About Miguel Guhlin

Transforming teaching, learning and leadership through the strategic application of technology has been my motto. An edublogger, you can read academic writing at at blog.tcea.org, mguhlin.org, and mglead.org/mglead2.org.

In September, 2018, I earned his ISTE Certified Educator status–the first Texan and Panamanian to do so (I have allowed it to lapse since it turned into more of a money generator for them, while I sympathize, I’d rather spend my money in other ways). I am also a recipient of the ISTE Making IT Happen Award, a Google Certified Innovator, Administrator, Trainer, and a Microsoft Certified Master Trainer and Expert (MS has lapsed, however).

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Commitment

The current effort to persecute and prosecute businesses and people who support diversity, equity, and inclusion is reprehensible, odious, and the work of racists and fascists.

To not put too fine a point on it.

Please know that I am committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and anti-racism. As a Panamanian with roots in the native populations of Panama, as well as offspring of Swedish American immigrants, I was raised with privilege in a white dominant culture. 

History Teaching In American Schools is Revisionist and Not Accurate

I understood the meaning of “woke” when I read the actual history of the United States and the Americas. To be “woke” is to finally understand what happened, the colossal lies told to cover it up, and the ongoing oppression that persists.

I am disappointed with the education I received in regards to my history, the whitewashed history of where I grew up (Canal Zone, Rep. of Panama, and San Antonio, Texas, USA). I don’t see the problem with teaching children what actually happened in the past, the United States of America’s structural racism, or learning how to to be culturally responsive educators. Books like Clint Smith‘s How the Word Is Passed, as well as:

• Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. Elizabeth Lesser. A great read, perspective altering.
• Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth. Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford.
• Lies My Teacher Told Me. James W. Loewen.

It’s a fact that enslaved people, including indigenous peoples and Black folx, were abused and taken advantage of so that Europeans and their descendants would prosper. I don’t support Thanksgiving or evangelical “Christianity” to the extent that it is a celebration of land thievin’, murdering Europeans who chopped the hands off indigenous people if they didn’t get them their quota of gold. Genocide, pestilence, and death were all Europeans offered Indigenous peoples. I regret that people still act in ways that support those practices, in their present form, remain today.

If this is the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, then you must know that I support teaching an inclusive history of America, not the whitewashed garbage that every Generation X got in their American history textbooks. My father, of Swedish descent, fought in the Korean Conflict and earned the Bronze Star with V for valor. I can do no less than stand up for the right of all Americans to learn their history.

Disclaimer for Work

Please note that my social media posts, blog entries, podcasts, publications may or may not reflect the interests of my employer(s), their customers/clients. In fact, it’s probably best to assume that they do not. I certainly do not craft them with that in mind. Often, my focus in sharing tweets is a natural by-product of saving items for later reading, not an endorsement, or “Wow, this is interesting and makes me think.” 

For that reason, you are not entering an echo chamber but rather a space where ideas (some controversial) are considered, debated, and my imperfect thinking flushed out. After all, how else will I explore these ideas? That’s what a blog is for, to more quickly identify the rightness or error of one’s thinking and processes. 

By the way, see if the canary is still alive at the bottom of this post.

Confidential Communications

Need to send me an encrypted communication? Use Signal messenger.  Encrypt all your communications using free tools available. Use these tools to encrypt/decrypt your email. There are many tutorials available.

• For encrypting email messages:
  •  Fourmilab’s web page (save it on your computer locally) on your own computer to encrypt text messages. Use secure passwords.
  • On Linux, use KGPG; on Mac, GPGTools; on Windows,GPG4Win
• For files/folders:
  • Secure Space Encryptor (SSE) tool (lets you encrypt folders of files into one). Runs on Win/Mac/Linux. Watch this video.
  • Filelock.org tool works great on Chromebooks and in your web browser for individual files (or zip them, then encrypt them).
  • AESCrypt.com (encrypts file by file, available for Win/Mac/Linux)

Copyright Notice

All blog entries are under Creative Commons ShareAlike-Attribution copyright.

Canary in the Coal Mine

One of my favorite stories from the past includes that of the canary in the coal mine. According to Wiktionary:

An allusion to caged canaries (birds) that miners would carry down into the mine tunnels with them. If dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide collected in the mine, the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners, thus providing a warning to exit the tunnels immediately.

I share this image here. If for some reason it changes from what is displayed, you will know that there has been a chilling effect on my speech, on the content of the blog. As long as the canary lives, you know no one has said, “You will stop publishing this or suffer consequences.” Who might level such a threat, I don’t know, but I always wanted to put a canary in this space in case toxic influences find their way in.