posted by Kyla Ryman ‘92/’97, educational coach and consultant

As a person who has always been interested in how children learn and the many possibilities for how children learn and grow to be productive adults, I am looking to explore all forms of alternative education. Right now I am involved with a homeschooling community in Brooklyn which is doing interesting work. I am particularly interested in how educators (such as myself) could be supportive, coach, or assist people to ask the important questions as they think about how best to educate their own children.

What makes my experience as a Bank Street trained teacher, with fifteen years of experience with children professionally and two of my own children, helpful to people who are choosing to opt out of any form of formal schooling. How do they choose what to do every day? Are they clear that they are not just rejecting something for their family, but also embracing something more positive in the process? Are the old arguments against homeschooling valid in a city like NYC where there are plenty of resources and opportunities so rich in educational value, that just walking down the street can be educational. Where every moment being involved in activities is an explosive social interaction with the world in its kaleidoscope of cultures, economic realities, and personalities.

I often find that when I speak to my peers they dismiss the idea of homeschooling out of hand. I find that interesting. Just like in anything, we carry our own stereotypes about groups. For example, parents may homeschool their children for religious reasons; the people I am involved with have very different motivations. They happen to be creative, intellectual, and thoughtful people who have a gut instinct about what they want for their children and did not find those options in their neighborhoods. They are progressive in nature, at a time when schools are moving away from progressive education (I think) towards more high-pressured academic curricula.

I would love to communicate with others who are involved with or interested in this kind of education…

Kyla Ryman is now working on a set of very early emergent readers for families who are working with their children at home and do not have access to trade books. She taught in the NYC public schools for over eleven years before leaving to have her second son. Kyla has a masters in early childhood education and one in reading, both from Bank Street, and has always been interested in the many ways we “school” our children and why, having attended both traditional public and alternative public schools.

posted by Rachel Theilheimer ‘74, chair of teacher education at BMCC/CUNY

Virginia Casper (Bank Street Graduate School faculty member) and I recently wrote and edited Early Childhood Education: Learning Together, an introductory textbook for early childhood students. We had support from Bank Street’s Publications and Media division and lots of input from early childhood colleagues. McGraw-Hill published it in November 2009.

About four years ago, McGraw-Hill approached Bank Street for an introductory ECE book. Virginia and I took that as a challenge to translate the Developmental Interaction Approach into action. Of course, we defined DIA in several places. Here’s a discussion of DIA from chapter 7 of the book:

Developmental interaction as it was formulated at Bank Street reflects the beliefs that as children grow and develop, their thoughts and emotions work together and that children learn from engaging with the world. The approach informs teachers about children through a theoretical framework, rather than prescribing a particular way to teach. Democratic ideas influence the teacher’s decisions about content, practices, and the social and physical environment. Developmental interaction regards the young child as a maker of meaning who is actively engaged in making sense of the world. Teachers help children expand their understanding of themselves and their surroundings through extensive curriculum that builds on the children’s questions and concerns while teachers thoughtfully add their own questions to enrich and deepen the children’s inquiry.

Based on principles of development and interaction, school is a place to promote competence in all areas of children’s lives and help them both take charge of their learning and work with others. It is an active community connected to the social world, not an isolated place for learning lessons. This means that the school shares responsibility and power with children’s families and neighborhood institutions.

Defining DIA was tricky, because in some ways it is easier to say what it is not (prescriptive, one-size fits all, authoritarian, isolated from real life) than what it is, although it very definitely represents certain values.

The real issue for us, though, was to write a text that was not prescriptive, while holding on to values of democracy, social justice, and deep respect for children – their feelings as well as their intellects. We tried to do that by providing discussions and examples of how teachers introduce issues of social justice in their classes. We introduced discussions and examples of family partnerships and the ways in which teachers can learn about children and their cultures through relationships with families. Whenever possible, we used stories and questions that turn the reader to herself to reflect and apply the topic at hand to her own experiences and points of view.

To what degree did we succeed? What should we be thinking about as we anticipate the possibility of a second edition? We turn to the extended Bank Street community for feedback. See the book in McGraw Hill’s catalog. See an interview with Virginia and me about the book at http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/news/news.jsp?id=2104.

Rachel graduated from Bank Street in 1974 and is currently the Chair of Teacher Education at Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY, where she teaches early childhood courses.  As you now know, she is co-author, with Virginia Casper, of Early Childhood Education: Learning Together.

posted by Jim Clay ‘88, director of a Washington DC Quaker preschool

Just this past December, I was part of a study tour of the Municipal Infant Toddler Programs and Preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy.  I was a part of a Bank Street College sponsored group.  In Italy I met Jane Racoosin (BSC ’92 & ’97), director, along with two of the teachers, Yolanda Ramos (BSC ‘07) & Jeanne, from Beginnings, A Toddler Program located in Gramercy Park in Manhattan.  Yesterday I had an opportunity to tour Beginnings. There are five grads from Bank Street and one teacher currently there!

My first question “how much of the Reggio Emilia approach do you put in place in your school?” was answered within the first minutes of my visit.  It is clear that the environment at Beginnings is designed to be beautiful – I saw spools of threads arranged in gradated shades of red and pink.  I photographed Bell jars each half full of a colored liquid lined in a row for children to notice and observe.  The stair railings and benches were proof that children were exploring weaving – colored ribbons were interwoven everywhere.  This weaving project is one that clearly involved and continues to involve the children.  At least part of the beauty comes from the materials.  At Reggio, they say that children have a right to a beautiful and well-organized environment.  As in the Remedia recycling Center in Reggio, Beginnings has dedicated an entire floor of their building to collecting and sorting a vast array of recycled materials for use in the classroom.  Their calendar for the year gives “before” and “after” illustrations of how these colorful and bright materials are used by children in the school.

Upon further inspection, I began to see the small print, figuratively speaking – the documentation throughout the program.  Jane explained to me how teachers are encouraged to document based upon observations of children, artifacts of their work that teachers have collected (photos, copies of work, for example), and analysis of the two.  (This approach dovetails nicely with Bank Street’s focus on observation and documentation.)  The documentation need not illustrated a completed process, but show work in progress – documentation during the journey.  What are the children learning?  What do they want to learn?  How can we assist their exploration?

At Reggio you hear a lot about schools having a dialogue with the local area.  While at Beginnings, I saw how one group is exploring social life of the swans at Prospect Park, based upon a spark of an idea from a New York Times article.  Throughout the school the children go to the Green Market at Union Square to purchase food for their snacks, creating a relationship with some of the vendors.  In their atelier they even constructed a wagon to cart the food home each week!  I thought of Esther Rosenfeld’s class at Bank Street on curriculum supervision in which a group of us stood in the median of Broadway at 112^th and devised a curriculum based upon what we could see from that vantage point.

None of this happens without a huge commitment to teacher education.  The director explained to me that for nearly 20 years, resources have been dedicated to extensive training of teachers in the Reggio philosophy and approach and how that can be translated into urban New York City.  I also noted that at least some of the teachers have a degree from Bank Street College as well.

It would be interesting to explore more about the interface between the Bank Street and the Reggio approaches.  Their literature acknowledges their debt to John Dewey.  That’s a start.

Jim Clay has been the director of School for Friends, a Quaker preschool in downtown Washington DC, since 1984. He regularly leads workshops on family diversity, administration, and staff development at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).  Jim is the Secretary for BSCAA’s Executive Committee.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Time: 6:00 PM
Location: The Evelyn Rome and Daniel Tabas Auditorium
Address: Bank Street College of Education, 610 West 112th Street, New York City

The Honorees are:

• Claudine K. Brown, Program Director, Arts and Culture, the Nathan Cummings Foundation
• Sandye Poitier Johnson, Principal, Thurgood Marshall Academy, Harlem
• Lee Kogan, Curator Emeritus, American Folk Art Museum
• Katy O’Donnell, Bank Street Graduate Faculty

RSVP: Lreing@bankstreet.edu or call 212-961-3332

posted by Keith Berman ‘03, founder/president of Options for College and Bank Street’s LinkedIn moderator

From personal experience… Three weeks after I received an introductory e-mail from someone overseas on LinkedIn who I had never met, and who only found me through my profile, I was on a plane to Delhi, and then returned the next year to train the counselors at The Princeton Review–India. In short, it works!

LinkedIn is not a social networking site, although it predates Facebook and MySpace, and had some of the same people start it. It is a place to meet colleagues, share contacts, and find/post jobs. It is a place to talk about school-related work, talks you are giving or seeing, and share articles. It is currently filled with 120 active Bank Street alumni and needs you, too! 55,000,000 professionals use LinkedIn.

Within LinkedIn, there is Group called Bank Street College of Education Alumni. After you open your account, you should search for Bank Street College of Education Alumni under “Groups” at the top. Once you are approved for the group, you will have access to a discussion platform where you can post jobs for your organization, which will only be seen by Bank Street alumni group members, or even just post something about yourself and what you are looking for if you want to switch schools or find a new type of work within the Bank Street network. It is so nice not to have to ask someone if they know who John Dewey was before you interview them!

You will also know when the next BSCAA events are (the Man Ray exhibit sold out very quickly, so act fast if space is limited), what reunions are next, and even how to make donations to the part of Bank Street you want to help most.

Thank you to all who have joined. And, if you have any questions, please contact Keith Berman at kberman@optionsforcollege.com. Welcome!

Keith Berman is a Certified Educational Planner and the President of Options for College, Inc., which gets the best practices for applying and transitioning to college into the hands of those who need them.  He just finished a book for guidance counselors called Maximum Access, was quoted in US News and World Report America’s Best Colleges in both 2009 and 2010, and created and runs the Bank Street College of Education Alumni group on LinkedIn.

posted by Joan Goldstein ‘67, sociologist and educator

When Princeton TV30 Public Access invited me to host and produce my own show, I was excited about the idea of creating a public forum on social issues that would reflect both national and local concerns. I decided to call the show “Back Story with Joan Goldstein,” and my very first show focused on the healthcare debate. It was the fall of 2009 and I had recently attended a Town Hall meeting in Middletown, New Jersey held by Congressman Rush Holt; the conflicts I had observed were intense. On the show in October, my invited guest was Barry Rabner, President and CEO of the Princeton Healthcare System, and he was an excellent and knowledgeable guest. The station provided me with a round wooden table on the set, in the style of “Charlie Rose,” according to George, the station manager. I was off and running. This very first show was voted “Show of the Week.”

For my second show, I decided to focus on education – more specifically, community college education – and invited current students in my Social Problems course to join in. I have been teaching Sociology at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, New Jersey for the past 16 years. As a 1967 graduate of Bank Street College, I have learned to apply the concepts of progressive education to this level of learning, and it has proved quite exciting. My guests were self-selected members of my two sections. Out of 63 students, four wonderful and diverse students were able to commit the time to tape the show and then join me as my guests for pizza at Princeton’s famous Conti’s afterwards. George has provided this website for viewing that show: www.vimeo.com/7642654.

Working with students in a Chinese school

I had decided to look at the stereotypes applied to community colleges and their students based on the recent TV series titled “Community.” Not only is the show offensive in their depiction of students and faculty, but they tend to give the wrong ideas about who does attend college and their dedication to attaining a degree. As you can view on the tape, my students hold down jobs, are highly intelligent and hard working, and have ambitions to contribute to our society as teachers and nurses. These shows were able to be viewed three times per week for over one month on TV 30, and in an arrangement with MCTV26, on the college’s station three more times per week. Some of the staff on campus who had seen the show stopped me one day to share that they had seen students around campus for years, but realized that they didn’t know anything about their lives. In 2010, I intend to have more programs on education and invite more students as guests. Everyone deserves to have their voice be heard.

Joan Goldstein, Ph.D., is a professor at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. She hosts Back Story, a monthly forum that explores current issues of the day, both national and local, with guests invited for their expertise or particular viewpoints. Her next episode was “The Future of Newspapers” with editors and publishers of local papers as guests. The show is broadcast on public access television in Princeton, NJ and also online. All of the episodes can be viewed here: www.vimeo.com/videos/search:back%20story%20with%20joan%20goldstein

posted by Ada Rosario Dolch ‘94 Principals Institute, BSCAA Vice President

To all alumni…

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”

And I pray your new year be filled with joy and peace, and may the twinkling lights of this season engulf your soul all year long.

Ada

posted by Marion Palm ‘95, Leadership in the Arts alum, writing tutor, poet and singer

I have found great satisfaction in advocating for education in my community. Sunset Park, Brooklyn is a multi-cultural and diverse community that had no high school. For decades, residents campaigned for a high school for our children, but our children were forced  to attend high school in other schools nearby. (When my own child was of high school age, I had to send him to a private school in Masbeth, Queens rather than wait for his number to come up for a specialized school. He has since graduated from a private school in St. Peter, Minnesota with 4-year scholarships and is a per diem in the Cicero School System in Chicago, Illinois, when not studying to get into Second City.)

In the budget cuts, our planned high school was cut out by Albany saying that the law did not require the city to provide more than an eighth grade education to our children. A letter I wrote to our local paper as an “outraged parent” (their words not mine), launched a unified protest by groups in our community. Together with parents, educators, and local residents, we enlisted the help of elected officials in nearby Bay Ridge and Park Slope, also we were able to enlist the help of the borough presidents of our other boroughs, and the actress Cynthia Nixon to bring attention to our cause. We called attention to our plight on the City Hall Steps in Manhattan and invited lawmakers to come to a Town Hall meeting at Community Board #7 to hear what our community needs were and see our children first hand. The children wrote a song and protested with handmade signs. We also sent busloads of school children to Albany so other lawmakers could see first-hand the faces of the children being denied a high school education near their home. The process was long and intense, with nobody giving up on getting a high school for our children in Sunset Park. To make a long story short, the new Sunset Park High School opened its doors on September 8th, 2009.

I really feel my leadership training learned at Bank Street helped me coordinate this effort on the grass roots level. I also feel my work as the director of Poets Under Glass, a writing consortium I incorporated in 1987, helped me make the contacts that helped galvanize this effort, as did my relationship with the president of my borough who selected me (with his late Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, a member of my group) as the poet to launch Brooklyn Poetry Outreach, which has an open-mic series at Barnes & Noble Booksellers Park Slope retail store. This venue encourages children to submit poetry and perform it at the series. The children receive a certificate from our borough president and their poems are listed on the Brooklyn-USA official website. We are waiting to hear the announcement for the new Poet Laureate of Brooklyn. I hope teachers in Brooklyn will encourage poetry in their schools and help their students submit poetry to Brooklyn Poetry Outreach. I don’t have any other motive for telling you about Brooklyn Poetry Outreach except that it was created by a fellow educator I respected very much and I would like to see his name honored by seeing the program continue. Have a wonderful holiday season everyone!

Marion Palm is the founder/director of Poets Under Glass, a writing workshop that has provided more than 150 workshop meetings at the Brooklyn Public Library.

posted by Linda Appleman (Guidall) Shapiro ‘81, psychotherapist and author

As a therapist, I know the importance of asking the right questions in order to help patients focus on how they’re thinking and what they’re doing to process their experiences. However, it’s often true that in everyday life a seemingly innocent, simple question can lead us to places in our brains that we wouldn’t necessarily have thought about.

The other day, I had one such “AHA!” moment with my grandson Eric.

It all started when he saw me using his family’s computer to check the number of votes I’d received that day in WELLsphere’s contest for TOP BLOGGER. I explained that I write a blog each Sunday, A PSYCHOTHERAPIST’S JOURNEY, and that so far I’m 12th in the top 20 bloggers. “That’s pretty impressive,” my not yet 9 year old grandson said.

I then went on to show him the title of some of the past blogs I’d written and I stopped when I saw the one I’d posted in September which talked primarily about his sister Sophie, entitled UNICORNS EAT STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM. He immediately proceeded to read it and even laughed at the appropriately funny places. But, then, he politely suggested that in all fairness I needed to consider writing a blog about him. Of course, I decided he was right. The question was what topic I would choose to write about.

Within seconds he suggested I discuss the new writing program instituted for the first time this year in his school. Designed to teach children how to improve their critical thinking skills, he explained that he’s learning to distinguish between a Personal Narative and an Essay.

He explained that “a personal narrative is written about a moment that something happened to you in your life (please underline the word you, grandma)… and an essay is a topic written on a subject with a particular theme.”

When I asked him to give me a sample of how his thinking is becoming more critical, he said: “Here’s how you start. First, you draw the letter T dividing a page into 2 columns. One says,”I noticed,” and the other says “I realized.”

“So,” he continued, “I noticed that we have 5 computers in our classroom at school. After noticing them, I realized that when my Mom and Dad were in third grade they didn’t have computers in their classrooms and that must have made how they learned very different from the way I learn.”

I must admit that at that point I was as impressed with the school’s new curriculum as I was with Eric’s ability to understand and explain it … he, my 3rd grade football, baseball, guitar playing grandson.

This led me to think about what I said at the start of this blog, namely how often we notice things without stopping to think about them. For instance, when we’re driving down a country lane in the north-east during these brisk autumn days and we notice that the once lush green-leafed trees of summer are now bursting forth with leaves of reds, oranges and golds … do we stop to wonder about or realize how it came to be that this seemingly magical transformation isn’t merely a part of the scenery that we’ve come to expect to see each year?

Then, too, how often do we notice things about people: the way they dress or talk, the habits they have, the passions they talk about which we may or may not share. Yet, because we want to like them or because we’re at a particularly lonely time in our lives and feel in need of friendship, we don’t take the time to realize that what we’ve noticed should tell us something, be a reminder of what’s important to us, what and whom we wish to welcome into our lives and what would serve us better to avoid.

I understand now – perhaps better than ever before – that our children and grandchildren can make us realize so many things when we take the time to talk to them and listen to what they have to say.

When asked what else he would like me to share about him, Eric said not to forget to mention that he Loves (capital “L”, grandma) all sports and has been playing all of them including: hockey, soccer, tennis, swimming, ping-pong, and air hockey for as long as he can remember.

“And, oh,” he added, “I think a good ending would be: ‘As Eric was lying on the carpet crunching away on UTZ potato chips, with his hands all greasy, we both laughed at the bag with the name UTZ written across it, wondering how it got its name.”

So, to honor Eric’s curiosity, I will end as he wished me to and ask any of you if you have noticed a bag of chips with the name UTZ, what have you realized about the origin of its name?

Here’s to noticing and realizing all that matters to you!

Linda Appleman (Guidall) Shapiro ‘81 is a psychotherapist, addictions counselor, oral historian, and author.  Her book is available at amazon.com and also as an audio book from Recorded Books Inc. (narrated by actress Suzanne Toren).  Linda shares more of her thoughts and experiences on her blog www.beyondatrauma.blogspot.com.

posted by Alisa Algava ‘08, leader of a small Hudson Valley progressive school

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

The fifth and sixth graders were working on a project together outside on the driveway earlier today. They were painting a banner with pink paint – “Kids for the Cure, Sunday 12-3pm” – and, as soon as it is dry, they are going to hang it on our front fence for everyone driving by to see. These seven kids, along with their teacher Anita, have been brainstorming, debating, compromising, and envisioning this Sunday’s event for some time now. But the amazing thing is how much more there is to this project than this weekend’s Celebration of Life, even with all of the activities they have planned. Yes, they are so excited about the music, face painting, chair massage, information table, bake sale, “StoryCorps” type recording center, and pink bracelets they designed and ordered and will be selling. And, yes, they are thrilled that they are raising money for the American Cancer Society. But why are they doing this? Really?

This morning, a good family friend of two of our students spent an hour talking with all of our 2nd-12th grade kids. Drawing on his long history as an activist, he shared with us his experiences and his vision of social activism and civil rights. He told stories (including the time he met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of what he saw and did during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War). And he talked about prejudice (how in our society we are brought up to judge other people based on appearance), communication (that how we talk to and look at each other matters), and social change (we can change ourselves, that’s the first step). I then got the chance to sit and talk with our 5th and 6th graders about this Sunday’s event…

• You’ll walk up to the porch and be greeted by me and Andrea. You’ll get a program and get sent to the information table.
• You’ll see the chair massage by Oscar’s mom.
• I printed 50 copies of a sheet on breast cancer information.
• 100% of the money is going to the American Cancer Society.
• The story table is where people can record their story about why they’re donating, a personal story of breast cancer in their life, their reasons for being at this event.
• There’s going to be music. It’s a celebration of life. So it’s going to be a party.

And then we had a conversation about social activism. I had asked how our speaker’s experiences might relate to their project. And Anita asked them if they are social activists…

• We’re not social activists yet.
• Yes, we are. We’ve already started by getting people aware. By emails and talking to people. And in two days…
• No. It’s a really small thing. We’ll only get $500 at the most, and people raise like a million.
• We are social activists because we’re socially active. We’re telling people our interests and what’s important to us.
• We want to help.
• We’re raising money.
• Social activism is the way that one person or a group of people helps the community or the world to make a difference.
• If no one even buys a bracelet, people are still coming and getting educated.

We talked for a moment about the Constitution and freedom of speech, which they also have been studying and discussing. Anita said that social action can happen because of our Constitution and the right to speak up. Our speaker had referred to this concept, too, when he described how exercising that right gives courage to other people to speak up, that it has done this throughout U.S. history.

I noticed a new project appear recently in the middle school, a timeline hanging from one of the beams. It starts in the year 1400 and reaches all the way to today. Our fifth and sixth graders are just beginning to work with it, to investigate American history through a new lens. But ever since they began this social action project, they have been grappling with ideas that extend far back beyond the “founding” of the United States. They have been trying to understand freedom and citizenship and power and, most importantly, respect for other human beings. Throughout this experience, the 5th and 6th graders have tied together social studies, writing, graphic design, research, and even math. By doing integrated projects like this, our kids learn to make connections and solve problems. They are the thinkers, the do-ers, the active constructors of their own knowledge. And they make things happen. You can see for yourself this Sunday!

An afterword…

The event was held almost two weeks ago.  Our 5th/6th graders raised $590 for the American Cancer Society.

The next day Anita sent an email to all the teachers and families: “Our children are so lucky to be part of a community that embraces their vision and helps them to achieve it. Sunday, and the days leading up to our event, reminded me that at our school, I am never alone. The work that we have done, since the beginning of September, helped us to create Kids for the Cure. To recap, here are some of the ways we prepared for this event:

• Lists of personal interests
• Lists of the way our family fits into our extended community: church, politics, sports, etc.
• Writing about our beliefs and things that we are passionate about
• Learning about young social activists such as Ruby Bridges, Lincoln, Ben Franklin….
• Learning about the Constitution and the structure of government
• Learning about local social activists
• Visit from a parent who is a lawyer (discussion of constitutional law)
• Visit from a parent who shared her personal reasons for being active in raising funds for breast cancer (discussion of our interests and passions)
• Visit from a musician/activist (what does it mean to be socially active? getting up in the morning and stretching beyond your comfort zone)
• Visit from a political activist (civil rights activism and prejudice, what does that mean about our daily interactions)
• Current Events
• Elections
• Graphing the cancer death rates from 1999-2005

We are not finished. We are constructing a time-line of American history, focusing on important events and their relationship to social action and civic responsibility. Who are we in the world? Our work this year revolves around this question.”

Alisa Algava graduated from Bank Street’s Leadership for Educational Change program last December. For the past 14 years, she has taught and learned in public, private, and charter schools in NY, NJ, and RI. She has written a handful of postings on the Alumni Blog about her experiences leading and learning in a small progressive school. Alisa loves learning. She loves moderating The Alumni Blog. And she really loves her nephew.