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Just a quick post to say, um... no post today.

I love storytent.

But these hot, windy days - and them crazy kids - really wear me out. When I'm not working, I'm mostly sitting in my lawn chair or a park bench, taking long looks at the sea and sky.

Videos in Learning

Nancy dropped me a note. She's been doing some prep work around issues of Literacy and Poverty, as well as some financial literacy stuff, and it led her to a video of a David Harvey lecture.

The 31 minute presentation, The Crises of Capitalism, is accompanied by another video called RSA Animate - David Harvey Crises of Capitalism. This is an animated video that uses an abridged (11 minute) version of the audio from the original lecture.

Nancy asked, "pay attention to how you take in the lecture - which style works better for you - the straight lecture when you can see David Harvey and watch is body language - or the visuals over the audio overlay?"

She added, "I think this could provide an interesting approach to teaching new tutors about different learning style preferences - engage them in something like this to experience differences and which approach is best for their retention."


So... I took a look. I watched the animated video first thinking it would be easier to digest and more fun.

I was wrong.

Right away I saw that it was too busy, too fast. I could concentrate on his words, or on the animation, but not on both - not easily.

Then, when I watched the full, ordinary video, I realized that he was telling a central story with a number of asides, some quite minor. I'm guessing body language helped my with identifying those asides (and thus identifying those times I could let a point slide past unexamined as I waited the next key argument), but I seemed to do as well when I stepped away from the screen and just listened.

However (in my perception) the animated bit gave everything he said equal weight, making for a much denser speech (much more content per 15 sec. portion). Also, I found the compressed or abridged version of the lecture less easy to understand.

Maybe, the audio portion of animation always needs to be sparser? Maybe there's no room for asides (which are, after all, only the speaker's way of further illustrating or framing a point)?

In any case, it makes me think that animation doesn't always allow the abridging of verbal explanations - it still takes as long (maybe longer) to explain something. And, maybe animation and audio need to be co-created. Maybe one can't be tacked on to the other.

NASA has a video called Mars Rovers EDL (Entry, Decent, Landing). This is, in my perception, amazingly effective. Why? Well, it rotates four voices or presenters. The speakers are looking / speaking to one side of the camera. Short clips of them speaking are filmed in a plain setting (apparently, a concrete stairwell). Equally short animation clips overlay other portions of the same speakers. It uses background music effectively.

Hmmm... I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well here. Go watch it maybe. (It's only 5 minutes or so.)


One last word: almost everything David Harvey said - almost every sentence - would have been inaccessible to my pre-GED learners. They just don't know the jargon.

Now, that probably wouldn't surprise anyone - economics is second only to meteorology in its mysterious theories and predictive failures. But, I also think that many - maybe most - of the visual cues and graphic symbols would be equally inaccessible to my learners. What that says to me is that any attempt to explain things using graphic illustrations or animation needs to be very careful in its choice of symbols and visual metaphors.

There's no profit in replacing words people don't "get" with images people don't "get" - in trading modalities that are both at a high level of "reading" difficulty.

Still, the NASA video is inspiring - for me, at least.

Makes me think there must be some way to get this newfangled machinery to work for us.

Research, in Practice

Research is about exploring specific topics in a systematic way. Researchers hope that people will apply their research findings to practical situations.

The NWT Literacy Council

If a researcher falls over in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, do they make a sound?

I have a co-worker. She does reflective practice. Her points of interest are blended learning in lower level literacy classes, group reading/writing using mass market fiction, and using local civic and cultural events to scaffold basic adult learning.

I know she reflects on this stuff and changes her practice, because she tells me. Like, all the time, it's "I did this and then that happened so I won't be doing that again, but I was so pleased when this happened and when I think back to this time last year and compare...."

And at the end of it, almost like a standing joke, I always ask, "Did you write any of that down?"

No.

Which is okay - she's not reflecting for your benefit or mine, she's trying to improve her practice for herself and her learners.

Here's my question: Is it research?

Is this phenomenon of having a question and trying something out and matching outcomes to expectations and talking through the results and the likely reasons for the results and adapting based on learnings... is that research?

And if it's not, is it because when we say "research" we really mean "disseminated information"?

Reflective Practice and Teamwork

Petr What'sHisNames' Choo Choo, in the shape - board book version worked pretty good. So did Donald Crews' Truck. But the book he kept asking me to read was Brown Bear Brown Bear.

I talked about this at lunch time - taken again by how effective this book can be.

One of us thought it had to do with the syllable count, the strong rhythm to the words. Another suggested it's familiarity, the likelihood that, for many, its a comfort book. I thought it had to do with pacing, with there being just the right amount of time between page turns, and the choice of nouns -the fact that even little kids knew what a horse or fish or cat looks like.

But Brown Bear Brown Bear isn't what I want to call attention to.

What I want to call attention to is this: at lunch we talked about the morning. We talked about what had happened, or not happened, or gone well, or gone badly. We talked with the intention of sharing and improving.

We did not talk about a television show or politics or sporting events. There wasn't time - there was too much to say about the work. That's how it always is.

Well... that's how it is in a workplace where reflective practice and teamwork are the norm.

It's hasn't always been like this - some summers are better than others. But a good summer -for us, for the families, for the neighbourhood - is always, always one in which our lunchtime talk is about the work.

Wishing We Were There

"Government of Canada reinforces commitment to literacy and essential skills at Edmonton conference," the Ontario Literacy Coalition tweeted.

"Really?" I asked.

True, they said. "The OLC was there!"

Well good! Yay! But also, Drat! 'Cause I wasn't there.

Though this tweet was the first thing I've seen on the web, I've heard other talk about the energy and rare optimism at this conference.

I've been told Elsa Auerbach's keynote address was "critically inspiring and totally anti-'family literacy lifts people out of poverty.' The main message being that you HAVE to consider the external/macro environment and not download economic responsibilities onto the micro unit (the family)."

I heard "Victoria Purcell-Gates' workshop about her Authentic family literacy project... denounced [workbooks in favour of] real life literacy for children AND adults."

I even heard that Tom King left people "Entertained (yes, with a capital 'E')" which, having read and re-read his "Let me entertain you", makes me insanely jealous of everyone who was there, including the OLC.

Oh why, oh why must the best stuff happen 7 air-hours and hundreds of dollars away?


And now I expect the OLC to remind me of their equally promising up-coming Spotlight on Learning Conference (Oct 18 -20, in Toronto):

a Canada-East (Ontario to Newfoundland and Labrador) conference focusing on how literacy can be a tool for positive change at work, at home and in the community. Policy, research and practical tools are major components of this conference.

If only I weren't so afraid of flying. And spending money.

All I can do is I hope somebody tweets it. :)

A Summer Reading Program

It was cool and cloudy - a welcome change from sunny and humid. I loaded my quiet morning stuff - Bach's Double Concerto for two violins (D minor), Glenn Gould playing Bach's Piano Concerto No.7 (G minor), Roy Ayers playing We Live in Brooklyn, Baby (key of summer) - into my media player, pushed up the volume a little, and sat outside with a coffee and a couple of books.

One was Focused On Practice, Horsman and Woodrow (eds). There's stuff in there, and in what's happened since, that I want to revisit.

The other was Stephen Brunt's Gretzky's Tears.

On the run-up to Canada Day, somebody - I think the Ontario coalition, or maybe ABC Canada - was on twitter asking us for our favourite Canadian authors. I didn't reply, actually, but I thought it a delightful question, because it raised the specter of enjoying reading. Maybe even reading for reading's sake. An attitude too often lost or smothered in the current literacy-as-business environment. One of the joys of the Quality Storytents program is hanging out with people who just want to read.

Up the street, to general approval, there's a reading program that showers children with prizes and awards for reading or sitting still or being good students or something... but that ain't us. We read because we like reading. We read to or with or by ourselves. And the kids and adults who wander into the tent also read... to or with or by themselves.

Wish you were here.



By the way, if I had answered about my favourite Canadian authors.... Well, my first thought, 3 weeks ago and now, was of Pierre Berton and Donald Creighton. There's no one else I read harder to understand my country and my neighbours. But, among contemporary authors, I'd have to say Stephen Brunt and Jacques Poitras.

Besides the Wayne Gretzky book (Chapters link) - which, by the way, is as much about the business of hockey as it is about the player(s) - Brunt wrote Searching for Bobby Ore (Chapters link). Both books made me shiver and laugh and feel deeply sad about something I can't quite define. Also, maybe because he works out of the Toronto media scene, it seems like Brunt is telling a Canadian story to Canadians. I like that - patriotic chauvinist that I am.

Poitras, on the other hand, writes like somebody from New Brunswick - which he is - and I don't know how well his two history books travel outside the province. But I don't care. The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma (Chapters link) changed the way I looked at the French-English debate in NB. Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy (Chapters link) taught me the story of the art gallery where I'd previously spent many hours pondering art distinct from finances. Now, I read, he's working on a book about " the story of the NB-Maine border - past, present & future."

I can't wait. If it comes out at the right time, I expect I'll read it in the Storytent.

That's what we do - read stuff. Wish you were here.

Rainy Day Storytents

There was thunder. There was lightning
Then the stars went out.
And the moon fell from the sky. It rained
mackerel.
It rained trout

Tom Waites

Which was Okay cause we was ready for it.

Hell, we was ready for high winds, heavy snowfall, and small arms fire.

Most of our camp-craft skills are born of the fact no one in Saint John will retail the tents we need for Storytent. The poles from our three year old tents are bent and taped and broken. You can see sky through the canopies, and most of the leg & corner pieces have been taped back together too many times.

This morning, watching rain stream down the windows, we decided to use our two biggest groundsheets as extra cover. Which worked out pretty good - there was only one leak all day. The only down side is that all our tarps and plastic tents are wet now - and not likely to dry over-night given the humidity.

We build it, and they come. This morning we had six kids and one parent - five families represented. In the afternoon, as the rain steadied on, we hosted seven more kids. All day, about 18 books were borrowed, 12 came back, and Storytent workers read about 50 books collectively. (The afternoon was slower in my tent where there was chapter book reading going on. One little girl explained, "I like to read in my head.")

p.s. It didn't really thunder - we cancel when thunder shows up. but the bit about the fish is true. seriously.

Second Thoughts on Captain Underpants

"The books are awesome, cool, and inappropriate," said 8-year-old Dustin Snowadzky, whose mother, Marcie Roth, somewhat wearily confirmed the books' appeal to those amused by "arm farts, burping contests, dirt, and potty humor."

Captain Underpants Beth Nissen, CNN July 11 2000

We carry Captain Underpants books in our Specialty Chapter-books box, along with Ricky Ricotta and Baby Mouse. We've found the books useful and effective in the past, and probably always will.

But.

I was reading The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby and was troubled by the grammar and spelling errors in the text.

Those who know me know that I often delight in unorthodox spelling and word choice, as well as in slightly rebellious children's literature (Mortimer refusing to be quiet, Jillian simply having to create one more game). And I recognized that the text I was reading was being presented as one of George and Harold's hand made books.

So why was I so vexed at Pilkey's writing in this instance?

Am I turning into a grumpy old man?

According to Wikipedia, Captain Underpants holds sixth place in the American Library Association's "most frequently challenged books" for 2002. But most challenges have to do with the toilet talk and challenges to authority. My complaint is a little different. I don't like his unnecessarily confusing use of homonyms.

Unnecessary in that the Captain Underpants books are full of lots of other kinds of rebellion (the characterizations and storylines, the way people are drawn, the crass words they use, the fonts and format). To use improper spelling was another way to be rebellious, yes. But it was only another way - not the only or main way.

Confusing in that the children reading might well not know the differences between "there" and "their" or "whose" and "who's" or "to" and "too." Nor, in reading these books, would they be likely to learn.

According to the CNN story, Pilkey says "he created the books with the interests of uninterested readers in mind."

"I wanted kids who hate reading to find these books irresistible," he said. "I had a lot of reading problems growing up. It used to take me forever to read and comprehend stuff, so I decided not to make the Captain Underpants books TOO challenging."

The story goes on to say "while the plots of the stories are very silly, the writing has wit and sophistication."

Sentences are salted with vocabulary-building words, used in clear and helpful context: "hideous," "convenient," "merciless," "gullible." Young readers are exposed to compound sentences, the concept of synonyms, and alliteration, to which Pilkey is particularly prone.

The books encourage children to not only read words, but to play with them, like toys.

Well, maybe. My perception is kids like borrowing and looking through Captain Underpants, and like borrowing and reading Pilkey's more straight-forward Ricky Ricotta stories.

Besides, it's quite possible to play with words through puns or logic problems without arbitrarily replacing "threw" with "through." Imagine if Lewis Carroll had used more overt scatological humour besides penning things like "Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today."

From the nonsense poem "Antigonish" -

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

- to William Steig's "Pete's A Pizza" the world is filled with books using playful language. If these books aren't as successful today as Captain Underpants, it can hardly be because the latter has more "wit and sophistication."

"I've learned never to underestimate the sense of humor of a kid," Pilkey told CNN. "But does it matter if the joke flies over a kid's head? No. As long as my girlfriend thinks it's funny, it stays." Sure.

But what if you're undermining their vocabulary, Dave?

I know I'm sensitive to this because I spend time helping adult learners with their speaking and writing vocabulary. I don't blame them or their families for not being sure which "there" to use. But neither do I see any merit in offering their children books which further confound the problem.

Books are... trusts. In them we store our language and history and culture. Through them we talk to others across space and time. We authors owe our readers and our common language a certain amount of care and sobriety.

So, sure, call your villain "Professor Poopypants." But help your reader out by capitalizing correctly. Laugh, in ridiculous fonts, when George and Harold glue the librarian to her books. But don't spell the scene wrong. All you're doing in that case is making it harder for real kids to access books.

Mind you, I may be wrong. Maybe I'm wrong.

But I spend so many hours helping grown-ups understand which spelling to use when. Makes me reluctant to be cavalier about it when I'm reading with their kids.

Financial Literacy - When 'No' Means 'Maybe'

It was frustrating. There we were, the salespeople, I and a colleague. We'd spent an hour shopping for about $2500 worth of children's books (after a 90 minute drive), and then the salespeople had spent about another hour ringing them in. And, now, every time I tried to use my debit card the result was a "system error."

Well... life's like that sometimes.

So, the next day, closer to home, we go through the same process. Only, this time I'm getting them rung through in bunches of about 50 books each. All goes well until I cross the $1000 mark. Then, the "system error" returns.

Of course, it's not a system error at all - it's a cap on the use of my debit card.

Now, I'm not faulting anyone here. I'm sure the Credit Union folks told me about the cap when I got the card years ago. In fact, I'm a little apologetic about some of the uncharitable thoughts I had toward the first bookstore when the problem was all at my end.

But, in the end, I did have a problem: I wanted to buy these books and, despite having more than adequate funds, was unable to. The Indigo salespeople - for it was them - were kind enough to set aside our selection until I could visit my Credit Union on Monday. Which is what I did.

By this point, I suspected that there was a cap in place. I wasn't angry or anything. But it was a problem that needed addressing. So, I went in with a plan.

First, I would withdraw enough cash to buy the books. Second, I would ask about the cap, and see if it could be removed or raised upward. Third, since I was asking questions anyway, I would ask about closing an account - was there a delay or a penalty? Later, I thought, I might visit some banks to see what their policies were, etc.

Confession time: I'm a white, articulate, English-speaking male with a job. That means I have enough social capital to act like a customer rather than a supplicant in places like banks and bookstores and such. I think that's important for what happened next.

So... back to the story. Was there a cap? Yes, set at $1000. Could it be removed or raised? No. Sorry, but no. What's the process for closing an account? Wait a moment and let me just double check about raising the debit card limit.

Honestly, I didn't mean to use any "I'll close my account unless..." threat. My question about closing my account really was rooted in my concern that I'd forgotten some other rule which, like the debit card limit, might thwart me at an inopportune moment.

But no sooner had the words "close an account" left my mouth than "no" became "maybe".

Which meant that, maybe, the "no" was a lie. Wouldn't you say? (And isn't the model exactly that of a difficult parent-child negotiation? Read on.)

The new answer to my debit card question was that a raised limit had to be approved by a manager (who was out and would have to give me a call). Was that what I wanted? Yes, I said, and then signed a form to that effect.

A few hours later, the call came. The manager was friendly but firm - the Credit Union just didn't raise the limit on debit cards for personal accounts. Sorry, but that's just how it is - and it's for your own protection, etc, etc.

Was that okay? she asked. Or maybe it was, Did I understand? There was some sort of gentle check-in question like that, and I assured her I understood. Thanks for calling. No hard feelings. I guess I'll have to check around and see what sort of policies other institutions had.....

Oh, those magic words!!!

Well, she said, in complete contradiction to what she'd said a moment before, if I really wanted the limit raised they could do that.

wtf!?!

Well, said I (a tad sharply), now I am confused. Are you saying yes you will raise the limit or no you won't?

Only if you're sure that's what you want....

Yes it's what I want, I explained with - I think - remarkable patience. That's why I asked for it, and why I then signed that piece of paper requesting it.

Okay, she said. It would take 24 hours to process.

No problem - thanks so much.

Except there was a problem: twice I'd been told "no" when the truth was "yes, but we don't want you to."

I'm sure the limit was for my protection - parents are always acting in the best interests of their children - but the manager of my Credit Union is not my mother.

Worse, I can't help wondering what else they're lying to misleading me about... in my own best interest, of course.

It's been a couple of month since the financial literacy media blitz (remember all that) but I find I'm still learning. Of course, the learning is easier when you're a white, articulate, English-speaking male with a job and enough social capital to act like a customer rather than a supplicant.

And this is the thing that really stuck with me. Suppose I had been a lesser-educated person, or, say, a female of colour. Would I have ever gotten the truth out of "mom"? Look at the lady pictured below. Do you think the Credit Union would ever have let her spend as much of her money as she liked?

You know, the financial literacy of Canadians will improve ten-fold the moment our economic institutions begin speaking plainly and answering questions truthfully the first time we ask.