Bronx Lab, mate

Recently, one of Australia's larger networks came to New York and did a story on small, progressive schools, and my school was the one they chose to feature. If you have 15 minutes, check it out--you will see two of the most powerful people in education: Chancellor Joel Klein and the UFT and AFT president, Randi Weingarten (any wonder why we get Yom Kippur off?). Also of note, my principle, Marc Sternburg (seeing a trend here?), several of my colleagues (including .3 seconds of me), and, of course, my students. everyone did great--Marc is the best principal you could ask for, and the students are the reason I teach.

Check it out:

Bullet for a target

New York is a target. Some days I feel like I am scrambling around, dodging the shower of ideas and personalities pouring down. Something mysteriously draws the best and the worst to Manhattan--and oddly enough, Manhattan so often brings out the best and the worst in us. I was reminded of this no long ago when I was rushing home from teaching in the Bronx. My students had been testy, and I was eager to crawl into our one-room refuge. I was day-dreaming about making it home, when i discovered that the train I had been on was being rerouted to the east side of Manhattan. Mechanically, I got off at the next stop, a busy station in Harlem. There I waited for a bus with a pushy rush-hour crowd.
When my turn came, i hopped on the bus, swiped my card, only to have it rejected. This couldn't be. I tried it again. Same result. I was incredulous. I tried it 3,4,5,6 more times, before the bus driver indicated that I needed to step of his bus (MTA employees are very possessive about what they move). I objected, saying quite desperately that I had purchased a monthly pass, and that I was trying to get home. The bus driver said even louder, "Sir, step of MY BUS!" I stepped off, and went to the end of the line, confused about the card malfunction. I sneaked back on, and sheepishly said, I want to try one more time. ERRRR. The card was not working. This time, I didn't need the driver's booming voice to tell me what to do, I dropped by head and stepped off.
But just as I did so, another passenger, a friendly Harlemite, said, "Hey, don't worry, I've got you, man." And with that, he took out his card and swiped me on. The bus driver muttered something and peeled off as I reached for a bar to hold on to. I was shocked--and quite embarrassed. I looked so foolish, dressed in my tie and jacket, throwing a fit because my card wasn't working, and here was this smiley guy in old sweats who pays my fair. I cowered in among the crowd and thought about what just happened.
Too often I misjudge myself. I hate to admit it, but I like to think of myself more generous that the strangers around me. I look around and too often I see people that I think could careless about what is going on around them. I have come to realize that that is what I do. It is shameful. New York City provides so many opportunities to be a good Christian and just as many not to be. It is humbling being on the receiving end after you have embarrassed yourself like I did.
What becomes of the small things we do--or don't do. In a city so stuffed with egos, can we sift through the smokescreens enough to see humanity as it really is: a frustrated home-hungry person who needs a simple gesture of kindness--a reminder that hearts are here in New York.

Combing the Concrete

  At the school where I teach, I run a little exercise that  goes like this:

  Imagine that as you enter the dusty classroom you notice a plain, brown lunch sack at your group's table.  The top has been creased down sharply, and although you have yet to heft the bag, yo can tell that something is inside.  As you toss down your fake-label book bag you reach towards the bag only to hear my teacher-voice breaks the shuffling air, "If you so much as touch the bag before I give you permission, I will knock 5 points off your grade" (arbitrary point threats go straight for the jugular).  We begin class and for the first 15 minutes I make no allusion to the mysterious paper bags sitting right in front of you. You find it hard to concentrate on what is being said, so curious are you for what lies just beyond your fingertips.    Suddenly, this built up speculating is released as I say "Ok, now open the paper bags and place all of the objects on your table.  Your group will have 3 minutes to arrange the objects into two piles based on what they have in common.  Each group will have three attempts at organizing their materials.  When you think that your group has it, raise your hand and I will tell you whether you are correct."

   With that you scramble to be the one to dump he contents onto the graffiti-splotched table.  Hands fly madly, turning over paper sacks.  You are puzzled at what is inside--it seems that none of the objects are related: a Russian spoon, a hair clip, a pretzel, a CD, a candle, a celery stick, a digital watch, a water bottle, a rock...a whole assortment of what appears to be random objects.  As you quickly search around the classroom looking at other groups you find that nobody has the same materials as you, yet they all are equally perplexed.  Your confusion moves to frustration as I remind you to focus on your own work and that you now have two minutes left.  Your eyes wander at your collection and you wonder, "How am I to make sense of all of this?" 

  This activity proves very frustrating for students who are used to having knowledge given to them in neat, predictable lessons.  It challenges students to make their own connections and to discover their own learning.  While the debate about this for of discovery-based learning is always hot in the pedagogical world, it is none the less a very telling approach that challenges every student.  Learning--true learning--is never comfortable.

    I teach 11th grade biology at a progressive school in the Bronx.  Each morning I get on the Uptown 2 train in my neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  I cut through Harlem, across the Harlem river, through the Dominican pockets of the South Bronx and end up in the middle of one of New York's largest project housing facilities at Gun Hill Road.  Seventy years ago this neighborhood was filled with poor Italian and Irish immigrants, now it has been replaced with Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, and African refugees.  Ninety percent of my students qualify for free breakfast and lunch (Title 1); most read on a 7th grade reading level, and all have real problems.  

     Mine isn't a story like "Dangerous Minds" or "Freedom Writers"--I'm not memoiresque or Hollywood friendly.  Rather these are my thoughts and musings--most wash through my exhausted body as I snake back down the Bronx on the 2 train.  Trains have long been the vessels of my greatest understandings of life--they are my rolling sepulcher, the adhesive ribbon in a life scattered across three continents.  My words are not meant to entertain or to to teach--merely to exist.  They are the contents eagerly spilt from a paper bag, left for you--and me--to rearrange and separate as we deem appropriate.  You may now begin.