Governor Strickland’s State of the State address outlines an agressive agenda to once again encourage Ohio’s schools to adopt a learner-centered approach to public education.  In his plan he charges that, using evidence-based approaches, educators will be encouraged to develop innovative strategies that connect children with their communities, foster interdisciplinary approaches to learning, and engage students with content in stimulating and meaningful ways.  This is an exciting time for education in this state.

My hope is that those individuals involved with the proposed Center for Creativity and Innovation within the Department of Education become familiar with the place-based educational approaches that are exemplified on this website and have long been standard practice in a variety of rural settings.  Place-based education can serve as one model that connects the 21st century learner with content, community, and a sense of self, all of which is outlined in the governor’s plan.  Sometimes, it is a good thing to be ahead of the curve.

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Dear Mr. President:

I love this day!  It is the beginning of a new chapter in American history.  It is a day of re-birth and re-newal.  Anything is possible!

On this day, Mr. President, I ask that you not forget rural America.  I realize you have many large problems on your plate.  I also realize that, given your passion for the city centers in our country, it may be easy for you to forget us country folk.  However, as I listened to you today, the values that you want us to re-visit in ourselves (hard-work, courage, loyalty and patriotism), are values that have remained constant in rural America.

Rural America lives everyday, as you described in your speech, “…firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task”.   As farmers head out in the cold tomorrow morning, they will work very hard for their family.  They will work hard to make a living in very difficult times.  These farming communities know that hard work is what makes this nation great.  They also know that there is strength in community.

Mr. President, rural America long ago realized the importance of community committment and involvement.  In many ways, rural America has modeled this “call to service” that you advocated today.  In these respects, we can be the model for what you are challenging us towards as a nation.

However, I am not naive.  Rural America also has been a place of historic segregation, racial bigotry, and intolerance.  In many places in rural America, we need to grow in the values of fair play, tolerance and curiosity.  In that respect we need your leadership to help us move towards a more complete and whole community.  

In an effort to model your call for a more open and honest discussion, Mr. President, you need to know that rural America will work hard to make this nation a better place.  I respectfully ask that you keep our voice in your ear.  We will work hard, but we need better access.  We need better access to the internet and the global society.  We need better access to quality, well-funded education.  Give us this way into the future, and trust me, rural America will respond with all the vigor required in the challenge.  And, in the process, by providing us with this opportunity to enage in a more open and diverse world, we will be able to rip apart the narrow thinking that has become ingrained in the mindset of so many people rural places.

Today is a day of hope and new beginnings.  As you set your agenda, don’t forget us.  Empower us with your programs and insights and we will respond.  We have the sense of community already woven into our being.  Hard work is our normative pattern of behavior.  Provide us the experiences and we will awaken a new people, ready to embrace this changing world and overcome the issues of poverty, bigotry, narrow thinking that has held us back for some time. 

God bless you President Obama, and God bless this great and ever-changing nation.     

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As another semester comes to a close, I find myself, once again, reflecting on the notion of learning.  How do I know that my students are learning?  How can I find even more ways to engage them with the material?

As I do this reflection every semester, I keep returning to the importance of place-based approaches to teaching and learning.  Within this website you’ll find numerous discussions on the importance and relevance of this approach….by why is it not more common?  Why do many teachers view it as something radical?  Others think it requires too much work?  I just don’t seem to understand why this isn’t one of the more common ways we approach the classroom.

Relevance, one of the primary requirements of creating a learning centered environment, seems to be something we have not integrated into our public school and university classrooms.  This must change….any thoughts on how?  I welcome your comments and/or suggestions…….

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On October 8th President Bush signed the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008.  This law reauthorizes the Appalachian Regional Commission for another 5 years. This commission, developed in the 1960’s, has focused on addressing Appalachian poverty and other quality of life issues by providing financial support for economic development.  

In this latest reauthorization 10 new counties (3 in Ohio, 3 in Kentucky, 2 in Tennessee and 2 in Virginia) have been added to the Appalachian Region.  The addition of these new counties has caused a minor uproar.  Primarily, the concern is that, by adding new counties without substantially increasing the funding, there will be less money for a larger region.  This is a reasonable concern.  However, my interest in this re-definition is more philosophical in nature.

In Ohio the three new counties added include Mahoning, Trumbull, and Ashtabula.  Having once lived in Ashtabula County, I recognized that some of the people in the region have family roots tied to traditional Appalachia areas.  Many of the people in my neighborhood had families originally from West Virginia and Kentucky.  These families moved to the northeast years ago chasing a promise of a better life in the manufacturing industry.  Today, however, that promise has been denied by a decreasing employment base that is a common characteristic to each of these new added counties.  To that end, it appears that to be labeled Appalachian by the ARC is more a signal of poverty and economic depression than it is a cultural characteristic of a people and/or place.  Is that what it should be?

This is the larger question that I have been trying to answer.  What does it mean to be rural?  What does it mean to be Appalachian?  To me, Appalachia is tied to a particular cultural reality that is linked by a history, a world view, and a distinct sense of place.  Granted, Appalachian culture has a long history of being connected with poverty.  However, poverty is not the only defining characteristic.  By labeling these counties without considering the cultural relevance of Appalachian values, aren’t we devaluing the uniqueness of this cultural perspective?  I realize, in the end, it is all about money.  But shouldn’t it be about something larger?  Have we used the same limiting characteristics to define other unique cultural identities?  

I believe that part of the reason the government has devalued a sophisticated understanding of Appalachian culture is because we, as scholars, have not done a sufficient job at defining and clarifying our understanding of this cultural identity.   My hope is that we will continue to study, in unique ways, the complexity of Appalachian identity.  Appalachian culture is more than just living a life in poverty.

Please, let me know your thoughts and ideas on what is Appalachian culture.     To read more on the reauthorization, click on the following link:  http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=39#October08

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As noted in a variety of resources, teacher recruitment and retention in rural areas is a critical issue.  One strategy that I am finding is rarely promoted is the loan forgiveness programs.

Loan forgiveness programs allow teachers that work in a) low income schools (a common reality for many rural schools), b) teach in high shortage content areas (i.e. mathematics, science, performing arts, foreign language) and/or c) has shown a commitment (over 5 years) to teaching in this setting to alleviate the financial burden of student loans.

By doing a quick search of my local area, I was very surprised to see how many of these schools qualify for loan forgiveness.  To find out if your school is on the list go to  https://www.tcli.ed.gov/CBSWebApp/tcli/TCLIPubSchoolSearch.jsp .  A list of “high shortage areas” by state can be found at http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/pol/tsa.pdf

Teachers and administrators need to know about these programs.  Lifting the financial burden of student loans may serve to offset some of the issues associated with lower salaries that are typical in rural schools.  It is a wonderful recruitment and retention tool that I hope all area schools are sharing with their educators.

A special thanks to Robin Lambert from the Rural School and Community Trust for compiling the resources listed above. For more information on loan forgiveness, check out the October edition of Rural Policy Matters avaiable at www.ruraledu.org 

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As the season of the Presidential election is upon us, it is important that rural voters remember their responsibility and become politically informed.  For example, does anyone know the status of the “Connect the Nation Act” introduce by Dick Durbin in 2007?  Or what about the “Rural Teacher Retention Act”? (here’s a hint…it’s a year later and both are still in committee).

Reliable broadband access and teacher recruitment/retention are just two of the many issues that face rural educators in this country.  As voters, it is important that we let our federal, state, and local government officials know the issues that matter to us.  Remember, they rely on our votes to keep their employment.  As a collective group, rural America has an enormous impact on the upcoming elections in this country.  Be informed and take action.  The future of rural America depends on your participation.

To read some of the important issues, check out The Rural Assembly’s and the League of Rural Voters websites.  Both provide and overview of important issues that impact rural America.

http://www.ruralassembly.org/

http://www.leagueofruralvoters.org/

Remeber, the last day to register to vote in Ohio is October 6th!  Be sure to register and participate in this important process.

Feel free to post other issues that you think are important to rural America!

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The issue of public school funding in Ohio has been around since the original filing of the DeRolph case in 1991.  In 1997 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that our funding system was unconstitutional.  Why is it so hard to change?

Rural schools are at an added disadvantage in a feeble funding model.  For example, given the distance that many students must travel in rural districts, price increases in fuel and other transportation costs place a heavier burden on the budget of a small school.  All schools are affected by price increases….rural schools are hit harder.

Unfunded government mandates also place an added burden on smaller schools.  For example, Ohio’s new core curriculum will require many smaller districts to add faculty in certain subject areas.  Mandating added courses to improve the quality of education in our state is not, in itself, a bad idea.  However, when you mandate curricular and, by default, personnel changes on districts that are already underfunded, you have created an unequal burden on smaller rural schools.  This unfair system of education can not be tolerated in a democracy.

Public education is an essential element of a successful democratic society. Given the importance of this endeavor, suitable funding for public schooling should be considered a fundamental right for every citizen.  Individual rights of our citizenry should not be subject to bias and/or limited by the location in which one lives.  Why can’t we fix this system?  What will it take to deal with this issue?

Let me know your thoughts and/or ideas on how we, as citizens, can finally require our legislators to do something about this problem.   Rural schools need our help on this important issue.

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After my 8 states in ‘08 trip (Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania) through the rural southeast, it is good to return to Ohio.  As I was driving through these beautiful hills, valleys, mountains and other scenic displays of rural life, I was once again reminded of the question that has motivated much of our work on this website:  What is rural?

Rural is defined in many ways.  For example, government agencies use factors such as population and distance from large urban centers as the demarcations of rural places.  The television, media, and, in some cases, comedians, define rural as a stereotype, linked to backward ways of being, thinking and living.  More traditional researchers use a variety of perspectives, including size, economic resources, and distance from cities as defining parameters.  There are, without question, a variety of ways to define this notion of rural.

As a group, I asked my graduate students to consider how, in the scholarship in the field, rural is being defined.  As expected, the students found that defining this idea is very fluid and, in the end, up to the individual.  However, one group presented an interesting perspective:  “Rural is a state of mind.”

This group proposed that being rural was a cultural way of being that was reflected in a mental attitude.  As we discussed this concept further, certain characteristics of this way of thinking were developed.  For example, being rural, to us, is represented in an extreme commitment to family.  A strong sense of independence and dedication to the land were also characteristics we identified as representative of a “rural mindset”.  In the end we decided that there are cultural characteristics that are found in the rural mindset that require further exploration and study.  Additionally, we found that trying to discover one “rural” way of being is impossible and, quite frankly, does not appreciate the diversity of the definition that exists in this country.  For example, even within Columbiana County, Ohio, there are different cultural characteristics that are unique to different segments of this area.  “Rural” is truly a complex concept.

In an effort to get some dialogue going, what is rural to you?  What are some of the cultural characteristics that you think represent the rural state of mind? How do you define being rural?

Feel free to respond to this post.  I look forward to the discussion.  

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Welcome to the first blog entry of the gotDIRT website. As you’ll see from perusing our webspace, our goal is to create a virtual teaching and learning center for rural educators to share resources, ideas, and/or to just connect with other professionals.

As a group we have been motivated by several things. First and foremost, we wanted to create a space that demonstrates that a democratic mindset (a commitment to inquiry, community, and personal responsibility) does not have to be compromised in a high-stakes, standards-based environment. Too often in public education today we are seeing schools that, in the name of passing the test, limit the educational experiences that are so important to prepare our children to be democratic citizens. Through this website we wanted to model that mandated curricular choices do not have to get in the way of practicing and encouraging a democratic way of living.

My role in this weekly blog is, hopefully, to invite interesting dialogue around democratic education in a rural environment. I am positive, as I am sure my students will agree, some weeks will be more interesting than others. However, I hope you will always feel free to join in the discussion and contribute your thoughts, insights, and/or resources as we create a virtual space for rural educators to explore important professional ideas with each other.

Some of the topics I want to explore in the blog are:

What does it mean to be rural?
What are the specific issues that are unique to teaching in a rural setting?
Is there such a thing as rural identity? If so, are there stages to rural identity? Is there a regional difference between these definitions of culture?
What evidence exists that addresses how rural/Appalachian culture influences teaching/learning?
What are possible solutions that have been proposed to address teaching/learning in a rural/Appalachian environment?
How is rural/Appalachian culture changing and/or shifting in this new technological/flat world?

Please, feel free to suggest other thoughts and questions that you would like to explore. Our vision is that this website becomes a virtual learning community where professionals meet to share and discuss ideas relevant to rural educators. So please, join us in the dialogue.

David M. Dees, Ph.D.
Kent State University Salem Campus