Monday, November 27, 2017

Moxie Girls Fight Back

Have you read the book Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu?
It's an awesome young adult novel about the power of voice, the importance of feminism, and the empowerment of having guts, gumption, and grit.

Today I left a few copies of Moxie in women's restrooms with the following note:



Moxie is the perfect book to get for every girl you know this holiday season.






Friday, November 17, 2017

Be Kind To Elephants

On Wednesday, the Trump administration lifted the ban on importing elephant trophies into the United States from elephant hunts in two African nations.

African elephants are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.


In a passionate speech, Ellen Degeneres promised to make a donation to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for every share her #bekindtoelephants campaign received. Saying, "I love elephants and if you take the time to learn about elephants you would love them too. Elephants show compassion, sympathy, social intelligence, self-awareness … all the things I have yet to see in this president."

Use the hashtag #bekindtoelephants; retweet and share @TheEllenShow's post on twitter, Facebook, and instagram; educate yourself on the magnificence of African elephants.






Monday, November 13, 2017

Hope




“Hope”by Victoria Safford 
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges; nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.


Tuesday, October 17, 2017

That's why you've got to be brave, brave, brave.

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
- Reinhold Niebuhr



This weekend I read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. This book will break your heart as well as give you hope ... it is a whirlwind of emotions.

This is such an important book!
Get this book for anyone who believes:
"We must reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent."

From the Introduction: Higher Ground:
This book is about getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America. It is about how easily we condemn people in this country and the injustice we create when we allow fear, anger, and distance to shape the way we treat the most vulnerable among us. It's also about a dramatic period in our recent history, a period that indelibly marked the lives of millions of Americans - of all races, ages, and sexes - and the American psyche as a whole. 
When I first went to death row in December 1983, America was in the early stages of a radical transformation that would turn us into an unprecedentedly harsh and punitive nation and result in mass imprisonment the has no historical parallel. Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly six million people on probation or on parole. One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated.


Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. 
We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and - perhaps - we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

From Chapter Fifteen: Broken
My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn't just illuminate the brokenness of others; in a moment of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can't effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it. 
We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. 

From Chapter Sixteen: The Stonecatchers' Song of Sorrow
I believe that so much of our worst thinking about justice is steeped in the myth of racial difference that still plagues us. I believe that there are four institutions in American history that have shaped our approach to race and justice but remain poorly understood. The first, of course, is slavery. This was followed by the reign of terror that shaped the lives of people of color following the collapse of Reconstruction until World War II... The third institution, "Jim Crow," is the legalized racial segregation and suppression of basic rights that defined the American apartheid era... The fourth institution is mass incarceration. Going into any prison is deeply confusing if you know anything about the racial demographics of America. The extreme overrepresentation of people of color, the disproportionate sentencing of racial minorities, the targeted prosecution of drug crimes in poor communities, the criminalization of new immigrants and undocumented people, the collateral consequences of voter disenfranchisement, and the barriers to re-entry can only be fully understood through the lense of racial history.

Read this book. Get it for the young people in your life who have an interest in justice and the judicial system. Get this book for those who need a little mercy and compassion in their life. Read this book.

Also, you must watch Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk:













“We will ultimately not be judged by our technology, we won’t be judged by our design, we won’t be judged by our intellect and reason. Ultimately, you judge the character of a society . . . by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated.” This way of thinking is in line with other pronouncements he makes throughout: “The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” They are like phrases from sermons, exhortations to righteous action. “The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?

Then, watch the documentary 13th on Netflix featuring Bryan Stevenson:





I'll close with my favorite quote also from Chapter Fifteen:
“Rosa Parks turned to me sweetly and asked, 'Now, Bryan, tell me who you are and what you're doing.' I looked at Ms. Carr to see if I had permission to speak, and she smiled and nodded at me. I then gave Ms. Parks my rap. 'Yes, ma'am. Well, I have a law project called the Equal Justice Initiative, and we're trying to help people on death row. We're trying to stop the death penalty, actually. We're trying to do something about prison conditions and excessive punishment. We want to free people who've been wrongly convicted. We want to end unfair sentences in criminal cases and stop racial bias in criminal justice...Ms. Parks leaned back smiling. 'Ooooh, honey, all that's going to make you tired, tired, tired.' We all laughed. I looked down, a little embarrassed. Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked to me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, 'That's why you've got to be brave, brave, brave.' All three women nodded in silent agreement and for just a little while, they made me feel like a young prince.”

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

keep up the struggle in difficult times

On The Week, I saw a book list titled Brene Brown's 6 Favorite books that inspire bravery. It's a great reading list and I loved seeing Teaching To Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks. It's a great book and if you like it, you should also read Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope also by bell hooks. Teaching Community is a book we all need right now.




 From Publishers Weekly:
Readers of hooks's prolific body of work on feminism, racism, cultural politics, art and education will find much that is familiar here. Grounded in autobiography and storytelling and written for an intelligent lay audience, these essays exhort readers to keep up the struggle in difficult times. A distinguishing characteristic of hooks's work is the challenge to recognize, confront and overcome "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy," a recurring phrase that captures her hallmark theme: oppression occurs at the intersections of race, gender and the dominant economic system.

Some of my favorite parts:
We need mass-based political movements calling citizens of this nation to uphold democracy and the rights of everyone to be educated, and to work on behalf of ending domination in all its forms - to work for justice, changing our educational system so that schooling is not the site where students are indoctrinated to support imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy or any ideology, but rather where they learn to open their minds, to engage in rigorous study and to think critically. 
In education especially, this community connects us with the... 'great things' of the world, and with 'the grace of great things' ...We are in community with all of these great things, and great teaching is about knowing that community, and then drawing your students into it. 
Certainly as democratic educators we have to work to find ways to teach and share knowledge in a manner that does not reinforce existing structures of domination (those of race, gender, class, and religious hierarchies). 
Whether or not any of us become racists is a choice we make. And we are called to choose again and again where we stand on the issue of racism at different moments in our life. 

To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.

I highly recommend this book to teachers, facilitators, leaders  -  or for anyone interested in deconstructing racism and the existing structures of mysogyny, and kyriarchy.


Sunday, October 8, 2017

home and hope


Harvard sociologist and MacArthur Genius, Matthew Desmond, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for his heartbreaking book EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City. I read Evicted after hearing this story on an old Diane Rehm show on NPR.

Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid prose, Desmond provides a intimate view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. Evicted follows the stories of actual families forced  into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods. Readers bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast income inequality, systemic poverty, economic exploitation, and real Americans' determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.

It is brutal to witness... and yet

And yet the Epilogue provides some fresh ideas for moving forward - it is titled  Home and Hope.

I'll leave you with this question from the Epilogue:
All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary. Because it is unnecessary, there is hope. These problems are neither intractable nor eternal. A different kind of society is possible, and powerful solutions are within our collective reach. 
But those solutions depend on how we answer a single question: do we believe that the right to a decent home is part of what it means to be an American?

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

it's finally your turn, and then it's not

Today I read Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. It is poetry and essay in seven chapters, interspersed with image and collage. It is a work of art.



Citizen is a collection of microagressions and racial incidents; it is a complex journey on race.

And the cover... a hoodie. The new image of fear in America.


Your friend is speaking to your neighbor when you arrive home. The four police cars are gone. Your neighbor has apologized to your friend and is now apologizing to you. Feeling somewhat responsible for the actions of your neighbor, you clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard. He looks at you a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants. Yes, of course, you say. Yes, of course.

In chapter two, the part about Serena Williams was heartbreaking. How had I not known about the 2004 US Open or 2009 or the 2012 Olympics or Indian Wells?
For Serena, the daily diminishment is a low flame, a constant drip.



Get this book. It is painful and beautiful to read.


In line at the drugstore it's finally your turn, and then it's not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was next. When he turns to you he is truly surprised.
Oh my God, I didn't see you.
You must be in a hurry, you offer.
No, no, no, I really didn't see you. 


Monday, October 2, 2017

courage to stand alone

"People are hard to hate close up. Move in.Speak truth to bullshit. Be Civil.Hold hands. With strangers.Strong back. Soft front. Wild heart."

Be sure to read Brené Brown's new book, Braving The Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone.


I believe that Chapter Four was written just for me.


Brown's research on dehumanization is a reminder we all need to hear. I will read chapter four again and again.

If you want to follow along, Brené Brown discussed each chapter individually on Facebook Live during her book tour. 

And... watch this TED live video with Brené Brown and Helen Walters.




Saturday, September 23, 2017

all is not lost

"There is great danger in these times. And yet, all is not lost. The future remains unwritten, ours to shape - though it will not be easy. Institutional power has been hijacked by a crew of corrupt, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, blithely incompetent leaders bent on dismantling the very hallmark of this nation's democracy. We need to be in a sustained and continuous state of resistance, for as long as it takes, in order to protect our collective rights and the future of the planet. This is hard work. One could easily become exhausted, or paralyzed by despair. That is where this book comes in." - Radical Hope


This weekend I read Radical Hope: Letters Of Love And Dissent In Dangerous Times edited by Carolina De Roberts. It is a collection of individual letters written by some of our favorite authors. It is a reminder to stay engaged in what is good and true and kind.

This book was in a list of titles I saw recommended for young adults trying to make sense of our current political landscape. While there is much to despair, it is essentially a book about hope. By knowing our past, by being connected to our present day communities, and by looking to future inheritors of what happens now - we can create a better world.

From Junot Díaz's letter:
But all the fighting in the world will not help us if we do not also hope. What I'm trying to cultivate is not blind optimism or inane positivity but what the philosopher  Jonathan Lear calls radical hope. "What makes this hope radical," Lear writes, "is that it is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is." Radical hope is not so much something you have but something you practice; it demands flexibility, openness, and what Lear describes as "imaginative excellence." Radical hope is our best weapon against despair, even when despair seems justifiable; it makes survival of the end of your world possible. Only radical hope could have imagined people like us into existence. And I believe that it will help us create a better, more loving future. 
And in Aya De León's letter to millennials:
We older generations haven't built the world you deserve. We wish we had, but we haven't. We often fall back on criticizing you when you make different choices about how to navigate the world's imperfections. So on behalf of older adults who have lectured when we should have listened, and dictated when we should have disclosed, I want to offer an apology. We did our best, but you deserve better. Can you forgive us? I know we've broken our promises. We didn't mean to hurt you. We weren't really lying because, crazy as it sounds now, we believed it at the time.
Jeff Chang writes:
As we face the new day, we must remind ourselves: We are not alone. We are not marginal. We are the majority. We are ready. And we will not stay silent.

In Claire Messud's letter to her daughter:
... my dearest daughter, it's up to us - and in the future, it will be up to you - to defend substance, to forge a true path, and a meaningful one. To be fearless, joyful, hopeful. Privileged as we are, we have an obligation to be happy, to work for justice, openness, and generosity whenever possible; to listen fully to complexities and to try our best to understand; to hold the lamp illumined and aloft. No good gesture is wasted. No kindness is otiose. No sacrifice is too great. Each of us must shed light wherever we can.


Tuesday, August 29, 2017

changing the world today

"When we shift from preparing students for what's next, to helping them prepare for anything, a world of possibilities open up in their learning." - Empower


Before school started I read two amazing books -  Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, and Social LEADia: Moving Students from Digital Citizenship to Digital Leadership by Jennifer Casa-Todd.



In Empower, I loved the idea of moving students from engagement to empowerment, of shifting from making the subject interesting to tapping into student interests. 

And I especially loved the graphic style of the book:



"Choice gives students the opportunity to cast their own line and choose what bait they want to put on the hook. Learning follows, not because it is forced upon them, but because it is naturally connected to curiosity and inquiry."    -Empower

In Social LEADia, I loved the idea that tomorrow's leaders are changing the world today, and shifting the conversation from digital citizenship to digital leadership.
"To us, is more than just connecting online. We connect at school, in teams, and with our teachers. When we connect, we feel that we are using our voice to make an impact in a positive way, and when we connect, we are also learning new ideas and perspectives. When you add these up, we are making a difference in our own world and maybe someone else's."

 And, there were great graphics, student vignettes, summaries, and discussion questions.






If you are looking for inspiration this fall, be sure to pick up these two books. On Twitter, follow #SocialLeadia and #EmpowerBook, and begin building your personal learning network.





Thursday, August 24, 2017

Love is Louder

After the violence Charlottesville, I didn't know what to do. 

So, I left flowers at the Anne Frank Memorial with the tag: Love is Louder.

Hundreds of people turned out for a vigil on Sunday evening  at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in downtown Boise to show solidarity with Charlottesville, Virginia. 

I was so happy to see that the flowers were still there.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Trans Rights Are Human Rights

Yesterday Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military. Luckily, civil rights and transgender advocacy groups denounced the policy, with the ACLU vowing to challenge it in court.

The announcement on twitter felt like another decision made in haste without thought to the American service members such a policy would hurt. I am slowly becoming immune to the constant assault on human rights and civil rights ... this numbing is an awful feeling. Luckily my children are still incensed, and talk over dinner was all about Trans Rights Are Human Rights

So, I decided to create my own army...







 ...and put some boots on the ground today:






























In the meantime, I hope all American service personnel know that we appreciate and value their service to our country.






Thursday, July 13, 2017

jomny sun's aliebn

I read @jonnysun 's book everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too.




It is adorable and thoughtful, empathetic and clever. The book is based on the popular twitter account @jonnysun and does not disappoint. 

From GoodReads:
Through this story of a lost, lonely and confused Alien finding friendship, acceptance, and love among the animals and plants of Earth, we will all learn how to be a little more human. And for all the earth-bound creatures here on this planet, we will all learn how sometimes, it takes an outsider to help us see ourselves for who we truly are.

Favorite book quote:
“we will always be with u. we internalize traits we observe in others as a way to honor and remeber them. we are all living memorials” ― Jomny SunEveryone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too: A Book 


You should get this book for your friends and family... and definitely follow @jonnysun on twitter. After you read everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too, watch this video:



you'll be glad you did.



Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Disruptions start with a thought

"Disruptions start with a thought
 that something needs to be better."


This week I read, Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Robert Probst and Kylene Beers. It is a must-read book for all readers... and those who teach language arts, and those who assign reading homework. This book is an amazing professional resource; it is able to reframe reading as transformational rather than simply a practice of decoding, recalling, and responding to homework questions.

Disruption begins with two questions:

  1. What needs to change?
  2. What assumptions make that change hard?


From the authors:
“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be.”

Of course, skills are important; but if we aren't reading and writing so that we can grow, so that we can discover, so that we can change - change our thinking, change ourselves, perhaps help change the world - then those skills are for not.

"Our democracy is best served when we encourage students to begin at an early age to pay close attention both to what the text says and to what they feel and think as they read. Not one or the other, but both."

Responsive, Responsible, and Compassionate reading:

"In order to read to change, the reader must be responsive to the thoughts and feelings awakened by the text, responsible to both himself and the text, and compassionate and open to the characters and people he finds in the pages, their experiences and ideas, and the reactions of other readers." 

BHH Reading (Book, Head, Heart):

When you read, think about what is...

  • In The Book
What's this about? Who's telling the story? What does the author want me to know?
  • In Your Head

What surprised me? What did the author think I already knew? What changed or confirmed what I already knew? What did I notice?

  • In Your Heart
What did I learn about me? How will this help me to be better?



The absolute best parts of this book are advocating for student choice in reading, to invite reading to disrupt thinking, and to generate our own questions rather than filling in multiple choice answers from reading.

Get this book for the readers, teachers, social activists, and lovers of disruption you know. They will be forever grateful.




 

Monday, May 15, 2017

empower an entire community


The Salvation Army of the Treasure Valley has renewed its springtime tradition of the Daffodil Tea in support of the Booth Marian Pritchett School. The event took place this year on May 11th and the Keynote was given by Angela Taylor.

Angela Taylor grew up in Mountain Home, graduated from Stanford University and was an executive in the sports industry for over 20 years. In her keynote speech, Ms. Taylor said that the tie that binds the past to the present and the present to the future is the importance of empowering women.

Over it's 96 year history, the Booth Marian Pritchett School has helped over 10,000 girls.  This year, the school will graduate 25 students - its largest graduating class ever.

Ms. Taylor told stories about the accomplished women of the WNBA, and how these women were amazing role models. She said, "Empowered women... empower women." But not only that, empowered women empower women and men. She challenged each of us gathered at the event: "How do we empower individuals? How do we empower a community?" The answer comes from her Stanford basketball coach, Tara Vanderveer:

  • E  - Educate
  • M - Motivate
  • P  - Present Opportunities
  • O - Ownership
  • W- Worth/Wisdom
  • E - Encourage
  • R - Respect

It takes a village to create strong leaders. Empower the future of women and girls, and you empower an entire community.





Tuesday, March 7, 2017

We've Got It From Here; Thanks For Your Service

SXSWedu

Christopher Emdin Keynote:



After hearing Chris Emdin speak, I felt like I needed to dive deeper into his message. So I listened again ... this time annotating what I heard. Enjoy the notes below as you watch Chris Emdin's keynote...

Precursor:

1. Friends
    Education is the Civil Rights issue of our time.

2. Enemies
    Pitch products to schools.

3. Frenemies
    Speak the language but don't represent certain populations.


WE GOT IT FROM HERE ... THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE

Dr. Christopher Emdin describes the Sudanese Dinka Tribe.

Claiming ownership back over your culture.

Martin Luther King 'Maladjusted' quote.

Be maladjusted. Break the norms of public education. Ask, "Why am I doing what I'm doing when I know it's not working?"  Be bold enough to be maladjusted.

A Tribe Called Quest

Inheriting the trauma of the institution of education. We become adjusted to the fact that young people have trauma. MLK would say, "I never intend to become adjusted to that fact."




SPACE PROGRAM


Hiding under the umbrella of tech rather than focusing on the pedagogy.
Uncommon Cores
Engage in critical conversations with young people, cogenerative dialogues.

Preparing young people to move amongst the stars. Stem economy. Teaching to the lowest level of the new economy: a worker in the stem workforce - instead, provide students with equity.

Allow young people to teach us what we need to do. Creating spaces to allow young people to take the helm of the instruction. Coteaching


WE THE PEOPLE


Chance The Rapper  @chancetherapper 

express intelligence and brilliance

Rachet - the worst of urban, the worst of grammar, rude

cultural expression - context/content/competition

The goal of school- construct and celebrate rachedemic identities.


KILLING SEASON

Hiding behind fake numbers.

Broke people break people. Hurt people hurt people.

Educators seen as less than, and treat students as less than.

#HipHopEd


EGO

Curation

Achievement gaps

Project based learning - social emotional learning - extraction of context



They tried to bury us ... we are diamonds.


Q&A

Why are there so few black male teachers?

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Be loud about good work.
Tell the truth and let the devil be ashamed.

Google - as modern workplace 

The hard part is being yourself.
It's completely possible to listen to hip-hop and have a PHD.

Have courage.

Never become adjusted to inequity and violence.

All youth benefit from being exposed to a more diverse and robust approach to teaching and learning.

Appreciate the complexity.

WE GOT IT FROM HERE ... THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE

follow @chrisEmdin