Gaza on my Mind
May 16, 2018Fresh Ayers
May 16, 2018GRIT!!!
May 16, 2018Paul Gorski on Grit
If you are still on the “grit” of “mindset of poverty” bandwagon, consider this. Compared with schools with low percentages of students experiencing poverty, schools with high percentages of students experiencing poverty are more likely to have:
- less access to school nurses and college counselors;
- more limited access to computers and the Internet;
- inadequate learning facilities such as science labs
- more teacher vacancies and substitute teachers
- more teachers unlicensed in their subject areas;
- less rigorous and student-centered curricula;
- inoperative or dirty student bathrooms;
- serious teacher turnover problems;
- higher student-to-teacher ratios;
- insufficient classroom materials;
- fewer extracurricular programs;
- fewer experienced teachers;
- lower teacher salaries;
- larger class sizes; and
- less funding.
This is on top of all of the out-of-school challenges, such as less access to preventive healthcare, stable housing, and more.
So explain to me how we can meaningfully respond to the impacts of these conditions by completely ignoring these injustices while “fixing” the mindsets, cultures, or grittiness of students or families experiencing poverty.
By the way, this list can be reproduced with great precision for students of color, so stop using grit on them, too.
More David Gilbert
May 14, 2018Loud and Clear
May 8, 2018JOHN BROWN LIVES!!
May 6, 2018Leaving the beautiful Adirondack mountains later today—we were here to celebrate the life and legacy of John Brown, to lay a wreath on the grave where he lies with his wife and several children under the gaze of the high peak, Mt. Marcy, also known as the Cloudsplitter. By the mid-1800’s there’d been talk and argument and compromise about slavery for many years, with self-liberating Blacks forcing a crisis and the openings of a new narrative. When John Brown’s army—tested inKansas and active in the Underground Railroad—invaded Harper’s Ferry, the gauntlet was down and there was no turning back. John Brown Lives! is an extraordinary organization doing important work in prisons (the main business in upstate NY) and keeping the spirit of John Brown alive. JBL! hosted the weekend remembrances and gave the “The Spirit of John Brown Freedom Award” to a social justice environmentalist, Katie Morgan, the intrepid activist lawyer Soffiyah Elijah, and the revolutionary poet Martin Espada. JOHN BROWN LIVES!
Moving Forward
May 6, 2018
|
Posted by billayers