Education Is Like A Dysfunctional Family

I'm probably wrong, but bear with me as out outline all of my errors for you.

Over the last two decades I've seen student performance noticeably decline. Students fear math. Not calculus, but merely simple multiplication and division. Ask any student to calculate a percentage, i.e. "The population of the United States is 310,000,000 people. Kentucky has a population of 4 million people. What percent of the U.S. population lives in Kentucky?"

We can estimate an answer very quickly. Thirty-one million is 10%, and 3.1 million is 1%, and each 0.1% is about 310,000 people. We can then say 310,000 x 3 = almost 1 million people. If 1% is 3 million people and 0.3 is one million people, then 1.3% is about 4 million people. Finally, we can say the population of Kentucky represents about 1.3% of the total United States population.

But, I teach geography and use numbers like this all the time. My students examine demographics of countries, statistics like death rates and birth rates, literacy rates, and labor force participation rates, and HIV/AIDS prevalence. People need to understand simple ratios in everyday life, though, for doing simple things like calculating gratuities, or figuring out how much our discount at JCPenny's is going to save us.

More importantly, as our politicians increasingly take advantage of the growing apathy, or ignorance, of U.S. citizens while leveraging differences in religion income between neighbors, we need every advantage to overcome egregious misinformation by our politicians and their media minions.

The majority of students in my courses fall into one of two categories. As one might guess, most of my students are early academic career Freshman or Sophomores, not long from high school. I also have several adults "back in college." I have also been an instructor at three community colleges. Community colleges may lack cultural diversity, but what they lack in cultural diversity, they more than compensate by having vast socioeconomic diversity. I have had grandmothers with zero college experience to career professionals in my world geography courses, true freshman right from high school to people straight from military service to people retraining due to job loss or wanting a promotion.

This fall, I have roughly 70 students. This is a light semester; a typical semester is twice this number. All of my courses include numerous writing assignments, usually 4-5 essays. The vast majority of essays have fundamental structural problems. Paragraph indents either do not exist or are too large, e.g. 1" indents. Few students spell-check. The use of sentence fragments in place of a proper sentence is common. Most student cannot effectively communicate using examples even after being told to use "people, places, things, and ideas" mentioned in the podcast or video. Many writing assignments simply end, stop without completely discussing the material, or providing a summary. The writing is crude, lacking a range of vocabulary, attention to details, and organization. Essentially what students are submitting as final drafts of writing assignments I consider to be drafts which never should be submitted.

In the last year, I've argued with an assistant principal at a local high school and have caught two Education student blatantly plagarising. A close friend of mine, working on her education degree has encountered numerous peers who lie, cheat, plagiarise, and have a work ethic not suitable for a person choosing a career in education. In the case of the assistant principal, she did not understand plagiarism. Each semester, I have 6-20 high school students taking my college courses. The assistance principal supervised one of these students, and helped her with her writing assignments. Each writing assignment the student submitted was completely plagiarised, coming from newspaper articles, from Time or Newsweek articles, or from web sites. She offered no links, no "Works Cited," no "Reference," and no footnotes. I found the plagiarism by googling selected sentences. With each submission, the student received a zero and a warning.

On my 3rd warning (this is a high school student, so I was using these assignments as a teaching mechanism to showcase how not to plagiarise) her principal called me.

I don't understand how you can say she is plagiarizing, she declared. She is doing her own research! She shouldn't have to cite anything.

No, you are mistaken, I replied. Your student (and mine) is not doing research, she is doing reporting. She is researching a topic and reporting on the work of others. Because she is reporting on the work of others, she has to cite her articles properly using in-text citations with a Works Cited page. Even if she were conducting her own research, she would not being doing such research in a vacuum, she would be basing her research on the research of others. Therefore, she would still have to cite previous efforts. There is no way around this.

The assistant principal admitted she still didn't understand how the student could be plagiarising, as she had helped the student find her resources and read her essay. My response was rather blunt, that the reality was, the student needs to abide by the rules as stipulated within my syllabus and abide by the university's academic honesty policy - if she wants to continue in the course.

One of the education students I caught plagiarising told me I was the first professor to have caught her cheating in her two-plus years of college coursework. My close friend worked in a group with a fellow education student who professed to have never written an honest paper in his entire 4-year university career. He then went the following semester to begin his student teaching.

Several current student-teachers have indicated no willingness to take home assignments to grade, or to perform many of the extracurricular duties expected of K-12 teachers, such as being a club advisor for chess, speech and debate, or an assistant for a sport. A philosophy of not needing to know "more than a 4th grader because that's the highest grade I'm going teach" is pervasive.

Why do you need to know more than the kids you are teaching? The answer has little to do with the information being communicated to the child. The answer lies with opening and revealing a little more of the world to a young mind. I not saying someone has to be an expert in all fields; that simply impossible. A teacher, an educator, needs to appreciate the learning experience, and the revelations associated with exposing old knowledge to new minds.

A former student of mine is married to a 3rd-Grade teacher. She came home one day, exasperated. Her student-teacher refused to take home work to grade. To add insult to injury, she had asked her student-teacher to calculate the mean scores on some homework and compare those scores to a report.

"I'm not good at math," was the reply. "It's OK; it's 3rd grade math. You'll be fine."

Evidently, the results were calculated wrong and the classroom teacher had to re-work what amounted to figuring the mean grade. So, I see problems developing for higher education. I see problems which will be getting worse, not better. I see problems coming from high schools from the current students, teachers-to-be, and unfortunately, from the administrators. My friend working on her practicum teaching was placed in a classroom containing typical students, plus 6 students who spoke no English. Four of the students were Hispanic Spanish-speakers. Two of the students were from Somalia, by way of Iraq, by way of Louisiana.

"We don't even know where Somalia is. Is Somalia in Africa?" This from both the teachers and principals. "What language do Somalis speak?" OK, that one might qualify as a good question.

Yes, I see problems.

Today, on Twitter, I entered into a debate with an "education professional" who works at a large university in the Midwest. The topic was "Should remedial courses be taught at university?" I may have misunderstood her stance; at first, I thought she was advocating against teaching remedial courses at university.

Later, though, she evidently supported more professional development (PD) and modified tenure conditions for faculty in what I can only assume implies she is an advocate for an expansion of teaching remedial students in higher education. I have to assume because after I drew the analogy the conversation ended.

Teaching remedial courses at university is like trying to fire-fight a burning building while the arsonist is still running from floor-to-floor setting fires in the building. This was my analogy. We have to train people to live in a building which will catch fire on regular basis.

"Here is your fire extinguisher. You are responsible for putting out all fires on your floor. Maybe you can work with the other residents and develop a plan to put out fires. Even-numbered apartments might be the firefighters on M-W-F, odd-numbered apartments fight fires on T-Th-Sa. Ask for volunteers for Sunday."

Perhaps teaching remedial courses at university might be like fighting a forest fire while the ignorant campers are still moving from campsite to campsite creating fires. Either analogy pits a group attempting to stop damage against a group which is causing the circumstances to continue, either knowingly or through ignorance or apathy. But the firefighters job is folly when no effort is made to stop the arsonist or to track down the irresponsible campers, or the attempts to track down the the wrong-doers is haphazard. To take this analogy to the next level, the educator advocating expansion of remedial education at university is essentially advocating for people to get used to forest fires, arsonists, and irresponsible campers, and learn how to stomp out fires in addition to our other job duties. We must educate Forest Service employees and train them to get along with and accept irresponsible campers whose actions cause physical damage, monetary loss, and potentially loss of life.

Recently, a local school district bragged,

"We have 100% graduation from our high school. We received a bonus of $____."

This is not impossible. I do not doubt a few public school systems in the United States can make this claim. But, 100% has to be a rare situation. In Kentucky, for example, the drop-out age was recently raised from 16 to 17. Progress is being made. Socioeconomic situations vary greatly, as does parental supervision and support. Some high school students simply don't have familial support to make it through school. However, as in this case, students were forced from the high school rolls by assigning them to Alternative School. Also, there is some indication the rigors of high school, what rigors exist, have been eased.

Another local school district has a "Zero Senior-Year Homework" policy. Wouldn't that have been nice, not to have any homework our senior year of high school.

As states vie for more education funding, and states explore ways of creating incentives for schools to improve their "learning outcomes," I worry incentives merely inspire people to find creative measures to show improvement where no improvement really exists.

A second comment by the Twitter educator bothered me. I wonder, she stated, if your peers know about teaching to students at different levels [I paraphrase.]

The comment may seem rather innocuous, but I assure you, she has uttered a mouthful. In K-12, educators are instructed to evaluate students in their classroom, assess aptitude, more or less. Lower performing students may get a unique Individual Educational Program (IEP.) Today's classroom contain kids of all abilities. Today's classrooms may also have mentally handicapped students, a process known as "mainstreaming." Today's classrooms may also contain students who speak little to no English. Today's classroom may contain the next Richard Feynman, Elon Musk, or Caterina Fake.

Teaching to students at different levels? Seriously? I wanted to ask. University historically has not been about teaching students at different levels. University exists to further education and knowledge, to promote science, technology, engineering, mathematics, plus develop critical thinking skills, and fundamentally question our universe. Students are supposed to arrive from high school, or community college, with the fundamental skills necessary to move their intellect to the next level.

The earlier comment recommending expanding remedial services through professional development and modification of tenure to accommodate students who arrive lacking fundamental college skills in math and writing is ill-conceived, in my view. Vocational schools exist in nearly every school district in the United States. Vocational schools should be available and made attractive to people who would prefer to avoid college yet develop a career-oriented trade or skill.

Community colleges exist in every state in the United States. Community colleges exist to build or enhance skills in order to prepare for university. Community colleges also provide vocational schools and are retraining centers for people who have lost employment. A framework already exists to support people who neglected to take high school seriously, or who lacked appropriate high school education. Why do we need to re-build a wheel which was built-in the first place to serve primarily the same purpose as university-based remedial education?

In Kentucky, for instance, every public university is facing another round of budget cuts. A lower tax base and reduced revenues means lower state income, which translates into less available for higher education. Most Kentucky universities will lose another $2 million dollars, minimum. Every year since 2007, Kentucky universities have had their state apportionment reduced. No raises most years, not even COLA (cost of living allowance.) Computer labs are refreshed every 4-5 years. My computer labs operated for 9 years on the same computers, in spite of my pleas to chairs, directors, and deans for financial support.

I have been advocating for technology-lab fees for my area, and each time had them declined. Except this year, when I told my dean he should simply eliminate my department if he wasn't going to support my labs. How does one do GIS and remote sensing on 9-year old computers? Answer: rather shittily.

In the face of fewer and fewer education dollars available each year in Higher Education, how are universities going to be able to teach an increasing number of students in need of remedial education simply to get them to the point of being able to be accepted into university? Are we supposed to stop teaching our actual 100 and 200 level courses, our fundamentals courses, so we can teach students remedial courses just to prep them for our 100 and 200 level courses.

In a past post [here], I provided some anecdotal stories of statistics reported by regional news sources.

Next consider the statistics of incoming freshman students needing remedial courses prior to even enrolling in college. In 2010, the Fairbanks, AK Sun-Star reported “50% of incoming freshmen entering the UA system require at least one remedial course.” In 2011, the Columbus, OH Business Journal wrote, “the share of students under 20 needing remedial help has grown to 39 percent from 36 percent in the past five years, while that same measure for older students has grown to 46 percent from 40 percent.”

These remedial courses never count towards a degree, by the way, but they cost the same as a university course. This has the effect of increasing a student's student loan amounts. Depending on the student loan conditions, students may be limited by time and/or the number of hours the student can enroll. I have run across a few cases where students have run out of financial support early. Students are required to take remedial courses, then run out of loan support in their senior year because the loan agency imposes a limit on the total number of credit hours for which a student can request financial support. Sometimes, support ends after eight semesters (4 years). However, due to remedial courses, a 4-year program might become 4.5-5 years. The downstream effects have the effect of increasing the cost of Higher Education.

These remedial courses are simply an answer (not a good one, in my opinion) to correct a flawed education being promulgated in high schools.

• Should we not be working on improving high school education?
• Should we not be working on improving vocation schools across the country?
• Should we not be working on improving community college education and university transition programs?
• Should we not be focusing on those nodes within the currently existing national education framework and making sure those institutions are performing?
• Should we really build a new node-within-a-node to correct problems originating at lower educational levels?

To me, these questions sound reasonable, rational, and logical. What are the answers?

1. Audit every high school?
2. Audit students, the teachers, administrators, and curriculum?
3. Audit the environment, teacher morale, student attitudes and activities?
4. Audit parental attitudes, the neighborhood around the schools, and school district support?

A local high school, for instance, has too few teachers and more students than desks. Students sit on lab stools, 30-35 in a room, while other classrooms sit dormant, unused, due to a lack of teachers. Needless to say, that environment is good for no one. How adequate is that learning environment for building a 21st century knowledge base? I'm probably missing aspects to measure, assess, etc.

I sit chagrined when I read comments by people with Ph.D's in Education, Education Leadership, or Higher Education who purport to solve problems within the university. Having worked at university for 16 years and community college for 13 years, in rural Kentucky, many of their comments seem baseless and out-of-touch with reality. Many of these experts advocate "mainstreaming" all kids, putting kids of all abilities in the same classroom, yet developing lesson plans based on individual talent. One class may have 7 or more individual lesson plans based on the abilities of the kids in the room.

Why not simply create three or four general groups, place kids into a group which most closely represents the kid's ability. Do this for all the classes in a grade. Then, all kids in the Blue Group meet in a classroom, all kids in the Green Group meet in another classroom, and all kids in the Orange Group meet in a classroom. Then, a teacher can work with all kids of a certain ability. Teachers can rotate groups so no teacher has to work with the same group all the time.

I've proffered this idea to Ph.Ds and have been met with what I can only call derision.

"We can't separate kids based on skill. That's absurd. That is segregation. And segregation is bad."

Yes, segregation based on religion, or skin color, or sexuality, or gender is bad. Though, I do like having gender-segregated bathrooms. And, I am glad the Baptist, Lutherans, Methodists, and Catholics have their own places of worship. And, I do enjoy eating at restaurants which specialize in Japanese, Thai, Chinese, or Indian cuisine. I'm sure the people with handicapped tags enjoy having parking places closer to the front doors. I'm sure the little kids at the Burger King playground appreciate not having giant obese adults wrecking TubeTown. I'm sort of glad claustrophobic people and overweight people are discouraged from going on some of the Mammoth Cave tours. I remember driving a very small car and enjoying being able to park in the "compact car" spaces. But, I make too much money to be on Medicaid. I'm too young to take advantage of any AARP discount. I'm too pale for a McNair scholarship to work on a Ph.D, and I'm too clumsy to play professional basketball. Yeah, society is not segregated, not one bit ...

My bias comes from my experience in elementary school, junior high, and high school. My classmates and I were placed in groups according to ability. Three groups, numbered 1 to 3, into which kids were placed based on math and reading skills. Each group was given work according to their ability. Kids in each group were also given plenty of chances to improve and develop skills. We had 2 recesses per day, plus designated gym class, music and art. After school, we had "afterschool activities," a chance to stay after school and do homework, play on the playground, or do any number of activities. I don't remember any issues among my peers. I don't remember any bullying directed at kids in other groups.

To be sure, there was plenty of bullying. I was bullied for 3 straight years, from 4th grade to 7th. I played cello, was smart, and was a bit of a fighter, if someone pushed me, or my sister. My cello made me an easy mark, plus my mile-walk home. But, I don't remember kids picking on other kids for being in a different math or reading group. We all played together outside, ate in the cafeteria, and rode the same buses.

Perhaps my classmates felt stigma from being in other groups. If they did they never mentioned anything about it. We were all in school, faced with tasks, exercises, and homework. For most of the day, we were all together, except for math and reading, when we met with our assigned groups.

I know I personally felt some stigma in junior high and later in high school. Junior high stigma was felt after I missed being placed in a gifted group by literally 1 point. I scored a 94; the threshold was 95. Sorry, Michael, no soup for you!

Every time the bus for the "gifted" kids left, which literally contained 98% of my friends, they would also ask me why I wasn't on the bus. In high school, despite having the GPA, I was never approved for National Honor Society until my senior year, despite nominations. Years later, I would learn from one of my teachers I had angered two other teachers and therefore my NHS status was not approved until senior year. In the meantime, from freshman year through junior year, I had to deal with questions from my peers as to why I wasn't in Honor Society. Funny, as during my Senior year I was appointed "Most Scholarly" by my classmates for our yearbook.

Why did I call this post "Education is like a dysfunctional family?" I'm hoping what I have written has made my point for me without explicitly making my argument. But, education in the United States is like a dysfunctional family. Think about any episode of "Intervention" you've ever seen. One person clearly has a problem and is in complete denial about their problem. The family has members who help the person purchase drugs, or eat, or cover up thefts, or give them money, who keep the problem alive. Some family members try to get the addict help. Some family members refuse to interact with the addict. Everyone frets and all adjust their lives accordingly around the life of the addict. Eventually, some crisis occurs bringing action from all members and an outside therapist is brought in to evaluate the family.

I find considerable parallels can be drawn among the various education institution cohorts. Secondary education I would place in the role of the addict. State and Federal education agencies are other members of the family. The agencies might recognize a host of problems with secondary education. The agencies might fret and wring their hands, and try different tactics to coax better performance from high schools. Local school boards and site-based decision-making boards (SBDM) increase the size of our "dysfunctional family." These boards may also recognize problems, or may also be part of the co-dependency problem. They may think no problem exists where one actually does. For instance, school boards or SBDM boards who advocate non-science as science, such as the teaching of Intelligent Design, Creationism as Science, or climate change denial, or a Young Earth or any other biblical stories as science. To further the analogy, local high school administrators and teachers may scrub tests to improve test scores in order to gain more favor, i.e. money, from state and federal officials. Finally, we have serious issues in Higher Education Teacher Education which potentially promises an endless continuation of our dysfunctional family. More filtering of students is needed, more oversight is required, but faculty are overwhelmed and rely on local teachers to provide feedback rather than conduct on-site visits.

Higher Education Teacher Education suffers from constant disruption as policies are updated, modified, or instituted mid-semester or mid-program. Some of these changes are top-down, as Federal laws are enacted. Other changes appear to be whimsical or capricious, arising not from state statutes or federal law, but from local Higher Education administrators and faculty.

To refer back to my friend, she indicated to her middle-school placement adviser an interest in applying for teacher training workshops in inner city Chicago, New Orleans, and Albuquerque. She really wants the experience of working with inner-city youth. Several good schools, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard, (I think we recognize these names) have teacher-training programs in these cities which allow students in teacher education programs across the United States to apply. Her adviser told her if she were to be accepted by any of these programs any teaching hours would not be valid and she would still be liable for the 200 practicum hours required by the program.

When she related this conversation to me, I was stunned. My friend applied, anyway, and was denied. Hypothetically, had she been accepted, she would have worked for 6-8 weeks with inner city youth as part of a program developed by Stanford, Harvard, or Princeton, yet a woman sitting in an office in rural Kentucky has the authority (and audacity) to deny those teaching hours, on the basis the experience is not applicable to rural Kentucky. Holy Sh*t! (As an aside, this person has since been removed from her position and replaced by a rational person.)

If you haven't watched Sir Kenneth Robinson, then, here, watch this:

I see problems in Education.

But, like I said at the onset, I could be wrong; probably am.

PAX

What Is Facebook Bankruptcy?

In 2003 or 2004, I can't remember which year, I signed up for Facebook. I found people who I remembered from my past, people I knew at that time, and people who shared similar interests of mine.

Facebook allowed me, like everyone, to share sites, information, jokes, etc. Keeping up with the lives of friends, family, acquaintances, and news from groups was a cinch.

The more people I added the more dis-enthused I became with Facebook. See, what happens when people share the mundane details of their lives is you begin to see how mundane people's lives are. Mundane is not a bad thing; perhaps mundane is not precisely what I mean. People are so caught up in going about their lives, grocery shopping, feeding kids, watching movies, etc. Their lives are so busy simply being led that being a well-informed critical-thinking person is nearly impossible.

And, being a well-informed critically thinking person take work. I know; I work hard at being both every day, and critical thinking does not come naturally to me, for sure.

I found the vast majority of people on my Facebook lacked information, were not critical thinkers, and were not really interested in overcoming ignorance or developing critical-thinking skills. Sad. The vast amount of dogma, their entrenched beliefs, and unwillingness to consider alternatives I found completely disheartening.

Then, to make matters worse, my contacts on Facebook had friends who were racists, bigots, and Christian fundamentalists. If there is one thing I cannot tolerate, its intolerance. My brain simply refuses to cooperate and communicate with people who cannot question and contemplate alternatives.

The defining straw was a man who declared himself to be a Vietnam Vet, a Green Beret, and a local gun-toting Baptist preacher. He essentially wants a white Christian America, with no Blacks, no other minorities, no foreigners, no immigrants, simply a White-bred America. Furthermore, no American should ever be taught another language, not Spanish, or French (oh, God, no), and certainly not Arabic. He proceeded to insult and berate a Muslim friend of mine, and was joined by other like-minded people in his verbal attack. I enjoined the conversation, but discovered we were not debating, and there was no chance of me even wedging an alternative thought into his tiny brain. And by tiny, I really do mean tiny, and probably damaged to be as hostile to other cultures as this purported Christian minister.

When I contemplated the shear volume of cultural ignorance I discovered on Facebook, and not just ignorance, but racism, and bigotry, and the overwhelming banality of Facebook, I resigned.

I resigned two years and I really haven't looked back.

I declared Facebook bankruptcy.

Facebook is a graffiti-scrawled toilet stall in the Internet bathroom. My theory of cultural evolution states "society can claim to be only as advanced as the care given to its toilets." The reason Facebook's shares have fallen off might be explained by the fact no one wants to hang-out in a bathroom for very long. Gossip is spread in bathrooms, germs are spread in bathrooms. Who wants to buy advertising in a decrepit bathroom?

I doubt I will sign rejoin Facebook. I don't want to jump into an environment which is mostly toxic, full of poisonous ideas, and rampant with ignorance. I really don't want any more evidence which supports the notion 99% of people are mostly concerned with living their lives without encouraging others to be more adaptive and receptive to new knowledge.

"society can claim to be only as advanced as the care given to its toilets."

I cannot handle the blind and raging ignorance of Facebook. I thought, for about two seconds, of selectively "unfriending" people on Facebook. However, people go bonkers when "unfriended." When unfriended on Facebook people take "unfriending" far too seriously and tend to make the connection to Real Life. Again, proof of the banality and insipid nature of Facebook.

And, I have Twitter. When I declared Facebook bankruptcy, I invested in Twitter. Twitter is superior to Facebook in that I do not really know who I follow, and I do not really know who follows me. I do care, though. But, I also realize people may follow or not as they wish, like moving through a crowded convention eavesdropping on conversations. No one's feelings get hurt if a person "unfollows," at least that is the rule.

I only follow people I think I can learn something from or who have something interesting to contribute to my Body of Knowledge. I use Twitter to follow scientists, astronomers, engineers, programmers, and a bunch of educators. I follow people in Geography, Archaeology, Astronomy, Computer Science, plus an array of science organizations, NASA, NOAA, Association of American Geographers, CERN, and a host of news agencies, and, best of all, creative writers and thinkers, like Neil Gaiman, Tony Lee, David Brin, Cory Doctorow, Liana Brooks, et. al.

I only follow people I think I can learn something from or who have something interesting to contribute to my Body of Knowledge.

Yes, I could do the same with Facebook. Yes, I have lost out on some contests, and my Farmville farm has been foreclosed on. But, I don't have to filter content, don't have to ignore contacts, or choose to "confirm" or "deny." I can follow or unfollow at will. And, I don't have the distractions of Farmville, or Petville, or Fishville, or Zombieville, or Ignorant-Pinhead-Racistville to distract me from learning and interacting with others from whom I can learn more. And, see, if I wanted to find junk on Twitter I could do so. I know I could find all the hate, bigotry, racism, and ignorance I could possibly stand, and then some. But, I don't go looking for it. And, while sometimes those elements do creep in to my Twitter feed, they are broadcast by unknowns, not by people who are supposed to be respectable "friends." Or, these elements retweeted by similar-minded people using such tweets as examples of ignorance in our society. I go looking for good people, good thinkers, good ideas, good technology, good organizations.

If I could figure out a way to do start-over from scratch, with a brand-new account on Facebook, with my true name, not an alias or Nom de Facebook, and "follow" people on Facebook from whom I could learn and be challenged, I might do that. If Facebook would allow a person to "reset" their account and all credentials back to zero, I might contemplate such. Maybe. I think that would be like giving the truck-stop toilet a good cleansing, though, knowing full well in a week or two its going to get filthy again.

If you are tired of Facebook drama, maybe Facebook bankruptcy is for you.

The Monkeys of Typewriter Island

I write because I think. My thoughts need a form. I give them a form through the laborious machinations of word selection, ordering, and penning them on some hard- or soft copy media, following generations old rules.

My favorite author of all-time is Ray Bradbury. His prose is poetry. The meter, tone, tenor and lyrical nature of his writing captivated me early in my life. Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke are my other literary gods; Bradbury will always remain the pinnacle of the trinity for me.

Reading is a passion of mine. As a youth, I would hide under my covers with a flashlight so as to prevent any light from spilling out under my door, giving away my late night foray into adventure. Another decent trick was to take clothes from my dresser and push them against the bottom of my door. I would read into the wee hours, through Royals baseball, and into the radio show which dealt mostly about UFOs, Bigfoot, and government conspiracies.

My father asks, "Why do you buy so many books? Why don't you just use the library?"

The library was my home away from home, growing up. Located beneath a grocery store in a shopping center three blocks from home, I would spend hours every day during summer vacation reading and wandering among the shelves. Little stickers on the binding would give goers a hint about the book; a magnifying glass was "mystery," a rocket ship meant "science fiction." Other stickers might have existed, those were the two I cared about. I would read my books, write the titles on a pre-lined form, and upon reaching 25 titles, I would turn the list in to the librarian and I would receive a free book from a selection of brand-new books arranged on a table near the check-out counter.

But, for me, the library also had a downside. I had to give the books back. Spending a day, or three, or a week, developing a relationship with the characters, and indirectly the author, and then having to give the book back felt appalling. Would you play with a puppy for two or three days, then return the puppy to the shelter? Some would, I imagine. Not me. Characters, themes, scenes, story arcs, and the energy the author placed into developing his or her fictional world was a relationship to me, albeit a very one-sided relationship.

For some, sure, reading is purely entertainment, nothing more and nothing less. I am no different. However, I also consider the time, effort, energy which a book has been imbued by the author. A book is not merely a pulp-based product containing letters and words arranged in clever ways. Well, actually some books are not much more than a collection of words which at first blush appear to be intelligently arranged yet upon further inspection lend credibility to the existence of The Monkeys of Typewriter Island. I think Typewriter Island might be part of the Self-Publishing Archipelago; being a geographer one might think my geography skills should be more attuned.

For some, those who don't read and their counterparts, those who don't write, writing is seen not simply as drudgery but as a form of torture. I'm pretty sure water-boarding of most Americans would be unnecessary:

"You have a choice: write a 3-pg essay on the Man vs. Nature elements of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, or water-boarding."

I'm pretty sure most college students would elect water-boarding.

In my college-level geography classes I pose the following essay question:

You are a technology entrepreneur and have been working out of your garage for the last 18 months developing a new technology. You wife and family have had enough, and thankfully, you now have some financial backing, i.e. venture capital, to relocate to more substantive environs. Given the nature of your efforts is technology, locate three cities in North America which could make a good home for your new technology company. Then, narrow your selection to one city. Explain your selection process using the 7 Traits of a Technology Hub as discussed in class."

Sometimes, the responses (which I have captured, errors and all, below) border on literary bankruptcy:

"I would either go to California or Texas or Florida. California would be a nice place to continue a business it has a high yeild to gain economic profit and so does Texas. Californica and Florida are located on the ocean so they would have easier shipping access for products. All three states for the most part have a high level of population. All three have about the same amount of rail way routes but since Florida is a smaller state it seems they would have more travel consumptions to other states. Florida and Taxas are smoother flatter states as to California has the rocky mountains making vehicle travel harder but if i had to place to continue the business i would settle in Miami Florida because it has the best of the most the features i mentioned."

"The three cities I choose were Atlanta, Philidelphia, and Dallas. Each of these cities are driving more than every and are continuously growning...One reason is beacuse the city offers tax incetives for new jobs created. Another reason is because there are colleges there. Which intern means, newly educated people looking for employment."

Frequently, I boggle at the presumed importance of barge traffic, river systems, and the need for unskilled labor in response to questions about technology-based businesses. While the importance of UPS and the USPS is without question highly important in the delivery of books to my doorstep, and the delivery of consumer electronics to Best Buy, Target, and Wal-mart is also highly desirable, I fail to see how Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, or Twitter might even remotely find barge traffic part of their business plan.

After reading about globalization, non-governmental organizations, broad issues of immigration, and the growing interconnectedness of our global societies, I pose another writing assignment.

After having read about the nature of Globalization, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and a number of societal issues and concerns, I want you to communicate your own personal geography. You drive through your town, the countryside, on your way to work, school, church, and now, with a little bit of training, you are hopefully more aware of the life going on the other side of your windshield. Describe your Personal Geography."

Think about your personal geography. Let your mind ferment some thoughts as you read these responses.

"I see geography at work all the time, especially what I was younger and we went on road trips. On those road trips we would drive through the mountains and they were so beautiful. There was so much definition it makes you wonder how they got to be that way. I have also been through the dessert. Even though there is really nothing out there to see but the sunset and how everything grows...It is amazing to realize that all this goes on and how it affects us in our everyday lives but also wiht geography...We can always count on our surroundings and our environment to always be there for us."

"In this section of studying its made known that peoples geography is much different than other peoples geography...someone who lives in the United States has total different geography than someone who lives in the Country of Asia, Australia, or Germany."

"In my everyday life i use geography in more of a younger way. For me being a Freshman college student I use geography for simple things. Like mapping out how to get to ____ from louisville, How to get around a mall without back tracking, and also how to use development to pick where i want to go to school at. Geography is not that big thing in my everyday life sense i am so young."

"The area around us is very unique, we have two large rivers that combine to make a larger area that formed into a larger lake because of a dam. Also to the east of us we have the appilation mountains that forms a location of intrest if your into high altitudes hiking or into snow sports. The demograhics have a major influces in the how you live to because the different age ranges of people means you cant just talk to people about local gossip if thier 80 years old and doesnt no about that."

These are actual responses from college students. College students, meaning these individuals have been passed along through our U.S. educational system, from kindergarten beyond high school. These people either graduated from high school or worked to earn a GED.

Reading and writing is fundamental to education. Reading provides us with examples of how are written language should appear, the form and function our language should assume. Reading helps our brain create imagery, trains our brains to transform symbols into meaning and then into images. I'm describing communication and I feel stupid doing so. Everyone should have basic fluency in reading and writing skills. U.S. citizens proclaim, "ya gotta speak English if ya want to live in this here country!" Yeah, well, apparently reading English and writing English isn't all that necessary, even for natural-born citizens.

Reading truly provides us with brain "food" for thought. Writing, on the other hand, helps us sow more brain "food," by helping us not only train our brains for thought but also aids us in communicating those ideas and notions to other people. Writing, to continue my agrarian-themed analogy, is pollen, seeds of thoughts, notions, ideas, and images which take root in and yield potentially yield luscious fruit. Or, fall lifeless in the desert of Dogma, awaiting for the literary equivalent of Climate Change, er, "Idea Warming," as in, "I'm warming to your idea of selling cupcakes door-to-door."

Meanwhile, China, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and an entire host of other countries cannot learn English fast enough. Many of my international students struggle with American English. Rightly so; American English is the 4th hardest language to learn, behind Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. I would throw in Korean, too.

Our American Education System cannot continue to dilute the importance of reading, math, and science. As a society, we will ultimately fail. Social fragmentation along income and educational lines will occur, and these ruptures could potentially fall along regional boundaries. The New England states do very well in school-aged spending, median family incomes, ACT scores, and overall academic achievement. The Southwest states of Arizona, New Mexico, along with Oklahoma do not fair well, and neither does Tennessee, Mississippi, or Louisiana.

I provide writing samples simply to illustrate efforts by recently enrolled students in Higher Education. These students have been passed along through Primary and Secondary Education, and now find themselves in Higher Education. As new adults, students often do not recognize they are now responsible for their own effort, not Mommy or Daddy, and they now have to engage their brains and use what they should have been taught in high school. So often, I am told, Standardized Testing rules the classroom, with little room for creativity. Additionally, with "blended" classrooms containing Special Education students through gifted, teachers are often forced to "teach to the middle" abandoning either end, or focusing on the time-consuming needs of the learning disabled to the detriment of other students. In the end, the students lose, and the loss permeates our society creating fractures in our economic and social systems about which I have previous posted.

I hold students accountable for their efforts. One cannot simply say, "that's what I was taught," or "I was't taught that." As an adult in Higher Education, a student has to bring an effort to the classroom and not simply be a respirator of oxygen anchoring a chair. However, I also want to say to administrators and drafters of previous education reform efforts, "thanks for making my life difficult and creating class after graduating class of adults who are barely literate and are unable to abide the rigors of college. Furthermore, you should be ashamed of what you have wrought upon these people, in molding them into people unprepared for Life outside of high school, and setting them up for failure. Only by their own graces will these students be able to correct the damage your policies have inflicted upon them."

Education is a fundamental right, not a privilege.

Social Media v. The World

Did Social Media cause the demise of the Tunisian government?

Did Social Media cause the demise of the reign of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt?

No; and Social Media is not causing the demise the reign of Mohammar Qaddafi in Libya, for that matter, either.

Protests in these countries were not caused by Social Media. The protests were created and caused by the existential conditions that exist within these countries by the actions of the leaders within those countries. If Tunisian President Ben-Ali had worked to establish suitable economic conditions in Tunisia, he would still be in power. If Hosni Mubarak had worked to create a suitable economic condition for jobs and employment in Egypt, he would still be in power. Likewise for Mohammar Qaddafi.

Facebook, Twitter, and SMS (simple messaging system - cellphone text messages) did help people organize. Social media did help expose circumstances and conditions that allowed people to see that throughout the region, people are being treated poorly. Not only are people being treated poorly but those in power are living lavish lives at the expense of millions of people.

While Social Media did not create the economic conditions, Social Media did help people organize and promote their discontent.

While thinking about this topic and the effects of social media & cellphone technology, my suspicious mind began to work out the details of how Social Media could be compromised for more nefarious actions.

What if, I thought, Twitter or Facebook were to be "spoofed." Spoofing occurs when Internet traffic is directed away from a legitimate Web site to a less legitimate or illegal Web site, usually to infect computers with spyware or adware, or to gather sensitive information, like bank accounts or credit card numbers.

Could that happen?

Could a group of hackers configure a system that would direct Internet traffic towards a site. This Web site would then infect a computer with a Trojan. The trojan would then broadcast fictitious Twitter updates, or Facebook updates, or SMS messages to people. These fictitious messages would appear to be from real people, real friends, real "links," and would encourage people to act, or meet, or to do "something." Perhaps the "flash" mob behavior that attracts hundreds of people to sing a song, or dance, and then they all go their separate ways afterwards.

Perhaps a government could not be brought down in this way, but could technology be used in a nefarious way, such as this, to aggregate people for a task?

I wonder.