"But Do You Really Want to Do Restorative Justice Work?" Reflections On The Gap Between Interest and Implementation

 When I hear about schools wanting to do restorative justice, I often wonder, "Do you really want to do the work of Restorative Justice (RJ)?" 

Because in order to do the real work of RJ it's going to require quite a bit for you and your community. 

Now, I'm not writing to discourage folks from engaging in the practice, quite contrary. I'm writing for schools and communities who have yet not embarked on a full restorative justice journey and are either beginning or making the recommitment to do so. 

In her recent work, Anne Gregory of Rutgers proposes 12 indicators of Restorative Justice that is worth reading. These indicators attempt to identify the structural components necessary for restorative work and implementation. 

But I wonder if folks can ask themselves a few questions prior to launching and/or investing in the work that might help them make a decision moving forward. 

Because restorative work is going to require from you ... 

• A commitment to be vulnerable, open and sharing power in a way that will most likely shift dynamics 
• Re-imagining and reentering relationships at every level of your school site, community and district
• Knowing that its going to be a messy often incredibly humbling experience where you personally will have to engage in the deep practice of dealing with your own stuff

Are you really ready for RJ and are you really about that work? 

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. 

Teaching Youth About Food Justice: A Madison Wisconsin Story

I had the fortunate opportunity to design and implement curriculum for the Michael Fields Agriculture Institute; the goal of the program, Growing Urban Leaders in Food Systems, is to engage high school students to be leaders and change agents in transforming the food system, particularly as it relates to public and social policy. In this quest, I was invited to  pilot one of the lessons that I designed with the a summer youth leadership program hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence). We worked with 

PEOPLE interns and teachers to ensure that the lesson we taught aligned with current programming needs. We learned that the students had a wide-range of experiences from visiting local farms and community centers, to becoming generally more aware of the wide range of agricultural employment opportunities that are available, typically not promoted to low-income students. Here's how the lesson went and how the students responded. 

We began with having students defining food justice in pairs and then as a class. Some individual and group definitions that emerged were: 

• "Food Justice is ..... something that makes you feel good for eating healthy/good." 
• "Food Justice is..... when people want to be over weight then they want to blame the law."
• "Food Justice is..... a variety of choices made by a community to create unity around healthy        food. " 

We then went onto create a classroom definition synthesizing group responses. Our classroom definition of food justice that emerged was: 

• "The right of everyone to access healthy food through good security and laws that maintain the process of distributing food equally."

Next, we invited students to volunteer to the front of the classroom; we handed students either a water bottle or a plastic container with Driscoll raspberries for students to interact with. Students were presented with a multiple choice question which had to do with either Flint Water Crisis (which had in previous pilots really piqued students interest) and farm worker rights with Driscolls. In order for youth to see the learning target, we modeled a food justice role-play and then had students use a rubric to evaluate our presentation of the Dillema. 

Students could choose from the following food justice issues and topics: 

• Land Grab: Hantz-Off Our Lands
• Restaurant and Worker Rights 
• School Lunch and the Mystery Meat Dilemma 
• Farm Worker Rights 

After students formed groups and we provided a conflict resolution framework to use (we had students use the acronym S.T.A.T.E. to resolve the dilemmas in each situation) the room was buzzing with students choosing clothes and props in which to use, writing their lines and a script, and deciding who was going to play which role. When it came time for each group to present their dilemma through role-play, the first group to go included a student that was actually sleeping in the class the day before. He was a totally different person completely engaged in the role as a district administrator ensuring that the lunch-lady was serving newly adopted organic and GMO-free lunches. Not only did the group do an outstanding job of building empathy for the character they played, but also began to see that resolving conflict could be achieved through a process of dialogue and understanding. 

So many thanks to George Reistad, PEOPLES teachers, and of course, the brilliant youth who jumped right in.  We've still got plenty of work and revisions to do for our curriculum, however when you set students up for success by providing relevant and engaging experiences such as food justice role plays, students enjoy learning for all the right reasons. 

Teaching Tolerance: A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center

Many of you may already be familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center ; if you're an educator seeking great resources on equity, diversity, justice, suggestions or conversation please be sure to check out Teaching Tolerance blog post! You will be happy that you did!

Losing Your Student: R.I.P. Eric

My former student, Eric, tragically lost his life on Sunday. I received a message on Facebook from another former student that Eric had died in a car crash. Eric was a student in my advisory as my very first year in teaching in Detroit. He was perhaps one of the most brilliant, yet, challenging students that I ever had the honor of teaching. In many ways, his brilliance and intelligence were a blessing and a curse. Eric was witty and had no shortage of confidence. I never met his father and apparently had not been a part of Eric's life and upbringing. His mother was the one raising Eric and tried her best to raise a young man in the city. I was always impressed at his ability to reason with fervor on a variety of topics and although he often had trouble empathizing for others, he had some semblance of morality. Eric had obtained an internship with Detroit City Council and left a positive impression with the staff but like many of his experiences he never allowed himself to be challenged. His exhibitions were flashy demonstrations of his natural speaking skills not of problems or sincere challenges he wanted to improve on. When asked about his passions, a cornerstone of our curriculum, Eric would simply reply, "my passion is to make money." I often had to work with his math and science teachers as Eric was cited as being consistently disruptive, left obscene messages in classrooms, and about half way into the year I really started to question, as did his mother whether or not our high school was the best fit for him. He believed he was a star basketball player who could go to Renaissance, one of the cities selective high schools in the city. His ego was both intriguing and somewhat incompatible with how I knew him (see attached lyrics he wrote). I often offered Eric alternatives for more positive approaches to his education to no avail. He was a kid for all intents and purposes whom had a great smile with little guidance for how to use his brilliance rather disrupt.  By the time we reached the end of the year, everyone, and many students in the advisory were ready for Eric to go. In many ways, he represented the struggle of so many young brothers in the city, caught between a struggle for identify, stability and pure connection. As evidence on his social media pages, he was sincerely loved by so many and effected so many lives. I just wish that I had seen more of his greatness when I was honored to be his teacher and advisor. I often reflect on what I could have done better and what changes I could have done, however, it was my first year teaching..... 

I did not stay in contact with Eric after he left our school. I may have seen him once or twice at a school event. I hope that in some way I contributed to his life in a positive way and that his soul goodness remains both here on Earth and in the heavens. Rest in peace, Eric. 

In The End It's All About Your Critical Friends

The National School Reform Faculty (NSRF) is an organization that I have been informally involved with since I began teaching. The non profit organization focuses on promoting more equitable practices through the use of engaging protocols and the development of critical friends groups. The idea here is that if we can ensure that everyone, including, parents, students, teachers, school leaders and community folks all have a voice and are able to fully reach his/her potential the school can better position itself for student success. This work is not easy. My first attempt at using the Tuning Protocol in the classroom was met with some what mixed results. Although I was eventually using the protocol in one of my first professional development sessions with our middle school colleagues and then eventually at a national conference (the first time that I presented on such a platform), I was not fully trained in the use of such protocols which sometimes led to people not being protected - a contradiction for why NSRF developed this work. So ever since that revelation, I really felt the need to become a certified facilitator with NSRF and better understand how the protocols were to be used and organized. After a few failed attempts at trying to get my employer to fund the work, I eventually took the deep dive and paid for my very first professional development session. The conference took place in Los Angeles, CA (and didn't get to visit my one of my favorite museums ever)  and required an entire week of working from day until late afternoon learning, building, deconstructing and honing my skills or rather our skills in the use of the protocols. It was a great use of both my time and money. Not only did I come away with new skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use which protocols and for whom, I also learned about the importance of pre conferencing and carefully preparing everyone for the experiences of the protocols. The way the week was structured was brilliant. We all had to facilitate and then participate in one of the protocols. In this way, we got plenty of practice and also feedback from one another. I'm also thankful that I got a chance to build new friendships with people from all around the country. If you get a chance, please check out all of their free protocols and feel free to give me a shout with any questions on how to best use them and avoid some of the mistakes that I made - all whom you serve will certainly appreciate it. 

Its Not What You Say....

It's an old cliche; stop and think about your voice and the impact it has on others. I'm not suggesting that you sound phony but be authentic and use a voice that is good for you to deliver and for others to hear. What is it about the sound of someone's voice that keeps us coming back for more? The research suggests that music has a profound impact on babies pre-natal. How do we use our voice to create and empower rather than to destroy and break? I'm becoming more acutely aware of my own voice and how I use it. I'm discovering my own emotional state as well as my intent as I'm speaking. Think of all the speaking we as educators do but we do not get voice lessons (as Grant Wiggins mother suggests, "How in the world can you engage young kids and make the teaching clear without having a trained voice?" nor are we made to be aware of the effects of using different tones in our voices (just as strings on a guitar) to give different vibrations. Wouldn't that be an interesting study to see how teachers voice determines student outcomes? Our voice must come from a pure place and a knowledge of who we are as a person. Notice the pitch, tone, and feeling behind your voice when you can. It's all about how you're saying what you're saying that makes a difference. 

Curriculum Representing the Contributions of All People

I was so hungry to learn about my so-called blackness that by the time that I entered my sophomore year, I had stolen the single copy of the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley at my predominately white high school 15 minutes north of  Detroit, Michigan. I justified the stealing (in my adolescent mind by saying that no one else was going to read it) and began to read and learn more about African American history that year. Last year, during our professional development session, I was asked about teaching a 4th grade Unit on California Explorers. Here were some central questions that I posed to the teacher (while she stared at me wide eyed): 

• Does the curriculum represent the contributions of all people (women and people of color, for example)?
• Who is telling the story of exploration? What would this story be like if it were told by the natives? How would that change how we viewed the events taking place? What would the story be like if it were told through the eyes of the Earth? What would she say? 
• How are you teaching for transfer? What kinds of meaning do you want kids to make from this? 
• What adjustments and modifications are you making for your English Language Learners? How are you including all students in creating a collective story about explorers? 
• What is exploitation? Who was exploited and for what cause? How did explorers view the land as compared to original peoples? 
• What was the land (i.e., California) called before the explorers captured it? Should we honor the previous name? Why or why not? 
• What was the primary motivation for peoples moving west? How did those motivations continue to shape the geography of the state? 
• Who are the "winners" and "losers" of this time in history? 
• Is there one "true" narrative when it comes to this period in history? 
• Should we "celebrate" the explorers? How did they interact with natives? How did natives interact with explorers? Who is telling the story here? 
• What was the impact of "treaties" in the absolution of land? 

By the time I ended my rant, I'm sure that the teacher had dismissed most of what I had said, which caused me to really reflect on my approach on coaching teachers on incorporating diverse perspectives into historical narrative. To be honest, that's a challenge because I am so passionate about this notion about including all peoples stories into the narrative of our past. I also referred her to the Zinn Education Project  and Rethinking Schools . Let's move beyond the STEM  myth to eliminate inequities in education and include multiple perspectives when studying the rich fabric of our nations past. We have to ask ourselves: Who's story is it anyways? 

What Do Car Wrecks and Schools Have in Common: How Will We Treat Each Other, a training?

I try to avoid having crucial conversations. If there's a conflict, especially if its revealing deep facts about my character or someone's character, I'm the first one to run for the door. The impact of such an approach at an organization, working in a group or more specifically, at a school has devastating effects. In the book Crucial Conversations, four times NY Times best-selling author Kerry Patterson argues that at the heart of every conflict there is a conversation that we could be holding to better enhance our working relationships and ultimately, improve the organizations and people that we serve, in this specific case, schools. I had the wonderful opportunity to facilitate a series of Crucial Conversations workshop recently and the group was particularly small, yet contentious. At first glance, staff entered the room just as any other participants would enter, however, it was not before long that I began to see noticeable differences in this group than in others.

As I framed the work for the day, much like I have in this blog post, citing the importance of holding conversations, and sharing what results when we do not hold these conversations can sometimes be deadly. I cited the 1980's Challenger deadly explosion that left seven astronauts dead and that upon further investigation, discovered that the faulty "O-Rings" indeed did not handle cold temperatures, some information that was withheld by engineers afraid to share with their supervisors. One participant argued vehemently that it was not simply a result of people afraid not to talk one another but rather simply, "poor decision making." He was angry and rightfully so as there was not a sincere interest to be there. There are two choices that people make when they fail to communicate, either silence, the act of not speaking at all, walking out on someone or violence, which can include sarcasm, deflecting, and bullying just to name a few. I went ahead and did some role-playing where one of my colleagues took my car and crashed it over the weekend. During the role play, my partner completely deflecting and actually ended up accusing me of being a poor friend. It was definitely an act of violence but ironically, the crowd agreed with my so-called friend who, in this role-play crashed my car without telling me. One participant, who hadn't spoken at all during the entire training confidently sided with my role-playing, drunk-driving friend by declaring, after I asked about friendship: "Heck yeah, I definitely still be his friend. Good friends are good to come by." No matter that this friend lied, attacked me and accused me of being a poor friend. Nope it was all my fault. Anyway, if you find yourself stuck in conversations, review these guidelines to approach conversations where emotions are high and the person you are speaking with has a completely different opinion than you:

• State the facts: Share what you are feeling and your perspective of the situation without any judgement statements 
• Tell you story: include the story of the situation as you see it 
• Ask for others opinion: ask the person to share their side of the story 
• Talk tentatively: begin to seek understanding of the situation from both vantage points and ask additional questions as need to gain insights and common ground 
• Encourage testing: this is where both parties begin to identify solutions to prevent future problems and restore the relationship 

As I've stated before, I'm not the best communicator, but most definitely see the framework as one in which, if used over time, can be a real tool to help personal and professional relationships thrive when values, trust, love, and hope is broken. The failure to hold these conversations severely hinders our ability to achieve greatness in our schools and one another. Otherwise, our inactions can lead to car wrecks or worse the death of the things we love and work for.  

Grant Wiggins: Education and Human Hero, Part I

Grant Wiggins has passed; the heavens cheer as the world weeps. I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to work, learn and grow with Grant. He was perhaps one of the, if not the most brilliant minds in education that I have ever had the absolute pleasure of working with. Coupled with brilliance, Grant was amazingly kind, thoughtful and very down to earth. I had known Grant only for a few months working in New York City and he and his wife graciously invited me and a few colleagues into his parents breathtaking, brownstone in East Village. It was one of my first times in East Village and only a handful of times in New York City, and here I was, an educator from Detroit, sitting and planning with a man that was one of the deepest, most accomplished minds in education. I'll share more with a second posting but I just want to send this note off and recognize the passing of a brilliant mind, a compassionate kind human being, a tireless and amazing educator, and now an ancestor who perhaps left us all too soon. Rest in peace, Grant. 

Work and Build: Work With What You Got

"That's real creativity. Making something out of nothing." - Bill C.

I'll be honest. I'm a skeptic when it comes to school reform and I need to stop. Even if I believe that the tool or program or service I'm providing is problematic, I am making a public commitment right here and now, to be creative, artistic and make it work in a way that ensure equity and progress for the communities I work for. In many ways, it's simply my ego and not wanting to depart from the experiences I've had working with youth and schools. The Danielson Framework for Teaching is an example as is so the Common Core Standards. Let's adjust these frameworks and modify them to make them work for us. Disadvantaged (not sure what other word to use) communities often feel the target of such reforms but what people tend to do is to not realize their own power or as I've done simply dismiss because it's not part of my personal philosophy on what's best for kids. I'll talk more about how to make reforms work for you rather than against in future posts. As Grant Wiggins has often stated, "All reform is local'" and real creativity can emerge when communities appropriately adapt and own the tools to work for youth served. 

A Word To Design Thinkers

For all you design thinkers, consider doing a service learning simulation to demonstrate a low resolution prototype can be used as an interactive experience for feedback. Stress the importance of users INTERACTING with the prototype as a means to solicit feedback. 

Equity Access and Cultural Responsiveness

I became an educator given from my experiences as a brown youth growing up in the Detroit area and because of my strong passion to give honor to our black and brown ancestors --- the beautiful struggle for liberation and equality which has been consistently denied for over 400 years in America. I had a passion, as the award winning journalist and freedom fighter Mumia Abu Jamal has been called to be "a voice for the voiceless," to tell the untold stories, to provide a more balanced version of American history than previously told. I wanted to expose the "truth" of Columbus' so-called discovery of America as nothing more than a genocide of Awarak peoples of the West Indies and reveal the nations capitalist system as the richest on earth as one in which profited solely on the blood stained backs of enslaved black labor. So when the conversation begins around equity, I look to my passion and my past. In my youth, a deep and sincere thirst for racial identity, carefully shaped my worldview. In my humble opinion all schools should empower students to answer two key questions: Who Am I? Where do I come from? With the lack of stories and images of brown and black youth and particularly in my case as a bi-racial child growing up in the countries most segregated city, I certainly did not have access to even seeing myself portrayed in books particularly those written about the so called "development" of the Western World or for that matter taught by brown or black teacher --- as less than 2 percent of the teaching force is African American. You see black and brown people, especially women, even in this day of a black man in the "White House"are ignored from our nations storied past. Instead, we are taught to revere the same old tired stories of George Washington crossing the Delaware or the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Who is telling these stories of early America? Would the stories and experiences be told differently if we shared words espoused by free or enslaved blacks during this same time period? Why do our history books continue to be euro-and elite-centric? When will the day arise when we can embrace the voice of Native Americans and women abolitionists right next to those ideas of James Madison and Ben Franklin. Seems to me that we can learn just as much from the all voices of Americas past than continue to sterilize our youth and society with a one-size fits all notion of America history. How's that for creating more equity in our classrooms and schoolhouses? 

Teaching and Learning with Values

This past week I had the opportunity to facilitate a training on English Language Arts and the three major shifts as schools and communities implement the Common Core Standards. I also had the opportunity to set an intention for the thirty plus teachers and educators in attendance. Rather than just participate in the traditional reviewing of norms and expectations, I believe that its often equally important for people to connect with the values of their lives, those beliefs and character traits that both guide our decisions and those that we strive to be. We began by choosing five (5) values that best guide either our professional or personal life (i.e., love, hope, integrity, responsibility, flexibility, etc.) Afterwards, we were to choose one (1) value (from the original five) in which we demonstrated sometime in our lifetime. I modeled what I asked for by sharing my value (love) in which I demonstrated to my daughter from the moment I learned that I was going to be a father at a very young age. We then took a minute to think about that one value that was demonstrated in their lives. A few people shared and then one other just shouted out their value (i.e, "flexibility). We then were challenged to create a Recipe, a good "value recipe" that each participant would need to receive the very best training over the next two days. People were provided time and each table worked to create and share out their recipe. I concluded the experience by sharing the work that I had done with sixth graders in the Bronx (see above) and students were charged with creating a recipe for World Peace. I shared that this experience can be adapted to set classroom values, (and should have pointed out) that it can also be used as a way to gently remind each other when we are out of violation of those values that we established as a community throughout the year.

So now, tell me what are your values? What recipe do you need to create in your personal and/or professional life that can lead to liberation education?