O.k. — Jane Krauss… brilliant technology-infused, project-based author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning… smart, kid-centered, kind… what could anyone have against Jane Krauss, right?

It’s all a facade. Don’t believe any of it.

Behind that “caring progressive educator” mask is nothing but stone cold.

Turns out that Jane’s son is John Bloch of South Eugene HS. South Eugene HS is the team that beat Beacon HS in the 2004 HS National Championships 11-9 in a game that, four years later, still causes me to wake up screaming.

So, yes, perhaps I may have yelled at Jane in my office today when she came to visit SLA. Perhaps I suggested that she should leave my office… but don’t let her blog post fool you…. she took a great deal of glee in twittering me the text of the article that ran about the game against her son’s team. Evil, pure evil, I tell you.

[For the sarcasm-impared, Jane is not evil, but she is the brilliant author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, and we both were laughing as I was yelling at her… yes, I really yelled. Hey, I’m a passionate coach. Would Duke let a UNC parent hang out in the Provost’s office? I think not… And yes, I was grumpy for the rest of the day because I couldn’t stop thinking about that game. *auuuugh*]

But what I was thinking when she left (I walked her out… she signed the copy of the book… it was very friendly, really!) was how we have so many networks, and they do overlap. I think we have to remember that our networks can be informed in so many ways. We can meet on-line or we can reinforce off-line networks on-line. Because either through Facebook or iChat or cell-phone, I talked to just about every senior from that Beacon team tonight to tell them that story. (And for the record, they all agreed that throwing her out of the office would have been completely justified.)

If it wasn’t for the social networking tools, it would be so much harder to keep in touch with all of them, and instead, I’m in a Facebook group with just about every kid who ever played Ultimate or basketball on my teams, many of us exchange quick IMs or emails, and I still feel connected to the kids who I spent four years working with at 6:30 am every morning. And since most of the best memories I have of my years at Beacon were on the court and on the field with those kids, that’s just an unqualified good in my life.

[Hmmm… if I keep linking to her book, do you think Jane will forgive me for yelling? Come back to SLA soon, Jane!]

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Tags: ultimate, beacon, coaching, networks, jane_krauss