Let’s Talk About Suicide – TED Weekend Starts An Uncomfortable Conversation

On May 26, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn JD Schramm, Learning in Burlington, Mental health, Suicide, TED, TED Talk, TED WeekendsLeave a comment

http://embed.ted.com/talks/jd_schramm.html

TED and The Huffington Post have made suicide and depression the focus of this weekend’s TED Weekend. There are articles by friends and family members who lost loved ones to suicide and a great talk (above) by JD Schramm, a suicide survivor.

As someone who lost his father at the age of 12 to suicide, I am comforted by those who seek to encourage discussions of depression and suicide. While we have made progress in this area since my dad’s suicide 33 years ago , we still have quite a bit of work to do to support those individuals struggling with the stigma of depression and those families struggling with the pain, guilt, and perceived disgrace that is associated with suicide.

I have always been bothered by the fact that there is far less discussion about mental illness than so many physical illnesses. I am struck by the irony in the fact that the families of those fighting mental illness have had to historically hide their experience living on an emotional roller coaster, immersing them in a similar silent struggles to the victim themselves. My biggest frustration is with those who see people who commit suicide as selfish, weak, or someone who”took the easy way out.”

Gosh, how ignorant and insensitive can you really be!? I think we can all agree that mentally healthy do not end their own lives. Be thankful that you can’t comprehend feeling a sense of despair that would ever have you consider this for one moment! Anyway, I agree with JD Schramm’s concluding remark in the talk above which alludes to the TED Talk theme of discussing “Ideas Worth Spreading.”

Raising awareness and comfort levels for those who are impacted by mental illness and suicide is certainly at the top of my list! I encourage others to help in this cause by sharing this video and the accompanying Huffington Post articles below.

What I’ve Learned From My Best Friend’s Suicide – by Lea Lane

Faith-Filled Responses To Suicide – by Reverend Mary Robin Craig

Goodbye Darkness My Old Friend – by Robin Bobbe

Do You Have Any Idea What Your Kids Are Posting Online?

On May 20, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Instagram, Parent, Social media, StudentLeave a comment

I have spent a fair amount of time lately checking out the activity of some students and what they are posting online. I am interested in the behavior of my kids online and the kids that they associate with. I have also spent time checking out the social media behaviors of a few other middle and high school aged relatives as well as some students in Burlington. As I read these Twitter posts (aka Tweets), Instagram posts, and Facebook posts I am certain that the parents of these kids are not aware of the conversations that their children are having online.

Before I cite the negative uses of social media I am seeing, I want to say that most of the communication I see online from students is appropriate. However, I have seen examples of elementary students poking fun at classmates and using profanity, I have seen middle school students using inappropriate language, and I have seen high school students make posts using sexually suggestive language and also use a great deal of profanity.

I have a few areas of concern when it comes to this “over-sharing” that is happening online. What I mean by “over-sharing” is that these young people are sharing too much information online. Either they do not know that the things that they post are accessible to anyone on the internet and can be copied with a quick screen shot or they don’t care. My experience tells me that it is a bit of both with younger students being a bit clueless to how things work and the older students being a bit more carefree about it (although many are also clueless).

Of course the simplest solution is for our kids to understand that the boundaries for responsible communication do not change whether you are face-to-face, on the phone, texting, tweeting, posting, etc. But while we continue to promote respectful behavior, how can we get parents more in the loop? Our kids have a lot more avenues for communication than we did as parents and that is not all bad. However, I think we have an obligation to get to know all of the places that are students spend time whether they are physical spaces or online spaces.

One of the most popular social media resources with my own kids and a lot of their friends right now is Instagram. I know that it is also popular in Burlington and we have students at every grade level using it. As we plan for our final Parent Technology Night in June, I want to share some resources below that provide a great overview of Instagram for parents.

Andrea Tomkins from Media Smarts did a great overview of Instagram back at the beginning of May. Check out a couple of the key excerpts below:

Here’s what parents need to know:

Users officially need to be 13 and older to start an Instagram account. I do recommend enforcing this rule at home because I’m not entirely convinced that younger kids are mature enough to use these kinds of social media applications.

Lay down some ground rules, and stress that if the rules are broken it is cause for immediate account deletion.
Our rules are:

Only follow people you know personally. (This might be tricky, because user names are sometimes “TeddyBear456”.)
Never share any personal information about yourself, where you live and go to school.
Don’t use geolocation services near personal landmarks, namely, home and school. In other words, turn off the option that allows others to know the exact location from where you’re publishing your photo.
Never publish anything you wouldn’t want your parents, teachers, and grandparents to see. Photos can be shared widely, with anyone, in a matter of seconds.
Practice the golden rule and treat others as you would like to be treated when you’re using Instagram. T.H.I.N.K. before you comment on a friend’s photo: is it True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind?
Do not upload or tag photos of other people without their permission. If you snap a photo of your friends, always ask them before sharing it on Instagram.

It’s also good idea to make your child’s account private, otherwise anyone signed into Instagram can view photos on a public user’s profile (which is easily accessed at www.instagram.com/username).

As a parent, my job is to:

Follow my daughter on Instagram.
Peek at her photos and leave comments on the ones I really like to encourage those creative efforts and keep the juices flowing.
Check the comments on her photos every once in awhile and see who’s following who.
Chat about the activity on her account every once in awhile together. e.g. “Did you see that great photo that your friend TeddyBear456 posted?”

That subtly lets her know that I’m in the loop, and a pretty hip mama to boot! (Ha ha.) Are you on Instagram? Are your kids? Do you have guidelines at home?

Related articles

Growing Your PLN Video

On May 16, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Google Hangout, Lisa Dabbs, Nick Provenzano, Personal learning network, PLN, Tom Murray, TwitterLeave a comment

I had the chance to spend some time in a Google Hangout tonight to discuss how educators can grow their Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s) using Twitter. It was a privilege to be included in this discussion with an impressive group of educator. The discussion included Nick Provenzano (an high school English Teacher from Michigan), Lisa Dabbs (a former Principal, blogger for Edutopia, and currently an Education Consultant), Lyn Hilt (a former Elementary Principal and current tech. integration coach in PA), and the organizer of the session Tom Murray (Director of Technology and Cyber Education in Bucks County, PA).

The discussion referenced the following questions:

What’s a personal learning network and why should educators be connected?

How have you used Twitter to make connections and grow professionally?
What’s your connected educator story?
How can educators get started? Where do they even begin?
How can educators increase the size of their learning network?
How can Twitter be used for Professional development?
What other advice do you have for people looking to get started?

Thinking About More Relevant Schools and Classrooms…(Part Two)

On May 14, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Creativity, Education Reform, Innovation, Kevin Kuske, Learning in BurlingtonLeave a comment

(Disclaimer – The concerns I have are not just about the school system where I work or the one where my students attend, they are systemic issues that everyone of us who is impacted by the education of our youth should consider. Oh yeah, we are all impacted by the education of our youth!)

The headline of an article by from Business News Daily caught my attention recently. The article, Creativity and Connectivity In The Workplace by Kevin Kuske, got me thinking about the field of education and what we can do to foster more creativity and connectivity in our students. While I am confident that there are pockets of very creative things happening, I wonder sometimes if we are lacking in our collective ability to connect these creative undertakings in ways that would allow them to have a more significant impact on our students.

This deficiency is certainly not caused by disinterest on the part of educators, it is due to outdated structures and the lack of experience that educators have had with meaningful connectivity that we have their own learning. Let’s face it, the daily experience for many/most teachers is still to plan the lesson independently, teach the lesson independently, and then to plan and administer assessments independently.

So the fact that “Co-creation is ascending as the new dominant model of innovation, creativity and differentiation” puts a major wrinkle into the previous perception of our role whether we are an administrator, a classroom teacher, or support staff. This next part is equally problematic for most of us in public schools:

“Creativity, innovation and a strong sense of culture all build off of connections and trust.’

Reducing students and staff to a test score is problematic. Flickr photo via Lyn Hilt

Unfortunately, the model that our nation is following for education reform is one that seems is overly focused on linking teacher performance to a a few days of standardized testing. This model, which was not co-created by educators, will not do much to build a culture of trust. So while I agree strongly that the “coming together in a shared space is still one of the best ways to build these ties” that will allow us to help out students create and innovate, I wonder how we can ensure the following “effective and desirable” qualities are fostered in staff and students as we also try to meet the prescriptive mandates being thrown at us by education policy makers:

Their personality comes through.

They have the freedom to be themselves.

There is passion for their craft.

A sense of community makes them part of something bigger.

They have meaningful fun.

They have a choice on how and where they want to work.

They take time to connect.

I’ll take a stab at it in Part Three…

Thinking About More Relevant Schools and Classrooms…(Part One)

On May 13, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Burlington Public Schools, Edreform, Education, Learning in Burlington, relevanceLeave a comment

How can we make sure that their work in school pays off for our students?

As I continue to read stories about what is happening in the “real world,” you know the place we are supposed to be preparing our students for, my concerns about the level of preparation that our students will have as they exit our doors. While I have a good level of confidence that our students will be able to do the basics well (i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic), I am fairly confident that the learning environments that they inhabit within our school walls have not changed and will leave them lacking the skills they will need to prosper in a world where things are changing.

Andreas Schleicher, The Education Director for The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), describes the dilemma as follows in his article The Case for 21st Century Learning:

It is about how knowledge is generated and applied, about shifts in ways of doing business, of managing the workplace or linking producers and consumers, and becoming quite a different student from the kind that dominated the 20th century. What we learn, the way we learn it, and how we are taught is changing. This has implications for schools and higher level education, as well as for lifelong learning.

While educational policy makers scream for “accountability,” our students continue to lose out on the relevant experiences that have been ignored or brushed aside as we prepare for the next round of standardized testing. If you don’t believe me just read the account of Bill Ferriter, a science teacher from North Carolina, and how his classroom will change for the worse next year because of our nation’s test-driven reform policy.

It is time for local communities to come together and focus on a vision for students that will allow teachers to veer from a test-driven agenda and ensure a relevance-driven agenda. If you agree with Schleicher and his vision (below) of the successful student:

They are capable not only of constantly adapting, but also constantly learning and growing in a fast-changing world. In a flat world, our knowledge becomes a commodity available to everyone else. As columnist and author Thomas Friedman puts it, because technology has enabled us to act on our imaginations in ways that we could never before, the most important competition is no longer between countries or companies but between ourselves and our imagination.

As someone who has worked in public education for 20-years, I know the biggest challenge for me is due to my past experiences in school and a lack of imagination to think beyond these experiences. How can we, the adults in the school, overcome our own hurdles to set the stage for a more meaningful experience for our students?

A concluding thought from Schleicher:

Value is less and less created vertically through command and control-as in the classic “teacher instructs student” relationship-but horizontally, by whom you connect and work with, whether online or in person.

Some Thoughts On Ed. Reform…

On May 7, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Education Reform, John Tierney, Standardized test, The AtlanticLeave a comment

One of the best pieces I have read on the education reform agenda in our country appeared in The Atlantic a couple weeks ago. The article, titled The Coming Revolution in Public Education, was written by John Tierney, a former professor and independent school teacher.

As a father of three chidlren in the K-12 public school system, I wonder how others feel about the direction of our country’s education reform efforts. It is understandable that a reform agenda that capitalizes on a scoreboard that tells us which schools (and teachers) are “winning” and “losing,” would be appealing due to its simplicity. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to the current issues that our nation’s schools face and any effort to make it seem otherwise are misguided.

Here are a few excerpts from Tierney’s piece that should cause us all to reflect a bit on the current education agenda:

Policies that aim to reduce variability by reducing teacher discretion not only preclude learning from situational adaptation to policy goals, they also can impede effective teaching.”

As The Nation magazine reported in 2011: “The research consensus has been clear and unchanging for more than a decade: at most, teaching accounts for about 15 percent of student achievement outcomes, while socioeconomic factors account for about 60 percent.”

…these companies (driving ed. reform efforts) are enriching themselves and their executives from taxpayers’ dollars – Pearson’s pre-tax profits soaring by 72 percent in 2011.

If you want to read a detailed and damning appraisal of the secretive and error-ridden testing business, read this 2003 report by Kathleen Rhoades and George Madaus of Boston College’s Lynch School of Education.

David Sirota has reported, “The reason America’s overall scores on such tests are far lower is because high poverty schools produce far worse results — and as the most economically unequal society in the industrialized world, we have far more poverty than our competitors, bringing down our overall scores accordingly.” Addressing poverty and inequality are the keys to serving America’s educational needs.

Appreciating Educators, This Week And Always

On May 6, 2013August 8, 2017 By Patrick LarkinIn Huffington Post, Rita Pierson, Teacher Appreciation Week, TEDLeave a comment

In case you didn’t know it already, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. With this in mind, I have been reflecting about the educators who contributed so much to my success. The first and foremost was my mother who was an elementary teacher for 30-plus years in Milford, MA. Then there were a number of others who played a critical role in my development after the death of my father when I was in the 7th grade.

In the past few days, there have been some great examples shared online which highlight the importance of passionate educators in the lives of students. One of the most popular pieces making the rounds has been the phenomenal TED Talk by Dr. Rita Pierson (check it our below), an educator for over 40 years. Dr. Pierson’s essay also appeared in the Huffington Post and the excerpt below is one that strikes me as most critical.

Unless there is a connection between teacher, student and lesson, learning becomes tiresome to all involved. Veteran educator, James Comer, states that, “No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.”

In a day and age where so much time and energy is spent on debating a misguided education reform agenda that equates standardized test scores with quality teaching, I am thankful to work in an educational community that mirrors the one I attended as a student. My thanks go to the educators who connected with me as a student and the wonderful teachers in Burlington who share this student-centered philosophy!

There is no test that can truly show what you mean to your students!

http://embed.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion.html

Touching Video Shown Before Last Night’s Bruins Game

On April 18, 2013August 8, 2017 By Patrick LarkinIn Boston Maratahon 2013, Burlington Public Schools, Learning in Burlington, Pray for BostonLeave a comment

Image via http://bloguin.com/

Words cannot really express the levels of sadness, anger and confusion that have resulted following the acts of terror that were perpetrated on Boston on Monday. However, one thing that has been clear is the amazing resilience of all who have been impacted by this unfathomable act. The actions, words, and tributes that have been shared in the few days following the bombings have been touching and extremely helpful in the healing process.

Below is the video shown before the Bruins game last night. Feel free to share links to anything that you found touching in the comment section below.

http://nhl.cdn.neulion.net/u/videocenter-v1/embed.swf

File This Under – The Hidden Talents Of Burlington Administrators

On April 6, 2013August 8, 2017 By Patrick LarkinIn Burlington Public Schools, Harlem Shake, John Lyons, Pine Glen Principal's BlogLeave a comment

Back in February I learned that Francis Wyman Elementary Principal Susan Astone was also a musician when I came across a post on her blog that showed her playing the guitar and singing to one of her classes (See Picture Below). Now, just a few months later I learned that Pine Glen Elementary Principal John Lyons is a dancer.

This news comes after Principal Lyons led his students in a rendition of the Harlem Shake last week during a visit by the Harlem Superstars basketball team. Check out the video above of Principal Lyons performing “The Pine Glen Shake.”

I can’t help wondering what other hidden talents have yet to be discovered regarding our Burlington administrators?

Raising Modern Learners, A Great New Site For Parents (and Educators)

On April 2, 2013 By Patrick LarkinIn Family, Parent Education, Raising Modern Learners, Will RichardsonLeave a comment

I wanted to draw your attention to a new site for parents that talks about the evolving world that our children will inherit and how we can best support their learning endeavors to prepare them for their futures. The site, Raising Modern Learners, was launched just over a week ago by Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon, a couple of parents who happen to also be highly regarded educators. The reasoning behind the creation of the site by Richardson and Dixon is as follows:

“The world of education and the future of work are being transformed by the networked, connected, global moment in which we live, and there’s no question the opportunities and challenges our children face will be much different the ones we faced growing up. As parents, we need to make sense of that in order to best guide our kids forward. With the overwhelming amount of information online, we know you don’t have the time (or, in many cases, the energy) to keep track of it all. Our mission at RML is to help you stay abreast of not just what’s shifting, but what those shifts mean for the your kids’ futures. We’ll provide the best links and the most thoughtful analysis of what it all means in a timely, easy-to-read package once a week.”

The most recent post on the site (First Take: Here a Screen, There a Screen, Everywhere a Screen Screen…A Good Thing for our Kids?) provides a great example of the thoughtful nature of the material that you can expect from Richardson and Dixon.

I encourage you go to Raising Modern Learners and enter your e-mail so that you can receive the weekly newsletter!