Article on Tucson schools

Sensational journalism, or troubling trend

The front page of the Arizona Daily Star today had a picture from the school where I'm doing college outreach--the article quoted the principal for saying that the school is more safe than it has been and could be. The rest of the article highlights different situations at local Tucson schools. I'm hoping this is more of a sensational article trying to sell papers by encouraging fear, rather than a real indication of a potential trend.
(The website asks to sign up for free log-in, or you could copy/paste into an engine)

Disrespect breeds assaults, harassment in local schools

Hundreds of incidents noted in Star analysis; incivility widespread

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS 411

An inspirational and practical guide for US Latinos about how to get into college

http://www.hitn.tv/CA411/

I might plan to use this site with the Gear Up students I'm working with...

Teaching Resource for Hispanic Heritage

Celebrate Year-round

On the government site for Hispanic Heritage Month, the bottom of the page has lesson plans & student activities for teaching.

http://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

http://edsitement.neh.gov/monthly_feature.asp?id=131

http://www.nga.gov/education/index.shtm

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/resource_library/hispanic_resources.html

D&I EGU brown bag

Critical Pedagogy in the Classroom

This past Thursday, the Diversity and Inequality committee of the English Graduate Union hosted a brown bag discussion with Professor Adela Licona. We discussed having a general theme of critical pedagogy. Dr. Licona suggested Freire's "On the Right and the Duty to Change the World."

The following are some incomplete notes & fragments from the really great, thought-provoking discussion:

Dr. Adela Licona:
How do we do this [critical pedagogy]? Our performances/embodied practices are different? Our bodies are walking texts and what we put into it is all that matters.

I start all my classes with a question? The production of knowledge as a political production--I ask my students, "To me what a woman in colonial times looks like?" I put my back to them and they throw out descriptions: 'bonnets', 'on a porch', 'bare foot', 'young', 'pale', 'white'.
The back to students helps students get past ideas of me looking for the 'right' answer for the good grade.

The discussion often gets to "white, middle class woman"--I don't give prompt, and that's what I get. I ask "Were there other women present at that time?" "What do we know about those women?"
Knowledge is presented to us with political knowledge; there are always students who never critically question politically recieved knowledge; student: "a history book can only be so fat, right?"
It's a fair question, but who determines? what history are so valuable?--canonical inquiry
--"Birth Witness"--native American scholar/ film: "Seen But Not Heard"--undocumented laborers who died in 9/11 attacks not heard about.

What happens to those students who don't get on board with discussion?
AL: I'm not there to make them me; I make my politics visible. They will play with ideas and maybe then retreat, and make conscious decisions to be on other side of discussion, but that's a conscious descion; I used to put out a lot of effort to try and change, but I know these pieces can be transformative if they let them be.

Critical feminist pedagogy: implying there's a consciousness in me about the cirriculum, what I choose to teach, and power dynamic and co-grading, and assessment. Dewey talks about lived experience, Freire, Ira Shore...But where are the women?

What about students who think they have this consciosness & think racism is over?
Van Dyke, socio cognitive theorist--the only way to become anti-racist is to start in K-12 & make a conscious effort to not be racist.
Students will ask, so there is no "Truth"? I always do midterm evaluations for those students who are completely disengaged.
I want students to realize that we can arrive at truth, but we have to see the different perspectives; ask for three months to bang the drum; can you give me this drum if you never hear it again--you have 3-4 months to engage as you never will again.

What happens when you're not respected as a woman instructor by strong male voices in the class?

I sometimes trade a day with males who are more radical. I also ask students to post a question to a site--submit open-ended questions by voices that aren't dominant; a question about 'x' and that's where I want to start today (annonymity in assignment).

A Cool Short Doc

Women's Intercultural Center Documentry

This is a really great upbeat story about the power of women coming together in a community to help themselves and one another.

To help the filmmakers Log into Youtube and leave a comment

College Outreach Event

Corrido Field Day

It's coming, October 3 at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, starting at 9 a.m. Sure it's a few weeks off, but it's never too early to start thinking about corridos!

(photos from UA PoC website of last year's Field Day)

Wildcat Writers

Service Learning/Outreach

GEAR UP has partnered up with the service learning outreach program Wildcat Writers in order to consolidate resources, making it easier for UA and local Tucson high school teachers already familiar with either program.

Some pics from last year's Wildcat Writers campus event

Last night I attended the Arizona Assurance Scholars Program dinner and met with one of the incoming freshmen who I'll be mentoring. It already seems like a really great program. All of the students I met seem really motivated, even if they're experiencing all of the first week of college mishaps like losing computer cords and printing out tons of pdfs...

(picture by Arezu Corella)

This summer I worked with one of the Assurance peer mentors, so I already know that this program will be continue to be successful.

Eduardo Galeano on NPR

The Book Hugo Chavez Gave Obama

Eduardo Galeano's Latin American History book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent has been billed as the leftist history book that Chavez presented Obama on the 'scandalous' occasion when Obama shook Chavez' hand.



Truth be told, I'm waiting on a copy via Interlibrary Loan because the UA's went mysteriously missing, but I did catch the NPR interview with Galeano this morning & I think it's worth a listen:

(photo by Marcelo Isarrualde)

Eduardo Galeano Contemplates History's Paradoxes

I especially like when he says: "Richness in the world is a result of other people's poverty. We should begin to shorten the abyss between haves and have-nots."

Songs of Resistance

Open Mic to Benefit Raza Studies
I believe that as a part of a Raza Studies student's senior project, she organized this open mic--I don't know any educators who wouldn't want a program like this in their school given the amount of student involvement in not just the school, but also the community.

On this past Cinco de Mayo, I was able to see a Tucson High Raza Studies performance at the UA. Supporting these efforts by students is really important because it validates them as agents of change.

And like Nas said, "All I need is one mic."

Tutoring Center Video

Dedication to the Cause
As a TA and writing tutor while earning my Master's at Chapman University, I took part in a training video that was scripted and put together by students at the Dodge film school.
It's been a while since we did this, so I was surprised to find it on youtube with all of the other writing center/tutor training videos that I was going through because of the potential writing center work with Gear Up (the peer model proved successful this past year).

I noticed that most tutoring videos teeter between dry and informative, or humorous and speaking to a younger audience--this is the latter. And keep in mind that I'm no actor.

Jimmy Baca, Pedagogy of a Poet

UNM College of Education Professor Diane Torres-Velasquez discusses teaching style of Jimmy Santiago Baca

So I was watching the 'Making of' East Los Angeles gang epic Blood In Blood Out and I realized that it was written by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Here I'd taught some of Baca's work in my First Year Composition course and I wasn't aware he'd written the only film that has a 'Cruz' as a main character.

This is neither here, nor there, but this realization led me to find this video from the University of New Mexico, in which Diane Torres-Velasquez asks Baca about his ability to connect with students young and old, free and imprisoned. Accountability and making the students 'more than when they came in' are key:

New Start Summer '09

My New Start class
It's been a few weeks since the end of the summer bridge class I taught, but I remembered I had a few (blurry) pics from the last Pan Dulce Thursday of the semester (which happened to fall on a Friday). Like a junior high dance, the boys gravitated toward one side of the room and the girls to other.

I apologize that these pictures came out looking like they were taken on a camera-phone. I don't think the institutional white of the classroom walls helped the light balance.

The boys...

...and the ladies: