homoLudens

BAWP’s motto is “Teachers teaching teachers,” but I’ve always thought
the heart of the Writing Project model is the opportunity it gives
teachers to just hang out with each other for five weeks. Yeah,
yeah, pedagogy; but comraderie is more important.

Jian Guo Deng, a blog buddy and journalist with the Shanghai Daily, and
his teacher wife Amy arranged for me to visit Shanghai Administrative
High School yesterday. It was the highlight of this trip. SAHS is
located in Jiang Chiao Jen, a suburban district of the city and very
much an area “under development.” Because of their generosity, I was
able to hang out in a real public school in a struggling part of town
for most of the day.

We did a song and blog routine with live connect and LCD, showing off
some of the Galileo sites and providing them with their own Manila url.
It was a typical high school staff development session. Teachers were
there at the end of a long day because they’d been told to attend. Some
were interested, some were puzzled, some were distracted, and some were
asleep. I tried to be as honest as I could, emphasizing the obstacles
that any school attempting tech integration must face. I think I hit a
bulls eye when I noted that most school reform initiatives and demands
for tech solutions were top-down bullshit to make central adminstration
office folks feel good about the nothing that they generally have to
do. Then we just talked about schools and teaching and kids - about the
long days, the pay scales, the price of housing, the attitude of
“minority” students, the problems of bandwidth, the inequity in
facilities, etc., etc. 

Afterwards, five of the staff invited me out for snacks and drinks.
I swore an oath of secrecy regarding that part the evening. Hehe.
I’ve made some good friends at Shanghai Administrative.

Now that’s historical perspective in a leader, eh? Too bad about the
ones - Iraqis and GIs - who died and are dying sooner than the rest of
us.