ED4Change

What do our kids do after school? For all the complaining we as educators participate in about the lack of character, discipline, decision making… And the fact that we are constrained to a certain extent from teaching these things throughout the course of a standards-based curricular day, it would seem that afterschool programming would be ideal to address the multiplicity of issues some of our students are facing… Yet everyday for the past year or more, my campus, so filled with loud and vibrant life during the day, instantly transforms into a barren sea of unused space where kids should be playing, hanging out, learning (it takes place after school whether we support it or not)… The few programs that are on campus, one of which I am very much a part of… are exceptions, trying to survive amidst the complete absence of funding or support of any type for that matter. The garden club, the drum club, the Boys to Men rites of passage program (forgive the outdated link, one of my charges as a board member of this organization) I am involved with working for at risk youth without male role models in their lives to help steer them thru adolescence… These outliers exist on the fringe of the school culture that sends the strong message: leave, your time for being tolerated is over. Go find something to do, but don’t get in trouble…

storytelling is coming back (or perhaps it never left) but it has been on my mind for the past couple of years… ever since my last visit to the panamanian coastal caribbean town of porto bello… necessary post to come…

as i continue to play up to my writer’s block, i do realize that i am rendering this blog of mine ineffectual the more time that passes between posts. but as previously stated i have preferred the old pen and paper as of late. so to help get some of my ideas out i turn to other peoples’ ideas or MEMES? (however dangerous and infectious they might be.. in-fact-to-us, i believe that is the intent with blogs no?

wade davis, a fast talking natgeo writer ponders the implications of the destruction of cultures, narratives that we are snuffing out quicker and with more success than the “company” in james cameron’s less intellectual but nonetheless stimulating AVATAR… although i find it interesting at the end of his talk when he speaks on natgeo’s work to help combat this and i am automatically transported back to my 1st semester of college in monterey where my professor took quite a critical stance on something i had merely taken for granted as part of my childhood… she question whether natgo and their readership (myself as a child included) were truly doing what the thought they were to help indigenous populations through exposure to the wester world… this question has gone largely unanswered to me although at the time i recall mounting an offensive defense to her argument. this question revisited me after seeing the following talk. resolved: i do stock natgeos in my classroom for my students to read.

and as for kameelah… discovering that she went to school with my old neighbor and good friend has only further excited my appreciation for her ability to put into words and images thoughts that i can merely ponder briefly before giving up under their overwhelming ramifications… her thoughts on haiti and the treatment of her narrative in the media as of late and historically where like echos of the exact questions i proposed to myself… and only once to my wife out loud.

as i try to sort out how i will go on telling my life story, or more so as i try to figure out where the plot line is going… i keep reciting these lines:

9/2010: haiti–’broke illusion’s hymen.’: “

i have reserved most commentary up until this point. there is a lot of discourse floating about these here internets and i do not have the energy to scour the www. to find every comment. i will say a few things. i find it unfortunate and perverse that the only moments haiti garners any international attention is when there is a disaster. and even with this disaster, it presents itself as an opportunity for to perpetuate more myths about haiti, black bodies, and savior narratives.

re narratives and illusion: ‘blasphemy‘ by yusef komunyakaa

re haiti as spectacle: there is someone deriving sexual pleasure from these scenes. poverty porn. suffering porn. someone is getting off. is it okay to film haitians receiving medical attention. is it not too invasive? do they deserve some level of privacy?

re haiti and adoption: there are a bunch of orphaned haitian children.there were plenty before. but i wonder…will any hollywood stars adopt those kids? curious.

re disaster as industry: someone is making some money from this tragedy. someone has to be contracted to rebuild.

my stomach drops when i see these photos. i cannot breathe sometimes.

everyone has been talking about ‘helping’ haiti because it’s sooo very poor and desperate. very few have taken the time to investigate the root causes of this desperation. becoming the first nation of black slaves to defeat their colonizers and establish a free nation (which was wrought with it’s own collection of post-slavery issues) left many european nations both angry and scared. since the 1800s, the united states has engaged in embargoes and other punitive policies related to land ownership, interference in elections, support of dictatorships, occupations, etc.

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(Via kameelahwrites.)

enough time has passed where i think the sudden sense of surprise and loss has also lessened the impact that my attempt to write something meaningful might have produced… rethinking schools does a much better job here. i have included zinn’s quote here for the link phobic:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

“And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
– Howard Zinn

suffice to say that any social studies educator knows who howard zinn is, regardless of whether they agree with his perspective on american history, recognizes that the greater importance of his tireless work is that he provided many of us with the understanding that history is a subjective production and examination of multiple and often competing perspectives… based on all kinds of different things… in this sense more a twisted knot of narrative threads… from which we can either hang ourselves with, or acknowledge and value the strength in this fiber of shared history… and use it to pull ourselves out of some of the surreal and horrifying situations we still find ourselves in… i hope we chose the later, in both the previous statement and the subsequent video:

his legacy lives on in teachers of history all over…

not sure where the fear comes from… i write everyday in some fashion… it seems like 2010 has been ushered in by some old literary tech tools (pen and notepads – even the yellow legal padded type)… yet i understand that this does no good for this neglected blog site… i fell that some fear or anxiety of an upcoming grant (http://centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/whole-school-transformation/tiip/application/eligibility) that a team of colleagues and i are applying for is spilling over into my public reflexive practice of blogging. i don’t know if this is just because this is the first big grant i have been a part of or what…

in any case the writer’s block phenomenon assumes before ailing you that indeed you are a writer. although i cannot honestly claim this title outright, i do enjoy the process for writing… especially when i know that not many people are going to look at it… you know things like this here blog, my thesis, personal journals, BTSA portfolio reflections… but when i know that the main goal of a piece of writing is to be evaluated and HEAVILY looked at… well then my fingers cramp up and the words get all muddled in my head. i stumble before i even start to stammer.

so this post is an exercise in trying to face my fear, shake the block. hopefully it will get me to actually aid more in the writing process of this grant more than i have been, making minimal suggestions from behind the safety of highlighted yellow text… far from the commitments of finalized word thought! sorry team : /

my good friend antero (see my blogroll) recently had his students examine an article written about their school, the school where most of my students end up attending, the school where i have weathered with pride the last 2 football seasons as a JV and Varsity coach… he put some of their responses, to which i have added my own comments via diigo, here: http://www.diigo.com/08jm5
i also had my own thoughts on the original article here: http://www.diigo.com/08jm6 and here: http://www.diigo.com/08jm7

i am, like many others, student and teacher alike, in a very critical – perhaps hyper cynical mood when it comes to education and reform efforts, those being implemented and those being crafted for the upcoming bidding wars of 2010… it feels like a bad episode of a george lucasian intergalactic showdown… sith lords pretending to be leaders of true reform, the republic being torn apart and pieces being given to the highest bidder… i feel like LA’s own version of the educational clone wars has commenced… and i haven’t finished my jedi training…

recently i have been attending saturday classes for teachers on how to effectively teach gifted and highly gifted (yes there is a difference apparently) students. however today’s session was focused on parents of gifted children and strategies and resources they can use to support the innate and unique composition of their child’s brain… including topics such as: not how to argue with your gifted child. love it!

i can’t help thinking of the infinitely different parent/child relationships, mine as well as those of recent fictional characters i have been introduced to thanks to antero… franny and zooey by j.d. salinger would be a great read for parents of the gifted, in so far as i have read, still plotting along this short read in standard mark gomez form… in particularly entertaining fashion (and relevance to this post) is the relationship between zooey and his mother, Mrs. “Bessie” Glass and their comically profound bathroom discussion where we are first introduced to them… the mother of not one, but many highly gifted and talented children, Mrs. Glass has developed strategies and routines of interacting with her children, some of which are more effective than others (effective at what i am not sure) but all of which are nonetheless hilarious…

reminds me of some exchanges i have had with my mother… sarcastic, sharp, harsh, and abrasive… but loving. these sarcastic exchanges, in the bathroom of all places, were enjoyable reading… and may help to understand the relationship between gifted and children and the gifts necessary for their parents to deal with them:

speaking on zooey’s sister franny:
“Just don’t you be so fresh, young man – Oh, that mouth of yours! For your information, I don’t think it’s at all impossible that the kind of food that child takes into her system hasn’t a lot to do with this whole entire funny business. Even as a child you practically had to force that child to even touch her vegetables or any other of the things that were good for her. You can’t go on abusing the body indefinitely, year in, year out – regardless of what you think.”

“You’re absolutely right. Your absolutely right. It’s staggering how you jump straight the hell into the heart of the matter. I’m goosebumps all over… By God, you inspire me. You inflame me, Bessie. You know what you’ve done? Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve given this whole goddam issue a fresh, new, Biblical slant. I wrote four papers in college on the Crucifixion – five, really – and every one of them worried me half crazy because i thought something was missing. Now I know what it was. Now it’s clear to me. I see Christ in an entirely different light. His unhealthy fanaticism. his rudeness to those nice, sane, conservative, tax-paying, Pharisees. Oh, this is exciting! In your simple, straightforward, bigoted way, Bessie, you’ve sounded the missing keynote of the whole New Testament. Improper diet. Christ lived on cheeseburgers and Cokes. For all we know , he probably fed the mult -”

“Just stop that, now. Oh, I’d like to put a diaper in that mouth of yours!”

classic stuff people…

i can’t help but lament when i realize that i am a cog in this wheel, but that i try with all my might to provide opportunities for creativity to be welcomed and valued… actually encouraged. when i lament about these things it helps to have some good british humor to digest some of this reality…

i have to say with some weird mixture of satisfaction and self-disappointment that i have been frequenting the reality that would have me labeled as the title of this post… it happens every so often, picking up the bad habit off again and on again. i can’t really ever put my finger on what it is that actually drives me to light up and take my place at the fringe of respectable and civilized society. at times it is a contemplative urge of a feeling, as if it would inspire deeper reflection of the immediate cerebral surroundings i find myself in. the mere presence of certain alcohol and weather patterns serves to motivate my self sabotage of health. and yet at other times it is the need to “bond” and converse with an old friend… or a complete stranger. standing on the curb at the houston airport, in transit back from a binge of tobacco (a once sacred plant to some if i recall), i found myself grinning at the circumstance of other fellow travelers and myself… pushed to the tolerable side of our cravings, like a perfect california contradiction i was, washing my rapidly unsatisfying smoke while drinking an organic naked juice… yet this quickly inspired post was not about my choices or the reasons behind them as much as it was supposed to be about spaces… the ones we travel thru, the identities we take on while in transit, the perspectives that others have of us and these identities, and the structures (both fluid and permanent) that are imposed/self-imposed by our wanderings thru life. is this what i think about when i smoke? not nearly as much as this post suggests… just this last time. a gave a fellow traveler half of my pack… and as i venture to go have my last one for awhile (a really indeterminable amount of time) i will gift the rest of this packaged death to another fortunate soul. and maybe have an interesting conversation or two…

i am somewhat confused about how i feel… as much as i am confused about how i am making the decision to type this when i really should be getting dressed for work. but this short video clip is absolutely blowing my mind. of course ted tv always finds a way to do that, but for some reason this topic of cybernetic emotional and empathetic intelligence… i mean… really?

but perhaps it is not the topic so much as the presentation style that is so matter of fact. that combined with my ignorance of how close we actually are to creating the types of artificial intelligence that we see in bad hollywood movies. after i got over this intitial shock i started to ponder this further…

could we build a machine that so empathizes with let’s say, a student who is breaking down with a moral dilemma to stay in foster care knowing that it may provide a more stable home environment even though she would miss her family? could a machine understand and attempt to mentor such a student faced with a struggle to find peace in how it orients her own moral compass?
could we build a “moral compass” into a machine like this? could a machine be programmed with infinite patience and close to infinite knowledge and utilize the two to help a struggling child learn? not so eloquently put; could a machine replace me as a teacher? i mean that is really what i am getting down to here…

either way, i think it is very interesting, the concept that we are spending billions of dollars on machines that don’t think or feel and therefor have no qualms with killing all kinds of life, as they were designed to do. but can the opposite approach to robotics design really contain the seeds of hope for humanity? time will tell i guess. if you have 5 minutes, take the time to watch this:

summer is officially over. the fall has quickly brought with it all the joys and hardships that come with being involved in the education of young people. football season, declining enrollment, new principal and administration, budget hardships, old faces gone, new faces come, new students’ smiles, old students’ angered outbursts, 2 custodians for a campus of 1900 middle school students, radical shifts in educational policy and debates over what truly is public education and who and how students and parent and communities should be served … and the list goes on of all the shifting and shuffling of a new school year. which is why i have been remiss in my posts, as if my absence from the blogosphere is anything new or unexpected… or noticed for that matter… but my attempt at consistent, public reflection on the things i experience in my life as an educator have been missing, and i have been missing them.

so in an attempt to restart this experiment in education 4 change (or for myself) i am writing again. free flowing on the keys. with nothing real profound at the tip of my thoughts or fingertips besides tidbits of unloading and updating as to where i have been since my last post, i decided to share this ted tv episode about the losing of wisdom we as a society are engaging in. in our daily interactions and preconceived notions of how we should structure our relationships with others, from teacher to student, to co-workers and bosses, to others on polar opposite sides of philosophical debates… to the simple exchange of goods and services… we have shifted into a realm that is constricted by our own social constructions and regulations. policies and memos often trump our collective wisdom, common sense and courtesy, and down right decency and joy we have for dealing with other humans and our shared issues… this episode summed up a nagging feeling i had all summer as i anticipated with some fear returning this year to the classroom part time. it also stuck with me, so here it is: