Writing a book review

I finished the paper about the educational movement of Fethuallah Gülen (see entries for July 8 &15). I had difficulty making smooth and logical connections between character education, his movement, and other conceptual avenues. So I decided to put my Word document into Tinderbox. I broke the document apart according to concepts (including "scribbling" and "quotations") and put them into different notes. It's sort of like using 5x8 cards, but with the ability (1) to see them all on the floor at once, (2) to reshuffle the cards in different patterns, (3) to move parts of cards to other cards, and (4) to go back and forth among the cards (parts of the paper) with ease. With Word, I was scrolling up and down, looking for those parts with frustration. Now they're all visible at the same time.

Organizing thoughts with Tinderbox

I've started again on the paper about the educational movement of Fethuallah Gülen (see entries for July 8 &15). I was having difficulty making smooth and logical connections between character education, his movement, and other conceptual avenues. So I decided to put my Word document into Tinderbox. I broke the document apart according to concepts (including "scribbling" and "quotations") and put them into different notes. It's sort of like using 5x8 cards, but with the ability (1) to see them all on the floor at once, (2) to reshuffle the cards in different patterns, (3) to move parts of cards to other cards, and (4) to go back and forth among the cards (parts of the paper) with ease. With Word, I was scrolling up and down, looking for those parts with frustration. Now they're all visible at the same time.

Blog content theft

Duncan Riley of The Blog Herald writes about content theft. (This seems to go far beyond plagiarism. Perhaps bloggers need character education?) It seems that quite a few, Duncan says perhaps millions, blogs are using RSS feeds to steal content for posting on their own blogs, at times for profit. In fact, some sites even advertise that ability. Duncan posts this ad from an anonymous site:

Never hire another writer again and always have fresh up to the minute news and articles from your industry on your web pages. Add one line of code to your website and your pages will update themselves forever.

I don't think I'll need to worry about content theft, at least for the near future, but I like one solution posted by Paul Short in a comment to Duncan's entry. He says to add a copyright comment to the content itself:

(C) 2005 Blogherald.com If you’re not reading this in your news aggregator, this material has been stolen. Please contact editor at blogherald.com so we can take immediate legal action.

I imagine that once the thief notices it, they'll just delete it, as Rob Lewis in another comment to the entry said.

Ethics camps for science teachers

"Hello Justice, Hello Fairness: Teachers Discover Ethics Camp" by Michael Werner covers how science teachers "learn nifty teaching exercises" to use in their classes. Learning new strategies for lessons is good, but nothing was said about teachers discovering ethics in their own lives. I wonder why it's assumed that students need ethical training but not teachers.

(Re)writing the Gülen paper

I've started working on the Fethullah Gülen (see July 8 entry) paper. Actually, I'm taking a conference paper that I wrote before and reframing/revising it. The earlier paper was simply introducing his movement. This paper intends to analyze in more depth his positions on education and the approaches his adherents have taken, compare that analysis to other figures in education and character education, and then, I hope, suggest how his approach might be adapted to a U.S. context. That means more research, more reading, and more thinking, especially thinking, so I can come up with something a little original.

Being original will be the hardest task. The second hardest task will be not to denigrate U.S. education. To show the negative is easy. Showing the negative with the positive, and even showing how those I disagree with have good intentions and in some ways good results, that is often more difficult, at least for me. However, as Gülen points out the necessity of compassion, tolerance, and dialogue, it would be ironical if I did not follow his principles when supporting them in print.

Fethullah Gülen vs. character education

I'm wondering why Fethullah Gülen's educational movement has spread to such an extent throughout the world, while there does not appear to be anything comparable in the U.S., despite having different "character education" organizations here. Of course, I may just be unaware of other widespread groups. But also, I guess that (1) many of the countries in which they're established have a shortage of good schools, creating an opening for them; (2) those inspired by him are willing to make sacrifices; and (3) he is inspiring because (a) he lives what he preaches, (b) serving a higher cause motivates, and (c) the focus on love motivates.

Although there are exceptions, from my brief online review, many of those involved in character education seem more interested in their platform than actually living it, even more do not even consider spirituality (probably because of our culture of separation of church and state), and almost none mention love. And, although some talk about the culture of the school and teachers needing to be models, almost none talk about "character education" for teachers and school staff. Instead, the focus is on how to create lessons with character education in them. A lot on lesson methods and technique, but little on developing their own character.

Difficulty in writing

A friend has asked me to write a paper on the educational movement of Fethullah Gülen for presenting at a conference in Houston in November. It is quite difficult as I'm not sure where to begin. I know only a little about Gülen. I suppose I'll need to read some more of his writings and perhaps connect it to the concept of character education in the U.S., contrasting it with the type of character education that is transmitted through words rather than through the example of living. Perhaps I can tie education for life, civic participation, and service to humanity to the concept of Gülen's Golden Generation, a generation of complete human beings who live for others. Obviously, our K-12 system is oriented toward material and career success. What would be the outcome if our teachers and schools were oriented toward service to humanity? Would their embodying and modeling character (rather than teaching it) have a significant effect on our students? What will be the outcome if we do not change our orientation? How can we achieve such an orientation?

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