A look inside the Assata: An Autobiography meeting at the Colored Girls Museum

The next meeting is on Tuesday, August 8 from 1-3pm at 5050 N. Sydenham 

                              

Raising Race/Other People's Children; Final meetings coming up!

For our final 2 meetings, we will move on to bring our inquiry about race, racism, and white supremacy to our own schools and classrooms by exploring "Raising Race Questions" by Ali Michael. 

For our August 1 meeting, we will read the Intro, Chapters 1 & 2, with a specific focus on Chapter 2 about "White Racial Identity Development". 

For the August 8 meeting, we will read Chapters 3, 4, and 5 with a specific focus on Chapter 5, titled "From Theory to Practice".   



I also wanted to share out this article, "Black Teachers Matter" from Mother Jones, which informed some of the statistics we used in meeting to and does a good job placing Delpit's work, specifically around educators of color, in a local context.

Next meeting is on Monday, August 1 from 4-5:30 at 4722 Baltimore Ave

The Half Has Never Been Told, First two meetings

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward Baptist

After our first two meetings we have covered about just about half the book. In week one we discussed how the book was written. The nearly 500 page history book can seem intimidating but we discussed how Baptist’s use of stories cuts through dense historical narrative. We reflected on his use of imagery that humanized those who were enslaved and the enslavers.  It really highlighted that slavery was done onto humans by humans. One of the most powerful stories in the first few chapters is of Charles Ball, who endured a forced migration of hundreds of miles, chained in dozens of other enslaved people a coffle. We also discussed how each of the chapters is themed, whether it be a metaphor to a part of the human body, or a topic – torture, culture, religion, etc.

By our second meeting we had finished the chapter on torture. We all agreed that this was a tough, yet deeply moving chapter to read. We also began to discuss the larger narrative of the book, how slavery in the American deep south rose hand in hand with the success of modern capitalism. The ability to use torture to increase efficiency in the production of cotton had deep influences globally. New markets were created and the ability to use credit led to dramatic increases in wealth. This wealth however was built upon a system of demonization and exploitation. We were also able to connect the themes in the book with the topics that we teach. Zac was able to provide some more context of the relationship between exploitation and capitalism from his background in teaching Latin American Studies, and Sonia shared a video on world population growth.

We are looking forward to finishing the book and delving deeper into our we can connect the stories in the book to our practice.

Our next meeting is Wednesday August 2nd 6-8pm at 7212 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19119. We are 2 blocks away from the Allen Lane train station on the Chestnut Hill West line (regional rail), and a half a mile away from the #23 bus stop at Allens Lane and Germantown Avenue.

Transformative Teachers, Meeting 1

Transformative Teachers: Teacher Leadership and Learning in a Connected World

Blog 1

For our first meeting we were asked to prepare the first three chapters of the book and to reflect on the following questions:

• What stories resonate with you? Do they remind you of any personal "transformational" moments in your professional life?
• What barriers have you faced in trying to be transformational in your practice?
• What do you think about when you hear the word "connectedness"? In what ways do you see "connectedness" affecting your practice

We began talking about the concept and practice of connected learning.  As a group we decided that we would try to participate in the ConnectedLearningMOOC (clmooc.com) as a form of inquiry into action for our book group.  This would allow us to connect with other educators across the country who are also committed to creating learning spaces where educators and students (educators as students and students as educators, too) can work collaboratively to enhance learning. This would also provide us with the opportunity to be makers as part of our book group. Since “making is the vehicle through which connections happen” (group member) this is important.

We were asked to consider the following – as a teacher, what is your role in the life of your students? What do you want for your students?” One member stated: “I wake up in the morning and think about how will I help my students have the agency to make change in their lives?” This change can be on an individual level, family level, school level, community level, or societal level. In fact, we recognized that the practice of making change at the individual level helps a person develop agency and understand how they can be part of larger efforts of social change.

We also wrestled with the meaning of social justice.  We did not definitively define the concept, but one member thought that social justice is about “the things my students need in their lives” to improve their lives.  They are the manifestation of human rights.

We cycled back to the theme of connection.  We recognized that our students are connected in many ways to many people, often through social media.  But are those deep and meaningful connections?  We thought that we have to model various forms of connection for our students.

For our next meeting we will focus on Chapters 4 – 7 and the question – How can we collectively build agency to make change?  To prepare, we should think about times we successfully designed or organized a transformative experience, and what were the factors that shaped this success? How does this relate to what we are reading? Also, what are our reactions to the reconceptualization of teacher leadership presented in Part 2?

We will meet on 31 July, 7:00 – 8:30 pm at the Unitarian Society of Germantown: 6511 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia PA 19119 - Parking lot is in rear (to get to the lot, drive up Wayne Ave, and take a left on Johnson - go down half a block and look on your left for a road into the parking lot. This road/driveway is right before the train bridge).

Room: Assembly Room

This blog post was written by Rosemary Barbera.

Just Mercy, Meeting 1

The first meeting for the Just Mercy book group was small and intimate, so we had a pretty unstructured discussion. We agreed that it was a very heavy book. I very much enjoyed hearing everyone's personal connections with the topic and what surprised or didn't surprise them about the book.  We shared a lot of related resources including the books: The New Jim Crow, Dead Man Walking, Killers of the Osage Moon, Dog Whistle Politics, Undocumented, and Locking up Our Own; the film 13th, and the podcasts Undisclosed and 74 Seconds. 

We were heartened by the themes of resiliency, hope and redemption in the book. Nancy was amazed at the hope of the wrongfully accused people on death row and I echo that feeling. 

We discussed and disagreed about the root causes of the issues and talked about what we personally can do. I talked about how I am excited about the push for an end to cash bail and urged everyone to support that movement and the candidacy of Larry Krasner. Adding to this part of the discussion, right after the meeting Lynne sent us this link to stop Lynne Abraham from becoming Philly's interim DA.https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/don-t-let-lynne-abraham-become-philly-s-interim-district-attorney?bucket=COC

 At the meeting, I forgot to mention the Youth Sentencing and Re-entry Project (YSRP), a local organization run by and for those incarcerated as youth. I learned about the organization and met some members through the Bread and Roses Community Fund. While searching Bread and Roses' website just now I found all these other organizations in Philadelphia that are working to reform the criminal justice system and empower those it has hurt. Here is the link to all the organizations http://breadrosesfund.org/about/grantees/phoebus-criminal-justice-initiative-grantees/

The next meeting is on Wednesday, August 2 starting at 5:00pm at 1575 Williams Road, Abington, PA 19001

This blog post was written by Kathy Cohen.

Other People's Children, Meeting 2

Meeting number two focused on Part 2 of Other People's Children. The focus of the first two chapters was on what Delpit learned from teaching/research in Papua New Guinea and in a Native Alaskan community. This lead us to opening the meeting discussing moments in which we have explicitly or subtly learned from a culture other than our own. Many of the conversations that were shared to the whole group highlighted how this learning can help us to reduce judgement and value other perspectives. Next we shared in the whole group about parts of the reading that stood out for us. 

We ended the meeting by looking at data about the Philadelphia school district student and teacher demographics. After talking in small groups about pieces of the data  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-z9jecMhL8uzvylrBNxyjcGpg1rcQMIkI2LYm8GQtc/edit) we created visual and written interpretations of the data based on these three questions:

• What stands out / sticks with you about the data?
• What are the connections to the chapters or your own experience?
• What are some potential solutions from Delpit chapters?

We shared back to the whole group what we had discussed. Some highlights include that money (the lack of it in the best and fairest places) was a major challenge for many reasons, and that there are many barriers that are not just financial for people of color in education. We discussed how, as a group of White educators we felt uncomfortable coming up with solutions, we could be fully hearing the voices of people of color and helping to implement those solutions.

Join us as we read the final section of Other People's Children on Tuesday, July 25th at the A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave, at 4:00.

Class War: The Privatization of Childhood, Additional notes from 1st meeting

Here are some more themes we discussed during our first meeting for Class War:

Stemming from that were questions of individual power at school. At a fancy private middle school, progressive ideals were embraced—service learning, an LGBTQ club, discussions of inequality—but how do we push ourselves and students to dig deeper into those concepts? And furthermore, who has the power to do the digging? Can a Black educator in a predominantly Black, working-class school discuss these issues without consequence? Experience says that, in many cases, discussions of inequality are easier to have in homogenously middle class to upper-middle class environments. This goes back, again, to questions of what is really best for other people’s children; in our experience, this critical and abstract questioning garnered outrage and anxiety from disadvantaged parents who wanted their students to succeed. However, in higher-tracked classes and in fancy private schools, these conversations seem to be open and engaging, and marginally contentious.

We also addressed STEM education. Often, in progressive education circles, STEM is pigeonholed as an enemy because it is so clearly funded by the Bill Gates of the world. Some of us argued that Erickson is guilty of doing the same type of unfair pigeonholing, and that STEM fields really are growing, and it is important to have women and people of color involved in those fields. However, there was also an agreement that the way STEM is often taught is not as exciting or creative or fun as it could and should be, and that is a problem. This problem is a result of an obsession with "college and career readiness" that sucks out the joy and creativity of learning and education. This conversation sets us up well for our next sessions reading of Edutopia.

If you would like to join next week but do not have the book, feel free to email dianeisser@gmail.com for a .pdf of the chapter.

Post written by: Diane Isser

Join us for the next meeting Wednesday, July 26 from 7-8:30 at 814 S. Sheridan St!