Well, it sure looks like you are working to create a revolution in the Santa Barbara school system. Your energy and passion for that is clear and powerful.
The revolution others of us are seeking to launch (see the attached articles, one of which was also published as Duffy, F. M. (2010). Prologue to revolution. Journal of Educational Alternatives, 4(2), 27-37.) is one that will replace the industrial age paradigm of teaching and learning that has groups of students sitting in front of one teacher who controls the learning process; where students are expected to learn a fixed amount of curricular content in a fixed amount of time; and where students are forced to move forward in the learning process even if they have not mastered what needs to be learned.
We want to replace that old paradigm with the student-centered, personalized learning paradigm that assesses each student’s needs, interests, and abilities, and then uses that information to design a personalized learning experience for each child that also complements and supports important learning objectives for all children.
The old paradigm does and always will leave children behind. But if children receive a customized, personalized learning experience that gives them the time to master what they need to learn, how in the world could any child be left behind.
There are many people working on personalizing the education experience and they have been for a very long time. But we have not been able to breakthrough the resistance to change (see the 20 Laws of Transformation in the 2nd attachment). But I believe we are moving quickly toward a tipping point as seen in the growing number of examples of personalized learning models that are emerging; for example, please take a few minutes to view this video clip at the TED.com website. It's by Sugata Mitra and titled "The child-driven education."
The link is:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html.
Finally, I am not advocating any particular model of personalized learning. Rather, my contribution to the revolution is a field-tested methodology and set of change tools that can be used to bring to whole-system scale any model of personalized learning. That methodology is called The School System Transformation Protocol SM. The SST Protocol was designed in collaboration with Charles Reigeluth of Indiana University.
I will include your name and a link to your website in the “directory of revolutionaries” that I am compiling.
Cordially,
Frank Duffy
Francis M. Duffy, Ph.D.
The F. M. Duffy Group
www.thefmduffygroup.com
duffy@thefmduffygroup.com
http://thefmduffygroup.blogspot.com/
301-854-9800
Co-Director
FutureMinds: Transforming American School Systems
http://www.futureminds.us/
http://systemic4change.wordpress.com/
R& L Education’s Leading Systemic School Improvement Series
http://www.rowmaneducation.com/bookseries/LSI.
Defendant Kate Smith STATEMENT OF CASE.docx
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www.k8longstory.blogspot.com
The Guardian / By Giles Tremlett
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Julian Assange's Proud Father: My Son Has 'Immense Desire for Justice in the World'
Assange's biological father describes his son as a "great dissident" in his first and probably only media interview.
July 15, 2011 |
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Julian Assange's biological father has described his son as a "great dissident" in what he said would be his first and probably only media interview.
John Shipton, who has been attending the Assange extradition hearing in London, spoke to the Spanish newspaper el Pas and confirmed that his son did not get to know him until his mid-20s.
"I have kept my mouth closed so as not to hinder things," said Shipton, whose name Assange used to register the Wikileaks.org domain name in 2006.
Shipton met Assange's mother, Christine, then aged 17, at an antiques shop on his way to a Vietnam war demonstration - which she joined. Little is known about the relationship, except that it had ended by the time of their son's first birthday - if not earlier. Christine then married theatre director Brett Assange.
Shipton told el Pas that he first got to know his son after Christine rang his Sydney home in 1996. Assange was 25 at the time. "It was extraordinary," Shipton said. "Certain of his thought processes made it seem like I was staring into a mirror. I could barely believe it. He had the same logic, the same intense curiosity, the same obtuse way of constructing sentences … that never end."
That meeting coincided with, or came soon after, Assange's 1996 trial for computer hacking - where his lawyer talked of a "really quite tragic" nomadic childhood that saw him attend at least a dozen schools.
His mother became pregnant in her early 20s after she "effectively ran away from home" to Sydney, according to court documents used by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding in their book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War On Secrecy. The documents state that Shipton "never took up residence or if he did only took up residence for a very short time" and "had no contact with [Assange]".
Assange nevertheless later felt confident enough to use his father's name to register WikiLeaks' internet domain name, re-registering Shipton's nominal address in 2008 as Nairobi in Kenya.
Shipton had worried that his son was a modern Don Quixote. "At that time it seemed as though Julian loved tilting at windmills, but it turned out not to be like that." He warned Assange that he was setting himself tough, idealistic targets. "When someone tells you they want to turn the world upside down, you reply: 'OK, try it. But it's not that easy!'"
Shipton, who is believed to work as a freelance architect in Sydney, said Assange had inherited Christine's fighting spirit. "He is a great dissident, well-prepared for a new era in which direct action is practised via the internet."
He said his son's style of dissidence followed in the tradition of people like Che Guevara, Apollinaire or south American hero Simn Bolvar.
Shipton is convinced Assange is the victim of a conspiracy. "I think all this has been organised," he said, while adding that he did not want to hurt Assange's alleged Swedish victims with his words. "The intelligence agencies got involved in this business from the very start."
Assange's father apparently sees the US government behind the decision by Mastercard and Visa to prevent WikiLeaks accepting donations from their credit cards. "There is no separation between governments and finance," he said.
"There are many intelligent people in the world, but most seem to be wicked, while Julian seems to have the moral courage and ability to carry his vision through. He seems to have an immense desire for justice in the world."