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Posts Tagged ‘Todd Heisler’

Archeaology of the Fourth Grade Classroom Closet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 3, 2015| 4 Comments »

Some fourth graders in New York are experiencing a real archaeological dig: under the floor of the classroom closet.

Paul Lukus reports at the NY Times, “Bobby Scotto, a fourth grader at the Children’s Workshop School on 12th Street in the East Village, wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up, and he is already off to a good start. In the past few months he has excavated dozens of old coins, a toy watch and other artifacts, all from an unlikely dig site: his classroom’s closet.

“Bobby, an earnest 10-year-old with a mop of dark hair and saucerlike brown eyes, was bitten by the archaeology bug four or five months ago, when his class read a book about a migrant farmworker who found old coins in a field. Bobby decided he wanted to collect old coins of his own, and he had noticed a small gap between the floorboards in the closet. So he reached into that gap as far as he could and, voilà, out came a bunch of wheat pennies (minted from 1909 to 1958), a buffalo nickel and other treasures. …

“And so began an improbable exercise in hands-on archaeology that soon attracted all 21 students in the class. ‘There’s something about the degree of difficulty that’s just perfect,’ said the class’s teacher, Miriam Sicherman, 43, who has been teaching at the school for 15 years. ‘You can’t just reach in and grab something, but it is possible to get something. There’s just enough gratification.’  …

“The variety of finds, including candy wrappers, ticket stubs, an old baseball card and a 1921 Red Cross service pin, has made the students more curious about the previous occupants of their classroom, and about history in general. …

“Along the way, the students have also become adept at research (when they find something, they try to learn more about it on the web); cataloging (each object is logged on a sheet that Ms. Sicherman helped the students design); preservation (the artifacts are kept in plastic bags); and documentation (Ms. Sicherman posts photos of the artifacts on an Instagram account).” More here.

That’s a smart teacher, adapting to her students’ interests. I can imagine some long-ago teachers or some of today’s stressed-out teachers putting a stop to the exploration. Like the policemen in comic books who stop kids trying to salvage a quarter in a grate using chewing gum on the end of a stick. (Such stories of city life always intrigued me as a comic-reading child who grew up in the country.)

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Bobby Scotto, 10, left, a student at the Children’s Workshop School in the East Village, mining his classroom’s closet for treasures. 

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Pigeon Breeders Don’t See Race

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

An April NY Times article by Joseph Berger focused on the egalitarian, colorblind brotherhood of pigeon breeders.

“When New Yorkers consider the subculture of people who raise pigeons on rooftops, many are likely to think of Terry Malloy, the longshoreman in the 1954 film ‘On the Waterfront’ played by Marlon Brando. He was a classic rooftop breeder, rough-hewed, working-class and white ethnic to his toes.

“But that image has long needed some alteration because in the dwindling world of rooftop fliers, as they are known, the men are as likely to be working-class blacks or Hispanics. Many were introduced to the hobby by Irish, Italian and other fliers of European descent …

“Ike Jones, an African-American who manages one of the last pigeon supply stores for its Italian-Jewish owner, Joey Scott, said he learned much of the craft when he was about 12. He then became a helper to George Coppola, an Italian rooftop breeder in Bedford-Stuyvesant. …

“A new book, ‘The Global Pigeon,’ by Colin Jerolmack, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University who spent three years hanging out with pigeon fliers, makes the point that pigeon breeding brought Italian-Americans and other ethnic whites ‘into contact with people of a different ethnic and age cohort with whom they were not voluntarily associating before.’ ” More.

For another take on the rarefied world of pigeon lovers, read A Pigeon and a Boy, which I blogged about here. A wonderful book in many ways, I thought the ending bizarre and so can’t give it five stars. But I liked how it wove the world of pigeon raising and message sending into the whole modern history of Israel. (If you should happen to read it, please explain the ending to me.)

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Delroy Sampson breeds his own birds.

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Solstice Flash Mobs

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The New York Times recently printed a lovely collection of pop-up music sightings by various reporters. Each unexpected free performance affected New Yorkers like a flash mob.

At the High Line, surprised “participants were given small sets of speakers that could be attached to their coats or backpacks, or held by hand. As you began the walk at the southern end of the High Line, near Gansevoort Street, your every footstep or hand twist kicked the app into action, and you heard various sounds — clinking, chimes, splashing water, car horns, chords on electric guitar and, in a novel touch, occasional rounds of applause.”

Another report notes, “The High Line elevated park does not normally allow group walks or amplified sounds, but it made an exception for ‘The Gaits,’ one of a dozen participatory performances that constituted Make Music Winter.

“The event was an offshoot of Make Music New York, a festival of hundreds of concerts that occurs in June on the first day of summer, in public spaces around the city. Modeled after Fête de la Musique, an annual affair in Paris started in 1982, the New York version is in its sixth year.

“The founder of Make Music New York is Aaron Friedman, a composer and political activist who decided it was time to add a winter solstice edition.”

Several delightful Winter Solstice music events are described here.

Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Meredith Krinke, 6, holds Bach sheet music for her father, Brian, December 21 on the G train in New York.

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