Fighting the Big Bullies in our Schools

I just read a wonderful blog post comparing the testing companies to bullies.  We all know the hallmarks of bullying -- daily abuse, an insistence that if you complain it will be worse, bystanders either doing nothing or egging on the bully out of fear of being bullied themselves.  We also know what we recommend -- talk to an adult, get help.  And parents and teachers are taught to recognize that a weepy or withdrawn child who perhaps doesn't want to go to school might be the victim of bullying.  In his blog, Phil Bildner draws connections to each of these characteristics of bullying.  Our stressed out children do not want to go to school. Testing and test prep have seeped into the daily lives of school children, if they or their parents complain they are met with threats, teachers and administrators go along, because they, too, are victims of this bully.  It's a compelling analogy -- and it calls on us to stand up to this bully.  It has to stop.

Stories of Hope: Asean Johnson

I'm an optimistic person.  The closing of 50 schools in the Chicago Public School system could be a story of despair.  But, for a moment, I'm looking at the silver -- heavens, a golden! -- lining in this mess.  And that beautiful, shining streak of hope is Asean Johnson.

Asean is 9 years old and attends Marcus Garvey Elementary.  He has been speaking out about his school for months.  Asean is not only intelligent, he is dedicated and well educated.  He can build a logical argument and support his points with facts, examples and quotations.  He's writing well above grade level, according to the Common Core Standards!  But more than that, he is using those skills with purpose.  He has passion.  He is engaging in a democracy by using his free speech to become an active member of our political system.  Remember, he's only 9!!

Watch the video of his speech at a rally a few days before the school board's vote on the closings.  Seriously, watch the video.  It's 3 minutes you won't regret and which will lift your spirits.  Some people look at Asean and wonder if we're looking at the next Martin Luther King, Jr.  Some have suggested that Asean run for mayor (once he's old enough).  I am confident that Asean can be just about anything he wants to be.

Of course, I believe that about all of our children.  When children are encouraged to use the skills they learn in school to work for goals they feel passionate about they are turned on.  They become passionate.  Asean Johnson is not, necessary, an anomaly.  He is an example of the kind of intelligent engagement we could be encouraging in all of our children.  What is astounding about Asean is that he has had the will to develop that intelligent engagement in the face of a deadening school system. 

When the Chicago School Board came together to decide the fate of 54 schools last Wednesday, they faced a lot of opposition from parents and teachers.  They also faced Asean Johnson.  In the end, the board voted to close 50 of those schools.  Marcus Garvey was not one of them.  I suspect that Asean Johnson may be one of the reasons why.

"Look for the Helpers"

Our hearts go out to the people of Oklahoma, especially the children who were in school when the tornado hit.  It's been a tough Spring -- Boston; West, TX; Bangladesh.  And each time something happens we are reminded of the advice that Mr. Rogers heard from his mother and has passed on to us -- "Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping."  Once again, we are in crisis mode, and once again the amazing people of the United States are stepping up.  Donations are pouring in.  Oklahoma City will be rebuilt.  We will move forward.

There are different kinds of helpers, however.  There are the crisis moment helpers -- some of the bravest and most wonderful people you will ever meet.  Firefighters, EMTs, neighbors, the National Guard, doctors, nurses, volunteers -- I can't imagine how we would ever make it without these people.  But some helpers look at things at a different scale.  Last night Bill Nye was on CNN with Piers Morgan and they spoke about the possibility that the severity of this storm was caused by climate change.  Nye made the point that 10 of the last 12 years have been the hottest on record and that thunderstorms (including tornado storms) are driven by heat.  The conclusion is obvious.  I remember Bill Nye talking about what humans do to our environment when my children watched him in the late 90s.  He mentioned the effects of global warming on hurricanes on Larry King after Hurricane Katrina, 8 years ago.  Nye is looking beyond the immediate crisis and is trying to find the causes of the crises.  He, too, is a helper.

I am reminded by Dom Helder Camara's famous quote: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."  We need people who give food to the poor -- but we also need "communists."  We need people who will look for the causes and seek to rectify them.  These people do not fill our airwaves, we do not have 24/7 coverage of the search for causes the way we do have 24/7 coverage of the search for survivors.  It is long, painstaking work.  But the people who do it are helpers, too.  They are trying to make the changes that help us avoid crises in the future.

At LEAP we are also trying to work on the long term changes needed to forstall disaster for children living in poverty.  Sometimes it is easier to see and identify with the pain of a crisis -- it is very clear and our response is immediate and heartfelt.  It is more difficult to see the pain of ongoing, grinding poverty and hunger.  But it, too, destroys lives.  Today, our focus is on Oklahoma.  But tomorrow, we will roll up our sleeves and continue working on the chronic problems facing some wonderful children.  I hope you'll help.

Factories, Schools, Creativity and Fascists

I had a lovely lunch with one of New York state’s newest teachers this week.  We talked about our summer program, chatted about jobs and friends, and – as can be expected – complained about the pressures facing teachers in the current educational environment.    Students are expected to drill and drill, in order to excel at a standardized test – all their work and knowledge rendered down to a number.  And teachers are expected  to robotically fulfill Common Core requirements, spending much of their time proving they are “performing” according to an externally determined plan (for the Annual  Professional Performance Review), rather than teaching.  As a philosopher, I couldn’t help but see the underlying world-view motivating educational “reform” in the United States.  We act as if schools are factories, inhabited by bustling workers (teachers), churning out well-tuned and tested machines (students).  If students were automobiles, then we could standardized the way we produced them and we could test them carefully and discard the lemons.  A quality control officer could discover where mistakes are made and the factory workers (teachers) could be judged by how efficiently they worked.  That would be great if students were automobiles – but they aren’t.

                Teaching is an art.  Students are complex, self-moving people.   And – most importantly – what each child brings to school each day is variable and outside of the teacher’s control.  If teaching is an art, we might compare students to lumps of clay that the teacher molds into beautiful and useful objects.  But there is more than one kind of clay, with variable plasticity, differing porousness, color, etc.  And if you don’t get your clay from an art store, already highly processed, there will be sticks, pebbles, roots, and other debris in it.  The same is true of our students.  Each child has her or his own qualities, strengths, and weaknesses.  Some come to us highly “processed” – like clay from an art store.  Perhaps they spent the first 5 years of their lives surrounded by books, talking to college-educated parents, playing on computers or tablets, and visiting museums.  But other children come to us with great natural intelligence that has not been processed and prepared in the same way for the school system.  A teacher needs to meet children where they are, adapt to their abilities and interests and assist them in discovering the world.  But students are more than clay.  Unlike clay, which the potter can control, children can resist, redirect, misunderstand, and, in general, respond to teaching in surprising ways.  This is a good thing!  We want children to be engaged learners who take on the project of gaining knowledge as active participants.  We do not want children to sit passively and repeat what they are told.  Tape recorders can do that – but children are people, not machines.

                When I first became a teacher, I met with the usual frustrations.  Students didn’t respond to my lessons the way I had intended.   They took up assignments in ways I hadn’t anticipated.  They found every loophole in my rules.  Like many new teachers, I responded by tightening up my instructions, filling in the loopholes, mandating conformity.  I could feel the resentment from my students and I was uncomfortable in the role of police officer.  And still they didn’t act the way I had planned for them to act.  Tightening my grip only made them slip through my fingers more.  I might get outside conformity, but I knew I was losing them.  With time, and confidence, I began to let go.  I took on the unexpected as a good thing – I gave more open assignments, solicited student input, and began to look forward to the surprises my students would bring me.  And learning started happening – both for the students and for me.   I am fortunate enough to teach on the college level, where state mandated testing and performance evaluations do not constrain me.  What I learned, however, carries over to primary and secondary education – learning and conformity do not mix.

                Today’s public school teachers do not have that freedom.  While the teachers I know are creative and confident and could easily engage their students as individuals and really teach them – they are being forced to conform by state and federal controls and they, in turn, are forced to make their students conform as well.  As I said to my friend at lunch, we are raising good fascists, but we are not teaching.  

Literature and Life

LEAP is getting very excited about our upcoming summer program, Changing the World!  Many a sobbing teenager has equated her anguish with Juliet's or felt her parents were as unfeeling as Matilda's.  Our hope is to link literature to larger social issues, while encouraging the kids to take action and to feel that they can make a difference.

For example, the rising fourth graders will read The One and Only Ivan, a poetic Newbery Award winning novel about a noble gorilla who has been put on display at a run-down mall and flea market.  Ivan struggles to understand himself and the humans around him -- some helpful, some cruel -- using art to express his feelings and to champion the rights of little Ruby, the baby elephant who shares his fate.  As the children read and discuss the novel, they will be encouraged to consider one issue that the book raises for them.  It could be animal cruelty; it could be the role of art in social change; it could be issues of identity.  Once the kids agree on a topic, they will research the issue and develop a response.  They will then choose an audience (the local zoo? their peers?  their teachers?) and a medium (a letter?  a report?  a PowerPoint presentation?) appropriate to how they want to change the world.  Last, they will present that final product to the appropriate person(s).  This is literacy in action -- being moved by what you read, reading more to learn about an issue, writing to express a reasoned opinion and to communicate with others your plans, dreams, hopes.

Other literature we will be using include Nate the Great and Junie B. Jones for the younger children.  The oldest kids will be reading S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Judy Blume's Blubber and Walter Dean Myers' Scorpions.  (Maybe they will think about the gun violence that plagues our nation -- especially after the shootings on Mothers' Day in New Orleans!)

Stay tuned to this blog for updates on how the summer is going (the program runs from June 10 - July 12).  And please donate (there's a link above) to help us buy all these lovely books for the children.  We want every kid to go home with a piece of literature that she or he has read, and dog-earred, and loved!

A Selective School for Syracuse?

On Tuesday, the Syracuse City School Board will consider Superintendent Sharon Contreras’ proposal for a selective school, to be called Syracuse Latin.  Students who attend a selective school must pass an exam in order to be accepted, with the idea being that the best students would get the chance to have their gifts and drive nurtured in an academically rigorous environment.  But is this a good idea?

My first reaction to hearing a word like “selective” was to wonder if these schools end up becoming another way to exclude the poor and people of color from the benefits of the best education.  I was wrong.  It turns out that at most selective schools in our country, thepercentages of students of color and students from working class backgrounds are higher.  I was intrigued and continued my research.

Three questions emerged for me as I continued to read about selective schools.  Of course, I wondered how effective they are.  The results are mixed.  A recent study found that selective (or “exam” schools) have a 91% graduation rate and offer more college-aimed classes like advanced placement and international baccalaureate courses.  But another study (this one from England where there are numerous such schools) shows that selective schools are no better (and no worse) than other schools when it comes to social mobility.  The schools did not provide a significant stepping stone for working class students to become middle class, in other words.   And it seems that these schools do not raise test scores for these students (who would have high test scores anyway).  None of these studies could quantify the self-esteem gained from being chosen to attend a selective school nor could they measure the richness the broad course offerings add to a young person’s life.

A second question – which I could not find any data on – was whether the “brain drain” that a selective school might create has an adverse effect on the rest of the school system.  Selective schools tout the fact that students are surrounded by other serious, hard-working young people, but that would mean that the remaining schools in the system have fewer model students to inspire others.

My last question has to do with the curriculum offered at selective schools.  The proposed selective school in Syracuse will be called “Syracuse Latin,” like one of the most prestigious selective schools in the country: Boston Latin.  (Many selective schools have a “Latin” curriculum.)  Although students at Syracuse Latin will not be required to learn the language, the curriculum will be a classical one – something along the lines of Mortimer Adler’s emphasis onthe classical texts of the Western tradition.  This emphasis on content over pedagogy and on the West over other cultures troubles me.

There is one important difference between the proposed Syracuse Latin and other selective schools in the US.  While most of our selective schools are high schools, Contreras proposes that Syracuse Latin cover grades K-5.  This is an unusual step.  What exam will determine, at the age of 4, that a child is suited for this selective schooling?  And how will the curriculum be tailored to this younger age group?

What are your thoughts on a selective school for Syracuse?  Share them here and with the school board.

Stories of Hope: Dawn Loggins

Dawn Loggins's story is exceptional.  She is at Harvard now, after struggling with homelessness and poverty, growing up in North Carolina.  She made the news last Spring as she approached her high school graduation, a straight-A student who had earned a full ride to Harvard.  If ever there was a story of picking oneself up by one's own bootstraps -- this is it, yes?  Well, no.

All students need support -- they need food and shelter, clothing and books, people to believe in them.  And Dawn received that.  We think that people get that kind of support from their families -- what is exceptional about Dawn is that the community of Lawnsdale, NC and the fine people at her high school stepped in and provided that support when her family was not able to do so.  From individuals who provided things like candles, so the teen could study at night (her family did not have electricity) to the programs that provided a janitorial job, it took a village to get Dawn to Harvard.  And, one should note, Harvard's huge endowment makes it possible to offer full scholarships to students like Dawn.  So Dawn did not pull up her own bootstraps -- she had a lot of help.

But Dawn is exceptional.  She had the intelligence and the spirit to make it.  No one learned all the material for her, no one else sat up late at night studying, no one else could grab a quick bite to eat in the janitor's closet, finish the cleaning and then hurry to class.  Dawn is amazing!  It is because of her exceptional intelligence and courage that the village she needed was drawn to her and helped out.

This story gives us hope.  There are good people and wonderful organizations and endowments that can step in and help a student in need.  People do not have to fall through the cracks.  But it also gives us pause.  What about all the non-exceptional, solid, hard-working, good kids who don't catch the village's eye?  A C and B student from the suburbs, with a solid home and decent schools can get to college with reasonable effort.  But a student living in poverty, one of the many (16 million!) children in the United States who have to think about hunger and the light bill, and manages to get Cs and Bs -- will these children get help from others to let them make it, too?  That's where we need to step in as a society -- to make sure that we really don't leave any children behind.

Dawn remains amazing.  From news accounts, it appears she is doing well at Harvard.  A quick look at her Facebook page shows that she is going to be one of those exceptional people who helps those who struggle with poverty.  (She has asked for privacy on Facebook, so don't rush off and friend her!  But I did see some very nice posts.  She's a wonderful person.)  We need lots of Dawns to help out those, like her, who are exceptional -- but held back by poverty -- and to help many more good, solid students who may not stand out, like Dawn, but who deserve a shot nonetheless.

Diversity and the Syracuse City School Board

It’s time for the two parties to choose candidates for the Syracuse City School Board – and the Democrats are struggling with how much “diversity” they will have in their line-up.  According to an article on Syracuse.com this morning, Democrats are facing pressure to nominate candidates of color.  Because the children in our schools are predominately students of color (only 26% of the students are white), advocates such as Walt Dixie of the Alliance Network are pushing for a choice of at least two candidates of color.   (The Democrats will nominate three).

The choice, according to Michelle Breidenbach and Paul Riede, of the Post-Standard, is between politically connected white candidates and up and coming candidates of color.  But it seems to me that this description of the choice is too simplistic – and misses the point.  It is not that we need people with a certain skin tone – we need people who understand that racism exists and seek to change that.  So, rather than looking at the box someone checks on a census form, a careful look at their activities, experience and attitudes.  With that in mind, I did some research and there are some real stand-outs in the field of candidates:

1.       Taino Palermo is dedicated to helping students make it through high school.  He’s formed a non-profit organization called Outliers, Inc., designed to help students who are not expected to succeed in our society do just that.  Taino is himself an “outlier” – a person who doesn’t fit the statistical expectations for his group – and he wants to help other “underserved, underrepresented urban youth” do the same.  What an excellent choice for the school board!

2.     Derrick Dorsey is the director of the CommunityWide Dialogue to End Racism (which organizes the annual Duck Race to End Racism) and also promotes Seeds of Peace, a camp in Maine that teaches young people how to resolve conflict. 

3.      David Cecile was principal of Henninger High School and, even though he lived in Brewerton at the time, brought his daughters to school there so they would grow up with diversity.  This shows a personal commitment to multiculturalism.

Now I haven’t told you what color these people are – does it matter?  If you know any of the candidates personally, I’d love to hear your input in the comments section below.  There is much more to a person than you can find on their resume.  But my main point is to choose candidates who will support our children, who understand the challenges children of color face, who believe that all children can succeed and will work to help them do just that. 

Your thoughts?