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Posts Tagged ‘education’

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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Music Education Prizes Are Needed

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

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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.”

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Oysters Helping New York Harbor

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

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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.

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Going the Extra Mile for Students

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

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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

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Grand Friends Day

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

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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.

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Exposure to Nature Benefits Schoolkids

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 22, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Bethesda Magazine
New research finds some children are more attentive after experiencing a class taught on the lawn.

As the fourth snow event of March 2018 decorates my yard, I’m finding it hard to visualize academic lessons on a lawn, but I know they do happen.

Tom Jacobs writes at Pacific Standard, “A carefully designed 10-week study found outdoor lessons ‘boost subsequent classroom engagement, and boost it a great deal,’ writes a research team led by Ming Kuo of the University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign. ‘After a lesson in nature, teachers were able to teach for almost twice as long without having to interrupt instruction to redirect students’ attention.’

“In the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Kuo and her colleagues note that, while many European nations have incorporated classes in nature into children’s education, the idea has not been embraced in the United States. This may reflect ‘concern on the part of teachers that outdoor lessons will leave students keyed up and unable to concentrate,’ they write. Their findings debunk that notion.

“The study featured third-graders (ages nine and 10) at an environment-oriented magnet school in the Midwest. The kids were predominantly African American, and 87 percent qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch.

“Two teachers — one keen on the idea of teaching in nature, the other somewhat skeptical — each ‘delivered 10 pairs of lessons over 10 different weeks.’ On five of the 10 weeks, the first lesson of the pair was taught at a grassy spot just outside the school, adjacent to some woods.

” ‘For any given pair of lessons, both the treatment lesson (in nature) and its indoor counterpart were delivered by the same teacher to the same students, on the same topic, in the same week of the semester,’ the researchers write.

“The students’ engagement in the lesson taught immediately afterwards—which was always indoors—was measured in a variety of ways, including the teacher’s perception; the judgment of an independent observer who examined photographs of the classroom; and how often the teacher needed to stop teaching to attend to a student’s inappropriate behavior.

” ‘Classroom engagement was significantly better after lessons in nature,’ the researchers report. … Most striking was the reduction in ‘redirects,’ which are defined as ‘instances where a teacher interrupted the flow of instruction to redirect students’ attention.’

” ‘Normally, these occur roughly once every 3.5 minutes of instruction’ in a third-grade classroom, the researchers write. But after a lesson in nature, ‘teachers were able to teach for 6.5 minutes, on average, without interruption.’ …

“The five-minute-long walks to and from the outdoor learning area may have played a positive role. It’s also possible the kids were responding to rejuvenated instructors.” More here.

In college, I found the occasional springtime lesson on the lawn distracting, but there is no doubt it could perk up a teacher. And I know that both kids and adults benefit from just getting up and moving.

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A Teacher’s Hints on Creative Writing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 23, 2018| 7 Comments »

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Art: Dawn Marie Livett
Music goes hand-in-hand with other creative endeavors. This teacher writes, “Through music, from classical to popular, kids encounter themselves and experience the feelings and sensations associated with their worlds.”

Jeffrey Pflaum, a reader of this blog who taught children creative writing for many years, asked me if I’d be interested in reporting on some of his techniques. I am. This post is adapted from one of his blogs.

Pflaum writes that using experiences, reflections, and insights geared to “struggling, reluctant, and average readers and learners” in grades 3 to 6 helps them develop. “One key step to learning about any world is to know our selves first. …

“As an introduction to reading and writing I deal with kids’ inside worlds. What does each child have to know about mind, self, and imagination in order to learn? What makes up this inner universe? Why is it so important to know the contents of our worlds before studying the worlds of different subjects? …

“My lessons connect with the children’s inner lives.  It doesn’t help when education builds test walls around creativity and motivation, two huge channels to learning and developing a passion for reading. Education’s role is to open up students’ worlds so they are receptive to new ideas. … Motivation becomes self-motivation and education means self-education.”

Pflaum finds that helping children to develop self-knowledge enables them to tap their inner worlds and use their life experiences to enrich both schoolwork and everyday life. “Thoughts, ideas, feelings, fantasies, daydreams, dreams, dialogues, monologues, memories, reflections, and all the mental image pictures are the stuff of our inside worlds,” he says.

In one exercise, “kids close their eyes, visualize words in the mind, describe them orally and in writing, and then draw/sketch what they ‘see.’ Some examples of words for this practice exercise are: dog, rose, apple, room, sky, rainbow, clouds, parrot, pencil, pen.

“From here, I’ll build two-word sentences such as: Frogs hop; children play; birds fly. And then I probe what they are viewing with questions: What are you looking at? What pictures do you see in your mind? What thoughts are triggered? What feelings are connected to the image? Can you describe the mind-picture and your experience? Draw/Sketch the sentence you visualized (crayons, markers, pencil, or pen).”

Another exercise I liked had to do with using music for creative inspiration. It starts with a counting technique and progresses to listening to music, with the following instructions: “ ‘Sit back and relax. Put your heads gently down on the desks, close your eyes, and enjoy the music. When it’s over, write whatever you experienced inside yourself.’ … They learn to appreciate the contemplation process and the music as it soothes them into their worlds and journeys of self-discovery. …

“Through music, from classical to popular, kids encounter themselves and experience the feelings and sensations associated with their worlds.  They see what brings them up and down and learn to create a positive attitude towards contemplation, reflection, and self-expression.”

More ideas for teachers can be found at http://www.JeffreyPflaum.com. Some approaches might also work with adult students.

Educator Jeffrey Pflaum

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https://www.bamradionetwork.com/home/experiences-reflections-and-insights-a-project-in-reading-and-emotional-intelligence

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Evangelical School with No Grades, No Deadlines

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 


Photograph: ESBC Handout
Pupils at this German school have no homework and no grades until age 15, but they are learning a lot.

My husband and I have liked seeing how Montessori teachers guide children in learning. They get them started and then turn them loose to learn at their own speed and follow their own interests. Certainly, the approach has been good for Suzanne’s eldest.

Having been an elementary school teacher for five years right after college, I continue to be intrigued by different techniques. Here is a method that is working in Germany.

Philip Oltermann writes at The Guardian, “Anton Oberländer is a persuasive speaker. Last year, when he and a group of friends were short of cash for a camping trip to Cornwall, he managed to talk Germany’s national rail operator into handing them some free tickets. So impressed was the management with his chutzpah that they invited him back to give a motivational speech to 200 of their employees. Anton, it should be pointed out, is 14 years old.

“The Berlin teenager’s self-confidence is largely the product of a unique educational institution that has turned the conventions of traditional teaching radically upside down. At Oberländer’s school, there are no grades until students turn 15, no timetables and no lecture-style instructions. The pupils decide which subjects they want to study for each lesson and when they want to take an exam. …

“Set subjects are limited to maths, German, English and social studies, supplemented by more abstract courses such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘challenge.’ For challenge, students aged 12 to 14 are given €150 [$180] and sent on an adventure that they have to plan entirely by themselves. Some go kayaking; others work on a farm. Anton went trekking along England’s south coast. …

“The school’s headteacher, Margret Rasfeld, argues [that] the most important skill a school can pass down to its students is the ability to motivate themselves. …

“The Evangelical School Berlin Centre (ESBC) is trying to do nothing less than ‘reinvent what a school is,’ she says. ‘The mission of a progressive school should be to prepare young people to cope with change, or better still, to make them look forward to change. … Nothing motivates students more than when they discover the meaning behind a subject of their own accord.’ …

“Germany’s federalised education structure, in which each of the 16 states plans its own education system, has traditionally allowed ‘free learning’ models to flourish. Yet unlike Sudbury, Montessori or Steiner schools, Rasfeld’s institution tries to embed student self-determination within a relatively strict system of rules. Students who dawdle during lessons have to come into school on Saturday morning to catch up. …

“The main reason why the ESBC is gaining a reputation as Germany’s most exciting school is that its experimental philosophy has managed to deliver impressive results. … Yet some educational experts question whether the school’s methods can easily be exported: in Berlin, they say, the school can draw the most promising applicants from well-off and progressive families.

“Rasfeld rejects such criticisms, insisting that the school aims for a heterogenous mix of students from different backgrounds. While a cross adorns the assembly hall and each school day starts with worship, only one-third of current pupils are baptised. Thirty per cent of students have a migrant background and 7% are from households where no German is spoken.”

Read more here.

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An AmeriCorps for Artists

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Photo: Jonathan Wilson
ArtistYear Fellow Aqil Rogers explains to Harrity School students in West Philadelphia how to assemble a contact microphone from component parts.

Many people worry about the drastic cutbacks in arts programs in schools. Not that many people do something about it. Pat Zacks of Camera Werks, Providence, is one person who does, as you may recall from this post.

In Philadelphia, another great idea is moving beyond the piloting phase — a kind of AmeriCorps for arts in education.

Peter Dobrin writes at the Philadelphia Inquirer, “With major new funding from a federal agency in hand, a Philadelphia service group in the arts is going national.

“ArtistYear has been operating since 2014, placing a few recent college graduates into Philadelphia schools each year as teaching fellows. This year, the program will expand to 25 full-time fellows who will teach music, art, dance, creative writing, and media arts in low-income schools in Queens, N.Y., and Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, as well as Philadelphia.

“A big boost to the program comes through AmeriCorps, part of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which has awarded ArtistYear a three-year, $1.45 million grant and extended certain benefits to the teaching fellows. …

“The grant is a first for AmeriCorps. ‘This is the first time there’s been a program that allows artists to dedicate a year of service to their country,’ said AmeriCorps spokeswoman Samantha Jo Warfield, citing the innovative model as one criterion for the award.

“Service-year programs for college graduates are common — to build English-language curriculum in Tonga, or to work on food-justice issues in Milwaukee. But ArtistYear may be unique. Its leaders call it the ‘first organization dedicated to national service through the arts.’

“This school year in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens, storyteller and improviser Jill M. Pullara will put to use skills she learned earning an MFA in writing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Will Brobston, a guitarist and composer armed with a master’s degree from the University of Denver, goes west to the Colorado towns of Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, and Basalt.

“In Philadelphia, Aqil Rogers, a metal sculptor and designer who grew up in Lansdowne, is teaching at Mastery Charter Harrity Upper School at 56th and Christian Streets.

“ ‘What I’ll be doing is helping them create a maker space,’ said Rogers, 22, a Drexel University graduate whose senior thesis was Empowering Underserved High-Schoolers to Engage in Design/Maker Education through Hip-Hop and DIY Electronics. ‘We’ll work our way to electronics, robotics, lots of different sewing techniques — anything that can be done with hands, I suppose, will be learned at some point. And a lot of design-thinking work, which I think is critical.’ …

“In choosing fellows, the group wants artists who see teaching not merely as a space filler, but as a calling. ‘What we’re looking for is what kind of work experience they have that makes them think they are ready for a year of service, and that they want this as a piece of their career,’ says ArtistYear chief program officer Christine Witkowski.”

Learn more about the program and how it aims to supplement (not replace) arts in schools that still have them, here.

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