Because I believe each of us is responsible for sharing our learning with the world, I’m sharing a bit of my work.

As my prospectus meeting approaches in a couple of weeks, I’m racing through revisions to my work. I know it won’t be perfect, but I still have a lot I want to complete before that meeting.

Why? Because writing can constantly be improved.

So, a big chunk of the introduction to my dissertation is presented here with little comment unless you know something about my research. At least, this is where it sits right now.

Introduction

The idea of distance learning, the forerunner of online or virtual learning, is not new and has been a topic of exploration for a significant portion of human history. Members of Plato’s Academy used the technology of writing to study Socrates’s great conversations from a distance (Nagy, 2020). Caleb Phillips launched the first shorthand correspondence course by mail in 1728 (Tulane University, n.d.). In the 1890s, the company that would become known as the International Correspondence School (ICS) and later Penn Foster was launched. Within a decade, there were some 250,000 students enrolled worldwide (Buesch, 2020). In 1932, the University of Iowa broadcast programming on the first educational television station and received mail from viewers as far as 500 miles away (University of Iowa, 2022).

Of course, the world of science fiction is no stranger to the idea of distance or virtual learning, as Isaac Asimov, in his 1951 short story, “The Fun They Had,” saw students learning from mechanical teachers (1974) while the children of Ray Bradbury’s seminal “Fahrenheit 451” learned through interactive screens since books were no longer legal (1953). Andrew “Ender” Wiggins spent much of his education in an immersive virtual learning environment, including hours of military simulations disguised as games (Card, 1985). In the far-flung space of the 24th century, crew members, students, and their families aboard the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D join essentially any time or place and experience events directly in a fully immersive virtual environment through the ship’s Holodeck (Fontana & Roddenberry, Allen, 1987). The virtual learning world even attracts those beyond their schooling years who want to escape their ordinary lives, much like the earthly society depicted in “Ready Player One,” as millions live their lives inside the OASIS (Cline, 2015).

But here in the real world, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rapid and unprecedented expansion of virtual academies within public schools in the United States. This urgent shift to virtual learning responded to the imperative of continuing education while ensuring safety. The pandemic forced a sudden transition to online education in spring 2020, initially as an emergency measure (Black et al., 2021). This shift introduced many students and educators to virtual learning, previously available to a small percentage of the student population. Before the pandemic, only 3% of school districts in the United States operated virtual schools. This number grew ninefold by the 2021-2022 school year (Diliberti & Schwartz, 2021). While the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant growth in virtual academy offerings, it also destabilized many of the foundations of public education, creating an urgent need for rethinking public schooling (Ladson-Billings, 2021).

Many school leaders agree that teaching students skills for repetition, recognition, memorization, or any skills related to collecting, storing, and retrieving information are in decline, giving rise to a set of contemporary skills that includes creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, growth mindset, global competence, and a host of other skills (Zhao & Watterston, 2021). These skills fall within the overarching concept of deeper learning, a set of competencies students must master to develop a keen understanding of academic content and apply their knowledge to the classroom and 21st-century job problems (William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, 2013). The science of how children learn, grow, and master complex skills has made significant strides in recent years, supporting the ideals of deeper learning. One of the critical components of the science of learning and development is creating learning environments filled with safety and belonging (Learning Policy Institute, n.d.), whether the environment be in-person or virtual. This knowledge is essential for the education of all children, but it has particular strength in achieving educational equity in areas where we have previously fallen short.

References

Asimov, I. (1974). The best of Isaac Asimov (1. ed). Doubleday & Company.

Black, E., Ferdig, R., & Thompson, L. A. (2021). K-12 virtual schooling, COVID-19, and student success. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(2), 119. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3800

Bradbury, R. (1953). Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine Books.

Buesch, K. (2020, October 6). New exhibit: 1920s distance learning. Clarke Historical Museum. http://www.clarkemuseum.org/12/post/2020/10/new-exhibit-1920s-distance-learning.html

Card, O. S. (1985). Ender’s game. Tor Books.

Cline, E. (2015). Ready player one (First mass market edition). BDWY Broadway Books.

Diliberti, M., & Schwartz, H. L. (2021). The rise of virtual schools: Selected findings from the third American school district panel survey. RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA956-5

Fontana, D. C., & Roddenberry, G. (Writers), & Allen, C. (Director). (1987, September 28). Star Trek: The Next Generation [Broadcast]. In Encounter at Farpoint. Syndicated.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). I’m here for the hard re-set: Post-pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1863883

Learning Policy Institute. (n.d.). Science of learning and development. Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved March 13, 2024, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/topic/science-learning-and-development

Nagy, G. (2020, March 26). The idea of immediate learning in an age of necessitated distance education. Classical Inquiries. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/the-idea-of-immediate-learning-in-an-age-of-necessitated-distance-education/

Tulane University. (n.d.). The evolution of distance learning. Retrieved September 20, 2024, from https://sopa.tulane.edu/blog/evolution-distance-learning

University of Iowa. (2022). Milestones in University of Iowa history. https://175.uiowa.edu/milestones-university-iowa-history

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (2013, April 23). Deeper learning defined. https://hewlett.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Deeper_Learning_Defined__April_2013.pdf

Zhao, Y., & Watterston, J. (2021). The changes we need: Education post-COVID-19. Journal of Educational Change, 22(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09417-3

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index cards — Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Sometime in the blur that was my high school life in the late 1900s, I sat in my Junior English class and listened to Sylvia Daugherty, the Great and Powerful, ramble on about something or other.

None of us minded her ramblings because she was simply brilliant. She was one of those teachers. You know, the ones who could make anything interesting. I often feel like, had I taken AP English with Momma D my senior year, I might have written a senior research paper and learned something from it rather than skipping it entirely and somehow still finding a way to pass senior English and high school.

But that’s a story for a different time…

Momma D used a lot of “country” phrases and sayings. I’m assuming they were country; I don’t know any other way to describe them. I don’t remember where she was originally from, but it was likely somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia. I’m sure she had family members who knew the Hatfields, the McCoys, or possibly both who had run more than their fair share of moonshine out of those mountains. She had a flair for storytelling that, even to a disinterested 11th-grade geek, could wrap you in a warm blanket and carry you to another world.

I still remember her expressions and tone of voice as we discussed Chapter 15 from The Grapes of Wrath—the “two for a penny” chapter—and how her eyes turned a little red and a single tear formed as she talked about this short tale of abject poverty and humanity at its best.

Some of us laughed at her country sayings, some didn’t. Some rolled their eyes, and a select few students of the “I can’t be bothered with anything of consequence” crowd sat still, staring off into the distance of future memories of the best times in their life scoring that touchdown on a Friday night that mattered to no one else but them.

Rarely was there a dull moment with Momma D. One day, I decided someone needed to take down all of her quotes, saying, and other nonsense for posterity, and that someone was me. I told my buddy, “I’m gonna write these things down. There’s a gold mine in here for someone.”

He looked at me, chuckled, and went on about his business. He wasn’t focused on Junior English or much of any other subject as he was too busy becoming one of the world’s premier musicians who would travel the world playing in symphony orchestra after symphony orchestra. Maybe I’ll tell you that story one day.

The funny part of all of this is my thinking that I would ever actually commit to writing anything down. Famously, I did very little throughout all high school, and that certainly held true for my collection, “Funny Crap Momma D Said in Class.”

I wrote down exactly ONE of her sayings. ONE. And, try as I might, I can’t tell you why I chose to write that one specific phrase down, but I did. And I’ve remembered it ever since.

We talked about when something would be done, and she said, “probably around the 31st of Juvember.”

Now, I’m pretty good at looking for things, especially since the dawn of the World Wide Web, and I can’t find a reference to this anywhere. However, I’m sure someone reading this is going to reach out and tell me it’s from a fascist manifesto and I deserve to be canceled (and I probably do, but not for this).

I’ve tried to work this little phrase into as many conversations as possible, mostly because it makes me laugh but also in the desperate search for anyone else that has ever heard it.

No luck on both counts. Why does no one else think it’s funny?

I’m telling you this story to underline the importance of writing stuff down. The importance of always carrying a notebook, writing pad, paper, or whatever you choose to write on in case you have an idea or come across something that makes you sad, glad, or angry.

I’ve talked about the idea of a commonplace book many times. There is power in writing things down on paper—yes, there’s actual research that writing on paper is better for retention than using a device—and going back through those things from time to time.

Commonplace books have long been tools for thinkers, authors, and leaders. Mark Twain, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, Marcus Aurelius, Anne Lamott, Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, JFK, and many others all kept commonplace books in one form or another.

John Locke even wrote a book on writing commonplace books.

In Medieval Europe, they were sometimes called the florilegium (Latin for “a gathering of flowers”). Thomas of Ireland wrote a famous one called the Manipulus Florumi, which contained over 6,000 extracts from books in the library of the Sorbonne in Paris, organized by theme.

Commonplace books were once valued because books were so costly. But they may be even more valuable now because information is so cheap.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have made information so cheap and easy to access that it’s often difficult to sort through all the garbage and find the gems. Your commonplace book, along with many others, can help do the sorting.

I think every student needs a commonplace book. Not just for studying and learning, although they are a great tool for those things, but to have a way to remember all the things that mean something to us, no matter how silly or inconsequential they are.

Like the notes of a sixteen-year-old boy in his Junior English class over thirty years ago.

While reading Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird,” I thought about this moment and came to her chapter on index cards. Right beside some text I underlined, I wrote, “Sylvia Daugherty, 11th Grade, Juvember.”

Write things down. You never know when you’ll need them or when they’ll bring you a moment of joy.

Month: September 2024

Dissertation Tales, Part 1 – A first draft of my introduction

Introduction

The Power of Writing Things Down