some updates

I spoke at the Mashable Connect Conference in Orlando, Florida, recently--you can check out my speech, and the accompanying article (which has already gotten hundreds of tweets, amazingly!) here: http://mashable.com/2012/05/10/millennials-social-media-adora-svitak/

Also while in Florida, I had the chance to meet Dave Finnigan, the legendary juggler (author of several books on the topic, and founder of a non-profit, "Juggling for Success," which teaches young people important life skills through juggling). He taught me how to juggle, a first for me, and we also discussed his new program, "Climate Change is Elementary"! It's an awesome non-profit which brings compelling, interactive education on the issue of climate change to elementary school students. One of my favorite things is that it really empowers students--to learn about something in an active way (the program doesn't use slides and a lecture, but rather interactive movement and modeling), and to become activists. I love this approach and encourage you all to check out the website: http://www.climatechangeiselementary.com/ and encourage your local schools to check it out! They're also hoping to partner soon with the Earth Island Institute, another great organization.

Furthermore, I finished my first AP tests this week--AP Art History (the hardest, and most epic one), AP English Literature and Composition (I thought it was going to be quite arduous when I started going through my massive stack of flashcards and saw words like "polysyndeton" and "epistrophe," but it was actually pretty manageable), and AP US History (my studying was a little last-minute, so I'm unsure, but I felt fairly good with most of the content). I feel like CollegeBoard makes way too much money off these exams--and is a little hyper active about test security--but I think it is cool that we high school students have an opportunity to get college credit, and do college-level work, in high school. Your thoughts on AP's and standardized testing?

Hope all you youth writers think of contributing to my writing blog, writewithadora.com, and the education reform discussion on The Student Union: facebook.com/groups/thestudentunion. See you all with some more posts in the summer! :) (or sooner)

on being overly apologetic

I never thought I had a problem with saying "Sorry" until I apologized to a chair.
"Sorry!" I gasped as I barreled past, almost knocking it to the floor. "I mean--nothing--chair--" and then I stopped talking, because I realized I looked like a big enough fool already.

But this issue of over-apologetic-ness has come to a point where even my biology teacher told me to "stop saying sorry!" Apparently, now that I'm aware of the word, I use it everywhere. I say, "Sorry" when I'm beginning to ask a question to a busy person, "Sorry" after a near-miss collision in the school hallway, "Sorry" to car drivers who patiently wait for me to run across the street (even though they probably can't hear me mumble)...all this despite the fact that, really, I've done nothing wrong.

With this unnecessary use of the word you might think that I'm an awesome apologizer (which, by the way, is not a word, though it totally should be). Not true. I can't remember the last time I apologized without the strange habit of crossing my fingers to invalidate it (blame it on a childhood filled with perceived injustices in sibling disputes, alright?)

So yeah, I really have a problem with the word "Sorry."

Sorry!

Write With Adora

I'm launching a new website, Write With Adora (http://writewithadora.com)--a place for "the collected works of youth literati." I want it to become a literary magazine of sorts with poetry, literary criticisms and reviews, short stories, and creative non-fiction. It's really powered by the community that submits work, so please encourage your students or classmates and friends to send in writing! 

Education: not ready to listen?

"The customer knows best." It's an adage seemingly old as time (for us young'uns, anyway). While it's not always the case (as anyone who has worked an intense over-the-phone customer service job before may know), it's certainly always valuable for businesses to listen to what clients are saying--whether surveys, market research, or feedback cards, many businesses have some structure in place to listen to their customers. And public feedback can have an important impact--Bank of America cancelled its $5-a-month debit card fee before it even began due to customer backlash.

In almost every area of the private and public sectors (think of representatives meeting with constituents or city hall meetings), there are ways for "customers"--those receiving the services or being represented--to make their voices heard. So why should education be any different?

Education? you might think. Surely there are those school board meetings or PTAs? But a crucial voice is missing in education: that of the student's. How often do classroom teachers ask students to provide them with feedback on how their teaching could be improved so students learn better? When was the last time administrators sat down with students and gave them decision-making power or at least input--no, not just over the theme of the Homecoming Dance or how to decorate the school for the holidays, but important issues like curriculum, required courses, or assessment?

I'm asking these questions because of an email from a prestigious education membership organization that my mom recently received in response to talks about a potential book I was hoping to write (that would bring issues of student voice, reciprocal learning, and education technology to the forefront). It said that based on their research, the education community "is not yet ready to receive the message from a student."

If the education community is unable or unwilling to receive a message about education from a student, I think we have problems. We'd find it unacceptable if our representatives suddenly started refusing to meet with constituents or if companies like Bank of America kept on charging ridiculous fees despite public uproar. Yet we accept that education doesn't want to hear from students? We are the "customers" of our nation's schools. It's in our interest to learn in the best way we can--many of my fellow students have plenty of wise insights that I think could help change education for the better--but that simply won't happen if the adults in the room are covering their ears.

"One Expensive Chocolate Bar" - Story Written With Elementary School Students Over Video Conferencing

One Expensive Jumbo Chocolate Bar

     It was quite a festive scene at the McHugh house on January 17^th . There were bright red and gold streamers, colorful lights, and a very big chandelier.

     It was all to celebrate Bob McHugh’s birthday. He was the baby of the family—he was just turning seven years old (and very proud of it). All day in school, he had been reminding his classmates how old he was.

     “I’m turning seven!” he shouted in the middle of PE class.

     “That’s very nice. Now go do five more pushups,” said the PE teacher gruffly.

     Bob was super excited about the number of presents he received on his birthday from friends and family. Not only did he get a brand new toy train set and an iPod, Bob also received fifteen dollars in cash from his grandpa.

     “That’s more than last year,” commented his brother David as Bob counted his money. “Wait—watch out, Bob—you’re throwing money all over the place—” David gaped helplessly as his little brother tossed money in the air and cackled.

     “I’m rich! I’m rich!” Bob crowed gleefully.

     “Uhhh…not quite,” David said matter-of-factly. “Fifteen dollars is a lot of money, but it’ll go really fast unless you manage it carefully.”

     “You sound like a banker, David,” Bob said, sounding bored. “What do you think I can get with all this money? Do you think I could get that jumbo chocolate Hershey’s bar?”

     “Bob, would you really want to spend all your money on chocolate?” David asked, aghast.

     “Sure! Why not? It’s not like there’s anything better to spend it on,” Bob said obliviously.

     “I could think of a lot of things, but sure, it’s your money,” David said, and, shaking his head at Bob’s foolishness, left the room.

     The next day Bob ran down to the local chocolate store to buy his jumbo Hershey’s chocolate bar. He plunked down all fifteen dollars on the counter and smiled happily.

     Over the next few days, Bob’s attitude toward chocolate changed dramatically.

     On day five of eating chocolate non-stop, Bob looked with despair at his only quarter-finished jumbo chocolate bar.

     “I’m gonna die before I finish all this chocolate,” he moaned as David walked into the room. “There’s no way.”

     “I tried to warn you,” David said. He could have added another “I-told-you-so” but decided against it. “Next time you get a lot of money for your birthday, why don’t you save it?”

     “You’re sounding like a banker again,” Bob said unhappily, but he listened. “Alright, go on.”

     “You can save it and then when you have enough money, you can buy something big that you actually want,” David said, “or need. Instead of the jumbo chocolate bar, imagine if you had put that fifteen dollars in the bank and saved for that summer camp you really want to go to, or for college—”

     “Or for a flatscreen TV,” Bob said hopefully.

     David rolled his eyes. He wondered if Bob would ever learn…

     “But I think I’ll save it for college,” Bob added quickly with an angelic smile.

     “Okay,” David said, a little relieved. Maybe “sounding like a banker” wasn’t such an insult after all.

THE END.  

------

I wrote this with elementary school students via video conferencing as part of a program called "A Kid's Guide to Smart Money."

National Novel Writing Month and Homework

Hi guys,
I feel like I haven't posted anything in quite a while and wanted to quickly update on two things which I hope sort of explain my long silence:
1. I have slain the beast that is finishing NaNoWriMo! For those of you who aren't familiar with it, National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write 50,000 words (in a novel) in the month of November. I started work on my novel, Truth and Beauty, five days into the challenge and managed to finish a couple days early (out of necessity, since I was leaving on a trip to Colorado and California for two speeches). Oh yes--the speeches should also help explain the silence on here :) I will post more about my travels once I have finished the second thing, which is
2. Catching up on homework. I have a feeling I will have stuff left over to do on Winter Break. Mostly AP Art History stuff...writing 12 art criticisms in one night is no mean feat (although definitely not specific just to me--pretty much everyone else does exactly the same thing)...plus a biology test tomorrow, AP US History, AP Lit. and Comp., Geometry, and French. Yeah, I will definitely be doing work over Winter Break too.
I'd love to hear your opinion on homework and testing. I had the thought as I started studying for my tests coming up that tests don't necessarily test authentic learning--more realistically, they test how much studying you did the night before. However, if we don't use bubble-ins, how do we get results for data and research purposes? Better assessment was quite a hot topic at both of the two education conferences where I was presenting this week.

Social Circles

If you're an adult, I want you to think for a moment about your childhood; if you're a kid or teen, I want you to think a moment about your experience growing up and in the present day.

Ask yourself: who were/are my friends? Where did/do they come from?

As in--did they all go to the same school as you? Perhaps take one or more of the same classes with you? Hang out with your friends?

I'm guessing that most of them were, in some way or another, in your "social circle." My sister, Adrianna, is in high school. A lot of her friends are "Questies" (a reference to the "Quest" program for gifted students back in junior high). Her social circle, if I'm not much mistaken, mainly includes friends she's made in orchestra, Japanese class, and through mutual friends. She has 745 friends on Facebook; most of them go to her high school.

I have slightly more friends on Facebook (789). But of those friends, the overwhelming majority aren't local. I have friends from England to China, the United Arab Emirates to Indonesia, Mexico, Canada, etc. Some I've met at various conferences, others through blogs or shared advocacy groups (for instance, a lot of my friends are involved in education reform efforts).

If you think about how people make conversation, it's often by finding commonalities--the same hometown, the same favorite sports team, the same class or teacher or language studied. But I wonder: if most of your friends live within a fifty-mile radius, what does that say about you and your ability to connect with people, no matter how different they may seem?

When I think about it, many of the most awesome people I know are far-flung across the nation or the world. TEDxRedmond's speakers live in all corners of the US. Recently I caught up with Brigitte Berman(who spoke at TEDxRedmond last year about bullying) when I was in Boston. When I head to California for another TEDx event I'll be seeing Alec Loorz (environmental advocacy) and Jason O'Neill (entrepreneurship).

And my friends Line and Boushra Dalile (two sisters who are champion golfers, TEDxAjman speakers, and excellent writers) are from the United Arab Emirates; I had the chance to meet them in person when I went to Dubai earlier this year.

I've only met Brigitte twice, and Alec and Jason, Line and Boushra once each. I don't see them in the hallways every day at school, I don't say hi to them at the local library, I can't call them up to hang out or party. :) But I can remember having amazing conversations with them all--whether what we had in common was a conference, a goal, or a love for writing. 

Being able to connect with people regardless of "social circle"--transcending the usual measures we use to evaluate if someone is "like us"--is an invaluable skill. Think of how diplomats and businesspeople and the chatty person next to you on the plane do it. I found my own skills tested when I went to Sri Lanka as part of a field visit with the World Food Programme--an amazing organization which I'm proud to work with (you can see my blog post I wrote about that trip here). Visiting their school, I was more than a little nervous. What could I say to these kids, whose experiences seemed literally a world away? Tarp-roofed shacks that could be swept away by floods in the next rainy season. Kitchens without electricity or even running water. School lunch being a lifeline, not an object of complaint.

But despite their environment, so removed from the affluence I see in my home of Redmond, and the necessary trickiness of interpretation, there were still things to talk about. I tried teaching a bit of English, and simultaneously tried my best to comprehend Tamil. (I definitely failed). When I visited a maternity center, a joint program of the WFP and the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health, I sampled homemade foods from the new mothers in attendance. Appropriately for a field visit with the World Food Programme, conversation usually began with food--how school lunches were helping kids, etc. You see, when you're seeking ways to connect with people, you realize that commonalities may be right in front of you. On this trip, it was something basic: food. We all eat (though, as I saw firsthand, some obviously more than others).

The skill of being able to move between one "circle" to the next, with grace and fluidity, is important--not letting ourselves be defined by one term or one group or one organization/school--"Redmond High School" "Harvard" "Microsoft" "Republican" "Democrat" "black" "white" "nerds" "jocks" "geeks" "hipsters" "Questies." Sure, you might say that you have friends within a fifty-mile radius because really, it's hard to make friends outside of school or church or neighborhood. But even within the organizations you belong to--are you sticking inside just one social circle? Don't let commonalities trap you in a fishbowl.

So--try introducing your school friends to your music friends to your lacrosse friends to your education-reform-on-Facebook friends. Let those circles overlap. :)

And perhaps, at some point, we can forget about having firmly set social circles altogether. Because all that a circle does is keep some people in and all the rest of us, out.