Picking the locks one-by-one

A few months ago a tradesman came to the door to fix something. Here in Singapore such people are often Muslim and therefore petrified of dogs. So my helper put the dog in a separate part of the house and closed the door, not knowing that it was one of those doors that lock themselves if the button is pressed in, which it was for some inexplicable reason. And although that part of the house has two doors leading to outside which are usually open all day every day, they'd been closed and locked due to a late afternoon rainstorm accompanied by a lot of wind.  Before calling the landlord's agent for a spare key, I did what every other independent woman would do, I googled "how to pick a lock". The instructions, video and otherwise all boiled down to the same simple steps.

Since I could access the garage and all the tools and assorted things like paperclips and hairclips (grateful for once for stuff lying around the house instead of being tidied up) - I set to work. In the process I discovered that the lock was "the wrong way round" to my sensibilities - do you notice that - doors and locks having to be turned "the other way" to what you're used to in your home country?

Needless to say, there is a good reason why I'm not a burglar, nor a locksmith and the spare key had to be called into action. If you want to find out more about locks and security - here's a great episode of 99% invisible.

After that huge digression to come to my point. As I wrote earlier, I have a large population of ELL students who come through the library and I'm always trying to find "that" book that will unlock their desire to read in English (actually I'm trying that for everyone, just this population seems to have the highest and most immediate needs.

Sometimes things happen quite by accident. 

My G4 classes have been doing a unit on poetry as part of "how we express ourselves" and besides some great activities with spine poetry (much to the horror of my library assistants who are not used to such free-wheeling attitudes to taking books off the shelf) one day I decided to promote verse novels.   

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert on any aspect of children's literature, but I'm a keen learner, so I looked for some lists of verse novels for elementary students and then tried to see how many I had on hand. I'd read "inside out and back again" which is a fabulous book, so I felt it may work.

For each of my next G4 classes I had a pile of verse novels and I picked out one page to read from each.  Since my darling dog had just been put down the previous night, it was with a chocked voice I read from "Love that Dog" and luckily I had a whole pile of those to dish out since one of my predecessors had the foresight to order them in duplicate.

After the lesson a few of the books were borrowed and I didn't think that much of it. Then a week later one of my Chinese students sidled up to me during lunch time and asked me for a book "like that dog" book, and I gave him "Hate that cat", and yesterday he came to me and said he'd finished it and wanted more books like that.  I said "more about animals, or more like poetry" and he affirmed more like poetry, and I passed on "Inside out and back again" and told him it was one of my personal favourite - he quickly scanned inside the book and happily said "yes". 

And yes of course it would work.  I've not studied this stuff and I'm feeling my way along, but sometimes our students just help us to discover what it is they want and need.  Coming back to it rationally - verse is short and beautiful and evocative and free. And now it's just one more tool in my arsenal of lock-picking equipment. 

Here are some resources:

• Australian verse novels from Sarah Tregay
• Goodreads novels in verse
• 14 chapter books written in verse

Literacy is not enough: Why we need to teach information literacy

Some weeks are just like hitting the jackpot in terms of the news and media world shouting out "yes, this is necessary" - although of course they don't phrase it that way, and they certainly wouldn't invoke libraries, librarians and information literacy in their communal hand wringing. But they should.

The first was the retraction of an article in Science. (Retraction watch - who knew that it even existed? And now I know it's going to be on my reading list from time to time! They're on twitter @RetractionWatch so that makes it easier - makes me think of "This idea must die" which is also on my reading list after hearing this talk).

Jesse Singal has written an excellent article - "The Case of the Amazing Gay-Marriage Data" - it really is worth reading the whole thing because it covers so many aspects of the world of academic publishing, how it can go badly wrong, and just how unlikely it is that it is found out and even if it's found out, how hard it is to be a whistleblower.

The second, was about chocolate, and how unfortunately it doesn't help in weight loss and in fact we'd all just been had as it was a bunch of science writers playing with journalists and our gullibility and lack of information literacy.  Here is John Bohannon, the culprit (?) 'fessing up: "I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How" and Rachel Ehrenberg's indignant retort on behalf of journalists "Attempt to shame journalists with chocolate study is shameful"

Obviously (one hopes) this is going to have repercussions in tertiary education and in journalism. But what can we learn from it in the K-12 environment?

Well a good place to start would probably be to introduce students to the concept of cognitive bias (and to do it WAY before they're doing TOK at IB level).  Here is a great little article by George Dvorsky on the twelve most common cognitive biases. Let's get everyone thinking - a little assignment for my readers - post in the comments what cognitive biases were present in each case! Just as we teach our G4's about marketing tricks of the trade, I'm sure this can be presented in a way that is accessible and easy to understand and relate to their own lives. 

I'm also thinking about how we could expand the math curriculum to replace a fear of numbers and statistics with a healthy dose of scepticism and what questions to ask and how to dig behind the "headline" numbers. I sometimes wonder why it is that we don't challenge our students more about their own data.  Thinking back to the exhibition presentations of our Grade 5's - yes they did a great job, and it was amazing what they pulled together and the confidence with which they could present. But who was looking at the data? Each group had a mentor, who could (should?) challenge when things don't add up, when what they're saying and what they can back it up with doesn't match. When things just don't make common logical sense.   Now this is a tricky thing. A very tricky thing. We don't like confrontation, and we're not really good at it either.  Now look back at the first article.  If the co-author had applied a little common sense and said "hey, if you've sampled 100,000 people, how did you get the $1m budget? (simple multiplication / extrapolation)" 

... how about Brookman? Things don't make sense to him, and what's everyone saying? "don't rock the boat"  And our students. Yes we want to created a safe learning environment where mistakes can be made.  BUT and this is a big BUT, we also want to be able to call them on their mistakes, give them a chance to correct them and build the resilience of being able to cope appropriately with (constructive) criticism AND the idea that this research thing is serious, and can and will be up to challenge, AND make them think more critically about how they interpret and use other's research.  I was not a part of the whole process and I know our digital literacy coaches and librarian were involved, I'm wondering if the math coach was also involved or not?  And in a school without a math coach - who would be doing this?  How many teachers at any level feel comfortable and confident enough around numbers and the "math" side of research to assume this role?  I'd argue all should be, and if not that's some PD that needs to be done as a priority. Because in the future and in the now, numbers are being used all around us, and the big big thing is "big data" and if we don't know how to look at numbers and to ask the right kinds of questions we are going to be manipulated into making the wrong assumptions, making the wrong choices. This stuff is important. (See my favourite math blogger Mathbabe on this).

All of us are literate in the sense of reading and writing. And some of us are critical readers of literature, we can analyse and comment and dissect. And then we get into the realm of being information literate, on the basic level, the whole model thing of finding a question, finding information, interpreting and using it, reflecting etc.  And then only can we get to the point of understanding who is writing something and why and then really understanding the socio-cultural / political and meta-cognitive things that are going on behind information. And if we don't start with the basics and make sure it's embedded in everything we do, how will we ever get there?

Haves or have nots?

Library at Kuma Cambodia - no borrowing only reading onsite

I've just spent 8 days in Cambodia on an extremely interesting services trip run by UWCSEA-East. During the time we were exposed to 5 of the Global Concerns that the school supports through its service program commencing in the infant school with Kuma Cambodia, Green Umbrella (grade 3), Epic Arts (grade 5) up to ISF (grade 6).

The focus of the trip was on exposing parents and students to the various organisations and to allow us to "get our hands dirty" - literally - we took part in a variety of activities ranging from playing football - where the most important attribute seemed to be a very muddy field, to arts and crafts, dancing, cycling, teaching English, making paper planes, and some back breaking work on building 2 houses for indigent families.

 Although the focus was not libraries, I couldn't help taking a keen interest in what, if any books and in what type of storage or lending format these were presented.

Unfortunately my camera died early in the proceedings, and so I only have some iphone shots from later in the tour, so I'll just have to describe.

The first organisation we visited, fresh off the plane after a 4am start was ISF and I was a little shocked to see a couple of shelves and a nice sign made of christmas tree glitter saying "library"  I admit to thinking "oh no, that's it?"  As the day progressed and we went to the squatter camps where the children lived and saw the extreme poverty and deprivation that they were coming from, the existence of even one shelf of books would have put those kids into the category of "haves" rather than "have nots".  Doubly so as they had books both in English and Khmer.

Books divided between English & Khmer

Donations are a double edged sword as many commentators have spoken of in the past.  In one sense, to have books, any books, is a wonderful thing.  There are caveats though.  One of these is that by bringing good into a country one stifles or overwhelms a local industry.  Another is the very important aspect of cultural relevancy - I had to laugh at the puzzled faces in an English class I was teaching as one of the kids in my team tried to explain "white" by reference to "snow".

33 consonants and 23 vowels to deal with

However, I think the most important thing is that children are allowed to learn literacy in their mother tongue and that this is supported by sufficient books in that language AT ALL LEVELS - starting with simple picture books, to the graded readers, chapter books, young adult novels etc.  And of course the absolutely critical "hi lo" books with high interest level at a low reading requirement for children who have slipped behind or have the possibility of education at a later age.  This site provides some fantastic strategies for struggling readers, aside from true disability, it is rather ironic that the "developed" world camps with "reluctant" readers, while the "developing" has children desperate to learn and enthusiastic learners without the resources that could take them where they need to be.

When I started researching this to write this blog post I found there is plenty happening in this area - it's probably more a question of gathering the information together, sifting through it and deciding what is the nice to have, need to have, affordable, practical and any other criteria that an organisation can use to judge where their literacy spend goes.
In no particular order, here are some of the things I found:

Bookshelf @ Green Umbrella

Worldreader: operates mainly in Africa and "Since we started our efforts to eradicate illiteracy, Worldreader has been committed to gauging our impact through extensive monitoring and evaluation activities, which measure the number of books read before and after deployment, students’ reading ability, as well as own ability to provide delivery and support. We’ve been research focused since day one and have a long term track record of examining what works and what doesn’t when it comes to eradicating illiteracy. - See more at: http://www.worldreader.org/what-we-do/#sthash.JXXgifyJ.dpuf"

Books treated with great respect

 Room to read, with their publishing arm: "One of the greatest challenges to early adoption of the habit of reading in developing countries is a lack of high-quality, age-appropriate children's books in the local language. Often, the few books that are available are either second-hand books in foreign languages or low-quality, black and white books for more mature readers. Room to Read responded to this need by going into the publishing business. Our Book Publishing program is committed to providing children with materials that will inspire them to read, expand their minds, and develop a lifelong love for reading and learning."

Sipar is a charity which "For over 20 years, has helped Cambodia fight illiteracy and develop school and public reading. An enrichment to this program has been the establishment of a publishing branch for books in khmer ten years ago.  What has been accomplished to date ?

• 230 school libraries opened containing 2000 books each.
• 2000 school librarians trained. 
• 8 mobile libraries set in service and circulate in the poorer areas of Phnom Penh in order to introduce book-based activities. 
• 26 public Reading Centers established as meeting places for exchange of ideas and knowledge for all ages.
• 10 projects of communal educational services development set up in 2 provinces.  
• 95 titles for children and young people published in the khmer language, adding up to a grand total of 1 001 500 copies, thus reviving reading and writing in Cambodia.
• 86 000 books donated to Teacher's Training College."

Richard Scarry a hit - pictures say it all

Lists are always good - here is one by Playing by the Book - of various literacy charities around the world. Most probably not completely relevant to this article, but good for borrowing and adaptation of ideas.

Children delighting in books -
even if some were upside down and being read back to front

 There is no harm in being critical, nor in asking for evidence of success in intervention.  This article by "GiveWell" provides some research on various aspects of developing-world education.  And I admit some bias as it quotes my favourite development economist - Esther Duflo.

 It is easy for me to maintain my book and library bias in all of this, but I guess there are hard questions to ask.  If I have a dollar, do I spend it on a book, on deworming a student, on a school uniform, on improving a teachers salary, on feeding a child?  Here's a great video from Esther Duflo giving a TED talk ...

Look carefully at the choice of word for this
alphabet poster - what were they thinking?
And no, it doesn't make sense in Khmer either,
I checked.

I guess my visit resulted in more questions than answers. And especially me questioning my "developed world" assumptions.