Some times I’ll pull a reading from the interwebs. In this case, I found an on-line site for IT professionals where they described how they manage the project process.

Step one: why do our projects go off the tracks?

Step two: reading this site. I pulled it down, erased the solutions part, so that students could try and generate their own ideas.

There was several places where we’re very different. We don’t have the hierarachy that most businesses have — there’s no leader, no designated project manager — there’s a kind of flatness in our classrooms that mirrors our school’s leadership structure. The student groups don’t have formal leaders, although most groups have one or two people they turn to. And sometimes we have the same problems that student groups have, i.e., when everybody is overwhelmed and doing fifty things, how do you hold each other accountable in gentle ways?

Cool conversation, though.

Too many books, too little time. At least it helps my kids:

Poking through physical artifacts (like books), as I did with those Beatles records, is archival and curatorial; it forces you to examine each object slowly, perhaps sample it and come across a serendipitous discovery.

Scrolling through file names on a device, on the other hand, is what we do all day long, often mindlessly, in our quest to find whatever it is we’re already looking for as rapidly as possible. To see “The Beatles” in a list of hundreds of artists in an iTunes database is not nearly as arresting as holding the album cover for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Link to full article:

Ware, Teddy. “Our (Bare) Shelves, Our Selves – The New York Times.” New York Times, December 7, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/fashion/our-bare-shelves-our-selves.html.

I’m always trying to find ways to force students to quickly and accurately summarize their current projects. It’s a skill that will serve them well no matter what they end up doing. It’s the kind of thing graduate students preparing for their oral exams do very well, the sixty second summary of a book’s argument and their thoughts about it, or the kind of thing that MBA students learn to do quickly — here’s my awesome idea so gimme money.

Here’s some of the better ones from the week:

JG: Bullying film
It’s helping misfits
this film is inspiring
film better than books.

DL: Food truck
This truck will be good
Team work will take us to top
My class is the best.

IB: Graphic Novel Project
I use pencil yeah
Draw on paper it look good
picture speak ten words.

AR: Mural Project
Art is passionate
these messages are crucial
push for artistry.

I also asked for the thousandth time how this week’s deliverable helps with the eventual final product. They are starting to understand why this matters.

Reading a find from used book store about how engineers think.

Used a page where Madhavan cites a checklist from George Heilheimer:

Students then had to reflect on which step was most difficult, which step represented something they had not thought of before, and how this process was different from the work we do here.   As much as possible, I try and couch the project process as being something that exists outside of our school, as something that real folks have struggled with, as something that every scholar/mechanic/actor/entrepreneur has to develop for themselves.

One of the great parts of the conversation was that students focused on number two — “how is it done today” — and were able to acknowledge that they still have much to learn.   The adolescent binary of simultaneously knowing everything while declaring their helplessness was on full display; I try and poke this as much as possible.

The other focus came with the “who cares” question;  HG correctly noted that “it is difficult to get someone to care about what you’re trying to do” and JJ also pointed out that “we have to think if we finish this project, what difference will it make ?”

1. Madhavan, Guruprasad. Applied Minds: How Engineers Think. New York?; London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

I can’t stop laughing at this cartoon.

The second line is the best.

Step one: free-writing
Step two: Describe one time you actually did this.
Step three: Describe one way you’re going to do this today.

Best quotes for us to live by:

JG: Ask yourself if this bit of research is necessary.
TC: Begin sentences this way “So when I did the research , I…”
JR: Ask yourself if your research notes make sense
CR: Ask yourself how you know something.
IJ: Ask yourself what you need to know in order to do whatever it is you’re doing.
JW: Ask yourself how long the list of places where you looked for research is.
JH: Ask yourself how this will help me finish the final, final deliverable.
ES: Ask yourself which website gave me the most resources.

Great book on writing and life.

“In the long run, the revision process feels better when you approach it with curiosity.  Every editorial mark can’t register as a “mistake” that threatens the spider ego.  Remind yourself that revising proves your care for the reader and the nature of your ambition.   Writing, regardless of the end result — whether good or bad, published or not, well reviewed or slammed — means celebrating beauty in an often ugly world.   And you do that by fighting for elegance and beauty, redoing or cutting the flabby, disordered parts.”

At Clark Park, November 28th:

Livengood Farms
Pound ground beef, $6.00
Tip Steak, .70 lb, $9.65
Spinach bunch, $3.00
Brussell Sprouts, $6.50 (?)

Hands-on the earth orchard
Brown free-range eggs, $4.00
Bunch of different apples — Pink lady, Jonagold, Honey Crisp

Printers are educated in the belief that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; and that when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.

–Ben Franklin

Began by poking around at Building Character.  Didn’t quite understand the model; I think local businesses house their wares on-site but a small group manages the sales.   Either way, there was some cool thrift-store type stuff.  I liked this lamp place, mostly for some of the ideas they offered.

Best thing happening there was the Heritage Press Museum and the awesome teacher/printer/craftsman.   He utterly charmed Kara, walked through the process of several of the presses, and was a great resource.   (I often talk to my students about how I can listen to anyone who is passionate and knowledgable; this man made you want to become a printer from the 18th Century.)   We’ll be down to the Ben Franklin House again this month.

We left and went to a kitchen supply place across the street:  “Mise En Place Kitchen Store.” Bought some small stuff — cool little place — and headed for our primary destination.

If there’s a used bookstore in a city, I’m going to it.  If Yelp is to believed, Dogstar Books is the last used book place in Lancaster.  This is a great store and worth making the trip.   My particular frustration with used book stores these days are books in cruddy condition.  I’ll pay real money for a book (50-70% of the list) if it’s in good shape.   Every book I pulled off the shelf here was in very good or near-fine shape.   The music section had lots of solid titles as did the gardening/landscape/environmental shelves. I was surprised I couldn’t find a novel or two because the fiction collection, mostly hardback, was pretty great.  And the kid section kept KC happy for forty-five minutes as I browsed around.   I only got two things — couple of good collections of essays — but enjoyed every moment of the store.   Well worth the trip; hope CC plays this tournament next year so we can come back.

KC and I got slices at Espino’s Pizza down the street from Dogstar.  Great Italian style pizza; wished I’d looked a bit closer at the menu because it looked like the possibility of great Spanish food as well.  The owner was there and couldn’t have been nicer.  We talked of teaching second language — I think there was a class happening just as we entered — and of the growing Latino population in small American cities.

Hooray Lancaster!