Left Lane Ends

It’s true. Hell froze over and it happened last night. It snowed in Dallas and technically dropped below freezing! So, I shouldn’t REALLY be surprised that my vote actually matters for once in Texas.
I just stood in the longest voting line I have ever had to wait in (primary/general elections) and it was the most diverse line I have ever seen voting. I cast my vote next to a Muslim woman and heard all different classes of people talking about coming back for Caucusing later tonight. It is an amazing time to vote. Standing amidst community members of many ethnicity’s, religions, social classes and beliefs allowed me to feel the most patriotic that I have ever felt in my life. This is what America is. This is what America should be. We were all united towards a common hope, a hope for change and a hope for a better country.

I know it will be different in the general election (and not separate/apparent), but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the empty Republican table, sitting and waiting for customers.

Teaching is always new to me, and I am continually fascinated by my students’ creativity and learning. The opportunity to empower my students through thier involvement in community issues, and to help them find relevance in history by connecting it to today interests me; mixing this with new technological approaches makes it even more exciting for us all.

~Michelle Forman, High School Teacher

• Example 1: Silence Speaks - Stories to heal
  
• Example 2: A Lesson Germ - How do economics, capitalism and social justice intersect?
• Example 3: SFETT ICAN Festival de Cine
• Resource 1: Center for Digital Story Telling
• Resource 2: Article - Implementing a Social Justice Curriculum in an Inner City School
• Resource 3: eMINTS - eThemes

Digital storytelling can take a variety of forms, but what truly makes it a powerful medium? There are a variety of programs out there from MovieMaker to PowerPoint to Producer to Photostory 3. However, simply because there are free tools available certainly does not mean that we, as educators, need to use the newest and greatest software out there just because we can. While there is a place for it, I can’t tell you how many times I see students required to spit information out through MovieMaker instead of PowerPoint with the assumption that the student has learned more.

No, I believe that it is imperative to focus on the instructional content and that it is imperative that we search for avenues that allow students to be drawn into our educational environment. What is important to them and how does that intersect with the curriculum? This certainly does not mean that we only teach what the students want - absolutley not. There are many topics that our students may not be aware of or that they may not have thought through to which they can directly identify.

What amazes me is how involved students get when they start to investigate the stories around them. Take, for example, the immigration issue that came to the fore in the spring of 2006. Our students (here in Texas) became very engaged with this specific social issue - and teachers leapt on the opportunity to help enable students.

I did not have to stretch to find the connection between social justice and state standards. I did not spend my free time with my manuals and try to “fit” social justice in. Rather, I made the mandated curriculum “fit” into the social justice pedagogy and practice that I was using with my students on a daily basis. When we had to manipulate and compute very large (up to billions) and very small (decimals) numbers, we looked at census information, the number of Native Americans that were killed, infected with disease, or relocated to reservations, the amount of money corporations make as compared to the wages of the working class that those corporations employ and exploit.

~Laurence Tan, Teacher, Los Angeles

So, it’s time to get creative … find out how we can enable our students to change the world … and how that passion is tied to our history, the beauty of mathematics, fluid writing and reading, scientific history and knowledge and beyond.

The Center for Latin American and Border Studies provides Border Studies Curriculum in the form of 20 lesson plans. Looks like these have some great potential for modification and use through a number of subject areas.

I came across Mike Muir’s blog this morning thanks to a post from Vicki on her coolcatteacher blog. Her post is well worth reading and ties well to my rant that was inspired (more like prodded to life) by Angela (author of musingsfromtheacademy). I should just title this post - links worth reading!

Mike is a professor of educational technology at the University of Maine at Farmington and has done extensive research on their 1:1 program as well as played an integral role in its implementation. We visited them a little over a year ago and have been in touch through our 1:1 symposium. These are all great to add to your aggregator… Great to see you online, Mike!

Who walks with you? What a powerful question. As much as a person makes decisions that are socially responsible, as much as a person is outspoken in regards to social responsibility and as much as a person makes personal strides towards social equity, when we ask each other ‘who walks with you’, we as how powerful our impact, our footprint on society, is. Jonathan Jansen from the University of Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, described his story, the growth and maturation of his life, in the context of this question.

I thoroughly enjoyed this session as Jonathan discussed two schools that went through the process of integration after apartheid in South Africa. He focused his presentation around the concept of leadership within the context of social responsibility and noted several concepts that he has learned through his experiences.

• Leadership must be corporate. When it is spread out, not only is the workload distributed, but the ownership and relevancy of the leadership is much greater.
• Leadership in the context of social responsibility is exhausting.
• Leadership in the context of social responsibility requires a personal commitment to modeling what is expected of who one is leading.

Here are some lines that I jotted down during the presentation.

Language struggles are not simply about language, but about emotion, authority and history.

If the leadership of the school does not reflect respect and integration, then the students will reflect the same.

You cannot expect your students to cross these difficult borders if your life as a leader does not play testimony to an integrated society.

If you are going to lead for social justice, you must ask, ‘what is worth teaching, after all?’.

In this madness about measurement, we have forgotten the broader meaning of educating. What we need to know, is will the pass life?

‘Our history is with us every single day’

My mind raced in thinking about the integration issues we have locally, both with language and with culture. How can a community be moved to embrace diversity. While integration and diversity are a common theme in society today, we will always have challenges in working to understand other people and other cultures - that is just human nature. There is hope, and it requires work and commitment. How far are we willing to push? And more importantly, who is walking with us?

…just my notes - I’d like to think that I’m out there where the left lane ends, but sometimes I’m just not too sure.