When I was a teenager, the career I wanted was to be an author. I dreamed of seeing my name on the cover of a novel at the library. I imagined myself on tour, signing autographs and being interviewed for The Mike Douglas Show. I wrote stories and poems, adding essays to the creative mix for my teachers. My grades proved I knew what I was doing, but my ever-practical mother encouraged me to have a second career in mind, fearing I would never earn enough as a writer to survive.
Today, I have a son who wants to be an actor, movie producer and director. He’s only fourteen, but I find myself encouraging his dreams. Already he’s been the lead in a class play and an extra in a couple of TV shows. He has been directing and producing movies for class projects and just for fun since he was in elementary school, and this past summer he started to write film scripts. He has a wealth of ideas just bursting to get down on paper and into film.
Our world provides so many more opportunities for children to express themselves through publishing, film, and other performances areas than it did when I was his age. Just this past few years we’ve seen Christopher Paolini hit the New York Times Bestseller lists with both Eragon and Eldest, the first two books in a planned trilogy. He was only 19 when Knopf published the first book, and this year Eragon also hit the movie screens.
Also nineteen, actor Zac Efron has been called “the biggest teen star in America.” His starring role in Disney’s High School Musical has brought him a slew of offers that insure his film future.
Former American Idol finalist Lisa Tucker was sixteen when she entered the competition on the number one show in the country, and even though she only claimed the number 10 spot, she hasn’t been silent since. Fans likely caught her appearances on The O.C., Zoey 101, and the Tounament of Roses parade.
Reality television shows like The Lot will allowed young filmmakers of my son’s age to compete among their older peers just like Idol does for singers. Broadway opened its arms to Diana DeGarmo, another A.I. finalist, for lead roles in both Hairspray and Brooklyn: The Musical. Publishing houses are also offering contracts to young authors.
Success in the world of entertainment is a golden opportunity for kids of today, if they are willing to work hard and give their best performance, no matter what their chosen field might be.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Buzzwords
Over the thirty-four years I’ve been in the classroom as a teacher, student teacher, substitute, and education major, I’ve watched a parade of buzzwords come, and most of them go. Each of these words was associated with a teaching or discipline strategy that was touted as the perfect solution to every problem the education community was facing at the time. Some are still around, albeit many have changed names throughout the years even though the concepts remain the same (ie. Essential Elements of Education). More have been thrown out or simply allowed to fade away, often with a new program emerging with exactly the opposite philosophy being the newest rage (Assertive Discipline has given way to non-threatening discipline techniques).
Some of the buzzwords across the nation today include No Child Left Behind, best practices, higher-order thinking, and collaboration. Since collaboration is a word I hear often in my own school and district, I found a recent discussion on the international Library Media listserv (LM-NET) to be quite interesting.
It seems that the biggest problem with collaboration comes with defining of the term itself. In some districts nationwide the concept means forming a lock-step way of approaching the teaching, assignments, and testing processes for a given subject matter. In others it means to have cross-curricular planning where history, math, science, and language arts teachers work to formulate lessons that allows subject integration into a single project with common objectives. Some include the library media specialist in the planning stages, as they should. A few members of the discussion said the word collaboration should be discarded altogether because what is really accomplished is mere planning instead. Others labeled the process coordination or cooperation. The general consensus is that collaboration does not exist in any of their schools.
As most of the librarians noted, true collaboration takes time, lots of it, with educators working together toward instruction. Unfortunately, discretionary time during the day is rare and to find time elsewhere means that teachers are either giving up their own time to collaborate or the students are losing valuable instructional time. Toni Buzzeo, author of Collaborating to Meet Literacy Standards (Linworth Publishing, 2006) says “collaboration involves not just team-planning, but team-teaching and team-evaluating of student learning.”
Perhaps, as Mike Eisenberg of the University of Washington suggested, “collaboration may actually be part of a continuum that runs: isolation, coordination, cooperation, then collaboration.” Whatever the final decision becomes regarding collaboration, it is important to note that for the purpose to be valid and the time well-spent, the process should always be driven by meeting student needs, not by educators or administrators who intend to push collaboration because it’s one of the buzzwords of education today.
If you’re interested in reading more about buzzwords in education, I recommend a visit to http://www.illinoisloop.org/buzzwords.html. The chart provides a humorous insight into the terms you might hear from teachers and administrators in your district.
Some of the buzzwords across the nation today include No Child Left Behind, best practices, higher-order thinking, and collaboration. Since collaboration is a word I hear often in my own school and district, I found a recent discussion on the international Library Media listserv (LM-NET) to be quite interesting.
It seems that the biggest problem with collaboration comes with defining of the term itself. In some districts nationwide the concept means forming a lock-step way of approaching the teaching, assignments, and testing processes for a given subject matter. In others it means to have cross-curricular planning where history, math, science, and language arts teachers work to formulate lessons that allows subject integration into a single project with common objectives. Some include the library media specialist in the planning stages, as they should. A few members of the discussion said the word collaboration should be discarded altogether because what is really accomplished is mere planning instead. Others labeled the process coordination or cooperation. The general consensus is that collaboration does not exist in any of their schools.
As most of the librarians noted, true collaboration takes time, lots of it, with educators working together toward instruction. Unfortunately, discretionary time during the day is rare and to find time elsewhere means that teachers are either giving up their own time to collaborate or the students are losing valuable instructional time. Toni Buzzeo, author of Collaborating to Meet Literacy Standards (Linworth Publishing, 2006) says “collaboration involves not just team-planning, but team-teaching and team-evaluating of student learning.”
Perhaps, as Mike Eisenberg of the University of Washington suggested, “collaboration may actually be part of a continuum that runs: isolation, coordination, cooperation, then collaboration.” Whatever the final decision becomes regarding collaboration, it is important to note that for the purpose to be valid and the time well-spent, the process should always be driven by meeting student needs, not by educators or administrators who intend to push collaboration because it’s one of the buzzwords of education today.
If you’re interested in reading more about buzzwords in education, I recommend a visit to http://www.illinoisloop.org/buzzwords.html. The chart provides a humorous insight into the terms you might hear from teachers and administrators in your district.
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