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In the Garden

Credit: Sahar Khatri

Recently my sister, an education researcher, posted a link to an article called “The ‘Gifted’ System in US Schools is Broken, Racist, and Completely Fixable,” expressing as she did the hope that tracking in US schools could just die forever. (Why would you want to get rid of academic tracking if it is fixable? Well, I actually don’t think it is, but, as this article demonstrates, districts don’t even want to pay for universal screening for GT programs, which is the only way to even BEGIN to disrupt their current status as intra-school mechanisms of racial and economic segregation. A more accurate title of this article might be “The ‘Gifted’ System in US Schools is Broken, Racist, and Completely Fixable, Except We Won’t Ever Fix It Because It’s Actually Doing the Work of Our Racism For Us So Maybe On Reflection the Term ‘Broken’ Was Inaccurate.” )

One of my best friends posted a query in response: “Talk to me about the value of an integrated classroom for highly gifted students. My friend’s kindergartner reads novels and asks about the astrophysics of the Big Bang.”

Indeed. Even if you completely reject academic tracking on principle, what should you do if one of your children gets one of those freaky brains in the biological lottery? Will they be intellectually and socially stifled if they don’t get to learn with their freaky peers? (And of course, the broader and much more common question: What if I believe in public education on principle, but when I have a child of my own I don’t want to send them to my local public school because I don’t think it offers a quality education? Only applicable to the richies, of course.)

I have this kind of ecological, scaleable vision of education. With the caveat that no single environment is right for every student, I think that just, sound educational principles apply both at the level of the general population and the individual. I think tracking systems produce diseased educational ecologies, and that these ecologies are unhealthy for all kids, including the gifted ones. And I think parents who oppose racial and economic integration in the schools of their individual kids are invested in and support systems of race and class-based oppression, no matter what principles they may pay lip service to.

First of all, a kindergartner who reads novels is going to be a weirdo wherever they are (in the best possible way). I don’t think being in a GT program would necessarily make them feel less isolated, and in fact if they’re head and shoulders above the certified Smart Kids, they might even stick out more than in a class with wildly various types of brains.

And that’s the other thing: IQ testing screens for one kind of brain. It does a super good job at what it was designed to do: figuring out where you fall on the overall human spectrum of ability in filling in the blanks in analogies and manipulating patterns of dots in your head. The extent to which those abilities correlate to, let alone cause, novel-reading and grasp of theoretical physics: ???. (And who decided that analogies and dots stuff were the signposts of intelligence? Well it was the eugenicists, who wanted an empirical measure of how intellect corresponded with race and class. Look, disinterested they were not.)

Genius is real. It comes in many forms. In my nine years of teaching, I’ve seen that. And yes, I think my little baby geniuses are well-served in an integrated classroom.

The other day I took three kids out to the garden. One boy who is very tempted by the coolness of the streets, but whose family farms in DR, who feels an affinity for the garden. One girl with such a severe reading disorder that she can only decode at about the 2.7 grade level, and who has some expressive language issues too, but who I consider a kind of moral genius: she has this force of compassion, and willingness to question authority, that is a fairly rare type of brilliance. In-born, can be cultivated but not really taught. World-class. And a third girl who is the IQ kind of genius: blows away every standardized test we give her. In a racially and economically mixed school (mine is v. segregated) she still might have been left out of GT, because she is poor and Afro-Latin and, as Laur’s article shows, GT selection bias does a decent job of screening those kids out. She spent last year in an ICT class (which stands for Integrated Co-teaching, half general ed. students and half kids with disabilities, taught by two teachers.) Because there were always two teachers in her room, it was easy for one of us to occasionally pull her aside, put her in front of a computer, and say, “Please research and describe how Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring changed US discourse on environmental conservation. Oh, this is how you use the Google search bar.” “Find an article about the Bronx, identify its use of connotative language, and analyze how this language reveals the author’s perspective  on our borough.” Toward the end of the year: “Do any research project you want about an environmental issue.” “Can I research ecologically friendly manufacturing techniques, and write up a proposal  for a factory along with blueprints?” “Yes, that.” She also did an intense amount of group work, and when she finished essays early I asked her to help her classmates copy-edit theirs. (I never did explain to her what copy-editing meant. While I expected her to help them fix their capital letters, it was only after I learned about the “See Revision History” on Google Drive that I discovered she was writing friendly notes to classmates in which she steered them toward better evidence and clearer analysis, notes which they promptly followed through on and erased. Let’s face it. Dots are the least of her gifts.)

We ran around in the garden filling up watering cans from our rain catchment system and dumping them on our raspberries, beets, and new clover. We sat down for a rest under our solar panels, and spent a while talking about renewable energy. Marlene naturally had some engineering questions I could not answer (I say “That’s a good research question!” with a tone of approval as if someone caught a fish, about ten times a day). We idly plucked apart some shriveled up marigolds, discovered their seeds, and John wondered whether they would grow if we planted them, and if so whether they would be best served by him creating a small lagoon of rainwater in their flower bed. (Only one way to find out!) “It’s possible to give them too much water,” Marlene informed him. “Seeds can drown.” John allowed his waters to recede. Genesis looked up at the solar panels. “How come here is always on?” I didn’t understand the question. She reworded it a few times, and explained her thinking: “At my grandma’s in DR the power is on and then off from 9-7. How come here the power is always on?” Marlene backed her up, and quickly began discussing the merits of back-up power generators, while I sat, stunned.  I’m smart enough, that is (clever is as clever does) smart enough to do my job. I will never be the one who asks, How come here is always on.

Of course, all groups are heterogenous. We are a mixed bunch, by nature, variation being one of those great reliefs of a biological imperative. All kids need and deserve a little bit of time with kids who are really smart, and maybe smarter, in the same ways that they are, but I think a few special projects at the extension center (or a few classes at college) ought to do it. I think it’s also good to be with kids who are smarter than us in ways that we are not. (As one of my general ed. students said on her first day in an ICT class years ago, “I’m glad I’m here because the kids from the special ed class are better at socializing than I am, and they can teach me.” She said this in front of the whole class. Certifiable literary genius, that one. She could write a horror story that would haunt you for years, and her essays would run rings around you.)

Great teachers bring out the richness of their students’ offerings, and make rich learning environments, regardless of students’ classifications. My 12th grade AP English teacher brought me competently through the AP exam, but I had to unlearn everything she taught me about writing when I got to college, whereas my 12th grade African American Lit teacher built a challenging and supportive learning community amongst her students (some “honors,” some not, many still close friends), and I used some of those class notes at Swat for two years straight (Their Eyes Were Watching God changed my major/life, and what would I have done without my Daughters of the Dust family tree.) The fact that great teachers are mostly shuffled off into GT, AP, Honors classes? Well, that’s what our unequal system is designed to do. But it’s their loss.

You must have the body: Public health in school

There is a line of argument in education reform discourse that makes me crazy. It can be summed up by these two sentences from Washington Post’s coverage of what they called a Rhee/Ravitch debate last August.

The “debate” was actually a six person panel discussion. You can watch it in full at the WEB Du Bois Institute’s website.

“Ravitch argued that poverty causes achievement gaps and that the best solution is to offer poor children extra support and resources from birth on.

 Rhee agreed that poverty plays a role but said educators must focus on what they can control.”

As described, these are nonsense positions. They seem to be answering a nonsense question: Which should we address, poverty or educational quality? I would like to meet the person who sneakily framed this as an either/or question and watched as kids floundered through years of stagnant debate over which of their basic needs adults should meet.

Why should Ravitch’s support for systemic anti-poverty measures preclude an effort to improve US curriculum and instruction? Ravitch doesn’t believe it does. She is an educational historian who cares about curriculum and teacher training and lesson implementation.  I’M SURE OF IT.

Rhee’s position is a defense against the complacency of educators who say they can’t fix poverty, so they shouldn’t be held accountable for their students’ educational outcomes.

Those teachers are wrong. If I had to be their boss, I would be sorely tempted to shout them down.

But it’s easy to spot a teacher who is using external circumstance as an excuse for his own incompetence or bigotry. There are other teachers who talk about the million and one ways that economic hardship impacts their kids.  They are witnesses to suffering, they want to be heard, and they want something done. It is not smart to shout them down.

After family, teachers spend the most time with kids and are uniquely positioned to serve as their advocates. I think teachers have more within their control than Rhee thinks they do.

I want to take an expansive view of what a classroom can be, and I don’t want to be defined by zero sum equations. Let’s assume that if something impacts kids’ learning, we’re going to take a shot at it. So, first things first: you must have the body.

Ways to Have a Healthier Year
Experts

How the world looks in my imagination.

Last year, there was a public health fair at our middle school. When I heard that this fair was coming, for some reason I pictured a glitzy event with dozens of booths and lots of swag. Please don’t ask me why. It’s a little embarrassing to admit. When I did march my class down to the auditorium to find five card tables decorated with a few cardboard tri-fold boards set up on the stage, I felt a little deflated.

My students did not. They solemnly cycled through EVERY TABLE. They asked questions and drew pictures and made health pledges. They treated their public health visitors like royal ambassadors. Other classes piled up in line behind ours to experience the fair. Total success.

So what I’m saying is, if you work in public health, can you please come visit my school? You don’t have to do anything fancy. Just bring the knowledge and training that I don’t have, and some tips for follow-up.

 Food
Sometimes the other teachers in my team will exclaim as they set up for our morning meeting, “Did you see what so-and-so was eating for breakfast today? Soda and red hot cheetos. How do our kids make it through the day?!”

You never hear me making observations like that, because I simply cannot judge. I fail at feeding myself. I’ve been able to survive off mostly fast food and bodega fare for a few years now. The man I buy my diet coke from at 7 am every morning knows my name, occupation, and my testing and vacation schedule, and I know how long he’s been in the country and how his daughter’s regents load and college application process are going. That’s a lot of diet coke. I do not approach nutrition from a position of mastery.

We lived off this chard for a week.

However, I’ve been thinking about food a lot this summer. A few weeks ago I spent a week with Rebecca Wilkinson, whose new roommate in Ft. Apache is a volunteer with Food Corps. Did you know there was a Food Corps? I did not, and I suspect the people who would oppose a new federally-supported program in which volunteers teach kids how to raise food don’t know about it either. Anyway, Becca’s new house is impressive, and full of all kinds of real food. There are vegetables planted in every corner of the yard, tucked into garden beds but also old tires and coolers. The kitchen is stocked with dozens of jars of grains and dry beans that I would not know what to do with (hyperbole, I know you soak the beans overnight, please do not write me to tell me so or report me to my mother).

The most fun I had taking care of the garden was when the kids from the neighborhood came over to help. One girl, Joanie, was fascinated with all of it. She helped me make stuffed zucchini for dinner (pick everything in the garden that is ripe, sauté it with ALL the herbs, and stuff a zucchini with it) and she thought it tasted so amazing that she made me write down the recipe (“recipe”). Then we walked around the garden again harvesting ingredients for her to take home. Just like my students at the health fair, it didn’t take much to capture Joanie’s imagination.

Curb-grown artichokes

Assuming there are no Food Corps members reading this who want to come to my school and make a garden on our roof—what feasible goal can I set to bring a little of Joanie’s excitement into my classroom? Alix suggests I try One Small Plant. A tomato plant, maybe. Something that my students can watch grow, and eat from. In Portland this week, where people grow gardens in the space in front of their houses between the sidewalk and the curb, I took pictures of all the vegetables I could. Maybe I can use that as decoration around our One Small Plant.

There’s knowledge of where food comes from, but there’s also simple necessity, so I need to be stocked with snacks. I’ll probably start out with a supply of granola bars in September, but if you have ideas of other nourishing, filling, non-perishable foods I can have on hand, please let me know.

Healthcare
My school is lucky. Our building is part of Montefiore’s School Health Program, the largest school-based health network in the country. It means we have an actual doctor’s office in our building. My principal is meticulous about getting every one of our students registered at the center, having up-to-date medical records, and scheduling physicals for kids if their information is out of date.

I have not taken proper advantage of this level of access. In fact, the only advantage I’ve taken is charming my way into the program’s roving flu vaccination van after it had already closed up shop one night last November. I know my kids love the FNP who works downstairs, because they embrace her whenever they see her, but she and I have hardly talked, and I can do better.

My goal this year is to actually visit on the school center on my own, without students, and have a conversation with someone about the services that are available there. I especially want to talk about ways I can support my students in managing their chronic asthma.

 THREE GOALS:
1)    Reach out to NY public health youth programs, and bring one visitor into my classroom

2)    Grow One Little Plant

3)    Get to know my school-based health center

GOALS ACHIEVED:
None yet

Pilot

Friends, it’s time!

The children’s garden.

Five years ago, I was at Teach for America’s summer institute getting trained for my first day of school. We were learning how to diagnose achievement levels, track mastery, and bust value-added goals. I heard another corps member in my group ask a question off to the side. What if we want to make a revolutionary classroom?

I don’t know.

But I do have a list, in my head, of all the things I would give my students if I woke up tomorrow in an imaginary world where limitations didn’t exist. I am ready to write this list down. I would like you all to help me edit it. Then I can bring it to my students, and we can edit it some more, and then we can start to make it. Why not?

My List-in-Progress

• Constructivist pedagogy
• Curriculum on community organizing and social movement theory
• Practice in activism and advocacy
• Critical theory about race, class, gender, nationality, and post-colonialism geared for a middle school audience
• A classroom art gallery
• A library that looks like a book store display section and makes you want to stay all day
• Reinvention of classroom design, with lots more couch action
• Intensive community building, and the experience of unconditional love in a peer group
• A garden and knowledge of food production
• Hours of free-play time
• A soundtrack
• Media literacy and digital media production experience
• Conflict mediation training that critically examines the roots of systemic violence
• Math problem-solving and quantitative and logical analysis skills
• A queer-positive, body-positive environment
• Lots of peer discussion
• Journals
• Fun every day