Joint Center for Citizenship Webinar Interest Survey!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by stevemasy

Friends, we need your help so that we may in turn provide YOU with what you desire. One of the goals here at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship is to provide teachers and the community with the professional development and resources they desire. In pursuit of this goal, we would like to begin a new and ongoing webinar series around topics of interest to the social studies and civics educator. In order to determine what sorts of webinars we will offer, we have created a quick survey that asks you to rank order topics and select days and times that work for you. Each webinar will range from 30 to 90 minutes, and all webinars will be permanently archived and available following the session. If none of the potential topics listed in the survey interest or are needed by you, PLEASE tell us what you would like!

You can help us out by completing the survey here!

Joint Center for Citizenship Webinar Interest Survey!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by stevemasy

You can help us out by completing the survey here!

protecting authentic human interaction

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Peter

These are two real-life examples that arose during the recent conference on Responsiveness. (My thanks and apologies to the colleagues who told these stories.)

A recruiter sits all day at the tables near a major airport’s McDonalds restaurant, screening prospective workers. One of her questions: “Is the customer always right?” The correct answer is “yes.” Anyone who says “no” is rejected for the job. The recruiter is screening primarily for a cheerful attitude toward customers.
The philosophers at an urban public university get into arguments with the woman who handles their reimbursements, challenging the fairness or wisdom of the university’s reimbursement policies. She finds the philosophers annoying, or worse.

I understand these as two examples of the same phenomenon. There are settings that encourage and expect authentic human interactions. In such settings, when you’re asked, “Is the customer always right?” you will probably say “No,” because–let’s face it–some customers are wrong. And if you’re asked, “What do you think of the university’s reimbursement policies?” you will say “They’re stupid,” if they are.

But other settings expect people to play instrumental roles within systems. For instance, it is better to treat every McDonalds customer as always right and just give them another hamburger if they have a problem with the one they got. That is best for the company’s bottom line. It follows that it better to say, “The customer is always right” when a recruiter asks you that question in an interview. Likewise, you should recognize that the poor person who has to handle your reimbursement requests is just doing her job and not get into a philosophical argument with her about the rules.

We do need both kinds of settings. If everything were authentic, we couldn’t organize large-scale human interactions. When passing through O’Hare, I am interested in getting my fries quickly, not deliberating with anyone about their quality. A university needs rules for reimbursements; it can’t hold a seminar on everything. I would posit that even in a just society, where power was more equally distributed, there would be instrumental interactions.

But the problem is the deliberate encroachment of the instrumental interactions into the supposedly authentic ones. Chairs and tables are set up outside of an airport McDonalds to make it look like a place where peers or relatives can sit together to talk. But in that space, a recruiter is asking “gotcha” questions to screen employees. The state university advertises itself as a place where people can have free and honest discussions about important matters, but its bureaucratic systems require employees to play circumscribed roles. Even though we need markets and bureaucracies, there is a pervasive danger that business and bureaucrats will take over authentic spaces in order to profit from them.

I have tried to write this whole post without jargon or name-dropping, but I mean it as an almost perfect illustration of Habermas’ thesis that systems are colonizing the lifeworld.

Upcoming SOURCES Conference: Teaching with Primary Sources!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by stevemasy

Friends, it is time once again to alert you to a fantastic primary source driven conference that is held here at UCF. Dr. Scott Waring, Program Coordinator and Associate Professor for the Social Science Education Program at the University of Central Florida, is organizing his SOURCES conference, and I encourage you to register and attend. Registration is free, and having attended last year’s conference myself, well worth the time. Information on the conference and the registration link is provided below. I hope to see you there!

The Teaching with Primary Sources Program at the University of Central Florida (TPS-UCF) will be hosting the second annual SOURCES Annual Conference at the University of Central Florida on January 16, 2016. The SOURCES Annual Conference is a free opportunity available to any educators interested in the utilization and integration of primary sources into K-12 teaching. Presenters will focus on providing strategies for using primary sources to help K-12 students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills, and build content knowledge, specifically in one or more of the following ways:

Justifying conclusions about whether a source is primary or secondary depending upon the time or topic under study;

Describing examples of the benefits of teaching with primary sources;

Analyzing a primary source using Library of Congress tools;

Accssing teaching tools and primary sources from www.loc.gov/teachers;

Identifying key considerations for selecting primary sources for instructional use (for example, student needs and interests, teaching goals, etc.);

Accessing primary sources and teaching resources from www.loc.gov for instructional use;

Analyzing primary sources in different formats;

Analyzing a set of related primary sources in order to identify multiple perspectives;

Demonstrating how primary sources can support at least one teaching strategy (for example, literacy, inquiry-based learning, historical thinking, etc.); and

Presenting a primary source-based activity that helps students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills and construct knowledge.

Registration is free and is now open for the SOURCES Annual Conference. Please complete the information on the following linked page to register for the SOURCES Conference: http://ucf.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_02M6I0hSrdTDGPb

Upcoming SOURCES Conference: Teaching with Primary Sources!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by stevemasy

The Teaching with Primary Sources Program at the University of Central Florida (TPS-UCF) will be hosting the second annual SOURCES Annual Conference at the University of Central Florida on January 16, 2016. The SOURCES Annual Conference is a free opportunity available to any educators interested in the utilization and integration of primary sources into K-12 teaching. Presenters will focus on providing strategies for using primary sources to help K-12 students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills, and build content knowledge, specifically in one or more of the following ways:

Justifying conclusions about whether a source is primary or secondary depending upon the time or topic under study;

Describing examples of the benefits of teaching with primary sources;

Analyzing a primary source using Library of Congress tools;

Accssing teaching tools and primary sources from www.loc.gov/teachers;

Identifying key considerations for selecting primary sources for instructional use (for example, student needs and interests, teaching goals, etc.);

Accessing primary sources and teaching resources from www.loc.gov for instructional use;

Analyzing primary sources in different formats;

Analyzing a set of related primary sources in order to identify multiple perspectives;

Demonstrating how primary sources can support at least one teaching strategy (for example, literacy, inquiry-based learning, historical thinking, etc.); and

Presenting a primary source-based activity that helps students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills and construct knowledge.

Education as a New Frontier of Democracy

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Harry Boyte

Education as a New Frontier of Democracy

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Harry Boyte

Organizing is transformational. It takes time. It involves investing in people's growth, connections with others, intellectual capacities, ability to act effectively in public -- their civic agency. At the heart of organizing is building productive relationships.

Education as a New Frontier of Democracy

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Harry Boyte

Mental Illness in America: How Do We Address a Growing Problem? (NIFI Issue Guide)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The 13-page issue guide from National Issues Forums, Mental Illness in America: How Do We Address a Growing Problem?, was published November 2014. The issue guide gives three options for discussion on how mental illness can better be addressed in the US. Below is an excerpt from the guide and it can be downloaded from NIFI’s site here.

From the guide…

Many Americans share a sense that something is wrong when it comes to treatment of mental illness. More and more of us are taking medications for depression and other disorders. Meanwhile, dangerous illnesses are going undetected and untreated. What can be done to keep us safer and healthier?

One in five Americans will have mental health problems in any given year. Unaddressed mental illness hurts individuals and their families and results in lost productivity. In rare cases, it can result in violence.

This issue guide presents a framework that asks: How can we reduce the impact of mental illness in America?

The issue guide presents three options for consideration:

Option One: “Put safety first”

This option holds that more preventive action is necessary to deal with mentally ill individuals who are potentially dangerous to themselves or others. We should identify those who need help and intervene where necessary to prevent them from harming themselves and others. These individuals should be sought out and their needs addressed.

Option Two: “Ensure mental health services are available to all who need them”

This option holds that people should be encouraged to take control over their own mental health and be provided the tools to do so. We should make sure that everyone who wishes can get the needed help.

Option Three: “Let people plot their own course”

This option holds that we should not rely on so many medical approaches. We should reduce our dependence on drugs and allow people the freedom to plot their own course to healthy lives. In many cases, simple changes to lifestyle can improve mental health.

More about the NIFI Issue Guides
NIFI’s Issue Guides introduce participants to several choices or approaches to consider. Rather than conforming to any single public proposal, each choice reflects widely held concerns and principles. Panels of experts review manuscripts to make sure the choices are presented accurately and fairly. By intention, Issue Guides do not identify individuals or organizations with partisan labels, such as Democratic, Republican, conservative, or liberal. The goal is to present ideas in a fresh way that encourages readers to judge them on their merit.

Issue Guides are generally available in print or PDF download for a small fee ($2 to $4). All NIFI Issue Guides and associated tools can be accessed at www.nifi.org/en/issue-guides.

Follow on Twitter: @NIForums.

Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/catalog/product/mental-illness-america-issue-guide-downloadable-pdf

Organizing Books

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

On the train home this evening, there were two women having an impassioned discussion about how to best organize books. In particular, one was debating the best organizational scheme for her collection – should she mix her fiction and non-fiction? Which books did she want to have more accessible?

This is a big dilemma.

When I was young and fancy free, I used to take great care in organizing my bookshelf – a habit I have since not found sufficient time for. The last time I organized my bookshelves, I realized my shelf space was tragically insufficient for my book collection – a problem I solved by acquiring more books.

Irregardless, strategies for organizing books fascinates me. Most of us don’t use the Dewey Decimal system at home, leaving many questions on organizational schema.

Personally, I like to organize my books first by topic, then by author, but – just for fun – I like to put a little randomness in there so you never know what you might find next to each other.