Those who travel in the relatively insulated circles of World Language teachers in New York State might know that in the past couple of years a focus of my presentations has been bringing World Language into the STEM world. It is something I am very passionate about. The underpinning of my argument is that Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math are all well and good, but none of the ideas that spring from these disciplines can be expressed without language. Meanwhile, with technology bringing the world into our personal and professional spaces, learning a second, third, and/or fourth language is not only beneficial, but critical to global citizenship in the 21st century.
To that end, I have been on my soapbox taking advantage of opportunities to present and share my views in as many venues as possible. I was lucky enough to be selected as a 2016 NECTFL Mead Fellow, and my project is based on connecting level 1 and 2 curricula in French and Spanish with Earth Science and Algebra 1 curricula. This is extremely exciting for me, because it is giving me the chance to put into action something that has primarily been philosophical up to this point.
When we had our group meeting with the three Mead fellows, our mentors, and prior Mead fellows, it was strongly recommended to me that I do a school visit to an immersion school to get a better sense of how content can be taught in the Target Language, because that is the approach I wanted to take with the integration of language and content. Due to the efforts of Mead Chair Amanda Seewald, I was able to visit the William C. Lewis Dual Language Elementary School in Wilmington, Delaware.
I first visited a third grade math class. I was blown away! The teacher was a native speaker who spoke at conversational speed. The student materials were all in Spanish, and the students were all speaking Spanish. Culture was integrated in the word problems, and the students "policed" each other if they lapsed into English at any point.
The science class I found particularly fascinating. The unit was based on the life cycle of a plant. Class started with a children's book about the life cycle of a squash. Then students who had not finished a writing assignment (all in Spanish) on the life cycle of an apple tree were allowed to finish that, while other students worked on a new project that extended their learning about the life cycle of a squash.
It was truly fascinating and inspiring to see students learning language and content in this way. I left with my head exploding with ideas, and more direction for my project work. More than ever I believe that this type of program is necessary to teach our children to be global citizens and to adequately prepare them for the world they will graduate into.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Saturday, May 7, 2016
What Does It Mean to Go "Glocal"?
The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for me from a standpoint of connections that have just sort of erupted with very serendipitous timing. Several (I think) years ago, I crossed cyberpaths with Fran Siracusa, co-founder of Calliope Global and global learning revolutionary. I found her work intriguing, but (as with so many things) her name got shuffled into the Twitterstream, and my projects and priorities continued their constant shift. Last December, we reconnected, and she was very helpful directing me to resources for my first Mystery Skype session. She connected me to her Virtual Postcard Project on Padlet, but again, the timing just wasn't quite ripe for collaboration. Fast forward to this April (yes, it's still April), when I got an invitation from Fran to attend a webinar with an organization called Matone de Chiwit to attend a webinar. I accepted the invitation because after reading about the organization, I was intrigued. The larger concept is to bring water to regions of the world (Matone means "drops" in Swahili, de means "of" in Spanish, Chiwit means "life" in Thai) where water scarcity is a growing concern. The webinar was also very conveniently scheduled at a time when I was to be available...that is until a flat tire delayed me, and I missed the first half. Fortunately, the second half, due to the dedication, passion, and presence of Matone de Chiwit's founder and Executive Director Karishma Bhagani drew me in, and I reached out to Fran and Karishma to try to schedule a webinar with her, to further promote her cause.
April 18 Fran invited me to join Our Blue Earth -- a Google Community she created.
Our Blue Earth is described as follows:
"This Earth Day 2016, under the focus of WATER, we promote individual investigations, global discussion/collaboration, & a call to action."
Although my priorities are constantly in flux, and I am forever starting new projects, I like to think that the "good stuff" never gets totally lost, it just hides in the depths of my cluttered brain waiting to be drawn out by the right connection. So it is with the global (and glocal -- yes, I'm getting to that) impact of water. I tell everyone who will listen that one of my favorite professional development experiences all year (and I do not say that lightly, as I am an admitted PD junkie) is the International Studies Summer Institute put on by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. The topic of the 2013 ISSI was The Cultural Geography of Water. It was in preparation for this institute that I first watched the movie También la Lluvia, a dramatization of events of the Water Wars in Bolivia in 1999-2000.
So lightning struck, and I threw together over the weekend numerous resources on the impact of mining on water supply contamination, video campaigns promoting water conservation, and (most importantly) was able to schedule the webinar with Karishma.
Karishma, with Fran's help, has been promoting her organization through a series of webinars with schools, encouraging the students she meets virtually to assist in her marketing campaign, and most recently, an informational webinar with students and faculty at NYU.
On a recent trip to NYC, after our webinar with Karishma, I had the opportunity to meet her in person and chat more in depth about her project. She was even more impressive in person! I am anxious to see her project develop from the ground up, and very hopeful to be a part of it!
So while we are acting LOCALLY, we are and will be making a global impact: Going Glocal!
The overarching message for students and educators is that we all can make a difference, perhaps even a major and significant difference, even by acting only in our...Realm Of Control.
April 18 Fran invited me to join Our Blue Earth -- a Google Community she created.
Our Blue Earth is described as follows:
"This Earth Day 2016, under the focus of WATER, we promote individual investigations, global discussion/collaboration, & a call to action."
Although my priorities are constantly in flux, and I am forever starting new projects, I like to think that the "good stuff" never gets totally lost, it just hides in the depths of my cluttered brain waiting to be drawn out by the right connection. So it is with the global (and glocal -- yes, I'm getting to that) impact of water. I tell everyone who will listen that one of my favorite professional development experiences all year (and I do not say that lightly, as I am an admitted PD junkie) is the International Studies Summer Institute put on by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. The topic of the 2013 ISSI was The Cultural Geography of Water. It was in preparation for this institute that I first watched the movie También la Lluvia, a dramatization of events of the Water Wars in Bolivia in 1999-2000.
So lightning struck, and I threw together over the weekend numerous resources on the impact of mining on water supply contamination, video campaigns promoting water conservation, and (most importantly) was able to schedule the webinar with Karishma.
Karishma, with Fran's help, has been promoting her organization through a series of webinars with schools, encouraging the students she meets virtually to assist in her marketing campaign, and most recently, an informational webinar with students and faculty at NYU.
On a recent trip to NYC, after our webinar with Karishma, I had the opportunity to meet her in person and chat more in depth about her project. She was even more impressive in person! I am anxious to see her project develop from the ground up, and very hopeful to be a part of it!
So while we are acting LOCALLY, we are and will be making a global impact: Going Glocal!
The overarching message for students and educators is that we all can make a difference, perhaps even a major and significant difference, even by acting only in our...Realm Of Control.
Monday, April 4, 2016
Growth Mindset and Humans v. Dogs
This past summer I read Carol Dweck's book Mindset. I found it not only to be incredibly beneficial as a teacher, but applicable to my own life. When I think about how many challenges I have approached with a fixed mindset, thereby setting myself up for failure, I marvel at the fact that I was able to become a productive functioning adult at all!
In my classroom, student goalsetting has been something I have been moving from the back burner to the forefront and everywhere in between for the last 5 years or so. This year I formalized it as one of my professional goals. Mondays in my classroom are "Motivational Mondays". I start class by giving students a prompt in the form of a quote or short video clip. Then, in Google Classroom, students respond (in English, my purpose is metacognition and goalsetting, not TL acquisition) to 1-3 questions connecting the prompt to their goals and action steps to reach those goals in my class.
As I showed this video this afternoon:
In my classroom, student goalsetting has been something I have been moving from the back burner to the forefront and everywhere in between for the last 5 years or so. This year I formalized it as one of my professional goals. Mondays in my classroom are "Motivational Mondays". I start class by giving students a prompt in the form of a quote or short video clip. Then, in Google Classroom, students respond (in English, my purpose is metacognition and goalsetting, not TL acquisition) to 1-3 questions connecting the prompt to their goals and action steps to reach those goals in my class.
As I showed this video this afternoon:
it occurred to me that this was at least the third Motivational Monday video this year I have shown starring a dog. Now, at first glance, who cares? Dogs are cute, like cat videos, dog videos can certainly be a youtube time suck, it's a fun way to burn a minute and a half of class on a dreary (snowy) April Monday, but why is this blogworthy?
What I believe often gets in the way of a growth mindset is learned behavior and learned beliefs. I don't believe we are born with a fixed mindset, rather our mindsets become fixed over time due to a variety of environmental factors -- if we are not in environments that cultivate and nurture a growth mindset. Willow, the dog in the above video, doesn't worry if the humans watching her will make fun of her leaf-pile antics. She doesn't worry what will happen if she can't find the ball. The consequences of failure are utterly irrelevant to Willow, and no matter how difficult the task was, she was ready to start over again as soon as she found the ball.
How freeing that would be to not be burdened with a lifetime of fixed mindset baggage to overcome!
But we all come from a place that is nearly as purely free of the tethers of a fixed mindset.
Think back to your childhood, and try to remember a time before you felt embarrassed, ashamed, fearful, or otherwise inhibited about trying something new or about taking a risk. Think about a young child you know. Their ability to trust without hesitation makes them remarkably resilient and enables them to try, try again, even to the point where the adults around them are ready to drop.
Perhaps one of the keys to a growth mindset is to access that place we all come from, before fear and self-consciousness, and embrace that inner child who isn't afraid to fall down.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Change Is in the Air
Well, here we are again, and I have again failed to meet my personal goal of consistently posting to this blog. But I'm back for now, much has happened in both my personal and professional life, and change, indeed, is in the air.
2016 brought the end of an 11 year personal relationship, as well as some exciting and challenging professional opportunities, most of them beyond the walls of the buildings where I teach, and this in turn has brought some surprising challenges within the walls of the buildings where I teach.
A significant part of my ongoing professional journey has been my headfirst plunge into social media about five years ago via Twitter and edubloggers. The ability to find 24/7 professional discourse on any topic in education has been invaluable in my professional growth and development. From the start I was vocal in my participation in Twitter chats; I commented on blogs, and just generally added my voice to the others out there, whether they were newbies like I used to be or respected educators like Tom Whitby or Ira Socol, both of whom I have conversed with on Twitter. In fact, not only have I conversed with these heavy hitters, but I have challenged statements they have made, questioned their ideas, and engaged them in contentious exchanges -- all in the name of learning, reflecting, and improving my craft.
For personal reasons, I kept my social media use to Twitter and blogs, and avoided Facebook for years. It is perhaps for this reason that although I effectively grew my PLN with colleagues around the globe, I stayed under the radar with my local colleagues.
Shortly before the first of the year I joined the rest of the civilized world and became active on Facebook. It started as an experiment for myself to see if I could maintain a social media account for purely social purposes. I lasted 8 days. Truthfully no one, myself included, believed I could manage to keep work out of it, and we were all right. It started with a blog post that came up on my feed, and I couldn't help but respond. I knew then that I was doomed. But the other side of the coin was that there are so many of my colleagues -- particularly World Language teachers -- who are much more active on Facebook than on Twitter, that it just made sense to open a new avenue of connectivity.
So my professional posts on Facebook, like my Tweets and blog comments, are honest, straightforward, and made in the spirit of opening and encouraging professional dialogue. In that same spirit, I welcome opposing opinions and enjoy having my views respectfully challenged, because whether or not my opinion changes, it allows further opportunity to examine my own beliefs and their validity.
Unfortunately, I am discovering that not everyone feels that professional discourse is desirable. I have been on the receiving end of several complaints about postings over the last month, and I am truly perplexed and saddened. These complaints are anonymous, and I am only told that they are coming from "multiple departments". It is very disappointing that professionals would respond to a colleague with whom they disagree in this way rather than addressing the issue directly. I have now spent several weeks in an uncomfortable atmosphere, not knowing who to trust, having been told that I'm "being watched". It isn't the administration, because they have been nothing but supportive, but that doesn't help when the anonymous complaints keep coming, and I have no intention of accepting a muzzle.
This is the last in a sequence of red flags I have been dodging for the last several years, and it has become clear that it is time for a major change. Many years ago, during a particularly disappointing PD session, I made the conscious decision that no matter how bad any given PD was, there had to be at least one good takeaway. That one mental shift has transformed how I experience PD -- particularly PD I do not choose for myself. That shift has carried over into my work experience as a whole. Despite any shortcomings I may have felt in my current position, I have gone out of my way to find and/or create opportunities to engage and grow my passion for my work. That has not always made me popular with my local colleagues, although increasingly it has made me successful in the profession at large. And I know myself well enough to know that I need to be where I can push myself and continue to do what I believe to be right without being silenced, and without being held back. Increasingly, I have been getting the sense that I have reached my limits in my current position. Yes, I understand that negativity is everywhere, there will be jealousy and pettiness wherever I land. But there is a lot to be said for fresh starts, and I'm ready. My place is as a teacher leader, not an administrator, so that is not a path I will choose. But the next stone in my path will be laid in a different direction. Change is good.
Of course...if my optimism about finding another position proves overblown...but let's not jinx it ;)
2016 brought the end of an 11 year personal relationship, as well as some exciting and challenging professional opportunities, most of them beyond the walls of the buildings where I teach, and this in turn has brought some surprising challenges within the walls of the buildings where I teach.
A significant part of my ongoing professional journey has been my headfirst plunge into social media about five years ago via Twitter and edubloggers. The ability to find 24/7 professional discourse on any topic in education has been invaluable in my professional growth and development. From the start I was vocal in my participation in Twitter chats; I commented on blogs, and just generally added my voice to the others out there, whether they were newbies like I used to be or respected educators like Tom Whitby or Ira Socol, both of whom I have conversed with on Twitter. In fact, not only have I conversed with these heavy hitters, but I have challenged statements they have made, questioned their ideas, and engaged them in contentious exchanges -- all in the name of learning, reflecting, and improving my craft.
For personal reasons, I kept my social media use to Twitter and blogs, and avoided Facebook for years. It is perhaps for this reason that although I effectively grew my PLN with colleagues around the globe, I stayed under the radar with my local colleagues.
Shortly before the first of the year I joined the rest of the civilized world and became active on Facebook. It started as an experiment for myself to see if I could maintain a social media account for purely social purposes. I lasted 8 days. Truthfully no one, myself included, believed I could manage to keep work out of it, and we were all right. It started with a blog post that came up on my feed, and I couldn't help but respond. I knew then that I was doomed. But the other side of the coin was that there are so many of my colleagues -- particularly World Language teachers -- who are much more active on Facebook than on Twitter, that it just made sense to open a new avenue of connectivity.
So my professional posts on Facebook, like my Tweets and blog comments, are honest, straightforward, and made in the spirit of opening and encouraging professional dialogue. In that same spirit, I welcome opposing opinions and enjoy having my views respectfully challenged, because whether or not my opinion changes, it allows further opportunity to examine my own beliefs and their validity.
Unfortunately, I am discovering that not everyone feels that professional discourse is desirable. I have been on the receiving end of several complaints about postings over the last month, and I am truly perplexed and saddened. These complaints are anonymous, and I am only told that they are coming from "multiple departments". It is very disappointing that professionals would respond to a colleague with whom they disagree in this way rather than addressing the issue directly. I have now spent several weeks in an uncomfortable atmosphere, not knowing who to trust, having been told that I'm "being watched". It isn't the administration, because they have been nothing but supportive, but that doesn't help when the anonymous complaints keep coming, and I have no intention of accepting a muzzle.
This is the last in a sequence of red flags I have been dodging for the last several years, and it has become clear that it is time for a major change. Many years ago, during a particularly disappointing PD session, I made the conscious decision that no matter how bad any given PD was, there had to be at least one good takeaway. That one mental shift has transformed how I experience PD -- particularly PD I do not choose for myself. That shift has carried over into my work experience as a whole. Despite any shortcomings I may have felt in my current position, I have gone out of my way to find and/or create opportunities to engage and grow my passion for my work. That has not always made me popular with my local colleagues, although increasingly it has made me successful in the profession at large. And I know myself well enough to know that I need to be where I can push myself and continue to do what I believe to be right without being silenced, and without being held back. Increasingly, I have been getting the sense that I have reached my limits in my current position. Yes, I understand that negativity is everywhere, there will be jealousy and pettiness wherever I land. But there is a lot to be said for fresh starts, and I'm ready. My place is as a teacher leader, not an administrator, so that is not a path I will choose. But the next stone in my path will be laid in a different direction. Change is good.
Of course...if my optimism about finding another position proves overblown...but let's not jinx it ;)
Friday, November 27, 2015
Back again! - Technology and its Place
If I could only get into a more consistent blogging schedule like a REAL blogger, I might not have to post these "I'm back again" posts every couple of years! (sigh...)
But let's face it, teachers are humans too, and there are only so many hours in the day!
So, it's been so long that I actually had to go back through the archived posts and see what I've already written about. Let's face it, I started this blog in 2011, and in the edtech realm, that's an eternity! So long, in fact, that this tool has changed names since I started using it years ago.
LessonPaths (formerly Mentormob) is a cloud-based tool used to create playlists of websites, documents, images, and quizzes. With an available Chrome extension, Lessonpaths makes it easy to gather materials on a specific topic, or for a specific student with the click of a button.
Here's a sample playlist:
This particular example is where I keep my "Brain Breaks" for easy access. Most of them are YouTube videos, which are particularly easy to organize and access with LessonPaths, but the advantage that YouTube playlists don't have, is that I can also add blogposts from other language teachers whose Brain Breaks might need more explanation, so I save the whole page for reference. I can add links to Google Docs -- my own or others', images, or even create quizzes and articles, although I don't use those features very frequently (read: at all).
I think of LessonPaths as a simplified internet filing cabinet that is student accessible. I have playlists for subtopics, cultural points, individual students -- basically whatever comes along that needs quick organization and quick visual access. Students like that they can move through the steps at their own pace, see what's ahead, and even skip steps that they may not need -- great for differentiation!
Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
Mme
Note: I just realized I posted this to the wrong blog. :) So here are some thoughts:
I had my post-observation conference a week or two ago, and my principal commented on his surprise at the fact that I used so little technology (I am 1:1 with Chromebooks this year). The blog for which I had intended this post, is my techie blog for WL teachers -- geared to a far more specific audience. I began that blog, as stated above, in 2011, so my affinity for technology is well known in my building and district. The lesson that he observed was focused on listening skills, and was at the start of a unit. I made the thoughtful decision to use low-tech formative assessment checks for a couple of reasons: First, as great as technology is, raised hands are a far simpler and more effective way for me to get instantaneous information about what students are understanding, and who is on task. Second, as this is our first year with most classes 1:1, many students are struggling with the leap to so much technology all day long. To that end, I have consciously decided that if I am able to do something as effectively without technology, I will, because
But let's face it, teachers are humans too, and there are only so many hours in the day!
So, it's been so long that I actually had to go back through the archived posts and see what I've already written about. Let's face it, I started this blog in 2011, and in the edtech realm, that's an eternity! So long, in fact, that this tool has changed names since I started using it years ago.
LessonPaths (formerly Mentormob) is a cloud-based tool used to create playlists of websites, documents, images, and quizzes. With an available Chrome extension, Lessonpaths makes it easy to gather materials on a specific topic, or for a specific student with the click of a button.
Here's a sample playlist:
Create your own Playlist on LessonPaths!
This particular example is where I keep my "Brain Breaks" for easy access. Most of them are YouTube videos, which are particularly easy to organize and access with LessonPaths, but the advantage that YouTube playlists don't have, is that I can also add blogposts from other language teachers whose Brain Breaks might need more explanation, so I save the whole page for reference. I can add links to Google Docs -- my own or others', images, or even create quizzes and articles, although I don't use those features very frequently (read: at all).
I think of LessonPaths as a simplified internet filing cabinet that is student accessible. I have playlists for subtopics, cultural points, individual students -- basically whatever comes along that needs quick organization and quick visual access. Students like that they can move through the steps at their own pace, see what's ahead, and even skip steps that they may not need -- great for differentiation!
Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
Mme
Note: I just realized I posted this to the wrong blog. :) So here are some thoughts:
I had my post-observation conference a week or two ago, and my principal commented on his surprise at the fact that I used so little technology (I am 1:1 with Chromebooks this year). The blog for which I had intended this post, is my techie blog for WL teachers -- geared to a far more specific audience. I began that blog, as stated above, in 2011, so my affinity for technology is well known in my building and district. The lesson that he observed was focused on listening skills, and was at the start of a unit. I made the thoughtful decision to use low-tech formative assessment checks for a couple of reasons: First, as great as technology is, raised hands are a far simpler and more effective way for me to get instantaneous information about what students are understanding, and who is on task. Second, as this is our first year with most classes 1:1, many students are struggling with the leap to so much technology all day long. To that end, I have consciously decided that if I am able to do something as effectively without technology, I will, because
It's about the learning.
So, my apologies for being too quick on the post, and not paying attention to my own blog title, but...
Tell me how you balance high and low tech!
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Trying to Unravel the Complexities of Race and Privilege
As a white teacher in a district with an increasingly diverse student population, but nearly exclusively white adult population (from bus drivers and custodians to Superintendent) I often worry about the impact it has on our students of color to be surrounded by adults who do not look like them, and who cannot relate to their cultural background. I feel the racial tension growing, and I feel powerless to stop it. It truly is frightening. I like to believe that I have the same expectations for all of my students, that is my goal, although I know they do not always believe that. Some feel that they walk into my classroom as if they are walking into enemy territory simply because our skin colors are not the same. I work to overcome that barrier. Sometimes I am successful. Earlier this year I had a "mama bear" moment with my blonde, blue-eyed daughter who was in the lobby of the school where I teach and she is a student (I can be rather loud). One of our African American students (male) happened to be in the lobby at the same time. He started apologizing to me, because I was yelling. He wasn't doing anything wrong. I didn't even know him. I was mortified. I apologized to him, introduced myself, and shook his hand, but left the building feeling that the problems in my school are so deep, and so unknown within the power structure of which I am a part.
At the same time, "racism" like "bullying" has become just a word to be thrown around by students -- regardless of color -- in an accusatory manner designed to throw adults off balance, and give them the upper hand in a situation. It has become, for too many adolescents, a tool without meaning. For example, I just finished my third year teaching Spanish, and part of my curriculum is to teach the color words. Negro is the Spanish word for black. Before I could even approach it linguistically, I had to handle the shouts from (mostly white) students "that's racist!" The lone African American student to address the word with me, saw it in a reading passage, raised her hand, and when I approached her table, she whispered to me that she had an "n-word alert". I wanted to hug her for the simple fact that she was so honest and unobtrusive, and never assumed that it was an intentionally harmful word use (although she did not understand it in context at that point.) It took several lessons before my students as a group were able to accept the word negro as just another Spanish word.
Shortly after school let out for summer, I attended a writing workshop as part of the Mario Einaudi International Studies Summer Institute (ISSI) given by author Sorayya Khan. One of the pieces she included as recommended reading was Kiese Laymon's essay "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America". The perspective of an imperfect black man raised to exist in a perpetual stance of self-defense for survival was extraordinarily powerful. It made me sad, angry, ashamed, but most of all, I think, it will make me ever more conscious of the (invisible) struggle faced by our students of color.
When I returned home from the conference, I finished Khan's novel City of Spies (a fantastic read) which includes this line by the main character:
"Being white is not being half and half. it's being whole and knowing it"
Aliya is a young girl, half Dutch, half Pakistani living through the anti-American sentiment of the late seventies in Islamabad. She is privileged, relatively, as her family has a servant, but she is only able to attend the American school because of a scholarship. Her closest friend is the blonde-haired, blue-eyed American daughter of a diplomat of whom she is at times envious, curious, protective, and suspicious. Although being mixed-race gave her skin light enough to "pass", by the end of the book she has fully embraced her Pakistani self. That quote really resonated with me in the context of my racial reading and exploring, but I also find it incomplete as far as my own personal identity.
As a white American, (who fully identified as a Peach-American for most of my childhood, thank you Crayola) I come from quite a diverse background. My father is 100% Ukrainian, but I did not learn this fact until I was an adult. I was raised with "dumb Polack" jokes (mostly told by my father), thinking they were about me. In middle school, it was "revealed" to me that I was actually "Russian", not Polish. This was Cold War time ("...we are defined by the wars we have lived..." is another quote from Aliya in City of Spies) and resulted in my being labeled a "Commie" my several of my peers. My maternal grandmother identified only with her Irish father's heritage, but her mother was Quebecoise. That was never discussed. Neither was my maternal grandfather's mixed heritage (Dutch/German). As a result, I've never felt connected to my own personal history. I have never felt whole, and that is a loss I have felt at varying degrees throughout my life. Robin DiAngelo, in her post Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People about Racism writes about "Suggesting that group membership is significant (challenge to individualism)" as a "trigger" of "racial stress for white people". My personal perspective is that group membership has not always come easily for me. Perhaps part of that comes from my lack of feeling a connection with my heritage, maybe it's from fighting so hard and never managing to belong throughout my own years of school, maybe it's from a lifetime of having individuality valued above all else, maybe it's simply a matter of never fully having anyone to rely on besides myself, but that particular statement resonated.
The video below gives a unique perspective on privilege, and walking in the shoes of another.
Marilyn Rhames wrote this EdWeek Blogpost that I loved. However, I was appalled by some of the comments that people, presumably educators, given the source of the post, made. Others were more thoughtful, including one from a poster named Robin who called the "worst kind of racism...when one knows not that he knows not". The fact is, we are not living in a post-racial society. Systemic racism is part of the American culture, and we are all products of the culture in which we are raised. It is inescapable. The best we all can hope for is to continue to listen, learn, and heal.
If you're courageous enough, take this Harvard survey about implicit racism. You may (or may not) learn something about yourself. (My results were inconclusive...for whatever it was worth...)
Some posts and articles I read along the way:
The Luxury of Invisible Privilege
Whiteness Is Not the Absence of Racial Identity
Join the conversation that we all should be having.
At the same time, "racism" like "bullying" has become just a word to be thrown around by students -- regardless of color -- in an accusatory manner designed to throw adults off balance, and give them the upper hand in a situation. It has become, for too many adolescents, a tool without meaning. For example, I just finished my third year teaching Spanish, and part of my curriculum is to teach the color words. Negro is the Spanish word for black. Before I could even approach it linguistically, I had to handle the shouts from (mostly white) students "that's racist!" The lone African American student to address the word with me, saw it in a reading passage, raised her hand, and when I approached her table, she whispered to me that she had an "n-word alert". I wanted to hug her for the simple fact that she was so honest and unobtrusive, and never assumed that it was an intentionally harmful word use (although she did not understand it in context at that point.) It took several lessons before my students as a group were able to accept the word negro as just another Spanish word.
Shortly after school let out for summer, I attended a writing workshop as part of the Mario Einaudi International Studies Summer Institute (ISSI) given by author Sorayya Khan. One of the pieces she included as recommended reading was Kiese Laymon's essay "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America". The perspective of an imperfect black man raised to exist in a perpetual stance of self-defense for survival was extraordinarily powerful. It made me sad, angry, ashamed, but most of all, I think, it will make me ever more conscious of the (invisible) struggle faced by our students of color.
When I returned home from the conference, I finished Khan's novel City of Spies (a fantastic read) which includes this line by the main character:
"Being white is not being half and half. it's being whole and knowing it"
Aliya is a young girl, half Dutch, half Pakistani living through the anti-American sentiment of the late seventies in Islamabad. She is privileged, relatively, as her family has a servant, but she is only able to attend the American school because of a scholarship. Her closest friend is the blonde-haired, blue-eyed American daughter of a diplomat of whom she is at times envious, curious, protective, and suspicious. Although being mixed-race gave her skin light enough to "pass", by the end of the book she has fully embraced her Pakistani self. That quote really resonated with me in the context of my racial reading and exploring, but I also find it incomplete as far as my own personal identity.
As a white American, (who fully identified as a Peach-American for most of my childhood, thank you Crayola) I come from quite a diverse background. My father is 100% Ukrainian, but I did not learn this fact until I was an adult. I was raised with "dumb Polack" jokes (mostly told by my father), thinking they were about me. In middle school, it was "revealed" to me that I was actually "Russian", not Polish. This was Cold War time ("...we are defined by the wars we have lived..." is another quote from Aliya in City of Spies) and resulted in my being labeled a "Commie" my several of my peers. My maternal grandmother identified only with her Irish father's heritage, but her mother was Quebecoise. That was never discussed. Neither was my maternal grandfather's mixed heritage (Dutch/German). As a result, I've never felt connected to my own personal history. I have never felt whole, and that is a loss I have felt at varying degrees throughout my life. Robin DiAngelo, in her post Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People about Racism writes about "Suggesting that group membership is significant (challenge to individualism)" as a "trigger" of "racial stress for white people". My personal perspective is that group membership has not always come easily for me. Perhaps part of that comes from my lack of feeling a connection with my heritage, maybe it's from fighting so hard and never managing to belong throughout my own years of school, maybe it's from a lifetime of having individuality valued above all else, maybe it's simply a matter of never fully having anyone to rely on besides myself, but that particular statement resonated.
The video below gives a unique perspective on privilege, and walking in the shoes of another.
Clearly privilege comes in many forms. Does white privilege exist? Absolutely. Any American who denies it is willfully blind or stupid. But neither should anyone deny the existence of male privilege. It isn't more or less. The hurt isn't bigger or badder, but a little empathy goes a long way. The audience who heard those two speakers -- who listened, probably learned a lot. Carol Hockett, curator of the Johnson Museum of Art, shared these words at the Mario Einaudi International Studies Summer Institute last week "so much depends on your perspective".
Kristin Craig Lai, a white blogger, echoes some of these ideas: "Race is real because it affects the identities and realities of everyone. Not just people of colour, everyone. Whiteness is not a blank slate, it is not the de facto absence of racial identity any more than maleness is the de facto absence of gender. The issue, for any thinking white person, is how do you inhabit and experience your whiteness? What does it mean to you to hold a racial identity that comes with so much privilege? What can you do to recognize your privilege and address it in a meaningful way? And if you answer that question with anything that sounds like, “Well I’m X so I’m oppressed too” you’re missing the point. Identity is a complicated and ever shifting thing. If you engage in the “more oppressed than thou” game everyone loses. The point is to think consciously and openly about what kind of privilege you benefit from and what that means."
Marilyn Rhames wrote this EdWeek Blogpost that I loved. However, I was appalled by some of the comments that people, presumably educators, given the source of the post, made. Others were more thoughtful, including one from a poster named Robin who called the "worst kind of racism...when one knows not that he knows not". The fact is, we are not living in a post-racial society. Systemic racism is part of the American culture, and we are all products of the culture in which we are raised. It is inescapable. The best we all can hope for is to continue to listen, learn, and heal.
If you're courageous enough, take this Harvard survey about implicit racism. You may (or may not) learn something about yourself. (My results were inconclusive...for whatever it was worth...)
Some posts and articles I read along the way:
The Luxury of Invisible Privilege
Whiteness Is Not the Absence of Racial Identity
Join the conversation that we all should be having.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Recipe for Success
I promise, my next post will not start with a quote from Mara Sapon-Shevin's Widening the Circle: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms. My next post. This quote she uses to draw a parallel between implementing desegregation and implementing inclusion: "attempts...implemented without thoughtful planning and consistent monitoring are unlikely to succeed."
So, in addition to desegregation and inclusion, it almost seems like a no-brainer that should widely be applied to anything brought to the table, specifically in the realm of education.
I have long said that my least favorite word in education is initiative. The word itself carries with it the implication that the newest, latest, and greatest idea, innovation, or reboot will be initiated, begun, launched, started. The word itself implies a distinct lack of follow-through.
So when I joined a project that will pilot interdisciplinary learning over three years, and examine data upon completion, a project that will not begin until a year of planning has happened, I could not have been more excited.
My work on the PBIS Team at my High School I find very meaningful, because we are heading into our eighth year, we are constantly examining data from a variety of resources including student attendance, discipline and academics, and attitude surveys of staff, students and team members. Our decisions are directly influenced by the data and feedback, both formal and informal.
I also work with the School Improvement Team, which meets regularly to evaluate our annual plan which fits into the district's five year Strategic Plan. This team of teacher leaders and administrators is responsible for driving professional development in the building, as well as making sure all PLCs and teams within the building are working toward the same goal. More "thoughtful planning and consistent monitoring" leading to successful implementation and more often than not reaching of our goals.
What teams or committees do you participate on in your school? Are they meaningful to you? Are you able to effect positive change? If not, are parts of the "inclusion model" missing, can you change that, or is it time to revisit your participation in exchange or something where you can make a difference?
So, in addition to desegregation and inclusion, it almost seems like a no-brainer that should widely be applied to anything brought to the table, specifically in the realm of education.
I have long said that my least favorite word in education is initiative. The word itself carries with it the implication that the newest, latest, and greatest idea, innovation, or reboot will be initiated, begun, launched, started. The word itself implies a distinct lack of follow-through.
So when I joined a project that will pilot interdisciplinary learning over three years, and examine data upon completion, a project that will not begin until a year of planning has happened, I could not have been more excited.
My work on the PBIS Team at my High School I find very meaningful, because we are heading into our eighth year, we are constantly examining data from a variety of resources including student attendance, discipline and academics, and attitude surveys of staff, students and team members. Our decisions are directly influenced by the data and feedback, both formal and informal.
I also work with the School Improvement Team, which meets regularly to evaluate our annual plan which fits into the district's five year Strategic Plan. This team of teacher leaders and administrators is responsible for driving professional development in the building, as well as making sure all PLCs and teams within the building are working toward the same goal. More "thoughtful planning and consistent monitoring" leading to successful implementation and more often than not reaching of our goals.
What teams or committees do you participate on in your school? Are they meaningful to you? Are you able to effect positive change? If not, are parts of the "inclusion model" missing, can you change that, or is it time to revisit your participation in exchange or something where you can make a difference?
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