ALTERNATIVE PERCEPTION

WHERE DOES ALTERNATIVE PERCEPTION COME FROM?

• Did Erin Gruwell have background experiences which enabled her to be successful with gang influenced youth?

ALTERNATIVE PERCEPTION IS A PRO-ACTIVE DECISION

THE MESSAGE

• A message that many of them haven’t heard before-that no matter how difficult the circumstances of their lives may be, no matter how many bad assumptions they’ve made about their chances in life, no matter how well they’ve been taught to rein in their dreams and narrow their aspirations, they have the right and the potential to expect to live rich and satisfying lives.• What will be the message that every

student can rely upon in your classroom?

CLAY

• I was just another aimless kid, coasting through school, bored and disengaged, with no sense of what “I’d do with my life after graduation, when Frank Ross invited me into his classroom and let me sit at his potter’s wheel. The magic I felt when I first laid my hands on wet clay gave me the belief that I could do something interesting with my life. It opened up doors to meaning and possibility that showed me, for the first time, that I had talents and capabilities no one had seen before and that I had never dreamed of. I’m convinced that those insights not only gave ne a vision of my future, they literally saved my life. What is the “clay” in your

• Discipline?

SCHOOL IMPACT

• I started hearing from teachers in nearby public schools. They noticed that the kids who came to the Craftman’s Guild were showing up at school more often. They were behaving better in the classroom too. And their grades started to improve• Why/How?

MESSAGE FOR TEACHERS

• What I wanted those Harvard grad students to understand, what I wanted everyone who reads this book to embrace, are the simple principles that have guided my life and enabled my success; that all of us have the potential to make our dreams come true, and that one of the greatest obstacles blocking us from realizing that potential is that we believe, or are told, the things we want most passionately are impractical, unrealistic, or somehow beyond our reach.

PLACE

• The Center: This place is my idea of a perfect human shelter. . .It generates order and serenity and stability and optimism, things many of our students do not enjoy in abundance in our private lives. Poor people live in a world where beauty seems impossible. We make it possible. Then the world and eventually the future look very different to them.

THE CONRAST

• The new Manchester Bidwell Center stands just a few city blocks from Oliver High School, my old alma mater. At Oliver high school students are greeted each morning by security guards who inspect their backpacks and march them through metal detectors. The windows are protected with iron bars. To me, the place feels more like a jail than a school, so its no surprise that so many students behave badly there.

SHARIF: INSIDE A KID’S HEAD

• But you never know what’s going on inside a kid’s head, so when his instructors asked me what they should do with him, I said, “Just keep giving him clay”. . .His only chance, I knew was the nurturing environment he was surrounded by, and the creative vibe that filled the studio every day, would change him on some level none of us could see.. . .In his senior year, Sharif received scholarship offers from the art departments of three different colleges. He eventually enrolled at Slippery Rock University on a full scholarship where he earned his BA with flying colors, then a Master’s degree in fine art. With his MFA in hand, he went on to Penn State, where he earned a P.hD. In arts education.

SHARIF’S PERSPECTIVE

• I might have looked uncommunicative, almost reclusive. . .but you have to understand, at that point in my life, I’d never even had a conversation with a white person. . .My teachers were telling me I was capable of more than I thought, and making it very clear that their expectations were very high. That was disorienting. I’d never had any context for interacting with people who treated me like that, or thought of their own lives in that way. But the studio gave me the context, the clay gave me the context. . .white, black Asian, Hispanic. . .had moved beyond the superficial characteristics that made them different, and were relating to each other as fellow artists.. . .The art became a bridge that led me out of my narrow experience and opened up my world.

GANG BANGER: SPEEDY

• As a kid, he had to navigate alcoholism, fighting, estangement, and inappropriateness on top of dysfunction stacked high onto sadness. As he’s built a life for his own family, he’s negotiated the landmines that were regularly detonated during his childhood.• The kids beg me to buy the new Harry Potter

book. . .And my three kids read Harry Potter, out loud. First, my oldest, my daughter, she reads a whole page. Then she hands it to my son, and he reads a paragraph. Then the baby, with help from the other two, reads a sentence

FOR RANDY

Guest speakers from the business field-

Set him up with college students who are in business

Create a mock business in the Junior Achievement model.Make sure he is aware of how his business skills now connect with the larger business world that is ahead of him in the future.

THE MAGIC

• History-Powerful stories of people who have changed the world• Mistakes from the past-Peakes and Valleys• There is a story that can grab attention and relate• English-storytelling and history—communication.• Math-connections in abstract thinking.

Progressive train of thought

GHETTO SCHOOL

• Violence• Needs security• Insufficient funding• Better facilities• Outdated technology• Outdated books• Students from poverty• All Black• Gangs• Urban.• Media-Discourse- “Pedagogy of Oppression” Freire

MLK MIDDLE SCHOOL

• Math-The curriculim

• Students’ mathematical knowledge• Have no mathematical knowledge• Appropriate learning materials-The cheapest

possible textbooks

• The role of a teacher-Implement the curriculum

ALTERNATIVE PERCEPTIONMR. PRYZBO

• What is “math?”-Numbers and the way that it works in everyday life.

• What is student “mathematical knowledge?”• Knowledge that the students already possess, but do not

know that it is math.

• “Teacher”-Applies mathematical knowledge in the way that connects to the students’ lives.-Also someone whom the students can rely

• Appropriate classroom materials? Anything that can enhance students learning and the best textbooks available

WHAT WILL BE RANDY’S FUTURE?

• Entrepreneurial that lends itself to success in business• Could build on his knowledge and interest in

technology and computers.

WHAT CAN A TEACHER DO?ALTERNATIVE PERCEPTION

THE MAGIC IN YOUR DISCIPLINE

• History—think about their lives historically and see patterns which may or may not be desirable-Self awarenes

• Physical Education-Team and Community-Leadership-Shared goals and objective

• Paige-provides a place for kids to excel and develop confidence-and character building

• Psychology-Empowers them through self awareness• Science-seeing science everywhere, become consciuos of how

the world works.• English-communicate effectively• English-helps relate the past to the present and engage their

imagination• Math-learn that effort is required to success.• English-teaches. Questions and apply to one’s own life.