Under Construction

After a very long break from this blog I've decided to take it up again.  The intent is to use this for a place to gather my thoughts from time to time.  I'll also post articles or other resources that I want to write a bit about, especially so I can remember and access them more easily later on.  I'll also use this to place a bit more information about myself professionally so I can direct anyone interested this way (for better or for worse).

I'll leave all previous posts up without changes, even though a quick browse makes me want to fix their mistakes or make other changes.  I suspect posts will be shorter on commentary and more links and other information.  I almost just went with tumblr for that reason but figured that I already have this up and running so I'll try that first.

Anyway, since my last post I moved back to Utah, started a job where I was able to travel the world visiting schools and racked up 380,000 frequent flyer miles in 18 months, then moved to India where I now am Head of a small international school.  Some of our travels and fun in India can be followed at we5nomads. 

Desert of Forbidden Art

A colleague at work recommended "The Desert of Forbidden Art" after a screening at the MET and gave me the postcard with the listing for its opening Greenwich Village a few weeks later. After watching the preview below I couldn't wait to see the film and kept the postcard on my desk for a few weeks as a reminder. This was my first trip to Village Cinema which is an odd maze of tiny art theater screens crammed into the shell of an old fire station. It was like they had been given a building designed from a few couple of random Tetris blocks and had to fit a screen and seats into each colorful piece.

Anyway, when the time finally came it didn't disappoint. Absolutely stunning! Incredible story and art so beautiful my only reaction was to giggle through most of the movie. It was also fun to stop reading the subtitles after a while and let my memory of Russian take over. They recruited some great actors to read for some of the deceased artists, included Ben Kingsley who narrates for the main subject of the film, but the people they interviewed and the art on the screen absolutely steal the show.

And who knew there was such a gem of a museum in Karalkalpakstan? Who knew there was even a place called Karalkapakstan?. I was just sad that the film wasn't available for so many of my friends and family who would love to see it, but guess what? It is going to be broadcast nationally on the PBS program Independent Lens. Check the listings on the link but I think it is airing on April 5th (I say as if people are reading this). Here is the preview and there are a few clips on the link above.

Watch the full episode. See more Independent Lens.

Thanks to CBS Sports and Thoughts on Online Media

I was sad to see BYU drop out of the NCAA basketball tournement in the round of sweet sixteen last night. Jimmer Fredette had an incredible run and the team did more than anyone predicted. Most importantly the team, school, and alumni can be proud of how everything ultimately played out this year considering the roller coaster of ups and the downs. If nothing else my brother-in-law Tim, who is on the coaching staff, seemed to be sporting snazzy new suit for his national broadcast. Losin' in style Tim!

I've been watching the tournament games via the generous online streaming from CBS college sports. I'm at four months now without a television, not because I'm too good for TV but because I'm cheap. I will only be in NY until June so it seems silly to buy a TV. I can find most things that I want online but quality is often sketchy or shows are delayed. Some people probably complained about all of the commercials on the CBS online coverage and they were a bit tricky about keeping you from tuning out or switching games during ads but I thought it was great. After searching for low quality feeds that can get shut down at any time I was happy to put up with some commercials in exchange for reliable high quality coverage of the tournament.

Other online media should be following the example of CBS Sports, Netflix, and Pandora. Free services with ads or broad access for a low prices seems the way to go. Netflix may not make a lot of money for each individual subscriber but keeping the prices low has encouraged millions of people to sign up and it's killing dvd rentals. Netflix has made survival with TV quite easy. I've watched some great movies and buzzed through some outstanding TV series (Firefly, Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, Slings & Arrows, Lie to Me, and others).

On the other end of the spectrum is the New York Times. They will be taking their third swing at online subscriptions next week and I think it will be a strike out. Instead of learning from the successful services listed above they are pricing too high. There will be limited free access each month before the paywall comes up and there are a few potential back doors but I imagine NYT will work hard to shut them down in the future. What they should do is cut the price significantly, get more subscribers, and still maintain some subtle advertising that wouldn't annoy subscribers. Amazon has been walking close to the line as well with the prices of its ebooks. For the first couple of years there was nothing in the kindle store over 9.99 and now the standard new release is well above that. I love my kindle but am sticking with cheaper books for purchase. If I'm going to spend that much money I want something I can put on my shelf.

What Would Have Been

I'm not exactly sure what I would have blogged about had I been keeping this up over the last 18 months but I thought I would list and briefly describe ten things that likely would have appeared here.

1-My Scoooter
My brother Dale always wanted a motorcycle but my parents would never allow it. By the time I was a teenager I didn't even bother asking. I didn't care much about motorcycles anyway. However, I bought a scooter for my 1.5 mile commute last year. It's basically a Chinese made knock-off of a classic vespa design but I love it. The kids beg for rides and I'm happy to oblige. I don't have a picture of the scooter but I took this picture of Utah Valley after riding up to Squaw Peak.
2-Foyle's War
A great British television serious about Detective Christopher Foyle who solves various mysteries in the area of Hastings during WWII. It does a wonderful job of showing what life was like in England during the war without being a series about the war. Each episode is pretty much a crime procedural but there are some fun running story lines through the series.
3-Good Food
Utah County is getting some stellar places to eat that probably each would have received some mention including: P712, Communal, Slab, and Rooster Dumpling and Noodle. I currently live in New York City and can't wait to get back to Utah for good pizza (yes I know, there are probably some great gourmet pizza places here too).
4-Hunger Games
This is a nail-biting and brilliant YA trilogy by Suzanne Collins. She creates a tense scenario for unique adventures combined with thoughtful and deep characters reminiscent of Orson Scott Card's Ender Wiggins.
5-My Job
Got a job. Moved to Utah. Met and worked with a lot of great teacher and students. Tried to fix long-standing problems of finance and enrollment. Closed the school. Don't regret the experience but I'm glad to be moving on. Best and worst year of my career in education so far. The picture her is the copy machine. A great example of the good sense of humor among my great colleagues in a tough situation; also an appropriate symbol of the types of challenges the school faced.
6-Mountains
It was great to be back in Utah and be around the mountains. We had some good walks and drives but mostly it was just great to see Mt. Timpanogos towering over the valley each morning. Especially fun to see while riding my scooter.
7-Moving to New York City
I was fortunate to find an interim job when the school closed but it did mean leaving my family for 7 months to work in New York City. Many thanks to Skype and JetBlue for keeping me sane and providing a connection with home. Despite the challenge of being away from family it has been fun to enjoy the city and ability to take advantage of movies, Broadway shows, and museums with relative ease after being on Long Island for eight years. I will certainly enjoy and appreciate my family even more from my experience of living away from them for such a long stretch but am trying to make the best of where I am for now. The picture is Teachers College where I am working. My office is the second story window to the right of the blue flags.

8-Drive
Daniel Pink has followed up his great book, "A Whole New Mind," with this great summary of research on motivation. He cites studies the challenge the traditional view of motivations in the workplace, family, and self and instead focuses on the importance of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. A good summary video is available on TED.

9-The Death and Life of the Great American School System
Diane Ravitch discusses the changes in education over the last 30 years, with a particular focus on the many changes over the last 15 years. As an original supporter of school choice, No Child Left Behind, testing and money other trends, her concern and condemnation holds even more weight (she eats a bit of crow).

10-Soccer
I had season tickets to Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake last year. Two tickets in the middle of the field on the front row of the upper deck. RSL fell short of the MLS cup but they had an outstanding season and never lost a game at home. The season is just starting up again and I am excited for another great season (but no season tickets this year). I actually got to go down to the field for the last 10 minutes of the game when RSL gave the LA Galaxy their first defeat of the season.

Beware Dangerism

I couldn't have agreed more with Gever Tulley's call for parents to let their children get bruised, scraped, and bumped while exploring the world around them. I do think he was a bit off on ruing the disappearance of the playground merry-go-round. I watched a few kids nearly sent into to orbit on one of those. But As Tulley emphasizes, parents tend to be too cautious about dangers that are extremely unlikely to lead to real problems and too cavalier about the threat's most likely to endanger the health and safety of their children.

Some of the best memories of my youth involved some pretty dangerous activities. I was fortunate to live in a place that was great for adventure and to have parents that were willing to let us play. In general we were free to do what we wanted if we made it home for dinner and didn't cross the highway (fortunately there were fields, forests, and mountains on our side of the highway). In honor of this great little read and in memory of an adventurous upbringing I thought I would make a list of the top ten most dangerous activities from my youth.

10. Swimming-With a creek, irrigation ditch, and many ponds we spent plenty of time in the water. There were a few close calls but to us the toughest part was getting used to the chill of the water each spring.
9. Rope-Much credit here goes to my brother Andrew. He found a tree branch hanging far over a steep hillside which made for a perfect swing. You would alter from soaring high above the roof of the shed built at the bottom of the hill to slamming into the hillside on the return trip. He also connected a sturdy climbing rope to a hillside Box Elder tree and a river bottom Willow for a great zipline. I believe there was an ambulance called to both of these when inexperienced adventurers fell to the shed rooftop and slammed into the bottom side tree anchor of the zipline.
8. Jumping-Our trampoline was not placed at ground level or surrounded by safety nets. It was, however, dragged to the side of Hadlock's pond and under trees. The neighborhood rite of passage was to jump from the tree that arched about 30 feet over Uzelac's pond (for an added sense of danger old man Uzelac was definitely the grumpy old man of the neighborhood with the meanest, scariest, barkiest dogs around).
7. Building-Lots of treehouses and a few underground fortresses as well. We tried to keep their construction secret long enough so that parents wouldn't have the heart to pull the plug on a project that had already received so much hard work. The worst trouble here came from the time we took building supplies from a woodpile that turned out to contain future building materials for our new neighbor and not just scraps. We kept the treehouse but had to put in a day of work for the victim (we got the final world later when we stole his garage door opener and tortured him with a mysterious carport phantom late one night)
6. Climbing-Out my bedroom window to the roof. Out the skylight to the roof. Up countless trees and a few mountains too.
5. Explosions/Fire-This is the one category where the activities were pretty clearly against the rules. We were more afraid of getting caught than we were of losing a finger. Fortunately the former happened often enough to prevent the latter.
4. Motorcycles were not allowed but I flew a paraplane and learned to scuba dive
3. Bikes, Skis, Sleds, and Skateboards-I never had a helmet. We made our own halfpipe, jumps, and had plenty of spots to provide gravity the greatest amount of assistance possible for all of these toys.
2. Tools-There was a lot more trouble to face for not returning a tool than for using one without permission. Hammers, screwdrivers, pics, shovels, saws, sanders, and eventually even the arc welder.
1-Driving-I got my license at age 16. In many ways this led to the end of most of the activities listed above. From a statistical perspective it's likely more dangerous than all of them too.

I should conclude by saying that I'm actually a big wuss. I was not the most adventurous participant in most of these activities and was always happy to let somebody else test out a new bike jump first. As much as I liked and agreed with Tulley's book I do also have to struggle against the parent's natural instinct to keep kids away from danger. It takes a consistent balance of trying to keep them safe but also giving them some freedom to fall, fumble, and even fail.

"Little Geek is On the Case"

That line stuck with me from the 1989 James Cameron movie "The Abyss." While not an absolute classic it appeared at the perfect time for me to remain one of my favorites. A great underwater adventure with fun characters and the first use of some pretty successful computer generated images on film (see picture below). It also led me to books. I wasn't much of a reader when I came across the novelization of movie by Orson Scott Card (the book jives better with the director's cut of the film with the extended ending). I loved the book, starting reading Card's others, and have been reading ever since.

Anyway, the line spoken by the character Hippie as he sends off the underwater remote operated vehicle called Little Geek has stuck with me. I'll often mutter it to myself as I prepare to start off on a task I want to do with enthusiasm.

I've been away from this blog for nearly two years and for multiple reasons I want to get started again. I think I'll use a separate post to explain why I'm doing this in the first place (it's mostly for me but anyone that wants to read and comment is welcome) but for now I'm simply glad to say that "Little Geek is on the case."

Busy times

My posts and reading have both slowed a bit recently. The end of the year is always very busy. Add the preparation for a cross country move and things get very busy. Each day seems to be crazy in its own way. Here is today
-Wake up
-Wake up kids
-Drop off kids
-Meeting about a student
-Wear pink pony outfit in Beauty in the Beast presented in French
-Teach class
-Meet with student/dean
-Judicial commitee
-Go home for the 4 year old's forgotten backpack/lunch
-Lunch
-Class
-Check final exam
-Class
-Class
-After school review with students
-Advisory meeting
-Go home for diet coke
-Advisory meeting
-Decide to miss 5:30 meeting (don't feel too guilty because I'll be gone in two weeks anyway....sorry)
-Out for dinner and errands with the kids
-Put kids to bed
-Install window air conditioner (first hot humid day)
-Finally some time to catch up on email, reading, cleaning, etc...

Reading Greek Aloud

Although I am not nearly as consistent as I would like to be, one of my favorite parts of the day is reading aloud to my children. It tends to go in streaks as we get into a good book then finish it and go for a while without reading. I enjoy reading books aloud even if it slows down the pace a bit. A recent editorial piece did a wonderful job describing the value of reading out loud. I sometimes get frustrated that I can't read faster but Klinkenborg's article reminded me as do my children "that our idea of reading is incomplete, impoverished, unless we are also taking the time to read aloud."

The book we just finished was "The Lightning Thief." Recommenced by a colleague and her children, we have truly enjoyed this book and look forward to the rest of the series and the upcoming film. I have always felt a major gap in my cultural literacy when it comes to Greek mythology. This book does a wonderful job of introducing classical ideas and characters in a modern setting that makes them fun, memorable, and true to the original. I especially love the idea of the Greek gods following the migration of Western Civilization from Greece, to Rome, then England, and eventually to the United States. I'll look a bit closer for Mt. Olympus floating in the clouds above the Empire State building next time I'm on 34th street. The book also has some great fun with Los Angeles. It won't take much of a nudge from the kids to start book #2 tomorrow.

Where is your soul?

I remember making a clear stand as a middle school student that there were a number of bands I loved to listen to but refused to "worship" as people or individuals. I'd buy their tapes but not their posters. This was a wonderful stand to take as a middle school student who wanted to act and speak like an adult despite the many flaws and contradictions behind my argument. I did struggle to maintain this stance with one band: U2. I remember going to the late viewing of "Rattle an Hum" before the midnight release of "Achtung Baby." When first dating my wife she blew me away by getting her hands on tickets for a U2 concert (the band was impressed with the giant 2 that had been added to the giant U on mountain that overlooks the stadium at the University of Utah). My ipod is red, part of the line of Product Red that raises money for AIDS medication, an organization started in part by Bono. So, my interest was definitely piqued a few weeks ago when I came across this Op-Ed column written by Bono.

The article was both inspiring and thought provoking. I decided to show it to my elective class on global issues. The underlying question about our souls and what really matters most in our lives became a writing option for my students' final papers. As a few papers have trickled in over the last day it has been exciting and uplifting to see how they view themselves and their purpose. Like my middle school opinion on music personalities, there is a bit of posturing in attempt to show maturity but overall I was impressed by the outstanding responses. Their souls are found in every place from the center of mom's lasagna, through journeys found in interactions with other, to the front line of fighting a chronic disease on a very public stage.

I think there are very few people that can completely find their souls at any age. I wouldn't argue that my students have achieved this either. What does impress me though is the sincere effort they have made to seek their passions, interests, and meaning in life. I think about myself at that age, preparing to graduate from high school. I don't' know what surprises me more, how much I didn't know about myself and the world or how much I actually did? I'll probably feel the same way about my current place when I look back in 20 years. I guess that's the real value in soul searching. Not the you could ever really pin it down but, as my students who are lucky enough to be in a place that values self reflection and service, searching for one's soul from time to time helps makes life meaningful and enjoyable.

Anger Response

People react differently when angry. Some are quick to anger while others can stay calm and cool in the worst situation. When angry everyone seems to have their own signature response even if they seem to be pretty collected on the surface. I had a friend from high school that would never lose his temper even when his face had turned fire engine red. I know somebody else that starts writing things down furiously when angered or frustrated. I tend to go for silence in many situations unless it seems others are relying on me to be angry for them. Some people curse and throw things. Others punch holes in walls, slam doors, or commit similiar acts of violent physical response. People sometimes do silly things when angry; I'm thinking of the videos of angry drivers recorded by police dashboard cameras or the viral video of the woman who broke down in the airport after missing a flight.

Even with the most extreme cases in mind I hadn't seen anything that made me chuckle quite as much as the goalie's response to being scored on in this clip. It is a beautuful move by the attacker to get the ball back onto his right foot and then send it home but I never would have guessed the goalie would respond with such anger by.....pulling up his shorts in such an indignant way. Really, he gives the most expressive garment adjustment I've ever seen.

Actually, wouldn't the world be a better place if this is how we all expressed anger. No more cursing, hitting, shouting, or holes in the wall. Just yank on your belt a bit and everyone would know that you need some space.