As a blogger and undergraduate English major that exposed me to many novels and genres of writing at an early age, I found this piece by Mark de Silva from 3:AM Magazine very interesting. He reflects on the state of the art-novel and whether it should bear the burden as fiction to be visionary—unlike so many other forms of writing to which we are regularly exposed—especially the ever-expanding appeal of the first-person, "testimonial voice."
In what he terms the "leisure-contract," de Silva acknowledges the impact of the "blog-memoir culture" and its capacity to both entertain and provide the reader with immediate rewards. Since novels require a different form of commitment, so many are simply "putdownable," that is, not quite as gripping as what one may describe as more "pedestrian" or everyday forms of writing that are consumed ad nauseum by most readers.
“Vision” calls to mind such a range of things: thought, sense experience, first principles, imagination, discernment, invention, prescience, revelation. It’s this cluster of valences that explains the alchemical effects visionary works, fully appreciated, can have on us. Put simply—and I mean this as a retrieval of a critical ideal, not a novel proposition—such works are capable of reshaping our basic ways of experiencing and conceptualizing the world, ourselves, and the relation between the two. They don’t merely present us with new objects of experience or new information, offering fresh fodder for the mind, but extend and refine our experiential capacities themselves, whatever objects we train them upon.
By now we are only too familiar with the broader cultural reasons nudging us in this direction: the problem of distractibility in the digital era; reality television and its glorification of the banal and demotic; the populist leveling of aesthetic and critical standards encouraged by the ease of publishing online; the seeking out of micro-communities that reinforce our points of view and taste rather than alter them; the rise of the notion that everyone, by virtue of having a pulse, must have a story worth telling and the correlative explosion of blog-memoir culture.
Perhaps these shifts are making us lose not just our taste for visionary fiction, but our belief in its very possibility: that novels, or anything, might have the sorts of transformative powers I’ve ascribed to them. In that case, though, preserving our intellectual integrity would mean that we stop paying lip service to a notion of artistry in literature that no longer carries conviction. This would still leave us free to give ourselves over to the pleasures of leisure fiction (and journalism too), but without the bad faith.
There is another choice, of course. Rather than annul the art contract, we could try recommitting to it. That would mean expecting our best writers to push themselves to visionary heights, and expecting ourselves, as readers, to make the climb, not always easy, to meet them there. In the offing, perhaps, that profound experience of art, for writer and reader both.
In short, this piece investigates that very important space between writer, audience, and expectations held by both (or not). My read of this is that a fitting trade off to the leisure contract is an art contract where we, as readers, can expect to have a profound experience with art—at least to the degree that writers indeed push themselves "to visionary heights."
Mark de Silva is the author of the debut novel Square Wave, forthcoming from Two Dollar Radio in February 2016. An excerpt from the book will be published in Guernica Magazine in January. He holds degrees in philosophy from Brown (AB) and Cambridge (PhD) and has written for the New York Times, the New Inquiry, and the Paris Review Daily.
I've been posting on the subject of white privilege lately. Here's a website developed by Seattle Public School teacher, Jon Greenberg, that is specifically dedicated to this. I incorporate a few of the helpful resources herein below.
This website is named after the high school course, Citizenship and Social Justice, that Seattle Public Schools unsuccessfully tried to extinguish stemming from the complaints of one white family opposed to racial dialogue in the classroom.
However, the website is NOT officially connected to this course nor intended for student use.
To follow sources that publish such articles, find an extensive listing here. If these articles leave you with unanswered questions, there’s now even a website devoted to answering the questions of White Americans: askawhiteperson.com.
Here is a book review by Dr. Pedro Noguera that appeared in the Sunday, NYTimes Sunday Book Review this month on a book by Vicki Abeles in what is likely to be a controversial text. Much to ponder here. I have long been a critic of the narrow definitions of success in our schools, especially standardized test scores. It'll be interesting to see where the locus of change is/needs to be and whether authentic learning and assessment or culturally relevant curricula are a part of this.
Kids and their parents collect flyers before a rally against teacher evaluations in front of P.S. 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, last March. Credit Jake Naughton for The New York Times.
In the thought-provoking “Beyond Measure,” Vicki Abeles offers a compelling set of arguments for reconsidering how we define success in American education and for radically altering the approach we’ve taken to get there. High grades, high test scores and admission to one of the nation’s elite colleges have long been embraced as symbols of excellence and, by extension, successful parenting. Abeles suggests that pursuit of this narrow form of success is actually harming children and families, and distorting our educational institutions. Her book is bound to be controversial, particularly to the education establishment — university presidents, the testing industry and the policy makers who support them. For many of them, “Beyond Measure” is likely to be regarded as a threat, if not downright subversive.
Continue reading the main story.
Powerful reflection by Emory Professor George Yancy on internalized sexism and white privilege from The Stone, New York Times Opinionator Blog. It's refreshing to read from a man owning up to his sexism and then drawing a direct line from this to so-called "white innocence" with respect to white racial privilege. I like how he asks all of us to be honest and transparent with ourselves, owning up to race and gender privilege, turning the otherwise outward gaze on racial and gender privilege inwardly. In order for any of us to have any hope of bettering ourselves in ways that makes a real difference in society, he ask us to first put ourselves under the microscope so that we might emerge as enlightened, compassionate, and yes, more loving, human beings.
It provides a good followup to my earlier post, White people react to evidence of white privilege by claiming greater personal hardships.
This Stanford Graduate School of Business study finds that whites claim hardship and deny the existence of inequalities in response to evidence on white privilege.
Since one of my areas of expertise is race and ethnic relations, I can similarly attest to the difficulty of teaching white privilege in the context of contravening ideologies of individualism, individual merit, and white supremacy—as if the right and opportunity to be an individual were equally distributed and as if merit were unmediated by the status of one's racial/ethnic, class, or gender group. Never mind strong and consistent patterning of "merit" (e.g., test scores, educational attainment, income, etc.) indicators along these axes to the contrary.
Regarding the myth of white superiority, this is not only a U.S. problem, but a global one. It exists as an ideology—however implicit or explicit—within our majority and minority communities alike. Even in our own families. In many families, children that are more fair-skinned than others get more attention or are deemed more attractive than their darker-skinned siblings. Heck, babies are barely born and parents or relatives are quick to comment on children's skin color. "Salió muy güerito," they say. "She (or he) came out fair-skinned," they say. Unfortunately, in some form or fashion, no one on the planet is entirely immune from the ideology of white supremacy.
Central to the very concept of white privilege is to not even have to acknowledge it to begin with. Were this not the case, we wouldn't be having the offensive conversation in our state right now regarding a "World Geography," McGraw-Hill textbook that eliminates the term "slavery," by referring to slaves as “workers” and then placing them in the section “Patterns of Immigration." You can read about this here.
Were this example on slaves an exception, then the claim about white privilege in children's textbooks would indeed be hyperbole. Instead, this is the rule. That is, our textbooks not only are truly erroneous in instances like these, but they are entirely biased in favor of white histories, stories, accomplishments, and epistemologies (or ways of knowing).
While "micro-aggressions" (discrimination and prejudice) are important to the study of white privilege and minority-majority relations, what should not get lost are the institutional mechanisms for the reproduction of status in society. Curriculum, in particular, is powerful. We here in Texas would not be having these contentious battles over curriculum were this not the case.
Moreover, since curriculum equates to the reproduction of consciousness, systematic exclusion of subaltern histories reinstantiates privilege and ways of knowing and viewing the world in our society and helps account for why so little seems to change. Fortunately, our children have alternative media for getting a more complete story and many are savvy in this regard. None of this mitigates, however, the power of our state-approved curriculum either to validate (frequently white) teachers' stories or exploit their ignorance. In my own work, I call this "subtractive schooling." The alternative is "additive schooling" as a specific antidote. This is an anti-racist, culturally and linguistically relevant curriculum and pedagogy about which much has been written (e.g., Bartlett and Garcia (2011), Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times).
Educate yourselves. Read history. Get involved in textbook and curriculum battles. Promote equity, inclusion, and honesty. And not only disavow that the concept of "white privilege" is even a debate, but also acknowledge that our never-ending struggles for inclusion in Texas' textbook selection process is wholly about the ideological agenda of maintaining current arrangements of power that align stubbornly to racial/ethnic, class, and gender divides in our society.
Peace and justice for 2016.
that they face greater hardships in life.
support policies that were designed to reduce racial inequality.
not exposed to evidence of privilege,” the study found.
reverse the denial of white privilege.
privilege extends to themselves,” Phillips and Lowery wrote.
include the education of advantaged populations.
This is an interesting piece. It considers the possible "silver lining" to Prop. 227 that eliminated bilingual education in California although it continued via an institutionalized waiver process. That is, it allegedly eliminated a lot of low performing bilingual education programs. Since then, particularly among the ranks of white, middle class parents wanting bilingual education for their children, dual language has gained a lot of traction. Great graphic on "America the Multilingual" from the Migration Policy Institute within. (see below).
from a local fish market.
learned words to describe emotions.
How do we prepare students to think about leadership in education?
I am happy to share some thoughts that I have about leadership. This was just posted today on the UT College of Education website. Other commentaries are provided by Early Childhood Education Assistant Professor Jennifer Adair and Educational Administration Professor Mark Anthony Gooden, director of The University of Texas at Austin Principalship Program.
According to Code.org, 90 percent of U.S. schools are not teaching any computer science. Eyebrows were raised in 2013 as the U.K. passed a plan to educate every child how to code. In 2014, Barack Obama made history as the first U.S. president to program a computer. Yet critics claim that often only the more affluent schools offer computer science courses, thus denying minorities potential to learn the skills required by the 1.4 million new jobs that will be created during the next ten years.
In my opinion, parents of every student in every school at every level should demand that all students be taught how to code. They don't need this skill because they'll all go into it as a career -- that isn't realistic -- but because it impacts every career in the 21st century world. Any country recognizing that will benefit in the long term. Here's how you can start.
With the following resources, you can teach programming with every student and every age.
While the Hour of Code is in December, Code.org has suggested resources for educators, unplugged lessons (those not requiring computers), and tutorials to help you teach computer science to kids of all ages any time of the year.
Tynker Games: Use these age-appropriate games to teach your elementary students coding concepts. From Puppy Adventures to Math Art and Maze Craze, you'll find games that your grades 1-8 students will enjoy. Tynker also has a curriculum and STEM Product Library that you may want to peruse if you're interested in combining programming with social studies, English, math, and science.
Kodable started as an app targeted to students as young as kindergarten age, but it's now a complete curriculum. The first 30 levels are free, more than enough for an hour of code. They recommend this for age 5 and up, but there are stories of kids even younger using the app with great success to learn to program. iPad schools will want this app on every device. Students don’t need to know how to read in order to program using this game.
Cargobot (for age 5 and up) starts very easy but becomes more challenging as your progress. In the game, you're moving blocks around with a claw. This is an intriguing game because it was programmed entirely on an iPad using Codea. Students can also record solutions to the 36 unique puzzles and upload the videos to YouTube. This is free on the iPad.
Some more advanced programs have “junior” versions. ScratchJr is the version of Scratch intended for ages 5-7 and available as a free iPad app. A favorite of some programmers, LightbotJr targets children ages 4-8.
Robot Turtles is a board game to teach children the basics of programming without having to use any technology.
Hopscotch is the free iPad app for upper elementary and above. Wesley Fryer has created and excellent free ebook (Dropbox account required) for Hopscotch in the classroom, full of challenges that you can use with students. He also recommends activating the emoji keyboard (go to Settings > General > Keyboards) for use with the program.
Lightbot has a version on just about any platform and even has an online one-hour version. This puzzle game has a free version which lasts an hour but sells full versions on iTunes and Google Play. It teaches planning, testing, debugging, procedures, and loops.
Alice is another popular platform with a unique storytelling aspect. You can use it to create a game, tell a story, or make an animated video. Like Scratch, Alice is free and supported by a powerful community of educators. There are two versions of Alice. (The newer 3.0 version still has a few bugs but also sports many new, very cool animations.) This longstanding platform is a rewarding tool that kids will want to keep using past the initial hour. Alice is considered more for the intermediate student, but experienced teachers can use this with beginners.
Gamestar Mechanic offers a free version that you might want to use for your hour, but if you fall in love with it, the educational package allows teachers to track student progress, among other features. The company supports educators, and there's also an Edmodo community that shares lesson plans and ideas for the tool, along with videos and a must-see teacher's guide.
GameMaker is an option if you want to make games that can be played in any web browser. The resources aren't as comprehensive and the community isn't vibrant, but this one has been around for a while and might be fun for a more tech-savvy teacher.
My Robot Friend is a highly-rated app according to Common Sense Media. It costs $3.99, but no in-app purchases are required to go to higher levels.
CodeCombat is a multiplayer game that teaches coding. It's free to play at the basic level, and students don't have to sign up. This has the advantage that teachers don't have to know computer science to empower learning in this programming. It's recommended for age 9 and up. See the teacher guide for the information and standards covered in this game.
Do you want a board game for older children? Code Monkey Island is designed for children age 9 and up. This is a great addition to your game corner.
Follow the Hour of Code lesson plan tutorial on Khan Academy for ways to teach your students. These lessons are for older students with one computer each, or they could be adapted to a flipped class model.
Programming, making, and creating have never been easier. If you're getting into the maker movement or Genius Hour, these are staples for your classroom. While they may take longer than an hour of code, they're definitely something 21st-century schools can use, because students are programming and building with their hands.
LEGO MINDSTORMS are part of my curriculum every spring. Students love LEGOs! I have six older MINDSTORMS kits that we've used for years. The newer NXT kits even have cool robots that can be made and programmed. This product has been around for years, so there are many resources for teachers. If you purchase an older kit on eBay, make sure it will work with newer operating systems.
Dash and Dot are two endearing little robots that can be used with age 5 and up. These robots have apps that can be used to program them, for which children age 8 and up can use Blockly, the visual programming language created by Google. Older students can even use Objective C or Java to program the bots.
Sphero and Ollie are fantastic robots that can go almost anywhere (my students have taken them across water). The SPRK education program gives teachers and parents a curriculum to use the bots and teach programming even when the adult is still learning.
How Do You Teach Coding in Your Classroom?
In this post, you've seen 15+ ways to teach coding in your classroom, but there are many more. Please join the movement to help reach every child by sharing your story in the comments -- or a link to your favorite resources for teaching kids to code.
Founded by John and Donnie Brock of Oklahoma, the Brock International Prize in Education receives distinguished nominations from experts around the world. This year marks the second consecutive nomination of Dr. Angela Valenzuela, professor of Educational Administration, and Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education. Valenzuela’s innovations and big ideas, like her “subtractive schooling” theory of student identity and schooling, make her a thought-leader and ideal nominee for an award that honors meaningful change in how educators think and act. “I am deeply honored to have been nominated twice for this prestigious award,” said Valenzuela, who also serves as director of the University of Texas Center for Education Policy and of the National LatinoEducation Research and Policy Project (NLERAP). Her blog, Educational Equity, Politics and Policy in Texas, highlights issues like accountability, testing, college readiness, bilingual education, and immigration.
Valenzuela’s fellow nominees include theoretical physicist Walter Massey of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, education technology professor Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University in England, and research professor Cecilia Fierro of the Universidad Iberoamericana Leon in Mexico. Dr. Fierro is the 2016 Brock International Prize laureate and shares Valenzuela’s devotion to combating the marginalization of children in rural communities.
As a faculty member in the College of Education’s Educational Policy and Planning Program, Valenzuela continues to inspire change in a field that demands activism and leadership. Since beginning her professorial career 25 years ago, she continues to advocate outside the classroom, testifying on legislative issues, delivering speeches and lectures across the world, and publishing a number of acclaimed books about Latino education in America.
The Colliers' research attests strongly to the achievement-gap-reducing the impact of dual language.
Rosa Jonasz leads her 2nd grade dual language class in a reading lesson.
More than 17 percent of Texas’ public school students learned a language other than English first. There are a number of approaches to teaching these English language learners - many researchers consider dual language learning to be one of the most effective. They say it allows students to learn English while simultaneously helping them advance literacy in their native language.
Texas Public Radio’s Virginia Alvino reports on the benefits and limitations of dual language learning, and why some educators see it as an issue of social justice.
Hear Virginia Alvino's story about one approach to teaching English language learners in public schools.
At Passmore Elementary it’s time for a reading lesson in Rosa Jonasz’ 2nd- grade class.
Some of her students are native English speakers. Most are native Spanish speakers. This is a dual language class. The goal is to help all the students become bi-lingual and bi-literate, by learning from the teacher, and each other.
They also use that pattern with math, and science. It’s not just learning both languages. It’s learning how to learn in both languages.
Many researchers agree – dual language programs are effective. Among them is Howard Smith, professor of bilingual studies at UTSA.
He says language education is a highly political issue - that many educated folks have always seen bilingualism as a sign of being well bred. So while public dual language programs are growing nationwide, Smith says that’s largely at the request of white, middle class families. The plus side is Hispanic students can benefit.
While school districts are federally required to provide an option for English learners, they aren’t told which one. The advantage of dual language is that unlike other models, it also cultivates Spanish skills.
That’s why Smith says there should be more dual language programs, and they should continue through High School - which only one San Antonio district does. But he says there’s a lack of infrastructure – for programs to grow, every district would need way more bilingual teachers, and language materials.
Benson says NISD is majority Hisanic, but only 7 percent are English language learners. So, the district can’t meet the demand for the program - demand which she says, is coming from English speaking families. For now the district is still seeing the win-win benefit of this approach.
"Our dual language students usually outperform our mainstream English only,” says Benson.
Last year at Passmore 78 percent of fourth graders met state writing standards, while 100 percent of dual language ELL’s met the same standard.
In Passmore’s fifth grade dual language class, it’s hard to figure out which students are ELL’s while everyone’s speaking English. Anahi Reyes says she hardly spoke any English when she started. "Since pre-K I've been in dual language," she says.
That's a favorite fact of many of the students who do get the opportunity to participate in dual language learning.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has galvanized the Latino vote and we know that this vote makes a big difference in national elections.
"[M]ore than 2 million Latino voters — may head to the polls in November because of the “Trump effect.” Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks against unauthorized Latino immigrants have angered most Latinos because of their family immigrant histories — many of them are second- or third-generation Americans. And many Latinos may know someone dear to them who is or was an immigrant."
Increasingly, however, it appears the reverse may be true, according to a new study released by the William C. Velasquez Institute in San Antonio last week. And local elected Latino officials are seeing the same trend.
In the 2014 midterm elections, more than 1 million Latinos turned out to vote in Texas. That translates into 48 percent of Latino registered voters — a considerable percentage when their numbers had gone down by 300,000 since the 2012 elections.
In addition, total voter turnout in Texas and around the country was anemic — 28 percent in Texas, and 36 percent nationwide.
“Never have we seen such a stunning turnout when a state loses so many voters but still performs in the turnout better than in the last two midterm elections,” said Lydia Camarillo, vice president for the Southwest Voter Registration Project in San Antonio.
“The narrative that Latinos don’t vote is just not true,” she said.
She cited other barriers to voting that still may play a role in depressing turnout, such as voter ID laws and a cumbersome electoral system that inhibits rather than encourages easy access to the polls the way same-day registration does in other states.
Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks against unauthorized Latino immigrants have angered most Latinos because of their family immigrant histories — many of them are second- or third-generation Americans. And many Latinos may know someone dear to them who is or was an immigrant.
Fort Worth City Council member Salvador Espino said he has already seen it at work.
He said he has seen Latinos more engaged early in the presidential election cycle than in past years because of “frustration and concern” about comments by Trump.
He saw a similar situation when Ramon Romero ran for the District 90 legislative seat in 2014.
“There was a concern with Austin and the lack of diversity in the Tarrant County delegation,” Espino said.
Today, it is Trump who is lighting a fire under Latinos to become politically engaged.
Laura Barberena, president of the political consulting firm Viva Politics, echoed Espino’s sentiment.
“To what extent does his rhetoric define the Republican brand and is shaping it is the question,” said Barberena, who was present at the Velasquez Institute’s briefing last week.
The bigger question, though, is will Latinos still turn out if Trump is not the GOP presidential nominee.
Imagine how much students might be getting wrong, how much they are conforming to comfortable ideas and ultimately how much they could be underperforming because of this.
Ethnic diversity is like fresh air: It benefits everybody who experiences it. By disrupting conformity it produces a public good. To step back from the goal of diverse classrooms would deprive all students, regardless of their racial or ethnic background, of the opportunity to benefit from the improved cognitive performance that diversity promotes.
Research by Evan P. Apfelbaum and colleagues (2014) is brought to bear on the question of the importance of diversity in a market context with direct implications for higher education.
Levine, S. S., Apfelbaum, E. P., Bernard, M., Bartelt, V. L., Zajac, E. J., & Stark, D. (2014). Ethnic diversity deflates price bubbles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(52), 18524-18529.
One can't help but wonder what influence the student movement nationwide that largely is calling for greater diversity in higher education will have (learn about their demands here), if any, on the court's decision today. One would think that even if not directly addressed by the SCOTUS, the unfolding backstage story will nevertheless give them some pause.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION is back before the Supreme Court today. The court has agreed to hear, for the second time, the case of Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who claims that she was rejected by the University of Texas at Austin because of her race. Ms. Fisher invokes the promise of equal protection contained in the 14th Amendment, reminding us that judging people by their ancestry, rather than by their merits, risks demeaning their dignity.
Upholding affirmative action in 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued that it served the intellectual purpose of a university. Writing for the majority, she described how the University of Michigan aspired to enhance diversity not only to improve the prospects of certain groups of students, but also to enrich everyone’s education.
Our research provides such evidence. Diversity improves the way people think. By disrupting conformity, racial and ethnic diversity prompts people to scrutinize facts, think more deeply and develop their own opinions. Our findings show that such diversity actually benefits everyone, minorities and majority alike.
To study the effects of ethnic and racial diversity, we conducted a series of experiments in which participants competed in groups to find accurate answers to problems. In a situation much like a classroom, we started by presenting each participant individually with information and a task: to calculate accurate prices for simulated stocks. First, we collected individual answers, and then (to see how committed participants were to their answers), we let them buy and sell those stocks to the others, using real money. Participants got to keep any profit they made.
When trading, participants could observe the behavior of their counterparts and decide what to make of it. Think of yourself in similar situations: Interacting with others can bring new ideas into view, but it can also cause you to adopt popular but wrong ones.
It depends how deeply you contemplate what you observe. So if you think that something is worth $100, but others are bidding $120 for it, you may defer to their judgment and up the ante (perhaps contributing to a price bubble) or you might dismiss them and stand your ground.
The findings were striking. When participants were in diverse company, their answers were 58 percent more accurate. The prices they chose were much closer to the true values of the stocks. As they spent time interacting in diverse groups, their performance improved.
For our study, we intentionally chose a situation that required analytical thinking, seemingly unaffected by ethnicity or race. We wanted to understand whether the benefits of diversity stem, as the common thinking has it, from some special perspectives or skills of minorities.
What we actually found is that these benefits can arise merely from the very presence of minorities. In the initial responses, which were made before participants interacted, there were no statistically significant differences between participants in the homogeneous or diverse groups. Minority members did not bring some special knowledge.
The differences emerged only when participants began interacting with one another. When surrounded by people “like ourselves,” we are easily influenced, more likely to fall for wrong ideas. Diversity prompts better, critical thinking. It contributes to error detection. It keeps us from drifting toward miscalculation.
Our findings suggest that racial and ethnic diversity matter for learning, the core purpose of a university. Increasing diversity is not only a way to let the historically disadvantaged into college, but also to promote sharper thinking for everyone.
When it comes to diversity in the lecture halls themselves, universities can do much better. A commendable internal study by the University of Texas at Austin showed zero or just one African-American student in 90 percent of its typical undergraduate classrooms. Imagine how much students might be getting wrong, how much they are conforming to comfortable ideas and ultimately how much they could be underperforming because of this.
Sheen S. Levine is a professor at the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas; David Stark is a professor of sociology at Columbia.