It's a Whole New World

The semester ended with a frenzy, but not much flourish.  I had hoped to keep my students, and myself, blogging at least once a month.  My goal was ambitious!

What I found in the past four days of quiet (no planning, no grading, and no "real" meetings) was time to catch up on some reading.  I spent some time with the text for my "new to me" on-line course for spring, with readings recommended by friends and colleagues in education and geography, and with things that are just for me.

This morning, I ran across a Facebook post from a friend and former colleague (turned librarian) to an article from the on-line British paper -- The Guardian.  Can Teachers Ever Have a Work-Life Balance?  After some reading, I learned that The Guardian - a decidedly, and openly, liberal "rag" - has a great set of pages reserved for their "Teacher Network" - everything from the blog to teacher resources for the classroom to teaching jobs in the UK.

There, I came across the blog of one teacher's experience with Inanimate Alice, a digital novel for the young adult reader.  I've not read Alice, yet.  I'm enamored with the concept!  This is what a "graphic novel" should be in the 21st Century, right?

So, the next question just must be asked -- What would Montag and the others struggling to save books in Bradury's classic Fahrenheit 451 say about digital novels?  I really don't have an answer, except - just maybe - it's not just about the paper and ink of the book.  It's about the reading.  It's about the passing down  from one generation to the next the stories of a civilization, not just the reality tv and dramas that unfold on our wall-sized, video monitors.  If the purpose in to just get our young people to read and stay reading, then I feel pretty certain we've not really come to the time Bradbury describes in Fahrenheit.

I can't wait to read Alice.  I suppose now I will have to find a way to download the "episodes" since I don't have an e-reader except my iPhone (which won't support Adobe Flash).

Welcome to the 21st Century!

Educator Activism

After a great lunch with the Mississippi Council on Economic Education (MCEE) - including the road trip to Jackson, MS, with an enthusiastic pre-service teacher, I possessed a renewed awareness of  just how important it is for us to be advocate for our subjects-area(s) and our profession.

For the better part of the past 18 years, I have been actively lobbying for stronger social studies education in my own part of the world.  Yesterday's luncheon reminded me of why I/we do what I/we do -- a well-spoken, energetic, articulate, seventh grader from Quitman County Middle School named Charlie Johnson.  Not just Charlie Johnson, but all of the Charlie Johnsons, and Esme Garcias, and Kelsey Smiths, and ...  you get the idea.

Better yet, there are those who value what I/we do as educators!  MCEE gave out cash prizes to teachers with exceptional lesson plans ($300, $500, and $1,000).  Students received prizes as part of their Young Entrepreneur program.  It didn't matter what side of the political aisle you were on yesterday, social studies education - specifically economic education - was important enough for about 500 people to spend too much on chicken, green beans and new potatoes to support the work of TEACHERS -- SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS!

This morning I ran across an older message in my over-full inbox with documents to support the SpeakUpForGeography.org campaign to raise support for the Teaching Geography Is Fundamental (TGIF) Act.  I already sent letters to my Congressmen, but I hadn't shared the word with the world.  This afternoon, I aimed to do just that!  I uploaded as many of the images and one of the videos to my Facebook page and to YouTube in hopes that someone else will share them with their friends.

We must "speak up" there are those who are waiting to hear from us!

Apps for spatial thinking

While in California for the Applied Geography Conference, a friend introduced me to two apps for iPhone (and iPad) to promote geographic (and geometric) spatial thinking -- "Stack the States" and "Stack the Countries."  There are "lite" versions of both, but full funtionality is only $0.99 (for the states).  Not only is the user asked to indentify the state/country by shape, but they are asked question about neighboring states, features, capitals that go beyond rote memorization of the "Fifty Nifty United States" song. 

I also have several other "geographic" apps on my iPhone (3G -- I can't wait to upgrade to the 4Gs). 

• ESRI Business Analyst (BAO)
• ESRI ArcGIS
• Google Earth
• Park Ranger
• Around Me
• NASA

What are some apps you have found that you can use in social studies education?

A Reflection on September 11th

For my EDSE447 students, this particular post is not linked to any required or requested reflection for class.


September 11 -- my now husband's birthday.  He was 100 miles away working.  I had class and work in the office to do.  I needed to be in the office by 9:00 a.m.

Sitting in front of the television, eating a bowl of cereal, I watched the Today Show.  It had become my morning ritual before heading out on my 15-minute walk to campus for class and my job in the Texas Alliance for Geographic Education (TAGE).

And then, the first plane struck the World Trade Center.  My first thought was that the pilot must've had a heart attack or that the plane had some equipment malfunction.

While I watched, the second plane hit.  It became clear this wasn't an accident.

When I arrived in the Department of Geography, Dr. Estaville had a television set up just outside the department's main office.  Undergrads, Master's and Ph.D. students, faculty, and staff were all stopped in the hallway glued to the screen.  Rumors were flying.  The White House was struck.  The Pentagon.

Then, it all be can to settle in.  The Pentagon had been struck.  A fourth plane downed by heroic passengers who gave their lives to save how many hundreds more.

The Pentagon!  OMG!  A friend I'd taught with and babysat for who's husband was an officer in the Air Force was stationed at the Pentagon now.  Where was Todd?  How was Todd?  How was Sheri?  Did she know anything?  I dared not call because family would be frantic.  I was just a friend a 1000+ miles away.

Then, it just got worse.  Three teachers, three sixth grade students, and two National Geographic staffers were on their way to the Channel Islands from Washington, D.C., for a National Geographic/National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency research project.  They were on the Pentagon plane.  Joe Ferguson (of Durant, MS, and bastion of the Education Outreach division) and Ann Judge (who made travel miracles happen for National Geographic writers and photographers all over the globe - including me just two months earlier).  People I knew well enough to call friends and colleagues were on the plane where hijackers told them to call home, they were going to die.

Word came that another member of the geographic community was on one of the other planes that day.  I fail to remember his name.  All was blocked by fear for my friend Sheri and her two children and deep sadness and pain for my friends Joe and Ann and the teachers and students with whom they were sharing their passion for geography.

Sheri's husband Todd should have been in E-wing of the Pentagon, but was off-site that day.  She learned of his safety when he walked in the door at 9:00 p.m. that evening.

My brother, then stationed in Norfolk on the USS Archerfish, was actually in Texas making visits to medical schools.  The Archerfish was set to be underway in just a few weeks, and he was hoping to schedule interviews for admission before he left for sea.  On Friday, just before September 11, 2001.  He stopped at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.  The admissions officer, a retired Navy physician himself, told him to show up the next Friday, in uniform.  They would interview him.  My brother phoned his wife still in Norfolk, and she FedEx'd the requested uniform to my parents' home.

Then on September 11, 2001... The Archerfish was put out to sea, and underway early.  All leave was suspended, but there were no flights anywhere.  My brother was told to sit tight in Texas until further orders.

Friday, post 9/11, my brother walked into an interview for medical school, in Navy dress whites.  I don't know if it made an impact on the admissions committee.  It's significance was not lost on my family.  Several months later, we learned he had been admitted to UTHSC-H as a medical student.  You never saw a more proud family when we attended his "White Coat" ceremony the next fall.

Today is my husband's birthday.  We celebrate and try to take time away from the somberness of the date - which also marks the beginning of the Communist Revolution in China.  And, I take a few moments to remember Joe, Ann, and the teachers and students with them.  The excitement as they set out on a new adventure.

I Remember This Much....

I don't remember the details of my first day as a teacher intern at Mark Twain Middle School 18 years ago, but I do remember that I did not feel welcome.  In hindsight, I'm willing to take partial responsibility for my perceptions of the day.

I was an outsider.  Not only not from Trinity University, I majored in agricultural economics -- not education.  I graduated from Texas Tech University on May 15, 1993, but I started summer school in Trinity's Master of Arts in Teaching program during finals week at Tech.  At the end of the six-week summer session, I moved to Denmark, Maine, to work as a camp counselor for Camp Walden. Camp ran until the last week in August, but Texas' schools started the second week in August.  Everyone knew I was going to be starting my internship a week late because of my work commitment.  At least I thought they did.

My experience with adolescents was limited to my younger brother (a senior in high school at the time), my own experience with Masonic youth organizations (Rainbow, Job's Daughters, and DeMolay), and my time at Camp Walden.  My mother taught at a high school English and journalism (but had been a full-professor at a community college for a while).  My paternal grandmother taught first grade for 40 years.  My paternal grandfather served as principal and then tax collector for a school district.  I'd been on the Dean's List, kept my scholarship all four years, and had only ONE "C" on my transcript - ever.  I was a smart girl.  How hard could this "teaching thing" be, really?

So, it is quite possibly with a very large chip on my shoulder than I walked into my mentor teacher's eighth grade classroom that August morning eager to begin my nine-month placement as at teacher intern.

I remember this much...

"I told them I didn't want one [an intern] this year.  And, they gave me you.  Where were you?  You're not from Trinity are you?!"

She was a very "global" personality -- teaching units on "Power" and "Revolution" instead of "Colonial America" and "the American Revolution"  She planned interdisciplinary units that made little sense to me or to the students - I thought.

She and her friends went to lunches off campus.  I felt left out even when included.  I just never quite felt like I fit in like I thought I should've.  We had things in common.  We both had Morgan horses.  We had common acquaintances (and I would run into her regularly for several years after I left her classroom).  I thought as a "mentor teacher" we would be fast-friends.  We weren't.

I'm sure there were good days in my mentor teacher's classroom.  I don't remember them.  I never had a space that was mine to store my coat, my purse, my "teacher bag."  My desk was a nearly broken, graffitied student desk.  I never had the respect of the students.  Maybe I hadn't earned it.  Maybe they knew what I knew -- she didn't respect me.  (I made a few friends from Trinity in summer school, and I remember the fun we had - taking their students to the regional YMCA camp for team building activities, coffee and study sessions at La Madeleine near campus, and road trips to check out schools in Bryan/College Station.  I don't think any of us quite understood why we watched Rashomon in class one evening or how it related to secondary education.)

I struggled with classroom management.  I made mistakes as a teacher intern.  If you asked my mentor teacher from that fall/winter, she would probably be able to name them all.  Some were bigger than others.  I tried to learn from them all.  She probably didn't see it that way. 

Several people saw my struggle and still saw potential.  In mid-January, the university reassigned me to a different classroom on the campus.  From my first day in my new placement, I felt welcomed.

"We're going on a field trip to the Witte.  Here are your 10 students [sixth graders]. (Pause) This is Miss Foster, our new teacher."

I still made mistakes.  I still struggled with classroom management (something I think all teachers feel like they must revisit daily).  Most of all, I learned I could be a strong teacher who cared for her students.

So, what did I learn from my placement in the fall/winter of 1993-94?  I learned that this "teacher thing" is pretty hard work, and my family made it look easy.  I learned that students need routine and structure as much as they need to investigate and explore the content.  You can have too much of a good thing - too many projects/activities, too many worksheets, too many tests, too many skits.  The ancient Greeks said it best, "Nothing in excess." 

I graduated with my MAT on May 9, 1994 -- one week short of one year from finishing my Bachelor's degree. 

How Do You Get There from Here?

"Well, you take a right at the redlight and go about a mile.  Then hang a left at...."

I did not always want to be a teacher.  I am not even sure I always wanted to be a college professor.  The path my career took toward teaching in higher education curved and included a detour or two.

After high school, I set off on a path that should have led toward a job with the Foreign Ag Service or the State Department.  I majored in agricultural economics with an emphasis on international trade.  Grades for graduate school were not the issue.  Finding a job that was not in agricultural chemical sales was.  I held a sales job in high school and knew sales and marketing were not for me.  By my junior year in college, I knew I needed a career change, but I was on scholarship.  How could I finance my education if I changed majors outside of the College of Agricultural Sciences?

After a visit with a friend of the family (who was also chair of the education department) at Trinity University, a clearly marked detour emerged.  I could use my last year to complete leveling coursework and matriculate to Trinity’s fifth year Master of Arts in Teaching program for secondary social studies education.  I student-taught in inner-city San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) in the eighth and sixth grades at the peak of a gang war.  To gain additional experience, I agreed to substitute at the school where my mother was yearbook and newspaper sponsor. By the end of the summer of my “fifth year,” I secured a job in Judson Independent School District (JISD), a large suburban district near San Antonio, Texas, as one of thirteen geography teachers for their large, single high school.

For four years, I taught world geography and world history.  I helped pilot a vocational technology course – The World of Ecology – for students interested in environmental careers.  I mentored students in Advanced Social Science Problems and even taught summer and night school for students trying to recapture credit in their social studies courses.  I loved my job and my colleagues, but I had started making a 70-mile one-way commute to work due to a move.  (I had moved to what was once part of my great-grandparents homestead with my growing herd of Morgan horses.)

With gas prices soaring to $0.95 per gallon, I made a move to a school about half the distance as my previous job.  I agreed to teach United States history (post-Civil War) and sponsor the dance team.  My second year at the new campus, the principal agreed to let me teach my passion – ninth grade world geography.  I loved my job and my colleagues, but again I felt the need to do more.  I wanted to be able to teach a dual credit course in geography for our rural students.  I started looking into graduate programs, and the author of my students’ textbook worked just 100 miles away.  I scheduled a visit to Texas State University-San Marcos (then Southwest Texas State University).

It became clear that I could not seek the degree I wanted without becoming a full-time graduate student.  Becoming a full-time graduate student meant: a $10,000 per year pay cut; I couldn’t pay into Teacher Retirement System (TRS); and I couldn’t pay into social security.  So, I sold my parents my car, and they agreed to make payments on my pick-up.  They bought me a laptop – for the car – and I was free to keep the horses at the farm and pay rent on an apartment in San Marcos, Texas, for the next four years. 

Not quite through with my dissertation at that time, I returned to teach in SAISD.  An acquaintance I’d met through the Texas Alliance for Geographic Education (TAGE) was department chair at one of the high schools and welcomed me into her department – first as a world history teacher and then as a geography teacher.  With help from family and friends, I finished my degree (in my sixth year of study) and began looking for jobs in higher education.  All the while, I taught high school geography during the day and as an adjunct professor at night for one, two, and sometimes three of the Alamo Community Colleges.  I finally made the jump to teacher education when one of the ACC campuses was expanding their alternate route program and needed a new staff member.

While working with the alternate route teacher candidates, one of my other applications began to bear fruit.  University of Mississippi asked me for an on-site interview.  I had been to Oxford, Mississippi, on a mother-daughter road trip of historic and literary sites a decade earlier.  Nothing prepared me for the whirlwind of the interview or my response.  OleMiss offered me the position, and I phoned my fiancé from the Memphis airport.  “Can you live in Mississippi?” 

 Within a month, we made a trip to Oxford to look for a house, bought a house, found a job for him, and school started.  All of this while continuing to plan a wedding in Texas for Thanksgiving weekend.

How do you get there from here?

Which route do you want to take?  US-79 to IH-20 to IH-55, IH-35 to IH-30 to IH-40 to IH-55, or IH-10 to IH-12 to IH-55.  They’ll all get you there.


Note to my EDSE 447 students (Fall 2011):  The above narrative is approximately 900 words, three pages, typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. font in MSWord.  Your first blog post may be a bit shorter -- 600 to 700 words.  You are not required to add hyperlinks to this assignment, but it is encouraged.

How I Spent My Summer

Traveling, reading, fishing, and teaching.

Once K-12 schools were out for summer vacation, I was off to sort student responses to the free response questions on the Advanced Placement Human Geography exam.  En route, we stopped at the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill (just out side Harrodsburg, KY).  We spent two wonderful days playing tourist at the 3,000 acre, historic village.  We stayed on-site in an 1821 family dwelling complete with reproduction furnishings.

Instead of books on tape, we shared books of interest with each other as we drove, trading out reading and driving responsibilities.  The book for this leg of the journey was And One Was A Priest, the biography of the Episcopal priest at St. Peter's Church in Oxford, MS, during the early 1960s.  I have so much respect for this man and his ministry to the people of Oxford during those turbulent times.  The author did a nice job weaving Gray's homilies into the narrative and including different perspectives on the night of the riots in 1962.

Then, it was off to Cincinnati for the AP "reading."  Just over 80,000 students took the AP HG exam this year - exponential growth for a exam that is only 10 years old!  We enjoyed the nightly (free) events in Fountain Square and took a friend from Kenya to his first MLB game (Reds vs. Cubs).  We had in-field seats on the third base line.  It was wonderful!  I truly enjoyed reconnecting with some wonderful geographers and high school geography teachers.  I missed the National Underground Railroad Museum again this year, but I hope to make it next year.

Next stop - Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center, Columbus, MS.  We the People and Project Citizen held their summer professional development workshop for K-12 teachers in mid-June.  With the help of Sarah Sumners and Carol Paola,  a wonderful crew of teachers learned more about the programs sponsored by the Center for Civic Education (www.civiced.org)  The week was bittersweet since I will no longer be coordinating the We the People program (and funding was lost for the 2011-12 school year in the federal stop-gap spending bill).

We then took a short break to visit family in South Texas.  They were early in the drought at that point.   I feel for my family and friends who have been battling the heat and have had no significant rainfall in almost a year.

Summer Session II brought a return to Oxford and OleMiss.  A energetic crew of teacher candidates met all of my expectations (and then some) when we met each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in July.  The long weekends gave us all time to refresh ourselves, and we headed to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to enjoy some saltwater fishing and beach combing.

Our book for this journey was the common reading assignment for the Class of 2015 -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  What a powerful read!  I was tempted to add it to the reading list for EDSE 447.  Instead, I will highly recommend the text.  I can't say enough about the book, and you really must read it.

We absolutely loved our stay in Bay St. Louis.  While we expected to see some re-building and recovery from 2005's Hurricane Katrina, we were not prepared for the numbers of lots left vacant because homeowners and businesses could/chose not to rebuild.  It was oddly surreal.  On a high note, we visited the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, MS.  And, in all, I think it's a trip we'd like to do again.

Alas, August meant at least one of us had to return to full-time work.

I purchased a copy of the acclaimed young adult literature piece, The Hunger Games in the airport en route to my next adventure.  A dear friend's seventh grade daughter recommended the series, and I started it.  I devoured it!  I passed my copy on to another friend's eighth grade daughter who was coveting the book while I read it.  (It's so cool when kids WANT to read!)

While I traveled to Portland, Oregon, for the National Conference on Geography Education's annual meeting.  While in Portland, I visited Haystack Rock and the Waterfront Park.  A highlight of the annual meeting is a community service project in the host city.  This year, we helped remove English ivy from a section of one of the largest natural city parks in the nation.  We got hot, sweaty, dirty, and had lots of fun.

On my way back to Oxford, I couldn't find the second book in The Hunger Games series, so I found a used copy of The Help.  Again, a quick read.  I knew/know the types of people in the book.  However, after reading the book, I really don't want to see the film.  I have an image in my head of the characters and their voices.  I'd like it to stay that way.

Now, the semester is off and running.  We're all looking forward to a great year and more adventures (and travels) as we go.  I've sent my youngest niece and my grandson (both starting Kindergarten this year) copies of Skippyjon Jones Class Action!, and I'm set to start The Fourth Part of the World.

Welcome Fall 2011!

A short note to all EDSE 447 students -- You will use blogspot's Blogger to post many of your assignments this semester.  Your classmates will be able to post comments to your posts.

I'm excited to learn about your road to social studies educaiton and how you all define social studies!