Category Archives: Background and personal musings
Chickens, Monkeys, and Money
This is therapeutic writing tonight.
My school is doing a fundraiser. They are asking students to sell trash bags. Part of the money goes to the company. Part goes to the school. Part goes to fund chickens in Africa. By selling at least $20 worth of trash bags, the students get plastic monkeys, so part goes to pay for junk that will likely wind up in the very trash bags (or more reasonably priced ones) that the kids are selling.
As a teacher, and, even more, as a parent, I am angry. My students, my children, are being turned into unpaid salespeople for an organization that makes money off their labor. Even more, they are being told that selling is a “service learning project” that helps “poor people in Africa” so they are being emotionally manipulated. I watched my eldest daughter during the assembly today. I could tell she wasn’t interested in the toys, but her heart strings were tugged by the idea that she could help someone in need. The cacophony of excited children who would get “something” for “selling as much as [they] can” also was too much for a 10-year-old to bear, and she finally was caught up in the wave. My middle child came home, telling me of all the items she planned to sell so she could get every one of the “prizes” being offered. The man from the company successfully manipulated both of my children, and I am furious with the school for allowing that to happen.
I understand that money is tight, but there has to be a better way than manipulating young children, using them as an unpaid sales force, and misappropriating the term “service learning project.” I would be happy to forgo my Teacher Appreciation Week whatever; I certainly do not need another coffee mug or school T-shirt. I would gladly skip out on professionally-lettered “inspirational quotes” to line the walls of the hallway, no matter how pretty or inspirational the stickers might be. I can live another year with broken student computers (given that I’ve had any student computers at all for only one year out of the past six anyway). There have to be things that we take for granted as “needs” that really are just “wants” and without which we could spare our children the nonsense that they endured today.
In the mean time, I now have to defend, to my children, our family’s values against the school’s decision, made even more complicated by my role within the school. My eldest was pleased to learn that there are charities that also help feed hungry people around the world as their main mission. (I didn’t get into the concerns I have with using monkeys as stand-ins for the people in Africa that they are supposedly helping and the racist implications thereof; that conversation may need to wait a little longer until she is more emotionally mature.) My middle child is weighing how badly she wants a plastic monkey versus how much she doesn’t want to spend her own money on trash bags. And I am trying to calm myself enough to help them weather the storm of peer pressure brewing on the horizon.
How do you handle school fundraisers? What is the role of fundraising in schools?
Hero worship?
Just watched TEACH, and I find myself torn. On one hand, almost anything that helps the public better understand the contexts in which teaching and learning occur is an important addition to the national conversation about education. The four courageous teachers profiled deserved every bit of acclaim they received. On the other hand, documentaries like this one, like Stand and Deliver, like Freedom Writers, like [fill in the blank] so often run the risk of perpetuating the teacher-as-an-island (either Superman or “fire the bad teachers”) misconception that permeates our state and national discussions. I appreciated that each teacher was shown as having one mentor, but wondered who else worked in their buildings.
There ARE amazing teachers who do amazing things for children, who sacrifice themselves daily for the sake of their charges. But rarely do they do so alone. And allowing that misconception to persist, either for the sake of the pedestal or for tear-down ammo, effectively abrogates our nation’s responsibilities to consider the socio-political systems within which education occurs.
So, I’m torn. I can agree that teaching is a calling. It certainly isn’t about the money or the convenient hours or even the “summers off.” But “being a calling” can’t become an excuse to avoid talking about the very real conditions faced by teachers and students, any more than highlighting the individual accomplishments of a few teachers can’t be used to obscure the complicated teamwork needed to change lives.
Who else watched TEACH tonight? What were your thoughts?
SPARKcon Coming Soon!
If you are local to the Triangle and looking for something to do this month, consider coming out to SPARKcon. I’ll be there from 10 until 4 on Saturday 9/14 helping teams of students manage the STEAMSPARK Station, a tent where kids teach other kids about science through hands-on activities. Bring your family, come say hi, and maybe you’ll even get to play the Banana Piano!
Week One
If this summer has left me with anything, it has left me with the command to be fearless in my teaching. The summer was hard in ways I could not have imagined in April, and yet, here we are, in August, still standing. I am stronger than I thought. I can do.
And I need to. So many of my children bear scars from past battles lost, and they bring their demons with them each day. They fear failure. They fear success. They fear alienation from their communities. They fear alienation from themselves. They fear. So I need to be fearless for my students, to model the fearlessness they will need in their own lives in order to rail against the dehumanizing processes that threaten learning.
I have been thinking about the dehumanization of education because, on August 14, I sat for the GRE. I felt fear in the days leading up to the exam. I cringed as I heard my voice in my head reciting the familiar testing strategies that we pretend to be important. I squirmed as my name transformed in to a number, trapping me into the rigid performance of “testing.” And I cried as I recognized practices in my school and countless other well-meaning schools contained within the extreme dictates placed upon me that day. I realized that when we strip our students of their dignity, when we turn them into numbers and erase their names, when we systematize and organize to meet our own needs without counsel or consultation, we feed their fears.
Teaching and learning should be acts of joy. This year, I will be fearless in advocating for my students’ humanity, starting with my class rules. I will be fearless so they can be fearless. I will be fearless because I can. And I know I can, because I survived this summer.
Curriculum
On the long drive home from Raleigh tonight, the thought occurred to me that writing curriculum is akin to writing poetry. It’s easy to get distracted by the how, the words, the activities, the we coulds, and so difficult to stay focused on the what, the big ideas, the spaces and rhythms, the multiple layers compressed into the most spare, efficient use.
My verbosity shows my hand. I need to seek poetry.
Fumbling Towards the Clear Blue
DNA polymerase, transcriptome, amplicon, pyrosequencing…
I teach elementary school.
So far, much of what I’ve encountered in the lab has involved highly technical aspects of molecular genetics, all of which is completely new to me. I’ve been able to connect the work obliquely to important things my students need to know (scientific notation, microorganisms exist everywhere, many different people choose to become scientists), and I’m sure more connections will pop up once the back burner does its work. But those connections are of secondary importance.
Right now, the piece I will hold most dearly when I am once again with my students is the lost; the feeling of helplessness that pervades so much of my time in the lab; the frustration at trying to run full pace up a mountainside without a path, map, or proper shoes. I am grateful for Belen’s wise and patient teaching and for the support of lab mates Vicky and Cassandra. But I am a driven person, and the feeling of being the weak link gnaws at me. The mountain is as much my own ego as anything else.
As a specialist in gifted education, I work with students who are also driven. They, too, teeter on the brink between an all-consuming hunger for knowledge and a total, paralyzing fear of failure. Like me, they often veer towards safer passages rather than bushwhack their way through unknowns.
I think back to students who brought forth tears when pushed into that gray area. “I will hold you close,” I have said to them, “but there is no turning back. I need you to head this way.” I tell myself that now with each tiny new word added to my lexicon, each remembered step, each molecule of knowledge: each hard-won fingerhold en route towards the clear blue.
Hacked
Technophile?
Luddite?
Earlier today I read an article on the computer-controlled cockroaches at NCSU, and I could hear the sci-fi (g)rumblings of the tech-no-philes growing in my head. Equally, the sci-fi promises of technophiles (in the conventionally-spelled manner) also rang out. But practically, what might this brave new world mean, particularly in the context of elementary education?
Cybernetic cockroaches aside, technology in the classroom is maybe a little less brave/new than either side would like to admit. I remember when my (personal) elementary school won an Apple IIe from the grocery store, and getting to use it to program triangular turtles FWD 25. Before that, overheads made think-alouds more transparent (pun sort-of intended), and even earlier, my parents ducked-and-covered to filmstrips intended to bring a touch of movie magic to mandatory matinees (ding). Pencils, pens, mimeographs, textbooks, hornbooks, styluses, tablets (stone or otherwise), each era has had some sort of tool at the ready to disseminate information.
So in some ways, the idea of “new” technology in the classroom is a continuation of what has always been there. Filmstrips begat overheads begat Powerpoint begat Prezi, with mutants, sports, hybrids, and other adaptations along the way. On the other hand, the promise of a truly individualized learning environment never really materialized. Even more, the dark shadows at the edges of this Utopian dream seemed to multiply as rapidly as technologies do today. Are people too dependent? Can we still pay attention? Can we survive? What are the implications for access/restriction of access?
As a teacher in a high-poverty school, I wrestle daily with these shadows. I watch my children, either plugged in and downloading or staring jealously from the side. What strikes me, though, in both cases, is how my students think about technology. They see it as unlimited infotainment, tidbits of interesting available for their consumption. It is everyday magic and unquestioned.
This, to me, is the most interesting challenge I face in leveraging technology, and one that extends beyond the question of accessing the Internet to watch a flipped video. To me, this challenge is about the very stuff of education: teaching for freedom. In his book, Radical Equations, Bob Moses frames education as a civil right in that it makes individuals and communities more free. In our post-modern age, I believe that teaching for freedom includes enabling students to reclaim the old meaning of technology, to re-define technology as a tool that they can control, manipulate, and re-mix in their own quests for freedom.
I have posted before about the Maker Movement, and I still feel that the Maker spirit is one way to reclaim technology. For example, at Maker Faire NC this year, tatters, 3D printers, and a trebuchet shared the same venue. Though the technologies showcased differed in electronic components and associated time periods, all displays showcased people learning, sharing, and pushing the boundaries of the tools available to them in order to realize their personal dreams, to become more free in the existential sense. This is the technology I strive for in the classroom.
Day 1
Today was day one. And I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I’m sure that feeling will subside, if not exactly pass. But today served to remind me how great my knowledge gap is. Belen Cardenas patiently gave me a crash course in biochemistry, as well as a little lesson on Spanish vowels. And now, it’s swimming around in my (still slightly concussed) brain. I feel like my kids look at the end of a long day.
And that’s enough whining for one day. I have a lab safety manual and background articles on salmonella to read.
*update:Chapter 1 of the LSM and 14 pages of Salmonella background articles read. Now to see what I actually retain…
On the Maker Movement and its implications for education
So, this is a post unrelated to Kenan, but it’s what is kicking around in my mind at the moment.
Next Saturday, I get to hang out at Maker Faire NC with some of my students and celebrate creativity (especially theirs). This will be my second trip to MFNC with students, and I’m always thrilled to watch them in action: inspiring other kids to create, play, and learn.
This article came across my Twitter feed earlier this week, and, although it is completely unrelated to the Maker Movement, it seems to encapsulate nicely why we ought to put education back into kids’ hands, both metaphorically and literally.
http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/if-i-were-a-black-kid/276655/