beautiful to love the world with eyes that have not yet been born

Before the Scales, Tomorrow

And when the enthusiastic
story of our time
is told,
who are yet to be born
but announce themselves
with more generous face,
we will come out ahead
--those who have suffered most from it.

And that
being ahead of your time
means much suffering from it.
But it's beautiful to love the world
with eyes
that have not yet
been born.

And splendid
to know yourself victorious
when all around you
it's all still so cold,
so dark.

Otto Rene Castillo

I heart Deborah Meier

Ugh. I so do!

There are two pieces of her's I just read that really are meaningful.

Free Market Schooling

"This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about....Working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity — its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist." Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, and I, agree. But the public seems just as suspicious—if not more so—about public institutions as the private ones. Thus the relative lack of alarm over the extraordinary shift in "ownership" of our public schools. We are witnessing more federal intervention at virtually all levels of schooling, more power in the hands of private wealth, and more "market-driven" decisions — at the same time! And there is almost no well-funded opposition, except for teacher unions who are then villainized as being anti-reform, self-interested, too protective of their bad apples.

The second, Until We Take Democracy Seriously, is similar.

Here's an essential question: When trying to get at the truth of things, what role do data play? Most of the time our "habits" take over before we can exercise any form of reflective judgment (which is why John Dewey focused on "habits of mind" as the goal of good schools). Habits are slow growing so slowing things down could help. It takes a "leisure class" to rule well. Leisure has a democratic purpose because "data" rarely speak for themselves. That's true whether the data are numbers or observations. Sometimes, highly structured and standardized "observations"—standardized tests—work. Sometimes, highly structured debates or formal proofs work—with the rules of the game and the judges chosen by those viewed as most expert or representative. Often, we decide on the sheer logic of the argument, calling upon the data life itself has brought us.

I'm also reading a couple books. Diane Ravitch's new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I've never totally agreed with Ravitch's views, but find her to be a fascinating individual and as I read this book about her changing views on how education to look, I continue to respect her. And it looks like we agree on more "stuff."

I'm also reading Alfie Kohn's Punished By Rewards.

Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet.

In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

"Doing" Critical Pedagogy in the K-12 Space

Came across an interesting post on The Freire Project, "Everyday Critical Pedagogies Do Exist" that was a response to a comment about whether or not critical pedagogy should be promoted within the K-12 space, or best used/pushed at higher education institutions and community groups, etc. Which makes more sense?

This is something that I've pondered as an elementary school teacher and critical pedagogue. It is easier to envision or make concrete my own critical pedagogy outside of the K-12 space-- in applied theatre, in my writing, in my political thinking and action. Certainly, these beliefs and philosophies inform my practice as a second grade special education teacher, and prior as a K-8 theatre and movement teaching artist. However, I grapple with the question: Do I have an everyday critical pedagogy?

I'm not sure. I try to. I'm figuring out exactly what that means. I first thought that my beliefs about critical pedagogy would influence mostly the content I teach and how I teach it (and it certainly does); I am learning more and more that perhaps it influences my views of my special needs students and the way I interact with them more than the aforementioned.

Building a community in which my special needs learners have agency and are viewed as whole human beings rather than disabled or deficient children veers me away from using certain behavior modification and token economy techniques that are so often pushed in classrooms. As a critical pedagogue I am always trying to reevaluate my own assumptions and make and remake myself as an educator and a student. I try to observe, listen, and understand my students more and more. I attempt to create a circle of learning, instead of what a traditional classroom usually becomes. At times, I fail. I know that I talk more than my students. I know that I do not yet give them enough opportunities to be heard and to use their language, to inquire and reflect on the world. I don't think I'm patient enough for that to happen as much as it should. I'm working on it.

The thought just popped into my mind about one of my favorite quotes: If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." I think I do feel that way within my classroom. We are bound, and teaching and learning has become much more than helping. I can't explain much more than that right now, but I am continuing to learn what it means to be a critical pedagogue with my second grade wonders.

Hello Poetry!

April is Poetry Month. I love poems.

• Teachers and Writers Collaborative always has awesome articles on teaching poetry. I'm hoping to put something together with poetry and comics for my second graders.
• Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is an awesome, fabulous, and beautiful book about writing poetry with children. It has simple but awesome ideas!
• Poets.org has curricula and lesson plans that are cool.

deb meier on testing

Like this analogy she makes on Bridging Differences:

If only everyone stopped using the word "achievement" as a synonym for scores on tests. It's a sleight of hand that justifies so much that's gone wrong. We've meanwhile discounted the work of real live children as "soft" data.

Having "normal" temperature may be an indicator of health, but when we think it's the definition of health, beware. We wouldn't be so stupid, would we? A high score on a multiple-choice driving test means something different than a road test driving a car. So we prefer the latter if we value safety. Do we value intellectual achievement less?

on teaching

"…Teaching is an interactive practice that begins and ends with seeing the student. This is more complicated than it seems, for it is something that is ongoing and never completely finished. The student grows and changes, the situation shifts, and seeing becomes an evolving challenge. As layers of mystification and obfuscation are peeled away, as a student becomes more fully present to the teacher, experiences and ways of thinking and knowing that were initially obscure become the ground on which an authentic and vital teaching practice can be constructed.”

From: To Teach: The Journey Of A Teacher By William Ayers, Teachers College Press, 2001

books on my nightstand

I'm reading a lot of books at once. All are great. Especially Lost at School. Can't say enough about Collaborative Problem Solving!

Without the right conditions, nothing grows

Thank you Ken Robinson. I very much agree that teachers must create conditions that allow students to flourish. Not conditions that stifle students or scare students into compliance.

By Heart: This book sounds good...

By Heart

Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives

Judith Tannenbaum, Spoon Jackson

"A boy with no one to listen becomes a man in prison for life and discovers his mind can be free. A woman enters prison to teach and becomes his first listener. And so begins a twenty-five year friendship between two gifted writers and poets. The result is By Heart — a book that will anger you, give you hope, and break your heart."
— Gloria Steinem

Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson met at San Quentin State Prison in 1985. For over two decades they have conferred, corresponded and sometimes collaborated, producing very different bodies of work resting on the same understanding: that human beings have one foot in darkness, the other in light.

In this beautifully crafted exploration – part memoir, part essay – Tannenbaum and Jackson consider art, education, prison, possibility, and which children our world nurtures and which it shuns. At the book's core are two stories that speak for human imagination, spirit, and expression.

Resources for evaluating power, privilege, values, and status

In Good Work: Ethics and Community Cultural Development with Children and Youth, Stephani Etheridge Woodson examines what it means to do "good work" with kids. I found the below resources valuable. I've done status mapping and value mapping, but I thought the matchstick autobiography was cool.

A few activities I use to tackle this ethical responsibility include:

1. Status mapping
   
   

   Social Indentity	Membership	Status
   Primary Cultural affiliation
   Gender
   Appearance
   Class
   Physical Ability/Disability
   Sexual Orientation
   Religion
   Age

   
   
2. Field work observing the performance of power and status
   
   Observe diverse sites, for example, the ASU gym and pool, a preschool playground, or a high-school basketball game. In each location, look for how social identities are performed and maintained. Look for status as related to those membership categories.
   
   
3. Writing your own obituary
   
   Write your own obituary, putting into it all of your life‘s accomplishments, and include why you are proud of these accomplishments
   
   
4. Matchstick autobiography
   
   In the space of time provided by one lit match (before you burn your fingers) give your autobiography to the class. What is most important that we know about you?
   
   
5. Value mapping activities
   
   
   1. Design a crest and motto for yourself.
   2. Create digital “I am” poems.
   3. As I read each of the below statements, vote with your body, ranking your values on a continuum of “agree” on one side of the room and “disagree” on the other.
      • Spending time with my family is important.
      • It is more important to save money than it is to buy things I want, but don’t necessarily need.
      • Being physically fit is an important part of my life.
      • Creative time is important to me.
      • It is more important to be honest than to spare someone’s feelings.

Becoming competent culturally is a process of self-reflexive pondering, questioning and awareness of how power dynamics operate. I believe that CCD youth-focused practitioners have an ethical responsibility to acknowledge power, to understand how their own status operates in any given situation, and to be able to honestly address difference with children and youth.

Ruby Bridges to Today

In my second grade special ed classroom, we've been studying school integration. The texts we've been using include The Story of Ruby Bridges, Through My Eyes, and Remember.

The kids get it. One of my students said, "I think I know why there were laws that made life for white people better. I think it is because all of the people in the court were white."

My kids see our school as integrated because there are many shades of black and brown. But we're still not there at all. Here's a great story from Village Voice, Inside a Divided Upper East Side School.

If you're a white student and you arrive at the public elementary school building on 95th Street and Third Avenue, you'll probably walk through the front door. If you're a black student, you'll probably come in through the back.

pre-school paralysis

Just got around to reading The Junior Meritocracy piece in a recent NY Mag. Love what the head of The Calhoun School has to say:

I want a school full of kids who day dream. I want kids who are fun to be with. I want kids who don't want to answer the questions on those tests in the way the adult wants them to be answered, because that kid is already seeing the world differently. In fact, I want kids who are cynical enough at age 4 to know that there's really something wrong with someone asking them these theings and think, 'I'm going to screw with them in the process!'"

Aren't these many of our special education students? He also says:

You have to play with blocks. You have to make up stories. You have to muck around. Arithmetic and decoding language aren't life---they're symbolic representations of other things. And education is being diverted into focusing on these symbolic representations of the very experiences kids are being denied.

Love, Love, Love: Part 6

Thanks to ATA Blog for making me remember that I haven't finished sharing on this topic.

This post is about Facilitating Challenging Dialogue in the applied theatre, with love.

Here's the background: To explore the concept of radical love in the applied theatre space, I reached out to other practitioners and continued to review applicable literature in the field of education and theatre. I have organized these thoughts into four that struck me:

• Courage, Envisioning and Imagining Change
• Community Work
• Facilitating Challenging Dialogue
• Representation of the Other

Find the links to the previous posts here.

Here's my bit on Facilitating Challenging Dialogue...

To engage in true openness, listening, and dialogue to represent love in action, we must risk spaces of discomfort. In examining power and privilege, oppression, marginalization, abuse, violence and other topics, applied theatre work often ventures to places that are uncomfortable for facilitators and participants. As practitioners, we must embrace this space, but maintain its safety.

In “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness,” bell hooks identifies the margin as a space for resistance. She notes that the margin is “much more than a site of deprivation…it is also the site of radical possibility.” Yet, embracing marginality may be a space of uneasiness for some—but discomfort can be the most radical place for learning. Dr. Christina Marin of NYU's Educational Theatre Program challenges participants to acknowledge that through discomfort, amazing possibilities can be uncovered:

If you are willing to be uncomfortable, which I believe is one of the best places in which to explore, if you’re willing to, and you don’t try and put the band-aid on it, you don’t try to cover it up, you don’t try and dismiss it and negate it, you don’t try and get past it to get to the comfortable part too quickly. Sometimes we have to sit in that zone of discomfort because that’s where we can examine how we can find the road together.

Michael Rhod (of Sojourn Theatre) points out that it is the facilitator’s responsibility to maintain a safe space throughout discomfort, to “be aware and fiercely observant, proactive, porous, and at the same time recognize that there are some moments that you have to let tumble forward…” When the facilitator is a part of the circle, rather than outside of it, the facilitator demonstrates risk alongside participants. With this courage to risk, facilitators and participants engage in the vulnerable and courageous act of love that McLaren (1997) and Antonia Darder characterize as radical love.

Throughout the applied theatre experience, the facilitator is responsible for creating and maintaining a safe space in concert with participants. The artists’ responsibilities amplify when applied theatre work results in performance where there exist implications with the way we represent the other.

Looking Closely at Harlem Children's Zone

City Limits' March issue takes a little bit more of a critical look at HCZ.

Maxine Greene, my love

via ATA Blog:

An excerpt from How Do We Think About Our Craft?, an essay by Maxine Greene published by Teachers College, Columbia University.

"Gradually becoming aware of all this, we are beginning to recognize that every young person must be encountered as a center of consciousness, even as he or she is understood to be a participant in an identifiable social world. Each one may be encountered as a being who is at once a distinctive individual and someone whose consciousness opens out to the common, an intersubjective world in which he or she is inextricably involved."

Learning Love

Thanks to Michael Wiggins of the ATA Blog for sharing this quote about love!

In his book, The Art of Loving, philosopher Erich Fromm writes:

"The first step is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering.

Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend much energy on?"

Emotions, Memory, and Learning

I was recently skimming a book on what teachers should know about how the brain works. (I need to find the title--I know I wrote it down somewhere.) The part that really stood out to me (even though it makes total sense) is that we are more likely to remember something/put it into our memory if there is emotion tied to it. We are likely to remember that with which we have an emotional connection. Duh.

Still, this makes me think about how the arts can be so crucial in learning. Experiencing a process drama about Ruby Bridges' and school integration vs. reading about it. Listening to or learning music from the Civil Rights area. Problem solving using Forum Theatre. All of these evoke emotions as a tool and a way of learning, and an avenue to remembering.

Here's a quick read on Educational Leadership: Brain-Friendly Learning for Teachers.

Our brain pays more attention to stimuli and events that are accompanied by emotions. We remember the best and worst things that happen to us while forgetting emotionally neutral events. Do you remember what you ate for lunch two weeks ago last Thursday? Probably not, unless it was a special occasion or the food made you sick. In either case, the accompanying emotions enabled you to remember it.

How we feel about a learning situation often affects attention and memory more quickly than what we think about it. In most adolescents, the brain region that processes emotions (the limbic area) is fully operational, whereas the regions responsible for thinking, reflecting, and controlling emotional reactions (located in the prefrontal cortex) are still developing. This is why middle school students overtly display emotions inappropriately in the classroom (through pained sighs, rolling eyes, and blank looks).

And another: The Role of Emotions in Learning. This one talks mainly about the way that fear/joy can affect our ability to learn and open up avenues to learning.

Here's an article on Memory, Music and Emotion in Learning.

p-l-a-y

Great, great, great Susan Engel & NY Times.

So important to recognize that what we teach and the way we teach is not aligned to what we know about child development.

Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on.

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.

Discovering Race Relations

Here are some resources that could be applicable during Black History Month. RaceBridges offers a spectrum of lesson ideas from looking at Obama's speech on race to looking at the history of discrimination against Native Americans in Alaska.

I hate this article.

Is that mean of me to say?

I just don't think Flanagan gets the point of experiential education.