Listening to the Sounds of Silence in the Classroom - National Writing Project

Spring Meeting Day 3 was a day for professional development.

The keynote speaker was Katherine Schultz, author of the book Rethinking Classroom Participation: Listening to Silent Voices. She suggests that teachers take a nuanced view toward classroom silence, understanding its complex functions and regarding it as a form of participation.

I think as teachers of multicultural students, we are aware of the silence of our students not as a sign of ignorance or stupidity, but as a sign of cultural norms. For me, if students are overly vocal or if they have prolonged eye contact with me, it's actually a sign of aggression on their part. I found it helpful to hear someone else talk about a behavior that is normal for us, and she helped teachers to broaden the view of participation in the classroom.



Schultz is the director the Philadelphia Writing Project and is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.

Check the link below for more information on her and more of her mana'o:
Listening to the Sounds of Silence in the Classroom - National Writing Project

NWP Spring Meeting in DC: Day 2

Day 2 in DC was our main lobbying day, but as we were walking to the Dirksen Senate offices for our morning rally, we caught the tourist bug and had to take pictures of the beautiful cherry blossoms that were already in bloom. These were at the Japanese American memorial.

Congresswoman Maizie Hirono was nice enough to stop by at the rally to offer up support to all the NWP teachers to encourage us for the work that was ahead today. What was really nice was that she talked about leading with aloha. Many people stopped us to thank us for coming, because if we didn't come, they wouldn't have heard Congresswoman Hirono speak. She did a great job of representing our state and as someone who signed our Dear Colleague letter to support NWP, we say mahalo a nui loa to Ms. Hirono.

The main thing that I learned about the new budget is that the federal government would like to give a lump sum of federal money back to the state for educational programs, and each state would be in charge of doling out money to programs that would have to compete for the federal money. We are not against competition, however, as a national program, we are not able to compete. We are a national network, not a state network. For example, if California's multiple writing projects got funding from California, but Hawaii and Alaska didn't get funding, what would happen to the national writing project? As the Lehua Writing Project, without the infrastructure and support of the NWP, we wouldn't exist.

The Dear Colleague letter supports our need for direct funding. Our job on this day was to meet with Senator Akaka's aide to talk about our program, to talk about the need for our kind of professional development in Hawaii, and to encourage him to sign the Dear Colleague letter. We met with Arun Revera who was coming off of a very long night (Senate was getting ready to vote on the health bill). He was very warm and receptive, and in karmic coincidence, Arun and Jeannine lived very near each other in Texas, and he went to HPA. His mother still lives in Waimea and they both frequent Waimea Coffee. It was destined to be a great meeting. We talked about our program, we shared mana'o from Cathy Riehle, Merle Yoshida and Joanne Yoshida, answered his questions, and he assured us that he would ask Senator Akaka to sign the letter. We will follow up with him this week after their own spring break.

Senator Akaka and his office continued to show us hospitality by arranging a private capitol tour (we were joined by 4 kids and their advisor from 4H Hawaii) and when we got back, Senator Akaka gave us some of his precious time before he went back to the floor for another vote. We also found out that when we see senators giving testimony on C-Span, they're usually talking just to the stenographer and whichever young senator is doing time as the speaker. Everyone else is in committee meetings or doing other work. The staff keeps track on C-Span to what's going on, and when a vote is near, there are buzzers that go on in the senate offices.

It was such a full day with so many cool things going on, but the best thing was our meeting with Hirono and Akaka. We weren't able to meet with Senator Inouye, but Paul LeMahieu met with his education aide on our behalf before we got to DC, and although Senator Inouye is very supportive, because he is the chairman of the appropriations committee, he is not able to sign the Dear Colleague letter. It would be like signing it to himself, and would not be appropriate.

NWP Spring Meeting in DC: Day 1

There's a reason why Hawaii has not been represented at the NWP spring meeting in about 8 years. If you thought driving to NHERC everyday was far, try getting on a plane on Tuesday night, 1 hour to Honolulu, 1 hour layover in Honolulu, 6 hours on the plane to arrive in Phoenix on Wednesday morning, 1 hour layover, then 4 hours on the plane to Washington DC = 13 hours of travel. We had one hour to shower, and get to our first meeting in the evening.

We were going to bow out of the meeting after traveling for so long, but Pat Fox, one of our mentors, told us to "power through" so we did. Thank goodness. At Wednesday night's meeting, they helped us to strategize our meetings with our representatives, they explained the pitfalls of the proposed federal budget for FY 2011 and what it would mean to NWP, and they went over our talking points and addressed ways to answer the hard questions in case our representatives were a little less supportive.

Most importantly, it gave us time to practice scenarios before we trudged off to bed.

Agenda for day 2:
Get ourselves to the Dirksen Senate office building by 8:00
Introduce Congresswoman Maizie Hirono to the NWP contingent as soon as she arrived
Let her speak
Get more questions answered
Head to our first appointment with Akaka's education aide
Private capitol tour
Spring meeting reception in the evening at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Why School? Join the conversation

Title: Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us

Author: Mike Rose

Publisher: The New Press (2009)

Hardcover: 192 pages

I don't tout a book that I've never read, just as I don't give students a writing assignment that I haven't already written myself, but the National Writing Project book group ning is having an online discussion of this book and the coversations have been quite intriguing. Imagine, adult conversation centered around big questions. It made me feel like a professional again. If you too are yearning for those adult conversations, this is a great group to join.

From the New Press website:

A powerful and timely exploration of this country’s public education goals, and how they are put into practice, by the award-winning author and educator
I ask how to educate a vast population, what to teach and how, who will do it, what the work will mean. We still ask these questions because we haven’t satisfactorily answered them. And the way we answer them says a lot about who we are—and what we want to become.
—FROM WHY SCHOOL?

In the tradition of Jonathan Kozol, this little book is driven by big questions. What does it mean to be educated? What is intelligence? How should we think about intelligence, education, and opportunity in an open society? Why is a commitment to the public sphere central to the way we answer these questions?

Drawing on forty years of teaching and research, from primary school to adult education and workplace training, award-winning author Mike Rose reflects on these and other questions related to public schooling in America. He answers them in beautifully written chapters that are both rich in detail—a first-grader conducting a science experiment, a carpenter solving a problem on the fly, a college student’s encounter with a story by James Joyce—and informed by a deep and powerful understanding of history, the psychology of learning, and the politics of education.

Rose decries the narrow focus of educational policy in our time: the drumbeat of test scores and economic competition. Why School? will be embraced by parents and teachers alike, and readers everywhere will be captivated by Rose’s eloquent call for a bountiful democratic vision of the purpose of schooling.

About the author: Mike Rose, a professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is the author of Lives on the Boundary, The Mind at Work, and Possible Lives. Among his many awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Award in Education, and the Commonwealth Club of California Award for Literary Excellence in Nonfiction. He lives in Santa Monica.

Lehua Writing Project Now Recruiting for Invitational Summer Institute

The Lehua Writing Project, the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s local site of the National Writing Project, is now recruiting for the Summer Invitational Institute (ISI). The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners. This summer institute provides professional development in writing and the teaching of writing using a teachers-teaching-teachers model.

This ISI is a four-week intensive program held midway between the East and West sides of the Big Island at North Hawaii Education Research Center (NHERC) in Honoka’a. It meets from June 14 to July 8 from 8:30-4:00 PM and awards three Graduate Credits in Education upon successful completion of the program. Full tuition scholarships are available for teachers who interview and are accepted for the ISI. In addition, participants receive stipends for books and travel. Each participant pays a small administrative fee to the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
The National Writing Project (NWP) is the only federally funded program that focuses on the teaching of writing. Support for the NWP is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, foundations, corporations, universities, and K-12 schools.

Two awareness sessions are available for interested participants. The first is February 13, 2010 from 9-12 AM (Saturday) at the University of Hawaii at Hilo in UCB 312, and the second is March 5, 2010 (Friday) from 9-12 AM at the Kealakehe Elementary School Library in Kailua-Kona. This will be rescheduled to March 6, 2010 (Saturday) if this Friday becomes a school day. If you are interested in attending an awareness session please RSVP to the directors at the e-mails below. We encourage you to come and find out more about the Lehua Writing Project.
Please contact Director, Dr. Jeannine Hirtle, hirtle@hawaii.edu or Co-Director Cathy Ikeda, cathyi@hawaii.edu for more information.
To apply directly please fill out this online application. The direct link (if you wish to copy/paste) is:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHpMd09Wa2JtRTNSM1FOMjYwdTVqaGc6MA
Applications need to be in by March 15, 2010. Interviews will be scheduled and notifications will be sent out by April 1, 2010. At this time, participants need to enroll at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Transcripts will be required for complete enrollment.
Web Sites of Interest:
http://www.lehuawritingproject.blogspot.com
http://www.nwp.org
UH Hilo Summer Application: http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/depts/summer/index.php

Updates from NCTE: Check Out Read/Write/Think for many valuable resources

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January 12, 2010
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Have You or Your Students Written for the National Gallery of Writing Lately?
...news
News links are provided for informational purposes, do not imply endorsement by the National Council of Teachers of English, and were live when this issue was published; free registration or a paid subscription may be required for some news articles.


It's Like Magic: That's What Writing Is
Gallery of Writing Showcases Writing's Power
The National Gallery of Writing has sparked a wide variety of galleries and writings. NCTE members Helene Zablocki, Vince Puzick, James Brewbaker, Patrice Hollrah, Joan Kaywell, David Whitin, Phyllis Whitin, Linda Adler-Kassner, Crag Hill, and NCTE Executive Director Kent Williamson are mentioned. The Council Chronicle, November 2009

Better Than Ever: The New ReadWriteThink.org
Since 2002 ReadWriteThink.org has provided literacy educators access to an ever-growing collection of free education materials. Voted "Best Site from Which You Can Download Free Lessons and Materials" on the 2008 Edutopia poll, RWT now has a completely redesigned and updated website filled with hundreds of lesson plans, calendar resources, printouts, and interactive tools.

Big Island Reading Festival 2010

Secondary teachers and students are invited to the Big Island Reading Festival on April 16, 2010 at KMC in the Volcanoes National Park. If you would like a flyer, please email Cathy at caikeda@ksbe.edu.

Also, if you would like to be in the online book club, go to http://bigislandreadingfest.ning.com/