Live and Learn New Mexico!

I've been learning more about the fracking industry and its effects on unsuspecting Americans and our planet. It is appalling, especially when you stop to consider the fact that we have clean energy technology that has no detrimental effects on anyone. We could be using clean energy now but -- OMG!! -- that would mean big business Oil and Gas would lose money, perhaps even go out of business. Instead, the government has passed laws that allow fracking operations in states like Colorado. People live in Colorado to get away from busy city life and pollution. Fracking has brought pollution, illness, and financial ruin to many of them. When they tried to get help, there was no one to turn to, not when our government makes laws to protect fracking, up to the point where frackers are allowed to contaminate drinking water. While we are trying to conserve water to the point where many of us take 5-minute showers and collect rain water, the government pours tons of water into fracking o...

I watch a lot of documentaries, especially since so many are coming from the grassroots level and have become so enlightening. In many, Nikola Tesla is discussed. When I was a kid, I learned all about Thomas Edison but I don't remember learning much about Tesla. Thomas Edison, a consummate capitalist, exemplified the American dream. Tesla wasn't money minded; he believed electricity should be free to everyone worldwide. Almost every time Tesla has been mentioned in a documentary, we are told that he died penniless, and I used to feel sorry for him because of that. But now, after all the years I've been observing and living the capitalism nightmare, I truly believe the guy probably died content and at peace with himself. He was not one of the millions of people on their death bed who express the regret that they spent their whole life working for money. I will not be one of those people either. The whole time I've been working on the XQ Super School Challenge, I...

The final question I need to draft for the XQ Super School challenge is not a difficult one but I am suffering writer's block for perhaps the first time in my life. I've sat down to answer this last question about five times over the last two days and this is the furthest I've gotten. I will get this done today!! Here's the question, in its simplest form, that I have to answer with no more than 300 words: What partners will be part of the ongoing work of the school?  Response: The L&LNM super school will work with partners around the state as learning communities are formed in NM cities and towns. These partners will be parents, teachers, businesses, nonprofits, school districts, library systems -- anyone who cares about our kids' learning and making New Mexico a better place to live. Many partners will be members of one or more learning community projects. Some will become teachers/trainers as well. We will take a systems approach as we build our schoo...

I have two more questions to answer on the XQ Super School Challenge application. Today's blog will address one of them, which asks, "What are your top three insights into how young people learn...?" The answer I came up with is actually what started it all for me. It was using clickers in the classroom that first caught my attention (and Khan Academy). Then I saw the most popular TED Talk with Sir Ken Robinson and my vision for L&LNM grew...then I read about the Slow Movement. Following is the answer I came up with: Today, it is possible to learn anywhere, and that is exactly what our kids are doing. As Sir Ken Robinson points out, going to a school building daily to study several discrete subjects is not realistic. The world can be our classroom. For our kids, it already is. With all the tools we have available to us now, our kids learn with every breath they breathe.  In connection with this concept, L&LNM believes that there is a dire need to re...

The August 2016 edition of  Psychology Today  has an article about self-directed learning. It talks about autodidacts, learners who "as soon as school or work stops serving their life goals...ditch the well-trodden path, bust out the map and compass, and cut cross-country to virgin territory..."  That is the kind of learning that L&LNM promotes. We want to celebrate the autodidacts and support them in their efforts by guiding them to resources they may not be aware of, questioning them, and asking them to explain their ideas and thoughts. We want to see them go out in the world, ready to learn something that they are passionate about. We know that those who go out and learn what they want to learn and fight battles they want to fight can be happy in life.  In an earlier post, when we were entering the XQ Super School Challenge, I described what L&LNM super school students would look like. I am presenting them again in this post because whether we became a...

A while back, I blogged about going local to solve global problems. I proposed that we bring our dairies back to NM and start providing food on a local, not global, basis. If we did this, would we alleviate the global warming problem (fewer cows would be farting)? The XQ Super School challenge asks how our super school will go global. In the concept submission, I skirted around the issue a little by saying that global is happening anyway and we need to learn from it before we can really say what we will do. And I thought about it. Then I did what some of you, if you have read my posts all along, are familiar with -- I flipped it. Most people are thinking of foreign exchange programs where our students go out in the world and study in other schools, live with other families. It's more an academic thing than a real life thing, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't think it fits with L&LNM's message. I propose that we tie in our global concept with ou...

I've been sitting and waiting for those who attended our Los Alamos meeting last week to answer some of the XQ super school challenge questions that I posted in my blog and put on Facebook. Nothing yet. I decided to be positive and think about what we DID talk about. We talked about some of the issues Los Alamos faces, which may be similar to other communities. Teen suicide, depression, and underage drinking were mentioned. I asked for ideas for projects that tie into any of those ideas, and the idea to start up a suicide hotline like UNM's Agora was brought up. Excellent! I now hope to help them form a learning community to tackle the project. But I need input from teens around the state, not just Los Alamos. Effect Social Change Through the Media This morning, as I read the really good free publication,  New Mexico Kids! , I saw that there is already a lot of good youth input out there that I can use to answer the XQ challenge application questions. Today, I found a ...

I was exploring my L&LNM Facebook page and the data it offers and found some useful information that will help me make an educated guess about how many XQ super school learning communities, LCs, that each community could have if this thing happens. I looked at the data surrounding the almost 700 page likes I have. Almost 700! Woo hoo! The likes are broken down by what cities the likers live in. That is going to make it so much easier to guess how many we can serve in each community. There are 300 in Abq! That is enough for 5-7 learning communities there, each working on a project, like road rage or homelessness, and coming up with possible solutions. In Las Cruces, there are 25 people; in Farmington, 10; in Santa Fe, 8; and in Cedar Crest, Los Alamos, Gallup, Grants, and Silver City, 3 each. I don't care if only one person in a community is interested. That's enough to start up a learning community in the Live and Learn New Mexico! super school. I am appealing to th...

I have an organizational meeting for the XQ Super School Challenge in Los Alamos this coming Tuesday, and I have knots in my stomach. Why am I even bothering with Los Alamos when my program is a statewide one and I don't have to have anything to do with that community if it makes me so uncomfortable? I grew up there and many years after graduation returned to live there for 13 years but that isn't the reason. I think it's because I see so much potential for the town. I started having ideas about how students could be better served there when I was running the GED program at UNM-Los Alamos. It is a mean-spirited community, though, very arrogant, very judge-y. If I didn't know that there are students and parents who suffer deeply because of the emphasis placed on succeeding in school, I think I could leave it behind. It is a town that makes everything a competition, even our kids' learning. It is also a town that makes the parents feel that they are the ones ...