A condensed version of this entry was posted on the Manual Arts blog…

During a recent road trip, among other miscellany, I listened through a handful of older This American Life episodes. As any longstanding fan of the show will tell you, nothing passes the time on the 5 freeway quite like the nasally storytelling of Ira Glass and Co. (for full geeked out discussion of the This American Life TV series, look no further). Most prescient of the episodes listened to was “Two Steps Back,” a frustrating look at school reform in Chicago. Following the transformations of Washington Irving Elementary, the story starts with the exuberant sense of positive change in 1994. The later half of the episode checks back in with the school and – diggy-doo – 10 years later things have done gone and changed for the worse. Though the marked pessimism and frustration that is captured in this episode is something all too familiar to me, if anything the episode serves as a hint of the possibilities that are being offered under the Innovation Division, should Manual Arts enter the new LAUSD division next year. In many ways, I can imagine the story being enacted in reverse for our school: the negative and constant upsets that our students and staff face could be upended by the reinvigorating changes of the iDivision. I’m hoping that other teachers, staff members, and potential network partners find an hour of their time to listen to the episode here (it’s free after all!). There is a valuable dialogue to be had.

Bonus points go to those TAL freaks that can identify the “diggy-doo” reference.

And though this has nothing to do with the above, the following is certainly at least two steps forward: