Sunday, June 26, 2011

"Reading Problems Are a Public Health Problem"

New York, NY, USA

We're getting to the more detailed part of our look at disability in the schools, and I found this video while working on my homework. It's an amazing look not only at what it's like to be a child with a disability, but also what it's like to be the parent or sibling of someone with a disability.

In the second half of the program, we're introduced to the tragic story a young man in Boston from whom this post gets its title. It was startling to me to hear that some states estimate the prison space to build based on third grade reading levels! It's a controversial measure, but you can imagine how it might have come into being. Imagine being 2 or 4 or 6 grade levels behind in reading, and failing all your exams, just because you're not getting the right support for an emotional or learning disability! It would be enough to anger even the most even-tempered of us!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Bronx: First Impressions

Bronx, New York, USA

This morning I went to two interviews in the South and East Bronx, both of which involved long bus rides through the borough, and I had a lot of time to think about the area.

We're all familiar with the Bronx's reputation from the 1990s. That's probably why one recruiter at a recent DOE Job Fair said, "You're willing to teach in the Bronx? We will definitely be getting in touch with you!" I must have looked surprised, because she said, "I'm serious! We have such a hard time finding teachers who are willing to work in the Bronx!" I know my father likes to tell about a story he'd heard on NPR about an experiment leaving cars broken down on the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I95), and finding them stripped of everything but the frame within 2 hours. That's not even to mention the reputation for gangs, violence and crushing poverty.

It's not like that anymore. Crime rates are way, way down all across New York City since the bad ole days of the 90s, and that goes for the Bronx, as well. In fact, there's some serious gentrification going on around here. It makes sense. No one can afford to live in Manhattan anymore, and even Harlem, Washington Heights, and Brooklyn are getting too expensive for the middle class. So people are starting to move into the Bronx.

All along the 6 line uptown to my neighborhood, for example, are these huge brick buildings that I want to know a lot more about. I think they must have been built in the early 1900s as tenements or workers' housing, because they have these really interesting sculptures on their corners, almost Socialist-Realist in style. Now, though, they're condominiums with solidly middle class restaurants and stores like UNOs and Macy's in their lowest levels.

From the bus today, I saw a wide range of homes: rowhomes, duplexes, apartment complexes, and even one small neighborhood that was all one-story ranch houses with half- or quarter-acre grassy lawns. Surreal, really.

The Bronx is also much more multi-cultural than I had expected. The small businesses in my neighborhood - restaurants, halal groceries, 99 cent stores, hair and nail salons - tend to market to a Latino, African-American or Bengali customer base. I think almost a quarter of the people in my building complex are Muslim by the women's headscarves, mostly Arabic-speaking as far as I can tell, though I've heard Turkish, lots of Spanish, and some languages I can't identify.

Actually, as I walk down the street, I'm often reminded of when I taught that course on Islam at "nerd camp." We read an essay from Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out about Hispanic women in the United States converting to Islam in significant numbers, putting on the hijab and all. When their families protested, these women said that the "uniform" that Hispanic girls have to wear to be respected - short skirts, tight shirts, teased hair, lots of make-up - was just as restrictive but far less respectful than the hijab. It was an interesting academic inquiry for me, but I didn't know how true it was. Now, though, I've noticed quite a few young Muslim women, wearing hijab and speaking fluent Spanish.

I think I'll be glad to live here!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Techniques of Teaching

Bronx, New York, USA

I've been hearing about Doug Lemov's book for more than two years, and it's been on my "to buy when I'm back in America" list since I first heard it mentioned. I almost bought it yesterday, but decided I should wait till I got my first paycheck in September ... or at least the last of my summer stipend!

It's lucky I didn't buy it yesterday, because today all 450 New York City Teaching Fellows received a copy of Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov!

Obviously, I haven't read it yet, but this is what I know about it: Doug Lemov was, by his own admission, not a great teacher. So he set out to study, in a quantitative, scientific manner, what makes a great teacher. After thousands of hours of observing teachers who just seemed to know what it took to get all students to succeed and close the dreaded achievement gap, he distilled 49 techniques. Use these techniques and know your subject matter, he says, and your students can't help but learn! Since then, his Uncommon Schools network has trained hundreds of teachers to use these techniques, and they have achieved unbelievable successes. I want to be one of those great teachers, and now I have this great tool (or 49 of them) for getting there!

Also at today's Welcoming Event we saw performances by special needs students of a variety of former Fellows, and listened to inspiring stories from city administrators and successful Fellows. One of the latter read, with tears in his eyes, one of my favorite poems by Taylor Mali, Undivided Attention: What All Teachers Want and Few of Us Ever Get:

Saturday, June 18, 2011

the one where she works herself sick

Bronx, New York, USA

Well, it may have been the pollen allergies and the shock of the climate change between Cairo and Maine that actually made me sick, aggravated by the pace at which I've driven myself to complete all the prerequisites for the New York City Teaching Fellowship I began this week.

In any case, I'm now almost completely over almost two weeks of a left tonsil and ear infection (only the left!) and almost completely recovered and ready to start blogging again! (As my very busy Fellowship schedule permits, I hasten to add!)

Wish me luck!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Lobster Leavings

South Bridgton, Maine, USA
From Lobster Dinner by Dad
After our lobster dinner two nights ago, we left the shells of the lobsters and steamers on the back patio till we could take them out to the compost ... and then we didn't take them to the compost. Yesterday I noticed that the cats had been in the lobster shells ... but this morning it turned out not to be cats! Lots more pictures on the Web Album!
...and then I moved to the Bronx, leaving lobsters and raccoons alike behind me for awhile!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Dad Does Lobster

South Bridgton, Maine, USA
From Lobster Dinner by Dad
Mom had told me that Dad had become quite the professional at cooking lobster, so I asked if it was in the budget to have a lobster dinner. "Is that what you want for your birthday dinner?" asked Mom. My birthday's not for another month, but I'll be in the Bronx then, and won't have enough time to come to Maine. I said yes, and made sure to have my camera to document the process.
My brother was right when he said that Dad had an impressive apparatus for boiling lobsters. It was a fun process to watch as he steamed the clams (steamers) first, and then the lobsters themselves.

And, oh, was it yummy! Happy birthday to me!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Monson and Sturbridge Tornado

Monson & Sturbridge, Mass., USA
From Monson Tornado
Yesterday and the day before, my father and I got to see two different sites along the trail of the tornado that ripped through the greater Springfield, Mass., area this past week. There's a glare on the pictures, because they were taken through the window, but they turned out surprisingly well, catching a swath of damage, including a house in Monson with a FEMA tarp and it's roof next door.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Computers in Education

If a computer can do it better than a teacher, get rid of the teacher!
- Arthur C Clarke
to Sugata Mitra
(I don't mean to say that I agree with Mr. Clarke ... but it's an interesting idea!)

Despite the mountain of work I have left to do before I start the New York Teaching Fellowship on the 15th, I keep getting lost on TED again. It's so easy to just keep clicking on video after video. I started showing my artist mother my perennial favorite on education, Sir Ken Robinson's "Schools Kill Creativity", because I knew she'd agree totally with it.

Then I discovered an awesome guy, Salman Khan, whose Khan Academy is transforming the way kids learn math - and now other subjects - across the world, and particularly in the Oakland city schools where he's been running a fascinating experiment in teaching and tracking student understanding.

So I was telling my friend Sean about this when I surfed his couch last week, because it seemed like the perfect job for him when he said he wanted to use his computer skills to help technology do something transformative in the classroom. Sean jumped right up to grab his laptop. "You have to see this guy!" he said, and headed for TED.com to show me another visionary in technology transforming learning, Sugatra Mitra.

I know there's more of this out there. As the famous "Shift Happens" videos have been expressing for years, we are training our students for careers that haven't even been invented yet, and the old models of education aren't going to work. Moreover, we can't even begin to appreciate what education will look like in 10 years, but these and other innovative education and IT thinkers are working towards something really transformative. Getting lost on TED this week has only fed my enthusiasm about my "new" career in education...

...so I'm calling it "research" instead of "procrastination"!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Lady Slippers and Lupines

South Bridgton, Maine, USA
From Lady Slippers and Gardens
I almost finished my Intro to Special Education online course today, and rewarded myself by taking my camera out in the sunshine to take pictures of butterflies and flowers, especially Grandma's pride and joy, her lady slipper orchids.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

First Rain Since Cairo

South Bridgton, Maine, USA
From First Rain Since Cairo
It doesn't rain much in Cairo, and when it does, the result is more depressing than cleansing. Cairene rain just brings down the smog and dust in the air, swirls it around a little with the smog and dust already settled over everything, and leaves the city a streaky sort of smudgy. So just as I vowed back in April, when I saw that it had begun raining today, I went out and danced in it! Never mind the lightning, the tornado warnings.... I wanted to feel the rain on my face, my shoulders, my outstretched arms. I wanted to spin around under the raindrops and revel in the cleansing power of a good country rain. And so I did!
Then, because everything was so fresh and beautiful, especially in my mother's extensive flower gardens, I grabbed my camera and went out to document raindrops on leaves and flower petals.