The Tunica River Park affords a host of opportunities for people who are seeking to understand the historical importance of the Mississippi River's usage from its beginnings with the Native Americans and conquistadors up through it's present-day significance as a major channel for transporting goods and individuals through the American midwest. In an ideal world my students would be able to visit the park and take advantage of the plethora of exhibits and time periods featured at the museum. However, structuring this time to maximize my students' learning must be undertaken carefully so that my students get the full effect of the academic experience of the Tunica River Park and do not simply view the excursion as pointless field trip.
Some of the before school activities that I could have my students complete are:
1) Completing a KWL chart to document students' knowledge prior to visiting the Tunic River Park
2) Researching the history of the Mississippi River and how it has been used in the past by disparate groups
3) Visiting a local river (i.e. the Yazoo River) and having students read about its historic regional significance
Some of the activities I could have my students complete while they are at the Tunic River Park are:
1) Creating a timeline to document the settling of the area around the Mississippi River
2) Describing the work of major figures who settles or worked along the Mississippi River
3) Formulating a schedule for other groups of students to complete a walking tour of the park on their own visit
Some of the activities I could have my students complete after their visit to the Tunica River Park include:
1) Finishing their KWL chart by filling in five things they learned from their visit to the Tunica River Park
2) Developing a community service project to spread the word throughout the Delta about the river's import
3) Writing a persuasive letter to a member of Congress urging them to allot money for sharing the river's history
When teaching in the districts that MTC places us in, tangible success is often hard to come by. Failure seems to be what is constantly in our face as we think of all the things that our students are doing besides learning, all the places that our students will likely end up besides college, and all the classroom management issues we face that make us want to roll over and call out sick. Every. Single. Day. Still, it's in the little things that teachers anywhere but especially in "critical needs" districts must focus on to maintain drive and focus and continue doing what too many others have deemed highly improbable or flatly impossible for centuries: educating poor Blacks.
In many of these districts MTC teachers teach in standardized tests are seen as foreboding signs of eminent doom and embarrassment. In these places, teaching "to the test" is often resorted to as the means through which educational salvation is reached. Teaching to the test is one thing but when you're in a school environment where, from day one, what's communicated to teachers is that teaching to the test is the ONLY thing, well then you're at KIPP. On some level this is understandable as testing determines so much at charter schools like KIPP from our enrollment to our ability to woo private funders to the very renewal of our charter with the state of Arkansas. However, I cannot help but shake my philosophical belief that I have more important life skills to teach my students than finding equivalent fractions and answering multiple choice items using process of elimination.
In any event, our big state test in Arkansas is called the ACTAAP or the Benchmark Exam. KIPP Delta in Helena has some of the highest test scores in the state at the middle school and high school levels. Last year, 94% of our 7th graders at KIPP Delta scored proficient or advanced on the mathematics Benchmark Exam compared to 66% of 7th graders statewide and only 33% of students in Helena-West Helena's regular public school system. What makes this even more remarkable to many is that our school is 99% Black, 99% free/reduced lunch, and in the heart of dilapidated downtown Helena close by local housing projects, gang territory, drugs, and prostitution. Our 7th grade math teacher was so successful that she has been given the green light to found her own school which will be opening in Blytheville, Arkansas in the fall of 2010 as a new KIPP. The venerable 7th grade math slot was thus available when I applied to KIPP this past spring and who teaches this course with the districtwide spotlight on it now?: me. The Black, hood guy from Harvard with two years of (social studies) teaching experience who's a few credits away from a master's degree in education.
Anyway, to my success story. In preparation for the end-of-the-year Benchmark Exam we take practice Benchmark Exams every month. We chart the progress of our students and use the practice Benchmark Exams to target particular students and skills for remediation and re-teaching. Results are scrutinized for hours on end at the individual, school, and district levels. It is highly nerve-wrecking to see where your students are at month-by-month and to know that the results will be known almost immediately by your peers and superiors and reflect your quality as a teacher. Lovely. In any event, the first practice Benchmark Exam we took was in late September. We took a second one two weeks ago in late October and although the success or failure of my students on the September exam could largely be attributed to what my students came into 7th grade knowing, my school director was clear in communicating that the October exam's results would be all my own.
Much to my surprise and the surprise of many a colleague, I'm sure, not only did my students' scores increase from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam but these were the only scores that increased in any grade level, in any subject area at the entire school. Fifth, sixth, and eighth grade math scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade literacy scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight grade reading scores went down. Fifth and seventh grade science scores went down (we don't do sixth and eighth grade science testing). ONLY 7TH GRADE MATH SCORES WENT UP!!! I was elated when I saw the numbers displayed on the dry erase board at our faculty meeting the night we stayed at school until 10 p.m. grading exams and inputting results on our district network for more scrutiny. When looking at the individual students and their performances from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam, I also noticed that most of the students whose scores increased were taught by me and not by the more experienced and better respected 8th grade math teacher who takes 15 of my 7th graders into his algebra class each day.
That's wassup.
We interrupt our regular programming ...
*except for the Japan crowd like Expat: また
Energies are needed elsewhere. Vox'll be fine without me for a while.
Here’s a surefire trick to add 50 years to your age: Shop for shoe inserts.
I don’t mean the orthopedic sorts, I mean the plain ol’ basic run-of-the-mill insoles to replace worn ones.
Or the paper-thin cheapos because the shoes were made in China, as was my case.
Here are my shoes. I bought them some time ago at Ross for 20 or 25 bucks:
They’re an adequate shoe whose best features are the pink laces and water-repellant leather, an asset if not necessity in this wet climate.
However, the outer soles are thick and like lead, while the inside cushioning measures .0002 inches in thickness, give or take .0001 inch. I walk a lot and the emergence of knee problems led me to suspect the shoes.
So where better to go than Walgreens, the consummate drugstore abundant with all things helpful to the gerontology circle public. In perusing the insoles, I nearly keeled over.
There were certainly plenty from which to pick! Men’s insoles and women’s insoles. Gel insoles, air-cushion insoles, full insoles and partial insoles. Insoles for boots, insoles for heels. Insoles for those suffering knee pain - depicted by red lightning bolts around the kneecap that looked pretty painful - and insoles for those desiring cooling relief.
Yet not one package was below 8 bucks!
Some were as much as $15! That's nearly what I paid for my shoes! Heck, that's even the price for a new pair!
Clearly the last time I bought insoles was in the last century because I had it in my mind that they were around 3 bucks. So I studied near every damn package wondering how anyone can afford 'em and would the free newspapers at home work as an alternative.
Defeated, I returned home with aching knees and empty hands. Then, resourceful girl that I am, a brilliant idea struck. I dug deep into my Doc Marten boots, extracted the insoles bought like eight years ago when they were 3 bucks, and inserted them into current footwear. Problem kinda sorta solved, according to wallet and knees. Way I see it is that insoles that old with even a wee bit of padding can't be anything but Dr. Scholl on steroids.
Yesterday’s breakfast: chocolate.
Dinner: chocolate.
And for dessert: chocolate.
All in a 30-minute span.
There’s a church in my hood that I attend occasionally -- not for religious purposes, rather the cool blues vespers.
Last evening was all things chocolate. Chocolate and music from 6 to 8 p.m. I arrive late and to my dismay have missed the music.
But not the chocolate - praises be lots of it glistening on tables draped in white linens.
Since I've not eaten all day, I begin of course with breakfast: small drop cookies topped with a dab of dark chocolate.
But what kind of breaking of fast is that?
Pretty insubstantial, I say. So I skip lunch and proceed directly to a more substantive dinner:
chocolate mint brownies
Nanaimo bars
German chocolate cake
chocolate brownies
chocolate-covered raspberry candies
fresh pear dipped in chocolate
chocolate chip cookies
and for dessert:
frosted chocolate Bundt cake
Not a lot of anything, mind you; even little portions add up.
Thank god for the red wine. Not only does it provide nutritional value but sedation because fueled by sugar and caffeine I'm ready to race home and vacuum like the wind. Not only my apartment, which is super clean as it is, but my neighbors' too if not the entire 5-story building.
We're encouraged to take the leftovers so I tuck as many wrapped Lindt truffles and a couple dainty cakes in pleated white paper cups as my small black bag can hold. Hell, if I'd known that all that chocolate would've been for the taking, I'd have left the little bag at home and hauled a box of Tupperware.
Back at the apartment I boil up a giant bowl of spaghetti with sausage links for protein. Followed by a late-night snack of, you guessed it, petit fours.
You may call all that gooey dark goodness sinful or you might call it heaven; I call it a miracle to escape a coma.
I confess. My mind's jam-packed with all sorts of knowledge, useful and useless facts and bits of information ranging from the astronomical workings of the universe to expert bedmaking with military corners to safe removal of a broken bulb from a live socket.
Yet I've no idea on which day or channel American Idol falls. {Shame on me}
And I'm gonna try to find out 'cause I wanna see what's got everyone talkin. I mean, it's like scientists cracked the DNA code or sumthin', they're that passionate.
Despite yesterday's QotD, I still don't know what the show is, no one explained it. Best I gathered is it's a talent show for singers. But quite a number of you didn't think too highly of it. Is it schlocky? Lame? Imbecilic or infantile? Cutthroat or cutesy?
I'm determined to find out - IF I can figure out when it's on!
On a parallel note, I'm ever in culture shock post-Japan. After some 11 years there, I still remember "re-entry" and one of the very first changes I'd noticed in the United States was the growth of reality TV and how mean-spirited programs had become. Shows like Survivor - which I did force myself to watch and *did not like* - and on.
Suddenly -- to my eyes following an extended and complete disconnect from U.S. culture and society - shows pitting people against one another dominated the airwaves. There was no kindness in them. They felt so competitive ... ones trying to outdo the others ... clawing their way to the top of the heap and not caring what it took or who got stepped on along the way.
How did America get to that place of mean-spiritedness and, more disconcerting, its TV popularity? It made no sense to me. I remember feeling acutely at that moment how changed the country from the one I'd left.
Something else I remember vividly is the first time I saw Paris Hilton on a magazine cover. I'd heard the name but had no idea who she was. I saw her picture and thought she was a porno star. Turned out I wasn't far off.
I miss living abroad. It brings for me such sharpness and clarity to the consciousness, psyche and issues of a country.
And, frankly, for as inane and infantile as Japanese television can be, I still prefer it over its mean-spirited American counterpart. And if I *do* figure out when American Idol's on in my area, I'll certainly share my view. For its enormous popularity, it'd best knock my socks off!
To be honest, after a second perusal of Ruby Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty I'm not sure how I feel about it. Two years ago when I first blogged about the book I had this to say. Oh, the days when I was a fiery leftist blogger.... I still feel Payne overly generalizes a very large, exploited population whose absent voice in a book such as this speaks volumes. I still feel it is inherently absurd to think you can understand poverty, the lifestyles of many people in poverty, or other such deeply complex and malleable concepts by reading a book. I still feel that the myriad holes in Payne's argument makes it as useful as a two-dollar bill in the vending machines on the first floor of Guyton. However, I do hear more of what Payne was trying to get across after having taught for two years in one of the poorest places in the nation.
The research article that I read was "The 'Building Tasks' of Critical History: Structuring Social Studies for Social Justice" by Wayne Au. It was published in Social Studies Research and Practice in July of this year. In the article, Au looks at two case study lesson plans by social studies teachers who actively seek to raise the consciousness of their students around social justice issues. The author utilizes discourse analysis where people "use language to operationalize certain 'building tasks' in order to express meaning, ideology, values, and other aspects of our identities in a given situation." Au concluded that these lesson plans were quality classroom pedagogical devices due to their service as vehicles for students to critically question social relations historically and in the present-day context. In doing so, he dismissed the claims of some that lesson plans stifle the true learning process by assuming that the planning and executing instruction occurs in some sort of linear fashion to a "predetermined endpoint."
What's American Idol?
And why does everyone talk about it?
signed,
an American only by birth oblivious to TV pop culture
Strange is life sometimes.
On the very day I wrote of a sweater, a shirt, a shoe, of lost items found on the street, I came upon another.
It is a little tale of magic, the power of timing, of kismet.
I’m walking the long stretch of sidewalk that hugs the waterway - a popular walk not only for its restful views but a site of boat dockings, condominums, the glass and history museums and one expensive seafood restaurant.
In the afternoon’s bright sunshine, the glint of an object catches my eye: a bracelet that has fallen into the crack of the sidewalk.
I retrieve it and examine it. It is gorgeous. Small angular clear crystals intersperced with delicate soft pink beads. In the sun the bracelet sparkles, a strand of feminine glitter.
I take a seat on a nearby bench to contemplate my action. I am torn. Do I set the bracelet back on the sidewalk, outside of the crack, with the hope that whoever lost it will come looking for it? And what are the chances of that?
Or do I take it home to hang it and appreciate its beauty? To wear it and appreciate it? For the past week, coincidentally, I have been looking for a gemstone bracelet. Is this the Divine placing it in my path?
However much I may appreciate the bracelet, I cannot shake the feeling that taking it is stealing.
Yet putting it back on the sidewalk, or on the bench, seems like a potentially worse fate, depending on the next finder.
I latch the bracelet onto my left wrist. It’s clear why the bracelet is lost. The clasp, like an eyehook, is terrible. Very easy for it to slip right off.
And it’s too big. I examine it to see whether it could be adjusted and remember that a local bead shop does adjustments for cheap, or free.
I have two fatal flaws (that is, qualities that work to my detriment): honesty and conscience and it is these that keep me almost glued to the bench, weighing the options and agonizing over what to do.
A young couple walking hand in hand passes “Excuse me, I’d like to ask the woman a question,” I call from the bench. I present the dilemma and the bracelet, a string of dainty yet powerful sparkles.
She agrees it’s beautiful and after thought and weighing the odds of the owner knowing where she lost it says she’d probably take it home.
I thank her for her input and off the young couple apparently in love go.
I’ll continue sitting here agonizing and soliciting input from female passersby until I get the sense of what is the right thing to do.
A group of four -- two couples, early to mid 60’s -- eventually approaches. Again I beckon: “I’d like to ask the women a question.” I hold up the bracelet. “I found this and ...”
The woman with cropped white hair steps forward. “My bracelet!”
My work is done.
"It's kismet," I glow, placing it into her hand.
We chat. “It’s such a beautiful bracelet," I remark.
“I didn’t even know I’d lost it!”
“It's a terrible clasp," I offer.
“I know. I’ve been thinking to get it replaced.”
“You should.”
She expresses many thanks, the others chime in, moves to latch it until one in her party advises better the pocket; she agrees and into her pants pocket it goes.
More chatting, further thanks and the four depart but not before one gentleman steps forward, pats gently my arm and offers, “an honest person ..."
“A little too honest,” I return, smiling.
“It was from my sister ..." says the woman, drifting away.
“Say no more," I think.
Kismet.
I’m released from the bench to continue my walk, appreciating the myriad of tiny and seemingly insignificant choices during my rambling stroll that collectively led me into being at the right place at the right time for the bracelet's owner. What are the odds?
Neither can I overlook the synchronicity of having written only hours earlier of lost objects on the street ... or the strangeness of spotting that bracelet in a sidewalk's crack and just around the corner from that railing that had held the lost sweater.
I'm begging to wonder whether that area's some power point for me ...
All's well that ends well. Defying odds and logic, the bracelet's in the hands of its rightful, and happy, owner, and the powers of honesty and goodness prevail - this time.
