The School Fashion Show

Confident, beautiful, self-aware, purposeful... affirmed.

The School Fashion Show

When the whole is NOT greater than the sum of its parts, who is to blame? How do you differentiate the success from the failure in a meaningful way?

Our school had a fashion/Talent show the other day; the individual performances were, for the most part, pretty good. However the show itself was as a great a train wreck as Britney Spears post baby. So what is the audience and the students and the teachers who helped them supposed to take away form all this?

The problem was, as you can imagine, in the organization of the show. For those of you who have any theater background this was pretty much a first dress rehearsal as apposed to a show. indeed, it was the very first time that the entire program was run through with all participating members!! I am no professional actor (contrary to popular opinion), nor am I a stage manager, but I know as sure as Obama is our first Black President that you must run through the program as though it were real time at least once before you allow an audience to see it.

The models walked great, the dancers danced well, the singers (the ones who did not act like they were...) sang nice original songs and played original music. However one of the acts did not show up in time, the order of the performances was switched for some reason on the fly (more than once), the DJ took it upon himself to direct some of the models and singers to continue, the principal stopped one of the dance groups in MID-SONG (DANCE) because she thought they were too inappropriate, which they actually were not, the show ran over time and the audience just decided to leave mid-act with two more acts still to follow, no one showed award recipients how to walk or shake hands or where to look, the new light system blew some kind of fuse which could not be replaced in time so we had to use over-head projectors to light the stage (because the system was not checked in time), the time between acts was filled with silence (no music), confusion, talking (audience) and scrambling. Even the damn invitations were only handed out TWO days before the show!!

All I can say is that I am glad I was not an organizer.... though I wish I had been. Can we blame the kids? NO!
The amount of work needed for something like this is more than just one teacher can handle, especially in a school where everyone is over-worked. Yet most teachers did not even know this was going on till the very end and by then it was too late.

What message did we send our kids? What are we saying about the value of preparation, hard work, commitment? What are we saying about effort and team-work?
We have a school full of students who come from homes that are not too dissimilar from this show, where, then, are they going to learn if not here, and if we fail what will become of them?

We curse the circumstances of our students, of their parents, of their needs, of their performance... what about us, as teachers, as administrators? What is the value of them coming to school? If we represent the future and the possibilities of education and career... had I been a students I would transfer, or even drop-out.

Books, Leaders and Pants

Manhattan sun, Manhattan youth - her calm and confidence speaks volumes of what can be.

I just spent the early part of my Saturday rummaging through piles and piles of books in a ballroom of a hotel in Manhattan. I enlisted the help of a fellow teacher and together we collected 2 boxes, about 60lbs each, of books. I was not only happy to do it, but I was sad that I did not have more time and access to all the books donated so that I could pick as much as possible for my students. Project Cicero is quite amazing! All this was set up by them and the books were donated from countless sources, for the benefit of teachers (and students) at high needs schools. For two days straight the ballroom will teem with teachers, allowed one hour per person, hungrily snatching up whatever they think may possibly work for their students. It was touching to pause for a minute and observe – the efforts of the volunteers, the generosity of the donors, the selflessness of the teachers giving up their Saturday sleep to do this for their students; it was also a little sad to yet again, in yet another way, be reminded of the great divide. I started watching “Gandhi” today and his story and that of his work touches so closely to what is happening here. Thankfully we do have one law for one country, but it is surely not equally dispensed, and we do have opportunities in abundance, but they certainly are not equally accessible.

It seems we are getting complacent with the amount of progress made by previous generations and are coasting on their success. In the last two decades I, and perhaps I am not the most acute observer and if so I would love to hear your feedback proving me wrong, have not seen a shred of progress towards leveling the playing field for all citizens of this country. We no longer lynch, we no longer hose, we no longer segregate buses, restaurants, schools or theaters, but out failing schools are mostly populated with “minorities”, as are our jails and minimum wage jobs. Where is the leadership and effort? Where are the Black and Latino leaders? Where are the acts that lead to progress? Sometimes I hear angry words, mostly from people who care more about saying them than actually making a lasting difference, but I see no actions. I see organizations like Donorschoose.org and Teach for America and Teaching Fellows and Project Cicero and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation working their asses off, but these are mostly white founded and white ran organizations. Where are the Kings, X’s, Theresa’s, Gandhi’s, Tubman’s, Stanton’s, Park’s, Dessalines’s? Where are those to justify my efforts to my students? Who will say that I am not just another instrument of oppression? With all my good intentions and multi-cultural approach to education and respect I am still a symbol of a discriminating elite (little do they know how broke-ass and culturally oppressed I am – but I look white). Smart kids are still ridiculed and abused. Black teachers are still often seen as puppets of the system (or Oreos). Why?! White nerds are getting more and more tail and respect, while Blacks and Latinos who care about education are getting beat up and emotionally disemboweled. Who passes on the knowledge, the history of slaves risking their lives to learn how to read and write? We have museums and organizations making sure we don’t forget the holocaust so that it will never again be repeated, and we are well aware of these, but where is the secret stash of memorabilia that can remind these kids of the blood and lives lost to not only learn how to read but to give future generations the opportunity to do the same without risk of torture and murder? I am not saying we need to teach more “African-American” authors and artists, nor should we relegate another meaningless month to recognizing the contributions of Americans who happen to be Black. I am saying we need to focus our efforts on exposing the true history of our disenfranchised populations to give them hope and tools to grow, not humor them by reading about MLK in February and then harassing them for sagging their pants.
And I am not talking about leaders who happen to be Black or Latino (Barack Obama) I am talking about leaders of Black and Latino people. As a society we have thankfully progressed to allow politicians into D.C and students into Harvard, but as a community I long to see the Blacks and Latinos embody the spirit of their forefathers.

Any thoughts?