June 5, 2008
My students are doing projects on 19th Century American Heroes. Yesterday a student found a quote from Clara Barton that she asked me to help her interpret. After reading it I realized that it was a quote that describes my feelings towards education.
“I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.” - Clara Barton
I really want a quote. You know, a quote that when people hear it they say “hey, didn’t Paul Bogush say that.” A quote that will last longer than my presence here on Earth. One that is googlable. I thought I had a pretty good one awhile back. Years ago I started saying that “I don’t teach kids so that they will be ready for the future, I teach them to create the future.” Well a couple months ago I heard Wesley Fryer use it in a podcast and have seen it pop up in a couple of other places. Seems like I lost that one. Dang it.
Maybe someday I will blog the quote or post that gets sent around the internet. I really think that is the reason why I am blogging. For the hope that one day I will hit gold with some words and get my 15 Seconds of Fame. Do you have a post or quote you want to be known for?
For now I live on watching my little counter go up by a few each day, and for those of you that leave comments—I can’t even tell you how much it means to me. I can almost say with certainty that if my counter did not take a few ticks up each day, and I did not get the occasional comments I would stop blogging. That’s not a good thing, but the truth. So for everyone who visits Blogush and leaves a comment—Thank you. Thank you so much. You really do make me feel so important.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Our good buddy Kevin Honeycutt has had that happen to him a lot. But his quotes are very sticky and when people hear them, it rolls so easily off the tongue.
I wasn’t sure if I had taken “schooly” from someone, but I truly do think I used it, even privately, a lot time ago. Now it seems as if I’m quoting Clay.
Yep, blogging does put you on the record early on. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m a quotable character; but I’ll be content to spread others’ words of wisdom.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Hi Paul,
I’d like to be known for saying this:
“Technology should only be used when such use is the BEST or only way to do something. If a task or project can be done just as well or better without the technology, then we should be asking “why are we doing it this way?”
I’ve seen teachers do some pretty silly things using a computer, just for the sake of using a computer - making paper snowflakes online for example, rather than by hand. They had nothing to show for their efforts; no snowflakes to tape to the wall… how sad. I’ve also seen assignments where the Powerpoint just replaced the bristol board display… again… quite sad. Now… limiting students to five words and one image per slide in order to get their message across… that’s an entirely different assignment!
Of course, I’d like to make it more eloquent sounding and less wordy, but keep the gist of the message. Quotes are usually so succinct and sagacious.
And by the way… I enjoy reading your posts - I’d be quite sad if you decided to stop writing. Yours is one of the first I always read off my aggregator, and NOT just because alphabetically, it’s near the top!
June 28th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
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