jeromemartin.ca

Cross-Border Learning on the Great Plains

I was privileged today to be part of a session with the participants of The Great Plains from Texas to Saskatchewan: Place, Memory, Identity, an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Seminar for School Teachers which was convened at North Dakota State University in late June and is now in Eastend and surrounding area for a three day period. Fifteen outstanding scholar-teachers are studying the the works of Webb, Cather, Stegner, and Momaday under the leadership of Tom Isern, Professor of History & University Distinguished Professor.

Sharon Butala and I welcomed the group to the Stegner House. I gave a short summary of the work I am doing here, and Sharon read from her latest book The Girl in Saskatoon. Questions, discussions, and a tour of the house followed.

The participants in this seminar have come from across the USA, from New Orleans to Oregon. This is the fifth time this seminar has been offered, and I hope it continues for many more years. These scholar-teachers excited me with their interest in this country and this area.

As I prepare to leave the Stegner House tomorrow I wish I could stay just a bit longer and meet with this group again. They are fine people and great ambassadors for their country.

We need more seminars like this one: and our school system in Canada needs scholar-teachers like the ones I met today.

Literature

The Art Gallery of Windsor

The Art Gallery of Windsor is itself a work of art. It's a fine, innovative gallery, one which deserves continuing support from art lovers and funding agencies.
The first four photographs (looking north) include Detroit and the Detroit river.

More Photographs From Cranbrook

Here are several more photographs from the part of the campus we visited.

Visiting Cranbrook

We spent part of the day shopping in Windsor, Detroit and the surrounding area and the rest of it visiting Cranbrook.
Cranbrook is described as ',,,one of the world’s leading centers of education, science and art. Comprised of a graduate Academy of Art, contemporary Art Museum, House & Gardens, natural history museum and Pre-K through 12 independent college preparatory schools.'
Cranbrook, founded in 1904 by philanthropists George and Ellen Booth, features the work of world-renowned architects and designers. The National Historic Landmark campus is 319 acres in size. The New York Times magazine has called it 'The most enchanted and enchanting setting in America.'

The featured exhibition at the Art Museum was entitled Hot House: Expanding the Field of Fiber at Cranbrook, 1970 – 2007. The website includes photos of some of the pieces in the show. Viewers on the web can enjoy a special online exhibition featuring photos of the work and artists over the period covered by the show.

I would love to spend days, weeks or months on this campus. I will certainly return to visit the Art Museum and to take the conducted tour of the grounds.
We need more institutions like this.

Back to Alberta

We're back, after a week in California looking at new technology and enjoying one of our favourite places, Carmel.
We had driven south on Highway 1 several days ago to look for whales heading south along the coast, but did not see any. Yesterday, before driving our rental car back to San Francisco we decided to try again. This time we saw several spouts and splashes and vowed that we would take binoculars on the next trip.
This excursion gave me an opportunity for a few more film and digital photographs. You won't see any whales in this image, but this is where we saw them.

On Tuesday night we had dinner at Clint Eastwood's Mission Ranch and – as we had done several years earlier – stayed for the music. Gennady Loktionov is the regular pianist, although we've been told that Clint sits in periodically. Gennady is a great pianist and entertainer, and he has a lot of musical fans from Carmel and the surrounding area who come regularly to sing with him. These are fine musicians who have repertoires ranging from Broadway to country.
We sang and visited late into the evening. One of the musicians chatted with us about how well Little Mosque on the Prairies was doing in Canada and how we were missing it that evening. We told him to watch for Corner Gas. Another, after hearing that we were from Alberta, talked about how much she liked K.D. Lang's music.
A local professional musician sang several Spanish ballads, then joined another chap, who had just sung a set of Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash songs, in 'To All The Girls I've Loved Before': and, yes, they looked and sounded like Willie and Julio Iglesias. The crowd loved it.
A middle-aged man in a grey double-breasted suit then sang two Russian folk songs and 'If every I should leave you' from Camelot.
Every singer knew his or her songs perfectly and, I'm sure, had sung them in that bar many times. They and the rest of the group around the piano were regulars. They and Gennady asked us to join them the next time we're in town.
The next morning, after our impromptu whale run down the coast, we drove north on Highway 1, past Monterey and Seaside, then east on Highway 156, through the hilly fields of artichokes near Castroville, and north on Highway 101 to San Francisco through Silicon Valley. San José, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Stanford. Then home.
Gracias a la Vida.

Books and the Third World

I first visited Africa in 1964 and have just returned from my second visit (Nov. 30 – Dec. 17, 2005).
Since books are a major part of my life I look for bookstores everywhere I go. I go to libraries and discuss books with librarians and with students. Whenever possible I buy books in the countries I visit.
On this visit I did not take paper books with me. I took a lot of work, two computers, an iPod and a Palm Pilot. I listened to podcasts and some music on the flights to Africa and did some work. I had a few e-books on my computer and several on my PDA, but I had read them.
I had hoped to buy magazines or books in Kampala, but since our hotel was some distance from the downtown area I did not have an opportunity to visit a bookstore. When we moved to the conference hotel on Lake Victoria (Entebbe) I was disappointed to find that there were no magazines for sale at the hotel. There was a shop attached to the hotel which advertised 'books for sale', but the seven used books in the shop were not appealing to me or to anyone else, apparently.Later I visited two private bookstores in Nairobi and bought several books to entertain me for the rest of the trip.
In 1964 school children sought books, any kind of books, they said. We left them some of the books we brought with us to read that summer. Churches and service clubs from North America and Europe have sent boxes of books to schools and other organizations in Africa, but, in many cases, these have been books that have been discarded by individuals and libraries. Children and adults who are in school or trying to increase their qualifications need the best books, books which are current and relevant to their needs.
Students in North America are complaining about the costs of textbooks. Imagine adding the cost of shipping these books 10,000 miles and then consider the total cost of supplying a foreign textbook to a child in Africa.

While I love paper books I feel that the only way that most libraries in the third world can stay current in terms of books and scientific journals is by using e-books and e-journals. The librarians I met with agreed with me.
Local authors and scientists could publish their material more easily if there were the alternative of using e-publications. These publications could then be made available to local libraries, schools and Universities. At the moment many local authors are dependent on foreign publishers for opportunities to publish their work.
I know that not everyone in the third world has a computer: but almost everyone has a CD player, and some have iPods. If one can play music, one can listen to an audio book. Many University libraries now have extensive computer labs, and virtually everyone in urban areas can access the internet through the many, inexpensive, computer cafés.
Investing in new technology in the third world will pay dividends. At the moment students and professors are excited about the potential of new and innovative approaches to making knowledge accessible.

Back from Africa

I returned recently from a trip to Uganda and Kenya. While most of my friends are certain that this was a relaxing safari my main purpose was to deliver a keynote address on e-books and new information technology to the African Crop Science Society conference in Entebbe, Uganda. While I was there my colleague Ross Wein and I visited Universities, libraries, and government agencies to learn more about the opportunities for using e-books, e-journals and other technology in science and education.
We also re-visited areas where we as students with Operation Crossroads Africa had spent time in 1964.
There have been some significant changes in the past 41 years: there is increased prosperity in the upper income sectors of society and even in the lower income sectors. However, poverty is a major problem as is HIV/AIDS. Urbanization – which includes numerous shanty towns in Nairobi and Kampala – is creating (or allowing us to focus on) serious social and environmental problems. Deforestation and cultivation threaten the physical stability of hillside farms. Drought has been a serious concern: Kenya has not had the expected seasonal rains for three years.
Nevertheless, many people are optimistic about the future, especially with respect to tourism. Tourists fly in and out of Nairobi's Wilson Airport to exotic locales such as Maasai Mara. Safari companies take other tourists on day trips to see wildlife. One can be picked up at a five star hotel in Nairobi early in the morning and be taken through the Nairobi National Park, returning for lunch to chat about the wildlife one has seen just 7 km from the city centre. It's perhaps the smallest but the most accessible park in east Africa.
Most people feel some connection to or significant interest in the landscapes and the people of Africa. That may be due to movies such as Out of Africa or articles in National Geographic, but there may be more basic reasons. The challenges that African countries are attempting to meet are important to all of us.