Tag: race

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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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Future Imagemakers Media Projects

#HereIsMyAmerica

What do people fail to understand about the lives of black Americans? Or the lives of anyone of color?

#HereIsMyAmerica – The New York Times

Future Imagemakers Lead Teacher Bayete Ross Smith is now embedded as an artist at The New York Times with Race/Related, a collaboration with the independent documentary showcase POV.

The portraits above show me in a variety of different clothing, all of it my own. On any given day, you might encounter me in one form or another.

It’s all part of a larger series I created, which also involved people of different backgrounds and genders. In every case, the facial expressions and lighting stay the same; all that changes is the subject’s clothing.

So the question is: What personal preconceptions do you, or any viewer, project onto me? Or others?…

#HereIsMyAmerica — a project we’re launching here and on Instagram — is an attempt to counter that simplistic approach.

Read More

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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

Categories
Media Projects

Gordon Parks and the power of photography

What Became of Harlem’s Fontenelle Family? – NYTimes lens blog

Gordon Parks’s Harlem Family Revisited
By JOHN EDWIN MASON and JESSE NEWMAN

In March 1968, Gordon Parks published a portrait of an African-American child with disheveled clothes in Life magazine. His lips were swollen and cracked from eating plaster, in a futile attempt to ward off hunger. His eyes were plaintive and haunting.

Richard Fontenelle was too young to understand, but he and his family became the faces of urban poverty for millions of Americans. The photo essay Mr. Parks produced — “A Harlem Family,” which is now on exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem — changed Mr. Fontenelle’s life, and the lives of every member of his family, forever. It sparked in him a desire to succeed, and a lifelong friendship with Mr. Parks. read more 

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You can view the original layout in the online version of LIFE magazine, March 8, 1968. It is quite powerful to see the original context in the magazine with the layout, other articles, other photographs, and advertising.

Categories
Resources

Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights

Inspring project and great resource

For All the World to See : Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

Through a host of media—including photographs, television and film, magazines, newspapers, posters, books, and pamphlets—the project explores the historic role of visual culture in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for racial equality and justice in the United States from the late-1940s to the mid-1970s.

visit site 

Categories
Education

Integration Worked. Why Have We Rejected It?

Integration Worked. Why Have We Rejected It?
from the NY Times today

AMID the  ceaseless and cacophonous debates about how to close the achievement gap, we’ve turned away from one tool that has been shown to work: school desegregation. That strategy, ushered in by the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, has been unceremoniously ushered out, an artifact in the museum of failed social experiments. read more

 

Categories
Education

Portrait of Segregated Education

At Explore Charter School, a Portrait of Segregated Education – NYTimes.com.

A System Divided: Separate but Uneasy

This is the second article in a series examining the changing racial distribution of students in New York City’s public schools and its impact on their opportunities and achievements. The previous article chronicled the experience of Rudi-Ann Miller, one of 40 black students at Stuyvesant High School, which has 3,295 students.

Categories
Education

Am I suspicious?

A NEWMecca Movement Production, shot by John “JayDex” Ledbetter. A video depicting Howard University men standing against racial profiling and the killing of Trayvon Martin in February 2012. More information on the efforts of the Howard Community to raise awareness can be found at facebook.com/groups/HUJusticeForTrayvonMartin/

Categories
Resources

Teaching Difficult Subject Matter

Student Voices database on international democracy issues.When tragedies happen killing of Trayvon Martin, one way to deal with the pain is to use it as a teachable moment. Here are some resources I have collected that tackle difficult issues head on or present alternative narratives. I am always looking for more.

Civic Voices: An International Democracy Memory Bank Project
Be sure to see Student Voices database on international democracy issues.

Teaching about Trayvon Martin (see previous post)
Be sure to take a look at the KLW chart

Question Bridge Educator Portal

Spark a Movement  a girl-fueled activist movement to demand an end to the sexualization of women and girls in media.

LAMPlatoon is a program which allows you to put that offending commercial on notice by exposing the underlying stereotypes and talking back to the insulting messages. Putting Ads on Notice.
[Learn About Multimedia Project]
They have a great how to guide

Speaking of great how to guides:
The Yes Lab Knowledgebase with a few pointers on how to carry out projects

Center for Artistic Activism

Thousand Kites A national dialogue project addressing the criminal justice system.
Calls from Home is a radio show project of A Thousand Kites that brings the voices of families to the airwaves as they send greetings directly to their incarcerated loved ones.

The Appalshop Channel

Positive Exposures on genetic differences

RELATED LINKS
Social Art Practices Blog
Imaging America Blog
Laundromat Project
StoryCorps DIY interview instructions
PBS Educators
Art of Regional Change

Teaching about Trayvon Martin

Shoulders of the Ancestors: “When an incident as controversial as the shooting of Trayvon Martin grips the nation the classroom can be an excellent forum for a civil examination and civil discussions of the incident. Teaching about current controversial topics like the Trayvon Martin case engages young people and helps them better understand foundational elements of our democracy such as “rule of law” and “due process”. Indeed engaging young people in such teachable moments is the reason many of us became educators.

The resources below are useful for educators, parents, and individuals who desire to be better informed about the issues surrounding the Trayvon Martin case.” more

* A good time to visit Question Bridge project, transmedia art project that seeks to represent and redefine Black male identity in America. Through video mediated question and answer exchange, diverse members of this “demographic” bridge economic, political, geographic, and generational divisions.