do it.

Lesson 2
Controlling a Conversation, Active Listening: Students should master 10 or 15 phrases that can really help students clarify things or avoid miscommunication. Phrases include "I'm sorry. Could you please speak a little slower?" and "Sorry, could I confirm? Do you mean...?"

What's the best way to assess this? The ultimate way would be to have students actually use the phrases when they interview or do discussions with a non-Japanese person.

Another good way is to ask students to create a skit that uses those phrases in a simulated way. They would write a short, 1 minute skit that uses one or more of the phrases, and act it out in front of the whole class. Or it could be homework--record the skit together and post it on the class site.

Last year I did a "oral quiz" with a partner saying "How do you ask for slower speaking?" and the other replying "I'm sorry, could you please speak a little slower?" and the first student trying to evaluate whether the response was good/OK/or not correct. It was a good activity, but messy from an evaluation point of view. I let the point thing go ambiguously.

One final idea is to ask students to record answers to quiz questions in a computer lab.
Q: What can you say if someone is speaking too fast?
A: I'm sorry, could you speak a little slower please?
But who is going to grade this? I don't want to have to listen to file after file of phrases...If it is just an assignment with no grading, then checking whether it is done or not is easy.

Overall, I think I like the skit approach best. Just do it in class. Not homework...unless I want them to write a skit draft before class to have some ideas to run with. Perhaps make a worksheet that asks for a skit (preview) and a recording (review) as homework.

How would that work in class? Just get into pairs (10 pairs for 10 phrases) and write a 5 line skit that uses one? two? phrases.

Teacher: Your group is in charge of *I'm sorry. Could you speak a little louder please?"*

Students: (After working together on a notebook) OK, we're ready! (Come up front)

A: (whispering) I am Professor White.
B: I am his student, Taro.
A: The place is Professor Suzuki's office and Taro has come to ask some questions. They have already exchanged greetings. (Both sit down on chairs)
A: (Normal voice) So, Taro, how can I help you today?
B: Yes, I have a question. Could you tell me why I got a C for my grade last term?
A: Uh.....(inaudible mumbling)...
B: I'm sorry, sir, could you speak a little louder please?
A: Yes, uhh...(inaudible mumbling)
B: I'm sorry, sir. I still can't hear you. Could you speak much LOUDER please?!

The End

They would act this out, and I would get it on video (final) or audio (practice), and then upload it to our class website along with the script. Classmates could add comments (if a blog or Moodle forum is used). The teacher could add some advice.

XtraNormal might be interesting for this too.

Embedding YouTube video in Blogger/Sites is easy, but students might not be comfortable with public video...so I just need to make it private by changing settings on Blogger.
-------------------

Lesson 3:
Visiting a teachers' office

Lesson 4:
Leading a discussion

Lesson 5:
Participating in a discussion

Lesson 6
First recording of P&D "short opinion + leading a discussion"
Do it in one period with four VADO cameras. 4 groups of 5, 7~10 min per student including a 2~3 min. opinion and 5~7 min. discussion.
Send YouTube links to all students.

Lesson 7
After GW, do a discussion based on their video self-analysis of speaking style points.

Lessons 8-9
P&D skills - learning SGW.

Lesson 10
Reporting on a discussion

Lesson 11
Strategies for fluency

Lesson 12
Giving peer feedback

Lesson 13:
Survival game

Lesson 14:
Kelly Mystery

Lesson 15:
Practice for 2nd recording

Lesson 16:
2nd recording -- very similar format and difficulty compared to the first one. Make comparison of analysis somewhat possible.

Lesson 17:
Discuss analysis of recordings, set goals

Lesson 18
Summary/class party

Something like that? How can this be more fun...
Include intro to iTalki, speech video imitation, music cloze, air band, interaction with other sections, interaction with international students on campus, integration with ARW, making funnier videos...PK20x20s? Just go to class and chat and relax...improv...ideas, ideas, ideas.

How about an oral journal to accompany their written journal?

Speech Exercises from Link

Do NOT spend time thinking about the topic before you speak.

1. Your favourite hobby and why it’s your favourite.
2. What you would do if you won five million dollars on the lottery?
3. If you had unlimited resources, what would you do to improve your business?
4. What do you like best about what you do? Why?
5. Which of the five senses is most important? Why?
6. What skill or talent would you most like to have? Why?
7. Why is the current federal government doing such a bad job?
8. What should your town do to create a better climate for business?
9. What are the best places to eat in your town or city? Why?
10. What are the best things to do to relax? Why?
11. What’s the worst fault a person can have? Why?
12. If you could be young again, would you? Why?
13. What are the four things you least like to do? Why?
14. Who do you most admire? Why?
15. If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go? Why?
16. What are your three best personality traits? Why?
17. What do you like most about living where you live? Why?
18. What was the worst job you ever had? Why?
19. What was the best workshop or conference you’ve ever attended? Why?

Improv ideas: I like the Question game. Good for question grammar practice.

http://plays.about.com/od/improvgames/a/competeImprov.htm

Alphabet looks challenging but interesting too.

Alphabet:

This game is ideal for performers with a knack for alphabetization. The actors create a scene in which each line of dialogue begins with a certain letter of the alphabet. Traditionally, the game starts off with an “A” line.

Example:

Actor #1: All right, our first annual comic book club meeting is called to order.

Actor #2: But I’m the only one wearing a costume.

Actor #1: Cool.

Actor #2: Does it make me look fat?

Actor #1: Excuse me, but what’s the name of your character?

Actor #2: Fat man.

Actor #1: Good, then it suits you.

Anything that helps students gain confidence with speaking expressively is going to valuable in Japanese college classes. Need to get students away from flat, mechanical speaking. Drama/acting in skits may be the best way!

Chernobyl: A case study in variance of "scientific conclusions"

Obviously, Fukushima is not Chernobyl. I'm not trying to fan any panic here. There are obvious differences in the scale of the radiation leakage.

However, I have been reading about Chernobyl because it offers several lessons on how officials, experts and citizens should deal with a leaking nuclear facility.

As you can imagine, my family, friends, and colleagues are in a state of constantly exchanging information to try to help each other get a better understanding of the potential threat (or lack thereof) of nuclear radiation leaking from the reactor in Fukushima.

We waver between "It seems OK...right?" and "Nobody knows exactly how dangerous it could be" and keep reading a variety of opinions from mainstream and alternative media.

Obviously, the government, TEPCO and the nuclear energy establishment want to keep any sense of danger as low as possible. The mainstream media seems to go along with this. The government position is that there is no immediate threat, and that seems reasonable, especially in Tokyo where no significant radiation is being detected. But basic critical thinking would require a skepticism on the part of powerful institutions that may (most likely?) have a interest in keeping order, stability, and hopefully a continued trust in nuclear power generation for Japan.

Are we really being told everything we should know to make an informed decision?

On the other hand, there may be "anti-nuclear" organizations or media groups that have an interest in exaggerating the dangers of the Fukushima leak so that they can promote political causes that prefer safer, cleaner energies. Greenpeace comes to mind, but we should also remember that they don't have a direct financial or political gain from any public opinion.

This article in the Guardian challenges inaccurate claims of the anti-nuclear lobby. (link)
But this editor of the same newspaper challenges the reliability of the writer Monbiot. (link)

So, I've been reading about Chernobyl, and one lesson is that it is good to try to get information from as many sources as possible.

For example, one of my colleagues has brought our attention to the difference in "official IAEA/WHO conclusions" on Chernobyl in 2006 and a scientific report that was published in the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009 to rebuke the conclusions of the IAEA report.

You can check it out. For example, one the issue of the effects of Chernobyl, these following "scientific" conclusions seem quite different.

The IAEA conclusion (LINK) seems to really downplay the effects. No more than 30 directly related deaths are mentioned in this Q&A page (though the official report says more):

2. How many people died as an immediate result of the accident?

The initial explosion resulted in the death of two workers. Twenty-eight of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion from Acute Radiation Sickness and one of cardiac arrest.

4. What are the major health effects for exposed populations?
There have been at least 1800 documented cases of thyroid cancer children who were between 0 and 14 years of age when the accident occurred., which is far higher than normal. The thyroid gland of young children is particularly susceptible to the uptake of radioactive iodine, which can trigger cancers, treatable both by surgery and medication. Health studies of the registered cleanup workers called in (so-called “liquidators”) have failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure and an increase in other forms of cancer or disease. The psychological affects of Chernobyl were and remain widespread and profound, and have resulted for instance in suicides, drinking problems and apathy.


Contrast the above to the following:

Yablokov's 2009 New York Academy of Sciences publication's (LINK, p. 343) conclusion:

15.4. Total Number of Victims
1. Early official forecasts by IAEA and WHO predicted few additional cases of cancer. In 2005, the Chernobyl Forum declared that the total death toll from the catastrophe would be about 9,000 and the number of sick about 200,000. These numbers cannot distinguish radiation-related deaths and illnesses from the natural mortality and morbidity of a huge population
base.
2. Soon after the catastrophe average life expectancy noticeably decreased and morbidity
and mortality increased in infants and the elderly in the Soviet Union.
3. Detailed statistical comparisons of heavily contaminated territories with less contaminated
ones showed an increase in the mortality rate in contaminated European Russia
and Ukraine of up to 3.75% and 4.0%, respectively, in the first 15 to 17 years after the
catastrophe.
4. According to evaluations based on detailed analyses of official demographic statistics
in the contaminated territories of Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia, the additional
Chernobyl death toll for the first 15 years after the catastrophe amounted to nearly 237,000
people. It is safe to assume that the total Chernobyl death toll for the period from 1987
to 2004 has reached nearly 417,000 in other parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and nearly
170,000 in North America, accounting for nearly 824,000 deaths worldwide.
5. The numbers of Chernobyl victims will continue to increase for several generations.

So...scientists come to different conclusions on the deaths as a result of Chernobyl. This is a good case study in how we should interpret official reports and scientific studies that are announced in various types of media.

I'm particularly concerned about the difference in the conclusions about the "liquidators" populations. In the Yablokov meta-analysis, there are so many studies about health problems and higher death rates among liquidators who did clean up of Chernobyl in the that is seems suspicious that the IAEA would not mention any known radiation related effects in that group.

I should note that Monbiot of the Guardian writes the following about the Yablokov book:

A devastating review in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry points out that the book achieves this figure (more than 800,000 deaths) by the remarkable method of assuming that all increased deaths from a wide range of diseases – including many which have no known association with radiation – were caused by the Chernobyl accident. There is no basis for this assumption, not least because screening in many countries improved dramatically after the disaster and, since 1986, there have been massivThe study makes no attempt to correlate exposure to radiation with the incidence of disease.e changes in the former eastern bloc.

Its publication seems to have arisen from a confusion about whether Annals was a book publisher or a scientific journal. The academy has given me this statement: "In no sense did Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made in the translation or in the original publications cited in the work. The translated volume has not been peer reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences, or by anyone else."

It is hard to know what to think. Each claim needs careful examination. The red part...I think is a mistake on the part of Monbiot. I'm not an expert, but the Yablokov book does seem to correlate highly exposed areas and populations and incidence of disease in relation to other areas/populations.

The green part is a weakness of the Yablokov report, of course, and is a mystery to me (if it is true). Is the NY Academy of Sciences just a book publisher? If so, I would hope other scientists might comment on the validity of the Yablokov report compared to the United Nations report, which I assume is similar to the IAEA report (?).

Last, I just want to throw in the words of Alexey Yablokov, the writer of the 2009 report above:

"When you hear 'no immediate danger' [from nuclear radiation] then you should run away as far and as fast as you can."

Hmm...I think that is an exaggeration that may only apply to the USSR where government secrecy was part of the nature of the communist state...but still is food for thought, and a reminder to keep looking at a variety of sources and not just official government, IAEA, and mainstream media sources.

So...who is objective and accurate? Who is biased? I'm not able to draw a firm conclusion at this point, but hope to keep up with this debate because it will affect our understanding of the various reports and announcements of the effects of Fukushima. Governments will tend to stay within the realm of declaring action only for "scientifically proven threats"...so unless some danger has been clearly measured or modeled, it will not be announced. However, as in the case of Chernobyl, it may be true that some scientists believe there is a need for alarm when others don't. To some extent, I may want to err on the safe side by believing the conclusions reached on "mostly" accurate projections even if they are not fully established.

In any case, I will keep my eyes and ears open, and hope for the best, but anticipate the worst so that I can ensure the safety of my family.

And drink beer to keep away any stray radiation effects. This is scientific (link)!

Too Dumb for Complex Texts? Reading and the Web 2.0 Generation

Interesting article on the decline of the ability of American teenagers to read "complex" texts.
The writer Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University.

Link: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb11/vol68/num05/Too-Dumb-for-Complex-Texts%C2%A2.aspx

The main idea is that American high school and college students are developing a habit of only doing "fast reading" of simple texts because their teachers are not requiring them to deal with complex texts that require slow, contemplative readings. As a result, their ability to comprehend and appreciate complex texts is declining.

The main evidence cited is:

1) A year 2000 survey by the US Dept of education that showed 43% of two year public college students and 29% of 4 year public college students have to take a remedial course in "math, reaading or writing". They are not college ready. (Me: But wasn't 2000 just before Web 2.0?)

2) A 2006 ACT Test organization study that shows "The clearest differentiator in reading between students who are college ready and students who are not is the ability to comprehend complex texts" (p. 2). (Me: How can a one shot test measure comprehension of complex vs. non-complex texts. I'd be interested to see.)

So, is it true that fewer and fewer American students are able to deal with complex texts? I'm not sure if this evidence actually supports that, let's assume it is true for a moment.

The next question is, Is that decline due to an increase of digital media use by the students in their high school and college classes? The author seems to believe that the use of more digital tools in high school (multimedia projects etc.) and fewer heavy paper-based readings is leading to an inability to read "complex texts" that need a patient, slow reading. The Twitter/Facebook generation has too many disruptions and wants to go over ideas too quickly to slowly contemplate a subtle, complex idea.

Hmm...is this really true?

By a complex text, he says he means "a US Supreme Court decision, an epic poem, or an ethical treatise--works characterized by dense meanings, elaborate structure, sophisticated vocabulary, and subtle authorial intentions...." He gives examples of Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil and Emerson's Self-Reliance. He believes that young people recently are so used to quickly expressing their immediate reactions to the world by Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube that they are becoming incapable of slowly digesting a difficult text without passing a personal judgment of what they think right away.

He concludes: "Complex texts aren't so easily judged. Often they force adolescents to confront the inferiority of their learning, the narrowness of their experience, and they recoil when they should succumb. Modesty is a precondition of education, but the Web teaches them something else: the validity of their outlook and the sufficiency of their selves, a confidence ruinous to the growth of a mind."

My feeling on this is:

1) Our students probably need to become capable of two types of reading, impatient and patient: the impatient one is the fast information filtering/gathering type of reading that maximizes network tools to increase minimum necessary understanding of an issue at a rapid pace, including the expression of quick reactions or summaries or questions that lead to answers from online friends or experts; another is a slower, patient contemplative reading that is done in order to allow the ideas to ferment in an unbroken concentration.

2) I agree with the author that we want to avoid nurturing readers who are unable to deal with a complex text, but I also feel that the new generation is going to deal with complex texts in new ways with new tools, and there is nothing wrong with that. The digital media generation may have a tendency (I know I do, to some extent) to demand easy-to-understand, organized transparent, even visually represented presentations of ideas. If a Supreme Court judge writes in a "subtle, opaque" style that does not clearly say what it wants to say, it is easy to blame the writer for a lack of clarity. It may also be a natural tendency to stop reading and try to go online to find a digested version or somebody else's summary/paraphrase of the key points.
For the slower, patient reading of complex ideas, an offline, paper-based environment seems valuable, but I want to stay open-minded because I am not totally sure that is the only way to go. This new generation of readers may actually develop a better understanding of issues by Tweeting their personal reactions to classmates as they read, getting reactions, and going to Wikipedia or Yahoo Q&A to skim through background on a concept they are not familiar with.

In the end, as long as they get to an accurate understanding and appreciation of the main ideas of the text (hopefully first hand rather than second hand) and are able to connect that text to their own lives and our world, the way that they get there does not matter.