Teaching and Learning {through the camera lens}

Chicago Field Trip Photo, Spring 2014

I took my first photography class in the 1994 school year. I had planned much of my senior year of high school around this particular class, due to my excitement. I decided NOT to take AP European history that year, so that I could dedicate two periods of every school day towards learning the art of photography.

It is a decision that I am grateful for making, because seeing the world  through a camera lens has enriched my life beyond measure. My teacher, Ms. Jones was one of the greatest teachers of my life.  She was creative, personable, and a great photographer.  We spent 3 hours a day learning about composition, darkroom methods, and how to use a manual camera.  We started the class by making our own pinhole cameras, and working to develop our first photographs.  Seeing my own pictures develop, taken with a camera that I made - was a revelation for me.

My favorite moments of that class were the photo field trips.  Just for the opportunity to find photographs in new environments, she took us to the NC Zoo, downtown Winston-Salem, etc. As a traveler, those trips have shaped my inherit lust for new places, and photographs.  These photography trips helped motivate me to create big field trip for my students - where we can have an opportunity to experience new places. And with the advent of digital photography, and the accessibility of Instagram, VSCOcam, and other such photography apps - all of the students are constantly taking photographs anyway.  Plus, we have simplified, and moved the darkroom skills to the iPhone - and it is amazing.  As a result, most all of us walk around with a camera (and a darkroom) constantly in hand.  It allows for more photographs, and this constant access encourages us to see the world with new eyes - 

Grove Arcade, downtown Asheville

As a teacher, I learned so much from Ms. Jones and that photography class.  Mostly, I learned that great teaching is truly about instilling curiosity, passion, and enough chops to be able to pursue it. She accomplished that with me, and I have seen the world through a camera lens most of the time since.

So I am grateful for everything about photography, as it continues to help me appreciate and find the beauty in my everyday surroundings.  But it also allows for my students to have a tool for inspiration, while trying to better understand their world. 
Thanks for lighting the fire, Ms. Jones!

Congo -The Brutal History

 Studying the global history era of 1750 - 1900, it is almost impossible to truly wrap our heads around the insanity that is the Conference of Berlin.  Often called the "scramble for Africa," it was a series of meetings in which the men who led the European nations decided the future of the African continent.  In effort to extract wealth and raw materials - they used a map of Africa, and systematically divided up the entire continent for their own domination - with only Liberia and Ethiopia excluded.

No man better illustrates this historic injustice than King Leopold II of Belgium.  (King Leopold's Ghost is an incredible book on the topic).  He took the Congo not for Belgium - but as his own personal property.

It is moments like these that make me proud to be a teacher of history...so that we can learn from our past (no matter how horrifying), and (hopefully) truly improve the human experience.

The BBC's video above does an excellent job with the topic...

NC Public Schools are Not Failing

If one is not careful, you could start to believe that NC public schools are terrible.  Almost daily, someone writes the mantra that "our schools are broken," by using test scores, and other academic data to chastise our public schools.

In reality, here in North Carolina - our public schools are not failing.  Our schools are working harder than ever before to educate our citizenry....and they are succeeding.

The problem that most public schools face is that they are...well..public.  By its very definition, public means "of, or concerning the people, as a whole." Public schools educate the people, as a whole...all of them. That's right - we educate everyone.  And thus, our schools most often reflect the communities in which we serve (for better or for worse). Just this week, in an effort to prove that all schools are not performing equally - the state of North Carolina released its "Report Card grades" for every public school. The results were predictable...Schools with a high level of poverty (best identified by free/reduced lunch numbers) received the bulk of the Ds and Fs. Schools with more affluent populations of students received the As and Bs...Why?

If our communities are full of poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse - then our schools will reflect that reality.  If our communities are full of educated professionals, high incomes, and country club memberships - then our schools will reflect that as well.  Students do not check their home lives at the door of public schools.  Poverty matters...a lot.

But if our schools are merely a mirror held up to our local society, what is the point? What is the role of the public school in our community?  The role of the public school is not to simply reflect the realities of the community, but to constantly attempt to shape the community through education.

A public school is not unlike a local hospital (stick with me here...).  The hospital must serve its community by healing the sick, and providing proactive services to the public - so that others remain well.  Some hospitals spend most of their time and energy dealing with emergencies - others with plastic surgeries, and still others deal mostly with heart disease.  Each hospital must serve their community, based on what their community most needs.  And if the hospital can better serve by encouraging changes (possibly in lifestyles, drug use, etc) in their patients, then the hospital must be able (and willing) to do that as well.   Thus. every hospital will inevitably act both as a reflection of its community, and a positive force for change in that community.  But either way - the hospital must meet its community where it is, not introduce a "one size fits all" model that would often fail to meet their specific needs.

Similarly, the public school must serve the people by improving their ability to learn, create, and grow - and by protecting the general public from ignorance, and lack of innovation.  In order to do this most effectively, each public school must meet the needs of their community first.  If students do not feel safe, the public school must make safety a priority before any real education will occur.  If students already feel safe and secure - we expect the school to shift its priorities to other aspects of education.
Which means that each school looks different - because each school serves a different community.  If food security is an issue, the school must step in to feed the student.  If a community has a larger population of students with special needs, then the public school will have to adjust its teaching positions and resources to better serve these children.  And if most students in the community have ambitions of attending a four year university, the school will adjust to provide more Advanced Placement classes.

And in every one of the above circumstances, the public school must educate and transform its students.  The public school is a major force for change in the community- creating more literate children, giving access to new technologies, and instilling curiosity and balance.  And the public school must accomplish this one student at a time - one community at a time.  And that takes time to accomplish.

But it is worth it.  And it is happening.  If you walk into almost any public school you will witness this amazing scene, as you watch the school both reflect and change the communities in which it serves.
We are currently comparing our public schools by using standardized test scores (80% of the report card grade), which is helpful and often necessary.  But if a student is unaware how he will get his next meal, he will almost always perform poorly on a test.  Poverty matters.

Are we comparing academic performance, or are we simply comparing our socio-economic communities? Do we compare hospitals by how many of their patients die of heart disease? Or by how many of their patients are smokers?  Do we compare rural fire departments to urban departments, based on how many lives they rescue in any given month?

No, because we recognize that each of these individual institutions has different needs to serve, in different communities.   We simply ask, "are they serving their communities well",

Our public schools are serving our communities well, but that service never looks the same.

Countries according to Population {NPR}

This is a really interesting article (from the brilliant minds at NPR)  on what countries would look like, if we scaled each of them according to population....

Click on this link right here.

Philadelphia (Here We Come...)

We are taking another amazing field trip in May, but this time it is to...Philadelphia.

Of my most passionate interests, the top five absolutely includes: History, the Outdoors, and Travel.  I have written before about how much I love to combine these interests into synergistic, amazing, and meaningful experiences - and the Philadelphia trip is on point to deliver just that.
I mean, check out this itinerary:

• We tour the Gettysburg battlefield, eat Philly cheesesteaks, take a river tour, and see the Liberty Bell. 
• We will catch a Phillies game, ride bikes and subways, and see great public art at Love park.
  
• We will go into Independence Hall, run the (like Rocky Balboa) the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and stroll down the oldest alley in America.
• We will stop for a day in Washington DC, explore the National Mall, visit the US Holocaust Museum, and get our (authentic) grub on in China Town.  

And I will get to do this with other great teachers, my wife, and 75 ecstatic teenagers - who are capable of anything.  And I have no idea what is going to happen in between the sights of Philadelphia - but I know that it will be a grand adventure.  And we will learn.  And we will grow.  And we will never forget it.

The Now. And the Next. {Record Player}

I am a big believer that the future is always bigger than the past.  So, sometimes I hesitate to engage in straight up nostalgia.  I mean, I LOVE musing on historical themes - and the role that our past plays in shaping who we are...I have actually made a career out of it.

But I try not to let the past bog me down.  I most want our histories to light a fire of inspiration for each of us - so that we can use it to shape our future, ya know?  I try to bring this ethos to my classroom everyday.  And it is not hard, when working with teenagers.  They have an incredible ability to focus on the now and the next - it is inspiring.

But sometimes the past is the very thing that can help us be in the moment, and look forward to the next...

As I have written before, music was my gateway to the study of history.  And I still engage with music more than any other art medium.  But lately I have had some serious nostalgia for vinyl records.  Growing up, my brother and I spent countless hours in his room listening to records, and studying the covers and liner notes. And I do mean studying.  Listening to records was my introduction into a new world, where one's influences, photography, and spirit played the pivotal roles.  Over time, it transformed me, instilling a curiosity in me for music, history, and art that has yet to be dampened.

We listened to lots of cassettes as well, but still preferred records for the album art. But as CDs came into the mainstream - we (like everyone else) switched over, as it sounded better, was more efficient, and we still got the cool album art (that was much larger than a cassette). From there, it was a short jump to Itunes and mp3s, where I now buy all of my music with a touch of my finger, on an iphone.

Technology has made the acquisition of music more efficient and accessible - but has it made it more meaningful?

Can we find more meaning, by increasing the effort and engagement with the art?

In an effort to find out, we bought a Crosley record player, and it has been amazing.
I returned my parents' house, rummaged through my old closet - and brought back the primary sources of my youthful inspiration: numerous records by KISS, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin.  You know, music from the past - recorded using a passed technology.

And I have learned that I missed the records.  I missed the art. I missed the physical feeling of delicately placing the needle on the vinyl.

I am remembering (and my kids are learning) that music is not only a listening experience, but an experience with art, reading, history, and feeling.  And like teaching, it is all about engagement.  We have to care.  And, with help from my record-playing past, my relationship to these songs is more meaningful.  I care more.

By returning to the past, it is pushing me forward.

US-India Collaboration {Global Poverty}

Recently, my AP World History class was offered the opportunity to engage with a class in India, in an effort to build relationships, and look for solutions to global poverty.  Officially, the collaboration was facilitated by UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for International Understanding program. They describe it as follows: US India Partnership is a curricular and educational program to enhance collaborative global learning linking high school classrooms in the States of Maharashtra, India and North Carolina, USA. 

Our Skype Session with the students of  the New India School

We were teamed up with the New India School, in Pune India. We interacted with each other through Edmodo and a Skype session.  Each class watched a series of videos about global poverty, and submitted questions for the film producers (which they answered).  My students were quite inspired by the short films made by the guys at Living on One. This is an incredible organization that works to find understanding by living on $1.00 per day.  (I HIGHLY recommend you watch these series of short films, documenting how these American college kids lived 56 days, with only $56, in the mountains of Guatemala.)

From there, our class researched local poverty here in Buncombe County, and created (and shared) a powerpoint on the local initiatives to alleviate the effects of poverty.  My students researched free/reduced lunch rates for the North Buncombe District, the CHIP Health insurance program, as well as local charities who work to end poverty.  Our friends in India did the same, and we compared notes via a Skype session this morning (or evening for India).


While having that face to face interaction, the students were also able to ask each other questions about local poverty, education, food, and entertainment.  It has been a great experience for all of us, and it is fair to say that we are all more engaged and curious about our world - and how we can improve it.  The opening page of my syllabus for AP World History states that our primary goal in this class is to explore the ties that bind.  This opportunity to meet students from the other side of the world, learn about each other, and discuss our commonalities in dealing with local poverty is a major step towards that goal.

I feel so lucky to have this job: and lucky to spend my days with these students.  They continue to inspire and amaze me.