Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘education’

Better Schools for Rural China

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Ann Scott Tyson/Christian Science Monitor.
This photo from 1992 shows Bai Guiling teaching multi-grade primary students in a cave classroom carved from a hillside in the village of Yangjiagou. It had no electricity and few books.

Today’s story is about two women who transformed education in rural China. It’s written by Ann Scott Tyson of the Christian Science Monitor, who wanted to follow up on an article she wrote 30 years ago.

“After a 12-hour train ride, I’ve reached a remote village on China’s Loess Plateau, where I’m searching for a teacher I wrote about 30 years ago. I can still picture Bai Guiling juggling lessons for four grades in a dim cave classroom carved from the yellow earth. Her dedication to the needy village children was unforgettable. Now, I want to revisit her story as a window into education in rural China today. 

“But no one in the dusty hamlet in northern Shaanxi province has heard of Teacher Bai or even remembers the school. … I flip through my notebook looking for the phone number of the only person who might be able to help – a Chinese American woman who years ago took a special interest in Teacher Bai. 

“Sitting in my taxi while the police watch from down the road, I tap her U.S. number into my phone and wait for what seems like forever.

“ ‘Hello?’ a frail but chipper voice answers. It’s Lin-yi Wu.

“A few days earlier, in mid-May, I’d tracked down Ms. Wu, a retired librarian, at a senior living home in Walnut Creek, California. The nonagenarian was recovering from a fall – taken while jazz dancing – but was in good spirits. …

“Born the daughter of a well-to-do Shanghai antiques merchant in 1933, Ms. Wu received an elite education that bore no resemblance to Teacher Bai’s bare-bones cave classes. She rode rickshaws to a stately Shanghai middle school run by American missionaries. After graduating from the top-flight Peking University, she was retained to teach French. A formative moment came when Communist Party authorities exiled her and her husband-to-be, English professor Hung-sen Wu, to labor in a hardscrabble mountain village outside Beijing in 1958, during Mao Zedong’s commune movement.

“ ‘My eyes were opened to see how the majority of Chinese lived,’ Ms. Wu told me. For that, she was grateful. But she also witnessed how Mao’s failed communes slashed farm output, leaving bok choy wilting in the fields and piglets dying in the street. A massive famine ensued, forcing villagers to eat leaves and corncobs. ‘It was horrible,’ she said. From 1959 to 1961, tens of millions of Chinese starved. 

“Once back at Peking University, Ms. Wu was shocked when authorities spread propaganda about a bumper harvest, rejoicing with music and gongs. ‘People are dying, and they celebrate the big harvest? That was the last straw,’ she said. ‘I could never live under a government that tells such a lie to the detriment of its people.’ In 1961, the couple fled via Hong Kong to the United States. …

“Forging a life in America, the Wus never lost the desire to help their destitute countrymen. Then, in April 1992, they opened the Christian Science Monitor and read my article about Teacher Bai’s struggles. At once, they each decided – without a word between them – to use their savings to build the village a proper school. … She penned a letter to me in Beijing, asking to contact Teacher Bai.

“But where is Teacher Bai now? I ask over the phone. ‘I don’t know where she lives, but I remember her village was in Ansai County,’ Ms. Wu tells me. ‘And I have her daughter’s phone number.’

“I open my road atlas and scour the map of Ansai, two counties away from where I am. Suddenly it makes sense – there are two villages with the same name, Yangjiagou, and I’m in the wrong one.   

“Her smile and warmth are infectious. After 30 years, I instantly recognize Teacher Bai when I see her waiting for me at the train station in the nearby city of Yan’an, a meeting arranged by her daughter. It feels like we never lost a beat. Driving a borrowed car, she whisks me into the rugged countryside. …

“ ‘Look at this old classroom!’ she says, peering through the worn wooden lattice of the cave’s front window at the peeling mud-and-straw walls. ‘I taught here for five years. We were so poor,’ she says. …

“Born in 1964 to a farming couple in a cave high on a barren hillside a few miles away, Ms. Bai was the eldest of five children – four girls and a boy. Food was scarce in the wake of China’s famine. They ate boiled thistles and cornhusk buns. ‘That counted as good food,’ she says. …

“ ‘I want to popularize the importance of primary education,’ she told me back in 1992. … Her dream: to rally the villagers to build a new school. …

” ‘The article you wrote changed my fate, and the fate of three generations of my family.’

“Not long after my 1992 trip, a local official came to find Teacher Bai. Breathlessly, he told her a group of overseas Chinese and Americans wanted to build a new primary school at Yangjiagou – and they named her to be in charge. …

“Back in the U.S., Ms. Wu excitedly tallied the funds. After a benefit dinner, greeting card drive, and garage sale – combined with her $4,000 in savings – she’d amassed more than $8,000 as of 1994. It was enough to build Yangjiagou a new school, the first by her new organization, Friends of Rural China Education (FORCE). …

“Through a Catholic church with contacts in Hong Kong, she found a nun who would soon travel to mainland China to teach. They arranged for the nun to hand-deliver $8,000 in cash to Teacher Bai at the train station in Guangzhou, across the border from Hong Kong. ‘I will never forget what Teacher Bai told me,’ recalls Ms. Wu. ‘She said, “I will guard this money with my life.” ‘ “

It’s actually a very long article, but how can I not love it? Read the whole beautiful thing at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

A Better Climate Curriculum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2023| 3 Comments »

Photo: Fernando Cortes via Inside Higher Ed.

Unless people are committed to the “ain’t it awful?” worldview, they probably respond in more positive ways to pitches about hopeful progress than pitches describing how dire everything is.

In an opinion piece at Inside Higher Ed, Stephen Porder agrees, noting that climate-change education is more likely to be effective when students learn that there is hope.

Porder writes, “The first year I taught Introduction to Environmental Science was 2007, the year after the release of An Inconvenient Truth. The class was full of eager students, most of whom would have described themselves as environmentalists. … I was there to teach them the science — basically how to use hypothesis testing, data and analysis to convince them the world is going to hell. They didn’t need much convincing.

“The endless description of problems, with little emphasis on solutions, is a hallmark of almost all environmental science and studies textbooks. After 20-plus years teaching in this field, I’ve come to think that our relentless focusing on the negative is, at best, missing an opportunity. … My more recent experiences teaching about solutions, rather than problems, suggests that a healthy dose of positivity even in the face of profound environmental challenges will reach a broader audience, gain more traction and diversify the people working on the admittedly wicked environmental challenges of the 21st century.

“Back in 2007, I walked into the classroom, fresh out of my Ph.D. and postdoc, eager to share the wonders of environmental science. I marveled at the data from the group run by Charles Keeling, who measured rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawai‘i. … I dove into the details of carbon isotopes to demonstrate just how we knew that the rise in carbon dioxide was a result of fossil fuel combustion, as opposed to natural sources. The course was definitely a science course —but looking back I realize each bit of data and analysis was perfused with pessimism. …

“Still, my course evaluations were good. … These good evaluations came from students who were mostly self-selected environmentalists — passionate about ‘saving the planet.’ They were bright, motivated and talented. … Other equally bright, motivated and talented students didn’t take the course. I wondered why.

“Having talked to many such students since, I’ve learned many felt a bit excluded. The environment was a worry for them, as it is for most of us, but it wasn’t their primary worry. They also felt like environmental studies or sciences was not a place where they could explore solutions. They felt that there was a relentless focus on what was wrong, rather than how to put it right. Finally, they felt like the problems we were describing were going to be fixed by people beyond the environmental field.

“I’ve come to agree with them. I, at least, was not doing enough to train problem-solvers. I’d been training people to cleverly document problems. I don’t think I’m the only one in the field who’s fallen into that trap. …

“I handed off Introduction to Environmental Science to a younger professor a few years ago, and from here on out I’m focusing on solutions, not problems. Climate solutions. Agricultural solutions. Deforestation solutions. They exist. They are not perfect and involve hard trade-offs. But their existence should be front and center in our teaching.

“Just putting ‘Climate Solutions’ in a course name dramatically changed my student enrollment. Surprisingly, very few environmental studies and sciences students signed up. Instead, students majoring in economics, political science, engineering, applied math and a variety of humanities fields appeared in my classroom. … Like all my students, they were united by their climate anxiety. But they came for, and responded to, the idea of solutions.

“This eclectic group brought a wealth of different interests, skills and weaknesses to the class and was eager to learn from each other about different approaches to overcoming the 21st century’s biggest environmental (I would argue societal) challenge. They were thrilled at the opportunity to contribute to a better future, even if the environment was not their top priority (for some it became a top priority when they learned there were things they could actually do to make a difference). Many had felt unwelcome in environmental studies/sciences, which often demands a political and philosophical homogeneity of its participants.

“As an example of this, a senior applied math major told me he had been searching for a field where his math could have impact. He had never taken an environmental class before (despite plenty of environmental angst) in part because he didn’t feel welcome or like he fit in with environmentalists. He now works doing data analytics for a solar power company. …

“Solutions are picking up speed. Technological advances in transportation (electric vehicles), space heating (heat pumps) and electricity production (renewables) have made extraordinary leaps since I started teaching. Given that transportation, space heating and electricity generation make up more than 70 percent of all fossil fuel emissions, this is huge news! We should be teaching about it at every level and helping our students gain the skills to push these revolutions forward as engineers, community organizers, investors and so on.

“Already these advances have cooled our future. A decade ago, we were headed for four to five degrees Celsius warming by century’s end. Now three degrees Celsius is more likely. Anyone who studies climate knows that’s still way too much warming to be safe, but it’s also a huge step in the right direction. You may not hear that in most environmental science classes, or in the news, but you should. Even better news is that most of what precludes keeping that number to two degrees Celsius is political, not technological. That wasn’t true when I started teaching, so we need to update our curricula to reflect this remarkable progress.

“I don’t mean to be overly optimistic. The challenges to a stable climate future are enormous. … But by relentlessly beating a drum of negativity in the absence of hope, we’re driving away brilliant young minds that could help make the world a better place.”

More at Inside Higher Ed, here. No paywall.

Read Full Post »

Generosity In the Curriculum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: Jenna Hauck/ Chilliwack Progress.
Children in Canada buying coffee for two strangers at Vedder Park during Watson Elementary’s Kindness Project on March 15. It’s all part of the curriculum.

How do you raise children who are kind? Partly by example. And maybe partly by putting generosity in the school curriculum. It can’t hurt to set aside a time for kids to know the satisfaction of committing random acts of kindness.

Sydney Page at the Washington Post writes about an experiment in Canada.

“While writing report cards several years ago, Jennifer Thiessen was troubled by something. Her third-grade students were being evaluated on subjects such as math and science, but not on life skills — such as social responsibility and kindness.

“ ‘That’s the stuff that I feel is really important for them to learn and carry forward in their lives,’ Thiessen said. … ‘There are so many important life lessons I wanted to teach them outside of the curriculum,’ said Thiessen, a teacher at Canada’s Watson Elementary School in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

“She mentioned her concerns to Kyla Stradling, then a fellow teacher at the school, and they hatched a plan. They assigned their students a project that had nothing to do with standard school subjects. Instead, it was centered on spreading goodwill. They called it the ‘Kindness Project.’

“ ‘If we could be that spark of kindness, we could inspire others to do acts of kindness,’ Thiessen told her third-graders in 2018.

“Students from two separate third-grade classes made cupcakes at home and sold them for $1 during a series of bake sales at the school. They raised about $400 and used the proceeds to purchase small gifts — things like bouquets of flowers, dog treats, chocolate bars and coffees — and handed them out to strangers near the school.

‘The students felt joy inside of them; that they did something that day that mattered,’ Thiessen said.

“Many of the gift recipients seemed ‘caught off guard’ at first, she said, though they were all in when the students explained what the project was about. Some were moved to tears. … She decided to make it a yearly activity for third-graders at the school.

“ ‘This project isn’t about who can read the best and who is best at math,’ she said. ‘This is an everybody project. It doesn’t have any limitations when it comes to ability.’

“For the past five years, third-grade students at Watson Elementary have embraced the Kindness Project. They host several bake sales to raise money, and each class adds their own spin to the assignment. During the pandemic, for instance, students collected funds to put together care packages for front-line workers.

“ ‘Every year, we sit down with them and ask them how they want to spend the money,’ Thiessen said. …

“Occasionally, students can be ‘a little overzealous,’ she said. As she brainstormed with her class this year, one child enthusiastically said: ‘Let’s buy someone a house!’ …

“Given the success of the project, the school decided to broaden it this year to involve five classes — including three third-grade classes, and some students in second and fourth grades. They started selling cupcakes each week at the school in February, and over five weeks, they raised more than $1,000 — the highest amount yet. …

“This year, the 100 students split up into several groups to focus on different initiatives. While one group wrote cards and bought small gifts to hand out to strangers, another put together care packages with essential supplies — including toothbrushes, snacks, gloves, socks and sanitizer — for homeless children and teens. Other students made a ‘teacher appreciation bin’ filled with treats and goodies and dropped it off at a nearby school.

“On March 15, the students and chaperones divided and carried out their various kindness missions. Some stayed at coffee shops surrounding the school, offering to buy beverages for strangers, while others waited around a local park, passing out dog treats and fresh flowers. Several students did a forest cleanup. …

“Though the goal of the project is to start a chain of kindness within the community (one man offered up $20 toward next year’s fundraising effort, Thiessen said), it’s also intended to show the students what they are capable of.

“ ‘I think what I want most for them is to know that it doesn’t matter where you come from or how old you are, you can do something that is good,’ Thiessen said.”

The idea of buying someone a house is not necessarily “overzealous,” I’d say. It shows the kid is already thinking about about adult-sized needs. Isn’t that the point?

More at the Post, here. For a version with no firewall, click on the Chilliwack Progress, here.

Read Full Post »

Missouri Helps Kids Get Outside

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 12, 2023| 4 Comments »

Photo: Alfredo Sosa/CSM Staff.
Students from Thorpe Gordon Elementary in Jefferson City, Missouri, at the Runge Conservation Nature Center in April.

It’s not a new idea, but it’s gaining traction: Getting kids outside into nature benefits their learning.

Jackie Valley writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Down a hiking path and through the woods, giggles and chatter echo from a clearing where elementary students have just finished constructing makeshift shelters.

The challenge blended environment with engineering, hence this visit to the Runge Nature Center from third, fourth, and fifth graders. They’re part of a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) club at nearby Thorpe Gordon Elementary in Jefferson City, Missouri. …

“A boy announces he saw a turkey, while another student proclaims ‘teamwork’ her favorite part. The scene portrays what conservation leaders and educators in Missouri are hoping to instill in the state’s youngest residents: an appreciation for the outdoors, a new experience, and some learning along the way.

“ ‘I think it’s so important,” says Melanie Thompson, a librarian from the elementary school who’s leading the STEM group on this day. ‘Kids don’t spend enough time playing outside.’

“In Missouri, efforts to connect children with nature date back to 1939. That’s when the Nature Knights program launched, giving children recognition for conservation practices. Three years earlier, the state’s residents approved an amendment that created an apolitical conservation agency.

“Today, terms such as nature education, outdoor learning, and environmental education refer to instruction that, in many ways, takes students out of traditional classroom settings. Subtle nuances exist, though, depending on the location and programming. The Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental education as a type of learning that allows people to ‘explore environmental issues, engage in problem solving, and take action to improve the environment’ – while also not advocating a particular viewpoint.

“The Missouri Department of Conservation, meanwhile, sees nature education as a way to ‘inspire and educate individuals about nature so they appreciate and ultimately protect our resources and wild places,’ says Brian Flowers, a regional supervisor for the agency’s education branch. …

“ ‘You introduce them to it,’ says Mr. Flowers, referring to conservation, natural resources, and wildlife. ‘You show them why it’s important, and, eventually, that leads to that they care about it. They protect it.’

“A study called The Nature of Americans, conducted in 2015 and 2016, found that more than 80% of children surveyed said time in nature made them feel creative, happy, healthy, and smarter. …

“ ‘Once they’re there, there’s so much that happens – curiosity and creativity and just enjoyment of being outside,’ [Megan Willig, a program coordinator for the National Environmental Education Foundation] says. It can also introduce students to career pathways in the natural resource, conservation, and STEM fields.

“In a grassy field not far from an elderberry patch, a sustainably designed building with large windows and a gently sloping roofline is under construction. It’s the future Boone County Nature School, which occupies land in the Three Creeks Conservation Area and will welcome a rotating cast of 12,000 to 13,000 students each year, says Mr. Flowers.

“The project represents a partnership among the Missouri Department of Conservation, Columbia Public Schools, community organizations, and other school districts in Boone County.

“Columbia Public Schools has hired a teacher to lead instructional efforts at the Boone County Nature School, which fits into the district’s overall mission to pour more resources into place-based learning, says Michelle Baumstark, the chief communications officer. About half of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

“ ‘These may not be experiences that they would have any other way and when you can create an access to an enriching opportunity, that can change the trajectory of a kid,’ she says.

“The land surrounding the nature school will feature a food forest, pollinator plots, a prairie restoration area, trails, a pavilion, and a council house with three tiers of stadium seating. The karst topography of the conservation area – caves, springs, and hills – is typically only found in southern Missouri near the Ozarks, making it an ideal exploration area for local children, Mr. Flowers says. …

“The Missouri Department of Conservation also operates programs that teach students archery and how to fish, among other things. And, in St. Louis, pavement will be removed and replaced with a green schoolyard at Froebel Literacy Academy. Picture a park-like setting with trees and wildflowers, where students can play and learn through STEM activities.

“The schoolyard project represents a step toward outdoor equity for children who grow up in urban areas that have more concrete and asphalt than lush, green recreation space, says Aaron Jeffries, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Conservation. …

“There’s no national standard for outdoor learning or environmental education, says Ms. Willig of NEEF, which was congressionally chartered in 1990 to complement the work of the EPA. So efforts differ by state and local jurisdiction, though she has seen more interest in making it a formal part of the curriculum.

“If barriers such as time or transportation exist, Ms. Willig recommends that school systems seek community partnerships. For instance, a local nonprofit that supports watershed health, she says, may be keen on helping with programming.

“ ‘The school doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch,’ she says.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall, nice pictures.

You can read another of my posts on kids benefiting from nature at school, here.

Read Full Post »

A Sense of Purpose in East Boston

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 11, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM.
Repotting plants at Eastie Farm. The Christian Science Monitor says, “The geothermal greenhouse is warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer by heat exchange, using pipes that circulate a fluid underground. Crops will be grown during all seasons.”

Here’s a new take on an urban community farm — keeping it going in the winter without recourse to fossil fuels.

Ariana Bennett writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Tucked near a highway underpass, a greenhouse glows faintly in the cold night. Inside, volunteers stand in the warmth, crowded around two pizzas topped with homegrown basil. Rows of potted greens, herbs, peppers, eggplants, and even strawberries line shelves along the walls.

“The greenhouse is a new project of Eastie Farm, a nonprofit educational urban farm founded in 2016 and housed in East Boston. Focused on feasible climate action, the nonprofit – and its new greenhouse – provides the surrounding community with greater control over its food supply. The building runs on geothermal energy and is the first of its kind in New England. …

“ ‘Everything that we do, we try to make sure that it has a relevance here and now, and it serves the purpose for the people who are living here today,’ says Kannan Thiruvengadam, the director of Eastie Farm. …

“The geothermal greenhouse operates as a heat exchange. Below the frost line, Earth’s temperature stays at a steady 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit year round. A fluid composed of water and antifreeze is pumped up from the ground, runs through a compressor, passes over a warm coil, and finally blows into the greenhouse as warm air. The fluid then heads back underground, forming a closed loop system.

“By drawing the temperature below the frost line up and into the greenhouse, the system warms in the winter and cools in the summer. Add in some warmth from sunshine, and winter temps in the greenhouse can be as high as 70 degrees.

“Inspiration for the greenhouse sparked during one of Eastie Farm’s nature classes taught to local students: Kids wanted an opportunity to get outside and farm in the colder months. ‘They even asked, “Come on, there must be something we can grow in the wintertime, ‘ ” Mr. Thiruvengadam remembers. …

“There was no one to guide Eastie Farm through the project – because it hadn’t been done before. Greenhouses are typically powered by propane and aren’t all that green, despite their name. They leak warm air in the winter and are often abandoned or used as storage in the hot summer months. Funding entities and contractors alike were unsure how to help. …

“Greenhouse manager Will Hardesty-Dyck aims to use the 1,500-square-foot enclosure to grow year-round, for about 2,000 pounds of produce yearly.

“Inside the greenhouse, string lights crisscross the ceiling underneath an insulation layer that is pulled tight to trap the daylight’s long-gone heat inside the building. The smell of soil fills the space with the feeling of spring.

“ ‘I just really love growing plants,’ Mr. Hardesty-Dyck says. ‘That makes me tick – and then being able to do that in this sort of organization where we’re really engaging with people and addressing needs.’

“The neighborhood Eastie Farm serves is as unique as its greenhouse. East Boston is a community that suffers a disproportionate burden of climate hazards. The peninsula is home to Boston Logan International Airport, houses stores of petroleum-derived products, and is at risk of climate-related flooding. It also experiences a high level of food insecurity.

“Mr. Hardesty-Dyck is already fielding requests to house budding saplings as well as to cultivate culturally relevant foods that may not be available – at least not fresh – at supermarkets.

South and Central American community members have asked for tropical and subtropical fruits, such as mamoncillo. There have also been requests for herbs such as cilantro and mint, a common ingredient in Moroccan tea.

“ ‘The reality is that we don’t have a lot of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. So the farm really is a great way to expose yourself to a variety that you don’t easily get in the stores that we have,’ says Bessie King, a CSA subscriber and East Boston resident.

“Eastie Farm challenges the conventional definition of an urban farm.  ‘Urban farms have more to harvest from their proximity to a lot of consumers and from their connections with rural farms than just by maximizing what [they grow] in every square inch,’ Mr. Thiruvengadam says. …

“One of the pillars of the nonprofit is education. Students can learn about the greenhouse effect and its meaning for the planet while standing in a greenhouse and experiencing it hands-on. The farm also manages four school gardens, which give students ‘ownership or buy-in to the school community,’ says Sam Pichette, a fifth grade teacher at Bradley Elementary whose students have participated in nature classes here. ‘It helped to strengthen ties between the students and to the community they live in.’ “

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscriptions encouraged.

Read Full Post »

The Fire & Flood Class

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 23, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican/AP/File.
Fire rages along a ridgeline near the Taos County line as firefighters from all over the country converge on northern New Mexico to battle a fire on May 13, 2022.

An interesting experiment is taking place in New Mexico, where leaders are merging recovery efforts for children who were affected by recent wildfires and floods with recovery efforts for the environment.

At the Christian Science Monitor, Sarah Matusek has the story.

“Sara Villa watches her second grader, Aaron, focus on the task, his jacket hood raised against the November chill. He’s one of several dozen students on a school excursion at a New Mexico ranch. The Villas evacuated their nearby Holman home in the spring due to wildfire, then again in the summer due to floods. Because of water damage, the family went into debt purchasing a new mobile home, says Ms. Villa. Other scars are harder to see.

“Aaron gets ‘scared now when it rains,’ she says. ‘I just try to explain to him that he’s OK.’

“Aaron, shy, offers a snaggletooth smile. The ball in his mud-smeared palms is stuffed with seeds of native grasses. Students can plant these ‘seed bombs’ where they please, such as at home or here at Collins Lake Ranch, where about half of its 300 acres burned last spring in the state’s largest recorded wildfire.

“The activity is part of a school district experiment linking environmental recovery to that of students, whose families lost ranchland, income, freezers full of food, and safe drinking water. This school year, the rural Mora Independent School District (MISD) has tried several ways of harnessing lessons about such disasters to ‘promote the healing,’ says Superintendent Marvin MacAuley. …

“The district hired a second social worker to deal with an upswell of behavioral issues. MISD has also doubled down on logistical preparedness, which includes ongoing food distribution to local families and the drafting of school flood-response plans. …

“Not unlike the weather radio that Mr. MacAuley keeps on his desk, antenna raised at the ready, district staffers have had to broaden their attention to student needs that include not only academics but also resilience.

“ ‘I want them to recover. I want them to succeed,’ says the superintendent. …

“Family trees in Mora County intertwine with Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican histories; some residents trace back ties to the land through nine generations. The district of around 400 students – most are Hispanic, and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. …

“In April, prescribed burning in Santa Fe National Forest botched by the U.S. Forest Service grew into the largest wildfire in recorded New Mexico history. The blaze of over 340,000 acres was fueled by adverse conditions that the government says it underestimated. April set a record dry average for the state in terms of precipitation: five-hundredths of an inch that month. …

“As the fire blazed, Mr. MacAuley, a former wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, made the call to send students and staff home early. Evacuations followed. After a ‘chaotic’ two weeks, he says displaced teachers resumed lessons through a semblance of virtual learning. Though the district had begun using 1-to-1 computing during the pandemic, not all children evacuated with devices, let alone landed where they had access to Wi-Fi. …

“Summer flooding from thunderstorms was made worse by the wildfire. At the start of the fall semester, flooding cued two early dismissals and the sheltering of students late at school until the roads cleared. …

“Researchers are beginning to understand the impact of climate change on young people, including through self-reporting of ‘climate anxiety.’ In April 2021, a year before the New Mexico blaze, the National Association of School Psychologists adopted a resolution recognizing the importance of mitigating climate-related harms (like air pollution, extreme heat, and wildfire) to the learning and mental health of students. 

“MISD is now equipped with cots, food, and water in case of future needs to shelter students. And the district used American Rescue Plan Act education funding to hire the second social worker based on a spike in social-emotional needs, with a third contracted on an as-needed basis. …

“Senior Casey Benjamin is among those who helped, as a junior firefighter. Sixth grader Ana Crunk, daughter of the teacher, volunteered at an evacuation center in Peñasco.

“Though it was ‘scary’ to flee home, helping out ‘helped me feel better,’ says Ana, whose own family was evacuated for two weeks. …

“Mora’s expeditionary learning, first mentioned in a report by Searchlight New Mexico, is partially meant to address social-emotional needs. Sometimes called experiential or project-based learning, the hands-on learning approach was developed by educators in the 1990s.

“Since the fall semester, several expeditionary learning days, including the seed bomb outing, have taken place at Collins Lake Ranch, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities. In other lessons there, students learned to fly drones for aerial data collection and tested post-fire water quality, in partnership with the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at New Mexico Highlands University. …

“The district has [also] launched its first team to enter the New Mexico Envirothon, a problem-solving competition that tests student knowledge of natural resources.”

More at the Monitor, here.

Read Full Post »

Kids Identify Misinformation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: Vesa Laitinen for the New York Times via the Jordan News.
Teacher Saara Martikka (in pink sweater) works with students to identify misinformation. Media literacy is taught in Finland starting in preschool.

I have long admired Finland for its educational system, but this beats all. The country starts teaching children how to identify misinformation at a very young age. That’s why it “ranked No. 1 of 41 European countries on resilience against misinformation for the fifth time in a row in a survey published in October by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria.”

Jenny Gross has the story at the New York Times.

“A typical lesson that Saara Martikka, a teacher in Hameenlinna, Finland, gives her students goes like this: She presents her eighth graders with news articles. Together, they discuss: What’s the purpose of the article? How and when was it written? What are the author’s central claims?

“ ‘Just because it’s a good thing or it’s a nice thing doesn’t mean it’s true or it’s valid,’ she said. In a class last month, she showed students three TikTok videos, and they discussed the creators’ motivations and the effect that the videos had on them.

“Her goal, like that of teachers around Finland, is to help students learn to identify false information. … Officials say Finland’s success is not just the result of its strong education system, which is one of the best in the world, but also because of a concerted effort to teach students about fake news. Media literacy is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool.

“ ‘No matter what the teacher is teaching, whether it’s physical education or mathematics or language, you have to think, “OK, how do I include these elements in my work with children and young people?” ‘ said Leo Pekkala, the director of Finland’s National Audiovisual Institute, which oversees media education. …

“The survey results were calculated based on scores for press freedom, the level of trust in society and scores in reading, science and math. The United States was not included in the survey, but other polls show that misinformation and disinformation have become more prevalent since 2016 and that Americans’ trust in the news media is near a record low. …

“Finland has advantages in countering misinformation. Its public school system is among the best in the world. College is free. There is high trust in the government, and Finland was one of the European countries least affected by the pandemic. Teachers are highly respected.

On top of that, Finnish is spoken by about 5.4 million people. Articles containing falsehoods that are written by nonnative speakers can sometimes be easily identified because of grammatical or syntax errors. …

“While teachers in Finland are required to teach media literacy, they have significant discretion over how to carry out lessons. Mrs. Martikka, the middle school teacher, said she tasked students with editing their own videos and photos to see how easy it was to manipulate information. A teacher in Helsinki, Anna Airas, said she and her students searched words like ‘vaccination’ and discussed how search algorithms worked and why the first results might not always be the most reliable. Other teachers also said that in recent months, during the war in Ukraine, they had used Russian news sites and memes as the basis for a discussion about the effects of state-sponsored propaganda.

“Finland, which shares an 833-mile border with Russia, developed its national goals for media education in 2013 and accelerated its campaign to teach students to spot misinformation in the following years. Paivi Leppanen, a project coordinator at the Finnish National Agency for Education, a government agency, said the threat of Russian misinformation on topics such as Finland’s bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ‘hasn’t changed the basics of what we do, but it has shown us that this is the time for what we have been preparing.’

“Even though today’s teenagers have grown up with social media, that does not mean that they know how to identify and guard against manipulated videos of politicians or news articles on TikTok. In fact, a study published last year in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology found that adolescence could be a peak time for conspiracy theorizing. …

“For teachers of any age group, coming up with effective lessons can be challenging. ‘It’s so much easier to talk about literature, which we have been studying for hundreds of years,’ said Mari Uusitalo, a middle and high school teacher in Helsinki.

“She starts with the basics — by teaching students about the difference between what they see on Instagram and TikTok versus what they read in Finnish newspapers. … During Ms. Uusitalo’s 16 years as a teacher, she has noticed a clear decline in reading comprehension skills, a trend she attributes to students’ spending less time with books and more time with games and watching videos. With poorer reading skills and shorter attention spans, students are more vulnerable to believing fake news or not having enough knowledge about topics to identify misleading or wrong information, she said.

“When her students were talking this summer about leaked videos that showed Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, dancing and singing at a party, Ms. Uusitalo moderated a discussion about how news stories can originate from videos circulating on social media. Some of her students had believed Ms. Marin was using drugs at the party after watching videos on TikTok and Twitter that suggested that. Ms. Marin denied having taken drugs, and a test later came back negative.

“Ms. Uusitalo said her goal was to teach students methods they could use to distinguish between truth and fiction. ‘I can’t make them think just like me,’ she said. ‘I just have to give them the tools to make up their own opinions.’ ”

More at the Times, here.

Read Full Post »

School on Wheels

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 23, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: School on Wheels.
A student at School on Wheels’ Skid Row Learning Center works with staff member Emma Gersh.

All children need an education, but those experiencing homelessness get a spotty one at best. That’s a situation the nonprofit School on Wheels is aiming to rectify.

Magda Hernandez wrote about it at the Christian Science Monitor. “The little girl was 6 years old, and life hadn’t been kind to her. 

“When Catherine Meek walked into a homeless shelter for their tutoring session, she found the child hiding under a desk. 

“No questions asked, the volunteer joined her on the floor and began reading to her. For an hour a week, the session would allow the girl to be just a kid, getting the assistance she needed, and for at least a moment forgetting about the circumstances that put the girl educationally behind by about a grade. 

“The space remained their meeting spot for six sessions until, one day, Ms. Meek walked in to find the girl sitting at the desk waiting for her. 

“ ‘I had, I remember, the biggest smile on my face, and she did too,’ Ms. Meek says. ‘I think even at that young, vulnerable age she understood that something had changed, that there was a set level of trust, that she could trust me.’

“Ms. Meek lights up recalling that moment – one of her greatest success stories as a volunteer tutor for School on Wheels, a nonprofit addressing educational needs of children K-12 who are experiencing homelessness. She and the girl worked together for about two years until the child moved out of state and they lost touch. 

“Recently, Ms. Meek – now executive adviser to the organization – attended that no-longer-little-girl’s wedding after they reconnected through social media. 

“A brainchild of the late Agnes Stevens, a retired schoolteacher, School on Wheels began in 1993 when she started tutoring kids living in shelters on Skid Row, an area of Los Angeles known for its large homeless population. In the next few years, she formalized her efforts, recruited more volunteers, and grew the organization with the help of Ms. Meek, who joined in 1999. 

“ ‘She was the inspiration and teacher and had the education background, and I had the business and financial background,’ says Ms. Meek.

‘The need was there in 1993, and it’s just grown astronomically since then. One in 30 kids in California in a classroom is homeless.’

“The organization grew steadily, partnering with shelters, school districts, motels, libraries, anywhere homeless families could be – even reaching those living in cars, in foster homes, and on the streets. With year-round operations in six counties, prior to the pandemic, the organization reached more than 3,000 homeless children a year, and it recruited and trained more than 2,000 tutors annually. …

“ ‘Students experiencing homelessness move on average about three to four times a year, and with each move, it’s estimated that they fall behind four months academically,’ says Charles Evans, the organization’s executive director. …

“School on Wheels doesn’t get into the students’ backgrounds but focuses solely on assessing the kids’ educational needs – like a fourth grader who is two grades behind in reading or a 10th grader who’s struggling with pre-algebra and biology – and matching them with tutors. …

“Says Mr. Evans. ‘We don’t pry and try to figure out why a family became homeless.’

“The children are assessed every few weeks to make sure they’re improving. Ms. Meek says that in 2021, K-4 students improved their literacy skills by 21%; in the past six months, fifth through eighth grade students increased math skills by almost one grade level, and self-efficacy surveys showed a 40% increase in confidence in ninth through 12th graders. 

” ‘Before the pandemic, tutors would meet students wherever they were – motels, shelters, libraries. But tutoring sessions have been remote – via donated Chromebooks and laptops – in the past couple of years. The drastic change had benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, students could stay in touch with tutors even on the move. On the other, School on Wheels had to pivot from handing out backpacks and school supplies to figuring out how to get digital equipment into kids’ hands and making sure they had Wi-Fi access. … Now, the organization is returning to in-person sessions, particularly for younger kids. But it will keep the hybrid model. …

“Outside of tutoring, School on Wheels is out to erase the stigma of homelessness. Many of the families the organization works with found themselves homeless through no negligence of their own – victims of domestic violence or economic hardship, doing their best to get back on their feet.

“For example, one single mother in her 20s, who for security reasons asked not to be named, left an abusive relationship, and ended up in a shelter with her four young kids. When she noticed her children falling behind in school, she connected with School on Wheels.

“ ‘It’s been the best thing ever, because my kids love their tutors,’ says the young woman, who works and goes to school. She now gets reports from school that her kids are doing much better: ‘The teacher did see a lot of improvement in [my daughter’s] math and her spelling.’ That motivates her to do better herself, says the mother.”

Read at the Monitor, here, about Angela Sanchez and how she got math help from a rocket scientist. No firewall.

Read Full Post »

Getting India’s Kids to Museums

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Bihar Museum.
Tens of thousands of schoolchildren have visited the Bihar Museum in Patna, India, thanks to a government initiative.

I like being exposed to parts of the world I know nothing about. That’s why most of the mystery books I read are set in froreign countries.

Today I’m learning about a region just south of Nepal in India’s northeast, Bihar. In the town of Patna, the government-owned Bihar Museum is working to expand the horizons of its large population of children.

Kabir Jhala writes at the Art Newspaper, “At India’s last census, Bihar was the nation’s youngest state, with 58% of its more than 104 million citizens under 25 years old. The museum hopes, through a unique scheme, [to] create a generation of future art lovers.

“Since 2019 Bihar’s Ministry of Education has pledged to provide 20,000 rupees ($260) to every primary school in the state for museum visits, with the money going towards transport, entry tickets and lunches. While the sum might not seem great, multiplied by the state’s 67,000 eligible schools, it amounts to more than $17.4 million, a considerable sum in a country where most public museums have virtually no engagement programs.

“At the museum, children can explore dedicated sections for young visitors, including works that can be touched, labels at child-friendly heights and workstations in which they can mint their own coins and simulate parts of an archaeological excavation.

“So far the scheme has only been rolled out in the nearest districts to Patna, the state’s capital, and Covid-19 has limited its reach. But from April 2019 to March 2020, the only full year in which the scheme was untouched by the pandemic, 33,000 students from 1,000 schools visited the museum. …

“ ‘I want the children to go back to their communities and rave about their time at the museum,’ says the institution’s director, Anjani Kumar Singh. ‘Through word of mouth, I think we can transform not just this generation into museum-goers, but the whole state, too.’ …

“ ‘Many of these children live in rural areas with parents who can’t read or write [Bihar’s literacy rate is one of the lowest in India] and the concept of museums and art are totally alien,’ Singh says. ‘But despite Bihar being one of the country’s poorest states, I am proud that we have pioneered a scheme that is totally unprecedented in terms of scale in India — no other museum comes close to this level of youth engagement.’ …

“Singh says his next plan is to fill a vehicle with photographs, films and replicas from the collection to create a traveling museum to tour the state.”

More at the Art Newspaper, here.

I went to Wikipedia to learn more. Of the Children’s Gallery, it says, “Its collection of artifacts and exhibit items is divided into six domains: the Orientation Room, the Wildlife Sanctuary, the history sections on Chandragupta Maurya and Sher Shah Suri, the Arts and Culture section and the Discovery Room. Among the exhibits are a simulated the Asian paradise flycatcher, the Indian giant flying squirrel, animals, birds, trees and plants native to the state of Bihar. The gallery’s focus is family learning; most exhibits are designed to be interactive, allowing children and families to actively participate.’

A history gallery boasts “artifacts from the Harappan Civilization, also known as Indus Valley Civilization, the second urbanization and Haryanka. The whole collection of this gallery represents the advanced technology and sophisticated lifestyle of the Harappan people. The gallery has objects from the fourth century BCE to the first century BCE. It has objects spanning three major dynasties of India: the Mauryas, the Nandas and the Shishunagas. The gallery also houses fragments of railings from various ancient Stupas that are carved on with episodes from Buddha‘s and Mahavira’s life.”

And I’ll just add a bit about the Diaspora Gallery, which “provides the historic context of how Biharis were relocated to countries like Mauritius, Bangladesh and beyond. Some were recruited as laborers in the early days of the East India Company, and others explored foreign lands on their own initiative. Activate an interactive map to learn about the origins of Bihari culture, trade routes and how the population has relocated in foreign lands. Aside of the past movements, also discover recent stories of the people of Bihar, their accomplishments and their involvements, to understand the influence Bihar has had around the world.”

Read Full Post »

Beloved One-Room Schoolhouse

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2022| 4 Comments »

Photo: Chelsea Sheasley/Christian Science Monitor.
Diane Nicholls stands in the room where she teaches in Elmore, Vermont. The Elmore School is the state’s last one-room schoolhouse. Elmore residents are voting on whether to form their own independent school district to preserve the school.

Today is the day that residents of Elmore, Vermont, were scheduled to vote on whether or not to protect their one-room school. Although my own brief experience with a one-room school does not incline me to nostalgia, I understand why this community may be afraid to lose its identity in the larger district.

Chelsea Sheasley writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Each morning before school starts and after recess, Diane Nicholls rings the bell atop the snug one-room schoolhouse where she teaches.

“ ‘I don’t feel like I’m living in the 19th-century, but it is charming,’ says Ms. Nicholls, who educates a group of 18 students in the Elmore School, Vermont’s last operating one-room schoolhouse.

“The Elmore School, a public school serving students in grades one through three, is a cherished tradition in the tiny town of Elmore, with a population of under 1,000. Generations of students have attended since the school opened in the 1850s. Now, townspeople are wrestling with how best to support it.

“Residents will vote March 1 on whether the town should withdraw from a joint school district with two other nearby towns in order to strike out on their own in hopes of preemptively preserving their schoolhouse. Concerns mounted after a district-commissioned report released in November 2020 proposed five cost-saving recommendations, with four out of the five options suggesting closing the Elmore School. 

“Behind the ballot effort are questions that also play out in other rural areas: How much does a school contribute to a community’s identity?

Is a local school such a crucial community hub that taxpayers are willing to pay higher costs to preserve it?

“ ‘It’s difficult to say what forms the identity of a community, but we know these institutions like the Elmore Store, the school, are part of it, and we defend them as a proxy for defending the community,’ says Trevor Braun, an Elmore resident and board member of the Elmore Community Trust, a nonprofit that recently raised $400,000 to ensure the town’s general store didn’t close. 

“March 1 won’t mark the first time residents will vote on whether to form an independent school district. In December 2021 the town voted not to leave the joint district, Lamoille South Unified Union (LSUU), amid concerns that taxes might rise and unknowns over what forming an independent school district means. But enough townspeople signed a petition to bring the question back to the Town Meeting this week. 

“Elmore … is located 14 miles north of Stowe, a popular ski destination and home of the Trapp Family Lodge, known for its connection to the relatives portrayed in ‘The Sound of Music.’

“Elmore consists of a short main drag with the school, the general store across the street, town hall, and one church. The population swells with seasonal summer residents. 

“On a recent February morning, students in the cozy Elmore School classroom practiced nonfiction writing. A first grade student wrote about chickens, while a few desks over a third grader wrote about her favorite animal, polar bears. Kids write and draw on paper, with iPads handy on their desks to research questions.  …

” ‘I remember my very first day here and I just really liked it,’ says Ruby, a third grader, who says that now, as one of the oldest kids, she appreciates that ‘you can have friends younger than you and help them, and it’s fun to see and help them develop their skills.’ 

“Jon Osborne, an Elmore parent whose two children now attend college, says the Elmore School provided his kids with a ‘phenomenal’ experience, including building a tight-knit group of friends who helped each other in the classroom. …

“The superintendent and school board of LSUU say they have no plans to close the Elmore School. The report that recommended closing was completed under a previous superintendent and done by an outside group without consideration of local culture, says LSUU superintendent Ryan Heraty. …

“ ‘That sense of independence, of local control, is very Vermont,’ says Mr. Heraty. 

“But even with the school district’s assurances, some residents are skeptical about putting the future of the treasured school in the hands of others. A recent kerfuffle with the United States Postal Service over halting service to the post office inside the Elmore Store raised townspeople’s hackles. In an effective show of civic activism, the town rallied elected leaders and pressured the USPS to reverse course. …

“If Elmore were to leave LSUU, it’s unclear what would come next. Residents don’t know if the state would allow the town to revert to a previous agreement where older Elmore kids were allowed to attend their school of choice in other towns. Or the state might force the town to fully operate their own independent school district. (Another small Vermont locale offers a cautionary tale: In 2021 the town of Ripton voted to leave its school district but is now negotiating rejoining after the state said the town had to provide all the related services, like payroll and transportation.) …

“Inside The Elmore Store, where residents pop in and out to pick up mail and exchange town news, Kate Gluckman and Mike Stanley are settling in after moving from Mississippi to run the store for the Elmore Community Trust. They are enjoying the warm welcome from locals. 

“Ms. Gluckman grew up in a neighboring Vermont town. The couple is still getting up to speed on the school independence vote. They were planning to listen to community members at a town forum and take their cues from the discussion. 

“ ‘I just want to support the community,’ says Mr. Stanley. ‘If it’s what’s best for the community, I will vote for it.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here. In case you’re wondering, my experience was this: I spent the first month of first grade attending a one-room school on the island where I had spent the summer. My mother arranged for me to have the desk near the only person I knew slightly, an older girl who walked me to school, but the big boy whose desk it was became angry and threatening. I refused to go back after lunch, but that was a problem because the reading group for my age was in the afternoon. I didn’t catch up in reading until late in second grade back home.

Read Full Post »

Teen Promotes Neglected History

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2022| 5 Comments »

Photo: Prasidha Padmanabhan.
Prasidha Padmanabhan, 16, founded WEAR (Women for Education, Advocacy and Rights), a nonprofit with an executive board made up entirely of students.

The teen in today’s story not only pointed out the absence of women of color in her school’s history curriculum. She influenced a large school system. That takes a special kind of patience.

Theresa Vargas reports at the Washington Post, “If you happen to get into a conversation about American history with Prasidha Padmanabhan, you will have to keep reminding yourself of this: She is only 16. The names of historically overlooked women flow from her in the same way the names of modern-day A-list celebrities flow from other kids her age.

“She can tell you about the lives of Rebecca Lee Crumpler (the first African American woman to become a doctor), Queen Liliuokalani (the first woman and last person to rule Hawaii) and Claudette Colvin (a Black teenager who refused to give up her seat on a bus before Rosa Parks did). …

“She can tell you why, if you know about Paul Revere, you should also know about Sybil Ludington. Ludington was 16 when she rode through the night during the American Revolution to warn militia members of a British attack. …

“The teenager has not only spent the last few years learning about the historic and too-often unseen roles of women, and in particular women of color, but also has worked to make sure students in one of the country’s largest school systems have a chance to learn about them.

“During the pandemic, Prasidha went from seeing people on social media talk about repealing the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, to creating a student-led nonprofit, to working with educators from Fairfax County Public Schools to add more women’s history to curriculum offerings.

“Her collaboration with school officials is ongoing, but so far, she has worked with social studies teachers to create Civil War material made available for sixth-grade U.S. history lessons, and she has written minibooks about Native American women for the school system’s young readers.

“ ‘She like many others noticed that when it comes to the stories we tell about Indigenous people in our K-12 classrooms, too often Native American people do not show up as individual people with lives and interests and contributions,’ says Deborah March, who works for Fairfax schools as a culturally responsive pedagogy specialist, a position that calls for her to support teachers and curriculum writers. ‘She created these short, accessible, image-laden biographies so that our younger elementary school learners can encounter Native American women as full human beings whose lives are worthy of study.’

“Days ago, the U.S. Mint prompted public celebrations and conversations across the country. The Mint announced that coins from the American Women Quarters Program — which honors the remarkable contributions of women — had been shipped. …

“That these women’s names will soon be in our hands and in front of our faces should give us joy. It should also cause us to pause and think about why many people still don’t know their stories and what women we should have learned about but haven’t. …

“Prasidha is a first-generation Indian American and says those comments she saw online in 2020 about taking away women’s right to vote made her think about what she had learned in her history classes about women. She, like most people, had been taught about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony. But she couldn’t recall learning about what women did during the Civil War or during other notable periods.

“She told her parents she wanted to start an organization that would focus on getting those stories told. From that conversation grew WEAR (Women for Education, Advocacy and Rights), a nonprofit with an executive board made up entirely of students.

One of Prasidha’s first actions through the organization was to create a Change.org petition calling on Fairfax Schools to integrate women’s history into elementary and middle school curriculum. … The petition drew more than 5,000 signatures.

“Prasidha recalls the day she was at home, engaged in virtual learning, and an email caused her to let out an excited yell. She says it was from March saying she wanted to meet and talk about a possible collaboration between the school system and WEAR.

“ ‘I didn’t know what to expect,’ March says of her first encounter with Prasidha, who is a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. … ‘It was exciting for me to connect with a student who was on fire for just and equitable access to learning experiences that tell a complete story.’

“March says everyone benefits when educators take seriously the type of questions Prasidha and WEAR are raising: ‘What if we broaden the story? What if we rethink whose lives and contributions are deemed worthy of study in our classrooms and textbooks?’

“ ‘I think students have a better chance of seeing their power to shape our systems and institutions when they encounter lots of different examples of what that can look like, examples of diverse people as the doers and movers of history,’ March says. ‘It would be a shame if students came away from their K-12 education thinking they have to become a president or a general if they want to make a difference in the world.’

“March says she, her colleague Jen Brown and three social studies teachers met with Prasidha weekly at one point to work on the Civil War material that is offered to sixth-grade teachers. Prasidha was also invited in August to speak to educators. Her presentation was titled, ‘Expanding and Transforming Women’s History for K-12.’

“Brown recalls Prasidha telling participants about Susie King Taylor, who was born into slavery and attended school in secret. At 14, she became the first Black teacher to openly educate African Americans in Georgia, and she later served as a nurse for the Union army during the Civil War.

“ ‘I had never heard of Susie King Taylor, before Prasidha introduced me to her, and was so grateful for the opportunity to learn about her and other women who did extraordinary things,’ Brown says.

More at the Post, here.

Read Full Post »

Music Education Prizes Are Needed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 22, 2020| 1 Comment »

14lewis-steppe-jumbo

Photo: Ken Hofheinz
Brandon Steppe, the founder of the David’s Harp Foundation, received a grant for his work using music education and multimedia training to help at-risk youth.

When philanthropists step up to fill a need, it may be a sign that our tax money is not being used in some important ways. Arts education, for example, provides so many benefits to students that it really should be available in every school, but too often it’s the first thing to go when districts are underfunded.

So hooray for philanthropists filling a gap! Lauren Messman wrote at the New York Times, “The Lewis Prize for Music, a new philanthropic organization focused on fostering music education and career development in young people, announced its first slate of winners on [January 14]. The $1.75 million will be awarded to the leaders of nine organizations in eight states.

“The prize, which is split into three categories and includes both long-term and single-year support, was founded in 2019 by the philanthropist Daniel R. Lewis.

“ ‘My vision is to ensure opportunities to learn, perform and create music are available to all young people,’ said Mr. Lewis in a statement. ‘Ideally, this would be happening in every school, but that isn’t the case, especially in low-income and historically marginalized communities.’

“The Accelerator Award, which provides $500,000 for multiyear support, was given to Community MusicWorks, which provides classical music educational programs in Providence, R.I.; My Voice Music, which brings songwriting, recording and performance mentorships to mental health treatment and detention centers in Portland, Ore; and The David’s Harp Foundation, a San Diego-based organization that works to develop job skills through music with youth in the juvenile justice system. …

“ ‘What we’ve noticed is that when these young people come from being incarcerated back into the community, there’s a gap in our service there,’ [Brandon Steppe, the founder,] said in a phone interview. He added that the rest of the money will go toward building ‘arts-based diversionary programming in the community,’ in an effort to keep youth out of the juvenile justice system.

“Winners of the Infusion Award, which provides $50,000 over one year, include programs aimed at inspiring Native American music educators and composers, bringing traditional Mexican music education to the children of immigrants, providing music and entrepreneurship training for young musicians of color in Detroit and building support for the next generation of New Orleans brass band musicians.” More at the Times, here.

I liked reading further about one of the Infusion Award winners, the Native American Composer Apprentice Project. The Grand Canyon Music Festival website explains, “Since 1984, the Grand Canyon Music Festival has been dedicated to bringing the world’s finest musicians to Grand Canyon National Park in celebration of the power and beauty of this magnificent World Heritage site.

“Since 1985, the Festival has extended this gift of music to the students of northern Arizona’s under-served and rural communities, primarily at schools on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. In 2001, the Festival initiated its Native American Composers Apprentice Project (NACAP) to extend its outreach to training talented Native American students in the art of composition. NACAP develops musical literacy and enhances critical thinking and decision making skills through the study of music composition. It introduces students to European ‘classical’ music techniques, develops their understanding of their own musical heritages and how to use that knowledge to develop their own compositional voices.”

Read Full Post »

Oysters Helping New York Harbor

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 3, 2019| 6 Comments »

20180626-dsc_8730_custom-017620689c347e9ace4501eb1e5f40b39875a047-s600-c85

Photos: Agata Poniatowski
Oyster shells from restaurants get taken to Governors Island in the heart of the New York Harbor to be used in fighting erosion. Billion Oyster Project has collected more than 1 million pounds of oyster shells so far. 

I go to poetry readings at the local library, and inevitably in the question period, someone in the audience asks the poet, “How do you get your ideas?” (This is a question poets expect, and they always have a ready answer. Watch for the deer-in-the-headlights look if you ask a question they don’t expect.)

But I’m not sure any of us really know where we get our ideas. There is something mysterious about the way individual brains connect connect things heard, seen, smelled, touched, tasted with their individual experiences.

Today’s story is about shoring up an eroding harbor with recycled oyster shells. The idea to use oysters this way comes from years of research and contributions from many people. But, according to the report at National Public Radio (NPR), an idea for extending the benefits came from kids. Read on.

Andrea Strong reports, “Across New York City, more than 70 restaurants are tossing their oyster shells not into the trash or composting pile, but into the city’s eroded harbor. It’s all part of Billion Oyster Project‘s restaurant shell-collection program. …

“The shells are trucked over to Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood and once a month are brought en masse to Governors Island in the heart of the New York Harbor, just yards away from both Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. There, rolling shell hills sparkle in the sun while ‘curing’ out in the elements for one year, a process that rids them of contaminants.

“The shells then get a final cleaning and are moved to Billion Oyster Project’s hatchery at the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, a public high school on Governors Island that offers technical and vocational training in the marine sciences. In an aquaculture classroom’s hatchery, student-grown oysters produce larvae in an artificially induced springtime environment.

“In one to two weeks, each larvae grows a ‘foot’ — a little limb covered in a kind of natural glue — and then is moved to a tank full of the ‘cured’ restaurant shells, which serve as anchors for all of those sticky feet. This phase is critical: If larvae can’t find a place to attach, they die. One reclaimed shell can house 10 to 20 new live oysters, depending on shell size. …

“If the water is warm enough, mature oysters are moved to a reef structure — a cage or shellfish bag — that provides a stable area for oysters to fuse together and create a healthy reef in the New York Harbor.

“Then, the oysters begin doing what oysters do — which, it turns out, is quite a lot. Oysters are natural water filters; each one cleans 30 to 50 gallons of water a day. They also provide food and shelter for all sorts of marine creatures, supporting biodiversity. …

“Oyster reefs can protect against a hurricane’s wave velocity, which can destroy a city’s infrastructure. The New York Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery has partnered with Billion Oyster Project to install oysters on its $74 million Living Breakwaters Project, which aims to reduce and reverse erosion and damage from storm waves, improve the ecosystem health of Raritan Bay and encourage environmentally conscious stewardship of nearshore waters. …

“Brian Owens, who goes through about 20,000 oysters a week at his restaurant, Crave Fishbar, … says the project is not just smart for sustainability; it’s also good for business. Recycling shells significantly reduces carting expenses, something all NYC restaurants must pay for by the bag. ‘Recycling them into the reef is a huge savings,’ he says.

“In addition to saving on garbage collection, restaurants may soon be eligible for a tax credit thanks to New York Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. The credit is a much needed balm for restaurants that have been hit with escalating costs and increasing regulatory burdens over the past few years. …

“The idea came from neither restaurants nor Rosenthal, but from students at one of Billion Oyster Project’s partner schools, West End Secondary on the Upper West Side.

“Rosenthal championed their idea, building support for the bill and bringing the students to Albany to learn about lawmaking and to participate in a press conference.

“Education of the next generation of environmental stewards has been at the heart of Billion Oyster Project since its inception in 2008, when [Billion Oyster Project Executive Director Pete] Malinowski was teaching aquaculture at the Harbor School. …

“Fifteen years later … that classroom program has grown into Billion Oyster Project and now includes programming in more than 80 middle and high schools. That works out to about 1,215 high school students and more than 6,500 middle school students. …

” Through this work, students develop awareness and affinity for the resource and the confidence that comes from knowing their actions can make a difference. With young people who care, the harbor has a real fighting chance,’ ” says Malinowski.

More.

Sending 422 oyster reef structures into the Hudson River to protect and purify New York Harbor.

20180625-dsc_8534_custom-aaaf3bcb7c95d9c4cc4ece8ce9e76181a4f6994d-s600-c85

Read Full Post »

Going the Extra Mile for Students

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2018| 4 Comments »

high20five

Photo: AVID
AVID is a program that gives extra attention to students who might otherwise be marginalized. The acronym stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.

My friends Ann and AJ had a fun time this past summer helping to chaperone their Colorado niece’s students on a trip to New York City. That’s how I learned about an enrichment program called AVID, which gives an extra boost to students who might need it and incorporates life skills with academic learning.

According to the AVID website, “75% of AVID students are from a low socioeconomic status background, and 80% are underrepresented students. Nevertheless, they outperform their peers in crucial metrics nationwide.”

Ann tells me, “It’s a curriculum that districts can purchase. Emalea has worked with these same AVID program students for four years and they are now making college plans.  Most will be first generation college students. Emalea has helped the kids with everything from social skills to completing their college applications to prepping for ACTs.” (ACTs are standardized tests similar to the SATs.)

Ann and AJ had a blast hanging out with the Colorado teens in New York and feel a lot of hope for these kids’ futures.

AVID’s approach is described on the website: “AVID students reflect and question while mastering content. … Our students work together to problem solve and to change the level of discourse in the classroom as they prepare for success. Students are taught to articulate what they don’t understand and learn how to seek out the resources they need. By teaching critical thinking, inquiry, and self-advocacy, AVID educators empower students to own their learning. …

“This student-centered approach ensures that the people doing the most talking learn the most. This engages students and creates content mastery through inquiry and collaboration. …

“All students need to learn how to learn. Note-taking, studying, and organizing assignments are all skills that must be taught and practiced to perfect, but are not explicitly taught in schools. … Educators can teach students how to master these and other academic behaviors that will help them succeed in school and life.

“Students would rather talk, move around, and ask questions than sit still and be quiet. Humans are wired to construct knowledge through action. AVID classrooms promote motion, communication, and team building through activities such as Socratic Seminars, Collaborative Study Groups, [and] peer tutoring.”

I’ve culled a few testimonials from the AVID website.

“The AVID program not only pushes students, but teachers to set these goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.”
–Victor, High School student

“I completely changed the way I teach. It’s just amazing the difference it’s made in my teaching and students’ learning.”
–Cynthia Lee, Teacher

“AVID has really increased our graduation rates and also our success rates for students who choose to go to college.”
–Dr. Karen Fischer Gray, Superintendent

Read Full Post »

Grand Friends Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 2, 2018| 4 Comments »

110218-recording-his-compound-words

My husband and I went to one of our grandchildren’s schools this morning for a delightful event called Grand Friends Day. Suzanne‘s oldest knew the ropes and was fine with letting us look over his shoulder as he worked, but her youngest said not to come because she would be too sad when we left after the designated hour. We knew that might be true. Since pretty much anyone can be a child’s Grand Friend, our granddaughter’s teacher was happy to serve in that capacity and enjoy extra one-on-one time with her.

Before Suzanne’s family joined a Montessori school, we didn’t know a lot about this approach to education, even though one of my own grandmothers actually studied with founder Maria Montessori. Even now we have no idea how one lone teacher sets all these little spinning-top children working independently on different tasks, but each one in the multilevel class (first, second, third grade) seems to know what to do.

Our grandson demonstrated a whole new way of getting ready for multiplication. It took me a while to catch on as he did his work. He didn’t want to explain it. Then he headed off to other tasks, including the one above with compound words. My husband and I helped him match all the words at the left end of the pink strips with words at the right end of other pink strips. We ended up with words like “necklace,” “earthworm,” and “bluebird.” After the teacher checked the work, he began to write it all down — first as two words and then as compound words. He was still writing as we left. (The picture with the teacher was taken by Suzanne on a different day.)

It was fun to see him in operation. He definitely didn’t want much help. I offered a red pencil when his yellow one didn’t show up on a manila card he was using for consonant blends, but he said he was supposed to use yellow for those particular words, and he was right. Also, I always have a really good eraser with me, but he didn’t want it. He preferred the one that was nearly gone on his pencil. I think independence is part of the Montessori deal, but he is probably kind of independent anyway.

110218-creating-compound-words

110218-math-with Morfar

2018-teacher-checks-work

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »