Community Works Journal: Featured Essays

FEATURED ESSAYS

	FEATURED ESSAY The Essence of Social Learning: From Classroom to Community BY SARAH ANDERSON Middle school students are social animals. Adolescence is a time when we develop a keen sense of self-awareness and an intense interest in other people. Since most 13 and 14-year olds are more passionate about each other than anything else, and since their brains are really geared towards social development, this is the basis of my classroom. Before all else, we practice how to treat each other well and how to share ourselves honestly and openly. read more
	EVENTS—PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Summer Opportunities and More! SPACE IS LIMITED Don't miss Community Works Institute's annual series of professional development events for 2013. Limited space exists for CWI's Summer EAST and WEST Institutes on Service-Learning. Join with educators from across the U.S. and around the world for a week of learning, exploration, and practical curriculum design. A perfect way for individual educators and teams to deepen their use of service-learning and sustainability, both in the classroom and program wide. These are best practice based events and appropriate for K-16 and community educators, and administrators. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Gaokao Cowboy: How National Examinations Impact Student Development By STUART GRAUER The exams we use to evaluate our school children have the power to shape not only a nation’s future, but the character and development of the children who take them. Who sets this agenda? This essay deliberates the changing landscapes of national testing in the United States and China , and the conflicts inherent when student learning, patterns of engagement, evaluation and placement are focused fundamentally on high stakes, standardized exams. Is it conceivable that nearly one billion of the world’s students are educationally headed down and unintended track? read more
	The Price of an Italian Grilled Cheese By HANNAH BRISTOL Growing up outside Washington, D.C., Hannah Bristol has long been fascinated by the power of people to promote political change. As a student of Environmental Policy at Middlebury College, she is working to educate and build momentum around climate justice issues with Sunday Night Group and other environmental organizations on campus. She has also organized with the Obama campaign as a Field Organizer and with SustainUS, a youth non-profit working to advance sustainable development. read more
	FEATURED ESSAY Perspective-Taking as a Tool for Building Democratic Societies By JOSE CALDERON, Professor of Sociology and Chicano studies, Pitzer College The way we connect our classrooms to our communities can truly affect whether our teaching and learning practices advance a more diverse, socially just, and democratic culture. Providing time for students to learn about the professor's life and for the professor to conversely learn about the lives of students is essential to building students' capacity for perspective-taking. To succeed in fostering this capacity, faculty need to create environments where students are comfortable questioning the perspectives of others. read more
	TRANSLATING EXPERIENCE Breaking Routine By SVEA ANDERSON After two days of a guest teacher, my students had forgotten all the classroom rules and how to sit still for two minutes. My plan of telling the tales of my wondrous time at the conference was swapped with revisiting what a fourth grader looks like, and trying to figure out what they had done academically and what still needed to be completed to move on with the new weeks’ curriculum. Alas. It is the plight of the classroom teacher. Typically it is easier to go to school sick as a dog that write sub plans and deal with the aftermath of your absence. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION From High Winterages to Haute Cuisine in the Blink of an Eye By DAVID SOBEL Swooping down the far side toward Slievecarran, we stopped at an abandoned cottage. We shuffled through the broken glass and wall board, imagined a family of 8 or 10 packed into two small bedrooms, huddled around the meager heat from a peat fire, tired after the senseless work of constructing a famine road. This living historical record of recent history and the raft of ancient artifacts of portal tombs, towers, ringforts, abbeys and fire rings is another unique Burren feature. It’s as if all of Irish history was boiled down and concentrated into an historical gumbo-- so near at hand and yet reaching so far back into history. read more
	FEATURED REFLECTION Vesting Learners, Facilitating Voice By IYAUNNA TOWERY-AJIDUAH, M.Ed. I remember the night before the first day of the Institute I could not sleep. I had gotten this anxious feeling, the feeling that one might get when they knew something was about to happen. I really did not know exactly what to expect. Honestly, what could really happen in just a week's time? Well, I can now say that a lot can happen: inspiration; intensity; purpose; and transformation. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Small Schools: The Myths, Reality, and Potential of Small Schools By STUART GRAUER and CHRISTINA RYAN Like many of our cities, the large school model had evolved very gradually and was not the result of a set plan, and so no one could state a single place or point in time where a threshold had been crossed and the old ways were not working. It had been more like watching a beautiful tree grow; we could discern nothing but the seasons until it came to pass that our tree was not at all what it had been, buckling the sidewalk and over-shadowing the once-sunny garden, spreading limbs that could hardy support themselves, or couldn’t. But, of course, we never see a tree growing. read more
	THE ECOLOGY OF TEACHING Learning By Hand By HECTOR J. VILA, PhD The academic's hands have always intrigued me because they pose a problem: these soft, subtle hands, meant for turning pages, not digging ditches, have turned civilizations on their heads, named things, classified others, and in fact define what is evolving and how; they label progress; they determine right and wrong; they convict. Pardon. And they wash their hands of things they don't want to see. Such soft hands have so much authority. This troubles me. Can delicate hands teach? read more
	FEATURED REFLECTION Education through Restoration: Creating Meaningful Service-Learning Projects in the Parks By Marijke Hecht When she mentioned that her kids need to perform community service and asked if there was anything they could do in the parks my answer was a resounding "Yes!“ but with a twist. I said we had lots of opportunities for youth service projects in the parks, but that we aim to have our programs go beyond service to service-learning. She was clutching her coffee (not a morning person, perhaps) and looked at me with a quizzical what's the difference? expression. read more
	PROFESSIONAL LEARNING Gathering For Purpose By JOE BROOKS The experiences of our colleagues in the classroom strongly suggest that we are not living in a world where scatterings of educators in different buildings with shared teaching values can easily survive intact on their own, not to mention thrive. Teachers need experiences that gather and share collective wisdom, evolving models of success. The professional experience that inspires or rekindles the personal must somehow be at the core of what we do. read more
	TRANSLATING EXPERIENCE Reflections from the Beginning By SVEA ANDERSON I have indeed come a long way from the innocent newbie who got off the plane in India and never looked back. I have traveled the educational highway and have stopped along the way to refuel, to add more air to my tires, to become more confident in the direction I am heading. Those early days of teaching, when it was new and exciting and I felt that could do anything, aren’t really that far away or even out of reach. Teachers need to remember what it is that they love about the profession and embrace it. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education By DAVID SOBEL What contributes to the development of environmental values in adults. What happened in the childhoods of environmentalists, some researchers have asked, to make them grow up with strong ecological values? Louise Chawla of Kentucky State University found an intriguing pattern. Most environmentalists attributed their commitment to a combination of two sources, "many hours spent outdoors in a keenly remembered wild or semi-wild place in childhood or adolescence, and an adult who taught respect for nature." read more
	FEATURED ESSAY Toward a More Humanistic World: The Role of Educational Institutions By STEFANOS GIALAMAS, Ph.D. American Community School of Athens Developing a more humanistic world requires that the great educational institutions of the future will not be more of the same as defined today. They will be the ones preparing young people to serve humanity. Effective schools will be those that are proactive. If they can teach and inspire students to develop the wisdom to transform static academic knowledge into social, ethical, economic, environmental intelligence then the sustainability of quality of life can be greatly improved for people across the globe. read more
	THE ECOLOGY OF TEACHING On Being: Something Grand and Strong By HECTOR J. VILA, PhD I always claimed to be misunderstood, not because I'm comparing myself to Pythagoras or Socrates, say, or even Emerson himself—that would be too daunting; rather, my misunderstanding with the world comes about because I refuse to settle and be inhabited by the conditions I find myself in. Instead, I have always chosen to abandon these, to leave these constructions behind, as just that, constructions, and abandon myself to my instincts, my sense of what Rosseau says is the truth I find in my eyes. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Meet Me on the Corner of the Green and Digital By STUART R. GRAUER, Ed.D. With due appreciation for the amazing technology connecting our global village, hardly a thought is given to the isolation of all those digitally enhanced brains walking around our schools and neighborhoods. In schools across the country, textbooks are being replaced by digital textbooks, and the next iteration will surely deliver apps that students can use to click right in to their books. Again, this is amazing. And probably those big schoolbook crates the kids all carted to school every day throughout the first decade of the new millennium are not going to be missed. But what will be missed? read more

	FEATURED ESSAY Service-Learning and Institutional Leadership: The View of a President By WILLIAM V. FLORES I learned my core values from my parents and from my aunt, all of whom shaped and influenced my sense of purpose and leadership. Each prodded me in their own way to move beyond my comfort zone to explore new things. Each provided personal examples of moral leadership that ultimately shaped my development. Like many of my generation, I was the first in my family to attend college. When I reflect on why I continued on to higher education, I attribute it specifically to my parents. The turning point for me was in third grade. read more
	FEATURED ESSAY The Ecology of Teaching: Breaking Out of the Factory Model By HECTOR J. VILA, PhD Of course, citizens have to be productive and engage the world creatively, but this is not the first criteria. There are other requirements. In order for education to be productive—produce productive individuals, it must preserve the health and welfare of teachers and, in so doing, it must sustain students in the process. For this to happen, teachers must know themselves well, must have a full understanding of their students, and, just as significant, teachers must have a complete understanding of the context in which the teaching and learning happens. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Single Handing It: Finding Our Way In An Age Of Fear By STUART GRAUER, Ed.D. I meet many parents who show low tolerance for a tough journey, for an open-ended journey, or for watching their children finding their own way. Millennial parents believe it is their responsibility to keep their children headed on a straight and narrow tunnel, or as I call it, "the race to the cubicle." A growing number of Ivy League admissions officers complain that the intellectually sensitive and supposed "best and brightest" (i.e., highest scoring) among our children have become masters of compliance and tunnel vision. read more
	LETTER FROM NORMAL Seeds of Change By JAMI SPENCER I invited a local, organic family farmer to speak to us about his sustainable practices. His experience, food values, success and photo tour of the farm left those in the room filled with a profound respect. Students wrote in reflective journal assignments that they were excited to plant their first seeds in our upcoming garden project. The farmer's visit was a motivational illustration of potential answers to the food problems that frustrated my low-income community college students, but for which they previously saw no alternative solution. read more
	FEATURED ESSAY The Emotional Life of Teachers By Hector J. Vila The work of a teacher should rejuvenate all of us that are teachers. Teaching requires that one's entire being be present. Roland Barthes, for instance, in his "Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers," tells us that "...language is always a matter of force, to speak is to exercise a will for power; in the realm of speech there is no innocence, no safety." The teacher, upon walking into the classroom, is well aware of this—no safety, no innocence. It is definitely a will for power. How do we interpret power in the classroom? What is the location of power in this quite sensual, moving and intensely frightening sphere called the classroom? read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Succotash and Standardized Teaching By STUART GRAUER, Ed.D. Like a freight train taking on John Henry, The No Child Left Behind Act and national teaching standards set by The Race to the Top rolled over local educational practices through the first decade of the new millennium. It would no doubt stun our founding fathers that, eventually, in the new millennium, states that adopted the national standards would win points in the competition for a share of the billions of dollars to be awarded to the most compliant among them. read more
	FEATURED ESSAY The Soul of a Teacher By CYNTHIA HUGHES It's our job to help kids learn to read and to write, to learn math and spelling conventions, to give them ways to discover their thinking and to find the best home for their unique talents and abilities. Somewhere in all of that lies the soul—the part of each of us that can't be measured with a rubric, scale or test score. The unique experience of each person's interactions with each other, each learning opportunity, and each perception. We simply cannot know that by testing it. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Small Versus Large Schools: The Truth About Equity, Cost, and Diversity of Programming By STUART R. GRAUER, Ed.D. Why do we keep the focus on building gigantic schools when we now have over 30 years of promising small schools data? Here is one big reason the data are ignored: cultural expectations about high school are deeply embedded. Powerful and often compelling myths about schooling tend to govern our collective assumptions about normalcy, and these myths have silently, steadfastly advanced the move to larger, more consolidated schools. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Burning Brush: Playing with Fire By DAVID SOBEL The glad animal play of childhood, the complete immersive quality, is one of the elixirs of life and also one of the indispensable proteins that build a sturdy adult soul. Middle childhood offers a window of opportunity to have these experiences, and if a child misses that opportunity, the quality of immersion is less accessible later in life. When, as adults, we sink into a novel or get lost in creative work or tussle with new ideas or improvise on the job, we're using the skills that were roughed in during childhood play. read more
	LETTER FROM NORMAL The Art of Knowing and How We Get There In a course where service projects will be a highlight and a requirement, it is vital that I work on a sense of community from day one. To feel part of a community, we must first know each other by name, and second know something about one another. I went into this semester with high hopes for the service project, anticipating it as the pivotal moment of community development. But I learned that sometimes, it is the simplest of teaching strategies, those â€œduhâ€ ideas, that mean the most. read more
	FEATURED REFLECTION Moving Beyond the Walls in Los Angeles By PAULA COHEN At CWI's Summer WEST, I met like minded educators who could see beyond the limitations, who thought outside the box, who were willing to ask big questions and delve deep into the answers. It felt like coming home. When we talk about resiliency in young people, feeling like a part of something important and valuable is a crucial piece. Our school has been going through many of the tumultuous transitions that all public schools are going through. read more
	LETTER FROM NORMAL Crossroads in the Heartland By JAMI SPENCER Sometimes, old school is better school. Hands-on, apprenticeship-style learning beats filling in bubbles any day. Passing down wisdom about medicinal herbs and edible weeds will sustain longer than instructions on how to use that new smart phone that is sure to be outdated in a few months. I want to share the importance of sustainability with my students by providing them with place-based service-learning projects that speak for themselves. read more
	LEARNING TO LOVE EDUCATION AGAIN Chief Tayuk, Guy the Bear Hunter, and Me How Elder Wisdom is Rebalancing School By STUART GRAUER, Ed.D. Elders here had somehow engaged the youth in a forgotten perigee to prompt not just a rediscovery of knowledge, but a renewal of ritual people have always relied on to survive in the sometimes forbidding and incomprehensible world of adolescence. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Swimming Upstream Against the Current: Changing the School Improvement Paradigm By DAVID SOBEL This story captures one of those ineffable aspects of what makes a good teacher and school leader, and what leads to constructive school change. The leader genuinely respects each child and knows that each parent and family can contribute to enhancing the learning environment of the school. The school leader reaches out to find community partners, connects parents with social services, creates opportunities for parents and teachers to learn together. read more
	FEATURED ESSAY The Precarious Teen Years and the Honor of Becoming a Blessing By MARITA PRANDONI Being invited into my daughter's middle school was less invasive than actively getting into her mix. But the mornings I was there, she would keenly avoid being seen with me, and would rush past the math classroom on her way to her next class. Without imposing on her, I got to see firsthand how teachers of teens invest hope and compassion in their students, with complete understanding of their tumultuous state. read more
	EDUCATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY Reflections on the What, Why and How of Education for Sustainability By KIM RAKOW BERNIER When I work with educators I often start with a visioning exercise. I ask them to respond to the statement, "What do you think the world will look like in 50 years?" The responses to this question are overwhelmingly negative. Before allowing the audience to wallow for too long in the depressing nature of the dystopia they've just imagined, I ask a slightly different question. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Childtime By CHRISTIAN McEWEN Adults tend to think of nature in terms of "the great outdoors." They crave distant, glittering vistas, snow-capped mountains, broad, far-reaching valleys. Children are less particular. A hedge, a ditch, a tiny knoll, will give them all the countryside they need. Audre Lorde spoke in passionate terms about a pocket park in Harlem, close to where she lived as a young girl, "That place, the green, the trees, and the water, formed my forest of Arden." It was the only green place she ever saw. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Everyone Ought to Have a Ditch By DAVID SOBEL I spend a lot of time these days talking with teachers, foundation directors, environmental educators, and evaluators about how to most effectively shape environmental stewardship behavior. The $64,000 question is what's the most effective way to educate children who will grow up to behave in environmentally responsible ways? What kinds of learning, or what kinds of experience will most likely shape young adults who want to protect the environment? read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Forts, Land Trusts and Conservation Behavior By CHRISTINA OLIVA and DAVID SOBEL She, like many others, spent countless hours working on, playing in and defending her fort-home. Fort-building was an important part of childhood for many of us growing up in the 50's, 60's and 70's if we had access to safe play areas and parents who encouraged independent play in the natural world. It is a form of childhood play that extends back to our hunting and gathering heritage. read more
	COMMUNITY BUILDING A Sisterhood of Solace and Compassion: Community Building In and Out of the Classroom By TERRI GOMEZ, SANDRA POSEY, ESTELA BALLON, CHRISTINA CHAVEZ We left a meeting with a University administrator discouraged. Now standing in the elevator, the doors opened a few floors down and two women on the janitorial crew walked in. Two Latinas, tousled hair pulled up and away from their faces, stood at the front of the elevator, wearing aprons, with mops and trash bags in hand. We stood there behind them with briefcases, laptops and blazers. In the short ride to the ground floor, we contemplated the social space that existed between us. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Return of the Redwings By DAVID SOBEL We rambled around campus. It was early March, the snows were slowly receding and, lo and behold, down there on the road from the freshman dorms to the soccer fields there was a small pond, surrounded by a marshy meadow, with a border of eight to ten foot shrubs around it. Iâ€™d passed it a hundred times and never given it a second glance. read more
	ESSAYâ€”SERVICE AND SUSTAINABILITY Becoming More Human, Building a Better World By ERIC HARTMAN What is it all about? Why engage in service-learning and place-based education, if not to improve ourselves and to improve the world around us? This question "how do individuals fit within and contribute to broader community?" has been driving liberal education, community education, and philosophy for quite literally hundreds of years. read more
	OF PLACE AND EDUCATION Local Diversity By DAVID SOBEL Whether it's third grade or middle school science, or teacher education at the graduate level, the tone of the pedagogy is set on the first day of school. The cultural norms are launched, the core values exposed. read more
	EDUCATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY Life-Changing Experiences at Twenty Below By JENNIFER CIRILLO We were hungry for knowledge and became consumed with the task of learning from the land and the people who have inhabited it. We began to form our own opinions as "energy users"”what were the major issues, how might they be addressed and what would the impacts be on the communities? read more