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Excellence for Kids: Free and Online

3/12/2019

In my recent post Why Education Should Always Be Nonprofit I examined some opportunities for corruption. First, in the building of fortunes, like oil, but also in the establishment of for-profit schools where money is siphoned off by realtors and administrators. The product of education is not a commodity that generates enormous wealth, like oil, but a human being who is capable of contributing to society. So where's the payoff for the individual for-profit investor in the school? It's certainly not in the production of educated individuals. Society at large benefits from that investment.

So I started a nonprofit organization to bring the work of the most talented children's nonfiction authors to the classroom. To that end, in 2014 we started publishing the Nonfiction Minute, a FREE daily posting of 400-word essays by top children's nonfiction authors. An audio file accompanies each Minute so that the more challenged readers have access to our content. Millions of page-views later, we caught the eye of Paul Langhorst, the executive of SchoolTube. And today, we have something new to celebrate: We are launching The Nonfiction Minute Channel on School Tube. Each post is the audio file of the author reading his/her Minute and is illustrated with art in a slide show. Paul Langhorst, told me that teachers have been asking for more on quality reading and writing, so here we are. There are links on the School Tube post to the Nonfiction Minute archives so students can read the text of the Nonfiction Minutes if they are so inclined.

In addition, Paul has also given me my own Vicki Cobb’s Science Channel, which is a featured channel under “STEM, Math, Chemistry,” the drop-down menu on the School Tube Home Page. It, too, is free. Here is some information about SchoolTube:

It is just like YouTube, but safe for schools. - verified teachers and their students can join for free. Teachers act as moderators to approve student video uploads, keeping inappropriate videos off their system. Many schools do not give students access to YouTube but SchoolTube is viewable in more than 70,000 schools and gets 30+ million page views a year.
It is supported by advertising that has also been approved for children.
It will take some time for people to find us—School Tube is 13 years old and is HUGE. But Paul is thrilled with the quality of our work, which he says will make us a BIG FISH in his BIG POND.

Like Andrew Carnegie ( who sold a lot of steel) and then spent his fortune by creating of public libraries, making knowledge and excellence available free to the public is not a new idea. But we still need great teachers to guide children towards it. Our contribution is designed to get kids into books, that are not necessarily taught in classrooms but are excerpted for the reading passages in the standardized tests.

Meantime, we retain our nonprofit status. If your organization gives through Benevity.com, iNK Think Tank, Inc. is listed.

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Why the Lecture?

4/11/2019

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Before there was Google, before there were books, before there was writing by machine and even before there was writing by hand (with a stylus on a clay tablet), there was the lecture. Thousands of years ago, learned men (not sure if there were any women) who gathered in centers of knowledge, spoke to young audiences to impart their thoughts. In those days, the most important quality of the learners' brains was memory. Students truly listened and learned. In fact, Socrates was concerned that writing would impair memory. He feared that writing would weaken memory because you could always review your notes at a later time and might not listen as intently. Listening skills meant verbatim memorization. Brains were different then.

Last week I gave a lecture to people who lecture-- I spoke at a function for the Optical Society of America at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester. My topic was How to Make a Scientist and I billed it as a "conversation" not a lecture. My bona fide is that one of my sons, Josh, is indeed, a scientist--an optical engineer. So, full disclosure, he proposed to the OSA to invite me to speak. Imagine that! I, a children's science book author, have something of value to impart to an august body of higher-ed professors with hard-won scientific skills and thousands of hours of lecturing behind them and degrees upon degrees.

I figured that I'd better start by being entertaining. I described a scientist as a person who:

1. Asks questions about observations.
2. Plays with the environment– play means trying stuff out to see what happens.
3. Looks for causal relationships.
4. Repeats the behavior that demonstrated causal relationships.
5. Starts building concepts based on observations and experiments that suggest other questions and activities.
What kind of person exhibits all these qualities? I showed them a picture of a baby. I then told them that most professional scientists have discovered science by fourth grade and I polled the audience. How many of them knew about science as children? Almost every hand went up. I quoted a distinguished Finnish educator who told me, "Education cannot be rushed. It's a law of nature: It takes nine months to make a baby and thirty years to make an engineer."

Then, through my books, I showed them my process, which I describe in the post "How I Teach STEM." I opened the floor to questions after I had "lectured" for about a half an hour. I was startled at the number and the kinds of questions they asked, mostly about how to engage students who seem to be anything but attentive. But then I recalled that most academics are thrown into classrooms as "teaching assistants" with absolutely no instruction in pedagogy.
Some may be natural teachers but most work under the assumption that if they say it, the student learns it. Besides, the emphasis on the part of the university is on research not teaching. They get away with it because today's top tier students have, for the most part, learned how to learn. Many are already autodidacts

Josh once told me a story about one of his undergraduate TA instructors in optics who was a foreign national, with a heavy accent, which no one could understand. He wrote equations with his right hand as he talked with his back to his students and then proceeded to erase what he wrote with his left hand. The students took notes frantically, understanding nothing, in the hopes that they would discover something in their notes that they could find in a book after the lecture so they could figure what the lecture was about. The only reason for attending the lecture was to learn what content would probably show up on the final exam. The attrition rate for optics majors was 50%.

Lectures can be entertaining, even riveting when there is a great deal prior knowledge on the part of the audience. A learned speaker can shed new light on esoteric subjects that delight as they inform. The speaker can capture an audience by showing his/her own enthusiasm and passion for the content. And the speaker can engage an audience by asking questions of them-- who are they? Why are they here? What are their expectations for this class?

In this information age, the lecture has three main functions:
1. To present content in such a way that it motivates students to want to learn it and will do so on their own after class.
2. To connect students to the importance and value the course has had on the development of knowledge. Why they need to know this stuff.
3. To validate what the students have studied to solidify their own emerging knowledge.

And yes, to preview what will undoubtedly be on the final exam. In all cases, if the professor imbues the lecture with his/her own passions and enthusiasms, if he or she reveals their own humanity, their words from the lectern will not fall on deaf ears. Like writing, itself, it's a skill that can't be taught but it can be learned. It will mean that many professors will have to step out of their comfort zones.

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How I Teach STEM

20/10/2019

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, all separate disciplines in history that are now linked conceptually in the acronym, and, hopefully, in curricula. These new books of mine are in a new imprint, Racehorse, for my publisher Skyhorse Publishing. They are the first original books I have created for them, although they have published three other titles of mine that are bind-ups of evergreen subjects that went out of print and now live on as bigger books representing about thirteen individual titles. The Racehorse imprint is on topics in children's books that are trending. Since I have always integrated the STEM disciplines in all of my books about settled science (basic principles of physics, chemistry, and biology), I have to smile. Almost 50 years after the publication of my first breakthrough book, Science Experiments You Can Eat, I'm in the right place at the right time to catch the wave.

My friend, Dr. Myra Zarnowski, who teaches in the Education School of Queens College, has been asking me for years to "unpack my process." She wants me to articulate what has always been intuitive for me. Well, Myra, let me try to do just that, using my two latest books as examples.

1. I connect my reader emotionally to a phenomenon they have observed or can create. The first sentences in Ice Cream  are:
"Ever eat ice cream soup? If not, here’s how to make it. Put a scoop of ice cream in a dish. Leave it alone. Wait. This is the slow but sure recipe for making ice cream soup."
Here I am inviting kids to do something slightly absurd and think about ice cream in a humorous way.

In Straw, I invite them to try something that looks easy but turns out to be impossible:
"Bet You Can't Suck a Drink Through Two Straws:
"Put two straws in your mouth. Put one straw in your drink and let the other hang
outside the glass. Suck away through both straws at the same time!"
Done correctly, no drink arrives in your mouth.

2. Next I invite the reader to wonder what makes these things happen. I ask them questions:
What is the shape of a scoop of ice cream? Does it have its own shape? Sucking is work that goes against the force of gravity. What is the source of that force?

I also give activities that help to answer the questions. What kind of face do you make when you suck? What happens to the size of the inside of your mouth when you suck? (I'm paraphrasing here so you get the idea.)

3. In Ice Cream , I point out that only one part of the mixture of foods that is in ice cream is the part that actually freezes. It's the water that's already in milk and cream. So scientists isolate the part that changes so they can understand it better. What follows are activities with ice and water.
In Straw, they discover that air pressure -- an invisible force-- does the work if you create a partial vacuum, a term they come to understand through the story of a historical experiment--the invention of the barometer.

4. Finally, I tie the principles discovered by science to technology, engineering, and math. In Ice Cream, they discover that different materials used for drinking can act as insulators and slow down the rate of melting. In Straw, I explain how a partial vacuum is made by a fan in a vacuum cleaner and they can discover the place where there is suction and where there is exhaust.

In other words, I begin with what they know, make them think about it in a different way and give them tools to explore those thoughts and then connect those thoughts to something else they are very familiar with. Because I integrate activities throughout, my books are hybrids between expository material, narratives and a lab manual. (They are not supposed to be read like a novel.) The child sees for him/herself the evidence that can be applied to solving other challenges. It's an arc I repeat over and over in all my books in different and creative ways.

Instead of dragging children into the world of STEM, I bring STEM into the world of children. It's a paradigm shift from traditional texts in the individual disciplines. And it works.

A Reading-Maker Book Festival

7/10/2019

Here I am, for the seventh time, at the annual Chappaqua Children's Book Festival. I'm holding a poster for my two newest books in a series called STEM Play. They are literately "hot-off-the-press" and this was my first view of the finished books. What a thrill! Chappaqua, in Westchester County, NY, is a town that values education and reading and attracts the same kind of crowd at their Festival. Last year we had 7,000 visitors, but there were more this year and it was a joy to meet so many families with the interest and money to invest in their children's education.

The public schools here are excellent and the students take the standardized tests. Even so it creates anxiety for good readers. At the end of the Festival, Alexandra Siy and I presented a program on "Slaying the Standardized Testing Dragon." We made a bookmark with the help of our pal Jan Adkins. And we prepared a handout with a strategy for creating life-long learners who love to read books. I'm hoping that you find this useful.

iNK Think Tank’s Strategy or “Secret Sauce”

*Go to www.nonfictionminute.org
*Scroll down the “Categories” on the right to find a topic that interests you.
*Choose a Nonfiction Minute to read. If you are not a strong reader, click on the arrow on the player when it is blue and listen to the author read his/her Minute aloud.
*Plan to keep reading Nonfiction Minutes on a regular basis.
*Click on the T2T icon to see what the Minutes can teach you.
*Make a list of the subjects you have to learn at school.
*Go to iNK Database and register. Use the database to search for lists of books on the subjects you have to learn about in school. http://inkthinktank.org/search/register.cfm
*Go to the library and take out books on those subjects. Read the first paragraph. If the book doesn’t grab you, don’t read it. Pick another.
*Only read books you like to read even if they seem hard at first.
TO BECOME A READER, YOU MUST READ WIDELY (NONFICTION MINUTES) AND DEEPLY (BOOKS ON SUBJECTS THAT INTEREST YOU).

Reading is the most intimate way to connect your mind to another person’s mind. In time, reading will become a life-long habit that you cannot live without. The standardized test will become easy. No sweat at all!!!

Why Education Should Always Be Nonprofit

21/9/2019

On a beautiful, early fall afternoon, I took some Dutch friends on a tour of a local attraction, the Rockefeller estate, call Kykuit (meaning "lookout" in Dutch) for its spectacular vistas of the Hudson River Valley. Now a National Trust attraction, this magnificent edifice, built in 1906, pioneered creature comforts that rival the way we live today ( e.g. it was fully electrified) and houses exquisite art at every turn. As our guide pointed out priceless furnishings, sculptures and paintings, he also kept emphasizing the philanthropy of the Rockefeller family, particularly in medicine and art.

The three generations of Rockefeller families who lived at Kykuit, staffed the house with 10 servants and minions of grounds keepers. Everywhere you look in this magnificent estate you experience the product of loving care, artistry and comfort. The service staff brought the human touch to the daily activities that the family engaged in. Family members used their money to pay creative people. A highlight is the below ground art galleries of Nelson Rockefeller with their extraordinary Picasso tapestries. But the Rockefellers also paid their staff a living wage--Pocantico Village is where you'll find the modest but comfortable homes built for their employees. The wife of one of their gardeners worked for my parents for years as a housekeeper and later as a caregiver. She had nothing but good things to say about her husband's employer. She was an Irish immigrant who believed that there was dignity in service to others. We called her Mrs. Furphy.

Near the end of our tour, as we walked through the carriage house featuring their collection of horse-drawn and motor vehicles of the early 20th century, I couldn't resist from asking our guide a politically incorrect question: "It has been said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. What is your response to that?" Our guide was quick to answer: "John D. Rockefeller Senior committed no crimes because there were no laws restricting the ways he amassed his fortune basically by refining oil into kerosene for lighting homes. He called his company Standard Oil [ESSO became the company's brand by spelling out the initials] because of the reliably high quality of his product. However, many have said that his behavior could be considered unethical at times." Then he segued back to talking about the truly formidable force for good that the Rockefeller philanthropies have been for generations.

A brilliant economist and venture-capital friend of mine once told me, "If you create something of value, you should be able to make money from it." That is the capitalist system. J.D. Rockefeller refined oil to make the best kerosene on the market and bought out all his competitors offering cash or stocks in his company. And if that didn't work, he just lowered his prices and ran them out of business. (Those who took the stock all became multimillionaires.) Laws that stopped the practice of building a monopoly for a commodity were enacted after J.D. Rockefeller and his "robber baron" contemporaries, who shaped the beginning of the industrial revolution, had had their way.

But lately I've been thinking, no! Not everything of value should feed the profit motive. Certainly not education. There should be funding available to pay for high quality public education for the public good but its financial health should not include ways to amass fortunes for the "owners." Who are the money-makers in charter schools and vouchers? The realtors who provide the buildings and the top executives who siphon off exorbitant salaries while paying young, inexperience teachers the least they can get away with while pressing them into services (sometimes custodial) that are not part of their high intensity, exhausting, and sometime profoundly rewarding profession. For-profit charter schools fight against teachers' unions that collectively bargain for a decent wages and working conditions for their members. Excellent teachers work for the love of teaching. That's why merit pay for teachers doesn't make them better teachers. The budget items for a rich educational experience for the students are what usually get cut by for-profit schools in exchange for computers that could bring a virtual tour of, say, Kykuit. Why do private schools command exorbitant tuition? Because they are, for the most part, prepared to create meaningful, non-virtual educational experiences for every student. This means that teachers have the support, both financially and professionally that they need to do their jobs successfully. And that's why excellent teachers will take jobs in private schools although they usually pay lower salaries than public schools.

Most people, who love their work, do not aspire to live like the Rockefellers. We need a middle class who has sufficient income for decent homes and food, health care, education for their children and yes, enough for vacations and recreation. I looked around Kykuit and imagined how much time must have been spent purchasing stuff with status, constantly adding to the collections in their home, changing clothes for every meal, calling a servant to serve tea or to perform some other menial task. Even the recreational facilities were on site. A private "Playhouse" housed a bowling alley and indoor swimming pool. And, of course, there were several outdoor swimming pools, a golf course and tennis courts on the property amidst the formal gardens.

Kykuit is a museum now. I am grateful that I have the education to appreciate its beauty and its history. As a National Trust, it is now a nonprofit for the public good. What do you think might be the take-away of public school students who took a field trip to this family home of obsolete grandeur, art, and splendid self-contained isolation?

I'll bet that they wouldn't trade it for their phones!

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Excellence for Kids: Free and Online

Why the Lecture?

How I Teach STEM

A Reading-Maker Book Festival

Why Education Should Always Be Nonprofit

Vicki Cobb

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Excellence for Kids: Free and Online

Why the Lecture?

How I Teach STEM

A Reading-Maker Book Festival

Why Education Should Always Be Nonprofit

Vicki Cobb

​Archives

​Categories

Links

Company

Contact

Archives

Categories