We Could Be Self Important

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On Saturday, getting lost in the insane crowds at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I attended two panels of fiction writers. The contrast between the two was unsettlingly clear.
In the morning, five female authors discussed their latest YA (Young Adult) novels and the differences between YA and non-YA work:

Growing Up: Young Adult Fiction
Moderator   Ms. Cecil Castellucci
Ms. Robin Benway
Ms. Deb Caletti
Ms. Lauren Myracle
Ms. Lisa Yee

The panel was fun and admittedly “girly.” The authors get paid to represent the day-to-day inner turmoil of coming of age teen girls. The panel talked about how much fun writing YA can be. Mark and I used Cecil Casetllucci’s novel The Plain Janes for our graffiti unit and the students generally really liked it. I think YA lit gets a bad rap; it’s not considered “real” literature but is also the common dominator of what our students are expected to read for leisure. Likewise, looking at the popularity (with adults) of the Twilight series and Harry Potter, I think the no-rules-apply approach of YA has a broad appeal. Frankly, YA is fun to read and feels much more open than those stuffy adult novels most of us hold in front of us at airports and cafes.

Later, in the afternoon, I went to the following session (notice how the Festival offers absolutely no useful descriptions of these sessions?):

Writing from Different Angles
Moderator   Mr. Michael Silverblatt
Mr. Bernard Cooper
Ms. Katherine Dunn
Mr. Geoff Dyer
Mr. Pico Iyer

Aside from the fact that two of my all-time favorite literary works were written by panelists on this stage, I can say that this panel was downright incredible. These superstars in the literary world (or, as Silverblatt joked an awesome fictitious law firm: Dyer, Iyer, Cooper, and Dunn) discussed the blurred distinction between fiction and non-fiction. The discussion went everywhere and my efforts to capture it will not do justice to the intellect displayed.

At the end of the day, I was struck by the way these two panels both catered to passionate readers and yet spoke in languages that couldn’t have been more different. The YA panel was fun. The women speaking were happy to discuss their craft and enjoyed the pleasantry of the YA genre. On the other hand, the masters of literature in the afternoon discussed the serious, intellectual work that is required of literature; this was difficult, important stuff. The gender distinction is striking too (talking with Rhea after the panel, it felt like, though Katherine Dunn is a huge force in contemporary literature, her classic text feels so embraced because it does not feel feminine at all).

And while we spent an hour listening to the distinctions between fiction and non-fiction, I was left thinking about the false distinction between real literature and “the other stuff.” I think there is a lot of merit in the best that YA has to offer. I realize that many high school English departments would challenge me if I merely taught the works of the YA panelists; that the works of Silverblatt’s confidants would be acceptable reading as a literary experience. The limitations found in this distinction seem to hurt the field of literature at large. In the same way that youth culture in the classroom can occasionally be a source of contention, deciding what is “good” literature versus what is one’s “guilty pleasure” is a dangerous path for both readers and writers. What would YA look like if it presented itself more seriously? Likewise, what would happen if literary literature (my new label) lightened up a bit? How would these shifts trickle into our classrooms?

A Different Kind of Tech Talk

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This Thursday, Mario Galindo (teaching English at West Adams) and I will be talking about technology use in the classroom. I’ll be focusing on the Black Cloud as an example of technology utilization in class settings. I realize I’ve already spoken about the Black Cloud all over the place, but I think this will be something different. The focus here will be for practicing classroom teachers and ways the Black Cloud (and technology in general) can be incorporated by even the most technophobic of educators. The flier is below and anyone interested in attending will be welcome. Hope to see you there.

Breakfast, Sunshine, Connections, and the Pursuit of Love: Third Space Collaborative Meeting Notes

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[Another awesome guest post written by Kate all verbal awesomeness is hers!]

Third Space Collaborative
April 19, 2009
As witnessed and experienced by Kate Beaudet, 0.75 of the 3rd Space population

A gorgeous day served as the backdrop for our meeting. Lolling in the dappled shade of a gigantic tree outside of the LA County Museum, we started by throwing together an agenda that included discussing AERA, implications, curriculum as the new black [just kidding. Curriculum as the most important thing we can be focusing on as teachers who not only care about social justice, but who are aiming to define Third Space teaching and instantiate liberatory education! (whew)], and then at least one theater game.

We may be rebellious, but we follow agendas (at least our own), so, we started by debriefing the AERA conference. Mark and Andy gave their impressions of others’ workshops—the stellar comments by the Manual Arts students and the not-so-stellar by the academteachers (McMademics? No, too harsh, but trying to come up with something cute!). “Where is the new?!” jotted Andy on Mark’s pad. That summed up their feelings about the workshops in general. For Andy’s own, real live words, check this link.

M&A gave a detailed account, complete with power point slides!, of their presentation on the curriculum that they developed on graffiti. Through the use of some new fangled technology called “cell phones,” kids go out into the field to gather photos and other data, then they analyze what they’re reaping. Much too fabulous and complicated for me to try to explain, but it was intriguing, I wondered if I could do it with littler people, and M&A are planning on working out the bugs to be able to teach it again come the fall.

One question that dangled itself in front of us was How to get the graffiti curriculum to a broader spectrum of people? I suggested teaching a salary point class on it because there would be opportunities to lead the teachers in HOW to teach the curriculum—not just dump a book of lessons on their lap, but actually model how to have these dialogical conversations with kids. Even though the content sounds absolutely fabulous, there’s not a guarantee on how things actually play out in the classroom. I’ve seen supposedly “fail proof” lessons (like in the elementary science program called FOSS) be completely bungled in the hands of a less skilled practitioner. When we’re encouraging teachers to try new things, especially something as kick ass as this stuff, they will probably need some hand-holding about how to actually deal with issues that come up and have real conversations that don’t rob kids of the opportunity to come to their own understandings.

Anyway. They were doubtful due to capacity issues but we’ll see!

On to agenda item number two: curriculum. I put out there my feelings about this issue that have been brewing for a considerable amount of time—that curriculum, inclusive of content AND methodology is something we need to spend time identifying, defining, and creating. The basis for this is actually more complicated, but in a nutshell—I put forward the idea that at the core of social justice teaching is choice-oriented curriculum because of its links to the notion of self-determination. Self-determination is a fundamental part of life that contributes to feeling free and in control of our lives. When children have access to choice-driven curriculum and disciplinary structures, it would make sense that they would be more likely to expect choices, and therefore a self-determined existence, later on in life. Although choice is not a new concept in academia, trying to define social justice teaching in this way could be.

As a step towards this vision, we are going to read chapter 13 of Literacy with an Attitude which is the chapter in which author Finn breaks down Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and allows us a peek into what was actually happening in those “culture circles” in Recife. I’m sending out an annotated version of that chapter, along with some ideas about how to adapt the Freire lessons to younger black and brown kids. We also agreed that we would each come with a codification (a picture or image meant to inspire conversation towards a given goals—refer to my annotation for more details) to share and discuss.

“Group Yes!” (in the spirit of a yes vote on the strike authorization) was proffered by Andy as a way to wrap up the meeting, and we were all GGG. Some affirmed suggestions: salsa dancing, screaming at the top of our lungs, answering a question about what makes us tick in three words or less [Mark: “Connections” Andy: “Breakfast” Kate: “Pursuit of Love” Awesome Guest Panelist (Rhea): “Sunshine”] and running as fast as we could to a random fence where there was an eerie woodpeckery hammering punctuating our conversation.

The encore to our meeting: alcohol, prosciutto, empanadas, and testicular roasted grapes at the lovely and air-conditioned Pimiento. I love ending meetings by eating things with the consistency of eyeballs.

Next meeting: May 31 @ 1pm. Outside, somewhere. The outside-ness of this meeting led to great feelings of joy!

Judging Books By Their Covers (Why We Can’t Get It Right: Book Design Edition)

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I’ve written previously about what book size tells us when dealing with education texts. Lately, I’ve had another beef with education books – also probably not a novel one, but one that needs to be shared nonetheless. Obviously the geeky bibliophile in me will lead the way through this post … you’ve been warned.

Look at all of these books:

These are all books that have some pretty important, exciting content in them.

These two in particular have been fundamental in my growth as an educator (I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling):

However, why, as educators, do we need to settle for texts that – despite the amazing content held within – are designed terribly? Just because a book is “academic” in nature doesn’t mean it has to be an eyesore, right?

I mean these two books hurt my eyes just to look at them:

I realize that good design isn’t free and so the reliance on generic, quickly designed covers helps keep costs low. (Yeah right, like any of these texts are by any means “cheap”!)

I’m not asking for anything fancy. Not everyone necessarily wants Chris Ware to design their covers. But if you are, I’d start with Candide (this photo does not do this [moderately priced] paperback justice):

Book design doesn’t have to be fancy. A nice photograph and decently formatted text will make me happy:

Or even a decently designed graphic and text work:

Likewise, if you’re creating a series of books, uniformity can make the texts shine. Here’re a few Murakami books that were sitting on my shelf:

I appreciate the consistency across the texts. It’s easy for me to locate other texts by the author I may be interested in when I’m perusing a bookstore (remember those?). Simialrly, these minimally designed philosophy texts from Verso attest to the less-is-more aesthetic that even Ed. texts could aspire to and still feel “academic.”

And they look awesome on a bookshelf together (for the record, I’ve only read about half of these so far):

Chip Kidd is basically a book design legend at this point, so it feels odd not to mention him in this post. I guarantee you’ve been drawn to his book covers on countless occasions. A collection of his work as well as a book commemorating Penguin book design always feel inspiring:

Similarly, I’ve been a fan of the design work being done through McSweeney’s for a while. Consistently, books and periodicals published by McSweeney’s are often beautiful, quirky, and “fun” for readers to interact with. This issue of their periodical was certainly one of the more “normal” issues: three separatly bound collections held within a larger, magnetic casing:

Ultimately, it’s not like most educators are going to stop reading or purchasing educational texts simply because of poor design. However, it feels like we should at least ask for better looking products. And who knows, maybe a non-educator might pick up the text because it looked interesting. Maybe one of my students will be intrigued enough by the beautifully designed book about education. Maybe that will be enough for a student to take a step toward a book that would otherwise look “boring.”

Even simple elegant design could be enough. Which two books here would your eye be most drawn to?

As a final thought, I want to point out the sole education-ish text who’s design I’m intrigued by. While delving into the typical education texts by Dewey, I stumbled across this gem, and the design alone compelled me to pick it up – it has since become a key foundation to my understanding of aesthetic, education, and self.

Can you Hear Me Now?: Liberating Phone Use in the Classroom

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The best school technology is regularly found in students’ pockets. I can’t really see us arguing this fact at this point.

There is a slow seep of educational research about the learning potential that phones present for students of all grade levels. Hey, I even saw an AERA attendee twitter during a session on John Dewey and Urban Education.

The problem is in turning the potential of phones into actual practice. As I regularly joke to non-educators when phones come up in a conversation, cell phones are contraband on campus. Students sneak them in, take peeks at them throughout the day, whisper into them in the back of our classes, and text so furiously that hopefully you don’t notice it up front. But of course you do. And if you’re like many teachers at the school, you take the phone away or you send the student to the dean (again) or you lower their behavior grade.

But (and it’s a similar argument I make about graffiti), this is a losing battle. Cell phones are all but ubiquitous in my school (and I’d be willing to wager yours as well). Our approach to stopping access to phones and technology offers little in terms of allowing students to understand proper etiquette, use, and responsibility with a phone.

Currently, the use of phones within my class has been largely limited. For projects that find students networking outside of the classroom and school, I encourage students to make calls that are on task; I’m placing trust in them that they are doing this. Similarly, using Twitter for a project like Black Cloud meant recognizing that a student may be tapping keys on one of those keyboards that makes my thumbs all a fuddle. I also regularly receive and reply to text messages from students about class work, letters of rec., college questions, etc. Usually these questions arise in the afternoon and evening after school is over. However, I’ve also gotten these texts during the class day (on one day when I had a sub, a students was able to notify me that the sub was not adhering to a full day’s lesson plan and help re-guide the class back on task). Ditto phone calls. If we’re looking for answers to in-class questions, a student may hop onto the Internet and retrieve Wikipedia pages for classroom discussion.

There are a lot of neat “tricks” you can do with phones and iPhone apps only broaden the possibilities. However, for now, I want to think about how we as educators can use phones in a rather basic way – if we can all get on the same page, we can proceed to look at the even more cutting edge opportunities not afforded to every phone and every service provider. At this point, though, we can generally rely on a phone’s calling, texting and photographing features and safely assume that most students are able to easily participate.

All of that “stick with the simple” stuff being said, I should probably point out that shortly after an AERA session that talked briefly about cell phone use in an elementary setting (a great example I saw of keeping it simple), I hopped on a plane to Chicago to attend the Digital Media Learning Competition Showcase sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation (of which I just vented about below). While I’d been thinking about those basic features, I saw projects that are developing iPhone applications, locating students via some phones’ GPS, and generally pushing the boundaries in ways that are both inspiring and eye-opening. I’d love to look at how to get the technological resources to get these activities cooking in my class as well. Thinking big never hurt and the HASTAC/MacArthur folks I’ve met over the past year certainly know how to not only think big, but also actualize big.

I’m working towards a larger student-centered inquiry project with this in mind. I’m thinking about how students can use theory to conceptualize the use and function of a phone, its implications on modern communication and society, its future trajectory, and ways to elaborate on students leading the (soon-to-be teacher supported) effort to use phones in the classroom. As I develop the readings and curriculum for this unit, any suggested texts or activities you would like to suggest are appreciated.

Reflections on AERA 09 and the Winners’ Showcase of the Digital Media and Learning Competition Pt. 3: The Continuing Disconnect

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As always, I’m amazed by the density of the AERA program. The thousands of sessions that crammed the San Diego Convention Center and adjoining hotels are all over the map and cover just about any discussion you want to be a part of within the world of education. There are always sessions that will help propel my thinking more deeply on various education issues (an obvious highlight this year was Angela Valenzuela’s John Dewey Annual Lecture: “United States Assimilation Policy and Generational Trauma: The Dismembered Passion of Love and Betrayal”  in which she claimed that Dewey was clearly a Chicana feminist – awesome!). However, I’m frustrated by the clear divide between the academy and the classroom. Aside from the teachers with whom I shared a panel session*, I see very few classroom teachers at these conferences. Why are we generating this knowledge if were not funneling it back into the classroom?

Likewise, I spent the second half of my week at the Digital Media and Learning Competition Showcase, talking clouds (a larger discussion of the Windy City Black Cloud and the discussions that took place to follow shortly).  Along with the 2nd year of winners, the MacArthur/HASTAC showcase bursts with cutting edge learning ideas and applications. As I perused the work the other grant winners undertook over the past year, I was excited about how I could apply these projects to my own classroom.  Further, I was thrilled at the morning talk by Connie Yowell – the Director of Education at MacArthur. In it, she basically challenged attendees to think about learning implications in a 21st century environment. She asked us to think about what 21st century assessment looks like. These are things my colleagues and my administrators need to hear. I’m fairly certain I was the only practicing classroom teacher in the room at the time. This isn’t a gloat. I’m concerned that teachers weren’t there to network, to learn, to be inspired. And while AERA, too, has its problems, that the showcase took place at the same time that the majority of educational researchers were on the West Coast, I hope to see a larger connection between digital innovator, researcher, and educator.

Although I’ll talk a bit more about the DML Showcase soon, if you’re interested in seeing a screen a snippet of a short film you can see online but this time on a screen … and then see Cloudy briefly discuss the Black Cloud, by all means.

*Mark and I presented on our Graffiti curriculum. I’m embedding the slides we used for the presentation for those interested.

Reflections on AERA 09 Pt. 2: Manual Arts Setting it Off

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Manual Arts students address a full house at their AERA session.

So I’ve written about the Council for Youth Research in glowing terms before. However, I need to make it clear that the student representatives from Manual Arts set AERA on fire on Tuesday! The kids owned their presentation – again reporting their findings, providing a theoretical framework, and discussing how their work continues and the impact they are having on campus. Though there were two other presenters during this panel, the audience pretty much swarmed on these youth to hear about their learning process, their growth, and to glean insight from the critical lenses these students have polished throughout their research training.

A personal highlight: at one point an adult asked one of the students, “Can you talk about how you changed as a result of the work you did as a part of this project?”

Pausing for a moment, the student explained that one of the theoretical articles that really spoke to him was Solorzano’s work on “Transformative Resistance.” He explained that Solorzano defines four types of resistance: Self-Defeating, Reactionary, Conformist, and Transformative. Prior to being a part of the group, this student felt he conformed to the status quo. However, he’s now seeing his role as an agent of change through Transformative Resistance. The student framed his experiences within this theoretical frame and used it to posit his own personal transformation while also neatly laying out a graduate level text in a way that everyone in the room could clearly understand.

His response was followed by wowed applause.

Students were schmoozed by adults after the session – handshakes and business cards (along with catcalls of “full ride scholarships!”) were given.

Reflections on AERA 09 Pt. 1: Looking for the New

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At one point during a critical pedagogy session at AERA, I found myself writing in a colleagues notebook, “Where’s the ‘new?!?’” Not a novel thought, I realize. However, I found myself thinking about how are we, as committed educators, pushing for lasting, continually renewed change?

Being committed to what is in the best interest of our students often means doing things that don’t “fit” into traditional educational molds, obviously. For those of us ‘trying to add to the discourse,’ this means needing to be equipped to speak vocally, back our actions with theory, and generally be prepared to further substantiate our claims, decisions, and commitment to our students. In order to speak our students’ language we need to be able to defend it in “theirs.” (I realize an “us/them” dichotomy here is both slightly false and a bit reactionary. However, it may be the easiest way to open up the discussion of educational landscape and needs for South Central and all of the communities that we are living and working within that maybe a bit more “diverse” than some may feel comfortable with.)

If you’re going to say something to the direction and efforts within Critical Pedagogy at AERA, I feel like it needs to be something fully formed, accessible, and clearly pushing the envelope. Otherwise, it feels like a step back from what our already skeptical audience is going to listen to. No, this doesn’t mean conforming… it means being ready to step your game up in the face of adversity and for the sake of our students.