October 11, 2009 by Bill.

John Andrews, Denver Sunday morning talk-show host (710-KNUS) and director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University (CCU) had a great column in the Sunday Denver Post today - 10-11-2009. His article, titled “50 Ways” Back At You,” steals a notion from Paul Simon’s famous “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” and develops “50 Ways You Can Help Survive Obama.” I liked them so much I thought I’d list them here in numbered list format, rather than paragraphs so that they’re easier to read and appreciate. While almost all of the listed items are important, I don’t completely agree with 31 and 33 and don’t understand 46.

1. Cleave to the Constitution
2. Dust off the Declaration
3. Work harder
4. Save more
5. Borrow less
6. Repent, pray, get religion
7. Resist the divorce epidemic
8.  Tithe to church and charities
9. Read the classics
10. Doubt judges and lawyers
11. Distrust the dinosaur media
12. Assert our country’s goodness: America without apologies
13. Gird against radical Islam
14. Reject surrender in Afghanistan
15. Quarantine Iran
16. Defend Israel to the death
17. Revive NATO
18. Suspect Russia
19. Suspect China
20. Beware Chavez and Castro
21. See the United Nations for the dangerous fraud that it is
22. Secure the borders
23. Re-arm urgently
24. Work for a colorblind community
25. Reject the race card and white guilt
26. Support charter schools, tax credits, and vouchers
27. Demand intellectual diversity on the campuses (emphasis mine)
28. Resist the mediocrity drug called multiculturalism
29. Encourage a stay-at-home mom
30. Give to a crisis pregnancy center
31. Support the shaming of abortionists and pornographers
32. Boycott Hollywood
33. Get arrested dumping tea in the Tidal Basin
34. Dare Congress to put themselves on Social Security and Medicare
35. Demonstrate for a time line when GM gets privatized
36. Rally for right-to-work
37. Picket for paycheck protection
38. Organize for offshore drilling
39. Sit in for nuclear power
40. Coalesce for coal
41. Demand a tax-favored, direct-pay option for your medical costs
42. Ridicule the climate alarmists
43. Tell Biden jokes
44. Circulate ACORN soup recipes
45. Start a Palin club
46. Launch a Messiah milkcarton movement (”Savior of 2008, mysteriously missing in 2009″)
47. Retire Pelosi and Reid in 2010
48. Draft Petraeus in 2012
49. Get active as a Democrat and elect more blue dogs, or…
50. Get active as a Republican - not because they’re so much better, but because opposition is liberty’s life-blood

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September 16, 2009 by Bill.

I was a naive new teacher, anxious to help my high-school students learn more about computers. After all, they’d signed up for my Computer Technology course at a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high school just west of Denver called Warren Tech. My silly assumption was that they were in class because they wanted to learn something about the interesting (and OK, stressful, and OK, sometimes angry) world of Information Technology (IT).

I was naive in assuming they’d be happy to read technical materials, as I had when earning my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification years earlier. I assumed they were hungry for every jot and tittle of technical meat on which they could lay their hands.

I was wrong.

When the first shipment of Microsoft Certified System Developer (MCSD) books I’d ordered for my programming-centric students came in, one boy, who had pretended earlier to be anxious to have one, grabbed the book and threw it to the table saying “Yikes! That’s heavy!” Others followed suit.

Nowadays I go through a drill where I tell the students they chose to come to a technical school, and they’re receiving technical materials to read because that’s what we teach here. This isn’t your home high school where you have to take a history class, and you get this ponderous text book laden with way too many confusing graphics and sidebars and text, and even though you know you’re supposed to read it, you actually figure out ways around not reading as much of it–as long as you can pass the class that is. I tell them a technical school requires that you read, read, read technical materials all the live-long day. That the technology changes faster than some of them change their tee-shirts. That if you don’t stay ahead of this curve, you’ll likely fall way back behind it before you even know what hit you.

I cite examples: Windows Vista (ugh) is passe, now we look forward to Windows 7. In three years time, Windows 7 will have had millions of articles written about it, lots of which complain about how bad it is (though it’s really not) and how we yearn for a better Windows. Alas, if only Windows Mountain Lion (or whatever Windows 2013 will be called) would come out soon.

But none of it seems to sink in. To be sure, I have some students who hear what I say and really, actually read their books. But sadly, most books sit on the computer at school, waiting for their students to come read them. And when the students are there, even then the books go wanting.

The “new reading” is  a lot like a business topic I learned years ago when getting my Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Business Administration (BSBA) - it’s “just in time” (JIT) reading.

The phrase JIT is used in the business world to denote inventorying practices in which stock items are monitored closely. When an item is close to running out, it is ordered, preferably by some sort of computer interaction. The idea is to keep as much inventory out of the warehouse so that one doesn’t have to pay for excess stock. It takes a precise understanding of how much stuff people are buying, what’s available from suppliers, and how quickly, and so on. The Japanese have successfully used JIT for years, but then they have a penchant for fine-tuning and precise control.

But with JIT reading, it’s not so much about the fine-tuning and control as it is staying away from as much reading as possible, keeping the reading either interactive (i.e. Flash movie) or person to person.

With JIT reading, you don’t consult a book unless (God forbid) you don’t have internet connectivity. And even then you might forget about it until later on when you do have network access. Instead of plowing into “all those words,” (a term I hear all too often anymore–by adults no less–when talking about the printed word) you jump onto Google or Wikipedia or a handful of other sites that have proven to provide quick results and you do your reading there.

But not too much reading mind you…just enough to get your problem solved and get you moving forward again.

Sometimes in the throes of JIT reading, you get tempted by an attractive new game site, or a funny, cool movie site, and you lose your momentum. This is akin to the days when Sally or Bobby came over to visit you just as you were beginning to read your History and well, darn it, History would just have to wait wouldn’t it?

JIT math works similarly. Got a heavy math problem to solve? Just whip out your HP or TI calculator, and get that booger done! No need for pencil, paper, formula books, and the like. If we’ve got computers to manage our math for us, why use our heads?

And I’m afraid to say, JIT writing works the same way. If you have to write, which most students consider anathema, you make your prose as short and sweet as possible. Not all students write this way, of course. I’ve had some students who were incredibly good writers, and not afraid to put pen to paper (or to be more technologically accurate  - fingers to keyboard). But for the most part, writing has declined to the point where sentences are poorly formed, good spelling is nearly nonexistent, and even if you could follow the student’s train of thought, you couldn’t read it very well because you’re constantly stumbling over his/her poor writing and sentence constructs.

JIT inventorying–the business school concept that we order new inventory stock just before the last little bit is sold, thus saving storage and inventory costs–has worked very well for industry, hasn’t it? I mean, I can’t tell you the last time I was in Home Depot when they did not have something in stock that I desperately needed. You reach right in that sprinkler system bin, and–voila!–there’s the part you need. Right?

Yeah. Right. JIT inventorying is a good idea on paper, but maybe not so much when put into practice.

So, while I think JIT is here to stay, I’m working on ways to get kids to stop their JIT reading, writing and math, because it’s nonproductive, and  it’s not doing them any good. It’s a sloooooowwwwww uphill battle, I’ll tell you. You have to model things for the students, then drag them along with you. And even then, you’re not sure they’re there with you–lots of times it feels like it’s just me in the room.

But I persevere. Because I have this tiny little doubt in my mind that reading, writing and math will go away anytime soon. That we’ll all just use technology for everything, and that way we can be couch potatoes who rely on computers to do our thinking for us.

I know a lot of the students would like to have it that way. But that’s not how it works.

Not now, not ever.

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