the spectrum of consciousness

The month of February was filled with snow interrupting 3 of the 5 weeks - Accuweather.

1/31R - Closed

2/1F - Early Dismissal

2/11M - Closed

2/12T - Closed

2/13W - Closed / Teacher In Service

2/18M - President’s Day, District Holiday

2/20W - Closed

2/21R - 2hr Delay

While this impacted teacher’s lesson plans, I was able to slow down and do some more thinking about the projects and process. That was the focus from the Foundry Winter Retreat that was held on Monday February 4th at Messiah College’s Eisenhower Conference Center. That same week was the The Greater Capital Region STEAM Ecosystem Convening held at Harrisburg University on Thursday February 7. Related to these discussions were my own continued thinking of Community Capacity Building. More on this at the end of this blog.

Before I start to discuss the status of making in the John Harris and SciTech Campuses, I wanted to take time to highlight African American History Month. These are important because as someone said recently in cutting straight to the point during one of the book discussions. They made the point asking, "when will white folks take time to meet African American's in their spaces / places, instead of having to invite them into book stores or other perceived 'white spaces'?" They had a very good point. I have to agree. Outside of the youth and young adults, there needs to be more venturing into other spaces. I can also understand this as a very real need for myself, who is white, to push into uncomfortable discussions that I might not have the right words or ways to process things. This is extremely important, to be extremely vulnerable, to be human, to make the discussion of race extremely palpable.

On Wednesday February 6th, Harrisburg Brethren in Christ (the church that my family and I attend) started a book study of Austin Channing Brown’s, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. This discussion started that journey for the entire congregation. Ms. Brown's book is a extremely powerful book and looks like it will be an educational study well through the month of May at 1 Chapter a Week for 17 weeks.

The start of this study connected to another impactful book by Robbie Tolan’s, No Justice: One White Police Officer, One Black Family, and How One Bullet Ripped Us Apart. The local Midtown Scholar was the place where Mr. Tolan spoke on Tuesday February 12th. He was emotional when talking about his experience and the importance to bring light to other national incidents of police brutality. This is through his case of Tolan v. Cotton and his Project 1231. Mr. Tolan’s explained the terrible connections of being unarmed and shot in his parent’s driveway in Bellaire, TX on December 31, 2008.

New Years Eve, December 31st 2008, was the same evening when two other famous shootings occurred, but with with tragic consequences of both individuals dying:

• Oscar Grant III in Oakland, CA

(22yo - who had a 4yo daughter, Tatiana)

• Adolph Grimes III in New Orleans, LA

(22yo - who had a 17mo old son, Chris)

The story of Oscar Grant was told in the movie Fruitvale Station and directed by Ryan Coogler, the director of Creed, Creed II and Black Panther (and the announced Black Panther 2.) I wrote about the movie Black Panther last in my March 2018 Foundry Makerspace blog post. A great website full of statistics on Police Brutality can be found at Join Campaign Zero as well as Mapping Police Violence.

On Thursday, February 7th, I attended an amazing event where former NASA Astronaut, Dr. Guy Bluford, spoke at Penn State University Harrisburg. He was an amazing speaker full of good insight on what it was like to be in space. The most amazing thing was the span of time that he has witnessed from the start of the Civil Rights Movement, to his first flight into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-8 on August 30th, 1983. I was 3 months past turning 10 and I remember this event. I remember watching the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise (on Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft - SCA on February 18, 1977. While I wasn't quite 4 years old yet, but for some reason I have memories of seeing this on TV. This was big!

REF: I highly recommend the 2017 documentary, The Mars Generation. It provides a very good overview of space travel and ties into the

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STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ARTS, MATHEMATICS:

Library Makerspace (Mrs. Brown)

There are no updates about this project in February asMrs. Brown is still developing the Makerspace at the John Harris Library. Due to the classroom disruptions from snow delays or closures, it has been difficult to find a full week of classes.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS:

STEM Lab (Mr. Gigac)

This project is still on hold as I try to setup a time to meet up with the Long Term Substitute Teacher.

ARTS:

A/V Studio Lab (Mr. Williams & Mr. Burns)

Through the Spring Mr. Williams and Mr. Burns have been working on a Film Production class. In the meantime Mr. Williams had an idea for a Family Feud Competition for the Winter Carnival on Friday February 15th. I had helped to create 2 buttons that would be used to signal a participant’s answer. I married Electronics, Technology and Programming using the MakeyMakey and Scratch.MIT.Edu. The final Scratch code for Family Feud worked well and really added to the event.

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STEAM Making @SciTech Campus High School

TECHNOLOGY:

SciBots (Mrs. Worful, Mr. Group, Mr. Green)

Officially the FIRST Tech Challenge competition will wrap up on Saturday 3/2 and Sunday 3/3. The last Qualifying Tournament ended on Sunday February 24th.

On January 05, The FIRST Robotics Competition - Destination Deep Space competition kicked off and will continue into the summer.

It has been a tough transition this year. While it would have been good to compete, we are realizing that there are several factors involved in the process. First, we must recognize that the Foundry Makerspace is not a Product Supplier. We go into each school, walking along side of teachers who love their craft of teaching. They want to do projects that incorporate Project Based Learning / Experiential Learning. Second, within each year, there will never be a constant flow of interested students. Some years gaps might occur. This was one of them because of the transition from the Seniors last year and knowledge the wasn't passed along to the next generation. Third, Robotics is a difficult endeavor. It takes Engineering, Technology and Computers, or as I love to say from my days at HACC 2009-2012, ETC. It also has to compete with Extra Curricular's such as Sports / Clubs and most important Academics. Remember back to my high school years of simpler days, it seemed that time moved so slow. Things are different now. Expectations are different. It should be noted. Fourth, we had the retirement of Bob Steps last June. Bob put in 13+ years helping the Robotics Team / Club compete. He knew that the importance wasn't about competing, but the experience.

I think that needs to be repeated, it isn't about the competition.

This might be a lousy response, but it is an honest one. We need to measure all types of changes, both good and bad. Data is data and it helps us know what is working and what isn't. A good example would be, if a team were always winning, they might lose track of why they are successful. Similar to a student who is always doing well in school. It might be natural, but without proper self reflection, as to an approach, they might get to a different type of challenge and completely fall apart. I've seen this of other students in college as well as teaching at HACC.

In life and in education, I feel we place too much emphasis on competition rather then the enjoyment of being in the moment. This is what making is about. Why does one spend many hours to become more proficient (140703 - Business Insider New Study Destroys Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule - I just heard a teacher refer to this concept, which I had to correct.)

Sadly, we have to push past failure and sometimes failure / fear keeps us from trying to do more. I believe the greater answer lies in Self-Efficacy - "individual's belief in their innate ability to achieve goals." A study from August of 2018 by Abram Anders of the University of Duluth did a study of 72 undergraduate business students to test the learning design of Network Learning: "Personal Learning Networks, Blog-based Learning Community, and Mastery Experiences for Networking with Professionals." This connects with some of the thinking that I've been doing about community capacity building and I have written more on this topic in the next section of this blog post.

Connected to that is the Alberta Bandura's Triadic Reciprocal Determinism, which looks at the relationships of Personal, Behavioral and Environmental. This was looked at by Agnis Stibe in September 2014 at the ESLSCA Business School in Paris. There is also a good reference from PSU's Confluence Wikispaces - PSYCH 484: Work Attitudes and Job Motivation by Kayla Weaver FA16.

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To wrap up this month's blog I wanted to connect back to Community Capacity Building. During a snow day on Wednesday February 20th, I stumbled across something significant. I try to keep a mindset that I don't know everything, but in the pursuit of acquiring knowledge, I can sometimes forget this as I get lost down rabbit holes. There is a funny story about that regarding someone at StartupHbg, who said " 'Rob'it-Holes" as a joke. I thought it was hilarious because I am self conscious that I do have a tendency to go off on tangents, but I totally do this fully realizing that I have to purposefully bring it back to why it matters.

In my mind I love the Six Degrees of Separation of ideas (Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and American Social Psychologist Stanley Milgram) and his well known Obedience Experiment - in the 2015 movie the Experimenter.) I find a game of it everywhere I go or in conversations I enter into. I have known this since teaching at HACC because students would pick topics and challenge me to connect them.

The big find was Richard Barrett's spectrum of Leadership Consciousness. For me it was an awakening to try and characterize the state of leaders within the local, state and national arenas. It was also a way to understand local individuals and organizations (government, business, nonprofit, religious, educational) that might fluctuate within a context, task, situation or decision.

Barrett's creation of this model was to look at

"The model applies to

all types of organisations

—corporations, government departments, municipal agencies, institutions, non‐governmental organisations (NGO),

and educational establishments"

- Barrett Values Centre, The Seven Levels of Organisational Consciousness, p. 1

This is helpful because the scale:

1. Has an adaptable spectrum - it can be based on situational / or context / or decision - transforms over time

2. Has a "neutral state" of Level 4 - Transformation - this means that we should strive for neutral as average, or healthy. Pushing up to Level 7 gets into the topic of sustainability.

3. Levels 1-3 have a "Positive Focus or Excessive Focus" - this shows that even below the "Level 4 - Transformation - Neutral State" there still can be health in trying to Be Stable, Belong, or High Performing. This is important within schools because there might be a lot of Personal / External / Behavioral. This is the connection back to Albert Bandura's social psychological theory of Triadic Reciprocal Determinism (see the section above).

As I move through the second half of my Foundry Makerspace Fellowship, I hope to test this within capacity building of both the schools and the Harrisburg community via the Harrisburg Comprehensive Plan.

This relates back to my 170930 blog post, Time Nurturing.

In support of African American History Month, I dug up this list of famous African American Psychologists from Active Minds and also dug up the Association of Black Psychologists - ABPSI. I look to connect this to Austin Channing Brown's book through the spring. I've also been revisiting ideas from the late Frances Cress Welsing and The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism.

1. KENNETH BANCROFT CLARK (1914-2005) - "Work essential in case of Brown v. Board of Education."

2. FRANCIS CECIL SUMNER (1895-1954) - "First African American to receive his Ph.D. in Psychology."

3. MAMIE PHIPPS CLARK (1917-1983) - "Her work with children showed that African American children became aware of their racial identity at about three years old."

4. INEZ BEVERLY PROSSER (1891-1934) - "She was the first African American woman to receive her Ph.D."

5. ROBERT LEE WILLIAMS II (1930-PRESENT) - "He was a founding member of the National Association of Black Psychologist (ABSPI) and served as its second president."

6. ALBERT SIDNEY BECKHAM (1897-1964) - "He is regarded as the first African American to hold the title school for Juvenile Research and Chicago Bureau of Child Study."

7. KOBI KAMBON (AKA JOSEPH A. BALDWIN) - "Served as the president of the Association of Black Psychologists from 1982-1983."

8. BEVERLY DANIEL TATUM (1954-PRESENT) - "She’s widely recognized as a race relations expert and leader in higher education."

9. JOSEPH L. WHITE (1932-PRESENT) - "Helped found the Association of Black Psychologists and establish the first Black Studies Program during the 1968 strike at San Francisco State University."

10. HERMAN GEORGE CANADY (1901-1970) - "He was the first psychologist to examine the role of the race of the examiner as a bias factor in IQ testing."

(SOURCE: ActiveMinds.org - https://www.activeminds.org/blog/10-african-african-american-psychologists-you-should-know/)

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Epilogue:

I wanted to add one final point as it relates to building self-efficacy. It is probably a stretch to connect this to Esports, but I think there is a link here. I grew up not having any interest in sports. I thank my parents that they never pushed me into sports. In light of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) I am so thankful that I didn't enter into sports.

This is probably why I am very self conscious of not pushing my own daughters into any specific interest. We self select. I will nudge and suggest or provide the opportunity to engage, but I've realized that a "laissez-faire" approach has been best.

(1) I've seen them develop their own skills and natural tendencies and become better at self selecting as well as self discipline.

(2) I've seen the worst in parents living vicariously through their children. Very bad examples, to the point of being sad. I recognize the agency needed within my daughters and that they are unique and so am I.

With all that said, it does warm my heart that my daughters are gamers. It is something that they have developed - through various gaming systems Wii, PS3, PS4, and also the PC, and in various games Minecraft, The Sims, Call of Duty, Burnout, and now Overwatch.

Knowing this, I have a deep concern for students who just don't fit a "majority mold." They aren't into Sports, Music Performance (instruments - both tried piano, one tried the clarinet, one tried the cello), or Arts (both are artistic and like to paint and draw.) They were into Theater, but honestly got sick of the drama, literal drama of personalities and egos.

This left them with computers. I recognize that they mimic my own interests connecting back to Bandura's Triadic Reciprocal Causation.

So on Thursday February 14th, the 2019 Overwatch League (OWL) began and it will continue until Sunday August 25th. In my 181005 blog post titled The Essence of Humanity, I wrote about the importance of Esports and that we might miss out how it connects to the future of sports, in light of injury and personal sacrifice.

ADD IN HIGH QUALITY IMAGE OF GAME DATES

Saturday February 16th, was the continuation of the of Harrisburg University's Esport's season. The HU Storm competed against the PSU Esports Team. My daughter and I attended the event along with one of her Overwatch game-mates. I would love to start a high school level team and we're discussion this within the Foundry - High School Esports League (HSEL.)

"The immense popularity of

survival-based games like Fortnite,

growing prize pools for

eSports tournaments,

the rise of live-streaming,

and improving infrastructure

for pro leagues have all

paved the way for

eSports to reach

300 million viewers

by 2022, on par with

NFL leadership today"

- 180626, The Street, research from Goldman Sachs

"No state has yet sanctioned gaming as an official sport. Because of this, all organized high school esports teams are run as clubs rather than as "school sponsored" sports. This may soon change, however, as organizations like the High School Esports League (HSEL), the High School Starleague (HSL) and Youth Esports of America (YEA) continue to actively lobby school districts to elevate esports to the level of schools’ football and basketball teams." - Viewsonic.com