May 20, 2007
DEAD PERSON: I think I'll go for a walk. CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone you know. Look, isn't there something you can do? DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy… I feel happy. [whop] CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much. CART-MASTER: Not at all. See you on Thursday.(Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been walking a lot when the weather’s permitted. By “walking a lot” I mean walking anywhere in the area that I normally would drive to, with the exception of work (I wake up too early as it is, and I really don’t relish the idea of walking in the predawn hours). Why am I walking so much? There are a few reasons. One is that I hate paying for gas, and my car’s been getting lousy mileage recently (hopefully some recent tire maintenance will help). Another is that I got my iPod to work again. Another is that I’ve been wistful for the time that I spent living in Manhattan when I was in grad school and walked everywhere (it was just after 9/11 and I tried to spend as little time in the subway system as possible).
But the main reason is that I’ve finally figured out what I’m going to do in Scotland this summer before my class starts. For those of you who haven’t been following the minutiae of my life with the devotion of post-Goth shut-ins deciphering the clues on the latest Nine Inch Nails album, I’ll be at the Scottish Universities International Summer School this August studying creative writing and postmodernism, all thanks to a fellowship from the ESU and Lillian Butler Davey. The kicker, though, is that I bought a plane ticket that gives me an extra week of travel before I move to Edinburgh for three weeks. After toying with a few ideas (a whirlwind tour of everything Scottish; a week in Orkney culminating in a pilgrimage to Skara Brae; a ferry to Belfast), I finally figured out what I want to do.
The West Highland Way seems like just the thing. I’ve never travelled entirely alone before, unless you count going to a wedding for a weekend. I’m not concerned about being bored or lonely, since I’m pretty outgoing, but I decided that I need to take advantage of that fact that I can travel at my own pace to do something that requires me to travel at my own pace. Walking/hiking/backpacking 10-18 miles a day through little villages, across mountains, and around lochs seems like a great idea. I can bring my camera and a notebook, record what I see, curl up at night with the copy of Waverley that I’ve been putting off reading, lose some weight, learn something about my limits, and be ready to sit in a classroom for three weeks afterward. It’ll either be the best or the worst idea of my recent life. I can’t wait.
So I’ve been walking, trying to get used to the idea of going long distances. If the weather lifts a bit more today I’ll take a walk down to the beach and back, which’ll give me about 6.5 miles without walking around at the park. I figure if I do that a couple of times and build up a little bit of strength and willpower, I’ll be able to walk from my place to my parents’ house, which is about 15 miles, or an average day on the Way.
Meanwhile, Ed and I have been overseeing/facilitating/cowering in fear from the 81-writers-strong Odyssey Movie Project. Thanks to a remarkably easy-to-use Web 2.0 tool called Plotbot, and some great support from Brad Bouse and Star Rosencrans, our students have written a complete screenplay for a modern adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Shooting will start this week.
At this point, it doesn’t much matter to me if the film gets made. That’s not true, of course–I want to see it as much as anyone else does. But this experience has been remarkable so far. 81 Honors-level sophomores, usually the most competitive and grade-concerned constituency in the high school, have figured out a way to work together to produce something brand new. There have been some arguments and disputes, yes–everything from whether to set part of the film in a prison to music choices for the final scenes–but they’ve been worked out civilly without anyone losing too much face.
And I’ve thought a lot about Plotbot in particular and how it’s a great example of how these new Web 2.0 tools can be used effectively in education. Plotbot is very easy to use–it took about 10 minutes to get most of my students up and running, and about 10 more minutes for them to be able to show each other very cool tricks and tips that they figured out without reading any of the online documentation–and is visually appealing. More importantly, it provides instant gratification (any changes made are applied instantly) and accountability (your username is attached to every change or comment your make, and everyone, including the teacher, can see who’s been doing what and when). There’s a cool social component to it as well, which should be even better when there’s a private messaging system.
While all this Plotbottery was taking place, a couple of my students told me that they set up a Facebook group about the project. I have no idea how that’s going–I’ve not been invited to the group, nor do I know if I want to be–but I think it’s great that the students have taken it upon themselves to bring this project into the space where they live. New technology allows us to break down some of the walls between the classroom space and the out-of-classroom experience. If you don’t believe that, teachers, check your work email from home.
When I’m home and reading, the first thing my roommate always asks me is if the book is for work or for fun. At this point, it’s hard to say. I’ve got a lot of books going right now:
- Slaughterhouse-Five, which is for the Am Lit II class I’m teaching, but which is also one of my all-time favorite books, and which I reread even when I don’t have to teach the course
- Jews, God, and History, which I’m using to set up a baseline for when I start working as the Youth Director/Hebrew High teacher at my synagogue in the fall and will be leading discussions about how Jewish teenagers can work ancient ethics into modern lives
- Lanark, which is for the SUISS course
I like all of these books way too much to start to make the distinction between “for fun” and “for work.” Everything I read, everything I experience, becomes fodder for school, and vice versa. New technology lets that happen for students, too.
At some point, when I have some time, I need to dig out my Dewey and Rosenblatt books and see if I can find a way to make them fit, too. In about a month I’ll be through my fifth year of teaching, and I think it’ll be high time to reexamine some of my older beliefs and see what can be done about them. Until then, though, the sun’s beginning to come out, and I think it’s time to go on a walk.
