ap140901
Plug-in teacher
Pondering the next class
Background check
When I mentioned to my wife that I might be helping teach in a public school program, she said, “Well, you can expect to have them do a background check on you.”
Yes, the public schools are responsible for the safety of children attending public school programs. I had to smile, because in the United States, the dangers to kids in school are as great as if the dangers of not going to school at all. We want our children to survive and thrive in the coming years so we want them to be educated, but our society seems to be generating risks faster than they are educated kids.
Thus, it’s necessary to do background checks on everyone who is to come into contact with the kids so that people—such as a potential plug-in teacher like myself—pose no danger to the kids in the class. They mean such risks as child molestation, drug-dealing and firearms.
Secondly, the programs for kids must be in keeping with educational policy, such as the no child left behind mandate developed a generation ago and has, ever since then, been the source innumerable setbacks.
In my brief conversations with one of the organizers of educational programming for the Seattle Public School system, he mentioned at-risk kids, which brings to mind one example of the school’s efforts to achieve the goals of "no child left behind."
How can I—an alien from the printmaking world—be of value in this program? I wonder, because a background check on me might reveal that I was marginalized at the University of Washington for my activism in technology and forced to resign for promoting STEAM-like curricula for college art students. A background check would find the label: Troublemaker and one of my former students famously refused to administer the WASL—a huge setback for him, I’m sorry to say. I feel partly responsible.
STEAM
STEAM has both an educational meaning and an industrial meaning—and I don’t mean steam engines. In educational policy development, STEAM is an acronym which means, “Science & Technology interpreted through Engineering & the Arts, all based in Mathematical elements. It is customizable to individual teaching and learning styles without needing extension lessons to meet, ‘Individual and Differential Educational Plans.’
“STEAM aligns well with many educational theories and instructional strategies already widely accepted such as: Marzano strategies, Bloom’s taxonomy, Constructivism, Multiple Intelligences, Actor Network Theory, and many more. STEAM is useful to learn about for administrators, legislators, educators and students. It is extensively research-based and in proven practice.
“STEAM was developed in 2006 by Georgette Yakman, who then was a master’s graduate student at Virginia Polytechnic and State University’s Integrated Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics Educational program (ISTEMed). Since then she has continued to evolve the concept by including more research and practice on the topic.”
The above is from the Wikipedia entry of www.steamedu.com, but, now, if you do a search based on the word “steam,” you will first be given many listings under the gaming distribution platform developed by a Seattle software company, Valve. Next you will get the mechanical engineering definition and, drilling down further into the listings, on the second page, the educational meaning of STEAM.
Drive through Seattle on Labor Day weekend
The Penny Arcade Expo (70,000 people), the Bumbershoot Festival (100,000), and a Mariner’s game (35,000) and beer all happen on Labor Day Weekend and we saw the crowds on a three-mile ride from our home next to the Seattle Center, through the downtown corridor and to SODO. When we passed the site of Seattle’s newest Maker center, SoDo MakerSpace, I pointed it out to my wife—the warehouse row on Occidental South, behind Krispy Kreme donuts at 1st Ave. South and Holgate.
Over 200,000 people turned out for the combined events for Indie games, entertainment and sports. As I consider the kids who might be in a printmaking experience with me, I figure, “I am competing for those 200,000 people.”
I don’t care what they say about changing the world one kid at a time—those numbers are, to use the header on makeitlocally.org’s website, “Awesome.”
About the Author: Professor Ritchie thinks
that artistic printmaking should be taught and learned, practiced, researched
and be of community service. He retired in 1985 to be a blender of traditional
printmaking, performance, and new digital arts. He designs software for a
printmaking teaching method on a printing press platform to be offered
worldwide for profits to develop the Seattle Printmakers Center.
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