Education reform before the school bell rings

Dr. Camika Royal, a teacher and teacher coach of urban communities, spoke the unvarnished truth to about 700 soon to be Teach for America educators who will enter classrooms and hopefully serve as gateways to knowledge for students in need of inspiration, wisdom, and knowledge in the Philadelphia public schools. Here is an excerpt of her speech published in the Huffington Post.

 Swift to Hear; Slow to Speak: A Message to TFA Teachers, Critics, and Education Reformers

For new teachers, understanding what is expected of them and the context in which they work is essential for their success and for the success of schools, students, and communities. It is because of this belief that I accepted the invitation to speak at the Opening Ceremonies for Teach For America's 2012 Summer Institute to train its new teachers in Philadelphia. I was asked to speak as a Teach for America alumnus but also as a Philadelphia community member. I thought this was an awesome opportunity and responsibility to speak to the more than 700 new teachers who are being trained.... read Camika Royal's the full speech in the Huffington Post.

Jim Haskins featured by The Brown Bookshelf

The Brown Bookshelf (BB) is conducting its annual feature, "28 Days Later," which highlights a Black writer or illustrator every day during February, Black history month.

On day 4, BB featured award-winning author, Jim Haskins. Even if you don't know him by name, you probably know of at least one of Jim Haskins's more than 200 books--most of which are non-fiction books of Black history written for children and young adults.

The last book I read by Haskins was The Geography of Hope (1999), a detailed and vivid narrative of the rugged migration that Black families made from the South into the mid-west and west, motivated by intimidation and violence of hostile White southerners. Haskins books are treasures; I'd like to see every child have one or two of his works on their home library shelves.

In case you don't know Jim Haskins, here's an opportunity to be introduced to him through the Brown Bookshelf's profile.  Then, find a Haskins books on a topic of your interest and read it. You will want to begin collecting his work for your home library, as well as to start sharing it with young people in your life.  I am working on collecting one of every book he wrote.  Would be interested to know your thoughts on Haskins work.

This guest post was published on the Book Expo Official BEA Librarian Blogger by CT State Librarian Linda Williams.  She is on point regarding American's deficient cultural literacy regarding African geography.  Her post begs the question about Americans' knowledge of U.S. geography.

The Importance of Understanding Geography and Cultural Differences

Friday, April 1, 2011

 As a librarian serving children’s and teen librarians in Connecticut, and a staunch believer in the power of stories to teach, entertain, and generally broaden perspectives, I often find myself compiling lists of books that I hope will be used to this end.

I also serve as a co-representative to the Collaborative Summer Library Program, a collaborative of 49 states which plans and administers a theme-based library summer reading program. This year’s program for children, “One World, Many Stories,” has a global/multicultural theme. A-hah! A perfect opportunity to bring forth geography based lists of books for children and teens.

I often hear that school kids are studying “Africa.” And they don’t mean the ~54 countries of Africa. Do Americans know that Africa is not a country? I’m not the only one disturbed by this. Nigerian blogger, Molara Wood, posts: “It baffles me, this stereotype of an indistinct Africa. An Africa whose separate entities are not worth recognising or getting to know.” With Egypt and Libya in the news, can we assume Americans even know where these countries are? Highly doubtful given the news that “after more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map.” Even high level politicians don’t even seem to recognize that Africa is not “a nation.” This begs the question: Is it important in an increasingly global and connected society, to understand geography and cultural differences?

If we think it is, how are we teaching African geography here in the United States? Notice I didn’t say “here in North America.” Do we stress the diversity of African countries and cultures and are children getting it?

There are well-meaning lists and instructions out on the internet (example), but I haven’t yet found another one, like the lists of Africa – Picture Books and Africa – Fiction, posted to our summer reading planning blog, that are subdivided by country.

What I learned in compiling these lists was that many African countries are not represented by name at all in children’s books. The majority of books set in the countries that are represented are historical (a few) or are about Americans working or vacationing in that country. Where are the books about life in modern day Togo? Or hey, with all that’s going on in Libya, do you think I could find you a story that takes place there? According to the excellent searchable Africa Access database, there’s one – set a century ago.

Herein lies my plea to publishers. Please publish more books set in present day African nations. Our kids need interesting stories about native people and cultures in the separate countries of the African continent.

If you don’t think it’s important, look at this map. And test your knowledge - how fast can you do this Africa puzzle?

Link: http://officialbealibrarianblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/guest-blog-importance-of-understanding.html

Promoting literacy through World Read Aloud Day

A great event to participate in tomorrow -- and every day!

 World Read Aloud Day: March 9, 2011

Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name. What would you miss most if you could not read or write? Imagine your world without words.

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology. By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.

Read the full story at: http://www.litworld.org/worldreadaloudday

Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook (to middle-schoolers) with Dr. Yohuru Williams

Teaching U.S. Hisotry Beyond the
Textbook by Prof. Yohuru Williams 

Author Tonya Bolden edited a wonderful book a few years ago called Tell All the Children Our Story, a title that could serve as an imperative directed to U.S. public schools because most do not integrate into their curricula in any comprehensive way the contributions, achievements and experiences of African descendants.

For teachers who want to do some of that, and innovate their teaching styles as well, there is a forthcoming workshop offered at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and designed by history educator, Prof. Yohuru Williams (Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook: Six InvestigativeStrategies for Grades 5-12.) Here's the Schomburg's presentation summary that's sure to pique your interest. 
(If you attend, please share your experience here--thanks!)

Wednesday, April 20 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. TEACHER SEMINAR DAY
Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook with Prof. Yohuru Rashied Williams
Dr. Yohuru Williams will ignite your history and social studies lessons with his innovative teaching strategies for middle and high-school educators. Using a “CSI approach” to history, Dr. Williams’ six strategies tap into students’ natural curiosity and investigative instincts. Students become detectives of the past as they ghost-hunt in their neighborhoods, solve historical crimes, prepare arguments for famous court cases, and more. Dr. Williams is one of our nations premier history educators and the author of Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook: Six Investigative Strategies for Grades 5-12. Registration is required.
Contact schomburged@nypl.org or 212-491-2234 for more information.

Have you discovered these children's book authors?

Beginning February 1^st, Black History Month, 28 Black authors or illustrators of picture books, middle grade and young adult literature will be featured on The Brown Bookshelf blog, a wonderful resource created by veteran African American authors of children’s books. Each day of the month you can meet a different author or artist and learn about literature that will feed the imaginations of young people. Discover these superb artists who create fantastic stories for the young readers you love at thebrownbookshelf.com, and please recommend this post to parents, teachers and guardians of young folks you know!

Video: Diversity in Children's and Young Adult Publishing

The world of children's literature is the territory where values regarding race, class, citizenship rights and privileges, among others, are sown. The lack of books dedicated to children of color, and people of color generally, tells all children that Black people are not important, not an integral part of American society, not necessary to consider in the global community.

This discussion on Diversity in Children's and Young Adult Publishing at the Harlem Book Fair (C-Span) last summer, 2010, addresses issues related to representing children of color in literature, as well as the woefully underrepresented number of Black editors, writers, and publishers actively working in the publishing industry, and what to do about it.
(Image: Cheryl Hudson, (left) and Wade Hudson (right), founders of Just Us Books)

Panel includes Cheryl Hudson, Publisher, Just Us Books; Jerry Kraft, Cartoonist, Mama's Boyz; Zetta Elliott, author; Vanesse J. Lloyd-Sgambati, African American Children's Project, Founder and Director; Nick Burd, author, The Fields of Ordinary; Wade Hudson, Publisher, Just Us Books and panel moderator.

C-Span: Harlem Book Fair, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Langston Hughes Auditorium, July 17, 2010

Fables and folklore -- timeless tales

Fables and folklore are fondly remembered from childhood because of their humor, larger than life characters--often including the personification of animals--their dramatic action and the delicious fear they inspired in us when we were children. In short, they almost never failed to entertain.

Regardless of time or place, these imaginative stories illustrate what motivations operate at the core of nearly all people: our deepest concerns, human weaknesses, moral failings and, sometimes, our noble instincts as well. Ultimately, these stories are sources of wisdom about human nature and life. For these reasons, revisiting some of the fables and folk tales of our youth is a good idea no matter what our age. There is always something worthy to be reminded of--or even something new that we may neeed to learn, in a fairly safe encounter and with a smile.


I am exploring fables and folk tales this year and thought sharing a fable from Aesop, one of our greatest story tellers, would be a wonderful way to start the New Year with a moral still so relevant for us today.


The Four Oxen and the Lion
By Aesop

A Lion used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to
dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came
near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way
he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At
last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each
went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then
the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all
four.


Moral: United we stand, divided we fall.

What shall I give my children, who are poor...?

The Children of the Poor

What shall I give my children? who are poor,

Who are adjudged the leastwise of the land,

Who are my sweetest lepers, who demand

No velvet and no velvety velour;

But who have begged me for a brisk contour,

Crying that they are quasi, contraband

Because unfinished, graven by a hand

Less than angelic, admirable or sure.

My hand is stuffed with mode, design, device.

But I lack access to my proper stone.

And plentitude of plan shall not suffice

Nor grief nor love shall be enough alone

To ratify my little halves who bear

Across an autumn freezing everywhere.

Of late, a familiar line from a poem in "The Children of the Poor," Gwendolyn Brooks’ sonnet sequence, has resurfaced in my thoughts, bringing with it a mood as troubled as the sorrow songs:

“What shall I give my children, who are poor/

Who are adjudged the leastwise of the land...?”

The line has always given me pause, from the first time I read it, which had to be in the late Sixties, as the Black Power/Black Arts movement was exploding, in urban centers in America, in my third grade classroom via a young socially engaged teacher, and in my consciousness.

As I grew older, the line eventually challenged me each time I read it. It became not a question that Miss Brooks was asking of herself but a question I asked of myself, because the conditions that circumscribed Black children's lives in 1949 when "The Children of the Poor" appeared in Miss Brooks' first book, Annie Allen, had become more acute, so today at the mid-century mark in my life, I ask myself, “what shall I give my children who are poor, who are adjudged the leastwise of the land?”

Miss Brooks says in the poem, “plenitude of plan shall not suffice…,” and, she is right. Well intentioned plan upon plan that ends up lying on the drawing board will not suffice to rescue our children. Yet, I do yearn for a plan, a handbook, a blueprint, something tangible to give our children, to lay out the narrative of their heritage; to explain how circumstances have unfolded to create the world they inhabit; to show them how to navigate this economically and racially stratified America; and how to become thriving citizens of an increasingly shrinking global society.

There is so much rich instruction, counsel, advice and perspective that our writers and artists have created—I want to open all of it to our children through publishing and production of programs, and film and theater—modes, methods and devices to engage their innate talents and genius in productive action.

I want to tell our children what they are up against. But I also want to tell them that they are not defined by the narrow assessment of how others choose to see them.

I want to tell them that they are children of God; God made them, and sent them to this world at this time. And that their potential is as great as any that they can imagine; in fact, their potential is greater than anything that they can ask or think, according to the immeasurable power of God Himself, if they will believe in Him.

So, I have plenitude of plan. But via the words that I write, or publish by other writers, I have found my proper stone. I am working my plan. I am preparing resources for our children and publishing stories about what you, concerned readers, are doing to educate our young people.

Tell me, then, what is your proper stone? How are you engaged in preparing our children? What do you give—what shall you give to our children who are poor? who are adjudged the leastwise of the land?