Future Directions for the PrESS Network
PrESS Network meeting
10-27-05
How can we involve our families?
It may be easier to involve our families once we identify service projects (e.g., Boys and Girls Club reading program) or events (e.g., The upcoming teach-in on Hurricane Katrina mentioned below) with which they can become involved. Meeting times probably aren’t the time to involve children or partners/spouses not involved with the Network.
How can we stay in tune theoretically?
We do need to take up another book. I would suggest Bill Ayers’ Teaching toward freedom or Kozol’s new book The Shame of the Nation.
How can we best be of service to the local and global community?
Globally, our work could take us to Jamaica—this year, we'll be travelling between June 18 and June 28
More locally,
Holding training meetings for families on how to advocate for children during SBARK and IEP meetings. If time, perhaps we can even plan to be present at some
Starting a mentoring program at a local school (Drew and Brent have already held some discussions about this at Fairdale)
Working with parents on how to talk about sexual involvement, sexually transmitted diseases with their children
Becoming involved with the slow-food movement, as mentioned at the end of Solnit’s text. Linking education and nutrition—talking about food’s relatedness to ADHD, behavior, health, etc. Challenging JCPS to provide healthy food for kids. Linking with local farmers and parents.
Building peripheral curricula that neatly fits around (and, then, broadens and deepens) the core content. Perhaps we could generally focus on elementary, middle, and high, building sample curricula, and/or we could at least begin sharing our lessons with each other on the blog (Is there a way to upload files to the blog, Jon?)
Although we did not talk about it last night, I’d be interested in working toward a Teach-In on NCLB, the standards movement, high-stakes testing, etc.
How can we grow our group to other constituencies?
Bring a student and/or another teacher to the next meeting
Allow the PrESS Network to act as a service laiason
Developing tailored service learning programs for schools, teachers, classes
Acting as a connecting point between stated community needs (e.g, Volunteers of America Study Buddies, Newton Learning, etc.) and teachers seeking out service learning experiences—perhaps even linking students from different schools together to work on common projects
Link up with the Breakthrough collaborative: http://www.summerbridge.org.
Providing PD to schools/teachers
Providing programs to teachers/classes on issues of multicultural education and social justice
posted by adam at 9:54 AM
3 Comments:
The AESA trip was fantastic and I have been renewed knowing that other "progressives" (or whatever they call themselves) are out there.
I particilarly treaure the conversations I had the other "Senior Citizen" on the trip. Milton, I hope you are refusing to join AARP like I am. My reservation for 11.30=Yes
Here is a link to the British project from Jamie Oliver that I spoke about in the last meeting. I have the 4-part series that aired on Channel 4 burnable to a DVD if anyone is interested in watching it. I think it's helpful in the sense it shows the resistance on both the part of the school and the kids. The demonstration that he does at one point simulating how they make chicken nuggets is classic.
Feed Me Better!
From the local restaurant board I read regualrly, I've read that many local restautants make a concerted effort to buy as locally as often as possible. The catch on this is that they are able to pass their costs along to the patrons, not something viable on limited school budgets. A compromise would initially have to be found between high quality local produce and limited finanical resources for the lunch programs. In Jamie Oliver's series, this was one of their biggest problems until they were able to argue for more financing to go to school lunches.
While I am hesitant to post in order to not appear "uppity" (OK, not really, but I thought I would try on this more deferential, unassuming attitude :)), I wanted to lay out a few possibilities for reflection over the holidays before we get back together after the first of the year:
It seems like the Network's interests are broad. They are all, also, important and worthwhile. At the meeting, I suggested the possibility of forming three smaller groups, but upon further reflection, it seems like five may be more appropriate in order to begin exploring how we might best take our work out into the world. I see these as initial and explorative work groups who could stay in contact between meetings, developing possibilities and reporting back to the group during our meetings. I can see a
(1) IEP/SBARK group, figuring out ways we could assist parents in their fight for their children's rights in schools,
(2) A policy group, that keeps an eye on structural issues and apprises the group of issues in need of letters, meetings in need of attendance, etc.
(3) A mentoring group, who helps us in our service to the community or who notifies us as to ways we could become involved with mentoring/service groups like the newly formed one at Fairdale,
(4) Slow food, who help us continue to figure out ways to make inroads with local schools in terms of the food they make available to kids, and
(5) A Reading/Theory group who prepare those portions of our meetings dedicated to our readings and deeper introspection.
This is just a skeleton of a suggestion, for which I invite critical feedback. I feel like we are ready to meet the larger community as an organization. My hope in offering these thoughts is that one or all of them may give us a path through which to do so.
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