Thursday, November 29, 2012

A career -v- to career

A couple of days ago I was interviewed for a new promotional video that the school is making - apparently I'm seen as a positive person and colleagues here feel that the passion for what I do oozes out of me.  I was asked a number of very interesting questions about the ways that ASB uniquely engages its students, about the ways in which ASB is forward thinking and about the professional culture at school.  Actually I can hardly believe the professional development opportunities that I have been given here:  I have done an online photography course through the ASB Online Academy, I have done a course to become an online workshop leader and am currently facilitating a Making the PYP Happen online workshop for the IBO.  I have done the DataWise training.  This weekend we are hosting the first every Indian Google Summit and I'm a presenter.  Next week I'm going to be involved in Teach4India's InspirED Conference, the week after that it's TEDx.  After Christmas we have two days of professional development as the school hosts ASB Un-Plugged's Brain Workshop.  In March I'm going to the Flat Classroom Leadership Workshop in Japan.  In June I'm off to San Antonio for ISTE.  As well as all this I contribute to parent newsletters, am on the school's R&D core team, and make presentations to parents as part of ASB's Tech Connection Points.  I'm growing in so many new ways and I absolutely love it.

I've just been reflecting on the word career, on how it can have two very different meanings (both of which I've experienced).


A career: an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress.  This is what I have now and I feel that I am being given every possible encouragement to move forward and become the best possible educator that I can be.


To career:  to move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction.  This characterizes my experience in a different school, where I was actively discouraged from moving forward - I was on the treadmill of mediocracy.  Lewis Carol puts it well:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where ... " said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
" - so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

So when I'm asked if ASB has lived up to my expectations, what can I say except that it has been an inspiration to work here.  There is an amazing leadership team and an overwhelming sense of trust in what they are doing as they "chart the route".  It's a place where new paths are cut through the educational jungle by people who have thought about where students need to go in the future, and where people walk along these paths, even though they have the freedom not to.

Chalk and cheese really.

Photo Credit:  Colours by Camdiluv, 2007 AttributionShare Alike

How do curious people feel when they present their findings?


Today our 2nd Graders presented what they found out as a result of following their curiosities.  While many students said they felt nervous sharing their investigations with so many parents and other students, the word that occurred most often when students reflected on the Curiosity Project was that it had been fun.  Parents commented too:  that they were amazed by the things that 2nd Graders were curious about.  Who would have thought a 7 year old wanted to dissect a heart?  Who could have imagined a 7 year old would want to plan and plant up a miniature garden?

I've been interested to see how the Curiosity Project - an intensive 6 week project - compares with Independent Studies which is ongoing throughout the year for students in Grades 3-5.  I was particularly interested to know if the investigative skills we have been working on with the students in Independent Studies carry over into others areas of the curriculum.  Recently our Grade 4 students have filled out a Google Form to reflect on their Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry where they have been inquiring into different biomes, writing up their findings into Google Presentations, turning them into PDFs and then making them into FlipBooks.  The things that students identified on this questionnaire that had carried over from Independent Studies were as follows:
  • an understanding of  copyright, plagiarism and the importance of paraphrasing
  • knowledge of where to go in order to search for images that are labelled for reuse
  • an understanding of the different creative commons licences 
Developing research skills is an important element of the PYP.  When I look at the list below, taken from Making the PYP Happen, I can see that both the Curiosity Project and Independent Studies is helping our students to develop these important 21st century skills.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Virtual Spaces: One Life or Two?

Yesterday I spoke to a group of students about some inappropriate comments that had been made online and forwarded on to me.  The students were embarrassed that something that they thought had been a private conversation ended up being viewed by adults who were not a part of it.  As I was thinking about this later, it occurred to me that there are many people who view conversations that I am having, that are also not a part of them.  These could be friends of friends on Facebook or anyone who happens to read something I post on Twitter.  This led me on to thinking about my conversations that are viewed on Facebook by all those people who are my friends, but who don't necessarily know each other - people who have known me in very different times, situations and circumstances.  For example there are my immediate family, friends that I knew when I grew up in the UK, colleagues from when I worked in Holland, Thailand and Switzerland who are now scattered all over the globe and so on.  All of these people knew me in slightly different ways - and yet these personal identities merge in some way online - and some people who thought they knew me in one life, suddenly find they don't necessarily know me that well in another.

In his book Digital Community, Digital Citizen Jason Ohler writes about 4 kinds of virtual spaces, each of which are characterized by different modes of communication:

  • Intimate spaces - usually 1 to 1 conversations such as emails, texts and IMs
  • Personal spaces - communication among a few people, for example a group email
  • Social spaces - group communication such as Nings, wikis and blogs
  • Public spaces - one to many communication such as newsletters, web pages and videos
The interesting thing is that these spaces are not mutually exclusive - emails can be forwarded to others, videos can be posted and commented on, people may choose to reply privately to something that is posted publicly and so on.

Young people sometimes have a hard time sorting out what is appropriate in each of their virtual spaces - and understanding that what's posted online in a private space can easily become public.  Sometimes it's a hard lesson to learn - that you are responsible for what you say.

Photo Credit:  Who's Who by Jessica Polanco, 2008 AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike 

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Talking about technology - part 2

Several weeks ago I blogged about how one of my roles as tech coordinator has been to talk with teachers about the NETS-T standards.  As a result of these conversations I've decided to write a series of posts about how teachers can develop their own skills to support these standards.  This post will be about the discussions we have had about how to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity.

The first standard in this strand is to promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness. One way that teachers can encourage a constructivist learning environment in their classrooms is to provide what has been described as "crystallizing experiences" which can be turning points in the development of a child's abilities, interests and talents.  These experiences could be things like field trips, visiting guest speakers - or in the absence of these teachers could use technology to conduct virtual field trips or skype calls with experts.  For example students could use Google Maps or Google Earth to explore a place that would not be possible to explore in any other way.  Skype can bring in experts such as authors or poets to the classroom.

The second standard is to engage students in exploring real-world issues and solve authentic problems using digital tools and resources.  Project-based learning can really support this standard, encouraging students to explore and help solve problems.  Technology can play a role in identifying such problems, for example teachers could use online news sites, email, blogs, social networks and so on for information about current events.  Using Google search tools, students can access and translate news stories from different online newspapers, so getting multiple perspectives on world issues.  While it is not possible for students to actually solve these problems, games based learning and simulations in virtual worlds around these issues can certainly give students experience in decision making and encourage higher-level thinking skills.  Students can use presentation tools to share their solutions and get authentic feedback.

The third standard is to promote student reflection using collaborative tools.  There are many digital tools that can help students reflect on their learning - some of the best tools for reflection that I've used with students have been blogs and microblogs.  Students are often really motivated to post their reflections when they know that others will respond to them.  Currently we have Kindergarten classes sharing their reflections on their current unit of inquiry using VoiceThread and 3rd Grade students using Edmodo.  Wikis are another tool that I've used successfully for reflection, with students collaborating on providing and editing content and getting involved in discussion forums.

The final standard involves teachers modeling collaborative knowledge construction.  Teachers need to model that they too are lifelong learners and that they can learn from others.  Successful ways I've seen of doing this have included teachers setting up class blogs where everyone can post and reflect.

Although at the start of some of these conversations I've heard teachers say that they can inspire students without using technology, after our discussions many teachers come to see that technology can be an important doorway into facilitating learning and creativity.

Photo Credit:  Franci plays maze by Franco Cavallotto, 2007  AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works

Covering content and other games of Trivial Pursuit

Some years ago I was at my mother's house and we were watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on TV.  One question was which way does the River Nile flow? with the options being North, South, East or West and I can remember the contestant struggling over this.  To me this was a very simple question.  I thought that everyone knows that rivers flow towards the sea, everyone knows that the Nile is in Egypt and that Egypt is south of the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore everyone must know that the Nile flows north.  I must have said something along these lines, about how I was surprised to see someone struggling over such an easy answer, and was surprised by my brother's response:  "The answer's always easy when you know it."

I was thinking about this last week as I was re-reading the Grant Wigging article "The Futility of Trying to Teach Everything of Importance" which was one of the readings for last week's module of an online workshop that I'm facilitating.  This article has certainly provoked some interesting discussions among the participants and has prompted me to go back yet again and re-read it from other's perspectives.

Wiggins refers to us facing a Sisyphusian problem:  the boulder of "essential content" can only come thundering down the (growing) hill of knowledge, and his article is about how "the problem of student ignorance is thus really about adult ignorance as to how thoughtful and long-lasting understanding is achieved".  As the expression goes, you don't know what you don't know!  However what Wiggins advocates is enabling students to learn about their ignorance, take pleasure in this learning and be able to take control of the resources that will help them know more.  This is what he refers to as developing habits of mind.

Wiggins calls for a move away from scopes and sequences that assume a logical progression through knowledge, he argues we must move away from covering content that simply "reduces essential knowledge to Trivial Pursuit"  and instead we should concentrate on developing a "thirst for inquiry" and a "perpetual need to think".

Although some of the participants in my online workshop have criticized parts of this article (which is good of course, as it promotes discussion), I think Wiggins does stress the importance of inquiry and going where the questions lead.  He writes:
One learns the power of the questions only by seeing, for oneself, that important "facts" were once myths, arguments and questions .... Since it is impossible to teach everything we know to be of value, we must equip students with the ability to keep questioning.
Another take away I had from this article relates directly to what we are doing this year in ASB with Independent Studies and the Curiosity Project  (where students pursue something of interest to themselves) and with our goals of personalized learning.  Wiggins writes:
The deep acceptance of the painful realization that there are far more important ideas than we can ever know leads to a liberating curricular postulate:  all students need not learn the same things.
I think that this is true and something that we will need to accept if we are really to walk the talk of personalizing learning.

Photo Credit:  Trivia Caught by Stephen Train, 2007 AttributionNoncommercial

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Local, Global and Digital

In my role as Tech Coordinator I meet with grade level teams once every 8 days.  Over the past few sessions we have been looking at the NETS-T rubrics and self-assessing where we feel we are as individual teachers, as grade levels and as a school.  When I first introduced these rubrics to our teachers I talked with them about how the ISTE standards for teachers have changed dramatically over the past 10 years, and yet reading through the first chapter of Jason Ohler's book Digital Community, Digital Citizen made me realize that there are really only 6 words that appear in the 2008 standards for the first time:  creativity and innovation (for both teachers and students), digital, citizenship, culture and global.  Ohler writes:
We must help students participate as a citizen of local, global and digital communities simultaneously ... issues of ethics, social perspectives, and community participation occur within three community domains: local, global and digital.  Education must participate in all three.
Reading onto the second chapter of the book, and thinking about terms like digital citizenship and global citizenship, it's clear that today geography plays only a small part in determining the communities of which we are a part.  Local, global and digital in fact overlap in many ways and as educators it is our  job to help students understand them and be able to participate in them effectively.  The local community could well be the school - the people who can communicate with each other face to face.  It could include the students in a class, in the school as a whole, the families of those students, and even people in the neighbourhood where the school is located.  Often it's important for students to understand the impact of something locally in order for them to consider the impact of the issue globally.  Ohler writes:
We live on a very interconnected but culturally diverse planet ... addressing issues, opportunities and problems that cross political and cultural boundaries will require building new kinds of social bridges.
Digital communities may be global, but often they feel very local because we are in these communities by choice, common needs and curiosities.  Ohler points out that social media makes us part of a digital community that actually feels "local" and helps us appreciate issues that are affecting people in the global community.  Although we are geographically very distant and may in fact never have met the people in our digital communities, we have an emotional and intellectual connection with them that is very real.

How can teachers help students to be active members in local, global and digital communities?  Ohler calls on teachers to "help students connect their personal networks to global realities that are personally meaningful and academically important" in the following ways:

  • Deepening the time spent on the global web - developing a deeper understanding of the world
  • Connecting with others in a global context
  • Inquiring into global issues
  • Promoting local connections 
  • Focusing on what is unique as well as what is universal
Today I was reflecting on my own connections and how these can add perspective to issues that are affecting the world today.  Locally, I work with someone who was once part of the Gaza peacekeeping force.  Globally I am in contact through Facebook with an ex-student who has just finished his military service in the Israeli army and who may well be called upon to take military action against Gaza.  Digitally I am connected through the Google Teacher Academy with a teacher who lives on a kibbutz just 2 kms away from the Gaza border.  More than anything I could read online, any report I could watch on the news, the personal connections with these three members of my various communities help me to understand the issue facing the region today.

Photo Credit:  In The Beginning by Bill Gracey, 2002 AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Teach from the Beach - Devices 2 and 3

Last week was our Diwali holiday and I was away in Goa.  While I wanted to have a fairly clean break from school, I was in the middle of facilitating an online course for the IBO so I knew I needed to be connected to the participants every day.  I thought long and hard about this, especially in the light of the research I've been doing about what people use different devices for.  Should I take my laptop, which would be easier to use to respond to the participants, or should I just take my other devices (iPad and iPhone) so that I would be more mobile?  In the end I decided I'd leave the laptop at home and see how I got on.

Actually it was really easy!  I made sure that both places I'd booked to stay had wifi and I was able to log onto the IBO online workshop site easily.  I got notifications of all new posts via email and I was able to respond very easily using the onscreen keyboard on the iPad.  Filling out the Google Spreadsheet with details of the activities the participants were engaging in proved to be more challenging, despite downloading the Google Drive app on the iPad.  In the end I resorted to the old fashioned method of pen and paper and updated the spreadsheet on my laptop when I returned home.

In the second half of the week I was beach based.  During those days I decided I would just take my phone with me and leave the iPad in my bungalow.  I looked out for cafes that offered free wifi.  One day I sat down under a palm tree outside a cafe and when I asked for the internet password I was told it was "palmtree".   It was slightly more challenging to read the posts and respond to them on a phone, but I was determined to go through one whole day of doing this simply to prove to myself that it could be done.  I also managed to read a book using the Kindle app on the iPhone too.

The experiment was a great success - I was able to teach from the beach very easily using just my mobile devices.

BYOD: diversity -v- monoculture

 Because this year we have transitioned into a BYOD programme, and because one of the things we are working on in one of our R&D task forces is investigating the value a secondary BYOD can bring to learning, I've been reading as much as I can about schools and teachers who are also engaged in different pilots and prototypes.  This week there have been some great discussions on an online forum for independent schools where I've come across the term monoculture - referring to one-size-fits-all solutions or policies.

One discussion I've been following concerns the way that schools use standardized environments simply because they are easier to administer and manage, to explain to parents and to have teachers use year after year.  However the monoculture is not better for individual learners and nor is it easy to move forward when something better comes along - schools that have spent a significant number of years and money investing in one system often find it extremely difficult to move staff away from hardware, apps and content that work with the specific devices that they are trained in and comfortable using.

BYOD has also been a subject discussed in a Google Teachers Group that I am a part of.  One teacher, Lisa, explained that hers is an inquiry based classroom and so it is up to her 10 year old students to explore and discover ways to use their devices to extend their thinking and learning.  She writes that when and what specific learning activity the devices are used for is up to her students:  "they are figuring out how to effectively use their devices independently which I believe is real world application of learning."  She also writes about how she observes more collaboration as students use different devices depending on the type of activity they are doing and states: "if we believe in empowering students as learners, that we are guides on the sides, then we need to remember to follow that practice as we institute new technology methods in the classroom."


Another member of this group, Mark, responded and described the situation at a primary school in the UK.  This is not actually a BYOD school, but one where a variety of devices are used.  He writes about the students becoming device-agnostic as they simply use the best tool for the job:  for research they may use an iPad where they can easily pinch and zoom on the touch screen, while for writing up the results of their investigations they may choose to use a Chromebook because it is easier to write with a keyboard.  He concludes:  "it's the content and the creation and the collaboration which matters, not the tool that is used."

As our BYOD2 prototype is getting underway in Grade 4 I've been making the time to observe how things are going.    A variety of devices have been brought in:  iPads, iPod Touches, Kindle Fires and smartphones.  The most important instruction that I've heard is the class teacher give is this:  Use your second device only if it is better than your first device - if it makes your work easier or faster.  Following this I was able to observe some students using iPads for investigating mangrove biomes, others sharing an iPad between them and at the same time using a laptop to type into a Google Presentation, several students using both phones and laptops (investigating on the phone, typing on the laptops) and another student using a translation device to help her write.

What I'm seeing, hearing and reading about is that diverse environments are more "real-world", where not all devices are the same.  And as another teacher, Ann, pointed out, it leads to a change of mindset by taking the focus off the device or the technology and forcing teachers to view them as tools for learning.  

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Cyberbullying Comes into Focus as National Cyber Security Awareness Month Passes

A guest post by Sharon Brown

Social networks no longer exist solely in the physical world. A growing part of our social life exists online or through our “smart” devices. Like no other time in human history, individuals have the ability to connect with others through the digital landscape.

While there are many positive consequences to digital social networks, reconnecting with longtime friends, keeping up more easily with loved ones, and sharing good news with your pals, there can be a dark side to these new ways to connect with people, like cyberbullying. Recently President Obama dubbed October as National Cyber Securtity Awareness Month, and anti-bullying organizations have been using it as an opportunity to discuss the dangers of cyberbullying.

What Is It?

Cyberbullying uses technology that’s intended to engender beneficial social relationships to do the exact opposite. Specifically, cyberbullying refers to any use of modern communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated and hostile behavior that is intended to harm others. Unlike physical bullying, electronic bullies have the ability to remain anonymous, which can translate into even more severe bullying because of the lack of accountability and a perceived suspension of in-person social norms.

The constancy in which young people use social media makes cyberbullying more pervasive than traditional bullying. Schoolyard bullying can end when one leaves the schoolyard, but cyberbullying can hound victims any time they access social media. It turns a normally joyful activity of connecting with friends and family into a rueful one where it’s hard to escape a tormentor.

Locking It Down

Other major components during National Cyber Security Awareness Month were the threats of hacked accounts and identity theft, as both have seen a rise recently. Companies like LifeLock that focus on identity theft are looking out for new cyber threats of social network identity theft. As a society, we are all connecting more than ever before. With the advent of social media sites- from sharing on Facebook, to retweeting on Twitter, to pinning your favorite recipes on Pinterest- personal information and influence is heavily visual. Keeping your sensitive information is highly important as we shift into a more tech-savvy and tech-dependent society.

Since many share personal information that can be used to steal one’s identity, such as birthdays and mother’s maiden names, the risk of getting your social network identity stolen can go beyond just cyberbullying. Identity theft experts and professionals have been updating their services and advice to consumers to recognize the importance of keeping their social network identity safe and secure.

What Can Be Done

Parents should start open conversations with their child about the effects and possibilities of cyberbullying. The more information the parents receive and pass on, the better informed and more protected the child is. Being aware of which social media sites their children use and understanding the negative possibilities will go a long way in staying on top of this growing concern. If parents notice any emotional changes in their children they should start a conversation about it right away.
If your teen is being harassed, they should not respond or retaliate, as this can play into their aggressor's plans for more teasing. Save the posts, emails, pictures, etc., and report them to schools, online service providers, or law enforcement.

While the size and scale of social media and the Web is daunting and too difficult to control, it is imperative for parents and schools alike to educate youths about the very real effects of cyberbullying. Knowledge is power in today's digitally-dependent age.

Photo Credit:  Sylvie Bouchard, from Mirage3

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Jigsaw Puzzle Education?

At the moment I'm facilitating an online course for the IBO.  Doing this is a great opportunity to revisit some of the curriculum documents that I haven't looked at in some time, and to read the various articles that the participants are also reading.  As a facilitator I think I am looking at these documents in a new light, and learning something new from revisiting them.  Today I read "What is a Coherent Curriculum?" by James A. Beane that compares a typical student's school experience with trying to make a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture is.

I started to think about this, since I actually enjoy making jigsaw puzzles.  What if I just had a collection of pieces, but no idea of what the actual picture was, or if they were all part of the same puzzle?  The pieces themselves, especially at the beginning, are simply a collection of coloured shapes.  At the start of a puzzle I often look for the straight edge pieces and see how they fit together -  I want to know how big the puzzle will be.  At this point I need to look at the picture on the box to see where these straight edge pieces go - are they at the top or the bottom - and then I start to try out pieces that seem to fit together - perhaps a bit splash of one colour belongs in one place, perhaps all that blue might be the sky - but I always have the big picture to refer to and I am always looking to attach new pieces to the bits that I have already completed.

What is education like for our students, who go from class to class without any idea of the big picture?  It must be like collecting a lot of disconnected puzzle pieces and wondering how they fit together, as often the subjects and courses taught in schools are seen as very separate and distinct.  And then I started to think about the teachers - do we all know the big picture?  Do we know how all our little pieces fit together to make the whole?

Photo Credit:  Puzzling Beginnings by Joel Dinda, 2005 AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

How do curious people share their learning?

This week in the Curiosity Project students were asked what they thought curious people did when they had found the answers to their questions.  Here are some of their replies:

You could make a book about what you've learned.  By doing art.  By making a collage.  A puppet show.  By doing a gallery.  By talking and telling people. If it was about people you could make a family tree.  You could make a website.  You could make a small video and post it on Youtube. (Calum)

They can share their learning by:
  • Making posters
  • Drawing a picture of what they did and labeling it is a good way to share.
  • Writing what you did, how you did it and why you did it in an email or a letter.
  • Making a video of your learning for eg. an experiment and showing the video maybe even on youtube.
  • Speaking to the person and sharing their learning is one of the best ways that you can share
(Zainab)

There are many different ways in which a curious person can share their learning.  For example: They can answer the questions that they asked to begin with, they can express through words, they can share through videos, they can make posters, or maybe some people can make an experiment.  You can also express through writing or drawing a diagram.  (Nirvaan)


They  share  there  learning   by   using :  computers, books, posters, videos, pictures, models and their own brain. And choose an interesting fact  to share and sometimes take  one question  and  join  another and it becomes a better question. (Sahana)

Next week an entire morning will be given to the students so that they can share what they have found out about the subjects that they are curious about.  I'm very interested to see what they will choose to do in order to share their own learning.

Photo is of a mural painted on the wall in the secondary school

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

BYOD2 - the prototype begins

Yesterday we started our BYOD2 prototype in Grade 4.  Out of 19 students on one Grade 4 class, 16 of them brought in a second device.  These are the devices we are working with right now:

5 students brought in an iPod Touch
1 student brought an iPhone4
2 students brought in an iPad1 - one also brought a camera too
4 students brought an iPad2
1 student brought an iPad3
2 students brought a KindleFire
1 student brought a Samsung Galaxy

Yesterday I had this class for Independent Studies.  So far this year students have identified a topic, written questions, identified keywords, searched for information and we are now at the point of synthesizing and paraphrasing their findings.  I was interested to see how students did this with 2 devices.  What I noticed was that many propped up their second device on the desk and used it to access websites they had stored in their Resources List on Destiny.  They then used their laptops to add information into their Google Doc.

Today I was sent the following infographic about how parents and children use smartphones.  I thought it was interesting to add here, as we are also exploring the value of a second device to support learning.

How Parents & Children Actually Use Smartphones
Brought to you by: OnlinePsychologyDegree.net

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Personalized learning: starting with the students

At my old school there was a focus on outcomes.  I had been uneasy with this for some time without really being able to put my finger on exactly what didn't sit right with me.  Now that I'm in a school where the focus is on personalized learning, and now that I'm working with teachers who are actively encouraging students to follow their own curiosities, I can see how this approach is so much more relevant to the needs of our students.  We start with our students and their passions - we don't start with the outcomes.

As I'm facilitating an online course for the IBO at the moment, I have been thinking about action as one of the essential elements of the PYP.  In Making the PYP Happen it states:
An explicit expectation of the PYP is that successful inquiry will lead to responsible action, initiated by the student as a result of the learning process. 
In the movie below Connie Yowell, Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation, is asking (and answering) some of the questions that I had last year.  She is dealing with the experiences that we want students to have.  She addresses the purpose of education and shows how, when we connect with students and engage them in significant learning, that they will be provoked to meaningful and responsible action.