Archive for the ‘education’ Category

ReImagining a more creative rural educational system

February 9th, 2010

Yesterday I highlighted a video interview of Richard Florida on Big Think, emphasizing the movement of creative workers to careers in industries not usually associated with creative types. 

But the bulk of his message, which I left untouched yesterday, is that we need to reimagine our educational system.  You may listen (or re-listen) to the interview in the video below. 

 

 (video source:  “Reinventing the way Workers Learn,” Big Think

Florida’s emphasis on the lack of social skill training in education reminded me of the advice Jim Beddow offered college students when he was the President at Dakota Wesleyan University back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  He encouraged students to develop skills that enabled them to: 

Jim still offers this advice to young people, and has since added a forth key; learn to network (both in personal and online).  To support his advice, Jim often cites successful individuals who embody these skills.  Two things strike me about his list of examples.  First, a great many create success outside of their chosen field of academic study.  And second, these individuals are incredibly entrepreneurial and creative. 

As regular readers recognize, I’m a former high school teacher, and am often a critic of the educational system in our rural communities.  My primary grudge is that our current educational model was developed for the industrial economy, which means we trained them to be successful in urban communities with stronger industrial economies. 

In the video interview, Florida tells us that “nibbling around the edges” of the educational system won’t develop the types of change that our country needs to grow our economy.  I would agree. 

But what does that mean for our rural communities?  Do we have to wait until business and political leaders are ready to transform education?  I hope not.

Instead, I would call on rural educators to look within their classrooms, and figure out ways that they can teach these skills to their current students.  Not only will students benefit as individuals, but I think our rural communities will benefit as well.

 

Note:  Readers may be interested in  these additional video interviews of Richard Florida on Big Think

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Posted in Economic Development, Rural, Youth, education | Comments (0)

Is your community ready for social media?

February 2nd, 2010

Last night Lindsey and I engaged in a little social media training for residents in Miner County, SD.  During our session, we noted the changing landscape of advertising, and cited Pepsi’s withdrawal from its traditional advertising during the Super Bowl in favor of sponsoring a community grant program called the Pepsi Refresh Project as an example.  Marketing and advertising is definitely going “social.”

This morning, I hopped onto Facebook to find an update from Mark Rembert at Energize Clinton County who recommended people support a project in the Pepsi Refresh grant contest called Studio H. Learning of the project has inspired me to include the video explaining the project below.  

 

Combine design thinking, vocational trade training, and community citizenship in a youth engagement project — all within a high school setting.  The image of design:SD on steroids comes to mind.  If you agree, I hope you will vote for the project on the Pepsi Refresh page.

Reflecting on this project has created a couple thoughts that I’d like to share.

First, I hope rural communities are inspired by the Studio H project to develop their own youth engagement projects.  I love the idea of combining design and construction training in a community project.  But each community is different, and youth engagement projects need to meet the needs of both young people and the community.     

Second, I hope the Pepsi Refresh Project helps people see how marketing is becoming “social.”  The idea of taking money that previously directed at advertising and using it to engage your customer base is a great way to build a stronger brand.  It’s caused me to think more about how small, rural communities might use online contests as a part of their branding efforts.  (Note:  There are issues with “crowdsourced” contests of this nature, as is highlighted here.) 

And finally, I hope that the Pepsi Refresh Project helps rural residents and community development practitioners understand the importance of delivering social media training to people in rural communities.  I loved the idea advance by David Becker at the Friend of the Farmer blog to develop a social media training program for rural farmers.  (I shared my thoughts in greater detail in this post.)  The idea, along with support from local extension educator Jim Krantz, caused Lindsey and I share the presentation (which I’ve embedded below) with Miner County residents last night.      

Social Media 101
View more presentations from Rural Learning Center.

Our presentation is intended as an overview of social media.  Beginning February 15th and continuing each Monday through March, we will offer hands on training for specific tools like Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.  If you are a Miner County resident and are interested in this training, I’d encourage you to contact the Miner County Extension office. 

If you are a rural community outside Miner County, I’d encourage you to answer the question:  Are people in our rural community interested in using social media?  If the answer is “yes,” I hope you find a way to bring training to your community.

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Posted in Rural, Training and Events, education | Comments (6)

School lunch programs gone “local”

January 4th, 2010

While grocery shopping for Christmas, I picked up some delicious looking strawberries.  It’s difficult to grow fresh strawberries during South Dakota’s harsh winter, and I suspected these strawberries had been grown on a hydroponic farm in some distant land. Unfortunately, their flavor fell far short of my already low expectations, and I suspect their nutritional value wasn’t far behind. 

With this disappointment fresh in my mind, I caught a tweet from Deb Brown at DebWorks.  She shared an interesting article describing how the Independence (IA) School District has embraced the local foods movement in an effort to both improve the nutritional value of their school lunches and to education young people about healthy living.    (Source:  “School lunch goes local,” Iowa Farmer Today, 12-23-09)

The school district is a part of the Iowa Farm to School Initiative.  They purchase locally grown produce, and prepare it at their kitchen.  In an effort to help young people understand what healthy eating is all about and where their food comes from, the school has also developed an educational component. 

Not only am I impressed with the efforts because it should lead to healthier eating for young people, but also because it stimulates the local economy.  Granted it must take a little extra effort to prepare the fruits and vegetables, but I’m sure the school’s kitchen workers appreciate the extra hours and accompanying wages.

There’s been a growing movement lately to discredit local foods initiatives.  The theory goes that mass producing foods and shipping them across the country leads to greater economic efficiencies.  But as a recent Business Week article titled “Entrepreneurs Keep the Local Food Movement Hot” reports, local foods initiatives play a more critical role in economic development than most people realize. 

After conducting a quick internet search for the Farm to School Initiative, I’ve concluded there’s not much happening in South Dakota’s schools.  If true, that’s disappointing. 

Good nutrition and a little economic development.  That’s something that could benefit all of our rural communities. 

Photo credit:  back_garage - Flickr

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Posted in Economic Development, Rural, education | Comments (5)

Mistakes of a first-year Teacher

November 17th, 2009

I have a confession to make.  When I started my teaching career at Tripp High School in 1990, I had no idea what it meant to teach in a small rural school.  Having grown up in Hartford, SD, a small town just outside of Sioux Falls, I always thought of myself as a rural kid.  But in reality, my high school experience was closer to that of a suburban school than a rural school.  And more importantly, nothing in my college teacher preparation courses suggested that teaching in rural schools was any different than teaching in urban settings.

Case in point:  During my first year of teaching, I introduced a personal finance unit into my micro economics class.  Hoping to show my students how they could be “smart shoppers,” I demonstrated how they could save money by switching from buying individual cans of pop from the school’s pop machine to buying pop in bulk. And if they were really smart, I suggested, they would drive to Sioux Falls to buy at a discounter like Sam’s Club — because that’s where the real savings could be realized. 

If you’ve lived in a rural community, you recognize the stupidity of my example.  But for those who don’t, let me explain:

First, I did not factor in the cost of driving the 90 miles to Sioux Falls.  (Boy would my green friends today have a problem with this.)

Second, it did not consider the importance of patronizing a business in one’s community.  Our local grocery story displayed good community citizenship, while Sam’s Club didn’t know (or care) that Tripp, SD even existed. 

And finally, the model for saving money I shared didn’t factor in how the city council would need to ask residents to pay more in property taxes to make up for the declining sales tax revenues resulting from out-of-town purchasing.   

I’ve been thinking about examples like this a lot lately as I work on the South Dakota Partnership for Teacher Quality.  One of the roles the Rural Learning Center will play in the grant is to help first year teachers learn how to live and teach in rural communities.  In some ways, this will involve similar concepts offered by Kyle Ezell in Get Urban.  (see post for more info.)

Teaching and living in rural communities is different from teaching in urban communities. I learned that the hard way.  I wonder how many teacher education programs acknowledge these differences as they prepare teachers?  If they did, we might see young teachers become life-long rural educators.

Photo Credit:  FXR - Flickr

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Posted in Rural, education | Comments (2)