If you read the previous post, you know that my lesson implementation has taken a back burner to the stress my mentor and the Junvn8 staff have been dealing with.  I have, however, been able to get started.

In October, my AP English Language students began a research unit on the history of 20th Century American Agriculture.  Their task:  to record significant events concerning the “Big Five” in agricuture:  Agribusiness, Labor Force, Farm Technology, Agricultural Law and Plant Genetics and Seeds.

They began by reading three primary documents (an excerpt Crevecour’s Letters from an American Farmer, the song “Remember the Farmboys,” and Arne Duncan’s speech at the annual National FFA Convention) to generate ideas and attitudes about farming throughout history.  They then began researching major 20th Century events concerning the “Big Five” and generated questions to ask guest speakers we scheduled.

First, we were visited my Mark Stampe, our Ag teacher, who concentrated on seed hybrids, cultivation, and Duplin County crops.  Roland Scheiber, Vice-president of Operation for Murphy Brown, introduced the class to the world of pork – from birth to slaughter!  He also put the economics of agribusiness in perspective, stressing that many “farm workers” never leave the office.  Our last speaker was Matt Miner, Sales Director for Quality Farm Equipment-John Deere.  I think he was the students’ favorite.  First, he is young, and the girls thought he was cute.  Second, he showed two videos – yes – he incorporated technology into his lesson.  Third, he was nervous, and they always cheer for the underdog.  Matt discussed how the computer age has changed every aspect for farming, from planting and harvesting to fertilizing by satellite.

Because of the “Juvn8 Apocalypse,” everything came to a screeching halt.  However, my students have not forgotten that they have Parts 2-4 ahead of them.  In the meantime, they are scheming to create their own hybrids:  larger strawberries, flowers that have all the colors of the rainbow, and a money tree.  The last is my personal favorite!

Well…I would like to say all is well…..but…Duplin, we have a problem.  While showcasing Juvn8 at a trade show in New Orleans, my mentor, John Parker, and his crew discovered that if the product is left to sit overnight, the bottle containing the beverage expands to almost double is size!  Apparently, the yeast content of the product is astronomical. Bootlegging anyone?

John Parker and Amy Powers trying to make a go of this Kenan Fellows Partnership.

The entire Juvn8 department had to be shut down to determine if the yeast occurred naturally or as a result of environmental contamination.  Not good!  John and I had to put all of our plans on hold.  In other words, no field trip, no school visit, no Kenan lesson plans – nothing.  In addition, the parent company Cottle Farms has experienced several personnel changes.  John and I spoke before Christmas and agreed to get back together after exams.

Overall, my mentor is great!  Unlike him, I can just go with “Plan B” like all teachers must do from time to time.  He, on the other hand, has the weight of an inactive assembly line, empty bottles, and many dollars on his back right now.  This helps me to better appreciate the nature of my job:  a dynamic bit of organized chaos that somehow makes sense.  The Common Core has nothing on me!

Mindy, perhaps we need to work together on the first muscadine smoothie for the 21 and over crowd?

I know I am supposed to use this blog to discuss the wonderful things I have learned about educational technology, educational policy, STEM, and all that good stuff through the Kenan Fellows Program (And I have learned more than I can ever imagine).

However, This experience has been more one of personal growth.  I came into this program having a grasp of the educational and outreach potential.  What I never imagined was meeting so many wonderful people I no longer call “Fellows;”  instead, you are my friends.  In the words of Anne Shirley, you are my “Kindred Spirits.”

The past three years have been ones that have challenged my confidence in many areas – I will not bored you with this -, but the biggest challenges have been ones of the soul.  My Fellow Friends have helped me recognize that I have value as an educator and a human being.  You have challenged me to learn more about my craft and myself.  You have challenged me to come out of my safe corner and take risks in the great big world.  For that, I am eternally grateful.

Late Blog – Sorry!  I wish I could say I was distracted by social media, but that applies to my students!  They often view social media as a means to tap into someone else’s reality, a chance to escape their own, a chance to create their own…often to their detriment.

My daughter’s negative experience with Facebook left a bad taste in my mouth concerning social media.  In September 2010, I left my mother’s death bed, frantically wanting to get home to tell my children that their “Grandma Jane” had died.  Imagine the tongue lashing I got when my daughter called me to tell me that my step-brother’s wife had posted her passing on Facebook. “Mom, how dare you not tell me!?”  As a result, I saw no value – social or educational – in social networking.  Instead, I saw a violation of the privacy and feelings of others.

My school system will not allow teachers, administrators, and students to converse via social media.  That rule was just another reason to keep my opinions of Facebook.  However, a friend of mine who teaches at East Duplin High School introduced me to Edmodo, and I began to reconsider my position.

As I made more and more assignments via Edmodo, I witnessed a wonderful dialogue among my students.  Yes, some asked, “Hey, do you want to play FIFA later?”  However, many began to discuss questions and concerns about assignments.  While some students expressed that I selected the most boring stuff ever written for them to read, others stepped in to offer support and explanation of those selections.

However, I’m still not sure – I would much rather create a social network in my classroom, one of respect, kindness and enlightenment.  Until I feel that we as educators do that, I don’t know if social networking will be successful.

Now that my externship and the first week of school are over, I have come to the realization that no matter how important I think my presence in the classroom is, nothing matters without the students.  While that sounds painfully obvious and a bit trite, my externship gave me a great opportunity to meet new people, write great lesson plans, and face the fact that I have a great deal to learn.  For starters….

1. Lesson plans mean nothing without a test group – I need my students to make my plans come to life (or die a slow death!).
2. The business world is not a glamorous as I thought, and I would much rather spend my day with a bunch of teenagers than adults – they are much more honest in their critiques.
3. The food industry NEVER takes a day off, even when it rains.
4. Having too many things to do (learning how to maneuver PowerSchool, outdated technology, SACS, athletic ticket gate management, writing lesson plans, conducting inventory of books, working with two BT’s, and attending multiple meetings) somehow makes sense.  While the rest of the world must often contend with a “hurry up and wait” mentality, we teachers spend our days trying to do many things that have no connection other than making school a better place for students.
5. Nice people are everywhere, and the outside world isn’t really full of Cretans who want to see public education fail.
6. Most important, the one who has the most to learn in any classroom isn’t the student;  instead, it is the teacher.

What my Kenan Fellowship has ultimately given me is the insight to begin each day as a student, a researcher, a social scientist.  I’m not sure what my students want me to learn, but I know the assessment will make me a better teacher and hopefully a better person.

When I first watched the movie Field of Dreams many years ago, I think I was more interested in looking at Kevin Costner and hearing Darth Vader (aka James Earl Jones) speak without the cloak and synthesizer than learning anything from the film.  In other words, I completely chose to ignore the message:  if we dare to dream with a clear, honest heart, the dream will come true in the manner that was intended, not in the manner we necessarily thought was best.  In other words, the sincerity of faith often makes the impossible possible or at least gives us the courage to plod on in anticipation that we will succeed.  I knew all along the message was there; I just chose to avoid the obvious.  Then I became a teacher!

Click image for film clip.

 Like Ray, I imagined grand dreams, grand plans to make a change, to do the impossible, to save the world.  I was going to teach my students to love the Transcendentalists, to diagram sentences, to write beautiful prose, to extrapolate new and exciting meaning from The Scarlet Letter.  

Hah! The joke was on ME! I finally realized that I was the only one in on this dream.  My students really could have cared less.

Click image for film clip.

Then it  finally dawned on me that the dream has to belong to the student as well.  Karin, Ray’s daughter, began to believe in the dream of turning a cornfield into a baseball stadium for ghosts.  Lacking the cynicism and jaded goggles of adulthood, she began to SEE the dream, not just imagine it.  Unknowingly, Ray didn’t just tell his daughter about the dream; he made it hers as well.

The impact my Kenan Fellowship has on my students will be determined by my willingness to give them ownership of the lessons, the units, and the dreams.  I will ask the questions concerning the future of farming in their community, I will ask them to consider the impact the media and our government has and will continue to have on what we eat, and I will ask them to create and market a new agriculturally-based product.  Nevertheless, it will be up to them to determine why they need to do this in the first place.  Ultimately, I will build the plans, and they will come to school – the same thing that has happened for the last 23+ years.  However, thanks to my experience as a Kenan Fellow and my externship at Cottle Farms, my students will be able to take my simple vision and and create something of their own.  If THEY build it, ALL will come!

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.                                                                                                                                   ~Rachel Carson

When Coleridge wrote The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, he penned these lines:

  Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

I don’t think Coleridge had any idea how those words would prove so prophetic in this day.  The poem tells the story of a mariner who is condemned to wander the earth telling his story:  as his ship is driven off course, the mariner and his crew panic, only believe they were led to safe passage by an albatross flying around the ship.  Like most blessings, the albatross gets on the mariner’s nerves, and he kills the bird, coinciding with more bad luck.  Plagued by thirst and hunger, the ship’s crew forces the “murderer” to wear the corpse around his neck as punishment.  The short-skinny:  the crew members die off, the slimy creatures in the water (the ones the mariner cursed earlier in the poem) appear to want vengeance, and the mariner begins to pray. Kablooie!  The albatross falls from the man’s neck, and his friends come back to life.  Faith is a powerful thing!

The big question:  Which is the “albatross?” The Common Core/Essential Standards or the “Demon Technology?”

The answer could vary from day to day.  However, like the mariner when encounter by the creepy-crawlies, I prefer to have faith.  The Common Core/Essential Standards are fine by me, and the thought of searching for informational texts on line is something I reconciled myself with many years ago; in fact, I embrace the practice.  Using technology as a vehicle to create instead of a big ole’ digital library is an exciting yet welcome challenge.

My albatross?  Infrastructure, hardware, and sustainability.  I don’t want to be trapped…

PC, Apple, every where,

And server support did stink;

Students, teacher, every where,

Nor any place to link.

So…I pray.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

When I wrote about leveraging technology in the classroom, I should have been more concerned about leveraging technology during my internship, for I seem to have skipped one blog and carried on with the others. So…here goes!

The prompt I skipped reads, “Describe at least one way you can connect your summer externship experience to your classroom curriculum.”   I have been holding on to a fortune cookie message that I got on June 17, our first official day as Kenan Fellows.  I had gone to Cottle Farms a nervous wreck, and Whit Jones was kind enough to take me lunch at a local Chinese restaurant after spending the morning showing me most of the farm facilities.  When I opened my fortune cookie,  I expected a silly, philosophical statement that would sound even funnier when read with the words “on the toilet” added to the end.  The joke was on me!

What Confucius or whoever writes the fortunes for this American invention taught me is that EVERYTHING about my internship will be relevant to my curriculum.  My title is that of English teacher, but I prefer to describe myself as a “Social Studies Teacher with an Emphasis on Literature.”  In other words, my students study people and their words, their ideas, their frustrations, their livelihood, and most importantly, their dreams.  I have had to take risks – check.  I have learned about the food that sustains us and the jobs that sustain Duplin County – check.  I have learned that the workplace of the future will actually be determined by the student, not the teacher – check.  My curriculum is not just English Language Arts and some sense of historical context.  My curriculum is life skills – ELA just happens to be the vehicle.

So…How will I connect all of this to my classroom?  How can I not?  I am a different person because I have stepped out of my vacuum.  My students may never remember that Hester Prynne was a good person at heart or that an infinitive can be used as a noun, a adjective, or an adverb, but they will remember that there is a career, a vocation,a calling for all, and my job is to help them discover it and answer the call.

Identifying my “aha” moment is difficult, for this has been my “Aha Summer.”  My previous posts have described many of my new and exciting – even frightening – experiences in a variety of settings:  farms, rivers, and dance floors.  Every setting has been my classroom, and every person present has been my teacher.

However, my biggest challenges have been pedagogical and logistical.  Figuring out WHAT IN THE WORLD MY LESSON PLANS WILL LOOK LIKE has been a test.

Then…I realized I had to think like a student – What do I need to know first about agriculture?  How will I know that I have learned the most important aspects of farming in America and Duplin County?  How can I distinugished between just learning about the industry and actually doing something with what I learn?  Where do I go in the future?  Do I create, revise…throw my hands?     

I thought my “aha” moment was when I finished my Project Plan, entitled A “Smoothie” Move – The  Rhetoric of Agriculture, Small Business, and “Grape” Marketing.  I could breathe a little easier.  But wait!  Now I had to start collecting resources, reading, thinking like a teacher again (At this point I realized I would rather be touring farm facilities than writing curriculum).  Again, do I create, revise…throw my hands up?

Then…it happened.  My “aha” moment was today during the KFP Site Visit.  When Craig , Amneris, and Amy, along with my principal, assistant principal, and two colleagues, came to Cottle Farms, I had the opportunity become a teacher again.  I realized I hadn’t memorized data, terminology….stuff.  I realized I possessed content knowledge to share with students (and my peers) and the courage to let them take it and run!  As I watched John Garnder, my mentor, and Whit Jones, berry and grape manager, describe Cottle Farms and Muscadine Times, I was so proud of “my farm.”  I watched the nods, the smiles, the expressions of wonder –  I felt like I was a part of something really meaningful.   Instead of being an onlooker, I realize I am now a participant; I have ownership of my project, and I can talk about my experience as a Kenan Fellow with confidence.  This is how I want my students to feel – AHA!!!!

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“Teachers, the server is down.  Ms. Merritt has called the Techs to get it fixed.”

“Teachers, please bring the laptop carts to the Media Center for re-imaging.”

“Teachers, TimeKeeper is now working.  Please clock in.”

“Teachers, NCWise is shutdown for maintenance.  Please turn in a list of absentees to Mrs. Stallings.”

You know your day is getting off to a bad start when you school’s technology becomes a hindrance for the teachers just as they are getting their morning underway.  Fear sets in, and only one question remains:  Will my students be able to get online today?  The answer to that question may change throughout the school day. But what’s new? For the past twenty years, teachers across the country have been encouraged to incorporate the use of more and more technology in the classroom.  From Computer Competency Tests to PowerPoint presentations to Classscape assessments, students have had ample opportunity to  operate PC’s, touch SMART Boards, and peruse the internet, never knowing when the technology will assume the  persona of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey and think for itself – or not think at all!  As a result, teachers learn the meaning of the world “flexibility.”

Thus, we have the conflict between using technology and USING technology.  One of the biggest problems with using technology in schools is money – money to purchase equipment and programs, money to replace broken or outdated technology, money to subscribe to online services, and money to create an infrastructure that can accommodate operating said equipment and services (cough, cough NCCAT, cough).  Another issue, at least in my county, is maneuvering the gauntlet of internet site-blocking software (Imagine researching World War II when you cannot Google “Nazi” without being told that topic is off limits).   Finally, we have to accept that not all students have access to computers and the internet at home.  Yes, Smartphones are great alternatives, but let’s face it;  a larger device is preferable, especially if we want to students to focus on meaningful work, not the text that pops up, and save it for later.

My biggest concern, however, is that we aren’t USING (leveraging) technology effectively in class.  Regardless of the reason (money, internet blocks, etc.), most teachers view computers as high-tech typewriters and electronic libraries.  In other words, they become the end to publishing and presentation, not the means to create. I know I have been guilty of such practices.  I have also been hesitant to incorporate USING technology in plans because of frequent glitches.  I am reminded my students’ attempt to complete of the SAS Curriculum Pathways Lesson on the Salem Witch Trials ( (QL) #550) last year. They were excited about using the laptop cart and even open to the idea of researching 17th Century Salem and writing letters to the grandchildren of those who were executed. Some students had no problem, while others couldn’t connect to the school’s WiFI, others couldn’t Google the word “witch,”  and others could do nothing until a computer became available (tough in a class of 29 when you only have 23 out of 25 computers that work.).

All complaining aside, when everything works, students can do amazing things.  They can research, create, revise, solicit and receive feedback, publish, cross reference…they can USE the computer.  So perhaps the problem, at least at my school, isn’t leveraging technology; instead, our problem may be driving out the economic wedge:  lack of equipment and a power and communication grid to support such USEFUL endeavors.