Learning at the Library » Chicago

Grow your own teachers: Grassroots change for teacher education

Veronica — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:19:10 +0000

Title: Grow your own teachers: Grassroots change for teacher education

Editors: Elizabeth A. Skinner, Maria Teresa Garreton, Brian D. Schultz

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Call Number: LB1715 .G76 2011

Grow Your Own Teachers describes the evolution of a local school reform movement in Chicago that now serves as a model for change in schools and teacher preparation programs across the country. Grounded in the grassroots organizing tradition, the Grow Your Own (GYO) teacher initiative involves collaboration between community-based organizations and colleges of education in preparing community members to teach for change in their local schools. Incorporating rich stories and the perspectives of foremost teacher educators, students, and community leaders, this book offers an alternative framework for teacher education that will provide urban students with the education they deserve. It will also provide adult community members with an example of higher education that can lead to a rewarding professional career.

Essential reading for anyone involved in school reform, this important book:

Shows how to put into practice a community-based social justice oriented approach to teacher preparation.
Examines the role of parents in shaping school reform efforts.
Includes a chapter by Gregory Michie describing teachers of color working for change in their neighborhood schools.Includes a chapter by Linda Darling-Hammond looking at how GYO compares to other educational reform efforts.

About the Authors:

Elizabeth A. Skinner is assistant professor in the Bilingual Education Program, Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Illinois State University. Maria Teresa Garretón is professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Brian D. Schultz is associate professor in the Department of Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

On the Web:

Amazon

The Chicago Picasso

Jennifer Govan — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:14:28 +0000

I catch a glimpse from the corner of my dad’s office window high up in the glass skyscraper. Sitting cross-legged, dizzy looking down, I try to replicate the puzzling sculpture on paper with pencil. Is it a bird, dog, an aardvark, baboon head, or possible profile of a woman? I have not heard yet of Cubism and find the shape, despite the clean lines, difficult to draw. What emerges one dimensionally is even more abstract than the 50 foot steel, 160 ton, three dimensional piece in the Civic Center. I shake my head, tempted to crumple the paper, but instead, fold it up and pop it in my pocket.

On level ground I study the newly unveiled sculpture, sensing that Picasso’s untitled work celebrates art, rather than the rights and duties of citizens… but then I watch kids my age climb on and slide down its base, and am not so sure. His untitled sculpture looks different from all angles.

Picasso never visited our city, but he set the stage for placing monumental modern art in the Loop. Prophesy foretold by Mayor Daley, what was so strange then is so familiar now. The Chicago Picasso celebrates events, birthdays, holidays, sports, and home openers. It dons a Blackhawks cap, Chicago Bears helmet, or party hat, weathering the extreme winters and baking hot summers – an icon and landmarked symbol of civic pride.

Referencing our news display, Picasso Exhibited in Paris, Friday, 6/24

The Delicate Balance

Jennifer Govan — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:20:53 +0000

When she appeared on our Evanston doorstep the morning my parents left for the West Coast, I thought we were in for big trouble: Keyes was as wide as our refrigerator and wore gold-rimmed, granny glasses on the brim of her nose as black as molasses. Like everyone else, we never knew her first name. My mother found her with the help of Mary, our devoted cleaning lady who had been with our family since the day I was born.

With limited time, there were very brief introductions: Keyes, our charge, came from the South Side of Chicago and would be taking care of us for the next two weeks. She said good morning to my three brothers and me, barely uttering another word as she ushered her small suitcase into the downstairs bedroom and my parents gathered their baggage for O’Hare. That afternoon and others, we’d hear a small radio transmitting news and talk shows, as we ran in and out from playing in our picket-fenced garden.

The days passed quickly enough – according to the normal routine, but I walked home each school day to something unexpected: Keyes waiting for me with an enormous, beautiful, white smile — and plenty of snacks, asking kindly about my day. Once she noticed that I was a bit quieter than usual and offered comfort over a school incident involving a stolen necklace during swimming. It was a gift from our neighbors, whose children I babysat the previous summer. A few dark-skinned girls surrounded me, commenting on the gold hearts and sleek chain, and draped themselves around my locker until I was in the pool. I knew who they were, but was too afraid to say anything – so delicate, I sensed, the balance of black and white in my school.

Keyes invited a conversation about her life on the far side of Chicago, and my respect grew as I read the newspaper crinkles around her eyes –listening in awe of her honesty and courage. I learned that her son was shot in the street because someone tried to steal his car, and bullets, on another occasion, flew through her livingroom window, almost breaking her specs. Surely there was no quick end to the fighting and drugs in the neighborhood schools, but she told the officers, carried her hope to the local church, and returned to public housing with belief in a better day. Shortly afterward she complimented me on a starched, cotton shirt of skylark blue, saying the slightly-puffed, short sleeves with matching ribbons suited me nicely.

Keyes had certain way about her – a quiet and reflective manner that evoked the slowness and gentility of the Old South, rather than the most dangerous part of town. Her wise, soft spoken words made us forget her large physical presence, as she padded in worn slippers about our creaky old house. We were especially drawn to her cooking, which included home-made corn bread, fried potatoes, and, on occasion, grits. Her family bought our metallic blue, second-hand Buick, and Keyes invited us to visit her home, if and when my parents were willing to let us travel on the “L” – the elevated Chicago train, all the way from the north to the south.

I followed the “L” to Harper Lee, whom I first read in eighth grade, and fastened on Miss Maudie’s words to Scout: “‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’” (To Kill a Mockingbird, p. 103). I connect the tracks in a journey with now perhaps fewer boundaries, savoring my newer copy of the 40^th anniversary edition (Harper Collins, 1999), and ask whether we can, or will ever be, color blind.

Referencing Our Book Talk: Doing Race, with Hazel Rose Markus & Paula M.L. Moya, Thursday, 9/16, 4-5:30pm

Learning at the Library » Chicago

Grow your own teachers: Grassroots change for teacher education

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The Chicago Picasso

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The Delicate Balance