Don't Take Away Our Neighborhood School!

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2014/03/25/will-cps-reverse-itself-on-ames-middle-school

http://www.lsna.net/news/2892

Ames is in my neighborhood and I've been following this story through the Logan Square Neighborhood Association's Facebook page. Ben Javorsky's piece from the Reader is a good overview of what's been going on for this neighborhood school. During the primary elections last week, there was a ballot question asking if Ames should remain a neighborhood school or if it should be converted into a Marine military academy. The neighborhood overwhelmingly voted to keep Ames a community school. The second link from the Logan Square Neighborhood Association talks about the Marines outside polling places during last week's election. 

A Bigger Exhibition

NYT: Returning Home, But Always Going Forward- Recent David Hockney Work at the De Yong in San Francisco

I didn't even think to post about this until I started working on our Techno Teach-In about Apps. I saw this show when I was in San Francisco in January at the De Young Museum. It was a huge show of gigantic landscapes by David Hockney, mostly of East Yorkshire, Britain in different seasons, where David Hockney lives. A good number of the pieces exhibited were created using an ipad app called "Brushes". The first image above, "A Closer Winter Tunnel" is one of them. The one below is four rotating versions of a nine screen view of Woldgate Woods in Yorkshire, one version for each season. I really loved the show and would highly recommend going if you find your self in SF. It's also a really interesting example of contemporary painters incorporating technology into their work.  

Amundsen's happy video

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140317/lincoln-square/pharrells-happy-video-helps-amundson-students-reveal-culture-change
This video really made me laugh. It's a good portrait of the mix of identities that come together in a school building and messes with the stereotypes of what an urban neighborhood school looks like. Plus, a student made it and it went viral!

What happens when you build a beautiful public school?

NYT: Reading, Writing, and Renewal (the Urban Kind)

It seems like this is the question that is being asked in this collaboration between John Hopkins and Morgan State Universities in building this new school building in East Baltimore. Their idea is to use the school building as a central space for the community, a revitalization project that will support the community in being strong and serve as a space that will keep community united in the face of gentrification. Reading this makes me think of the grand, old school buildings that we still see in Chicago. As societal/cultural priorities have changed, we see many of these buildings in disrepair and even being knocked down or sold to private entities. What does it mean to build such a grand and beautiful building to house something like a public school? What would happen if we continued to build beautiful houses for public services at the same rate as we did at other times in this city's history? I'm thinking about buildings like the Cultural Center and Senn High School (which some of us visited last week), buildings that were designed to look like actual palaces.

The building of the high school I went to was only five years old when I began, a new CPS school. It is an incredibly beautiful building, there are huge atriums on each floor filling the school with light and overlooking the Chicago River. I really think the building itself had a huge affect on the culture of the school. While Northside College Prep wasn't built in a community with particular need (actually the politics of how the school got built are pretty messed up- not much of a surprise), I think this project is declaring that grand beautiful spaces to house the community's public institutions, has the potential to affect culture, put power into the hands of those who need it and that the design of public institutions really does matter.

Boy Meets Painting. Painting Grabs Boy. Boy Mystified.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/03/07/285967872/boy-meets-painting-painting-grabs-boy-boy-mystified?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=share&utm_medium=facebook

Such a beautiful essay by Robert Krulwich. I love how he puts into words that feeling of being totally grabbed by something. That feeling is exactly what makes me so excited by being in art classrooms, when students access that making sense space between themselves and a piece of art. It's so exciting!

Good Discussion of Saucedo Opt Out

http://www.wbez.org/news/saucedo-teachers-spend-day-1-isat-teaching-concerns-raised-about-intimidation-109815

This was the best thing I read/heard about the ISAT opt out of many Saucedo Elementary teachers and students. The intimidation methods going down on all sides, against teachers, parents, and students are pretty crazy. I also thought that the Illinois State Superintendent of Education wasn't presenting the best argument, if I were a parent I definitely don't think I would buy it. As for the teachers who opted out of giving the test, I have so much respect for them. What a scary leap of faith to take. 

The Box

I found this story linked to WBEZ's website, it's a visual accompaniment to an episode of Reveal Radio which is a PRX program. I clicked on it because of the topic, I work with teenagers so I was curious. When watched the piece, I was really moved by both the story and the haunting animated prints. I think it's a really good example of mixed media story telling and the possibilities available with just a little bit of technological know how.

Repeat After Me

CPS Teacher Professional Development From CEO'S Network

Posted on ChiEd Justice's youtube channel, this is the video's caption: "This presenter was one of several consultants flown in from California and the United Kingdom for the Chicago Public Schools' Office of Strategic School Support Services' special network. This is a professional development for teachers of Saturday ISAT preparation classes."

I don't know where exactly this came from (I saw it on Facebook), or how legit it actually is, but it's both pretty unsettling to watch and also not totally surprising. Of course how to teach test prep is much like test prep itself, it's the repeat after me kind of learning. When I watch this video, my first thoughts are, how does this promote critical thinking again? But after taking Adam's Histories, Theories, and Philosophies of the American Education System course last semester, I've thought a lot more about how different people in different times in the history of this country have answered the question, what is the purpose of education? For instance, during the industrial revolution, a big motive of the American education system was teaching people the skills needed to keep up with the new pace of production, math, science, being able to read diagrams, etc. If this video is a small snapshot of where American education is today, and I think it is, it makes me wonder, on a larger historical scale, what this obsession with measurement really about? What will it say about this point in history?