On obstacles, cultural and otherwise...

Another video that spiraled round the web (and got so much media attention that the guy has been offered a book contract - to write in these last months before he dies of cancer) is Prof. Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, given at Carnegie Mellon back in September. Well worth it. (The Wikipedia page on Randy has links to everything -- e.g., listen/read his lecture on Time Management -- sure to make you feel like a sluggard...)

Randy reminds us what the brick walls of life are there for.

The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop other people.

On the last day of school I hit a brick wall of sorts -- and what do librarians do when they're feeling low? They go to a library. Nothing like a new book, a new outlook, to perk you up. There I picked up two books, in that serendipitous way, which were particularly apt.

One was The Dip: a little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick) (2007) by Seth Godin, marketing guru, author and blogger (see/hear also his recent TED talk).

Godin goes on about why it's best to be number one in whatever niche you find yourself, in this world of a million micromarkets -- to focus on the "short head" rather than the "long tail". That's it's not good enough any more to be well rounded -- you need to persevere and get beyond the Dip, the slump between starting and mastery, between "the artificial screens set up to keep people like you out" [Randy's brick wall] -- because the Dip creates scarcity which creates value. Beat Mediocrity! is his mantra.

The other book -- Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science (2007) -- by James Watson, of DNA "double helix" fame -- also talks, in the context of academic politics, about the need to be the best. He laments how for years Harvard, where he was teaching, refused to hire other biologists working at the cutting edge, leaving rival institutions like MIT to scoop up the best geneticists. The reason? Harvard was complacent about already being the best. "Academic institutions do not easily change themselves" is one (not very surprising) lesson he shares.

Back to my world now.... How can we claim to be offering a world-class education if we don't have world-class libraries and information literacy programs? They think our test results are doing just fine, that such things are luxuries. As if results are the only yardstick...

Our stats certainly don't measure up to a top school -- judging by the recently published School Libraries Count! A National Survey of School Library Media Programs 2007 (American Library Association), e.g., in terms of number of qualified teacher-librarians per student, size of the collection per student, spending per student, etc. (The Australian school/library associations are in the process of doing their own survey -- and I look forward to seeing their numbers.)

But, then, I must remember "culture codes" (again, see The Culture Code (2006) by Clotaire Rapaille) come into play. What is the code for "school library" in different cultures? and how does that affect the position of libraries in international schools?

We are a British heritage school and the UK simply does not have a strong tradition of school librarianship. According to a CILIP survey, less than 30% of secondary schools in England are run by qualified librarians, either full or part-time. How many of those qualified librarians are also qualified teachers isn't mentioned (very few, I suspect) -- as school librarians are not expected to be teachers in the UK -- unlike in the US, Australia, NZ, and Canada.

So there is only a limited code for "school librarian" in the UK and no cultural code for "teacher-librarian" (or "school library media specialist", as they're called in the US). It reminds me of Clotaire Rapaille's story of how Nestle came to him for advice when they were having trouble selling instant coffee in Japan -- and he told them there was no cultural code for coffee there, then recommended they establish one by marketing coffee-flavored desserts to children and wait for the kids to grow up.

I need to find a way for my administrators to experience the value added by a secondary school teacher-librarian and a dynamic secondary school library program... to establish a code...

The Story of Stuff... American culture at its worst

The latest viral video is "The Story of Stuff" (a fellow teacher e-mailed it to me a few days and now it's turning up everywhere). Well worth watching. (I love the white background + simple drawings, which remind me of the terribly clever videos of The Common Craft Show...)

Throughout the 20-minute film, activist Annie Leonard, the film’s narrator and an expert on the materials economy, examines the social, environmental and global costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. Her illustration of a culture driven by stuff allows her to isolate the moment in history where she says the trend of consumption mania began. The “Story of Stuff” examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in notions of consumerism — and how those notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies today.

-- taken from the press release

Yes, it's political -- and very American, e.g., in its definition (and images) of government, but the message is still worth spreading. Especially as we approach the great consumer holiday of Christmas.

When Annie Leonard laments American culture as one that glorifies shopping and accepts planned obsolescence, I couldn't help but think of how it echoes some of the American "codes" described by Clotaire Rapaille in his book The Culture Code (2006):

• American code for shopping = RECONNECTING WITH LIFE (going out to play)

• American code for quality = IT WORKS (service is more important to Americans than great quality -- because "it works")

• American code for perfection = DEATH

Allan Luke online... and other luminaries in the field of new literacies...

If you're interested in literacies -- critical, new, or multiple -- and you don't know Allan Luke, then please watch this webcast of him speaking about "New Literacies" in Canada in May 2007, hosted by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. (Thanks to Susan Sedro for pointing the link out on her blog, Adventures in Educational Blogging...)

He's a huge presence on the literacy scene -- especially in Australia. See, for example, this list of literacy links, including Allan Luke's Four Resources model, gathered by Rosemary Horton at the P.L. Duffy Resource Centre at Trinity College (Western Australia).

I'm also a fan of various colleagues of his over the years (all connected with Australia or Canada):

• Colin Lankshear / Michele Knobel (see their blog, Everyday Literacies, as well as their book New Literacies: everyday practices and classroom learning)

• Cushla Kapitzke (at Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

• Kieran Egan (at Simon Fraser University, Canada)

It's interesting that Allan Luke has connections to Singapore as well. He worked here for a few years (some time ago) and is the Foundation Dean, Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

In the webcast, Allan Luke mentions Vivian Vasquez -- a name I hadn't come across before in the field of critical literacy. I'm pleased to see she has plenty of podcasts on critical literacy in practice to listen to. Another lead to follow....