A lesson in lesson planning.

This is the video I wanted to show Monday night but ran out of time to! I think that the work Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival creates is not only wonderfully creative in its formal characteristics, but I also believe that the content is more worthwhile than any Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

Tim Rollins accepts students into his classroom that have otherwise been passed over. He believes in each of them and ignores every societal stereotype that kids from the Bronx are placed under. The Kids of Survival have superior art skills that were ignored in the traditional setting and Rollins after school program provided an outlet for that creativity. There is a long documentary about the group that is worth checking out, particularly for one scene when Rollins tells a student that he must bring in his Nintendo to Rollins so that the student would have time to study for school. It was either give up the Nintendo, or give up the program. The boy chose to give up his Nintendo.

The articles we’ve been reading in Volume 2 stress so much that we need to look at each individual student’s culture and then address our lessons, to see if there is anything we could change to incorporate the students home life or interests. That makes school more engaging for students and will push them to the path of success.

I had such a good time with my group making our lesson and sharing it with the class! We thought 2 1/2 hours seemed like the most difficult of time to fill up, and we were probably going to run out of things to say before class got out. But it was entirely the opposite! We had to rush to get all our bits in at the end that we really wanted to share with the class. We loved hearing everyone’s responses and creativity with the poems though! I also had never heard of hip hop education before, but it makes so much sense after being shown the video! We do need to “keep it fresh.” Overall I’d say it was a successful night!

Planning for my group led discussion tomorrow!

You guys, I am getting so excited for the lesson me and 2 others are working on for tomorrow! I don’t want to give a lot away though, but I hope everyone comes prepared by reading the articles. They were all so interesting.

I’ll give one hint to people who may read this entry before tomorrow night- we will be working on our poem assignment.

The articles really made me think about how I can incorporate students’ lives in my classroom. And as mentioned above, “Where I’m From” poems seem like an excellent way for students to get to talk about themselves for a little bit and learn about poetry at the same time. Last quarter I had to write a “Where I’m From” poem to share with the class on the very first day! I thought my professor was crazy, I was so embarrassed to write meaningful stanzas. But, I did do it, and I got to learn a lot about my classmates and they got to learn about me. We instantly got a head start on the getting to know each other step of the classroom process, which was so necessary considering we were also talking about heated topics like race and culture.

I also want to confess something I agreed with completely from the Delpit article- I’m a fluent English speaker, but I still make many mistakes when I’m speaking out loud. For instance, my husband’s aunt and uncle are named Debbie and Larry, but for some reason whenever I say their names out loud I say “Lebbie and Darry.” I get called out on it every time, and its embarrassing and makes me flustered whenever I continue to talk. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people who don’t learn to speak “Standard English” from birth when they’re always being corrected. Reading should be a fun activity, not one where you are concerned about how people are judging you for the way you speak.

See you all in class tomorrow!