Apace of Change

by Damian Bariexca, Ed.D.

Archive for the ‘Damian’s Favorites’ Category

Deven Black

At the time of writing, I’m supposed to be researching school reform initiatives for a grad class assignment.  Instead, I’ve spent the last hour or two refreshing my Facebook and Twitter feeds, watching educators from around the country mourn the loss of Deven Black.

I came to know Deven, as I have so many other wonderful educators in my career, through our shared activity on Twitter.  When we first “met”, Deven was a special education teacher in NYC, and he and I had many conversations about education (special and otherwise); we would later co-moderate a weekly chat on Twitter geared toward special education issues, which we did fairly regularly for the better part of a year.  He struck me as an interesting and deeply thoughtful guy for many reasons, not the least of which was the route he took into teaching.  From his blog’s “About” page:

After a stellar career as a middle school student I dropped out of two different high schools and a college, all before I was 17. That started what has been a long-lasting and continually evolving interest in schooling.

I started teaching at age 50, after being a newspaper reporter, radio newsman and talk-show host, voice-over artist, political campaign operative, bartender, restaurant manager, advertising copywriter, and public relations person. Of these careers, teaching is the most difficult, lowest paying and most rewarding. It took a long time to figure out, but being a teacher is what I want to be when I grow up. Like that is ever going to happen.

His career path in education later took him into the role of a school librarian, and I remember the zeal with which he approached his new position at the time.  He was written up in the School Library Journal in 2013, and won the first Bammy award for school librarians later that year.

While the specifics of our many conversations have long since faded from my memory, what stays with me from Deven – and what continues to inform my own work – is how much kindness, humanity, and thoughtfulness matter in teaching.  In the day-to-day work, it’s easy to get frustrated by and hung up on things that are, in the greater sense, ultimately pretty trivial.  Sometimes we – children and adults alike – put other things ahead of kindness: bureaucracy, pedantic rules, paperwork, outdated notions of authority, whatever.  In the long run, though, none of it is as important as showing kids you care.

His perspective, to me, was that of the underdog.  That may not be exactly the right word, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that he often pushed back against popular notions or opinions; sort of a “But did you ever consider…?” in defense of whatever people were tut-tutting about in the “these kids today” vein.  I don’t know if that was influenced by his own experience with formal education (as noted above), but it seems possible.  Listening to him was so valuable to me in part because that was a very different perspective than my own, as someone who was always very compliant and good at “doing school” as a kid.  He helped me get more in touch with my own empathy and humanity, which was particularly helpful in my position as a school psychologist.

Even in casual conversation, Deven challenged my thinking in such a way that even after we had fallen out of touch, I would (and still do) ask myself from time to time, “What would Deven have to say about this?”  He is one of a few educators whose influence – unbeknownst to them – acts as my own internal Jiminy Cricket, constantly checking my assumptions and gut reactions and forcing me to reexamine stances, situations, conflicts, and resolutions from multiple perspectives.  It’s a fairly short list of people who actively influence my thinking on a regular basis like that, but Deven was most certainly on it.

The circumstances surrounding Deven’s death are, to be frank, shocking. Maybe delving into that is appropriate for a piece on how it might and should have been prevented, but there are far better ways to memorialize the man, which is why I haven’t linked to any news articles here.  There are better things you can read.

Go read Deven’s blog.  There’s nearly four years worth of his collected writings on education archived there.

Go read his Twitter feed.  It seems to have been hijacked by spam most recently, but scroll down to the tweets dated early 2014 or earlier to see the kinds of resources he shared and hard questions he posed.

Go read his interview with the School Library Journal and find out why they called him “Middle School Maverick.”

Go read ALA’s writeup on his Bammy award win.  Regardless of what you or I think of these awards, he was recognized by his peers as one of the best.  That has to mean something.

Go read his interview with Wide Awake Minds, wherein he discusses the value of failure, curiosity, and school (h/t Ira Socol for the link).

Go watch his 2012 talk at #140Edu, “How to make dropping out of school work for you” (h/t Kristin Hokanson for the link)

I only knew the man for 7 or 8 years.  I certainly didn’t know him as well as others did, and I only actually met him face-to-face once, but through his writing and our conversations, he has had a tremendous influence on me.  I will miss him.

Update, 29 Jan 16 6:00pm

As expected, the tributes to Deven from the many people he impacted are starting to roll in.  I’ll add them here as I come across them:

The #Quartweet Project

Last time, I wrote at great length about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into bringing a multi-building project to fruition.  Now that we’re officially after the fact, I can speak a bit to what exactly that project was.

Late last school year, Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, reached out to one of the elementary music teachers in our district, Dan Beal, to gauge his interest in participating in a project with the German group Signum Quartet.  The SQ was experimenting with something they were calling “quartweets” – short arrangements for string quartet of no more than 140 notes (to parallel a tweet’s 140-character limit) – and they were soliciting quartweet submissions from their fans via social media.  PSO and SQ asked Dan if they could partner with our district to workshop and perform quartweets written by students.  SQ would work with violist/educator Jessica Meyer to flesh out the students’ original compositions, which would be recorded by the quartet and published via social media, and also performed twice: once at a concert for district students, and again at a free evening concert for our community.

Dan brought the idea to me and explained the parameters: the Signum Quartet would only be here in the States for a limited period of time at the end of September, so if we were going to do it, there was no room for discussion about the time frame.  Keep in mind it was after Memorial Day when we first started discussing this, so between then and the end of the school year (about three weeks hence – you know, when nothing else is happening) we had to:

  1. identify participants (after some discussion, we decided to focus on rising third graders in all four elementary schools)
  2. roll this out to the other music teachers and enlist their help in identifying potential participants
  3. contact participant parents/guardians and secure all necessary permissions for publishing their work online
  4. help prep the students to work independently on their compositions over the summer

After school let out, all we could do was wait until September and hope the students didn’t lose interest in the project over the summer.

Fast forward to September…

Not only did the students not lose interest, they all completed their works and submitted them to their teachers.  On September 29, Jessica Meyer and the Signum Quartet conducted two workshops with our seven student composers to flesh out their pieces and bring them to life.

signumquartet

It was such a pleasure to watch Ms. Meyer work with our students.  While she is clearly a very accomplished musician, she is also a teacher who has a knack for helping students determine how their composition tells a story.  That, combined with SQ’s willingness to play a piece a million different ways until the composer found the right one, made for an incredible learning experience.

The following day, we bussed all 300+ third graders from four buildings to our middle school, where they listened to the world premieres of seven local, home-grown quartweets by our Lawrence Township composers, as well as other quartweet-ish short pieces by lesser-known musicians (some hacks called Bach and Beethoven).  The culminating experience was the free community concert, held the evening of October 1 at our high school, at which the SQ once again played all seven of the student quartweets as well as other, similarly short classical pieces.  The students even got to sit onstage with the SQ and speak a bit to the inspiration behind their pieces.

SQ2

The experience is now over, but I have to believe that the memories will truly last a lifetime for the young people involved in this project.  I’m very proud of the student composers and grateful to the long list of people involved in bringing this idea to fruition.

You can read local news coverage of the event here (with commentary from Dan Beal and Marc Uys), read about Signum Quartet’s Quartweet project here (with directions for writing and sharing your own!), and don’t forget to check out the hashtag #quartweet on Twitter to hear examples of 140-note pieces from composers young and old around the world!

The Rubik’s Cube and the 10,000 Foot View

I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in facilitating what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some students in my school district over the last four months or so, and it has really opened my eyes to the level of complexity involved in planning and implementing school events.  The experience itself is a topic for a future post; in the meantime, I’ll reflect a bit here on the process.

As an instructional supervisor, my job responsibilities lie largely “behind the scenes”.  I’m good with that, as I’m a bit of an extroverted introvert by nature.  In this particular situation, the opportunity was brought to my attention by one of my elementary music teachers, and together we brainstormed how to make the experience accessible to as great a number of students as possible (as opposed to limiting the experience to students in his building).  While it was definitely the right thing to do, that’s where things got complicated.

As a teacher and school psychologist, I rarely had to get involved in the logistical aspects of school operations.  I didn’t have the 10,000 foot view of all that goes into such things because, well… I didn’t have to.  Engaging with this project a few months ago has thrown me headlong into that perspective since I’ve had to coordinate the efforts of a great many people, including (in no particular order):

  • Four elementary school principals – to get their consent and cooperation in making this happen
  • Four elementary school music teachers – my awesome staff was only too happy to help, but this was another layer of communication and schedule coordination, especially as it required them to make some very fast decisions and home communications in the last few weeks of last school year.
  • Our Director of Curriculum & Instruction – my boss is super supportive (both of this project and in general), and served as a sounding board to help me shape the ideas I discussed with the teaching staff as well as arranged for payment for transportation when necessary.  Speaking of which…
  • The Transportation Department – these folks arranged to get some individual students from one school building to another for small group workshops during the day, as well as provided transportation to get the entire 3rd grade (about 300 students across four buildings) to our middle school for a midday concert.  Speaking of which…
  • Building secretaries – My mom was a secretary; you underestimate their knowledge and power at your own risk.  Our phenomenal building secretaries completed all the necessary transportation paperwork that I wouldn’t have the first idea how to complete on my own (although I made it a point to ask lots of questions and learn from them, rather than just delegate to them) and booked all necessary facilities reservations.  But the transportation would not be necessary without a destination; enter…
  • The middle school principal – who very graciously gave us a central location for a midday show when our high school auditorium was not available, shuffling some of her own classes around in the process.  But I still found a way to involve
  • The high school principal – part of this project involves a free evening concert for our community.  This will happen at the high school the evening of October 1, thanks in part to the efforts of
  • The high school maintenance/grounds staff – who will prepare the building and the auditorium for the potentially 500+ community members that night.  Also there that night will be
  • Our district audio/video coordinator and his student staff – to provide lights and audio service for the evening show at the high school, as well as to record the performance for broadcast on our district TV station and YouTube channel.  But who, outside of our school district, would know about any of this if not for the efforts of
  • Our district Operations Manager – she took care of press releases, regular communication blasts to our community, and all media contacts (including the one that got this reporter into one of our elementary schools earlier today).  Finally, of course, there is
  • The Princeton Symphony Orchestra – whose Executive Director, Mr. Marc Uys, initiated contact with our district last May, and communicated with both me and my staff to make this concept a reality.

It’s exhausting me just re-reading that list, and I’m sure as soon as I click “Publish” I’ll remember someone I left off (apologies if that someone is you).  Perhaps the most complicated part of all of the above is that so many things depended on two or three other things falling into place first – like a Rubik’s cube, the slightest change to any single component sets off a ripple effect that then has to be corrected or allowed for in other ways.  In that regard, the chain of events was less linear and more like a spiderweb, and I was the center of the web through which all strands flowed and overlapped.  No pressure, right?

The experience of organizing this has been as educational for me as a school leader as it has been daunting at times, but knowing that this was good for kids was what guided me through it.  I can’t wait to see and hear the final products to come of this experience on September 30 and October 1, and I’ll look forward to writing about what happened next time.

It’s always good to remember, though, that it’s hard to have a what without a how.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

From a blog post I wrote on 23 December 2013:

If nothing else, hopefully it will be an entry I can look back on this time next year, as I’m preparing to graduate, and laugh at, remembering that time I panicked unnecessarily and frantically spat out a blog post full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I remember very clearly where I was when I wrote this: in the same place I’m sitting now, on the leftmost cushion of my living room couch, feet up on the coffee table, in a semi-dark room lit primarily by our Christmas tree.  I remember it so clearly because of the emotions I was experiencing at the time: self-doubt, panic, and a sense of being overwhelmed that I have rarely felt before or since.  I had just recently had a meeting with my dissertation committee and was told that there needed to be major revisions to my proposal (maybe “overhaul” is a better word) before they would approve me to begin my research.  While I was expecting to have to make some revisions, what was described to me in the meeting was unexpected, to put it mildly.

A lot has happened in the year since.  As I’ve documented in multiple posts here, of course, I did make those revisions, conduct my research, and successfully defend my dissertation (you can read it here if you need help falling asleep) over the following months.

Additionally, I received a very nice compliment in the form of one of my committee members asking me to sit on future dissertation committees for qualitative studies because I “really get qualitative research” (I have to say, I really enjoyed this part of my research much more than looking at the quantitative data in my mixed-methods study).

I was also one of five graduating doctoral students asked to present their research at a poster session at my university’s Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month.  Oddly enough, two sick children and a lack of emergency child care kept me housebound that day, but I was still able to present due to some quick thinking and the magic of Skype and its screen-sharing function.

Finally, I was asked last week to give the commencement address at my own graduation ceremony next month.  This is an incredible honor, albeit an entirely unexpected one, so I’ll be spending some time during the winter holiday break sketching out some thoughts to share with my fellow graduates – a much better use of my time than the panicking and stressing that occupied most of my break last year.

So anyway, yeah, it’s been an eventful year.  I’m not laughing as I look back on last year’s blog post, because even with the perspective granted by distance, I still feel my concerns were well-founded, but I got through it – maybe not as quickly, cleanly, or efficiently as I would have liked, but I got through it.

Scrolling back through my archives, it seems I’ve been blogging about doctoral studies since early 2009, when I was bemoaning the lack of opportunities for study for people who were employed full-time.  I guess this revisiting of my panic post from last year is my way of putting a bow on this topic on this blog, at least for the foreseeable future.  It’s done.  I’m done.  Dr. Damian is in the house.

I mentioned in the spring that I’ve started a new leg of my career in that I am now an administrator in my school district.  Between finishing up the dissertation and starting a new job, time and energy for blogging have both been understandably scarce.

I have never liked the idea of New Year’s resolutions, but maybe since the end of my doctoral program JUST HAPPENS to come at this time of year, next month would be a good time to resume a more regular blogging schedule of 1-2 times per month.  It’s something I’ve been looking forward to, and while time and energy have been scarce, topics and thoughts have most certainly been in abundant supply.

A few weeks ago, I saw a link come across Twitter: it was John Spencer’s “Advice for New Bloggers“.  Perfect, I thought – I’m by no means a new blogger, but maybe a little structure and fresh perspective will help me jump start this thing for 2015.  I clicked on the link, eager for some bullet-pointed guidance, but what I found was this:

Write whatever the hell you want to write.

Instead of instruction, I got affirmation.  I’ll take it.  Happy New Year; see you in 2015.

What Will They Remember? #Ferguson

Just some memories and questions that were inspired by Rafranz Davis’ post, “When Real Life Happens, the Lesson Plans Change”.

I was in seventh grade in November 1989.  I don’t remember many specifics about what I learned in school that year, nor do I remember what we were studying – or supposed to be studying – in Social Studies that fall.  I do, however, have a very distinct memory of my Social Studies teacher asking our class, “Do you guys even get what is happening right now?  This is history!”  This, of course, was the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent events that would ultimately lead to the end of Communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  I can’t pretend to know what her specific thoughts as a teacher were at the time, but I do remember us deviating frequently from our regularly scheduled curriculum that year to discuss in depth not only what was happening, but why it was important and what it could mean for us, as Americans, moving forward.

I was in my second year of teaching in September 2001.  I don’t remember many specifics about what my co-teacher and I were teaching that fall.  I do, however, have a very distinct memory of speaking with him in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when we decided that, as Rafranz says, the lesson plan had to change.  We did our best to discuss current events with our students, helping them to separate fact from speculation as well as anyone could in those days, and we also helped them to learn some background knowledge that we hoped would combat the rapidly emerging Islamophobia (or anything-that-vaguely-resembled-Islam-to-Americans-ophobia), at least in our little corner of the country.  But beyond that, we let the kids talk.  We didn’t have answers to everything; hell, we barely had answers to anything.  But our students knew our classroom was a safe place to ask questions, speak freely (and respectfully), and otherwise do our best to messily hash out the history that was unfolding before us.  Among many, many other topics, we talked extensively about what these events could mean for us, as Americans, moving forward.

In the post linked above, Rafranz says:

Rich discussions are not necessarily born from pre-planned questions. Rich discussions happen when we let go of our personal constraints and just talk. We ask more questions that we don’t have the answers to. We reflect together and maybe we ask more questions. This is how we grow. This is how change happens.

I can’t pretend to know you or your students or the circumstances in which you all work, study, and live.  But I ask you this: what will your students remember when they are bursting with the need to share their fears, their questions, and their stories that resemble those brought to the national consciousness recently by the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, MO?  What will they remember when they want to share this all with their peers and you, who may be one of the few adults – if not the only adult – in their lives to whom they feel they can open up?  What will they remember about that time they wanted to talk about racism and how it has directly impacted their lives and the lives of their loved ones?  What will they remember about that time they wanted to talk about their experiences with law enforcement, even if (especially if) their experiences do not resemble your own?

Will they remember how deftly you returned them to the appropriate place in the pacing guide?  Will they remember the novel chapter or the algebra problem that was much more important in the moment?  Or will they remember the time(s) that everyone got to talk – not as teacher, to students but as human beings, with one another – about institutional racism, or fear of police, or media censorship, and how, even if the teacher didn’t have all the answers, maybe real communication got people to understand each other’s perspectives a little better.  Maybe you’ll learn something from your students.  Maybe your students will learn something from you.  Maybe your students will learn something from each other.  And maybe you will all take a piece of that with you, beyond the classroom and beyond the school year, and maybe that will mean something important to everyone, as Americans, moving forward.