Doug Johnson started yesterday’s blog in typical Blue Skunk fashion.
Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog – Blue Skunk Blog – Are Your Ideas Sticky?:
I’ll admit that it was the duct tape on the cover that drew my attention to this book. Like all good Minnesotans, I use this silver miracle to fix almost everything. (If it moves and shouldn’t…) Happily, the content lived up to the cover of book…
The book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, (ISBN 978-1400064281) by Chip and Dan Heath, explores some of the characteristics of sticky ideas. It’s a theme that David Jakes (Strength of Weak Ties) discusses and presents on frequently, and I’m not going to push it any further than that, because I’ve not read the book.
Please do read Doug’s detailed report.
What’s got my head itching is the reading that we are doing — we, being educators. Of course I’m talking about a small sub-genre of educator who is unsatisfied with today’s short sighted education system, is reform conscious, mostly smart, mostly tech savvy, and is almost giddy about the possibilities and the demands of an emerging information landscape.
Admittedly, my long-term memory has been somewhat set aside for a lifestyle that is just trying to be ready for the next presentation, to fix a current stubborn programming bug, or to finish up what ever writing I’ve set for myself. So I don’t clearly remember, the kind of reading I was doing when I was more directly seated in some educational institution. I know that I’ve read most of the edu-rati that Gary Stager mentions, and although I can’t quote them, they are a part of my prevailing education philosophy.
But what are we reading now? Are they business books? Are they philosophy books? Are they lifestyle books? Daniel Pink admitted the other day that, that A Whole New Mind (ISBN 978-1594481710) was intended to be a business book — that he was somewhat surprised at how the education community has taken it up.
Some of the books that have driven me lately are The Search, Wikinomics, The Long Tail, and I’ve been bouncing in and out of David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous. If it is true that educators are increasingly going outside traditional education literature for inspiration and technique, that this is indeed a phenomenon, what does it mean? What’s changed?
Is it that effective and compelling communication, as a critical everyday working skill, has become more essential to a much larger part of an economy that increasingly generates wealth from conceptualizing rather than industrializing?
or
Is it that we find ourselves in classrooms that are no longer limited to textbooks and book shelves, but opening up to almost unlimited content and opportunities to work the content? Are we acting on a desperate need to reach beyond the pedagogy of information scarcity — looking for ways to provoke learning in an environment of information abundance?
What do you think?
I just finished reading “The Tipping Point” by Malcom Gladwell. It is one I would suggest to educators even though it isn’t an education book. It does talk a lot about the stickiness factor of things. Now I may have to read the Heath’s book as well.
Having been a business owner and an educator, there are many analogous ingredients in both professions. Motivation to learn/work is just one of the parallels I have noticed throughout the years. Business owners and educators strive to perfect this skill. This adjustment in reading material with educators is more of what I would call a variation and refinement of self-educating material. I believe this is a very interesting topic.
David,
I discussed this issue a couple of years ago in Reading Fads: Why Tom Friedman Does Not Compute
.
That said, would you be so kind as to tell your loyal readers your five (or so) favorite books about education and share some recent recommendations?
Great question!
I also really enjoyed The Search, am trying to read Wikinomics and Everything is Miscellaneous and got a tremendous amount from Whole New Mind, and World is Flat.
Other ones on my shelf are the Game of School and Faster (by James Gleick).
(plus a Prensky book and James Gee’s book).
I think one of the most fascinating things about the learning blogging supports and networking is that probably many of us are broadening our reading, and reading things in order to connect with each other, converse with each other, and educate ourselves about the passions we have. I haven’t done this much “professional” reading in a long time.
Perhaps one tremendous benefit of engaging our students is that they will be compelled to engage on this kind of passionate quest to teach themselves as well?
I’d also be interested in what’s “on your bookshelf.”
In fact, it’d be an interesting meme to pass around–see how much “groupthink” we have, and what new things come to the fore as well!
Dave
Read this latest offering from the New York Times on what CEO’s are reading, It is interesting that many are not reading books on business at all for example:
“If there is a C.E.O. canon, its rule is this: “Don’t follow your mentors, follow your mentors’ mentors,†suggests David Leach, chief executive of the American Medical Association’s accreditation division”
Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/business/21libraries.html?em&ex=1185249600&en=91c86ccdf44acc31&ei=5087
David,
I am not “inside” education or “inside” enterprise at the moment, although I have been engaged in both. What I like about being outside the constraints of a particular institution at the moment is the freedom it gives to read “cross channels” and look for connections, new ideas, and new understandings.
I have read The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, and I am halfway through The Starfish and The Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. And I would add Wendy Mogel’s book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee as well as a fascinating husband/wife title from Harvard B-school press The Art of Possibility.
Will R graciously included me in the Edublogger “day” at NECC even though I at that time had not begun blogging. With his and Sheryl’s encouragement, I am now blogging with a focus on how develop ideas that can stick…
http://thenetwork.typepad.com/architectureofideas/
Thanks for your voice and leadership…
Laura Deisley
I was also attracted to the duct tape. Hmmm. I’m in the middle of “Made to Stick”. I’ve read “Wikinomics”, too. I often read business books because so much of the content applies to professional people in general. I consider myself a professional educator and almost always find useful ideas impact my classroom or relationships with colleagues.
I think that the key reason for which reform-minded educators are reading more and more books that are outside of the field of education (traditionally speaking) is that they are seeking something more dynamic than the ideas that have propped up a method of education that has remained largely unchanged since the industrial revolution. The business world in particular has latched on to the world of new technologies with particular zeal and has reaped the benefits. Maybe as more educators branch out and take note of what is being written about the transformations that have gone on outside of the traditional school we as educators will be able to produce similar wide-scale transformations in schools.
David,
I would like to believe we are trying to reach beyond the current pedagogy of information scarcity and open doors for our students and ourselves in this age of information abundance. Through the blogging community and recent conferences I have had the opportunity to meet and have conversations about teaching, learning, changing pedagogy on a level I cannot have in my own district. I find the online world so rich in terms of my own learning that I have a difficult time understanding why more people are not participating. I am trying to effectively model the use of blogging for the administrators in my district along with other web 2.0 tools so they may find value in using them in their own practice and as a result lead by example for their staff and ultimately students. My children are older and missed so much in their traditional education, I feel a strong need not to have the same happen within the district I work.
What I am reading now, “The Starfish and the Spider” Brafman and Beckstrom. Here is something from Publisher’s Weekly to give you the general concept of the book “The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them”. “If you cut off a spider’s leg, it’s crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. This reminds me of the conversations taking place initially at Edubloggercon, and since, in terms of so many seemingly small groups, new starfish, (bloggers) relying on the power in all of us to collectively initiate change in the educational environments we work in. I believe there is a stronger connection between so many now and we are in a position to effect change.
Good morning,
Your statement, “Are we acting on a desperate need to reach beyond the pedagogy of information scarcity — looking for ways to provoke learning in an environment of information abundance?” really hits the nail on the head.
I hope that something happens soon to bring the information scarcity to a hault for all of our students.
I’m not sure where the solution lies, but would like to present some information to your readers about a new National Research Center that will be formed very soon: http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/announcements/2007-2/061107c.html
Here’s a short synopsis for those too busy to rummage through that previous link:
National Research Center for Career and Technical Education
(Federal Register: June 11, 2007 [CFDA# 84.051A])
Applications Available: June 11, 2007.
Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: August 10, 2007.
Estimated Number of Awards: 1.
Estimated Available Funds:
$2,200,000 for the first 10 months
of the project, and $4,500,000 for funding 12-month project periods
for each successive 12-month budget period for years two through
five.
David, I just finished reading ” As Long as it Takes” by William Pinkney. He is the first African-American to solo circumnavigate on a sailboat. He communicated to students in Boston and Chicago throughout his trip. The lessons he describes learning are certainly relevant to education in general.
Here is his list of ten lessons at the end of the book:
1. You are smarter than you think you are.
2. You are dumber than you think you are.
3.Help is there if you are willing to ask.
4.Getting knocked down is not failure.
5. Adversity ends.
6. There are things over which you have no control.
7. People make Nations.
8. It takes as long as it takes.
9. There is a difference between fantasies and dreams.
10.Dreams do come true.
You ask a very compelling question and I really enjoyed the discussions of the books that followed. I have read many of the books listed and just added a few more to my Amazon wish list. Like several of you, I have had both business and education experiences and found that they can inform each other.
Back to your question: Are we moving toward a pedagogy of information abundance? I hope we are. I hope that the fact that we educators are broadening our reading is a very positive sign. Perhaps it is too simple to think that it is all due to a pedagogy of information abundance though. Certainly other factors are at play also. For example, I hope that educators want to know what lies waiting for our students someday so they can be fully prepared to be lifelong learners. I further hope that we educators use the broad reading to open up the kinds of learning we design for our students. My guess is that those who are reading this are very interested in designing authentic work for students. Perhaps that is affecting the reading lists. Any thoughts?
Interesting, thoughtful comments here, but I have to add a humorous one to the list. I read Dilbert for this same reasons shared about reading business books. So many of the absurdities of Dilbert’s life in his cubicle resonate for me in the world of education. Got to laugh!
David,
I would add another question about why educators are looking to for answers in places other than the traditional educational sources.
Is it because, we are struggling to connect with the Net Generation, as described in Wikinomics by Don Tapscott, and realize that the teaching methods that our teachers used to teach us, just don’t work with today’s students in today’s society?
It is nice to know that if you are one in amillion in the Us that there are 300 people just like you. I am a retired educator who still sees the need to adopt and adapt new teaching strategies to meet the Net Geners. I also have been reading many texts outside the traditional education world and I agree with so many of the previous posts that good educators are looking for other ways to meet their students.
I was a Director of a professional develpment program for teachers and my office was located in an elementary building. My whole teaching career was spent in a high school. I was overwhelmed when I saw elementary teachers at work and how creative and resourceful they were. When the school district I was working in was looking to spend $60,000 for new textbooks, I suggested that they would get a better resource if they asked their teachers to write the book and pay them what they were going to spend on books. Everyone laughed and they spent the money on books. Reading Wikinomics, I saw that California is doing exactly that using their teachers and a wiki to create their new books.
I have to agree with Jason Cummings’ comment. Our whole economic system is changing and we have to look outside the school walls to understand it so we can better prepare our students to be productive citizens when they leave us (every day, at the end of the school year, when their traditional education is completed, etc).
I used to teach computer science at the university level. Even back then, I was surprised at the usefulness of all the business books I read. For example, books on selling made me realize that teaching isn’t just delivering content, it’s selling people ideas and getting people excited. The books I read about the computer industry gave me stories to use in class. The corporate training books influenced the way I prepared my presentations: more interactivity than a typical lecture.
At 23 years old, I’m probably part of this Net generation. I started BBSing when I was 9 and I got on the Internet shortly after. But I love love love reading (you can check out my blog!), and it’s really paid off for me. I’m glad that other teachers are also reading across different fields. That’s where lots of innovation can be found–in the combination of ideas. =)
– Sacha Chua, Booksnake
I think educators who go outside of the traditional education literature for inspiration and technique will change it a bit. They’re probably just being resourceful and there’s nothing wrong about it.
The change caused by those who go out of the traditional education literature is probably a good sign of development. Inspiration should be welcomed and not avoided.