Proposed hit to undocumented students in Alabama

We've had a few recent discussions around undocumented student status, and I thought some of y'all would be interested in this article, which is about this piece of legislation in Alabama--dubiously named the "Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act"--that includes a prohibition on K-12 students' "participation in any extracurricular activity outside of the basic course of study." And of course, it's all in the name of jobs. It sounds like it's made it through a couple rounds of how-a-bill-becomes-a-law, though there will certainly be legal challenges if it passes.

Balloon Art!

I clicked on this link because I thought it might have something good for Devan's balloon-stencil-coolness project. But really, it's just a bunch of cool balloon sculptures. And I learned a new word: airigami--the fine art of folding air. I mean, how fun would it be to have this giant gumball machine around?? Balloon sculpture would be a pretty fantastical thing to bring into the classroom.

Procrastination Station!

Cyberped-tastic video project:

Dave Eggers on Teacher Salaries, etc.

Okay, so this opinion piece is not just by Dave Eggers, it's co-written by Ninive Clements Calegari. I didn't know who that is, but turns out she's a cofounder of 826. The authors are arguing for the importance of increased teacher salaries in education reform, particularly as a tool to lower teacher turnover. As we see a lot of, examples are made of Finland, South Korea, and Singapore. But as the article illustrates, beyond just salaries, their successes can be attributed to very different treatment and perception of the teaching profession on a national level. So the authors don't contend that increased salaries are The Solution to American Education, but that the changes it would affect could facilitate a broader progress in the attitudes toward teachers and education reform.

And, of course, Dave Eggers is a great writer (I think). And if you haven't been to 826 Chicago, you should definitely check it out! It's a great resource for students (free writing programs), and the storefront sell fun spy toys, as well as published work by youth.

And, because I know you all like TED talks:

But hey, I guess Osama bin Laden was just nabbed. Sooo we can just divert all the military dollars to schools, right?

Sir Ken Robinson says some other cool stuff about learning

Thanks, Lee, for the Sir Ken Robinson lecture - nothing like a video like to that to send me into a two-hour TED spiral. I don't always like everything the man says (or maybe just how he says it), but about 95% of the time I'm like, 'Yes! I want to show this to everyone!' Anyways, here's another couple videos if you want to hear more from him. In these, he isn't addressing the STEM issue as explicitly, but places similar emphasis on learning and education that fosters creativity, critical thinking, and purposeful action.

This one has fun graphics! You'll like it!

This one's less pretty, but definitely still worth some brain time.

Organization in Chicago Charters

I've accidentally fallen a bit behind on my blogging--which is silly because I've been enjoying it--but here is an article I meant to put up awhile ago regarding unionizing in charter schools. As it's shamefully two weeks old, this may be old news to people, but I think it's an important conversation in education right now.

I am a supporter of organizing (or at least the right to), and so the anti-union rhetoric in many Chicago charters is disturbing to me, especially since they seem to be doing a lot of the hiring these days. So beyond the unfortunate situations for some of the teachers who have attempted organizing, what I really appreciate about this article is the cases where charters and unions have been able to make it work, as well as the sentiments from our own C.T.U. regarding moving toward that goal. Often the charters and the unions are presented as binaries, but both share the priorities of high quality teaching and learning, both are a serious part of the educational landscape, and schools would be best served by their ability to work together. If the big sticking point for some charters is the need to not be tangled in the bureaucracy of the traditional big union contract, then perhaps some kind of personalized reconceptualization could work, as exemplified by the Green Dot network in L.A. (which I don't know enough about to make any declarations).

Of course there are fundamentals of professional organization that will need to be held on to, but unfortunately I hear more about the unions consenting to reform in the name of progress and anti-union charters and policymakers voicing a lot less willingness to cooperate. Of course, as this article illustrates, that is not the case for all charter school administrations, and hopefully there will continue to be working examples of how these organizations can find common ground in order focus on our most pressing educational goals--quality student learning--which I'd like to think all sides share.

More Detroit: Art Stuff

While taking a far-too-often dip into my facebook newsfeed, I saw this article about a student art project that has grown into a much more developed initiative. The artist--Veronika Scott--is a student at CCS (Center for Creative Studies, an art school in Detroit), where she began creating sleeping-bag-winter-coat-backpacks for some of the city's 20,000 homeless citizens. Her assignment was to create a design that filled a need, and apparently it did so much so that she founded a non-profit organization to continue the project. Always exciting to see a school project that extends beyond its own walls! Reminds me a bit of Michael Rakowitz's paraSITE project that I know a lot of people have seen, which also seeks to address the needs of homeless people through innovative and often collaborative design.

As many of you probably know, Detroit, in all of its hullabaloo, is also home to a vibrant contemporary art scene. Many people are putting their money on the arts as instrumental in the city's progress, and the Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference is addressing that kind of transformation. This year--this week, actually--the conference will be held in Detroit, and Scott will be serving as a panelist.

Also, when I was home for fake-spring-break, I was able to check out MOCAD--the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. It's a small, non-collecting space that opened just a few years ago, housed, quite appropriately, in a former auto dealership. Both the shows that were up on my visit were really great. It's definitely worth a quick visit if you're ever in the area. I was so happy that their shows were thesis-relevant that I gave them $5.