Tag: Philadelphia

6/365 You Could Build an Entire Curriculum Around this Page

hoodA bit ago, the City of Philadelphia updated its city map to include crime reports by location. Click on the map, zoom in, and you can see who’s been breaking the law near your house.

Naturally, I clicked through to see what nefarious activities have been going on in my old neighborhoods as of late. It turns out it’s not a bad thing I moved away.

After congratulating myself on moving away from a less-than-ideal neighborhood, I started considering the implications of maps and their role in classrooms. When I started teaching 8th grade in FL a decade ago, one of our first PD meetings focused on the fact that 8th-grade students did poorly on charts, maps and graphs on the annual state test. They just didn’t get them. As a language arts teacher, I attempted to bring more of these artifacts into my curriculum – dutifully doing my part to up the scores – but it was a difficult match to make.

Looking at Philly’s map now, though, I see an opportunity. Tonight, Bud Hunt and I were discussing the lack of need for textbooks in classrooms. Maps like Philly’s seem a great replacement. With a well-made map and an Internet connection, there’s no end to the number of questions, answers, and questions again students and teachers could work through in any class in the schedule.

“Us?” teachers could say, “Oh, we’ve got a map-based curriculum.”

History, math, science, English – all the core subjects are waiting for questions to be asked and answers to be unearthed in a map like this.

What would you do with it?

(Here’s a hint.)

Things I Know 162 of 365: Philly’s thrown a lot at me

I love Philadelphia. I was shocked at what a great city this is. For me, it is the cat’s pajamas. I love everything about it. I love where I live. I love the people. I have been met with such kindness and affection here.

– George Dzundza

The night of our housewarming party for my current home, someone broke in and stole my Wii.

A few months later, my roommate and I were walking our dogs and someone rolled by in an SUV and shot us with paintballs.

Not long after that, I was on a first date, waiting to cross a street and someone in a turning car threw and hit me with a half-eaten cheesesteak.

Today, sitting on the steps of City Hall, waiting for groups of students on a scavenger hunt, I was spat on by a half-naked homeless man whose indiscernible ramblings led me to believe he was also mentally unstable. (He wasn’t the first homeless person in Philadelphia to spit on me.)

Philadelphia has literally and figuratively thrown quite a bit at me.

Aside from the time a homeless man punched me in the face in Denver, when I refused his request for $20, I’ve never actually felt assaulted by a city.

While none of these incidents has defined my time in Philadelphia, they’ve collectively shaped my perception of the city.

I’ve made friends here I will keep for the rest of my life. They have supported me, helped me grow and welcomed me into their lives.

I’ve taught at a school like no other I could hope for. It’s asked me to experiment, learn, grow and reconsider what I believe.

Still, someone threw food at me – food they’d eaten part of.

The thing that makes me wonder and that I can’t explain logically or understand about these moments is my role in them.

For the positives, those things I’ll treasure and count as the best pieces of Philadelphia, I was an active participant. In my teaching and my friendships, I sought out experiences and people with whom I could connect and learn.

When I was robbed or paintballed, I was a passive participant. These were things done to me. I posted no sign daring people to enter our house and take my stuff. I wasn’t yelling obscenities at the SUV as it rolled by. I was just there.

This is what’s made it difficult for me to fall in love with Philadelphia, to let down my guard the way I did in Sarasota or Normal.

Something is angry or unhappy about Philadelphia. Were it a friend seeking advice, I’d recommend Philadelphia get itself into therapy before starting a relationship.

“You’ve a lot of great qualities,” I’d say, “There are a million reasons people could fall in love with you. I’m just worried you’re angry about something and haven’t come to terms with it.”

I realize this is my experience. I fully own that these events are not representative of the entire city.

My time here has been a net good by far. Not one of these events warranted its own post in this space. I don’t dwell on them daily. In fact, I don’t remember them until another something awful occurs. I’ll probably never write about these events again.

Still, these things happened.

More than one person spat on me without my ever having said a word to them.

That’s not ok.

Things I Know 148 of 365: I have an idea to save Philadelphia’s kindergarteners

Give a year. Change the world.

– City Year

How about we don’t cut full-day kindergarten?

Instead, what if we saved money, innovated the system and began a trend of civic responsibility for young adults in Philadelphia that could serve as the national model.

I’m as big a fan of scare tactics as the next person, but what if the School District of Philadelphia worked to look more like a leader in the time of fiscal crisis, rather than a college freshman signing up for every credit card offer to arrive in the mail?

Cutting half-day kindergarten is a bad idea. It sounds inherently bad when you say it aloud to those with no obvious ties to education.

Then add to that to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s report that we know full-day kindergarten is better:

Research has shown that children in full-day kindergarten demonstrated 40 percent greater proficiency in language skills than half-day kids, said Walter Gilliam, an expert on early-childhood education at the Yale University School of Medicine.

Combining clinical evidence with that feeling deep in your gut should be all you need to realize cutting full-day kindergarten is a bad idea.

This still leaves the shortfall of $51 million as a result of Gov. Corbett’s elimination of a $254 million blacken grant.

Here’s where the innovation comes in.

We cut Grade 12.

To those seniors who have earned enough credits to graduate and/or passed the state standardized test, we allow for the opting out of G12.

Though I couldn’t locate exact numbers by grade, the School District of Philadelphia reports 44,773 students in its high schools.

According to School Matters, SDP has a total per pupil expenditure of $12,738.

Now, if 5,000 of the roughly 45,000 high school students in Philadelphia opted out of their senior year, it would save the district $63,690,000 – almost $12.7 million more than the block grant cuts.

I get that the math is hypothetical, but bear with me.

Not every student is ready for college at the end of their senior year. Even fewer will be ready at the end of their junior years.

Enter the gap year.

Shown to provide students will helpful life experiences as well as a sense of direction once they enter college, a gap year between high school and college would benefit Philadelphia students.

Rather than setting students free to wander aimlessly for that year, the SDP could partner with AmeriCorps, City Year and other organizations to help place Philadelphia graduates around the city in jobs that will invest their time in improving Philadelphia.

The standard City Year stipend would apply, though I’m certain City Year hasn’t the budget for a sudden influx of volunteers.

The SDP would need to show a commitment to sustainable change and invest the money saved by the opt-out program into helping to pay for volunteer stipends.

Ideally, those same graduates would be placed in kindergarten classrooms around the city, helping to reduce student:teacher ratios, providing successful role models and perhaps inspiring more students to move into the teaching profession.

Once students completed their one-year commitment, they would be eligible for the AmeriCorp Education Award to help pay for college tuition.

The idea is admittedly imperfect.

It is not, however, impossible.

It could save full-day kindergarten, reduce costs to the school district, move graduates to invest their time in their city and help lessen the cost of college for Philadelphia graduates.

As an added benefit, such a move could turn the negative press the district’s received for proposing bad policies for children into positive press for creating positive, community-enriching change.

I’ve got potential stuck in my craw

Surfing trash television tonight, I accidentally landed on a rebroadcast of the School District of Philadelphia School Reform Commission’s January 21 meeting. It’s the sort of thing that makes one long for TiVo.

The Commish was patting its collective back for updating SDP’s “Declaration of Education.” The way these people were carrying on, you’d have thought it was the other declaration. At one point, Chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn actually attempted to compare the two.

I’d not heard of the Declaration of Education, which surprised me given the District’s usually crackerjack communications department. Curious, I went looking. And, I found it.

The thing that hit?

We believe all children can reach their learning potential and that the achievement gap can be eliminated.

Now, I had taken potential to be an ever-moving goal, furthered by each productive step one took toward it. I’ll never reach my potential because I’m always building on what I can be. I’ll always have more potential.

According to the Commish, though, we’re going to get kids a whole lot closer to self-actualization than Maslow ever expected. I wonder what that moment looks like, “Well, Johnny, I know you’re in sixth grade, but our tests show you’ve reached your learning potential. Scurry along, now. Good luck.”

No, exactly.

What kind of interesting person tells people she’s reached her learning potential? “Yeah, I finished the latest Doris Kearns Goodwin and realized I’d reached my learning potential. It’s a shame too, I really enjoyed reading.”

I know this can be boiled down to semantics, and the easy counter-argument is that this really doesn’t matter. But that only saddens me more. This is our Declaration of Education – a document wherein we establish what we believe and want for the education of those entrusted to us. No better place exists for us to carefully craft a message to inspire and invigorate a sleeping profession.

Let the document read:

We believe all children can build upon their potential and achieve more than they ever dreamed possible.

If we’re making declarations, let’s not ignore the pursuit.