My Beliefs

I produced a version the following "Core Beliefs" and "View of Change" statements for the Hack Your Education Tour I did in the fall of 2012. I think they give some context to my recent A Student Bill of Rights post (and website), and I welcome any discussion of them.

My Core Beliefs:

• That every child has unique inherent worth and value. Unfortunately, we tell huge numbers of children and their parents that they are "defective" or failures because they aren't succeeding based on a relatively narrow set measures used by schools. I don't believe that is the intention of most involved in the education system, but it is certainly the outcome. 
• That learning is not an elite endeavor, is natural to being human, and takes place both inside and outside of formal educational institutions.
• That learning and "learning how to learn" help us to lead better lives, to be better members of our communities, and to build a better world. A large part of this is by recognizing and by overcoming uninformed biases, overly-simplistic thinking, the entanglements of personal interest, and cognitive traps. 
• That agency - the ability to choose and act for oneself - is both the bedrock principle and our highest aspiration for how we should treat others in a democratic and free society. The ultimate goal of education should therefore be to develop the ability for students to take responsibility for their own lives and become increasingly self-directed and productive, first for their own benefit and then for the benefit of society as a whole. Systems of control and forced compliance, rather than agency, are tempting shortcuts that have unfortunately become the basis of many of our prominent educational philosophies. 
• That modeling learning, rather than compulsion, should be the primary form of learning influence.
• That education should not be something that we allow to be owned, controlled, or mandated by any particular group, for as such it becomes a form of power and a means of enforcing compliance and removing agency from others. Education, like democracy, should be seen as a process involving the general public at all levels, and not seen as an dictated outcome. 
• That learning is a form of personal and community power, and that there is a direct connection between independent thinking and the health of a free society. Our current expectations for conformity and compliance, not limited to the educational sphere, ignore the value of diversity and of civil dialog that are reflected in some of our most important institutions--witness the balance of powers in our government and the right to a trial by jury in our legal system.
• That active individual participation in decisions that affect us is a right, is a fulfillment of our individual capabilities, and is a protection against unjust rule. Our narrative for governance is democratic participation, and describes a process of open and engaged decision-making at every level of society--the process of which is more important than the particular decisions that are made. Our narrative for education should be the same: that participation, self-direction, and active engagement are more important than mandated curricula, and they should be taught and nourished. This is true for students, parents, and educators alike.

My View of Change:

I've been somewhat stunned, through my interview series (http://www.futureofeducation.com), to find so many good examples of what education could be. Intriguingly, these good examples are usually operating in isolation and have little effect even on schools in relative proximity to them.

For some reason, we don't seem to have much current capacity to hold thoughtful dialog at the elite/intellectual/policy level. It's ludicrous to believe that on a topic as inherently human as education, we would actually get enough agreement at a philosophical level to move forward with only one particular set of practices--or, at a deeper level, that we would actually want that conformity of thinking. Instead we need to recognize the balance of valid approaches that comes out of thoughtful dialog.

So, after over 350 interviews, I've come to a conclusion: the message of educational change cannot center on the one particular group trying to convince another that their education ideas are the best. Even if you or I could convince policy-makers of a particular view of education, the single-solution mindset most of us have now would still leave us with a one-dimensional view of learning.

But something must clearly be done. The overwhelming education narratives on both sides of the political aisle increasingly revolve around high-stakes testing and accountability... and not around the inherent worth and value of every child, and not in the belief that the ultimate goal of education is to develop the ability for students to take responsibility for their own lives and become increasingly self-directed. The result  is deep discouragement for huge number of parents, students, and now teachers who are told that they are failures.We must find a way to give them hope that learning is not an arbitrary gift bestowed capriciously to a select few but is something anyone can own, and is infinitely better when so discovered. While I believe this disproportionately affects those in poverty, I don't think by any means that it's exclusive to any one group.

If education is not best seen as a policy decision, then I think we must re-cast it instead as a process of cultural dialog and of individual engagement, and we must each look for ways and means to hold these discussions at the most local of levels. We must stop discussing educational policy and start discussing learning in a way that recognizes the importance of individuals learning about learning for themselves, not because we tell them to. We need to make it clear that no one owns the decision-making for another individual or group, and that to accept someone else's educational policy decisions for them is an inappropriate abdication of basic human rights.

Event Sponsorship Opportunities: ISTE Unplugged, STEMxCon, GlobalEdCon, Library 2.013, & More!

I run a number of physical and virtual events under the umbrella of Web 2.0 Labs (http://www.web20labs.com). They are based on a belief in the power of educators being able to connect and learn from each other, and combined they had 100,000+ attendees last year.

All of these events are free to attend, but they are not free to put on, so this email is the pitch to those who potentially have sponsorship budgets: we need you! Please consider being a sponsor at one of the events, or passing this email on to someone you think might be able to help. Thanks!

Current and Upcoming:

• The Future of Education (http://www.futureofeducation.com) interview series. Over 350 interview recordings are posted at the site, and the great guests continue. Multiple hour-long conversations happen weekly with folks like Sir Ken Robinson, Yong Zhao, and Michael Fullan; as well as with in-the-trenches educators forging new ground. This show, run with a live online audience, provides great visibility!
• ISTE Unplugged (see http://www.ISTEunplugged.com). A set of special activities before and during the ISTE conference, starting with the all day "Hack Education" unconference on Saturday, June 22nd. In our seventh year, this event (previously called EduBloggerCon) kicks off a lot of fun, alternative, social-media-oriented activities that have developed a great reputation, including the bloggers' cafe and the global education summit. Edutopia has stepped in as a major sponsor for ISTE Unplugged this year (thanks to them for the support again!), but we would love more sponsors and we're also looking for one more key sponsor for the Saturday evening party that was such a hit last year (thanks to C. Blohm and Associates, StudyBlue, and Startup Weekend EDU). We're also just about to announce that we'll be helping to promote a "Women in Ed Tech" dinner through ISTE Unplugged as well, and that should bring some appropriate publicity.
• ISTE T-Shirts. For the last few years I've had a special t-shirt made up for ISTE that we start distributing Saturday and that was thematic for the conference. Two years ago it was a great "Teacher 2.0" t-shirt that Blackboard provided. Last year it was the conference t-shirt for the virtual "Learning 2.0" conference held during Connected Educator Month. This year I have a really, really fun idea for t-shirts, but to pull it off we'd need someone ready to make a few thousand shirts and with an adventurous spirit. I think we could make a huge splash with this... :)
• STEMxCon (now live at http://www.stemxcon.com). This first-year worldwide virtual conference on STEM-expanded has the backing of HP and ISTE already, and was schedule for July but is now being slotted for September 19 - 21. This is going to be a big deal, and like my other virtual events will be a hugely inclusive event. Lucy Gray, HP's Jim Vanides are the conference co-chairs.
• Library 2.013 (http://www.library2013.com). The third year of this global, virtual conference on the future of libraries and librarianship again has anchor sponsorship from San Jose State University, and will run October 18 - 19. An outgrowth of the Library 2.0 social network with 16,000 members, the conference is now considered by many to be the biggest and most visible annual event in the library world.
• The 2013 Global Education Conference (http://www.globaledcon.com). Our five-day, 24-hour a day massive online event, with 400+ sessions and way-cool keynotes, will be November 18 - 22. Co-chaired by Lucy Gray.

Still in Planning Stages (but happy to talk about and looking for good anchor partners):

• OzELive, the virtual conference for all educators "down under" in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. Currently being planned for this August!
• The Worldwide Homeschool Conference. This virtual conference is still being scheduled, but should be a huge event.
• Learning 2.0 (http://www.learning20.com), to be run again during Connected Educator Month. Last year was blockbuster.
• Gaming in Ed 
• Future of Museums
• Rethinking Higher Ed
• 2014 School Leadership Summit (http://www.schoolleadershipsummit.com) - March 27th, with TICAL on board again--hurrah!

Thanks for considering any support! Just email me at steve@hargadon.com and I can provide any details that might be needed.

Cheers, and see you online!

A Student Bill of Rights

This first pass at a "Student Bill of Rights" was inspired by: 1) "A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age" that Audrey Watters and I were able to discuss at length in a podcast, and that I felt was unimaginative and particularly reflected an institutional perspective; 2) my interviews at FutureofEducation.com; and 3) the EducationDeclarations.org project.

As you will see, my student bill of rights below focuses on learning as a way of building individual opportunities and potential, and not on using education as a tool for directing social or cultural outcomes. I recognize that while this is supported by much of the language we use to describe education as a process that liberates or reflects freedom (as in the "liberal arts"), it is much less supported by much of our actual practice--which more often uses education to proscribe and/or prescribe behavior and ideas, and to control others (both explicitly and also implicitly through the threat of high-stakes valuations).

While my proposed bill of rights may, at first appearance, seem radical in it's focus on student decision-making, I suggest that this perception is largely because of the degree to which our current culture infantalizes and does seek to control our youth, particularly teenagers. This was perhaps consciously a way of dealing with immigration and work-related issues a century ago, but perhaps in more recent decades has been less consciously a way of perpetuating a less-rebellious, consumer-oriented youth culture--one that brings financial and other forms of compliant support to existing institutions. Many societies and cultures have recognized transitions to adulthood in early teen years, whereas current U.S. culture, at least, seems to be pushing this into the mid-twenties. Our current highly-controlling treatment of youth demonstrates the unfortunate truth that control invites the very behaviors it seeks to avoid. I hope I can encourage readers to consider that the opposite is true as well: supporting self-direction invites capability (a lesson many of us parents have had to learn through trial and error).

I do believe that learning is of fundamental importance both to the individual and to society, and helping to facilitate that learning is the primary means of protecting personal and democratic freedoms. And I believe that self-directed, independent-thinking, competent adults will also help create both financial and intellectual prosperity in a way that social or political efforts cannot mandate or achieve. If we wish to unleash the energy and potential of our youth to help solve the many problems we are currently leaving them as our legacy, we must give them the freedom to do so.

It is important to also note that while I believe we can create this and other student bills of rights, and organizations that reflect them, I also believe that we also must accept that they are secondary to the rights of families. The relationship of the student to a learning organization can reflect fundamental tenants that we believe are healthy ways of implement student agency; however to believe that any educational system trumps the rights of parents, no matter how much we may disagree with particular parental decisions, puts education on the slippery slope of social control. I believe that parents and families have primary responsibility for their children, and appropriate influence cannot be through mandates but must be through example. If we wish to help families, we must model the good we hope they will see.

Our current schooling system sends a strong message, to a significant portion of the students, teachers, and parents involved, that they are failures. No culture or institution can claim to honor the dignity and self-worth of all people, and help youth to become successful adults, while continuing to to run schools that resemble prisons more than democracies. Therefore, I believe that...

Students have the right to:

• direct their own learning;
• follow their own interests;
• think independently;
• make mistakes;
• decide when, where, with whom, and how they will participate in formalized learning;
• choose the teachers, mentors, coaches, and other adults who participate in their learning lives;
• find real work or participation in their fields of interest;
• choose if, when, and how they will be assessed;
• control the privacy of any data about themselves.

I also believe that students have the right to expect teachers, mentors, coaches, and adults involved in their learning who:

• believe in the dignity, worth, and potential of every individual;
• model lives of learning;
• let students direct their own learning;
• help students learn how to learn;
• see the end goals of education as independence, self-direction, and competence;
• know the individual interests and talents of all students they work with;
• look for and support the abilities and potential of all students at all levels, and especially support learners facing difficulties;
• create opportunities and access for students to expand or deepen their learning interests;
• help students challenge themselves and their thinking;
• help students develop skills to be successful in their learning and their lives;
• help students build relationships with adults, peers, and others to further student learning;
• support the primary role of the family in students' lives and decision-making;
• build community support for student activities;
• help students learn to represent their competences and abilities in ways that others can see;
• help students find ways to use their learning in productive work;
• build learning environments that model and teach democratic, community, and participative decision-making;
• never depend on control or compliance;
• do not allow financial, political, or other non-student-centered motives to direct learning activities.

Please comment, critique, or write your own bill of rights at http://www.studentbillofrights.org, or in the Student Bill of Rights discussion area of the Education Revolution Google+ Community.

Thursday Interview: "Free to Learn" with Peter Gray

Join me Thursday, May 9th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with Professor Peter Gray on his new book, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.

From the publisher's description (emphases added): "Our children spend their days being passively instructed, and made to sit still and take tests—often against their will. We call this imprisonment schooling, yet wonder why kids become bored and misbehave. Even outside of school children today seldom play and explore without adult supervision, and are afforded few opportunities to control their own lives. The result: anxious, unfocused children who see schooling—and life—as a series of hoops to struggle through.

"In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know, but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

"To foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, Gray demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient. This capacity to learn through play evolved long ago, in hunter-gatherer bands where children acquired the skills of the culture through their own initiatives. And these instincts still operate remarkably well today, as studies at alternative, democratically administered schools show. When children are in charge of their own education, they learn better—and at lower cost than the traditional model of coercive schooling.

"A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school, Free to Learn suggests that it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with our children, and start asking what’s wrong with the system. It shows how we can act—both as parents and as members of society—to improve children’s lives and promote their happiness and learning."

Date: Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2013-05-09.1704.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and an audio mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/petergray.mp3.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and to continue the conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/49642.

Peter Gray, Ph.D., research professor at Boston College, is author of the recently published book Free to Learn (Basic Books, 2013) and Psychology (Worth Publishers, a college textbook now in its 6th edition).  He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology. He did his undergraduate study at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences at Rockefeller University. His current research and writing focus primarily on children's natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play. His own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long distance bicycling, kayaking, back-woods skiing, and vegetable gardening. (Bio from Psychology Today.)

Wednesday Interview: World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements with John Hunter

Previous guest John Hunter joins me Wednesday, May 8th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation now that his book is out: World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements.

John, a teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia, created an eight-week student-participation exercise called the World Peace Game. In his own classroom, the game triggered a transformation of the children from students of a neighborhood public school to citizens of the world. John's TEDTalk on the World Peace Game was named the #1 most impactful TEDTalk of 2011 by TED and The Huffington Post, and the film of the same name that was broadcast on public television was the subject of our previous interview.

At a time when school systems have completely lost focus on what really matters, John Hunter reminds us what we should be teaching our children. His ideas will help anyone who has the courage to understand that a real education must go beyond filling in circles on a standardized test form. — Rafe Esquith

"In John Hunter’s classroom, students fearlessly tackle global problems and discover surprising solutions by playing his groundbreaking World Peace Game. These kids—from high school all the way down to fourth grade, in schools both well funded and underresourced—take on the roles of politicians, tribal leaders, diplomats, bankers, and military commanders. Through battles and negotiations, standoffs and summits, they strive to resolve dozens of complex, seemingly intractable real-world challenges, from nuclear proliferation to tribal warfare, financial collapse to climate change.

"In World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements, Hunter shares the wisdom he’s gleaned from over thirty years teaching the World Peace Game. Here he reveals the principles of successful collaboration that people of any age can apply anywhere. His students show us how to break through confusion, bounce back from failure, put our knowledge to use, and fulfill our potential. Hunter offers not only a forward-thinking report from the front lines of American education, but also a generous blueprint for a world that bends toward cooperation rather than conflict. In this deeply hopeful book, a visionary educator shows us what the future can be." (From the publisher's description.)

Date: Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2013-05-08.1647.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and an audio mp3 is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/johnhunter.mp3.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and to continue the conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/49639.

Photo of John Hunter courtesy of Theresa White.

Thursday Interview: Andreas Schleicher and What We Can Learn about Education from International Data

Join me Thursday, April 25th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with Andreas Schleicher, Deputy Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Andreas specifically has oversight of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

PISA is an international study that was launched by the OECD in 1997. It aims to evaluate education systems worldwide every three years by assessing 15-year-olds' competencies in the key subjects: reading, mathematics and science. PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of compulsory schooling, and includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies, such as problem solving. To date over 70 countries and economies have participated in PISA.

The PISA results have generated very significant reactions, which include: the focus on Finland's educational system because of the unexpected and consistently top results from Finnish students; the highest-place results for Shanghai in 2009 when China students were included for the first time; and the comparatively low results for the United States (in 2009, 31st in Maths, 23rd in Sciences, and 17th in Reading).

We'll talk with Andreas about what data from high-performing school systems around the world tells about best practices in education, and look to uncover promising practices and the future of education internationally. This is a special event held in partnership with the Asia Society as part of their year-long Global Learning for Educators webinar series.

Date: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2013-04-24.1706.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and an audio mp3 recording us at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/andreaspisa.mp3 and at http://www.futureofeducation.com.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and to continue the conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/47034.

Andreas Schleicher is Deputy Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to OECD’s Secretary-General. He also provides strategic oversight over OECD’s work on the development and utilisation of skills and their social and economic outcomes. This includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES). Before joining the OECD, he was Director for Analysis at the International Association for Educational Achievement (IEA). He studied Physics in Germany and received a degree in Mathematics and Statistics in Australia. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the “Theodor Heuss” prize, awarded in the name of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary democratic engagement." He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

Tuesday Interview: The Truth About Testing with Jim Popham

Join me Tuesday, April 23rd, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with W. James Popham, author of (among many other books) The Truth About Testing: An Educator's Call to Action and Unlearned Lessons: Six Stumbling Blocks to Our Schools Success.

"Why is it," Jim writes, "that today's educators seem almost compelled to replicate their predecessors' blunders?" We'll talk with Jim about "the absurdity and serious destructive consequences of today's testing programs" and why it's "nonsense" to think that large-scale, high-stakes testing programs are the best way to determine which schools or teachers are failing and which are succeeding. We'll also discuss the ultimate impact on both teachers and students of this "measurement mess" and what we can do about it.

Date: Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2013-04-23.0918.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and an audio mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/pophamtesting.mp3 and at http://www.futureofeducation.com.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and to continue the conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/46394.

W. James Popham, professor emeritus at University of California Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment, for example, was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies while serving as yearbook advisor, class sponsor, and unpaid tennis coach. That recompense meshed ideally with the quality of his coaching.

Most of Dr. Popham's teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of UCLA’s top 20 professors of the 20th century. (He notes that the 20th century was a full-length century, unlike the current abbreviated one.) In 1992, he took early retirement from UCLA upon learning that emeritus professors received free parking.

Because at UCLA he was acutely aware of the perishability of professors who failed to publish, he spent his non-teaching hours affixing words to paper. The result: 30 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. Although not noted in his official vita, while at UCLA he also authored 1,426 grocery lists.

His most recent books are Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know, 6th Ed. (2010) and Assessment for Educational Leaders (2006), Allyn & Bacon; The Truth About Testing (2001), Test Better, Teach Better (2003), Transformative Assessment (2008) and Instruction that Measures Up (2009) ASCD; America’s “Failing” Schools (2005) and Mastering Assessment (2006), Routledge; and Unlearned Lessons (2009) Harvard Education Press. He encourages purchase of these books because he regards their semi-annual royalties as psychologically reassuring.

In 1978, Dr. Popham was elected to the presidency of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He was also the founding editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a quarterly journal published by AERA. A Fellow of the Association, he has attended each year's AERA meeting since his first in 1958. He is inordinately compulsive.

In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests’ answer keys.

In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement. In 2006 he was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Association of Test Directors. In 2009, he was appointed to be a board member of the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Popham’s complete 44-page, single-spaced vita can be requested. It is really dull reading.

(Bio from Corwin Press, humor from Jim.)