Category: Activism

Conference of Revolution

~ Scott Jones ~ Leave a comment

“Kids can change the world when they are given the chance.”

These are words from the keynote address of Olivia Van Ledtje, otherwise known as Livbits, that set my very first NCTE conference in motion. It was at this moment, that I knew I was in for something special.

The NCTE conference has always been an event I’ve wanted to attend. Thousands of educators from across the country come to this four-day conference to hear the best and the brightest authors and literacy experts. This year, I was finally one of those thousands. Ralph Fletcher, Donalyn Miller, Jennifer Serravallo, Kylene Beers & Bob Probst are just a few of the many “literacy gurus” that I was ecstatic to see and learn from.

However, I quickly learned that NCTE was much more than just literacy conference. For me, it was a call to arms. I arrived in Houston expecting to gain some strategies and best practices that I could take back to my classroom. Instead, I experienced, among the 7000+ attendees, a collective consciousness of equity, justice, and freedom. I entered NCTE ready for professional evolution. Now, I’m ready for revolution.

I find it virtually impossible to share all the lessons I learned and highlights from the weekend. Instead, I wanted to share some of the most profound moments that have changed my thoughts about my students and my classroom community.

Opening Keynotes
Friday morning began with a series of six youth speakers who shared their stories of how they started raising their voices. After Olivia Van Ledjte started us off with her message about “being for humanity,” we were introduced to Jordyn Zimmerman, a student at Ohio University who had previously been unable to express most of her thoughts verbally. Now, using an iPad, she described her schooling with this, “I was desperately tired of being silenced…Every student should be given a chance. Students should succeed by design, not chance.”

Next came, other youth such as Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Marley Dias, and Zephyrus Todd shared their voices that inspired me in so many ways. Yet, when Sara Abou Rashed stepped on stage to perform her poem I Am America, I was profoundly moved. This multilingual poet and author (and student at my alma mater, Denison University), took command of that room and took us to the depths of her soul.

“I am America, oh dear, America, I love you. Even at times when you do not love me…I am not ashamed of you. I am ashamed of what they have made you. America, they do not know you like I do.”

As she walked off stage to thunderous applause, I stood there wiping tears from my eyes completely transported.

I implore you to experience this yourself. You can find a performance here.

Why is Reading Is Important?
This is the question that Kylene Beers asked her fellow panelists Kwame Alexander, Pam Allyn, and Ernest Morrell. What seemed like a simple question turned into a rallying cry to save our democracy. Here are some highlights of the discussion:

Kwamé Alexander – “Reading is a connection with the source. We can access a part of our brain that allows us to imagine what’s possible. TV imagines it for us.”

Pam Allyn – “As a reader, I am changing, but the text itself is permanent. Text is permanence and transience. I can read myself into the world. Reading is about reading yourself into being.”

Ernest Morrell – “Reading provides access to worlds that are beyond your front door. We are lucky to have the texts we have, and reading the master authors…are like Beethoven in words. Reading is an expert describing the human condition.”

Kylene Beers – “If you’re watching something, or listening to an audiobook, what you’re reading is filtered through someone else. Literacy in this country has always been about power and privilege. The person who wrote the words has typically been empowered. Literacy has always been related to power. We are handing that power over to pundits on 1-2 TV stations. Letting them tell us how to think. Our democracy is now about what 4-5 people tell us to think. Reading for information is about saving our democracy.”

How can you listen to this conversation and not be forever changed? How can I not return to my classroom with a new sense of urgency and determination?

Schooling vs. Education
Saturday started off with another general session by Christopher Emdin, New York Times bestseller For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood. . . and the Rest of Y’all Too and creator of #HipHopEd. His keynote challenged the audience to rethink and remix our jobs as educators. Christopher Edmin took the entire NCTE audience to church. Every single person in the room was locked into him. As for me, I can honestly say that it was one of the best performances I have ever seen.

Throughout his talk, he floored me with statements such as:

“Our students need to know that the only person better than them is embedded in them.”

“A curriculum that is devoid of the recognition of the genius already in your kids forces kids to perform miracles and resurrect themselves to be present every day. If you don’t recognize that there is genius in me, you will feed me a curriculum that will make me invisible. I will need to perform miracles just be relevant.”

“Be a teacher, not a curriculum follower. Teaching is all about the remix.”

“Our job as educators is to create the conditions to allow for the genius that lies within them to be able to become present.”

Throughout his talk, as my mouth hung agape, I kept thinking returning to this idea that the current construct of “school” and a “classroom” is getting in the way of true education. Emdin states that “our job as educators is to create the conditions to allow for the genius that lies within (our students) to be able to become present.” Is my classroom community getting in the way of the learning? Does our classroom allow my students to feel that they only person better than them is embedded in them?

The theme of this year’s NCTE conference was Raising Student Voice. Having a classroom community is not about rules and structure. Classroom community is about having those difficult conversations. It is about innovation. It is about a disruption of the way it’s always been done to ensure that learning is not impeded by the schooling.

Classroom community is about asking the question to our students: “Am I serving you the way you need to be served?”

Creators Create Community

~ mandyrobek ~ 1 Comment

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Last week I had the pleasure to listen to author Cleo Wade speak.  She wrote Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life and is an activist.  This year I’m doing some thinking around creating and was surprised to hear her start talking about creating.  My notes included these thoughts; creating is in our DNA, individuals have the capacity to create, and “creators create community”.  My ears perked up even more because I knew I wanted to find some moments to reflect on community and share in this space.

She gave us a question to ponder, “Where have the ambitions of building community gone?”  She urged us to think about the act of this question a sacred task.  Other notes I jotted included

  • communities give us opportunities to choose to unite
  • communities bonds of spirit
  • communities help us rise above our concerns

My students don’t get to choose to share a classroom with each other.  Their class placements is done for them.  I realized reflecting on the first thought, they do get to choose to unite with each other.   I believe one of our roles as a teacher is to help our students make that choice in hopes of creating a spirit of cohesiveness.  If we have a feeling of cohesiveness perhaps we can rise above our own concerns and make a difference for each other and beyond.

I would respond to Cleo’s question and ask her to look within classrooms for ambitions building communities.  May our work help carry to spaces outside our schools and help people connect in person with others.

 

All About Me to All About Us

~ mandyrobek ~ Leave a comment

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I had the pleasure to attend The Ohio State University’s Commencement this past Sunday as a proud parent of an undergraduate senior.  I had no idea I would find a topic to share today and start taking notes during the keynote address while listening to, Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Desmond-Hellmann shared her story; growing up, education, and research.  She had bumps, valleys and success.  Her message to the graduates was based on her own journey.  Shifting her thinking from all about me to thinking all about us; brought depth and purpose to her work.  She urged the audience to ask, What can I do for our world?  This will shift our thinking from me to thinking about us.  She urged us to question ourselves and cautioned us that good intentions are not enough.  Good intentions are still about me.  She wants us to ask; What was the impact?  What improved?

She urged the graduates to shift their thinking as soon as possible from me to us!  I began thinking about my second graders.  Why do we need to wait to start thinking broader? Can we shift our thinking at seven and eight years old to be bigger than me? I started brainstorming questions and ideas  –

  1.  What can we do for a younger grade?
  2.  What can we do for a special group of students?
  3.   What can we do for families staying at our local childrens hospital?
  4.   What can we do to impact our world?
  5.   What can we do to make a difference in our own building or classroom?

 

  1.  Read biographies about those not so famous.
  2.  Find stories about kids making a difference.
  3.  Discuss and identify feelings we have.
  4. Do things locally now to make a difference and make it concrete.
  5. Encourage and foster inquiry.
  6. Foster a relationship with an organization that needs help.
  7. Do community service more than once with an organization.
  8. Field trips are so limited – bring speakers from the organization to us.
  9. Share photos with the organization or video for visuals.
  10. Spark and provide creative moments to be a maker.

When Dr. Desmond-Hellmann said, “we under estimate ourselves” I instantly thought about our elementary age students.  I think they get under estimated. They are powerful and filled with potential.  Listening to her speak on Sunday made me think about fostering a community and how that is really taking the thinking all about me and making it all about us.  However, can we take that all about us and make a difference?  Can we go outside our four walls and have an impact on others?

I’d love to know what others are doing to take help their communities to make a difference and impact others.  Please share ideas in our comments.

All Means All

~ Brian Wyzlic ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday was the National Day of Silence, a campaign started by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Going back to 1996, this is a day where students take a vow of silence in honor and support of those who feel they cannot safely speak the truth of who they are in terms of their sexuality.

But that’s not what this post is about.

The National Day of Silence is the most recent example, but we don’t have to reach too far back (all of one week) to find another large student-oriented (and, in many cases, student-organized) awareness/activist campaign. In the world of social media, these are much easier for students to organize nationwide. There is also an increased awareness about a lot of things that various students find themselves passionate about and wanting to do something about.

But that’s also not exactly what this post is about.

This post is about our response, as educators, to these sorts of movements and campaigns.

As there are more and more of these student activist events, it is likely that we will find ourselves in varying stages of agreement with them. Some we may fully support, and some we may fully oppose. After all, as humans and as teachers, we should be engaged with the politics of our world, and we all have different political beliefs.

I’m reminded of this quote from Dr. Demond Means, the Superintendent of Mequon-Thiensville School District:

“We made a commitment as educators when we walked into our classrooms for the first time that we will reach every kid in our classroom. We didn’t make a commitment to reach 75% of the students.” [source]

While this quote has often been used to talk about not leaving our students hanging out to dry academically, I think it applies to our students as people, not just as brains. Putting another spin on the quote, we didn’t make a commitment to support 75% of our students. We made a commitment to support all of our students.

As a reminder: all means all.

If we want our students to develop as members of society, we need to support them when they find something they’re passionate about. Even if (and perhaps especially if) the thing they are passionate about, we are equally passionate about, but with an opposing view.

If you have a student who is raising awareness of gun violence, support them.
If you have a student who is raising awareness of 2nd amendment rights, support them.
If you have a student who is protesting the banning of books, support them.
If you have a student who is campaigning to ban a book, support them.

That last one was hard for me to type. I am adamantly opposed to the banning of books. But this is the key, and I want to be sure I am absolutely clear:

It’s not about supporting the message. It’s not about agreeing with the campaign.
You are supporting the student, not the campaign.

We need to support all of our students. We don’t need to share their views. We don’t need to agree with their goals. We do need to show them that they are supported in working for something they believe in. They’re going to meet resistance to their message; they don’t need resistance to their actions from those they have come to rely on for support.

It is impossible for us to divorce ourselves from our politics. However, it is important for us to realize that our job requires us to not allow our politics to suppress the voices of our students. If a student campaign is something we want to support or oppose, we can certainly do that as well, in the same ways that anyone else can and does. But we don’t have an option when it comes to supporting or opposing our students: we must support them.

Our world is more partisan now than it has been in recent memory. Anecdotally, it seems as if those who have any given ideology don’t believe that they could ever work with those who have a different ideology. If all our students can see that they have the support of all their teachers, even if some of those teachers don’t support the politics at play, imagine the world we can be a part of creating. Imagine the community we will have. Imagine as people realize that it’s okay to support someone even as they disagree.

We need to support our students as they engage in the political process. All students. All means all. No exceptions.

And I know: this is HARD. WORK. It’s arguably easier to help a student who hasn’t read a book in their entire life become an avid reader than it is to support a student in a campaign that we are completely opposed to. The important work is rarely easy. It doesn’t make it any less important.

Note: this is the first post in a planned series. Subsequent posts will explore the nuance of these situations and how to engage in that nuance with students, as well as from the administrator perspective.