What's So Good About CMSD?

More than a hundred high school students from schools across the district found their way to the Idea Center at Playhouse Square Thursday afternoon to experience the arts. The event drawing them together was the 6th annual All City Arts Program open house, designed to introduce CMSD high school students to the after school program.

In small groups they met with professional artists in a variety of arts disciplines to explore new outlets of creative expression. They danced, sang, acted, painted, and learned how to perform poetry that they wrote.

Before they left that evening the students gathered in the Westfield theater to present their afternoon's work to the group. The energy in the theater was remarkable. The applause and cheering could be heard throughout the building for more than half an hour as the teenagers amazed themselves and each other with their presentations.

The All City Arts Program has evolved over the past 6 years from simply a cadre of student performance groups to an after-school art school for Cleveland high school students. Meeting twice a week at the new John Hay High School at University Circle, the program will offer arts experiences for teenagers across the district that are not available to them in the regular curriculum's of the individual high schools.

This year, for the first time, the visual arts have been added to All-City with the creation of the Atelier program. Atelier students will meet at John Hay Monday and Wednesday afternoons for workshops, and have the opportunity to participate in field trips and other arts events and programs throughout the city. October 1st will begin the first session.

Thursday September 27th at 4:00, arts organizations from across Cleveland will be meeting at Trinity Commons to discuss after school programing for teens, and to brainstorm ideas for new collaborations and the development of new partnerships.

If you are interested in attending this meeting please send me an e-mail.
mary.matthews@cmsdnet.net

Cleveland Students Talk About Guns

I posed the question again to another group of students. "What do you think is the reason for all the gun violence in the city lately?"

Once again, the answer was immediate, but this time it was different.

"Drugs"

"Can you explain ?"

"Well, if you sell drugs you need a gun, 'cuz you have to protect yourself from the crazy crackheads who buy from you, and you have to protect your money too, because when people know you're sellin' they'll try to jump you for either the drugs or the cash."

"Are guns easy to get in Cleveland?"

"Real easy"

One of the girls who lives in Slavic Village, a neighborhood that has been in the news lately for several violent crimes, walked across the room to join the conversation. "My little brother was playing soldier outside, and he came running in the house with a loaded handgun that he found on the tree lawn."

"Wow! Lucky he didn't shoot someone. What did you do?"

"My mom took it away from him."

"Did she call the police?"

" I don't know."

One of the boys offered, "That gun probably had a body on it. Why else would someone toss it?"

Another boy countered, "Guns with bodies don't get tossed whole, they take 'em apart and get rid of them piece by piece. Throw 'em in the lake."

"How do you know this stuff?" I asked.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Gee, I must be out of the loop. " I shook my head "What do you know? You can learn something new everyday."

My student's face took on the subtle smirk of superiority. He knew something I didn't. He was smarter than the teacher.
I think that's what they call "street smart."

Cleveland, Ohio: "The Shoot 'Em Up City". My Students Respond

"Hey! Do you have today's paper?"

"No, I forgot to bring one up this morning. Why?"

"My picture's in it!"

I smiled, "Well, that's a pretty big deal. Go down to the office and see if they have any more copies."

Ten minutes later Joe walked back into the classroom, opened the paper up and said, "See, there I am."

There in a picture that took up most of the page, was Joe, standing with a group of people in the hospital room of Johanna Orozco. Johanna was a girl from his near west side neighborhood who was raped and then shot in the face by her ex-boyfriend, another kid from the neighborhood. The Plain Dealer ha been running a series all week on the story of Johanna's tragic ordeal, and her heroic struggle to recover.

"You must know her very well"

"Oh, yeah. We have been friends for a long time. I know Juan Ruiz too, we went to school together. We used to be friends."

"Things must have been awful, very confusing, when this first happened."

"Even before that. Oh yeah.
Juan had been asking me questions about her, like what was she doing, who was she seeing. Then after she was shot, and the police and reporters started asking questions, some of his people started calling me up, warning me not to talk."

"You got threatening phone calls?"

"Yeah, anonymous callers. But I didn't care. They can't scare me. I'll talk to whoever I want to talk to."

"Nothing happened?"

"No, I told the police, the reporters, everything I know."


Joe took the paper to his table and spread it open to read the article, which was several pages long. After a few minutes he folded the paper up, got his project out and began to sketch. The rest of the students were busy working too, so I decide to take advantage of the quiet, and the mood, to ask the class a question; "Why do you guys think we've had so many shootings in Cleveland lately?"

Without so much as a seconds' hesitation, Joe nearly spat the word, "Scarface!"

"Scarface? How's that?"

"You know, Scarface, the best movie ever. It's like everybody wants to be Al Pacino. Somebody pisses him off and, BAM! He shoots 'em."

One of the girls chimed in, "It's not just Scarface, there's lots of movies like that. Video games too. You shoot people to get points, you run from the cops, then if you get caught or killed, there are no other consequences, it's just 'game over'."

The girl's friend, sitting beside her, continued to draw, and without looking up, quietly added, "But in real life, shooting a person doesn't end a problem, it's really just the beginning."

'It is one of life's great ironies: schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are terrible at learning from one another. If they ever discover how to do this, their future is assured.'

Fullan 2001

Another Year: Old Problems, New Programs

It's that incredibly disturbing trick of time. If you've been around for more than a couple of decades, you know what I mean. The older you get, the faster time passes.

We are three weeks into the school year already, and interim progress reports will be due in two more weeks.

Because this is Cleveland, I dare not even enter names in my district issued grade book yet, as my class rosters continue to change daily. In fact, three weeks ago I only had four classes listed on my schedule, a fifth class was added last week, and the principal informed me yesterday I will be teaching a sixth class, probably starting next week. When I was a rookie Cleveland teacher 19 years ago, I was told to keep a temporary roster and not even attempt to enter names in my grade book until after ADM week (the first full week of October) since the teacher and student shuffle in the district never subsides until all bodies are accounted for and redistributed. The same holds true today. I wonder if this happens in all big city districts, or if this annual lack of organization is unique to Cleveland.

I have now been officially hired as the director of the All City Arts Program Atelier, a consultant position that will keep me busy after school, and occasionally, on weekends. The Atelier is being designed as an extra-curricular (after-school/weekend) activity for talented high school students throughout the district. The idea is to partner with community arts organizations across the city to provide visual arts experiences for students that they cannot get in a regular classroom.

This month we will be having two planning meetings; the first with all the CMSD high school teachers and the second with the arts community. These will be brainstorming sessions where we will introduce the program, discuss possibilities, identify potential partners, and envision how the arts can help create a new future for Cleveland. Anyone who is interested in participating in this discussion please email me, and I will send you more information.

The Atelier was kicked-off this summer with a pilot program, entitled Atelier Summer Intensive. Sponsored by the Human Fund , and launched in collaboration with two community arts organizations - Passport Project on Cleveland’s east side and Art House on the west side of the city - students traveled to Pittsburgh in July to visit the Mattress factory and the Warhol Museum. In the three weeks following the trip, they worked with artists on photography and printmaking projects, inspired by the work of Andy Warhol. Artists Jen Craun and Laura Webb shared their lesson plans with CMSD high school teachers so that other students in the district could also participate in the Warhol inspired projects. Selected student work will be auctioned in October along with original artwork by Andy Warhol at the Human Fund annual benefit gala.

Next week , PBS channels 45 and 49 will be sending a TV crew to my classroom to film part of a story on the Human Fund. Some folks love to be on TV; not me. I agreed to the interview, even though I really hate being in front of the camera. I'm very self conscious, and never watch or listen to tapes of any interviews I've ever done, at least if I can avoid it. The segment is scheduled to air October 11th, 12th, and 13th . So if you want to, go ahead and check it out...I'm planning on being busy not watching TV.

The First Day of School: A Teachers' Perspective

"I was studying this man-almost all of us were-for the critical signs. We wanted to know what we had on our hands. What manner of man was this? What given the ongoing war of us-against-them, would we be able to get away with?"

Mark Edmundson; 2002, Teacher, "The First Day"

More stressful than a job interview, every teacher can vividly recall the first day they walked into their very own classroom.We become teachers with the intention of shaping the future, yet on that fist day of school when we meet the future, the future looks back at us with the most critical of eyes. They examine our figures, our clothing, our voices, searching for flaws, any sign of weakness to exploit for the benefit of their own entertainment.

I can recall my own student past, as a seventh-grader, listening to the smirking laughter of my classmates, when one morning it was announced our math teacher would not be returning to the classroom. Our obnoxious behavior had effectively driven him out of teaching. Rumor had it, he'd suffered a nervous breakdown, and needed to be hospitalized.

The law of the pack makes victims of whomever is the weakest. In the classroom, the victim is typically the student who is perceived as different, or weird. Occasionally, however, it is the teacher who is the weak link.So we prepare ourselves, toughen up our sensitive skins to repel the arrows of insult that will inevitably be fired in our direction. Those of us who have survived have learned a few techniques; self-depreciating humor, intellectualizing adolescent behavior, and learning to not take things personally. We have also learned that students will back off when they begin to respect you. They never respect teachers who disrespect them.

One early September morning in 1979 I walked into a classroom for the very first time as a brand new student teacher, and began my career on the shakiest ground any educator could imagine. (read the archived post here) In about two more weeks I will stand in front of a fresh group of teenagers, and while I will look over my new students, trying to size them up, they will be studying me, just as thousands of kids have done before.

What a marvelous opportunity we have as teachers, each year we have a new chance to make a first impression. I hope I have eventually become a little better at it.

The NEA's 12 Step Drop Out Action Plan. What Were They Thinking?

Approximately 25% of the nations' students drop out of high school. In Cleveland, 45% of our students don't graduate.

Having an educated workforce is a key element in the economic development of any region. So as educators focus on developing curriculum that will prepare our kids for 21st century jobs, we also need to concentrate on how to retain those students who just can't seem to keep up with their peers. In Cleveland 45% of our young people can't keep up. Is it any wonder we top the poverty scale in the nation?

Last October the National Education Association announced a 12 Step Action Plan to battle the drop out issue. One of my readers sent me a copy of the plan, and asked my opinion of it. Although I'd heard about it in a press release last fall, I hadn't taken the time to read it through. This week I finally took a look at it, and my reaction was , quite frankly, "What the *$&# !"

I have reprinted it here in it's entirety. Scroll to the bottom for my comments.

NEA's 12 Dropout Action Steps:

1. Mandate high school graduation or equivalency as compulsory for
   everyone below the age of 21. Just as we established compulsory attendance to the age of 16 or 17 in the beginning of the 20th century, it is appropriate and critical to eradicate the idea of "dropping out" before achieving a diploma. To compete in the 21st century, all of our citizens, at minimum, need a high school education.
2. Establish high school graduation centers for students 19-21 years old to provide specialized instruction and counseling to all students in this older age group who would be more effectively addressed in classes apart from younger students.
3. Make sure students receive individual attention in safe schools, in smaller learning communities within large schools, in small classes (18 or fewer
   students), and in programs during the summer, weekends, and before and after school that provide tutoring and build on what students learn during the school day.
4. Expand students' graduation options through creative partnerships with community colleges in career and technical fields and with alternative schools so that students have another way to earn a high school diploma. For students who are incarcerated, tie their release to high school graduation at the end of their sentences.
5. Increase career education and workforce readiness programs in schools so that students see the connection between school and careers after graduation. To ensure that students have the skills they need for these careers, integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum and provide all students with access to 21st century technology.
6. Act early so students do not drop out with high-quality, universal preschool and full-day kindergarten; strong elementary programs that ensure students are doing grade-level work when they enter middle school; and middle school programs that address causes of dropping out that appear in these grades and ensure that students have access to algebra, science, and other courses that serve as the foundation for success in high school and beyond.
7. Involve families in students' learning at school and at home in new and
   creative ways so that all families-single-parent families, families in poverty, and families in minority communities-can support their children's academic achievement, help their children engage in healthy behaviors, and stay actively involved in their children's education from preschool through high school graduation.
8. Monitor students' academic progress in school through a variety of measures during the school year that provide a full picture of students' learning and help teachers make sure students do not fall behind academically.
9. Monitor, accurately report, and work to reduce dropout rates by gathering accurate data for key student groups (such as racial, ethnic, and economic), establishing benchmarks in each state for eliminating dropouts, and adopting the standardized reporting method developed by the National Governors Association.
10. Involve the entire community in dropout prevention through family-friendly policies that provide release time for employees to attend parent-teacher conferences; work schedules for high school students that enable them to attend classes on time and be ready to learn; "adopt a school" programs that encourage volunteerism and community-led projects in school; and community-based, real-world learning experiences for students.
11. Make sure educators have the training and resources they need to prevent students from dropping out including professional development focused on the needs of diverse students and students who are at risk of dropping out; up-to-date textbooks and materials, computers, and information technology; and safe modern schools.
12. Make high school graduation a federal priority by calling on Congress and the president to invest $10 billion over the next 10 years to support
    dropout prevention programs and states who make high schoolgraduation compulsory.

Will problem areas pop up? You betcha!

I immediately have a problem with Step Number 1
"Mandate high school graduation (or equivalent) for everyone by the age of 21"

The purpose of public education is to prepare our citizenry to become productive members of society. Do we really need to legislate compliance for those people who are legally competent to make their own choices?
If a mandate from the government carries the force of law, what would the consequences be for those persons who failed to comply with the mandate?
Will high school drop-outs be fined? Face community sanctions? Imprisoned? High school drop outs have a tough enough time trying to keep up with the folks who have received their diplomas without criminalizing their choice to quit school. Ask anyone with a criminal record how hard it is to get a job, no matter how educated they are.

Think about the reasons high school kids drop out: Family problems, frustration, and pregnancy, to name a few. If a girl or boy drops out of high school to care for a child, or a sick parent, or to work to help support a family, would they be punished by the state?

Number 4 is also very poorly thought through. No, let me restate that...it's stupid.

"For students who are incarcerated, tie their release to high school graduation at the end of their sentences."

Does this mean a student would get early release if they complete graduation requirements while incarcerated? Probably not, since a prisoner's work towards attainment of a GED is already requisite in their being approved for "good time " status, allowing a reduction of between 10 and 15% of their sentence.

No, I believe it means they will not be released until they complete graduation requirements. In that case, an inmate with a 4 week sentence could wind up being incarcerated for years. Do these people have a clue as to how the justice system works? Why are they intent on criminalizing a lack of education? Aren't our prisons full enough? Do they know how much it costs the taxpayer per day keep a person incarcerated?

I'm afraid the NEA's 12 Step Action Plan might be more beneficial to the corrections industry than the educational community.

One more reason students give for dropping out of high school is "irrelevancy". I have heard students say time and time again they see no relevance to their future in the classes they take. There is no mention at all in this 12 step action plan of improving curriculum, or making any changes in the teaching and learning process, to help students want to stay in school. This plan is heavy on the punitive measures, and sorely lacking in any proactive steps toward improvement. It is as if they are saying, "Public education is just fine the way it is. All we have to do is just keep the malcontents in the classroom, and everything will be peachy."

The rest of the Action Steps are way too vague to really produce any specific action. For example, "integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum" What does that mean exactly? What skills would those be, specifically? What are "high-quality, universal preschools and full-day kindergartens", or "strong elementary programs", or "creative partnerships"? All of these terms are ambiguous. In fact most districts will claim "We already have those things." The same goes for the proposal, "Monitor students' academic progress in school through a variety of measures during the school year." Gee, I thought those were called progress reports.

As teachers we are supposed to know how to write plans with measurable goals and objectives. This 12 Step Action Plan is a mess, and I am ashamed that it came from the National Association of Teachers. Teachers Union dues paid for this? What a joke. The more I think about it the more disgusted I become.

Cleveland's New Student Dress Code

I've had mixed feelings regarding the new district-wide dress code policy announced this week for all Cleveland students. (Follow the comments on the Plain Dealer article here)

My first response when teachers were polled this past school year regarding our thoughts on the proposed dress code was,

"Oh great! A smoke and mirrors policy. An easy, highly-visible rule change, set-up to appease the public, so the administration can appear to be doing something to improve the schools. How will this help my teaching? How will it be enforced? Will good students loose valuable classroom time for dress code violations?"

I could envision students being sent home for wearing a pin-striped shirt instead of a solid color, or serving suspension time "in-house", which many kids regard as a joke not a punishment, rather than attending class.

When I discussed the proposed dress code with my students, a number of them said they would consider transferring to a charter school with no dress code, or enroll in an on-line home-school charter.

It will be interesting to see if there will be any drop in enrollment corresponding to the new dress code. I will also be curious to see the corresponding statistics for attendance, suspensions, and dress code related disciplinary actions. Will anyone be following those numbers?
I know that everyone will be watching the districts' test scores in the spring. Will collared shirts and twill slacks improve teaching and learning?
Will schools that can not even managed to keep students from roaming the halls and hanging out in the parking lots be able to enforce a dress code?
Will there be a survey at the end of the school year to evaluate the dress code policy?

Yes, I did say my feelings were mixed regarding a district-wide dress code, and so far I have only expressed concerns. What I do feel positive about is the fact that the superintendent has listened to the community, and responded. The voting, tax paying, citizens of the city were tired of watching teenagers traipsing to school in drooping jeans and hoochie-mama skirts. They wanted to see kids walking to school looking like they were ready to work instead of party.

Dr. Sanders came to Cleveland asking questions, he paid attention, and now he has acted. A new dress code isn't the silver bullet that will fix the city's failing schools, but communication is. Resist the temptation to hide in the ivory tower of academia, and keep on talking to those of us who are in the classrooms, in the community, and on the streets. That ivory tower, the pedestal of a superintendent, can also be very much of a silo, with its layers of bureaucracy acting as a wall, keeping educational leaders insulated not only from the community they serve, but the teachers who work on the educational front lines.

Communication is the key.

Make yourself and you thoughts accessible. Keep the conversation going.
How about adding a superintendent's blog to that new CMSD website?

New Name for CMSD

By the way, in case you didn't notice, or hadn't heard; the Cleveland Municipal School District will now be known as the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Gee... I guess that means new stationary, new signs, new business cards.
I hope all those contracts are with local businesses

Cleveland Atelier: Kick-off at the Warhol

The Cleveland Atelier has been launched!

Atelier is the visuals arts componenet of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's All-City Arts program. Sponsored by The Human Fund, the program will connect the Greater Cleveland arts community with the most talented high school art students from across the entire Cleveland school district.

Last week RealNEO posted an article about the summer arts intensive program collaboration betweem Cleveland Atelier, ArtHouse, and Passport Project. You can read about it here.

I am re-posting my comment here describing our first group activity: a trip to Pittsburgh to visit the Andy Warhol Museum and the Mattress Factory

Saturday was a great day for the trip to Pittsburgh. Gorgeous weather and a fabulous bus driver made the two hour drive seem so much shorter.

The students on the trip were top-notch, bright kids, and just drank
everything in. One of the girls confided in me that this was her first trip outside of Cleveland. Ever.

The installations at the Mattress Factory were our first stop, and to my surprise, they all "got it". Conceptual art is often difficult for many people to understand, let alone appreciate or, even in some cases, tolerate. As we explored the buildings, walking from room to room, you could hear them talking together;

"This is sooo cool."
"Wow! Look over here!"
"How did they do that?"

Never once did I hear;

"I don't get it" or
"Why would they call this art?"

The seven floors of the Warhol Museum kept us busy for hours. Each one of us wandering off on our own. As a teacher, it was so very gratifying to walk into a gallery room and see our students not only looking at the art, but reading. As a veteran of 27 years of high school field trips, I am accustomed to teenagers dashing through museums, and then finding an out-of-the-way spot to hang out with their friends until the adults finally round them up. This was such a completely different group of kids, mature, focused, interested.
I can't even begin to express how impressed I was.

By late afternoon, when it was time to leave, we had no trouble finding anyone, since they all were in the basement workshop, making art.

Tuesday, the printmaking session of the summer intensive will begin at ArtHouse, and then on Thursday the students will begin working on photography at Passport Project. When the school year begins in August we will begin to grow the Atelier program with our current partners, and continue to explore opportunities to form new partnerships with other arts organizations throughout the city.

Why worry about attracting creative new talent to our city? We have all the resources right here.
We can simply grow our own .

Atelier:A New Program for The Cleveland Municipal Schools

We are in the process of developing a new city-wide high school visual arts program for the Cleveland Schools which will offer our most talented art students the opportunity become acquainted with the arts community in Cleveland, and to study and work with professional local artists.

The program called "Atelier" will be launched next month on a small scale with summer workshops in photography and printmaking, and continue as an after-school/weekend program throughout the coming school year

We would like to talk with artists, galleries, and community arts programs who are interested in collaboration and developing the vision of what "Atelier" can become.

Please contact me via email at :
mb.matthews@yahoo.com


Atelier
Main Entry: ate·lier Meriam Webster Dictionary
Pronunciation: "a-t&l-'yA
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French astelier woodpile, from astelesplinter, from Late Latin astella, diminutive of Latin astula
1 : an artist's or designer's studio or workroom
2 : WORKSHOP = : a usually brief intensive educational program for a relatively small group of people that focuses especially on techniques and skills in a particular field

(taken in part from Wikipedia)
....Atelier:A studio is an artist's workroom, or an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, photography, cinematography, animation, radio or television broadcasting or the making of music.
The etymology for the word "studio" is derived from the Italian word, from Latin studium, from studere, meaning to study or zeal.

The French term for studio, atelier, in addition to designating an artist's studio is used to characterize the studio of a fashion designer.

The studio of a successful artist, especially from the 15th to the 19th centuries, characterized all the assistants, thus the designation of paintings as "from the workshop of..." or "studio of..."
An art studio is sometimes called an atelier, especially in earlier eras. In contemporary, English language use, "atelier" can also refer to the Atelier Method, a training method for artists that usually takes place in a professional artist's studio.

The Atelier Method is a method of arts instruction modeled after the private art studio schools of 15th-19th century Europe. Taking its name from the French word for "artist's studio" the Atelier Method is a form of private instruction in which an artist, usually a professional painter, works closely with a small number of students to progressively train them.

Atelier schools can be found around the world, particularly in North America and Western Europe.

The term atelier also refers to a printmaking studio, where master print-makers, work collaboratively with painters & sculptors who want to make limited editions of their art using printing presses, such as lithography, gravure and screen printing

On Experiential Learning, Student Failure, and the Ever Growing Prison Industry

This weekend I received the following e-mail:

Ms Matthews,

I had written to you in September 2006 and had bookmarked your blog to give
me a connection to what other teachers were experiencing. I agree with your
opinion: " Experiential learning is, by far, the most effective method, though
under-utilized within the walls of academia". In Texas, so many of the teachers
are teaching for the state mandated tests. How can experiential learning exist
in a classroom when the state is telling the student what it expects them to
learn? Is there a way to blend the two?

I guess the prison industry is more important than education in Texas as it
is in Ohio. Does it seem to you there are more failures than successes with the
students?
Thanks for your time,

KS

K,

Great questions! In fact, this will be the next post on my blog which, once again has been neglected for too long.

Experiential learning strategies are more easily adapted in some curriculum subject areas than others. Because I teach Visual Art, I have the luxury of teaching in a subject area that does not require any mandated testing in the state of Ohio, and so I am not fettered in the way my colleagues are in the core curriculum areas. The Ohio state standards for the arts were written by fine arts teachers from across the state, and I must compliment the standards committee on their wisdom and common sense in the development of standards that not only allow but encourage creative and flexible lesson planning and a variety of methodologies.

But the fine arts folk have always seemed to march to a different drummer than our teaching brethren in the academics.

That is not to say that the core subject areas are lost causes if teachers would like to implement experiential learning methods. You all just need to step outside your comfort zones and take on the challenge.
Don't try to suddenly makeover the whole course as an experiential learning class. Start with small steps. Try one pilot lesson.

First, look at the material that needs to be covered before the state test, and pull out your curriculum map. Find one unit that might adapt to an experiential learning strategy and plan it carefully. Choose a unit that you would typically take one week to cover, and develop a lesson using whatever experiential learning methods you can adapt, and see how it goes. The key is in the planning. If you can work as a team with other teachers, either in the same department or cross curricular, the odds for success are even greater. Make sure you come up with an assessment tool that honestly evaluates student learning, as well as using sample questions from the state test that apply to that unit. Ask what worked and what didn't, and above all ask why. Next semester, or next year, try it again with the same unit, making whatever changes are needed, and perhaps even plan a second unit using experiential learning strategies.

My academic colleagues and I have, over the years, often discussed the pros and cons of state standards and "teaching to the test". It is my humble opinion, based upon observation, that the teachers who have always been the most creative in their lessons were the ones LEAST likely to complain about having to "teach to the test". The tests simply affirmed their students were learning the required material.
On the other hand, the teachers who complained the most were the ones who tended to religiously supplement their basic lessons with jumbles, crossword puzzles, word searches, and current events summaries.
The state tests required that actual teaching and learning were taking place during class time, as opposed to the "busy work" that gave the students the appearance of being "on task", yet no real learning was going on.

Good teaching requires a lot of planning. Creative teaching requires even more planning, as well as a whole new set of problem solving skills.

How is this for a challenge: What if you had to teach a unit without lecturing?
I would be willing to bet more than half of my teacher colleagues at the high school level would have no idea where to even start.


Are there more failures than successes with the students?

Whoa! Now that's a tough one.
I guess it all depends on how one wants to interpret the statistics.There are some groups who will tell you that the No Child Left Behind Act has improved American schools, however, what I see in Cleveland, Ohio tells a different story. We have an unacceptable drop-out rate (more than 40%) and an equally dismal number of students who failed the Ohio Graduation Test. Yes, sadly, I see a lot of failures.
What does the future hold for those young people we fail to educate?

Looking at the statistics, and noting the recent trends reported by the Department of Justice, they may very well find a future in the corrections industry.
75% of Ohio's prison population are high school drop-outs.


Your comment regarding the Prison Industry vs Education touched on a topic that inevitably raises my blood pressure. The correlation between failing schools and the booming corrections industry is irrefutable, yet conveniently ignored by both our politicians and the mainstream media.

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Nicole Colson, titled " Incarceration Nation"

"A Justice Department report released in December revealed that a
record 7 million people--one in every 32 adults in the U.S.--was either behind
bars, on probation or on parole at the end of 2005.
Though the U.S. has just
5 percent of the world’s population, it has an incredible 25 percent of the
world’s prison population--2.2 million people. Since 1970, the U.S.
incarceration rate has increased by 700 percent, and that number is still
rising.

“After a 700 percent increase in the U.S. prison
population between 1970 and 2005, you’d think the nation would finally have run
out of lawbreakers to put behind bars,” states a February report by the Pew
Charitable Trusts. Evidently not...

...The prison industry may
be bad for people, but it’s certainly good for business.
Private prison
companies operate in about three-quarters of U.S. states. According to a recent
CorpWatch report by Deepa Fernandes, the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation
of America (CCA), America’s largest private-prison operator, announced that
revenues had increased to almost $300 million for the second quarter of
2005."

According to Wikipedia: Today, non-governmental enterprises, in the form of publicly traded companies, operate 264 correctional facilities housing almost 99,000 adult offenders. Companies operating such facilities include the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group, Inc, and Cornell Companies.
The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) website lists a capacity of 69,000 beds in 63 correctional facilities.The GEO Group operates 61 facilities with a capacity of 49,000 offender beds, while Cornell Companies has 79 facilities to service 19,226 adult and juvenile offenders in secure containment and community-based corrections.

US Department of Justice statistics show there are currently 199,356 federal inmates housed in 191 federal prisons at a cost of approximately $4,745,000,000 a year, or 13 million dollars per day.

The Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction manages 45,854 inmates, operates 33 facilities, contracts with 2 private prisons, and has 13,938 employees. The agency's annual budget is over $1.6 billion.

By 2010, the number of American residents in prison or with prison experience is expected to jump to 7.7 million, or 3.4 percent of all adults, according to a 2003 US Department of Justice report.

The prison industry is booming. Profits are dependent upon the continuous increase in the numbers of persons who are incarcerated, and those numbers are comprised predominately of immigrants, the poor, and the uneducated.
Our educational failures are fueling prison profits and feeding corporate greed.

" You can't fix the public schools by throwing more money at them."

This is the mantra of many conservatives who are disgusted with the state of public schools in America, and have withdrawn their support. These are the same folks who promote "Zero Tolerance" policies and the lock-em-up mentality.
These philosophical mind-sets combined with the prison-building-as-economic-development strategies that are being adopted across the country, and the privatization of the corrections industry, add up to one rather frightening future.

In an era where profits consistently trump social good, can impoverished districts serving a demographic consisting mainly of minorities ever hope to get the support we need?

MB

Neal: On living in Cleveland

"Truthfully, there aren't too many great things about Cleveland."

Neal's response was immediate, without a moment's consideration.

"It's not the city, it's the people who make the city bad. People run around shooting each other."

Like so many kids living in Cleveland's neighborhoods, Neal is very aware of the criminal presence that is a daily fact of life in the city. Night after night, local television newscasters will report on a west side drug bust, a south side shooting, or an east side robbery. It doesn't go unnoticed that a suburban murder makes the Cleveland Plain Dealer headlines, while inner city shootings only rate a two inch column on page B-3. Drugs and poverty have made the neighborhoods dangerous; people get killed. It's not really big news anymore.

"My neighborhood, for the most part, is good. I live in West Park, so my street is full of firefighters and cops. All of my neighbors, including me, get along. We all get together during the summer, hang out and talk. There is one house on the street though that is a rental. Some white-trash meth addicts moved in and have overstayed their welcome." Neal rolls his eyes in disgust. "You know what the problem with Cleveland's neighborhoods is? You have these people who own these houses, but they want to get out of the city. They move away and don't care about the neighborhood anymore so they rent to anyone, they rent to trash who destroy the neighborhood. Like, the guy across the street from us moved, and now the house is rented by drug dealers. Cars are pulling in and out of the driveway day and night. Strange people, crackheads, come and go. The worst part is, the guy who owns the house was a Cleveland cop. He moved away, so he has no idea what is going on over there."

I asked Neal what he would say to Mayor Frank Jackson if he had the opportunity.

" I would tell him to stop trying to make himself look good to the people in the suburbs, and work on the schools. They want to put kids in uniforms so they look like nice private school students, but who cares if they learn anything. We have substitutes in our classes for months, never enough supplies for the classes or materials for the shops,and the buildings are falling apart."

We look up at the ceiling of my classroom where there are thirty six tiles missing leaving gaping holes from water damage that happened more than a dozen years ago. Several more tiles are barely hanging on. Cracked asbestos floor tiles were finally replaced a couple of years ago in the hallways, but not the classrooms. Of the one hundred panes of glass in the windows on the north side of the room, twenty seven are cracked, and have been that way since I came to this building nearly a decade ago. At that time, (Neal was in second grade) Clevelanders voted to raise their taxes to repair the schools. A few new buildings have opened, yet tens of thousands of Cleveland students continue to attend classes in environments that can only be described as disgraceful.

My next questions for Neal concerned his plans after graduation.

"The thing I look forward to is getting a good job so I can support myself and leave the nest. I don't plan on staying in Cleveland, because there are no jobs here."

Neal studied the machine trades in the vocational program at Max Hayes, but doesn't feel he would be very happy with a manufacturing job. Neal likes to spend time in Pennsylvania with relatives at a family farm, and prefers the rural lifestyle. He enjoys the outdoors, and dreams of running a small dairy farm some day.

"Is there anything that could make you stay in Cleveland?" I asked.

" No, " he said " absolutely not."

The Neal Interview - Part One

The rain was falling hard enough to make a racket on the roof of my car. Without a hat or a hood I would have to make a dash for the door.
I looked in the rear view mirror, and leaned back to get a better angle so I could check out my hair. Damn, it was already frizzy. Since there was nothing to save, there was no need to run. I cut through the custodians' entrance to save a few steps anyway.

Just inside the doorway stood Neal, with a couple of sheets of paper in his hand.

"I laughed for half an hour when I read your post. I had to print it out for my mother to read. She's computer illiterate."

"How are you coming with the questions I gave you?"

"I was working on them yesterday. I wrote about a page. I'm not done with them yet, but I will show you what I finished when I come up to your class."

I have to admit, the interview questions I gave Neal were pretty lame, so he answered most of them with a single sentence. I needed him to elaborate, so we talked about his answers when he came to class this morning. I will share what I have learned about him here.

Neal lives in the West Park neighborhood of Cleveland with his mom and dad. He told me that he took offense to my reference to the "gritty sidewalks of the near west side", as his neighborhood is kept up and "believe it or not, I know who my daddy is." He has lived in Cleveland all his life, attending grade school at St. Pat's West Park.
When asked why he chose to come to Max Hayes High school he responded, "The only reason I came to Max Hayes was because I had no other place to go. I was out of options." Pressed to explain he said "Holy Name wouldn't take me. They rejected me because my grades were awful. My best friend, Eric, goes there though."

On his questionnaire he describes himself as a mystery.
In his words: "I say this because you can look at me and you have no idea what I am thinking, but on the other hand, I can look at you and read your face and know what you are up to." I disagreed with his terminology, saying he was perceptive rather than mysterious, and suggested he might want to take some psychology classes, if he goes to college.
But Neal isn't thinking about applying to any college programs this year, instead, he jokes about staying in high school until he is 21.

After school, Neal likes to work on things.
He recently bought a riding lawn mower off of Craig's List so he could earn money cutting neighbor's lawns this summer. He says there are a lot of older people on his street who need some help. He would like to start a business fixing lawn mowers, but he admitted he works slowly, and customers couldn't expect to have any work finished overnight.
After last month's snowstorm, he made quite a few bucks cleaning peoples' driveways. Like so many teenagers, sleep is high on his list of things he likes to do when he is not at school, followed by fishing and camping. On weekends, he and his buddy Eric take "road trips"; anywhere out of the city, anywhere but Cleveland.

When asked to share his thoughts on being a public school student, and in particular how he viewed his educational experience at Max Hayes, Neal first expressed his disappointment in the way people look down on public school students.

"There are a good amount of students who want to learn. They do care, but the ones who don't really make the whole school look bad."

He observed how that attitude also extended to the teaching staff. He noted that there were very good teachers at Max Hayes High School, but then there were some teachers who didn't seem to care about the students. He said you could tell which ones were only in the classroom to collect a check. Admittedly this is most likely true at most schools, but Neal's concern is with his own experience.

When asked if anyone at Max Hayes has made a positive impact on him, not surprisingly, the head custodian, Duane Gibson was the person who he said was his best influence.

"I always think about the advice he gave me, " Neal laughs. "He told me 'Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.' "

True enough, Neal.

I also asked Neal some questions dealing with his views on the city of Cleveland, it's neighborhoods, it's leadership, and what it would take to keep him here. He's still thinking about those questions. I will share his answers with you later this week.

Neil...(oops)...Neal

His face, blushing pink, registered an uncomfortable hybrid expression of both delight and fear.

"You really wrote about me?"

"I told you I would, so I did. Friday afternoon, during my lunch break. I posted it online this morning before I left for work."

"Let me go down to the library right now, I want to read it."

"Sorry Neal, the network filter won't permit access to the site. You'll have to read it at home. Hey, I'd like to do a mini-series of posts about you. What do you think? How about an interview?

"Okay." He nodded, but a second later, dark eyebrows knotted, his thoughtful stare became a grimace. "What kind of questions are you going to ask? Can I write out the answers?"

I'll talk about it with you later. Why don't you get busy on your assignment?"
Neal scrawled a horizon line across his sheet of drawing paper. "Can you help me get started? I want to draw a barn."

Neal is not the student-stereotype who most people imagine roam the halls of a Cleveland public high school. He is the kind of kid who would look more at home sitting on a tractor, plowing the back forty than shuffling along the sidewalks of Cleveland's gritty near west side. Early each morning on his way to work, Neal's father drops him off at the high school before most of the faculty arrive, and so he has built some very close relationships with the custodial staff. He spent so much time hanging out in the boiler room before and after school, that eventually the custodians put him to work. He stands head and shoulders above most of his classmates, and more than a few visitors to the building have mistaken Neal for a member of the staff. On any given day he can be spotted tossing salt on an icy sidewalk, carrying a ladder down the hallway, or lugging boxes of copy paper to the third floor teacher's classrooms.

Each fall the twelfth grade students of Max Hayes Vocational High School hold a fund raiser to help pay for prom and graduation. The Senior Auction is always a popular event where members of the class auction off their services for one day. Bidding starts at two dollars and has been known to pass the hundred dollar mark upon occasion. Each year I bid on a few of the students in my art classes who I have gotten to know, and who I won't mind spending the day with. This year I quickly scanned the list of seniors and checked off six names of kids who either were taking my class this year, or passed my class a while back. All of them were talented artists and good students, except for Neal.

Neal's daily mantra in Art class is "You know I can't draw", and his academic record leaves something to be desired, yet he was my first choice.
You see, Neal is connected.

Normally when I send a student to the custodian's office for paper towels, they will bring back a package. When I send Neal, he brings me a case. He personally installed two brand new pencil sharpeners in the classroom when he discovered how useless the old ones were, and personally makes sure they are emptied regularly and working properly. When the wind off Lake Erie began to blow cold, and my classroom morning temperature dipped into the low fifties, Neal came to the rescue once again. Within days the custodians were tinkering away with their wrenches, and the Uni-vents that for years had only provided anemic heat at best, were suddenly blowing plenty of hot air, and keeping us toasty.

I wasn't the only faculty member who appreciated Neal's talents, but I did manage the winning bid at thirty dollars.

Neal spent most of his day of servitude hanging artwork, organizing the back room, and cleaning the sink. That afternoon we walked next door to the Harp for a corned beef sandwich. While we were reading over our menus, Neal looked up and whispered.

"You can order a beer."

"No, I can't. Technically I'm still working."

"I won't tell."

"That's irrelevant. I can hardly keep my eyes open after lunch the way it is. If I had a beer I would be snoring through my last period class, and drooling on the desk. Then some student with a cell phone camera would take my picture, and I would be all over the evening news on Channel 19."

"C'mon. It would be funny."

I rolled my eyes and changed the subject. "So what do want to do when you graduate?"

We spent the next hour talking about school, and plans for the future. Neal is articulate, opinionated, and funny. An eighteen year old going on thirty...maybe forty.

Neal is Future Cleveland.
Maybe.
Maybe not.

He talks about moving away from the city like so many of his classmates do. They don't see a future for themselves here. Over the next few days I will post interviews with Neal and several other students who said they would like me to write about them. I will be asking them to share their views about the city and the school district. I will ask them to share their stories. If you have any questions for them, you can email me, or simply post a comment.I will make sure they get your messages.

Keep an eye on this site.
Later.

MB

Big Neil

Approaching Dead Man's Curve, frustration simmered as my speedometer slowed to a single-digit reading. I was stuck behind a rusted pick-em-up truck dropping scraps of cardboard. Semi's to the right and left boxed in my little Celica, and frustration became road rage. I wouldn't be late to class this morning, but I would be rushed, and I hate feeling rushed.

By the time I turned into the school parking lot, I had nearly exhausted my entire vocabulary of nasty words in English, as well as a few choice phases in Polish, German, Arabic, and Croatian I've picked up from various friends, family members, and acquaintances. I rarely ever curse, unless I'm driving. I call it "profanity therapy". I learned it from my father. Mom never approved, but it works.

When I looked to the far corner of the parking lot, my furrowed brow relaxed and I smiled...my favorite spot, near the building exit, was still empty, and I would have five minutes to make it upstairs to my classroom before the tardy bell rang...the sun was shining, it was Friday and life was good.

As I hurried toward the faculty entrance, I passed the custodian's door. Big Neil, a senior in my first period class, stood in his usual early morning spot, about five steps away
"Darn...you're here." He shook his head, but his grin gives him away. "I might be late to class." he adds.

"Good morning to you too. I'll see you when you get there."

True to his word, Neil arrives about ten minutes late. The class was already engaged in discussion, or shall I say complaining, about the results of the Black History Month poster contest. Since Neil didn't complete his poster in time to enter the contest, (and still has not turned his assignment in), he had no interest in the conversation, and changed the subject.

"When was the last time you wrote an article on your web site?" His question caught me off-guard, and I stuttered, trying to recall my last entry.

"October...I think."

"When are you going to write about me? You said you would write about me."

"I think I was kidding. I haven't had much time to write anything lately."

"So what...You said you would write about me."

"Okay, I will."

"Write something today"

"Today?"

"I'm going to check on you."

Hey!...Was this a challenge?
I'll show him...Maybe if I start writing again, I can get Neil to finish his assignments.

Okay Neil, I'll write about you, but now you are going to have to do something for me.
Deal?

To be continued...

Fall Quarter Reflections

If you hear someone knocking, it's me. I'm knocking on wood to stay on the safe side of superstition. "Tap, tap."
The first quarter of the school year ended, and I have nothing to complain about. "Tap, tap, tap."

My students this year, for the most part, are all great kids. They come to class prepared to work, participate in discussions, do their projects, and have no real behavior problems. Some of them are even pretty talented. This all makes for a great learning environment. Unfortunately, a quiet classroom full of kids studying the proportions of the human face, and working on their drawing assignments, like they are this week, is just not that darned exciting. And it's not why people read my blog.

Mostly people respond to the stories of struggle, hardship, and violence; the stories that affirm the reputation of the urban high school as a "blackboard jungle".
So far this year my classes at Max Hayes do not even come close to that stereo-type. We are not participants or victims of the oft imagined black hole of ignorance, draining tax-payers dollars.

In my classes we have been practicing skills and learning new techniques, we critique our work, we discuss art as communication, and artists as collaborators. A student who writes poetry is working with a student in the machine shop to create a sculpture of lucite panels, engraved with passages from her poems about adolescent pain and desperation. Several of my students, who are also welders, are fabricating steel towers of geometric forms, and my students who are studying the building trades are sanding down old school chairs and stools to recycle as decorative furniture, and building display cases for Mexican "day of the dead" or "dia de los muertos" dioramas.

Yes, the school building remains shabby, and the heaters are only functioning sporadically. A few mornings this week several of the kids donned the crocheted wool afghans that I keep in the classroom for the days when the wind blows through the gaps in the windows and the temperature hovers around 50 degrees indoors. Nothing much has changed over the past few years in that regard.

As for my thoughts on our new superintendent: He seems to be making an effort to connect with the community, and he also seems to be paying attention to their concerns, as "Customer Service" has been a recurring theme for all employee directives so far this year. Continuing to listen seriously to the students, parents, and teachers, those on the front lines of public education, will certainly bring to light the real issues and perhaps even elicit new solutions to the myriad problems faced by our troubled schools. For too long the agenda has been controlled by the politicians, the pundits, and the PhD's of academia, whose connections to the classroom were tenuous, at best. I hope this grassroots approach to problem solving continues, since the status quo approach of having the community's needs presumed by the administrative hierarchy has failed miserably.

Perhaps the superintendent should start a blog, then he could really get some helpful feed back from the citizens of Cleveland.

And when
I am
in the street
with
the people
I am
closest
to
Him.

James E. Magner Jr.
Only the Shadow of the Great Fool. 1996

"You haven't posted anything for soooo long!"

"I'm sorry, I know it's been a few months, but I've been distracted. My personal life is in...a period of...ummm...upheaval. Forgive me. There seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel now, so keep checking in. I will be back to sharing my thoughts again soon."

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right."

Mahatma Gandhi, 1931

Comments on Brewed Fresh Daily

Please take a look at the discussion going on at Brewed Fresh Daily. George linked to my last post, prompting quite an interesting conversation.

Who Profits from Failing Schools? (part 1)

Recently I was asked the question, "What are you passionate about?"

My immediate reaction was, "Huh?"
The question was clarified, "What gets you going, gets your blood boiling, motivates you to take action?"

"Gee...That could be a number of things, but I guess the common denominator would be injustice. You know, when somebody is getting screwed...bullied, conned, neglected or abused. Anytime the powerful take advantage of the less powerful; those things incite my passion."

For a long time I have been disturbed by the glaring failures of the city schools, and the subsequent effects on the economy. I have been doing a lot of research lately, and want to share some interesting statistics with you.

Budget Priorities: Education vs. Incarceration

• First year that the 50 states combined spent more on building prisons than colleges: 1995
• Number of state universities built in California, 1984-1994: 1
• Number of prisons built in California, 1984-1994: 21
• Increase in corrections spending in New York between 1984 and 1994: $761 million
• Decrease in spending on state colleges and universities in New York between 1984 and 1994: $615 million
• Average percent increase in state spending on higher education, 1985-2000: 29%
• Average percent increase in state spending on corrections, 1985-2000: 175%
• Number of African-American men in prison or jail, 2000: 602,900
• Number of African-American men in higher education, 2000: 603,032
• Increase in African-American male prison population, 1980-2000: 460,000
• Increase in African-American male higher education population, 1980-2000: 139,293

This page is an excerpt from The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry (2003) by Peter Wagner, published by the Western Prison Project and the Prison Policy Initiative. Footnotes for all facts are available in the print version available for online order.
Prison Policy Initiative, PO Box 127, Northampton MA 01061
(413) 527-1333 staff@prisonpolicy.org

The following statistics are taken from The Justice Policy Institute (JPI) report Cellblocks or Classrooms? The report, released locally by Policy Matters Ohio, found that Ohio’s corrections budget skyrocketed between 1985 and 2000, while increases in higher education spending lagged. Other Ohio findings include:

From 1985 to 2000, Ohio increased spending on corrections at five times the rate that it increased spending on higher education. Higher education spending increased by 38% or $670 million while corrections spending skyrocketed by 211% or $1.026 billion. While Ohio spending on higher education ($2.432 billion) exceeded what was spent on corrections ($1.1512 billion) in 2000, over the last 15 years, spending on prisons grew at 5.5 times the rate of higher education.

In 2000, JPI estimates there were more African American men in Ohio’s prison system (23,200) than there were in Ohio’s colleges (20,074). This does not include most of the large numbers of African American male individuals incarcerated in jails in Ohio.

Between 1980 and 2000, African American men were added to Ohio’s prison system at 38 times the rate they were added to Ohio’s colleges.

Between 1992 and 2001 in Ohio, tuition increased by 32% at public four-year institutions (from $3,845 to $5,058) and by 26% at private four-year institutions (from $12,667 to $15,915). During these years, state spending on aid per student increased 62% (from $257 to $415). New students starting next week at Ohio State University will pay 19% more than new students paid last fall.

Ohio has the 10th highest university tuition in the country and is ranked 39th in the nation in the percentage of the population with a Bachelor’s degree (17%). Ohio ranks 40th nationally in public investment per full-time student.

The annual cost of incarcerating one person in an Ohio prison is $22,044. For the cost of incarcerating one person in Ohio, the state could pay the annual tuition of four students at a public university.

In 1996, Ohio had the 7th highest rate of non-violent drug admissions in the country. Drug offenses were responsible for 40% of admissions of African Americans to prison and 19% of white admissions.
From 1986-1996, the percentage of African Americans in prison for drug offenses increased by a staggering 213%; for whites, it increased by 23%.

A bachelor’s degree became more essential to economic well-being during the 1980s and 1990s in Ohio. Workers with only a high school diploma saw their wages drop by 13.9% in Ohio between 1979 and 2000. Even workers with 1-3 years beyond high school experienced an 8.7 % wage decline during this period. Only workers with a bachelor’s degree or more experienced wage growth between 1979 and 2000.

What the hell is going on? Why aren't more people outraged? Why aren't more of our politicians working on the remedy?

One thing I have learned from my life experience is this:
Anytime things don't make sense, ask this question: Who is profiting?
Isn't it time we started asking that question in Ohio? Why doesn't Ohio fix school funding? Who stands to profit from failing urban school districts?
Follow the money.

Experiential Learning

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

-- Will Rogers

Suburban Paradox

I cannot count how many times I've breathed a sigh of relief when I turn onto Forest Hills boulevard and drive under the graceful stone arch of the pedestrian bridge linking the two properties where a century ago the worlds fist billionaire, John D Rockefeller, raised his family. After an exhausting day in a world where raging hormones combine with poverty, crime, ignorance, and filth; it is the archway that welcomes me home, back to the green peaceful suburb on top of the hill.

You can often find me wandering the leafy streets with my dog, Max.
A case study in paradox, Max is a timid Doberman who hides behind me when approached by strange dogs, and neighbors, even children. He is a large, muscular, elegant beast, with champion bloodlines. Rather than a guard dog snarl, he shows his teeth in and a goofy fido-grin, trips over his own feet when he plays, and prefers sleeping on the couch to going for walks.

Last week I dragged the reluctant Max from his hiding place under the dining room table, where he sought refuge upon recognizing the sound made by the leash as I lifted it off the hook by the back door. He trotted alongside me, stopping occasionally to sniff a tree trunk or mark a shrub. We strolled along the sidewalk, my thoughts drifting from my family, to my work, my future, the next project, the beautiful gardens, the lovely homes. It was Sunday morning, and the neighborhood was serene, so quiet that it hardly seemed like a city. The only sounds were occasional chirps and twitters that punctuated the cicadas buzz-whirr dronings, like little engines, from the tops of the eighty foot oak trees.

Without warning, we were startled by a terrible racket coming from screaming feathered throats, as three birds, beaks over tails, came tumbling out of the sky landing in a furious heap on the treelawn in front of us. Three birds fell to the ground...Only two arose. Left behind was the tiny brown body of a female English sparrow, her frenzied mate continuing his attack upon the blackbird who had been raiding their nest.
Max sniffed at the lifeless bird. My composure shaken, I yanked the leash hard, pulling him away.

The peace of my idyllic morning had been shattered by the harsh Darwinian reality of nature.

As we continued, the tumultuous event replayed itself repeatedly in my head. I couldn't help but relate the murderous scene to headlines I've read recently; home invasions, young mother's and children attacked and killed. How often we forget the cruelty of nature when we envision the world without man.

Several blocks later my thoughts were disrupted once again.
"Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up!"
SLAP!
"Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up!"
SLAP!
"Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up!"
SLAP!
A shrill woman's voice shouted over a small child's steady cries.

I stood in front of the neat, white colonial with blue shutters, and listened. The voices were coming from an upstairs bedroom window left open to let in the cool morning air.

The yelling and crying continued for a couple of minutes. The same phrase repeated again and again, followed each time by a slap. Then it was silent.
Transfixed, I continued to stare at the house.
What should I do? I didn't see anything. I don't know who was involved. The woman's voice sounded foreign, but I couldn't be sure. Was she a parent or a babysitter? Was the child being slapped or was something else being hit? I couldn't tell.
After another minute or so I continued along the sidewalk, making a mental note of the address.

How deceiving the pretty facade of the suburb. The veil of calm and orderliness provided by affluence is a thin disguise to the troubled lives of the people who live behind the ivy covered walls, leaded glass windows, and manicured lawns.

That morning's events made recall a letter that was sent to me a few weeks ago by a thoughtful young friend. He included this essay written a few years ago by George Carlin.

Paradox of Time


The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete. Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

George Carlin

"This is the true joy in life--the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

George Bernard Shaw

(Part 6) Self Directed Learning: Reflection

Experiential learning is, by far, the most effective method, though under-utilized within the walls of academia.
To explain why I believe educators shy away from it in favor of lectures and worksheets. I will take a psycho-analytical approach:

Many people who choose teaching as a career do so because they are very comfortable with a highly structured environment; the schedules, the bells, and the rules. Experiential learning, especially when self-directed, asks teachers to step outside of a comfort zone and into a situation where they are not always in control of the outcome. That can be very scary for some folks.

I am not a person with control issues, in fact I have a sign in my office with a quote by poet Wistawa Szymborska that says:
"I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order."

I try to give my students as many experiential learning experiences as I can, but I am not always successful with a self-directed approach. Although I am comfortable relinquishing control of an outcome, quite often my students find self-direction very confusing. They like recipes, they like specifics, they like to be told exactly what to do.
It is easier for them.
Creativity requires thinking, it requires work.

My ambitious students will take a self-directed assignment and fly with it. My lazy students will more than likely give up and fail. It is extremely hard for those kids who were never expected to think for themselves, to be expected to make their own decisions.

It is up to me to open the door and give them permission to explore. Some of them will eventually find the courage to step outside, others may need a push, but sadly there will always be those who will flat-out refuse, never leaving an environment that tells them what to think and how to live.

(Part 5 ) Meet Strangers, Learn Something: Day 2

The Big Green Bus

Tuesday morning I set out early to begin my second day of meeting strangers and learning something.
A brief stop at Max Hayes to rummage through my store room turned up the old box I was looking for. It contained a badgemaker that I wanted to lend to Martha and Evelyn so they could make the lead poisoning awareness buttons that we discussed the day before.

Hopping back in my little Toyota, I made my way to Talkies, a coffee shop near the Westside Market. I bought an orange juice and a bagel, then found a comfortable seat next to the front window and began to write. Another fellow was hunched over a newspaper in the corner of the room, but his body language did not invite conversation. So I finished my letter in silence, and decided that if I was going to actually meet anyone, I needed to find a busier location.

As I began packing up, a big green school bus pulled up in front of the building. Besides the greenness of the vehicle, something else about the bus caught my eye.
Bunk beds in the windows. A bunch of college-aged kids were getting out and gathering in front of the Great Lakes Brewery. On the side of the bus were the words "Change The World".
Well, if this wasn't a "meet strangers, learn something" opportunity delivered right to me, I didn't know one.
So I walked up to the group, introduced myself, and asked,
"So what is your mission?"
One of the young women said,
"We are from Dartmouth College, the bus has been converted to run on vegetable oil, and we are traveling around the country to increase awareness of bio-fuels."
They had stopped in Cleveland to check out the Great Lakes Brewery delivery truck which also has been converted to run on vegetable oil.

Click here to read more about the Big Green Bus tour, and here to read about the Great Lakes Brewery's dedication to sustainability.

Suzi

It was about 10:00 when I got back in the Celica and headed toward North Collinwood. I had wanted to do a little wandering around the neighborhood, since I am considering the East 185th Street area as a possible location to pilot the Legacy Arts Incubator project.
The neighborhood, also known as "Old World Plaza" is home to an eclectic group of businesses, ranging from sausage shops to biker bars, interspersed with thrift stores, bakeries, and ethnic social clubs.
I walked a few blocks up the street and came across a little import shop with a faded hand painted sign above the door that read 'Patrias'. Another sign written in magic marker on copy paper said "Fresh bread today".
I couldn't resist.
Inside several elderly ladies were conversing in Croatian with the woman behind the counter. I amused myself looking at wine, candy, gifts, baked goods, and deli items, until the little group left. A poppyseed kuchen caught my eye, one of the favorite desserts from my childhood, and I took it to the register. The woman behind the counter was friendly, and asked if I was from the neighborhood. I said no, but I was considering starting a non-profit Arts Incubator on the street. She said, "Oh that's just what this neighborhood needs" and being listing al the people I should be talking to.
"You know," she said "there are an awful lot of empty store fronts to choose from."
"There is one building I am interested in," I replied "The old Europa Travel Agency."
"I own it!" she exclaimed.
We made arrangements to look at it together next week.
Now that is what I call serendipity.

David

I headed back down the block to the Arabica Coffee house, set up my laptop in the back corner and began to work. After about an hour, I decided to take a lunch break and ordered iced tea and a chicken salad sandwich. While I was eating a tall man walked in from the street, smiled and waved at me. He walked up to my table and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I had met David Lynch when he was running for mayor of Cleveland last summer. He had some ideas about the school system that I had taken issue with, and he took the time to listen. Now he is a Republican and I am a lifelong Democrat, but damn...he listened to me. I was impressed.
Now David Lynch cannot qualify as a stranger, but I wanted to include him in my story, since running into him proved to be one more happy coincidence in a series of coincidences that day.
David is now running for state senate, and was meeting with a hopeful supporter at a table across the room, but he stopped by and sat down with me for a few moments before he had to leave for his next meeting. I told him about my proposal, and his face lit right up.
"There is somebody I want you to meet" he said, and took out his pen and wrote down a woman's name and phone number.
"Call her."

Allyson and Becci

David said goodbye, but not before inviting me to a meeting of campaign supporters Sunday evening.
He certainly is relentless.

I picked the phone number up off the table, and tapped the numbers out on my cellphone. The woman who answered was named Allyson. She and another woman, Becci, were buying the old Fitzgerald building a few blocks north on E. 185th and turning it into an arts incubator.
I explained my project, with a little bit of trepidation. These woman are going to see me as their competition, I thought.
I could not have been more wrong.
She invited me to meet with them that evening at the Arabica (of course).

The two women waved at me when I walked in the door at 7:30.
Both of them were about my age, and we all happened to be the mothers of 14 year old boys. Allyson is a legal secretary, and Becci is a metallurgist.
Allyson and Becci totally understood what I was doing, as well as the Open Source economic development model and the concept of cluster creation to drive business success. They invited me to come out and look at the building and consider using the space for some of the initial CLAI pilot workshops. We made an appointment for Tuesday.

Days like this make me wonder if there are truly any real coincidences.

(Part 4) Talk to Strangers, Learn Something: Day 1

"Go out into the community, talk to strangers, meet new people, learn something, keep a record of your activities, and report back on Friday."

When we received our "mission" this Monday, I listened to my classmates discuss with one another what approaches they would take to complete the assignment, and their perceptions of what the professors' intention was.
Some people in the class were focusing on the quantity of people who they could introduce themselves to. I, on the other hand, was transfixed on the phrase "learn something".

Here is my list of the people I met, and what I learned from each of them:

Phillip

I met Phillip standing on the deck of the Inner Circle, a night club built inside the hulking old abandoned factory in East Cleveland that used to house the legendary Hough Bakery Company. The building is currently owned by LaMont Williams of "Hot Sauce Williams" fame, who uses just a small portion of it to produce and bottle his sauces, and another part of the space for the night club. Thousands and thousands of square feet remain vacant. Phillip was there with a group of people from REAL NEO to look at the site and investigate the possibilities of starting a small business and technology incubator. We trudged through old offices, climbed up dark staircases and picked our way through cavernous storage areas filled with the debris of defunct businesses.
Phillip is a big man with a kind face, and long red hair, pulled back into a pony tail. He looks to be in his thirties, although I am not always the best at guessing a persons age. I asked him if I could interview him for this assignment, and he was happy to stay and chat for a while.
He began by telling me that he was an Army brat, and when he was just 3 years old, had witnessed the assassination of his father, who was working on a classified data encryption project at General Electric.
At the G.E. company picnic, an unknown man called out his fathers name. When Phillips's dad stepped toward him, the stranger pulled out a gun and shot him. Then he disappeared.
We talked about the effect his fathers death had on the choices he made growing up, his work with computers, and his vision of what a potential tech business incubator would look like at this site. Not surprisingly, he had some very real concerns with crime, safety, and security.

Evelyn

I met Evelyn waiting for my friend Martha on the patio of the Arabica coffee house in University Circle. She had a gentle, waif-like beauty with her pale skin, large eyes, dark hair and tiny frame, that reminded me of the actress Winona Ryder.
We were there to talk about strategies that would increase the public's awareness of the lead hazard, how many people have been poisoned by lead, and how many children continue to get lead poisoned.
The statistics were staggering:
Lead remains a top environmental health hazard for US children. More than one in 25 American children have blood lead levels high enough to lower IQ or cause learning disabilities, violent behavior, attention-deficit disorder or hyperactivity.
Young children are at the highest risk for lead poisoning. Children absorb 40-50 percent of the lead that gets into their mouths. Adults only absorb 10 percent. Even small amounts of lead can produce high concentrations in the blood of young children because their bodies are small. Since children's brains are still developing, the effect of lead poisoning can be especially damaging.
We talked about setting up a table at the Ingenuity Festival in July, and creating a design to put on a button that would create public curiosity about the lead crisis.
Evelyn is an art historian who works at Case Western Reserve University, and is the mother of Claus, a busy, happy, little toddler.

Abby

Over the past couple of weeks since the school year ended, I have completed the first draft of a white paper for a new project called The Cleveland Legacy Arts Incubator. In brief summary, it is an urban neighborhood revitalization model, easily replicated, that will teach the legacy arts (ethnic artisan trades, crafts, and cooking) in combination with courses in starting a cottage industry, provide co-op retail space, sponsor master craftsmen from overseas for artist residencies, and create an exhibition gallery for fine artisan tradecrafts.
Monday evening I met with Abby Meir of COSE Art at the Cedar Fairmount Starbucks in Cleveland Heights to review the initiative and discuss possible collaboration and strategic next steps. She called me just as I walked into the shop, to tell me she was running a little late, and had just stepped off the rapid. I took a seat by the front window, and it wasn't long before I could see a little gal with a head full of dark bouncy curls hurrying up the hill. She came in the door with a big smile and an apology. I couldn't help but like her immediately.
We talked for more than an hour, and she gave me some very good pointers, as well as list of names of people who I should connect with.


The fist day of my 48 hour mission to "talk to strangers" came to a close, and as I reflected upon my experiences, I had to smile; each conversation had left me richer.

I'm Back (Part 3)

This afternoon, I am once again at the East 185th Street Arabica in Cleveland's North Collinwood neighborhood, sitting with a cup of ice tea and typing away on my lap-top.
I am working on my class assignment which I will be posting later today, but I needed to share the thought I just had with all of you.
Two weeks ago, I would have scoffed, if someone would have suggested I partake in such overt geekiness. I am more inclined to make fun of the solitary techi, light from the flat screen reflecting off his glasses, fingers pecking away at the keyboard.
Now here I am. There is something to be said for this public, yet semi-anonymous, space that is so conducive to getting work done.
In my student days I would escape my distractions by going to the library to study. This is like a much cooler library with soft music, caffeine, food, and instead of a shushing librarian, really pleasant staff.

I am now officially geeked.

I'm Back (Part 2)

I arrived at Civilization about half an hour early, as I had a letter to write and desperately needed that neurological kick-in-the-ass provided by a large serving of caffeine, straight up. My fix was handed to me in an awkwardly shaped, heavy, coffee cup, more suitable for spooning soup than sipping anything. A wobbly table provided the catalyst for catastrophe, dumping half the cup on my stenographers' notepad. Remembering that my blessings far outweigh my misfortunes, I sopped up the mess with a brown paper napkin, and keeping my smile, asked the girl behind the counter for a to-go cup.

A few minutes later, several members of my class arrived. We all kept an eye on the door, looking for a woman with toe-head blonde hair who matched the photograph we were given on Monday.

She bounded in with a grin, scanning the room for faces who were, in turn, looking for her. My vibrating back pocket kept me from immediately joining the group, but I was able to cut the conversation short, and soon the five of us were involved in a lively discussion about experiential learning, assessment, and our reflections on the assignment to date, which lasted more than an hour and a half.

With smug satisfaction, I listened to Professor Nagy explain John Dewey's philosophy that "all genuine education comes through experience". Deweys' thinking parallels my own teaching methods, which I believe are the antidote to the numbness inflicted upon young minds by lecture overload. It was so good to see a professional development course based upon real life experience and common sense as opposed to traditional pedagogy.
(Sorry 'bout that, friends, I'm starting to slip into edu-speak. Let me take a moment and slap myself....oww!....I'm better now.)

The field experience portion of the class was technically to have taken only two days, but I think I will extend my "talk to strangers" time frame through this evening. You see, I plan on attending the North East Ohio Blogger Meet-up at the Town Fryer, and I know from experience that we can be a pretty strange crowd. So if you are reading this on Wednesday afternoon...introduce yourself tonight at the Fryer, and I will be blogging about you tomorrow.

I'm Back!

My dear readers,

Thank you for your patience, and your concern.
I have been flying under the radar for more than a few months, attending to personal issues. Your emails have been heartening; it is good to be missed.

This week I was goaded into writing once again from a very unexpected source.
Here's the story:

Teachers in Ohio are required to take graduate courses in education in order to maintain our license. My license expires in 2007 and I needed six semester hours, so I signed up for a couple of classes at Notre Dame College.

My first class, "Self Directed Learning", was scheduled to begin at 8:30 AM yesterday and last until 4:30, continuing all week. I have taken these all day intensive classes before, and they have been just as exciting as they sound. I walked into the classroom armed with a magazine, prepared to be bored. I waited with about ten other teachers for the professor.

The door opened and the theme to "Mission Impossible filled the room.
A young woman, who was not the professor, wearing a trench coat, dark wig, sunglasses, and carrying a briefcase, entered. She opened the briefcase and took out a tape recorder...Silence.

Damn! Malfunction.
Barely flustered, she took out a letter from the professor and read it out loud. It was our class assignment, which I will summarize (roughly):

Go out into the community, talk to strangers, meet new people, learn something, keep a record of your activities, and report back on Friday. If we wanted to meet the professor, she would be at Civilization in Tremont on Wednesday between 10:00 and 12:00. Friday we will present our experiences to the class in any creative fashion of our own choice.

We then were free to go.

So many choices. So much freedom. Where should I start?
When I have a quandary I call my friends.
Martha is always busy with one community project or another, and her cause du jour is lead abatement. She would be meeting with a young woman in the afternoon to discuss setting up a lead poisoning information table at the Ingenuity Festival, but I could catch up with her before that at the old Hough Bakery Building in East Cleveland where a group of civic entrepreneurs would be gathering to look at the space, in the hopes of cleaning it up and launching a small business incubator. There would certainly be some new people I could talk to at this meeting.

One of the members of the group was my friend, Brewed Fresh Daily's George Nemeth. When I explained the class assignment to him, he responded,
"Blog about it."

Of course!
I am a consumate multi-tasker, always looking for a new way to kill several birds with one stone.
If I took George's suggestion, I could return to the blogosphere, have a unique format for my class presentation, and log my learning experience all simultaneously. Taking the idea one step further, if I did my work at a coffee house with wifi, who knows what new people (or old ones)I will run into, and what serendipitous adventures will be launched.

So this morning I am sitting and typing at the Arabica on East 185th in North Collinwood, and have already met several fascinating people who I will be including in a post later this week, when I will write about all my new acquaintances.

I'm BACK!

Another Case of Injustice in Ohio

I just received an email that brought my attention to a 1988 murder case from Geauga County which captured my attention years ago. The crime scene was familiar territory. I grew up there. It was a part of my old stomping grounds.

Back in 2003 Scene Magazine published an article about the case that made me pause. The justice system was out of whack. Small town politicians were playing politics with people's lives. Evidence was hidden, lies were told, vanity trumped justice, and as a result two innocent men, Bob Gondor and Randy Resh, have spent 16 years of their lives in prison for a crime they had absolutely nothing to do with.

Wednesday January 25th the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio has agreed to hear oral arguments for the case.

We are told repeatedly to "believe in the system". We are told "The system works."
Who is telling us this? The folks who are running "the system".

Please go to the website. Read about this travesty of justice. Offer your support.
Then take a few minutes, and read about the other cases of innocent people who have been wrongfully convicted. It is scary. It is disturbing. It is happening. It is wrong.
The justice system doesn't work all the time, sometimes it breaks down, and when that happens it can't be ignored, it needs to be fixed.

I realize this is not consistent with the usual education topics I write about, but I decided, today this will be an exeception.

Can bloggers make a difference in the lives of these two men?
I have no idea.
All I can do is put the information out here and see where it goes.

I know we have an amazing network in North East Ohio. Bloggers here support each other, read each other, link to each other, and are widely read. We are just beginning to understand how to work our network. We are learning to how wield the power of information and instant communication. We are learning how the ripple of one stone cast into the pool can be amplified and ultimately effect change.
Can we help change the fate of these two innocent men? I guess we will see.

Hard Lessons on Life and Love

"I complained that the road was long until I met a man that had no shoes. I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."

Arabic Proverb

Funny how trivial the daily nonsense in one's life becomes when you are called upon to help a friend whose life is truly turned upside-down. The bad hair day, the late delivery, the grating co-worker, and the traffic ticket would be most welcomed by the patient with a terminal diagnosis, the family evicted from their home, the single parent who loses a job, and the child whose father has been sentenced to prison.

This past month I have been busy learning about the things in life that matter the most as I tried to help a friend whose life was unraveling. Because I only write about my life and my thoughts, I shall not share the specifics.

What I will share is this:

You know all that stuff they say about love, all that feel good froth from greeting cards and love songs and self help books, about love conquering all, and love is all you need?
This month I discovered something rather amazing, even in my own little sphere of cynicism.
Damn it, they are right.

And that is all I can say about it.

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love."

Thornton Wilder

"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited."

Sylvia Plath