These works-in-progress are subject to change...
Sea Inside of Me
I sail these uncharted waters,
this sea inside of me.
Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness,
new as dew on a summer morning,
drench my dampened soul.
Overflow. It overflows
and I drown in this
sea inside of me.
This sea inside of me
churns doubt and anxiousness.
Outrage, too, for
I am not one to back down,
not one to back out,
not one to be scared.
But feeling failure for the first time
I
drown
In this
sea inside of me.
There's no lookout, no
one to light the way.
My sails, now tattered, trap no wind.
My raft won't move, and I
drift.
Where's the hope I
saw in smiles?
The goodwill I sowed (to reap?)
Farmed those fields for so long and
now I
overflow.
They overflow
and I drown in these
tears inside of me.
Holding back my instincts, pinning my resolve.
No light
no wind to
move me. No
sense of self to
rouse me:
doubt presides
and resides here. And confidence?
It's on recess.
So I ask you, teachers. Will I find:
strength when I'm broken?
Resolve in fog?
Motivation to keep going?
It's because you're still here
I sail this
sea inside of me.
Having known hope, courage.
Having loved that light, that warmth,
And seeing you rise after every fall.
The lighthouse is somewhere. Here.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Parents: Help Us Help Your Kids
Note: First, I must offer apologies to my few readers. :) The past several months have been quite tough on my soul, mostly due to the emotional roller coaster that is my life. I got engaged, got laid off, tangled with the government and a few banks and learned that red tape isn't only pervasive in politics and business -- it festers in academia, too. (In fact, I think academia is knee deep in the s@#t!)
I'm blogging again because I'm writing regularly again, but I should warn you upfront that I probably won't blog as often as I should. I've got a lot on my plate -- student teaching, wedding planning, writing a thesis and graduating! -- and it's a tough juggling act. Though I'm confident I can do it, I desperately need to write as often as I can because it's become a cathartic act for me. The page (and the screen) have become absolutely essential, particularly as I try to make sense of my observations of students and of the things they teach me. I can take out my frustration on the page and find healing between the lines. This is why I wanted to become a teacher: writing allows me to make sense of the world, to find a place that's my own and plant roots. It's that power that needs to be passed on to children. -Me
Speaking of empowering children...there's something that I've learned over the course of my studies that I want to share with parents, particularly parents of younger children. The world is an uber-competitive place (one of the sixth graders used the word uber last week, so I figured I should try to enhance my vocabulary) and the assumption is that it's the teacher's job to prepare those children and get them up to speed. But so much of what is -- and is not -- happening at home makes its way into the classroom. Consider the following:
A long-term study of families in Kansas City by Betty Hart and Todd Risely published in American Educator* found that the "average child on welfare was having half as much experience per hour [with language] (616 words per hour) as the average working-class child (1,251 words per hour) and less than one-third that of the average child in a professional family (2,153 words per hour)." Put into numbers:
If you've heard of the 30 million word gap -- the gap between the number of words known by wealthier children and poorer children -- this is the data on which it is based. Folks like Obama are putting a huge emphasis on early childhood education as a means to minimize the gap.
Here's what we know: parents and families are largely responsible for the socialization of their children prior to the start of the schooling experience. The study found that children's vocabulary often mimics their parents, that the words in a child's vocabulary are largely words in their parents' vocabulary. Hart and Risley wrote that "by the time the children were 3 years old, trends in amount of talk, vocabulary growth, and style of interaction were well established and clearly suggested widening gaps to come. Even patterns of parenting were already observable among children. When we listened to the children, we seemed to hear their parents speaking; when we watched them at play at parenting their dolls, we seemed to see the futures of their own children."
And it's not just about how often you speak to your children but how you speak to them. The study found that children from professional families had more instances of encouraging feedback (affirmatives) and less instances of discouragements (prohibitions) than children of working-class and welfare families. Those numbers skew even more negatively when dealing with welfare families, wherein the average child "might have had 144,000 fewer encouragements and 84,000 more discouragements of his or her behavior than the average child in a working-class family" by the age of four. Imagine the damage it does to a child to equate words and talk with the negative instead of the positive? Teachers wants to develop independent learners, but intervention can be hard when children are not comfortable with taking risks and indulging their own voices/ideas as students. (Particularly if they are concerned about right answers or pleasing the teacher.)
So parents, talk to your kids. Don't be afraid to veer from baby language and use grownup words with them. And step up your own vocabulary. (It will do wonders for your personal and professional development.)
When kids ask questions, don't dismiss them, even if you think the questions are silly: genuinely respond to them. And if you don't know an answer, own up to it. In doing so you create an opportunity for inquiry and exploration that you can share with your child, thereby fostering an enjoyment of exploring curiosities.
Additionally, try to give your kids authentic experience with the many worlds (and words) of our world. E.D. Hirsch argues that there is a cultural and contextual vocabulary with which students must be acquainted in order to succeed. While he's controversial -- so much of his cultural vocabulary seems to focus on the culture of power, e.g. Anglo culture, and forgoes similar contexts and knowledge in other cultures -- there is some truth in what he says. Consider the trouble an urban student might have when the word subpar is used to describe a negative experience if they have no idea what the word par means, the contexts in which it's used, etc.
The exposure of which I speak doesn't require much: sure, it's nice if you can take your kid to the zoo or museum once a month, but that can get expensive. The easiest thing to do is read with your children. Experience can be shared, empathy can be encouraged. And worlds that are normally inaccessible become accessible through the written word.
*Hart, Betty and Todd R. Risley. (2003). The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap By Age 3. Originally appeared in American Educator, 27 (1), 4-9.
I'm blogging again because I'm writing regularly again, but I should warn you upfront that I probably won't blog as often as I should. I've got a lot on my plate -- student teaching, wedding planning, writing a thesis and graduating! -- and it's a tough juggling act. Though I'm confident I can do it, I desperately need to write as often as I can because it's become a cathartic act for me. The page (and the screen) have become absolutely essential, particularly as I try to make sense of my observations of students and of the things they teach me. I can take out my frustration on the page and find healing between the lines. This is why I wanted to become a teacher: writing allows me to make sense of the world, to find a place that's my own and plant roots. It's that power that needs to be passed on to children. -Me
Speaking of empowering children...there's something that I've learned over the course of my studies that I want to share with parents, particularly parents of younger children. The world is an uber-competitive place (one of the sixth graders used the word uber last week, so I figured I should try to enhance my vocabulary) and the assumption is that it's the teacher's job to prepare those children and get them up to speed. But so much of what is -- and is not -- happening at home makes its way into the classroom. Consider the following:
A long-term study of families in Kansas City by Betty Hart and Todd Risely published in American Educator* found that the "average child on welfare was having half as much experience per hour [with language] (616 words per hour) as the average working-class child (1,251 words per hour) and less than one-third that of the average child in a professional family (2,153 words per hour)." Put into numbers:
a child in a professional family
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with 215,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 11.2 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with 45 million words
a child in a working-class family
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with125,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 6.5 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with 26 million words
a child in a welfare family
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with 62,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 3.2 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with13 million words
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with 215,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 11.2 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with 45 million words
a child in a working-class family
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with125,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 6.5 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with 26 million words
a child in a welfare family
over a 100-hour week will accumulate experience with 62,000 words
over a 5,200-hour year will accumulate experience with 3.2 million words
in the first four years of life will accumulate experience with13 million words
Source: The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap By Age 3. American Educator, Spring 2003
If you've heard of the 30 million word gap -- the gap between the number of words known by wealthier children and poorer children -- this is the data on which it is based. Folks like Obama are putting a huge emphasis on early childhood education as a means to minimize the gap.
Here's what we know: parents and families are largely responsible for the socialization of their children prior to the start of the schooling experience. The study found that children's vocabulary often mimics their parents, that the words in a child's vocabulary are largely words in their parents' vocabulary. Hart and Risley wrote that "by the time the children were 3 years old, trends in amount of talk, vocabulary growth, and style of interaction were well established and clearly suggested widening gaps to come. Even patterns of parenting were already observable among children. When we listened to the children, we seemed to hear their parents speaking; when we watched them at play at parenting their dolls, we seemed to see the futures of their own children."
And it's not just about how often you speak to your children but how you speak to them. The study found that children from professional families had more instances of encouraging feedback (affirmatives) and less instances of discouragements (prohibitions) than children of working-class and welfare families. Those numbers skew even more negatively when dealing with welfare families, wherein the average child "might have had 144,000 fewer encouragements and 84,000 more discouragements of his or her behavior than the average child in a working-class family" by the age of four. Imagine the damage it does to a child to equate words and talk with the negative instead of the positive? Teachers wants to develop independent learners, but intervention can be hard when children are not comfortable with taking risks and indulging their own voices/ideas as students. (Particularly if they are concerned about right answers or pleasing the teacher.)
So parents, talk to your kids. Don't be afraid to veer from baby language and use grownup words with them. And step up your own vocabulary. (It will do wonders for your personal and professional development.)
When kids ask questions, don't dismiss them, even if you think the questions are silly: genuinely respond to them. And if you don't know an answer, own up to it. In doing so you create an opportunity for inquiry and exploration that you can share with your child, thereby fostering an enjoyment of exploring curiosities.
Additionally, try to give your kids authentic experience with the many worlds (and words) of our world. E.D. Hirsch argues that there is a cultural and contextual vocabulary with which students must be acquainted in order to succeed. While he's controversial -- so much of his cultural vocabulary seems to focus on the culture of power, e.g. Anglo culture, and forgoes similar contexts and knowledge in other cultures -- there is some truth in what he says. Consider the trouble an urban student might have when the word subpar is used to describe a negative experience if they have no idea what the word par means, the contexts in which it's used, etc.
The exposure of which I speak doesn't require much: sure, it's nice if you can take your kid to the zoo or museum once a month, but that can get expensive. The easiest thing to do is read with your children. Experience can be shared, empathy can be encouraged. And worlds that are normally inaccessible become accessible through the written word.
*Hart, Betty and Todd R. Risley. (2003). The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap By Age 3. Originally appeared in American Educator, 27 (1), 4-9.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Nearing The Promise
One of my Georgetown buddies, Donald, linked to a New York Times blog post on his Facebook profile. The commentary about Tuesday night's election and the elation that erupted thereafter begins with the following :
"History will record this as the night the souls of black folk, living and dead, wept – and laughed, screamed and danced – releasing 400 years of pent up emotion."
Being a one-time AmStudder and an English major I immediately recognized the reference to W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of essays about brown folk living within The Veil. (It's an extremely complicated concept, and this UVA website explains it well, but let's just simplify it and say The Veil is largely a metaphor for racism and the problems surrounding and resulting from it.)
Related to The Veil is the concept of double consciousness and the dilemma it poses for blacks, who struggle with reconciling their identity as "Negroes" with their identity as Americans. From The Souls of Black Folk:
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. (Du Bois 4)
Double-consciousness is not unique to black Americans -- other racial and ethnic minorities, women, and members of the GLBT community struggle with their double "selves" -- but here Du Bois spells out his hope: That everyone would be treated the same, despite differences in appearance and identity. Black people could just be, and our race would no longer dictate our opportunities.
That wasn't the case some 40+ years ago, but things have changed since then. And the biggest change of all happened Tuesday night.
Michelle Obama got a lot of flack earlier this year for saying that she was for "the first time in [her] adult lifetime...really proud" of her country due to Barack's early primary successes and supporters who yearned for change. But lots of folks -- white, black, purple and green -- have said the same in the hours following last night's blowout (look at the NYT blog comments) and no one has gotten upset. People are oozing patriotism, and rightfully so. Many suspected that Barack would lose because race would factor into the vote; this was especially true for the black community, for many Democrats of any shade, and likely for a lot of Republican voters, too. But the vote (and exit polls analyzed by CNN) showed that race was barely a factor. We showed the world that we've shed some of ugly vestiges of yesteryear, and I think we've surprised ourselves.
Our idealized American Dream was supposed to be blind to the more noticeable differences among us, but that hasn't always been the case. Obama's victory, Palin's place on the GOP ticket, Hillary's primary fight and even Richardson's brief campaign support Obama's assertion on Tuesday that "America is a place where all things are possible," that "the dream of our founders is alive in our time."
I cried on Tuesday night, but the reason for those tears were bigger than Obama and his victory. If all anyone could see was Obama, then all I could see were papers. Yellowing, fraying documents with fading text. Pieces of paper on which we spend thousands upon thousands dollars a year to maintain; pieces of paper for which men and women have given their lives; pieces of paper that inspire people to believe we can become our "better and truer" selves as we pursue the happiness of our existence. The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights enshrine the United States in lofty detail. For a long time it's seemed like a work in progress, but this election made me believe that we are finally getting it right. And my heart swells at the thought.
Further reading:
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk.
"History will record this as the night the souls of black folk, living and dead, wept – and laughed, screamed and danced – releasing 400 years of pent up emotion."
Being a one-time AmStudder and an English major I immediately recognized the reference to W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of essays about brown folk living within The Veil. (It's an extremely complicated concept, and this UVA website explains it well, but let's just simplify it and say The Veil is largely a metaphor for racism and the problems surrounding and resulting from it.)
Related to The Veil is the concept of double consciousness and the dilemma it poses for blacks, who struggle with reconciling their identity as "Negroes" with their identity as Americans. From The Souls of Black Folk:
Double-consciousness is not unique to black Americans -- other racial and ethnic minorities, women, and members of the GLBT community struggle with their double "selves" -- but here Du Bois spells out his hope: That everyone would be treated the same, despite differences in appearance and identity. Black people could just be, and our race would no longer dictate our opportunities.
That wasn't the case some 40+ years ago, but things have changed since then. And the biggest change of all happened Tuesday night.
Michelle Obama got a lot of flack earlier this year for saying that she was for "the first time in [her] adult lifetime...really proud" of her country due to Barack's early primary successes and supporters who yearned for change. But lots of folks -- white, black, purple and green -- have said the same in the hours following last night's blowout (look at the NYT blog comments) and no one has gotten upset. People are oozing patriotism, and rightfully so. Many suspected that Barack would lose because race would factor into the vote; this was especially true for the black community, for many Democrats of any shade, and likely for a lot of Republican voters, too. But the vote (and exit polls analyzed by CNN) showed that race was barely a factor. We showed the world that we've shed some of ugly vestiges of yesteryear, and I think we've surprised ourselves.
Our idealized American Dream was supposed to be blind to the more noticeable differences among us, but that hasn't always been the case. Obama's victory, Palin's place on the GOP ticket, Hillary's primary fight and even Richardson's brief campaign support Obama's assertion on Tuesday that "America is a place where all things are possible," that "the dream of our founders is alive in our time."
I cried on Tuesday night, but the reason for those tears were bigger than Obama and his victory. If all anyone could see was Obama, then all I could see were papers. Yellowing, fraying documents with fading text. Pieces of paper on which we spend thousands upon thousands dollars a year to maintain; pieces of paper for which men and women have given their lives; pieces of paper that inspire people to believe we can become our "better and truer" selves as we pursue the happiness of our existence. The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights enshrine the United States in lofty detail. For a long time it's seemed like a work in progress, but this election made me believe that we are finally getting it right. And my heart swells at the thought.
***
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. - President Elect Barack ObamaFurther reading:
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk.
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