getting to your desired career

One of my favorite things about being young, single and brought up with many opportunities is my freedom. I've managed to reach this point in my life with all debt nearly eliminated, no inconvenient commitments to family, friends or otherwise, and the ability to figure out how to do nearly anything I wish to. "You can do whatever you put more mind to" has become a challenge to me.

I imagine a career where I am able to travel, help and learn from educators and students, and improve our education systems all around the world in order to improve our society of the future. But now, I sit with all this freedom and desire and no understanding of how to get there. I could choose to first become a classroom teacher or I could stay out of schools entirely and work through a community of educational alternatives, such as after school programs. If I choose to stay away from teaching, which programs? How do I gain respect in the educational world? Do I stay in non-profit or do I check out the corporate world? If I choose the teaching route, how do I go about it? Do I go back to school--undergrad, graduate? Do I choose a teaching certificate program? Which one-Teach for America, a teaching fellows? Where? Public, private, charter? Once I'm a teacher, how to I make sure I don't get stuck in the teaching career? Do I become an administrator? Do I stay in one location or travel around? How about teaching internationally? Do I step back and join life outside of schools again?

With all these choices, I don't know what to do. I don't know which avenue will be best for me or if I even wish to go through these fields to get to my desired job. I suppose we must accept that to get very far it will take many different jobs, a lot of schooling, time and money. I just never thought that the freedom to do anything would be such a challenge to figure out how to get to that anything.

Physical changes affect the emotional mind

I was FINALLY catching up on some feed reading when I found an old entry of Miguel Guhlin's (who had 81 entries in the past few weeks) about cool blog habits. His first addition to Cool Cat Teacher's 10 was "Consider everything you do as fuel for your blog". I've struggle with this recently because I find I can't seem to make links between my current life and my blogging topics. But this inspired me to share a little about my weekend. With struggles as my AmeriCorps year ends and life in San Jose changes for me, I've myself challenged to make emotional changes in my life. On top of the help of a friend with excellent listening skills, I've found a way to make this easier for myself. I rearranged my living space. It was a slow process through out the weekend, but from moving around furniture and getting rid of unnecessary items, I feel renewed. I am re-energized to be strong and start anew.

This has gotten me thinking about the many adult students at the San Jose Conservation Corps Academy who have been through bad times and come to our school to start fresh working toward their high school diploma. I watch students become empowered when put in new surroundings and given responsibilities. With the ability to change their physical surroundings through the new building, help with recruitment and Student Council, some students take on an enthusiasm you'd never expect.

It re-enforces the idea that the TakingITGlobal Student Voices group discussed a year ago for NECC 2005: "We would like to contribute to the design of these learning spaces. Giving us a chance to impact the spaces in which we learn gives us an added sense of responsibility, passion, and connection." I can see student continually creating and recreating the space they work in. It fits along with one of the reasons why students love MySpace so much--it's customizable.

Aggregators

I'm currently between aggregators-Bloglines and Netvibes. I favor Netvibes because I can place so many things available to me one page and tab through them. I had a first happen to me today. I have read ALL of my feeds. Nothing has come back in since the last time I read. I don't know what to do with myself. Now I can explore more and focus on where I want to go with my own blogging.

Sadly, I don't believe this will happen again anytime soon. I was lucky to have two days off of work in which I spent a great deal of time at home working off of my computer. Tomorrow begins 6.5 weeks of hard work leading high school students in outdoor projects for 20 hours a week in the mornings and recruiting 45+ adult high school students in the afternoons. This will be a race to the end of the Youth Corps AmeriCorps year.

Recycling

Recycling is an easy (and necessary) way to help the environment. I do not understand that the US is not more interested in making recycling a must. With garbage going into our landfills and materials likely to run out, it makes sense to recycle and buy recycled products. So why is it that, we can still through recyclables into the garbage and consuming many non-recyclable products is reasonable. The US could follow other country's lead, such as Sweden's example.

google search your potential employee

I was reading my RSS feeds and came across a blog entry about an article addressing the availability of personal information online affecting the job application process. The idea is that when applying for a job, the business may search for information online about the person--via google, facebook, myspace, etc. So I googled myself and found only ten of several places I can be found. They mostly relate to my jobs:
Newspaper question
TLC News article
TLC News article
Kansan upperclassmen living on campus article
Student Voices group
Student Voices presentation report
JSchool Alumni news
E-Waste Press Release
E-Waste event summary
Youth Corps Newsletter

As far as Facebook, I hope no one bothers to judge my ability on my profile (which isn't all the incriminating). What I wonder though is what if someone with your name publishes something incriminating online, and it is assumed to be your's. You shouldn't be judged based on other people's doings...

The importance of tagging

A recent search of mine while finding and testing the many excellent new options/features online is tagging while using blogger. I can't seem to figure it out (granted I haven't spent much time on it), but am adamant to tag my posts. Tagging has become a great tool when users are bringing information they desire to themselves. Just check out Technorati and you'll see the possibilities are endless. Not to mention tagging found on flickr, 43things, and much more.

One way I planned on using tagging is to participate in NECC 2006--National Educational Computing Conference 2006. This conference was 40,000+ people last year and the possibilities were endless. Already it's the buzz among edubloggers. I'll tell you one thing--I sure be reading all their conference posts and participating as much as possible even though unable to be in sunny San Diego. Thankful for technology.

Education from socially aware lawyer's perspective

Last night I listened to a friend laid out a very broad version of his thesis for Rhodes Scholar application. The intriguing thing is how he got to his theory. Having studied political science in school and planning to go to law school for years, he had a very different perspective on the problem. He has spent nearly 11 months in an AmeriCorps program, working with at-risk high school youth. This has changed his passions a bit, and he now plans on going to school to study education, following traveling, before started his own charter school with a fellow AmeriCorps member.

He planned on laying out an alternative to the way countries focus on education, based on how they have run their government in the past. As example, the United States is focused on technology and democracy. The US would like to see all countries running a democracy and will never get into battles with other democracies, but will justify inhabitation of a country by helping them develop a democracy. Also the US will do what possible to increase and help our technology--i.e. oil for our major cars, home, etc.--and do whatever possible to get that. This focus, however, may very well be because of the US education. When this education is changed to focus on alternative means of fuel and acceptance of others, our international relations will change. For example: teach an American only English, of course they will come across problems relating to other cultures and not understand what it takes to respect others.

This was laid out to be very broadly, and I'd like to see it filled it. But it fits very well along with my view of global education. I see education as a way to change the world because what we teach our young becomes how the world is run. Global education to me includes helping youth to learn to be compassionate, understand diversity and love learning and working respectfully with all different people across the world. There are many organizations working on this now, such as iEARN and TakingITGlobal, but this view has not been express by the mainstream.


It was interesting, even liberating, to see someone work through to this conclusing from a completely different view point. Here was a socially aware citizen logically proving that global education must be a focus because of current politics and international relations. When I concieve of the of this view point, I work from the changing of education to help the world through changing values and changing values helping our government and international policies. There may be hope in the world for politicians.

Oh, the possibilities...

I have found many websites, extensions and more to play with online. It is nearly overwhelming to keep up with all the great possibilities. I am growing to enjoy Netvibes. I am using Performancing. I use FoxyTunes and Weather, and I'm trying out Google Notebook.

Too many blogs?

I think I have too many blogs. I'm not sure which ones to update with which pieces of information. I don't know if I want to focus on making one better and how to go about it. Should I pay attention to one blog and avoid the others? What should I consider on topic? How do I continue to blog when I don't believe I have any readers? A committment to make...

high school exit exam debate

This article and the comments that follow it frustrate me! There are so many good points both ways, but so many people who are missing things in reality. People can get by without the knowledge base that comes with passing the California Exit Exam. At least they can in some areas, namely San Jose and other places they don't need to speak English or jobs that desire high school graduates, but don't need the full knowledge base. Students learn in different ways. They may be likely to learn better on the job or at an alternative school, but they've never been informed of this. Intelligent people don't always know how to pass tests. Work with this kids; it's amazing! How can you deny them so much and just give up.

My solution is alternative schools for different learning styles. A better school reform comes in creating these and giving/showing students their options, rather than being fully worried about accountability and these large, badly run public schools. We need new answers! I'm not saying they don't work for some, and I'm not saying accountability and test-taking doesn't have it's place, but there can be options. We can give different types of schooling and different types of diplomas and help these students out in their lives earlier on.

Songmaster Book Review

A story of one man, one boy... that is all. It is beautiful to read of his influence, love, emotion, experience. The power of the song is great. The allusion in the future is intriguing, but it is lost in the story of one boy.

I enjoy reading Orson Scott Card, especially those novels from when he was younger. I relate more to the exploration and searching Card does in his stories. Through is books, such as Ender's Game, I have been able to discover the world and my impressions of it.

Songmaster is about the life of Ansset, a beautiful young boy with a voice of power. He can relate and change moods. It is great to read of his struggles as a child. He must learn to be human and understand what he can do with his voice. The novel reads like a movie. Although I am unable to imagine seeing the greatness representing in this novel on screen, I  watched the story play out infront of me as a read frivolously.

To re-discover Card as a youthful writer, read Songmaster. Just don't let your expectations and values keep you from enjoying another's experience.

Performancing test

I'm testing the Firefox Performancing extension. The testing should allow me to blog at a couple of sites from a Firefox add-on.

desire to read

I was perusing at the book store and found a section of essays and anthologies. I had a desire to read many of them, unlike I ever had before. I often read novels and a collection of nonfiction books, but I have never gotten into essays or short stories or poems over prose. But now, with books such as George Orwell's A Collection of Essays, I see some great brief thoughts coming form writings using metacognition to examine their lives and the world around them. This reminds me very much of some of my favorite bloggers... writing brief entries about those things that affect them or are often re-examined in their minds. Except, with blogging it becomes more quickly interactive and entries relate back to the old entries and topics. It is more the process of creating thoughts and learning than the end result in books.

In addition to this, I continue to remember how much I enjoy books. I have a large library of books which I am unable to bring along with me to San Jose. Instead, I must limit myself to a select few. These few I do not find the time to read anyhow as I keep busy and have a large public library to select from as well. If I gathered all my books together and counted them, I believe almost one fifth of them would be books that I have not read or at least finished. I am overwhelmed by the desire to read and enjoy books, but I do not take the full action of when living life actively in the present wins out. With time, I hope to read more and review books through one of my blogs.

after-school tutorial

Getting these students to stay on task during tutorial is quite a task. I enjoy this time to learn more about their lives both in and out of school and I often want to move off task for more interesting conversations.
Their teachers also usually leave immediately after school making it very hard to use them as a resource to help the students improve their work. 

smack in the middle of the US

I often tell people I'm from Kansas, right in the middle of the United States. Some agree, some don't say anything, and some question it. So here's the research: the geographic center of the first 48 states of the US (what I'm usually thinking with this statement) is 4 miles outside of Lebanon, KS. That is a six hour drive from my hometown. Of interest is the geographic center of the 50 states in Butte County, South Dakota and the geographic center of North America is close to Rugby, North Dakota.

the evolution of Kansas

Well... Kansas School Board of Education has continued to increase it's bad image by teaching evolution as a flawed theory. As the laughing stalk of the nation, it's no wonder Kansas is such a terrible place to be from. All we have is the Wizard of Oz, farms, "where's that again?" and more problems with evolution. We could do things such as refuse to support Kansas, but wouldn't that be like moving to Canada when Bush won the election.... It doesn't solve anything to leave it alone. What about those who have to live in Kansas? Who grow up in Kansas? Kansas has some good things...

It makes me wonder though... how do people get on school boards? People vote for them, I believe. But who ever worries about who they vote for to be on the school board? Shouldn't this be more of a focus? These people choose what our children learn in public schools. That's huge! Or maybe it is a big deal and I've just never noticed how much people put into elections of school board members. Makes me wish I was still voting in Kansas for the next elections with school board members on the ballot--we need to make this state EVOLVE into the current century!

blogging

The once or twice a week that I spend catching up online, I realize how much I'm missing out on. Now I know I'm lucky to have internet at all and even more lucky to get a good connection at my local library. But I've been spoiled at my university with a constant link to the internet. I have a computer online at all times; when I woke up in the morning, I could get on, chat briefly with people, check my email, the news and the weather. When I came back from classes, I could spend more time talking online, reading email and search the internet for information and people's opinions. I've often found myself lost in people's blogs--going from on blog to the next, learning opinions and reading articles of intersting topics.

Today I found a long discussion about the idea of blogging versus journaling (via a friend's suggestion). Several interesting people continue a discussion through their blogs on this topic and others that I find intersting. Given the time and resources, I would love to join in on these discussions. There is a great deal to keep up with and information I would like to follow, but I haven't the time nor the constant access to the internet that I once had. Instead I find keep up by reading old posts, several at once, in hopes that when my internet lifestyle likely returns, I'll still be enough in the loop to join in our such discussions and blogging. Atleast I have feeds (via Bloglines) for easy access to the last posts on my favorite blogs.

What is your definition of blogging?

food web

This is two crews of high school students creating a food web with animals in an ecosystem. 

San Francisco

That's me with Golden Gate Bridge in the background. 

Youth Corps Leaders

This is the gang of Youth Corps Leaders at my new job.