Other People's Children

Image Credit: Flickr/ 77krc

I recently read a piece by Sam Chaltain in the Huffington Post that had me shaking my head at the problem he exposes, and yelling "YES!" his suggested solution.

I find Sam Chaltain's piece to be a harsh reflection of reality, not just in the Ohio school district he writes about; but also in the school district where I live. People worry about educating their own children; but when it comes to educating ALL children...OUR nation's children...most people don't seem to care. Collectively, our society doesn't seem to worry about other people's children. Our education policy reflects that lack of feeling. That is why one school can be 30 miles from another geographically, but light years away when it comes to programming, achievement, and even structural integrity.

Image Credit: Flickr/reallyboring

Image Credit: Flickr/reallyboring 

Chaltain writes,

"Indeed, public education is our surest form of 'national security.' It provides the most likely path out of poverty, helps prepare young people to be successful workers and citizens, and reminds us all of who, on our best days, we aspire to be. And yet the reality is we continue to tolerate a system in which your zip code determines your access to the American Dream, and in which communities refuse to fund their schools because 'their' children no longer go there."

Equality in education is something we, as a nation, thought we achieved in 1954 with Brown v the Board of Education. Yet as Chaltain writes, a Texas case in 1974 challenged the constitutionality of funding schools by property taxes because that process leads to unequal schools. The Supreme Court ruling decided that education wasn't a Constitutional right.

Maybe if we change that thinking, make an equal education a Constitutional right, then we can finally talk about "fixing" public education--by leveling the funding playing field. The pictures above are of 2 elementary schools in the same public school district--the Chicago Public Schools. The disparity in building quality is obvious from the pictures.

Think about where you live. Within your school district, are the schools in one neighborhood nicer than those in another?  Shouldn't we be offering all of our kids the same opportunities and the same access to education?

Read the Sam Chaltain piece here: Sam Chaltain: Other People's Children

Teaching Slavery in Schools through Empathy Writing: Insensitive or Powerful?

I remember it pretty clearly--as clearly as someone can remember something that happened 30 years ago. The fact that I remember it at all really means something, because most of what happened 30 years ago is pretty hazy.  I was in junior high school. 7th grade. He was my history teacher. A big, burly, flannel-shirt wearing bearded man that reminded me a lot of Grizzly Adams. He was definitely a gentle bear who you wouldn't want to mess with. He made history come alive for me.

The 7th grade curriculum at my junior high covered what is, in my mind, one of the darkest periods of American History--the Civil War era. Mr. S taught us that the origins of the conflict really came much earlier, with the beginnings of slavery. He taught us about the slave trade in a brutally honest way, asking us to put ourselves in the place of an African, stolen from her family, shackled and stacked against strangers on a ship bound for the U.S., land of "opportunity." His lectures were graphic and disturbing. He wanted us to learn the truth: that human beings are capable of doing terrible things to each other. He wanted us to learn about slavery so that if we ever witnessed someone attempting to steal a human being away from their home and family, we would not stand aside and allow it to happen. He wanted us to understand our present world in the context of what occurred in the past. He believed that by learning history we could prevent humanity from making the same mistakes twice.

Image Credit: Flickr/Olivia Hotshot 

We read slave narratives and looked at primary source documents that left no doubt about man's ability to be inhuman. I will never forget the final assignment for our unit on slavery: a writing project that asked us to  synthesize all we'd learned. "Put yourself in the place of an African who has been stolen from her family, and write a series of journal entries from her perspective." That assignment led to my first experience with the power of empathy.  I put myself in the place of an enslaved African and wrote a heart-wrenching series of journal entries that changed the way I looked at people. In fact, I would argue that it changed me forever.

Flash forward 30 years. I've spent some hours here on this blog thinking about and discussing the issue of cultural appropriation, and how it compares to the inspiration many artists/writers/musicians say they get from learning about another culture. My 7th grade teacher asked me to put myself into the experience of someone else and write about it. That writing was powerful. I learned from the act of writing (but I didn't publish my work, claim to be any kind of expert, or profit from what I wrote. That writing was only for myself and my teacher.)

This week a middle school teacher has come under fire for making a similar assignment. "Pretend you are a slave in the southern United States. Write a journal/diary memoir about your life."  A student felt uncomfortable with this assignment and told his mother, who is biracial, that he didn't want to do it. She says, "For him to pretend to be something he's never been or never will be, that's going too far." She requested action from school administrators and says she has not yet received a satisfactory response.

I am puzzling this out, just like the inspiration vs. appropriation pieces, because I can see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, I know first hand how powerful such an assignment can be if given in the appropriate context. I know, both as a teacher and as a learner, that some of the most powerful learning comes from those moments where we are uncomfortable. Pushing ourselves to stretch our imagination, our math ability, or our understanding of foreign ideas---that is how we learn, and it is not always comfortable or neat. Learning is messy; it stirs things up. But I say all of that as a white woman, whose ancestors weren't slaves. Maybe an assignment asking me to pretend I am someone from my own family, who suffered such inhumanity, would be more than just uncomfortable. It might even be painful.

There were definitely black kids in my junior high school history class. I don't remember talking about anything as serious as our history assignments back then, so I don't know how it felt for my friend Traci to write about her ancestors' suffering. But this news story has given me pause. As my son picks his classes for junior high next year I wonder if he will learn about slavery, if his teacher will ask him to write from the point of view of a slave, and how we will respond to that. 


How would you respond?

Inspiration vs. Appropriation, Part 2

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the concept of inspiration vs. appropriation (read the conversations that followed here on this blog, or here where it appeared on MulticulturalFamilia.com.) I just recently received a comment from YA author, Terry Farish, that got me thinking about the topic again. Terry writes,

"I am a member of the dominant American culture. Here's one thought I have about people from the dominant culture writing about people in non-dominant cultures.  Could it be seen as not appropriation, but as a hunger to understand.  And for writers, it is through writing that we can begin to understand
our communities, our humanity, and, in this case, our multicultural country.  Is this only an apology?  I don't think so.  I think it would far worse if white people only sought to understand other white people, only wrote about other white people.   What if we lived in a world in which each ethnicity only wrote or created art about its own and no bridges were built between cultures by people trying to understand.  I do think it's my responsibility to honor Sudanese writers and work to support the development of their skills of young writers. 

I'd love to hear your ideas about this."

Terry, I had so many thoughts and questions for myself after reading your comment that I thought it best to just write another post. I hope you don't mind me sharing your comment with other readers. I am still trying to flesh out my thinking on appropriation vs. inspiration/appreciation/and now a hunger to understand. These thoughts are still confusing to me and are not cohesive at all (they never were, which is why I wrote that first post!) But what follows is the way I have been thinking and feeling about the subject after many discussions with other bloggers.

Seeking to understand another culture is admirable. Writing about something to understand it better is something that I do, too. But then there's this conundrum that I run into...When sitting down to write, I personally always think of Mark Twain's advice, "Write about what you know." I juxtapose that with something my husband said to me when we first started dating. My whole life, I've listened to black music, loved black culture, and felt like I really identified with black people. He said to me, "You can do all that, but you will never know what it feels like to be black. I can't take this skin off."

Powerful lesson there. He said that to me 20 years ago and I still think about it every day. I can never know what it is like to be in brown skin, in his skin, in the skin of my children; but I can see firsthand how it feels to watch the world treat them based on their skin. I can't tell their stories because I don't really know their stories. I only know my story: the story of a white woman married to a black man who is the mother of three brown children. So that is the story I choose to tell. I write about what I know, not what I presume to know by observing their lives.

While I agree that it might be boring if white people only told white people stories, I can also say with 100% certainty that if a white woman who'd never been in an interracial marriage or raised biracial children wrote a book about the mixed family experience---even though they'd never been in a mixed family themselves---I would be suspicious, maybe even offended. They would have to do a really excellent job of researching and writing, and even then I would be doubtful of their motives, of their honesty. It would really bother me. To have someone write a story about my life situation, without ever having experienced that situation for themselves, would seem very inauthentic. It would bother me even more if they profited from telling that story.

Yet, that's what writers do. They create fictional stories, they pretend to be someone else.  I think life would be really boring if they didn't create those stories. I love to read and learn, but thinking about appropriation has made me reconsider the kinds of stories I want to read. I've decided to make a conscious effort to read authentic voices. That doesn't mean that I won't read books by white authors who write about other cultures, though.

Here's an example of a white author I admire, who tells stories from a different cultural perspective--Barbara Kingsolver.  The Poisonwood Bible was an amazing book to me because while it was a book that took place in the Congo, what it really described was a specific part of European-American culture (missionaries) and their intersection with Congolese culture. Kingsolver managed to teach me a lot about the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, but did so by telling the story of a white character's experiences in that culture. She didn't narrate someone else's story.  In another book, The Lacuna, she again taught me about another culture by writing about life in Mexico from the point of view of a half white and half Mexican character. She focused a lot on the whiteness/American-ness of that character, and how he didn't exactly fit in even though he lived in Mexico and was half Mexican. Is her character problematic for real life mixed Mexican-Americans? I don't know. But I was impressed that she so carefully crafted a story about another culture that still managed to be told authentically from her own white perspective.

Reading from the perspective of that mixed character in The Lacuna made me think of something else: I can think of many, many white authors who have written from the perspective of a person of color. There are too many to list or name, and they are in every genre of literature. But how many writers of color are there who write stories from another cultural perspective? Can you think of any? I can't. The only book I can think of is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I remember reading that book for a class in college and having my fellow students comment how strange it was to read a book about an English butler written by a Japanese man...

It seems to me that white people feel they can write from any perspective they want to, but the same is not true for people of color. White people can say that we are trying to understand, and that our quest for learning justifies writing from another cultural point of view in order to bridge gaps....and I really think that is a noble purpose. I really do.  But at the same time we have to realize that writers of color do not have that same privilege. Their stories are not being told, shared, or published as often as the white versions of their stories. And just as I would be offended if someone else wrote my story, so are many people of color offended when white authors keep telling their stories.

I haven't read your books, Terry. I just looked at your website after you commented on this blog. I don't know how you approach your cultural subjects or who the characters are in your books. I do know a lot of social-justice minded white writers who want to bridge cultures and share new perspectives with white readers, and I think that it is important work. But I am personally always reminded of what my husband said to me 20 years ago, "You will never know how it feels to be black." My 20 years of being the only white person in my household gives me a huge research base to draw from. I could use that experience to write a story from a black perspective, trying to give white readers a better understanding of black culture; but there is no way I could really get it right. I am not black and I never will be. My story wouldn't be authentic. Personally, I'd much rather foster and support a writer of color who can share their own story. If I write my own story, it would be the authentic story of how a white woman can interact with and learn to love black culture. That is my story to tell, and I believe it can bridge gaps just as well as (maybe even better than) a story I could write from a cultural perspective that is not mine.

Schools, Finland, Equity, #Occupy

Image via Wikipedia

When I was in college I read the book Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol.  The book, released in 1991, was a startling look at the inequities among public schools. Sometimes the inequities Kozol describes are really hard to read about. Dilapidated school buildings exist on one side of a river while shiny, well-kept buildings exist on the other side of that same river. Why does this inequity exist? Because in the U.S., our public schools are funded mostly by local property taxes. A nice neighborhood with a large tax base will have the funding to make a really nice school building, keep it well-maintained, offer a wide variety of programs, and be up-to-date in its technology. An example of such a school is New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL. According to School Digger (a site that reviews and ranks schools nationwide), New Trier is ranked the 5th best school in the state of Illinois.

New Trier High School. Image Credit: Flickr/eszter

Just 30 miles south of New Trier High School in Chicago is the Chicago Vocational High School. According to School Digger, Chicago Vocational ranks 661st in the state of Illinois.

Chicago Vocational School. Image Credit: Flickr/ reallyboring 

What's the difference between these schools besides 30 miles? Poverty. Winnetka is a suburban middle/upper middle class town. Meanwhile, almost 100%  of Chicago Vocational's students live in poverty.

You may think that since Savage Inequalities came out in 1991 and it is now 2012, things have changed. Think again.  Kozols' later book, The Shame of the Nation, published in 2005, says that things have gotten worse. Now it's not just poverty that leads to inequity, schools are also becoming more and more segregated.

Our government has attempted to right these wrongs through a series of legislation--from No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top. Throughout the course of this legislation, I have read articles about other countries that outperform the U.S. in achievement. One of the countries that has garnered a lot of attention in recent years is Finland. An article from the Atlantic, "What Americans Keep Ignoring about Finland's School Success" is circulating widely on Twitter and in the blogosphere. I read this article and  was struck by a few quotes:

"There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation."

"Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity."

"That this point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. The chasm between those who can afford $35,000 in tuition per child per year -- or even just the price of a house in a good public school district -- and the other "99 percent" is painfully plain to see."

As the 1% focus on keeping their wealth, the gap grows bigger between the haves and have-nots. According to Jonathan Kozol's work, increasingly that gap is also marked by color.

An acquaintance on Google + commented that what works in Finland probably won't work in the U.S. because of size differences. It's such a small country, comparatively. My response? New Trier is only 30 miles from Chicago Vocational High School. The population of Winnetka and Chicago combined is roughly 3 million. The population of Finland is over 5 million. I think that if we start small....perhaps by creating equity between schools that are in the same district, maybe expanding to schools that are within 30 miles of each other, we might see some huge differences. I think we owe it to the kids of our nation to try to level the playing field. Don't you?

Boost Nation: Send a Message to Struggling Teens

Probably more than ever before, high school students need extra help to graduate from high school. So many teens have extra responsibilities: caring for younger siblings, working jobs to help support their families, or caring for their own children. The dropout rate is really high in every state across the nation. (You can see how high it is in your state by visiting this site.) Even though the dropout rate is high, YOU can make a difference in a kids life by visiting BoostUp.org

What I love about this site is that you can TAKE ACTION! Leave a tweet-sized message for a teen who is at risk of dropping out. Make a video for kids in your state, encouraging them to finish high school. Find a local mentoring organization and donate your time. Make a difference with Boost Nation. Here is a sample video from their site:




Boost Nation | Encouraging our nation's students: Every 26 seconds, of every school day, a student drops out. Boost Nation, a project of BoostUp.org, lets you share your own message with students, helping keep them on track to graduation.

Education Week: More Districts Sending Teachers Into Students' Homes

Image Credit: Flickr/The Voice of Eye

Would you welcome your child's teacher into your home? 


To be honest, I have extremely mixed feelings about the whole home visit thing. A recent article made me think even more critically about my misgivings. Here is a quote from the article that caught my attention:

"There is a gold mine of information in that home—whether it's fully furnished or whether they don't have electricity," said Karen Kalish, a philanthropist based in St. Louis who has led the creation of teacher home-visit programs in several Missouri districts.

For example, just one visit home can help a teacher understand that a particular student doesn't have a desk or a place to do homework. "The teacher can now do something different with the child, instead of sending homework home and getting mad when it's not done," Ms. Kalish said.  --from Education Week: More Districts Sending Teachers Into Students' Homes

Is it just me? or is this an extremely insensitive comment? I work primarily with kids who are on the lower end of the income spectrum. Some of their families may invite me to their homes for social events; but I don't know any of them who would want me to visit as part of a school program. Most of my students' families wouldn't enjoy having someone witness their struggles. Their pride would be hurt if I saw that they had no electricity or no table to sit at to do their work. Many of my students come to school to escape their home situations. They like to have a part of every day where they don't have to worry about the struggles of home life, and they want the freedom to choose whether or not to share those struggles with me. I talk with them and listen to them whenever they want to share, but it is their choice to share. If they choose to share details with me at school, they still might not want me to visit them in their homes (just like I wouldn't necessarily want my students to visit me in my home.) There is a separation between our personal and professional relationships. I have close relationships with my students, but there are boundaries. Home visits cross those boundaries, but only in one direction: teachers visit student's homes but not vice versa.

The whole situation seems like it sets teachers up to be scientists observing lab rats. 

What bothers me even more is the fact that there is also the complex issue of diversity to consider. The U.S. Department of Education's report entitled Increasing Teacher Diversity states that, "Nationally, minority students make up 40.7 percent of the public school population. Although many schools (both urban and rural) are increasingly made up of a majority of black and Latino students, black and Latino teachers represent only about 14.6 percent of the teaching workforce."

Did you get that? Over 40% of the nation's students are not white, while more than 75% of the teachers are white. Following Ms. Kalisha's comments in Education week, it would appear that many schools are sending their white teachers into the homes of non-white students in order to witness their poverty. This is supposed to make them less angry at students when they don't have their homework completed.

Again...this sounds a lot like scientists observing lab rats. This does not describe not socially equal human beings interacting with one another.

There has got to be a better way to get teachers to become more aware of their students' backgrounds. There has got to be a better way of getting parents involved--one that doesn't potentially cause families shame or make them feel objectified.

There are several research studies out demonstrating the connection between parental involvement and student success (see the Harvard Family Research Project or the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education websites for research summaries.) But there isn't really any research saying that home visits are the best way to make that increase happen. I personally think school district dollars would be better spent trying to get parents into schools, rather than getting teachers into student's homes.

What do you think? How would you feel if school staff visited your home?

Being African-American in Iowa: Politics

Iowa Pubic Radio (IPR) correspondent Rob Dillard (@IPRDillard) has been working on a year-long assignment on diversity. In March-April 2011, IPR ran series of stories on Being Latino in Iowa that highlighted the Latino experience in my home state. Dillard covered stories on the effect of Latino populations on small towns and the importance of Latino food and culture. The series returned to focus on a different population in our state--African-Americans.  According to IPR, U.S. Census data show there are now 90,000 African-American adults living in Iowa. According to state department of education enrollment figures, there are almost as many African-American children enrolled in our public schools. My husband and his family have lived in the state since the 1960's and I found it interesting to hear what Rob Dillard learned about Being African-American in Iowa in 2011. His series was divided into five parts: education, economy, politics, health, and spirituality. I have written about my family's experiences with education and economy.

Last night I was watching the Republicans verbally duke it out at the Iowa Debate (thanks Ezzy, for reminding me to watch) and decided to watch the Twitter response. Besides all of the commentary about what $10,000 can buy and Newt's statement that Palestine is "an invented state", several tweeps noted that the audience was overwhelmingly white. They questioned why this debate was held in Iowa, a state that is 95% white and mostly rural.

The reason the debate is held in Iowa is simple: we are the first in the nation to caucus (i.e. elect) a candidate in any political party. According to the Iowa Caucus Project, a move by our state legislature in the 1970s to improve the delegation process led us to be first in the nation. Our government wanted more people to be able to take part in the political process, so they pushed for election reform and required a minimum of 30 business days between precinct caucuses and the county, district and state conventions.  During those 30 days, the caucuses are advertised so that more people know about them and can participate. In 1972 the State Convention was slated for May 20. Allowing for 60 business days to occur before the State Convention made the Iowa Caucus date January 24--first in the nation. It has been that way since 1972. (See Slate magazine's great article about the Caucus here.)

What tweeps watching the Iowa Debate may not know is that we do have some diversity in Iowa: I am sitting in a house where I am the only white person, and my children attend a school that is over half non-white. There are pockets of extreme diversity in our state. Those pockets of diversity have greatly influenced our politics, and as I've written in the past, Iowa has a history of doing what is right instead of what is popular when it comes to some political issues--especially Civil Rights.

The Iowa Public Radio podcast, Being African-American in Iowa: Politics, was aired in July of 2011. It taught me a lot of about the history of African-American involvement in Iowa politics at the state-level. It is an impressive history to me because for African-Americans to be elected, they need to cross the so-called "color line" and gain the votes of whites in their districts. The African-Americans interviewed in the IPR podcast did that--they went door to door, they hosted events, they communicated their concerns and interests. A repeated theme in those interviews is this: "We need to focus on what we have in common vs. what we don't have in common." Those who were elected got there by focusing on the issues, but not necessarily by talking about race. The podcast talks about Helen Miller, an African-American woman who currently serves in the Iowa House. Miller is the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, which is not a committee dealing with a traditionally African-American issue. She states that she got there by really communicating and focusing on the issues. There seems to be a significant amount of "colorblindness" in campaigning that leads to African-American success in politics.

In my mind, the notion of focusing on the issues to get elected is one that is very idealistic. It can happen in a state like Iowa because there isn't much diversity in the state as a whole. But there are definitely issues that need to be addressed without a "colorblind" lens. These issues are human rights issues, and it is my hope that eventually a candidate--of any color--will begin to discuss them.

These statistics are from the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans:

• The poverty rate in 2008 for African Americans was 35.6%. The corresponding rate for Iowa is 11.5%
• 70.9% of African-Americans rent, as opposed to owning, their own home. The corresponding rate for the state as a whole is 27.1 %.
• The unemployment rate for African-Americans in 2008 was 8.9%. For Iowa as a whole, it was 3.9%
• Median earnings for African-Americans was $19,174. For Iowa, it was $26,959. 

Then there is also a considerable achievement gap for all people of color in Iowa. According to the Iowa Department of Education's "Gap Paper,"

Gaps exist in the achievement of Iowa students. In 2010, the percent of all students in grade four enrolled for full academic year (FAY) scoring proficient, as measured by the Iowa Tests, was 78.5 percent. The percent of Black (54.5 percent), Hispanic (61.2 percent), free or reduced lunch eligible (66.6 percent), or English Language Learner (ELL) (51.3 percent) students was considerably less.

Interestingly enough, these Iowa issues are also issues we face as a nation. Yet none of them were mentioned in last night's Republican debate. In my mind, these are human rights and social justice issues that concern us all. Politicians, no matter what their color, can no longer afford to be colorblind.

I am interested to see when, if ever, the 2012 candidates will really and truly discuss issues of poverty, unemployment and achievement.

What issues do you think politicians should be discussing? What was your reaction to the Iowa Debate?

Inspiration vs. Appropriation

Earlier this week my family was packing up to head out of town for Thanksgiving. My kids were being goofy (a regular occurrence) and somehow the word pelvis came up. My youngest giggled wildly about the word pelvis and asked if there was anything that rhymed with it. "Elvis used to be called 'Elvis the Pelvis' " I told her.

"Why?" she asked. And so I found her a YouTube video of Elvis performing on the Milton Berle show in 1956. While she watched and imitated Elvis' famous pelvic moves, I scrolled down the list of videos to see if there were any other good examples of Elvis the Pelvis. In with the Elvis footage was a video of Big Mama Thornton singing "Hound Dog." I played it for my kids who asked, "Which one came first: Elvis' version or Big Mama Thornton's?" My husband and I gave an impromptu little lesson about the history of black music, explaining that a lot of popular music has roots in black culture but didn't become popular until a white, mainstream artist performed it.

Then at my parents house over the holiday, a similar conversation occurred. My mom and dad recently watched a documentary about famed songwriters Leiber & Stoller, who incidentally wrote the song "Hound Dog." Leiber grew up surrounded by black folks in Baltimore. He was not just influenced by black culture, he was in it. He went to schools that were predominantly black, and helped his mom run a store that was in a black neighborhood. He said it was his experiences in black culture that allowed him to write music for black artists. Leiber and Stoller's first big hit was "Hound Dog," which they originally wrote  for Big Mama Thornton; but it didn't become popular until Elvis sang it.

Were Leiber and Stoller inspired by black culture? Or did they appropriate a style of music from black culture that didn't belong to them? Were they paying homage to a culture by popularizing black music? or were they profiting from a culture that wasn't theirs to profit from?

I've been thinking about the notion of inspiration vs. appropriation for several months. Conversations about the movie The Help over the summer, an interesting read on Racialicious, a spirited chat on the podcast Is That Your Child? about Halloween costumes, and an interview on the Mixed Chicks Chat podcast all left me thinking about the difference between honoring a culture and stealing/profiting from it. How do we decide the difference between inspiration and appropriation?

Image Credit: Flickr/brittany0177

The book and movie The Help stirred up a lot of controversy because of the fact that it is a story about the black experience written by a white woman. Many negative responses to both the book and the movie centered on the question, "When do people of color get to tell their own story?" The author, Kathryn Stockett, states that her story is based on memories from her own life. Is she inspired by the black women from her past? Or is she appropriating the story of black women, telling a story that isn't necessarily hers to tell?

Mixed Chicks Chat (a live weekly podcast about the mixed experience)  episode 225 featured a man by the name of Phil Wilkes Fixico (read a story about him here.) His mixed experience involved an amazing story: at age 52, Fixico discovered through research that he is a descendant of the Seminole Maroons-- slaves who escaped in the 18th and 19th century to live in Spanish Florida near the Seminole Indians. Their cultures intermixed, creating an African-Seminole cultural experience. Fixico discussed the fact that Seminole Maroon experience is a story that needs to be told, that more people should learn about this intersection of African and Native American history. His mission is to share this history, and he suggested that the best way to spread the word is to get someone from the dominant culture (i.e. someone white, European-American) to write about it. He argued that more people will listen if the story is told by a member of the dominant culture.

Image Credit: Flickr/ronocdh

Since that episode aired, I have been thinking about his statement.


Will the dominant culture only pay attention to a story if it is told  by one of their own?  


Both Leiber & Stoller and Elvis brought a lot of attention to black music. Without their inspiration/appropriation of black culture, what would music sound like today? The Help started a lot of conversations about race that weren't happening prior to its release. Many white women in particular who read the book/saw the movie are seeing issues of race from a perspective they had never before considered. Without that inspiration/appropriation, would those conversations have occurred? Will more people learn about the story Phil Wilkes Fixico wants to share, the story of Black Seminole Maroons, if it is told by a white/European-American?

I don't have answers here, just questions. In fact, the more I think about it the more questions I have. When I talked to my husband about the concept of cultural appropriation he told me a story about walking to work and seeing a group of Japanese college students dressed in hip hop attire. He asked: are they appropriating black culture? Or is their expression of hip hop culture not considered cultural appropriation because they aren't members of the dominant European-American culture?

What do you think? What constitutes cultural appropriation? What is the difference between inspiration and appropriation? 


Will the dominant culture listen to a story that comes straight from the source? or does it need that inspiration/appropriation to happen before it can learn to appreciate other cultures?

In Your Dreams: Whoopi Goldberg Stand-Up Routine Remixed

Long before she was on The View, Whoopi Goldberg was an amazing stand-up comedian whose work always made me laugh and THINK. She somehow always had a way of using humor to stop me in my tracks and see things from another perspective. I admire the way she uses humor to make people stop and think, to question the status quo.

In her original Broadway show Whoopi Goldberg: Live on Broadway, she did a piece that really challenges people's perceptions about external appearances. Here is a young man's version of that piece that I found to be very powerful (thanks to my mom for sending it to me!)

If you never had the chance to see Whoopi's stand-up, you can check out one routine here from the revival of her 1985 Broadway show, Back to Broadway (warning: some swear words are used in this routine.)

Un Meme: Sólo por Diversión | A Meme: Just for Fun

Why I love octubre/October!

¡Que divertido! Mi amiga, Ezzy de EzzyLanguzzi, compartio este meme con migo a semana. Gracias! Me que me ayudó a practicar un poco más español. 

Aquí les dejo mis respuestas:

What fun! My friend, Ezzy from EzzyLanguzzi, shared this meme with me last week. Thank you! You helped me practice a little more Spanish.

Here are my responses:

¿Qué fue lo primero que le viste a tu pareja cuando se conocieron?

What was the first thing I noticed of my husband's when I met him?

Sus ojos

His eyes

¿A dónde te gustaría ir de luna de miel?

Where would I like to go on a honeymoon?

Venecia

Venice (before it sinks!)

¿Te consideras una persona aventurera?

Do I consider myself an adventurous person?

No es tan aventurero como yo de tener hijos.

Not as adventurous since I had kids.

¿Tienes algún secreto tuyo que nuca le hayas contado a nadie?

Do you have a secret you've never shared with anybody?

No. Al menos una persona lo sabe todo.

No. At least one person knows everything.

¿Playa o piscina?

Beach or pool?

Playa

Beach

¿Verano o invierno?

Summer or winter?

Verano

Summer

¿Besos of abrazos?

Kisses or hugs?

Abrazos

Hugs

¿Dulce o saldado?

Sweet or salty?

Dulce y salado! ... cubiertas de chocolate pretzels

Sweet and salty! ... chocolate-covered pretzels

¿Fresa o chocolate?

Strawberry or chocolate?

¿Qué hay de fresas cubiertas de chocolate?

How about chocolate-covered strawberries?

¿Blanco o negro?

Black or white?

Negro

Black

¿Color favorito?

Favorite color?

púrpura

¿Cuál es tu película favorita?

Your favorite movie?

Bagdad Cafe

¿Juego de mesa favorito?

Your favorite table game?

Euchre (un juego de cartas)

Euchre (a card game)

¿Cuál es tu bebida favorita?

What's your favorite drink?

Agua 

Water

¿Cual es tu trago favorito?

What is your favorite [alcoholic] beverage?

Margarita

¿Cuál es tu mes favorito?

Your favorite month?

octubre

October

¿Qué es lo primero que piensas al despertar?

What's the first thing you think about when you wake up?

lavar la ropa y las tareas del mañana

doing laundry and morning chores

¿Perdonarías una infidelidad de tu pareja?

Would you forgive infidelity on the part of your spouse?

Nunca

Never

¿Cuántos timbrazos antes de contestar el telefono?

How many rings before you answer the phone?

Dos 

Two

¿Sabes guardar secretos?

Do you know how to keep secrets?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you ;-) (Spy humor that I have no idea how to say in español!)

¿Dices tu edad verdadera?

Do you tell your honest age?

Siempre

Always

¿Te consideras timida o extrovertida?

Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

Timida

An introvert

¿Que hay debajo de tu cama?

What's under your bed?

Fuera de temporada la ropa

Off-season clothing (and maybe a lot of other stuff I don't want to look at what kids have hidden under there!)

¿Has faltado a clases/al trabajo sólo por el clima?

Have you missed school or work due to the weather?

Si

Yes

¿Cuánto tiempo tienes con este blog?

How long have you had this blog?

Casi un año

Almost one year

I apologize for any errors in español here...ha sido durante muchos años since I studied, and I never really got that far in my studies! Gracias a Dios por my Spanish-English dictionary and traductor Google :D

Le paso este juegito a unas amigas queridas, gracias por todo su apoyo ... I'm passing this little game to a few of my dear friends, some of them are the same friends Ezzy listed (I hope that's not cheating!)  The Lifestory of a Bookworm (Jessica), Bicultural Mom(Chantilly), Motherhood in Mexico (Leslie), Me and the Mexican (Tara), and  Growing Up Blackxican (Ruby)

A Letter to the 2012 Presidential Candidates: #BlogIn2011

Not all families are the same. What the government has referred to as "family values" does not represent the values of most diverse and multicultural families. Those "family values"are not shared by my family, my friends, or my neighbors. Something needs to change. Please join me in speaking out about the family values that really matter in today's world.
_________________________________

Dear 2012 Presidential Candidates, We are your future constituents and we are parents. We are American mothers and fathers and grandparents and guardians. Our families might be the most diverse in the world. Blended and combined in endless permutations, we represent every major religion, political ideology and ethnic culture that exists. We are made from equal parts biology and choice. Our children come to us in every way possible—including fertility miracles, adoption, and remarriage.

Our very modern families embody the freedom that defines America. We embody America. We are rich in diversity, but we are united in our family values. We come together today, with one voice, to express our grave disappointment in the national political discourse.

The 2012 countdown has barely begun and we are already being bombarded with the warmed-over, hypocritical rhetoric of 2008. We are living in a time where 25% of Americans now live in poverty, the unemployment rate stands at 16%, and we are spending close to $170 billion annually between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given the current state of affairs we would expect every candidate to focus on the issues that truly matter: job creation, debt-relief, taxes, education, poverty, and ending the war(s). Instead, it is already clear to us that the conversation has been hijacked, with the goal of further polarizing our nation into a politically motivated and falsely created class-war. We will not stand for another campaign year in which politicians presume to know what our family values are as they relate to the nation. To be clear, here are our family values:

• Access to education, and the ability to actually use it. We want quality, affordable, federally-funded pre-K programs made available in every State, in order to provide an even starting point for all children enrolled in public schools— regardless of the wealth of the district or town they live in.
• A reinstatement of regulations for banks issuing mortgages and full prosecution for those who engaged in fraudulent lending practices. We want full accountability —investigation, indictment and prosecution— of those individuals and institutions who engaged in fraudulent lending practices and who helped create the massive foreclosures that left many families homeless or struggling to keep their homes.
• Affordable health care, including family planning, for all Americans. We will not tolerate any candidate using the shield of “Choice” to blind us from the issues that really matter. When funding is stripped from organizations like Planned Parenthood, access to sliding-scale health care (including yearly pap smears & mammograms), comprehensive sex education, and family planning is blocked from the poorest of the population.
• A return of strict environmental regulations protecting water, air, food, and land that were removed in the last two decades. We want our children to grow up in a world not weighed down by the strains of pollution and global warming. Between BPA in our products, sky-rocketing rates of asthma in kids, questionable hormones in our over-processed food, and more, we need leaders who will put our needs and safety over the desires and profits of large corporations.

Family planning, healthcare, education, economic solvency and environmental safety: these are our national family values. Candidates who demonstrate the ability to understand the gravity of these issues, and their impact on our families, and who can provide actual, viable solutions to these problems will garner our support and our votes.
We believe in this democratic system of ours, and we will continue to use our voices and our votes to see that it reaches its fullest potential. Sincerely, Your future constituents, The mothers & fathers of America

If you would like to forward this letter to your elected officials, you can find their contact info at the following links: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

The #BlogIn2011 campaign originated with Avital Norman Nathman (www.themamafesto.com) @TheMamaFesto & Lisa Duggan (www.themotherhoodblog.com) @motherhoodmag. Their goal was to have at least 100 bloggers participate. Check out the hashtag #BlogIn2011 to follow the conversation/reaction on Twitter. Visit other blogs participating in #BlogIn2011 by clicking this link.

A Day in the Life of an Alternative H.S. Program

Last week I spent a day with traditional school teachers from my county at a county-wide in-service. We heard 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling talk about student-centered classroom practices, exchanged ideas with colleagues who teach in our subject area, and in general had a day to re-charge.  At these in-services, I rarely feel like I fit in anywhere because my alternative high school program is so different from a traditional classroom. In years past, I have not felt comfortable about sharing what happens in my classroom because of those differences-- it's scary to be the only alternative educator in a room full of hundreds of traditional educators! This time was different though. I wasn't afraid to share. I shared some ideas and details about what happens in my classroom and was shocked by the fact that many of the colleagues I have worked with for a decade or more have no idea what goes on in our alternative high school program. I also read this post by Larry Cuban, who recommends that teachers speak out about their practice. So here it is... a play by play of a typical day in my classroom.

Students working independently: yes, the floor is a workspace!

Students arrive at 9:00 AM. (Research suggests that adolescents are more capable of attending regularly and being successful with a later school start time. See this article from the Sleep Foundation for links to research studies.)

9:00AM to 10:00 AM and 10:10 AM to 11:10 AM Independent/self-guided study time. Students choose what subject they want to work on and what course they want to work on. They have options not only in what course they want to study, but how they study it. They can use a traditional textbook to read, answer questions, take quizzes and tests. They can use an Internet-based curriculum (this year we are trying e2020.) They can design their own research project. Currently four students are working to create an aquatic ecosystem in a 29-gallon aquarium tank with the help of a community college Biology professor. (I recently read this post  about the need for traditional classrooms to offer Independent Work Time and found it very interesting.)

While they work, my aide and I are available to help them one-on-one if they need it. Kids can listen to music during class if it helps them focus, and they are allowed to eat/drink (as long as they clean up after themselves.) They work at their own pace, so if they miss a day of school they come back and pick up exactly where they left off. They each have a goal regarding work completion for a nine-week period of time. They each know how much work it will take to complete a course from the first day. They can discuss with us a personalized plan for progress or decide for themselves how much work should be done each day in order to complete a class.  

In any given hour, there are kids working on English, Biology, Consumer Math, World History, or Health. It is rare that two kids are working on the same thing at the same time. Most kids work on the same subject every day during Independent Work time so that they don't have to switch gears from Math to English. They can focus on one subject until it's done. They don't have to switch gears, but my aide and I do. We bounce from student to student to help with every subject area in a short period of time. There is never a dull moment!

In between 1-hour class periods, there is a 10-minute break where kids can text, get on Facebook, walk around, hacky-sack in the yard or just hang out. 

11:20 - 12:20 Whole group instruction. This is optional--students who do not feel comfortable working in a group setting do not have to participate; they can continue working on Independent Study credit. Each 9-weeks I look to see what subject-area kids are lacking credit in, and plan a course to help them. The curriculum can be challenging for me because I am a certified Language Arts teacher and kids often need credit in classes like U.S. Government or Math. In those cases, I must choose to either use our district-approved textbook to present curriculum straight from the book (I read the chapter to them, we discuss the questions together, they take the test) or I must get my curriculum approved by collaborating with a Highly Qualified Teacher. I can also use approved curriculum, but change the way it is presented. For example, this quarter we are working on an Algebra class together. Instead of teaching Algebra traditionally, we are learning traditional Algebraic concepts with Algebra Tiles. It is a hands-on way to illustrate algebraic thinking. Students are working at their own pace through the algebra curriculum and can help each other or wait for me to help them. I spend all hour walking around my classroom, looking over shoulders to check for understanding and helping kids who need help. 

Image via EIA Education

12:20 - 12:40 Closed-campus lunch. School lunch is delivered from the cafeteria at the traditional high school in town. Kids eat, surf the 'net, get on Facebook, throw a football in the yard, and hang out.

12:40 - 1:40 Another hour of optional whole-group instruction. This quarter we are reading the John Grisham book A Time to Kill together. Everyone takes turns reading aloud, but no one has to read more than they are comfortable reading. They must read at least one sentence, but can read as many pages as they want (the goal is to improve their oral literacy skills, not give them panic attacks!) We will analyze characters, talk about the criminal justice system, and examine race issues. They will complete reading comprehension quizzes and finish the course with a self-designed project of some sort that relates to the book. The options are endless for their project, they just need to have a vision of what it will be and let me know about that vision before they start working on it. Projects will be presented to the class when they are completed. In this class, my role as a teacher is to pick the book and come up with the reading comprehension questions. On an every day basis, I am just like the kids: I take my turn reading aloud, chip in on the discussions, and help if someone gets stuck on word pronunciation. 

Our ceiling is filled w/student art

Football in the yard

1:50 - 2:50 Activity hour. We don't have a gym in our building so this is the time of day we use for adapted PE, Art, and social interaction time. When the weather is nice we either walk to the local park to play basketball, frisbee golf, or to walk the track. When it's not so nice we play board games, card games or do art projects. We also use this time for community service projects: our annual Thanksgiving Feast for the Community, home-made valentines for the residents of our local nursing home, and raking leaves or shoveling snow for the home-bound are some of our regular projects.

We dismiss at 2:50. We do not give out any homework (Interesting post here about the homework debate.) When a student leaves for the day, they leave school behind them and go on to their lives outside of school--for many this includes working a job, taking care of children (their own or younger siblings), and a lot of responsibility. Similarly, I work hard to leave my work at work. It is nice as an adult to be able to come home and devote my time to my family; why not give that same respect for personal time to my students?

I take the time to interact regularly with my students. They are my friends on Facebook, they have my cell phone number, and can contact me in any way they feel comfortable doing so. I send a weekly letter home to parents along with an hour-by-hour attendance report and a handwritten note about their student's progress. Many parents are also Facebook friends, have my cell number, and can text or email me any time (some of them are probably reading this blog right now! THANK YOU for your continued support! ) We collaborate as much as possible to help kids graduate from high school. 

Not every alternative h.s. program is the same as mine. Some are much bigger; some are full-fledged alternative schools with a full faculty; some are even smaller than mine and exist as a "school within a school." Some things all alternative schools should have in common are: a student-centered approach to teaching and learning, use of a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies, community involvement, and most importantly an emphasis on building relationships with students. 

I hope you have a better idea about what alternative high school programs are all about. We actually do more than I mentioned in this post (job shadows, worksite tours, college visits, mediation, counseling, etc.) but this gives you a good idea of what a typical day looks like. 

Feel free to ask questions or offer tips on how you think we can improve!