An ordinary story of choice and what’s at stake this election year

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.— Angela Davis

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. ― Audre Lorde

When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the supreme court, I was livid (and remain so). Our rights, our freedoms, our choices - gone - in an instant. The dissenting judges wrote,  "young women today will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers.”  As I pored over articles about the ruling, it occurred to me that had the court made this decision a few years earlier,  a routine procedure I had to undergo- while trying to get pregnant - could have been criminalized and unavailable to me.

When I was 34, my husband and I made the choice to try to have a baby. To our surprise, I got pregnant immediately. The early days of pregnancy are exciting but also nerve-racking, you want to make sure it works out. Before I knew it I was paying attention to everything - where I walked, what I ate, and maintaining my composure. As it was my first pregnancy, I was full of nerves and I started to do what all expectant mothers do - imagine all the possibilities of new life. From the time I tested positive in a Wegmans bathroom stall on our way to a weekend getaway, I treated myself a little more gently. I drank green smoothies and more water than I ever did. I read everything I could. In the fifth week I noticed some bleeding. I called my doctor immediately and they scheduled an early appointment (in those days doctors would not even see you in New York City before the pregnancy was six weeks).

I walked into my ob-gyn’s office assuming things would be okay but then she said the word no expectant mother wants to hear, “there’s no heartbeat”. Her face was cold and expressionless, I was devastated. To be certain,  she insisted I travel uptown to another radiologist’s office for a more thorough exam. A little while later I found myself in a dimly lit room  tinged with yellow light. This time, the exam was much more invasive, the doctor inserted a wand into my vagina, only for me to hear him say - there was no heartbeat.  When I called my ob-gyn, she fired off my choices - “you can have a D&C or you can let it pass.” (A D&C stands for dilation and curettage, a process to remove excess tissue from the uterus which includes miscarriages and abortions.) My ob-gyn rattled off the pros and cons and then told me to call her back: I needed to act fast  to avoid complications. I was pacing in the little park near Esse bagel, the only east side spot I knew, trying to decide what to do. I called a close friend who had a D&C a few years back, she walked me through her experience and was gentle with her advice and insights. I called my husband and explained what the doctor had told me, he left it up to me. Out of fear that not attending to the issue could cause more complications, I decided to move forward with the surgery.  

Two days later, I glanced up at my husband from a hospital gurney at NYU; I had never been on this side and he seemed worried. When it was over, I joined my sister and two year-old niece on a trip home to New Jersey. I was careful not to pick up my niece or exert myself too much, I felt tired and unsure of myself in my body. Although I had been prepared by my grandmother who suffered many miscarriages during her fertile years, I still couldn’t shake the thought that this was somehow my fault. Was I in the heat too long the week I bled? Should I not have gone on the field trip with my dissertation students? Had I eaten the wrong thing ? What had I done to make my body not conducive to carrying this pregnancy?

For two months I let my body heal and continued writing my dissertation. Then, when I felt ready, we chose to try again. I had signed up for one of those pregnancy apps -where you track everything:  your ovulation, your periods, your mood, your diet. Each month, for 10 months I would remain hopeful, and then be disappointed. It was a dizzying time - I found myself trudging along in my dissertation, making frequent visits to my field site in a different city, and constantly evaluating my body and its ability to do the work of getting pregnant. The chaos in my personal life was further complicated by the devastating result in the 2016 election where I found myself making frequent phone calls to senators to implore them not to confirm the radical choices for cabinet members and to stop the Muslim ban. By the end of spring, I had not succeeded in getting pregnant but I had defended my dissertation and was able to walk in my graduation ceremony. Two weeks later my  husband and I were on a plane, taking the honeymoon we had put off for six years - two weeks in Italy.

My first night in Montepulciano, in Tuscany, we went to a beautiful restaurant, Pane, Vino, Zucchero, we ate pasta, drank delicious local wine, and got dessert and espresso. Then I did the most radical thing of all - I slept through the night - it was the first full night of sleep I had in four years. I had become an insomniac from the stress of the dissertation that was intensified by the 2016 election. Trying to get pregnant I’m sure didn’t help matters.

A month after we came back from Italy, on a late evening in June, I had a funny feeling. I ran down to the CVS on 93rd street and bought a pregnancy test. When I returned I mumbled some greeting to my husband who was cooking dinner and headed straight to the bathroom. I tore the box open, took the test and waited impatiently for the results. This time, the test was positive, I was pregnant! And, just in time, I was weeks away from injecting a dye to check my reproductive system, something my new ob-gyn had recommended. My body was somehow ready. I went on to give birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, I gave birth to our second son.

My story is not extraordinary - but that's precisely the point. I am like millions of women in the United States, trying to make choices that are best for our families. Choices that are no longer available to so many - especially folks from historically minoritized communities - who have less access to women-focused healthcare and whose treatment during and after pregnancy is often extremely traumatic.

I chose to get pregnant, chose to have a D&C to avoid sepsis (and other concerning outcomes), and I chose to try again.  My choices. And if I was trying to get pregnant again - depending on where I lived - I wouldn't have those choices - I wouldn’t be as free as I was before.

To live in a country that talks about freedom and then watch those freedoms be stolen by a party who has been hostile to women for decades, makes me furious and devastated, and scared for other women.  The new laws around abortion bans are written to criminalize natural processes of the body. The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is harming many women who want to get pregnant and often women who already have children.  And the policies conservatives have in store for women are oppressive- they suggest women can’t speak for themselves and should not have bodily autonomy. And that is unconscionable.

By suppressing women’s ability to make choices about their own bodies, we stifle families from thriving. Indeed the US has long held the belief that women’s maternal health contributes to family wellbeing, so much so that it is touted in our foreign policy and economic development efforts. But - we stop short of adopting the same vision for women domestically.  In short, abortion is health care. Having a choice matters. And protecting our rights to choice is about freedom.  

Conservative forces aim to squash our choices, our freedoms. In the meantime, women like Amber Thurman will continue to die trying to access the life-saving care that all women deserve. She left behind a 6-year old son who will undoubtedly wonder, why, for his entire life. Why? when there should have been choice.

Women’s human rights and freedoms are on the ballot this year. If you’re a woman- don’t be afraid to vote your conscience. Millions of us are with you.

For more information:

‍Center for Reproductive Rights

Reproductive Rights  from Fed Gov

Planned Parenthood

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"The Pathway" by acidicDR is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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If you work in PreK-12 education and even beyond, pathways are something we are often talking about as they relate to children and youth. Learning pathways or trajectories come up as we think about what students need to know or be able to do to be continually successful in a discipline or in honing a set of skills or practices. There is increasing conversation about the pathways available and accessible for young people, particularly those from non-dominant communities, and how learning opportunities can stifle or nurture, respectively away or towards certain disciplines.

I am thinking a lot about pathways in my current research work - that is thinking about how teachers came to see themselves as (or not) as comfortable with science as a discipline. In a paper I'm working on, I illustrate how past learning experiences, particularly those formative experiences in teachers' K12 education had substantive implications for their identities in relation to science. However, we also observed how being part of a professional learning community engaged in doing science together started to create new pathways- one where teachers felt excited about looking through a science lens at their everyday PreK practices. (More to come on this... hopefully a draft is going to be submitted to a journal soon!)

There are no exact steps to become anybody - we all have different pathways. However, lately I have been noticing, across disciplines, from computer science to literature, to art, to science, that there seems to be a broader conversation about being prepared for these uncertain pathways. Whether you are thinking about 21st century skills, the practices of computational thinking (cf Wing, 2006; Pea & Grover, 2013), science as a practice (cf Furtak & Penuel, 2018), etc. there seems to be a return (again?!) to practice- to finding ways to solve problems, sift through data, use the right tools (be it a pencil or a computer program), to design thoughtful solutions. However, despite this, as I was made painfully aware of a few weeks ago when I was teaching a PD session on computational thinking - first on teachers' minds was the PSSA (Pennsylvania state assessments). They wondered out loud ... "when will we fit these things in?  they seem nice, but they aren't tested..." The testing culture seems not just a roadblock but has the potential to wholly re-route someone. If you are bored in class, never given the chance to do expressive work, to solve meaningful problems, to question your world, then you might think... this isn't for me.

Pathways. We need to find ways to move forward. We need to remove the roadblocks.

One of the things about a dissertation is that you are so focused on writing and finishing that at times the joy of writing begins to flicker and fade. At least, that was the case for me. I couldn't have imagined writing more when I was writing my dissertation, writing for publications, and writing job applications. However, I am excited about the idea of starting to write and think about education again. I have so much on my mind that I want to work out and blogging seems like the right way to do it. At least as a start.

So here I go...Hello (again), world!

Over the last two and a half years, a significant portion of my research work has been related to game design for learning. I do this work under the auspices of my research assistantship work with Dr. Yasmin Kafai at UPenn GSE. Four our research, I have designed and facilitated several workshops for middle and high school aged youth, that always include a Scratch component and more recently, different ways to integrate tangible design with game design.

Recently, Penn News came to learn a little more about a partnership we have with a local middle school. Here is the print piece and here's the short video. In a later post, I'd like to reflect more deeply on another aspect of this experience - the use of visuality to bring some of this work to life and what it felt like to be in front of the camera versus behind it. As I think more seriously about incorporating visual methods into my own research work I was again struck by how nerve racking being on camera can be, especially initially. Thankfully in a room full of students and with many goals for the day, the nervousness melted away for the most part but it gave me pause and reminded me of all the rich discussions we have had in the past about reflexivity and what it means to do participant observation on film. More on this soon.

As I slowly make my way into the world of film and filmmaking as a research method - I have had my first encounter with a classic observational film: Fred Wiseman's High School. The film was shot during five weeks in 1968 at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. There is no narrator, no titles or explicit plot or characters and yet the film is able to portray aspects of school culture and community. This, according to one colleague is cinéma vérité at its best. Perhaps what makes the film so compelling is the level of access that the filmmaker had. During the film we see intimate moments like parent-teacher conferences, students being admonished for getting into fights, a young woman lectured on appropriate dress for the prom. However, the way the scenes are shot, it seems like the filmmaker was just another student or faculty member sitting in the room, whose gaze would occasionally get more or less focused as conversation or other activities unfolded, just as anyone's eye would travel during a class period or a meeting.

Issues like race, gender, sexuality, sex and discipline are all portrayed in the film, in particularly powerful ways. The filmmaker selected a number of different moments that contributed to an understanding of how the high school communicated and portrayed values around these issues and to a lesser degree, how students received them. According to my wikipedia search, the film was never screened in Philadelphia because it portrayed students as being oppressed by their teachers. I can see that argument. He does select a great many moments where students are receiving information and being told things, particularly in the scenes related to discipline. There were also a great many moments devoted to reinforcing or reifying traditional roles for men and women - in sexual relations, in how to dress or appear pleasing and in how to behave. I suppose the question that remains for me is: were adults doing most of the talking in this school? Were student-teacher relationships as one-sided as it was portrayed? Can even the filmmaker know the answer to this, if this is how he "saw" things?

Finally, watching this nearly 50 years later, I was struck by how little student-teacher relationships seemed to have evolved: the film is full of teachers giving admonishments, advice and strong recommendations. There are right ways to do and think about everything. I think the moment where the young woman is being scolded about wearing an appropriate dress to the prom highlights some of these positions. The teacher argues that students can't simply show up in a dark suit because they can't afford a tuxedo, they have to come dressed appropriately, they have to fulfill expectations that are laid out for them. As we know, schools have long been the battleground for traditional American values and it would suggest that this high school was no different.

I may come back to High School (the film), but final word is that I really enjoyed this film for it's approach and the questions it helped me to raise.

As I was reminded by my brother yesterday, it was more than twenty years ago that we became Beatles fans. I think I was about 9 at the time when my dad came home with two CDs to play on our brand new CD player - Hard Day's Night and Please Please Me. Those two discs changed my world. Over the years, I became a devoted fan, as evidenced by the many postcards and posters that adorned my bedroom walls not to mention the growing collection of Beatles CDs including the anthology parts 1-3.  The recent resurgence of Beatlemania reminded me how much the group inspired and uplifted me. They remain my favorite band. As I watched the tribute concert last night that commemorated 50 years since the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, it made me happy to see the multigenerational appeal that they still had. The tribute was also an illustration of how music can and does bring people together across all walks of life.

I leave you with one of my favorite songs.

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NYS 4th grade math assessment excerptPlease note bullet two in the above image: "student can erase quickly so that they do not have to suffer the evidence of their mistake."Or bullet one, "the teacher can respond to a hole in student understanding and skills." Or perhaps I should refer to bullet three: "students love both the drill and thrill capability…" These bullets are directly excerpted from the New York State common core curriculum. These bullets are in reference to a long and complex math unit for fourth grade mathematics. Bullet two particularly offends my senses because it suggests that the authors of this curricula (who are not educators, but companies/orgs paid to develop PD by the state) believe there is nothing to learn from a different answer, except shame. It's hard to believe this is on a document that is distributed widely by the New York State Education Department, but it is - in fact the commissioner tweeted about it yesterday.

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Is that what we want - kids to not remember their mistakes? Teachers to fill holes? Kids to be drilled to be thrilled? Is this what we want for our young people? I certainly don't. Do we think teachers are technicians or automatons, such that they have to be given scripts in order to achieve the expected results? I certainly don't.

However, it is clear from the example above that the writers of this curriculum don't agree that teachers' and students' knowledge and voice matter. Teachers are knowledge delivery agents and young people, the receivers. Freire (1968) referred to this as the banking model of education, a model of education that suggests students are empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. I would argue that the prescriptive curriculum being pushed out by states like New York, under the guise of support, position teachers as empty vessels as well- belying their talent and knowledge by giving them lessons so tightly scripted that in some cases actual phrases are provided for them. For example "student debrief (9 minutes)" or "exit ticket (3 minutes)" or even the emotion to be used (e.g. with excitement!). Of course part of the ethos of schooling and education today is that teachers aren't prepared for the new standards and certainly neither are their students. So the solution? - prescriptive curricula that dictates every minute of everyday, in other words inoculating the classroom of teachers' actual knowledge.

Perhaps this hit home this week because of the reading I've been doing for practitioner inquiry, a course that is helping me to broaden my conceptions of knowledge production, teaching and research. Practitioner inquiry encompasses a range of research approaches that differ in epistemological and ethical commitments, but at the center value practitioner's knowledge and the unique view point they are able to bring through their practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). Practitioner research positions practitioners as valid researchers and their knowledge as significant because they are engaged in a particular space, be it a classroom or a teacher team meeting. Moreover, the knowledge generated by practitioners can be made relevant and useful in these studied spaces (Lytle & Cochran-Smith, 2009). The very idea that practitioners, in this case educators, could contribute to the knowledge base about teaching and learning without being a formal researcher is a departure from much of the social science research field and still remains contentious and often critiqued.

Building on the rich history of practitioner research, is an approach to teaching practice that fully embodies inquiry as an integral part of pedagogy: inquiry as stance. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) describe inquiry as stance by saying:"…practice (and thus practitioners' learning) are understood, at their center, to be about inventing and reinventing frameworks for imagining, enacting, and assessing daily work in educational settings." This notion of practice includes the ways practitioners co-construct curriculum with students by investigating experiences, drawing on cultural and linguistic resources, and integrating textual and other knowledge sources. here, what practitioners chose to do at any given moment is understood to be informed by their more comprehensive and nuanced sense-making about a whole host of things- learners, languages, culture, race, class, gender, literacies, disciplinary content, social issues, power, institutions, neighborhoods, histories, communities, materials, texts, technologies, and pedagogies. Thus in all educational settings, practice, which is deeply contextual, relational and interdisciplinary, is also and always theoretical and interpretive."  (p. 134)

This is a definition of teaching that opposes the idea or conception of teacher as technician. It defines teaching as an active, reflective, dynamic and multifaceted role that has little to do with knowledge transfer and much to do with creating space for rich dialogue, thinking and participation. In questioning and critiquing and reflecting and being cognizant about how the world shapes (and is shaped by) their work with students and colleagues- practitioners don't simply act as mediators of isolated knowledge, they co-construct knowledge and act in ways that challenge the norms to which we we have become accustomed. Thus, inquiry as stance, is activist, not simply in service of questioning for the sake of being oppositional but rather to be critical.This last piece is important. There is strong anti-teacher, anti-educator and anti-student rhetoric that permeates public discourse. Students and teachers are both faulted for lack of performance on standardized measures. The solution of course is to valorize standardization and measure both teachers and students using assessments that are again divorced from their context and histories. There is also, as evidenced by the above curriculum, a weighty distrust of what teachers can do at the district or state level. They are often othered in policy conversations. I've lived through that and am never failed to be amazed when people with fewer and fewer years of teaching experience become leaders in educational organizations (like districts) and make major decisions that impact teachers but don't include their voice.

So when I see this curriculum, I'm again reminded of the uphill battle that remains, in trying to shift the paradigm to valuing educators and students' voices in a substantial way, so that they aren't positioned as empty vessels or blank slates, waiting for the next off-the-shelf solution.  Teaching is more than that - much more.

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‍References

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group.

What happened to me Saturday was nothing short of a miracle. I was riding the 1 train downtown in New York on my way to meet friends for dinner. I got onto the subway and plopped into an empty seat and uncharacteristically slipped the straps of my backpack off and leaned back against it. As I contemplated which stop was closer to my destination, at the last-minute, I chose to jump off at 59th street. Immediately, I was struck with horror, feeling lighter than I knew I should- my laptop and all my dissertation ideas were in that bag. I turned back to the train and banged on the doors, crying out, "Please stop the train! Please! Please! Please stop the train!" I banged on the train and pleaded but it pulled out of the station. An older gentleman pulled me from the train and said, "Stop you'll hurt yourself." In shock, I ran to the MTA agent behind the booth and pleaded with him to stop the train, mentioning that my laptop and all my belongings were inside. While he of course couldn't stop the train he began to radio the conductor on the train I had been on, as well as others.After many calls and much waiting, I heard someone had found my bag and let the conductor know they would return it to the closest station. Hope! The MTA agent assisting continued to try and track down my bag. I kept hoping it would turn up - and eventually went to the police precinct to file a report. At the precinct, I sat down and filled out a form, listing all the valuable items in my bag starting with my laptop. As I waited for the officer to complete his end of the paperwork, I fidgeted with my phone. Suddenly, I noticed I had gotten a new school e-mail with the title, "Found bag!" I screamed out to the officer - "Oh my god! Someone e-mailed me, he has my bag!" We were able to get in touch over the phone and two officers went to pick up my bag. Ten minutes later, the officers and another man walked into the precinct. The man who saved my laptop, was a graduate student at a local university. He said he saw me banging on the doors as the train pulled away. He had looked through my bag to figure out if he could return it, eventually found my student ID and that's how he got in touch.Let me just say, losing and getting anything back off a moving train is hard to imagine, losing a laptop and expecting to get it back - nearly impossible. But, there he was, the person who had taken the time and effort to get in touch with me via e-mail and twitter (he created an account just to tweet me). He explained that he felt bad when he saw that I had left my laptop and wanted to make sure I got it back. Amazing. Am-aaaaaa-zing!The evening was full of lessons about hope, kindness and empathy. From the man who kept me back from the train, to the MTA agent who orchestrated the search, to the police officers who took action, to the student who brought my backpack to me, I was shown much kindness and empathy and therefore, given much hope. As I recounted this to my professor yesterday, it occurred to me that I shouldn't be surprised. New York City is where I have experienced some of the most kind and humane acts amongst perfect strangers; many of them on the subway. But it's always nice to be reminded that the very notion of a "random act of kindness" exists because there are people who care about others in their community /society/world and are willing to take time to do something without expecting a thing in return, simply to be kind. That's inspiring. So thank you to all those kind people- you truly warmed my heart.

Winter break has been well, just that, a change from an otherwise intense semester. The first week of my break was full of cooking, baking, gift wrapping and, attending and coordinating family events. I went from frantic proofreading, revisions and EBSCO searches to rapidly making dough, rolling out cookies, and packaging sweet treats. For nearly a week I woke up feeling more like a catering manager than a graduate student. Truth be told - I loved it! Albeit frenetic, making and baking was an excellent break from an intense semester. It required a completely different set of modalities. I had to be focused on technique and timing but also artistry and of course taste.Baking is all about precision: you need to be precise about timing, quantities and the order things happen. Baking new things can be challenging, even with a recipe. Getting mentally attuned to what the recipe requires and knowing what type of result to expect is an important part of the process. For example, on my last major day of baking, I attempted to make cream scones. I had made scones using buttermilk, but since I was making these for a high tea, cream scones were more appropriate. The recipe I selected made roughly a dozen scones, so I could have doubled it to meet my needs. However, I went through the motions once to see if I understood the technique. When I saw the cream scones had risen and more importantly tasted yummy - I was ecstatic. I made the second batch with confidence.My baking journey has been interesting, in that it started with a kid’s curiosity. I have fond memories of my mom making cakes, tea cakes, and magic layer bars to name a few. At Christmas, my aunt started me on the tradition of baking cookies and showing me techniques like painting icing. While I grew up in a household where cooking was the norm, baking was not as common. However, it intrigued me, perhaps because I had sweet tooth. So, when I was about nine while grocery shopping, I convinced my dad to purchase a box of chocolate chip cookie mix. I burned that first batch by leaving them in the oven too long, but it didn’t matter because I was hooked. From then on, and supported by my family (who generously gifted me pans, mixers, spatulas and other tools to support me over the years) I was given the space to make. Over time, I gained confidence in following recipes and incorporating new techniques into my repertoire eventually ridding the need for boxed mixes. I filled my cabinets with the ingredients I needed to always be able to make cookies or cake. It's been more than twenty years since that first box of cookie mix, but because I had a willing audience (my family) and the resources my learning has never stopped.Without appropriate tools or access to an oven or the ingredients, I wouldn’t have been able to make the many baked goods I have over the years. Having an audience was also integral to my learning and growth. Along the way, I’ve had people who could appreciate my performance (baking) and give me feedback. At times, my interest and confidence waned, the lack of practice often got me feeling like I couldn’t do things and the longer I stayed away, the longer it took me to get back into the zone. However, the holidays are always a time for me to reinvigorate my passion because of family and friends. In addition to the physical tools, and an audience, I also have found online videos, recipe sites and, of course in-person advice to be invaluable in guiding my learning.As I reflected back over my frenetic week of baking, it occurred to me how my own theories of learning have been very active in my development as a baker. Over the years I had time, space, support (including people and tools) that led to learning and growth. As I’ve mentioned often on this blog and via my tweets, schools don’t seem to have this luxury. But – why not? What would school be like if learners the time to master a skill or sit with a concept or idea? What would it be like if teachers and students were not affected by standards or bureaucratic rules about time spent with kids, or time on task? Even the performances suggested by existing and new standards like the Common Core are limiting, the performances and results are pre-determined. A good performance or product is not validated or evaluated by the learner but by a teacher, and with the Common Core, these are often dictated via sample scoring sheets. These standards suggest that learning is about mastery of content and particular processes, for example, a method to solving a particular math problem. So even with all the talk of “multiple solution paths” there are still a set of right and wrong that are evaluated externally.Could we turn this on its head? Research on teaching and learning suggests that unless learning experiences are personally meaningful and connected to youth’s interests, passions and curiosities that they can be mis-educative or wasted (Dewey, 1938; Papert, 1993). Being engaged in the production or creation of something that takes time and iteration gives learners opportunities to refine their technique, devise solutions and navigate challenges, while also becoming more critical about the product but also the process. Kids also need space to make mistakes - a safe space where getting the wrong answer is not failure but rather a learning moment. I would not have gotten nearly as far if my burnt cookies were thrown in the trash. Instead, I was lucky that my parents encouraged me to scrape the bottoms off with a butter knife and salvage the rest of the cookies. That moment has stuck with me. I believe we can change classrooms to be about these moments- to focus on the journey or the process and to allow learners passions and interests to be valued and remain central to the trajectory of the classroom. Content mastery means nothing in a world of wikipedia and google, what does matter is giving kids ways to solve problems, to develop resilience and criticality, to be thoughtful and to define their own version of success. The more they practice, make, produce, the more this will become possible.ReferencesDewey, J. (1938). Experience in Education. New York: Kappa Delta Pi.Papert, S. (1993). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.

I like so many millions around the world felt tears rush to my eyes when I saw the words in print- Nelson Mandela, dead at 95. I was struck by the outpouring of grief across media. Every site I turned to had a different picture of Madiba, an iconic figure who did in fact change our world. As the President reported yesterday, we will likely not see someone like him again. The evidence of Nelson Mandela's imprint on the world was visible across the web yesterday just after 5:30pm (EST): each site posting several different pictures and articles about him. As I looked across them, I thought that even in death, he managed to bring the world a little closer together - with so many of us confronting his likeness as we went about our everyday. I am left overwhelmed and inspired by his legacy. I have no idea what the future holds but I do hope that his memory and his sacrifice persist.

The summer has been a nice respite from an otherwise busy academic year. Perhaps what is unique about it is the amount of quiet time I've had to sit with ideas, develop and respond to questions and try things out. For example, one day I spent nearly twelve hours working on some sample Scratch projects I might try out in the fall with new students. My office was quiet, I was armed with enough water and snacks to sustain me and I had my laptop charger. And- I had the luxury of time on my side. That day, I not only worked on the larger objective of developing a sample to share but I also dug into the details. This included painstakingly editing my characters (or sprites) to make the animations more realistic, scouring the internet for images that would bring my story to life and perfecting small little details to get my project to work the way I wanted. At the end of it I had a robust prototype that I could proudly share with others. I felt like I had learned more about how to work with Scratch in that one day then in all the other short sessions I had over the course of the year because in those cases, I was always rushing somewhere else and I couldn't invest the time.Interestingly, this same theme of time was evident in many of my students' reflections on our Spring Scratch workshop. In their interviews and on a survey where they reflected on the course, they explained that they liked having the time to work on their projects. My students appreciated the lack of lecture and mentioned that they liked the mini debugging activities that I had selected to help them get more comfortable with Scratch. I, and my co-teacher were truly in a facilitation role: we worked with students as they had questions or ran into a challenge their group members couldn't help them with. If you had walked into that room on any Wednesday, you would have observed a scene that included the following: students typing, chatting, moving between tables to ask questions - some kids had their headphones on, others just played music. Some sat on desks, others on chairs. Those things didn't matter, because my role was to help them to get where they wanted to go, in this case, to complete an app.In the end, every group had created their own app that ranged in content, aesthetics, complexity and functionality. However, they all felt good that they got to this point. And this is because they had something that is a scarce resource in K-12 schools: time. I gave my students the time they needed to work on problems they were interested in solving. There is much research to suggest that when youth are engaged in personally meaningful making and have time to develop their ideas and can also reach out for support, that they are inclined to continue to refine and develop a range of robust artifacts ranging from television shows to video games to books.Notice I didn't use the word "flipped classroom" or phrases like "personalized learning plan" or any other buzz word that get co-opted by a range of people/organizations to sell the experience I described above. Creating time and space in schools for youth and teachers to pursue meaningful problems would put a lot of people out of business. This time would include time to plan, time to think, time to read, time to ask questions. If you stepped back and removed the test prep and the obsession on elevating "the skills" or "the standards" that kids must gain, there would be time for kids to actually be engaged in meaningful learning of their choosing.Though I am happy the students felt good about their final apps and their overall experience, I am still concerned about how these ideas might be made useful in more traditional settings. Questions that I as a teacher and researcher am continuing to ask:

• what should I have done with youth who didn't get as much time in Scratch because they were responsible for the art or imagery and chose to work in other programs?
• how do I support the youth who want to learn but might find the orientation of this kind of classroom space confusing or in opposition to their other class experiences?
• acknowledging that traditional classrooms differ from after school or out of school classroom spaces, how do I research the lived experiences of kids in these creative contexts?

When I heard the verdict in George Zimmerman’s murder trial, I was shocked. Surely, a man can’t kill an unarmed boy and walk free? But he did. And now, he’s free. Zimmerman did everything wrong and still walked away unscathed. How do we make sense of this? More importantly – what must young people be thinking? Feeling? Questioning? All the rhetoric they are fed about freedom and possibilities and the American dream seem to be a cruel joke, a setup. I am not normally a cynical person but this weekend’s events have made me think long and hard about the messages that get delivered throughout the K-12 schooling experience. We encourage youth to be optimistic, to strive to be the best, we encourage them to compete, to win, to succeed. But what we were reminded of this weekend was that even if you work hard and are an excellent student, there are laws and institutions that have been created for and by others and those can just as quickly determine your future as passing the SATs.So why isn’t some part of school spent talking about these issues? Why do we insist that they memorize facts and figures that are disconnected from their lives and then ignore or deal distantly with a significant event like the untimely and immoral death of Trayvon Martin? What might happen if we were honest: the truth is that even if they obey laws and work hard in school, they could still be killed because their skin is the wrong color? Why don’t we warn them that there will always be George Zimmerman’s out there and that the world isn’t as rosy as we’d like it to seem? What service do we do if youth aren’t able to really understand the world they live in, or do understand it but aren’t acknowledged as such? As others have said much more eloquently than I (e.g. Questlove, Rich Benjamin, Martin Bashir), the US isn’t post-racial. I’d argue there are some people who’d like to pretend these issues don’t exist, but sweeping them under the rug does no one a service, and for young people of color, it’s doing them a disservice.The truth is that there aren’t any academic standards that address real life, no matter how “authentic” they claim to be. And often district or state laws make it difficult for youth to write, discuss or share concerns in school, which reify the same challenges they encounter in everyday society. I still recall that in our literary magazine in high school, the school board decided no articles, poems or short stories could talk about death or suicide or anything related. What if someone's friend, parent or sibling had died? What if was a stranger they felt connected to, like Trayvon? Does pretending their feelings don't exist make them go away? Does only addressing love and happiness in the pages of a high school text mean that that's the only truth? No. Neither will treating a civics or history class (or any class for that matter) like an exercise in how things work; how a bill becomes a law, umm except our textbooks don’t talk about lobbyists, or the infighting or the backroom deals... or about the Civil Rights we enjoy in this country thanks to great leaders like Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr., oh except that things aren't really always equal; you can get murdered without consequences for your race or beat up on a city street for your sexual preference, and race and class really do still matter. I guess that’s my point: we paint this rosy picture, we tell youth all their dreams are possible, we tell them about our great country, about all the triumphs but we gloss over the ugly truths, but we shouldn't. Youth's lives are still mediated by power, racial dynamics and history, that are manifested in laws and policies that are still designed to control, oppress and suppress. I just wish there was more space in schools to have honest conversations and help youth reflect, confront and question, so they aren’t ultimately setup to believe something that simply isn’t still true.Finally, I want to say that I feel deeply saddened by what happened to this young boy. It breaks my heart both for his family and friends but also for all the young people who could be in his situation. School could be a place to confront, converse, create, collaborate around and on these challenges; school has the potential to be a place of dialogue, of dialogic thinking, of peaceful resistance, of action, of reflection. I still believe that: I still think that's true.

As I made my way over the Walnut Street bridge and headed to Penn today, I was suddenly struck by the number of young children I noticed. As I got closer to campus, I observed even more parents and kids; some little children dressed in lab coats, others, running behind their parents and still others chatting happily with their mom or dad. Aha, I finally realized, today is Take Your Child to Work Day!I remember this event, when it was still Take Your Daughter to Work Day. My mom dutifully took me to the office with her and let me help with things like filing and let me listen to phone calls. I loved it simply because it was out of the ordinary: I got to "see" my mom at work and pretend I was working too. Funny, how we are always en route to a job, from the youngest of ages. Of course, if I recall correctly, the day was originally instated to encourage young women to be exposed to different career opportunities and see themselves eventually fitting into these roles as adults. Which, to some degree is important because I would argue that we still live in a world where there are jobs or careers that are more open or possible for certain genders, by virtue of how certain industries have evolved. While this is changing, there still seems to be too much emphasis or reification of what students should pursue what jobs and little support for students who want to navigate different paths. I liken this to the Harry Potter sorting hat process; some decisions are out of a student's or family's control.So in other words, while this day provides some excitement and a change for students from their day-to-day routine, it doesn't remove the need for schools to be more concerned with putting more emphasis on authentic learning experiences and for being intentional about helping students to learn and grow in ways that make sense to them. So that, a day on campus with mom or dad, isn't simply the only way they get to try on different roles that are interesting to them. Any kids should be able to do anything and schools should help to nurture that.In the meantime - thanks mom for taking me to work with you. I enjoyed all of it, but perhaps the pizza lunch and meandering through the shopping plaza was the best part. Although, answering phones does come in a close second :).(I'm currently doing a literature review that draws on Constructionism that is really influencing my thinking about being intentional about learning).

I flipped through the news this morning and noticed the MTV movie awards were last night. I decided to distract myself from readings on identity to flip through the images. I stopped at one particular image that annoyed me and led me to finding the video recap from last night. The image I found was one of Selena Gomez, wearing a bindi and dressed in some kind of South Asian inspired costume, along with her back up dancers. When I found the video I was even more annoyed; the dance moves were all remixed Bollywood moves, as were the costumes and even the back beat to her song. I felt this way I've seen one too many Bollywood remixes on television, in the movies, etc. lately and I feel like they are a parody of beautiful South Asian art forms.A few minutes later, a light bulb went off... wait a second, I've seen the same thing in films from all over the world. Bollywood, Tollywood, etc. etc. all borrow or sample seemingly western style moves. I don't watch a lot of these films but I have seen my fair share of Britney-esque dance steps integrated into several musical montages across these genres.All this led me to think about remixes... Do you ever need to be authentic to the originator? Is it possible to know, in this complex, rapidly changing, multi-layered world, who the original author of anything is any more? When does someone need to attribute? Or can we simply remix and move on without ever acknowledging the genealogy or path an idea, an image, a dance move traveled? Should I care an iota that Selena Gomez's (poorly choreographed in my opinion) dance performance draws on more classical dance steps that stem from art forms like Bharathanatyam? Should she? Does it matter people are left with different impressions?In a world where copyright and attribution seem harder to maintain, I'm led to wonder about how to be fair, straightforward and pragmatic about the blurry lines that emerge. It's impossible to be "true" to the original but it seems like sampling, remixing and adapting has gotten to the point that we are being sloppy or irresponsible. Or is a remixed idea always original?A note, this morning I woke up to post this blog and found a story on NPR.org that explicated some similar challenges. Their story is part of a series entitled, When Our Kids Own America, which is explores the implications of shifting demographics in America. The story uses the Harlem Shake meme as an example of what happens when something gets appropriated and potentially loses meaning. Upon further research, I found a video on youtube of people interviewed in Harlem who were asked about what they thought about the meme and they all were talking about how what was being co-opted as the Harlem Shake wasn't at all. So who gets to say what's real? Why? (Does anyone?)

After being away from Blackboard and other digital course management software for a few years, I was introduced to Canvas in September. While Canvas and Blackboard seem to fulfill some requirements like hosting documents, facilitating online discussions and e-mail/announcements to the entire class and sub-groups, they don't go far enough for me.I think an awesome system would be one that transforms a syllabus into individual calendar entries, complete with assignments. The professors or instructors of a course would do what they did today- enter all of their materials, related URLs and assignments into the online course management system. When a student logged into the system, they would be able to "download the syllabus" which would translate to having the entire course entered onto their calendar, by weekly increments. Each calendar entry would include the summary of readings and any other pertinent information that the instructor/professor had originally conveyed. If changes are made, they can do it electronically and students could refresh the entries from time to time.Instead, I spent a few hours last weekend doing this manually - creating recurring google calendar appointments and separately incorporating assignment due dates. I didn't get to pasting in the readings because it was a bit too labor intensive and I really should be working on reading and writing for my courses!One last thing on this topic - it seems despite all the advances in technology that we've had since I was in graduate school four years ago, course management software hasn't evolved very much at all. I find this surprising given all the other ed reform related technology initiatives that are swirling around. Moreover, the user experience for these systems is not great. We constantly hear professors and students complaining about the challenges of navigating the system. If course management system isn't self explanatory, then it's not doing it's job.If someone decides to build this - I'd be happy to give you my thoughts on what could be improved!

Last night, I caught a few minutes of the evening news, listening to to the commentary about the shootings in Newton, Connecticut. My ears piqued and I decided to see if this was true. I came across an article that confirmed that Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, was one of the senators that voted against a ban on high ammunition clips and also in favor of an amendment to allow people to conceal weapons while crossing state borders. Here's an excerpt from that CBS article:

"In 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was among 58 senators to back an amendment allowing a person holding a concealed weapon permit in one state to hide his firearm when visiting another state.

After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and others were attacked in Tucson in January 2011, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., whose husband was killed in a 1993 shooting, introduced legislation to ban the high-capacity ammunition clips used by the shooter. (Those clips would have been banned had the assault weapons ban been reinstated.) The measure garnered more than 100 cosponsors but was not brought up for consideration by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Indeed, the only movement in recent years on guns has been in the opposite direction: They include measures that allow guns in bars in Virginia and New Mexico, expanded concealed carry in Michigan and elsewhere, and a Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement in the District of Columbia." (Brian Montpoli, CBS News, 12/14/12)

The article goes onto point out that Democrats who have favored control in the past have done nothing to bring back the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 or advocate for other legislation. I said it yesterday and I will say it again, how many shootings will it take before people understand that having guns that were developed for war should not be allowed to be owned by civilians? Another excellent point that I think needs to be raised is that any new gun control legislation needs to also address the very important issue of mental illness.In any case, here is my letter to Harry Reid that I submitted on his website today:

Dear Senator Reid,

I recently heard on the news that you would be against introducing legislation into the Senate along the lines of controlling the use and proliferation of guns. I find this an unfortunate stance from the top Democrat in the Senate.

Protecting second amendment rights is logical to a certain point, but there are dangerous weapons that are too easily accessed that no American needs to protect their home or property.

Every person I know, regardless of political affiliation has spoken out about gun violence and the need for change over the last 36 hours. People are horrified by what happened and no American parent should have to get up every morning praying that this doesn't happen at their school.

I've already written to my congressman and signed a petition online but I do think that if you're the person who will influence the potential for such legislation, then we need to somehow convince you that it's ridiculous you are in favor of concealing weapons. You might be a Senator from Nevada, but as far as I'm concerned as the majority leader of the Senate you are representing all of our interests. So when you vote against or squelch legislation that is more than necessary, it is disheartening. This shouldn't be about votes - this should be about your commitment to the American people- all of us.

Please turn your stance around, show leadership and bring a bill that not only addresses gun control and proliferation but measures to also deal with mental illness and the related supports required so we can avoid these kinds of mass atrocities.

I sincerely hope you show leadership on this issue.

Best,

Veena Vasudevan

I am not sure how many times we have to read about a horrific gun-related tragedy before someone in Congress takes up the cause. I'm tired of hearing that people are scared or concerned about taking away our second amendment rights. Gun control means intelligently thinking about how to keep citizens in communities across America safe. No one is asking to take all the guns away, but instead put in meaningful and thoughtful laws about the process by which people can apply and gain licenses for weapons. Guns are weapons and they should be regulated as such.I wrote this letter to my Congressman today, in hopes that others will do the same. Find your congressperson's website by going here: http://www.congress.org/Dear Congressman Fattah,I am deeply saddened by the shootings that occurred in Connecticut today and the others that have occurred throughout the year and in years past. I am writing to you to ask you to put forth a bill on gun control or work with other members of Congress to bring one forward.I can't tell you the outpouring of grief and frustration that I've seen from friends and colleagues today and in the previous months at the fact that there are not the right regulations and structures in place to keep guns off our streets and out of the hands of people who should not possess them.I'm not sure how many signatures you need or what can catalyze action, but I know that I'm connected to a large community of people both in this district and outside that strongly believe gun violence in our schools, in our public markets or anywhere is unacceptable. I hope that we can reverse this trend of unnecessary and gruesome violence by changing the laws and putting the funds forward to enforce them and also think about smart, balanced ways to get guns off our streets.Sincerely,Veena Vasudevan

Two weeks ago, I wrapped up my first workshop on computer programming in Scratch. Unlike other workshops I have been helping with over the last few months, the content, the teaching and responsibility all fell on my shoulders. At the beginning of the semester, I was really nervous about the workshop. Where to start? What are some good ways to teach these complex programming concepts? How do we ensure that kids feel engaged and invested? Perhaps most importantly - would I be able to teach a workshop in programming!? It had been a while since I wrote object-oriented code. Instead, I have spent the last several years engaged in systems design but always handed it over to developers when it came to the implementation.I can now report that I have created my first simple remixed video game. It has two levels, and it involves a monkey eating things. I never thought I'd be able to program a video game but I knew it was the only way I would be able to work with my students and support their learning.I also created a simple name animation and a mini digital story. You can see my simple game by clicking here. I will share the other two tools as soon as Scratch 2.0 goes live!There were moments of challenge and small triumphs throughout the four weeks. To plan for the classes, I used an amalgam of my own ideas and the Scratch ED curriculum developed by Karin Brennan and Michelle Chung at MIT. Here's a quick rundown:Week 1 - Introduction to Scratch: what is a sprite? what are costumes? how do I attribute sounds? how do sprites move? how do i use the Scratch environment?

Successes: I learned all the kids names, every student made a simple name program or started one, I managed a workshop of 20 kids.

Areas for Improvement: I realized after the class that the kids didn't understand why I wanted to set norms. When I invited them to contribute norms, they didn't really know what I was expecting. After reflecting and speaking with other colleagues I realized that in my earnestness to create a respectful learning relationship with the students, I felt like the only way to start was by co-constructing norms. In the future, I will come with norms and over time, work with the students to revise or edit collaboratively.

Week 2 - Introduction to remixing and incorporating additional skills: what is a remix? revisited basic concepts from last week: sprites, movement, sounds

Successes: Every student finished their name programs and for the students that had gotten a version done the previous week, I had extension activities. I also was excited to see how some students started to remix and adapt the game. I had sent a google poll out after class and the majority of students opted for games, which is how I ended up choosing this as the goal.

Areas for Improvement/Reflection I think that I should have had more structured instructions for the students attempting to remix the game. I gave them broad guidelines, but not extremely specific parameters. I also didn't have enough capacity to focus on a handful of students who ended up only partially listening to my lesson on remixes. This same group of students had also snuck in some friends, who I had to later kick out of my class.

With that said, I did like the format that I used to show the remix. I had a simple version of the game and then created a new version, which I used to demonstrate the types of changes that are possible (e.g. adding score, adding sounds). Next time, I would ask the kids to spend time brainstorming a plan for their remix.

Week 3 - Continuing to Remix, give kids time to learn and develop games, concepts: broadcasts, variables

Successes: Many students made some serious headway on developing their programs.

Areas for Improvement/Reflection: This was my toughest class. I ultimately think it came down to not being as prepared as I had been for the previous two classes, despite having notes written up about what I should have done. Between work and school, I had a rough outline until very shortly before the class, leaving me disorganized. The lack of planning showed up in the results of the class, which was more chaotic and the small group of students falling further behind. I was already discouraged from the week before, and I let that influence me not to focus on them because it already felt hopeless. I was really disappointed after this class.

Week 4 - Finishing games, revisit broadcasts, variables and brainstorming ideas to create levels

Successes: Every student in the class left with a completed game. The students' games had varying complexity, but all of them had a working program when they left. What an exhilarating feeling!

Areas for Improvement/Reflection: I asked one of our other colleagues to come in to support the class so we had three teachers on hand. I had worked hard to prepare and finish two levels of my game, which I used during the lesson on how to use broadcasts and variables to create signal different parts of the game. I did two other things, I made sure that all students sat up front at a table while the lesson was going on and I spent specific time with the small group I had shied away from the week prior. I sat with them, suggested a new game for them to use and kept coming back to them for extended time. At the end, they recognized how much more productive they were and they all completed a simple game.

Final ThoughtsAt the end of the day on week 4, I felt exhilarated. First, because I survived it, second because I felt like kids ended up learning something and third because all of them left with a simple game or the framework for one. Here are some lessons learned on this computer programming workshop that I will apply to future programming workshops I teach:

1. The most important lesson I learned was that when I felt completely prepared in terms of the content and goals, the class ran better. It also helped that I actually learned the concepts in Scratch and developed programs instead of co-opting work that had been done. I think this is especially true in the case of someone new to teaching the content.
2. Another important thing I saw in practice was that regardless of how well you know the content, if you can't control your classroom you will have chaos and the kids will be quick to realize that.
3. I struggled with trying to be respectful and balanced about how I treated students but realize that I also need to be a leader in the classroom. That doesn't mean lecturing and dictating every moment, but at least being mindful that I need to set out some of my expectations for how we will work together.
4. Be clear about the goals for the day and have clear parameters /constraints for all of the mini-projects that students do to learn skills. (Related to this - do it yourself if you haven't before because otherwise you can't answer questions).
5. Give them time to practice. I gave students the majority of time to work on their games and would walk around the room with the other teachers and respond to questions. This was the most important time because they could ask specific questions and we could work together to solve problems. I also had kids work with each other when I was working with other students.

The last four months have sped by so fast. The last time I wrote I was a freelancer in Brooklyn. I now write as a graduate student from Philadelphia. In some ways I have hesitated to write because I had so much swirling through my mind I didn't know where to focus my energy. So, here I am months later, writing after the last proseminar class I have this semester. This course in particular has encouraged me to read about and engage in the writing process. Starting with Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and then weaving through all the challenges, hurdles and triumphs related to academic writing, this class provided a wonderful foundation that certainly helped me to acclimate to graduate school. Being a first year doctoral student is complicated, exhausting, exciting and generally humbling. I read, wrote, taught, recorded, typed, read more, wrote more, ... You get the point. This fast pace will only increase as the last three weeks of the semester lay before me. I will have to write, read and type faster than I have all semester and work even harder to make sure I get everything done well. Fast also describes how I feel about the semester - where did it go? It seems like just yesterday I was standing in a line waiting for my registration folder. Fast because before I know it, the year will be ending and it will be time to look forward to dissertation topics and other issues meant for advanced doctoral students. But for now, I take a minute to appreciate just how wonderful this journey has been to date.

Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. More than two months after coming back from a short trip to London and Paris, I am surprised by how much the trip impacted the way I see urban spaces. Paris in particular took my eyes by storm. The central part of the city is beautiful in every direction. In most large cities, the monuments and historic buildings are usually well maintained. But in Paris, every street, every shop, everything is beautiful. We walked almost everywhere, hardly ever taking the metro, for fear of missing something above ground. We meandered through small side streets, dodged tourists on large boulevards and stopped often to take it all in and no matter where we were or what direction we looked, it was simply beautiful.To illustrate the commitment, some might even call devotion to beauty; I present a small collection of pictures of front doors, from the streets of Paris and London. None of these buildings are famous and I think for the most part they are residential. But what I love is the celebration of color and attention to detail associated with something as simple as a front door. Ultimately, it made me think that there is a strong sense of pride and even love for one’s city when everyone participates in these simple aesthetic rituals. It also helped me to take notice of so many things in my own locale that I had never really seen before. Merci bien, Paris!

Colors: Doors of London and Paris

London - Somewhere near Covent Garden, if I recall correctly. It grabbed my eye as we walked through an otherwise commercial area, this door just popped up out of nowhere. It's so bright, and I love the placement of the number and contrast of gold/blue.

London - this might be the one semi-famous doorway, which was of an old courthouse, somewhere close to Aldwych.

Paris - so regal! This is not a color I've ever noticed in my neighborhood, but seemed almost common place there. I love everything about this, the frame, the stonework above, the wrought iron circles, and the contrast between the gold door handles and the blue.

Paris - I love the mystery the shadow creates, another navy door and the wrought iron work is beautiful

Paris - now that's a front door! I was taken by the height, the shape, the existence of the windows and wrought iron gate above and of course the beautiful frame. What my travel partner also pointed out, is that the juxtaposition of the aqua car, red shop window and tan door are also an interesting composition. I agree!

Paris - even with the spots, the hunter green and the wrought iron work are gorgeous

Paris - this was on a cute little street a few blocks from the Seine, on the south east side of the river. I clearly love the gold/blue combination. I also love the tile that holds the number 7.

London - the bricks and the frame give it away. This orangey-red is warm and inviting and contrast well with the weathered brick. I also love the half moon window. In this case, it's black lettering, door knocker and door knob.

Sunday afternoon – I sit in a caféIced coffee, tiny droplets form on my cupMusic makes my shoulders danceI face the streetSkirts, shoes, pants, flip flops; a sea of color streams pastIn twos, hands connectedIn threes and fours, little ones trailing or leading orstrapped to mom or dad,seemingly suspended in airOthers are perched on dad’s shoulders,thrilled by the viewAnd furry friends run along sideCatching the sun and socializing with neighborsMusic plays, lines formCoffees, teas, snacks and moreMake their way through the doorThe wind blows and sun shinesCars and bikes, parents and tykesSome young ladies discuss lifeOthers type, read or writeWearied feet find a seatMy foot moves to the beatFast and slowTogether and apartFamilies and friends pass byTo dinner and back from brunchMothers rewarded with some free time,flowers and sweetsWhile fathers mind the little oneswho smile and playWithout so much as a careI remain cool and insulatedDistracted, caffeinatedCalm and collectedSunday afternoon – I sit in the café

I thoroughly enjoyed writing this poem. I worked on it over the course of a few hours as I sat in a café on Mother’s Day last weekend. Even though I set out to read and write a few blog posts, I was drawn to the colors, the conversations and of course the people that enveloped me. During and after the process of writing this poem (which I certainly still consider a work in progress), my choice of literary genre and thoughts about my creative process began to dance in my head.Somewhere between the first and last words I wrote on the page was the conscious or unconscious choice to write a poem. It led me to question why and how. Was it the time of day, the content or my mood that led there? Maybe it was that I felt stress free since it was Sunday or perhaps it was the alluring cocktail of coffee, sunshine and short skirt weather. Why not a narrative? I could have easily captured more details and included excerpts of conversation that could have helped to color the image for my readers. Instead, I tried to use fewer words as artfully as I could to convey the same meaning that might have normally taken a few paragraphs. I was left wondering if the subjects, circumstances or surroundings helped to shape the choice I made to write a poem.This led to something to the question about the validity or usefulness of multiple representations. Is there a benefit to describing something from one person’s perspective but through the use of multiple genres? In other words, what might happen if you were to take an experience and understand how different mediums of communication could illustrate different aspects of the same event or experience? I wondered if this was something that was useful for the writer and found myself responding yes.I then moved on to thinking about my writing and creative process. What I found challenging about writing a poem is that I had to think much more carefully about word choice. This led me to referencing an online thesaurus and seeking advice from others. I sent my poem to my siblings for feedback and after reading it, my brother pointed out “perched” might be a better way to describe the scene where the child is on top of his father’s shoulders. I originally had included the word “atop.” Immediately I could see that “perched” provided a better mental image. Change implemented! Similarly, after rereading my poem a few days after I wrote it, I noticed that I had used the same word twice in two subsequent lines. I spent a few minutes fixing these two lines to make sure the meaning endured without sounding repetitive. What I found interesting is that I must have reread my poem ten or fifteen times without catching this but a few days away and it immediately jumped out at me.I have a few conclusions based on this experience. One, there is something to be said for listening to instincts. If your inner voice is leading you somewhere creatively – embrace it! A poem or short film might be right around the corner. The second is that time and space to reflect on your own work leads to interesting discoveries. In other words - read, reread, reread, reread! Or write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite! It’s amazing what you don’t see the first few times you read something. For a long time, I felt like the idea of originality was just creating something and not messing with it. But I think I’ve moved past that. Just because the words you wrote aren’t the ones you ultimately present as a finished work, doesn’t mean those words didn’t help to lead you to where you finally landed. Third, finding someone whose feedback you trust and value can make a world of difference.As for the topic of multiple representations, I have been given by a close friend many articles to read, so more to come on that!

I've been inspired lately by the existence of color in nature. This series of photos, some taken on a recent trip through London and Paris and others on a visit to the nearby Brooklyn Botanical Garden, has been inspired by the beautiful color provided by springtime blooms.Pink magnolias in the evening light

White magnolias dance in the wind

Unassuming window plants

Fire flower (or so I'm calling it) - opens to the sun

Tulips and friends sway in the breeze

Nature Rocks

Cherry Blossoms

Luxembourg Gardens - tulips talk

St. James Park - daffodils dance

This project would not have started if I hadn't had access to such a user friendly camera. (This set of pictures was taken on my iPhone 8mp camera). After I got my new phone last fall, I kept taking pictures and found that I really enjoyed it again. In the process of flipping pics of everything from my dinners to interesting PSAs to family/friends, I realized how drawn I was to color. This particular set focuses on images in nature, but I have a whole other set of pictures that is front doors painted in unique colors. I realized that once I started looking at the world in potential photographable moments/objects, more and more things jumped out at me.While I will continue to take photos with my iPhone, this project has actually inspired me to learn how to work a more complicated camera and learn more about aperture, light, shadows, etc.

Good design matters.  It doesn’t matter if you are putting together a spreadsheet for a meeting, creating a process for users to share feedback, or developing a website, good design matters.  The types of design that are ever present in my work are: product design, project design and process design.‍

Product Design

• Have you ever filled out one of those government documents only to realize you were writing your name where the address should go?
• Have you been to a website where you have no idea how to get to the content you know is buried deep somewhere?

Project Design

• Have you been on a project that sets unrealistic goals for when work can be accomplished?
• Have you been on a project where even after weeks, it’s not clear who is supposed to make key decisions?

Process Design

• Have you heard feedback from consumers/users/constituents who complain that they don’t understand what they have to do to make X happen?
• Have you wondered why your doctor's office makes you write the same information on five pieces of paper?

If you've answered yes to any of the questions above, you've been on the other end of a clunky or disorganized design process. This leads to misinformation, frustrated constituents and mixed outcomes. That's why organizations are much better served when they spend the time to:

• Develop a clear vision that includes specific expected outcomes and define meaningful measures of success
• Create a detailed implementation or work plan that is a living document; it should evolve with the project, not collect dust on a shelf
• Communicate and adhere to roles and responsibilities so that work can get done
• Take the time to identify the right resources, both internal and external e.g. vendors, consultants
• Commit enough time and budget to creating a strong system/product so that rework isn't required
• Provide timely feedback from the right stakeholders, versus trying to please people politically
• Incorporate people at the receiving end of your project/program/process, so that they can inform the vision and scope, this will keep them invested

No matter what you're embarking on, it's important to know what it is you want to develop, for whom and work to ensure that your core audience is invested. The second step is not budging on having adequate time and resources to be successful. Good intentions matter, but having a good design process matters more.

Having time to draw and paint has put me on a path to have so many learning journeys. Art is representation of the literal, of the abstract, of the everyday, of the past and the present. Whether I'm creating it or observing it, art in any form makes me think, question and wonder. This became particularly clear to me when I was in Prospect Park a few weeks ago, attempting to capture an old tree using my drawing pad and colored pencils. As I began to draw I found myself scrutinizing every detail of the tree and asking myself - what does this tree really look like? Because so often, I feel like the drawing of a tree is minimized to something like this:

However, because I was interested in capturing it more realistically, I rapidly glanced back and forth between the tree and my drawing pad, struggling withe amount of detail. This included things like:

• the trunk and the heavy branches don’t have any foliage, only the smaller branches do
• the bark is more charcoal than brown and so are all the other trees that my eye can see
• the tree trunk splits off into five major branches and then countless number of lighter branches, which then break off into smaller branches, which is where all the leaves are located
• this might be an oak because of it’s thick and dark bark with deep rivets, reminds me of the trees in our backyard growing up
• there’s a plaque under this tree dedicated to Teddy Roosevelt from the Boy Scouts in 1919

It got me thinking again about what might happen if students were given a chance to use drawing, painting or even qualitative observation as the entry point to new content. What might happen if a student was asked to draw something and then write down any questions or thoughts they might have about the object. Now, what if you were in a park, a historical part of town or in the school courtyard? What questions might this prompt? In what conversations or journeys could a student partake?In my example, it led me to these questions: what kind of tree is this? does it belong to the oak family? what classifies something as an oak tree? why do some branches grow large and others stay lean, or do they all get to that point over time? This particular tree also could prompt a discussion on Teddy Roosevelt and why the local Boy Scout troop commemorated the tree to him. It might lead to a discussion on Teddy's relevance as both a President but as also someone who deeply cared about national parks. A follow-up might be a trip (if one were so lucky as to live this close) to Sagamore Hill, his home that is now a museum. There are many avenues that can be traveled.Ultimately, when we think about the experiences that shaped us, the knowledge that sticks with us, it is usually those that are about engaging and being active in the learning. I doubt that any of us remembers the content that was crammed in before a history final or an AP Calculus exam. However, the more I read and listen to other educators, it seems clear that people do remember trips, or projects or learning journeys that required them to think, gather evidence, apply learning and reflect.No matter how many times I hear educators say words like "authentic", "real world", "problem-based" it ultimately feels like most of kids' time is monopolized by structured learning that isn't connected to their inquiries. I'm not advocating that teachers spend three weeks discussing the latest in the Transformers series. But, I do wonder what could happen if students had the space and time in school to follow their inquiries and if educators were afforded the same to help facilitate their learning.A finished version of my drawing to follow as soon as I get there...Epilogue: My alma mater, Carnegie Mellon, is planning to honor Temple Grandin with an honorary degree at this year's commencement. I had seen and heard of her in passing, but was prompted to do a little more research. She happened to give a TED Talk in 2010, entitled The World Needs All Kinds of Minds, emphasizing the importance of providing learners (in this case students who are diagnosed with all types of autism) with access to learning experiences that aren't grounded in traditional methods like textbooks and writing assignments. She talks about how she excelled in subjects like art and classes that allowed her to be hands-on and that it was these experiences that led her to being successful in her career. It's an excellent talk that I think everyone should watch.

What is the purpose of school? What is the definition of an education? Should the goal of school be to prepare students for a specific trade/career/job? Should it do more than that? Less? I was prompted to ask these questions after catching the tail end of an interview on The Chris Matthews Show, where one of the guests, Joe Klein, a writer for TIME Magazine, described a career and technical education (CTE) program in Arizona. I tracked down the video and have transcribed the exchange here:

Joe Klein: “Chris vocational education has been out of fashion in this country for 30, 40 years. But I was just in Arizona, where they’ve turned things on their head, and the most ambitious kids are trying to get into these classes because they lead directly to jobs and work certificates…”

Chris Matthews: “Give me examples of what they’re teaching”

Joe Klein: “Medical aids, nurses aids, auto shop has 40 cars provided by auto dealers… these kids are more likely to pass diagnostic tests, graduate from high school, get jobs and more likely to go towards higher education.”

Chris Matthews: “And they see the connection between school and money?”

Joe Klein: “Yes.”

As it turned out, Joe Klein, was referencing an article he wrote about a set of CTE programs in Arizona. The article illustrates the value in having students engaged in hands-on learning related to specific industries. Interviews with district and state education leaders also touch on historical tensions between the traditional high school trajectory of taking a course of academic subjects in preparation for college versus CTE programs that prepare students for specific jobs. While there isn’t conclusive data, most people interviewed in the article speak to the profound impacts, including better tests scores and likelihood of students pursuing higher education, as a result of enrollment in CTE programs. Klein ends, touching on how students learn the “soft skills necessary to be good employees” but he stops short of making the more significant connection between hands on experiences and learning. Klein doesn’t explicitly address the fact that students who get opportunities to take part in animal surgeries or fix car engines are engaged in thinking and learning activities that are essential for all students.The takeaways from Joe Klein’s article and Chris Matthews’ remark about school and money put front and center something that I haven’t paid enough attention to– that the education debate in the US is divisive in many ways because we don’t all agree about the purpose or goals of school. The current rhetoric related to education policy and reform includes phrases like:

• The purpose of school is to:

• "to get kids ready for college and careers”

• "to provide a solid education"

• "to help students to develop the skills they need to succeed in the real world"

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these assertions. But even still, college and career readiness seems murky. Which career? What college? Does a job fit into the career track? And moreover, where and how does learning occur? How can school meaningfully prepare all students for the variety of post-K12 choices they make (assuming they get all the way there)?I'm not yet ready to share a definition, but here are some words I'd like to see as part of the conversation related to the purpose of school:

• thinking
• questioning
• collaborating
• creating
• cooperating
• inquiring
• building
• challenging

If you're an educator or are somehow otherwise plugged into education policy, you're familiar with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The standards have re-energized a national conversation around teaching and learning experiences that demand higher levels of thinking and real world application. Students in 45 states will be assessed against these standards starting with the 2014-2015 school year. In light of this, there is a flurry of activity in school buildings, at district offices and certainly at curriculum companies to create common core aligned assessments and other instructional material to better prepare students and teachers for the new challenges.

A few weeks ago, as I waited for the R train, I got to thinking about creating real world and authentic assessments. I wondered: _How can we ensure authenticity in a teaching and learning experience? What makes a learning experience authentic and to whom? What happens when students don’t have context for the content, can they still have a meaningful learning experience? (how?) Should everything begin from the familiar or the unfamiliar? How do educators reconcile authentic learning experiences with the need to deliver specific content and skills?_As I continued to wait, I looked around and noticed that there was a pattern on some of the pillars that divide the subway traffic lanes. This led me to some more questions: Are there tiles on the other side of those pillars? Are all the subway stops designed similarly? What materials are used? I wondered what this could look like if I continued along this line of inquiry and tried to create questions that could assess learning and thinking. I broke this up into ideas and questions for younger students versus older students.Here's what I pulled together:

Younger students

Potential avenues for conversation/ problems of practice/ “tasks”:

• Practice counting the total number of white tiles and ceramic color tiles
• Recreate the pattern that was represented with the ceramic tiles using the same or different color tiles, looking closely at what a pattern is and where evidence is of other patterns Related questions: what are patterns? What patterns have you seen at home, at school, on the subway or bus? What patterns aren't visual, but can still be observed?
• Practice multiplication e.g. if there are 5 more pillars like the one in the image, how many white tiles are needed? How many ceramic color tiles are needed? How do you know?
• Have a couple "sample" tiles and give students the chance to practice measurement

Connections to skills/content:

patterns, colors, placement using similar shapes, counting, measurement

Older students

Potential avenues for conversation/ problems of practice/ “tasks”:

• An early proof – state the given information, reasonable assumptions that can be made and explore the implications e.g. The tiles only cover three sides of the pillar
• How many triangular tiles needed for 60 pillars? Or 5 subway stops? (both uptown and downtown?)
• If the color tiles are placed on every other pillar and there are 60 pillars on an average at a subway stop, how many of each tile is needed to complete the project?
• How many metal bands are necessary?
• If you were in the urban planning department at the MTA and your supervisor told you that you were going to create two new subway stations, and the large tiles cost $X and the smaller ceramic tiles cost $Y, what is the estimate of how much it would cost for tiles? What other considerations would need to be made? What happens if they gave you a bulk discount?

Connections to skills/content covered:

patterns, writing mathematical proofs - extrapolating based on given evidence and logical assumptions (in CCSS language “mathematical modeling”), multiplication, linear equationsWhen I finished, I was thrilled because starting with a genuine inquiry resulted in some good questions that had an equal chance of covering content and skills without having to map things backward from the standards. Instead, I can now take what I constructed and reference the standards, which could help me iterate again on this initial thinking or determine what else I need to cover in future lessons/conversations with students. I believe if we could refocus teaching and learning on the experiences and questions that teachers and students have, material can still get covered, but it can be responsive to the interests of the learners in the room. I think it’s also a way for teachers to stay engaged, versus having to deliver content that is prescribed or recommended to them.My hypothesis: If the emphasis in classrooms was working on thinking skills and finding meaningful ways to connect with students on content, that test prep is not necessary, because students can think their way through any situation. Is this true? I didn’t plan it this way, but this post happens to coincide with one of two weeks of NY State testing - an arduous process that freezes all normal activity at a school and wreaks havoc on the psyche of teachers and students, given the high stakes. I can’t help but wonder what state testing week would be like in a world where the emphasis was authentic assessment and not obsessive adherence to standards and standardized tests.Click here for a salient article describing some issues related to the testing industrial complex.

I was very lucky to have the opportunity to visit my sibling who's working abroad for a few months. This was to be the beginning of a journey into art, I didn't think I would enjoy or even know how to take. What's more, it was an art journey I didn't expect to have.I landed in London early on Friday morning and 24 hours later we were standing in the Lucian Freud exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I certainly hadn't planned to be walking among his many famous nude paintings and reflecting on his use of color and light or on his evolving technique and his masculine depiction of women. But, I did. A day later, we were visiting with relatives who live close to Kew Gardens. Toward the end of our trip we stopped into a gallery that displays all of Marianne North's works. She was a English woman born in the early 19th century, who traveled the world painting plants in their natural habitat with such attention to detail that when I stepped into the small museum, it was as if I had been transported to a jungle. The following two days, I meandered solo through the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and started to find artists whose work was truly inspiring like Pierre Bonnard and Spencer Gore. A few days later, on a short visit to Paris, we walked through the great rooms of the Musee D'orsay, spending the first two hours exploring the Degas exhibit and the next few exploring other impressionists and post-impressionists. By the end of my 10 day trip, I had been to six art museums.Each one of these experiences could warrant its own blog post, but together they speak to something larger. For most of my life, art museums have been out of reach. Art was for arty people, art students, the elite few who understood what it could be and over time, visual art became a foreign concept.But, during my crash course through some of the world's most magnificent art museums I found that I truly enjoyed the experience of looking at a piece of art, learning about the historical context or artist's motivations and looking closely at each artist's technique. And color, I found such fascination with use of color! This experience also allowed me to see artists for more than their most famous works. For example, I've always been familiar with Monet's Water Lilies, but I left being so much more moved by his paintings of the Rouen Cathedral in Normandy. It was also a lesson in how visual arts, are intensely iterative and just how much preparation is needed for what eventually becomes a masterpiece. This was particularly obvious in the Degas' exhibit where his sample drawings were on display adjacent to his final paintings.The final part of my journey or perhaps the beginning of a new journey began roughly 18 hours ago. I downloaded the app Paper for the iPad. I started drawing and painting with two of the five tools, a paintbrush and a drawing marker. I've created 8 drawings so far, and I see no end in sight! What I think is so powerful about this tool is that it gives me a canvas, where I feel much freer and perhaps less pressure to be perfect. This morning, I drew a simple scene, my bathtub and the shower curtain. However to do so, I had to think about:

• the proportions so that no one part of the painting was exaggerated
• the angles of the painting to ensure that the third dimension was believable
• how to blend and achieve similar colors
• how to create light and dark

And just as they are bolded, these ideas jumped out at me. These are not new, but it became evident, through my own creation that we could and should weave art into classes and coursework versus keeping it as a separate subject or topic. I feel strongly that visual arts in particular are, and can be, a unique entry point for students. This coupled with technology that allays pressure of perfection, but rather allows one to iterate and create is exciting. What happens when art is a part of the conversation, or a mediating factor in a classroom? My art education ended in 8th grade, having to choose between taking art classes and other electives. But, if there was a way to weave art, be it analysis and conversation or creation, into the classic subject areas, so that it's not divorced from school, somehow separating students or silo-ing others, I think this could have a profound impact on the way students learn and teachers teach.I may not have started as an "art" kid but hereinafter, I am an "art" person.

Bathtub - a draft

When I was a kid, I was an avid reader. I absolutely loved novels of any kind from the more formulaic, Nancy Drew and BabySitter's club series, to classics like Pride & Prejudice. Over the years however, and especially over the last few years, I've all but stopped reading literature. Instead, most of the books that I'd read in recent memory were books related to education reform or policy, and if not, they were definitely non-fiction. Thankfully, this changed recently.When I was home over the holidays, I picked up my brother's old copy of Last Days of Summer. I had tried reading this book a few times and could never seem to get into the style of writing. If you haven't read it, the author makes use of written correspondence like letters and telegrams and other artifacts like playbills and movie stubs to tell the story. I brought the book home with me and after a few pages found myself nestled on the couch feverishly flipping pages wondering what was going to happen next. It felt amazing - like I was 12 again. I finished the book in one sitting!This experience evoked two reactions in me, the first is that I have forgotten what it feels like to fall in love with characters, to hope and pray things work out for them, that they achieve their dreams, marry their soulmate, etc. etc.. There is an inexplicable joy in feeling so strongly about people you can't see or touch. But that is what a great work of fiction can do, it can move you! This of course is credit to the writer who artfully constructed a novel using everyday texts, never did I miss the dialogue. From that Thursday on, I've been scouring book lists and getting suggestions from everyone about novels. The "to read" list that I'm documenting on my Good Reads account is getting bigger and bigger!The second thing it got me thinking about is about writing. Can you think of the last time you wrote a letter? I used to love handwritten letters. Most of them exchanged between my older sister and I. She; always imparting advice and sharing tidbits of her adventures in college and beyond, me; narrating the daily drama that was my life as a pre-teen. Unfortunately, e-mail and other forms of communication, fast eclipsed those handwritten letters. In addition to making a long list of books on my "to-read" list, I made a personal commitment to writing letters, the old fashioned way. That week, I sent off a card to my sister... par avion.The second letter I wrote just yesterday. As I sat down to write I realized how different this was in comparison to our regular e-mail/gchat/facebook/twitter etc. communications. There wasn't a specific topic, no direct subject line or URL to include. I meandered from topic to topic, having a one sided conversation, for which I will eagerly await a response. There might be no logic in such an act, but the sheer joy I've extracted from writing, from practicing cursive, from forcing myself to think deeply about each word, given that there's no backspace with pen, has been immense!And there you have it, the joy that reading a great book can bring you, not to mention the inspiration it spread throughout my life. Thanks to Last Days of Summer, I've reconnected with two of my great loves... reading and writing.PS. the image pictured is the first card my sister wrote back to me, compliments of this card company.

2.9.12Today's reading session made me think a lot about the context that students bring with them to a text. Even the first week, I was amazed by the knowledge of words that Sienna had, despite her struggle to manage text at times.She obviously had absorbed so much, perhaps through conversation, through music and movies and even probably reading. But how does one get into a text? How does one break down the barriers of challenging text and persevere?Here are today's experiences.SiennaI picked up Sienna first and gave her the option to select a book like I had done the first week. She selected a book about deserts from the non-fiction bucket. I tried using some of the strategies we'd been taught in the training "What does the cover make you think? What kind of plant is that?" She talked confidently about the cactus on the cover but as soon as we opened the book and started to read, I could see her face fall. She looked up at me and asked if she could get another book and I coalesced. After all, how could it be worthwhile if she wasn't passionate about the text? She came back a book in the Thomas the Train series.She asked if we could share reading responsibilities like we did last week. She started, and as we read, I could see her struggle over words. Each time she encountered a challenging word she got more discouraged. She wasn't a fan of sounding the words out. She slowly lost interest in the book and got up to find a new one, bringing back another Thomas the Train book. This one had just one sentence per page with little cut outs she could open and close. We ended up reading this book instead.As I walked her back to class, I asked her about why she didn't seem to like reading. She responded that she got easily frustrated because it was challenging and therefore she didn't want to keep doing it. I was really appreciative of her self awareness and honesty.CharlotteWhen I went to pick up my second student, let's call her Charlotte, I saw a small little girl look up at me with anticipation. She quietly walked toward me and I introduced myself and started a casual conversation. Personality wise, she was very different from Sienna, more serious, more shy. While we walked to the classroom she mentioned she loved music. So when we got to the book cart, I pointed out a book about Duke Ellington (not having any knowledge of this book myself) and asked her if she wanted to read it. She agreed.As she began to read to me I was surprised by the complexity of some of the words. In the first few pages, the author uses the phrase "umpy-dump", to describe the sound Duke Ellington thought the piano used to make before he cultivated a love for the instrument. The author also uses colloquialisms like "' playin' " and "singin'" and similar phrasing. I found myself thinking... How does a third grader, whose focus and emphasis in school is likely on spelling /speaking correctly, reconcile these words/phrases? Then there were words that she could pronounce but hard to explain like the phrase "self-rousing romp" and the word "plunk." For these, I used analogies, expressions, even whole body action, to "define" the words. I even used my iPhone to pull up a clip, to illustrate what ragtime music sounded like, which prompted some laughter and wonder. _(Yes!)_This got me thinking, should I have stopped and said "hey this book isn't for you?" I did my best to explain the words in simpler language so she could relate to the sentiments being expressed, but I still wasn't sure how this book was okay for a third grade student. At the end of a sentence or two, I would talk to her about what she understood, asking her probing questions, without (at least I hope) being too forceful.What was different about Charlotte was that she seemed open to my approach of reading, questioning, sounding out, repeating, discussing and so on. Before I knew it, I was walking her back to class.ReflectionsI left today, inspired. My time with Charlotte encouraged me that there was a way to find wonder in the story, even for kids who need more support with the reading of text. It was also heartening to hear Sienna share her frustration with reading, because it gave me a starting point.But, again, I'm left with questions, some philosophical, some practical:

• What does a teacher do with a student who clearly loves narrative but struggles with interpreting written text?
• When text seems to be more complex than students are ready for, do we still persist?
• Can breaking down and discussing text, demystify the text?
• Is there a way to determine if students' are truly understanding text, when there's so much emphasis on decoding words and explaining the broader meanings of sentences/phrases? How?
• When does the teaching of reading stop ? (When does it become about teaching about what's being read?) What happens to the students who don't get past the first part?

Context

This is week three of the reading program, my third week with Sienna and second with Charlotte. My goal with Sienna today was to get her to stay excited about a text and with Charlotte, it was to continue to learn about her reading style and see what is interesting and exciting to her.

Sienna

Today, I met resistance with Sienna. We read a book entitled Bird first; just two- three letter sentences per page and the rest of the pages were filled with images of bird. and then she grabbed a paper and began writing enthusiastically. Then she moved onto a book about Insects. A narration:

She slowly read page one out loud, struggling with words like mosquitoes . Before we began, I had her look at the images, she knew all the insects.

After page one I asked her about what she had just read.

Then, she turned the page, as she began to read, she stopped, "I don't want to read this book." she ran across the room to get another book that she was familiar with.

I said, "listen, I know it's a challenge but you picked this book and I want you to stick with it"

She grabbed the paper and drew a math problem, 137+155 "can you solve this?" I responded "I can, can you?" she proceeded to solve it.

Finally after the problem was solved I said "let's get back to insects!"

Surprisingly, she could see my resolve and started to read again.

When she got stuck, I used the same tactic that I had with Charlotte the week prior, writing out words in their syllables and helping he sound them out.Things I did today that I thought helped:

• celebrate her victories with high fives and exclamations
• encourage her when she was on the right track, "you are so close! I love the connections you made"

Questions I have:Should I feel bad that I pushed her to stick with the text ?

Charlotte

We continues to read about Duke Ellington. Before we opened the book, we talked about the book:

After sitting down, I looked at her and asked, "do you remember what happened?" She hesitated, "umm it's about Duke." I said, "shall we go back?" She said slowly, "yeah." We flipped through and as we passed through the images, she was able to tell me the story again.

Then we continued, falling into our pattern of her reading and me stopping her to ask a question or point something out.Questions I have:If a student picks a book that is extremely challenging, like this one on Duke Ellington and reading, both from the pronunciation perspective and comprehension are challenges, what are some effective ways to work with the student so they really understand the beautiful imagery and word play the author has used? Is there a time when text is too complex for a student?

In an effort to stay involved with schools and students in my local community, I went to nyc.serve.gov to find more volunteer opportunities. During my search I found a small non-profit that has run a reading program in a few schools in the city. They happened to be working with a school in Brooklyn and needed volunteers. I was excited to have found the opportunity and decided that I would chronicle this experience as well.I met the coordinator to get a quick overview of the classroom and where the materials were located and before I knew it, we were picking up one of my students. She looked so happy to come out of class. She chatted easily with the volunteer coordinator, who accompanied me, about Transformers (the movie) and Alvin and the Chipmunks. I found myself a little rusty, following the coordinators lead and asking about likes and dislikes. Somehow talking to students is always so much more intimidating than speaking with adults. _Will they like me? Will I be interesting to them? Can I make a connection?_When we got back to the classroom, I gave my student (let's call her Sienna) the option to pick a book, she selected the first one she saw about kids around the world. The school had asked the coordinators to choose non-fiction texts due to the looming state tests. Upon hearing this, I felt complicit in this forced non-fiction book selection. Of course it was important for students to experience a genre of varieties, but at the expense of what? I digress.Sienna was enthusiastic at first about alternating readers. She read the first page and then I read the next page and it went like that. However, after two or three pages, she asked if we could draw. I didn't want to discourage her so soon after meeting her so I grabbed scrap paper and colored pencils. As we moved to the next page of reading I asked her to read the next page about a kid from Nunuvat and then she chose to draw a picture of a snow mobile. When I asked her "what is a snow mobile?" she was able to answer me but in a very vague way. She wanted to stick to drawing but I convinced her with a little pushing that we should keep reading.As she read I observed that when she encountered familiar words she read quickly but when it came to words that required sounding out she wouldn't even look at the word, she would glance away and then just say some syllables trying to match the beginning sounds. So for a word like "Nunuvat" she would just say "Nu waaa?" and look back at me. Any time I tried to get her to look at the word, she got listless. I could tell it wasn't the first time someone asked her to "sound out" the syllables. I tried to keep her engaged by asking her questions about what we were reading. For example when she read about the boy from Tanzania who lived near zebras, lions, etc, I said "what does a lion look like? Have you seen one? What about a zebra?"I also tried to ask questions about the text specifically, to evaluate comprehension, which is one of the main goals of the reading program. When I did I noticed that she was able to observe when the answer wasn't quite right and then, just as she's been taught, she would start reading small excerpts from the text until she got the question right.We got through the book, which described briefly six kids but she seemed increasingly disinterested in discussing the book. She asked a few times if it was lunch, time to go and also kept closing her eyes. I struggled to find ways to keep her interested in the text and from losing her interest all together.Given that it was day one together, I switched to asking her more about herself and telling her about myself. I now know that she loves math,science and Dora the Explorer. She explicitly mentioned that she doesn't like reading. I told her a few things about myself and was happy to hear she found it surprising I was older than 20.We never got to the reading response activity that we were meant to accomplish by the end of our time together. However, there would always be next week.My questions:

• How do you motivate a reader who even at such a young age has become discouraged with the process?
• How does the relationship between reader and teacher (in this case me) play into the reading process?
• Are there ways for me to change this paradigm for her? Or is my lack of knowledge on this topic only making things worse?
• Who will ultimately be responsible for her fluctuating ability to read more challenging words and texts?
• If she finds third grade challenging in terms of text, what happens in fourth grade?

There are so many more questions, but I will reserve them for a future post.

I was pleasantly surprised when I read the transcript of Mayor Bloomberg's state of the city address last week. After reading through the expected education coverage regarding state test scores and teacher evaluation, I came across the mayor’s remarks describing how Fred Wilson and an NYC teacher in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) are opening a Software Academy.Working in education over the last few years has piqued my interest about how schools and districts think about incorporating technology education into schools. I’m not referencing projects like one laptop per child or School of One, where the emphasis has been on implementing new hardware or software in classrooms. Rather, I'm talking about the technology education that provides students with the opportunity to devise solutions to real world problems by; conducting a needs assessment, reflecting on how technology could provide relief and then, design, test and implement a solution. I’m passionate about this kind of technology education because participation in computer and information science courses helped me to develop and hone unique skills that I’ve used at every juncture in my career.For whatever reason, my parents put me into a computer class at the age of 7. I loved the experience and still remember the satisfaction of "painting" colors across the screen and knowing that I had written some commands to make it happen. (My favorite color was a cross between fuchsia and mauve). I didn't really encounter programming again until I was 14. In the interim, I made up for it by playing games, learning all about America Online (AOL) and mastering Microsoft Office 3.1 and beyond. Prompted by my older sister's experiences with the famed computer /French teacher and my own interest, I signed up for computer science as my freshman elective. I was one of two girls in the class. In those days, we still had to boot the computers up, disk A, then disk B, and input some commands to start up our machines.But it was there in that small room jammed with computers and a large conference table (which is now reminiscent of many of the developer spaces I’ve been in) is where I learned about the value of flowcharts, about infinite loops and recursion, about bubble sorts and much more. It was such an empowering experience to take inputs and constraints, various solution paths and newly learned code and transform it into a working function and then to press F5 to "Run" the code and see our creation come alive.It was my also my high school teacher who spoke to us about majoring in computer science and introduced me to what would become my alma mater. I applied after hearing that it was a good school for computer science and that they were interested in creating more opportunities for women. My years at CMU, especially the last two that were wholly focused on design and development helped me to become a different kind of thinker. Since then, anytime I interact with technology, be it an ATM, the credit card machine at the grocery checkout, or an app on my iPhone, I look at it as a system of inputs and outputs and always find myself wondering "how does this work?" There were two ideas from my undergraduate studies that have stayed with me, both imparted by the head of our program at the time, Dr.Weinberg; first - software development was all about people, process and technology and second - technology will continue to evolve but the ability to problem solve and think strategically is something that will transcend time. He was right. My career to date has taken me into the private, non-profit and public sectors and regardless of the context, I have been able to draw on the approach to solutions development that I learned and practiced from a young age.So, when I hear about a new campus that will be built to center around this kind of thinking, I'm exhilarated. There is so much opportunity for students to learn about solutions development within the context of technology versus the "technology in the classroom" approach. Students will be exposed to a whole host of challenges and ways to approach them that are different than other subjects. Software development is layered - students will interpret a problem and perhaps conduct a needs assessment, in doing so they will learn the context and then they will need to understand the technology (the data systems, the software, the front end, the user experience, etc.) to implement the solution. The will internalize the mantra: design, build, test and repeat . The opportunities are endless and this is the kind of learning that is directly connected to college and career readiness. No standardized test can ever compare.

I got to thinking the other day about some of the technology practices that are now a part of the way I work and think. It started the other day when I mistakenly closed my gmail tab instead of another one. My gmail tab is always the left-most tab and always the first thing I open after clicking on my browser. Without gmail open, I momentarily felt lost. Even though there are other tools to keep organized, over time my e-mail box has been a way for me to manage external communications and my own to-dos. This is just one of many of the technology /computing practices that I realized I have adopted over the years, starting I suppose with our old AT&T green screen. Here are some others:Command-X, Command-A, Command-C, Command-V, Tab, Tab, TabI am not one of those people who get scared when my mouse isn't working, which often happens to our battery operated mac mouse. From a young age, first on a PC and eventually on a Mac, I quickly learned all of the shortcut keys needed to navigate any operating system. I am perhaps more artful with the four direction keys and the command key than I am with the mouse or my own finger because I've internalized these buttons. Date_DocName_versionnumberMy old team can probably provide stories for my obsession with appropriately naming documents. However, this is the way I kept organized. I used to get so irate when I would get a document that said something like "presentation1" or "mathhs." Those aren't document names! How are you supposed to find that in three months. My rule is the date, the document name which has to be descriptive and the version number. This became particularly important in an environment where everything gets checked, rechecked and checked again. To allay confusion and frustration, this was (and still is) my mantra for naming documents. It also speaks to my philosophy around contextualization. You need to provide people with some sense of what they're looking at, otherwise, it's just noise.Ctrl-SI remember my sister telling me when she was maybe in 9th grade or so, that she had typed up an entire paper, only to lose the entire document. She stayed up the rest of the night redoing the assignment.Somewhere between that an my own similar debacles in college, grad school and the workplace, I've become an obsessive saver. Even though auto-save is now a key feature in Microsoft Office, in online blogging platforms and other other tools, I still save. I make sure I know where it is saved and that I, myself initiated the save. I probably hit "ctrl-S" or "command-S" every 3-5 minutes while working on a document automatically.QWERTYI know the qwerty keyboard. I memorized it at 11 thanks to a required typing elective in 6th grade. I got better by typing the words I heard in conversation out with my fingers. I was determined to become a fast typer, and glad I persevered - I just did a typing test and I did 91 WPM. Makes writing e-mails that much less of a chore!**Sub-folder, Sub-folder, Sub-folder...**Just as I can't stand clutter in my closet, I can't stand it in my folders, so like many, I practice the art of "sub-foldering." It saves me time and angst. Sure, your content is nested within some filepath like Admin>Taxes>2011, but, the effort on the front end of creating these folders is well worth it when you can find your taxes in seconds! A related practice, is saving downloads from websites, e-mail, etc. into the folders by right clicking and opting to "Save as" into a specific folder, versus keeping everything in my Downloads folder.So why did I mention these? Well first, I am by no means under the illusion that these are the best practices or that others don't do these things and more. However, I can say with full confidence that these practices and others I've adopted over time allow me to use my computer more efficiently and focus my time on creating. You could even argue that what I've described are a set of non-traditional technology literacy practices that I've continued to tweak since I began using my dad's AT&T Green Screen. The real reason for this exploration is that I spent the last few months with middle school students at a "tech" focused school whose technology practices I've had a chance to observe. Through class assignments, they have mastered programs like iMovie, PowerPoint and MS Word as well as a whole host of educational video games. On the flip side, I've seen some of my students struggle with simple things like where a file goes when they download it from e-mail because the file structure hasn't been explicitly explained to them. Exposure and practice has helped them to learn the use of very technical tools, but occasionally it doesn't seem that it provides the conceptual understanding. So where does that come from?Is it more time with resources? My thought is that some of these things need to be taught, be it some of the "soft" tech practices and more concrete ones like how files and data get stored.I'm curious to know if anyone out there agrees, disagrees or has thoughts about things they've observed with their own students or even themselves.

I hope everyone is well rested after the holidays. This is the first time in a long time, I can honestly say that I feel that way. I did something I haven't given myself the chance to do in five years, to enjoy the art of creation.I spent most of the week leading up to Christmas in the 9x10 space that is my kitchen. On the Tuesday before Christmas, I cooked for nearly 10 hours. Eight of those delightful hours were devoted to making various treats for friends and family and two of those hours were devoted to making a large south indian meal for my husband who on occasion is known to ask for such a thing.It was perhaps the most exhilerating day I've had in a long time. I had all the recipes in my head, the preheat temperatures, the ingredients, the cooling requirements. After a few days of thinking about the recipes and how I would execute this plan, I went to work. I started with the cookie doughs I knew had to cool in the fridge, then onto some items that could be popped in the oven, while I prepped others. Within a few hours, I had dozens of chocolate chip, peanut butter blossom and sugar cookies on every surface of my apartment. There was also a tub of fresh homemade granola and a few trays of magic layer bars - just minutes of effort but tons of enjoyment for all who partake, and a childhood favorite of mine. And of course, a Christmas classic, peppermint bark. As I moved through each of the recipes and techniques, I felt like I was dancing.Was it simply the freedom of not having work the next day? Or the excitement of a new project or the novelty of baking on a Tuesday? What motivates one to have this type of limitless concentration? Why is this possible with some projects and not others?As I embark on my 2012 journey... a list of projects and goals that I hope to accomplish in the next few months, I am also excited to consider why and how we are motivated to learn and how that can be translated into the classroom.More to come on this topic.

I woke up today in a melancholy mood. The day I had been dreading for a few weeks had arrived - my yoga teacher would teach one last class before moving to the west coast. When she told us a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised at how affected I was by this news.In the last few days, I’ve been thinking about my yoga journey and why it mattered so much that my teacher was moving. I began coming to this studio three years ago on a Saturday morning, in search of a respite from an otherwise stressful work week. After my first class, I knew I had found a special place. The atmosphere was calm, the teacher I had was really thoughtful, supportive and welcoming and the studio itself was beautiful - a little intimate corner carved out in an otherwise bustling city.About a year and a half ago, a new teacher, we'll call her Jane, started to teach my Saturday morning class. The first time I attended her class, I left a little deflated. Jane’s sequences included many advanced poses that required strength, confidence and knowledge I hadn't developed yet. Those first few months with her, I struggled to keep up and was simultaneously conscious of the other students aptitude, strength and confidence Despite my feelings and my occasional frustration at not being able to do everything, I continued to attend because I still loved the practice of yoga. During her first few months as our teacher, I remember a session where Jane had us doing a very difficult sequence and people were exhausted but she implored us to push on. "I know it hurts and I know you want to stop, but push through it, don't give up, remain here, remain present, don’t give up because you can do it.” Her words hit me - I had always found it easier to stop, to slow down or to give up because my arm muscles were screaming or my abs just didn't work that way. But hearing her words of encouragement and to some degree, her incredulity that we would give up I was pushed to persevere.Thinking more about my experiences I realized there were two other things that really helped me over the last year. First, Jane always began class with an adage, a quote or a short reading from a seminal yoga text. She'd weave these themes into the class, as we moved through sequence after sequence and then close with a complimentary quote or adage. It always seemed that no matter what the theme, it somehow connected to where I was in life. Her approach helped me to see the bridge between the philosophy of yoga and the physical practice.Then there was the idea of breath; the idea of using the inhale and exhale to move in and out of a pose. Every time we would move into a pose that would challenge us physically, Jane would make sure to remind us to use our breath to regulate our actions. Intensely focus on breathing helps you to forget about the challenge in front of you - because the second you think about how hard something is, it becomes unattainable. For example, if you think about what a tree pose from side plank really is; balancing your weight in one hand and leg, while the other leg balances on your standing leg, it will intimidate you. But if you breathe through it and just focus on inhaling and exhaling, the pose will happen, or at least that's the hope.Looking back to when I began these flow classes with Jane, I would never even attempt to do the more difficult poses. I would just simply give up. Over time, I gained the confidence and strength to try poses that once seemed out of reach. I attribute a lot of this mental and physical growth to my teacher who consistently told us that we were capable of achieving anything, we just needed to focus, breathe, listen to our bodies and perhaps most important, soften our hearts.A great teacher can transform our lives. They can take the shy students who don't think they can achieve and foster in them a belief that they can accomplish anything they set their mind to. They can aid in the learning process by providing examples, by modeling and by making connections between class and our own lives. They can create a space so welcoming that students are excited about taking chances. This is what Jane did for me. So thanks to Jane and to all the teachers out there who help students to grow, learn, and change.

How can we build meaningful online learning experiences for educators?If you're active in the tech and ed space, you might be thinking that this need has been fulfilled by the many tools that have filled the marketplace over the last few years. There is certainly an abundance of technology available and so much of it for free, that it seems practically impossible that anything would be missing. However, upon closer examination, it seems like a lot of the tools being developed fall into the following categories:

• Classroom Management & Data (e.g. Edmodo, Echalk, Datacation)
• Content Management, Lesson Planning (e.g. BetterLesson.org)
• Assessments (Adaptive / Formative) & Student Centered Learning (e.g. Acuity, Achieve 3000)
• Communications with Parents (e.g. SnappSchool)
• Content Sites (e.g. ReadWriteThink.org, Edutopia.org, PBS.org)
• Teacher Evaluation & Professional Learning (e.g. MyLearningPlan, Teacher Compass)

(There are of course other buckets and even these could be defined or grouped differently, depending on what you see the core functionality for these products. In some cases some of the applications above fit in more than one bucket e.g. Edmodo which has collaboration, community and planning functionality).Many of these resources were developed to help teachers save time so they can focus on the most important aspect of their work - teaching! This is not only happening in education but in all industries where everyone is adopting new tools, new apps, new ways of organizing our work/to-do lists etc. Then, there is another bucket, which is largely driven by the state and federal reforms around using data to inform instructional decision making. Race to the Top (RTTT) has spurred a lot of growth in this industry, with companies looking to capitalize on the new expectations that all teachers, schools, districts are collecting and analyzing student data to ultimately impact changes in classroom practice. RTTT has also set expectations for teacher performance management and evaluation, which has also spurred a lot of growth in the tech-ed world. A new group of online platforms are being developed now to help schools and districts implement teacher evaluation systems that do everything from recording notes from principal or peer observations to filing formal teacher ratings. These systems also provided related online PD to help teachers refine their skills/content against pre-determined rubrics for effective teaching practice and in some cases also provide collaboration spaces.The last group of teacher evaluation/professional learning tools may seem like they are the best response to the question I posed above, but I will respectfully disagree. I'm not convinced that the learning experiences in these online environments is going to necessarily have lasting or meaningful impact for two reasons:

• they are situated within the context of an accountability system that requires the teacher to fulfill some set of online courses to show "growth" in their knowledge and skill within their subject/content area and/or pedagogical practice.
• they are tied to rubrics/definitions of effective teaching that don't necessarily include the perspectives of teachers and educators within the schools, so they are not authentic to the schools' needs.

I will have more to say on this topic, but this is laying the foundation for a subsequent inquiry into this question.

Today I went to the DMV to get a NY state license because my out of state license had expired. I had originally planned to get there at 8:30 when they opened but I got a late start and was there around 9:15am. I ended up writing the post below while I waited because I couldn't focus on GRE math problems amidst the constant interruptions of the robotic voice alerting people to which windows were open. It was like being in a bureaucratic casino if that makes sense. The rest of the blog post are my actual observations just as I jotted them down in my notebook.First some general observations about the DMV:

• no signage
• no clarity on what line to stand in
• no one up front greeting or telling you where to go including the security guards are not greeting/ guiding people in government offices (e.g. Marriage bureau, social security)
• it seems like most of the transactions that are happening here could be done online aside from ensuring credentials (e.g. SS#, passport)
• there is lady that is at the "number-getting" desk that has to yell out where people should go to make sure they aren't in the wrong line, seems to happen every 30 minutes
• there are a lot of lines required to get something done; line 1 is to sort people out and assign them a number and line 2 is taking some kind of action and line 3, is where the transaction is hopefully complete.

In my case the process has gone like this:

• 9:15am: I ask someone where to go and they point me to the number-getting line

• 9:24am: I'm called to the desk from the number-getting line where I'm asked what I need to do, my form is reviewed for completeness and I'm given a number and told to wait on the other side

• 10:15am:

• My number is finally up and I walk to a window (my first number sheet had calculated the estimated wait time was 28 mins, I had waited 50 minutes to get here)

• The lady checked my application, took a picture, I signed a piece of paper and then she gave me a new number

• 10:58am:

• My second number is announced on the board, I walk up to the counter with my paperwork

• The lady there reviews my ID again, types in all of my information, processes my payment and then hands me a temporary license

• 11:09am: I leave the DMV.

When people think about the government I bet they think of the DMV, the marriage license bureau, jury duty, social security office. I've happened to have such a year where I had business in all of these offices. I've spent more time staring at wood benches and beige walls than anyone should in a 12 month period. What I've realized is that the waiting has become somewhat normal and as I look around, it seems like most people are resigned to being here for awhile. But why? Why do we think this is okay? Sure it's just a couple of hours but that means a lot to someone who had to take a day off to wait in line.All of my time in waiting rooms this year, rounded out by the DMV, was a helpful reminder that these kinds of inefficiencies could be alleviated or at least improved with better technology and access to information. What if we automated things, so more could be done online? What if we formed a partnership with the local library so that people who needed computer assistance could work with someone who understood the technology? What if we take a step back from the assembly line approach to bureaucratic offices and think about having people do multiple tasks under the "customer service" umbrella?My Recommendations on How to Improve the Process 1. Put up signs so people know where to go and make considerations for people who might need language assistance. (From my observation today, that was a lot of people).

• For example, maybe they could use the 3 or 4 flat screen TV's I observed that had highlights on the upcoming Kardashian pregnancy and the weight of the new Macbook air. Perhaps using that to flash directions/instructions in different languages?

2. Develop a secure online form for people who have Internet access and are willing to take the time to complete their information before they arrive.

• When people who have filled out their forms online and are prepared, allow them to enter an "expedited" line where all their information is available to the customer service representative

3. Train people to do multiple functions so you can expedite the transaction( in this case getting a license) so that you can reduce the number of lines. Each person in line can be considered a "client" and each person behind the counter the customer service representative.

• I'm speaking to this because in my experience a lot of the state and local offices are beholden to the old structure of having each person the master of a very specific domain. This caused all kinds of gridlock because often there would be one person responsible for an essential function and that person could only work so fast. Leaders need to rethink this strategy, especially as it applies to the operational aspects of an organization.

4. Improve the actual website.

• If anyone's been to the DMV website, you'll know it does not adhere to good design principles. Pages upon pages of text are not useful or used. There are also a ton of typos and circular loops of links. I know that it may be a step up in comparison to other states' websites but NY state can't lag behind. The state is large and services are in demand especially the offices in New York City and their website isn't doing them or any of the users any favors. Yes there are definitely services available online, but given that I was in their offices on a regular Wednesday before 10am and there seemed to be a few hundred people with no sign of stoppage, I'd say that the usage is low.

The LessonThis week's lesson was to get the girls from gathering facts and information about their topics to actually getting into the scripting process. The format for class was to start with a writing activity, then go directly into taking the research they started last week to the next level. I wanted them to see how the research could lead to a compelling story. The first step was for each to team to generate more facts, then prioritize them based on the relevance to the message they were trying to convey with the PSA and finally start to write their scripts.We chose to start class differently which was prompted by my extreme frustration after last week's class. As the girls walked in we gave them an index cards with the following prompts.

• Respect is...
• I deserve respect because...
• I show respect by...

We had each girl present to their peers, which they always seem to enjoy. Unfortunately something that is frustrating is that after girls have presented they get distracted and aren't interested in listening to their peers and either interrupt or just ignore what's happening right before them. I kept saying "we are talking about respect, defining it, don't you think you should be living it?" Some of the girls paused but it didn't stop the three girls that are normally very outspoken and loud, from continuing to chat, call out and ignore their peers. However, we got through it and I really liked some of the things that the girls said. (More on that later!)After this, we said the pledge which has now become another favorite thing. We always have one or two girls lead the Pledge and the Promise with the rest of us repeating after. Again - an alacrity with regard to reading or speaking out loud. After we said the pledge, the girls broke up into their groups and continued their research and conversations. I had two groups that were on their laptops, working and pulling things together. My co-teacher and I circulated the room as the groups were working. However, there was a third group of girls who spent the time watching a video on bullying on repeat, giggling about it after each time they viewed it.Then, the three girls, or our trio just proceeded to cause a commotion. I continued to circulate the room and work with the girls but my co-teacher spent the rest of the class in and out of the hallway speaking with students and in some cases trying to find them.Reflections/ObservationsThere were also the three girls that are always very energetic and for a lack of a better term at the moment, exemplify persistent behavior issues. One of the girls is constantly screaming at the top of her lungs. All three have a tendency to disappear from class. They will run out into the hallway with or without a pass. They want to be free to chat, to run around and hang out with friends. I can't blame them but we feel the stress of trying to help them move along in this 'curriculum' that we're trying to implement. The thing I do mind is that they don't seem to respect myself or the co-teacher.This is where I struggle - is it my job to keep them in their seat so they can "learn" or as someone in an after school role is it more important for me to just try and connect with themresponses are what got me thinking. The number of responses that had said the listening to the teacher were remarkable... and kind of sad. Is that really what they believe or is that what they've been taught through school? I can't begin to judge because I don't understand the dynamics or structure of the actual school day but can't help but wonder why every student when prompted responded in nearly the same way. I will try to post some of these pictures (after blocking out the girls' names).Here's mine...

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. - Find Out What it Means to Me

Respect is being patient, kind and accepting of someone with the expectation that they will afford you the same treatment.I show respect (or at least I try to!) by listening to others, being kind without being selective, being patient, being particularly attentive to elders especially my parents and members of my family, by trying to appreciate people's viewpoints and pushing myself to be more openminded.I deserve respect because I give respect and maybe because I try to be a good person and try to do the right thing even when it's not always easy.

The LessonThe goal of today’s lesson was to get the girls to start looking at media with a critical eye. This was going to be done by looking at multiple PSAs and responding to questions and having a discussion. Now you might recall that this was supposed to happen last week, but there were a whole host of issues that you can read about here.This week we dug right in by asking them to look at a PSA with us. In an effort to model more, we had built in a completed version of the graphic organizer that I had created to get the girls to apply their thinking to the activity. My co-teacher led this part of the activity, having the girls read the different parts out loud. Now I’m not a fan of graphic organizers, maybe it’s just the phrase and it’s overuse in education circles! However, I realized in an earlier class, that asking the girls to write things down resulted in kicking off the thinking process. (I was further motivated to do this given our struggles with scaffolding discussions).Once we had gone through the model, we put up a new print ad on teen pregnancy that had the same questions. The idea behind this was to show the differences between how a print-ad had to be structured to be effective versus a video ad. Since we had looked at video PSA on teen pregnancy the week prior, we kept on this topic. It took some time, but the girls started to think about the ad and towards the end, I even heard things like “oh, yeah they used language like ‘be a kid… forever.” It was amazing to see them make the connections!Then, we did this activity two more times with two videos. The first was again on teen pregnancy and the second was on cyber bullying. The teen pregnancy ad that we found used humor as a way to get the message across in comparison to the previous one which was more morose and dramatic. The girls found this video particularly funny but were also able to take away the message. A strategy that worked for us while they did some thinking about the videos was to stop and conference with them in small groups or individually. I was asking questions like, “I agree that this ad is to stop teens from getting pregnant but why was it effective? How was it different from the one we watched last week?” Pushing them to explain their thinking and get beyond answer-getting was I think the most important work we did during this activity.We then watched the third video on cyberbullying. This one was definitely a shocking video that based on the conversation after, hit a nerve with the girls, in a good way! Before we launched into the discussion, what we did was to break the girls up into their project groups for the rest of the term. Then, we asked them to discuss their responses to questions with one another. We didn’t scaffold for group discussion, so our strategy was to use conferencing with groups to hear their feedback.Some of the girls couldn’t believe that in this particular ad, that the girl who was being verbally attacked and didn’t stand up for herself. They were like “she should have had a chance to fight back or respond to those things.” It was so exhilarating to see them talking and reacting!Then, we asked the girls to start thinking about topics they wanted to work on for their Print/Video PSAs. We actually got to the friendship circle this time and then dismissed on time.At the end, despite the girls still having enough energy to move mountains, we got through a chunk of what we wanted to do, but more importantly we were able to have a larger discussion which helped them to see the connections to the work we want to do with them in the next 6 weeks.Thoughts/ObservationsThroughout this activity, one thing that was really surprising to me was that the kids keep thinking I’m looking for a right answer. They have this tendency to ask me for a new paper because they messed up or wrote the wrong answer. They always seem concerned about responding “incorrectly” even though I kept saying, I was more interested in their thinking. There was also a lot of “answer-getting” where one girl would listen to my conversation with another student and write down the ‘right’ phrase. However, we still got them at least thinking and talking. Upon closer observation and further reflection on the questions themselves, I think I would have adjusted the PSA reflection template to have the question “who do you think is the intended audience? Why?”This was the best day by far, but it was still massively chaotic. We had one student (one I’ve mentioned before) walking out of class every 5 minutes, tons of requests to use the bathroom (which I now know is code for moving around school to see what other kids are doing) and the other co-teacher kept having to have conversations with a couple girls to keep them focused. I also had one student who despite multiple requests didn’t really feel the need to stop using her laptop to shop for UGG boots. However, what I thought we did well was to keep the class moving and kept the majority of the girls focused and part of the conversation.Moment of ZenIf you’re a Jon Stewart fan, this was my moment of Zen: The lead teacher for the program came into our room while we debriefed after class and said by the way X student came up to me and said “Ms. J, I love my apprenticeship now!” This girl, who is a smart, (sometimes sassy) 8th grader, got placed here because she had done another apprenticeship twice and the teachers wanted her to do something different. She’s expressed her lack of interest in the media apprenticeship and I’ve asked her to bear with me and tried to give her opportunities, but to hear that she might actually like what we’re doing was a true moment of joy!

The Lesson On my way to class I stopped to try and print the documents for our lesson because of some printing restrictions at the school. Everywhere I went the lines were huge as was the wait and then when I finally found a place that printed, they didn’t have up-to-date software. With 10 minutes to get from where I was to the school, I ran down into the subway, only to realize that I was on the downtown side. I ran across the street, or so I thought only to realize I kept crossing Lexington Avenue the wrong way!All this to say, when I finally got to class, I was 10 minutes late and I walked into complete chaos. Some girls were in the back of the classroom hitting one another with bean bag chairs, others were running around and it felt like they were all yelling something or the other.It took another several minutes to get the girls in their seats and working on their “do-now” which was to do an activity in their Girl Scout handbooks. I explained the activity and asked the girls to begin working on it, but within seconds, half the class had their hands raised. I walked from desk to desk trying to explain what needed to happen. The activity was asking girls to think about all the media they consume and “Slice” a pie with pieces that were proportional to their use of those media. Looking back, I think I was so flustered, I’m not sure if I explained this really well. However, I made another observation, which is that most of the girls, even those who had mentioned their love for math, didn’t see the connection to fractions / proportions. I also observed that many of the girls also didn’t read the directions on the page, and when they did, I could tell weren’t really comprehending what they read, based on the questions they were posing as I walked around the room. It was the first time we used their books and we were just trying to find a way to get the girls settled.The next part of the plan was for us to engage in a get-to-know-each other game. My goals in designing this activity were two-fold, one was for everyone to get to know one another better because we hadn’t had that opportunity since the group had grown in size and the second was to demonstrate a participatory data collection method that could help inform their final projects. Half of the girls groaned, moaned and declared they weren’t going to play the game. I was shocked, why not? Despite this initial reaction, we persevered. One strategic “teaching move” we made was to ask a student who has been acting up in class, to be the person who mediated the game, because she always expresses interest in helping with the computer. She advanced the power point and read out the statements. We got through the first 8 statements and somewhat gathered feedback from the kids to explain their agreement/disagreement. However, at the end of the game, we didn’t really get anywhere because it still felt so chaotic and the girls couldn’t see the connection to the work.Finally, we decided to move into reviewing the PSAs. Unfortunately we spent 15-20 minutes trying to get the smartboard and the internet to cooperate with us. During this time the girls, understandably grew impatient, bored and annoyed. I heard a few comments that said things that asked us why we didn’t test this out ahead of time and why we weren’t prepared. It was so deflating because I had worked so hard in structuring this lesson and it was the first time I had the “Aha!” moment during planning. In the end, we asked the girls to gather around the other teacher’s laptop and respond to the questions that we had originally planned to print. When they saw the video, I could see the girls actually getting into the activity and writing/thinking about the questions we were asking. From our standpoint, the video, which was about teen pregnancy was provocative and relevant enough that it grabbed their attention.As things went during this class, the final bell rang just as we were getting somewhere. Another week where I felt all I had done was waste their time.Observations/Connections:

• When the facilities for teachers aren’t available (e.g. access to printers, copy machines) and/or monetary resources (e.g. quotas on printing) it makes it much more difficult to be effective.
• The firewalls in schools, even on teacher computers is incredibly limiting because teachers are forced to find all kinds of workarounds that take up time and energy better spent elsewhere.
• In an essay written by Pedro Noguera that I read this week, one of the findings from a study he references indicates that students expressed frustration when they feel teachers are not prepared for class. This hit home for me as I reflected on this lesson. If I want them to do their job, I should have done mine.
• In terms of structuring the lesson, the “do now” and game were not as connected to the end goal as I had originally thought. Had I planned the lesson a bit earlier, I could have gotten feedback from my co-teacher to make those adjustments. Unfortunately I finished at 1pm and sent it out, which was two hours before class and too late for my co-teacher to react. It made me again truly appreciate how hard it must be to have small chunks of time to do all of the planning for regular teachers who have multiple classes, students and in some cases subjects.

The LessonI was so upset about this lesson, I couldn't write about it for nearly a week. It probably felt worse because going into the lesson, I was so much more confident. My co- teacher and I worked together to plan week two so that the content was relevant to the girls interests and there was a lot of hands on opportunities. This lesson was to look at how media shapes our understanding/perspectives/beliefs about women’s beauty. The three core activities were first to watch a video about beauty and have a discussion, then work collages by picking out all of the beauty products being sold to women and finally have the girls present their collages and talk about their impressions of how media shapes our understanding of beauty.During the first activity we watched a video PSA that was made by Dove showing a woman undergoing a transition through makeup, hair and finally digital retouching. We watched the video a few times and then the plan was to have a discussion about what the girls observed in the video and discuss the questions that I posed to the girls. At first, it was like pulling teeth, no one had any feedback. I persisted with the questioning and the girls slowly started to respond. Unfortunately the responses weren’t what I was trying to get at. The girls were volunteering comments like “well she was ugly and they made her pretty, good for her” and “she looks better now.” My hope was that we could have talked about how artificial the beauty we see on billboards/in magazines really is, because so much of it is manufactured. I was hoping the girls would be able to talk about how the video made them feel but it was a very superficial discussion.Then I tried to do a short overview of stereotypes and perceptions of beauty. I was not prepared for this despite all my preparing. Presenting content to new learners is so hard and this is where classroom management becomes so crucial. We had (without warning) been assigned 4 more girls, bringing our total up to 10. Two of the new girls and one that been a challenge last week were running around the room, occasionally yelling out, talking over both myself and the co-teacher but always ready to say “Oh I apologize” in the same breath. Unfortunately this did make it easier to have a discussion. To complicate matters, my co-teacher was away and so there was a sub in the room to help me, but she wasn’t familiar with the girls making it harder for either of us to deal with behavior.After muddling through the media mini-lesson, I moved the girls on to the media collages. We broke them up into groups of 2-3 and gave them each a women’s magazines (e.g. Vogue, Women’s Health) and had them look out for the various beauty products being marketed to women. While they cut these out and created a collage, we asked the girls to discuss what kind of influence these types of images had on women’s thoughts on beauty and what was necessary to be beautiful. The girls seemed engaged and for the most part content doing this activity. However, we had a whole slew of behavior issues, with the same 2-3 girls. One of them was running in and out of class, one girl was yelling and trying to provoke her classmates and the other one was just vying for a bit of attention. I was struggling to keep my cool, work with the girls who were trying to participate and keep things moving along.Finally, after giving extra time, I had the girls present their collages in teams. Again, modeling!!! I'm kicking myself right now because I had control over that! That's when I felt like I had lost the classroom, girls were in and out, there was all kinds of movement. They seemed to like presenting but they didn’t want to listen to each other, so when they weren’t presenting they were all over the place.We didn’t even get to the friendship circle and I barely had the energy to say goodbye. I was devastated.Reflections on Today’s LessonAfter two classes, my most significant takeaway is that discussions are something that take a really long time to get right and I am not yet sure how to get there. This is even true with peer to peer discussions. Despite the framing I gave to the girls to discuss with their partners they didn’t know what they were supposed to say to one another. One way I countered that was to circulate to each group while they worked independently and ask them about what they were working on, which got them to talk to me, but not one another. What I had hoped was that there would be a more meaningful discussion about why the pictures did or did not meet the criteria and the implications. As I type that I realize that I didn't model for them what I wanted them to do. I fell into the trap of simply giving instructions without any structure, so they did as much as they could given the information they had available. What this says about teaching (to me) is that this model of I do, you do, we do, is really important. If I can’t do the task and show it to them, at least at the beginning, then why should I think they can?Another thing that just occurred to me is that I was made aware by the girls that they didn't sign up for my apprenticeship, at least most didn't. However, kids ranging from kindergarten to 8th grade don’t really sign up for any classes, but a teachers job is still to teach and create meaningful, engaging learning experiences.Additional ReflectionsHere are more notes I jotted down for me to think about as I plan for next week. The general theme is developing the classroom environment for effective discussions and questions that lead to critical thinking and rich classroom discourse. They are somewhat repetitive but felt like it was helpful to include for those of you thinking about the same things!

• Always model or do the first example together. Don't get intimidated! What’s worse is not setting expectations and giving them clear objectives/goals and supports to actually participate in the learning experiences.
• Starting next week, work on the scaffolding necessary to have a class discussion where girls are not only responding voluntarily (versus being called on) but also able to respond to each other and eventually lead the discussions. This is going to be the hardest work because it requires so much focus, attention and planning. I don’t think I fully appreciated this until tonight! However, the first thing is to build the rapport and trust with the girls. Getting them to share their opinions without the foundation will only result in responses that are what they think I want to hear.
• I noticed that the girls are much more used to “thinking on paper.” If they have a graphic organizer that has questions, they will do some thinking to respond to questions. However, if I posed the same questions out loud, even sequentially, they won’t always respond the same way. I need to get them to move beyond “thinking on paper.” Again I think it comes down to modeling and practice.
• Before I left the DOE, we had done a series of PD activities with educators on looking at questioning in the classroom and trying to evaluate teachers using the Danielson rubric. I think my questioning techniques for this class were developing. Unfortunately, the thing that the rubric doesn’t do is really help me think about the steps necessary to get to effective.

Today was my first lesson, actually my first formal teaching experience and it was probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done. Six young women looking at me expectantly wondering why they were there and trying to figure me out. My co-teacher and I trying to figure out how to work together on the fly while moving through a lesson that I only felt partially comfortable about. The general outline was: ice breaker, charting norms, Girl Scout Law & Promise, Media Walkabout, Learning Camera Moves and then the friendship circle.I started the lesson asking each of the girls to share something about themselves. They were seated in a semi-circle and myself and my co-teacher sat in the circle as well. They each responded but didn't elaborate or explain when prompted for more details. Then, I tried to start a discussion on how we could work together over the next 10 weeks and what our group norms should be. The girls were really quiet and didn't seem like they wanted to share so I ended up using their names to call on them to solicit responses. Afterwards, I introduced the girls to the Girl Scout law and the promise and we recited both, as is customary at the beginning of a GS meeting. As a way to transition into the main goal of this lesson, I talked to the girls about media - what is it? what does it mean? What does it look like? Trying to have a discussion proved challenging, so I again called on the girls and also used some questions like "how many of you checked email today, what about facebook, did anyone watch television?" I think this helped to make some connections but ultimately wasn't the information exchange I had wanted. Then, it was time for them to do what the Girl Scout curriculum called a "media walkabout" where the girls were supposed to look at evidence of media in their environment. In this case, it was the classroom and eventually the hallway. I explained the activity, broke the girls up into pairs and asked them to start working but quickly realized, as I circulated that what they were really doing was writing down all the brands but not really understanding what I wanted them to do which was to observe all the places where media was present(e.g. the use of media like signs, flat screens, posters on classroom walls).The girls enjoyed the activity because it got them up and walking around but as far as understanding why we had done it and how it was connected to the bigger picture, I missed the boat. We ended with the Girl Scout friendship circle. We went around and asked the girls to reflect on what they liked about today and what they were looking forward to for next week. Most of the girls responded that they enjoyed the walkabout but one student just plainly and respectfully said "I don't think today was very interesting and hope next week is better." At the end, I was exhausted and unfulfilled. I wanted to get them excited and energized about this class but realized I hadn't really provided enough supports/context to make this happen. I can only imagine their frustration and confusion at the end of our 90 or so minutes together. I also realized we hadn't even gotten close to getting to the other activity that was planned, which was about learning camera moves.I recorded my immediate observations of the lesson on the train ride home. Here they are raw and unedited:Positives

• I am comfortable with kids and can manage around them
• I'm able to give instructions and have some instincts about classroom management
• I treated the kids with respect
• I was somewhat agile about making adjustments to what we were doing based on feedback
• I learned their names quickly

Areas for Development

• Preparation devoid of knowing students is not that helpful, most of what I had planned fell flat except the media walkabout
• I did not ask enough specific or higher order questions
• My lesson felt disconnected from the larger goal in some ways
• I did not include checks for understanding but did include checks for mood
• Some norms I forgot to include: sharing our feelings/ thoughts / opinions in an honest way is a good thing
• I didn't know just how to deal with X student who was talking/ distracting and I think in general terms would be characterized as displaying behavior issues
• Having a discussion was really challenging, the girls either didn't feel comfortable or I hadn't provided enough context Other observations- The girls are into music, cooking, animals, how can we incorporate some of their interests? Here is the e-mail I wrote to my co-teacher after the session:Hi there! Thanks for your support today during and after class! I'm still reflecting on today's lesson and how I can learn for next week. One thing I realize is that there is way more teacher talk (from me!) than necessary. I'm going to work really hard to focus on bringing out the student voice like you mentioned.The girl scout model is supposed to be.. "I do, we do, you do" and imagining you guys have a similar approach, so I will be conscious of that next week.

As part of the after school program's structure, each apprenticeship is preceded by a "pitch" session where the kids go from room to room to hear about the different opportunities and then rank their choices the week before apprenticeships begin. We were told we would have about 5 minutes to pitch students on the topic of our apprenticeship and we would see 11 groups each.I hadn't been reassigned a teaching partner, but did have the chance to get together with some other women leading the Girl Scout MEdia series at another school. We worked together to create what I thought was a good pitch. The final power point had some slides on the Girl Scouts, a game using images of female celebrities and some other general information about the apprenticeship.I got to campus around 4:15 and flipped through my slides nervously. The bell rang and suddenly it was my turn to rally the crowd in the room and get them excited about Girls & Media. I spent 4 harrowing minutes trying to go through a power point while kids yelled out, rolled their eyes, put their heads down on the desk and asked the other teacher if they could go to the bathroom. I kept getting "what is this apprenticeship about?" and at that point I didn't have a great answer. Then before I could wrap my head around what had happened, the bell rang, the kids lined up and more kids flowed into the room. I was again caught unawares, struggling through the slides, trying to explain why girls and media was interesting. I still hadn't quite figured out the end goal, the big picture, at least it seemed that way to the group of kids in the room.Thankfully my survival instincts kicked in and I switched up the order, skipped the slides about me (because let's be honest, they didn't care!) and did one other thing, I had the girls sit up front, since they were my target audience. Pitch sessions 3-11 were much better. The game, where I put up pictures of celebrities on the screen and had them shout out who they were, was popular, with boy even shouting out answers from the back. So was the slide that had an image of a Girl Scout sash filled up with patches and pins. I could literally see some eyes twinkling in the name of badges!At the end of the hour and a half, I was exhausted. Every time a new class walked in, I had to gauge the energy, decide where was best to start to ensure that they were remotely interested and then present the content in a way that wasn't over complicated so that they knew generally what we would be doing for 10 weeks. My brain was racing, how could that have been done better? What wasn't really framed in a way that was meaningful for the students? How do I handle behavior issues? Did I make sense?!Some other interesting things that came up during the session, the kids all knew people like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Vanessa Hudgens (didn't have a clue who she was until this week!). Most of them knew Hillary Clinton, as the woman who "lost to Obama" in the election. However, I thought it was interesting that most kids couldn't recognize Katie Couric, although some kids shouted out "that's the lady from the news!" and a lot of kids didn't know who Oprah was. It made me think again about getting to know them better, understanding who they were so that I could relate to them.

So after a general mentor training with the after school program coordinators, I met with my partner to plan out the curriculum and settle on the final project/task that the girls would work on throughout the 10 week period. I came to the planning session with what I thought was a clear sense of the final outcomes. However, even though I have seen a zillion curriculum maps, putting down "the" culminating task on paper along side the skills being assessed, the ties to college and career readiness and the content knowledge all in one place suddenly seemed so much more challenging. All of this had to be done in 35 minutes because the training was just 2 hours. The task felt insurmountable but what made it even more difficult was that I had just met my co-teacher for the first time.We began with one of many graphic organizers (for those of you who aren't familiar, a graphic organizer is using a print document as a guide to help people with what could become a task with no structure/boundaries- there are graphic organizers for everything!) that outlined our 10-week curriculum. We had a tense conversation that I at the time attributed to her not understanding the big picture of the program / curricula. I felt like I was being challenged with what were solid ideas but at the same time struggled to really provide a sound argument for why I thought my ideas were right/good/logical. Needless to say, at the end of 35 minutes we had not accomplished much and the curriculum map graphic organizer remained almost entirely empty. I left tense and frustrated with myself and with my partner and no closer to being prepared to start teaching.However, as I had some time to reflect on the session and realized a few things:1. When collaborating with someone new the first and most important thing you have to do is to get to know one another so that you can be productive together. Trying to set some norms about how we'll work together, what are expectations are of one another etc. (Why are we both interested in this work? What do we hope to accomplish together? )2. What I thought was a clear sense of an end product/ larger assessment or project didn't really exist. I wanted the girls to create a bunch of things - a PSA, a radio ad, a print ad, but the rationale for doing so was missing. What was the goal of creating all of these things? How did they fit together? When the girls walked away from our 10 weeks together, what were the skills and content they could use? How did this connect to their other work? 3. Layering all of the different components of curriculum development is really really really hard work! This is my perspective, but I have absolutely no idea how someone can pick up a curriculum they didn't write and just make use of it without really digging in and making adjustments. I realize now that the Girl Scout curriculum is a guide of activities, materials and tasks, but, it was still my job to make sense of it and to break it down into modular pieces or lesson. (During the first meet up with the other teacher, I was not using the book as a guide or a reference, but rather the source of ideas).A side note - I just got word that my co-teacher isn't coming back due to some other issues, so for now, I am writing my "pitch" by myself. I hope that it goes okay!!

For the last three years, I've been lucky to (simply put) highlight what works in schools so other educators can benefit from the insights and hard work of their peers. This journey has afforded me the opportunity to visit schools and learn from principals, teachers, coaches and perhaps most importantly students about what works and why. Throughout this time, I became increasingly curious about the "how" of what works. In other words, it's one thing for a school or an individual to share why they think something works but learning or understanding how something happens, learning about the steps that lead up to a successful moment in the classroom is what I've been very curious about... How does it feel? How do you make this seem so easy? How do fourth graders have a mature and rich conversation about a text they read on Molly Pitcher? How did you get 7th grade students to so beautifully execute the Socratic method? and on and on...So, when my local Girl Scout volunteer coordinator called me up and asked me if I would be interested in teaching a 10 week course as part of their partnership with a local after school program, I responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" I surveyed the three curricula that had been developed by the Girl Scouts and settled on MEdia, which was about helping young women to understand how media impacts their lives and how they could use media to affect change in their own communities.At this point I feel confident about teaching this course because I use and make media all the time and in the last few years, I have helped to shape the way the DOE creates content to make it the most useful and accessible for adult learners.My next steps are to meet my partner, identify the end goal or major task / project that the girls will work on throughout our time together and write the unit outline and first lesson plan. I can't wait!