Education - Change.org: "The Better Angels of Our Nature": Improving Public Education #2

"The Better Angels of Our Nature": Improving Public Education #2

Published January 04, 2009 @ 01:15AM PT

"What does a kid think you are saying to him, about her, if you're sending them to a crummy building every day? If you send them to a building that not only needed repair this week, or this month, but has been in need of repair for the whole time they've been a student?"
--Voiceover from the Hands on D.C. video, below

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
--Abraham Lincoln, "First Inaugural Address"

~ ~ ~

They clear rats from school ventilators. They wire schools to gift them with the world beyond the walls and walled-in textbooks.

If they have money, they give college years to those who otherwise would not have them. If they have no money, they give things as precious: their own things at hand, their expertise, their skills and muscle and labor - for one single day each year.

In hallways and classrooms, dingy grays give way to azure blues, daisy golds. In bathrooms, paintbrushes wave, wave like wands, and conjure flowers into bloom on walls where once gloom reigned.

And at day's end, the hands wave too - human hands, in multitudes, too like flowers, like wands - and conjure different things to bloom, from within each waving self. At day's end.

Here's some magic for you: four minutes bottled timeless from one such day. Watch, and try to see those conjured things:

Did you see them at all? See them faintly flare, then faintly flare away? Those evanescent wings, Mayfly-like, of the better angels of our nature?

~ ~ ~

habitat trip '05

(Hm. Sue me. Typical English teacher. But things like Hands on D.C. bring That Side out of me. Especially on Sunday.)

~ ~ ~

Seeing the D.C. student graduate at the end of that film, thanks to the effort of others - seeing the whole lovely clip - reminds me of Habitat for Humanity.

Anybody who's volunteered for Habitat has probably experienced it. The joys of the backaches, of the conjuring with hands and other magic things a better reality than what was there before.

I experienced it in Sri Lanka a few years ago. In one week, my team of three dug a cesspool ten feet deep and six feet square - with square-shaped hoes. The villagers owned no shovels. (The grandmothers, by the way, dug alongside us and outworked us by orders of magnitude.)

Digging that latrine cost about as much as a week at a resort in Thailand.

I'm going to Thailand tomorrow. First for work (so I'll be a bit quiet in the comments next week), and then for a week's vacation - a belated honeymoon, really - in a (cut-rate) island resort.

The resort will be nice. But not as nice as that week digging latrines in Sri Lanka, among better natures. (And I have to share this last photo with you, because this child was a masterpiece of nature.)

sri lankan child from habitat '05

So: How can we all improve public education? By doing for schools what we used to do, long ago, for barns, and what we do today in Habitat for Humanity. Pitch in with our community for a day - and transform a school. If you're the type, create an organization like Hands on D.C. for the long haul.

The difference made in that one day will last far, far longer. Hands on D.C. showed it all already, though.

Have a good week.

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This was a nice entry. Everytime a new teacher or intern comes to me to ask about the school's system I tell them there are three very important people in the school who basically run the school. They are the custodians, secretarys, and cafeteria people.

The custodians know how to use the school facility best. The secretaries know the inner system of the district with all its technological in's and out's. The cafeteria people know the students best because they associate with these children in a relaxed atmosphere.

As for the community working in the schools I am proud of the support I get from my community. There is a wish list given to students every year, a community grant to get teachers larger pieces of equipment to help them teach, and multiple lunches during the year thanking the teacher what they are doing for the community. Maybe I am lucky to have found such a spot but community involvement in the school is an important factor to the success of the school.

See, I am not that angry after all. If anyone is interested in reading angry or pleasant essays please feel free to contact:
http://fabiano.magic-city-news.com/

Posted by James Fabiano on 01/04/2009 @ 05:48AM PT
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If only all those great people in the larger community could actually help run the school and decide on what it would teach and how rather than just maintaining the building... That would be a reveloution!

Cooper Zale
Los Angeles
www.leftyparent.com

Posted by Cooper Zale on 01/04/2009 @ 11:31AM PT
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@James - A smile back at you. Sounds like you have a good support system and emotional climate at your school, and I like your take on the importance of the overlooked people.

@Cooper - Granted. But between that remote (near-im-)possibility and the option of doing nothing, I think their action still has value. The gestalt of schools - walls, wires, color, total ambience - does make a difference to the learning that goes on there. I've taught in spaces gloomy and light, and the differences spilled over into the performance of both me and my students. (But i know your intention was not to dis HoDC, anyway.)

Posted by Clay Burell on 01/05/2009 @ 04:15AM PT
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@Cooper: afterthought: What ideas might come into people's heads, as they spend that one day improving a school, into spending more than one day? An intangible, I know, but still.

And the scholarship fund is a noble thing indeed. I wonder how Rhee is impacting their work, if at all.

Posted by Clay Burell on 01/05/2009 @ 04:17AM PT
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@Clay... What ideas?...hmm... Not sure where you intended to go with this but maybe:
* Parents coming to school and talking about their school or coming of age experiences
* Formulating a community project with parents and students within the school or outside its walls in the larger community
* Creating an advisory group with teachers, parents and youth to make other suggestions about improving the "livability" of the school beyond the painting and beautifying done on that one day.
* Having that same advisory group reviw the curriculum for math, science, english, social studies and suggest ways to make it more relevant for what is going on in the larger community
* Forming groups of teachers, students and parents to keep looking at improving various aspects of the schools, including painting and decorating, lunch food and logistics, outdoor play spaces, after school programs/oportunities, text book selection, standardized testing logistics, tardy and attendance policies, etc.

Cooper Zale
Los Angeles
www.leftyparent.com

Posted by Cooper Zale on 01/05/2009 @ 12:16PM PT
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For those who would like to volunteer in Sri Lanka: http://www.sarvodaya.org/

For those who would like to volunteer elsewhere in the world:
http://www.wiserearth.org/

Don't forget the Peace Corps, Teachers Without Borders, and all the rest.

But volunteer at home, too. I helped build the one-room schoolhouse that my children first attended. I'm working on providing computers for schools and museums, and not just the hardware. I will be in there teaching students and teachers alike what these computers are capable of, and how to integrate them into the curriculum, now that it is practical for every child to have one.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai

Posted by Edward Mokurai Cherlin on 01/05/2009 @ 12:34PM PT
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@Cooper: right on. Dominoes like those are the ones I hope fall when volunteers spend that one day in their local schools. That one day is a literal "foot in the door."

@Edward: Thanks for the input. What you're doing locally is exactly the type of thingthat can help schools without depending on the authorities. (And thanks for the recommendations of non-profits. Noted.)

In a rush, folks, sorry to keep it short.

Posted by Clay Burell on 01/05/2009 @ 09:45PM PT
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Author Biography

Clay Burell: Singapore, Singapore; Clay is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he's married to his wife. According to his wife, he's married to his Mac.