Welcome to all of you. I'm glad you could stop in. Sometimes in education, we get stuck doing the same thing we have always done. I love history, and I am a student of history, but that has made me realize things always change. As a lover of history, I long to connect to our past- to study it, to analyze it, and to learn from it. As an educator, I want students to love learning, know how to access information, and use that information to be productive citizens and the best people they can be. In the classroom, I can provide opportunities for students to do that, but learning cannot stop when the students leave the building.
Our world is changing everyday faster than we can imagine. I hope this blog can be a place where students, parents, teachers, administrators, and anyone else interested can come and share ideas about the past while preparing for the future.
Use of technology and communication between students and teachers outside the classroom are sometimes "boogie men" for administrators and educators of all stripes. Hence, my blog name is "Trouble the Water." It has biblical roots as a place the sick would gather in wait for God to "trouble the water" of a sacred pool. The story says that the first person to enter the water after the troubling would be healed of all sickness- they would "get clean."
The saying took on new meaning in the Antebellum South as slaves would sing of God troubling the water. There is debate about the meaning, but the most common explanation I have heard is rooted in the song Wade in the Water. As slaves prepared to run away, they may have sung this song to alert their loved ones of their pending flight. The water they were going to wade was the Ohio River. The troubling of the water would result in getting clean, or free, on the other side.
Wade in the water.
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water.
God's gonna' trouble the water.
So, I think it's time for educators to get clean, and use more technology in the classroom. There must be a firm commitment to improving the technology infrastructure, teacher technology training, seamless integration of technology in the classroom, and student access to technology in our district and throughout the country. This is my version of troubling the water without placing the blame on anyone. I do not mean to attack, I mean to issue a wake-up call to my school, specifically, and American education, in general. I am wading in the waters of uncharted territory for me so I can get clean and teach the past with an eye on the future! Please enjoy this video and see how it inspired me to create this blog.
