On Common Ground 10 - Imperial College London

On Common GroundStrengthening Teaching through School-University Partnership

YALE-NEW HAVEN TEACHERS INSTITUTE NUMBER 10, SPRING 2005

JASPER JOHNS, MAP, 1961

By Senator Joseph Liebermanhave recently introduced legislation

which I believe will strengthen thecontent and pedagogical knowledge of

our K-12 teacher workforce. This measure,The Teacher Professional DevelopmentInstitutes Bill, provides the necessaryresources and incentives to enlist collegeand university faculties in partnershipswith public school districts throughout thenation in an effort to strengthen publicschool instruction.

My proposal will establish, over the nextfive years, forty new Teacher ProfessionalDevelopment Institutes in locales in whicha significant proportion of the studentscome from low-income households.Based on the model which has been oper-ating at Yale University for over 25 years,each Teacher Professional Development

Institute will pair one or more institutionsof higher education with a local, economi-cally-disadvantaged public school system.These Institutes will strengthen the presentteacher workforce by giving participantsan opportunity to gain more sophisticatedcontent knowledge and instructional skills,and will provide them a chance to developpractical curriculum units in conjunctionwith their Institute colleagues.

Since 1978, the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute has offered five toseven thirteen-session seminars each year,led by Yale faculty, on topics that teachershave selected to enhance their teachingmastery. To begin the process, teacherrepresentatives from the Institute solicitteachers throughout the school district forideas on how to help meet their perceivedneeds—for example, improving content

area knowledge, preparing instructionalmaterials, motivating students or address-ing accountability standards.

As a consensus emerges regarding semi-nar content, the Institute director identifiesand enlists university faculty memberswith the appropriate expertise, interest, anddesire to lead the seminar. Most important-ly, however, seminar topics are ultimatelydetermined by the teachers who partici-pate. In this way, the offerings are designedto respond to what teachers believe is use-ful and practical for both themselves andtheir students.

It is, in fact, the cooperative nature of theInstitute seminar planning process thatensures its success—rigorous topical instruc-tion and relevant materials are providedbased on participants' self-identified needs.

(continued on page 4)

IEstablishing Institutes Throughout the Nation

By Thomas R. Whitakern Number 9 of On Common Ground, aspecial issue on "Urban Partnerships,"we highlighted the process and the

accomplishments of the NationalDemonstration Project of the Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute, and we empha-sized the need for a coast-to-coast networkof Teachers Institutes. In Number 10 weprovide an appropriate sequel.

The Yale National Initiative is now mov-ing into its second phase, during which themembers of the League of TeachersInstitutes will provide collegial advice tonew Teachers Institutes as they are estab-lished. Funds to help establish newInstitutes are being sought from founda-tions that might provide national or region-al support, and several prospective TeachersInstitutes are also being encouraged to seekfunds from local sources. The TeacherProfessional Development Institutes Bill,recently introduced by Senator JoeLieberman, Senator Chris Dodd, andRepresentative Rosa DeLauro, wouldenable a giant step forward in this effort. Itwould authorize federal funds over the nextfive years to establish forty new Institutes inlocales in which a significant proportion ofthe students come from low-income house-holds. Our feature essay, "Institutes Acrossthe Nation," appropriately consists ofSenator Lieberman's remarks about thatlegislative proposal.

On our cover, to set the theme for discus-sion of that major proposal, we have placedJasper Johns's Map. About this painting,Philip Yenawine has said: "Just as any maprepresents an enormous geographic, politi-cal, and social complex, . . . Johns bringsup the many sides of representation, fromdiagrams to words to the painted languageof lines, color, texture, and gesture. By act-ing within a tight framework, he opens thedoor to a vast nexus of visual possibilities,as well as ideas." We trust that the analogywill hold: within the framework of the YaleNational Initiative and a TeacherProfessional Development Act, we foreseethe unfolding of a vast nexus of possibilities.

In order for a partnership between aschool district and an institution of highereducation to establish a Teachers Institutethat will participate in the Yale NationalInitiative, it must have a detailed under-standing of the principles and procedures ofsuch an Institute. The Yale NationalInitiative, the Yale-New Haven TeachersInstitute, and the other members of theLeague of Teachers Institutes stand ready toassist with that understanding. The YaleNational Initiative has already published abooklet that sets forth its aims and proce-dures. Its Web site (http://teachers.yale.edu)includes much additional material and pro-vides links to the Web sites of TeachersInstitutes that are members of the League.These interrelated Web sites contain mate-rials about the Institutes, copies of the cur-riculum units written by their Fellows, andadvisory booklets of various kinds.

In this issue of On Common Ground wealso provide a survey of what the membersof the League of Teachers Institutes havebeen accomplishing. Articles by seminarleaders and Fellows in Houston,Pittsburgh, and New Haven show how thework in and through Institute seminars hasled to fresh curricular planning andincreased student learning in the class-rooms of the Fellows. These articles alsogive insight into the motivation of the uni-versity faculty members who become sem-inar leaders and the teachers who becomeFellows.

To those accounts we have added a sec-tion that focuses on the relations betweenteacher quality and student learning. Itbegins with a summary of the evaluationsof the National Demonstration Project. Itthen includes a conversation with a NewHaven school administrator who had beenan early Fellow of the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute and an article by aPittsburgh school administrator who hadmore recently been a Fellow of thePittsburgh Teachers Institute. The sectionis rounded out with two additional per-spectives from administrators inPittsburgh.

The Essays: Some Connections

Senator Lieberman's remarks outline amajor impetus for the establishment ofadditional Teachers Institutes. Those newInstitutes would be based on the model thathas been successful in New Haven formore than twenty-five years, and that theNational Demonstration Project has shownto be successful in other urban partner-ships. This federal initiative would parallelthe Yale National Initiative and could drawsupport from its example and its continuingactivities. The new Teacher ProfessionalDevelopment Institutes could make use oftechnical advice, summer "Intensives,"annual Conferences, and other opportuni-ties that are open to members of the Leagueof Teachers Institutes and to new Institutesbeing established through the YaleNational Initiative.

The essays from the Houston TeachersInstitute suggest something of the topicalrange of the Institute seminars—includingmathematics, architecture, and Americanhistory—and also indicate how the work ineach seminar can be grounded in the spe-cial interests of the teachers and class-rooms being served. Mike Field describeshow his strategy for leading students toengage mathematics with vigor and delightwas developed in classrooms at theUniversity of Wisconsin and the Universityof Houston. And he shows how his semi-nars in "Hands-on Geometry" and"Figuring the Odds," which helped him tofocus and develop his own ideas on thenature of mathematics and its role in themodern world, provided both teachers andtheir students with fresh and enjoyablelearning experiences. Mary Ann T.Natunewicz describes how she could findin a seminar on home architecture from1850 to 1970 the basis for a unit on thedevelopment of homes in Houston andChicago. Her unit led students into a fullerunderstanding of the history of their owncity in its national context. And it encour-aged them to begin to grasp the complexi-

2 ON COMMON GROUND

On Common Ground:The Yale National Initiative


I

SPRING 2005 3

Feature1 Establishing Institutes

Throughout the NationSenator Joseph Lieberman

Editorial2 On Common Ground:

The Yale National InitiativeThomas R. Whitaker

Seminars in Houston5 Mathematics:Why Get Involved?

Mike Field

6 The Development of Homes inHouston and ChicagoMary Ann Natunewicz

8 The Underground Railroad: AStudy of the Routes from Texasto MexicoGeorgia Redonet

Seminars in Pittsburgh9 Teachers Institute Seminars on Latin

America: A Faculty PerspectiveKaren Goldman

10 Cooking with CultureRenee Tolliver

12 Defining the Decades withMedia EventsDoris Braun

Seminars in New Haven14 An Inquiry into Geography

through Film and LiteratureDudley Andrew

16 Cultural Snapshots:Reflections and Illuminations ofFrancophone CulturesCrecia C. Swaim

17 War and Peace in the TwentiethCentury and BeyondBruce Russett

18 Just War Theory and the Wars ofthe 20th CenturyJohn Buell

20 Asteroids, Comets, andMeteorites: Their IntimateRelation with Life on EarthStephen P. Broker

Teacher Quality and Student Learning22 Evaluations of the National

Demonstration ProjectThomas R. Whitaker

24 From Fellow to AdministratorA Conversation with VerdellRoberts

26 Learning from Participation inTeachers InstitutesVerna Arnold

27 Renewal Through the Institute: APrincipal’s ViewF. Robert McMurray

28 From The Pittsburgh PublicSchoolsJohn W. Thompson and William Isler

Book Review30 Teaching with Fire: Poetry that

Sustains the Courage to Teach,edited by Sam M. Intrator andMegan ScribnerPaul Fry

Contents

Credits: Front Cover: Jasper Johns © VAGA, NY. Map. 1961. Oil on canvas, 6’ 6" x 10’ 3 1/8". Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Scull. (277.1963). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. DigitalImage © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. Page 5: Buckminster Fuller. Building Construction/Geodesic Dome. 1951. Screenprint in white ink on clear polyester film overlaid ona Curtis plain blue backing sheet. 30" x 40". Carl Soloway Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio. Page 8: Jacob Lawrence. Migration Series, No. 18: the migration gained in momentum. 1940-41. Casein tempera on hardboard.12" x 18". The Museum of Modern Art, New York/ © ARS, NY. Photograph Courtesy of Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence / Art Resource, NY. Page 10: Carl Moon. Women Baking Bread. ca. 1937-1943. Oil on canvas. 24" x30 1/8". Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Photograph © Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY. Page 12: Ken Keeley. 20th Century Newsstand. 1999. Oil over acrylic oncanvas. 50" x 80". © 1999 Ken Keeley. Page 14: Unknown Artist. Watching a documentary film of Amadou Bamba's life. 1995. Reverse-glass painting. 24.2 x 32.6 cm. Collection of Dr. Allen F. Roberts. PhotographCourtesy of Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, CA. Page 19: Tom Lea. That Two Thousand Yard Stare. 1943. Oil on canvas. Army Art Collection, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair,DC. Page 21: Alexander Calder. La lune et la montange (Moon and Mountain). n.d. Color lithograph. 23 7/8" x 19 1/4". Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. University Purchase, A. Conger Goodyear, B.A.1899, Fund/ © ARS, NY. Page 26: William Johnson. Art Class. 1939-40. Oil on plywood. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Photograph © Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/ Art Resource, NY. 1: William Blake. Jerusalem: Frontispiece [A traveler wearing a short, belted coat and a flat-brimmed hat steps with his right foot trough an open arched doorway in a stone wall.] (plate1). 1804-1820. Relief etching with pen, watercolor and gold printed in orange. 13 ½" x 10 3/8". Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Back Cover: William Henry Johnson. Ferry Boat Trip. ca. 1943-44.Tempera, pen and ink with pencil on paper. 16 ½" x 13 7/8". National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photograph © Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY.

(continued from front cover)Granted the opportunity to examine and acton their own skills and knowledge, teachersgain a sense self-sufficiency, and are moreenthusiastic about their participation.Teachers gain further confidence as theypractice using the materials they obtain anddevelop among their peers, ensuring thatthe experience not only increases their sub-ject-matter proficiency, but also providesimmediate hands-on active learning materi-als that can be transferred to the classroom.In short, by allowing teachers to determinethe seminar subjects and providing themthe resources to develop curricula relevantto their classroom and their students, theInstitutes empower teachers. Teachers arethe front line—they are the interfacebetween the educational system and the stu-dents it aspires to enlighten—and theyknow what should be done to improve theirschools and increase student achievement.The Teacher Professional DevelopmentInstitutes promote this philosophy.

From 1999-2002, the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute conducted a NationalDemonstration Project to create compara-ble Institutes at four diverse sites with largeconcentrations of disadvantaged students.These demonstration projects were locatedin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Houston,Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; andSanta Ana, California. Based on the suc-cess of that Project, the Institute haslaunched the Yale National Initiative tostrengthen teaching in public schools. TheYale Initiative is a long-term endeavor toestablish exemplary Teachers Institutes instates throughout the nation, just as the leg-islation I have introduced would do.

Follow-up evaluations have garneredvery positive reactions from teachers whohave participated in both the Yale-NewHaven Institute and the demonstrationInstitutes. These data strongly support theconclusions that virtually all teachers feltsubstantially strengthened in their mastery

of content knowledge andthat they developed increa-sed expectations for stu-dents’ achievement. Further,because of their personalinvolvement in the courseselection and curriculumdevelopment process, teacherparticipants have foundthese seminars to be espe-cially relevant and useful intheir classroom practices—in fact, ninety-five percentof all participating teachersreported them to be useful.Finally, study results havefound that these Institutesfoster teacher leadership,develop supportive teachernetworks, heighten univer-sity faculty commitments toimproving K-12 public edu-cation, and create more pos-itive partnerships betweenschool districts and institu-tions of higher education,something I believe isessential to improving stu-dents' readiness for college.

Several studies assert thatteacher quality is the single most importantschool-related factor in determining stu-dent achievement. Accordingly, the NoChild Left Behind Act requires a "highlyqualified" teacher to be in every classroomby the end of the 2005-2006 academicyear. Effective teacher professional devel-opment programs that focus on contentarea and pedagogical knowledge areproven means for enhancing the success ofclassroom teachers and helping to meet the"highly-qualified" criteria. Yet, a 2003Government Accountability Office Reporton Teacher Quality found that many stateand local school districts view shortcom-ings in their current professional develop-ment practices as a significant barrier tomeeting this requirement. These localagencies are looking for innovative,

research-proven alternatives to their cur-rent programs, and this is precisely whatTeacher Professional DevelopmentInstitutes will provide.

Nationwide, projects developed to con-form to the Yale-New Haven Institute haveproven to be a successful model for inno-vative teacher professional development.Virtually all teacher participants felt sub-stantially strengthened in their mastery ofcontent knowledge and their teachingskills. My proposal would open this oppor-tunity to many more urban teachers andwould provide high quality professionaldevelopment to educators and policy mak-ers throughout the nation. In this way, wecan set high standards for effective teacherprofessional development as we have donefor student achievement outcomes.

4 ON COMMON GROUND

Establishing Institutes Throughout the Nation

Joseph Lieberman is United States Senatorfrom the State of Connecticut.

By Mike Fieldather than simply give a summaryof my very positive and rewardingexperiences leading three semi-

nars in the Houston Teachers Institute, Ifelt it might be more useful to answer thequestion of why an active research mathe-matician might get involved in such a ven-ture. Mathematics teaching is, after all,usually the antithesis of the collegial stylepromoted in Institute seminars. As a group,mathematicians also have a reputation forhaving rather inflexible ideas about theimportance of mathematical rigor and whatshould and should not be taught.

I started to develop a serious interest inthe way we teach mathematics in schoolsabout twenty years ago. At the time I wasat the University of Wisconsin, Madison,on leave for a year from SydneyUniversity, Australia. Before going back toSydney, I elected to teach a summer ses-sion course on geometry. The class consist-ed of prospective elementary school teach-ers. All of them were hostile to mathemat-ics and most unhappy at being forced totake this class which they felt was irrele-vant to their teaching needs. Hostility andalienation towards mathematics is hardlynews for a math professor working at astate university in the USA. In my case,however, this was really a "holiday job" toearn some extra dollars before going backto Sydney. Rather than adopt one of theusual strategies—predicated on the ideathat, like cod liver oil, mathematics is goodfor you—I decided, after talking with myspouse (who was trained as a teacher), thatI would attempt to make the course rele-vant for the teachers and also show some atleast of the ideas that underpin geometricways of thinking. I think it is important tostress that I felt that the class was correct inits attitude to the course: it was largelyirrelevant and inappropriate (and, in thatsense, I feel typical of many classes in gen-eral mathematics that are taught to college

students). The course I developed entailedtheir making classroom materials whichranged from stellated dodecahedra toposters illustrating tilings, tesselations, andvarious symmetric designs. One part of thecourse that worked spectacularly wellinvolved making the solid models (this wasa seriously challenging activity). As thecourse progressed, the mathematics officestaff got increasingly intrigued seeing thestudents going to the class with their math-ematical models. Eventually, they commis-sioned the students to make some modelsfor their office. By the end of the course,the attitude of the students towards mathe-matics had significantly changed (this wasbacked up by several letters I receivedfrom members of the class—in itself anunusual experience for a math professor).To this day, I still feel that this was the mostsuccessful and enjoyable university mathe-matics course that I have ever led.

Several years later, when I had moved toHouston, I was asked to give an interdisci-plinary course on "Symmetry, Patterns and

Design" to junior and senior students main-ly from the art and design department atthe University of Houston (as a hobby, I doa fair amount of art work based on some ofthe ideas that come from my mathematicsresearch). Apart from the expected fear andalienation from mathematics, I was sur-prised to find that members of the class—many of whom were specializing indesign—had no insight, indeed no lan-guage, to describe the various types of pat-terns and symmetry that one sees every-where in the real world. How does one seewithout the concepts and language? Ibelieve that geometry helps one to see.Whether it be three dimensional visualiza-tion, an appreciation of art, or a sensitivityto pattern and symmetry in nature, I feelthat without some exposure to geometryand geometric ways of thinking, a wholerichness of experience is lost.

But this has to do with appreciation andenhancing the experience of life. Are partsof mathematics still useful to the average


SPRING 2005 5

Mathematics: Why Get Involved?

R

Mike Field is Professor of Mathematics at theUniversity of Houston.

BUCKMINSTER FULLER, BUILDING CONSTRUCTION/ GEODESIC DOME, 1951

6 ON COMMON GROUND

By Mary Ann T. Natunewicz

Editor’s Note: This unit was written in a2003 seminar, "There's No Place LikeHome: Architecture, Technology, Art, andthe Culture of the American Home, 1850-1970," led by Margaret Culbertson, ChiefLibrarian of the Art and ArchitectureLibrary, University of Houston. It isdesigned to supplement an eleventh-gradecourse in United States history that dealswith the development and growth of cities.In this Fellow’s school, which has stu-dents from over 40 countries, many stu-dents have a first language other thanEnglish. This unit deals with two timeperiods: from the late 19th centurythrough 1917; and the post-World-War II period (c.1946-1955). The first was atime of very large immigra-tion to the United States, anaspect of interest to thesestudents; the second includ-ed the mushrooming growthof tract housing, particular-ly important in the growthof Houston. The studentsstudy Houston from its initial site toinclude places such as Houston Heightsand Montrose. Similarities and contrastswith the growth of Chicago are empha-sized in the context of the historical devel-opments of these times. Lesson plansinclude the study of urban geography,house plans, architectural styles, relationsto the Progressive Era and the Baby-Boom years, and problems of historicalpreservation. The writer has also usedportions of this unit in a course inAmerican Cultural Studies.

taught this unit as the unit on housesin American Cultural Studies, an elec-tive course in our Humanities Magnet

program. Most of my students were juniorsand seniors who were either currently tak-ing, or had already completed, a course in

United States History. Students look atsome contemporary cultural phenomenaand put these topics into cultural and his-torical context. All the topics complementthe required history course, are importantin understanding American culture, and areeasily understood by high-school age stu-dents of varying academic abilities.Housing is such a topic. In learning aboutthe growth of cities, students have readabout such things as immigration, politicalbosses, labor unions, and rising literacy,but, other than a few pictures of tenements,they have little understanding of how peo-ple lived and why they lived in a particularplace. Chicago and New York City areprominently featured in textbooks because

of the significant political events and socialadvances in these cities, and I thought thatsome understanding of urban life wouldappeal more to our students if we looked atwhat was going on in Houston.

I had originally planned for six 90-minute classes, which focused on the latenineteenth century and the immediate postWorld War II era. It became apparent thatextra days would be needed. As it was, Idid not finish everything in the unit.

Houston was originally divided intowards and, although modern council dis-tricts have replaced the old wards, olderparts of the city are still referred to bytheir original ward numbers. I was pleas-antly surprised to learn that a large pro-portion of the class was familiar with thenumber and the location of the wards, sothe idea of the growth of the city wasmore easily implemented than I hadexpected. Part of my unit centered on the

use of mass transit in the city, emphasiz-ing the relationships between the develop-ment of the trolley lines and the establish-ment of new residential subdivisions. Oneof the assignments was to locate theroutes of the old trolley lines and to findout through what neighborhoods each lineran. Light rail transportation was in thenews because Houston opened a newrapid transit line in January, at the time thecourse was starting. The contrast betweenthe extensive mileage in 1910 and the lim-ited single route of 2004 was obvious.

There were two parts of the unit that thestudents enjoyed most. First, they had todetermine what rooms and facilities in ahome were necessary and which were

comparative luxuries. Then,after looking at examples offloor plans, they were to listthe things they would like ina home and design anappropriate floor plan.Conspicuous consumptionwas the order of the day withhomes designed that hadindoor swimming pools andbasketball courts, media

rooms, game rooms, jacuzzis, marblepatios, tennis courts, gourmet kitchens,and four-car garages; very few were inter-ested in libraries or music practice rooms.Central heating, air-conditioning andindoor plumbing were taken for granted.Because the interest was so high, I addedto this section and had them find houses inHouston that had some or all of the fea-tures they wanted. To do this they had tolearn to read the real estate sections of apaper and some had to learn aboutHouston suburbs. They were shocked atthe prices of homes; it was an eye openerfor some to discover that "540" was ashortened form of $540,000 and did notmean you could get the house for $540. Atthis point I asked what sort of job youwould need to finance a house that costthis much. Naturally the first answerswere "pro basketball player" or "rap star."After determining that most of the people

The Development of Homesin Houston and Chicago

IMary Ann T. Natunewicz teaches history at LeeHigh School in Houston.

Chicago and New York City are prominentlyfeatured in textbooks, and I thought that some

understanding of urban life would appealmore to our students if we looked at what was

going on in Houston.

SPRING 2005 7

buying these homes were neither profes-sional athletes nor singers with platinumrecords, more realistic occupations wereconsidered. Each student had to use theInternet to find average salaries of occu-pations that would permit her to buy thehome. When I use the unit another time Iwould take this a step further and explorethe educational background needed to getthe type of job that would allow you tobuy the house.

After the students had practiced beingconsumers, they could more easily under-stand what people, both in Chicago and inHouston, would want to look for in buy-ing a home. A section that I thought wouldtake more time, the importance of easilyaccessible transportation, was speedilylearned because most of my students relyheavily on public transportation. For themit was no revelation that you would wantto live near the trolley line. What did sur-prise them was where the trolleys used togo in Houston and the much greater num-ber of miles and routes.

The development of the Sears Roebuckhouses was examined by looking atchanges in rooms and addition of amenitiessuch as improved plumbing. We looked atads for housing developments in early20th-century Chicago and compared themto the type of house built in Houston at thattime. We read sections of Upton Sinclair'sThe Jungle and discussed the problems ofnon-English speakers and the danger ofbeing cheated because of not knowing thelanguage. Many of our students are recentnon-English speaking immigrants whosefamilies are currently trying to buy theirfirst homes in this country. They discussedwhether Sinclair was being too patronizingtoward the immigrants of his novel anddoubted that the immigrants could befooled so easily. The consensus was thatnot speaking English didn't mean a personhad lost all his common sense, and that, ifthe prospective buyer had a person whomthey trusted and who could help them overlanguage problems, the immigrant housebuyer would be successful.

The second most popular section of theunit was looking at pictures of homes inChicago and in Houston on the Web. Weused many of the sites devoted to theChicago bungalow. Students were veryinterested in the types of things youshould do to restore and maintain build-ings. What they really liked were the pic-tures that I took and posted on my Website. For some reason, these were verypopular, perhaps because they showedpeople and cars and were obviously fair-ly recent. They were able to appreciateand to identify some of the types ofstyles, but not as many as I had hoped.Many of these Houston houses were insections they had looked at in the realestate sections.

My students come from all over the cityof Houston, and the section on the growthof a post-World War II planned housingsubdivision about a mile from our schoolwas not as effective as I had hoped. Thestudents turned out to be as unfamiliarwith the churches, schools and colleges inthis area as they were of similar places inChicago. Not surprisingly the part ofmost interest was the presence of the firstair-conditioned mall in the United States,the development of which was a centralingredient of the planned housing area.Although they might not live in the area,everyone knew, shopped at and someeven worked at this mall. Because of thecomplicated Texas politics of the era, thiswas a time-consuming section to teach.

Generally, I was very pleased with theunit and I think that the students got toknow a lot about Houston and its rela-tionship to places that are featured moreprominently in the standard texts. Theylearned about the importance of conserv-ing both architecturally important build-ings and natural resources. They hadpractice in comparing and contrastingbuildings in different climate zones. Theyalso learned how to look at their city withmore appreciative eyes and to understandwhy people are now moving back toHouston's downtown area.

Whitaker: Yale Initiative

ties of mass transit and urban developmentin a city that has undergone rapid change.Georgia Redonet, in contrast, describeshow she has opened up for her students avery fresh topic—the migration of AfricanAmerican slaves from Texas to Mexico.After engaging in substantial research inconnection with the seminar on "AfricanAmerican Slavery in the New World," shedeveloped a vivid and pertinent unit forstudents at Jane Long Middle School,many of whom come from families thathad traveled north across the Rio Grandeor had arrived from refugee camps in othercountries.

The essays from the Pittsburgh TeachersInstitute give a yet closer view of the pos-sible relationships between an Instituteseminar and the curriculum units that theFellows prepare. Karen S. Goldmandescribes her step-by-step discovery of theseminar process in a Teachers Institute,and her delight in the involvement andcreativity that the Fellows brought to theircurriculum units. She leads us through thedevelopment of three seminars on topicspertaining to Latin America, and she notesas well how one of her own recent publi-cations emerged from this experience.Renee C. Tolliver, a Fellow in KarenGoldman's seminar, "Popular Culture inLatin America and the United States,"describes the unit on "Cooking withCulture" that she developed for her ninth-grade gifted English class on the NorthSide of Pittsburgh. Her unit incorporatesrecipes for ethnic foods, interviews toobtain family anecdotes, and current popculture topics—as well as lessons inMicrosoft Word and digital photography.Doris Braun, a Fellow in James Davidson'sseminar on "Media Revolutions,"describes how she developed a unit on"Defining the Decades" that workedexceptionally well for her elementaryschool class. Her students not onlylearned how the media have been trans-formed since the 1940s; they also became


(continued from page 2)

8 ON COMMON GROUND

By Georgia Redonet

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a 2003seminar on "African American Slavery inthe New World: A Different Voice," led byKen Brown of the Department ofAnthropology, University of Houston, isdesigned for a middle school class in his-tory and geography. It incorporates prob-lem solving, critical thinking, research,and oral, written, and visual presenta-tions. The phrase "UndergroundRailroad" is extended to apply here to theroutes used by slaves in Texas who wererunning away to Mexico. The unit, whichpresents detailed historical accountsbased on an extensive bibliography,involves the study of efforts made byAfrican American slaves in Texas toescape southward.

t was while reading a travel articleabout Acapulco in the HoustonChronicle that I first became aware

of slaves who sought freedom by crossingthe Rio Grande. The author describedenslaved African Americans who escapedto Mexico and settled in the coastal areasaround Acapulco. She had visited theMuseo de las Culturas Afromestizas, amuseum dedicated to their culture andhistory located near the resort city. I wasintrigued. Of course slaves from Texaswould have gone south. They were too farremoved from the Mason Dixon Line tohave much chance at a successful escapeto the North. I thought each year of addinga detailed account of this information tomy curriculum. But with a busy schoolschedule the opportunity never presenteditself. Then I discovered the HoustonTeachers Institute. HTI provides teacherswith the impetus to explore those areas oflearning and enrichment which have beenput on back burners.

In the spring of 2003, Dr. KennethBrown led a seminar entitled "AfricanAmerican Slavery in the New World: ADifferent Voice." As I began my studies I

discovered that the writer of the travelarticle had been completely wrong in herinterpretation. This coastal region south ofAcapulco was actually settled by thedescendants of African slaves brought toMexico by the Spanish. No matter, thearticle had opened the door to a new areaof information and exploration and I waseager to proceed. Very little has been writ-ten in English on the topic of anUnderground Railroad into Mexico. The

most valuable sources of informationwere masters' theses, historical quarter-lies, and the accounts of former slavestaken in the 1930s by the WPA WritersProject. Enrollment in HTI included fullprivileges at the University of HoustonLibraries. For a teacher of Texas Historyaccess to these rare materials provided aunique learning experience. The resultwas a curriculum unit which enriched myknowledge of local history, reinvigoratedmy desire to teach, and captured the imag-ination and hearts of my students.

My classes compared the lives of theformer slaves in Mexico to that of modernday immigrants and refugees. At Jane

Long Middle School in Houston, Texas,we usually have students who have cometo us from forty or fifty countries. A goodnumber arrive from refugee camps.Others have traveled north across the RioGrande. Their families, like those of theslaves, had to make plans for escape. Theyhave also gained freedom at a price. Likethose who escaped slavery, they too havebeen separated from family and friendsand may never see them again. In com-paring their lives to those of the Americanslaves, they began to see the importanceand relevance of their own experiencesand were able to relate them to peoplewho came before them.

Other lessons focused on the geographyof Texas through the process of planning,the use of problem-solving skills, andresearch. Geography is usually not afavorite portion of the curriculum with thestudents or me. The book tends to intro-duce the state by regions, with a rathermundane description of geographical fea-tures followed by a list of the economicfactors for each area. In this unit geogra-phy was presented as a challenging game.My classes planned an escape by thor-oughly studying the environment to betraversed. What types of wild animalswould they encounter? Would there beedible plant life and water? How wouldthey obtain that knowledge? What was theweather like? Did the terrain provideplaces to hide? What about the vegetationin the barren scrub land of South Texas?These questions were assigned to differ-ent groups who coordinated their answersand used topographical maps to plan theirescapes. The runaways had to factor intoall of this geographical information theirhuman limitations and abilities to copewith a given environment. The landscapeof Texas came alive and allowed my stu-dents to consider the historical impact ofgeography. My classes have reapednumerous benefits from my participationin HTI. There is also great satisfaction inknowing that I am providing other educa-tors with information which I feel isimportant and yet not readily available.

The Underground Railroad:A Study of the Routes from Texas to Mexico

I

JACOB LAWRENCE, MIGRATION SERIES, NO. 18, 1940-41

Georgia Redonet teaches 7th grade at JaneLong Middle School in Houston.

SPRING 2005 9

By Karen S. Goldmann the spring of 2001 I led my firstPittsburgh Teachers Institute Seminar.It was called "Latin America:

Civilization and Culture." To my delight,the Fellows represented a wide diversity ofschools, levels and subjects, from a Head-Start instructor who taught three and fouryear olds, to high school teachers ofEnglish, history, Spanish and art. My sem-inar was designed to serve as a generalintroduction to various aspects of life inLatin American countries from early timesto the present. Two important objectiveswere to provide a general understanding ofthe region's history, and an introduction tothe diverse countries and cultures of LatinAmerica. Beyond this, I wanted Fellows toexplore the role different categories such asgender, social class, religion, race and eth-nicity play in the lives of Latin Americans.In addition, to compensate for the relativedearth of Hispanic immigration in ourregion, the seminar focused on the impactof increasing Latino populations in theU.S. The early weeks presented a fairly tra-ditional overview of the social and politicaldevelopment of Latin America, includingtopics such as: the precolumbian civiliza-tions and their cultural legacy; the conquis-tadores and the colonial period; the inde-pendence movements, the twentieth-centu-ry dictatorships; the move toward democ-racy, and the ongoing search for and thedefinition of a Latin American identity. Wethen read and commented on a variety ofworks of fiction and other cultural artifactssuch as films, photography, plastic art andInternet resources from Latin America.

I had been teaching undergraduatesabout Latin America for many years (oneof the early ones of which I spent at YaleUniversity sweating through my first lec-ture class on Latin American Cinema).But this was my first experience leading aPTI seminar, and I had no set expectationsof the Fellows. Nor did I know exactlywhat type of experience I should design

for the teachers, who were very differentin almost every way from my usual all-female 17-to-21 year old audience. I envi-sioned it as a hybrid between a traditionallecture/discussion format, such as I mightteach in an upper-level college course,and a graduate seminar, where partici-pants are responsible for presenting mate-rial to the group as well as contributing toand leading discussions. In the end, itturned out to be slightly more seminarthan lecture class. Fellows were responsi-ble for reading background on LatinAmerican history and culture, and I beganeach seminar with a brief review of thatmaterial. Additionally, Fellows read nov-els, stories and other literary works.Fellows themselves were responsible forpresenting, summarizing and analyzingthese works. As in most graduate-levelseminars, discussions were often focusedaround differing views of the texts, andhow these might be relevant to the variouscurriculum units under way among theFellows. I was not surprised by the oftenbewildered reactions of the Fellows tomuch of the contemporary LatinAmerican fiction, which is notable for itsresistance to traditional realist literaryconventions. What I did not anticipatewas the level of involvement and degreeof creativity of the Fellows in the designand execution of their curriculum units.Teachers who had had scant dealings withLatin American cultures before the semi-nar produced excellently researched andwritten units on the following topics (toname only a few): "The Myth of RacialDemocracy in Brazil," "20th CenturyLatin American Art: Critical Issues ofInfluence," "Making Connections: LatinoCaribbean Literature," "The Legacies ofMexican Artists, Diego Rivera and FridaKahlo and Their Influences on MexicanCulture," "Exploring Twentieth CenturyLatin America through Film" and"Negrismo: A Theme for Improving Self-Image in the Spanish Classroom for BlackHistory Month." Response to the seminarwas so positive that I submitted a secondseminar proposal for 2002. Realizing that

much of our discussion in the previousseminar had centered on the similaritiesand differences between the U.S. andLatin America, this time I designed a sem-inar on comparative cultural explorations.I led the seminar "Latin American andU.S. Popular Culture" in 2003. Twelvespirited teachers and I spent the semesterdebating, discussing and analyzing trendsin film, popular literature, television andother media in the U.S. and in LatinAmerica.

Again, the creativity and diversity ofthe curriculum units was exceptional, andincluded, among others, the followingtitles: "Popular Movements in LatinAmerica," "Popular Culture and ClothingChoices," "The African Influence onBrazilian Popular Culture," "Llévame alPartido: Latin Americans in U.S.Professional Baseball" and "BirthingRituals across Cultures." In this seminar,one topic that emerged constantly was therepresentation of women in popular cul-ture and, related to this, the ubiquitousfigure of the American Barbie doll and thetoy's global reach. The Barbie debate wasfrequent and often so intense that my owninterest in the doll intensified. I began anew research project that examined theethnic, racial and national representationsof Mattel's Barbie doll. In particular, I wasinterested in the way the Hispanic Barbiedoll had been developed and marketed fora U.S. Latino public. Out of this seminaremerged one of my most recent publica-tions: "La Princesa Plástica: Representa-tions of Latinidad in Hispanic Barbie."Had it not been for the encouragementand stimulation of the Fellows, I'm quitecertain that I would not have pursued thisresearch topic.

My experience leading seminars in thePittsburgh Teachers Institute has allowedme to share my passion for Latin Americawith Pittsburgh Public School teachers,and, indirectly, with the district's students.It has also led me to view my own disci-pline in new and surprising perspectivesand enriched my understanding of teach-ing and the educational process overall.

Teachers Institute Seminars on Latin America:A Faculty Perspective

I

Karen S. Goldman is Associate Professor ofModern Languages and Executive Assistant tothe President of Chatham College.

10 ON COMMON GROUND

By Renee C. Tolliver

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a 2003seminar on "Popular Culture in LatinAmerica and the United States," led byKaren Goldman, Assistant Professor ofModern Languages and ExecutiveAssistant to the President, ChathamCollege, is designed for a ninth-gradegifted English class. It can be adapted toany grade level and subject area. Studentslearn about popular culture by creating amulticultural cookbook that has threecomponents: interesting and unusualinformation about selected cultures; per-sonal anecdotes about rituals, celebra-tions and other pop culture activities; andrecipes that are related to the anecdotes.They enhance the cookbook with pictures,photographs, and designs. They can use avariety of research tools including books,databases, Internet sources, and personalinterviews. They take advantage of theschool's technological resources by usingthe digital camera, the scanner, Publisher,Adobe PhotoShop, PageMaker, andPowerPoint to complete the cookbook.They showcase their work to parents andteachers during a presentation and party,where they unveil their finished book, talkabout its contents, and serve food madefrom the recipes in the book. This five-week unit is presented during the secondsemester after students have learned touse research and technology tools. Itsactivities meet the eight DistrictCommunication Standards specified forthis grade. (In 2004 a $500 Innovation inTeaching Grant from the PittsburghCouncil on Public Education helped tocover expenses for printing the cookbookpages and carrying out the publicationparty.)

his month's classroom menu fea-tures a heaping serving of researchskills accompanied by side dishes

of planning, technology, popular culture,and family interaction. These are gener-ously seasoned with a zesty mixture of

creativity and high standards. This fabu-lous entrée is finished with a scrumptious,exciting dessert consisting of a gala publi-cation party that showcases the group'sunique cookbook. One of these uniquefeatures is a time capsule section withpopular culture topics that will allow stu-dents to look back years from now to seewhat the trends were in fashion, literature,television, and movies. The authorsworked tirelessly to prepare for the partyby cooking many of the dishes in thecookbook and decorating the dining roomwith a variety of ethnic designs to impressthe parents, faculty members, and specialguests. The celebration was a great suc-cess, one that tantalized and satisfied boththe intellectual and gustatory appetites.

One of the main reasons for the successof this unit was the access I had to rele-vant and stimulating material and to somany great ideas in the PittsburghTeachers Institute seminar, "Pop Culturein Latin America and the United States."Dr. Goldman led us on an engrossing jour-ney through the avenues of pop culture.While the focus was on Latin America

and the United States, seminar partici-pants offered stories and informationabout their own ethnic backgrounds andfamily rituals. There was never a dullmoment, and I knew that my studentswould be as motivated to participate in aunit about their backgrounds as I was.

I prepared this unit for a ninth-gradegifted English class at David B. OliverHigh School. Oliver is an urban schoollocated on the North Side of Pittsburghwith about one thousand students, whocome from predominantly low-incomefamilies throughout the city. The racialmake-up is eighty-five percent AfricanAmerican and fourteen percent white,with one percent labeled as "other." Ourschool boasts a strong JROTC magnet aswell as a rigorous Law and Public ServiceMagnet. We also have over two hundredPSE students (Program for Students withExceptionalities). Like most large cities,Pittsburgh battles many tough socialissues including gang violence, teen preg-nancy, drug abuse, and dysfunctional fam-ilies. All of these issues manifest them-selves in our schools, particularly in the

Cooking with Culture

T

CARL MOON, WOMEN BAKING BREAD, CA. 1937-43

Renee C. Tolliver teaches English at David B.Oliver High School in Pittsburgh.

SPRING 2005 11

diverse abilities and behaviors of our stu-dents. I work with students who have highability but often demonstrate low achieve-ment because they are not interested in theassignments. Developing activities thatare rigorous and productive is always achallenge. So, I met the challenge thistime with food as the hook. What teenag-er does not jump at the chance to sampletasty morsels in class, especially whilethey listen to interesting anecdotes aboutthe teacher's private life?

I started theunit off with, ofcourse, samplesof food, foodthat reflected myown ethnic back-ground. Studentsare more willingto rise to highstandards if Imodel the acti-vities and assign-ments effective-ly. I asked myclass if theycould figure outmy ethnic background. I got a variety ofanswers, from Hispanic to Italian to"mongrel." Actually, my father is AfricanAmerican and my mother is Indian (fromCalcutta, India). This allowed me to sharemy parents' enchanting love story andthen talk about how popular both Indiancurries and fried chicken with collardgreens are in our house. Some of the stu-dents had never eaten curry or spicyIndian food. So I passed samples of cur-ried potatoes around. It was very spicy,and the reaction was quite funny. The stu-dents enjoyed the lesson, and all of themhad a story to tell about their favoritefoods and family rituals. So the plungeinto a unit of research, non-fiction writ-ing, and the use of Microsoft Word,PowerPoint, and the digital camera hadtaken off.

The strategies I used were to center theunit around topics to which the studentswould eagerly relate. I also modeled andparticipated in all of the unit activities

with the students. Parents and relativeswere asked to complete enjoyable tasks,ones that they could be proud of, such assharing their favorite recipes, whichsparked positive memories and anecdotes.They looked forward to seeing theirnames, recipes and stories in the complet-ed cookbook, and they were delighted tobe invited to share in a school project cel-ebration with their children. The studentswere interested in looking up informationabout their ethnic backgrounds and inter-

viewing familymembers aboutrituals and food.They felt impor-tant as theysigned out thedigital camerato take picturesat home for thecookbook, andthey eagerlycollected infor-mation aboutcurrent pop cul-ture topics toinclude in the

time capsule section. They quickly gainedproficiency in the use of various tools inMicrosoft Word to make pages for thecookbook that they could show off to theirfamilies. Creating invitations to the publi-cation party and making lists of guestsand menu items added to the excitement.They even stayed after school to decoratethe dining room and to clean up afterward.Their enthusiasm became infectious asthey insisted that their mothers, fathers, oruncles cook a special dish for the celebra-tion.

While more faculty and guests thanfamily members attended the publicationparty, the students were still able to showthat their families had contributed to theproject by providing recipes, culturalinformation, and anecdotes to the cook-book, and tasty dishes for the party. Thestudents expressed pride in the ownershipthey had taken in this project and in theaccolades they received from those whowitnessed their accomplishments.


journalist-historians who did research intotheir selected decade.

The essays from the Yale-New-HavenTeachers Institute further suggest the inter-disciplinary possibilities offered byInstitute seminars and curriculum units.Dudley Andrew describes his professionalmovement from the fields of comparativeliterature and film studies into the socialsciences, particularly geography. Hemakes clear the importance of films in anystudy of the geographical in a world nowcharacterized by interdependence andmigration. And he outlines how his semi-nar looked closely at films from Africa,China, and Ireland, exploring the culturesby interrogating the films. Crecia C.Swaim, a Fellow in that seminar, thendescribes how it enabled her, as a first-year teacher of French, to develop a cur-riculum unit that would bring French aliveas a worldwide language for her studentsat Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School. Herunit also helped her to create her portfoliofor the Beginning Educator Support andTraining program. Bruce Russett thendescribes the international focus of hisseminar on "War and Peace in theTwentieth Century and Beyond." He liststhe rather astonishing range of topics—just war theory, conflict resolution, thefuture of Indochina, the artistic responseto the occupation of France, AfricanAmericans and the military, the effect ofwar upon children, and how war changedthe role of women in the United States—that were covered in the curriculum units.We can easily see why that seminar wasfor Bruce Russett as enjoyable as any hehas taught at Yale University. We theninclude John Buell's account of his teach-ing of the unit on "Just War Theory andthe Wars of the 20th Century" that hedeveloped in that seminar. Buell noteshow his unit succeeded in meeting theneeds posed by students with a range ofabilities. It was challenging and engagingto those with skills at or above grade leveland yet accessible to students whose skillswere below grade level. Finally, Stephen



There was never a dullmoment, and I knew that my

students would be as motivated to participate in aunit about their backgroundsas I was. They even stayed

after school. Their enthusiasmbecame infectious.

12 ON COMMON GROUND

By Doris Braun

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a2001 seminar on "Media Revolutions,"led by James Davidson, AdjunctProfessor of English, Carnegie MellonUniversity, is designed for the fifthgrade. It can be easily adapted for olderor younger students. The unit is intro-duced in conjunction with "Transfor-mations" in the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill reading text Don't Forget to Fly. Thefirst story in that section of the text is"New Providence," by Renata vonTscharner and RonaldLee Fleming, about avisit to a mythical cityin 1910, 1935, 1955,1970, 1980, and 1987.After discussion of thestory and the differenttime periods, studentsare divided intogroups, each of whichchooses one of thetime periods inPittsburgh to reporton. The second storyin the text is "How tobe an Inventor," byBarbara Taylor. Becausethis story ties in withthe Foss Science unitabout simple machines, the groups alsoresearch and report on the importantinventions of each decade. The teachersuggests that students present theirreports as the news might have been pre-sented in their time period: newspaper in1910; radio in 1935; black-and-white tel-evision in 1955; color television in 1970;a magazine format for 1980; and aPowerPoint presentation for 1987. Finalclass presentations include appropriatedress and music from the decades. Theactivities in this unit meet the require-ments of the Standards Based Portfolioand also the District Communication

Standards, Science Standards, and someof the Citizenship Standards for this gradelevel.

efining Decades with MediaEvents” was the third of sixunits that I have completed

with the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute. Itwas the most enjoyable to write, and themost fun to teach. I based the unit on astory that the class read in the standardreading text that traced the history of amythical town throughout the TwentiethCentury. I transferred the main idea of

that story to focusing on how the historyof Pittsburgh changed during that samecentury. I particularly emphasized howthe media reported and influenced thehistory.

The unit worked exceptionally well forthis class, because with very few excep-tions they were all multigenerationalmembers of the Pittsburgh community ofLincoln Place, where the school is located.I also had an advantage going in becausemy previous units had been very success-ful and I had the reputation of doing some-thing unique. Many of my students andtheir families had requested to have me asa teacher, and were looking forward toparticipating in this special unit.

As we read about each decade in thetext, I shared my personal recollections andknowledge of each time period. I run avery relaxed class, and the students felt freeto ask many questions and have me elabo-rate on any events that needed further clar-ification or were of special interest to them.It was then time for each group to choose aparticular decade to report on. The childrenworked in pairs. I gave them each anassignment sheet that explained exactlywhat was expected. Each pair chose animportant event, invention, and personalityfrom their particular decade. Everyone

tried to interview a per-son from his/her par-ticular decade. I hadprepared a list of inter-view questions foreach decade. I suggest-ed that they feel free toalter the questions andgo with the flow of theinterview. I also encour-aged them to find outhow the news wasreported on duringtheir decade. I suggest-ed that they find pic-tures or make theirown illustrations abouttheir decade. When Ido a project like this, I

always make my own model. I personallychose the 40s because even though I wasborn in 1942, I have no memory of thattime period. I had actual family photos todisplay and through the magic of VCRs Icould show excerpts of movies from thatperiod. The students seemed anxious tobegin their own research.

I knew that all of my students hadaccess to computers, thus making theresearch easier, but the number who actu-ally recorded or videotaped their inter-views surprised me. Somehow the wholeproject became a family event. MaryEllen had taped an interview with hergrandparents who had been high schoolsweethearts in the 60s. On the day she

Defining the Decades with Media Events

KEN KEELEY, 20TH CENTURY NEWSSTAND, 1999

Doris Braun teaches English at MifflinElementary School in Pittsburgh.

D“

SPRING 2005 13

presented her report, her grandmothercame to class and was happy to answerquestions. Not to be outdone, Jakebrought his great grandfather and his col-lection of model World War II airplanes.They were both able to go into detailabout how the planes were made andwhen and where they were used. (Jakewent on to win a model airplane contestwhich was sponsored by one of the banksthe following year.) Matt brought in avideo interview of his great grandfatherthat described in detail the flood thatoccurred in Pittsburgh in 1936. That onewas particularly entertaining because wehad to fast-forward all of the expletives.Matt had also prepared a scrapbook of aflood that had occurred by his home thatsummer, and we could compare the twoevents.

Some of the children dressed in outfitsgermane to their decade when they pre-sented their projects. Many brought foodor other objects from their time period. Ihad a plethora of rubric cubes, silly putty,and hula-hoops on display. Some dressedBarbie and Ken in clothing of theirdecade. This was fun to display.

I feel that this unit was successful forseveral reasons:

1. It was tied to our own community,which the children were familiar with.

2. My model of the 40s gave them aclear idea of what was expected

3. It was easy to get good informationfrom the Internet and Time-Life books foreach decade. These were particularly suit-able for this age group. They are simplywritten, and have excellent pictures.

4. Parents and other family memberswere so willing to get involved. Some hadthe older clothing in their attics. Othermoms and grandmas were willing to makethe clothing.

5. It was great for family relationships.6. The children had an opportunity to

express their own individuality.This unit could easily be adapted to

other communities. I would certainly behappy to teach it again.

(continued from page 5)person? Or is it all specialist knowledge,akin to that possessed by a TV repairman?

I would argue that to make sense of data,medical information and news in the con-temporary world it is essential to have a rea-sonable grasp of the thought patternsinvolved in probability and statistics. In factthe understanding of statistics, even at thehighest levels of government, is typicallywoeful. Statistics and probability are noteasy subjects to understand. In part this isbecause they are quite new disciplines, stillat the somewhat "magical" stage and farfrom being successfully incorporated in ourpatterns of thought and language.

All that I havedescribed abovehas influencedthe way I haveapproached lead-ing seminars inthe Houston Tea-chers Institute.The three semi-nars that I haveled have com-prised quite mixedgroups with oftena majority ofteachers fromoutside mathematics. Two of the seminarshave been on geometry. The most recent ofthese, "Hands-on Geometry," had a home-work component where the Fellows mademathematical objects (including stellatedpolyhedra). There was also a workshop onZometool led by the mathematician, com-puter scientist and sculptor George Hart.When the Fellows had completed their poly-hedron (which had to be large), they wouldtake it to school on the day of the seminar.The reaction of the students on seeing, say,a great dodecahedron was instructive."What's that?" "Can we make one of those?"The object generated both respect and inter-est. After seeing the Fellows efforts, the stu-dents made dozens of polyhedra, especiallystellated polyhedra. Sometimes these werelarge and decorated with ornate and beauti-

ful designs. A student, quoted to me by aFellow, said "I didn't know math could be somuch fun." Probably the moral needs to bespelt out: making things, especially whenconsiderable effort is required, can provide agreat learning experience. Spending fiveminutes playing with graphics on a comput-er is a largely worthless learning experience.

The other seminar I have given was onprobability and statistics, "Figuring theOdds: Learning to Live with Life'sUncertainties." This was a tough seminar tolead—certainly part of the interest (and dif-ficulty) for me was my effort in trying todevelop an accessible approach to the sub-ject that everyone could benefit from. One

high point of thisseminar was a visitby a group fromYale. It was nearthe end of the sem-inar (mathematicsalways gets left tolast...) and I decid-ed to mention oneof the things wehad talked about:The Monty Hallparadox in proba-bility. Needless tosay, my explana-

tion to the Yale team was met by puzzle-ment. But then, as a group, the Fellows start-ed enthusiastically explaining Monty Hall tothe Yale team. Somehow that seemed tomake all the effort worthwhile.

In conclusion, leading three Institute sem-inars has been most rewarding. It hashelped me focus and develop my own ideason the nature of mathematics and its role inthe modern world. Meeting the Fellows andvisiting the schools has enriched my expe-rience of Houston and given me a newappreciation of the contribution made byteachers in the Houston IndependentSchool District. Involvement in theHouston Teachers Institute has easily beenthe most rewarding academic and teachingexperience I have had during my time at theUniversity of Houston.

Field: Mathematics:Why Get Involved?

Leading Institute seminars hashelped develop my own ideason the nature of mathematics

and its role in the modern world.Involvement in the TeachersInstitute has easily been the

most rewarding teachingexperience I have had.

By Dudley Andrewrobably the most exciting develop-ment in my career has been the waymy academic disciplines of literary

and cinema studies have come to embracethe social sphere. Being in a Department ofComparative Literature has helped, forhere the issues of "world literature" and"world film" are now at the top of thatfield's agenda. Language remains crucial,but the social sciences, particularly geogra-phy, have become important at the highestlevels of analysis. And so suddenly theoften lofty (airy) studies of written andvisual texts have descended to the earth,indeed to the Earth as a place, linking grad-uate research to elementary school con-cerns about how the world has been andshould be represented.

Geography is one of the most venerablesubjects in the curriculum, hundreds ofyears old. Film Studies is among thenewest, introduced widely in universitiesonly in the 1970s and still offered only incertain high schools and junior highs. Notlong ago, geography was thought to haveseen better days, replaced by "social stud-ies" or by one of the more specific disci-plines that thrived after WWII: psycholo-gy, sociology, economics, anthropology.Film Studies has been suspect for quite theopposite reason: too young, too unproven,of uncertain consequence, it has beendeemed a hobby. Now they are allies, andare both flourishing.

Students from kindergarten throughgraduate school need to understand factsabout other places in the world; but beforelearning such specific things, they need tounderstand two principles: the relation ofpeople to place, and the interdependenceamong places. In a way, the return of geog-raphy came about in tandem with thetremendous popular interest in ecology, ascientific word that would not have beenunderstood by lay people until 1970 or so.Ecology taught us that all "individuals"

(entire species too) depend on each othersystematically and that the system, operat-ing in a constantly self-regulating flux, canbe altered, skewed, and upset when "indi-viduals" get out of position, when theymigrate to new areas or somehow turn upin new places.

The participants in our seminar routinelydeal with students (from 2nd grade through12th) who need to see themselves in a larg-er world and who need to understand thattheir health as "individuals" or as membersof a group they identify with depends onthe health of the system. Geography todayis as much a study of migration, adjust-ment, and interdependence as it is of dis-tinctive difference. From my perspective,films can be an instrument to bring the"geographical" to life, while the cinema intoto constitutes a model of what geographyis all about.

Let me explain. The availability of filmsfrom around the world has allowed the pasttwo generations to thoroughly scan theworld, catching glimpses of other places

and noting processes of movementbetween places. Cinema has actively con-tributed to the renewed interest in geo-graphical issues. While the movies wereinternational before being national, theexploitation of cinema's worldlinesschanged dramatically after 1975. In thatyear Hollywood successfully experimentedwith new strategies of global marketing(Jaws, then Star Wars). As an antidote tothis Hollywood hegemony, internationalfestivals began to feature films from placespreviously cinematically invisible. Canneswidened its tiny aperture in search ofvisions and voices beyond the "selectionofficiel." FESPACO, devoted solely toAfrican work, was inaugurated in 1969 inOuagadougou. Montreal's "Festival desfilms du Monde" began in 1977. It annual-ly screens over 400 films from 75 coun-tries, including Kyrgistan, Myanmar,Kurdistan, and Iceland, while less than10% of films shown there originate in theUSA. Of course festivals like these reacheda miniscule audience until the videotape

14 ON COMMON GROUND

An Inquiry into Geography through Film andLiterature: Reflections on an Institute Seminar

P

UNKNOWN ARTIST, WATCHING A DOCUMENTARY FILM OF AMADOU BAMBA'S LIFE, 1995

Dudley Andrew is Professor of ComparativeLitrature and Film Studies at Yale University.

revolution of the 1980s made them poten-tially available on a wider basis. And so itwasn't until the 90s that "world cinema"could genuinely become a subject ofstudy—when outlying films could maketheir way into a new market that includedthe AV holdings on college campuses andin certain school districts.

And so, world cinema as a pedagogicalidea and as a research agenda is really buta decade old. It appeals to teachers fasci-nated by what lies beyond the usual visualsurround of their students,and to those who may havebecome suspicious of thereach and the narcissism ofAmerican popular culture.Studying films from hiddencorners of the world quicklyshows how they are at oncedistinct from each other andinterdependent on a mobileeconomy of images. Questionsof indigenous source andstyle, on the one hand, and of "imagemigration," on the other, arise in wayscomparable to geographical questionsabout populations.

In our seminar we looked closely at filmsfrom Africa, China, and Ireland, exploringthe cultures by interrogating the films. Wehad to learn cultural history and film histo-ry to do this, but the delightful films madethis intriguing and pleasurable. Wheneverpossible we chose films that dealt withschool-aged children. Over the weeks,each participant took responsibility for onefilm and one cultural topic so that we allcontributed to a richer sense of what mightbe gained by using fiction films in theclassroom. Africa most forcefully grabbedour attention. We decided to build a littleanthology, with every participant agreeingto examine a different African film fromYale's Film Study Center. Reports werewritten but everyone had a few minutes toflesh out observations while showing anexemplary scene on the VCR. So when wecame to examine the three films that we

screened together, our discussions rangedacross the dozen other films we had sam-pled, and we could sense both how life isrepresented differently on that continentand how different life is there. One teacherread us an African tale she uses in her ele-mentary classroom; another contributed hisknowledge of several famous African nov-els. And we poured over maps and ency-clopedias so we could speculate on theimportance of trees in the sahel, of cliffs inMali, and of the Niger River flowing

through several countries. The films couldhave led us further, into the kinds of tradesand languages native to the various peoplesin West Africa, and to the way that encoun-ters with one another as well as withEuropeans alters, but does not destroy, thedelicate cultures that have subsisted therefor so long. We discussed the value anddangers of showing American students cer-tain films made in powerful anti-colonialanger.

The fact that we could replicate ourAfrican film experience in a nation of fivemillion people (Ireland) or in one with apopulation over a billion (China) illustrat-ed the pedagogical versatility of cinema.Irish poetry, theater, and story-tellingstand behind many of the loveliest filmsproduced there. We observed what hap-pens when foreign filmmakers set theirstories in this landscape and draw on itsquaint rural traditions, comparing theAmerican production of The Secret ofRoan Inish to two native films, The Fieldand Into the West. Everyone understood

that the local productions gained tremen-dously from the subtlety of their under-standing of land and people, and that for-eigners, despite their resources, are usual-ly intent on marketing a stereotype to sellto an international audience. When itcomes to politics, the many partisan filmsabout Ireland's bloody battles amonggroups of people who look just like oneanother can be a morality lesson inAmerican classrooms. But should teach-ers stick with the safer films about the

land and its traditions, orshould they show the compli-cations of social history thathave grown atop that land?

We had time scarcely tosample Chinese cinema. Still,at this point, we had learnedthat even one film could openup a host of questions aboutfilmmaking and film-going insuch a vast country, includingthe heritage of shadow plays,

Peking opera and other popular entertain-ments that preceded cinema. The film wefocused on, Not One Less, allowed us toglimpse questions of family relations,internal migration, and the use and care ofthe environment through the eyes of ayoung teacher and her pupils. We had noillusions that we had understood morethan a slice of China, but we had atremendously fertile discussion of thisbrilliant film, one that all participantswere hoping could spill out in their ownclassrooms.

The units prepared by each participantreflected their unanimous ambition tointroduce challenging films into the class-room, despite the cumbersome problemsof subtitles, long running-times, andshocking images that some students couldfind difficult to digest. Talking about suchproblems let us understand the value ofthe kind of friction that world films create.They definitely can heat up the classroom.Our summer seminar ran on the energy ofthat heat.

SPRING 2005 15

World cinema appeals to teachers fascinatedby what lies beyond the usual visualsurround of their students. The units

prepared by each participant reflected theirunanimous ambition to introduce

challenging films into the classroom.

16 ON COMMON GROUND

By Crecia Cipriano Swaim

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a2003 seminar on "Geography throughFilm and Literature," led by DudleyAndrew, Professor of ComparativeLiterature and chair of the Film StudiesProgram, Yale University, is designed for7th- and 8th-grade students of French ina middle-school program that developsand enriches both artistic and academicstrength. Authentic films from French-speaking countries serve here as thefoundation for cultural knowledge.Augmented by samples of popular music,works of art, selections of poetry, andtraditional recipes showcasing dominantcrops, the films illustrate key character-istics of each culture. The films and cul-tures included are: Keita, l'héritage dugriot (Burkina Faso, West Africa); Lamystérieuse mademoiselle C (Québec,Canada); La rue cases-nègres (Martinique,Lesser Antilles, Caribbean Islands); andQuand les étoiles rencontrent la mer(Madagascar, Africa).

was fortunate to be introduced tothe Yale-New Haven TeachersInstitute as a first-year teacher. I was

attracted to the idea that as a teacher, Icould still take on the role of activelearner. My experience in the 2003Institute reinforced that belief.

The seminar was full of inquisitive,intelligent colleagues from a cross-sec-tion of grade and subject levels. DudleyAndrew, head of the Yale Film StudiesProgram, guided us in developing a cur-riculum unit that matched our preciseneeds. He was a true role model in theway a teacher can demonstrate thoroughknowledge while exhibiting curiositywith respect to new learning opportuni-ties. He inspired us as he explained theway he watches films, a process thatincludes locating the action of the film

on a map and investigating cultural andgeographical accuracies and inaccura-cies. I wanted my unit to cultivate thismix of wonder, action, and sharing in mystudents.

Teaching my unit was both a pleasureand a challenge. I had been so compelledby possibilities that I created four sub-units, each one addressing a differentarea where French is spoken (other thanFrance), each one worthy of its own fullunit. I wanted to bring French alive as aworldwide language to my students,many of whom saw it as the least practi-cal or worthwhile language in their lives.During the year following the comple-tion of my unit, I taught two of the foursub-units. Between curricular requisites,time restraints, and the responsibilities ofcompleting the second-year teacherBEST (Beginning Educator Support andTraining) portfolio, I felt I had to make achoice between quantity and quality; Iintend to teach the other two sub-units inthe following years.

I taught the unit on Burkina Faso first,which revolved around a film in whichboth French and Djula, a West Africandialect, are spoken. Students were fasci-nated to see a movie filmed somewhereso outside of our pop culture realm offilm fodder. We explored why Frenchwas spoken when it was in the film, andthe class demonstrated a keen under-standing of the split between modernand traditional, often surprising me withthe clarity and wisdom of their observa-tions and responses. We discussed keycultural concepts, plot, and personalreactions to the film; we also learnedbasic facts about the country, includinglocal crops and musical instruments,both of which hooked students' interest.The film reflected the Sundiata myth,which we explored further in the Disneyfilm The Lion King (in French withEnglish subtitles, thanks to DVD!)Students happily made connectionsbetween the two films, and we role-played favorite scenes in French as a

class. Toward the end of this unit, thestudents were thrilled when their SocialStudies teacher introduced BurkinaFaso, and they got to teach him a thing ortwo!

The second unit I taught pertained toMartinique and the Caribbean Islands; Itaught it for my BEST portfolio. With alarge population of students of PuertoRican descent, I found it important todemonstrate the relevance of French inthe Caribbean; this shocked many stu-dents. We did not view the film aroundwhich I had created the unit, as I haddeveloped a sense that another film-ori-ented unit would lead my middle-school-ers to see film less as an invaluable tooland more as an escape from the rigors ofthe daily grind. I focused on culturalvocabulary and created an offshoot to theunit based around the market, jobs, cul-tural identity, and the relationshipbetween Martinique and Haiti, bothFrancophone islands, one independentand one not.

In both units, the file folders I requiredstudents to maintain resulted in a compi-lation of information, observations, lan-guage skills, and cultural interaction.They were graded according to rubriccriteria that gauged the amount of workcompleted and retained, as well asdegree of involvement with the material.By allowing students to use the contentsof their folders for assessments, Irewarded full attention to assignmentsand note-taking.

In teaching the units, I capitalized ondifferences and similarities my studentswould recognize between themselves andthe cultures explored, as well as betweendifferent portions of the same culture.Students are captivated by that which isvery different, just as they are amazed athow similar those so-different places orpeople are to themselves; that will alwaysserve as a worthy hook to learning, as willa teacher's enthusiasm for exploration. Itworked for me in the YNHTI just as it didfor my students.

Cultural Snapshots: Reflections andIlluminations of Francophone Cultures

I

Crecia Cipriano Swaim teaches French atBetsy Ross Arts Magnet School in NewHaven.

SPRING 2005 17

By Bruce Russetthis seminar looked at the experi-ence of major international con-flicts in the past century. It was in

part a historical overview, but not in thesense of history as "just one damned thingafter another." The group aimed to be ana-lytical, asking why the conflicts occurred,and in what ways they shaped later events.The purpose was to use knowledge of thepast to deepen our understanding of cur-rent and future conflicts in internationalrelations, and enable us to share thatunderstanding with our students. Thesewere some of our fundamen-tal questions: How did use ofthe atomic bomb againstJapan, and then reliance onnuclear weapons for deter-rence, affect all internationalrelations? What purposes canjustify decisions to go to war,and what restraints on the useof violence in war may be pos-sible or necessary? What contributes to therise of international terrorism, and how canit be dealt with? And what are the timesand areas of the world where peace hasbeen maintained—for example betweenprosperous democracies—and why?

This general orientation led to a variety ofindividual class sessions. Some were devot-ed to specific events, and others to moregeneral issues of why wars happen and howthey are fought, using several events asillustrations. The topics ranged widely:

• Is international politics different frompolitics within countries?

• World War II: Why did it happen, andhow did it end?

• The Cold War begins: How and why? • Nuclear deterrence and the rise of lim-

ited wars: Korea and Vietnam • The remarkably peaceful end of the

Cold War • Gulf War: In defense of oil and sover-

eignty

• The ethics and morality of war anddeterrence

• Civil Wars: Enemies inside and out • Terrorism and how to fight it • The United Nations: What is it good

for? • A hope for peace: Some countries

don't fight each other. • What can Fellows take from our sem-

inar back to their own teaching condi-tions?

The Fellows' curriculum units reflect thismix of focus on single events and moregeneral phenomena. Most of these units are

intended as sub-units of more generalcourses for students in grades 9-12, thoughtwo are for younger children. The unitwriters identified films, videos, Web sites,simulations, and other educational materi-als to supplement readings and discussions.A simple listing will indicate the range oftopics that can be covered by the curricu-lum units in a seminar of this kind.

John Buell's unit on "Just War Theoryand the Wars of the Twentieth Century,"about which he writes in this number of OnCommon Ground, addresses the originsand development of just war theory and itsimplications for teaching history, analyticalreasoning, and expository writing.

Russell Sirman's unit, "Questions of Warand Peace: Using Case Studies to Teach theHistory of American Foreign Policy," sim-ilarly reflects this desire to stimulate vigor-ous discussion by asking students to debateand argue the merits of difficult choicesinvolving war and peace, through historicalcase studies.

Ralph Russo's unit, "InvestigatingConflict Resolution through the United

Nations," follows a more topical thanevent-oriented approach. He gives stu-dents a broad picture of what the UN cando to help resolve violent conflicts, andthe limits to its abilities. The unit includesrole-playing and simulation, especiallythrough materials available from the pop-ular Model UN exercises.

David DeNaples' unit, "Ethnicity,Nationalism, and Conflict in the Early20th Century," gives students of Europeanand world history a background to the eth-nic wars that have plagued much of theworld in subsequent decades.

Other units are more nar-rowly focused on specificissues, events, or geographi-cal areas. Elisha Danford'sunit, "Debating the Future ofIndochina in 1945: MakingYour Case," is designed tosharpen students' analyticaland expository skills byengaging the decisions by

Vietnamese leaders who were pursuingtheir own interests against those ofinvolved great powers (China, France, theUnited States) at the end of World War II.Kristi Shanahan's unit, "Expression underSuppression: The Artistic Response to theOccupation of France during World WarII," reflects her special interests in art his-tory and French language and culture. Shecombines a history of French art (includ-ing that of refugees to France before andduring the years of the Vichy regime) withmethods of teaching students how to inter-pret a painting and understand the artist'sintent. Burt Saxon, in his unit, "AfricanAmericans and the Military," confrontstwo conflicting perspectives on AfricanAmericans' experience of racial discrimi-nation in the military, and in Americansociety as a whole. In a critical review ofseveral writings, he traces the history ofdiscrimination, from the days of severesegregation to the contemporary degree ofequality, asking how the military followedor led the wider society.

(continued on next page)

War and Peacein the Twentieth Century and Beyond

T

Bruce Russett is Dean Acheson Professor ofInternational Relations and Political Scienceat Yale University.

The Fellows were smart and deeply committedto their teaching. These qualities, and the

breadth of their interests, made the seminar asenjoyable as any I have taught at the university.

18 ON COMMON GROUND

(continued from previous page)Pedro Mendia-Landa's unit for elemen-

tary classes, "History and War: Whatabout the Children?" addresses the effectof war on children. It uses as spring-boards three Dr. Seuss stories, and a focuson the experience of Mendia-Landa's ownethnic group, the Basques, in their strug-gle for greater independence from Frenchand especially Spanish control. JoyceBryant's unit, "How War Changed theRole of Women in the United States," alsofor elementary classes, focuses on societalchanges wrought by the need for femalelabor in the factories during the two WorldWars, and how women's employment out-side the home helped to empower them.She also addresses opportunities openedup for women in the military services, andhow that changed the military, women,and the whole society.

I found myself enjoying this experiencegreatly. The seminar derived from myown research, and I have taught relatedcourses to Yale undergraduates and grad-uate students. But this had to be done dif-ferently. The Fellows had great experi-ence in teaching students younger than Iever had. They therefore brought a keensense of what those students might findengaging, and how to make the materialattractive; for example, how to find goodteaching materials on the Web.Moreover, they brought their experiencein addressing students' personal concerns,such as the implications for city 17-yearolds of enlisting in the military service—with substantial opportunities for trainingand economic advancement, but at thecost of perhaps risking their lives. Someof the Fellows also were rethinking theirown attitudes toward war, shaped decadesago under the influence of previous U.S.wars. Typically they were smart anddeeply committed to their teaching undersometimes difficult circumstances.These qualities, and the breadth of inter-ests represented in the seminar, madeleading it as enjoyable as any I havetaught at the university.

By John Buell

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a 2002seminar on "War and Peace in theTwentieth Century and Beyond," led byBruce Russett, Professor of History, YaleUniversity, is designed for a high-schoolcourse in 20th Century history, at a smallinter-district magnet school with a hands-on marine education program that pre-pares students both for the workplace andfor college. It seeks to enable students toidentify and articulate a basic set of ethicalprinciples upon which the "rules of war"can be based; to identify and evaluate thebasic elements of just war theory; toexplain how these concepts and principlesapply to three historical examples from the20th Century; and to use just war theory todevelop and defend moral judgments onspecific decisions and actions. The threehistorical examples considered are the useof strategic bombing in World War IIincluding the use of the atom bomb, thedecision to defend South Korea, andactions by U. S. soldiers in the VietnamWar—emphasizing the engagements at MyLai and Thuybo.

n most high school curriculums, warstend to be covered as a list of causes,outcomes and reasons why one side

was victorious with a few key battles andmilitary facts mixed in. For students whofind the subject boring or distasteful somecourses seem like one war after another.For those that are fascinated by wars (and Imust count myself in that number) toomany of the interesting details are left outas the needs of over-stuffed curriculumsforce teachers to move on quickly. War cer-tainly dominates the popular perception ofhistory (just turn on the History Channeland see) and it is often the essential facts ofparticular wars that students tend to retainyears later. I have found, however, that weas teachers rarely take on the essential facts

of war itself in a way that attempts tounderstand its ethical justifications.

One important and often overlooked rea-son for the teaching of history is to transmitessential shared moral values. We oftenrefer to the lessons of history withoutacknowledging that these lessons oftenconcern questions of morality. The heroesof history are held up as worthy of ourrespect because they acted in ways thatserved the greater good and opposed theforces of evil. The crimes of history areacknowledged as such so that we mayavoid them in the future. Rarely howeverare the moral questions explored in waysthat can help students to understand why aperson or an event is morally wrong orright. The shared values are assumed with-out being fully explored and analyzed.

The unit on just war that I wrote for theTeachers Institute is an attempt to encour-age students to explore moral concepts asthey relate to war. The approach tends toengage students regardless of their level ofinterest in war as a topic. It has the furtheradvantage of involving students on all aca-demic levels. At its core just war theory isbased on such simple and essential moralprinciples that all students are able to graspand even apply them. Ask when a countryis justified in making war or taking militaryaction and students of all interests and abil-ities will have answers. In part this isbecause many of the precepts of just warare based on the same moral principles thatdefine all interpersonal relationships. Forteenagers who are usually confrontingquestions of their own relationships, thesequestions are compelling.

I teach the just war unit in my course onthe 20th Century. The course is thematicrather than chronological in its structure,which allows me to explore significantdevelopments of the century in depth with-out concern for being all-inclusive. Sincewar dominates the time period, wars doplay a prominent role in the course. WorldWar II, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and(by way of comparison) the war in Iraq allare covered to some degree. The essential

I

Russett: War and Peace Just War Theory and the Warsof the 20th Century

John Buell teaches Social Studies at SoundSchool Regional Vocational AquaculturalCenter in New Haven.

SPRING 2005 19

aspects of Just War theory are introduced aspart of the unit on World War II, but arereturned to repeatedly with all the others.Just War is therefore not a separate unit, butan overarching theme that establishes aconceptual vocabulary to be used withincreasing sophistication asstudents become comfort-able with it. A wide range ofcircumstances and actionscan be analyzed to figure outto what degree they complywith the precepts of just war.I have found that even theunit on the Civil Rightsmovement of the 50s and60s can be subjected to asimilar type of analysis.Morally justifiable actionstaken within the context of apolitical struggle must pass asimilar test based on certainuniversally acceptable moralprecepts. What has been asurprise to me and to my stu-dents is the degree to whichwe can agree on what thoseprecepts are and should be.Applying them to specificactions and events can bevery tricky, but when stu-dents feel confident of whatthey should be, they aremore than willing to engagein spirited and worthwhiledebate over their application.

The school where I teach isa small regional magnet witha specialized curriculum.Because of the programrequirements and the need totrack students by ability in certain coursessuch as math and languages, the historycourses are scheduled last and are alwaysmade up of students of mixed ability.Curriculum must be designed therefore tobe challenging and engaging to studentswith skills at or above grade level and yetstill be accessible in a meaningful way tostudents whose skills are below grade level.

Two students from my classes last year pro-vide a good example of how students ofwide ranging abilities and interests canbecome equally engaged when the topic isjust war. Michael is a marginal student withlow motivation whose skills in reading and

writing are below grade level. He is fasci-nated by war, however, especially thedetails of weapons, tactics and battlefieldevents. He views war as a kind of sportsevent in which the best team is justified inwinning. Might makes right and all's fair inwar as far as he is concerned. Valin is at theopposite extreme. He is a highly capablestudent who views any type of military

action with great suspicion. While not quitea pacifist he assumes that war only servesthe interests of the powerful and wealthy.Both students became equally involvedwhen confronted with the question ofwhether the bombing of Germany in World

War II was justifiedaccording to the preceptsof just war. In most text-books the bombing is pre-sented as an unfortunatenecessity of modern war.Michael, however, cameto understand that theindiscriminate slaughterof civilians from bomb-ing was no more defensi-ble than some of theatrocities carried out bythe Nazis. Valin was ableto accept the validity ofthe argument that facto-ries involved in the pro-duction of war materialare legitimate targets ifevery effort is made toavoid civilian targets. Thewriting that each studentproduced on the topic dif-fered in quality, but not inessential intellectualintegrity.

Students of all abilitiescan and will learn tothink critically and gainfrom each other's differ-ing perspectives andexperience if they areprovided with conceptswhich they perceive to bevital and relevant. Moral

questions relating to war along with a basicstructure by which they can be analyzed fitthe bill. Now more than ever is it importantfor these questions to be understood by aneducated citizenry. The war in Iraq has ele-vated these issues to the level of nationaldebate. It is vitally important that studentsunderstand the essential elements of thatdebate.

TOM LEA, THAT TWO THOUSAND YARDS STARE, 1943

By Stephen P. Broker

Editor’s Note: This unit, written in a 1996seminar on "Outstanding Problems inContemporary Astronomy and Cosmo-logy" led by Sabatino Sofia, Professor ofAstronomy, Yale University, is designed forhigh-school chemistry, biology, and envi-ronmental science classes at general, col-lege, and honors levels. Much in its subjectmatter and lesson plans can be adapted tomiddle-school and elementary-schoolinstruction. The unit aims to integrateastronomy, earth science, and ecology; todescribe the dynamic nature of our solarsystem; to distinguish among differenttypes of meteorites; and to introduce aster-oid extinction theory. In doing so, it devel-ops strategies for using the resources of auniversity natural history museum, com-puter technology, and current events in sci-ence instruction, and gives students andteachers direction in using the popular andprofessional scientific literature in astrono-my and ecology.

he narrative section of my curricu-lum unit covers a broad range oftopics, including biogeoplanetol-

ogy (today the term astrobiology is inwider use), the early solar system, thesolar system today, asteroids, comets, andmeteorites, collisions between Earth andasteroids and comets, asteroid extinctiontheory, and the theory of panspermia ("theinoculation of Earth by extraterrestriallife"). The teaching strategies include aslide set supporting unit objectives, a classtrip to the Yale Peabody Museum ofNatural History to view its extensive mete-orite collections on public display, anexamination of current events in astrono-my, and the study of astronomy on theInternet. A fairly extensive teacher bibli-ography, a student reading list, anddescriptions of classroom materialsaccompany the unit, as does a classroom

set of pertinent New York Times andChristian Science Monitor newspaper arti-cles, beginning with the year of publica-tion of the unit.

The unit narrative consists of a series ofquestions to the reader, with unit contentpresented in the form of responses to thesequestions. Thus, for the section on aster-oids, I ask, "Why is there no planetbetween Mars and Jupiter?" and for thesection on meteorites and meteor craters, Iask, "Why can't the real extraterrestrialsget any respect?" I use a similar approachin discussing the unit here.

What experiences have I had in teachingthis unit? In the first years of its use, Itaught Advanced Chemistry, CollegeChemistry, and Environmental Science.The unit has been used most recently withmy students, primarily juniors and seniors,enrolled in two Wilbur Cross High Schoolscience electives, "The Dynamic Earth: AnIntroduction to Physical and HistoricalGeology," and "Advanced PlacementEnvironmental Science" (each offeredsince the 2000-2001 academic year). Ihave found the unit equally applicable forthese several science curricula. The colorslide set includes my own photographs ofdetails of Rudolph Zallinger's "Age ofReptiles" mural, which fills the 110 footeast wall of The Great Hall of the YalePeabody Museum, also several PeabodyMuseum photos of the former temporaryexhibit on the Wethersfield, Connecticutmeteorite, and photos of mine from Mayanruins in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.The reliance on current events topicsavailable in the newspaper, on televisionnews spots, in the movies, and in the sci-entific literature requires that I stay currentwith developments in the fields of solarsystem astronomy, extinction theory, andecology. Since I first wrote the unit, I alsohave needed to update the lists of recom-mended Web sites and to be selective intheir use. The weekly NetWatch column inthe journal Science has been particularlyhelpful in suggesting good Web sites. In

the eight years that I have taught revisedforms of this unit, I have found that stu-dents become actively engaged in thelearning process if they feel that the sci-ence is current, that they are seekinganswers to important questions about thenatural world and themselves, and thatthey have the opportunity to participate inthe processes of science, including obser-vation and description, experimentation,and theorizing.

How have my teaching strategiesworked, and how have they changed? Icontinue making the transition fromreliance on slide projectors to the use ofcomputer projection systems. The benefitsof laptop presentations are numerous, andthe blending of still and motion pictures,text, main talking points, and assessmentsfar exceeds the capabilities of the slideprojector. Some of my preparation time isnow devoted to adapting this and otherTeachers Institute units to current class-room technologies. Unit content is updat-ed from year to year. Teaching strategiescontinue to be modified to further enhancemethods of presentation. I have also madesome changes in my use of the PeabodyMuseum resources, following the lead ofthe museum's Public EducationDepartment docents. In visits to thePeabody Museum, I combine time for freeexploration of museum exhibits with high-ly directed written and spoken activities.My students begin with structured,focused work, and then they move to self-guided exploration as they so wish. I findthat this blending of task-oriented workwith a turn-them-loose strategy satisfiesthe need for structured learning as well ascultivating the desired traits of self-expres-sion and creativity. I suspect that the great-est changes I have made in this unit dealwith strategies for assessment, as I contin-ue to be influenced by current researchinto how students learn. My own pursuitof new material for this and other curricu-lum units is one of the features of teachingthat continues to drive me.

20 ON COMMON GROUND

Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites:Their Intimate Relation with Life on Earth

T

Stephen P. Broker teaches Science at WilburCross High School in New Haven.

What are some of the responses andaccomplishments of the students usingthis unit? My students often affirm thatthey are participating in the study of sci-ence as new developments unfold in thefield. Those who are the most effusiveabout their learning process are the oneswho can make a connection between theirown awareness of contemporary studiesand the material that is introduced inthe classroom. Their comments rangefrom, "Have you seen the movie aboutan asteroid smashing into Earth?" to,"I saw the same story described byyou on the news this week." The unit'sintroductory slide set is well receivedby my students. Dinosaurs, fallingmeteors, and sacrificial sinkholes havea lasting appeal to inquiring minds.Current events topics also are general-ly successful in eliciting interest. Mystudents seem at home with multime-dia inputs. The present generation isdeveloping genuine skills in surfingon the World Wide Web, but studentsneed assistance in being selectiveabout the sources of information thatthey find. The most frequently voicedstudent response to the unit is to askwhen we can go back to the PeabodyMuseum. This is gratifying to me, as Ifeel that a museum is best used as aneducational resource by making repeatvisits. This fabulous museum offers agreat example of how a local educationalresource can have a profound impact on ascience curriculum. Most of my studentshave visited the Peabody Museum asyounger children and find that return vis-its as teenagers rekindle early memoriesand provoke new modes of thinking andunderstanding. We have a wonderfuldirect link with the Peabody Museum, asseveral of the employees there who arehighly visible in the public exhibit hallsare graduates of Wilbur Cross HighSchool and take delight in establishing theeducational connection with my students.

AP Environmental Science students have

an additional stake in the learning process,the responsibility of taking a nationalexamination as part of the AdvancedPlacement program, and the opportunity toreceive future college credit and/or exemp-tion from required college introductorycourses. This unit helps prepare my stu-dents for the APES test and build their con-fidence by providing important concepts in

Earth history and the geologic time scale,Earth dynamics, atmospheric history(including global changes), and the evolu-tion of life (including extinction).

What future modifications will be madein this curriculum unit? The national sci-ence reform movement since the 1990s hasbeen driven in part by the NationalAcademy of Sciences, National ResearchCouncil publication, "National ScienceEducation Standards" (1996). The NRChas since published volumes on "SelectingInstructional Materials: A Guide for K-12Science" (1999), "Designing Mathematicsor Science Curriculum Programs: A Guide

for Using Mathematics and ScienceEducation Standards" (1999), "Inquiry andthe National Science Education Standards"(2000), and "Educating Teachers ofScience, Mathematics, and Technology:New Practices for the New Millennium"(2001). The American Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS) initiatedProject 2061 in the late 1980s and pub-

lished "Science for all Americans" in1989 and 1990. Project 2061 also hasgiven us "Benchmarks for ScienceLiteracy" (1993), "Resources forScience Literacy: ProfessionalDevelopment" (1997), "Designs forScience Literacy" (2000), and "Atlas ofScience Literacy" (2001). I had the"Benchmarks" as well as a pre-publica-tion copy of "National ScienceEducation Standards" available to mewhen I first wrote my 1996 curriculumunit, but I have benefited more fullyfrom NRC and Project 2061 materialssince the unit first was developed.

The original objectives of the unitcontinue to be relevant today: interdis-ciplinary study, observation anddescriptive information about the solarsystem, developing theory in science,and the use of local resources (such as auniversity natural history museum),computer technology, current events,and the popular and professional scien-tific literature. I have endeavored to

heed the recommendations of the nationalscience education standards articulated inrecent years, especially the placing of"greater emphasis on the process of scienceand less emphasis (and less time) on thespecific blocks of subject matter whichhave been the mainstay of previousdecades of science education" (NRC1996). New Haven's district science stan-dards are, in fact, based heavily on thosestandards. I also continue to adapt the"Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites" unitin keeping with current research on themost effective methods of teaching andlearning in the sciences.

SPRING 2005 21

ALEXANDER CALDER, LA LUNE ET LA MONTANGE (MOON AND MOUNTAIN)

By Thomas R. Whitakervery Teachers Institute needs tounderstand the importance of con-tinuing evaluation of its princi-

ples, practices, and results. The Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute has long madeuse of both internal and external evalua-tions, and it continued that process withrespect to the National DemonstrationProject in which Institutes in Pittsburgh,Houston, Albuquerque, and Irvine-SantaAna participated.

The internal evaluations were basedpartly on observations in site visits andconferences, the results of questionnaires,published curriculum units, and AnnualReports from participating Institutes, andthey were embodied in Annual Reports tothe funding organizations. The externalevaluations were of several differentkinds. The DeWitt Wallace-Reader'sDigest Fund commissioned an externalevaluation by Policy Studies Associates.During the Preparation Phase of the YaleNational Initiative, the Pittsburgh TeachersInstitute commissioned an evaluation of itsprevious work, using focus groups, carriedout by Allyson Walker, of CornerstoneEvaluation Associates, and Janet Stocks,Director of Undergraduate Research atCarnegie Mellon University. The HoustonTeachers Institute likewise commissionedan evaluation of its previous work, usingfocus groups, interviews, surveys, andboth quantitative and qualitative analysis,carried out by Jon Lorence and JosephKotarba of the Department of Sociology,University of Houston. That was supple-mented by a further evaluation by PaulCooke, Director of the Institute, based oninterviews and observation of teaching.The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institutealso commissioned an evaluation of theentire National Demonstration Project byRogers M. Smith of the Department ofPolitical Science, University ofPennsylvania, and his research assistants.This evaluation relied primarily on theanalyses in New Haven of Fellows' ques-

tionnaires and of a survey of the use ofcurriculum units by Fellows and non-Fellows.

These various evaluations support anumber of important conclusions. At allDemonstration sites, there were positiveresults similar to those obtained in NewHaven over many years. Both PolicyStudies Associates and Rogers M. Smithconcluded that the National DemonstrationProject had "succeeded in reaching itsgoal" of replicating the Yale-New Havenmodel within a relatively short period oftime in four sites that are considerablylarger than New Haven. At each site, newInstitutes involved roughly 900 teachersand 60 college or university faculty mem-bers in 75 seminars over the course of theProject. Smith noted that these seminarsproduced results that were remarkablysimilar to each other and to experiences inNew Haven, and markedly better thanthose reported by most existing forms ofprofessional development. These resultsoccurred despite significant demographicdifferences among the cities. Major varia-tions were correlated rather with structuraldepartures from National DemonstrationProject guidelines and with certainadministrative difficulties in the partner-ing districts and institutions of highereducation.

As Smith pointed out, recent researchindicates that the single most importantfactor in student performance is teacherquality. The consensus of researchers andteachers is that many existing forms ofprofessional development are cursory,dreary exercises that leave teachers boredand resentful, not informed or inspired.The approach of the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute, however, significantlystrengthens teachers in all five of themajor dimensions of teacher quality. Ithelps to produce teachers who reallyknow their subjects; who have good basicwriting, mathematics and oral presenta-tion skills; who expect their students toachieve; who are enthusiastic about teach-

ing; and who can motivate all children tolearn.

According to Smith's analysis, teachersin the new Institutes chose to participateout of desires to improve themselves inexactly these areas. At each site, teachersparticipated out of desires to obtain cur-riculum suited to their needs, to increasetheir mastery of their subjects, and espe-cially to obtain materials to motivate theirstudents. According to the research inPittsburgh, teachers "find the Institute tobe the best professional development theyever had." Its seminars increase theirknowledge, emphasize content, havedirect applicability to their classrooms,encourage them to be creative, and arespread over sufficient time to allow themto master the content. These teachers wereattracted to the Institute by the independ-ence they enjoyed in suggesting seminartopics and then selecting seminars inwhich they would participate withoutregard to the subject or grade levels atwhich they taught. According to theresearch in Houston, the Institute program"cultivates a significant increase in skilllevel for those many Fellows who werenever really trained earlier in the designand implementation of a very workable,thought-out, substantively well-informedcurriculum unit." Teachers therefore "takeownership of big corners of the fields ofknowledge in which they labor and takethat possession over to their students."

Ninety-five percent of all participatingteachers, according to Smith, rated theInstitute seminars "moderately" or "great-ly" useful. Similar percentages said theseminars increased their knowledge,improved their skills and morale, andraised their expectation of students. Bothteachers and principals in the Pittsburghstudy reported that the Institute experienceboosts the teachers' positive attitudestoward teaching and learning. It excitesteachers about learning, and their excite-ment is transferred to their students; itenhances teachers' self-image and sense of

22 ON COMMON GROUND

Evaluations ofthe National Demonstration Project

E

direction; it augments teachers' sense ofprofessionalism; it encourages collabora-tion among teachers; and it provides teach-ers with a network of resources. Smithalso found that the Institutes served to fos-ter teacher leadership, to develop support-ive teacher networks, to heighten universi-ty faculty commitments to improving pub-lic education, and to foster more positivepartnerships between school districts andinstitutions of higher education.

The Houston study concludes—on thebasis of interviews with Fellows, a survey,and observation of students—"that stu-dents of HTI Fellows benefit from instruc-tion informed by solid scholarly values,not simply bureaucratic curriculumrequirements." It concludes also that the"students benefit from the presence ofteachers who can serve as role models ofintellectualism, commitment, and excel-lence."

According to Smith, two-thirds of all par-ticipants, after teaching their curriculumunits, rated them superior to all other cur-riculum they had used. Roughly sixty per-cent of all participants rated student moti-vation and attention as higher during theseunits, producing substantially greater con-tent mastery. The teachers and principalswho participated in the Pittsburgh studyalso reported that the students learned newways of thinking, questioned what theyread and saw, made connections amongvarious subjects, eagerly learned contentset within a familiar context, and acquiredand implemented research skills modeledby the teachers. These curriculum units, asSmith noted, emphasized teacher-led dis-cussion, writing exercises, activitiesdesigned to strengthen speaking, listening,vocabulary, reasoning skills, and mathe-matics skills. The research in Houston indi-cated that "all categories of students bene-fit from teachers who have completed aHouston Teachers Institute seminar: skilledand unskilled; English speaking and ESL;Anglo and minority; and gifted, main-streamed, or special education students."

All four studies do suggest that it wouldbe fruitful to engage in yet further researchconcerning ways of assessing studentlearning in classes where Institute unitshave been taught. The DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, which supported theNational Demonstration Project, hadexcluded such research because of itsbelief that the most significant factor inproducing increased student learning isteacher quality. With regard to that factor,the detailed studies in Pittsburgh andHouston confirm and extend the positiveconclusions reached by Policy StudiesAssociates and by Smith in their broaderanalyses.

According to the report from PolicyStudies Associates:

Large majorities of Fellows wereunequivocal in saying that their experi-ence in the Institutes, especially thepreparation of a curriculum unit, gavethem a real sense of accomplishmentand rekindled their excitement aboutlearning. As one Fellow put it: "To beteachers, we must also be learners."When asked in interviews to comparetheir experience in the Institutes withtheir experience in other kinds of pro-fessional development, teachers agreedthat the Institutes are vastly superior.

The report by Rogers M. Smith concluded:No single program can overcome theenormous obstacles to educationalachievement faced by economicallydisadvantaged students, usually fromracial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities,in large American cities today. But ifrecent researchers are right to contendthat the single most important factor instudent achievement is teacher quality,and if quality teachers are indeedknowledgeable, skilled, and enthusias-tic, with high expectations for their stu-dents and the means to motivate stu-dents to reach those expectations, thenthe National Demonstration Projectprovides strong evidence for the valueof the Teachers Institute approach.

SPRING 2005 23


F. Broker describes his broadly interdisci-plinary unit, written in a seminar on"Outstanding Problems in ContemporaryAstronomy and Cosmology," led bySabatino Sofia in 1996. Broker aimed tointegrate astronomy, earth science, andecology by focusing on asteroids, comets,and meteorites, and their relation to life onearth. He takes us through the questionsposed by this unit and the resources onwhich it draws. He also shows us how aunit can develop further over the years inwhich it is taught—and he ends by specu-lating on the future of this curriculum unit,in the light of current research on the mosteffective methods of teaching and learn-ing in the sciences.

We then turn to broader questions aboutthe educational benefits to be derived froman Institute program. "Evaluations of theNational Demonstration Project" summa-rizes the internal and external evaluationsthat have been carried out. The internalevaluations were embodied in reports tothe funding organizations. The DeWittWallace-Reader's Digest Fund commis-sioned an external evaluation by PolicyStudies Associates. During the PreparationPhase of the Yale National Initiative, boththe Pittsburgh and the Houston TeachersInstitutes commissioned evaluations oftheir previous work. And the Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute commissionedan evaluation of the entire NationalDemonstration Project by Rogers M.Smith of the Department of PoliticalScience, University of Pennsylvania,which draws in part upon questionnairesand data collected from the entireDemonstration Project. These quite vari-ous processes of evaluation agree that, if"teacher quality" is the most significantfactor in producing increased studentlearning, the Teachers Institute approachoffers a superior means of professionaldevelopment. And that verdict has beenshared by the teachers themselves.



24 ON COMMON GROUND

Editor’s Note: As a teacher at JackieRobinson Middle School more than twenty-five years ago, Verdell Roberts became aFellow of the Yale-New Haven TeachersInstitute during its first year. She soonbecame Assistant Principal of JackieRobinson, then Principal of that school,and then Associate Superintendent of theNew Haven Public Schools. She has alsoserved informally and formally as a liaisonbetween the Teachers Institute and theSuperintendent's office. A recent conversa-tion with Director James R. Vivian includedthese comments.

JRV: When you were a teacher at JackieRobinson School twenty-six years ago,how did Reginald Mayo—who was thenthe principal and later became theSuperintendent—encourage so many teach-ers to take part in things like the Institute?

ROBERTS: There was something aboutPrincipal Mayo that brought people togeth-er. His expectations were high, but hecould make everyone understand that theywere actually part of a process. When heencouraged teachers to become part of theInstitute, just about everybody wanted tobe a Fellow. And we all worked afterschool with our units that we were excitedabout.

JRV: Why did you want to become anInstitute Fellow in 1978?

ROBERTS: I think it was my own pro-fessional growth. I was in a school with aleadership that I knew would support myprofessional development, and I knew thatwhat I did could be used in the school.Another exciting advantage of the Institutewas that you gained so much knowledgefrom the different professors and the lec-tures.

JRV: Do you recall the student responseto teaching the curriculum unit you devel-oped on the Amistad Affair and the BlackPanther trials?

ROBERTS: I got a lot of support fromthe students because it was real for them,here in New Haven. They could comedown to the Green and say, "Ah, this iswhere the slaves were kept." And it was notmany years after the Black Panther trialswere held here. After I left JackieRobinson, I found several other teachershad used that same unit and developed it. Itwill probably always be relevant to NewHaven's history.

JRV: Do you recall why you selected thetopic? This was well before the AmistadCommittee was formed in New Haven—and years before the statue of Cinqué waserected in front of City Hall.

ROBERTS: When I first came to NewHaven, I taught at the old Welch School.That was the time of the Black Panther tri-als in the 'sixties. I felt that if these thingswere going on, the students needed to knowabout them. I made connections with someof the Black Panthers in the Hill area. Theycame into the schools, did food programs inthe schools, and met with the Parents andTeachers Organization. Then I was intro-duced to Charles Davis, Professor of Afro-American Studies at Yale, who talked aboutthe early Amistad trials years ago. Hehelped to crystallize for me the parallelsbetween the Amistad trials and the currentBlack Panther trials.

JRV: Was it controversial to teach yourunit? Did the curriculum at that time con-tain much material dealing with race andtopics of the sort that you were developingin the seminar—and that other teachersdeveloped with Charles Davis?

ROBERTS: Principal Mayo was open tothat. At Robinson we looked at issues inBlack history. We integrated them with thedistrict's direction in social studies. Perhapsbecause of my southern roots, I alwayswanted to understand the issues of civilrights in the context of the development ofAmerican history. The Institute allowedthat—and it allowed for much discussion.

You don't always get that in other kinds ofstaff development. The Institute also letyou come up with your own conclusions,and enabled you to hear about things thatyou could then challenge students with.

JRV: What caused you to decide toremain in teaching, and in New Haven?

ROBERTS: I believe it was that experi-ence at Jackie Robinson. And I think it wasthe involvement of resources like theInstitute that got you excited about doingthings in the classroom. The kind of lead-ership that Principal Mayo provided, andcontinues to provide as Superintendent, isso critical to supporting what teachers wantto do to help students.

JRV: Most New Haven schools now haveeither a principal or an assistant principalwho has been an Institute Fellow. Do youthink that kind of first-hand experience hasresulted in changes in the way in whichschools regard the Institute?

ROBERTS: Absolutely—because tea-chers are going to follow the direction ofthe leadership. When administrators havehad first-hand experience, they support aproject because they know what is actual-ly involved. It's different to see principalslike Joe Montagna or Carolyn Kinderstand up and talk because of their ownpositive experience.

JRV: When you became AssociateSuperintendent, the Superintendentappointed you as the liaison between thedistrict and the Institute for our daily work.As I recall, you organized a series of meet-ings among Institute Fellows and schooladministrators, which helped to give sub-ject-area supervisors a more accurate viewof teachers' experience in the Institute.

ROBERTS: Yes, and as we look to thedevelopment of more Institutes, I think it iscritical that these Institutes’ resourcesbecome an integral part of the superinten-dent's agenda, or the curriculum agenda. In

From Fellow to Administrator:A Conversation with Verdell Roberts

SPRING 2005 25

this district we were able to move to thepoint where we had this on the Planningand Management Team agenda. It's veryimportant that new teachers see the Instituteas an opportunity. And it's important thatthe district's partnership with the Institute isintegrated into every facet of the schoolstructure. Schools need to see it as aresource. An Institute provides a connec-tion to the libraries in the colleges and uni-versities, and it enables interaction withuniversity professors. I think it takes pro-fessional development to a higher level.

JRV: How can a district go about improv-ing test scores for all groups of students?And how can an Institute contribute to that?

ROBERTS: As schools develop theirindividual plans, the Institute's efforts needto be integrated with that process. Forexample, integrating the Institute's effortswith the district's goals can't help but help toimprove reading scores. But I think super-intendents will want to know immediatelyjust what research-based reading skill isincorporated in a curriculum unit. Thatneeds to be highlighted at the beginning ofthe unit, or integrated into an initial state-ment, in a preface to a unit that would speakto the research-based reading skill.

JRV: What do you think really mattersmost in good teaching?

ROBERTS: Teachers must have a desireto teach. They must like kids. I think thatthey should be continuous learners,because that brings excitement to theclassroom. Continuous learning, to me, ishaving the desire to know more about asubject area, to learn new things, and alsoa desire to have strategies that will turnkids on. We must find ways of incorpo-rating what's happening every day intowhat children are learning. And theInstitute helps the teacher learn how to doan in-depth study and find ways to expandon something—to learn good questioningskills, and to make important kinds ofconnections.

JRV: What, through the years, have beenSuperintendent Mayo's views on theInstitute?

ROBERTS: He said early on that hewould like to see the kind of excitement andcommitment that Institute Fellows had fortheir work spread more widely in the schooldistrict. He has appreciated the profession-al development that has come from InstituteFellows, the excitement that has occurred intheir learning. He has seen how classroomsbecame involved in that excitement. I thinkhe has also been able to see how teachershave integrated their units with what washappening in a school. I have heard himsay that the Institute should never be seen asa tack-on. The Institute is therefore now apart of the professional development for thedistrict.

JRV: Did the Institute have any influenceupon the changes that Superintendent Mayohas made in administrative structures with-in the schools?

ROBERTS: I think there was a switchfrom administrators as strong disciplinari-ans to administrators as curriculum leaders.The Institute may have contributed to theview that you should look for people whosemanagement skills were tied into curricu-lum growth, continuous academic growth.

JRV: What then are the most importantlessons we've learned from the Institute?

ROBERTS: We've learned how impor-tant in-depth professional development is toteachers, and how it can benefit from schol-arly work with university professors. Thatis a key lesson. We've learned that Institutework cannot stand alone. There must be aliaison at a high level in the central officewith the director of the Institute. We've alsolearned that a university needs to under-stand where schools must go, what theirneeds are, and how they can be met. Andwe've learned how important building lead-ership is to the movement of the Institute'swork.

JRV: What advice would you give to fun-ders about why they should support theestablishment of new Institutes?

ROBERTS: I think they shouldn't see itas just funding an Institute, but as funding ahigher quality of professionalism for ourgreatest resources, which are our kids. Theyare supporting bringing people to the levelthat they would want to have in their ownagencies. And because they are supportingprofessionalism, they are also supportinghigher student achievement.

JRV: And what advice would you give toeducational leaders in other cities aboutwhy they should establish an Institute?

ROBERTS: They should consider anInstitute as a resource to be integrated intowhat they are doing. They should see it asa way to improve professional develop-ment, but also as a way to bring some cre-ativity into the classroom. And a districtneeds the right people around the table tostrategize on how to integrate this with thedistrict's goals.

JRV: You've advised the New Havensuperintendent for more than ten years.What would you advise another urbansuperintendent to be prepared to do inundertaking an Institute?

ROBERTS: The superintendent shouldbelieve that this is something important forthe staff development in his or her district.The superintendent should designate acontact person who is connected to cur-riculum in the district, and who will beseen as a resource to the district's curricu-lum efforts. Then, I think, the superinten-dent should hear on an on-going basis—every three months or so—what is hap-pening. It's very important also that asuperintendent personally and visiblymake known his support for teachers beinginvolved in an activity like this. It shouldbe part of his yearly messages to staffabout the things that should be included inproducing effective schools.

26 ON COMMON GROUND

By Verna Arnoldhen I responded to a schooldistrict posting for a summerposition to work in collabora-

tion with a local college and a universityto develop a new program for teachers, Idid not know that I was to embark upon anexperience that would be the most signif-icant highlight of my professional career.In the summer of 1998 two colleagues andI were selected to serve on a planningteam to assist Dr. Helen S. Faison, theChair of the Chatham College EducationDepartment, prepare an application foran Implementation Grant from YaleUniversity to become a demonstrationsite of the professional developmentmodel that had been establishedbetween Yale and the New HavenPublic Schools 20 years before. Aspart of our work we traveled to Yale toparticipate in a July Intensive Session.We knew that there would be meetingsto define the work of the YNHTI andthe policies and procedures that wereto be followed if we were successful inreceiving a grant, but the actual hands-on experience of participating in aseminar was the most rewarding sur-prise of the trip and my professionalcareer at that point.

I chose to participate in a seminar onAstronomy that was led by a professorwho had actually worked with NASA.To think that I was at the historic YaleUniversity participating in an abbreviatedseminar on a topic that most would con-sider high above the intellect of kinder-garten-to-third-grade students! Yet Iattended eight sessions, researched thetopic using the vast resources of theUniversity, and completed a curriculumunit that I was able to use in my primaryscience classroom the next fall.

I came away from that experience on aprofessional high! All of us in the Sessionhad experienced at first hand how engag-

ing in relevant conversations andexchanging suggestions and ideas onteaching and learning with colleaguesfrom every level of instruction could beintellectually stimulating. Energized asprofessionals, we left with increased hopethat we might become highly qualifiedteachers committed to providing our stu-dents with accurate and meaningfulinstruction. We agreed that any teacherwho could engage in this level of profes-sional development would feel re-ener-gized to do the work of their chosen craft.

When the Pittsburgh Teachers Institutewas established, I participated in one ofthe four seminars that it first offered, andthen traveled to Yale for a second JulyIntensive Session in 1999. This enabledme to complete a two-part curriculum onEnergy. Both seminar experiences had leftme with a feeling of great satisfactionwith the new knowledge that I had gainedand a desire for more professional devel-opment of this caliber.

When I entered the ranks of schooladministrators in the fall of 1999, Ibecame ineligible to be a seminar Fellow.I now consider myself a PTI cheerleader.

In that role I have had the opportunity tospeak before school district representa-tives and local funders about the greatwork of not just the Pittsburgh Institutebut all the Teachers Institutes. I share myexperience yearly with the teaching staffunder my administration and have suc-ceeded in encouraging many of them toparticipate in PTI.

In the face of No Child Left Behind allschool districts are confronted with thetask of improving the quality of instruc-tion for all students. Teacher practices are

being closely scrutinized for effective-ness; teachers must demonstrate thatthey know and understand the contentof their subject area; and they mustknow how to connect student learningto everyday life making their instruc-tion meaningful. Teachers must getbetter at understanding and assess-ment, and they need to know thatassessment should be embedded inevery learning experience.

What school districts and communi-ty stakeholders must understand is thatteachers get better and more effectivethrough ongoing and meaningful pro-fessional development as modeled inthe Teachers Institutes. I will alwaysbe grateful for my experience with theNew Haven and Pittsburgh Institutes.It was the most significant profession-al development experience of my

career. It showed me that I did not wantto settle for just being a good teacher, butI had the ability to be a great teacher. ThatTeachers Institute experience has stayedwith me through my past five years as aschool administrator and has helped meprovide meaningful professional develop-ment for my faculty.

I would highly recommend to schooldistricts that they seek local and nationalfunding in order to establish partnershipswith local universities and colleges thatcan bring about the professional develop-ment experiences that can only be provid-ed by a Teachers Institute.

Learning From Participationin Teachers Institutes

W

WILLIAM JOHNSON, ART CLASS, 1939-40

Verna Arnold is Principal at Fort PittElementary School in Pittsburgh.

F. Robert McMurray

“To create and sustain for children the condi-tions for productive growth without those con-ditions existing for educators is virtuallyimpossible.”

— Seymour Sarason.The Predictable Failure of EducationalReform: Can We Change Before It'sToo Late? (1990)

raditional programs of profes-sional development are often per-ceived as irrelevant, intrusive,

and non-productive. In fact, many teach-ers have found a variety of creative waysto avoid such "development."

When the Pittsburgh Teachers Institutewas formed as a part of the NationalDemonstration Project launched by theYale-New Haven Teachers Institute, I didnot immediately realize the impact that itwould have on Taylor Allderdice HighSchool and on many of its faculty mem-bers. James H. Stronge in Qualities ofEffective Teachers (2002) states that pro-fessional development activities "must becollegial, challenging, and socially orient-ed, because learning itself entails thesecharacteristics." The Pittsburgh TeachersInstitute mirrors these criteria. Its semi-nars, led by faculty members fromChatham College or Carnegie MellonUniversity, include a rigorous researchcomponent and the expectation that eachFellow complete a coherent and relevantcurriculum unit articulated with the stan-dards being addressed. The seminars alsoprovide for collegial interaction with oth-ers in various levels of the profession.Overall, I was impressed with the missionof the Institute and felt that it could have alasting influence on those who partici-pate—an influence that would transferpositively to their students. Therefore, Iwas pleased when many of the staff begansubmitting applications for me to validate

in the hope of becoming Fellows at theInstitute. Their involvement began payingdividends almost immediately. The intel-lectual atmosphere and the focused struc-ture of the Institute noticeably increasedtheir satisfaction in teaching. They werediscussing among their peers aspects ofthe Institute's seminars and were feelingpride in their ability to develop relevantcurricula of high interest geared to the par-ticular subject they were teaching.

When Pennsylvania adopted a set of aca-demic standards and the school district ofPittsburgh worked to articulate curricula toappropriately address them and to preparefor forthcoming assessments, it becamenecessary to ascertain that the "high inter-est" units being developed were compati-ble with both Allderdice's and Pittsburgh'smission. As I challenged the proposals ofthe prospective Fellows of the Institute, Iwas impressed by the care that had beentaken to address the standards in creativeways, often combining disciplines, andalways attempting to engage, to "enthrall"students in applications relevant to thecommunity in which they live.

It is clear that teachers who hold highexpectations for their students, maintaintheir enthusiasm throughout the process,and establish appropriate sets and activi-ties to instill motivation produce greaterresults. Research conducted by RogersM. Smith of the University ofPennsylvania, presented in To MotivateMy Students (2004), appears to confirmwhat I was witnessing in the classroom.For example, student interest seemed toincrease when the units developed by theFellows were taught, primarily because ofthe relevance the teacher had established.Teachers felt that students were moreattentive and exhibited greater under-standing of the inherent concepts through-out the period the units were being used.Likewise, teachers themselves appearedto have increased enthusiasm that trans-ferred to their students when presentingthe units.

The professional growth was notice-able. It seemed to renew in many of themthe desire for more content knowledgeand a passion for seeking new opportuni-ties for enrichment. One teacher whodeveloped a unit on Chilean culture wasso intrigued during her research that shearranged a year-long Fulbright exchangewith a teacher from Chile. Anotherexpressed satisfaction in his accomplish-ment when teachers from other districtsthroughout the nation began communi-cating with him to inform him that theywere using his unit. This experience wasshared by many others who had partici-pated as Institute Fellows and heightenedtheir sense of professional awareness.Several began using their units as thefoundation for seeking certification fromthe National Board of ProfessionalTeaching Standards.

I was fortunate to be invited to twoNational Teacher Institute Conferences,one being the 25th anniversary of theYale-New Haven Teachers Institute,where I witnessed the quality of dialogue,the intensity of reflection, and the passionthat drove most of the participants. TheIvy League setting added to the intellectu-al ethos in ways that instilled renewedpride in the profession of teaching. Theexperience broadened my own under-standing of the importance of the Instituteand its mission in the lives of many facul-ty members at Taylor Allderdice HighSchool and subsequently in the lives oftheir students. Each fall, I encourage fac-ulty involvement as Fellows at theInstitute and am pleased that so many par-ticipate, often returning year after year.Yet, it is the result of those efforts on theday-to-day achievement of the studentsthat I eagerly await. It is apparent in theirclassrooms that the combination of enthu-siasm and content knowledge creativelyapplied aids students in gaining the under-standing necessary to realize achievementin the atmosphere of accountability facingpublic schools today.

SPRING 2005 27

Renewal Through the Institute:A Principal’s View

T

F. Robert McMurray is Principal at TaylorAllderdice High School in Pittsburgh.

28 ON COMMON GROUND

by John W. Thompson and William Islerhe Pittsburgh Public Schools con-stantly face challenges with regardto ensuring that our students are

provided with the most rigorous, world-class education that is possible. It is essen-tial that we hire the most highly qualifiedteachers with a commitment to urban edu-cation, and also provide them with numer-ous opportunities to engage as colleaguesin reflecting on how to provide rigorousacademic and challenging instruction tomeet the changing needs ofthe youth whom we serve.The Pittsburgh TeachersInstitute is a key resourcefor us in meeting these pro-fessional developmentneeds for our teachers.

Over the past seven years,the Pittsburgh TeachersInstitute has grown in itsscope and capacity to serveover 202 individual teacherswho have developed 333units across all disciplines,encompassing a myriad ofbroad seminar areas such as:

History: e.g., European, American,African American, and Special TopicsContemporary Issues: e.g., WorldTrade Organization, European Union,Peace MovementsCultural Studies: e.g., Religion, GenderStudies, Race, Social ClassArts: e.g., American History throughArt, African American Literature andArtHumanities: e.g., Literature, Writingand Rhetoric, Ethics, Philosophy, LogicScience: e.g., Energy and Environ-mental Issues, Everyday Science,Learning Science by Doing ScienceMathematics: The Great Problems ofMathematics, Looking at EverydayMathematicsSocial Sciences: e.g., Psychology,Sociology, Political Science, Healthand Fitness

These standards-based lessons have beenshared and implemented not only acrossour district, but also across the nation andthe world, affecting many teachers world-wide, including a Fulbright scholar fromChile who participated in our 2004 seminar“U.S. Latino Literature and Culture.” ThePTI Web site with its electronic index oflesson plans has become an invaluable toolfor expanding the conversation that beginsin the seminar atmosphere.

While we find that the small seminar

atmosphere and design of the Institute meetthe interests and needs of many of ourteachers, we are particularly interested inhow they meet the needs of those teacherswho have left the novice stage of theircareer but who have not yet “hit theirstride.” These teachers face the criticalchange point where the apprentice teacherreally begins to shift into an artisan.Donald Schon’s theory of the professionalas an artist is well matched to the PTIdesign in that teachers are encouraged tobecome reflective practitioners, consider-ing the delivery of their instruction, therefinement and enhancement of their owncontent knowledge in order to better sup-port instruction, and the careful balancingact of ensuring that students engage andbecome fluent in core content but still takehold of their own inquiry as agents of theirown learning. When students can demon-strate this ability, we know they are notonly secure in their skills for the moment,they are also secure in their ability to learnat all ages of life.

We see the Institute as a valuableresource, also, in ensuring that our teach-ers are enabled to deepen the instructionfor our aligned district-wide curriculumsin the areas of mathematics, science, andliteracy in particular. Each year, PTI col-laborates closely with our curriculumofficers here in our Division ofInstructional Support in order to identifythose key curricular needs that must beaddressed by our staff. Through this cre-ative partnership, we have been able to

identify many lessons thathave considerablyenhanced our studentachievement in core con-tent areas. With the adventof the No Child LeftBehind Act, we are con-cerned even more thatthese key content areas betaught by truly expertteachers, especially forthose students who mostneed careful and challeng-ing instruction.

The Institute works inconcert with other profes-

sional development initiatives here in ourdistrict, including the National Board forProfessional Teaching Standards(NBPTS). In fact, many of the require-ments for NBPTS can be, and have been,fulfilled through the inclusion of PTI-developed units as part of the NBPTSportfolio.

It is notable that both the NBPTS effortand PTI are supported fully by thePittsburgh Federation of Teachers. TheFederation joins the district in applaudingthe work of Dr. Helen Faison, an educa-tional leader for whom all of us have thegreatest respect and fealty.

We see PTI as an important cornerstoneof our future work here in the district.Therefore we express our full support ofadditional program efforts by PTI. Wewill continue to make our staff, alongwith ourselves, fully available to Dr.Faison in her continued efforts to assistPittsburgh Public Schools’ teachers inbetter serving the educational needs ofurban youth.

From The Pittsburgh Public Schools

T

John W. Thompson until recently wasSuperintendent of Schools; William Isler is theBoard President of the Pittsburgh PublicSchools.

The Pittsburgh Teachers Institute is a keyresource for us in meeting these

professional development needs for ourteachers. . . also, in ensuring that our

teachers are enabled to deepen theinstruction for our aligned district-widecurriculums in the areas of mathematics,

science, and literacy in particular.

SPRING 2005 29


We add to this summary the testimonyof two school administrators who havethemselves been Fellows—VerdellRoberts in New Haven and Verna Arnoldin Pittsburgh. Their double experiencemight seem unusual; but it is in fact thecase that over the years in New Haven alarge number of administrators have comefrom the body of Institute Fellows.Verdell Roberts and Verna Arnold point tothe energizing effects of the Institute uponteachers, and they emphasize as well thatan Institute is a program designed forlong-term improvement of public schooleducation. We are therefore delighted toround out this section with a statement byJohn W. Thompson, who until recentlywas Superintendent of Schools inPittsburgh, and William Isler, the BoardPresident of the Pittsburgh PublicSchools. They pay tribute to thePittsburgh Teachers Institute, which hasgrown over the past seven years until ithas become "a key resource for us" inmeeting the "professional developmentneeds for our teachers." They are partic-ularly interested in how the small seminaratmosphere and design of the Institute"meet the needs of those teachers whohave left the novice stage of their careerbut who have not yet hit their stride." Andthey also see the Institute as a valuableresource "in ensuring that our teachers areenabled to deepen the instruction for ouraligned district-wide curriculums in theareas of mathematics, science, and litera-cy in particular."

Our review of Teaching with Fire:Poetry That Sustains the Courage toTeach, edited by Samuel M. Intrator andMegan Scribner with an introduction byParker J. Palmer and Tom Vander Ark,also bears upon the major questions posedby this number of On Common Ground:What energies and resources will enableteaching and learning of the highest qual-ity? What do teachers themselves say thatthey need? Our reviewer, Paul Fry, hasled Institute seminars in poetry, and hewill be leading a National Seminar for theYale National Initiative in the summer of2005 on "Reading Poetry of All Kinds."

His probing review of Teaching with Fireconcludes that it is "both an ideal com-panion for teachers and, for us outsiders, awonderful window onto the emotions thatare inseparable from their work." Wemight add here that we respond heartily tothe comments that Tom Vander Ark hasmade in conjunction with the poem he haschosen for this volume, Rainer MariaRilke's "I Believe in All That Has NeverYet Been Spoken": "We want to lift andspeed a movement—an effort of thou-sands taking many shapes, an effort tocreate effective and humane learningenvironments that prepare young peoplefor the world they will inherit. . . .Spirited teachers, inspiring principals anddeans, visionary system heads—they arethe leaders of this movement."

The Images: Some Perspectives

With Mike Field's essay, "Mathematics:Why Get Involved?" we have chosen toinclude an image that embodies what hecalls "geometric ways of thinking" thatrelate to "three dimensional visualiza-tion," "an appreciation of art," and "a sen-sitivity to pattern and symmetry innature." Buckminster Fuller's BuildingConstruction/Geodesic Dome illustratesthe culmination of his inventive careerdevoted to "the geometry of thinking" inbehalf of "the needs of all humanity." Thedrawing renders the basic principles of anartifact that has universal space-enclosingapplication. Originally intended forhuman shelter, Fuller's domes have alsobeen much used for scientific, industrial,and military purposes, and in projects forenvironmental control and resource man-agement.

To accompany Georgia Redonet's "TheUnderground Railroad: A Study of theRoutes from Texas to Mexico," we havechosen No. 18 from Jacob Lawrence'sMigration Series. This is, of course, abold image of the exodus of AfricanAmericans to the North between 1916 and1930, but it evokes as well the pre-CivilWar migration of slaves that we usuallyassociate with "the UndergroundRailroad." And we can extend that image

to cover the flight of slaves from Texassouthward into Mexico that GeorgiaRedonet has excavated from historicaldocuments and charted for her students—students who are often, like JacobLawrence himself, the children ofmigrants.

With Renee C. Tolliver's "Cooking withCulture" we include Carl Moon's WomenBaking Bread. The painting depictsPueblo bakers in native dress, using a tra-ditional dome-shaped adobe oven. But itis already, in fact, an image of culturaltransmission rather like those to whichRenee Tolliver's unit is devoted, for theadobe oven had been adapted from thatused by early Spanish settlers. DorisBraun's "Defining the Decades withMedia Events" invites a very differentimage, and a different artistic style. KenKeeley's 20th Century Newsstand seemsmost appropriate here—because of itssubject, the past century's fixation uponthe media, and because of the creativeprocess from which this painting hasemerged. Keeley's research includesmany photographs for potential paintings;his final paintings, however, are not faith-ful translations of any single photograph-ic image but fresh reconstructions devisedby the artist. This one is obviously, likethe work of Doris Braun's students, acompendium of media events.

Dudley Andrew has chosen to accompa-ny his essay, "An Inquiry into Geographythrough Film and Literature," an image byan unknown artist, Watching aDocumentary Film of Amadou Bambas'sLife. This reverse-glass painting, like itssubject, testifies to the existence of theinterdependent and technologicallyshaped system of cultures that world cin-ema can render for us. With BruceRussett's "War and Peace in the TwentiethCentury and Beyond," we have includedTom Lea's That Two Thousand Yard Stare.Lea, who was primarily an illustrator andmuralist, was hired by Life magazine as acombat artist during World War II. Hisalmost photographic style easily lent itselfto this task. After his experience with theMarines during the battle of Peleiu, a


(continued on back cover)

Samuel M. Intrator and Megan Scribner,eds., Teaching with Fire: Poetry ThatSustains the Courage to Teach.(Introduction by Parker J. Palmer and TomVander Ark) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003, 225 pages, $14.95. Reviewedby Paul H. Fry, William LampsonProfessor of English, Yale University.

f the four seminars I have beenprivileged to lead over the courseof more than a decade in the

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, twohave been on poetry. The response wasalways positive, and it seemed effortlessto sustain the enthusiasm for poetry we allshared in the first place. I look forward,therefore, to leading a National Seminarfor the Yale National Initiative in the sum-mer of 2005 on "Reading Poetry of AllKinds: Pictures, Places and Things,People." Of course enrollments in ourseminars are self-selecting, but one canstill confidently assert, after such experi-ences, that teachers as a group don't bearout the widespread perception thatnobody reads poetry except professorsand the poets themselves. I myself hadthought that teachers shy away from poet-ry in the classroom, preferring the moredirect access to materials for discussionthat prose affords. Not so. Public schoolteachers at all levels turn to poetry for itsrhythmic urgency, for the enhancement ofmemory and the incitement to learnvocabulary that its repetitions make possi-ble, and for the pathos or humor withwhich it brings its themes to life. Recentlya Yale student of mine interviewed publicschool teachers who told him that thewidespread appeal of rap and the newvogue for poetry slams had sold them onthe pedagogical advantages of teachingpoetry, albeit poetry of a fairly simplekind. My student found that privateschool teachers by contrast do shy awayfrom teaching poetry (though they enjoyreading it themselves) because they feelan obligation to teach the more difficult

poets and quickly find the effort of inter-pretation to be more trouble than it'sworth.

But even the somewhat surprisingresults of this survey show that manyteachers in every setting enjoy readingpoetry themselves. Anyone who has beenaround teachers knows how much theylike to post poems or scraps of poems orprose on a bulletin board, the back of adesk, or the corner of a computer screen.Teaching With Fire is the result of solicit-ing teachers nationwide for their favoriteinspirational passages, poetry for the mostpart, to be sent to the editors with two orthree paragraphs explaining their prefer-ences. Royalties from the book will fundscholarships for teachers under the aus-pices of the Fetzer Institute's Courage toTeach Program. While there is perhapsonly one underlying theme—fight thegood fight!—contributions are groupedunder eight headings, ranging from voca-tion ("Hearing the Call") to desperation("Holding On") to rededication ("Daringto Lead"). It's impossible not to notice thereligious overtones, despite the broad sec-ular appeal of the undertaking, with anappropriate emphasis on passing thoroughthe dark night of the soul—otherwiseknown as burnout! Hence the fireimagery.

Before turning to the poems and the wayin which these teachers read and make useof them, one should report that to the twotraditional sorts of disillusionment amongteachers—recalcitrant students and stafffriction born of too many meetings—athird has now been added. At least amongthis sample group, there appears not to bea single teacher who thinks that the newmandated tiers of testing are a good thing.Perhaps the sample group does skewthings a bit. Who knows, maybe peoplewho draw on poetry for inspiration aremore likely to prefer spontaneity andorganic growth in the classroom than peo-ple who don't; no doubt even amongteachers themselves there is a fairly wide-

spread belief not represented here that thesupervised regimentation of knowledgereally does prepare children best for adult-hood despite the loss of short-term oppor-tunities for serendipitous growth.Probably the losses and gains of the pres-ent emphasis tend to reverse the lossesand gains of the "classroom withoutwalls" atmosphere of the sixties and sev-enties that it's meant to counteract. Onesuspects that it may be a different kind ofchild who's now reaping the benefits ofeducation. Be that as it may, the voices wehear from in this book are those of teach-ers who feel that the sources of spiritualenergy in teaching are threatened byrecent educational trends.

Hence many of the poems, similar intone to the voices of the sixties and sev-enties (Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, andnikki giovanni are here, for example) areabout the courage to be different, a mav-erick, a rough diamond—exhortationsthat appeal to teacher and student alike.The most popular choices are those writ-ers who make the dignity-in-differencetheme as straightforward and accessibleas possible: Marge Piercy, Mary Oliver,William Stafford, Langston Hughes. Notthat there aren't plenty of interestingchoices from poets who complicate thingsa bit—among them Milton, Rilke, Eliot,Wallace Stevens, Seamus Heaney, MaxineKumin—but in all the poems appearing inthis book the inspirational is not far toseek. The poet who stands out admirablyin a setting of this kind is Billy Collins.I'm tempted to say that for present pur-poses "First Reader," that amusinglyurbane poem about Dick and Jane thatshows how a child's habit of feelingmakes an uneasy truce with the strangenew habit of reading, is the best poem inthe book. Or look at "On Turning Ten,"with its closing spoof of Shelley: "Butnow when I fall upon the sidewalks oflife,/ I skin my knees. I bleed." That's theway inspiration should sound, moving butwith one's sense of humor intact. Worthy

30 ON COMMON GROUND

Book Review

O

also of a Post-it are poems by Li-YoungLee, Lucile Burt, and Judy Brown. Rilke's"Archaic Torso of Apollo" reads very wellin this setting, Wallace's Stevens's "ThePoem That Took the Place of a Mountain"rather less so.

Why? Because to make Stevens's poemfit into this volume it needs to be drawnaway from its main purpose. The teacherwho sent it in stresses the exhilaration ofmountain climbing—rightly enough fromhis own point of view, but thereby slight-ing Stevens's signature preoccupationwith the advantages and disadvantages ofsubstituting the imagination for reality. Itis a pity that on a few occasions the poemssubmitted or cited need to be misunder-stood in order to seem serviceable. Moststartlingly, the authors of the Introductionsuppose the notorious lines from Eliot's"Little Gidding" beginning "The dovedescending breaks the air" are about doingthings as it were with fire in the belly,whereas those lines in fact controversiallycompare World War II dive bombers withthe descent of the Holy Ghost. Hardly agood example.

I am bound to say, indeed, that any frus-tration I may have felt in leading my twoseminars on poetry stemmed from a ten-dency sometimes evident among theFellows to feel that the interpretation ofpoetry is neither necessary nor important,that to seek the full or even the probablebasic meaning of a poem is a pedantic dis-traction from enjoyment. There is a simi-lar mistrust of discussions that linger overpoetic form. The notion that form shapessense is sometimes greeted with bemusedskepticism. I cannot share these views,which a few of the commentaries in thisbook would seem implicitly to share, asmy enjoyment of poetry increases the bet-ter I understand it. Perhaps one sees in thisdivergence of interest the very conflictbetween discipline and spontaneity in theclassroom that has aroused the frustrationof these teachers in the first place—inwhich case I suppose I must be embar-

rassed to find myself at least in thisinstance on the side of the folks who setstandards and guidelines. A teacher in themore recent of my poetry seminars waspreparing her high school seniors for theirSAT test in literature, and she, almostuniquely among her colleagues, was recep-tive to connections between form andmeaning in poetry because she knew herstudents would have to be ready for suchquestions on the test. I know that consider-ations of this kind can only be expected to

play a role at the fourth of the four stagesof a child's reading development. Fairenough, but we teachers are all in thefourth stage, are we not?

In the present context, however, none ofthese reflections can amount to a seriouscriticism. The book as a whole fairly glowswith its value, like the fire on the dust jack-et. It is both an ideal companion for teach-ers and, for us outsiders, a wonderful win-dow onto the emotions that are inseparablefrom their work.

SPRING 2005 31

WILLIAM BLAKE, JERUSALEM: FRONTISPIECE, 1804-20

On Common Ground

Spring 2005Yale-New Haven Teachers InstitutePhone: (203) 432-1080Fax: (203) 432-1084E-mail: [email protected] Wide Web: http://teachers.yale.edu

Executive Editor, James R. VivianChairman, Editorial Board, Thomas R. Whitaker

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute is an edu-cational partnership between Yale University andthe New Haven Public Schools designed tostrengthen teaching and learning in local schoolsand, by example and direct assistance, in schoolsacross the country. Through the Institute, teachersfrom the university and the schools work togetherin a collegial relationship.

Founded in 1978, the Institute is the first programof its type to be permanently established as a unitof a university. In 2004, the Institute announced theYale National Initiative to strengthen teaching inpublic schools, a long-term endeavor to establishTeachers Institutes in states throughout the nation.

Yale-New Haven Teachers InstituteP.O. Box 203563New Haven, Connecticut 06520-3563

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Read On Common Ground at http://teachers.yale.edu

Strengthening Teaching throughSchool-University Partnership

WILLIAM HENRY JOHNSON, FERRY BOAT TRIP, CA. 1943-44

Whitaker: Yale Initiativespeck of coral in the western Pacific, hecaptured the horror-stricken face of ayoung man who—as James Jones put it inWorld War II—has had "all, or more than,he could take." As a stylistic contrast, wehave chosen to accompany Stephen P.Broker's essay on "Asteroids, Comets, andMeteorites" a semi-abstract evocation byAlexander Calder, Moon and Mountain. Itmay suggest for us the almost unimagin-able events that have shaped life on ourplanet.

The work of teaching and learning, onwhich the last section of this issue focusesmost generally, may be exemplified byWilliam Johnson's Art Class, which accom-panies the essay by Verna Arnold. The styleof Johnson's later work, with its flat designsand its patterns of brilliant color, is appro-priate to its subject here. And indeed, in hisFerry Boat Trip, which we have placed onthe back cover, that style evokes—with itsimages of flag, bridge, city, and journey—the entire project to which this issue isdevoted: Teachers Institutes across thenation. But so, too, does the image byWilliam Blake that we have chosen toaccompany Paul Fry's review of Teachingwith Fire. This plate from Blake'sJerusalem depicts Los, the figure of poeticimagination, carrying a fiery solar lanternas he begins to explore and transform thefallen world. It is a great romantic image ofthe poet's task—and the teacher's.


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