Teresa's shared items

"One of the most popular pages of the monthly publication of a tool collectors’ club is its Whatsis Column. Antique gadgets that stump the experts are frequently turning up. In the era of hand-made tools, it was logical that one-of-a-kind implements were created—the man who custom-made his own tools could allow himself the luxury of making tools to meet his needs.

"Then, too, there were devices that had many uses. Ladders were used as tobacco driers; the bars of a ladder-back chair held candleholders; meat hooks doubled as grappling hooks that retrieved things from the bottoms of wells. If you think it strange that a hook was so necessary to a household, remember that the well was used many times a day, that foods needing refrigeration were often lowered into it.

"Items lost beneath the water could not, of course, be seen, so they could be retrieved only by groping. The well hook was used as much as any other implement of the old-time household. After all, who wanted to drink water from a well filled with old pails?

"Today we think a hammer is a hammer—the same thing that lays a roof, cracks a nut! But the early craftsman (like a good golfer) knew that how you hit and what you hit with could make a difference in the job being done. See, in the drawing below, how the flail separates the grain while the pestle grinds it; yet both tools hit.

"The ‘flinting pick’ did the job of making gun flints; the ‘bricklayer’s hammer’ and ‘axe’ and ‘raker’ did work that is still admired after two centuries. The ‘printing mallett’ stamped designs on painted floor cloths (popular before linoleum). The ‘flood gate hammer’ didn’t smash the gate; its massive weight just moved it. The ‘zax’ cut roofing slate and made nail holes in it. The ‘trunnel hammer’ knocked trunnels in without smashing them. And so on. Each ‘hammer’ hit a special kind of blow to do the specialty the craftsman needed done."


Source: "A Museum of Early American Tools" by Eric Sloane, 2002, Courier Dover Publications


farm+tools appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history barn+implements

Jane Gentry -- piano teacher, Appalachian folk-music historian, weaver -- was an inspiration for the movie Songcatcher.

She was born Jane Hicks in 1863, the first child of Ransom and Emily Hicks, in Watauga County, NC. "My pappy were a minister, name of Ransom Hicks. Mammy were always peckin' me over the head with a stick. She were turrible ill and cross, pore woman! I were that foundered with the peckin' that I declar'd that I would never whup ef God sent me childern. You'll whup as much into `em as you whup out o' em."

And later, Jane said of her life growing up, "Twere like a three-legged cat's. They didn't show me till I were nine yur old. I used to walk miles and miles bar'foot in the snow." She was twelve years old when the family moved to the Meadow Fork section of Spring Creek in Madison County. At sixteen, Hicks married Jasper Newton Gentry, though her parents were against the marriage because of her age. Around 1912, the Gentry family bought 'Sunnybank' in the town of Hot Springs, moving there so that their nine children could attend Dorland Institute, a Presbyterian mission school.

Irving Bacheller, New York newspaper editor and author of books, short stories and magazine articles, (his novel Eben Holden, published in 1900, outsold The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, To Have and To Hold, and other popular books of that year) met Jane Gentry in April 1914 when he came to Hot Springs on vacation.

"I could hear voices as I came near the house," he recounted in his novel, The Tower of a Hundred Bells (1916), "and chiefly those of young children laughing as if at play. Then I heard the kindly voice of Mrs. Gentry. She sat on her little verandah sewing with a number of small children grouped around her. She was amusing them as she worked."

"Go on with your story telling," I pleaded. "I am a child myself as young as any of these."

"I were tellin’ some mount’n stories," she answered. "It mout be they’d tickle ye. So if you’ll be one o’ the young uns, set down thar an’ I’ll scratch around an’ see what I kin fetch out o’ my ol’ brains."

I took the chair she offered and sat down with a girl of four on my lap while Mrs. Gentry opened a mine of old mountain folk lore which delighted me.

"Well here comes:
Eight humly, bumly bees,
Seven humpity, crumpity no horn cows,
Six hicketty, ficketty, custards,
Five bob-tail, bald-face, skewball nags,
Four colly birds,
Two ducks and an ol’ fat rooster."

Cecil Sharp, founder of The English Folk Dance and Song Society in England, and its American counterpart, the Country Dance Society in the United States, sought Jane out. Sharp visited her home on at least eight separate occasions and was clearly welcome there. He collected more songs from Jane (70) than from any other singer in the ‘Laurel Country.’ Many of the songs were those she sang for children, such as "Sing Said the Mother," "Froggie He Would A-Wooing Go," "The Farm Yard," and "There's Nothing to be Gained by Roving." He included forty of her songs in English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians(1932).

Jane Gentry’s stories received as much attention as her songs. Mrs. Isabel Gordon Carter visited her in 1923 and did the first collecting of Jack Tales, as told to Jane by her grandfather, Council Harmon ("Old Counce"), in which Jack is the third son, left behind when his brothers seek adventure. Fifteen of these tales, which Jane called "old Jack, Will and Tom tales," were published as "Mountain White Folk-Lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge," in the March 1925 Journal of American Folk-Lore. Jane Gentry died two months later, on May 29.

sources: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_113/ai_86063336
http://homepage.mac.com/wilsonh/jack/
www.bettysmithballads.com/bettysmithballads/play.cfm
Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers, by Betty N. Smith, Univ Press of Kentucky, 1998


appalachia Appalachian+ballads appalachian+folktales appalachian+history Cecil+Sharp Irving+Bacheller Isabel+Gordon+Carter Jack+Tales Jane+Gentry

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

–When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

Yesterday, while live blogging with Maura Moritz’s class at Arapahoe High School, I realized just how imperative it is for me to have those moments of Symphony–those “aha” moments when everything comes together in a rush. During the class, the students were struggling with the question of whether it is better to live for today or to live for the future.  Their question seems to revolve around the challenge in Mary Oliver’s poem.  

And no matter their answer, it seemed to me they were trying to avoid simply passing through the world….that they wanted life to be significant and meaningful. They wanted to be married to amazement.

How often do we as educators forget to live with amazement?   Drowning in paperwork, the multi-variable needs of our students, the crush of so many papers to grade, the demands of our own lives, it’s easy to lose track of what brought us to the classroom doors.  

I realized while blogging with the students what brings me to those doors is that there is always something new.   And for myself, I have to keep it new.   I’m a librarian now, but in the teaching I still do, I am most happy when I am reinventing ways to share things, when I am discovering new tools or new ideas or new books or planning new projects with teachers.   I’m happiest when I am learning, too.

It’s easy to let rigor mortis set in.  To do the same thing day after day, year after year, and to let that content become solidified.  That’s really much easier than rethinking what you do.   That’s the easiest thing to do in any job.

But when we look back over our long lives in our careers, whatever they are, I’m sure the most satisfying moments for most of us are those that stand out, that inspired us, that challenged us, that brought out the best in us.  Those are the moments that we tell stories about, that we think about years later, and that keep us going.  

In The Big Moo, Seth Godin writes about the importance of renewing ourselves in his chapter, “Get Out.”   He points out, “you may be the master of your domain in  your office, but chances are you’re also a victim of your mastery.”   He challenges readers to:

“Go out and get some inexperience.  Go back to square one.  Put yourself in a position to discover something new.”

Like the exercises in Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind, Godin suggests activities that help you see anew, like going on a field trip to somewhere you’ve never been, or engaging senses you don’t usually use(closing your eyes, for example) or just plain wandering.

What about visiting another very different school, if you’re a teacher?  What about working with someone you’ve never worked with before?  What about letting students select the text you’ll read together?   What about renewing yourself by giving yourself permission to attend a conference somewhere far away?   What about wandering through an art museum instead of doing the grocery shopping? What about giving yourself permission to play?  What about the things you love?  What about the things our students love?

Not only are we jaded about learning at times, our students can fall into that attitude as well.  How can we challenge our students to “get out” of their comfort zones, to see the world, to rediscover that sense of amazement they felt as children in kindergarden.  How do we give them time to do that?  How do we help them see “anew”?

 It brings to mind a slogan I love from Mabry Middle School, “Making Learning Irresistible for Over 25 years”

Learning should be irresistible.  It’s the most invigorating creative act we have as human beings.   So, as Seth Godin says, we must “get out!”  We must refresh ourselves, sharpen the saw, invite newness in, be willing to change, and embrace our lives. 

As Mary Oliver asks us in her poem, “The Summer Day”,

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

We just have this one time with our students.  We just have this one life ourselves.  What do we plan to do?

Some credits:

Thanks to Clay Burell and Diane Cordell for sending me in search of poetry.  And homage to Diane’s excellent post.  Thanks to John Pederson for sending me to the big moo.  And thanks to all of the amazing educators and students at SLA and Educon who inspired me to keep looking anew.

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/stateoftheart101/296605924/

Copyright © 2008 futura. Hosted by Edublogs.

Here are the award winners from the ALA Midwinter conference 2008:

2008 John Newbery Medal
(for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature)

 

 

 

 

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

 

2008 Newbery Honor Books

 

 

 

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

 

 

 

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

 

 

 

and

 

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

 

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Randolph Caldecott Medal 2008
(for the most distinguished American picture book for children)

 

 

 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

 

Caldecott Honor Books 2008

 

 

 

Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine

 

 

 

First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

 

 

 

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

 

and

 

 

 

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems

 

---

 

 

 

2008 Michael L. Printz Award
(for excellence in literature written for young adults)

 

The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean

 

---

 

2008 Coretta Scott King Award
(recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults)

 

Coretta Scott King Author Award

 

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

 

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award

 

Let It Shine by Ashley Bryan

 

---

 

Pura Belpré Award
(honoring Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in children’s books)

 

Pura Belpré Author Award

 

The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls

 

 

 

Pura Belpré Illustrator Award

 

Los Gatos Black on Halloween, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, written by Marisa Montes

 

---

 

2008 Robert F. Sibert Medal
(for most distinguished informational book for children)

 

 

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

 

 

 

For other award winners see the press release on ALA’s web site.

In his post, Same Rules, Different Marketing, Scott McLeod writes about two types of signs:

As Seth Godin notes, there’s a huge difference between this:

THERE ARE NO REFUNDS, NO EXCEPTIONS.
THERE ARE NO EXCHANGES ON PLANTS.
ALL LISTED CONDITIONS MUST BE MET IN ORDER TO RECEIVE EQUAL OR LESSER VALUE EXCHANGE. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. MANAGER RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS.

and this:

At Surroundings, it’s really important to us that you be delighted (not just happy). Please keep your receipt and be sure to bring it with you if there are any problems. We’ll be happy to exchange any cut flowers that aren’t just right–we’ll give you a store credit or any other item in the store of equal or lesser value. Unfortunately, we can’t exchange plants. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask any of us for help.

I think it’s safe to say that most of our school rules are written like the former, not the latter. No wonder students grumble about the rules so much. Couldn’t we find ways to make our rules, policies, and guidelines more palatable, more positive, and more pleasant? They might go over better with our intended audiences…

---

Have you taken a good look lately at the rules and policies that you have in place in your library? Are they like the second example or more like the first? I hate to say it but there have been times (not many) that I have seen signs like the first one in some of our libraries - big bold letters essentially screaming at students and teachers to get out and leave stuff alone. While the signs didn’t actually say that, the way they were phrased definitely left that impression. Hopefully, these were the result of a harried librarian trying to do fifty things at once and not taking the time to consider the perception that her quickly made sign might create.

Signage and other decorative touches (or lack thereof) go along way towards creating the atmosphere in the library. If we want students and teachers to use the library, we have to make sure that they feel a sense of ownership and comfort being there. Everything the librarian does, says, and posts should convey that the library and its resources belong to the students and teachers on that campus. We want to try and remove barriers, rather than create them.

If you will, try this little experiment: Go outside of your library door and walk back in pretending that you are a student or teacher coming into the library for the first time. Or better yet, grab a student or teacher who doesn’t use the library very often and ask them to help you with this. Where is the first place that you look? What draws your attention? Does the space feel welcoming, peaceful, and homey or cluttered and chaotic? Is there signage that is welcoming and helpful to you - that tells you what to do?

Think about the temporary signs that you may put on the door when you are out of the library. Do they say LIBRARY IS CLOSED - DO NOT ENTER or “Sorry I missed you - Please come back later”? These little positive touches may not seem like much, but they go a long way towards making students and teachers feel comfortable in their library.

Consider your library rules. Do you have a list of “thou shalt nots” as long as your arm or one simple, all encompassing, positively-stated rule, such as “Consider others”?

Taking time to think about these things will help you create the kind of learning environment that you want and help you do away with the old stereotype of libraries as dull and boring places that stifle creativity. Remember, the library is the playground of the mind and the environment should reflect that.

Library Sign
Originally uploaded by gwENvision.

Established in 1935, the Pack Horse Library Project was aimed at providing reading materials to rural portions of Eastern Kentucky with no access to public library facilities. Librarians riding horses or mules traveled 50 to 80 miles a week up rocky creekbeds, along muddy footpaths, and among cliffs to deliver reading materials to the most remote residences and schools in the mountains. Some homes were so remote that the book women often had to go part of the way on foot, or even by row boat.

Original image caption reads: Whitley County, Kentucky. One of the mountain homes visited by WPA Pack Horse librarian. Man was permanently injured by bullet wound.

Materials used by the pack horse libraries were stored in headquarters libraries, usually located at the county seat. Collections consisted mostly of damaged books and magazines that larger libraries no longer wished to circulate, as well as out-of-date textbooks once used by schools or churches. (The W.P.A. only funded librarian salaries; it did not provide funds for collection development.)

When demand for materials exceeded the supply, scrapbooks of magazine clippings, anecdotes, local recipes, and newspaper clippings were made by the librarians as additional resources for the collection. These became very popular in the region, enough so that patrons began making scrapbooks of their own recipes, family history, sewing patterns and child-rearing advice for circulation by the pack horse librarians throughout the community.

By 1936, handmade and donated materials could not sustain the circulation needs of the pack horse patrons. Surveys of readers found that pack horse patrons could not get enough of books about travel, adventure and religion, and detective and romance magazines. Children's picture books were also immensely popular, not only with young residents but also their illiterate parents. Per headquarters, approximately 800 books had to be shared among five to ten thousand patrons.

To help overcome the shortage, Lena Nofcier, Chairman of Library Service for the Kentucky PTA, began the Penny Fund Plan which called on every PTA member in the state to contribute one penny toward the purchase of new books. Nofcier also petitioned the help of boy scout troops, Sunday-school classes, private organizations/clubs and children's school groups to locate or donate books for the pack horse libraries. Through her efforts, existing pack horse collections not only grew, but eight new pack horse libraries were also established.

Despite the ongoing shortage of materials, the Pack Horse Library Project was considered very successful, and one of the most unusual library services ever offered in the country. During its height, the program boasted 30 libraries serving close to 100,000 Eastern Kentucky residents. Interest in ideas outside the realm of Appalachia, an appreciation for education, and an introduction to global cultures were fostered by the program in an area where one-room schoolhouses and churches were the only means of learning about the world.

The pack horse libraries came to an end in 1943 when the W.P.A. withdrew its funding from the project. Consequently, many of the areas served were left with no library service whatsoever. Some effort was made to retain the existing collections, being made available in county courthouses. However, the delivery service needed for isolated communities was no longer available, leaving some communities without access to books for decades until bookmobiles were introduced to the area in the late 1950s.

Source: Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives


pack+horse+librarians WPA +Whitley+County+KY appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Garr Reynolds writes thought-provokingly on Presentation Zen about the concept of beginner’s mind and how we learn.

Reynolds writes:

The meaning of the beginner’s mind does not mean to retreat to the naiveté of a child. It is not about being simplistic or ignorant, it is about approaching life and its challenges with curiosity and enthusiasm. . . . The point is that we adults should maintain our curiosity and that sense that anything can be done, that sense that anything is possible. A sense that we all had as children but eventually all but lost as people mocked our enthusiasm and optimism. Those who succeed and change things are the ones who do not let the world change their mind. . . .

A child or a beginner says “why not?” An “expert” says “it can’t be done.” Shunryu Suzuki put it best in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
in the expert’s mind there are few.’
—Shunryu Suzuki”

I think this is the very thing that trips all of us up when trying to convince teachers to reenvision their classrooms through the use of technology. Teachers are often accustomed to being considered the “expert mind,” so it is not just that we are asking teachers to see the uses of a particular tool in the classroom–what we are really asking is for is an entire paradigm shift–for teachers to approach their classrooms with a beginner’s mind, a child’s mind.

Children learn by playing, failing, experimenting. They don’t know what is possible, so they attempt things that we would consider impossible, or unwise. They approach the world differently than we as “expert adults” do.

The question is–what do those habits of mind cause us to miss?

In his post, Reynold’s links for more information to this lecture by Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman:, who further explains Suzuki’s work on beginner’s mind:

“When he spoke of ‘beginner’s mind,’ I think Suzuki Roshi was pointing to that kind of mind that’s not already made up. The mind that’s just investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking, but not with expectation or grasping. Just being there and observing and seeing what occurs. Being ready for whatever experience arises in this moment. “

And how, if teachers or we ourselves are coming from a paradigm of expert mind, do we invite them to approach their classrooms with beginner’s mind? We can’t necessarily meditate in a workshop, obviously.

I’m thinking of ideas like these:

• Start a workshop with play. I think the only way this really would work is that the play has to be outside the area of expertise of the workshop participants. Give them a mystery object to explore, pull up a web 2.0 tool in a foreign language, find some way to begin a workshop by invoking a sense of play. This is risky and I think of all sorts of reactions teachers/librarians would have, but, it could lead to a discussion of the idea of openness and play and the barriers to that.
• Start a workshop talking or writing in journals about children and play. Have teachers recall a moment in their childhood that involved play. What did that feel like? What feelings does it evoke even thinking about it. Share a story about your own children and observations of them at play.
• Talk about learning and frustration. When do we learn by play and when does it become frustrating? What are the habits that frustrate us, like comparing ourselves to others, thinking we should get it faster, not understanding something, perceived lack of time, etc.? Then talk about that in terms of learning as children through play.
• Be invitational. Let workshop participants be independent and move at their own pace. Provide the opportunity for them to work together to problem solve.
• Dialog with people outside the field and create ways for teachers to do this. It moves the teacher out of the expert role, but opens up new and playful possibilities.
• Be open-minded as a presenter. But–think less is more. Ever watch a child at Christmas or on a birthday open up the first toy and start playing with it, while the adults encourage them to open the rest of the gifts? Maybe it’s overwhelming to have that huge amount of “input.” Slowing down and seeing one thing at a time has value. Sometimes we try to get teachers to open all the ‘gifts’ at once, and it’s overwhelming. Sometimes you have to share the whole toy catalog, but sometimes, you need to explore one gift and all it’s possibilities.
• In daily practice, when approaching teachers, keep a beginner’s mind. Sometimes perhaps because they don’t know the tools or research process as well, they may propose things that an”expert’s mind” might think are unworkable. But….can we let that beginner’s mind they may be approaching the problem with push our own thinking forward? Can we listen carefully to their perception of it and find a way?
• On a school-wide scale, principals can support play and innovation and learning. But in some schools more than others (and I would guess this gets more difficult as you move to high school and college level teachers), the culture of play and beginner’s mind is almost completely lacking. Being invitational can create a culture where change is possible.

In the conclusion to her lecture, the Abbess writes of a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver:

“In her poem ‘When Death Comes,’ Mary Oliver has a few lines that say, ‘When it’s over, I want to say I have been a bride married to amazement, I’ve been a bridegroom taking the world into my arms.’ This is beginner’s mind. . . .Just how amazing the world is, how amazing our life is. . . . Can you live your life with that kind of wholeheartedness, with that kind of thoroughness?

This is the beginner’s mind that Suzuki Roshi is pointing to, is encouraging us to cultivate. He is encouraging us to see where we are stuck with fixed views, and see if we can, as Uchiyama Roshi says, “open the hand of thought” and let the fixed view go. This is our effort. This is our work. Just to be here, ready to meet whatever is next without expectation or prejudice or preconceptions. Just “What is it?” “What is this, I wonder?”

So please, cultivate your beginner’s mind. Be willing to not be an expert. Be willing to not know.”

How can we all be “willing to not know?” and to approach how we learn and teach with a beginner’s mind. This, I believe, is the truest challenge.

Image credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986197/in/set-72157602784604042/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986173/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986177/in/photostream/