The Year Everything Changed, Including Education Injustice

Its been only a few weeks since we have observed a near total collapse of modern society so admittingly,  this post maybe terribly prematurely hopeful as we observe a complete re-engineering of our education system.

In short, people who were neglected, abused, and ill-served by this American system now find themselves even more so on the brink of survival, wondering if there is indeed any semblance of humanity, yet alone society, remaining.

So, I acknowledge that it maybe terribly premature to find the hope in the midst of our current crisis when so many people are hurting and with this virus, sick, and to be blunt, dying. But what I will try to delicately convey is that our educational system, which has for decades served as a microcosm of those societal inequities and also impacted by this major, catalytic shift, will have an incredible opportunity to re-imagine what traditional education can look and feel like for millions of youth. We maybe watching the traditional, highly inequitable school system take its last dying breath..

So what becomes of this new reality in education? Are we to proclaim the liberation of virtual learning as the new panacea of how we educate our students? The most important question we can now as ourselves and our education leaders is:

• How can we re-imagine a school system where students have more control over their learning, access to high quality foods and learning that actually matters? 

• What does it mean to be "educated" in a post-COVID 19 world? 

• How will industry and the restructuring of society determine what and how we teach? 

I'm hopeful that this will bring about a new beginning and a death to the traditional, out-dated methods of teaching and learning once and for all. In its place, an equitable way so students can receive a highly relevant and high quality education that really prepares them for a post-COVID 19 world.  

Dismantling White Supremacy in Schools

It's taken me longer than expected to write about this topic, probably because I didn't know exactly where to start with having the courage to post. I know understand that by not calling this out more explicitly in my work, that I am being complicit in upholding notions of white superiority, dominant culture and exploitation.

So, what's my message here. I guess, its first establishing the fact that we must begin this work in all aspects of education. Reflecting back, I'm starting to understand why so much of my schooling frustrated me, or rather felt deeply oppressive. Of course, there were many instances in my education where some of my teachers reflected more liberatory teaching practices and to this day, I continue to benefit. However, looking back on the collection of my K-12 education in metro Detroit, much of what I was taught was rooted deeply in the notion that the most important ideas in this world are generated, promoted and eschewed by white people.

In today's educational landscape, we are starting see the emergence of incorporating new paradigms into our system that challenge notions of superiority of white culture.

What's Grades Got To Do, Got To Do With It: Inspiring Student Growth

Tina Turner had that voice, didn't she? I mean who else could sing as harmonious as she could demanding an answer to the question as "What's Love Got To Do With It?" So, the same question can be applied to education particularly as it relates to grading, right? What do grades really have to do with it and in this case I'm referring to learning? Do grades really have anything to do with learning? Have you ever received a particular grade and learned from that grade? If so, what did you learn? You probably already knew, for the most part how you were doing in that course or class, right? If not, what does a B- tell you?

What does it mean when a student earns an A in a course? A new Gallop Poll, survey says that prestigious colleges will not "make you happier" in life or in work. Can the same be said about grades? The question itself is probably a stretch but exploring this notion of grades certainly is an emotionally charged issue. Nearly every person who has participated in the educational system here in the U.S. American Public Education system can relate to receiving grades, either inflated, not reflective of their abilities, or somewhere in between. Some schools have moved to competency based learning and others as we did at Big Picture moved to public exhibition presentations. Let's move to a place where grades have an equal importance as knowing your work made a difference in someones life, improved a community, transformed vacant lots into nutrient rich soil or any other opportunities that allow students to do deeply personal and other-centered work and learning.

Rural Professional Learning Network Meeting: Experts and Deeper Discovery

For our most recent Rural Professional Learning Network meeting, we invited Dean Ballard, Director of Math with CORE to share his expertise on Math Mindsets and Intervention Systems. Our district design teams were focused on two essential and guiding questions as part of their Problem of Practice: 

• How might we develop a comprehensive math intervention system that provides good first instruction to all students, advancement opportunities, as appropriate and targeted intensive intervention as needed? 
• How might we support our students to develop a growth mindset in math, that challenges students while also motivating them and eliminating math anxiety? 

With these two questions guiding our district teams, Dean provided a brief, yet comprehensive description of the essentials as it relates to both mindset and intervention systems. In terms of intervention systems, Dean recommend the following: a) leadership team, b) assessment system, c) core instructional practices, and d) a cycle of continuous improvement. He noted that there are several challenges with implementing such a system including but not limited to planning and integrating the intervention with other program and initiatives with other programs and initiatives at the school, ensuring all staff members are working collaboratively, using reliable data and implementing the interventions effectively. Using data from actual clients and schools, Dean was able to show case studies supporting implementation of such practices. 

We also provided network members information on the Five Strands of Proficiency and provided a brief video on Jo Boaler, with one of her Four Boosting Messages, and then provided time for reflection and questions. As the network is still in a process of discovery, the expert presentations provided additional information, questions and ideas to inform their design efforts. After participants engaged in a process of discovery, Allison Carter and I modeled an interpret role-play, identifying patterns and themes in real-time allowing participants to see how to best engage in a similar process with interpreting their own data. By the time design teams finished interpreting, many saw the need to gather more information to better understand their schools and districts context, specifically gathering more information on student experiences in math beyond test scores. 

 

Count On Us: Math Placement Practices Network

I was never that good at math—but I had a deep desire to become not only proficient, but exemplary, especially in calculus.

In my high school, I was one of only a few African-American students. I completed three years of math, and worked tirelessly solving equations in my trigonometry course only to end up with mediocre grades. The school offered few resources to accelerate my academic growth in this pursuit. Nevertheless, I graduated from high school and went to college. I eventually earned a graduate degree in Education and taught for five years in a school in inner-city Detroit.

Many students in California are faced with the opposite challenge. A 2010 Noyce Foundation study titled “Pathway Reports: Dead Ends and Wrong Turns on the Path Through Algebra” found that approximately 65 percent of students who took Algebra I in eighth grade were made to repeat the same course in ninth grade. Additional research revealed that these misplacements were particularly notable for African-American and Latino boys, and posed challenges for high school students, affecting their opportunities in college, careers, and life.

To address this issue, in 2015 Senator Holly Mitchell (D), with support from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, worked to pass the California Math Placement Act. Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation in that same year requiring school districts to design equitable policies that “systematically take multiple, current or existing, objective measures” to ensure students are advancing to the next prescribed course in the mathematics progression.

Since the law was passed, most school districts in California have struggled with its implementation. The East Side Alliance (ESA), which consists of eight partner districts that together serve nearly 85,000 students in seven elementary schools and one high school district, has been at the forefront of that work. Even before the Math Placement Act was passed, ESA members worked collaboratively through the Student Algebra Project to ensure equitable outcomes for all students.

State policies, particularly in education, succeed or fail in implementation at the school and district levels and the California Math Placement Act is no exception. The Math Placement Practices Network, facilitated by Pivot Learning and funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, began working with ESA early this year to design and sustain a network of schools. This work has focused on developing a shared problem of practice to effectively implement the state’s policy–specifically to improve existing pathway criteria so that all students are placed appropriately. Particular attention has been centered on ensuring English Language Learners, students with special needs, and students of color are supported and challenged. We have been working with five ESA school districts: Alum Rock, Mount Pleasant, Berryessa Union, Franklin-McKinley and Oak Grove.

Our collaborative work has included identifying focus areas within math placement and developing specific visions and goals for each district’s work next year. As we reviewed data and discussed potential focus areas with district teams, several themes emerged:

• In the Eastside Alliance, all 9th grade students are placed in Integrated Math I or II. However, not all students are successful in this placement. In middle school, students need to be better prepared to be successful in this placement.
• There is an under-representation of students of color, English Language Learners, and students with special needs in the advanced pathways in middle schools.
• The current set of criteria is working for placement for some but not all students, schools, and districts. We need to determine why and if/how the criteria might be modified.

Our partner districts are focusing on these final two sub-problem areas and are also examining the pathway criteria to address the under-representation of students of color and other sub-groups in advanced middle school pathways. To approach this work, we introduced Change Design, a process for moving from our shared problems to developing solutions and achieving our goals. Pivot has leveraged this model (inspired by IDEO and Stanford University’s d.school) to solve major system design challenges with schools and districts for the past several years.

Our final meeting with the network this year fused the change design process to develop individualized action plans for 2017-18. Our network will also utilize Collaboration in Common, a state-endorsed online portal, to share best practices and resources across districts to address our collective problem of practice.

Success for our students, particularly our African-American and Latino students, will depend upon equitable systems and protocols particularly as it pertains to math pathways. The Math Placement Practices Network convenes dedicated and committed educators working actively to ensure we guarantee this success for all students.

Teaching About Food Justice? Here's Some Videos to Get You Started!

Food Tank has created a great list of Food System TED talks available for your viewing pleasure.

 

1. Roger Thurow: The Hungry Farmer - My Moment of Great Disruption Thurow, author of The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, explains the profound "disease of the soul" that hunger represents, and how empowering smallholder farmers can bring long-term sustainable health and hope to the people of Africa. 2. Mark Bittman: What's Wrong with What We Eat Bittman, a food writer for The New York Times, examines how individual actions--namely food choices--contribute to both the detriment of the climate and long-term chronic health diseases. He suggests that we eat meat in moderation because agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than transportation. 3. Anna Lappe: Marketing Food to Children Lappe, author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, questions whether multibillion dollar corporations should be marketing unhealthy foods to impressionable children, especially considering the numerous food-related health issues that are increasingly common among young people. 4. Ellen Gustafson: Obesity + Hunger = 1 Global Food Issue According to Food Tank co-founder Gustafson, the American food system has changed dramatically in the past 30 years; agriculture has been consolidated, new and cheap processed food have gained popularity, and U.S. agricultural aid abroad has decreased. These factors are major contributors to the current problem of one billion hungry and one billion overweight people on the planet. 5. Tristram Stuart: The Global Food Waste Scandal Stuart laments how supermarkets, cafeterias, bakers, farmers, and other food producers are “literally hemorrhaging” food waste--the majority of which is fit for human consumption, but has been discarded because it is not aesthetically pleasing. He offers a radical solution: “freeganism,” a movement in which food that would normally be thrown away is eaten instead. 6. Brian Halweil: From New York to Africa: Why Food Is Saving the World Halweil, publisher of Edible Manhattan, was on track to become a doctor until he realized that repairing the global food system could help to conserve people’s health and wellbeing more. Halweil believes that the local food movement is a truly powerful medicine. 7. Fred Kaufman The Measure of All Things Kaufman, from the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, heralds the rise of a “Great Greenwash.” He further questions whether Wal-Mart and other corporations participating in the Sustainability Index are living up to their claims. 8. LaDonna Redman Food + Justice = Democracy Redman, founder of the Campaign for Food Justice Now and long-time food activist, examines how the root causes of violence and public health concerns experienced by her community are strongly connected to the local food system, and are best addressed by making changes in that system. 9. Jose Andres: Creativity in Cooking Can Solve Our Biggest Challenges Chef Andres highlights the power of cooking. He demonstrates how we can tackle obesity and hunger using our inherent creativity. He urges everyone to turn simple ideas into big solutions--something we’ve been doing for centuries. Creativity and cooking are what he claims can give us hope for feeding the world. 10. Jamie Oliver's TED Prize Wish: Teach Every Child About Food Celebrity chef Oliver has waged a revolution to combat the biggest killer in the U.S., diet-related disease, through food and cooking education. Using stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, WV, he shows how the power of information can defeat food ignorance and obesity. 11. Dan Barber: How I Fell in Love with a Fish Barber tells a humorous love story starting with every chef’s predicament: with the worldwide decline in fish populations, how are we going to keep fish on our menus? He is skeptical of the current trajectory of fish farms, and asks whether they are truly sustainable. But there is a solution – Barber tells of one farm in Spain utilizing a revolutionary, yet basic idea: ecological relationships. 12. Carolyn Steel: How Food Shapes Our Cities Meat consumption and urbanism are rising hand-in-hand. Steel, an architect, explains how we got here by tracing how human settlements have fed themselves through time and, thus, shaped our cities. But in today’s cities, our relationship with food is misshapen--it is disconnected. Steel suggests an alternative to urban design in which we use food as a tool to reconnect and interconnect. 13. Ann Cooper: Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children Cooper, the “renegade lunch lady,” wants us to get angry about what kids eat at school. She wants kids to eat healthy, sustainable food; but first, we all need to care why this should happen. In this talk, she tries to rally us around changing the financing, facilities, human resources, marketing, and food in the school lunchroom. 14. Ron Finley: A Guerrilla Gardener in South Central L.A. Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central Los Angeles -- in abandoned lots, traffic medians, and along the curbs in order to offer an alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys." He explains how his community is desperate for nutritional food, and why he thinks urban gardening is the solution. 15. Tama Matsuoka Wong: How I Did Less and Ate Better, Thanks to Weeds Wong describes the path she took to discover that weeds are not only nutrient-rich, environmentally sustainable foods, but can also be quite delicious. She abandoned her career as a corporate attorney to become a professional forager, eventually founding MeadowsandMore, an initiative that teaches people to take advantage of the food resources right in their backyards. 16. Stephen Ritz: Green Bronx Machine: Growing Our Way Into a New Economy Most of Ritz’s students live at or below the poverty line, and/or live with disabilities. But through his Green Bronx Machine project, he has turned their lives around. By teaching them the business of installing edible walls and green roofs, he has empowered his students to make a real difference in their own lives, in their communities, and beyond. 17. Angela Morelli: The Global Water Footprint of Humanity Morelli, Italian information designer and World Economic Forum’s 2012 Young Global Leader nominee, helps consumers visualize the enormous expenditures of water that occur daily in the food system using graphic design. In this talk, she explains the concept of the “water footprint”--something that is hugely affected by simple diet choices. 18. Birke Baehr: What's Wrong With Our Food System Baehr, at just 11 years old at the time of this talk, presents the most glaring problems in our food system with the directness that, truly, only a child could do. He gives hope that future generations will really lead the charge in changing the food system: "Now a while back, I wanted to be an NFL football player. I decided that I'd rather be an organic farmer instead." 19. Graham Hill: Why I'm a Weekday Vegetarian Despite his “hippie” upbringing, Treehugger.com founder Hill is not a vegetarian. In this short talk, he explains his choice to become a weekday vegetarian, instead, and outlines the many benefits of choosing this lifestyle. 20. Joel Salatin: Thinking About Soil Salatin, the “lunatic farmer,” decries the modern farming practices that destroy necessary insects, create chemically engineered plants, and breed sick livestock, resulting in a “dead food system” based on a “mechanistic view of life.” He calls for a return to organic, natural farming and processing practices. 21. Roger Doiron: A Subversive Plot Gardening is a subversive activity. Food is a form of energy, but it’s also a form of power.” This sums up Doiron’s persuasive argument as to why everyone should undertake the project of a home garden, and control their own access to fresh, hyper-locally grown produce. 22. Britta Riley: A Garden in My Apartment Riley struck out to plant a garden in her tiny New York City apartment, and ended up developing an environmentally sustainable window garden - that yielded delicious results. Riley describes her method as “R&DIY - Research and Develop It Yourself.” 23. Arthur Potts Dawson: A Vision for Sustainable Restaurants Dawson has designed two environmentally sustainable London restaurants, Acorn House and Water House, that work toward eliminating waste entirely and using only clean energy. He explains how, by pursuing more projects such as these, the restaurant industry, “pretty much the most wasteful industry in the world,” can be reformed. 24. Ken Cook: Turning the Farm Bill into the Food Bill Cook, President of the Environmental Working Group, explains how farm subsidies are being placed into the very wrong hands; specifically, those of farmers producing corn only for fuel. His talk is a call to change the federal incentive system that is directly threatening the food on our plates.

American History: Bewilderment and Blackface, Redefining Blackness

I've got some work to do. My niece turned daughter who happens to be black-and-Albanian, told me after I pressured her into defining black culture that it pretty much can be summed up in "corn bread" and "hippty-hop." My heart sank and realized that she really was never exposed to a deeper understanding and realization of what blackness is and can be. So, I'll be posting over the next few weeks about my ideas on how to best help her better understand her culture and most certainly embrace blackness in a way that goes way beyond foodstuff and dance. This of course, prompted me to dive into my personal black history archives only to remember the by-gone era of the Black Minstrel Show. I'll include my thoughts in further posts and how we as educators living in these deadly and tumultuous times of de-valuing of black and brown lives, can help broaden the notions of what we've been taught and how to help students such as my daughter better embrace her own culture and others as well.