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!

Not a bad Saturday morning.   Learned my lesson from last year and was up way too early, drinking coffee and tending to business.  Park by Drexel, warm-up, and off I went.

I did not finish behind the man in the purple velour suit.  Victory enough.

Woke up at 3:10 AM.  Damn.

Cleared the inbox, planned a bit of the day, paid the bills.  Then the internet got me and I started digging around on the old website.  Found an on-line journal from my teaching at WPHS (ca. 1998).  Here are the four quotes I featured on the opening page:

“The interest of the oppressors lie in changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them.”
Paulo Freire

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing,  hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world and with each other.”
Paulo Freire

“The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.”
Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)

“We must learn to enter the classroom “whole” and not as “disembodied spirit.”
bell hooks, 1994

We often have guests through our building.  Sometimes it feels like too many guests.  It’s always a good moment, though, as a teacher/co-founder when the students describe our place in such awesome ways:

“Don’t make them do the work, make them want to do the work.”

“It’s easier to learn when you feel good.”

We’re “actually connected to our community through our projects.” 

It’s funny, too, that students describe our place as a community but focus on the fact that we do a weekend update every Monday as the way of describing how we make a community.   To me, it’s simple humanity — how was your weekend — and the other daily activities are much more valuable in building the community.  The way we learn to talk and listen to each other, to respectfully agree and disagree, to debate and deliberate… all that occurs during the work.  And because we’re “actually connected to the community”,  these conversations become real because they actually  matter.