Peabloggy

“Where is the country of Taliban located?” a high school girl asked me in class one day, after watching part of the movie Osama (which, incidentally, is about a girl living in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s reign in the ’90’s).

I quickly realized that this student (and many others) were confused by the historical events in Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, which we are reading right now. I devised activities on Afghanistan’s history; I brought in movie clips of more moderate madrassas; I explained the different forms that Islam can take. Tomorrow, however, my students have a chance to learn about these things first-hand.

One of the strengths of a large school district like Nashville Metro lies in its diversity. Yes, it can lead to racial and ethnic tension in school, but it also enables classroom discussion to be that much richer. Four older students will be visiting tomorrow to participate in a panel on being female, Muslim, and Middle Eastern. They come from Iran, Iraq, and even Afghanistan itself.  My classes have prepared questions to ask, and I have as well.  I hope that my students’ horizons, as well as my own, will be stretched out just a little further after tomorrow.

–Katie Harris

Richard Morton is a staff member in the Peabody Dean’s Office. Last Sunday, he drove to nearby Trousdale County to assist with the cleanup efforts in the wake of recent tornadoes. What he encountered there awed him, and he has written movingly about the experience in a blog post on The Tennessean site. Here’s a snippet:

Turns out this was his grandfather’s farm. Clarence Scott lived with Christine, his wife of twenty five years, in a trailer in the front yard. They were both in their mid-eighties. They had moved into the trailer fifteen years ago when the old farmhouse had proven too much to keep up. The house still stood. A hundred feet away, the trailer had literally been wiped from the face of the Earth.

Highly recommended.

–Kurt Brobeck

Last week, a high school student told me about a tough experience he had this fall: he didn’t make the team.

This high school sophomore spent a week in basketball tryouts, competing against ninety other students for a 12 member team. Of course, not making the team can be an opportunity for character growth, but this student’s tale made me remember participating in my own school tryouts for basketball (middle school, that is, before everyone towered over me). Only twenty girls showed up.

Percentage-wise, most of us were able to participate in a high school sport of some kind. However, the large comprehensive high school today excludes the majority of its population from after-school sports, causing me to question the purpose of sports in education. Do athletic programs exist to create community and school spirit, or send a lucky few to college with scholarships, or provide students with activities after school? Sometimes these purposes can be at odds with one another.

I’m not suggesting that coaches no longer cut students from teams. Instead, I wonder if schools could provide another outlet for the athletically inclined in the form of an intramural program. A quick search on the Internet reveals that schools in other regions of the country already have these kinds of programs in place. Club teams or church leagues aren’t an option for students without transportation or extra cash, and intramural sports after school could help develop a greater sense of community in an overwhelmingly large school.

–Katie Harris

“In Darfur, Sudan, 300,000 people have died over the past three years as a result of civil conflict, lack of food, and disease. Two million children,women and men are refugees, with little food, drinkable water, protection or hope. The U.N. has identified Darfur as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.”

In December 2004 my home church in Tipp City, OH led by head pastor Michael Slaughter decided to do something about what is going on in the Sudan.  Slaughter challenged the 4,500 + congregation to see Christmas not as their own birthday, but as Jesus’ birthday.  He said whatever amount you spend on Christmas, to bring in the same amount to the give to the Sudan.

“The first year resulted in $317,000, which Ginghamsburg Church immediately used in partnership with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to establish a self-sustaining agricultural project. This project put 5,208 Sudanese families back into the farming business in 2005 and resulted in a successful harvest that has now expanded as of 2007 to feed 65,000 people in five internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Darfur. The program also strengthened the region’s economy as local blacksmiths created the tools, area threshers assisted with the harvest, and resultant seed was packaged for selling at local markets. The second year’s offering resulted in $530,000, which Ginghamsburg deployed in partnership with UMCOR to initiate the five-year child protection & development program. The first year’s results included 190 teachers trained, 90 classrooms constructed or rehabilitated and 15,000 children receiving educational materials.”

This year the church is focusing on raising money to not only continue what has already been started (crops, child protection & education), but also to establish an initiative to build 10 water yards to provide safe water and sanitation. 

What is so unique about what we are doing is that this is not a hand out, it is a hand up.  The church is not raising money just to send supplies to the Sudan, which would cause more problems because they would have to figure out a way to divide them and disperse them without conflict.  Rather, the church is partnering with the Sudanese to allow them to farm again, have education opportunities, have protection, have clean water, and best of all have hope. 

 I don’t know about you, but when I read about the current conditions of Sudan in the History books of my future children, I want to know that I did something about it. 

If you are interested in learning about the crisis in Sudan or the Sudan Project of Ginghamsburg Church please go to: thesudanproject.orgYou can get information about the status of the project as well as watch video updates of actual footage of Darfur, Sudan from when the Ginghamsburg teams have gone there to build relationships and see the fruit of the seeds planted. 

There are many ways that you can become part of solution.  Please check it out.

-Anna Oparah

Last week at Peabody, I went to a screening of The Clinton 12, a documentary about the first public high school to be integrated in the South. Film maker Keith McDaniel and members of the original Clinton 12 attended, participating in a question and answer session afterwards. Set in Clinton, TN (near Knoxville), this story of one small town’s struggle to uphold the law amidst racism and bigotry is fascinating, not to mention its portrayal of the immeasurable courage of the twelve African American students attending Clinton High School in 1956. To learn more about the Clinton 12, click here.

—Katie Harris

As promised, I would like to respond to Jane Shaw’s comment on my last piece, “Going green for education.” Shaw points out that sometimes environmental education in schools is inaccurate, taking time away from learning basic skills. I am not familiar with the situation in Scarsdale, but the examples cited in the New York Times article (replacing incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent, etc.) are in fact proven to be more energy efficient and better for the environment. Likewise, the examples Shaw provides in her comment (not all recycling is good for the environment, etc.) are also true, but I fail to see how this justifies cutting environmental responsibility from schools. To me, Shaw’s point only underscores a need for valid green practices and accurate environmental information in schools. I agree with her that activities “not based in reality” are a waste of time; educators shouldn’t provide false information to students, but this shouldn’t be added as fuel to the anti-environmentalism fire.

I’m also not sold on this idea of children needing “basic skills” alone, and neither are students. This current trend in education disappoints me. Everyone knows that basic skills are acquired in order to achieve larger purposes. A curriculum that focuses only on minute basic skills does not provide students with those motivating goals. Green curricula potentially can. Not only that, but I truly believe communities need to engage in greener lifestyles and reduce rates of consumption, and the school can be an effective avenue to develop these habits in students.

—Katie Harris

Recently, for my sociology and philosophy of education class, I read the book “Amazing Grace” by Jonathan Kozol. I would highly recommend it for anyone considering teaching at any grade level in a high poverty environment. In the book Kozol recounts his interaction with people living the South Bronx, New York and their day to day struggle to survive.

Luke Webb

Last week, the New York Times published an article entitled “Schools Embrace Environment and Sow Debate.” This story describes schools going green while teaching students lessons about community and environmental responsibility. From replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent, to designating a “No Idling Zone” in the school pick-up line, students are working to reduce their carbon footprint. While these efforts have been praised by both parents and school administrators, others have criticized these programs for taking time away from learning in the classroom.

This is a fair enough assertion, but one education researcher’s comments caused me to take up my dueling pen and write. Jane S. Shaw, executive vice president of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, stated, “Students need very basic skills, and those are so much more important than getting an emotional high because they’ve done something supposedly for the environment.”

Not so, Ms. Shaw. For many of us, it took a pivotal educational experience (a.k.a., “emotional high”) to turn us on to learning and to becoming productive members of the community. Moreover, these key moments vary from person to person; different things motivate different people. This belief of mine, however, seems to be missing from the current movement of standardized testing and the push for basic skills. Shaw’s comments reminded me of a student I had the pleasure of working with a couple of years ago in a wilderness adventure program. Daniel, a 15 yr. old who had spent the last few years bouncing between boarding schools due to failing grades, seldom responded positively to anything, and certainly not the idea of making a difference in the world. However, after a canoe trip down a river that included some pretty dramatic evidence of pollution, he was inspired to act, to protest, to work for something. I wouldn’t claim this moment changed his life forever, but I saw a big change in his involvement in our program from that moment on.

—Katie Harris

I just went to hear the founder of the “Not for Sale Campaign” speak.  He wants to end slavery in our lifetime.  You might think, “what?  slavery ended a long time ago with President Lincoln” but slavery still exists.  It is weird, isn’t it?  People don’t talk about it.  I didn’t learn about modern day slavery in grade school or high school.  I would think it should be part of the materials that should be taught today in school and talked about at the coffee station at work. 

Today, 27 million people are enslaved.  It is incredibly widespread.  It ranges from people working in sweatshops all day with no pay making nice jewelry for Americans to buy to young women and girls being kidnapped to be whores against their will at under cover brothels all over the United States.  I just mentioned two examples that are directly connected to the US.  Slavery is in every country! 

I think people need to know.  I think something needs to be done. To learn more about modern slavery and what you can do about it visit the website: www.notforsalecampaign.org

-Anna

Considering the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling regarding school transfer programs in Louisville and Seattle, readers might be interested in taking a look at EdWeek.com’s collection of articles on SCOTUS decisions about race-related issues affecting education.

I predict the following quote will appear in history textbooks within the next 20 years. At the very least, I suspect it will be cited by innumerable teachers of undergraduate and high school law-type classes as the pithy center of the Brown v. Board of Ed of the new millennium. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

I find it surprising, in spite of the near consensus claim of allegiance to Martin Luther King’s ideals and principles across the country, how little agreement there is on this very issue.

–Peter Beddow