Nocking the Arrow

"A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney " was one of my favorite segments on television. Much like Jerry Seinfeld, Rooney would close out   6o Minutes  by sharing his unique commentary, complaining really, with all of us. So, in the spirit of Andy and Jerry, I am taking a turn at sharing my thoughts, or complaints, regarding the timing and some of the common themes of this commencement season. During the past two weeks, I attended four commencement ceremonies, two for middle school, and two for high school. These celebrations amounted to roughly 8 hours of sitting and listening to a dozen speeches, nine songs, and the full names of 1853 graduates. Four hours stuck in traffic, six poorly written greeting cards, and a few hundred selfies later, I am still reflecting on the messages and meanings of these events. Where is the learning? As an educator, I am declaring what should be obvious, we are in the business of learning. Learning is what we are about, or at least it should ...

CC Image - pixabay.com Boy, did I learn a lesson about the dark side of social media yesterday! Actually, the lesson came at the hands of a few, for the lack of a better word, idiots who think they can hide behind a veil of anonymity as they darken an otherwise perfect commencement ceremony with bomb threats and offensive remarks. Fortunately, our traditional, beautiful graduation ceremony was not disrupted by these abusers of social media.   I owe my school, the community, and the local police an apology. As school Technology Coordinator, I should know better than to allow "unmoderated" comments to run alongside our live video stream. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I did.  I had a list of 100 other technical things that I needed to check and recheck. That's no excuse, as I even acknowledged the first several posts accompanying our live stream during the introduction were congratulatory comments to our graduates. During the past few years, we have str...