Bella's Heart

More than twelve years ago, I spent several months stationed in Hawaii while serving as a Marine.  Many nights I lay on the tennis court and gazed at the moon and stars longing for a deeper connection to beauty, seeking freedom from my little stresses.  Frequently, I recalled Rumi's poem:

All night, a man called “Allah”
Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Devil said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
How comes you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard Allah say, “Here, I am”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”

The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met Abraham, who asked,
“Why are you regretting praising Allah?”

The man said, “ I called and called
But Allah never replied, “Here I am.”
Abraham explained, “Allah has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “Allah”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I am.”

Begging never opened my eyes to Majesty, and for several years, I saw much darkness and ugliness, especially in myself, despite my crying and pleading. But I held to the possibility of seeing God in all things, and, as time passed, I found a deeper presence in the mundane.  Eventually, beauty and kinship blossomed in unsuspected places.  I noticed rings of purple and gold around the moon.  I watched stars change shape and felt meaning in those changes.  At times, tenderness and sanctity stood in the eyes of those around me, even in the eyes of my "enemies."  At each of these junctions, I felt a little healing in my heart, or the awakening of some needed humility, or the bubbling of gratitude.

Several weeks in a row I experienced an overwhelming sense of brotherhood with strangers at the market and a deep sense of joy and freedom.  One afternoon, while shopping, I could not find this connection and began to complain: "I need your beauty.  I need your beauty to heal me. Why are you hiding your beauty?" No response.  I paid for my groceries and headed toward my car disappointed, doubting the reality of beauty, feeling angry with God, feeling that God was cheating me. 

Not too many steps outside the store, I saw a couple and their daughter walking toward the entrance. I looked at the wife, the husband, and finally their daughter. When my eyes met the daughter's, she smiled, and a window opened in her eyes that revealed a vast expanse of space, profound purity, and darkness dressed in living blue and white light.  I registered the following: "Yes Shane, I am real, and I am here. I am more real and beautiful than you can imagine, and I am always with you."  My heart flew into a wider orbit.  

For the last year, my family has enjoyed the company of a gentle and loving dog named Bella.  I found her trapped in a filthy cage, crying for freedom and dignity. A couple days ago, my wife and I sat outside talking with some friends watching Bella dig holes in the yard.  I walked over to where she dug and noticed a deep, heart-shaped hole.  That night I looked up and saw a large, purple heart with gold edges surrounding the almost full moon.  I thought of Bella's heart in the dirt reborn as the heart of the moon, as a beautiful, multi-colored heart in space, and it occurred to me that Bella's refusal to accept her inhumane isolation and my refusal to see and accept "things as they are" opened a world of greater beauty and freedom for both of us. 

Screen Recording in Classroom

Again, I'm not in the classroom but am working toward a secondary education degree. Still, two immediate ideas that come to mind are using screen recording as a way to capture (and then to make available for student viewing on a wiki or moodle) any PowerPoint presentations I give. A second thought is that those same screen recorded PowerPoints could be re-presented with greater depth of information or further elaboration upon topics of student interest. I think this is a decent idea since some students are going to want more, rather then less, information in order to feel challenged or engaged. In fact, I could simply ask students, or learn from informal observation, what topics they would like to learn more about, and if class time or curricula pressures don't allow further exploration, I could create relevant PowerPoints, screen record them, and post them for student viewing. This sounds like a good way for me to expand my content knowledge as a teacher, and perhaps a good way to build rapport with students.

Flickr In Classroom

I'm not in the classroom yet, but was thinking that a cool way to utilize Flickr might be in conjunction with a Holocaust unit. I think it would be neat to have each student select a Holocaust survivor and then find out some basic information about the survivor--where they were born, which camps they were in, for how long, and what they did with their life after liberation--and list the information with the picture. I think this exercise would show the diversity of human response to adversity and suffering. This idea really stood out for me after watching the entire series of "Band of Brothers." I could also take photo's chosen for PowerPoint presentations and group them together along with comments discussed in class that go with each photo.

You Tube Videos for Classroom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaO3aGmuNFc&feature=related&ajax=1&nocache=1279919851551

This is a short video by economics professor Dan Ariely that deals with supply and demand and how decisions that become habits can change market prices for particular items. He explains how Starbucks managed to change the way we think about coffee and the amount of money we are willing to pay for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=o_PrWS51hmE&feature=channel

This short video of a Holocaust survivor telling of his sister and mother's death, as well as of he and his brother's survival, touches upon the long-term emotional impact of the horrors they experienced and is subjectively affective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zi6xYkdBPA

Here, an actor/narrator playing Andrew Carnegie expresses Carnegie's ideas about poverty, wealth, success, and the meaning of life. Among the early wealthy entrepreneurs, Carnegie exhibited an interesting perspective on a person's responsibility toward others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=LvuWSJI87r8&feature=related

This five-minute video presents interviews with African Americans in New Orleans, explains the origins of African-American English, and gives examples of language use, in addition to everyday words taken from African-American English. This video is good for presenting the idea that African-American English is not a lesser form of English, but a dynamic, intelligent, and rule-governed expression of language that was born of necessity.

Links to Podcast, Wiki, and Blog Use

http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=11850&version=7169&pageID=17347

http://mysite.ncnetwork.net/resocoww/podcasting.html

http://www.diigo.com/user/lauren/podcasting?tab=250

http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/

http://blog.infintethinking.org/

http://edtechie.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/by-sandy-scragg/

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~nshelley/teacher.html

http://www.teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/technology/podcast.htm

http://www.wtvi.com/teks/05_06_articles/classroom-audio-podcasting.html

http://fcit.usf.edu/podcasts/

Resources for Podcasts, Wikis, and Blogs

My idea for using podcasts were pretty generic, so I visited a host of cites, the majority of which only told about the benefits of using podcasts without offering any real examples. I found that Itunes has a podcast section with numerous teachers who discuss and give examples of podcast use in the classroom. Two of the podcasts and ideas I like are below:

Apple Distinguished Educator's Podcast Collection http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=11850

This link provides a multitude of examples of outstanding podcasts used for a variety of educational purposes. One of the podcasts (KidCast: Learning and Teaching by Podcasts, Episode#54) that discusses podcasting talks about using podcasting with field trips. The narrator, Dan Schmit, suggests setting a wider context for the trip by building some collective knowledge about why the site is an important place to visit. Kids are to create a podcast that tells of the significance of the site, which serves to make the trip more relevant and increases the student's ability to articulate concepts meaningfully. Dan suggests use of a WTWT chart--WHY we are going to do this; what we THINK we know; what we WANT to know; what we're ready to TEACH. He says this shows that learning is fluid and growth-based and that what we learn is important and should be shared or taught to others, in this case, through a podcast. He suggests students ask questions about each exhibit they see and record the tour guides answers to the questions. Students are, in this way, active investigators/researchers, instead of passive listeners. Dan also suggests reflective comments that are short and pointed and serve to help the listener feel as if they are there with the visitor. He gave the example of students at a zoo where students are broken into groups that visit and investigate specific locations or exhibits. In the end, students can reflect about what was good about the field trip, what was missing, what exhibit they would add if they had the choice. This can be put in a podcast that is shared with the institution. Finally, he thinks that creating a public service announcement that advertised the visited location is a good way of giving back. Due to copyright, he notes that it is important to check with the location first before doing video or audio recordings.

KidCast, episode #50, presents and interview with a writing professor who discusses arguments and point of view, the point that arguments are not verbal fights but words used to persuade. This episode has me thinking that a podcast could be created to explain and demonstrate the thesis-based, five paragraph essay. Examples of effective essays could be used and pauses could be made in the reading of the essay to show the effective elements or the effective elements could be covered before reading the essay in order to prime the listener. As a writing consultant as the IPFW Writing Center, I know that many writers have a hard time analyzing research in way that allows them to construct a sound thesis. With this in mind, a podcast series could be developed with episodes that explain critical reading, thesis construction, topic sentence development, and use of evidence or quotes to support the thesis and topic sentences. Students could create podcasts where they begin by voicing their thesis and topic sentences and then read their essay.

School Blogs and Social Networking

I am not aware of local school policies involving blog access or social networking sites. I do believe both of these mediums can serve useful and unique functions in the classroom, though I am not able to say just yet in what ways.