Magistra’s Musings Education Blog

I loved this book!  It was an interesting read that drew me right in from the introduction. And I read it in a day which is saying a lot since I don’t usually feel drawn to non-fiction, nor do I usually tear through it like that. 

The premise of the book is that we are fast leaving the Information Age and left-brain dominated thinking behind and moving toward the Conceptual Age and right-brain dominated thinking; and that this is a good thing.  Daniel Pink then explores what he terms the Six Senses.  Each sense gets a chapter of discussion and then is followed by a portfolio of activities for readers to explore their concept of that sense.

And without further delay, the senses are: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning

In the chapter on Design, Pink states, “We may not all be Dali or Degas. But today we must all be designers.” (p. 69) This struck me right between the eyes because I would not consider myself an artist, yet through my computer work and my scrapbook layouts, I would consider myself a designer. And even if I don’t become the next Isaac Mizrahi or Kate Spade, by developing my sense of design can help me learn to solve problems, understand others, and appreciate the world around me (p. 74). 

In his example of Story, Pink asks the reader two questions. One we can answer by remembering a fact and one by remembering a story—well guess which one most everyone remembers? Yep, the story one.  Stories are how we remember because our brains have an internal mechanism to remember information in this format because we can place the facts in context and connect emotional impact to them. This quote was interesting to me–“Stories amuse; facts illuminate. Stories divert; facts reveal. Stories are for cover; facts are for real.” (p. 102) I love to tell family stories of growing up and funny things my niece and nephews have done AND I love to scrapbook; thus I figured my sense of Story was already pretty well developed.  However, I do need to see how to use this sense in building a new business and making contacts with people that turn into paying presentations.  In the Conceptual Age argues Pink, stories will be important and if we ignore them we will have problems both personally and professionally.

At first Symphony was a little scary since I have a basic understanding of music as an appreciator and only an occasional creator with my voice and my guitar, but then I saw that it incorporated much more than my first impression of the sense.  Symphony is the ability to put together the pieces into a coherent whole, to see relationships between things not often paired together, to see patterns not obvious to everyone, and to invent new things by trying something in a novel way.  These are exactly the skills we need to be teaching our 21^st century students instead of preparing them for tests to measure how effective politicians think schools are.  Hopefully, through my professional development of teachers, I can encourage more people to develop these skills in our next generation of thinkers.

Empathy is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hears. (page 159) It is a sense that many Americans do not develop because they are so focused on their individual needs and wants, yet it is what makes us human and what brings us joy. (page 165)  Helping other people requires that we develop not only communication skills but the skills of touch, presence, and comfort to be fully present for others when they need us.

I love that Play is a sense!  I often refer to my preparation for a workshop as “playing with cool tech stuff.” And play is more than just goofing off—it is games, humor, and joyfulness.  I love playing games either against myself like crosswords or logic puzzles or with groups like Trivial Pursuit or Encore. 

Meaning came together for me long after I had finished the book, bought another one to send to a friend, and heard that Karl Fisch was going to Ustream his students live Skype Chat with Dan Pink as a culminating activity for their study of the book.  Meaning is that which we live for.  This chapter mentions spirituality and happiness as vehicles for finding that meaning, but for me as an educator I found immense meaning in the opening of a classroom so the rest of the world could see students participate in an amazing conversation about the world in which they live with the author, Dan Pink.  They asked great questions and a few of them disagreed with Pink and told him why. It made me see what every teacher should be striving for in their classroom—students making meaning from their knowledge.

Final thought

After reading this book, I realized that the book StrengthFinders 2.0 in which I had taken an online survey to identify my five strongest traits was a business or left-brain leaning take on the senses described by Daniel Pink.  For example, had identified my strongest trait as Strategic which is very similar to Symphony.  Other strengths identified for me were Learner, Activator, Communication and Connectedness. In these I see various aspects of Story, Play, Empathy, Meaning, and even Design.  I hope that through doing the activities suggested in the portfolio sections of the book I can continue to develop my 21^st century senses.

Writing a blog post about a book on blogging, it’s kind of like in Sophie’s World where she is philosophizing about philosophy in a created world of literature.  Okay, so it is somewhat circular, but maybe all knowledge is.

I ordered this book in preparation for my FETC 2008 presentation, Using Web 2.0 Tools for Classroom Learning.   And I loved reading it so much that I finished it in two days and I wrote in the book and took notes.  (Taking notes in books even when I own them is a new skill for me so I still celebrate it!) 

Overview:

This book explores the history of the web and blogging as well as how we use technology in education.  The chapter on the blogosphere was also helpful; it clarified some terms and concepts for me that I thought I knew but needed more information on. RSS is explained well and gives readers a clear example of what it is. 

I have quoted some parts I really liked and that made me think.  And I added my ideas after the quotes.

·         Page 26 “J. Allard . . . calls today’s children are the ReMix generation” This was eye opening for me because we have moved beyond Digital Natives into this world of creating personalized online environments and making the information work for us individually. And that my learning or work environment DOES NOT have to look like yours or anyone’s to be effective for me.

·         Page 26 “In addition, learners at these conferences are becoming teachers.  Professional development is becoming a conversation.”

So it makes it hard to have a one-shot program be a conversation, huh? This concept should make all educators realize that ongoing professional development is the only way to continue the conversation about teaching and learning.

·         Page 32 “moving from an education system defined by its limits, to an education system defined by its lack of limits.”  For me, this is huge.  I still see so many small-minded people who want to limit access to students in schools.  Many of these limits are placed on teachers and students by parents and administrators out of fear for safety and fear of legal ramifications.  I can still get excited about learning new things because I have an education system of life-long learning instilled in me.  But many of our students are bored at school because they have to obey the school rules that limit the kinds of activities that engage them outside of education like blogging, wikis, texting, social networking, etc.

·         Page 35 “The teacher is no longer the sole holder of knowledge and wisdom.”
 Amen, brother!  I heartily agree with this.  Until some teachers can let go of their need to be the “smartest” person in the room, we will continue to have classrooms that are very small in terms of knowledge.  Teachers need to understand that with knowledge and information growing at the exponential rates of the 21^st century, no one can possess it all.  I am much more comfortable saying I don’t know but let’s Google it to find out more than giving a student the brush off because I don’t know the answer.

·         Page 37 “In the same way that the web might be thought of as a global library, the blogosphere is a global conversation.”  This struck home with me because I realized that if blogging is a conversation then I must begin contributing to the conversation as a producer rather than just consuming it on Google Reader.  Soooo, I have begun to blog on my Blogger and Edublog sites with a vengeance in 2008.

This book also contains great screenshots of blog pages with very detailed explanations of all the parts of a blog which is great for newbies to the blogosphere.  David Warlick also takes the time to explain WHY to have a blog in addition to HOW to set one up in different locations.  I think his information on why to blog and specific ideas on how to use blogging with students is valuable to all teachers who are venturing into the world of School 2.0.

David also explains how teachers can use wikis, message boards, and social bookmarking sites in the classroom.  Again, he provides detailed explanations of how to set up these tools and suggestions for classroom use.

Finally, my Google reader account grew substantially after reading this book.  I subscribed to many of the blogs David listed on pages 124-125, but I was pleased to note that I was already reading some of his recommended blogs.  And on pages 180-181, David includes a list of Notable Education Bloggers from Dr. Scott McLeod of CASTLE and the Dangerously Irrelevant blog.

I would definitely recommend this book to teachers who are already using Web 2.0 tools and to newbies who need a good, solid introduction to these innovative tools.  Classroom Blogging 2^nd Edition is available from Amazon.