This coming Tuesday will be my 3 year-old son’s first day of preschool.  I’m as excited as I am petrified.  I feel REALLY good about the school we chose, and I hope he likes it as much as my wife and I do.  That said, this is not a post about separation anxiety or even about the immediate issues of preschool.  Rather, the first day of preschool has me thinking beyond these next two years to the point in time at which he is scheduled to begin his formal K-12 schooling experience.

Like every other parent I know, I want the best for my child(ren).  And, as a professor in the field of education, I feel comfortable that I can navigate the schooling possibilities and provide opportunities for my child(ren) that are at least acceptable.  That I am a learner in the field of education, however, is causing me problems.

You see, as I’ve spent time with the folks that comprise my personal learning network (i.e. those that I follow on Twitter, those who feed my aggregator, and even those that I’m privileged to learn with as students in the programs in which I teach), I’ve come to see what IS possible.  I’ve come to see many examples of extraordinary, creative, learning-first educators and the incredible learning experiences they have facilitated for their students.  As a result…

I want my child(ren) to play and learn with Logo and Gary Stager.

I want my child(ren) to explore literature with Christian Long and do it “beyond school” with Clay Burell.

I want my child(ren) to have teachers that play guitar and sing, and connect their students to others around the world like Paul Bogush.

I want my child(ren) to work with Clarence Fisher to explore and re-examine what it means to be literate.

I want my child(ren) to do math differently with Dan Meyer.

I could go on.  The examples are plenty.  Thus, clearly, the bar of my expectations is through the roof.  Damn you, PLN!

If Clayton Christensen and his co-authors are right and/or if I become enterprising enough, I suppose there may be a way for me to develop such an individualized distance learning program for my child(ren) with the very best and most creative educators.  But, for now, my only hope is that the educators my child(ren) do get to work with become learners as I have so that they too can learn from the incredible folks I’ve mentioned above.

Last week, all of the major deadlines for my summer work came and went.  Wednesday through Friday was like a blur, but when all the dust settled I realized that I could now focus on the coming academic year.  Furthermore, I felt like I was now free to consider the next phase in my professional life.  Obviously I don’t know what the outcome of my tenure application will be, but I know that VCU is stuck with me for at least two more years.  And, now that I’ve lived in Richmond for a full year, I feel personally settled.  So, while I have some ideas, I don’t yet fully know what is in store for me over the next couple of years.  However, to start that reflective process and this next phase, here’s what I did over the weekend:

• I cleared the inboxes of my two e-mail accounts to zero.
• I completely cleared my RSS aggregator (I had reached 1000+ in Google Reader; apparently it doesn’t count higher than 1000)
• I paid all of the outstanding (meaning unpaid, not “awesome”) bills sitting on my desk.
• Finally, last night, I washed all of my work-related clothes.

I think that last act was symbolically important.  It represented (literally and figuratively) a clean start for me as the new academic year kicks off.

So, for all of you educators out there, I wish you a fresh, clean start to the school year.

I’ve started a new blog where I’ll be writing about my weight loss efforts. Every week or so, I’ll post an update here, but the writing will all be done at Many Pounds Left Behind.

I’ll be looking for additional authors who want to lose weight and use blogging as a reflective tool and an accountability mechanism. If you’re interested in joining MPLB, leave me a comment here, DM me on Twitter (@jonbecker), send me an IM in Skype (soejdb) or e-mail me.

credit: Grundlepuck

I just learned (via Eduwonk) that yesterday would have been Thurgood Marshall’s 100th birthday.  I’ve long believed that Justice Marshall is an underrated hero/icon in our nation; to me, at least, he is THE most influential figure in the history of the fight for civil rights in the U.S.

I want to share a quick story of how I got started in my career, because Marshall was very much involved.  I was a brand new doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia U. sitting in a class taught by Dr. Dale Mann.  Dale was an unrelenting “instructionist;” he spoke (quite eloquently and convincingly) and we listened.  One day, he was speaking of a project that he was evaluating.  Dubbed the “Cyberspace Regionalization Project,” the initiative involved two high schools in New Jersey.  Hunterdon Central Regional HS (where our man Will Richardson was plying his trade at the time) served a largely, white, upper-middle class community.  Asbury Park HS served a majority minority community.  Students from both schools worked together via videoconferencing tools (primitive by today’s standards; this was 1997!) on various projects.  There was a science fair, a literary magazine and a couple of other projects I can’t remember.  The idea was essentially “virtual desegregation.”  I was invited to write about the project for a federally sponsored ed. tech. conference.

Well, having just graduate law school, I had the audacity to raise my hand in Dale’s class.  He looked at me incredulously and allowed me to speak.  I said something to the effect of, “I don’t think that’s what Thurgood Marshall and his colleagues had in mind…separate is inherently unequal…blah, blah, blah…”  Dale asked to see me after class.

No, he didn’t chide me; rather he asked who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.  From there, we struck up a professional relationship that still lasts.  Dale and his wife, Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, have been my mentors ever since and they got me started on this professional journey.  But, really, if it were not for Thurgood Marshall, I probably would not have challenged Dale and, well, I wonder how different my life would be.  So, like many, many others, I owe a debt of gratitude to Thurgood Marshall.  Actually, I think we ALL do.

Happy 100th Thurgood Marshall!

Tags: civil rights, Thurgood Marshall

On the lighter side (figuratively, not at all literally)…

I had some great eating experiences while in San Antonio for NECC.  It all started Friday night when I told Scott McLeod that I was hoping that the hotel’s continental breakfast would involve my favorite flip-over self-serve waffle irons.  Well, Saturday morning we learned that not only was there an iron, but there were 8 (eight!) of them.  Better yet, Texas shaped waffles!  Does it get any better than this?:

I went out to dinner two nights in a row at the same restaurant, Zuni Grille.  The food there is excellent, so I had no problem going back-to-back.  Saturday night I got to chat with Wes Fryer at length, along with Kevin Honeycutt, Joyce Valenza and others.  It was great to spend time with Wes, in particular, since he’s been networking, learning, teaching for quite a while.  I consider him to be one of the early movers (forefathers?) in the blog/Twitter/Ustream/Learning 2.o network.  Not to be outdone, on Sunday night I got to sit next to Vick “CoolCatTeacher” Davis.  I also consider Vicki to be a real pioneer and a hub within my PLN.  Julie Lindsay was there as well, and I really admire what she and Vicki are doing with the Flat Classroom project.  Thus, I guess you can say that my learning entered hybrid mode this week as I added the f-2-f component.

Sunday night at Zuni brought with it one of the funnier moments of the weekend.  A number of us were VERY hungry (and a bit cranky).  The people at the table behind us arrived after us but were receiving their complimentary chips and salsa before us.  Somehow, the New Yorker in me slipped out and I loudly inquired, “Hey, where are our chips.”  The server, to his credit, quickly responded, “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”  It was witty, funny, etc.  We appropriately dubbed him the Chip Nazi and then took the picture below.  That’s me using my NY sharpened elbow on him.

Good times at NECC.

Tags: food, necc08, necc2008, network, PLN