Image source

Today, for some reason, I took a winding way home. Winding, that is, by randomly hopping on and off trains I don’t usually take just to see where they take me. Finally, I picked up a local R train and was lucky enough to snag a good seat and get down to some people watching. I love the New York City subway.

There were three school-aged kids sitting directly across from me. They were between the ages of about 9 and 12 and traveling alone, presumably, toward home. They were sharing a 16-ounce bottle of Arizona energy drink and chomping on some sugar-coated gummy candies. Their blue school-uniform pants were peppered with flecks of sugar.

“You guys are going to be super hyper when you get home!” I said and smiled.

They all nodded and smiled back. There were three of them, two girls and their brother. The girls were chatting and hanging on each other, goofing around. The brother was carrying a book bag filled with goodies, including the drink bottle. “I got pinched so many times today!” the one sister said. The other sister, in response, immediately pinched her just above the knee. They both cracked up laughing.

Some other people on the train were reading, a bunch were sleeping, others were tapping at their phones. I looked back at the kids. They were passing their energy drink back and forth.

“Hey, do you guys know what’s in that drink?” I asked. They all three squeezed together to look at the bottle. One sister poked her brother then looked at her sister and smiled before looking back at the bottle to investigate. “Read the ingredients and if you can pronounce all the words there then you can drink the stuff.” I teased them. The girls laughed and the boy smiled.

They all looked at the bottle intently for about thirty seconds and then looked back up at me, surprised.

“Did you find a lot of words you’ve never seen before?” They nodded.

“How many calories is it?” The boy checked the bottle again (the girls lost interest and continued their goofing) then looked up at me and said, “One hundred.”

“Is that for one serving or the whole bottle?” I asked.

He looked at the bottle again. “One serving.”

“How many servings are in that one bottle? Is it one, two, two and a half?” He looked at me, questioningly. “Check at the top of the label.” He looked back down at the bottle then up again, “Two and a half.”

“So, if you drink that whole bottle of energy drink by yourself, how many calories will you have taken?” He thought to himself for about thirty seconds and then looked up at me with a blank expression.

“How would you figure it out…one serving is how many calories?” He thought and said, “One hundred.”

“And if you add another serving that’s how much?” I asked. No answer. “What’s one hundred plus one hundred?” No answer.

So I brought my fingers into the calculation: Counting one finger “one serving is 100 calories, plus another serving is 200 calories, plus half a serving is 250 calories.” He watched and nodded.

“Man! How many miles do you think you might have to run to burn off 250 calories?” I joked.

“Two?” he guessed.

This boy was about 12-years-old. When I realized that he couldn’t figure out this simple math problem, I felt as if I was holding, for just a brief moment, a butterfly with a torn wing. The boy seemed to become pensive and a bit sad after our interaction. I wonder how he feels, what interests him, what worries him…does he know he’s being ripped off? It was clear to me that this kid wasn’t mentally or physically impaired. Indeed, it was apparent that he is really sweet and responsible in caring for his sisters, as far as I observed during the 40 minutes we were on the train together. Too, he was very responsive throughout our interaction and seemed to enjoy the challenge. My guess is…that I simply crossed paths with one of the “numbers” we read so much about in news stories about young people in NYC and elsewhere who are years behind grade level and in many cases innumerate and illiterate but are still being pushed through the system.

I asked the kids how school is going. They all said “Good.”

I asked, “How do you like your teachers?” They all said, “Good.”

****

I’d like to ask you, how is school going?

Teaching English twice a week via Skype to a girl in Afghanistan is exciting, enlightening,…and slow. It’s slow. Sometimes, we (volunteer teachers) spend a lot of time waiting. We wait for the center to sort out a variety of issues: Internet problems, a malfunctioning generator, and–more often than you can imagine–missed classes as a result of bombings throughout the city. Our girls are brave and dedicated students who quite literally risk their lives to come to school and learn.

They are also quite effusive when expressing their gratitude. For example, this is fairly common (an excerpt from our Skype archive:

(highfive) (inlove) (h)
bye dear miss very nice

thank you to my kind teacher
have a good night

i love you
my dear teacher
(h)

For those of you who don’t have your Skype emoticon translation service at hand, (highfive) means just what it says, (inlove) is a smiley face with bursting heart bubbles, and (h) is a heart. This might not seem so strange to those of you who work with young kids, but my student is fifteen! My other student was equally expressive. At first, I was a bit surprised but I rolled with it. The fact is, it’s a pretty big deal for these kids–a big exciting deal–to even have access to a computer. To have access to a computer and teachers is even more exciting. In short, they are looking to us to help them “support my family” and “become my wishes” and “one day become a doctor or a professional teacher of English.” The stakes are high. “My parents want for me to get all the education since my older brother is dead.”

When my current student told me “Miss, I wish I could talk to you every day” and “Do you think I will become my wishes?” I thought about her walking with her mother an hour each morning to school, about her diligence and intense focus during our lessons, and the fact that she’s a kid who deserves an education…I tossed and turned thinking…how can I do more for her? Two hours a week simply isn’t enough! As I tried to drum up ideas that I could translate into practice that would create more learning opportunities for my student, I worked to recruit new volunteer teachers for AIWR, I pledged a monthly donation the Afghan Canadian Community Center (the school that AIWR partners with to provide Skype classes to the girls), and I kept on thinking.

Typically, the students at ACCC have very limited access to the Internet. In fact, most of them have access only for the two hours per week they are working with their English language teacher on Skype. This, of course, makes it difficult to link students up with a variety of online opportunities for further study.

Luckily, my student has a bit more access to the Internet…about one hour each morning before school starts. She comes to the center early, hangs out in the computer lab, and if there is space she works on the computer. Aha! Why not carry over our exchange to a Tumblr blog? And so,…I am trying…to get this Tumblr weed rolling into Kandahar.

We haven’t chatted in a long time because my student had to cancel classes for two weeks so that she could focus her time and energy on preparing for and taking her exams. During that break, we have occasionally run into each other on Skype and chatted briefly. During one of those chats, I explained to her that I would like her to use this blog to practice reading and writing in English on the days that we do not have class together. Our coordinator at the center, a wonderful young woman and brilliant communicator, further explained to my student what the blog is, what I’m asking her to do, and how to upload her response. This obviously wasn’t ideal…I was hoping she’d catch on quickly and post something, anything, so I could see that she understood how to reply and post.

It’s been six days, which for me–because I am online constantly–seems like ages and my student hasn’t managed to post a reply. It will be interesting to see how…if at all…this works. We will start meeting again this Friday for our English lesson. It should work a bit more smoothly if we go over the blog idea together while we are talking (rather than sending instant messages via Skype). At this point, I am wondering if she is reluctant to write on the blog for other reasons (does it feel too public, dangerous, confusing, etc). She hadn’t heard of a blog before when I mentioned it to her over Skype last week, so we might just need to work on it together, bit by bit. Insha’Allah, once we are up and running with this added opportunity for reading and writing in English, my student will find it useful, educational, and fun.

Got any ideas? Have any of you taught English (or anything else) via Skype? Have you used blogs with students who have bery limited access to the Internet? I’d love to hear from you here, on Twitter, or Tumblr.

Image via CrunchBase

A few days ago I wrote about my neophyte bumbling with Diigo, an article that ended up being featured on a cool paper.li site dedicated to social bookmarking and pinging. Thanks @TuhinSEO! That article shared some goofs (premature amplification) I committed while experimenting with Diigo for the first time.

The last few days I’ve continued working on my Teachers Without Borders research and although I have continued using Diigo here and there, I’ve started using a Tumblr blog as my scratch pad while I read through articles about reflective teaching practices. Konrad also suggested this technique (cool, smart guy!) and much like Diigo, this is a new to me. Tumblr isn’t new to me, I’ve blogged there before…but ended up gravitating back to WordPress. BUT, using a Tumblr blog as a place to record my research process is new to me. And, truth be told, I rather like it!

At this point, as far as I can tell, no one is following my Tumblr research blog, which complicates things a bit! For now, I am uploading notes, questions, and identifying tasks for moving my research forward. Ideally (and hopefully! Please check out the blog and let me know what you think. Too, please share this post or the link to the ReflectiveTeaching blog with educators in your network), educators and other folks will drop in once in a while, check out my notes, and provide some feedback (challenges, criticisms, links to other sources and so on).

Are you familiar with any similar approaches to the research process? I’d love to check out some links to blogs that are serving as a research scratch pad (for lack of a better term). Let me know!

What are your thoughts/experiences/issues regarding reflective teaching practices? Please let me know by leaving a comment here or on the collaborative research Tumblr blog: reflectiveteaching.tumblr.com .

December 10th was an exciting day for me…and a bunch of other folks who participated in a New York Teaching Fellows interview “event.” It was a fun, inspiring, and exhausting process, which I wrote about in detail here. At the end of the day, we were told that we would “hear back” in four to six weeks. In the meantime, or more specifically, while I wasn’t neurotically checking and rechecking the MYNYCTF portal (each applicant is given access to the portal, where she can check the status of her application, upload documents, receive and send email to the folks at Teaching Fellows headquarters, and so on), I was searching for other opportunities to become a classroom teacher in a NYC public school without, ideally, spending another twenty plus thousand dollars on tuition for a program that leads to certification. According to my site statistics, a lot of other NYC Teaching Fellow applicants are also waiting anxiously to learn whether or not they will be counted among the approximately nine percent of those accepted into the program.

Well, good news aspiring teachers. It turns out that there are currently eight programs that offer “alternative routes to certification” to folks who are interested in teaching in New York City public schools and who meet the eligibility requirements.  I’ve applied to two: the New York City Teaching Fellows and–now my first choice–Teaching Residents @ Teachers College (TR@TC). It might be worth your time and effort to check out a few of these other programs and, if you are eligible, prepare and submit applications. Here, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned at an information session about TR@TC and while preparing my application and share why the TR@TC program is a much more attractive option in my case.

Those of you who have already gone through the application and interview processes with the NYC Teaching Fellows should know the following: Most fellows will go on to teach special education or science and a small number may be brought on to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). I’ve applied to teaching EFL…so this looming question mark from the folks at NYCTF makes me nervous…and so I’ve marked a tick on the con list. In contrast, the TR@TC program offers three tracks that lead to certification for aspiring teachers: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), which leads to a K-12 certification; Intellectual Disabilities, Autism (IDA), which leads to a 7-12 Teaching Students with Disabilities certification; and Teaching Students with Disabilities, Secondary Inclusive Education, which leads to a 7-12 Teaching Students with Disabilities certification. You can check out the eligibility requirements for each on the TR@TC website.

Hands down, NYC Teaching Fellows is mighty attractive to those of us who already have loads of student loan debt from undergraduate and graduate studies. Teaching Fellows take an intensive summer course and then are awarded a provisional certification that qualifies them to teach in a NYC public school. During the summer immersion course, fellows begin their master’s programs, which are highly subsidized by the NYC Department of Education. Fellows do pay for some of their tuition (less than 7,000) and they are responsible for all other costs (books, transportation, etcetera). The tuition payments are taken bit-by-bit from a fellows’ paychecks, and since fellows are working full-time in a New York City public school while taking master’s courses part time…it is unlikely that any fellow will have to borrow money to participate in the program. This is a giant tick on the pro list for the NYC Teaching Fellows.

Oh, call me crazy…but TR@TC…even though I might have to take a loan to do it…is a much more attractive program. Here’s the deal on the money front: All teaching residents are awarded a scholarship that pays for 18 of the 38 required credits. In addition to that scholarship, residents are awarded a $22,500 stipend that they can use to help defray living expenses or put toward the remaining tuition costs, which amounts to…at $1231 per credit: $24,620. Yikes. There is, however, a possibility for loan forgiveness if graduates spend five years teaching in a high needs school. This is not a done deal yet…but I am sending regular requests to the Universe to make it happen! Note: TR@TC graduates are required to spend three years teaching in a high-needs school after graduating from the program. Those who do not, are required to pay back the scholarship and stipend monies.

What makes it more attractive? Have you checked out the image above? First, residents complete the master’s program in 14 months while working closely with a mentor teacher in a public school. In contrast, NYC Teaching Fellows work full-time in a public school and take their master’s courses in the evening. Most NYC Teaching Fellows take two to three years to complete their master’s degree. Importantly, the provisional certification lasts only three years, so fellows MUST earn their certification within that time. Second, the TR@TC program provides much more support to residents. Check out this semester-by-semester breakdown.

In the first summer session, each resident receives a school assignment and visits that school to build some familiarity. Residents earn approximately 13 credits during the summer session by attending the Intensive Summer Institute. In sum, the first summer semester combines field and classroom components. Then life gets a bit busy.

During the fall semester residents spend three full days per week in their schools working alongside their mentors. In addition to the residency, residents take graduate courses (in the evenings) and attend weekly “integration seminars” each Friday from 9:00am to 1:00pm to discuss their experiences in their respective schools, and integrate those practical experiences with what they are encountering in their coursework. Residents are also required to spend thirty hours “interacting” with a community based organization (CBO) situated in the same community as the school they are assigned to. In order to prevent residents from developing a limited view of the public school system, each are placed in another school for twenty days during the fall semester. It. Sounds. Brilliant. Life gets busier.

The spring semester is just as intense–if not more so. Residents spend four full days per week working alongside their mentors in the NYC public school they are assigned to, attend the Friday integration seminars each week, complete six credits worth of coursework, complete their certification requirements, and begin their job searches. In addition, as during the fall semester, residents are observed while they are in the classroom by Residency Supervisors.

The final semester, it is said, is a bit more relaxed as the program is wrapping up. Residents complete three to six credits of coursework, finish their integrating seminar, work with support system at Teachers College to find a job, and gear up for their first year of teaching in a high-needs New York City public school!

Okay, all of that is intense, brilliant, and makes me super-excited, nervous, and finger-cross-ey (because I really hope I am accepted into the program)…but I haven’t even mentioned what I think is the most attractive aspect of the TR@TC program: The induction years. In short, residents get loads of support during their first two years as teachers. This includes: an induction mentor, monthly observations from folks appointed by Teachers College, monthly meetings with their master’s cohort, and more. (Check the image above.) Second year, more support, more mentoring, more professional development. This appeals to me for a few different reasons: a) I know that becoming a good teacher is A LOT of work and the more support and feedback I get, the more my students will learn;  b) The NYC Teaching Fellows model feels a bit like seven weeks of basic training before jumping out of plane and into the school zone; and c) Research shows that teachers who receive mentoring and intensive feedback are much more likely to be more effective teacher and to continue teaching for more than five years.

The bottom line is, the TR@TC program will better prepare me to be an effective teacher in a high-needs school. As for the money…man, it sure would help if I didn’t have to borrow more money, God knows it’s true…but I’m going to consider it an investment in my future students. You know, the kids who need more well-prepared and dedicated teachers. They’re worth it!

Moving Forward

Timeline: The “priority deadline” for the TR@TC admissions is January 15th. You can read more details about the application process here. Two days ago I “heard back” from the New York City Teaching Fellows; they told me that my application was still under review and changed my status from “interview completed” to “decision pending.” It’s not clear to me whether anyone has been accepted or if this is another “cut” (I made second cut…like during sports try-outs in high school!). The email from NYCTF indicated that accepted applicants will be notified in “spring.” Not very specific! The NYCTF summer-intensive training begins in June. Those who have applied to TR@TC by the priority deadline will know by mid-March whether they are accepted. The first summer session begins on May 14th!!

Tell Me About Your Experience!

Have you applied to NYCTF, TR@TC, or any of the other programs that offer alternative routes to certification? What has been your experience? Good luck to us all!

On the fence about whether or not you should teach? Consider this.

That’s me. I’m the clumsy awkward chick who kicks over beer at a party. Hey, beer’s filled with empty calories anyway, stop your belly-aching mister. My latest party fail was of the social networking variety. Unlike the puddle of beer, which is immediately apparent to even the most aloof party dork, I didn’t realize my social networking fail (more specifically, my social networking/social bookmarking fail) until DAYS after I kicked over the virtual beer. Oh, you kids and your newfangled ways of doing things.

What led me to see the light? (Insert Amazing Grace)…another awesome Webinar by the folks at Curriculum 21: Curation and Implementation. I’ve already gushed about the Curriculum 21 team’s off-the-charts awesomeness–you can read more about that here–so, for now, I’ll focus on my Diigo party fail, which sent a puddle of spilled beer across multiple LinkedIn and Facebook groups, my Twitter feed, and Google knows what other digital debris I left in my broken wake.

Just recently, I’ve started working as a research and content development intern for Teachers Without Borders (a super-cool organization that you should definitely check out if you’re not already familiar with their work). Konrad, the executive director at TWB, suggested that we use Diigo to bookmark and share sources at this point in the research process. Cool! I thought, I’ve never worked with Diigo before…and after tinkering with it for twenty minutes I was wondering how the heck I managed to not get hooked on Diigo until now. At this point, I am aggregating articles, images, slideshows, videos…etc…about reflective teaching while learning (the trial and error method) about Diigo’s features.

Here it is: The truth is, I got a little ahead of myself…caught up in the winds of a regular nerdathon…and just couldn’t wait to start building my “personal learning network” so that friends, acquaintances, and strangers interested in reflective teaching could join in and help aggregate. So, I made list….(those of you who know how to use Diigo are hearing the sounds of car breaks screeching to a halt…) and then spread the word that I am doing this research, I’ve created a list, and please help! tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. That’s weird, why isn’t anyone helping?

We might call this a case of premature amplification. A few problems here: a) lists are private so sharing the link to my list with everyone and their LinkedIn uncle didn’t open the door for collaboration…and as far as I can tell, now that I’m digging through the Diigo V5 help notes…I learn that….I’m going to have to keep figuring this out through trial and error. The folks at Diigo are still drafting the tutorials for the upgrade doh!

So…I started a group…and then dug back into the tutorials to figure out how I might import my list into the group and also in effort to avoid another embarrassing premature amplification…only to find the following messages:

My groups tutorial

Diigo V4.0 Groups user interfaces have been completely re-designed.

Sorry, Help is still under construction

Ha! Looks like I’ll be making a fool for a while as I tinker!

For those of you who’ve never used Diigo or maybe checked it out, briefly, once or twice a while back, check out this video overview of Diigo V5:

Amen! Amen! Amen!

A few days ago, I met a young mother and her two kids on the N train. We were all headed to Manhattan. Her five-year-old son was obsessed with the subway map and reading it and any sign in sight. His eyes were bright, playful, and with a noticeable dash a mischievousness! Her daughter–a second grader–was very observant and shy.

“Wow! What smart kids you have!” I gushed.

“They’re obsessed with Google. They’re always Googling things.” She said.

[This, oh my age, reminded me of the ways in which technology aided my early education...Speak and Spell and Speak and Math were my go to devices when I was his age.]

“That’s fantastic! It definitely requires a basic level of literacy (literacies) to search. He must be a pretty good reader.” (I don’t have my own kids so I’m forever impressed by other people’s.)

“He asks a lot of questions. ‘MOM! How do you spell TRAIN?!” She giggled, her eyes sparkled much like her kids’.

***

It amazes me that so many of us are STILL blaming media platforms for users’ poor writing skills. (Oh! Did I make any errors in this post?!)

In a recent interview, Margaret Atwood–an avid tweeter–applauded the proliferation of digital venues for self-expression and self-publishing (from e-books to blogs to Twitter). People are writing more and more. Are the platforms causing the degeneration of proper usage? I’d say that it’s more readily apparent that many people are lazy writers who can write well when they take the time and make the effort. Of course, many others are still working on that skill set and their current lack of fluency is more obvious–and much more public–than it would have been 15 years ago. BUT…among all the frivolity…there’s also a heck of a lot of learning going on.

New media platforms have made it possible for me to teach English via Skype to Afghani girls, to help some of my Egyptian friends refine their English language skills, and to work on my proficiency in Arabic and Farsi. My Afghani and Egyptian friends and I routinely correct each others mistakes on Facebook and Skype. Not because we are annoying pedantic language dorks but because we are each interested in building our ability to communicate in English (and in my case, Arabic, Dari, and Farsi). Indeed, our language exchanges have deepened our friendships.

Google Translate has actually GENERATED my ability to communicate in Slovak! I type a message directly into the “from this language” box and cut and paste the translated result from the “to this language” box and voila! I am able to communicate with my sister-in-law, who speaks Slovak, Czech, and Russian but no English. And my, ahem, Russian is very uh…rusty (is that a good synonym for non-existent?!).

All of this to say…it’s not the platform…it’s how you use it.

Disclosure: My tried and true methods for creating the space and distance to reflect are: a regular meditation practice, unplugged sport, and–following Kurt Vonnegut’s advice–”farting around.” Each morning–before checking any gadget–I sit in the same corner of my room and meditate for at least 20 minutes. At another point in my day I run–outside–with nothing plugged into my ears. (To this day I cannot understand the desire to run on a treadmill while watching TV…) At the end of day, I read books only–no gadgets–and giggle and goof with my husband before drifting off to sleep tangled up in jokes.

It was during my offline reflection that I realized a sort of poem that arose from encounters online yesterday. It started with an article about the deep budget cuts suffered by Pennsylvania public schools in 2011. Here are some details that lingered in my mind (until they later connected with a far-flung image from the other side of the world and an encounter with a young Afghani):

This budget is bad for students. This budget puts the state’s budget problems on the backs of students,” Ron Cowell, a former state legislator who is president of the Education Policy and Leadership Council in Harrisburg, said after the state budget presentation in March.

And:

As a result, the board was forced to cut 47 jobs, eliminate the freshman academy at the high school and the team teaching approach at the middle school, and consolidate bus routes and stops, resulting in students having to walk up to four-tenths of a mile to catch their bus.

(Emphasis added.)

A bit later in the day, I came across this powerful image of an Egyptian boy studying while sitting on the street and selling tissues. How far do you think this boy would walk to get to school–any school?

Last night–before signing off for giggles and goofing–I ran into my Afghan student on Skype. We typically meet for our one-hour classes, twice a week, on Friday and Sunday nights at 9:40pm EST time, which is Saturday and Monday mornings at 7:10am in Kandahar. During our informal chat, I asked my student if she still had the sniffles (and we quickly reviewed that new vocabulary!). She told me that it’s hard to get rid of her sniffles because she is very tired. Each morning she and her mother walk over five miles together to the school. Her mom continues on to her work place after leaving S at the school. Later in the conversation she told me “Everything is so hard for me” and then asked, “Do you think I will become my dreams?” (Translation: Do you think I will achieve my goals?)

Dear Pennsylvania, I am sorry to read that your public schools suffered a $900 million budget cut in 2011 but…well…this might not make me very popular…oh, well, here goes: It is outrageous to whine about children walking LESS THAN a half mile to catch the bus. Let’s be honest, American kids need A LOT more exercise. It’s good for them. Let’s be more realistic about what we can and should trim and what we really shouldn’t.

How, if at all, do your online encounters change your perspective? Is four-tenths of a mile really too far a distance for a school-aged kid to walk? 

Image source

Cheating Found Among Schools in Georgia’s Dougherty County – NYTimes.com.

Kirkwood, New Jersey was a quiet kind of place when I was a kid. My Grandparents’  house in particular–where I spent a lot of time as a young person–seemed to actively contain a piece of the good old days. The backdoor was always open and neighbors and friends regularly stopped by to sit around the kitchen table and chat, while enjoying a glass (or two or three) of my Grandmom’s famous ice-tea. It was a great place to eavesdrop or spend hours lounging around and reading books. Loads and loads of books.

Neither of my Grandparents were bookworms by any stretch. My Grandfather had to leave school to work and help support his family when he was in third grade. He spent most of his life completely illiterate but somehow, at some point–though no one talks about this–he learned how to read. At least, I think he did…he looked at the newspaper every day as far as I can remember. My Grandmom, who would sit down once a week to write a letter to her dear friend in Florida, liked leafing through catalogues, and she told great stories, but I never once saw her with a book. Yet somehow, through the grace of good teachers and a well-stocked community library, I was never without books. Reading was my refuge, it connected me to a world outside my grandparents’ home and rescued me from the quiet and drilling boredom of the day-to-day humdrum-miness.

When I was a teenager, I would perch myself on a stool, scooted up alongside my grandfather, and read to him from some of my books. He especially got a kick out of Thoreau. Once, building on our connection through reading, my grandfather fished out a mysterious key that was hidden somewhere in my Grandparents’ bedroom (he was super stealth about the entire operation) and took me to the basement–it was a very exciting adventure! There, he unlocked the giant, dusty trunk that we grandkids were always spying around with wonder and curiosity. It was filled to the top with dusty books. This was my grandfather’s treasure. It was locked up and stashed in his basement for years. And although he had the key to the trunk…he was missing the more important key. He didn’t know how to read. Yet, he wanted me to have his cache of untouched riches.

Reading is Fundamental. Imagine receiving a letter in the mail and having absolutely no idea what it means. Imagine being an illiterate parent of school-aged children…letters from teachers, homework assignments, report cards…all completely indecipherable. Think for a minute about the constant sense of isolation, shame, and disconnection. Those of you who have traveled to foreign countries whose language you are unfamiliar with may have experienced–in small measure–what it means to be illiterate. (I’ll never forget the frustration of standing in a bookstore in Tokyo, surrounded by thousands of books I couldn’t read!)

I have never been a fan of the ‘passing the buck’ mentality. It’s a behavior that, in my opinion, demonstrates lack of courage, conviction, and character. (I got carried away with C-words for a minute!) Passing an illiterate kid through a school system represents a form of passing the buck that is not only pitiful but downright criminal. Who will assume the responsibility being shirked by so many “educators” and the community at large? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that children–and illiterate adults–learn to read?

Failing schools, in my opinion, belong to failing communities. While policy makers, administrators, teachers, parents and everyone else stand in a circle pointing fingers and passing the buck, kids are being pushed into the periphery and forgotten. Who will save our kids from a dismal life marked by isolation, dead-end jobs or chronic unemployment, and a far-too-high vulnerability to being tricked? It is time to STOP pointing the finger, passing the buck, and abandoning the kids. It is time to reach out and teach, share resources, and partner with others in the community to ensure that EVERYONE can read (write, think, analyze, reason…).

I’m not one to strike a nationalist note–because I believe it’s more important to cooperate and collaborate in peaceful and creative ways at the local and global levels than it is to be “number one.” But, seriously, it is absolutely unconscionable that a country as resource-rich as the United States is failing–across the board–to provide all children with a decent education. We are EACH responsible for taking action. I am infuriated that teachers are “promoting” (as my grandmother used to say) illiterate students to the next grade level. I am beside myself that school administrators are complicit in this crime. I am outraged that policy makers continue to play politics and create conditions that intensify the tendency to shift blame and point fingers. I am ASHAMED that so many members of the community are simply looking the other way.

Imagine what we could accomplish if each of us dedicated  one hour a week to support a student in need. Don’t just imagine, take action. “‘No excuses’ is not just for teachers.”

If you are already taking action to support authentic teaching and learning in your community, please share your work here. Are you working for an informal education program, mentoring a young person, volunteering at a local school, engaging local government and working for positive reforms? Let us know! The more we can connect, collectively brainstorm, and collaborate, the more likely we are to establish robust partnerships that will facilitate real and positive change. 

(Note: I deliberately capitalize “Grandparents” as an expression of respect for Lillian and Duke.)

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S and I spent between ten to twenty hours per week working together for eight consecutive weeks. We’ve known each other since last summer. The vast majority of that “togetherness” took place on Skype. S is my first co-facilitator in the Soliya Connect Program. We first met in our advanced facilitator-training course, which was held online in a Soliya session room last June and July. We were surprised to be paired up as co-facilitators–because we are both Americans based in NYC and typically pairs are made up of two individuals from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds–but were both super excited to delve into our first semester as facilitators. Truth be told, we immediately connected and hit it off. Our first session, on October 17th, was off-the-charts amazing because we were blessed with the most amazing group of participants. You can read my review of our first session here.

As we completed our session notes and reflected on that first session, we knew right away that we were working with an extraordinary group of young people and we committed to work hard to ensure that each session would be challenging and worth waking up for early on a Monday morning! (Two of our participants were based in California, where it was only 6:45am when our sessions began! After we dropped the clocks back, our meeting time did not change, our guys in California woke up at 5:45am to meet us online! Now THAT’S commitment. How many college kids do you know who voluntarily attend a class being held THAT early on Monday mornings?!) Some sessions were stronger than others, and we both certainly learned a lot about facilitating cross-cultural dialogue in an online environment, but there were definitely some very notable positive moments throughout the semester.

Our favorite: After our second session, S and I had a sense of who was very talkative, who was a bit shy, and we had some exposure to participants’ respective worldviews. Every Sunday night we would ask each other–as we planned our Monday session–how can we really push them tomorrow? How can we challenge them and bring them into new territory? How can we facilitate a situation that will enable them to expand their comfort zones? Our participants were so seemingly starstruck by one other (they all were very sweet in their enthusiasm to interact with peers from around the world) we wondered if they would ever move past that honeymoon stage and uncover points on which they disagree or ways in which their linguistic and cultural backgrounds shaped their perspectives. As we mulled over these questions the white noise of the interWebz was filled with stories related to the Arab Spring, including innumerable editorials and articles about “What happens if the Islamists are elected,” and other such conversations about secularist versus non-secularist governments.

Note: S and I are both media junkies…neither of us are young enough to be reasonably categorized as Millennials (uh, sorry about that S….OLD-HEAD. ) but we are both consistently at risk of suffering from information overload–especially when events in Egypt have flared up. (S and I both lived in Egypt–for four and three years respectively–and found it difficult to peel away from Twitter, FB, Al Jazeera live stream, among other sources when people rose up again en masse to protest the SCAF.) In light of these ongoing debates in the media and what we had observed in our group, we developed a pretty nifty activity: The Constitution Activity. Eh? Let me explain.

Our eight participants were divided into two groups: one group was asked to argue for a secular constitution and the other was asked to argue for a non-secular constitution based on Islamic law. Each group went into a breakout room (the Soliya platform has a main room and breakout rooms to support activities like this) to brainstorm with their delegation about how they would revise or leave in tact the following articles in order create a constitution in line with their group’s agenda. (As you can see, S and I pulled these articles from three different living constitutions–can you guess to which constitution each article belongs?)

It’s hard not to notice the bird droppings peppering the stairs leading into Washington Irving High School (where the event was held), my guess is that not many kids loiter on the front stairs before and after school! Walking into the building was a wholly different experience. This past Saturday morning, the orchestra was practicing in the auditorium on the ground floor, which was  filled not only with its rich music but also with gorgeous murals and beautiful architectural details. I thought to myself, “Wow…this feels like a place that fosters learning. I would feel inspired….” It turns out, appearances can indeed be deceiving, that same morning the NYTimes published an article in which Washington Irving was identified as one of the 19 added to the city’s list of schools to be closed. As it goes, last year only 48% of Washington Irving’s seniors graduated.

This bittersweet intersection of idealism and passion for teaching and learning with the absolute state of emergency confronting students, teachers, and other stakeholders in public education and the grim realities associated with that status quo permeated–for me–the entire interview process. However, I must admit, by the end of the day I felt more determined, more inspired, and downright hellbent on doing my part to effect positive change. But. I. Am. So. Humble. What I mean is…I know that this is not such an easy task, that we (I don’t know if I’ll be selected to be a NYC Teaching Fellow but here I’ll imagine I will be chosen ) will not know what it means to work in the highest needs schools with the kids who are most at risk and “hard to teach” until we are there, in the moment, doing it. But, dammit, I cannot bear the thought of NOT making my best effort to reach as many young people as I can and I am already praying for the strength, insight, and smarts to do a consistently good job.

After milling around a bit in the lobby and chatting with a few “fellow potential Fellows,” we were invited to head up to the third floor, where the interview event would take place. Once there, I noticed the walls were filled with posters about testing, which listed goals “achieve at least 75% on regents exam” and to pass the exam each year. Suitably, the interview event began with a test: a 30-minute math assessment. It’s been ages since I’ve filled in bubbles on a scantron sheet with a number 2 pencil! Being citizens of the United States of Mathphobia, there is much nervousness about such assessments. It seems that many candidates worry about what they will find on this test. The NYCTF website fairly describes the assessment as one that a candidate really need not prepare for–as one might for the GRE or GMAT for example. The math itself is very easy–between 4th and 6th (if even) grade levels. The structure of the test is a bit different though.

Here’s the deal: The questions are meant to approximate a situation in which a teacher is presenting mathematical concepts or problems and asking students to carry out the appropriate procedures. The teacher expects x but finds that some students have done y or z. The test is to determine which approaches are valid and which are invalid. Should you prepare for this test and if yes how? My suggestion is this: If you suffer from stereotype threat (you belong to a group that supposedly sucks at math and the mere mention of the word causes you to temporarily lose 50 IQ points), then do thirty minutes of math each day before your interview AND (most importantly) remind yourself that you ARE NOT SCARED OF MATH. Get over it. Mathphobia is a contagious condition that you do NOT want to pass on to students.

After the math assessment, the candidates join the group they were assigned to, upon registration at the event, in classrooms throughout the building. Two current NYC Teaching Fellows work with each group of candidates. My group was made up of six people (counting moi). The first order of business: We each presented our five-minute teaching sample. Holy cow, five minutes goes by super fast. Only one of the group finished in less than five minutes…and I don’t think that was such a great thing. As the NYCTF website suggests: It’s a great idea to practice your five-minute lesson in front of friends, family, or anyone else who will listen. There really aren’t any surprises to this component of the interview. Everyone in my group brought in materials to accompany their lessons–so you might want to keep that in mind. Notably, everyone I met at the interview event was smart, engaged, and collegial–this made the entire process fun and not at all nerve-wracking. This warmth and collegiality was especially helpful during this part of the event. In fact, it was deeply inspiring and I felt more motivated to become a NYCTF by the end of the day.

Next, we took a short break while our evaluators (I forget the term they used to identify their role in the process) set up the room for our group activity. When we returned to the room, we were asked to sit around the table and read over the instructions for our group activity. We were presented with a list of issues at a particular school and our task–as teachers at the school–was to discuss those issues and come up with a plan to address them. We were given twelve minutes to discuss the issues as a group and we were then required to present a three-minute pitch to the principal and vice-principal (played by our evaluators). The advice is this: Don’t dominate the conversation but also make sure that you contribute, that is–don’t be a fly on the wall! The dynamic in this activity will obviously be influenced by the personalities in your group. We had a cool group but I noticed that many in the group were less cognizant of the fact that it was a GROUP activity and more focused on asserting (or piling on) as many ideas as they could. I would suggest working hard to strike a good balance between actively listening and actively contributing input. This is the time to illustrate your capacity to listen and collaborate rather than talk non-stop and dominate!

The three-minute presentation was a bit clumsy for our group for two reasons: We got so caught up discussing the issues facing our school that we did not take one minute, or even thirty seconds, to discuss how we would divvy up the presentation among ourselves, and we had an individual in our group who tended to dominate (this, I think, may have been an expression of nervous on her part…she was receptive when I whispered to her, “We need to give everyone a chance to contribute”). Don’t be shy to politely assert yourself within the group! Remember, this is an assessment of how you work in and with a group as well as how you operate individually.

We were next asked to provide a written response to two different prompts. Typically, I do very well with written assessments but I think by this point in the day–even though I was enjoying the process–I was a bit brain fried! It is usually very easy for me to write–and I LOVE writing–but for some reason, I felt much less fluent than usual as I was responding to these prompts. Nonetheless, I do think I did okay. We had only 15 minutes (total) to respond to the prompts. No time for drafting outlines!

FINALLY, the one-on-one interviews–the last step in the process. Our group was divided in half so that each evaluator would interview three candidates. During the one-on-one interview, I was asked to accept feedback on my five-minute lesson sample, incorporate that feedback, and re-deliver the first minute of the lesson. The rest of the interview flew by. Honestly, the only interviews I have ever enjoyed–in the sense that I feel at home, natural, and at ease–are those related to education. This was no exception–it’s easy for me to interview in this context because I am so passionate about teaching and learning and about teaching and learning at-risk students in particular. Having said that, I won’t know for four to six weeks whether I will be chosen to be a NYC Teaching Fellow. Fingers crossed!!

And for those of you who are gearing up for your own NYCTF interview: Good luck! Have fun! And, DEFINITELY bring some food and water with you. It’s a LONG day!

On the fence about whether or not you should teach? Consider this.