"real" school reform

some days i wake up and read the paper and i want to go marching around the capital with a sign and a list of demands; some days i'm too tired for all that because i'm actually doing my job (novel idea for some teachers).  in Education Week James Farwell wrote this article called "What Would Real School Reform Look Like? usually i'm not one for reform debates because i get so frustrated that i want to bulldoze right through the DOE and start fresh (rev·o·lu·tion: an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.). emphasis added by yours truly because, as stated by Mr. Einstein: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
so in the article Farwell presents his  idea for what real school reform would have to look like. after dismissing current reform attempts as ineffective he makes some good points. Here are some favs:

"We need to view our children as the unique and special people that they are. Our schools need to become the “neighborhoods,” to use the late Fred Rogers’ term, that create the means for each child’s uniqueness and potential to be realized.
One qualification for anyone who works in schools should be a love and respect for children. Anyone lacking in these two areas should be asked to seek employment elsewhere.
We need to approach each child as a whole person, as someone who has physical, emotional, social, intellectual, artistic, and spiritual needs. Children are more than just brains to be filled and candidates for the job market.
We need to realize that not all children are developmentally ready for learning basic skills at the same time, nor do they learn in the same way. Moreover, they cannot show what they have learned by using only one means for measuring learning success."

Basically that's all the lovey dovey, soft stuff, he goes into some hard facts and ideas about how to equally share the financial burden of a quality education in a "village" model and while that interests me/is important what good teaching and good schooling really boils down to (and i have held this opinion since i began working with kids) is KNOWING YOUR STUDENTS. period. that's all. not even close to rocket science.  just know them. know where they're from, what they like, who they are, how many siblings, who they live with, why they don't like bananas, what kind of music they like, how they learn best, whether they have difficulty in social interactions, why and it goes on and on but this is the only way to ensure that you can best teach them.  and love them.  love them love them until your heart is full and teaching/giving them a little of what you know is all that can make it bigger and make more space for what they have to teach you.  they are people, not statistics and even when all odds are against you and it seems like those talking heads on capitol hill (and down the hall in the principal's office) will never get it together, fight the good fight in your own classroom with weapons of knowledge and love.

- a 20-something hopeful....and i'm not changing for nobody.

Invictus...unconquered.... by William Ernest Henley

I used to joke, "Of course BC accepted me, I'm 18, Puerto Rican and I don't have a baby, I'm helping to fill their quota."  6 years later, i extend a thousand apologies to my struggling mothers and victims of circumstance but i also realize that i was belittiling the hard work i did to get to where i was.  so, on this 28th day of july, 2010 as my master's degree was confirmed upon completion of my master's defense with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities therein i appreciate what i did to get here as well as the hard work, love, support, well wishes, prayers and general good vibes from my family and friends.  i appreciate the negative energy sent also, keep it comin, that shit is good target practice.

written as a "demonstration of his resilience" Henley says it best in the poem below that was introduced to me in high school, had new-found meaning in college and continues to ring true in my heart today.  enjoy.  peace and prosperity, humans.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

small bodies, large minds

I have made the argument before for memorizing poetry so in order to encourage my first graders to do so i recited an old fav/classic in class from memory: Frost's The Road Not Taken. What followed was a lively conversation with my 6 year olds about taking the road less traveled. This particular comment warmed my heart: "Ms. Cordero, the poet wants to take the road that's more grassy because not so many people had went there. I think he is being brave because it is probably scarier but you have to do scary things because you have to be brave like you told us Ms. Cordero. If you don't try something you can't say you don't like it."

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

this isn't a mood swing

"We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing."
- Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

so, a man grows his whole life not having health insurance, we know it happens-- i mean happened!?-- in our great nation. he's about 45, maybe slightly overweight but in seemingly healthy condition. he goes to a free check-up day in the clinic and finds out that he has had a certain heart disease for years-- a chronic disease. however, shortly after receiving the news, he begins to show symptoms, becomes sick and dies from what would seem to be an acute onset of the disease. an acute onset of a chronic disease? seems oxymoronic, no? relate it to the placebo effect-- some people taking the drug, others unknowingly taking the sugar pill but effectiveness of the respective pills across the two groups is virtually the same. therefore, the body reacts equally to information given as it does to the actual agents working within the body. ah, the power of the mind. was he better off not knowing?

in the article, The Americanization of Mental Illness, author Ethan Watters says, "The idea that our Western conception of mental health and illness might be shaping the expression of illnesses in other cultures is rarely discussed in the professional literature."

i can't speak for other cultures but i think we can look at the male-female relationship as a microcosm for this culture to culture relationship (or lack thereof) that Watters is discussing (or the culture to culture relationship as a microcosm of the male-female relationship-- depending on how you look at the world). And if we think about what makes these two relationships similar is that A- they are dynamic and B- there is potential for there to be a "dominant" and a "submissive," if we aren't careful.

in looking at the male-female relationship within the realm of health, the power struggle is at play. let's take P.M.S. for example. Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. Syndrome. hey disease-namers... it's not a syndrome, it's just what happens. it is what it is and now it has a scary name to make it into something ugly and not the natural, life-giving process it is. (Semi-sidebar: I'd like to see these words come to pass: "After we pass this bill, being a woman will no longer be a preexisting medical condition."— Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.) maybe we just shouldn't name "illnesses" at all (we should definitely stop labeling things that aren't illnesses as such). sure it helps the doctors and maybe it calms patients to know that they have X and can treat it with Y. but, maybe, as an entire society we are calling illness upon ourselves by giving the Enemy a name. we have power in our words; sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? WRONG. More like: "Reckless words pierce like a sword,but the tongue of the wise brings healing." - Proverbs 12:18

so, maybe we are better off not knowing, after all.

All about schools?

It's All About Schools- NYTimes Op-Ed by Thomas L. Friedman

i read the above piece on my blackberry as i lazily lounged on my much-anticipated SNOWDAY! concisely, Friedman puts forward that every missile sent wailing to an Al Qaeda target should be accompanied with the building of 50 modern schools for boys and girls. i was immediately brought back to the world created for me in Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea. there is a set of children in the world that have none of the school options that we have available in the u.s. when you are old enough to make decisions a rich, well-dressed man comes to your home, his highly-shined shoes contrasted against your dirt floor, perhaps his sweet cologne mingles with the rotting/medicinal smell of a sick family member in the next room and he says, "I will pay for your family to live if you come to my madrassa to get your education." thus, fanatics are made, not born. in the end, money speaks and instinctual drive to survive overshadows the desire for justice and living by principal. you would do the same.

a prayer once prayed by a Jesuit priest:
dear lord, thank you for your many blessings.
please provide food for those who hunger
and a hunger for justice for those who have food.
Amen.

Shatter my heart so there may be room for Limitless Love - Sufi saying

on the healing powers of death. Enjoy.

"If one believes that the Life/Death/Life force has no stanza beyond death, it is no wonder that some humans are frightened of commitment. They are terrified to go through even one ending. They cannot bear to pass from the veranda into the inner rooms. They are fearful, for they sense that there in the breakfast room of the house of love sits Lady Death, tapping her toe, folding and unfolding her gloves. Before her is a work list, on one side what is living, on the other, what is dying. She means to carry through. She means to maintain balance." (p. 143)

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
Women Who Run with Wolves (1992)


as a culture we believe that death is the end of the road, the last stop. we do not openly accept (the way many antiquated cultures do) the time after death as a real and important stage that we must pass through. yes, pass through, not end at. the dance between life and death carries on everyday with or without your acknowledgment. day after day death claims life while simultaneously paving its way. as a life, a relationship, an experience or even a book ends, part of you dies leaving ashen ground in its path... the ash rejuvenates the land and your heart and soul may prepare for the tender, new growth.

so... maybe we shouldn't imagine lady death at the aforementioned breakfast table, impatiently gesturing but, rather, as a wise mother who knows when enough is enough and accepts, even welcomes, the necessary deaths to make room for new life.

this doesn't just apply to love relationships but in every aspect of our life in which an beginning or ending, a birth or death, can occur.

balance. be a constant pursuant.

and so it begins...

as of late i have been completely enamored with the web 2.0 world. following feeds and commenting as i please has been greatly liberating for me as i am approaching (or perhaps already wallowing in) a post-collegiate funk and greatly miss late night conversations revolving around the life views (each tinted and/or stained by the particular life experiences)of myself and my fellow co-eds. though i can not lavishly spend time frolicking in a lack of accountability i can humbly present my thoughts and pray that whatever space they enter they inspire conversation and critical thinking. enjoy! I will.