Teacher's Diary

No Child...

Last night I had the pleasure of going to see the Off-Broadway one-woman comedy "No Child..." at the Barrow Street Theatre in Manhattan. Actress Nilaja Sun has won 21 awards for the play and I must say, she deserves every one. The performance was spectacular - Sun transforms herself from a janitor one second, to a new teacher at another, then to three different students and back. Each characterization is distinct and true to my own experience as a teacher. I identified with the new teacher and saw many of my own students in the caricatures she portrayed. The play touches on many of the issues faced by our school today.

Even for someone who does not work in education, I would recommend this play for the sheer inventiveness and the amazing ability of Nilaja Sun to create so many varied characters and make them recognizable. I truly enjoyed it!

Space Tourists

This post is a little late in coming (ok, a lot late in coming), since I have been so busy lately, but a couple of months ago, I had the great fortune of being at the New York premier of the new documentary Space Tourists, a wonderful film about the joys and issues surrounding commercial space travel. The documentary follows Iranian-American billionaire Anousheh Ansari, as she trains for and documents her journey to the International Space Station. She pays $20 million to the Russian Federal Space Agency for the trip, though she says she would willingly have paid more - even her own life - to achieve her childhood dream of going to space.

The film contrasts this attitude with the struggles of the scrap metal collectors on the ground in Kazakhstan, who make their living collecting the debris that falls from the shuttle flights, selling it to China to make aluminum foil. Watching the film raises many questions about the need to discover and explore and how the expenditure could be used otherwise. As a science teacher who works with high-need students, I understand this dilemma. I would love my students to pursue lofty scientific goals and I know that scientific careers would lead them to high-paying jobs, but I also understand why many of them do not see the need to learn science. They are already busy putting bread on the table, working retail and barbershop jobs after school and on weekends. It is a constant struggle throughout the world and I thought this film captured it perfectly.

I'm not sure what the status is on the movie, or if it will come out on DVD any time soon, but I highly recommend it for educators, scientists and students, as it brings up some truly interesting issues.

Picture originally found here. Learn more about the film here.

God of Carnage

Although it has already closed, I wanted to give my review of God of Carnage, since I think it relates to education in certain curious ways. I saw the play in early June, just before it closed and, amid all the tumult of the end of the year, didn't have time to write it up.

The play concerns two couples getting together to discuss what should be done about their children after one of them strikes the other with a stick, seriously injuring him. What starts out as a normal conversation quickly devolves into chaos. The acting was superb and the writing hilarious.

The reason I found it relevant to teaching was that much of the hilarity of the play comes from the discussion of what the proper way to raise kids is. The demographic of the couples was far from the one I teach, but it still illustrated the fact that parents can at times have ridiculous notions of how to raise children. Parent involvement at my school is low and we try very hard to get parents to school events - often with embarrassing results. I often wish, however, that our students' parents were more like the ones in the play - overbearing and over-involved.

The play also illustrated how issues at home, between parents, are often mirrored (or pushed against) through a child's behavior at school or on the playground. I often wonder, with my worst students, what is going on at home that makes them so angry or disengaged. Certainly, kids have their own personalities, but more often than not, a student who refuses to engage in the work of school, is rude or fights against school authorities has stuff going on outside the classroom. In the play, this becomes very obvious for the families involved.

It's too bad I didn't see the play sooner so that I could have recommended it to all of you before it closed, but if there is a tour or revival in your area, definitely go see it. It will be worth your money, educator or not.

Image courtesy of BroadwayWorld.com

"Time Stands Still" - A Reflection on Teaching

Donald Margulies' play "Time Stands Still" is not about education, but I still found myself thinking about my job as I sat in the darkened theatre last night. The play, starring Laura Linney and Brian d'Arcy James as a photo journalist and foreign correspondent respectively, deals with the issues this couple faces in their relationships, both with each other and with their work.

One question that surfaces early on in the play is whether a journalist really makes a difference in the world. A friend of the two main journalists criticizes them for taking photos and writing about the horrific things that are happening in other countries, rather than trying to help those in need. The journalists respond that their job is to inform the world of these situations, not change them. It made me think about why I love teaching - I am not merely observing the education system, I am actively trying to improve it. Whether or not I am successful, I can rest assured that I am attempting to create real change. While I think journalists can have an impact, it is much more hands-off than teaching, where I am really on the front lines serving rather than reporting.

However, another, more subtle question the play explores is whether this desire to help those in need is really genuine or whether it comes from an "adrenaline rush" or a modern form of Imperialism. We reach out and help poor, incompetent third-world countries because they can't help themselves. I think, in some sense, teaching in an under-served neighborhood has similar implications, which I wrote about in my post on The Trouble with Privilege.To what extent, the play made me wonder, do I teach these kids because of some deep-seated guilt at being born into privilege? And to what extent do I feel superior to these kids because of the differences in our situations?

The fact of the matter is that, no matter what the reasoning, these kids need help and support. Whatever my subconscious thought process, I am there to help and I really think that I will make a difference in some of their lives. Just as in the play, the characters must pursue what truly makes them happy, I know that teaching makes me happy, so I will continue to pursue it.

I highly recommend this play. It was smart, funny and thought-provoking. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Manhattan Theatre Club website. You won't be disappointed!

2012 and How to Use It in an Earth Science Classroom

My students have been asking me about 2012 since the day the movie came out. Is the world really going to end? What is Earth Crust Displacement and is it real? Is the mantle going to take over the crust? Can the sun really melt the inside of the Earth?

I decided I needed to get the facts. So I went to see the movie myself, dragging my family along with me, to see what all the commotion was about and so that I could better answer their questions.

While of course I don't believe that the world is going to end in 3 years, I do think that a lot of the science in the 2012 movie is accurate and that the excitement about the movie can be used to teach students. It is also a great opportunity to teach them how to be critical, rather than passive, observers of the world around them. By using the movie to weed out the few true facts, students will understand how movies are made and be able to better distinguish between fiction and reality, while also learning something about earth science.

Although I have and will tell my students that a planetary alignment would not cause mass destruction, I will discuss with them the parts of the movie that, by themselves, are possible. For example, I have already mentioned to them that Yellowstone National Park is the largest active volcano in the world. If it erupted, like it does in the movie, it would cause widespread destruction over much of the northwest and would send ash showers that would reach us all the way in New York. The ash could cause climatic changes that might affect the entire globe.

The Theory of Earth Crust Displacement, the premise upon which the entire movie is based, is actually a real theory, developed a decade before the Theory of Plate Tectonics. While most scientists agree that it is faulty and inaccurate at best, its use in the movie does demonstrate how there can be competing theories about the same thing. It is a perfect opportunity to explain to my students how one theory can be replaced by another once new evidence emerges.

The Crust Displacement that occurs in the movie, however, causes effects that can also be explained by plate tectonics. For example, the movement of the crust causes numerous faults and surface cracks to appear, starting in California and other current earthquake centers. This would allow my students to look at where on the globe earthquakes are likely to occur and why. Later in the movie, underwater earthquakes cause giant tsunamis across the planet. This, too, is an effect that we see today, even without Earth Crust Displacement.

Thus, although the movie may be far-fetched and over dramatized, the kids are excited about it, so I find it better to use their excitement for learning that to let it go to waste. Now they can stop pestering me to go see the movie and we can have an open discussion about the science behind it. In addition to the science, one thing the movie does illustrate well is the cultural and political discrimination that might occur if such a disaster did actually occur. That can be discussed in any classroom.

For all teachers out there, especially science teachers, see this movie if you haven't already.

Precious: A Teacher's Perspective

I just got back from watching the movie Precious, the film about a 16-year-old who is struggling through school while being raped and abused at home. Everything that could go wrong in her life does, except for the fact that she ends up at a supportive school, with a teacher who manages to get her to start thinking for herself.

As much as I didn't want to, I found myself seeing my own students in the troubled and turbulent world that is Precious' life. And not by chance. I'm sure many of them have gone through similar things, though perhaps not all at the same time the way this poor girl did.

I recently found out that a student at my school is living in a homeless shelter because of his family's inability to pay their rent. I am advising one of my students as she prepares for the possibility of going to court for custody of her baby son. Another of my students hasn't come to school in over a month and was in court a few weeks ago for an altercation he got into.

These things, which seem over dramatized in the movie, are actually the reality for many young Americans today. Reviews have been mixed on this movie, with arguments that it is a reflection of reality and beautifully done, while at the same time, being cliche and too inspirational to be believable. I agree and disagree.

Some of the objections people have had to this movie stem from the utter brutality and horror of the situations depicted. Many have argued that this view of African American society just promotes white stereotypes. I disagree. The fact of the matter is that this kind of thing happened in the 1980s and it continues to happen today. Whether it happens in black or white households, to me, makes little difference. The reality, which many Americans don't like to think about, is that terrible things happen to innocent children every day in this country. To me, racist people are going to take the same message from any movie you make, so why let them dictate how movies are made?

The other major objection that has been made about the movie, though, I agree with much more: the fact that at times it seemed a bit too inspirational. As a teacher who works with low-income and minority students, I know how hard it is to turn kids around. Yet Blu Rain, Precious' calm yet spunky teacher, manages to turn her whole group of over-aged, highly troubled students around in just a year. Perhaps after years of teaching such a feat is possible, but right now I have my hands full trying to make progress with one student, let alone a group of 7 or 8. Perhaps some day I will be able to work such miracles, but I doubt it.

Overall, however, I did enjoy the movie and found it spoke to the world I am slowly entering through my students. The performances were fabulous and the weaving of dream and reality was seamless and believable. So if you are looking for a good movie, I do recommend "Precious."