Write out your voice!

“I write because I’m scared of writing but I’m more scared of not writing.” - Gloria Anzaluda

Today I was very fortunate to conduct a workshop for roughly 40 9th-graders from University High School, Newark. I focused on the importance and intensity of writing in college, as well as some of the assumptions and expectations of "college-level" writing. I must admit that I did have some general reluctance concerning the group that came to see me. It wasn't necessarily a cultural inferiority I was experiencing, or atleast I don't think it was... I suppose I was just essentially nervous to take on such a large group of high school freshman from Newark. For some reason, I had the predisposition that everything I have seen in Hollywood movies was going to spill over in this meeting. It was SO naive of me to think that I was going to have to break up a gang-related fight or something ridiculous. Luckily, these kids were extremely bright and cooperative- It was an overall pleasure to spend that hour with them discussing theories on transformational writing and writing from uncertainty. I also took under consideration the thematic inquiry into "assumptions" we have been battling with the last few class periods, which really helped me frame objectivity toward this group.

I actually decided to preface the workshop with two writing assignments based on "assumptions." Before I introduced myself, I asked the students to write about me. WHO IS JON TUMMILLO? I provided a picture- my WPU ID from '04- and some helpful questions to consider (such as "What music does Jon listen to?" and "Where is Jon from and where has he been?") Some students tried to size me up without any questions, but others tried to take a few shortcuts by asking me about myself... Throughout the course of their assumption-writing, I returned each question with another question- which seemed to frustrate them greatly. For example, one student asked me what my major was in college, to which I replied "What do you think?" This oddly introduced "Socratic questioning," a topic I would later cover during the workshop. Additionally, to guide some of the students, I provided my 'culture collage' from class. This clued some of them in on some of my obvious experiences, hobbies and interests.



I then had some of the students report back to me what they observed solely based on my appearance. For each correct or semi-correct assumption, I counted on my right hand; for each wrongful assumption I counted on my left hand. For most students, it split evenly between both kinds of assumptions. Pizza WAS one of my favorite foods. Baseball WAS my favorite sport. However, I was NOT into country music, NOT from Passaic County, nor was I that religious. It was made clear to the group that we simply can not assume who someone is based on initial appearance. To reinforce this, I showed this video clip:



This was especially shocking to those students who jotted down that "Jon was soft-spoken and reserved."

I then flipped it around on the students, and told them that I would try to make assumptions about them. To illustrate this, I conducted a writing assignment (thanks to Dr. Khmbrly Howard, who showed my advanced educational psychology class this "ice-breaker") where the students wrote down three statements about themselves- two of which were true and one of which was false. I then went around the room picking volunteers who read each statement about themselves. I would try to weed out the false statement out of the three, which I inevitably failed miserably at doing... It was a great deductive reasoning exercise, and it induced passionate participation among the group as well. It showed them that I could not possibly know them without getting to know them. I commenced both of these exercises by asking some philosophical questions: "How do our assumptions frame our approach to living or lives?" and "What does this have to do with writing?" were just two examples. The discussion was AWESOME. These kids were so intelligent and thoughtful, and so eager to explore these questions- to dig deep into why I was asking them.

I then dove deeper into writing theory and expectations. I drew the line between the robotic and cognitive-driven essay writing they are accustomed to in high school (Dr. Bob Whitney calls this "anti-writing") and the transformational and affective writing done outside school (journal, lyric, poetry, etc.) I still made it clear to them that the formal essay is essential to know and utilize in college. I also indicated that many teachers would expect well-honed revision/grammar skills and structural solidity. However, I asked them "Is formal, standardized essay writing akin to how we actually think and approach life?" Mostly all students agreed that it was not "fun," and it didn't make them excited to engage with their writing assignments. I then assured them that transformational writing, coupled with prior knowledge and experience-recall, could in deed coincide with academic writing. I brought up "blogs" as one of the examples of how teachers in college (void of having to teach for the test) can get their students interested in writing academically while entertaining the cathartic and emotional outlets essential in real writing engagement.

To conclude the session, I provided that uncertainty and inquiry were two essential tools in college writing. I let them know that it is totally OK to NOT know what they were writing about, and to always question and be critical of their writing and their writing subject. To better illustrate this, I referenced the pivotal Socrates quote: "True knowledge consists in knowing that you know nothing." We then discussed theoretical approaches to thinking about writing. It seems as if these students were somewhat relieved to hear from a graduate student that it was OK to not be certain. I explicitly modeled this by talking a little bit about my high school experience compared to the open-ended inquiry of college. Before they left to go back to Newark, we had a quick Q&A about general writing-related topics... Some of the students asked how long my longest paper was thus far... Referring to my ongoing novel that I have been writing, I jokingly replied "I started one in 2001 and I haven't finished it yet." All in all, I feel that today was a complete success- a "teachable moment." These students impressed me beyond explanation. They also greatly assisted in breaking down those naive cultural barriers I sometimes erect between a group completely different than me. The students and I left with the reverberating satisfaction that writing can CHANGE us, and that academic writing can be invigorating if attached to our story.

an ASS out of U and ME

Papa Tummillo sat in his recliner in his Garfield, New Jersey home, visually ensconced in an ailing early-90’s New York Mets team that had recently been swept by a slew of mediocre National League teams. We sat and watched the hard-working Italian drink his White Grenache and verbally abuse the television set. It appeared to us that the TV was an active, living participant in the room, being yelled at in a similar way that one of us would be yelled at for chewing with our mouths full. He was the “crazy,” yelling grandpa, full of passion and love for his family. We feared him but we knew that he loved us all unconditionally. We always respected his ritualistic chant-laden stints in the living room when the Mets were on the tube by keeping our distance.

At that time, Darryl Strawberry was my hero- a lanky, athletic ballplayer that would kick his knee up and effortlessly smash baseballs out of Shea stadium. I idolized how he played the game. He had a certain style and grace that I had never seen anyone else exhibit during my early childhood. I collected all of his baseball cards, had posters of him strewn about the walls of my bedroom… I loved the Mets and I wanted to be “Straw.” My late grandfather was hurling obscenities at the television set just as effortlessly as Darryl was throwing players out at home plate. Whereas I initially thought he was attacking the TV set, and not the little characters playing the game within it, I inevitably found out that his abusive words were directed at my favorite player. What were these words? What did they mean? I was taken back, truly confused… Darryl had been an all-star, and arguably one of the fiercest sluggers in the game.



Papa T asked me why I rooted for a “mulignon.” I didn’t understand at the time that the Italian term meant “eggplant.” Upon my own youthful naivety, and coupled with my geographically isolated existence in a suburban-rural area, I never made the connection to a vegetable resembling a black baseball player. Darryl Strawberry was black, but he was not a vegetable. We were white. Were we cauliflowers? We all loved a team that had many black players and white players on it… I didn’t even know what racism was. I never knew that racism existed in my world. What the hell did this all mean? Needless to say, racism was a part of my family. Sadly, it was a part of my memories as a child.

A few years later, my older brother Pete told me a story about a remark one of his classmates made to him, which finally explained to me what racism really was. Pete had been wearing a “cross-colors” Malcolm X t-shirt, and a brash Sussex County farmhand called him “Kunta Kinte” in front of their teacher and other classmates. Some other local yokels jumped on the ignorance bandwagon, laughing and high-fiving each other. Pete explained to me that the kids who were laughing were just as guilty as the kid who made the snide remark. The teacher didn’t do anything about it either; no detention was given and not even a verbal warning was issued. Realistically, it wasn’t uncommon for a racist remark to be made in Wantage township, for the pockets of conservatism at the time were well in-tact. This was an area that was traditionally “rural,” which had never previously seen such a huge migration of people from the suburban and urban areas of the tri-state area. Inherent in this influx and sprawl was an oppositional tendency to demean any newcomers that were formerly alien to the area. I even heard rumors that the KKK organized meetings in a field nearby my house. Although this was never proven or personally witnessed, I wouldn’t doubt that it happened.

By the time I got to high school, I was somewhat well-learned in distinguishing this uninformed behavior from rational and acceptable behavior. In fact, one of my closest friends on the High Point Wildcats basketball team was a black student that moved to our town from Harlem named Hector Fuentes. He was one of the six black kids that went to our high school (out of around 1,200 students). Luckily, my parents (who both came from racist households) were former archetypal Vietnam War protesting, Woodstock hippies that met in college during the civil rights movement. They embodied racial equality and made damned sure their kids prescribed to it as well. They were also both teachers, and generally had an unbridled respect and appreciation for children born of all ethnicities, religions, and race. Their kids in school were treated like their kids at home, and it wasn’t a surprise that my brother heavily resented his racist peers and that I subsequently followed suit in staying as far as I could from similar kids in my grade. I understood that racist kids in my town were most likely doing what their parents did- following suit as I was- yet in contrast, deploying a most grave and orthodox racist outlook. Papa Tummillo hated Darryl Strawberry, but not because he couldn’t hit… because he had black skin. I would not let that kind of outlook advocate my way of life. To me, Straw was an awesome baseball player. In a matter of two generations, racism subsided through knowledge of equality. It started with my parents, and my brothers and I peered through a different lens than my grandfather had.

Hector told me a lot about Harlem, and we discussed the differences between the inner-city environment and the rural foothills of Northwestern New Jersey. I admired how much he knew about me, and also about how little I knew about him. Although I knew to refrain from racism, I still didn’t know much about inner-city culture. My discussions with Hector were always highly enlightening, because urban areas were so peripherally located in my mind. I knew they existed, but I never really knew what to assume about their characteristics. They were tangential and therefore intangible. Fortunately, on the long bus rides to and from games, I was able to view Hector as a friend and not as some marginal animal from an area I would never dare hang out in. As he brought urban ideology closer to me and made it tangible, I realized how similar we actually were. He was black and I was white, surely; and yet we both loved basketball, mountain dew, and Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy.”

Urban society as portrayed through the lens of television/film and music was previously my only outlet to the “realities” of seemingly exotic places like Harlem. I once figured Hector’s life resembled an Ice Cube video, or perhaps Boys In Da’ Hood. He used to joke with me that I was the “whitest friend” he had, and that I was widely misinformed about life “on the streets.” I assumed everything Hollywood told me about urban youth was Hector. He was “Out of control, loud, disobedient, violent and addicted to drugs… no family values… rejected the dominant social institutions” (Bulman 257). Hector was quick to point out my immature perceptions, because he was everything BUT the aforementioned generalizations. He also made me feel comforted for not knowing any better, because he knew that I never had been to Harlem. I found it really hard to understand anything I never experienced, and I find that to be a common reality I am still struggling with to this day.

This was NOT Hector's life:


Following high school, I attended William Paterson University in Wayne. Upon my first visit there I knew I was in for a “culture-shock.” For the first time in my life, I lived away from the security of home- in a town right up the hill from Paterson. As I skateboarded past a group of black kids on my first day of class, one guy called me “Marty McFly.” I wasn’t mad, though. I kept Hector in mind, for this was something he would have said to me too. I actually laughed out loud and went on with my business. This was a situation similar to how my brother was called a “Kunta Kinte,” but I felt oddly relieved to be the minority for once. Like Hector, I supplanted myself from an environment I was used to. I was removed from my comfort factor, and this instability simultaneously frightened and awakened me. For the first time in my life, I was aware that I was white. As Lisa Delpit claims, I belonged to a “culture of power.” I had never previously had to assimilate into other cultures; in becoming conscious of this, I never knew how to acculturate others into my culture. I had the power and privilege, led anxiously by a lack of experience anywhere else than within myself: “Those with power are frequently least aware of- or least willing to acknowledge- its existence. Those with less power are often aware of its existence” (Delpit 569). This is why Hector knew me, and why I didn’t know him. This is why I laughed at being called “Marty McFly,” and perhaps why I never dared to call a Hector a “mulignon.”

I narrowly escaped the ignorance entrenched in my immediate family and detached area I grew up in. I have learned by doing, and simply by doing, I became unbroken to racism and power-struggles. I am also a product of my experiences; therefore, I carry these experiences with me as a candidate for teaching. In a similar way to how Hector taught me, I feel that teaching will provide me an outlet to foster equality to upcoming generations of culturally naïve students. I have considered teaching to be the extension of some prophetic, existential calling. W.E.B. Dubois, one of the most iconic models for such thought, once stated, “Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.” My assumptions and experiences have made me consider and reconsider the profession of teaching; they have also brought immediacy to the action of teaching in an inner-city area. In a similar way to how Dubois called for action today, I base my hope and participation in urban education today.

Like I mentioned briefly before, I never knew Harlem because I had never really been there. Also, I never knew the people of Harlem because I had never really met anyone until I met Hector Fuentes. Although I have done my best to prepare myself for the differences and similarities of urban areas and their inhabitants, I will never really know what to expect until I act within and with the areas and inhabitants. I must take what I believe with me, but still be flexible to new understandings of teaching in an urban area. As Martin Haberman offers, “Schooling is living, not preparation for living. And living is a constant messing with the problems that seem to resist solution” (Haberman 5). What if I have the chance to teach the next generation’s Darryl Strawberry? Regardless of any newfound and exotic urban area I come into contact with, I must accept that all children should be guaranteed an education. I should always embrace teaching as an ongoing problem that resists solution.

References:
* Bulman, Robert. “Teachers in the ‘Hood: Hollywood’s Middle-Class Fantasy”
* Delpit, Lisa. “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children”
* Haberman, Martin. “The Pedagogy of Poverty Versus Good Teaching”

Journal Review - Urban Education Outside the Classroom

James Baldwin began “A Talk To Teachers” by initiating the paramount awareness that “We are living through a very dangerous time… We are in a revolutionary situation…” Forty-four years later, despite astounding progresses in racial and gender equality, oppositional frustrations currently erode our public education system. It is disturbing to think that although so many progressive education reformers have spent their lives dedicated to a common goal, we are yet to reach a level where all children are granted an equal education. This is no more evident, perhaps, than when considering application of standardized testing and assessment of said tests in urban schools. It's bleak, comrades. BLEAK. Changes obviously must still be made to eliminate the systematic oppression of our youth.

This is in deed a very dangerous time, in this No Child Left Behind era, where children are still being swept to the waysides by teachers under fierce criticism of standardized assessment. As the Bush administration blows the whistle on failure, teachers have perhaps become the brooms of methodical thought-thievery. Expendable pawns and puppets- never allowed enough time to creatively TEACH children anything. Consistent skill through drill? KILL. BULLSHIT. The federal government’s interferences are only masking the access to democratic education for all inner-city students by inhibiting the reach of teachers in order to entertain the demands of the status-quo child. The passive do-gooder. Teachers are unable to provoke children to think critically about their material, so long as the material is designated by curriculum to meet the demands of the Age of Accountability. Children are becoming the robotic byproducts of this methodology and standardized testing.



Pressure. Fear. Youth... This very homogeny is detrimental to the demands of differently-apt children, and this cultural sameness and rigidity of “teaching for the test” and “aiding for the grade” perpetuates beyond school walls. Thus, it can be argued that the intensity and commonality of standardization is crippling student action in their communities as well- the very same pressure and fear is inherently mirrored. In the wake of this sentiment, education researchers are especially focusing standardization and stagnation on its effect on urban communities. In Linda Tolbert and Paul Theobald’s “Finding Their Place in the Community: Urban Education Outside the Classroom,” there is a strong focus on the links between acceptable test scores and opportunity, as well as on the connection of low test scores and Urban struggle.

Although the article provides regurgitated politics of standardized stigmas (similar to what I am doing here), it looks beyond what is being done to broaden what can be done instead. In the case of urban-area schools, Tolbert and Theobald make the argument for “community-oriented curriculum.” This idea extends the rationale of public education beyond school property, and likens an appreciation for community leaders as well as school teachers to contribute to a child’s education. Also referred to as “place-based learning,” two arguments persist: “The first is based on currently ascended views related to how people learn and the variety of ways they can be intelligent. The second is based on an alignment between education and the full range of life experiences congruent with the human condition.” It is a rather simple ideology- the "fictive kinship" that extends beyond immediate families is paralleled here. Children simply learn beyond school, and beyond the immediate parties invested in their education.

Within this article are different accounts of successful place-based methods. One example I found particularly invigorating took place at and outside Jenner School, a public elementary school serving residents of the Cabrini-Green Housing Project on Chicago's north-side (crime-laden, repair-neglected, once housing 15,000 and now housing only 2,000 people). A new school building was set to be constructed, and with that in mind, a talented art teacher set an initiative for his students to create a “memory museum” to commemorate the (soon-to-be) old Jenner School: “The students at that Cabrini-Green school were given a wonderful opportunity to learn about their community, their history, and, most important, what it means to them as individuals.”

Students were given permission to peruse the abandon rooms of the ghost-like school, which had seen declining enrollment throughout the past several decades. Here they uncovered old teaching aids, manipulatives, attendance sheets, maps, and books of all kinds. The attendance sheets were of great interest to the memory museum, for they listed the places of origin for many of the urban students’ families once enrolled there. Students were subsequently able to discover their heritage in ways unbeknownst to them- tracing their lineage provided an educational objective desirable by any teacher across any discipline in any area. The true treasure, however, was finding a letter from Corretta Scott King, thanking a 1968 class that had written to her in sympathy of the death of her husband, MLK. The museum, a place-based objective, was later transferred to the new Jenner School upon completion. It demonstrated that place-based learning strengthens the ties with the community in which a school belongs to. Students, when engaged in the knowledge of the area they belong to, develop inter- and intrapersonal intelligence, as they “work with one another and discover something about the hardships they share living in America’s passed-over urban places.”

Source:
Tolbert, L; Theobald, P. “Finding Their Place in the Community: Urban Education Outside The Classroom.” Childhood Education. 82 (2006): 271-274.

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Annotated Bibliography - Urban Education Essentials:

James, C. “Urban Education: An Approach to Community-Based Education,”
Intercultural Education. 15 (2004): 15-32.

Abstract: This paper discusses a teacher education course – “Urban Education" -- which engaged teacher-candidates in critical reflections on their roles as teachers, their perceptions of the students they teach, and their preconceived ideas of the community in which the students reside. The paper discusses the content and activities of the course, then focuses on the reflections of four teacher-candidates in relation to the course and their experiences teaching in the "inner city" community. Their reflections indicate that the course helped to educate them in the principles and pedagogies of equitable and inclusive education which is responsive to the needs and interests of their students and takes into account the communities in which students live.
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Lankford, H; Loeb, S; Wyckoff, J. “Teacher Sorting and the Plight of Urban Schools: A Descriptive Analysis.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 24 (2002): 37-62.

Abstract: This paper uses rich new data on New York State teachers to: determine how much variation in the average attributes of teachers exists across schools, identify schools that have the least-qualified teachers, assess whether the distribution has changed over time, and determine how the distribution of teachers is impacted by attrition and transfer, as well as by the job matches between teachers and schools at the start of careers. Our results show striking differences in the qualifications of teachers across schools. Urban schools, in particular, have lesser-qualified teachers; and New York City stands out among urban areas. Low-income, low-achieving and non-white students, particularly those in urban areas, find themselves in classes with many of the least skilled teachers. Salary variation rarely compensates for the apparent difficulties of teaching in urban settings and, in some cases, contributes to the disparities.
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Shimhara, N. “Polarized Socialization in an Urban High School.” Anthropology &
Education Quarterly. 14 (1983): 109-130.

Absract: Based on ethnographic research, this article analyzes the pattern of polarized socialization at an urban high school. It concentrates on aspects of adolescent experience: the status-stratified residential structure of the community, interaction patterns in the school, peer groups, the sectioning system adopted by the school, and the students' differential access to pedagogical content. Segregated interaction was typical in these dimensions of day-to-day life. The school contributed to perpetuating the structure that the community interposed to separate blacks from whites.
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Oria, A; Cardini, A; Ball, S; Stamou, E; Kolikitha, M; Vetigan, S; Flores-Moreno, C.
“Urban Education, The Middle Classes and Their Dilemmas of School Choice.” Journal of Education Policy. 22 (2007): 91-105.

Abstract: This article explores a framework for an ethics of choice in urban education. It outlines the educational ambitions and ambivalences of a group of middle class families in one locality. The research on which we draw involved interviews with 28 middle class parents in the London Borough of Hackney and is part of a comparative study of urban middle class parents conducted in collaboration with the Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politique, Paris. Our analysis of the tensions and dilemmas faced by this group of parents deploys an approach derived from the work of American philosopher Thomas Nagel. What we see playing across and through these interviews are the interests and abstractions of a particular fraction of metropolitan middle class families. That is, a reflexive engagement with the social in terms of responsibility to the public good and the needs of "others" who matter as much as they do (the impersonal standpoint) is interwoven with the needs of specific children and the family in relation to imagined futures (the personal standpoint).

The Poverty of Pedagogy

This blog is a general observation of substitute teaching, and is not directed at any urban or suburban or rural area specifically. Just a few notes about a day when I decided to "shake" the familiarity of some high school ghosts. I like to write "OMG WE HAVE A SUB" on the board. Perplexity is the name of “the game.”

Just so we clear it up, this is NOT how it went down:


I did not have to recover any "ice picks." I did not have to be the "warrior chief." But my students, geographically isolated by BOREDOM, offer a slight comparison to urban youth (I think). Regardless, they are bored by education.

Stood in front of a history class in RURAL Wantage Township, NJ. A substitute, only partly a teacher. Just standing in for _____. Might as well have been behind that class. No eyes in the back of their heads, though. Only Ipods in their ears. Brains in the back-seats. But they're smart. They get good grades. As Haberman offers, they "succeed without being involved or thoughtful." This is implied, I think, as a gesture of failed system, and not solely due to the failed learners of that system. These students have not failed, and they will carry the empty weight of "success" with them, almost unknowingly, as they have scammed the system. Played the game...

Playing the "game" of education was brought up in class today. It got me thinking about how much writing becomes a method of this game. I revisited imagining school and its prescribed actions as a template for competition. The dictionary simply defines "game" as "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators." Does writing adhere to this kind of activity? It instantly reminded me of a Nick Tingle article I recently read concerning writing as a competitive activity. Tingle feels that student writers respond according to three categories: a) the rageful, b) the listless or de-energized, and c) as the anxious. Writing, to these students, does not become an outlet or cathartic and affective experience it is intended to be. It becomes the byproduct of some forced and expected response. Writing merely mimicks their attitude toward learning. Tingle offers that “They have learned the game, or more precisely they have learned that learning is a game.”


This is a very interesting perception of learning, one that regretfully seems innocuous to us. Playing a game includes knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a competitor or the game itself, of an adversary that defies you. The challenger can be considered a counter force or the very person playing the game; in some circumstances it can be both. There are competitive games such as sporting events and board games, where two or more opposing forces battle each other. There are also “brain games” such as puzzles and crosswords, where one force opposes itself. Contrasting the two similarly challenging tasks, brain games bargain the intrinsic motivation to succeed, while a sport challenges the learner to succeed out of fear of inferiority or losing (extrinsic motivation).

To extend the analogous nature of playing and learning, I think that Tingle is making this link obvious to us through writing, just as Haberman is making it obvious to us through urban education. But we already know the game quite well… we are college students, after all. We had to learn it to get this far, right? The very nature of competitiveness is inherent in public education, so much so that learning has become less a “brain game” and more so a sporting event. Just as a basketball player would wish to please the punitive and coercive coach, students similarly submit to the teacher’s wishes. Is this borne solely out of fear of being punished by parents and/or teachers? A basketball coach will “bench” a player if they do not succumb to the expectations of the game. If they turn the ball over or miss an important free-throw, they are reprimanded accordingly. Now, there is always an exception to this; good coaches will reinforce the positive and negative contributions of a player. This helps foster courage in the player, so that the player can attack all the elements of the game regardless of faults and fouls. Good teachers may act in the same manner; students who are not doing well must be praised just as much as the classroom idols that are “achieving,” the ones who will pass through the required filters to get to where they (think they) want to go. Behaviorist BF Skinner denounced these idols, simply because they only accounted for a small population of students in the school.

In a complete analogy, the classroom is the court, grades are statistics, the coach is the teacher, the player is the student, and fouls are detentions. These titles are oppressive measures of limits and boundaries of contemporary education. They are there simply to instill fear within the system, so that acting out of line will result in inevitable failure. Losing a basketball game is akin to failing a class, in that a student’s inability to conform to the regulations of education will result in untimely dismissal from school. If players do everything they are supposed to do, maybe- just maybe- they will succeed. This perpetuates throughout society beyond schooling, as evident in author Kalle Lasn’s take on powerful informational institutions freely wielding their dominant influence on a susceptible public. This omnipresent public void has been internalized throughout time. Lasn writes, “We’ve spent so much time bowed down in deference, we’ve forgotten stand up straight.”

...The other week, I subbed for a history teacher in the high school I attended eight years ago. My friends think this should be “awkward.” I find it comforting. Read through those "sub plans" as I downed my travel mug of coffee. Those plans always seem to demean my abilities. Never really challenging me. Playing it safe. Coercing me to sit at the teacher’s desk without a thing to do other than monitor and observe the “free class” these students will think they have… I was faced with a decision. Should I play the "sub" game or flip this game on its axis? I guess Mr. History was playing it safe when he demanded that his students read the section out of their history text concerning "Watergate." Read and respond to the questions. Silently OR ELSE. Here's a worksheet kids! Get to work! Was he playing the game of teaching while absent? Was I going to aid in this standoffishness?


The flip on the axis seemed more fun. More adventurous. I had Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" in my car, so I grabbed it during a break and made some notes on Zinn’s Watergate. When I introduced the assignment and began to bombard students with exotic, “outside the box” questions, they looked at me like I was a madman. What the hell is this substitute doing? Shouldn’t I be exempt from class work if Mr. History isn’t here? I sympathized with their uncertainty. I am only 8 years removed from high school- I probably would have acted in a similar manner. Besides, I kind of am a madman. So be it.



On the board (is it weird that I took a picture of this?), I wrote down some thought-provoking questions. “High-order thinking” questions. I prefaced each class with “I am not a history teacher, I am just a dude.” Break the “ice.” For the entire duration of the day, I would quietly whistle Sam Cook’s “Wonderful World” as I meandered through the hallways. I saw Mr. History a couple days later. He jokingly, I think, asked “What the hell did you do to my kids?” I took it as a compliment.

Blog damnit.

Oh, Blog. Am I an official participant of the future? So be it. Hello world!

The Annenberg Promise. Interesting, provocative read. Yet, very similar to anything and everything I have recently read concerning progressive measures in education. What we fail to do. What we do well. What we slowly but surely achieve. What we slowly but surely erode. What we still need to do. Invoking hope, peddling optimism. The "usual" rants and raves.

Although it does not generate some newfangled ethos, this article does broaden some of the things we should be doing as teachers. It got me thinking of Einstein's offering that "Insanity is doing the same things in the same ways while expecting different results." Are we just regurgitating progressive measures of teaching? Are we actually emulating the iconic education theorists we study? Why do we want to change... do we need a reason?

To view such a dynamic system requires alternate perspectives. This article has strength in numbers. I find it rewarding that the Annenberg Institute for School Reform has illuminated 5 key concepts, or "lenses," from which 8 different "senior fellows" perceive an opportunistic approach to public school reform. Agency, equity and justice, instruction and curriculum, outcomes and impacts, and urban conditions and context embody the focal point of some promising, tangible change. Outlined within are the ways in which we can reimagine urban schooling as reform's ground-zero: "...It can be argued that the hope for the future of US cities lies in the children who live and learn there." No longer does our culturally-devalued besmirchment need to be tangential. Urban schools can actually become the catalysts for change, and not necessarily the lost-cause environment of wayward educational despair.

But what do I personally know of this positive outlook on some famished educational system? My life has never really been threatened by any impossibly-heightened hurdles. I am just your average white suburbanite, void of any unbeatable struggle. I went to a good school, passed through the "required filters" (as Noam Chomsky would say), and exhibited some form of acceptable academic achievement... as one of my favorite Montclair professors Naomi Liebler used to say- "Not for nothin,' I learned stuff." What has happened here, and what often happens when I read alarming decrees of social injustice evident in schooling, is that I can't quite know until I am physically entrenched in the social stigma of urban education. I am on the outside looking in, when I need to be on the inside looking out. This article only continues to allow me to pass through the required filters, to view these problems from afar- as an almost external and expendible alien to change.

So how do these urban "challenges" affect suburban me? Half of me wants to combat these challenges. The other half? Well, I often refer to this half as experiencing "little old me" syndrome. If I want to take that indifferent action in life- accept that these issues don't have anything to do with me- then I am simply feeding the nasty flame. If I selfishly abandon my social responsibility, I no longer belong to the realities of this world. I grew up thinking that Newark and Paterson were some inaccessible, outworldly environments, and yet they are just as New Jersey as I am New Jersey. They are just as much my responsibility as they are to anyone actually living there. It's time for "little old me" to face urban environments as realities. Perhaps I have to break apart my cultural naivety and peddle hope in the way that the Annenberg clan does.