"I do not yet have it perfect"....

When I start up my University of St. Thomas  teacher-ed classes
each term, I tell the students stories about great teachers and inspired
teaching, gleaned from my growing number of years in education.

Here's one of them:

Lieselotte Tschesche was a teacher of German to some of our middle
school kids in St. Paul back when I was at Saturn School in the early 90's.

She was celebrating 25 years as a teacher in the district and was so
being honored with a District Longevity pin. The district made a video
interview of her to be shown at the Opening Day convocation that year.
It was the hit of the morning. It wasn't the welcoming words of the
Superintendent that day that re-stoked the fire in the hearts of the
returning teachers. It was Lieselotte's story:

She had come to the US as a young girl after WW2, a survivor and a true believer in the power of learning. Here's the story she told the
audience: After raising her family, she decided to become a German
teacher. Why not, she said, my German was still perfect.

She found a job in St. Paul teaching middle school kids. Why there? Why not highschool?, she was asked.

"Because they are old enough to love to learn,"
she said, "but not so old they think they know everything. They are
fun, they are helpers, they are full of life." They loved the subject
she taught and would converse with her in their broken German even in
the halls, traipsing to the next class. They loved her.

She was an itinerant teacher whose desk was a shopping cart and she
had to haul all her tools from one room to another. The kids argued to
see whose turn it was to push the cart for her. Since she was an older
teacher who came to education later in life, the interviewer asked her
how did she find the energy for such a demanding job."I pace myself,"
she said, "and I let the students teach one another. I do not say very
much in my classes. My students know what to do. But I am tired at the
end of the day," she said, "and when I go home I put my feet up and
drink two cups of my very strong coffee. It refreshes me enough to
correct my papers and prepare for tomorrow."

When will you retire, she was asked. "Oh, I cannot yet
retire," she said, in her lovely German accent, "for I do not yet have
it perfect." That line resonated in the large auditorium where we are
all seated. I do not yet have it perfect. There was nary a stir after
we heard it.

I'm sure that many of the teachers there thought she was closer to
perfect than she knew. She was committed to her craft and her kids, to
the start of this new year of teaching which afforded her and everyone
there another opportunity to do it better.

Mrs. Tschesche passed away this past year at the age of 96. She had touched many lives. That's what teachers do, and that's why we also call our profession a "practice."

I don't know for a fact, but I'd guess she taught until she could no longer teach, and then,
and only then, it was perfect.

REPRINT: Popular New Movie to IBM and Their Revolutionary New Watson Project, To More STEM-Based Learning for K12 Learners!

RE@L has long been committed to promoting STEM learning for our K12 students, irrespective of gender, race, and special needs. Here’s why:

The movie we last mentioned in our RE@L Blog, “Hidden Figures,” is still drawing crowds to the theaters. Many parents are bringing their children to see it, and so are teachers bringing their students. Our first blog in this series tells why this film it’s a must-see. Click here to see that story.

This fascinating movie, which is a contender in the upcoming Academy Awards, is a well-told, true story of how three young, black women engineers at IBM worked with NASA and its emerging program to put a man on the moon.

Their quick wits and STEM-based training actually helped save a young astronaut whose space capsule would have landed in unchartered waters, thanks to a computer failure. Their slide rules and manual calculations located the precise spot! They all were, what we would call today, STEM-educated.

RE@L also noted this excerpted quote in the Philadelphia Daily News by reporter Gary Thompson, reprinted in The Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Schools are taking students to see this movie. It’s becoming part of the curriculum. We just had a free screening at USC for 8,000 inner-city high school students. They love the movie, he said, I think, because it allows them to see what’s possible.”

In K12 education, “what’s possible” is what it’s all about. If you’ve followed our RE@L Blog for the last few weeks, you’ve seen how initiatives like putting an astronaut on the moon can also put many well-trained people to work. It’s not just the engineers and mathematicians. It’s all the STEM-trained workers who help make it happen, from clerical staff to engineering assistants. RE@L believes there are many promising options for the many young talents.

As the old saying goes, “High tides float all boats,” encompassing the “boats” of the highly skilled, along with trained technicians, including specialized clerical assistance. There are many satisfying, important careers awaiting those training for the opportunities. Fortunately, more and more of our K12 students are now choosing STEM careers by taking STEM courses in their schools.

Back in 1960, other than dreamers and visionaries, almost no one believed President Kennedy’s promise to put a “man on the moon” was even possible. A little less than 10 years later, there was a man on the moon, and shortly after that, there were women in space, too, including women of color. As the recent movie “Hidden Figures” showed us: these amazing achievements were not tied to race, creed, color, gender, beliefs, or any other fundamentally irrelevant critiera. 

These teams of space-workers were driven by a proper education, extensive training, personal commitment and using the many diverse talents. With the right educational choices, the sky and the heavens are the limit. Mae Jameson, the first African American woman in space, was among them! Click on the graphic to the right to see the rest of her story.

Technology today drives our global economy. In our nation there are simply not enough competent employees to fill the needed positions in the many new technology-based jobs today. Well-paying, satisfying careers are available in technology but far too few are prepared to fill them. That’s where STEM comes in: Science, Technology, Environment, Mathematics. More of our students need to be competent in these new skills.

RE@L realizes that our K12 Schools are pressed to supply the training, and our young students are largely unaware of the learning they will need to meet the demand. It’s time for change! We need to put thousands more of our students on the pinnacles of promising career choices, and encourage their commitments to career mastery.

IBM is still hard at work with their recent, innovative Watson Project, including one project that addresses new and highly effective ways for kids to learn. Our recent RE@L Blog told that story.

IBM now has computers with the long-awaited, built-in “Artificial Intelligence” which can conversationally “relate” to a learner’s unique needs and provide personalized learning skills. Check out their website for more information: Click on their web graphic at the top-left to learn more.

Even “Sesame Street”, “Big Bird” and “Elmo” are back to help pre-school kids learning their basic skills. Watch the collaborative video by clicking on the graphic to the right. These new early-ed tools can help all young learners be ready for school, with fewer chances of falling behind, and staying behind.

What RE@L found most moving about IBM’s initiatives was this new initiative that actually helps the blind “see” and learn to  traverse the world at large. Made possible by IBM’s collaborative research with higher-ed, there are now prototypes of newly developed apps and tools that turn an iPhone into a seeing-eye dog that’s able to help a blind person “recognize” a friend in a crowd and also give advice on a sensible snack.

See it and believe it! Watch blind IBM researcher Chieko Asakawa tell the audience in a TED Talk how she is able to “see.” Click on their graphic to the left to hear her touching and informative presentation. Yes, it even brought tears to our eyes to see how STEM-based technologies are now helping the blind “see.”

There are now more new emerging technologies. One is designed to help the disabled “walk.” Read this fascinating story and view the inspiring video from Forbes Magazine.

There’s now hope for those who are paralyzed, or lost limbs and have been unable to move about on their own. Now there is hope!

Click on the IBM graphic to the right to see this new freedom of mobility.

What a world of possibilities we now live in! With the help of our STEM teachers and learners, now and in the future, those possibities will become realities. RE@L is committed to making these possibilities happen for students everywhere. 

Hey, kids! Want a career that truly can make a difference? Here’s an assignment that will take you far:

• Take a closer look at STEM! Tell your teachers, your parents and your friends you want more STEM choices. 
• Ask if some STEM-trained workers can visit your classroom and tell you about their exciting and satisfying careers!

Make STEM happen for your school and for you!

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REPRINT WITH PERMISSION: Groundhog Day, The Weather and "Hidden Figures": A New Movie & True Story Featuring STEM/Gender/Diversity - Part One

If you haven’t seen that old classic movie “Groundhog Day” we highly recommend it! No, it doesn’t tell the viewer how to get rid of winter quicker. But it does provide a great lesson in life: We can each of us be better than we are.

In the case of Bill Murray, the star of the movie, it comes down to his slowly becoming a better man, learning to play the piano and eventually earning and deserving the love of Andie McDowell, his weather show producer. A happy ending does not come quickly to his Phil Connors in this movie. In the words of that old TV commercial, Murray had to “earn” it.

So what do movies have to do with winters? On our MN “frozen tundra”, as we like to call it here, being at 45º latitude (that’s halfway to the North Pole!), we either go to or stream a good movie, or we head to downtown St. Paul and watch the Winter Carnival Torchlight Parade.

“If you can’t beat winter, join it!” becomes our motto. Or, you can go to a good movie with a good message. We chose the latter. And that brings us to this blog.

Your RE@L Blogmeisters have been extolling the future benefits of a STEM/STEAM based-curriculum. We’ve also emphasized the importance of gender in these new Project-Based curricula. It’s imperative for girls and young women to be a part of this new learning. It can lead to a satisfying career, and better tomorrows.

A few frigid nights ago we chose to go and see a recently-released, feel-good, think-good and do-good movie called, “Hidden Figures.” It’s been praised by none other than the popular website RogerEbert.com.

In the words of their reviewer Odie Henderson: “Hopefully, “Hidden Figures” will inspire women and people of color (and … men too) with its gentle assertion that there’s nothing unusual nor odd about people besides White men being good at math. …. It deserves to make as much money as any planet in the Marvel Universe does. This is one of the year’s best films.”

Who says our dreams can’t come true? So true, that they become real and they end up in a movie about making the impossible become possible!

That is what happened to three young black women, back in the early ’60′s. We emphasized the word “black” to emphasize another dimension that we believe STEM needs to address: diversity. We need students of color taking STEM/STEAM too. All our racial groups need to be represented.

Here’s the background story: Back in 1961, then President John F. Kennedy told the world that the USA would put a man on the moon! Those words were almost unheard of before that, being the stuff of dreams and sci-fi authors, some of whom opined the moon was green cheese!

But, first we had to put a man in space. Amazingly, and in less than two years, John Glenn was in space, and 6 years later, in 1968, we had two astronauts on the moon. But first things first.

It all started with a young black girl, Katherine Johnson, who learned how to do her mathematics in school so well that she ended up choosing a mathematics major in college. Soon after graduation she was hired by IBM and assigned to helping NASA meet its moonstruck goals.

Click this movie trailer graphic to the left to view the video that introduces this powerful story.

One of their first tasks was how do we  locate where our slightly used space capsules, occupied not by a dog, but by a young astronaut, which, after an early orbit or two, splashes into the sea. Suffice it to say that it was imperative to find the capsule before it sunk along with one of our new young heroes.

So the IBM program was written to calculate the orbit and find the young astronaut, John Glenn, quickly, thanks to the help of Ms. Johnson. Murphy’s law works there too and sometimes things go terribly wrong with computers and their programs. It’s even worse when the capsule is in its final orbit to the sea.

Katherine and her young black female team whipped out their slide rules, gigantic chalkboard and ladder, and…..well, we’re not saying any more. Go see the movie! Bring your daughter of any age old enough to understand. Talk it up in your schools, especially among girls and young women of color. Yes, it’s wonderful to also bring boys and young men, too.

   We will be back next week with the rest of the story:

We’ve got 3 RE@L Bubbles to share with you. IBM wants to reprise their act with the rest of their story. And more!

They are joined by the NY Times, all of whom are working on an Augmented Reality STEM-Based project. We hope their stories will put all these young learners in a virtual space suit walking on whichever planet is next. It’s Mars, we hope! STEM fun and great career challenges will fill their futures.

By the way, it’s 25º F here today, but the sun is shining. Enter your local temp by clicking on the “Comments to RE@L” below. Oh, and feel free to add any questions, comments or weather reporting you wish.

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