Courtesy of penniesforpeace.org

It is difficult when a hero falls. Greg Mortenson seemed to embody every part of the hero definition. According to his story, he came upon a tiny Pakistani village by accident, adopted some of the local culture and customs and then his heart led him to take on the cause of building schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. He started Pennies for Peace and the movement encouraged schools like mine to raise funds to continue the cause of the poor in that region of Asia. His book Three Cups of Tea is an international best seller.

But it appears that Mortenson inflated his impact, fictionalized part of his story, and mismanaged funds on the way to stardom according to a 60 Minutes expose and a number of articles since.

How do we know that the millions of pennies collected by school children are being used appropriately?
We have to conclude that at best there has been mismanagement of funds and at worst there has been fraud. While it’s possible that the dollars themselves are in question, the values that Mortenson espoused are redeemable: putting other’s needs above one’s own and bringing a clear focus to the plight of poor children, especially girls and their need to be educated well. On Greg’s blog he refutes the negativity toward his work and criticizes the press as being simplistic in their analysis. Perhaps his problems have been sensationalized by the 60 Minutes report but regardless, I am unlikely to support our school’s involvement in Pennies for Peace anytime soon.

Let’s face it. The money raised by any one school does not approach the impact made by the lessons learned. In a world that appears increasingly self-centered, Mortenson’s message counteracts a “survival of the fittest” philosophy that goes far beyond a natural desire to reach our potential to a competition that pays little attention to who or what is affected.

I hope that Mortenson simply mishandled his company and was not dishonest. We still need heroes who can support their parents and teachers’ desire for children to grow up as caring, compassionate young men and women.

A year ago when the new iPad debuted, many of my colleagues assumed that I would buy one immediately, given my track record. For example, when the first bondi blue iMac was for sale, I bought it in the first month. I purchased my iPod Touch the day it came out and on was on hand the very first day the app store opened. In fact, a colleague of mine asked me a year ago to do a workshop on the iPad for administrators not even considering that I might not own one yet.

I attended an Apple Conference for administrators in Boston last summer and received some training on the iPad and was able to play with it for a few days. I even purchased my wife one last year but I was not convinced it was the right tool for me. Then, this spring I borrowed our school’s new iPad and took it for a test run. I took notes in meetings, wrote a few teacher walk throughs, and kept it by my side. For my 50th birthday my kids and wife pitched in and bought me a 32 gig iPad 2 which I have used for less than a week on vacation. My thoughts:

WHAT THE IPAD DOES WELL

As advertised, the iPad shines as a communicator of information. Between my RSS reader, Twitter and Facebook accounts and various news and sports apps, this device is my preferred mode for absorbing content. Even sharing information through Instapaper or Diigo is pretty slick.

Fairly simple web based tasks such as checking my staff’s workshop requests or looking up a parent’s phone number in our school’s student information system is a cinch.

My significant, daily tasks work well too. Checking out my calendar and editing it is as simple as iCal on my Mac. Productivity software such as Evernote and Things is powerful on the iPad as well.

Perhaps my biggest frustration with my laptop is the battery life. Try to get through an entire day of workshops with a MacBook Pro…it just isn’t going to happen. However, the iPad’s strong battery power and light weight makes it the perfect workshop companion.

I have a feeling that the iPad will push me to try new applications that I wouldn’t necessarily try otherwise. On the advice from a Principal colleague, I downloaded Mindo, a mind mapping software application that I will be trying out as I plan for the upcoming year.

WHERE THE IPAD IS LACKING
Admittedly, I have not completely acclimated to the iPad’s on screen keyboard, but if I am looking for large input of data, I long for my laptop. The speed and accuracy on the “Pad” is just not adequate yet, and as I write this post on my iPad’s WordPress blogging app, my typing is hardly keeping up with my thoughts especially as I go back to correct errors.

The double click feature on the new iOS helps, but multi tasking cannot compete with my laptop. My gut is that I will become more proficient on this over time.

EARLY RETURNS
In the words of a well known football coach Dennis Green, “they are what they thought they were”. While Apple is working hard to convince us otherwise, based on users’ passions, the iPad is an amazing output device and not as facile as a creation machine. That’s ok. Working in tandem with my laptop, the iPad will increase both creativity and productivity in my administration life.

Next up, I’ll add to the growing blog posts out there reviewing my favorite apps for the iPad. I think I’ll write the next post on my laptop though.

Thanks to my Father’s experience as a Marine in World War II, I grew up with a healthy respect for those who sacrificed their time and lives defending our American ideals. He never glorified his time in combat in the Pacific theater, yet, through a quiet resilience, I learned to honor those in uniform. Our school held it’s annual Memorial Day assembly for the entire school Friday complete with patriotic songs or poems from each grade level, an honor given to two of our local veterans, and a slideshow I always compile with music and images of soldiers through the years.

Today, my son marched in the Concord (NH) Memorial Day Parade down Main Street, as part of the Concord High School Band. You can’t miss him in the video; he’s the saxophone player the camera follows.

Given that I serve a community complete with many different political persuasions, I am careful to stay relatively apolitical in this blog. However, I find that nearly all of us agree on the honor we should give our Veterans on this Memorial Day.

Let this not be just the traditional beginning of summer, but a time of reflection.

Memories flood back at the most interesting and unpredictable times. Last Sunday I was heading through security at the airport on the way to Washington D.C. for ASCD’s Leadership Institute for Legislative Advocacy. After pulling my shoes off and pitching them into a plastic carton, I noticed a TSA officer who was a former student years ago. After the usual pleasantries, Cory surprised me by saying that he thought of me recently.  Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster and the passing of my friend and mentor Christa McAuliffe. I was a second year teacher when Cory was my student, just two years away from my student teaching year  with Christa at Concord High in New Hampshire. Cory remembered the tragedy and like all students in my school, he knew our relationship.

Christa was a natural teacher. She would often arrive last minute to school, her hair still wet, holding her daughter Caroline by the hand, while rushing to the Concord High daycare program on the other side of the school. She was always ready for instruction, never giving any clue of the frenetic working-Mom life she led.

When I heard that Christa was selected from over 11,000 applicants to be the first teacher in space, I was not surprised. Christa was smart, hard-working, ambitious and a quick study.  I remember watching her on the Johnny Carson Show thinking that she was as natural in front of millions of viewers as she was in front of 25 high school juniors. I wrote to her in when she was in space training, utilizing a special code on the envelope that would slip through the thousands of other well wishers. Christa promised to come to my school and speak about her adventures.

Of course, our school was watching with great anticipation on that fateful day, January 28, 1986. I was looking forward to watching Christa’s lessons in space and admiring her friendly and direct teaching style. Like her Tonight Show experience and all of the media attention, I knew that Christa’s confidence and intelligence would shine through without a hint of trepidation. Unfortunately, none of us would ever experience that.

Not surprisingly, Christa’s contribution to our field was significant after her death. She was not able to offer her own talent beyond that terrible January day, but her legacy remains. Teachers around the country have identified with her famous quote, I touch the future. I teach. Many young men and women chose to become teachers due to the attention Christa gave to our profession. A number of schools have been built throughout the country with her name on them and conferences are named in her honor, including our well known New Hampshire technology conference. Many grants have been established in Christa’s honor as well.

I hope this difficult anniversary brings attention to the fine work of teachers everywhere and to communities who value teaching and learning and believe in strong community partnership. Christa’s example to all of us will endure.

The public hearing regarding House Bill 39 is happening on Tuesday, January 25. The meeting will begin at 10:30AM in the Legislative Office Building, Rm. 207 in Concord, NH.

One of my goals for this year is to take another step forward in technology and find new ways to communicate. As part of this plan, I will start blogging for parents and any other interested readers and contributors. I hope this becomes another communications link between the Principal’s office and the community. More info to come!