The Classroom as Studio

(Started writing this as a comment, but then kept on going and going so figured I'd post it over here).

Clarence has a great post up about the idea of viewing and using the classroom as a studio:

In these times where we want kids to be self - directed / self - driven learners who develop a creative sense of scholarship, the classroom as studio has great potential. Studios are busy places where activity hums. Studios are places of study, of thought, of creation and creativity. Studios are places where teams of people act together to create something of high - quality. Studios throughout history have been homes for artists, creators, scientists, architects and engineers. Studios are comfortable places with flexible furniture arrangements where people work though projects. Projects are brainstormed, created, evaluated, torn apart, and re - created in ways that are better.

I can't remember if I read this in one of her books or heard it one of the times I heard her speak, but Deborah Meier has advocated a similar idea, and I believe might have implimented it to some degree at the school she started in Boston.

I've been thinking for a while now that if (when?) I start a school, I would like to have some space in the school avaliable to artists, which would be rented to them below market cost in exchange for always being willing to have students observe their work. One of my biggest critiques of schools is the emphasis on completing tasks within a certain amount of time. While there are time constraints in many "real world" situations, there are also many other situations where projects develop over the course of hours, weeks, or years. Artists do not work on a bell schedule, and the best pieces of artistic work cannot be given a due date. And while it is almost impossible to imagine a school without any time constraints, I imagine the presence of artists would give a wonderful example of another way of working (and would also hopefully lead to student/artist collaborations, such as those available from groups such as Young Audiences).

Lifehacker on Online Safety

Lifehacker, which has quickly become one of my favorite 'professional blogs' since I discovered it a few months back, just put up a piece on educating kids about the safety issues of MySpace and other online publishing forums. They have a closed community of commenters, which has its strengths and weaknesses, but the discussion tends to be interesting. Worth following.

Grades for Lunch?

Though it sounds radical at first glance, Alice Waters' NYTimes Op-Ed piece makes a lot of sense:

Universal physical education is a start, and it's a shame that schools have been cutting back on recess and gym. But in a country where nine million children over 6 are obese we need the diet part of the equation, too. It's time for students to start getting credit for eating a good lunch.

I Concur

It's extremely rare that I read something I agree with 100%. Here's a nice exception: Ellen Meyer's article, Keeping New Teachers From Dropping Out (Gotham Gazette, via Tim). It gives a great analysis of what teaching is, as well as explaining why many who try it out don't last long. One of the many great excerpts:

Teaching is all about relationships — the building of relationships between teacher and students. That’s why it is so hard. One elementary school teacher must have relationships with up to 35 very different individuals, each with diverse learning styles, needs, and levels of engagement. A high school teacher will typically teach 150 students.

There is research on the extraordinary number of decisions that a teacher has to make at any given moment —- more decisions minute-by-minute than a brain surgeon. The most conservative estimate from this data has teachers making approximately 130 decisions per hour during a six-hour school day, and this reflects only those decisions made within the classroom. This is extraordinarily daunting and often intimidating for new teachers. It makes support from administrators and colleagues so vital.

The article also provides great justification for the advice I typically give people who ask me my opinion about Teach For America or New York Teaching Fellows: It's a horrible idea, but more people should do it.

Indy Study: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

The Parable of the Sower took me along a very different path from the previous books at which I've looked. For one, it is a piece of science fiction, a genre I don't think I've touched since I was 13 or 14. And unlike any of the other books, race does not play a defining role in terms of the lives or relationships of the book's characters.

Parable of the Sower takes place in a dystopian near-future version of California where water is more expensive than food, government has for all intents ceased to function, and the 'middle class' are those whose impoverished communities are protected from drug addicts and thieves by walls and other measures (the world she described is an exaggerated version of the post-industrail conditions of many urban centers in the 1980's. The drug epidemic described in the book is clearly meant to parallel crack, and the pro-buisness President is a thinly-vieled Reagan figure). When her village is destroyed, Lauren, a teenage girl who is developing her own religion, leads a group of survivors to better conditions they have heard about in the North.

While the world Butler describes is hardly color blind - there are references to tensions between interracial coupling and traveling in multiracial groups - the interpretation of the world we see through Lauren's diary entries does not involve race as a deterministic factor. Lauren recognizes that "people are expected to fear and hate everyone but their own kind," yet her"neighborhood is too small for us to play those kinds of games" (31). Later in the book there is a reference for it being easier for one of the white characters, Henry, to find a job because of his skin color. However, other than references such as these, race does not play a major factor. The three main white characters, Henry, Jill, and Allie, are not depicted any differently than black and latino characters of similar classes. While technically their whiteness is a property, it does not give them any advantages within the context of the narrative.

On a separate note, I would love to read this book with high schoolers. It raises a lot of interesting issues of community, resource allocation, and identity in a way that would be provocative to many adolescents. And while it is no literary masterpiece, it has enough nuance to be the source of a good analysis at the high school level.

Works Cited:
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner Books, 1993.

Next: The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Got a Job for the Fall! Bronx Lab School

Yesterday, I was hired to teach at the Bronx Lab School this coming Fall. I couldn't be more excited about the fit.

Bronx Lab is one of the many new small schools in NYC (for those not familiar, the NYC Public Schools are breaking up large high schools into smaller themed high schools, both in an effort to give students and their families a choice in the type of school they attend, as well as enjoying the immense benefits of smaller learning communities). The school is in its second year, and is already showing tremendous promise. It has about 100 students per grade (this year it is 9th and 10th, and they will add 11th grade next year), and keeps class sizes to a manageable 20-25 students. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and there is a noticeable level of respect between the students and staff. Teachers are addressed by their first name (which all my former students will know that I am very happy about). Most of the students I talked to seemed to be genuinely happy to attend. The school plans to send every graduate to college, and seems to be on the way to achieving that goal (just for comparison, the large high school that used to exist in the building where there are now 6 small schools had a graduation rate of about 20%). I've had the chance to meet most of the teachers and all the leadership, all of whom are obviously gifted, enthusiastic, and committed to the students they serve.

Curriculum wise, the school stresses student-centered, project orientated, integrated curriculum, which is most definitely my cup of tea. And while the school is in some way still confined by the Regents Exams (content based test in New York State that students must pass in order to graduate), testing is not the schools focus (a HUGE relief given the environment I was in last year in Virginia). The school already has an integrated math and science curriculum, and the leadership wants to move towards having a similar integration between social studies and English (and potentially a fully integrated curriculum across all disciplines in 11th and 12th grade). Students have an extended day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, where they are required to participate in an elective, though the list of electives is completely responsive to student demand.

The school's most unique program is a required semester internship. For one semester either in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade, students are pulled out of all their classes and participate in a fully integrated curriculum based around an internship in a field in which they are interested. Students spend two days a week at the internship, and the other three days they are in the school doing primarily individual work which ties into their internship thematically, and also must incorporate the habits of thought of all four major disciplines. They also do some project work for the classes they are missing (the 10th graders rights now also take math, though that may not continue). The internship program is based on one developed by the Big Picture Company at the Met School in Providence, RI. I did part of my student teaching, as well as some volunteer work, at the Met while an undergrad, and I can vouch for the unbelievable success of the program (100% of their graduates go to college, something like 2/3 are the first in their family to go). One "advisor" takes 13 students for the semester, and is their only teacher.

I interviewed to be either an internship advisor or social studies teacher. I could end up in either position at this point, demanding on who else the school hires. Both positions offer tremendous opportunities for me, though, if it were left up to me, I'm leaning towards the internship position (the potentials for integrating blogging and other technology uses into the program are limitless, among other appealing aspects of it). And luckily I'll be able to spend a lot of time at the school during the rest of this year to get to know it better and become part of the team as they begin planning for next year.

Though there will certainly be many challenges that come with teaching in an urban environment, I couldn't be happier about the opportunity to help build a community whose mission I am truly passionate about. I'll be sure to post more as I spend more time at the school.

Read more about the school here and here (I discovered Chris Lehmann's blog while doing research on the school. He is opening a new school in Philadelphia, the Science Leadership Academy, this coming Fall. He has some pretty fascinating insights about education and the process of building a school community on his site)

Reason #8972 to be Critical of 'Facts'

One more thing. Not to cast doubt on a record — or on the hard-working people who keep it — but do you know who measures the snow at Central Park? The security guards at the zoo. They read the numbers off a stick set in a flat, tree-ringed clearing near the sea lion pool.

Therefore, the words, "According to the National Weather Service, the snowfall in Central Park..." actually mean, "According to the security guards at the Central Park Zoo." (NYTimes, via Gothamist)

There's certainly a lot of snow outside here, but even the sidewalk drifts in my neighborhood weren't quite two feet.

Reflections on Being a Student Blogger

Though this is really obvious, I just realized that I have become a student blogger...and I am really struggling with it. As I think both my previous posts for my independent study have shown, I have essentially just posted brief essays on each book I have read. This does not seem to be taking advantage of what blogging has to offer (other than the fact that I am writing for a public audience). I am curious how others have dealt with blogging about specific content.

I imagine if I was doing the same type of writing as part of a class this would not be much of an issue, as there would be other posts on the same subject on which to respond. However, seeing as I am doing independent work, work on a subject that very few people have ever written on, and I am at a loss to come up with a model of writing that is not simply in the form of an essay or a reading journal.

Indy Study: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

(Note: This entry contains references a sexual act. I would never had added a note like this if not for the scars from teaching last year in a district with the most active organization in the country of the organization of parents that tries to ban books from school libraries. So if you have a problem with content of this nature, please stop reading.)

I hadn't picked up a book by Morrison since I was in high school, and honestly forgot just how unbelievably talented she is as a writer and stylist. I can only think of a handful of other authors I've read who have a similar effect on me just through their use of language (Joyce, Dostoevsky, and Hemingway are the others that come to mind). I'm feeling very intimidated in my attempts to write anything critical for a public audience about such a work.

The Bluest Eye, taken as a whole, serves simultaneously as an affirmation of the natural and cultural beauty of Americans who are considered black, and an indictment of the racist society that denies this beauty and internalizes the denial within many blacks. While there are no developed white characters within the novel, white people and whiteness itself make frequent cameos to demonstrate the roots of self-loathing found in many characters. While whiteness undoubtedly functions as a terror throughout the novel, Morrison's depiction of whiteness is unique (within my reading at this point) in how it functions deterministically to create self-loathing black characters. Morrison outlines both the process and resistance to it from the perspective of a black female:

Then they had grown. Edging into life from the back door. Becoming. Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, "do this." White children said, “ Give me that.” White men said, “Come here.” Black men said, “Lay down.” The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other. But they took all of that and re-created it in their own image. They ran the houses of white people, and knew it. When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other (108).

The most clear instances of the process are found thought the depiction of Pauline and Cholly Breedlove. Both visit horrors upon their children thanks to their experiences with white people. The experiences take very different forms.

Cholly is the victim of overt dehumanization at the hands of two white men. While in the midst of losing his virginity after the funeral for his closest relative, Cholly and his sexual partner, Darlene, are discovered in a field by two white hunters. With guns in hand, the two white men force Cholly to continue the act while addressing him by various derogatory names and criticizing his sexual performance. The white men turn the act of sex into one of rape. Cholly is forced to physically rape Darlene, while the two white men psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually rape Cholly. For Cholly, sex is transformed from an act of pleasure and desire into one of hate and control. Cholly's acts "With a violence born of total helplessness" (116). Cholly continues to act with a similar violence throughout the rest of his life.

Pauline's internalization of inferiority takes a less overt path. Pauline is destroyed by Cholly's violence, as well as by "her education in the movies" which gave her a "scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen" (95). This leads Pauline to seek out and thrive in a role as a domestic worker for white families, where she takes on the stereotypical "mammy" role. Seeking the beauty she imagines through film, she embraces domestic work and becomes "the ideal servant" (99). This comes at the price of a denial of her identity. While too her employers she is "Polly," her children know her only as Mrs. Breedlove. When Cholly and Pauline's daughter, Pecola, visits Pauline at the house of her employment one day, Pauline denies to the white child any connection to her own daughter. Pauline embraces an idealized image of whiteness as beauty, while conversely seeing herself and family as ugliness.

The sins of the mother and father are ultimately transfered to the daughter, Pecola. Pecola cannot recognize any beauty in her self. After being raped and impregnated by Cholly, Pecola seeks out a healer to give her blue eyes. When Pecola gets her eyes, her identity and being is rent, as indicated by the conversation she has with herself (152-162). The desire for beauty that is external to the self serves to violently destroy the young girl's psyche, bringing the novel to a tragic end. In her desire for whiteness as property, the beauty she sees in whiteness as represented by blue eyes, Pecola suffers from the terrorist attacks that whiteness levied against her parents.

Work Cited:
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. London: Vintage, 1994.

Next: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Back in Teaching Mode

I hadn't realized just how much I missed teaching.

I've been in the midst of the interview process at a wonderful new small school in NYC the past week, Bronx Lab School. I had a phone interview last weekend, made a visit to the school on Monday and had the chance to meet informally with most of the staff, and returned Friday for a formal interview. I'm going back Wednesday to teach a class, and REALLY hope that it will be the first of many classes I teach at the school. I'm afraid to jinx myself somehow, so don't want to write too much about the school. I'll just say that I'd be hard pressed to find a more perfect fit for my next teaching job.

It was really nice to be back in a teaching frame of mind throughout the week. I spent a nice chunk of the week updating my teaching portfolio (it's password protected since it has student photos in there, leave a comment with your e-mail and I can send you the password if you're interested). Between that, spending a good part of two school days visiting, and catching up on the edublogosphere reading I've hardly had the chance to do the past 6 months, I've realized how much stronger my passion is for educating than for everything else I'm doing. I'm really glad I went to grad school this year, and really have grown a lot from the experience, but at this point I'm counting down the weeks until the first bell rings next September. It's been really great to catch up on how Bud, Clarence, Darren, and others have developed their use of blogs in their classes since last Spring when I started, and I can't wait to join them in the fall.

But first, have to catch up on all the work I didn't do the past week...