Today is the first Guest Blog offerings for the summer months. I have reached out to a number of people I respect to share some of their thoughts on what BornStoryteller has been about: Education, The Arts, Arts-in-Education, Home Schooling, Alternative School/Charter Schools, Storytelling, Writing, and the other assorted things that make up this platform.
If you wish to contribute, please contact me via email (link on side of the postings).
Debra El-Ramey is a fairly new online acquaintance, but she has already proven herself to not only be intelligent and passionate about writing, but equally forceful in her views on the state of education in the United States. Her website Pure and Simple is a pleasure to follow.
National Standards: Are They Necessary?
I suppose it’s because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.
~ Agatha Christie
Many companies recruit workers with a variety of 21st century skills that are not reflected in most traditional American schools. There are wide gaps between the skills that businesses value and the skills that most youth actually have. As much as youth need to learn academic content, they also need to know how to keep learning and how to make effective and innovative use of what they know throughout their lives.
The biggest drawback to students’ acquisition of 21st century skills stems from a politically motivated obsession with National Standards. Bill Courtney gets straight to the point. “The big question schools and parents need to consider is, what is the point of education in the 21st century? He writes that, “While literacy and numeracy are important skills they are not all that matters… Education today is much more about ways of thinking which involve creative and critical approaches to problem solving and decision making.”
Bill quotes Albert Einstein as saying, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” And he also notes that Einstein’s parents were told by his school that he was borderline retarded. Wonder how many geniuses are failing in the system today… How long can principals ignore the dire warnings about the consequences of National Standards? http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/
A Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability recently presented its findings, which determined that: Students are not graduating high school prepared for life in the 21st century… and too much time is spent on testing without effective prescriptive feedback from students.
Some schools require demonstration of mastery by students via oral presentations, exhibits, or argument based research papers – rather than memorizing and regurgitating facts for testing. They “teach to learn.”
William Purcell, founder of the grassroots movement: TAKE A TIME OUT FROM EXCESSIVE & HIGH STAKES TESTING says this:
“It is time to rethink testing in the nation. It is time to end EOGs and EOCs and move forward to a new vision of what is really important in creating and honoring the learning communities in our schools. Too many parents, teachers, and community members see stressed-out children who turn away from learning because the tests label them failures. At best they turn into robotic bubble-sheet experts churning out ‘correct’ answers to a handful of questions and writing generic 5-paragraph babble.
“Students who survive the tests move on to college where professors increasingly find students lack critical thinking skills, and formerly ‘strong testers’ struggle without the security of a 5-paragraph answer or a multiple-choice question from which to choose the “right” answer. Millions of dollars are squandered on testing, test prep, test training, test evaluation… funds that could be better used to support student learning.
“Teachers too, are now turning from the tests and beginning to voice opposition to the rigid, robotic learning environments that are encouraged by emphasizing tests as the sole measure of students, teachers, and schools. These tests put the blame on students and label those students as failing or as level-1 or level-2… all of which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for students.
“Curriculum becomes “teacher-proofed” as companies and consultants offer curriculum training, supplies, and materials to increase your school’s scores – almost a like drug company’s pandering pills on TV. We all need to stand up and speak out and say, “STOP TESTING NOW.” It is time to end EOGs and EOCs.” There is a better way. The end of the school year should be a time of celebration and joy for the year’s worth of learning, not a time for testing, re-testing, and testing again…”
William suggests that instead of testing children, they could demonstrate mastery of learning in far more productive and exciting ways: plays, pageants, concerts, art, exhibitions, poetry recitals, and project demonstrations.
How do you view National Standards?
Should tests be emphasized as sole measures of students, teachers, and schools?
Should students be labeled as a result of failing a test? Could these labels be self-fulfilling prophecies?
Your personal experience, thoughts, and feedback are welcome.
Storytelling is the oldest form of communications. We told stories in gestures, painting in caves, in dance, in song, and from guttural uttering to languages, to finally the written word. “How did the hunt go?” led to many tales of bravery and “…you should have seen the mammoth that got away. It was THIS big!” (yes, the first lies too).
I have a Masters of Arts Oral Traditions, but that alone does not make me a Professional Storyteller. I tell (performance: my definition of storytelling) as one way of making a living. There are a variety of styles of storytellers and ways to tell stories as there are genre’s of books.
Most people associate storytelling with something you do with the kids. You crack open a picture book and hope they go to sleep happy. That is only one way of telling.It is not just for children, and it’s time people really realized it. It’s a community based sharing of cultures and morals and mores; stories were ways of giving out news, passing histories, commentary and caution (Red Riding Hood: watch out for strangers!).
There is: conversational storytelling; telling true stories (The Moth, etc); digital storytelling; picture book telling; corporate/organizational storytelling; and performance storytelling, where the teller orally presents a story from memory and heart, most often NOT memorized word for word, but beat by story beat. This type of storytelling allows for interpretations, mood and energy of the audience or events of the day, and takes into itself the personality of the teller. There are a few more, but these hit the major oral tradition points.
I’m a performance storyteller. Not always in costume (I do that for certain thematic shows), but I am always investing of myself into the tales I tell. I create my own, love traditional fairy and folk tales, really get into global tales, improvise many, and on occasion will tell a personal story. I take pleasure in the pleasure of the telling, and the reception of my audience. I am not a favorite of the “quiet, breathy” tellers. That’s OK. I’m boisterous and energetic, and I often try to find humorous spots in the story I tell, if not completely humorous. If Shakespeare could insert a bit of humor into his most tragic of tales, why shouldn’t I? He was of and for the common man, not some highfaluting (I never knew that was one word until now-FUN!) ways and prim and proper stuff. (OK..mini rant over).
So, Storytelling to ME is…
FUN
Pleasing
Energy
Sharing
Creative
Laughter
Touching
Adventurous
Connecting
Fulfilling
Stress Reducing
Mesmerizing
Sweat Worthy! 🙂
Exhilarating
Pleasurable
If you like storytelling, go find a storytelling event in your area. Create one yourself. It’s not hard: check out my article in the top menu here on World Storytelling Day. I set up one in less than a month.
If you like my writing, check out my fiction at Tale Spinning. I think you’ll enjoy my attempts at a variety of genres.
I was asked to write about What Writing is to me. It is…
Freedom
Creative
FUN
Humbling
Inspirational
Galvanizing
Informative
Spiritual
Time well spent
Secluded, but not lonely
Educational
Writing gives me another creative outlet to express myself. Here, on Bornstoryteller, it’s about critical thinking and how I feel about Education, Arts In Education, Storytelling, Performing and being a Teaching Artist. On Tale Spinning, I have the chance to explore fiction and poetry as it interests me in the style I choose to write in/ play with. rules be damned, as long as I can tell a story.
To know more about “Writing to me…” check out “How I Write” and “Interview with Stuart“. Hopefully it will fill in any gaps I left out here.
Here are the others doing this blog hop. Please check them out and give them some nice comments, hugs and stuff. Twit, Stumble, Digg, Reddit, FB and whatever else makes you happy in sharing.
Now, at the time I write this, I also received a blog award:
This was awarded to me by the talented Sulekha Rawat through her blog Memoirs. In accepting this award, I am asked to tell you seven things about myself. Since this is a more professional blog, I’ll stick to that area:
I have two Masters of Arts: one in Educational Theater and one in Oral Traditions
I created and ran my own theater company for twelve years: The Brothers Grinn, in improvisational interactive performance storytelling troupe.
I have worked FOUR sides of the Educational system (Teacher, Arts Administration, Teaching Artist, Performer) which I feel allows me to speak the four different jargon.
In 1999, I organized a National Benefit against Violence and Hate Crimes through the improv community
I have had a number of non-fiction articles published on storytelling and a few on education.
As of July 31, 2011, I will be a published short story author.
Nothing gives me more jazzed energy then doing a great show where you know you have the audience in your hands.
I’m also supposed to give out this award to seven other bloggers. At this moment, I need to think this through, and I will take care of it
In 2005, I was hired to be a Drama Specialist at an Elementary school in New York City. I had ran my own theater company for eleven years by this time and was a Theater Arts Teaching Artist (TA) for ten of those years. I had just gotten my Masters in Educational Theater and passed the New York State tests to become a certified Theater Teacher.
The very beginning of September 2005, I found a program on a PBS show, POV. It so inspired me, so changed my thinking about dedication to teaching, that I carry that with me now that I am back as a TA. The show was a presentation on “The Hobart Shakespeareans” and their teacher Rafe Esquith.
This was a teacher who worked insane hours, worked in an overcrowded urban elementary school, obstacles left and right, and yet he produced magic with his students. Dedication, inspiration, and progressive thinking that he passes on in his classroom and through his books.
Oh…and he leads his students afterschool in Shakespeare Productions. Please watch this 3:46 video:
I bought the DVD of the program after it aired, and I have shown it to others over the years. They, too, have walked away inspired by a man who works within the boundaries of the school system but also beyond it, not letting him do less than he expects out of his charges. I can thank Rafe for giving me the courage to teach Shakespeare to my 4th and 5th grade students. When I heard all the disbelief from others in the school, I’d point to many others who don’t fear challenges. Rafe was always at the forefront, and even though we’ve never met, I will be grateful to him for what he taught me.
The Arts can no longer be treated as a frill. Arts education is essential to stimulating the creativity and innovation that will prove critical for young Americans competing in a global economy.”
~ Arne Duncan, US Sect. of Education, April 9, 2010
“If your plan is for one year, plant rice; If your plan is for ten years, plant Trees; If your plan is for a hundred years, educate children.” ~ Confucious
I came across a group of bureaucrats. They were shuffling their feet, either not making eye contact or challenging you to enter their space with Paradigm Shifts, Logical Thought, Examples of Existing Working Systems, and other Methods of Upsetting the Status Quo. These bureaucrats had their force fields up, and invoked their holy mantras to ward me off and keep others away: “We’ve Always Done It This Way! Accept & Conform! Don’t Make Waves!”
So, being fictitious or not, I’m still going to reach out to you and say: Yes, we can make a difference. Yes, we should not give up hope. Yes, it will not be easy. Yes, it will be worth it.
As in a previous post, I’m going to let some sites I found speak for me, and hopefully TO you. After those, you will find links to previous posts of mine. Please don’t think that, with summer vacations coming up, that we should relax in vigilance for saving Education and the Arts (and, hand in hand, Arts-In-Education). This is a continuous and ongoing fight. Yes, it is a fight.
I called for a Fight For Education: Do Something! on this blog a few days ago. In the past two days, I have gotten a lot of support from people who read BornStoryteller and, out of “the blue,” I have gotten a number of emails with links to organizations calling for our help.
I will keep this short on my part because I really want you to click on the links, read, and hopefully not only take up the call for action but that you will also pass it on. That is as important: PASS IT ON. Let others in your network(s) know you care, and you are bringing this to their attention because you care about the state of Education and The Arts, in and out of schools.
Below, you will find some links to sites, and two postings. There are more places to check out. Look for that in future postings.
Last month, a piece of federal legislation named “Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act” (HR 1891) was introduced for the purpose of terminating 43 existing federal education programs, including Arts in Education. The Arts in Education program currently funds 57 active education projects around the country, and to date has supported more than 210 competitive grants serving students in high-need schools, as well as the affiliates of the Kennedy Center and VSA arts education programs.
The Arts in Education program also provides critical federal leadership in supporting a well-rounded curriculum throughout our nation’s public schools.
On May 25, the House Education & Workforce Committee approved HR 1891 by a party-line vote of 23 Republicans to 16 Democrats. Americans for the Arts worked with Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and other members of that committee who offered an amendment that sought to restore some of these education programs, including arts education, but that amendment failed to pass.
The full House of Representatives may vote on HR 1891 prior to their August Congressional Recess. The Senate education committee, however, is not expected to consider HR 1891 as Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) plans on offering a separate, more comprehensive bill to reauthorize the Elementary & Secondary Education Act.
We call on arts advocates to contact their House Representative through our customizable e-alert and request that they oppose HR 1891 because it seeks to terminate the critical federal support directed to arts education. Don’t let this bill narrow the curriculum of our students.
Another email that piggy backed the one above:
Did you call your PA State Senator to ask for support for state arts funding?
Have you contacted your PA State Senator about restoring funds to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts at the levels that Gov. Corbett set in March? He proposed $8.262 million for grants to the arts and $895,000 for administration of the PCA.
If you have contacted your senator, please send me a message at jlh@citizensfortheartsinpa.org to tell me about your conversation. Did your senator respond to your call? If so, what did he/she say? If not, will you call the office again to ask for a response?
If you haven’t contacted your senators and representatives, the time to do so is now. The budget bill came out of the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday and is being considered by the full Senate today. Time is running out…if you care about state arts funding, call your legislators today. Contact information can be found at http://capwiz.com/artsusa/pa by typing your zipcode in the box at the top right hand corner of the page.
“Intelligence should never be equated with academic skills,” ~ Dr. Sherri McCarthy, associate dean for academic services at William Woods University (Fulton, MO)
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
When I was teaching full time, I read an article about “failure” in a Japanese classroom. Please forgive me: I did search for the source material and was unsuccessful. If anyone DOES locate it, please let me know so I can paraphrase it/quote it properly.
In a math or science class, a student came up with a different answer on a test then what was expected by the teacher.
Quick: how would a “normal” classroom teacher react? Time!
The answer would be wrong, marked wrong, maybe get an F (for failure), and then try to explain how to get to the “correct” answer. The student is frustrated, the teacher is frustrated, and if the grade gets home, the parents are frustrated. Many students, when this happens often enough, take on the emotion of the above picture: “I Feel Like A Failure.”
The Japanese model that I read about: the teacher asked the student to show the class how he came to that conclusion. Instead of shrugging his shoulders and retreating, he went and explained in detail how he got that answer. The way he did it actually made sense, not only for the student but the teacher as well. This “backwards” teaching moment turned into an actual breakthrough for the student and his teacher. They found the point of divergence together. He learned a valuable lesson and the teacher learned about how that student thought, how he worked things out, and was able to reach him on a level that might not have been attained if they had gone the normal “That answer is wrong. Do it the right way.”
“Creativity is as important in education as literacy
and we should treat it with the same status.”
~Sir Ken Robinson~
What the Japanese teacher discovered was a student who creatively found a method that he could justify; his trial and error lead to discoveries. Einstein and Edison made many trials and errors. If they, and others like them, let the “failures” stop them, we would be without many things. Some things we might be better off, but…Polio Vaccine? Was it discovered the first time out? Other things that have improved our lives over the years? Where do we go when we have students who say “I Feel Like A Failure”?
I like an inquiry based model, an exploratory model of learning where there aren’t always set answers but ones that not only further the subject being examined but allow a great deal of critical and creative thinking. Do we need thinkers or people who just follow along and regurgitate information?
Paolo Freire in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, states:
The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration — contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.
The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power. “Four times four is sixteen; the capital of Para is Belem.” The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance of “capital” in the affirmation “the capital of Para is Belem,” that is, what Belem means for Para and what Para means for Brazil.
Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teachers. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teachers she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.
Allow the students to learn from trial and error, to explore new avenues of thought, to experiment and question, to feel that his/her learning has meaning. Celebrate a different paradigm of education worldwide. We don’t need to destroy all we have in place. We DO need a change of how we approach things, and the only thing we need to do away with:
I don’t think it comes as any shock that I lean towards activism, being proactive more than reactive. I’ve done my share of complaining and griping and venting, so I am with those who vent as well. It is good to voice your opinions AND listen to the other side, hoping they will listen to your POV (point of view).
It does not always happen that way, if at all. Look at what happened in Wisconsin, with the reprehensible acts of fascism under Gov. Walker. While one of the most blatant attacks on education, there are many more going around the country and the world.
Yes, my main focus is centered on firmly helping to establish Arts-In-Education. I feel the arts are not, in education or daily life, something that should ever experience funding cuts. To me, the two go hand in hand.
It’s not just “your child,” as people without children or without those in school presently have stated as to why they don’t want their tax dollars spent for educators and education. This is for the future, of our country and our world. I do believe that we have to focus on the long term, wide view point angle of the situation. If everyone did SOMETHING, we’d have a better chance of making positive changes. The entire system does not need to be rebuilt from the ground up, but it does need repairs and re-imaginings of the chaos that is in place now.
When I ask you to do something, any little thing helps!
Sign a petition
Donate money, if possible
Volunteer
Peacefully Protest
Write to your senators, congressmen, mayor, governor, whoever…and often!
Boycott industries that support Education and Arts budget cuts.
Attend School and Arts Budget meetings
Hold peaceful school and community rallies
Share blogs and websites promoting what you believe in
VOTE for the right people to be in office (if they exist), not party lines
Storytelling is not what I do for a living – it is how I do all that I do while I am living. Donald Davis
Tonight, Friday June 10th, I have a storytelling gig at The Bronx Museum. I’ll be doing something I rarely do: tell a personal story. The request for this series is to have professional storytellers from The Bronx celebrate their connection to that New York City borough (which, btw, is the only one known as THE anything). I grew up around the corner from Yankee Stadium (the original one, the real one, in my mind), just off 161st street. That means a lot to me, and will to people who grew up in that neighborhood.
I’m not normally a storyteller who does personal stories live. Yes, I’m happy to share conversational tales, personal tidbits, on my blogs and in actually talking, but on stage? Not my forte. Yes, The Moth is a huge hit, and other programs like that have caught the attention of a growing audience. I was discussing this with a storyteller friend, Dangerous Linda 🙂 and she and I differ in this. To her “we are exactly opposite in this way. i find i can never (tell) something more amazing than real life.” We are both storytellers and writers. I prefer fiction, she, personal tales.
I have been asked, often, how long have I been a storyteller. I think we all are, we just don’t actualize it. We tell conversational stories all the time. As parents, we read to our kids (or should). That is my memory: my father, nightly, would read me stories from Hans Christian Anderson or collected tales from The Brothers Grimm. He sang songs to me, in German and other languages, and he encouraged me to come up with my own. Before he died, he did tell me he was proud of me for my company, The Brothers GriNN (improvisational storytelling). That was golden.
Why I Am A Storyteller
I feel that storytelling is the purist form of entertainment, next to dance and music. The oral traditions of passing on tales moved around the world as our ancestors traveled. These tales were shared, altered to fit the social system they visited (there are over 270 versions of Cinderella alone), and they were a gift to the future. The ones that are still told, and are being crafted now for future generations. Books are storytelling, of course, comic books too, and songs, and dance. Narratives can be found in many things. This is a narrative world we inhabit, no matter what the medium or genre.
Personal storytelling, as I said, is not what excites me, although I wrote my storytelling play based all on true tales. I prefer traditional folk and fairy tales, stories from around the world. I create and write my own.
I am a Performance Storyteller, which means I invoke my acting dramatic side into my telling. This, to me, engages the audience. I am bored with someone just reading from a book, with little to no interaction. I can read a book. I want to be thrilled by the voice, hear the cadence of language, the drawing in of a good teller. Language, to me, is musical.
In my last post, I griped. I know that I did everything in my power to solve the hurdles put in front of me so that I could do my best for what really mattered: the students. It wasn’t about my ego, my getting applause (they had to drag me out of the back, but the kids gave me a really nice bouquet of flowers!), or anything like that.
So, the title: I feel that we do all have the right to gripe in the face of unfair and unsafe situations, but then: what do you do about it? Do you just post your gripe then walk away? Are you afraid to say how you really feel, or take action, and in that fear and complacency allow things to continue on as they have been, destructive as they are?
I really feel we need to focus on solutions to the problems, not wallow in the negative, toxic space that is created. It is easy to say No. Easy to say “I don’t like that idea.” Well, then, come up with one that will focus on the problem, not an agenda.
Arts-in-Education (AIE), the Arts itself, and education are under attack, and budgets are being slashed left and right. This is not news. I just feel that we should always be working together, not just when something ugly rears it’s head. When we forget things, and let it slide, and get complacent…they’ve won. Don’t think someone else will do it. They are saying the same about you.
I suppose it’s because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.
counted.” And he also notes that Einstein’s parents were told by his school that he was borderline retarded. Wonder how many geniuses are failing in the system today… How long can principals ignore the dire warnings about the consequences of National Standards? http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/
bornstoryteller 