Okay, maybe, possibly, I’m off hiatus. (Probably not). I just want to take a second, get my head above water, and talk about something I did this Friday.

At my school we have to use every possible means of contacting students. We are truly in the struggle to save lives and contact by any means necessary has to happen. Although I am strong in communicating with my students by email, and blog, and video, one of the areas I know that I have been weak in over the last six weeks in by using the plain old phone. This is not a good place to be weak because I know that’s where most of my student’s parents exist. They’re not watching YouTube but they do have a cell phone in their pocket.

I needed a way to get over this weakness, quick.

Many months ago my source of all things good on the web, Mashable, mentioned a new service called PhoneVite.

PhoneVite allows you to make mass phone calls and collect a response. So, this Friday I placed a phone call to sixty-or-so students that I am concerned about. Let me walk you through the process:

1. Set up a PhoneVite account and set my cell-phone as the caller ID number (I couldn’t use my work number because I’m behind an extension).
2. Recorded the message I wanted to send out using the same headset I use for Skype (but you can do this by phone as well).
3. Bought $20 worth of phone calls from PhoneVite.
4. Inserted the phone numbers I wanted to call.
5. Clicked send.
6. Watched both my work and cell phone explode for about 20 minutes.

Now, there’s a lot of talk about how parents aren’t involved in their students education. I’ve got about 20 minutes of evidence that would refute that. My work phone wouldn’t stop ringing. My cell phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. There were calls that I missed in that 20 minutes because both of the lines were tied up. In short, it was awesome.

$2.85 and ten minutes later all sixty phone calls had been placed and all but two connected. PhoneVite shows the amount of time that the call was listened to and all that connected made it though the entire 50 second recorded message. Only one family blocked future calls from PhoneVite (one of the options offered at the end of the call) but it provided the number that asked to be blocked, so next time I’ll just make a personal call to them.

In the future I’m going to use more of the features in PhoneVite to poll parents and get feedback but for this first round I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Technorati Tags: phonevite, using old technology in new ways, hey is that my horn? Let me toot it for a second

One of the things that I often tell teachers is that I think that they should never hesitate to bring their own personal experiences into the classroom. Teachers are often shy about that. They think that it’s sort of unprofessional. You know - teach the syllabus, teach the textbook, teach the stuff that you want to teach, but don’t bring in your own life and your own experiences. But after all, every teacher - maybe the teacher has not had the the kind of experiences I have had - but all teachers have lived certain kinds of experiences, which made them who they are. And whatever those experiences are, whatever led to a change in consciousness of those teachers, students should know about that. And I discovered this: that whenever I brought into the classroom my own experiences, the interest of the students suddenly quickened. I don’t want to to say that before I brought my experiences in my students were asleep. I like to think that half of them were awake. But certainly when I began to bring my own life into it, my own experiences, yes students’ interest always quickened. A lot of teachers don’t understand this; students always want to know who their teachers are, who they really are, behind the textbook, behind the syllabus, what their lives are like, what they went through, and what they’re thinking about. I always resented it when I was a student and I spent a semester or a year with a teacher and at the end of the semester and and the end of the year I didn’t know where that teacher stood. I thought there was something missing there.Howard Zinn - Original Zinn

Technorati Tags: My hiatus will rise like lions after slumber

Why is it, in spite of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by a passive absorption, are universally condemned, that they are still so entrenched in practice? That education is not an affair of “telling” and being told, but an active and constructive process, is a principle almost as generally violated in practice as conceded in theory. Is not this deplorable situation due to the fact that the doctrine is itself merely told? It is preached; it is lectured; it is written about. But its enactment into practice requires that the school environment be equipped with agencies for doing, with tools and physical materials, to an extent rarely attained. It requires that methods of instruction and administration be modified to allow and to secure direct and continuous occupations with things.John Dewey, Democracy and Education, 1916

Technorati Tags: John Dewey, You Wouldn’t Believe Me if I Told You That My Graduate Level Curriculum Professor Thought that John Dewey Was the Guy that Invented the Decimal System Would You?

The day I stop tilting at windmills is the day I quit this job.

I’m wondering if anyone wants to take a shot at drawing the lines between these three things:

Exhibit 1

toothpastefordinner.com

Exhibit 2

gapingvoid.com

Exhibit 3

“Let me try to explain how it feels to see again and again material you should once have learned but didn’t.

You are given a problem. It requires you to simplify algebraic fractions or to multiply expressions containing square roots. You know this is pretty basic material because you’ve seen it for years. Once a teacher took some time with you, and you learned how to carry out these operations. Simple versions, anyway. But that was a year or two or more in the past, and these are more complex versions, and now you’re not sure. And this, you keep telling yourself, is ninth- or even eighth-grade stuff.

Next it’s a word problem. This is also old hat. The basic elements are as familiar as story characters: trains speeding so many miles per hour or shadows of buildings angling so many degrees. Maybe you know enough, have sat through enough explanations, to be able to begin setting up the problem: “If one train is going this fast . . .” or “This shadow is really one line of a triangle . . . .” Then: “Let’s see . . .” “How did the Jones do this?” “Hmmmm.” “No.” “No, that won’t work.” Your attention wavers. You wonder about other things: a football game, a dance, that cute new checker at the market. You try to focus on the problem again. You scribble on paper for a while, but th tensions wins out and your attention flits elsewhere. You crumple the paper and begin daydreaming to ease the frustration.

The particulars will vary, but in essence this is what a number of students go through, especially those in so-called remedial classes. They open their textbooks and see once again the familiar and impenetrable formulas and diagrams and terms that have stumped them for years. There is no excitement here. No excitement. Regardless of what the teacher says, this is not a new challenge. There is, rather, embarrassment and frustration and, not surprisingly, some anger in being reminded once again of longstanding inadequacies. No wonder so many students finally attribute their difficulties to something inborn, organic: “That part of my brain just doesn’t work.” Given the troubling histories many of these students have, it’s miraculous that any of them can lift the shroud of hopelessness sufficiently to make deliverance from these classes possible. ”
-Mike Rose in Lives on the Boundary

See you all when I see you all.

Photo Credit: Alec Courosa - EduPunk Version 1 on Flickr

(and not this Hiatus for all you edupunks out there)

Technorati Tags: And that’s the way it was … and that’s the way it is … and it’s always changing … and it is always the same.

During my first year as an administrator there was one thing that helped me keep my sanity more than any thing else I tried.

I had the opportunity to teach about 100 students American Government. It’s another thing that I’m passionate about. I think that most of the time this class is taught as a straight-up-and-down course on things like the three branches of government and the furthering studies of the way of the old-rich-white-dead male. I take a bit different tact.

Anyhow here’s how things turned out this year:

As a Bell Curve Like Line Graph

As a Bar Type Bar Graph

A Word About Failure Rates

My failure rate (yes, my, me, mine) was at 14, nearly 15, percent this year. There’s nothing remarkable about this. I should have fought harder for each of these students. No excuses. Their failure is truly my failure.

A Word About Attrition

Although a few of these students left to find other schools, such as those that allow students to complete their first year or two of college while finishing their last year or two of college, most of these students dropped-out. I also have the realization that the students who failed in this class are at a huge risk of dropping-out.

Although I realize that there is a systematic issue for the students who failed and dropped out I realize my role as part of that system and how little I truly did to change that structure for those students.

Technorati Tags: if i can’t save them all then i don’t want to play, reflections

I know that I should be fired up about NECC. I’m fired up about ISTE and the new NETS for teachers and EduBloggerCon (especially EduBloggerCon), but I’m still having a tough time committing to going.

I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why.

I think it would be good for my soul to get together with the people from my network and people who are in the same fight that I’m in. Actually I know that it would be good.

Then why can’t I just decide to go?

Is it Texas? Is it the number of people? Is it the meat-market of the vendor floors? Is it Texas?

Can anyone out there give me a good push?

Technorati Tags: necc, texas, if I go I’ll have a reason to use the blog post title “death and texas”, why can’t necc be in austin. that’s almost like not being in texas

I don’t have a lot of routines, but one that I fall into every baseball season is watching Sports Center in the morning. You see, during the rest of the year I have the news to keep my hopes down and my desire to crawl back in bed up. During the baseball season I’ve got the Dodgers to do that for me.

As luck would have it this morning I sat down not during baseball highlights. Per the routine this means that I can pay far less than half attention and convince myself that this counts as sleep.

Here’s what I was able to ascertain from my psudo-sleep: It seems that there’s a championship series going on, or about to go on, or something, for a non-baseball type sport. As I was dropping into a further level of zone-out and waiting for the Royals/Sox highlights I thought I heard:

Ubuntu.

What?

Ubuntu.

There. They said it again. As I shifted my eye sight from blurry eating mode, not much eye sight needed to shovel food in the ol’ gullet, to something near focusing I began to see the Celtics on the screen and decided that I’d finally lost it. This was going to drive me insane. And at the end of this school year it was going to be a very short drive. Why would anyone be talking about Ubuntu and the Celtics. Must. Go. Back. To. Half. Sleep. Then they said it again.

Ubuntu.

Crap. I was going to have to focus on something that wasn’t baseball. Then the world became a bit more strange.

Turns out that the Celtics use “Ubuntu” as some sort-of battle cry.

Neat.

It’s a lot better cry than “We’re waiting for Windows 7″. By now I was awake enough to put off thoughts of an OpenSource NBA team and Magic vs. Bird, finish breakfast, and go to work.

Strange stuff and not at all an unfitting way to start the last day of this school year.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, celtics

Weezer has a new video out:

If you recognize most of the references in this video you may be spending too much time on the internet. In case you just wish you spent more time on the internet here’s a list from the bastion of all things internet, Albino Black Sheep.

The best part happens here:

Because while you know that most of us got a good laugh from the the Crying Britney Spears Guy (not to mention the rest of the internet celebs) the fact is most of them (perhaps most of us) just needed a good hug. Here’s to hoping that the internet hasn’t turned us in to a society of dicks.

Of course there’s lots (and lots) of evidence to the contrary:

Not that anyone noticed, but I took a couple weeks off. I actually thought to myself that the last three weeks of school would go smoothly. Along with this my son’s going through some heavy stuff. Here’s what I missed while I was away.

Apparently a whole movement started while I decided to stop writing. Behold, EduPunk.

Here’s the basic tenets as I understand them:

1. Course management systems suck and teachers can do it better on their own.
2. D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) creates better stuff for students than canned courses or templates

Not sure that I agree, or care, about either one of these.

Here’s what’s missing:

• doing everything that you can for kids and teaching them to do something revolutionary… think for themselves
• and something not so simple: realizing the stacked odds our students face and doing everything in your power to reset the balance in their favor. Everything.
• Finally, subverting the traditional power-structure of teacher/student, administrator/teacher, school/society.

I was punk, once.

And a fun band said “You’re only punk once. So you better do it right. Before you become the system we’ve all sworn to fight.”

Here’s to my second chance. Not to mention The List.

Technorati Tags: edupunk

One of the things that will ring in my ears, for as long as I live, is David Jakes taking just about everyone to task for hanging out in the library of the Science Leadership Academy while teaching, learning, and interacting with students was going on in the classrooms around the corner during EduCon 2.0.

Yes that’s me, behind the Mac in gray shirt and tie, in the infamous library bantering about twitter.

Although I feel lucky that I got out of the library for a bit to see advisory in action at SLA, Jakes words are not something that I’ll ever forget and it’s something that’s changed what I do at conferences.

I’ll never pass-up the opportunity to chat up a kid at a conference.

If you’re wondering what that looks like:

It looks like working alongside students in the OpenSource Pavilion at NECC.

It looks like talking to this group of kids in Seattle about how they’re using technology, inviting them to my conference session, and then later being interviewed by them for their school project.

It looks like ditching a conference to see Ben Wilkoff’s classroom because you’re within a $40 cab ride each way (and your per-diem will just about cover that) so you can see teaching and learning in action instead of a bunch of people talking over PowerPoint about why they’re so great.

When I walked in to present at this local conference for school level technology coordinators and saw these signs everywhere:

I knew I needed to talk to some kids:

As usual the kids know the score. In case that’s not good enough for you and you want to hear the same message from someone who wears a tie to work you can get that here:

| View | Upload your own

Technorati Tags: David Jakes, EduCon 2.0, Embrace MySpace, presentations, The Kids are Alright

TED talks have done a lot this year to push me as administrator. They’ve been informative, and thought provoking, and fun. I can’t count the times that a student has ducked in my office and during the course of our conversation I’ve said something like:

“Oh, you’ve got to check this video out”

and off we go to watch a TED talk. So off we go to watch a TED talk.

Check out the Empathy section (from about minutes 5 to 8):

Favorite Quotes

The scariest thing is that his IQ is 160. A certified genius. But there is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy..

How could you have done it? Didn’t you feel any pity for your victims? These were very intimate murders, he strangled his victims. And the strangler stated very matter-of-factly “Oh no. If I’d felt their distress I could not have done it. I had to turn that part of me off.”.

What’s this have to do with working with young people?

(and yes I did just make a connection between being a serial killer and working with kids)

We’re all bright. In a school sort of way. There’s nobody hanging out here in education that isn’t wielding at least one degree of one level or another.

How bright are we emotionally?

Do we feel our student’s distress?

Genuinely

If we do feel their distress how can we continue to make the decisions about young people that we are making? Teaching young people is very intimate. I ask again: how can we make the decisions that we are making and take the actions that we are taking if we haven’t turned that part of ourselves off?

There’s a laminated poster on a wall somewhere in my school that says:

Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit; for such mutilation undercuts the life principle of trust, without which every human act, may it feel ever so good and seem ever so right, is prone to perversion by destructive forms of conscientiousness.Erik Erikson

That should be our mission statement.

I’ve Kozol across my office staring me down saying:

Go buy the Americans Who Tell the Truth Book

If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there’s no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream. The kids have eyes and they can see, and they have ears and they can hear. Kids notice that no politicians talk about this. Nobody says we’re going to make them less separate and more equal. Nobody says that.Jonathan Kozol

The Bottom Line

It doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how many letters you have after your name, or what your technorati rank is. What matters, in this business and in life, is your emotional intelligence and never ever turning that part of yourself off.

Not even for a second.

Technorati Tags: TED talks, another one of the millions of reasons that IQ tests are meaningless, administration

Guess who’s featured on PrincipalsPage.com this week?

This guy.

Technorati Tags: shameless self promotion

During the next week I have the opportunity to make a few SlideCasts. Here’s the first in a series of three:

| View | Upload your own

I’m not in love with this presentation. I hate presenting about things that I don’t feel like I know inside and out. I don’t know this advisory thing as well as I wish I did, but I do know that the concept of it is something that would be great for building community at our school.

Also it was a bit embarrassing that my math skills fell apart (listen to the last five minutes), but that’s about par for the course. I thought to myself about one-hundred times, “I should have someone else eyeball this” and then I looked up and it was time for the presentation.

Before I left on Friday, I sent the SlideCast to my staff. Sunday evening as I write this it’s been viewed 100 times and downloaded 7:

I wish that Google presentations was as social.

Later this week: a presentation that I am giving for NACOL with Cory Plough and a presentation on social software that I’m giving to the teacher computer specialists for my encompassing school district. If either of those things are your thing, check it out.

Technorati Tags: advisory, administration, slidecast

I have a student who’s a published author.

The Orphaned Key, by Zachary K. Zeitlow

He’s sold several hundred copies, maybe a thousand. That’s no small accomplishment.

Today I overhead a conversation between a group of students and a teacher. The teacher said:

I just know that when Zach grows up he’s going to be an author..

This is no knock on that teacher. I know this teacher had their heart in the right place, but what this teacher is missing is that Zach already is an author. A successful one with another book on the way.

A shift has happened for our students. If they want to be an author (film-maker, artist, music producer, whatever) they don’t have to wait until they grow-up. They can and are doing it right now and they’re not doing it for a letter grade.

Question

How does this change how you teach?

Technorati Tags: Shift Happens, Zachary K. Zeitlow

Over on the Principal’s Page there’s a well written post on school cell phone policies.

In relation: here’s the letter that my encompassing school district gave to all of the principals to send home to their student’s parents:

Dear Parent,

With the breathtaking pace of technology comes unanticipated consequences that can negatively impact the learning environment. One such example of this is the potential inappropriate use of cell phones. Inappropriate cell phone use impacting instruction may include:

1. Cheating on tests/class work via text messaging and cameras;
2. Circulation of inappropriate photos taken in restrooms and locker rooms;
3. Video game distractions;
4. Ringing/text messaging distractions during instructional time;
5. Signaling for leaving class/ditching;
6. Loss of instructional time to address cell phone interruptions;
7. Time spent investigating thefts of cell phones rather than focusing on student instruction.

Of greater concern is the use of the cell phone to compromise your child’s safety. Nationwide, incidents of this nature include:

1. Setting up fights and fight locations;
2. Electronic threats/harassment;
3. Making drug deals;
4. Impeding emergency efforts through rumors and incorrect information;
5. Overloading phone systems severely limiting emergency communication.

To address these issues, the SCHOOL DISTRICT NAME REMOVED is reminding parents/guardians of the following guidelines:

• Phones must be turned off and remain off during the instructional day and passing periods in compliance with SCHOOL DISTRICT NAME AND POLICY NUMBER REMOVED. Phones left on vibrate/silent modes are subject to seizure.

• Cellular phones may only be used prior to the first bell, after the final bell, or during scheduled nutrition breaks or lunch periods.

• Cellular phones should be stored in a non-visible location (backpacks, purses, pockets).

• Phones confiscated in violation of these guidelines will only be returned to a parent/guardian during non-instructional hours.

• Cellular phones must remain off during a school evacuation, lockdown, or drill. During these situations tell your child NOT to try to contact you by cell phone until given the okay by school staff, thus allowing emergency communication channels to remain open. The Parent Link communication system has the capability of contacting parents/guardians in an emergency.

• As a condition of possessing a device on campus, the student agrees to a search of the device’s content if reasonable suspicion of violating the cell phone use policy exists.

Additionally, parents are asked to silence their cellular phones while at the school. This ensures both compliance with the above guidelines and serves to set a positive example for students.

Communication regarding your child’s safety will in no way be hindered through these guidelines. Please be reminded that each school has intercoms and loudspeakers and the majority of our classrooms have hardwired telephones. Additionally, administrators and safety personnel are prepared with two-way radios and cell phones.

We understand how families have come to rely upon cell phones and other electronic devices to maintain the lines of communication; however, we have an ethical and legal responsibility to ensure that technology is used in a way that won’t be harmful to others or create unsafe conditions in our schools, or undermine our educational purpose. We seek your support and hope that you will speak with your children so they too fully understand the importance of following these guidelines. Thank you.uber-progressive district cell phone policy

Among a million other thoughts that I have (i.e. thank goodness they’re going to get rid of the cell phones. By doing that, in one fell swoop, they are apparently going to do away with cheating, distractions, ditching, drug deals, and overwhelming the the cellular networks for which I’m sure Verizon thanks them) my primary focus is this:

I couldn’t be happier that you have this policy. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that my charter school has the exact opposite policy because

1. I can’t imagine a single job that I want even one of my students to have where using their cell phone to it’s fullest potential isn’t a requirement, and
2. It will drive students, who realize that they are going to need these skills to survive, to my school.

It wouldn’t be appropriate to have a discussion about cellphones without plugging this video:

Because while SCHOOL DISTRICT NAME REMOVED wasn’t paying attention I was stealing your students. So, thanks. First person to make an lolcatz about this wins a prize.

and

Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools

While you’re mulling all of this over go read the best post I’ve read in a long, long, time over at Practical Theory, What I Want to Talk About and let me know if cell phones are a non-issue and that I’m, once again, paying attention to the wrong thing.

Technorati Tags: cell phones in schools, principal’s page, cell phone policy, Darren Draper, Pay Attention, K12 Online Conference, Chris Lehman, Practical Theory, how many tags can you have before it becomes its own blog post?

I’ve got my first American’s Who Tell the Truth portrait up in the office. It looks great and it’s getting just as many comments from students as it is from others in the school. In about two days the other three portraits will be up and I think the reaction is going to be fantastic.

In the other post I mentioned that I contacted the artist, Robert Shetterly, to see what I could do to get some of the prints that were not on sale. Like I said, he was great and got right back to me and the whole bit. Today, after seeing my principal’s reaction to the Zinn print I thought that I would order the Chomsky poster for him. This one’s available from the store, so I figured easy-in easy-out. Poster will be here in a few days and the boss man will be stoked.

When I got home the wife mentioned that there was a message from someone about an order I made today. It turns out I messed something up and the folks running the Americans Who Tell the Truth store had called to clarify the order. At least I think that’s what happened. About two seconds into the call I realized I was talking to the person running the online store, Joseph K. Labonte. The guy’s a spark-plug, to say the least. He had gone to my web-site, found that I was working in a school, and had a proposition for me.

He wants to help develop a curriculum for schools based around the portraits. More specifically he wants kids to develop a curriculum for schools. And even more specifically he’d like me to help. We talked for a good half-hour about how to make this happen (mind spinning with a American’s Who Tell the Truth Moodle) and how to get kids involved. (Mind further spinning about getting the artist involved with the kids from my school)

There’s going to be a lot more conversations and I think by the beginning of the school year a big chunk of my curriculum is going to be based around this. I’m going to see what I can do to get other teachers on board (k-12?) and go from here.

On top of all of this I’m getting a copy of each of the prints, for free. These guys may be the artsy-non-corporate types but they sure know how to go after the heart of a teacher. Nothing will buy you the undieing love of a teacher as much as free stuff will.

The more I think about it the more I’m still not sure if I messed up my order or if Joe just wanted to talk to me. Either way it’s amazing the things that come your way when your sharing what your doing and are passionate about it. In this case it’s on both side and I’m excited to see what comes of it.

Technorati Tags: americans who tell the truth, Joseph K. Labonte, Robert Sheterly

Yesterday I talked about something I learned from Howard Zinn that I use in the classroom, everyday. It’s not being neutral. Neutrality is the worst thing that you can do to a curriculum, but it’s also the easiest thing you can do. Being neutral is comfortable. Being neutral is nice. Being neutral is also as boring as this season’s episodes of The Simpsons.

How to be a non-neutral teacher?

Being a non-neutral teacher means that you’ve got to do a few things. First, you have to build trust with your kids. Lots and lots of trust. If you’re a neutral teacher it takes nothing to say “my opinion doesn’t matter” or “I don’t want to talk about that”. That’s easy. And it sucks. Second, you have to encourage dissent. If you’re non-neutral, and you’re going to express your opinions then you’re going to have to build an atmosphere were students can express theirs and that they know if their opinion is different from yours that it’s okay. That it’s safe. More than that. That it’s expected. Finally, bring yourself to your class. You know, that human part. That’s going to help a lot with that whole “not being neutral” thing.

Why be a non-neutral teacher?

Neutrality is a false pretense and your kids know this. You’re not neutral. You know you’re not neutral and acting like you don’t have an opinion will only lead to one thing, your students actually not having an opinion. If nothing else, I want my kids to walk away from my class knowing how they feel about whatever it is we discussed. I want them to know how I feel. I’m not doing this because I’m all touchy-feely and I care about that crap. I’m doing it because if you have an opinion about something you’re going to spend some time thinking about it and that’s what I’m really after. Getting my kids to think about what they believe about the world around them. I can’t imagine anyway to get students to do this with out modeling it.

My wife said that someone else said:

It’s not hatred that kills people, it’s indifference.Take That, Proper Citations

Thank you, Howard.

In Other News

Is there any way, any way at all, that this applies to being an administrator?

Technorati Tags: Howard Zinn, administration, neutrality

My office decoration project is almost complete:

There’s one last space that I need to fill. I knew right away who I wanted to occupy it. Howard, of course. No, not Stern you Bababooie-head; Zinn. So off I went to be one of the 2.7 million Google questions this month and looked for “Howard Zinn poster”.

Zinn has had a large impact on me as a social studies teacher and as a person. I found him just before I went into my teaching program. He wasn’t on any of my class lists, but I did happen on to him while working on a research project. As I was sifting through piles of academia one of his books kept coming up. No, it wasn’t A People’s History of the United States, it was a book about the SNCC, SNCC: The New Abolitionists.

Now, if you can, think back to the year 1997. Amazon had launched in 1995, but resale books wasn’t their market. At that time Zinn’s SNCC book had been out of print for a while and I needed to find a book resaler who would go find it for me. There was a small book store in Reno that did such things. It took them about three weeks to find the book and $45 dollars later I had a beat-up paperback copy. This lead to much more reading of Zinn, including the auto-biography which has been a guiding light for me. (not to mention the subsequent attempts to read Chomsky. Yeah. Might as well try my hand a Russian Literature)

Anyhow, Zinn taught me about multiple points of view, and not being neutral as a teacher, and speaking up for those that are not able to speak up for themselves. All of these things have guided my personal and professional choices which leads to why I needed a poster of him in my newly decorated office.

The search landed me on American’s Who Tell the Truth website. There’s nothing more satisfying than doing a Google search and finding just what your looking for. Especially when that something is something that you want to buy. I saw the portrait of Zinn and knew right away that was the one that I wanted. I headed over to the shop to see what was there, saw the poster link (my heart jumped a little), and then realized that Zinn was not one of the available as a print. Crap! What’s a guy to do. Well, I took a shot and emailed the artist, and that for me is where things get interesting.

I sent Robert Shetterly an email early in the morning (it’s the only time that my building is empty and can go pursue these kinds of things). By mid-afternoon Mr. Shetterly had sent me back and email letting me know that we could work something out and that if I were willing he would send me a link to high-res versions of his art work. And this is why the internet rocks.

In about week I’m going to have framed portraits of Howard Zinn as well as Emma Goldman, Cezar Chavez, and Jonathan Kozol.

Question

Who goes on your wall?

Technorati Tags: howard zinn, americans who tell the truth, office decorations that make your office decorations cry in shame