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Education

Assumptions about low-scoring students are wrong.

I taught at a nonselective New York City school. Your assumptions about low-scoring students are wrong.

BY VICKI MADDEN

Wrapped up in the talk of scores and hard work and other kids taking “our” kids’ seats is the unspoken content of those parents’ objections: race. Many white parents are uncomfortable being in the minority, even though they absolutely are a minority in New York City’s public schools. If we can’t talk about that, we can’t ever talk about diversity honestly. And that means we can’t really talk about admissions policies and test scores, either, because they serve as proxies for racial inequities.

Let’s be clear: state exams don’t assess character or intellectual potential. One of my sons can get a top score with little effort. The other gets no love from standardized tests. They both, just like all New York City children, deserve access to the opportunities a real city offers, vibrant and mixed and full of all kinds of interconnected, talented human beings.

Public schools are a collective good; we must ensure that the benefits are shared equitably.

Read entire article

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Education Resources

Recommended Photography Teaching Resources

Photoville / United Photo Industries Education/Teacher Resources

United Photo Industries (UPI) presents thought-provoking, challenging, and exceptional photography exhibitions  from across the globe in their gallery and at the annual Photoville Festival.  They are committed to a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography — that includes their young audience of students! Browse through their lesson plans and discussion questions drawn from the rich stories within UPI and Photoville projects 

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Aperture On Sight Curriculum

The Aperture On Sight curriculum is designed to teach visual literacy through working with photography. It builds students’ abilities to communicate as visual storytellers, develops them as creative and critical thinkers, as well as building their capacity for academic and professional success.

The Aperture On Sight curriculum relies on the equation:

form + content + context = meaning

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Education Resources

Lesson Plans | Museum of the City of New York

Great Resource

 Lesson Plans | Museum of the City of New York

Explore a growing collection of lesson plans, created in collaboration with elementary and middle school teachers, for use in the classroom and to enhance a museum visit.

Categories
Education

Middle School As Seen Through The Eyes Of A Teacher’s Cell Phone 

Middle School As Seen Through The Eyes Of A Teacher’s Cell Phone
What I’ve learned from my students about teaching.

Alice Proujansky, Aperture Foundation teaching artist, documentary photographer, Tisch Photography & Imaging Alumnus, and former teacher in our Community Collaborations (now Future Imagemakers) program.


 

Categories
Education

Interested in going to college in Photography?

The NYU Tisch Department of Photography & Imaging is hosting our second annual portfolio review day for prospective undergraduate students. This event is produced in conjunction with the Tisch Open House on the same date.

This event is specifically offered for prospective undergraduate freshman and transfer students to receive feedback on photography portfolios. Each participating student will receive an individual appointment to meet one-on-one with a Tisch representative for a 15 minute review.

Portfolio Review 2014-Poster

Participants must RSVP to receive their individual review appointment. 

The RSVP will register you for the Portfolio Review Day. Registered visitors will receive a confirmation email with their individual review appointment. Participants must RSVP and receive a confirmation with their individual appointment in order to participate in this event. Only the photographer receiving a reviewshould RSVP. Parents and other guests accompanying the photographers are not required to RSVP for the portfolio review.

Please bring 10 to 15 pieces of original work. You may bring up to 3 examples of non-photo based work (paintings, sketches, sculpture, etc.) If you wish to share your work digitally, please bring your own fully charged laptop or tablet.

Please note: Portfolio Review Day is a part of NYU’s Open House events and will not be linked to your admissions portfolio should you decide to apply to NYU.

RSVP and details Here!

Categories
Education Resources

How to Teach Kids About What’s Happening in Ferguson

How to Teach Kids About What’s Happening in Ferguson
from Atlantic Magazine

A list as compiled by a community of teachers, academics, community leaders, and parents to teach about some aspect of the national crisis in Ferguson, Missouri and to teach/talk about race.

More on twitter #fergusonsyllabus

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Community Programs Education

Classroom Connections

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Eight years ago, Classroom Connections was started to build a community between two Bronx schools—University Heights High School, a public school in one of the poorest congressional districts in America, and the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a private school with a $43,000/year tuition. Students of each school exchange letters, engage in community service projects, and visit each other to discuss issues such as race relations. This article details a group activity led by Narrative 4 in which students first paired off to tell share stories about their lives and then regrouped to tell their partners’ stories in first person. As someone who attended a prestigious public high school in Manhattan with tremendous resources, I always felt like I was in a bubble and sheltered from truth of the inequality between schools in New York. I was touched by the article and the initiative to foster understanding and empathy between these students, and I definitely believe that there should be more collaborations like this to increase awareness of the state of the school system in New York.

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Education

Maine Media Workshop + College

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One of the coolest opportunities I have ever come across for photography summer programs for high school students is the Maine Media Workshop. The way it works is a student applies for a twelve week residency (there are shorter options if you cannot spare the whole summer) that they will devote to a specific category of photography. Some of the choices include:  Digital Photography & Printmaking, Traditional B&W Printmaking, Alternative & Historic Processes & Printmaking, Fine Art Photography, Documentary & Photojournalism, Nature, Landscape, & Travel Photography, and Commercial & Studio Photography. If accepted into the program the student is given a mentor that is an expert in the category they chose. The student will spend their twelve weeks being taught one on one by this mentor as well as attending master classes and workshops. When they are not in class or meetings they can spend their time on the beautiful Maine campus near the sea and develop a project to work on for the summer. They also can choose to design a program that combines multiple categories if they cannot pick just one. It is open to all levels and allows the student the opportunity to escape the demands of real life and focus on developing their craft and a fully realized project that they can use for a portfolio.

 

To learn more about the program and how to apply visit:

www.mainemedia.edu/workshops/photography/photography-residency

To see work produced by previous students:

www.mainemedia.edu/workshops/galleries

Categories
Education

A Thousand Words: Writing From Photographs

 

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A Thousand Words: Writing From Photographs

This article by Casey N. Cep in the New Yorker discusses her switch from using a notebook to her phone camera to prepare for writing a piece. She explores how writing from photographs has changed the way she writes and remembers event. Now instead of reading through pages of notes, she flicks through her photostream allowing her to recall minute details that she might otherwise have forgotten.

Writing from photographs seems as though it should produce the same effect, sharpening the way we convert experiences and events into prose. I suspect that it also changes not only what we write but how we write it. It’s no coincidence that the rise of the selfie coincides with the age of autobiography.”

Her views on writing from photographs are both enlightening and inspiring. It makes you consider how pairing prose and photographs can affect how both are interpreted. Often times authors believe that writing from photographs can deaden the prose, but Cep describes how it can also bring it to life. Photographs jog memory, but also create an alternate reality simply by taking a moment out of its own time stream.  This affect allows a writer to connect moments that were nowhere near each other or related prior to the two photographs being next to each other. It allows an author to re imagine a past event based purely on what was captured in the frame. Writing from photographs can be a helpful tool for journalists, but I also think it would be a helpful exercise for photographers to explore what the thousand words there photographs are worth actually are.

Categories
Education

Photography is About Closeness

The dark fluffy clouds come rolling in, shielding the beaming summer blazing bright sun. A little white church sits in the middle, surrounded by rolling green grass, white fluff budding from the fields, and a sea of yellow happiness, with sprinkles of houses scattered around.

Two African American children go running past the church, playing and laughing. Click. The sun begins to  set painting the sky ever so gently in a soft, fading baby blue color with streaks of peach, a man climbs the a ladder to hang an American flag. Click, his silhouette, with a backdrop of sunflowers and sunset painted sky. A woman sits in her dimly lit house, window light slowly creeps in. Click, the beauty of age shines bright with the light. A basketball goal carefully sits in the front yard, a tire keeping it balanced,the backboard worn and leaning. Click, a boy leaps in the air, still tightly gripping the ball.

This is a portrait of a place, a place that lies in the depths of the backside of Texas, a place most pass up or don’t even get to see. This is a portrait of place, with 50 residents, founded by freed slave. A place that few probably would even see beauty in. It’s an intimate and beautiful portrait of Pelham, Texas.

This and all of Lisa Krantz’s work, an Express-News staff photographer, gives a sense of closeness and intimacy.Photo director at Wired.com says, “If you’re not getting invited to dinner, you’re not doing your job.” No matter what subject Krantz covers, it’s as if her viewers too are being invited to share in someone’s experience.

And this is why photojournalist are so important to the world, serving as a connection between two indifferent groups.

This article contains advice on how to make your work better as a photographer. http://www.wired.com/2013/03/lisa-krantz/#slideid-18603Pelham lisa-krantz-scripps-14