I wish it had been more like this

I teach in the shell of a once-suburban enclave of Phoenix. We have pretty euphemisms for it. Low-SES. Title One. Poverty. Underprivileged. Diverse (in the deep-red state of Phoenix, it’s the new red-line phrase warning white flight to move not only across town but into gated neighbors).

I drive to school this morning overwhelmed by the needs and the power and the beauty and the voice of the community.  I’m wondering if I have a place within it. I’ve got job security, true. But I’m wondering if I’ll always be, on some level, a stranger.

The police are handcuffing a kid. Really just a kid, no matter how awful his crime. He doesn’t look angry or scared. Just blank. I’m hoping it’s only an act, because true boredom, deep detachment is more dangerous than anything explosive anger can offer.  I’m already too jaded to cry right now. But it’s still enough to push me toward a general melancholy that “Morning Edition” just can’t shake. I switch to Sufjan Stevens. Give me a sad banjo and a wispy voice to sooth my nerves.

I drive past an empty big box store tagged up in a pissing contest. It isn’t a crime against property, but against art itself. Go to the canal or the tracks and you’ll see the ever-evolving museum of words and images and icons exploding organically into art. But this feels unintentional. It feels uncreative. It feels . . . just as criminal as the big box store that came and went so that we could get cheap plastic shit from China at bargain basement prices; one long consumerist orgy and now the whole city is too tired to clean the sheets.

I get stuck behind a school bus. I’m impatient, tapping my feet, trying my best to get into the Sufjan Stevens song blaring through my speakers. IThen I see a mom buttoning her daughter’s jacket.  I forget, with my heater blasting, how deceptively cold it can get on a Phoenix morning. I see a former student wearing his varsity jacket, and he’s bent down smiling, holding a pick and finishing the last touches on his sister’s hair. He pulls out a pink beret and as he struggles to snap it on, she turns and kisses him on the cheek.

He catches my eye and gives me the nod. Not a wave, but an acknowledgment that I am a part of his story. We used to pack boxes at the food bank and he would pick fights with well-intentioned volunteers who would congratulate themselves by talking down these neighborhoods. And if someone made a comment about the sense of entitlement, he would ask who paid for their college degree and their first car and their Little League fees. And then just when he had knocked them down, he would pull them up with a handshake and a conversation about sports or t.v. or a current event.

I don’t know what’s best for this community. I don’t know which model is ideal. I am intrigued by unschools and small schools and homeschools, but I’ve been in enough homes to know just how many hours people work.

Context matters.

Any true learning has to belong to the community. It has to be shaped locally. Call it parochial. Call it close-minded. But whether it is social or civic or cultural, if it’s human it can’t be disconnected from context.

And so here I am, the white guy, the power figure, the man from the middle class coming in to teach. I don’t want to colonize. I don’t want to engage in imperialism 2.0. I don’t want to fix this community (it’s no more or less broken than my “increasingly diverse” suburban neighborhood).

Still, I hope. Maybe it’s a crazy hope. Maybe it’s delusional.  But my hope is this: I can still have a place here if I’m willing to listen and to serve and to admit that sometimes I miss the voice in the midst of my own white noise.

photo credit: by Franco Folini on Flickr Creative Commons

My heart is breaking over comments made by well-intended folks that if teachers just believed in their students, they can bring them out of poverty and into the arms of an ivy-league school. If I could, I would save every kindergartner that walks through my door of every injustice and societal failures they have and will continue to experience. In a recent article written in The Atlantic, “What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success” Anu Partanen points out the success in Finland’s school comes down to equity, “’There are no private schools in Finland.’ This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it’s true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.” Everyone is provided an education that all in the community has a stake in, and in turn all want to see succeed. “Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity. The problem facing education in America isn’t the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.”

Let me come back to this idea that if a teacher just believes that his or her students can learn that will make all the difference. I grew up in North Portland. I attended public schools that were rich in diversity: language diversity; ethnic diversity; income level diversity; and diverse life experiences. I had the same teachers, as others in my neighborhood, with passion and rigor in their teaching. I went on to graduate from college (double majoring in English Literature and Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies) and onto graduate school in Early Childhood Education with a focus on Bilingual Education and English Language Learners. Some of those I went to middle school with went onto college, some did not, some ended up in jail, some filling the statistics of teenage pregnancy, or others wandering the neighborhood to this day (15-20 years later) dealing and/or doing drugs. I know that our teachers cared. I know that our teachers believed in every student that walked through the door. I know this because I was in those classrooms. Why did my life take a different path than some of my classmates? Yes, my being a white middle class girl had something to do with my privilege in life. But so did the excess of books that filled my home, the dance, music, and theatre lessons I did after school many days a week. I had the opportunity to swim on a swim team for many years. My parents graduated from college. I had the stability of living in the same house throughout my whole childhood, I still show up today and know there is food in the fridge I can eat. My parents supported my decision to study abroad when I was 16 years old and I flew to Argentina for a year on their dime. My father had a living wage job as a union carpenter to help pay for that year abroad. All of those factors helped support me to become the well-rounded individual I am today.

Now I am that teacher, like teachers I had before me. I can believe all I want that all my students can learn, which I do. I can believe that they all can achieve greatness in life, which I do. I can believe that global warming isn’t happening, yet that doesn’t mean it will stop the glaciers from melting at a more rapid rate. I can believe that my friend will overcome cancer, yet see her die. I can believe that the earth is flat, yet have it proved a sphere.

Belief only carries us so far. I can tell you what I know from teaching in a high poverty school. I know that I can be the best teacher I humanly can be when students fill my classroom. I know I cannot control my students moving away because mom moves in with a boyfriend, dad goes to jail, homelessness, mom’s sick in another state, eviction, and many other causes of mobility that many of my students face. I know the importance of a relationship that allows me to connect and encourage my students and their family. I know that some parents will walk in the rain to make a parent meeting, while others will never show up at all. I know that I may or may not be able to get a hold of a parent by phone because so often phone numbers are either disconnected or wrong. I know that I will get new students throughout the year who may or may not come with any school ready skills. I know that books are probably not as cherished in my students’ households as cable television and video games. I know I can make an impact in my students’ education and life, but I also know I only get that student in my classroom for 7 hours a day for less than a year. I cannot control or save them from their everyday lives.

I can and I have helped by translating for a family moving into new apartment. I have driven Thanksgiving baskets to students’ homes and presents for Christmas. I have bought and given many books to my students. I have taken students on special outings to the Nutcracker and the zoo. I have driven families to the vaccination clinic so that their child would not be excluded from school. I have bought clothes, soap, backpacks, and much more for students. I have laughed and cried with my students. I have 29 students this year, the most I have had in my 5 years of teaching kindergarten. I teach in two languages Spanish and English. I want each one of my students to leave kindergarten loving learning, school, and leaving with rich classroom experiences. I dream big dreams for each one of my students. I watch them make huge growth socially and academically throughout the year. I wonder what happens to my students who leave the school after that year or the next few years. Or the ones who make it through and than go on to the awkward and challenging years of middle and high school. I may never know, but I try my best to positively influence their lives and their education. Life doesn’t always give us an answer. Life is not a standardized test, my choices are not always A, B, C, or D. There is a whole alphabet, many outcomes. I can believe all I want, but I don’t get to choose the outcomes for my students. I may cultivate their hunger for learning and pray that hunger never dies.

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Emily is a 5th year bilingual kindergarten teacher at a title I school in Oregon. She grew up in Portland, OR going to Public School and on the steering committee of SOS.

Can a group of like minded parents and community members, support an education model for our children? An education that is designed for our evolution and not for our economy?

Can we change the paradigm and create a new kind of education that is more organic and true to the needs of our imminent future? Can we create an education system built around the integrity of the community’s values that can sustain itself without being tethered to the bureaucracy, politics and the outdated industrial model of our current education system?

There are a growing number of parents who want to be more invested and involved in the education of their children, who have something of value to share. At The Garden Road School (www.thegardenroad.org) we welcome and provide the opportunity for that to happen.

Community Supported Education is a concept born out from ten years of innovation, experimentation, and hard lessons won as a small school trying to change the world. We have endeavored to provide an educational environment that is natural, balanced and inspiring for our children. Our drive has always been to improve the human condition and to help others cultivate their natural genius at the same time, cultivating our own as educators.

The Garden Road has always had a strong community and parent involvement.  We decided to create a new system, similar to a co-operative, but unique to the school.  This ‘hybrid’ idea is modeled after a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).The school (like the farm) provides the farmers and a rich soil in which the seeds (the children) can flourish to their fullest potential. The parents support and participate in the cultivation of those seeds and the maintenance of the farm, creating a full experience for all.

In efforts to make the school as affordable as possible, tuition is adjusted according to how many working hours a family can reasonably contribute per week. There is value given to the time and effort given by parents who want to invest and take an active part in their child’s education.

Our parents enrich the curriculum by teaching from their talents and skills (natural genius) things like art, sewing, calendar making, dance, language, culture, cooking, songs, sports, puppet making, the list can go on. Some of our parents help with the day to day running of the school or with marketing and administration. Almost all of our parents come and clean the kitchens and bathrooms once or twice a month.

With Community Supported Education, children have the benefit of the collective genius of teachers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. Everyone has something to offer.

At The Garden Road School, we cultivate natural genius in order to drive change for society, to benefit our local community and to build a more sustainable world.

So CAN a community support education?

Can a group of like minded parents and community members, support an education model for our children? An education that is designed for our evolution and not for our economy?

these are the questions we are trying to answer.

What do you think?

We are interested in your feedback.

Thanks.

Donna Mikkelsen, Founder/Director of The Garden Road School

Director@thegardenroad.org

Above from Google searches of vigorous and rigorous

Vigor means having [intensity, energy, and enthusiasm], and the potential for enhancing “active strength of body or mind”. When something is invigorating, it’s “stimulating…energizing…restorative”. A vigorous thing challenges you, and tests your abilities in a creative way. Even if it’s difficult, at the end of the experience you feel empowered and ready to try again.

Vigor in education is likely to be driven by internal motivation, passion, careful guidance and mentoring. You can expect to be pushed to your limits, but only so far as you are capable until the next go-round. No one learns to lift 200 pounds in a month. And the delivery method is likely to be diverse and adaptable to strengths and weaknesses. It’s systematic and deliberate, yet flexible. You are taught by your mistakes in a comprehensive way, without humiliation and with thorough evaluation of performance and attributes.

Think about it like weight training or aerobic exercise – the activities are diversified often so that you round out and get at all your muscles. You are given targets yes, but you can reach them in countless ways. You can use many tools or terrains to exercise. The results are measured in a variety of ways too – cholesterol levels, oxygen in the blood, heart rate at rest and peak heart rate over time, muscle tone, limberness – even sleep quality and ease in going to the bathroom are measures of a body that gets good exercise.

Like vigorous exercise, vigorous learning is “dynamic” and can be achieved with multiple methods and systems.

Rigor implies something more sinister. A dictionary definition of rigor is “strictness or severity, as in temperament, action, or judgment.” It implies brutality, being unrelenting and “harsh”. Rigor is also defined as being heavily reliant on “validity” and “credibility”.

When governments, schools, and parents cry out for more rigor in education, they are usually asking for the following things. The first is strictness in behavior. Students must act within a rigid set of behaviors – quiet unless spoken to, not allowed to move freely from place to place, and so on. The next is physical confinement. Learning only happens in a building, and in a classroom, and at a desk (even educational field trips are limited mostly to museums and indoors exhibits). In class you are often assigned a seat. Little children are conditioned to prevent themselves from squirming. Physical education is confined to a gym, designated field, or a racetrack. Another factor is a limitation on play time (up until its complete absence in high school), The fourth is uniformity – the same subjects taught in the same way by fact heavy text books peppered with politically correct analysis. There are banned book lists, and grade level book lists. Most of all, champions of rigor are attracted to harsh judgment of performance in the form of formulaic tests, standardized portfolios, GPA rankings, number and letter grading systems, and tiering of all kinds. “Accountability” if you will. There are always “stakes”, consequences, and tight requirements.

So I think it is worth noting why schooling is judged by is rigor and not its vigor. What does this simple shift in letters say about our society’s values and expectations?

Zuleika Irvin

However, if I met with him face-to-face, I wouldn’t wag my finger at him. And for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t do that to our misguided governor, either. I believe that tone matters. I believe that anger can be expressed without dehumanizing people, using loaded language or creating straw man enemies that you set on fire Burning-Man-style in an ideological desert.

I would ask him questions. I would listen to his well-rehearsed answers and ask him more questions. I would present facts. I would share stories. I would, if possible, build a relationship. Because ultimately no one has any reason to believe me until they have learned to trust me. For what it’s worth, I would do the same with the governor. I’d even break bread with her and see if she really does eat scorpions for breakfast.

I don’t believe that being a radical means screaming until your red in the face or using pejorative, dehumanizing language to provoke someone into an argument. Even the most radical of truth can be spoken in nuance, through a dialogue that involves real questions and real listening.

If you want me to see the dark side of education, talk to me without calling me a prison warden, a slave driver, a thief or a child abuser. If you want me to consider a more corporate style of reform, talk to me without using loaded language to describe the population that I teach. If you want to engage with me, don’t point your finger at me.

It never works.

Christina Cantrill, Paul Oh, Kirsten Olson and I will start a conversation called “Permission to Speak” on Saturday, January 28th, 2012, from 1:00 to 2:30 PM ET.

Mennoo Rami and I will host a hack jam on Sunday, January 29th, from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM ET.

At each event, I will broadcast on UStream, as well as host a Google+ hangout so that people can join the session from afar as virtual participants. (In fact, Paul Oh will be facilitating from afar, as well).

The F2F conversation will be captured (hopefully) by my “place” in the hangout, and thus be broadcast as part of the hangout captured from my desktop.

I will send out hangout invites via Google+. Be sure to connect with me there if you’d like the chance to join in a hangout. You can connect from a computer or mobile device with a Google+ app installed.

You can watch the sessions on UStream at the Coöp channel if you have a PC.

If you have a Mac, use the link below to open a pop-up video to each session. Use the play control at the bottom of the window to begin streaming.

http://www.ustream.tv/embed/10249588
Live video from your iPhone using Ustream

Just remember to mute the video if you join the hangout

Please join in the fun, Coöp community and friends! More on what to expect can be found here.

Update: I broadcasted the ceiling today – sorry! Will do better tomorrow for the hack jam!

Image courtesy of soot+chalk via Creative Commons

I wanted to share a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “The Power of Humane Education”:

“It really doesn’t take much to ignite a passion for good among youth and adults alike. A week of [teaching humane education] classes turned an eighth grade that, on Monday, did not feel particularly moved to action or responsible for helping to create a more just and humane world, into a deeply caring group that eagerly embraced a project to make a difference by Friday. I witnessed this transformation as each day brought out even more of the compassion and kindness they had identified on day one as qualities that were most important to them.

“What is harder than sparking concern, care, and commitment is sustaining and nurturing this energy; providing the breadth and depth of accurate information about entrenched and pervasive challenges; and teaching them critical and creative thinking skills so that they remain the bedrock of each individual’s approach to healthy, positive, wise changemaking for all.

“The issues that humane education addresses are complex, covering human rights, animal protection and environmental preservation. The solutions to the interconnected – and sometimes conflicting – problems in the world aren’t easy to determine or implement. A week-long humane education course may seem life-changing, but for many that change may fade unless it is fostered and nourished.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe

Broken pencils and bitten rubbers scattered on my wooden desk while books sat quietly in my bag. The sound of flipping pages, falling rulers and sharpening pencils never seemed to abandon my ear. It’s another school day where the first row students actually paid attention and wrote down notes, students in the middle mostly observe the landscape as they look through the window curiously, and last but not least are students at the back seats carelessly take naps. It’s another school day.

Another school day literally translates to another failing education system. For decades now, presidents have stood up and gave speeches, suggested ideas and claimed money will fix the problem, but they were wrong. For decades now, students’ voices have not been heard because, quite simply, the adults are covering their ears. Here we are again attempting to start a learning revolution that would hopefully change this failing system that lets every student down.

It’s an ugly fact to think about schools as prisons with killing teaching methods. They became test preparation factories that test the process of memorization. Overcrowded classrooms, underperforming teachers and many more obstacles stand in the way, but it is no reason to give up.

Not only schools have let students down and failed them, but also it has taken away their passions, their desire to learn, and destroyed it. We made documentaries about this failing education system, we passed  acts like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, but there is one thing we didn’t do… We didn’t solve the problem. Yes, we know there are bad teachers, bad schools, bad system… then what?

Children are the future, if we hope to solve the world’s major problems, like it or not, we must provide successful educational opportunities for them. But ask yourself: How are we supposed to provide that when education is falling in the wrong hands?

How are you supposed to make a product better if you don’t receive a feedback from the customer? The same thing applies to education. We are missing a crucial voice, and it’s the voice of the customer… the student’s voice. How are teachers supposed to improve their teaching methods if they don’t sit down and talk to their students? The ugliest act you can do is leave students out of the debate.

Before purposing any solutions, or passing any acts that aren’t making any difference, let us think about what is important. Standardized testing, assignments and homework aren’t what we are looking for, we as students, are looking for something more valuable, something that from the moment we open our eyes, it fuels our existence, we are looking to pursue our passion and our curiosity.  We start as kids filled with dreams and high expectations, but unfortunately this excitement and spark of passion settles as the years go by. Instead of learning because we want to, we begin learning because we have to. We begin learning for the test.

This learning revolution shouldn’t be about spending more money to solve the problem, it’s about changing this education system to help us push every student to discover their passion and be brave enough to chase it, let us reawaken the slumbering curiosity in every student and help them to be the best version of themselves.

Our schools should produce students who can’t stop questioning the world around them.

My TEDxAjman Talk about learning:

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Line Dalile, 14 years old home-schooled student. A passionate writer, published author, blogger and poet. Interested in education reform and learning. Also a Tedx Speaker.

Website: www.writingisfun-linedalile.weebly.com

Is it surprising that we do not care about what we are taught in our classes? Is it surprising that we are not interested in learning? When someone has been forced to do something against their will for so many years there is bound to be some resentment. More than that, there is bound to be some resistance. The disengagement from school and learning is not some inherent quality of the adolescent; it is a very natural defense mechanism against control. Can you imagine someone saying, “I know I have no real choice in how I spend the majority of my time, and I couldn’t be more happy or grateful!” Disengagement is the only way to stay sane under a system of compulsory education. When most of our daily lives are controlled by others, the only way we can still be free is by not granting them respect or legitimacy. If we are able to say to ourselves, “None of this really matters. I may have to go to school, but at least I am free to hate it,” then the constant condescension from teachers can be shrugged off, and the lack of respect from school officials can be ignored.

The idea that human beings are naturally apathetic and have to be forcibly educated in order to be informed about the world around them is absolutely ludicrous. Were Plato’s ideas the product of an education system? Even Albert Einstein felt that schooling was hindering rather than helping his education. His younger sister said that during his adolescence “the style of teaching in most subjects was repugnant to him.” he also rebelled against “the systematic training in the worship of authority.” (Qtd. in “Einstein as a Student” by Dudley Herschbach). Of course, this is very clear to these so called “naturally apathetic” adolescents. If we were able to determine what we wanted to learn and asked people with more experience to help us learn it, we would be able to pursue our natural curiosity and desire to learn. An example of just such an education in practice was described in a March 14 story in the New York Times:

I recently followed a group of eight public high school students, aged 15 to 17, in western Massachusetts as they designed and ran their own school within a school. They represented the usual range: two were close to dropping out before they started the project, while others were honors students. They named their school the Independent Project….they were responsible for monitoring one another’s work and giving one another feedback. There were no grades. (find full article here)

The experiment was highly successful. The students were able to rekindle their love of learning and worked on several projects in academic areas that they were interested in. Of course, it is incredible that I am even having to cite evidence to prove this point, we are well aware that we are not apathetic zombies. We are free thinking human beings who aspire to freedom just as much as any adult under an undemocratic system. The real result of compulsory education seems to be to accustom young people from early childhood to arbitrary authority and a fundamental lack of democratic ideals. Not only that, it is also highly selective about what it chooses to teach. As Carol Black says in her essay Occupy Your Brain:

While your kids are very busy toiling over algebra and chemistry, international trade agreements are being forged and currencies are being manipulated by entities that most Americans don’t even know the names of, much less the inner workings of.  Kids are compelled to solve quadratic equations and write essays on Shakespeare, and they graduate without understanding how to calculate the interest on credit card debt or decode a mortgage agreement.  They learn an old fable called “How a Bill Becomes Law,” while corporate lobbyists draft legislation that will pollute their air and water, deny them health care and unemployment benefits, and put barely tested drugs on the market and genetically modified organisms in their food system. (Find full article here)

The public education system not only hinders our ability to be members of a democracy by accustoming us to unjustified authority, it also seeks to mask the undemocratic nature of society at large through the education which it forces us to ingest.  The public education system is part and parcel to many of the unjust systems criticized by the occupy movement.

Of course, against such a pervasive structure of oppression we are confronted with the problem of how to escape, how to be free. I believe the answer is simple–just leave, or better yet, take control of the school. Imagine a world where you can spend your time learning about what you love. Imagine a world where you invite adults to teach you. Imagine a world where you have the inalienable rights of a human being. This world can never be achieved as long as our education is dictated by a state hierarchy and their corporate partners. It is possible to drop out of school and teach yourself, in fact a realistic way that you can go about doing this can be found in books and magazines dedicated to the un-schooling movement such as The Teenage Liberation Handbook (pdf here). It is possible to determine your own education by dropping out and adopting an un-schooled or home schooled approach. However, more than just escaping the public school system we need to break it down. In the name of dignity, democracy, and real education high school students need a movement on the scale of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. We are free human beings; we should demand the right to teach ourselves.

Image courtesy of ralphunden via Creative Commons.

I wanted to share a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “An Eighth-Grader’s Letter to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook”:

This past week, I taught a humane education course to an eighth grade class in Blue Hill, Maine. The course focused on changemakers, people who work to transform unjust and inhumane systems into ones that are healthy, peaceful and compassionate.

On the first day of class, I had the students listen to an episode of This American Life, which aired an excerpt from Mike Daisey’s one-man show about the production of Apple products. Then I gave them a homework assignment to write to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas. I wanted these students to have the opportunity to use their voice to help change this unjust and inhumane system, since they couldn’t use the power of their wallets to simply choose more humane electronics.

Below is just one of their letters. I hope it will inspire you to also use your voice to create change.

Read the complete post.

~ Zoe