APRIL ISSUE Back Page: Critical response to Christopher Emdin's "For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood..."
Community through dialogue, discussion, and dissent
tc public space Volume III, Issue 4
April 25th, 2016
TRANSITIONS The College to Work Transition.................. The Art of Site Swap Transitioning............. Letter from the Editor.................................. The Art of Leaving...................................... Untitled........................................................ The Final Sequence..................................... Telling the Truth......................................... Dusk in Transition....................................... Refract......................................................... White Folks' Burden?..................................
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Featured on tcpublicspace.wordpress.com: Through the door with no door Karla Ruiz More Than Between Education: Reflecting on Transitions in the Classroom Sam Maier The Femal Version of Michael Christina Amendola The Words That were Always Ours Christina Amendola
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THE COLLEGE TO WORK TRANSITION FOR LIBERAL ARTS STUDENTS: Graduate Thesis Excerpt on American Liberal Education Menglin (Maria) Guo Higher education remains a cornerstone in state governmental agendas as seen through gubernatorial addresses during legislative sessions. In particular, the call on more students to major in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) has been strong on both state and federal levels of education reform (Reform for the Future | The White House). After all, only 16.2% of all college students across the United States major in STEM fields (NCES/IES Baccalaureate and Beyond). However, this call for more STEM research is misleading to students and parents. A narrow focus in one discipline will likely provide training for students in one area of study. Liberal arts majors, on the other hand, provide a wellrounded education that encourages students to explore their career interests and discover their
policymakers and other critics of liberal arts have failed to recognize is that liberal arts majors imbue students with a wide array of skills that do effectively prepare them for many career types. AAC&U defines a 21st century liberal education as “an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society) as well as indepth study in a specific area of interest. A liberal education helps students develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings�(What continued on page 3
The Art of Site Swap Transitioning: How Modern Circus Jugglers Choreograph Performances Josh S. M. Weiner Do you like Cirque Du Soleil? The Big Apple Circus? Ringling Brothers? Most modern circuses have a juggler or group of jugglers fluent in siteswap juggling. Siteswap juggling notation uses a system of adjacency matrices to transition juggling patterns into measured movements. The basic solo juggling pattern with three objects, the cascade, is an alternating pattern of throws. Each throw is caught by the opposite hand. To code this pattern jugglers use a simple notation based upon the number of beats between each throw. Although the throws are R-L-R-L-R-L, we can code the pattern as 3-3-33-3-3 or 333333 or 3(6x). Most able bodied individuals can learn three ball juggling in a few half hour sessions. Transformations of the basic pattern came from discovery, play, and invention. A creative juggler can throw a ball higher or lower, to the same hand or opposite hand. A code 4-4-4-4 following the same alternation has each object thrown fourbeats later in time. This pattern is called the four object fountain. Note that when thrown asynchronously, or alternating the throws L-R-L-R, we have the same objects
orbital cycles in the left hand. Objects {2,4} never leave the right hand side. If I am juggling the "3" pattern and then throw in a "4" throw, there is an object in flight that must be caught and then thrown again four beats later. This leaves an empty "0" beat at the moment where it was supposed to be thrown again. The pattern 334333 is not a valid siteswap juggling pattern. The third and fourththrows will need to be thrown again at the same moment in time. Perhaps this energy state map is a good representation of a valid three object juggling pattern, "441." The "x" means that the object must be thrown on that beat (starting with the left most "x" from the set of three). The dashes mean that a "0", or rest beat, has been created in the beat pattern. 3 xxx 4 xx-x 4 x-xx 1 xxx 3 xxx The juggling trick, code 441 is a valid three object juggling pattern. There are no collisions in the alternation, moments where two or more objects are scheduled to be thrown at the same time. This pattern is part of a group of juggling patterns called ground state patterns. They can be executed from the three object cascade "3" pattern. They can be linked together. The string codes 333441441441333 or 333 [441(3x)] 333 are valid siteswap juggles. The formalization of modern juggling patterns started in the 1970s with the invention of the personal computer. Many amateur jugglers, hobbyists, and semi-professionals were learning to computer program. In possession of a personal computer, one could program valid juggling
patterns based on programming rules similar to the way a programmer searches for prime numbers with a computer. Unlike prime numbers, the number of permutations of integers, and therefore the number of beat-based juggling patterns possible, is finite. Also, there is the a limit to the number of objects an individual can juggle on earth due to the constraints of the earth's gravitational field. These patterns are employed as transitions in the circus performer's routine. It is analogous to musical composition, dance choreography, DJ beat sequencing and splicing, and storytelling structures. These performers use introductions, motifs, movements, and pattern codas in their work just like more traditionally honored human art forms. Current trends in international circus include multiplex patterns and synthesizing a common world language of visual pattern recognition. Innovative codes transition between each matrix of patterns into the other. It is based upon these patterns described above. It is not always easy to find valid, aesthetically pleasing, coded transitions that are innovative in the art of circus choreography. Transitions that were once only performed with three or five objects are now being siteswap transitioned with seven and even nine in the air at once in the current generation of artists. These groups of patterns with the same basis vectors at lower levels of objects are called vertical shifts. Performance groups add additional sites for objects to be juggled. The complexities of these interactions, however, are based on the skill sets of each individual contributing to the ensemble. Passing patterns include jugglers working within continued on tcpublicspace.wordpress.com
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APRIL 25th, 2016
Letter from the Editor
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The Art of Leaving
Sara Hardman, TCPS We wanted the theme of our last issue of the year to resonant with you. That’s why, after considering several different options, we settled on the theme Transitions. We expected to receive many articles pertaining to graduating, leaving behind the life of a student for one of a working professional. What we did not expect —though are thrilled to have received—is the variety of transition articles sent to us. Featured in this issue you’ll meet a juggler with a passion for programming, a class learning the value of giving, and a teacher preparing his students for cold weather. Joining these you’ll find a critique of a professor’s book and a lesson on liberal arts education. The poem we've included in this issue each have a message sure to call forth your emotions and captivate your heart. Each piece of artwork gives us reason to pause and reflect on what it means to be a human who changes. Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “There is nothing permanent except change.” As we go from one day to the next, one place to the next, one conversation, task, or thought to the next, perhaps we realize that Heraclitus was right. Our lives are full of transitions. As the authors in this issue show us, though, transitions can be both beautiful and thought provoking, rigorous and kind. One thing is certain: we can do nothing but embrace them. As May approaches and many prepare to walk across that graduation stage, we hope this issue incites reflection into your own transitions, whatever they may be.
Christina Amendola Buy fewer groceries Be cautious with your gardening (Don’t grow anything worth keeping) Wash your laundry on delicate. All your colors bleed Don’t hang new pictures on the wall Furniture evolves before your eyes Replacement parts and pieces wait to be installed You wait But only for a moment. Stay.
Untitled Casey Gallagher
Empty. Conflicted. Lost. Committed to holding the past.
Then. Slip out the back doorTo your new grocery store
I t’ s t i m e t o m o v e o n.
This house isn’t home anymore.
The Final Sequence Aliyah Taylor, TCPS
Telling the Truth: How the Practice of High School Journalism Transitions Marginalized Youth to Future Opportunities Alena Cybart-Persenaire The longer I teach, the more challenging it becomes—for students. When I first started student teaching as a graduate student at TC in the English Education department, my high school students in the Bronx were nearly as old as me, at 21 years old. Some had been incarcerated or had given birth, and others were facing literacy and economic challenges, but all were still in school and, most importantly, motivated to earn their diplomas. I will never forget that Christmas, when the students used white out to cover previous holiday cards they had received to give my student teaching partner and I personalized messages. Students also purchased bottles of white out for each of us—a popular tool at the time—and covered the label to pen their own message. I still have the Christmas cards, dated 1996, and the hardened, thick white paste only makes their handwritten, heartfelt sentiments of ‘ thank you for staying and teaching us’ more poignant. Today I am an Ed.D. student at TC in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Education program. I was driven to return to school after nearly two decades of working with high school students —some homeless, some living temporarily in shelters, and some trying to survive independently—who despite additional challenges to their quality of life, excel in the practice of journalism. In fact, my student journalists have captured
since 2004 in their production of a monthly print newspaper. Sadly, many of these students do not have adequate food, shelter, clothing, or other basic necessities. They have limited reading and writing ability, and endure physical or mental disabilities, labeling them ‘ special education’ or ‘ English Language Learners.’ Some have no adult supervision or care for numerous siblings, then come to school tired, confused and upset, often getting into trouble for not completing homework or paying attention. Yet despite such adversity, when these same students practice journalism, they develop and improve their literacy, communication, and cooperative skills, gaining college and career readiness along the way. They see a path to being productive, contributing members of society—and actually enjoy learning. The practice of traditional journalism —reporting, investigating, editing, and publishing—has been a transition beyond my wildest expectations to a world some students never before have glimpsed. They see college and career opportunities, and, what I find most exciting, they are learning daily in a classroom setting the importance of telling the truth, then validating it with facts. Ironically, the more truth-telling they do, they more involved they become in taking ownership of their academic careers and community well being, with equally surprising results.
high school, score better on the ACT and earn better grades as college freshmen, according to a study of 31,000 high school students from all fifty states and some foreign countries (Dvorak, 2008). Student journalists also gain critical thinking, self-management, and problem solving skills (Dvorak, 2008; Maskl & Fromm, 2014) along with more democratic, civic participation in their communities (Bobkowski et al., 2014; Fortuna, 2015). This results in high school students who are more aware of their responsibilities and others’ needs, despite their own lack of food, shelter, clothing, or other necessities. Last December, my students learned of area churches and organizations that make Giving Trees for Christmas with tags bearing names of young children and a clothing item or small toy each child would like. I knew my high school students could not afford new toys, but we held a toy drive where they collected gently-used books and toys, most almost brand new. We donated several large bags to the Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministry and County Garden preschool that held a holiday party for needy. In the fall, I told my students of the need for coats and warm winter clothing in our area based on an article I read from Acts4Ministry. After collectively reading the article and researching the need, we held a coat drive, and in less than one week collected more than 60 continued on tcpublicspace.wordpress.com
APRIL 25th, 2016
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COLLEGE TO WORK TRANSITION continued from page 1
typical liberal arts disciplines include English language and literature, foreign languages, life sciences, psychology, social sciences, visual and performing arts, area and performing arts, area and ethnic studies, multi- and interdisciplinary studies, and philosophy and religion (Ferrall, 2011, p. 9).1 Schools with traditional liberal arts curricula like Harvard College and Sarah Lawrence College do not assign majors for students for the very purpose of educating students in a broad range of curricula (Field of Study | Harvard College; Courses and Areas of Study | Sarah Lawrence College). However, the liberal arts curriculum has been devalued in recent years by policymakers who cite poor employment statistics for those with liberal arts degrees. The debate began with the then Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, stating, “Taxpayers should not be subsidizing intellectual curiosity” (Berrett, 2015). President Barack Obama made a similar statement (for which he later apologized) in 2014 saying, “Folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art-history degree” (Berrett, 2015). While the demand for STEM is high, a liberal arts degree can be equally valuable for employers if students know how to market their transferrable skills to the scarves, and gloves. Acts4Ministry, the charitable organization that helps people in financial distress, wrote me a letter noting the amazing contributions of my students. Yet some of these teens who donated only had two coats, and may have given the second away (with no complaints). Prior to Thanksgiving, I shared previous articles and photos in our school newspaper taken by former students regarding the nearby St. Vincent’ s DePaul soup kitchen. Many teens and adults did not know the soup kitchen is open every single day of the year and provides two meals to anyone in need. My students and I held a food drive, and students donated so many items that I had trouble fitting everything in my car since the entire trunk, front seat and whole back seat was loaded with non-perishable goods! One recent Tuesday evening in March, I read the Spring 2016 newsletter from Carolyn’ s Place, an area nonprofit organization for new mothers and babies. The group was in dire need of diapers sized four, five, and six for homeless mothers with infants. I asked my students Wednesday to check in their pockets and couch cushions for loose change, and by that very same Friday, we had enough funds to purchase twenty bags of diapers. I mention these needs of coats, food, and baby items to coworkers or other adults, who are either oblivious or believe the need is simply not that great. But one of the privileges of being a classroom teacher in a public, urban setting is that one can provide a bridge or transition between past and future so that students—especially marginalized youth—see
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A common misconception is that a liberal degree. arts degree must equate to a specific career In particular, a career center also faces the track. This is not necessarily accurate (Ferrall, challenge of managing employer relations and 2011, p. 48). CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Delta expectations for liberal arts students. Namely, Airlines, Bank of America, and Blackrock all other than reputable consulting and investment come from liberal arts backgrounds (Mitchell, banking firms, a majority of today’s employers 2014). College graduates will not work one job no longer invest in training their new employees for their lifetime. Students will thus need selfand expect a young college graduate of liberal confidence and a familiarity with general arts to possess on-the-job skills before official knowledge across experience and disciplines on-board training (Schrager, 2014). Some rather than specialized techniques and training employers emphasize the transactional cost of a (Barker, 2000, p.7). However, not all students college degree and overlook the importance of obtain the skills to narrate their transferable student intellectual development and growth intellectual and practical skills to a potential during college. employer. This is where a career development Career development offices serve a unique office or a career center facilitates this career function in matching students (liberal arts in exploration transition. In recent years, there has particular) with employers and encouraging been more call for the transitioning role of a both to better appreciate a liberal education. career development office from a strict job Career exploration is a comprehensive system placement agency to a more versatile office that that involves various activities such as an offers various career exploration opportunities. informational interview, internship, externship Zunker writes in his book encouraging (job shadowing), co-op, and part-time jobs. The counselors to actively promote internship and breadth of career exploration depends on an volunteer work while advising students (Zunker, individual student’s initiative in these 2012). Career exploration opportunities such as opportunities that facilitate this transition to the field-based experiential education have workforce. In other words, while a liberal arts struggled to gain legitimacy in liberal arts degree is still valuable, the degree alone does institutions. But many are changing their not prepare students for the college to work pedagogies. Faculty members have been transitions. In order to be competitive for the encouraged to support students to obtain job market, liberal arts students should consider internships to ease the transition from school to career exploration opportunities to supplement the workplace (Eyler, 2009). In recent years, their liberal education to be more marketable to Smith College’s and Wake Forest University’s future employers. career centers have notably collaborated with the academic departments where students often visit the career centers withCaption a specific purpose key points about picture and potential story following. highlighting such as fulfilling a required internship for their mired in their oppressive backgrounds. I have shared with my journalism students the reality of life’ s struggles, and I realize some of them face these very same challenges, perhaps even on a greater level. The impact of being an educator, however, is going beyond facing the facts to devising solutions, since even pennies and spare change add up to plenty of clean diapers. As graduate students, teachers and community members, we must remember the vital role we play in encouraging youth to make their own transitions to more productive, contributing members of society by allowing education to serve as an empowering vehicle.
Dusk in Transition Nawal Muradwij there is a reason we hold sunrises and sunsets in such high regard fleeting moments of dusk in transition that dawn from the parts of our souls that never learned how to properly track time but always harbored an unshakeable impatience for all that is unaccomplished always ran in fogs of fear of missing out, those glimpses of our soul that come out when we race too far beyond the finish line
Firs Chr Foll
when we look back and realize our victories have been stepped on by the winners of some other ongoing marathon
Tho bloo She
we are forced to remember that the world sheds its colors at least twice in a sun’s sleep cycle,
F.A.M.
Ch
All Beg And With
so that the next time we stack all the hours in our day to create a deck of cards to lay on the table when change comes strolling by,
Refract
Th M
But
Thu Her Sim
that the magic lies in how quickly the ocean can morph into fire.
Who
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APRIL 25th, 2016
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White Folks' Burden?
by Abram de Bruyn, TCPS
With the recent publication of “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…” by Teachers College’s ascending star Professor Christopher Emdin, the halls are abuzz with talk of Reality Pedagogy and #HipHopEd. Highlight of the TC Academic Festival: Emdin passed the mic - to Three Prodigies of his Seven C Pedagogies (and a White Folk... I know, but it ...broke my flow?). Emdin’s radical message—delivered with wit, passion and style (that I could never hold a candle to)—and the consummation of a decade’s work with urban youth can be summed up as this: recognize their brilliance, learn their culture, and empower them to use it in the classroom for acquiring academic skills. Emdin is addressing the missionary White Folk coming out of programs like Teach For America, who in my own estimation are (in part) answering to Kipling’s clarion call. Emdin tries to salvage this humanitarian tendency from its colonial roots, but in doing so seems to have missed the points made by Paolo Freire regarding the pitfalls of Ally work. In White Folks, Emdin re-defines urban YOC as neo-indigenous based on the shared historical experience of Oppression with the indigenous, illustrated by comparisons to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Here the connection to Freire’s thinking in Pedagogy of the Oppressed ought to be illuminating. Freire states the historical task of the Oppressed is to “liberate themselves and their oppressors as well” from the mutually dehumanizing process of Oppression. Whilst
maintaining a ‘fundamental’ role for converts/allies, he makes a distinction between humanitarian and humanist generosity. Emdin has one vision for this Ally work, but I contend that he has allowed them (us) too central a role. I argue that community hiring practices combined with re-valuing the students’ experiences are necessary for meaningful change.
heartfelt thank you’s from the crowd at the Academic Festival. I suspect it might work better with people from the community as the special brand of Teacher-Facilitators that Emdin desires. Emdin, of course, foresees this challenge, and after recounting a history and overview of co-teaching models makes a strong case for simply trying a fourth model: let the students co-teach. While I’m a strong proponent of increasing the agency and supporting the initiative of students in the classroom, I worry that leaving the status quo unchecked regarding who receives the training and who gets the jobs will only deepen the legacy of unequal opportunity.
the teaching profession itself. The crisis of education quality is essentially a given, and Teachers College seems to butter its bread off producing teachers adapted to the pedagogical demands of the day. A clear example of a high epistemic community currently seeking to use technocratic logic would be Neuroscience in education. Equally we see the practice of teachers overlooked when TFA advocates for their missionary zeal and SMEs or when Emdin advocates for the introduction of a kind of Anthropologist’s Pedagogy into education. This last criticism of Reality Pedagogy may seem unfair, given that Emdin developed his ideas from his own teaching experience. Yet the
Take up the White Man’s burden Send forth the best ye breed— Go send your sons to exile To serve your captives' need Rudyard Kipling (1899) “The White Man’s Burden” There are historical precedents that could be drawn on from the 1960s such as the community hiring practices of the Freedom Summer Schools in Mississippi 1964, or, closer to home, the paraprofessional hiring of ParentTeacher teams in Harlem from 1967-70. In 1964, after political disillusionment resulting from the Democratic National Convention, working-class black Mississippians were able to take control of their own futures through the efforts of the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM). This lost-alternative history is detailed in Dr. Crystal R. Sanders’ recently published work “A Chance For Change.” By using funds specifically set aside for anti-
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Lilla Watson [credits “Aboriginal Activist group, Queensland 1970s”] Teach For America candidates are often chosen for having skills deemed more crucial in subject matter expertise than in the practice and profession of teaching itself. This, as with Emdin’s Anthropology based Reality Pedagogy, is suggestive of what Jal Mehta describes as a Technocratic Logic, a process whereby an external technical logic imposes itself on another field. Mehta outlines four qualifying elements: a crisis in quality; a high status epistemic community; a broad coalition of diverse actors; all of which leverage themselves against the prevailing low-status of
analogy seems doubly fitting. In Reality Pedagogy the teacher is expected to subordinate their own privileged experience for the culturally relevant experiences of the students. Essentially this elevates Pentacostal Pedagogy, Barbershop Pedagogy, and Cypher Pedagogy, which he draws on to establish Reality Pedagogy, above what could then be called White Folk Pedagogy. If we inevitably bring a higher epistemic community to bear on the Educational field, and Emdin seeks to elevate the place of Urban cultural practices, why not encourage hiring from that community as well? Imagine how
poverty measures and administered by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), grassroots organizers (some, White Folk) secured $15 million over three years for their own Head Start program that ‘provided early childhood education, health screenings, and nutritious meals to more than 6,000 black children’. Most importantly, the CDGM programs recognized and valued the skills of the women in these communities over the requirement for credentials. Secondly, let’s consider the 1968 ParentTeacher teams in Harlem. These ‘nonprofessionals’ were parents, hired as co-teachers, who brought cultural sensitivity and awareness to classroom practice. This simultaneously provided real opportunities for people in these communities. Many of the parents were able to expand on these experiences through access to further training and education at TC and later CUNY. Today, as Michelle Alexander and others point out, when POC males are disproportionately targeted by a system often described as the school-to-prison pipeline, academic achievement is only a bridge to the jobs that are available. I imagine it’s hard to get excited about academics when experience shows few exemplars from your own ‘hood, Emdin himself being an exception. I don’t mean to suggest that his classroom strategies won’t work when delivered by White Folk, he gives examples that prove it does, and I heard many
could be if the teachers receiving his training, being placed in TFA-like programs, were also from these communities, like Emdin himself. We could imagine them learning and adopting his Socio-Anthropological methods (with hints of participant observation) to their experience of academic-professional training. Furthermore, the examples of CDGM’s Head Start program and Parent-Teacher teams in Harlem illustrate the broader potential of such liberatory educational projects. To return to Freire, “those who authentically commit themselves to the people must reexamine themselves constantly”. As a White Folk, perhaps our real burden is recognizing how and when our presence is obstructing truly constructive efforts.
STAFF LIST Joe Marinelli.........................Co-Editor-in-Chief Sara Hardman......................Co-Editor-in-Chief David Perrett................................Layout Editor Shannon Duncan.......Communications Manager Matthew Gonzales...........................Copy Editor Abram de Bruyn...............................Copy Editor Beatriz Albuquerque......................Visual Editor Aliyah Taylor.................................Visual Editor Brenna Mossman..............................Web Editor Gladstone P. Williamson..................Web Editor T. Derrick Hull.................Distribution Manager