Snow, later in the day...

Stopping By Woods

On A Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Rambling on a Snow Day!

Feb. 26th, 2010

Softly, silently, floating by
crystalline, whirling lacy traces from the sky....

Want to read poems about the snow?

http://www.blackcatpoems.com/s/snow_poems.html

What does one do on a snow day? Some of the things that you have been putting off to do at home, get through essays and responses you were planning to score anyway only now you can do it without feeling the pressure of minding your time before the next class begins, and meeting the commitment to do some "seat time" for writing.

Ah yes, those are the comfortable parts about a snow day. Now, for the sort of downside: having to deal with clearing sidewalks, driveways, steps, wet shoes/boots, jackets. I said sort of because as long as I feel good I really don't mind dealing with any of that either (besides I have help).

Looking out a window I see... A snow laden tree -- beautiful, inspirational, calming in a sense, even when it masks impending danger.

Then there are the sounds - breaking, cracking, slissh, whooshing, falling, pweff! - a sinister, no, secretive woo of the wind still carrying the silent flurry of flakes.

After moving more north than south, I very much remember my first reaction to waking in the middle of the night to look out of a window to see if it was snowing. "the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the lustre of midday" popped into my head at the breathtaking sight.

Having grown up where the average winter temperature was in the 40s in January, 50s to 60s in November/December, it was not unusual for the temperatures to range from 30 degrees to 75 degrees. Fog I knew well, having walked out my front door into a foggy day. Snow was a fairytale; on the other hand, well, there were frosty mornings, cold enough to freeze the dew before sunrise quickly began to warm the day. (Yes, half the fun of growing up is being outdoors-- witness to the dawning of a new day, examining grass for dewdrops.) Snow -- was on the news, in movies, in photos in the newspaper -- but not an expected event in south Louisiana.

I do remember one time we did have a "snow accumulation." There was such excitement in the house! We younger siblings barely had on our coats as we followed our brother out with a cup to scoop up the watery, icy stuff before it just became wetness on the grass. He said we could freeze the snow and save it for later to look at after dinner. Well, if you don't know how that turned out then you haven't been around little kids with warm hands.

Snow was stuff you put on "flocked" Christmas trees. Artificial snow was available for purchase in a can from the hardware store. We used the canned snow to "frost" the squares of the large picture window that let the sunlight flood the living room by day. I think I recall that canned snow was found to cause cancer and all sorts of ailments. I expect the formula has been improved. Of course, we didn't exactly ask mother if we could "play" with the "snow." Every time she found us doing something she thought might cause a problem we were scolded, but hey we weren't thinking about our safety -- we were kids who wanted to play in the snow even if it came in a can.

We played pretend snow storm once or twice by tearing up bits of toilet paper, or starting a pillow fight and sending feathers flying! Needless to say, that was trouble for us. The cleaning up after our "snow storm" was not fun and back then, no one made us hot cocoa for our efforts!

Ah! childhood!

Oh well, I guess I'll go help shovel.

How this got started

As a veteran teacher in search of meaningful professional development I had the pleasure of taking a course with the NJ Council for the Humanities the summer of 2009. It was a week-long course entitled The 20th Century and the African American Experience. I truly not only enjoyed the week and learned more than I had expected, I also decided to break through my fear of tackling new technologies -- yes, blogging. Well, let's see how that went.

First of all, deciding what to blog was a challenge, then learning how to set up a blog and doing it was another challenge, and then trying to figure out how to maintain the blog was a another challenge. Nevertheless, I was inspired and managed to launch my blog. Although I did not keep at it the way I had hoped I would I am going to try again.

So, if you happen to visit and want to know about last summer's wonderful professional development experience you have to read my past entries. If you just want to see what happens here next, then just check in from time to time.

Greg Woodruff Names Teacher of the Year!

Congratulations to Greg Woodruff, Montclair High School, who has been selected as 2009 Teacher of the Year of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities!

A well-deserved honor! Greg teaches a truly wonderful Literature and Composition AP course that was developed in conjunction with the Writers' Room (a program designed by Ellen Kolba and Sheila Crowell). Juniors and seniors who take the course are trained as writing coaches and a part of their experience includes working with the freshman World Literature classes. Mr. Woodruff's is one of the more popular AP classes, and most of the students taking the course score 4s and 5s on the AP exam.

Speaking in code

Words that affected me during a teacher's professional development seminar,
The 20th Century and the African American Experience,
a NJ Council for the Humanities Teacher Seminar 2009


Word choice matters in all forms of conversation.
Tone and tenor are connotative and convey intent. Take the word "hot". Depending on the way it is said, it can fire the imagination in an appealing sense or be a warning to stay away or to be wary of something that will burn and make you uncomfortable. For five days in the summer of 2009, during a professional development seminar laden with scholarly jargon, tone and tenor gave layered meaning and ideas to familiar words. The topics were hot - language was couched in civility. To clarify or validate what was understood by an intended message, I asked questions and made thoughtful notes to replace outdated word use with more accurate and current phrases. Metaphoric descriptions of "marking" and "mythification" gave name to visual compositions that triggered emotional reactions in me. The word agency was the esoteric word of the seminar.

Agency is not a word I have heard routinely in most high school classes unless someone is naming a place like a real estate agency, employment agency, or the Social Security Agency, yet in the assigned seminar readings and the lectures the power of the word was evident. Agency quickly implies, to those in the know, that something changed because of what someone decided to do. According to Dr. Clement Price and Dr. Miriam Petty , in different discussions, agency refers to the actions of a person "taking control" to change the circumstances of their life or to specifically affect some kind of "autonomy." Agency is about self-determination, self-actualization, and self-motivation.

The seminar topics (see post "What was taught?") all dealt with the impact of racism in one form or another during the 20th century; a kind of anticipation of some sort of disturbance shivered through each session. However, there were no vitriolic eruptions - only tense questions and evidence to consider another point of view. Some of the words arched an eyebrows or moved persons to shift in their seats, huff mildly or smile smugly. A commonly used word like "slavery" was called out for reconsideration. Lacking definitive imagery, the word "slavery" begged the point that instead of using the assumptive term "slavery" that a better choice might be "enslaved" or "kidnapped into slavery." The latter phrase clearly staging a reality of the assault that took place. The idea of "slavery" as "porous" in relationship to the development of free Black communities brought to mind the people oozing through fences or a sieve-like apparatus dazed and confused.

The words "mythification" and "marking" now explain for me the continuing acceptance of stereotypes as characteristic of culture and ethnicity. "Mythification is the replacement of history with a surrogate ideology of elevation or demotion along a scale of human value" (Snead, 1994) Mythification "caters to a cultural appetite" (Petty). Then there is "marking." Snead's analysis explains "marking" as part of "image making rhetoric" and Dr. Petty explains it as the "use of visual code, markers" to register black stereotypes. There is "racial allegiance" to stereotypes; whites and blacks are willing receptors of the now familiar "mark" of stereotype despite evidence to contradict.

The word "historiography" explains influences of essayists, novelists, playwrights, and poets during a particular time. This concept reminded me of August Wilson's series of plays anchored in a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. His ten plays time travel in oral histories as part of the dialogue and rituals back through slavery, emancipation, coming of age, reclamation of place and manhood, and the agency of the human spirit.

The power of words resonated through a PBS film we watched: "Africans in America: Judgment Day. " As still images of enslavement were displayed, a sonorous voice read the words of David Walker, a former slave. From one of those letters the title of the PBS segment emerged and foreshadowed the plight of a nation: Judgment Day. The documentary director had skillfully used Walker's words to underscore the agency of John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. The narrative of the raid and the passion of the individuals involved in the raid, left a somber foreboding feeling. The Raid at Harper's Ferry 1859 was the earliest recorded battle that signaled the inevitability of the coming Civil War.

Agency is about self-determination, self-actualization, and self-motivation. It is what teachers do everyday.

Words.

What were the topics? Who were the teachers?

The 20th Century and the African American Experience

A Teacher's Seminar of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities



Someone asked, "What were the topics? Who were the teachers?"

But before you read that, I want to commend the overall day to day organization of things which were well done by Mary Grace Whelan, Program Officer, and Matt Pihoker, Intern.


Day 1 -- Introduction - the 20th Century and the African American Experience -- Dr. Clement Price



Film - "Africans in America: Judgment Day"



Day 2 - On the Meaning of Freedom: The Dawn of the 20th Century in African American History -- Dr. Clement Price

The Harlem Renaissance -- Dr. Adalaine Holton, Assistant Professor of Literature, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

Film -- "Against the Odds: The Harlem Renaissance"


Day 3 -- Architecture and the Veil: The Artifacts of Segregated Education --

Dr. Wendell White, Professor of Art, Division of Arts and Humanities, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

African-American Identity and Cultural Agency in Film -- Dr. Miriam Petty, Cotsen Fellow with the Princeton University Society of Fellows


Meeting with Writing Instructor - Dr. Ray Ricketts



Film -- "Eyes on the Prize, Ain't Scared of Your Jails"




Day 4 -- A Time of Turmoil Amid an Era of Progress: The Civil Rights Movement & American Concepts of Freedom and Democracy -- Dr. Leslie Wilson, Professor of History and Education, Montclair State University


African American Urban Life During the Great Society -- Dr. Mark Krasovic, Geraldine R. Dodge Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University -- Newark


Meeting with Master Teacher Peter Murphy


Film -- "Revolution '67"


Day 5-- Field trip to Newark -- Dr. Price -- Itinerary

• Bus tour through Newark's Central Ward and black historic sites. Stops included



• Hopewell Baptist Church - former Jewish Synagogue



• Essex County Urban League, Vivian Fraser, President of the Essex County Urban League



• The Newark Museum, Jazz in the Garden, (T.S. Monk performed!)



• New Jersey Historical Society tour of "What's Going On? Newark and the Legacy of the Sixties"

Day 6 - Best Practices - Richard Schwartz, Social Studies Department Coordinator, Whippany Park School.

Working lunch and course wrap up with Dr. Price.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Master Teacher Peter Murphy, adjunct lecturer in General Studies and creative writing, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Writing Instructor Ray Dr. Ricketts, Bryn Mawr College

Students (teachers) are asked to choose a non-credit or a credit project. Master Teacher Peter Murphy and Writing Instructor Ray Ricketts held meetings each day to work with students to submit their project proposals.

African Americans and the 20th Century: Teacher's engaged in ideas

For five days, July 5 - 10, 2009, I attended a teachers seminar presented by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and I am still talking about it to anyone who wants to listen!

The overarching topic "The 20th Century and the African American Experience" and discussion was managed by well respected Rutgers University history professor Dr. Clement Price, Director of the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience.

For five days 25 teachers, nine African Americans, three Hispanics, and 13 White teachers heard about, read, viewed, and discussed "scholarship" that "pivotally" places "African Americans and race relations at the center of virtually every chapter in the historical narrative of this nation." I was excited! Dr. Price's words resonated with the importance of teachers being able to respond responsibly and with integrity in the continuum of a "paradigm shift of scholarly inquiries into what might be contested terrain of American history and the social construction of history itself." In other words, giving credence to what should be common knowledge in the context of American history -- the reality of the African American experience and its impact in the shaping of our national point of view. Over those five days, Dr. Price more than once repeated "the facts are facts...but it is the point of view of the discussion that must change as America goes forward."

A major point of the week was that the African American experience should not be treated as an object to take on or off a table considered only during certain time periods (Black History Month), or simply as an aside in examination of literature and culture in America. In the process of the discourse we inevitably looked at what it meant to be an American, what it meant to be White, what was "the transcendency of becoming 'white' in America, and how being accepted as white characterized the 19th century and most of the 20th century.

It was an invigorating week.

The exploration of ideas began on day one - a sunny Sunday afternoon at Richard Stockton College, Pomona, NJ. Dr. Price offered that we agree to disagree, "as there are several truths" and there are "several ways to get to the truth." After each day's presentations by different scholars, and after dinner, we viewed a carefully selected film. What occurred over that week was a well-structured forum of meaningful conversations about race and racism in America's past and in present times.