Page Three: Samuel Colton American Author On Education

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What’s it all about?©Community College: You, Your students and Your Community.By Samuel Colton Sr. “What’s is all about” was the lyrics to a popular tune many years ago. That same theme could be re-sung in this course we are undertaking. Wading through bibliographic information that would appear to have no end. Learning about the many faces of community college, would tend to overwhelm one with the volume of information. Like a traveler late for the train, I grapple with the many pieces of information as I would suitcases not knowing which to take or leave behind. The macro and micro of it creates a need to find ones space in the ever-widening stream of community college informational choices. Picking up new information, taking from it what you will and then putting it down to select another can become an endless pursuit. In one way it’s easier to be detached and examine the Community College from the macro point of view. The College as a social institution dedicated to the educational needs of its community. Working within the framework of the community and the people and businesses that comprise it. However with advances in transportation and telecommunications the community is a global one, where in the narrow definition of what’s locally needed may not be responsive to the actual needs of its citizens. Citizens who are competing in a global market place need global education. Inflexible administrative models that are still applying yesterday’s ideas as a result of outdated legislative intent struggle to keep their institution current. Past models based on traditional concepts of students and their needs are giving way to the reality that the only constant in education is the need to change. What’s it all about Professor? Where do you fit into this ever changing dynamic, as you strive to develop and maintain an identity as an educator? Having an understanding of some of the issues that face the institution on a macro scale may help you better cope with some of the micro issues that impact you in a more personal way. Knowing where the college receives its funding and how those funds are spent may help you better understand why your program has what it has and why your paid what your paid. Keeping up on State legislation effecting spending on education can help you be in front of issues that may effect your students, your college and your career. Having a macro view of the Community College and issues effecting it will give you a better sense of some the trends that are occurring. Trends such as non-traditional schedules regarding class offerings. Weekend College. Use of Associate Faculty to augment the Full Time Faculty work force rather than hire more Full Time Faculty. But in all this information keeping your own sense of self is vital to your being able to teach and interact with your students.

Accessing and internalizing information that affects you personally can be every bit as important as some of the external issues that have their impact on our lives. Sifting through the bibliographical information has been a chore to say the least. However in doing so I have become more sensitive to such information and have arrived at an internal mechanism for sorting. It would seem that community college information and issues is popping up all over the place. Or perhaps it’s my awareness level that’s on the increase. Information regarding community college issues is to be found in magazines such as [1]Lapidary Journal. The December 2000 issue contains an interesting article “A community college’s inspiring classes in metalsmithing, gem cutting, and the craft business keep students coming back for more.” What’s going on here? Community college issues in Lapidary Journal? This article when read with new eyes from our class speaks to issues such as: student age, commuter students, faculty issues, day care issues, non degree seeking students, modular course issues, instructional delivery, life long learning and more. Did I mention the article in the December 2000 [2]American Welding Society monthly publication of The Welding Journal? Another article from a community college professor in Utah regarding instructional delivery as it relates to, you guessed it. Welders. I am more prone to spend more time on information that I am in a position to use and implement. Empowerment comes to mind. That information though its good to know, but which I have less control over is given less priority. Information that I am able to better use in a more personal (micro) sense gets more attention. So what’s it all about? It’s all about seeing the big picture and knowing where you are in it. It’s about finding sources of information that will allow you to be better at those things you have control over and understand those you don’t. It’s about not loosing who you are and why you chose to be here. It’s about selecting information that will invariably at times almost imperceptible change who you are today for the better you of tomorrow.

If change is the only constant in our micro/macro educational experience then it becomes important to be prepared to change when those macro events leave us limited choices. Some of the choices that the macro institutional model may have little control over may pose a harsh effect on the people it serves. Softening the impact of these changes on our lives and our students becomes the essence of what its all about. Delivering relevant educational experiences that results in a positive influence in the lives of the people participating in the exchange is at times elusive. The rewards can be difficult to measure by standards outside of education. For those who have some sense of where they are in the community college model in Yuma Arizona, the time spent will be time well spent. Knowing where to look for help and information will be one of the most valuable tool’s one can come away with from this course. What’s it all about Professor? It’s all about you, your students and your community. Our sense of who we are in this community college and the influence we bring to it will be the most important understanding we will have as we meet the challenges ahead. Be careful about the information placed before you. Just because it comes with bells and whistles sounding accolades from the applauding audience of academics doesn’t mean its right. Being a little skeptical of information that is generated by the experts in community college can be a good thing. The “League of Innovation” is not found on the Internet but in the lives of the people who comprise every community college in America.

[1] Lapidary Journal, December 2000, Haywood Keeps Them Coming Back by Margaret Marchuck

[2] Welding Journal, December 2000, Who will become a Welder? By Wayne Western

Altering the current Path: The Future is Now!Samuel Colton, Sr. Prepared Remarks April 22^nd 2010 Earth DayDelivered at Arizona Western College, Yuma Arizona It’s a pleasure to be here with you today and to participate in this year’s sustainability fair. To discuss the current environmental path planet earth and its inhabitants are following one only need read the newspaper headlines to get a glimpse at the destructive course we are taking. Headlines on the front page shout to us about the threat of global nuclear war. Meetings on nuclear disarmament remind us that missiles are ready at the push of a button to destroy life as we know it. But no less dangerous though is the ongoing exploitation of fossilized energy reserves brought to our attention by the recent coal mine disaster and the loss of life that occurred. This type of energy comes to us but at a price. Petroleum exploration along with a variety of heavy metals combine with other polluting raw materials production that are being processed as we speak to produce all types of modern wonders but at a cost that may not be the equivalent of a nuclear war head going off in your home town but can be just a deadly . Pollutants from bad technology once thought to be the wonder of the ages continue to plague us at all levels of the manufacturing process from extraction and harvest through the various conditioning and form transformations to the end user you and I. We turn our eyes from the mounds of industrial waste that make their way into the earth and our water supply. We contribute to this ongoing pollution without realizing that our desire for cheap gas, cheap products and our consumer life style purchasing habits determine what we are daily flushing down the toilet or the emptying of the waste can continues the cycle of accumulated industrial waste in a global eco system that is as connected as the systems in our bodies. The principle of “for every action there is a reaction” is true for all we do on our life’s path as we journey through space. We are contributors to the “silent spring” or we are preservers of one filled with the joyous sound of birds. As fellow astronauts on space ship earth we cannot destroy our life support systems and expect to continue the journey as we have for thousands of years. Human activity historically has had less consequence due to factors such as limited travel technologies which in turn reduced trade and the type there of. But we have achieved the ability to extract and move huge amounts of materials from one place to another without fully understanding the impact of their production, life cycle or final disposition. We have achieved a rate of acceleration of chemical imbalance that is out pacing our ability to comprehend the consequences and make adjustments for them. This current path will continue to produce those waste components that will continue to increase Mercury in our water which in turn is in the sea life food chain which in turn is in us. The current path will continue to see us deplete the final energy reserves in the earth to power cars, planes, trains and ships so that we can make sure we pollute the planet globally and destroy the environment completely. Polar Bears starving due to reduced ice packs, loss of glacial ice caps in the Andes, Acid rain, and deformed amphibians are all alarm bells for us all. Are we listening? The current path represents millions of human activities, millions of discoveries and millions of lives lived and lost that tell us that we have achieved the ability to destroy our world. Can we now achieve the ability to save it and to sustain it? Our current path does not allow us to celebrate our intellect, to celebrate our science but rather we should weep knowing that our contributions to the current path will leave a legacy that at some point in the future no one will remember because no one will be here to remember. If this is the current path where a value system of greed and profits is driving us off the edge to destruction clinching in our fist a hand full of money that won’t buy us our health, our lives or our children a future, then altering the current path begins in the now not later. An object traveling along a certain trajectory will go from point A to B with a high rate of accuracy and predictability. However a slight deviation in the variables that established that path will be cause for change and for it to land somewhere else. We live in a world of large systems that would appear to dominate our lives and over power where we are in relation to them. We have seen that large financial systems are vulnerable to collapse; large agriculture systems are vulnerable to failure and those large food processors systems of sanitation are subject to recall. We might think that individually we cannot change or alter the course and that we are caught in a web so entangling that there is no way out, but in fact we are the required element to achieve course correction to the current path of destruction and alter the trajectory so that we can achieve a new path leading to sustainability for our planet and all that dwell here on. If all that is, comes from all that has been, then all that will be will come from all that is now. Altering the current path is a NOW thing, not a too be thing. Let me share with you some idea of how one person can alter the current path and then you choose to be one who alters the path with me. In preparing for the many activities going on today I realized that I have been preparing for moments like this all my life. You see I grew up in a home with parents who were environmentalist before the word was held in such common usage as it is today. To this day I do not think they thought of themselves as such. My father was a young man during the depression and saw the hardship first hand of what happens when unsustainable financial and agriculture practices take hold on a nation. My mother likewise grew up in Oklahoma at a time when economic and natural disaster compounded by a lack of understanding of the consequences associated with good environmental and agriculture farm practices lead to the dust bowl era. These were times that none who lived through them could ever forget and to the day he died my father it would seem was always preparing for the next depression, the next disaster. These economic and natural disasters shaped my parents lives who would go on to raise a family of children who experienced firsthand the positive lessons to be learned of hard work combined with home agriculture practices that relied on partnership with the earth and the many creatures that dwell on and in it. My father lived his life working to be the best organic gardener and farmer he could be, he strove to develop those aspects of the earth he tilled so that he did not need to rely on large agrichemical corporations to provide him with the seeds or chemicals to make his harvest productive or having to purchase those seeds again if he chose to grow a seed crop for the next years garden. My mother worked beside him to harvest and preserve those fruits and vegetables for the off season and as children we enjoyed the opportunity to learn from them by working with them. Each year we worked, we planted, we harvested and we enjoyed the bounty of our efforts. These efforts represented hundreds perhaps thousands of small task each one carried out and linked to the others to fulfill the vision our parents had of the bountiful harvest that each year represented. Somehow in doing this there were many lessons learned. You harvest what you sow, you get because you gave, and you share what you have with others. There were spiritual lessons as well as we learned to marvel at a world where every turn taught us that there are things greater than ourselves. My father was a man of science and spent as many hours learning as he did working. His mission was to give back to the earth as much or more for everything it gave him. His mission was to learn the relationships between the many natural events occurring in the earth, such as the nutrient exchange of plants, the benefits of the many microbes and insects and how having a balance of predator and prey would allow him to grow and harvest without resorting to chemical treatments and pesticides we have come to learn are less our friend and more foe. My father had a value driven view of the world he lived in and the work he did to raise food for his family. He wanted the land to be free of those things that would harm his children and wanted what he grew there to be a benefit to others. How refreshing to see that the first family grows a White House garden and models the value system of my father and thousands like him. From his example I continue to be one of those who alter the current path. My back yard has a garden; my home has several solar lighting fixtures, with others converted to compact fluorescent or LED lights. We have begun to recycle and I can be seen collecting aluminum cans and have asked my adult children to do likewise. Most days find me driving to work in my old Subaru that gets over 40 miles to the gallon of fuel. Personally I am working to alter the current path not because it’s always the lowest cost thing to do but because it’s the right thing to do. I have a value system that helps me make choices and as small as they may seem to be when combined with you we will alter the current path NOW! Our present education systems continue to compartmentalize our learning where courses are broken out into fragmented divisions where you must go from one to another in the hopes of learning any one subject and while you are at it count yourself lucky if you remember something from all those course when you are done. This old broken model continues to demonstrate its failure as we struggle to produce enough human capitol to satisfy our health care system needs, our engineering needs our manufacturing needs, our literary or art needs. The challenges of life on planet earth has given rise to technologies such that there is a need for constant learning a an almost instant ability to adapt to change which gives rise for the need of a more fluid learning model where learners can group together for integrated studies. Studies that need to incorporate and integrate what are still being delivered as traditional English and math courses outside the chosen field of study when they should be combined with the study of computers and all the various communication and information tools they represent to learn seamlessly while studying the myriad facets of the global clean up and recalibration of our human existence. For all the young people here today as a nation we lag in the number of college educated adults and lag in the number of persons with adequate science, technology, engineering and math skills to meet the challenges of the future. In a world where systems integration and technology allow us to access the globe why do we continue to educate in the old factory style where our system is designed to move students like a package from one course to another and hope they remember some of what they learned along the way. Today’s global challenges which are felt in every community demand that we retool our learning institutions into learning problem solving work group incubators where faculty from multiple disciplines interacts simultaneously with students in a teaching/learning model. This model will draw on teachers and experts who will work in these learning groups and pursue real world challenges and allow the students to gain valuable experience as they work to create solutions through education so that their transition from institutions of learning to institutions of industry is a natural and expected occurrence. The only truly renewable resource on this planet is our youth who will learn today while shaping tomorrow. Arizona Western College continues along a path that has shaped the lives of the students who have studied here and our college has embarked on a new journey to learn how to harness the origin of all energy on the planet the sun; this through the study of solar electrical and thermal technologies. Students will have an opportunity for learning via multiple tracts. One will focus on the engineering of solar energy systems and the other on the application, installation and maintenance of these engineered systems. Both will create new opportunities for commercial and domestic energy consumers while altering the current path away from fossil fuels. This new array of solar learning opportunities will not be at the expense of existing programs but rather compliment and rely on them. Integration of solar technology is finding its way into the traditional technologies we all rely on. Be it solar powered automobiles, our lap top computer having a solar battery charger or the construction industry working to build solar powered homes and office structures that are energy self sufficient. Our community college, our community will become the center for this altered path where the learning of “green” construction and manufacturing techniques will create places for all types of learned professionals to work from to solve the ecological challenges that are still here to be faced. We cannot wait for the reformation we must become the change agents of it and reject the notion of doing business as usual as we continue the move to a value driven culture that puts the environment and people first; a value driven culture where any good business plan embraces the profitability of contributing to a better more sustainable future. We are able to connect via the Internet, cell phones and other emerging technologies in a way that allows the professors and students at AWC to learn from the professors of MIT. I invite all of you to alter your personal path and make choices at home and work that will allow us to begin to be part of the millions of course alterations that will make the future a place where there is room for us all to live and find happiness for having done so. To join Arizona Western College as we move forward as leaders for a sustainable future through higher education. Thank you.

English Alternative Technical Education Delivery

by Samuel Colton, Sr (2006):

First written in 2006 this commentary is as true today as it was then.

English alternative technical education delivery models in the community college system serves the individual and the nation. Educational opportunities in technical education for non English speaking Americans and resident aliens serves the nation through enhanced job opportunity for the individual and a more competitive work force. This training in a persons mother tongue also allows them to be better positioned to sustain additional learning at the community college level for studies in English and other general literacy course work.

The United States historically has been a nation with many varied cultural and linguistic population groups. Indigenous peoples and other immigrants from the European nations that initially colonized the American continents sought out and developed intellectuals who could bridge the cultural and linguistic divide. Where able they developed numerous ways of organizing and training people with cultural and language differences to forge ahead in the development of economies of scale never before seen in human history.

This history also has demonstrated the need for all cultural groups involved in the great melting pot known as mankind and best represented in the United States of America to continue this tradition to build human bridges of learned individuals able to transcend apparent differences to create learning environments that allow people to participate in providing training for acquisition of skills and knowledge to benefit the collective endeavor of the nation. Our nation is one of constant transition and translation in a never ending process of receiving new immigrants and bringing them into the productive economy of the working classes and over time assimilating them into the collective American experience.

A country founded on free enterprise as ours can find great comfort in knowing that there are people who given the opportunity to improve themselves will. That the market will dictate the numbers of persons who will subscribe to training programs in a language other than English. That there are employers who are willing to pay for this type of training to assist thier employees in gaining new skills demonstrates the economic value of it. The high numbers of person who are striving to learn English should serve as an indicator of the desire on behalf of those persons willingness to seek to gain full access to the many opportunities in America. Even more encouraging is the number of person who given an opportunity for technical education will also seek to participate.

Institutions of higher learning have long required graduates to study foreign languages as a demonstration of ability to learn to understand linguistic and cultural differences from their own. This ability to communicate with others represents the highest orders of human relationships and thinking. A multi cultural literate person walks between worlds and is able to benefit the lives of all they touch. It is fitting that the community college seek to bring better understanding of others needs by providing when possible educational experiences that will allow community members to be lifted up to new positions of knowledge, learning and economic opportunity. In the process the entire community is transformed to a more encompassing and compassionate place to live and grow with others in the human experience.

As a dual benefit, the community college courses can be designed to address the delivery of technical education in combination with English as a second language. By using the technical publications available the technical teacher working with the ESL instructor can accelerate the learning of the adult student. Dual goals of language and job skills can be met at the same time.

This approach is not only beneficial from a domestic view, but in a global economy it allows for development of an international work force better able to build alliances with other partners to maximize opportunities for the benefit of all concerned.

Multi lingual technical training programs is about serving the needs of the individual, their families and the nation. Ideals that this nation promotes to the world as the goal of a free and democratic republic.

The Need For A Partners In Education Club.

An editorial on the present economic situation.

by Samuel Colton,

American Author

Professor of Welding

1-31-2009

The present state of the economy as of January 2009 continues to present troubling information for all sectors of the American economy. Government response is mixed as to how to contain the present shrinkage of the economy but the fall out on state and local government budgets continues to leave little choice as to cutting spending levels to match revenue realities.

As government leaders move to adjust spending the impact on education presents a rate of reduction in a country that has enjoyed a level of prosperity with out adequate investment in its most important resource, its children's education. Now governments answer to its budget woes is to cut even deeper into the very hope for its economic recovery, that being a well educated entrepreneurial generation of free thinking citizens.

I want to reject this movement but with little empowerment as to the events that are driving the voices of our elected officials who would bring down our education systems to a level that will take decades to recover I am left with the choice of taking individual action as an agent of change. Institutions that are feeling these collective government cuts are reactionary organizations moving to cut spending to match lower revenues. This downward spiral will lead to reduced levels of instructional resources and human capital in all areas of institutional organization so as to leave a weakened body of educational effectiveness poorly equipped to provide the learning environment that students will need to grow academically strong to face the challenges as the future leaders who lead the economic recovery.

Societal events that are the composition of millions of individual acts that manifest themselves at times such as these represents the cause for the crisis and therefore the answer to it must be found with the individual. As an educator I do not want to surrender and join those who are in a state of economic depression such that their response is to cut, cut, cut with no recovery plan but are waiting for some one else to have the vision to do so. I have concluded that individual action will be key to the educational recovery act and will originate with the individual recovery attitude. That while there must be a period of time to allow the greater economy and government revenue levels to return to pre recession revenue streams, it is the interim response that will determine how educational institutions weather the storm. More importantly these institutions post recession strength and what levels of educational excellence they will be able to move to in the future.

Great fortunes have been made during times such as these by those who were positioned for it. Equally valued are those who see the opportunities of the times that were always there but over looked by those whose vision was clouded by a negative response to negative news. I have decided that an inclusive response to those disposed to support education will prove to bring capital to bear on the institutions who can articulate their need, identify specific resources that are threatened and provide a vehicle to channel resources from individuals and companies to prop up and move forward educational programs, instruction and relevant student learning outcomes.

The choice is not to shrink with the economy but rather to grow in spite of it. The use of the term force multiplier is used in many aspects of society. Military commanders would refer to technologies and strategies that allow existing resources to come to bear in such as way as to multiply individuals and units so that these individual resources become combined efforts to act as a "force multiplier" that will give a strategic advantage. The quicker the force multipliers are identified and deployed the greater the opportunity to overwhelm the opposition. I conclude that now is the time for education to move out of the cut and cry strategy and move to the grow. Grow lean but grow strategy.

The analogy of a plant that withers from lack of proper nutrients which may survive but will it ever have the same vitality for having done so? If the same plant continues on this life saving path too long it will reach a point of no return and die. Institutions can adapt, grow, survive and thrive or wither and die. Unlike the plant we are living dynamic organisms that can seek out life sustaining resources where others have not looked, find additional ones that others have passed by and nourish ourselves and others to not only survive but grow stronger for having made the effort.

Strategic partnerships represents combined resources that left untapped will lead to individual institutional and corporate starvation. But when joined together allows individual intuitions, companies and people to join forces to create force multipliers that allow a shift in resources that brings advantage prosperity planning to the participating partners. Each partner can bring to the other an advantage to leverage the situation and capitalize on what is there to be capitalized on. A plan that forms what I have termed "The Need For A Partners In Education Club". PIE as used here stands for Partners In Education and our icon could be the mathematical symbol for pi. I selected this symbol for pi as it represents a constant in the formula pi time's the diameter equals the circumference. I see pi as the constant that used with a multiplier represents the ability to achieve the circumference or complete 360 degrees of a circle of empowerment. Its this circle of empowerment that can represent individuals joined for success in a specific cause.

Individually we cannot achieve the same out come that a force multiplier can. This hypothetical partners in education club could have any number of names but would consist of individuals who are willing to sacrifice for the betterment of educational programs that they as stake holders have an interest in. That these members are committed to do what ever they can, at what ever level they can, to support and grow educational programs so that the students in them can achieve life goals that will bring new ideas and people to bear on the present state of our countries affairs.

One could ask can such a concept grow an institution out of this recession? I state emphatically that it can. That the capacity of this nations people in communities across the land have in the past. That these same people can come together now to realize a better future. Individually our resources are such that we must partner one with the other and in so doing we can accomplish great achievements while others are standing on the side lines of life. I have a clear vision of the educational goals for students in the program of study I teach and the learning out comes that have been identified are just as valid now as they were before the economic recession. That professional well trained and educated individuals will be in demand now and in the future. That there are individuals and companies who have a vested interest in seeing our continued level of instruction and recognize the need to grow our programs and institutions to even greater levels of excellence and capacity. That these individuals and companies will want to be partners in education during these times and celebrate our combined success.

Be on the look out in your community for a partner to join with for educational success.

The Stand

By Samuel Colton

Wednesday, April 05, 2006, 6:31:31 PM

It takes a lot to make good juice

Fertile place to plant

Growing up healthy & strong

Workers to pollinate the crop

Helping hands to work the harvest

Knowledge to get the blend just right

Ability to serve the needs of those who thirst

Willingness to never stop trying

It takes a lot to appreciate the juice

A desire to partake of the good

Knowing the difference between the good and the bad

Learning more about the good than the bad

Willingness to sacrifice to enjoy the good

Sharing the knowledge of the good with others

Preparing for the next harvest and more of the good

It takes a lot to operate the juice stand

Those who have know

Those who don’t can learn

Those who won’t learn

Will never know the joy of running a juice stand

"There are many first for us all in life, and for institutions it is the same. Being the first recipient of the Francis Morris Endowed Faculty chair has been an honor and a privilege. The inspirational example of service provided by Mrs. Morris was one filled with a love for, and service to this wonderful institution. I wish to express my gratitude for the opportunity to serve as a faculty member at Arizona Western College, and to have my life and that of my family touched by the students, teachers and staff at this citadel of higher education. May I continue to strive to serve this institution with the same passion as those who have come before; now and always. "

Samuel Colton Sr.

First Recipient of the Francis Morris Endowed Faculty Chair

Arizona Western College Yuma Arizona

2007-2010

Contact Samuel Colton American Author