Session VI (Saturday, March 3 @ 1:00 – 2:30)
A Student Run Judicial Committee - Student Empowerment for Building Community and Enforcing Student Norms
Tired of being the authoritarian administrator or teacher cracking the whip? Come learn how teachers at the Alameda Community Learning Center, a 6th-12th grade public charter school, have created and nurtured the student-run Judicial System to enforce school norms and rules.
Presenters: Syl Gibson, Lynn Kameny
A Teacher Run School Leading to High Academic Success
Come find out what might happen if teachers ran schools. The Alameda Community Learning Center is an educational model that empowers all youth to take ownership of their educational experience, to celebrate their diverse community, and to actively participate as members in a democratic society.
Presenters: Paul Bentz, Pauticia Williamson, Jacob Powell
Autonomous Zapatista Education: Education in Resistance and The Other Education
For 12 years The Zapatista communities have been self-organizing their educational structure which is fundamental to their Autonomy. The worlskhop will begin with a screening of "Education in Resistance" which looks at the education wystem that the Mexican government has been providing to indigenous people in chiapas and why they decided to create an autonomous educational system. The film will provide a context which will be elaborated on by the presenter who will summarize the current conjuncture of Zapatista education and their proposals for the future. The focus will be on the argument that is being made by the communities and its relevance to education in our context.
Presenter: Fernando Paz
Breaking the Prison Model – A New Approach to 6-12 Education
30 Kids, a Bell, and a Cell? What were we thinking when we created public education? Come learn about an alternative. The Alameda Community Learning Center has been a high performing public charter school for ten years and runs an innovative, democratic community with a one-room schoolhouse concept, a college – type seminar system, and a multiage community. Come learn why the ACLC was awarded one of ten charter school dissemination grants last year.
Presenters: Michael DeSousa, Maafi Gueye
Democratic Dictator: Humanism, Classroom Management, and Peaceful Solutions to Student Control
Teachers must be able to teach in peace. This seminar is designed to explore the dynamic relationship between the teacher, the students, and the organic learning process. Issues to be explored include: relational pedagogy (teacher-student relations), a tyranny of love (effective classroom management), and the Common Sense Doctrine (instincts in education). Excerpt: "Through an absoluteness in character and an omnipresent essence amongst the classroom, the teacher, the democratic dictator, absolves the students of their fears and insecurities thus rendering a complete submission of the student will. In the ensuing enslavement of the class subconscious, uninhibited students are set free to traverse the intellectual prospects before them. This theory can only be understood as an uncompromising and unabashed tyranny of love."
Presenter: M. Max Del Real
HO’ALA EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY: An “Inside Out” Systems Approach to Developing Character and Increasing Students’ Capacity for Academic Success
The Ho`ala Educational Philosophy, a systems approach to developing character, began in Hawai’i in 1972 and is based on the emotional and psychological needs of all human beings. When a school is structured to fulfill the need for a sense of self “Who am I?” and a sense of belonging “How do I connect to others?” students are more likely to act in moral ways and improve academically. River School, a 2005 National School of Character winner, is one of the two model schools now embarking on a teacher training program with Humboldt to teach character while increasing students' capacity to learn.
Presenter: Linda Inlay
Look What They've Done to My Song
The story of the banjo's development in the United States—from the plantation, to the concert hall, to the Grand Ole Opry—is a rich example of the dominant culture's de-Africanization of the roots of American music. From the banjo’s construction to the change in its tuning, this workshop will explore the anglicization of the instrument in order to further our understanding of the myriad of ways in which African American music has been obscured and distanced from its rightful heirs.
Presenter: Angela Wellman
New Reflection: Multicultural Literature and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in the Secondary Classroom
In the last two decades, thousands of teachers across the country have created classroom spaces that cultivate the “melting-pot” ideology. While many progressive approaches to education have advocated for a multicultural classroom that seeks to affirm multiple cultural perspectives, the reality is that the classroom still functions as a factory for assimilation. Year after year, our institutions are pumping out staggering numbers of students who are taught to subscribe to this “colorblind” ideal. Such thinking does not cultivate learning, growth, and transformation; on the contrary, it reinforces systems of oppression, thus keeping students from simultaneously building their cultural understanding and gaining knowledge about the cultural background of their peers. In this workshop, we will explore multicultural literature and the arguments in support of such literature, investigate the tenets of Gloria Ladson-Billings’ work in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, and discuss ways that teachers can continue to refine their praxis. While multicultural literature will help us to further understand curriculum for a diverse classroom, culturally relevant pedagogy—an approach that advocates affirming students’ culture in nearly every aspect of the classroom environment—will provide a closer look into a solid pedagogical base. Readings, resources, sample lessons, and dialogue will guide our understanding of the teacher as both educator and learner in a movement towards social change. Such a change will start us on a journey away from the assimilationist practices of the “colorblind” approach and towards a classroom that promotes cross-cultural learning.
Presenter: Robert Robinson
Now That’s a Queer Perspective!
This workshop will provide a queer perspective from queer students and educators. A panel consisting of local queer students and teachers who are in various stages of coming out, will talk about their daily experiences in the educational setting. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss issues with the panelists.
Presenter: Mary Lynn Bryan
Teaching Indian and Teaching Indians: The Dilemma of Native American Studies
Native American Studies has a dual academic burden that most other disciplines don't share -- the classroom space is occupied by both American Indian students who may have grown up completely within their tribal culture, with all the specific knowledge that entails; and by non-Indian students who may be completely ignorant of historical and contemporary Native American issues. Is it possible to design a curriculum that is appropriate for both groups?
Presenter: Marlon Sherman
The Unwinnable High States Testing of No Child Left Behind: A Hidden Design for Destroying the Great Equalizer--America's Public School System
Since the time of Horace Mann, America has relied on her public school system to support the development of the educated citizenry who make our democracy strong. No Child Left Behind, although it purports to demand accountability for school improvement, has as its central feature a testing system that by its very nature is forcing nearly every neighborhood school in America seem like a failure. Within a few years from now, less than 10% of our schools are expected to escape sanctions and possible closures, and private industry is salivating at the billions of dollars they will be able to rake in as the government hands them the helm of the ship of public education. Five years ago, no one in America would have dared to suggest that 90% of our schools were failing our children and our nation. The only way that the public could be convinced of this outrageous claim was to set up measures of success that looked fair, but were actually utterly un-winnable--not because children could not learn the curriculum, but because the tests themselves are the wrong kind of test and give us deceptive and confusing information. Humboldt Educators and Advocates for Responsible Testing believe strongly in the vital importance of America's public school system as a vital system for developing an educated citizenry, fostering equity and social justice, and passing on a rich, well-balanced curriculum for all children of every ethnicity and class. They have developed a DVD that can be used to educate the public across our nation, so that everyone can understand what is happening to undermine public education, and everyone can learn some ways that they can preserve it. With the support of H.E.A.R.T., and Gary Eagles, Superintendent of the Humboldt County Office of Education, and with the support of hundreds of local teachers, administrators and parents, Laura Rose and Jan West, developers of this DVD, have presented it to legislators Patti Berg and Wes Chesbro, and will soon share it with Mike Thompson. Please come and see the DVD and participate in a discussion of ideas for positive action, locally and nationally.
Presenters: Laura Rose, Jan West
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