Amish Treasure

To see new and different cultures is an enriching experience, especially when it lives side by side a familiar one. While the American culture has its differences with Australia, it is relatively quite similar, especially when compared to others from around the world. And especially when it comes to the Amish communities that co-inhabit certain parts of the country.

Amish dairy farm

I must say it was my absolute pleasure to visit an Amish school in Pennsylvania and to speak with one of the community’s teachers – Marion. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the dedication on her face or the love for her students in her smile because the Amish people chose not have their image taken in a posed photograph. But if you could see her marking the books, sitting in the one-room school, as all Amish schools are, you would witness her contentment that the traditional ways are the best ways. However, the traditional ways are her only known ways. She could have little idea of what modern schools look like or what they’re doing with learning spaces and student voice and one can only wonder what she would make of the technical wonders at the recent ISTE Conference.

Amish One-room schoolhouse

It was clear that Marion was curious about my school and my class but she had little to reference it against. Her worldly knowledge was scarce and her own schooling didn’t provide a lot in the way international affairs or go beyond basic geography. Marion herself would only have completed up to the 8^th grade, as that is where the Amish education cuts out. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Who am I to argue with a system that has suited a community's needs for hundreds of years, just because I may not understand it or even agree with it?

When asked about student involvement and group work, Marion gave an inquisitive look. After we spoke about it a little more, she said that the older kids sometimes work with the younger ones. When I asked her about student voice she seemed confused. Why would the students have a say in what they learn or how they learn it? It’s not their place to determine that. It wasn’t even hers. The elders dictated what was taught and how. And the elders were all men and the elders themselves hadn’t been formally taught beyond the 8^th grade either. That’s not to say that didn’t know what was going on in the world. They were widely read, mostly through newspapers and occasionally they might see some television. But setting a wide educational curriculum was deemed unnecessary.

The knowledge they needed to live their intentionally simple lives was learnt through experience, starting from an early age. Most Amish families worked on farms, wood working or construction. The children work with mum and dad from an early age and it’s not unusual to see kids working in the fields while driving amongst the farms. But apart from the practical knowledge needed to grow up and care for a family and a community, the Amish children must also learn about God. While they have books for reading at school, the Bible is their main source of reading in the home and from this, come most of the games they play and the songs they sing.

Amish girl working in the field

Young Amish boy working on the family's tobacco farm

This is important to note when trying to gain some understanding as to why the Amish chose to live this way in a world of such varying stimuli. According to Marion, it is basically so they may focus on God and not be distracted. They have chosen some aspects of life to remind them to conform and dedicate to their faith. As Marion put it, the main things are:

• ·         transportation (buggies)

• ·         no ‘electric’

• ·         clothing

• ·         communication

• ·         and of course education

 

And it’s education where Marion says she plays her part, before she gets married and yields to her husband. For this reason, most Amish teachers are unmarried young women. After having a look around the schoolroom and flicking through some books (the students were already on summer break) I came back to Marion with 2 big questions.

1. What do you think is the most important thing to teach your class?

Answer: For the students to learn to submit to the community.

This of course was a very concise answer, as they all were in her heavy Dutch-Pennsylvanian accent. And it was a brilliantly concise answer at that, because it encompassed all that the Amish people were about, for the community means family, neighbours, God and their overall lifestyle.

2. What was the thing that she most loved most about teaching?

Answer: The students and seeing them smile.

Such a reassuring answer but not surprising. The Amish love their children unashamedly and build their work schedules around being with them, especially on a Sunday when, after 3 hours of prayer/church (which incidentally is rotated around community members’ houses – they have no churches) they must have family time and no work is allowed. Marion’s answer showed me also that teaching is a special calling with the same driving passions, no matter what community you come from.

Amish males get around on scooter-like standing bicycles

I think I could write a whole book on what I learnt not only about, but from, the Amish people that I met. They are special community and I feel privileged to have had a brief encounter with one. So it’s no surprise to me that at 18, when the Amish teenagers have to make a choice to stay with the community or leave to join the 'English' that nearly 90% chose to stay.

Message to to the students

Being on a professional learning journey and exploring student voice shouldn’t just mean looking at examples where student voice is loud. It should encompass all realms of the spectrum of education in order to seek out the treasures. And the Amish treasure? While the students don’t have much of a student voice, nor do the Amish have too many cherished possessions or physical treasures, the true Amish treasure is certainly to be found within their hearts.

Please Note: While the Amish wish not to be photographed directly, it is the idea of posing for a photo that they are most against. Before taking the pictures on this page, I checked first with my guide who said it would be okay to take and use these. He was a very experienced local Mennonite guide who drove me around and also told me when it was not okay to take pictures. Marion herself endorsed me to take photos in the school room. She was keen for my students to see what it looked like.

Photo Gallery

Sunrise  near Indianapolis

Dallas City Skyline

Illinois corn fields

Gateway Arch at St Louis

Chicago's northern districts

The original "LOVE" sculpture in Philadelphia

ISTE Conference Part 2

When a conference starts to get into full swing, people find a routine that makes them feel comfortable and they create a mental base from which to operate within in a new and temporary environment. Some people nest in a safe spot, near a powerpoint, coffee and an easy path to conference rooms. Others become minstrels and wander to find an audience in strangers willing to listen to their song. Some won’t stray far from the comfort of people they know while others actively seek connections to like-minded educators. 

But whatever routine is established, people are thrown together for varying degrees of time to attend sessions and workshops. You may end up sitting next to a grade school teacher from London, a teaching nun from Ecuador or an IT coordinator from Zionsville Indiana. And it’s this geographical difference of origin that made the following two sessions that I attended all the more interesting. 

TAKING YOUR CLASSROOM GLOBAL

The first was aptly titled Take Your Classroom Global. Basically presented by the organisation TakingITGlogal. This is a one-stop non-profit web organisation that connects students and educators from around the world. Started in Canada by young teachers and entrepreneurs, it is designed bring together schools from around the world to understand and act on challenges facing us all, providing a platform for digital youth engagement and social innovation.
The website has 2 arms, one for students and one for educators. Packed with resources, the sites also act as platforms for action by  connecting students globally, through virtual conferences and classrooms.

Student-based site:

http://www.tigweb.org

Teacher-based site:

http://www.tigweb.org/tiged/?npc

While there are various organisations that provide these platforms, it was the value areas that drive TakingITGlobal that I found of particular interest.

These Value Areas are: Global Citizenship, Environmental Stewardship and Student Voice. 

Their aim is give an opportunity to all students across the world, a voice on issues that are important to them. There is also a gallery where students can exhibit their works. One of my favourite features of the site is the extensive list of international days of … where students can get involved in issues that interest them. 

TIGed  hope that meeting up cyberly in their virtual classroom will Inspire, Inform and Involve through hope, understanding and engagement. There is also a gallery where students can exhibit their works. One of   It is well worth a look.

GOOGLE MAPS

The second session I want to highlight  was on Google Maps by Jennifer Judkins. I’ve always loved maps and Google Earth and they are a great teaching tool, in a number of subject areas. This session was basically a tutorial on some of the advanced features of Google Maps but there was enough in it to develop some good teaching and learning strategies.

When logged in to a Google account, you can set up maps ready to go and make them available to students directly, who can manipulate their own copies of them. The very basic features include naming and saving personal maps, dropping marker pins and assigning text and images to the pin.

But the feature I found most useful and potentially a valuable teaching and assessment tool was the importing of data from a spreadsheet. 

Here’s a simple example: have students fill out basic data through any medium such as Google Forms. Question 1: name, Question 2: suburb they live in (this of course could be country of origin, location of an animal being studied, famous battlefields and so on) There could be more questions but one must include a recognisable geographical location. The results can then be imported into Goole Maps and each location appears as a marker pin on a map with the information associated with that marker available with a click.

You can even create blank columns on the spreadsheet that can filled in on the map by  each student and saved individually.

 The possibilities are abundant and like all good conference sessions, this one made you start thinking about your classroom immediately.

Photo Gallery

Here are some more pics from my travels.
Be sure to check out the other Photo Galleries posted in June (if you haven't already)

Sunrise over Washington DC    

Old school petrol pumps in rural Pennsylvania

Closed for the day - Washington DC

Lady Liberty - a guiding light

South Philladelphia street corner

ISTE Conference Part 1

Attending one of the largest Education Conferences in the world requires some navigation, flexibility and an open mind. The ISTE 2015 Conference in Philadelphia asks you for just that. There is so much on offer, so much to see and experience and so many people with whom to connect. It would be impossible to blog everything so I will only mention some highlights.
So what is ISTE? 

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is the premier nonprofit organization serving educators and education leaders committed to empowering connected learners in a connected world. ISTE serves more than 100,000 education stakeholders throughout the world. – ISTE website

The conference is home to over 20 000 like-minded educators and promotors of technology in Education. Held in the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the heart of the city, it’s really an interesting and inspiring environment. The Center itself has transformed into a mini-city, though from the air it would probably more resemble an ant colony. Nevertheless, everyone here has a common cause and whenever you get 20 000 people together for a common cause, a certain atmosphere is created;  think of a home-town sporting crowd, a political rally or concert audience. Okay, it’s not quite that parochial. In fact, there are refreshingly different viewpoints on a wide range of issues, but there is a commonality of ‘big-picture’ about the place.

Entry point to the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia

As with any major conference, a keynote speaker officially opens proceedings, although there have been a couple of sessions held prior. For the ISTE 2015 Conference, the opening  keynote speaker was Soledad O’Brien, American journalist, producer and philanthropist. And it was her philanthropic hat she was had firmly planted on her head during the address. Born to an  Australian father and Cuban mother, this created her fair share of issues growing up in America. She also had, according to her, the added burden of both her parents being teachers,  one of which taught at her High School.

With her strong beliefs in equality for all, she has used her profile and her influence in the media to “bring about opportunity to those who need it most.” Soledad sees education as the next big civil right. And she sees technology as a key to this. Through technology, she hopes to allow students to see what is possible in life. She has established a foundation where she offers scholarships for girls, particularly in the area of STEM.

Soledad O’Brien and Brad Raymond’s Starfish Foundation:

http://starfishscholars.org

The foundation wants all students to be aware of the opportunities available to them after high school.

“Education is the next big civil right” 

One area in which Soledad demonstrated the use of technology to assist vocational guidance to economically disadvantaged students was an amazing virtual reality app for a smartphone. Through this app and the use of a simple cardboard extension viewer, (Google Cardboard – see link below) students are able to experience a range of occupations, and see and hear first hand, people in virtual 3D while on the job. The cardboard hardware is only $10 and the content in online. There are other virtual reality headsets out there for educators, like Samsung’s Gera VR but Google Cardboard is very cheap in comparison and can use any brand of smartphone. The specific example demonstrated was a veterinary clinic.  

Audience participation: Google Cardboard at the opening keynote address

“If you don’t have exposure to things you may not know what is possible.”

See what Google Cardboard virtual reality is all about:

http://youtu.be/SxAj2lyX4oU


Teachers are largely philanthropic and have an innate sense of wanting to help others, I guess that’s part of the calling. It’s reassuring to see this theme throughout the conference and for it to be respected enough to be the focus of the opening keynote address.

How do we see our leaders?

Leadership can be a birthright, sought after, a natural progression or thrust upon someone. For most national leaders, it is  a position that is pursued, often vigorously and never on one’s own. By its very definition, in a democracy, leaders need the support of the people. So you would naturally assume that they would be popular. But are they? Do the people really respect or admire their elected leaders? 

How do Americans regard the importance of their presidents and political leaders? Overall, highly. Also regarded with high respect are the presidents' wives, even by their title, First Lady.

When asked “What man or woman living today in any part of the world do they admire most?” in Gallup’s Most Admired Man and Woman Poll conducted at the end of just about every year since 1948, for most years the most admired man is the sitting President of the United States and the most admired woman is or has been the First Lady of the United States.

The only exceptions to this or other politicians in the list in 70 years are:

1946, 1947, 1951 - Douglas MacArthur (US Army General)
1951 – Sister Elizabeth Kenny (Australian nurse & pioneer of Polio therapy)
1980, 2000  – Pope John Paul II
1980, 1986, 1995, 1996 – Mother Teresa
2002, 2004, 2005, 2007 – Oprah Winfrey

I wonder what this list would look like in other countries, or in particular, Australia. What type of person would consistently rank Number 1? Political leaders? Prime Ministers? Celebrities? Sportspeople?
Well you may be surprised. In a 2013 Morgan Poll conducted in Australia, Australians didn’t even choose an Australian. But they did have politicians ranking highly in their list.

 

Similar results occur in subsequent polls of the same nature. The validity of any poll is questionable and when this poll was released in 2013 there was the usual outcry of disagreement, particularly with former Prime Minister  Julia Gillard polling so highly. But what the poll did show was that the answers weren’t overrun by sports stars or figures from pop culture.

So maybe our politicians are seen as real leaders by the Australian public, despite the best efforts of the media to discredit them and our political party system. After all, harmony and respect for leadership doesn’t sell newspapers or provide a provocative 30 second sound grab for TV and radio. 

 

Perhaps we should embrace our leaders and occasionally look for the good they do and respect the office of Prime Minister a little more as a nation. Perhaps they should embrace it themselves and stop playing the ratings game and using political speak because they are afraid to be themselves. There is a solid basis in Australia in support for strong leadership.

The implications for developing strong student leadership lies in the notion that people do respect their elected leaders. They also respect people who genuinely care about their world and the people within it. 

Photo Gallery

Here are some more moments captured on my travels.

Pennsylvanian Farmland

Detail of the Capitol Building, Washington DC

Patriotism and remembrance at the World Trade Center

Washington Monument at Sunset

The National Gallery of Art,
one of the many official buildings in Washington DC done in classical style