Article I stumbled upon while working on my paper about a BC Law student who wants to trade his degree back for a refund of his tuition.  Part of his reasoning is he feels he can make a better living teaching...you don't hear that every day.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/unemployed-boston-college-law-student-tuition-back/story?id=11937494#.T6b8y-hSSTk

Some Detroit roses find cracks in the concrete

A line from a Tupac song praises the abilities for roses (dispossessed peoples) to find cracks in the concrete (systems of oppression). In that spirit, check out this article on protests this week by Detroit area youth. So, yes, it's pretty bad out there, but the upside is that many people are awakening to the fact that education is a civil right, not just for those who can afford it. Read more here about the systemic dismantling of schools across the nation, most severely in the nation's "urban" (read: Black and Brown and low-income) centers.

WHO NEEDS HARVARD?

An inspiring article that came out the summer after I graduated high school. My best friend was quoted in it after he got into Brown University but decided to go to Wash U instead. I helped him make that decision. Take that, society!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1226150,00.html

How To Make Literacy More Appealing To Boys (and girls)

From Chap. 8 in “Misleading Masculinity” by Thomas Newkirk

-                       -Practical ways for teaching literacy more appealing for children and broadening the literacy spectrum.

1.     Literacy instruction should be more open to popular culture while not abandoning the established literature.

-       “A big room,” one that includes popular culture and classical literature where children can merge the two in their writing.

2.     Allowing cartooning as serious business

-       Children should be allowed to draw cartoons for visual storytelling.

-       Students can develop stories by drawing quick rough sketches of key actions and tapping these to a large board (this is called “telling board” and then developing these into a picture book.

-       This will develop drawing and oral storytelling skills.

3.     Make room for obsession

-       Some degree of obsessiveness in writing is essential for literacy development because when kids repeat themselves, they are making innovations, which may not seem significant to teachers, but it’s important to track down these innovations as teachers to improve their writing.

4.     Teachers must resist those forces that would narrow the range of writing and reading allowed in schools

-       Teachers rely too much on rubrics and writing instruction is tightly timed and lacking in any social interaction.

-       Rubrics predetermine the qualities of successful writing, which don’t include traits that make writing appealing to children. 

Clarendon Heights in 2012

As a Somerville resident, I knew I had passed Clarendon Towers,
the "projects" that are the setting of the book Ain't No Makin' It 

The picture that Ain't No Makin' It paints of the Clarendon Towers is one of destitution.
Surprisingly, while of couse not "posh", the Towers don't look that bad to me,
at least not on a spring day in 2012, 28 years after the book was published.

Neaby are the Clarendon Hill Apartments...

...a pretty standard-looking government-subsidized housing complex.
Again, not luxurious, but not scary either.  I wonder how much has changed in 28 years.

An empty basketball court in the Clarendon Hill Apartment Complex.  Why is nobody playing on this  beautiful spring vacation afternoon?  Basketball was a central social activity for the Brothers, and the Hallway Hangers prided themselves on their close-knit community.  The nature of social interactions has changed in many ways in many parts of society.  Maybe modern-day Clarendon Heights is completely different.  Maybe people are so isolated they don't congregate at all.  

Ain't No Makin' It

Group: Katherine, Kristin, Laura, Giorgio

The Brothers in 2006- Where are they now?

Craig:
Race/Ethnicity: African-Caribbean
Residence: West Coast
Education: Bachelor’s degree
Job: Reportedly fitness instructor. Previous: office work in a department store
Drugs: None
Prison: No
Wife/girlfriend: Reportedly divorced
Children: No
Family: Cut ties with his family in the 1990s when he moved

Classic Literature vs. Standardized Testing

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/taking-emotions-out-of-our-schools.html?ref=education

interesting op-ed in the NY Times...
taking the emotion out of literature class because of standardized tests

Privatization and Standardized Testing

This op-ed from the New York Times almost reads like a Swift-esque "Modest Proposal" for evaluating students. Standardized tests graded by robots. Yikes.

Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously

Critical Thinking and Teachable Moments

I thought the movie we saw in class last class was very powerful.  I still can’t believe that bill passed.  As I mentioned in class, I think the film did a great job at illustrating that there is a fear among some that identifying with a culture is un-America. Further, a point that I really believe, that culture is an important tool through students can learn. 

That being said, I was wondering if anyone noticed the teacher-student interactions from the clips of class lessons.  Two of the interactions really stuck out to me.  First, the scene where the teacher hands out books with a bell on the cover and asks the class something like, “why do you think it’s a church?” The student responds something along the lines of, “Because it is like home.”  The teacher acknowledges the answer as right and moves on.  In another clip the teacher asks the students if things have changed since the time of Martin Luther King.  The students had various responses, the teacher said “yes, right?” and then moved on.  Now both of these instances are just clips and we don’t get to see the lesson in its entirety, but it seems like for a guy is preaching about the importance providing all students a solid education that meets the needs of students he is not really challenging students or pushing students to really think critically.  It seems like there is one answer he is looking for and the students know that.  Again, I know these are just clips and we shouldn’t make conclusions based on two such short clips, but it leaves me thinking about the importance of keeping the goal of providing a solid education at the center of schools.  These is not to say that advocating for what one believes is wrong, nor is it to say that we shouldn’t use real life situations of interest to students as teachable moments.  Rather, it is just to raise the question of whether he is handing students the “right” answer, or using the situation to encourage critical thinking and learning.  I’d be interested to hear what others think. 

And on a related note, this week the Supreme Court is going to hear the Arizona Immigration case http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/22/2762469/supreme-court-to-hear-arizona.html

Ain't No Makin' It

Sara, Nicole, Dave, Caitlyn, and Karen

Book Title: Ain’t No Makin’ It

Author: Jay MacLeod

 Summary:

           Jay MacLeod describes the lives of two groups of teenage boys living in Clarendon Heights, a low-income housing development project located in Somerville, Massachusetts. He begins his study by describing the boys, where they live, their families, and their schooling. One group, the Hallway Hangers, contains about eight mostly white Italian or Irish youths, five of whom have dropped out of high school. These boys all smoke cigarettes and drink and/or abuse drugs on a regular basis. The other group, the Brothers, contains about seven predominantly black youths, who still attend school regularly and barely get into trouble. They still have faith in the American dream of starting from nothing, getting an education, and achieving a middle-class lifestyle. MacLeod describes the challenges these teenagers face with regards to poverty, racial discrimination, and constant negative thoughts with regards to their futures.

            After a description of the lives of these sixteen residents of Clarendon Heights, MacLeod revisits these boys eight years after having left them as teenagers. He interviews them about what they think they could’ve done differently with their lives, if they even wanted to change the past, and where they see themselves in the future. In part 3, MacLeod follows up with what is left of the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers yet again in 2006 to see where they have ended up. Through interviews and analysis, MacLeod delves deep into the issues of race, class, crime, sex, careers, and feelings of defeatism with regards to both of these very different groups of teenage boys. He focuses on one very important concept: the idea that poverty is reproduced from one generation to the next. Using the example of these two cliques, MacLeod provides a powerful argument about how inequality is created and perpetuated in the United States. 

Michael Eric Dyson and Tom Horne debate Mex Am Studies ban

Echoes of one of the points from our class: Is the mainstream curriculum also 'biased,' even 'ethnic'?

"I base my thoughts on hearsay from others..." The Daily Show's take on Mexican-American Studies ban

"In some countries I might be actually locked up for teaching the way I have... well in this country I'm just banned from doing it."

here's the clip: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-2-2012/tucson-s-mexican-american-studies-ban

Throughout the McDonough reading I kept thinking, what would happen if State Frameworks integrated education on critical racial consciousness? If these concepts were integrated into aspects of education in a variety of curriculum; English, history, science, etc., how would teaching change? Although this would not address the aspect of individuals identifying positions, it could possibly help lead to racially conscious teaching.

Hi everyone,
Lots of comments this week about the purpose of schooling for American Indian students now and whether or not things have changed over time.  Here's a link to an article:

http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/meeting-set-to-discuss-healing-of-menominee-student-suspended-for-speaking-native-language.html

Staring in the classroom

Professor Garland-Thomson was at a Disability Studies Conference I attended earlier this semester. After watching this video on her research into "Staring," although primarily focused on disabilties, I thought of how as teachers we in a way demand to be stared at by our students, as an indicator that they're paying attention to us. It's an interesting, performative relationship. Here's the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jALsDVW63wo

Observing students vs observing teachers for performance assessment

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/19UtCP/:bfKyf+Km:d2mxnYVX/www.sacbee.com/2012/04/08/4399070/a-japanese-inspired-approach-to.html/

Interesting article about a different approach to assessing a lesson or a teacher!

Media Literacy

Several TV networks and newspapers have been criticized for their misleading and sometimes inaccurate coverage of black Florida teen Trayvon Martin's Feb. 26 shooting death. How are the events of that February night being misrepresented? Here, four examples: 
1. ABC's misleading video scoop
4. ...And demonization of Trayvon Martin


In the Digitial Age, how can we prepare our students to deal with these biasses and misrepresentation that can be created and shared instantaneously?


Entire Article:
http://theweek.com/article/index/226354/the-trayvon-martin-case-4-things-the-media-got-wrong

Constructing White Womanhood

A blog that I've been following for a while and that I encourage you all to check out is Collier Meyerson's carefreewhitegirl.com. She describes her blog as a "running critique of the ways in which popular imagery reinforces the deification of white womanhood." I think it's a fascinating and subversive look at how imagery (especially pervasive on sites like tumblr) can create tropes that we may not be able to name until they are pointed out to us. I thought it might fit well with the selection from Up Against Whiteness this week and our ongoing discussion of the White Savior trope. 

I think we all know the image of Carefree White Girl - she's always white, usually blonde, wearing a flowy dress, vaguely bohemian (but not too ethnic), and likes to pose in front of grimy buildings in Brooklyn, travel to Cambodia to connect to her selfless side, and wear a lot of vintage-looking clothes she bought at Urban Outfitters. She has a connection to poverty, nature, and the 'diversity' of the world. I won't speak for Collier, but I bet Carefree White Girl bought a Kony 2012 action kit. She likes 'awareness.'  

Most of the posts have an image or video featuring the Carefree White Girl with a satirical caption about the image, such as:

"Carefree White Girl asks travel mate to photograph her in front of a sudra. She’s going for the: “leave it up to the viewer whether or not I’m pondering poverty or the beauty of diversity.”

Meyerson's work is an ongoing project analyzing how the media views womanhood, white womanhood, and how this imagery creates ways for us to racialize ourselves and others.

A High School Student's Perspective on Trayvon Martin

One of my 11th grade students at Boston Latin School writes a sports blog, and he recently posted an entry about a photo of the Miami Heat all wearing hoodies as a sign of support for Martin and his family. From the post:

I found that photo to be incredibly moving. Upon realizing all the symbolism that the photo possesses, and reflecting upon the information I had gathered about Trayvon’s story, I felt a wave of emotion crash over me. I felt pity for Trayvon, and heartbroken for his friends and family. I felt angry at George Zimmerman (Trayvon’s killer) for taking an innocent life. In fact, angry cannot even begin to describe the emotions I felt towards that man. It was a white hot twinge of pain that no word could ever come close to accurately describing. I felt scared, because I am roughly the same age as Trayvon, just a mere seventeen years old. It could just have easily been me. President Obama must have felt similarly because he said that if he “had a son he would look like Trayvon…”. I felt despair because despite the great strides we have made towards freedom and equality for all people, a few knuckleheads like Zimmerman are perpetually attempting to erase them. I felt an eerie sense of deja vu. Yet another young, black life taken by violence. But, most importantly, I felt grateful to the Miami Heat for having both the ingenuity and the guts to pull off such a thought provoking, tear-jerking tribute.

His whole post is linked here (with his permission)

Edwidge Danticat connects the dots between detention centers and incarceration

A timely recent editorial by Haitian author and MacArthur Genius prize winner Edwidge Danticat

Advisory Program - Trust

OK - I'm completely new to the posting thing. I am not sure I am putting this in the right place, but here goes! Learn something new every day.

One standout from the "Up Against Whiteness", by Lee article was that so many Hmong students both "Traditional" and "Americanized" at UHS, felt so disconnected from faculty and staff. There was a chronic truancy problem, but the basis for students being late had many other layers to it.

I couldn't help but feel that if the school looked at the problem systematically they could create a more accepting and trusting environment for all students would possibly alleviate some of the truancy issues. Hence, leading to a better experience for the students.

This feels like a lofty aspiration, but even starting with an Advisory program, or small groups in which faculty and staff could get to know students better, would nurture a healthier environment.

Reading Race

This is an article that talks about fans' reactions to the Hunger Games release this weekend when they found out certain characters are black.  Whether you've read the books/seen the movie or not, the article gets at deeper issues of racism and how it comes into play with social media. While the article itself points out some disappointing truths, at least it is making people think about the issue of racism and how we read race into things. Thought it would be an interesting discussion since as teachers we all read with our students but the issue of characters' race seems to be generally left up to interpretation - for better or worse.

http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made

Discussion questions for 3/29

In talking about the positive impacts of the CMP, Lee says, “Although this may seem commonplace, it was not uncommon to walk through the halls of this high school and look through the windows of classrooms to see teachers lecturing to students who were sleeping with heads on their desks or who were looking out the window or talking to other students” (116).  Can a single subject teacher alone change the mindset of a student who may not be on a positive trajectory?  To what extent does it take the entire school community? Does culture change in a school happen from top-down, bottom-up, or both?

After showcasing the higher order thinking skills in which students engage through the Cultural Modeling Project, on page 105 Lee notes that many of these students have traditionally performed poorly on standardized tests.  On page 119 Lee talks about Lisa Delplit’s research and the importance of teaching explicitly. Lee notes that the CMP strives to teach explicitly.  Do you see any examples of explicit instruction in the CMP?  How do you think explicit instruction changes the dynamic of the classroom, community, and conversations?  Is there a connection between explicit instruction and performance on standardized tests? 

Reinforcement of White Privilege

A different perspective on living life as an American:

One morning, not too long ago, I woke up with white privilege on my mind. It was the morning after a gathering of mostly white people at a friend’s house during which racist comments had been uttered, and I felt quite unsettled as I tried to sleep on my friend’s couch through the night. One person characterized a black woman we both knew as “talking like a white girl.” Another person told me, very matter-of-factly, that black people did not like dogs...



The rest of the article:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/trayvon-martin-and-white-privilege/

"Up Against Whiteness" discussion question

In "Up Against Whiteness", Lee compares and contrasts the relationship that second generation Hmong American and foreign-born Hmong students have with school. She describes their views towards each other and also examines why both feel inferior to their White peers.

On take-away question I have is what do we do to kids from other cultures when we stress classroom participation? If these these kids have internalized that their capital and experiences are worth less than those of their middle-class White peers, are we increasing their disadvantage when we punish them for not meeting the same expectations regarding classroom participation? If we as teachers could understand the reasons behind our students actions, maybe we would start to value them. By limiting some students' access to be be successful in school, aren't we helping to perpetuate social reproduction?

Between articles like Lee's and MacLeod's Ain't no Makin' It, I am becoming more convinced that much of social reproduction is caused by socio-economic and cultural misunderstandings and a lack of communication.

Decrease in diversity among teachers

Following up on the discussion we had in class on Thursday, here is the quote about why the diversity of classroom teachers is decreasing from Lisa Delpit's, Other People's Children: "Researchers have cited many reasons for the decline of minority participation in the teaching force-among them, the overall decline of the number of college-bound students from ethnic groups, the widening of professional opportunities for people of color, the increase of competency exams, the lack of prestige for teaching as a profession, low salaries, and the less then optimal working conditions" (2006, pp. 105-106)

A Mom's Advice To Her Young, Black Sons

A Mom's Advice To Her Young, Black Sons

In light of the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Steve Inskeep speaks with writer Donna Britt and her sons Justin and Darrell Britt-Gibson about how she prepared them as young black men for a world that might view them with suspicion.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/22/149126015/a-moms-advice-to-her-young-black-sons

Donna Brit spoke with her sons on NPR Thursday morning. After class on Thursday night, I was thinking about this broadcast a lot and the systemic changes that need to be made, so that more people are involved in this "talk," rather than just a mother and her black son. This is a very worthwhile read. The link above takes you to the transcript from the broadcast.

An unfinished conversation

Our class session on Thursday was a necessary start but insufficient conversation in our class about racialized experiences and locations in society. There is much, much, much to be discussed, deliberated, acted upon, reconsidered, and changed up. Who is afforded opportunities; who is not? How do circuits of opportunities and dispossession operate? Why in teacher education programs are we so focused on only the at-riskness of black and brown populations (see criticism of KONY 2012 for parallels) and largely silent on the challenge embedded in White middle and upper middle class teachers going into contexts which they may not know and perhaps even fear? How do we tackle knowing our own racialized identities and how they shape our work as educators? Who are allies in doing this work?

We will continue this conversation next week by breaking the black/white binary and considering how this process of racialization works across other populations.

Use this space to post up thoughts, comments, and relevant links.

Discussion Question for 3/22

Education and Profit

One of the tensions that came up in our class discussion about education and privatization is the goal of education is to help human beings develop to their fullest capacity, particularly in a stratified society. The central goal of a private company is to make profits. This creates, to differing degrees, tensions and contradictions in how priorities and decisions are made.

In this interview Yale Law Professor John Macey and fake news show host Jon Stewart have an accessible and spirited conversation about how private equity firms operate and how laws and policies support profit making as that central goal. As you watch this, consider that there are billions of dollars to be made, and being made, by corporate involvement in education. From textbooks to school cafeteria food, there is lots of co-mingling of ties and obligations. There are three parts to this interview, and lots of interesting moments in all three, particularly in a mainstream mediascape that rarely values engaged discourse.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-31-2012/exclusive---jonathan-macey-extended-interview-pt--1

Confessions of a "bad teacher"

Great article (or at least I think it's great) that gets to the heart of the some of the frustrations around the seemingly ambiguous nature of value-added assessment. Any thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opinion/sunday/confessions-of-a-bad-teacher.html?pagewanted=all

Collaborative Planning in an era of high stakes teacher assessment

Discussion Questions: Contemporary ed reform

There is A LOT going in educational reform these days. For this week's discussion questions, prompt thinking on the ballot initiative you read.  If possible, link to relevant articles/citations for other educational reforms affecting teachers, students, and communities.

Discussion Questions for Feb 23

Hello Everyone. We will not be meeting in groups this week, but I'd still like you to pose some thoughts/questions to this thread.

The readings for this week's class are very much a set. Peart's Op-Ed provides a glimpse into the lived realities of youth of color in the section of Harlem where the Brotherhood/Sistersol has carved its mission. Chapter two from Freire's classic, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, provides some of the pedagogical backbone of this and many other programs, and the piece by Wilcox, Taylor and Candelario gives us insight into how Bro/Sis adults and youth do what they do. In anticipation of our class time with Dr. Wilcox, use this space to start thinking about what else/more you'd like to know about this organization. And/or use this space to pose questions that you would like to discuss further in class or receive assistance in understanding.

Justice for other than PC sake

We often the term, 'social justice.' In fact, it is invoked so much that it runs the risk of being too shallow of a concept, rarely even defined. In this TED talk, Richard Wilkinson provides interesting measures of social well being and ills across countries with varying economic divisions.  You'll hear many echoes of our class: meritocracy, the American dream, social stratification, capital.

Annette Lareau's Unequal Childhoods

Please post your discussion questions based on the three Lareau readings for 2/16. Focus on extending the conversation on social class, social stratification, and opportunity/blocks. Keep in mind the two caveats from the start of the 2/9 class about exceptions and patterns and informed questions about what to do.

Happy Friday everyone!

Here are the book options for the reading circle that were introduced last night:

Jay MacLeod: Ain't No Makin' It: Leveled Aspirations in a Low-Income Neighborhood


Paul Willis:  Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs


Stacey Lee:  Up Against Whiteness: Race, School and Immigrant Youth


Have a nice weekend!

Teacher activists respond to the ban on Mexican American Studies

In our first class, we read an article discussing the ban on Mexican American Studies in Tucson Arizona. This week, the national network of Teacher Activist Groups (of which there is a Boston chapter) launched a teaching response. Slogan: "They say shut it down, we say spread it around."

You can find out more about the efforts here.
This is a current day wrangle that we will devote class time to discussing, so keep your eyes open for media articles and stay informed.

Discussion Questions on Bourdieu

Hello All,

Please post discussion questions for the Bourdieu reading here. Some reminders about these questions: they should reference the text but they don't have to summarize the text. Pose a question that will help people to make connection to the text and build knowledge by talking with each other.

Short, succinct, and thought-provoking. And, remember that this is an online source. Is there an image or video that accompanies your question? put it up here.

Finally, a reminder that these should be up by Tuesday at noon. If your group makes changes in who is posting when, let me know, as I'm also keeping an eye on these.

lps.

An interesting short article/video dealing with social context within school systems in MA.

Makes me wonder if the we're doing all we can?

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/30333319/detail.html

Hustlin': The Rise of the Privileged Poor

GOOD posted an interesting article about what it means to be both privileged and poor on their site today. It raises some interesting points, including the idea of privilege in terms of cultural capital going hand in hand with poverty in terms of economic capital:

I grew up poor. I also grew up privileged, depending on how you look at it. I had a very poor teenage mother, and my sister and I spent a great deal of time being raised by our grandparents, who were once very poor as well—like, orphans-abandoned-by-their-families poor—but had come into some money with hard work and a decades-long investment in what became our family bar. When I was with my mother, we had potato chips for dinner. When I was with my grandparents, we had potato chips and prime rib, only we still had to eat them on the floor. To this day, none of us knows what money is for different reasons. But now that I am coming to understand, it’s important to ask: Does it seem strange when I say I’m poor, yet eating tofu? Or when I self-reflexively use the phrase “dive bar”? Was my MFA degree the poor life decision that led me to this desperate state, or was it my family history?

It also brings in the context of the American Dream. For example:

While I’ve technically surpassed my parents in terms of education and advantage, I am still dependent on a restaurant job, and my peers are now considered the first generation of youths to do worse than their parents. Suddenly, we’re all on a level playing field shaking cocktails side-by-side, and my own burdens of privilege-jealousy have come to a dizzying halt, because even the middle class, of whom I had been previously so resentful, are my coworkers and low-income housing neighbors. At this point, I wish I had never attempted to transcend my class with education; it would make life that much neater. For those of us who have taken the leap to maintain or jump our classes—the interns, graduate students, and college-bound—and who’ve come out disappointed, we’re not alone. The permanent poor are right there with us, and this is a good thing.

For me, this article teased at the question that I posted on the blog last week about the American Dream and its staying power since the economic collapse of 2008. At a time when the people of our generation can no longer stroll out of college and into a high-paying job just on the basis of a Bachelor's (or even Master's!) degree, I think the myth of the American Dream has faded a little bit.

However, I also think that the national response to the Occupy Wall Street protests reflects just how ingrained in our national identity the American Dream actually is. How many times did you hear someone implore the protesters to "just go get a job"?

While I think the movement itself is/was problematic in areas (lack of organization/clear cause/recognition of who's "occupying" what), I also think the response it triggered illustrates a "1%" that was, as Miller and McNamee put it, trying to ensure the normalization of a status quo and an ideology that is anything but equitable.

Discussion Questions for 2 Feb

Post your discussion questions based on MacLeod's writing to this thread. Our focus will be on how schools stratify populations.

bell hooks on cultural criticism and transformation

First Discussion Group Postings

Discussion Group Leaders,

Respond to this message and post your discussion questions based on the Greene article and Chapter One from MacNamee and Miller.

Also, course reserves tip from Liz Simpson: when you go to course reserves, search by instructor last name (Stevens) and then click author to get the full list of available readings, alphabetically ordered.

Changing education paradigms