With Every Step, Peace

How can we teach this to kids?

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.

From Thich Nhat Hanh's Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good a living.

Very similar to John Dewey's notion that education is not a preparation for life, but a way of life.

Connections between mindfulness and teaching?

Teaching Teachers Mindfulness to Foster Education, Improve Well-being
In the Classroom, a New Focus On Quieting the Mind, NY Times

Going Beyond

From the NY Times. Several education folks weigh in. I like what Diane Ravitch has to say:

Beyond Testing

The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why we educate. Faced with this lack of consensus, policy makers define good education as higher test scores. But higher test scores are not a definition of good education. Students can get higher scores in reading and mathematics yet remain completely ignorant of science, the arts, civics, history, literature and foreign languages.

Why do we educate? We educate because we want citizens who are capable of taking responsibility for their lives and for our democracy. We want citizens who understand how their government works, who are knowledgeable about the history of their nation and other nations. We need citizens who are thoroughly educated in science. We need people who can communicate in other languages. We must ensure that every young person has the chance to engage in the arts.

But because of our narrow-minded utilitarianism, we have forgotten what good education is.

DIANE RAVITCH
Ravitch is a historian. Her book ‘‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System’’ will be published in February.

Love, Love, Love: Part 4

After taking a look at the question of love and teaching, delving into Freire's concept of radical love, and getting together a background on applied theatre, I tried to break down the concept of radical love in the applied theatre space.

I've made connections between radical love and applied theatre by looking at four areas:

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

Courage, Envisioning and Imagining

As I began to explore the idea of radical love in my own practice as an applied theatre practitioner and through conversation with other practitioners, the first recognition was that the context in which Freire spoke and wrote was certainly very different than that of my own. Christina Marin, Assistant Professor of Educational Theatre at New York University, noted that coming into the applied theatre or Theatre of the Oppressed space from a privileged and academic perspective is quite different from the original context of Freire’s pedagogy and Boal’s adaptation in the theatre (personal communication, April 3, 2009). The Instructional Coordinator of the Adult Learning Center at Lehman College’s Institute for Literacy Studies spoke of her frustration applying Freire’s pedagogy within a modern context:

It is very hard to feel like you are doing something radical and revolutionary in times where people are not rising up at all, but trying to survive and fit in and be successful within the system. I think it would be much more like Freire to teach within the context of social change movements, than the kind of teaching that I do. (personal communication, July 14, 2009)

Thus, our adaptation or judgment of the applicability of Freire’s radical love may be skewed by our belief that we are not in a revolutionary context or time of major social change. Are we in the context of a social change movement? And should we be? Do we believe in the potential for change in the present context?

Oppression may carry a different meaning at the present time within Western culture than it did in Freire’s historical context. In Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (5th Edition), Peter McLaren (1998) offers a newer take on oppression that sees oppression beyond the deliberate practice of evil (p. 18). McLaren (1998) states, “oppression can exist even in the absence of overt discrimination” and is perpetuated by well-meaning individuals in the routine decisions of life (p.18).

Consequently, it may be more difficult to contextualize radical love in a situation where oppression is not so obvious or palpable. In recognition of this in her own work, one adult literacy coordinator concludes,

It’s a different book now that would be written. [Pedagogy of the Oppressed is] a product of history, when we really felt like the whole world was going to have a socialist revolution, and it was so obvious that this was going to happen and people were going to embrace it. And now, that’s not so obvious. They always used think that revolution was right around the corner, and I’d love to feel that way again. (personal communication, July 14, 2009)

In the re-contextualization of Freire’s radical love, the concept of revolution may be outdated or irrelevant for some educators coming from an American standpoint. It may be more difficult for us to envision dramatic, revolutionary change in our communities and societies. Still, Freire (1998) encourages us that love breeds bravery that inspires us to try “a thousand times before giving up” (p. 3). Yet, in order to persist, we must be able to envision liberation.

Envisioning another future requires believing in the possibility of change—change that can be brought about through education, and in our work, through the use of theatre. Marin describes this poetically as “love of the potential” (personal communication, April 3, 2009). She continues to describe this as, “loving what can be. What we haven’t achieved yet. And if you feel that kind of love for a potential, you work harder toward it and you work more in community toward it“ (personal communication, April 3, 2009). In the applied theatre context, potential is explored in a theatrical dialogue.

According to Boal (2002), “Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it” (p. 16). By reflecting on our lives, our world and our actions within the world, exchanging ideas, pondering alternative realities, and trying out and rehearsing possible options and solutions to oppressive situations, theatre can transform communities and help us to create new possibilities.

Appropriately, the imagination is at the center of social change, the foundation for the ability to love and persist in the creation of a new world. In Releasing the Imagination, philosopher and social critic Maxine Greene (2000) shares,

it may be the recovery of imagination that lessens the social paralysis we see around us and restores the sense that something can be done in the name of what is decent and humane. My attention turns back to the importance of wide-awakeness, of awareness of what it is to be in the world. (p. 35)

It is difficult to scientifically measure the change that the power of the imagination, personal connections, dialogue, human interaction and trust can spark. These scientific measurements are the ones that our society currently values and privileges. But it is even more difficult to argue that personal connections, dialogue, human interaction and trust are meaningless. Humans are the most powerful tools in social change—the only tools.

To recognize the sacredness of the human ability to identify and reflect is to place a profound respect toward our ability to transform our communities, our world and ourselves. In order to truly engage in loving action that leads to liberation and transformation, we must first believe in the possibility of change. In the applied theatre realm, that possibility can be articulated with dramatic techniques.

Up next: Exploring Community Work.

Resources:

What to do with defiant behavior?

Seriously, what do you do? I'm struggling with this right now with many of my elementary school students. Here are some strategies I found from a quick search:

State Teacher Directives as Two-Part Choice Statements (Walker, 1997). When a student's confrontational behavior seems driven by a need for control, the teacher can structure verbal requests to both acknowledge the student’s freedom to choose whether to comply and present the logical consequences for non-compliance (e.g., poor grades, office disciplinary referral, etc.). Frame requests to uncooperative students as a two-part statement. First, present the negative, or non-compliant, choice and its consequences (e.g., if a seatwork assignment is not completed in class, the student must stay after school). Then state the positive behavioral choice that you would like the student to select (e.g., the student can complete the seatwork assignment within the allotted work time and not stay after school). Here is a sample 2-part choice statement, ‘John, you can stay after school to finish the class assignment or you can finish the assignment now and not have to stay after class. It is your choice.’

Teachers seldom have the time to drop everything and talk at length with a student who is upset about an incident that occurred within or outside of school. The "Talk Ticket" assures the student that he or she will have a chance to talk through the situation while allowing the teacher to schedule the meeting with the student for a time that does not disrupt classroom instruction. The Talk Ticket intervention is flexible to implement and offers the option of taking the student through a simple, structured problem-solving format.

Take the Time to Talk...This intervention will probably be most effective if the adult who debriefs with the student is able to use a structured problem-solving approach to help the student reflect on (1) what factors led to the problem in the first place and (2) how he or she might avoid such problems in the future.

Truth

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.
- Zora Neale Hurston

Perhaps this is why.

Love, Love, Love: Part 3

Before delving more into the connections between radical love and applied theatre, I thought it was important examine the background of the applied theatre. (Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.)

Applied theatre engages participants in critical reflection on their society, their relationships, or their communities and poses problems and explores solutions (Taylor, 2003). It activates human consciousness through participation and observation, rather than observation alone (Taylor, 2003; Boal, 1985). Philip Taylor (2003) argues, “the applied theatre operates from a central transformative principle” (p. 1). Within these explorations and dialogue, theatre is the language that is utilized (Taylor, 2003).

Augusto Boal (1985) adapted Freire’s pedagogy into the theatrical space with the creation of Forum Theatre, a dialogical and participatory form of theatre in which the typical audience is transformed from spectators to participants or “spect-actors.” In his book Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Boal (2002) offers his concept of theatre:

in its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings—and not by animals—to observe themselves in action. Humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. They can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow. (p. 11)

Theatre, in this sense, is tied to action, reflection, and imagination.
Boal (2002) claims, “To identify is to be able not only to recognise within the same repetitive context but also to extrapolate to other contexts; to see beyond what the eye sees, to hear beyond what the ear hears, to feel beyond what touches the skin, to think beyond what words mean” (p. 12). Applied theatre as a human activity of identification means thorough examination, thinking beyond current patterns, breaking those patterns, and exploring new ones (Taylor, 2003; Nicholson, 2005; Boal, 2002).

Applied theatre practice often takes place within marginalized and oppressed communities and untraditional spaces such as prisons, hospitals, and other community centers (Rohd, 1998; Taylor, 2003; Nicholson, 2005; Boal, 1985). Because the work takes place in such a range of settings, artists often work with communities of which they are not a part. Consequently, it is important that artists explore the dynamic of insider/outsider and respect for the community within which they are working (Cohen-Cruz, 2005), harkening back to Freire’s (2000) concept of genuine dialogue and opening up the self to the other.

Radical Love in the Applied Theatre Space

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

Resources to check out:

Jacob's Pillow asks why

Jacob's Pillow asks dancers "Why do you dance?"

I dance because there is something inside me that wants out - it wants to move and express and be beautiful and feel good.
- Anonymous

Because without it, my soul is incomplete.
- Carla Santia via Facebook

The Right Questions

Thanks to ATA Blog for sharing!

I am reading Chapter 5 of Asking Better Questions. The authors propose three broad categories of questions. The book, which totally qualifies as a classic teacher resource, also suggests that instead of asking "What type of question should I ask?" it is probably more practical to ask, "What do I want this question to do?" Download and read Chapter 5 here (PDF).

Love, Love, Love: Part 2

Today, we continue with our second installment on Love. See part one here.

To continue exploring the relationship between radical love and arts education/applied theatre, let's take a closer look at radical love from Freire's perspective.

Freire (1998) overtly refers to teaching as an act of love and claims that teaching is impossible without a “well-thought-out capacity to love” (p.3).

Freire’s philosophy of education contends that education must contain horizontal dialogical relationships, in which the dialogue is rooted in love for the world and for people (Freire, 2000; McClaren, 1999). Within this dialogical concept, the self is opened up to the other (McClaren, 1999). Freire (2000) warns, “Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people. The naming of the world, which is an act of creation and re-creation, is not possible if it is not infused with love. Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself” (p. 89-90). Without love, true dialogue is impossible. Freire (2000) offers, “Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation. And this commitment, because it is loving, is dialogical” (p. 89). Commitment to others (rather than a fashionable social cause or issue) is the foundation of liberation; acts of courage, change, and dialogue are all acts of love.

Kincheloe (2004) describes this concept as “radical love” (p. 3), commenting, “Such a love is compassionate, erotic, creative, sensual, and informed. Critical pedagogy uses it to increase our capacity to love, to bring the power of love to our everyday lives and social institutions, and to rethink reason in a humane and interconnected manner” (p. 3). Revolutionary or radical love must liberate; it is struggle, and encourages and fuels more struggle (McClaren, 1999).

Antonia Darder (2002) reflects on Freire’s use of the word love. She argues that Freire’s love challenges the restrictive fear of freedom that is present in so many of us; it is characterized by vulnerability and struggle (p. 499). McLaren (1999) posits that “authentic love opens up the self to the Other” (p. 171). With this opening up of the self comes solidarity and struggle for liberation.

Freire (2000) offers that, “[a]s individuals or as peoples, by fighting for the restoration of the humanity they will be attempting the restoration of true generosity….. And this fight, because of the purpose given it by the oppressed, will actually constitute an act of love opposing the lovelessness which lies at the heart of the oppressors’ violence” (p. 45). McLaren (1999) also mentions the political and active nature of Freire’s vision of love: “a love for humankind that remains disconnected from a liberatory politics does a profound disservice to its object” (p. 171). Love is connected to that which is political and that which is active.

Consequently, in opposition to love and dialogue, lies oppression. “Sadistic love is a perverted love—a love of death, not of life. One of the characteristics of the oppressor consciousness and its necrophilic view of the world is thus sadism. As the oppressor consciousness, in order to dominate, tries to deter the drive to search, the restlessness, and the creative power which characterize life, it kills life” (Freire, 2000, p. 59-60). Oppression stifles dialogue, creativity, and the ability to name the world.

It appears that love, from Freire’s perspective includes a specific open relationship to the other, as well as actions that seek freedom and liberation through intense struggle. According to McLaren (1999), “revolutionary love is always pointed in the direction of commitment and fidelity to a global project of emancipation” (p. 171). Love is not simply feeling, it is action.

Graphics + Theory = Fun

I've recently acquired a couple Introducing Books. Basically, they're graphic guides to pretty heavy subjects. Great for introducing a topic or looking for a little refresher! I've got Critical Theory and Foucault. (Also, they make great gifts!)

Little Kids, Big Hearts & Minds

Using Their Words features social justice projects from elementary school classrooms. Hurrah!

Love, Love, Love: Part 1

I've been working on research surrounding Paulo Freire's concept of radical love in relation to teaching. I presented a bit of this at the AATE Conference last week. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share some short installments of the research (a work in progress.)

“It is impossible to teach without the courage to try a thousand times before giving up. In short, it is impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to love. (Freire, 1998, p.3)

If you’d have told me two years ago that I’d be writing a research paper on love, I might have laughed. And while I still consider it amusing to ponder the subject, I find it important, difficult, intriguing, and critical to discover what love means in my own practice as a teaching artist—if it means anything at all.

Paulo Freire’s writings, philosophy, and practice have deeply influenced my pedagogy and practice as a drama educator. Peter McClaren (2000) maintains that Freire’s “unshamed stress on the power of love” (p. 171) makes him unique among other progressive and leftist educators. Freire (1998) argues, “It is impossible to teach without the courage to try a thousand times before giving up. In short, it is impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to love" (p. 3). But what is a thoughtful capacity to love? What does Freire mean? How does love relate to my own pedagogy?

In A Natural History of Love, Diane Ackerman maintains:

As a society, we are embarrassed by love. We treat it as if it were an obscenity. We reluctantly admit to it. Even saying the word makes us stumble and blush. Why should we be ashamed of an emotion so beautiful and natural? Love is the most important thing in our lives, a passion for which we would fight or die, and yet, we’re reluctant to linger over its name. Without a supple vocabulary, we can’t even talk or think about it directly. On the other hand, we have many sharp verbs for the ways in which human beings can hurt one another…. Our vocabulary of love and lovemaking is so paltry that a poet has to choose among clichés…. Fortunately, this has led to some richly imagined works of art. It has inspired poets to create their own private vocabularies. (p. xix)

How appropriate is it that we, as teaching artists, theatre practitioners, actors, and educators explore and create our own vocabulary of love? Or are we too, ashamed of something that appears to be too gushy, silly, or emotional?

“Whoever sets out to write about love is taking the biggest risk of his or her life.” (Isn’t it Romantic, 2004, p. 17). I write this paper is because I want to know what love means for Freire, other educators, and me. Perhaps my exploration of my own definition of love will help you to agree, disagree, and ponder the meaning and concept of love within your own educational practice.

Up next: Freire’s concept of radical love and the roots of applied theatre.

Contribute a Verse

O Me! O Life!

by Walt Whitman

O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Have you checked out...

Entrepreneur the Arts?

Conferencing in Times Square

Spent the weekend at the AATE/ATHE Risking Innovation conference at the Marriot. Met some great folks, like Michael Wiggins of the ATA Blog, and attended some fun and provocative workshops from The New Victory and Creative Arts Team, to name a few. Plan to jot down some of my notes down here soon.

Also, gearing up to begin teaching "for real" this fall... teaching artist turns elementary special education teacher. Making the leap, but still blogging arts in ed, just with a new perspective.

Check this out:
Rethinking Schools Resources on Rethinking Early Childhood Education

By the way, if the Obama's choose this education for their girls, shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to have a holistic education?

EdLib features Resources from Free Minds Free People Conference

Greetings! This month’s lab report features curriculum materials from the amazing Free Minds, Free People conference that took place in Houston in June. You can learn more about the conference by visiting www.freemindsfreepeople.org. This report also includes a collection of resources for teaching about Hurricane Katrina. Many thanks to those who contributed the items listed in this report. We hope network members will continue to enrich this important social justice education tool by posting their own teaching materials.

the lab report is a monthly update of curriculum materials posted to the EdLib Lab, the network's online database of social justice teaching materials. To join this community of educators, sign up here for the Education for Liberation Network listserv.

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Using Their Words by Social Justice Critical Inquiry Project

Using their Words showcases social justice education projects in elementary school classrooms. All the units housed on this site: -were designed and implemented by elementary school teachers and student teachers focus on social justice issues such as racism, gentrification, fairness, child labor etc. -help students ask difficult questions about the world -are designed to engage children in social action to change the conditions of their worlds -have been integrated with standards or mandated curricular programs. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: Catch us if You Can)

Grade Levels: Elementary
Cost: No

A Katrina Reader: Readings by & for Anti-Racist Educators and Organizers by a team of white anti-racist solidarity activists

A collection of close to 700 articles, reports, and resources, organized thematically, that attempts to document the history of racism and resistance on the Gulf Coast. An effort is made to highlight the voices of grassroots organizers speaking about their own struggles.

Grade Levels: High
Cost: No

Why Did This Happen? by Susan Wilcox, Ed.D. at The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

The NEW curriculum from The Brotherhood/Sister Sol for helping young people engage in critical inquiry, develop a love of learning, and transform their lives. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: Sister Museum)

Grade Levels: Teacher Training Material
Cost: Yes

Fences by Abby Ashford-Grooms at Austin Social Justice Teacher Inquiry Group

This is an outline of an approach to teaching Fences by August Wilson. Teachers will see the kinds of questions and inquiry that lead students to think about their own fences, those that keep us out and those that keep us in. This unit is part of a larger group of lesson plans under the category "BorderLands" by the Austin Social Justice Teacher Inquiry Group. (Free Minds, Free People workshop: BorderLands)

Grade Levels: High
Cost: No

Writers Corp Resources

From WritersCorps in San Francisco

Anthologies, Lesson Plans, and Resources

Jump Write In!
Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds

Jump Write In! is a collection of lesson plans created by WritersCorps
Teaching Artists. It was published by Josey-Bass. Summary about the
book (on the sidebar to the right), including the TOC: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/for-teachers/

There are also some of the exercises on the site for people to use.
It's in the Teaching Tools section of our site http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/
The lessons are sortable by topic. There are a just few up right
now, but a lot more will be added.
http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/for-teachers/teaching-tools/

Days I Moved is an anthology of fiction, poetry and memoir by Teaching
Artists who have served in WritersCorps. Each writer shares a brief
memoir about their time as teaching artists, as well as their own
creative work.

Summary about the book: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/events/days-i-moved/

Authors who are in the book: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/events/the-authors-of-days-i-moved/

The student work section of the site features poems and photos by
students, also sortable by category, or the cloud tag on the right: http://www.sfartscommission.org/WC/student-work/

Small, but Powerful! Spoken Word Poetry Unit for 4th Grade

I've been looking for resources to use for a fourth grade study on poetry that will culminate with a poetry slam. Here's what I've found so far:

News Hour with Jim Lehrer did a cool segment on poetry. Here, for teachers, they have the Poetry Box Rules that highlight poetry as the art of words, and describe the tools and forms of poetry. They also have one lesson plan on using the poetry slam to teach the mechanics of poetry.

Schooltube has a video of a second grade classroom's poetry slam. (Adorable.)

Hey You! C'mere! A Poetry Slam seems like an interesting book to check out.

From Publishers Weekly
Everyone's a poet, according to this exhortative poetry-reading and street-theater combo: "You've got a poem in your pocket, A poem on your tongue, did you know that? You can be the poet and you can be the poem too. Yesssss!" To prove it, seven young poets roam their city block on a summer day, using ordinary situations as material for syncopated storytelling. The players' portraits and names appear in the table of contents, so that each one is identifiable during their improv. Ratchit, a bold prankster, repeats a tough kid's threat ("Hey you, c'mere, Whatsa matter witcha"), while his friend Jacob describes a timid reaction to bullying in "A Good Cry." Mattie mimics her mother's phone voice "Yeah, uh huh, uh huh" in a song. While Doria creates a nonsense riff on "Silly Names" ("Mr. Grub T. Mudstuck, Diane Doobey Doo, Fineas Figmuff and Tina Tutoo..."), Ratchit sneaks off to play a joke on the group; after his ghostly noises inspire his friends' frightened poem, "Monsters," Ratchit laughs, then composes a reiterative "Sorry." Swados, author of the musical play Runaways, crafts an upbeat series of poems and dramatic asides. Using a crackling-hot palette of orange, summer green and blue-violet, Cepeda (What a Truly Cool World) limns a vibrant cityscape and brings out the strong personalities of the multiracial group. The slangy words and upbeat visuals suggest that poetry happens in casual conversation and friendship; readers might want to try this "slam" as a real play or spin some verse of their own. Ages 6-12.

Education World has a few lesson plans as well.

There Are Still Kids: Amazing Poem

There Are Still Kids
by Crystal Tettey

In a world of adult policies
There are still kids
Where milk is left to curd, then sold
There are still kids
Where wombs are shattered
There are still kids

Where an arm is the price of a meal
Where a meal is the price of an arm
There are still kids

Where power outages deny us TV
There are still kids
Where solitude is safe, fun is sorry
There are still kids
On a playground of mines
There are still kids
At peace conferences that echo war
There are still kids

In a world where adults vote
There are still kids
In schools silenced by artillery
There are still kids
In homes emptied by bombs
There are still kids
Our land cracks at her sides
There are still kids

What is Quality? What are the Qualities of Quality?

Harvard's Project Zero has just released The Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education. How do we create and sustain high quality arts instruction? And what is it, anyway?

Here's one small tidbit from the press release.

Quality reveals itself “in the room” through four different lenses. There are multiple dimensions of quality in arts learning experiences. Four lenses were found to be especially useful in focusing attention on different aspects of excellence in arts education settings: learning, teaching, classroom community, and environment.