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Yearly Archives: 2014
Environing Belonging
In considering how youth participate in their education, I’m often drawn to John Dewey’s focus on conceptualizing not what education is, but where it is. This notion of environing education has come up on numerous occasions in our YMEJ discussions, and I find myself reflecting on it when I visit the creative writing and media literacy workshops an alternative to detention (ATD) program for youth ages 12-16 in Harlem. The workshops invite all those involved to consider how we develop spaces that acknowledge or allow students to share and reflect on their stories. Creating a space like this takes conscious work, as Dr. Suzanne Carothers reminded us during a recent class visit. In our classroom that evening, Dr. Carothers created a space in which she modeled vulnerability through her own sharing, which built a shared assumption that we, too, could be vulnerable and share our stories with her and each other. She mentioned how a teacher’s first job was to “create the space where people can say what matters to them.”
Connecting these thoughts back to the youth who attend the ATD workshops, I want to consider how and where we create these spaces for vulnerability with them. We might consider these safe spaces of sorts, but I’ve also come to see how safe spaces are always shifting, for all of us. (A classmate shared what I found was a useful way to think about what a safe space is: a place where a person can feel comfortable feeling uncomfortable.) How can we create spaces in which we and our students feel comfortable with the discomfort of being vulnerable?
Professor Lalitha Vasudevan, Kristine Kerr, and several of their colleagues take up this question in their article Cosmopolitan Literacies of Belonging in an After-school Program With Court-Involved Youths. Focusing specifically on these ATD workshops, their exploration of multimodal literacies and cosmopolitanism led them to the idea of belonging in a space, and how play and laughter can generate those feelings of belonging. As I move forward with my own work with the ATD, I’m considering how I can create the conditions in which play and laughter are legitimized in the same ways that practices such as reading and writing often are in education spaces. So, the big question: How can we remain open to the ways in which youth are seeking or finding ways of being vulnerable, of belonging, in traditional or non-traditional education spaces?
#ICan’tBreathe
When I was in seventh grade, we went on a class trip to Cape Cod with our entire class. We stayed in cabins and roasted s’mores and went on “mindful walks” where we explored the coastline and the thriving natural community that prospered on the shore. When a group of people decided to go swimming, I joined them even though it was May and the water was still cold in New England. I remember swimming out farther and farther into the waves; I was a confident swimmer after summers spent navigating even the roughest of ocean waves with my Poppop. “Over for the little waves. Under for the big ones,” he would always say. Swimming was a game, a medley of “over” “unders” with little recognition of the ocean’s power.
As I swam out farther that day on my class trip, I began to realize that I was freezing and, the next thing I knew, I was struggling to swim and felt like I could hardly feel my body. My math teacher, who was incidentally my least favorite, ran out, dove in, and carried me out of the water. It was a humiliating experience for a seventh grader. It did teach me a lesson about the silent force of the ocean though. The water lulls you with its rhythm, and soothes you with its peaceful sounds. You can swim out farther and farther from the safety of the shore, but because you are floating and surrounded by a womblike embrace, the danger of the ocean is not something you think about or fear.
On Empathy, Ethics, and Sharing Narratives
Empathy, both as a concept and as a practice, has been floating among my interactions and thoughts with an uncanny frequency these days. A few weeks ago, our YMEJ seminar watched a short animated video by Brene Brown, in which she discusses the power of empathy. She explains how empathy requires perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotion in other people, and communicating these understandings.
Just a week or two after that, I was chatting with Sharieff, the coordinator of Enrichment Services at the ATD, where I have the privilege of doing my mentorship work. Sharieff had recently been talking about the links he saw between developing empathy and an understanding of ethics, and shared an anecdote in which he asked the young people at the ATD if they would take or return an iPhone that they saw a woman leave on a Subway platform. He shared how many students would respond with “No,” but when asked why they wouldn’t take the item, they would explain how they “Didn’t want to get in trouble” or end up with another alternative to detention sentence. I asked Sharieff how he might further the dialogue there; sure enough, he responded by saying: “Oh, I’ve found it’s all about building empathy.”
He explained how he might engage a young person in that conversation to imagine how the person who owned the phone might feel when she saw it was gone. He talked about how this principle of being able to imagine someone else’s feelings of experiences has guided some of the young people he works with to develop their own contextualized understandings of ethics, and of what they consider ethical behavior to look like.
Sharieff’s example has given me a lot to reflect upon. It’s both exciting and challenging to consider how sharing personal stories can develop our ability to empathize with others’ lived realities. But how do we do that sharing in a way that honors the diversity of perspectives, learning styles, and forms of expression with which people feel most comfortable? Certainly, celebrating and using multiple modalities (from printed and spoken word to visual and performing arts) seems one way of doing so. The next, and perhaps more perplexing, consideration is where to go from there. How do we engage with and share narratives in ways that develop empathy among both speakers and listeners? Is that even a responsible goal to have? Perhaps the better question is simply: What does the narrative’s owner hope to feel, understand, or share with others in doing that sharing? How can we, as adults working with youth, pursue this sharing in a dialogical way that allows students to own their narratives and engage with ours?
I invite you to read Dutro & Bien’s 2013 article Listening to the Speaking Wound to consider how we may share narratives with and among youth. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
From one teacher to another.
In our seminar course we are always brainstorming ways to create a classroom that is more inclusive and geared towards social justice in order to try to prevent the pushing out of our young people. However as teachers we are always walking the line of meeting “standards” and meeting the needs of our students, a difficult balance to master. Here is a resource that I have found useful in my classroom, and I hope it will be helpful in yours—
The Son will Arise…Once More
Today, I had the powerful experience of being part of the march that took place in New York City starting at Washington Square Park. I wanted to share the images as well as a poem that was written in honor of Mike Brown and other Black males murdered in the summer of 2014 (and prior). I thought the words were relevant in today’s social climate. I’m still feeling energized, moved and left questioning “What next?” after today’s events. Images can be found here.
The night was long—
Black dreams were missing like Black bodies buried beneath mahogany mud— stretched from Mississippi to Mandingo sands.
Dark souls descended upon hot streets blazoned by ghetto flames,
Burning upon the breast of fiery dark places,
And streams of red blood crept six feet beneath the hard surface of Ghetto Earth.
The night that challenges the light of the Sun,
the darkness of the night stalked the Son—
At once closing his eyes.
He is now blind to his Blackness,
While hues of crimson Blues encroach upon his dark skin.
The night, the shadow of his Blackness, appears so with emptiness—
Eclipsed stars, the fallen dreams in his skies,
Give way to a broken moon—which is his crescent heart.
Then, I felt his mother’s tears, drenched upon Black garments that draped her supple, sable lap.
Prevailing in audacious echoes were sorrow songs,which provoked shrieks of wild thunder beneath the Black veil that hid her eyes.
We forgot about her because she was hidden behind the shade of our darkness.
She is our tomorrow—the sparrow and her song
which bear the light of morning, piercing the darkness of today
like the full moon and moonlight that leads to a new day.
Weeping, though it endures for a night,
Joy sits at the edge of dawn—
A new day forthcoming, which says to us . . .
The Son will arise
once more.
—By David E. Kirkland
***Title was inspired by the words of David E. Kirkland. For more thoughts on politics, education, and moral justice please check out his blog site: https://davidekirkland.wordpress.com ***
Presuming Competence as a Path to Inclusive, Contextualized Work with Youth
Early in the fall term, our YMEJ seminar read a brief article by NPR’s Melissa Prax called “The Impact of Foster Care on Students’ Education.” In the article, Prax mentioned the story of Harold Sloke, a teenager who entered South Carolina’s foster care system at the age of 12 and ended up attending a dozen high schools before graduating. The sheer number of schools that Sloke attended is shocking. Moving (even once!) can have a major impact on a student’s ability to feel supported and to believe in his or her ability to progress academically, socially, and emotionally. That said, what sticks out to me even more is how much that progress can be hindered or supported by the educators, caseworkers, and other adults in the student’s life.
Sloke’s explanation that a lot his caseworkers believed he “would never graduate, so they kept passing (him) along, and (he) kept getting into trouble” reminded me of another article I’ve read recently, written by a student and his teacher. The student, Jamie Burke, is in high school and has an autism diagnosis. As his verbal speech is very limited, he communicates with technology known as facilitated communication. He and his teacher, Biklen, relate the concept of presuming competence in students with diagnosed or perceived disabilities, which is as it sounds – the practice of presuming a student’s capabilities, rather than presuming deficits associated with diagnoses or perceived differences. They are careful to note that this does not “require the teacher’s ability to prove the existence or validity (of that competence) in advance; rather it is a stance, an outlook, a framework for educational engagement” (Biklen & Burke, 2006, p. 168).
My personal background and interest in Critical Disability Studies and inclusive education has led me to consider how that stance may be taken up when working with court-involved youth. The notion of presuming competence seems to fit well into the discussion of how educators, caseworkers, caregivers, and other stakeholders may work with students in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. As Sloke’s explanation suggests, the adults around him perhaps presumed failure rather than success. That presumption likely makes it easier to see certain behaviors (whether physical, emotional, or related to school work) for their surface value, rather than probing into the deeper reasons behind those behaviors to work with the student in making a plan to change them.
I’m left considering how a broader educational framework of presuming competence could support students who experience frequent moves, rough transitions, abuse, and neglect. While counselors and advocates are critical to supporting these students and presuming their success and capabilities, how can we move toward an inclusive framework that emboldens all people involved in these students’ lives to contextualize their challenges and presume their progress? What does inclusion look like, and how is it even understood, in the juvenile justice and foster care systems?
Words (can) Hurt…
“The old story sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you—words will get you killed.”
-Ameena Matthews (Violence Interrupter)
To my babies,
I am sorry that I have failed you. Day after day I taught you lessons on turning the other cheek; that words can’t hurt you. Unfortunately, I lied. Words have the ability to crush spirits and tear apart families. Words can erase friendships and stomp out pride. The reality is that words hurt, a lot.
I wish I had taught you that words can hurt but words can also heal. I should have shown you the two sides to this double-edged sword that our tongues have the power to unleash. As your very first school teacher I should have been the person to acknowledge that I, too, have been hurt by malicious words and have hurt others. In wanting to protect you, to shield you from the realities of violence that plague our communities, I left large gaps in teaching you about how to cope, how to deal with true emotions that accompany harsh words. Please forgive me.
If I could have a chance to do this over, to reteach lessons that I’ve had time to reflect on; I would share with you how to use words to empower and uplift each other. We could learn together about how to make our communities stronger, had I not silenced your voices and discredited the power of words. I would read you Martin’s Big Words over and over again, until the pages ripped from callous fingers flipping though pages. We would sit on the carpet and share moments of when we’ve been hurt, in an attempt to prepare us for a world that at times, could care less about our bruised feelings.
I wouldn’t teach you to merely turn the other cheek, because I understand the complexities of doing so. I would teach you that it’s ok to feel hurt and upset, but its what we do with those emotions that can be life changing. I never want evils to drive you to make life-changing decisions. Your lives are too precious. You are too precious. Your value is immeasurable.
I would try to help you understand that in your hurting (a valid emotion) there are times when you have to choose your battles and choose them wisely. I read what the media has to say about Black boys and it pains me. I know about the kind, loving spirits that enter my class each year— boys who just want hugs and positive attention from teachers. I know what how it feels to love Black boys with every ounce of energy in my body. I know how three simple words “I love you” can change lives.
Hear my words. You are loved, you are valued and you are appreciated. When others use vicious words to make you believe otherwise, please know that words do hurt, but the hurt doesn’t last always.
With love,
Nicole (Ms. McGowan)
YMEJ @ Justice Teaching Roundtable (with Center for Justice at Columbia)
This week, Prof. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and I will be representing the teaching team and talking about our YMEJ work — including the seminar, the emerging research, and our public pedagog
y efforts (including this blog) — as part of the Justice Teaching Roundtable Series. We are thrilled and humbled to be participating in this dialogue with our colleagues from across the university, and as part of our presentation we will be sharing excerpts from the past years of work with the YMEJ graduate seminar, the collaborative mentoring experiences, and we’ll be engaging the audience in some YMEJ-style inquiry through media-making.
If you’re near the Columbia campus, stop by and check it out. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback.
YOUTH, MEDIA AND EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE: BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Tuesday November 18th, 2014 – 3–5pm
Teachers College, Russell Hall Rm 305
The Bridge for Quality Education
Jessica and I (Isaac) met at the Education is Transformation Symposium. We expressed similar ideas and thought it would be very informative and enlightening if we collaborated for the purpose of this blog post.
Preventative Ideas:
Starting in junior high, children should be asked what they are interested in, and develop an educational plan around what they are passionate about and try to have those type of programs available. Being bored in school is counterproductive and plays a major role in whether a child stays in school. When a young person feels bored, questions such as, “How am I supposed to apply what I learned?” arise and thoughts like, “None of this has to do with what I like to do after school.” Therefore a lack of motivation to attend school is prevalent. Learning should be fun.
In high school I was bored to death due to the fact I did not find what I was learning to be interesting or fun at all. I was not given a reason to look at school as fun or that learning should be fun. School was boring, teachers were not saying or creating an environment for successful learning. It was like cemetery learning. After I was released in 2002 I attended Taylor Business Institute. It was really fun doing computer work. I did very well because it was inspiring, engaging and insightful. So it is important to ask young people what they like to do so they can start thinking about this early.
When a person is working towards their basic education and maintaining a given GPA, they should be allowed to participate in preferred activities. These activities are linked directly to individual passions. Young people between the ages 11-15 are within a very critical and influential time in their lives. Building relationships between teachers and students, through understanding individual preferences and interests creates the opportunity for learning “together”, rather than “you-against-me.”
Mentoring:
For 11-15 year olds, this time is the biggest developmental part of young adulthood. Poor behavior, maybe because of lack of attention, issues at home effect school behavior. Young people need someone that is going to listen to them, someone that won’t judge them, someone that won’t run back and tell their mother. Someone they can talk to and trust, a good person for them to be talking to. Someone they feel that they can relate to, a person who has been where you have been, so it is not as embarrassing to talk to them. I know first hand that mentorship is effective. Throughout my years in incarceration, I was held back from negative situations and led in the positive direction because of a mentor that I may have had at a particular time.
Education After Incarceration:
A lot of people are not aware of their educational options after coming out of prison. Immediately before a person is released from prison is a very vulnerable place. At that moment, individuals are starting to decide what they are going to do once they get home. Are they going to go back to doing what they were doing or take advantage of their educational or other gainful options. When these options are not visible or made known, it increases the probability of a person returning to prison and/or never receiving a relevant education. People should be made privy to the school choices during the pre-release (Phase 3) period so they know what options are available and what assistance is available to them. It is important that not only program information is accessible, but detailed so people, upon returning home, know what is needed to participate in the vocational or educational opportunities.
Today
My educational experience was transformative for me. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by a number of talented artists who, by keeping me close, helped me to realize my passion. It should be noted that one may have little to no experience operating inside the skill-set of their passion. The passion alone will serve as the catalyst for productivity and progress.
Youth, Media, and Educational Justice 