I just loooovvve Barbara O’Connor

I cried this afternoon.

Yes, a “children’s chapter book” hooked me from the first sentence and I read until the final word.

And cried.

And laughed.

And smiled – a real, genuine, can’t stop my muscles from doing what they’re doing smile.

I read Me and Rupert Goody this afternoon and had to tell you all – again – that Barbara O’Connor is an author I’ve been looking for for many many years. Too bad she wasn’t around when I was a kid…

I’ve already shared some Barbara O’Connor titles I discovered last summer on past posts, and I’ve read two more of her books already this summer:

Me and Rupert Goody (1999)

How to Steal a Dog (2009)

Scholastic must’ve recently discovered her as well – How to Steal a Dog is published by Scholastic and it’s gotten a lot of attention via school book fairs and other media. This surprised me, actually, since I find O’Connor’s books to be beautifully written and set in working-class or poor communities where issues of race, gender, dis/Abilities, religion, work, age, family structures, morals, and intelligence are richly woven into the lives of the characters. Not your typical Scholastic book – but I’m glad she’ll have a wider audience of readers now and maybe, just maybe, more kids will be introduced to diverse working-class and poor lives through her narratives.

I read O’Connor’s books to Hayden, my seven-year-old (and read them to her as a six-year-old as well), and I have heard of teachers using them in grades 3-8 depending on the book and the purpose. I recommend them for all ages of readers, and truly enjoy reading them on my own. I laugh, I cry, I shake my head, and I can’t put them down.

New publications…

Two new articles:

Jones, S. and Enriquez, G. (2009). Engaging the intellectual and the moral critical literacy teacher education: The four-year journeys of two teachers from teacher education to classroom practice.  Reading Research Quarterly, 44(2).

Jones, S. (2009). Against all odds: A case study of one White, middle-class female teacher becoming an engaged intellectual. Changing English, 16(2), 231-246.

And a really cool book I have the honor of being a part of:

Jones, S. (2009). Jagged edges: A psychosocial exploration by one who “made it.” In (Van Galen, J.A. & Dempsey, V.O., Eds.) Trajectories: The social and educational mobility of education scholars from poor and working class backgrounds. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Between Security and Freedom

The driver’s seat of my red Datsun wasn’t properly bolted to the car floor. I think there were four points at which the seat had once been firmly secured to the car body, back when it was a new, brightly-painted auto on the lot, but now only one bolt managed to hang on. The result was a mixture of rocking and swiveling that made for perilous driving, though also for freedom in reaching into the back seat for a sweater or into the glove compartment for some gum, and all with the seat belt still firmly attached.

I sat at the red light on the corner of 34^th Street and Archer Road in my Datsun, feeling jubilant and safe. But why did I feel this way? After all, my forehead was still stinging from the blow received from the windshield when I braked too quickly for the light and my unhinged seat launched me forward. So why was I feeling secure and happy? I looked down 34^th street, to where Fred, my “older” boyfriend, lived and then up at the sky. Like Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour,” I felt the answer to my question “creeping out of the sky,” gathering in the humid air, and pushing itself toward me. A realization. An illumination. I said it out loud, “Free, free, free!” and then my face turned hot with shame.

My sister Jo was the original owner of the Datsun. As a down payment, she used the $3,000 my mom squirreled away for her from the government survivor benefits we received after my dad died. Like my sister, my brother Rick used his $3,000 to buy a car when he turned 18. Always the odd one out, I took my life savings and went off to the University of Florida. A car or a college education.

In a beautiful twist, my sister’s Datsun became my college graduation gift from my whole family. Rick agreed to sell Jo his old car cheaply, so Jo gave the Datsun to my mom and step-father to fix up for me. They took it in for some new tires and a tune up, wrapped it in a bow, and handed it over to me as I headed back to Gainesville to pursue my master’s degree. It was already on its way out; in fact, in two year’s time I would pay a scrap dealer in Cranston, RI $100.00 to tow it from the street where it finally breathed its last. But the Datsun was a welcomed gift, an unexpected luxury.

Throughout my undergrad years my only wheels had been those of city buses or a bicycle. I lived far from campus-cheaper that way-and worked nearly full time at Captain D’s and later at the Cinema Drafthouse-turned out that $3,000 isn’t really enough to buy a college education. I got off of work sometimes well after midnight when the buses were already down for the night, so except for the occasional kindness of a co-worker who could throw my bike in his trunk, I rode my bike to and from work every night, miles down the unlit Archer Road from 34^th Street to Tower Road. This was always a dangerous trip, fraught with close calls with tipsy or ticked off drivers who seemed to view the presence of a young woman biking down an unlit road at midnight a nuisance.

When I started dating Fred near the end of my junior year, my midnight biking trips ended. Fred was five years older than I, already graduated with his master’s degree, and working in a real job. He began dropping me off and picking me up from work. I liked him, and I was grateful to him. I lived so far out, it was just easier, he said, to stay at his place.

It wasn’t until I got my Datsun and was idling at the red light on the corner of 34^th Street and Archer Road that it came to me from the sky, that it gathered in the humid air, and pressed into me with a heat of a shameful revelation: I was free. The Datsun made Fred less essential. I thought, “I don’t need Fred anymore. I will be secure without him.” I pushed it out of my mind, and shortly thereafter I pushed Fred out of my life.

I’m Baaaaccckkkkkk….sorta. A cautionary tale for writers

Hello out there!

After months (many months) of suspected carpal tunnel, rheumatoid arthritis, severe tendinitis…we’ve finally realized I have RSI (repetitive stress injury) from too much bad-habited writing at the computer.

I’ll post on it later, but until then, if you spend lots of hours writing on the computer and:

1. If you ever have pain in your hands, fingers, wrists, or

2. If you ever wake up at night because your hands/arms/fingers are asleep, or

3. If you have had to cut back your writing time because of pain, fatigue, tenderness in your fingers/hands/wrists/arms/elbows/shoulders.

You may have a very serious problem brewing and working through the pain may result in permanent nerve and soft tissue damage.

DON’T WORK THROUGH THE PAIN!

You may have RSI, and the answer is NOT surgery, steroids, or pain medications.

And the problem is probably NOT with your hands – it has likely originated in your neck/upper back/pectoral muscles, cutting off circulation to your arms and hands for a long, long time before you began feeling the pain.

Here’s a fabulous book. When it was recommended to me, I felt like I was reading about myself in these cases. It offers great recommendations for therapy (myofacial release, acupuncture, yoga, regular breaks/stretches, and strength-training seem to be working really well for me right now), and a very readable description of what happens with the body when it works in front of the computer for too long.

Between August and February I have been struggling to do any work/writing/emailing because of this debilitating condition. May have also included some depression for me too…thinking about living without writing was something I did daily during those months.

So don’t let yourself get to that point.

Social Class and Children’s Literature

Thanks to the Journal of Language and Literacy Education for publishing a fabulous issue on children’s literature last month.

My piece in the issue is on social class and children’s literature. Hope you like it!

Newspaper article on language – my response about schools

Check out this article in our local paper about a French boy maintaining and strengthening his native language through the study of local history and ecology. It’s a story of amazing educational opportunity: authentic language use through the study of the history of the Botanical Gardens and the plants found on the grounds. Lambert (the nine year old boy) is portrayed as doing brilliant things with his teacher, and I can’t help wondering why all the Spanish-speaking children in Clarke County are not thought of in this way all the time.

Does this child get a full color photograph and lengthy article written about him because he is “French” and moved here with apparently privileged parents rather than a Spanish-speaking Mexican who might have moved here with a family looking for better work and a better life (In other words, is it inherently more “attractive” to speak French as your native language rather than Spanish)? Or is it a result of the innovative and (in today’s world) unheard of pedagogy of his responsive teacher? Perhaps both…and both reasons make me incurably sad, frustrated, and downright angry.

I hope my letter gets published in the paper, but I’ll put it here as well:

More than Language Lessons (written by Stephanie Jones, Athens)

This young English Language Learner was immersed in an ideal educational context: the study of local history and the natural world (outdoors – not in books); authentic talking, reading, and writing to strengthen his French and English; an educator who saw his bilingualism as a strength; and evaluations of his progress that were authentic (conversational, written products, authentic vocabulary growth, etc.) rather than spelling and grammar tests.
Many children in Clarke County schools negotiate bilingualism daily, doing all the wonderful things that Lambert was reportedly doing: speaking one language at home, English at school, and imaginatively combining them when necessary. But too many children in school are restricted inside four walls with a mandated curriculum and limited outdoor time (15 minutes per day as young as first grade), and evaluated by standardized tests that could never assess the richness of their knowledge and language usage.
What would happen if we got our school children outdoors studying local history, local ecology, and language in real contexts? Would they be perceived as brilliantly as Lambert in this article? Could we finally move beyond seeing children as numbers on state tests?
Is it fair that a child like Lambert (who is likely from a privileged family) is the only one to experience such a rich education?
Let’s move students out of their school seats and into the real world where learning is deep, rich, authentic, and long-term – then we can highlight all students’ and teachers’ brilliance in full color in the newspaper.

Stephanie Jones
Athens, Georgia

Stop this Nonsense and Get Kids Outside!

No Child Left Behind has had many ill effects: Narrowing the curriculum, pushing out play-based and project-based education, evaluating students and teachers with standardized tests that are biased and not aligned with state standards and local curricula, diminishing arts education and physical education, and skilling and drilling our kids to fantastic boredom.

Did you also know that because of “instructional goals” kids are not getting to play outside either???

I worked with schools in New York that had no-recess policies and have heard of numerous ones across the country. Others have such little unstructured recess time they may as well have none (15 minutes in my first grade daughter’s school – and that includes the bathroom break). I’m investigating recess time in my daughter’s school and in the district, and we should all do that on a local scale, but we can also work together as a collective force.

It’s disrespectful, inhumane, and absolutely counterproductive to learning, motivation, and achievement.

Check out this website for NO CHILD LEFT INSIDE – legislation pushing for reconnecting kids with their natural worlds through outdoor learning and environmentally-focused education. You can learn about the initiative, sign a petition, and spread it like wildfire…

Let’s respect kids, their education, and the environment all at once and make public schools get kids outside.

Stop the attacks on William (Bill) Ayers!

Many of you have now heard of Bill Ayers as a “terrorist” who has tried to destroy our country from the inside out. You must know, however, that he is an incredibly well-respected education scholar who is also the vice-president-elect of the largest and most prestigious educational research association: American Educational Research Association (AERA). This alone should tell you how folks in the field of education feel about him..

It’s one thing to try to attack Barack Obama’s character through misleading accusations and lies, it’s another thing entirely to drag a man’s name through the mud over and over and over without anyone publicly speaking out on his behalf.

If you would like to know more about Bill Ayers or show your support for him, click here.

Grandmas for Obama

It’s no secret that i am an Obama supporter, so I’ll get right to the point:

One of my grandmas called me this morning to wish me happy birthday (happy birthday to me…) and we talked for a very long time about the debates, Obama, McCain, Palin, the healthcare crisis, job losses, etc.

She and her friends – all retired and living in the Battleground State of Ohio – are enthusiastic supporters of Obama. In fact, in her words, they see McCain as dangerous to our national security (more wars), clueless about how most people live, dangerous about healthcare, and clueless about the impact of job losses. So many factories have shut down in Ohio over the last few years and even more are shutting down faster right now. They think he is an “old” 78-years and if something happened to him they would be horrified for Palin to run the country. They also believe McCain selected Palin because she’s a woman, proving how “out of touch” he is, not only with young people but even with women in his own generation.

Go grandmas!!!

Here’s another great inquiry opportunity: are there generation gaps in the support lining up behind each candidate?

We’re hearing so much about the “youth” getting involved – what about the retirees who are McCain’s age? Where are they standing?

Cheers!

poetry, literature, and social justice

For all you literature buffs out there…

Channeling Mark Twain by Carol Muske-Dukes is a must-read if you’re into poetry, literature, prison politics, and social justice. Holly, the protagonist, finds herself in complex situations where her ideals around social justice and feminism collide with material lives lived inside and outside a women’s prison walls. Fast-paced narratives are woven into the fabric of the poetic novel, the history of poetry and poets, and high/low brow poetry. This book will push you to make intertextual readings with familiar poems and research those unfamiliar to you – but particularly if you are a die-hard social justice warrior, it will make for great conversation about the age-old questions and debates about “power” “oppression” and “justice.” Everyone will enjoy being carried into the prison on Riker’s Island, if they haven’t been there themselves, to critically rethink the problems in our society and criminal justice system…and by default, our education system, social class, race, gender, and sexuality.

welfare brat by mary childers

I’ll be adding this book to my list of terrific reads that explore the complexities of social mobility through education. Childers’ memoir is beautifully written even when she’s writing about her teenage rage directed at her mother and painful realizations caught up in the tricky web woven between gratitude and desire, loyalty and resentment, love and fear, school and home. Some of the most insightful moments for educators might be in her writing about language use, clothing, and eye contact as she crosses the threshold into middle-class Manhattan to work as a teen and downplays desires to attend college to maintain peer relationships. Interchanges between Childers and her guidance counselor would also make for interesting dialogue, as well as the variety of ways her siblings experience mobility – and how sexuality, lies/truths, language, and relationships buttress such mobility.

Brava Childers!

Cool things happenin’ everywhere…826

My dear friend and colleague Lane Clarke at Northern Kentucky University sent an email about this story from NPR on the 826 in Brooklyn. I’ve heard and read about 826 before, but somehow it got wrapped up in the sticky webs of my mind and I had nearly forgotten about it completely. I love the concept: really cool, kid-enticing storefront (spies, superheroes, etc.) that mark the entrance into a really cool, creative space where kids read and write. Love it.

Newest favorite book: Blessed Unrest

Blessed Unrest: How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world by Paul Hawken is my new favorite book:). Call me slow, but I’ve been a bit resistant to talk about social justice issues alongside ecological justice issues, with my emphasis always on social justice. This book has offered me a new perspective, however, and I have a much better understanding about how free market fundamentalism, for example, not only marginalizes and dehumanizes workers and creates a greater disparity between the wealthy and the poor, but it also simultaneously destroys our planet. I began to imagine, in a way I haven’t before, how local/global “glocal” education that ties together ecological and human rights issues can firmly ground children and all of us to living locally, thinking globally, and inspiring hope and action in a way that could fundamentally change the materialism, consumerism, individualism that fuels classism and classist behaviors. Fighting for living wages, job security, and workers’ rights could be lived beside lessons on living simply – lessons we could learn from folks who don’t have the economic resources to produce much waste or emissions in the first place.

This book is engaging, informational, very well researched, and inspiring. Have fun reading it!

new movie great for complex issues around immigration

The Visitor – a movie released mainly in independent film theaters – is a simple movie about an overwhelmingly complicated and emotionally saturated issue: immigration in the U.S. A burnt-out professor finds himself enmeshed in a joyful life of two artists only to watch one get carried away in handcuffs and held in a detention center until he is deported. In the meantime, heartbreak, frustration, anxiety, devotion, and love are interwoven in the nuanced story exploring the multiple and subtle meanings of the film’s title.

Gender and Education Association: Call for Conference Proposals

Call for Papers
Gender and Education Association 7th International Conference

Theme: Gender: Regulation and Resistance in Education
25-27 March 2009, Institute of Education, University of London

Keynote speakers

Deborah Britzman Raewyn Connell Gloria Ladson-Billings

Plenary Panel 1: Intersectionality, Black, British Feminism and
resistance in educational research

Suki Ali Heidi Mirza Ann Phoenix

Plenary Panel 2: Regulation, resistance and activism: troubling margin
and centre
Bagele Chilisa Sylvia Grinberg Grace Livingston

* How do education and gender regulate?
* How do we theorize, research, talk about and enact resistances
to regulatory practices and gendered power relations in education?

These questions and the conference theme, Gender: Regulation and
Resistance in Education, invite engagement with gender and feminism at
every level of educational practice, including politics, theorizing,
policy creation, research methodologies, pedagogical engagement and
grass-roots activism. The conference draws together an exceptional
range of international speakers working at the cutting edge of
feminist and gender theory and research, and political and
educational activism, including those who are resisting current
contexts of neo-liberal economic reform and increasing global
disparities. Our goal is to create a space for dialogue about gender
and education that spans disciplinary, theoretical, political and
national boundaries.

Proposals

We invite proposals for contributions that critically explore
questions relating to issues of gender regulation and resistance in
education.

These may include the following:
* Power/Governance
* Politics/Policy
* Neo-liberalism/

Neo-Conservativism
* Standards agendas in education
* Histories, genealogies of gender
* Religion, nationality, citizenship
* Globalization /Marketization
* Community /Activism/Struggle
* Agency/ Structure/Subjectivity
* Pedagogy and curriculum
* Primary, secondary schooling
* Higher, further education
* Intersectionalities, race, class, gender, age
* Psychosocial approaches
* Gender, disability, inclusion
* Sexuality and queer theory

The papers might engage with these themes from a variety of fields and
areas of study:

* Feminist Studies
* Women’s Studies
* Queer Studies
* Sociology
* Health
* History
* Literature
* Philosophy
* Cultural Studies
* Media Studies
* Postcolonial Studies
* Development Studies
* Social/Educational Policy Studies

Session Formats
We are interested in a diverse range of formats and welcome proposals
for:
* Papers
* Symposiums
* Interactive Sessions
* Performance pieces
* Roundtables or Posters

Workshops

We are also interested in hearing from anyone who wishes to organise a
stream/theme that runs through the conference.

Education Practitioners

We are keen to include education practitioners in the conference as
presenters and participants. We will be pleased to receive proposals
from education practitioners for standard conference format sessions
(such as papers and symposium) or for more innovative/interactive
sessions such as roundtable discussions and workshops. We are also
looking for proposals for sessions that will be of interest to
education practitioners.

Students

We will be holding a student networking session, for student teachers,
undergraduates, graduates, postgraduates, postdocs and researchers.
The session will address concerns around doing gender research and
finding career paths in gender and education. This session will have a
question/answer component with leaders in the Gender and Education
field in collaboration with the student and postdoctoral reps at GEA.

Submitting proposals

Proposals should offer a summary of the presentation/session being
proposed, including a short rational for the focus and indicting any
conceptual framing and empirical material to be covered or activities
to be undertaken. Proposals for single papers, posters, roundtables,
etc should be no more that one side of A4 (approx 300 words).
Proposals for larger sessions, such as symposium or workshops may be
up to 2 sides of A4 (approx 600 words). We anticipate a standard
allocation of 20 minutes per presentation and 80 minutes per session,
however, we are open to proposals that suggest alternative uses of
time – please state this clearly in your submission.

Please include:
title; author name(s);
institutional affiliation/country; technical requirements.

Closing date for abstracts: 30 September 2008
Send submissions to: genderandeducation09@ioe.ac.uk
Further details are available at: www.ioe.ac.uk/

fps/genderconference09

Finding space for trying new things: Mentor and student teachers

As universities work harder and harder to prepare teachers who can be powerful and successful educators for/with students from increasingly diverse backgrounds, student teachers can actually find themselves in an enviable position. Sometimes mentor teachers and/or administrators and/or family members will tilt their heads and raise their eyebrows at a classroom practice that doesn’t look familiar…but the student teacher can easily “blame” the craziness on their university professors “I have to do it for an assignment” is one easy way out of a politically tenuous situation…but I urge you to also add, “are you interested in seeing the books/videos/articles we’ve been reading to do this?”

Teachers are busy, and mentor teachers have taken on even more responsibilities by inviting you into their classrooms. This means that many of them don’t have lots of opportunities to read the latest research, keep up with the most recent books, or even just sit for a few hours and reconsider how they’ve done things for the past year or so.

Lots of mentor teachers accept student teachers because this is an opportunity to engage with ideas promoted by local universities…so give it a try, and if your mentor teacher is receptive and enthusiastic, you may have just found a fabulous collaborator to work through some new practices.

Some “new” things students have been trying in my course this semester:

Critical literacy practices

Invitations

I’d love to hear how student teachers have been/continue to negotiate the “disconnect” between current classroom practices and their attempts to insert critically-focused practices that may not be familiar to teachers/students/families/administrators

Outsourcing

We can laugh at this satirical commentary on the burden of long work days, the cost of day care, and the potential for outsourcing child care to countries like India. Of course, I know all too well the student who sat in my office yesterday afternoon and told me that his father’s assembly line job disappeared after 23 years (along with the pension he would have earned in two more). When I think of real people pushed to the limit, this comedy begins to have teeth that bite back, and I’m reminded of Jonathan’s Swift’s A Modest Proposal. How can these satirical texts help us critically analyze policies that affect our loved ones? Watch the clip from The Onion.