As part of my fall sabbatical, I had the opportunity to visit Tlatempo, Mexico, a small town in the hills above Cuernavaca that was partly destroyed in the recent earthquake. About half the houses in the town were located directly on an earthquake fault, and they were reduced to rubble. The community school also had crumbled.

I accompanied Dra. Alicia Valencia and a group of her students from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional – future teachers who were learning with Alicia about community-engaged-pedagogy. They were accompanying the community in a variety of ways: working with children, listening to parents, offering meditation and yoga sessions, and helping with a myriad of reconstruction tasks.

Unfortunately, a large part of the collective energy of this group went to a rather sad task: bagging moldy clothing that had been donated to the town.  After any natural disaster, there are often massive donations of relatively useless stuff. In this case, people who had lost homes had no where to store the clothing, even if they could find items that were appropriate and in good condition. And it was the rainy season…

While visiting the town, I had the opportunity to talk with a man named Rosalio Saucedo Figueroa,  whose home had been reduced to rubble. Rogelio spoke thoughtfully and eloquently about his losses. I promised him that I would bring his thoughts to a wider public, and so I share them verbatim here, along with my translation:

“Hoy aquí en mi pueblo tengo la bendición de Dios de contar con una persona que viene de Los Angeles, California. Está grabando este testimonio, y quiero decirle a la humanidad entera, del Polo Norte al Polo Sur, de este a oeste, que caerse no significa el final. Caerse, y levantarse, es lo más lindo que Dios nos ha permitido hacer en la Tierra. Nos quedamos en cero, sin hogar, pero hoy vivimos contentos, felices, porque nos llega la gente de donde quiera a traernos su buena vibra, su voluntad, y sus buenos deseos. Son los mejores cimientos que vamos a poner a nuestras nuevas casas, y que primero Dios, con toda la suma de ayuda y esfuerzos que estamos hacienda, pronto tendremos un nuevo nido, una nueva casa, y será un pueblo con encanto, un pueblo mágico. Ayúdenos, por favor, se les pedimos, gracias.”

“Today in my town I am blessed with a visit from a person who lives in Los Angeles, California. She is taping this testimony, and I want to say to all of humanity, from the North Pole to the South Pole, from east to west, that to fall down does not mean the end. To fall down, and get back up, is the most beautiful thing that God has permitted us on the planet. We are back to zero, without homes, but we live happy, content, because people from all over send us their good vibes, their good will, their good wishes. Those are the best bricks that we can put into our new homes, because if God permits, with all of the help and efforts that we are doing, son we will have a new nest, a new house, and it will be an enchanted town, a magical town. Help us, please, we ask, thank you.”

“Ahora tenemos que ver que nuestra vida sea arte, y tenemos que demostrar a la humanidad complete que a pesar del desastre mundial que hay, en el desequilibrio que los gobernantes de cada país han provocado, por la ambición del dinero y del poder, muy aparte de eso vivimos gente que nos gusta vivir en fiesta, en harmonía, en paz, sin corrupción, sin ambición. Porque hoy que esta tragedia nos da la oportunidad de contarlo, nos dimos cuenta que no tenemos nada, que sólo somos seres vivos en el planeta, como cualquier animalito, como cualquiera planta, pero que somos importantes para nosotros mismos. Y para poder querer a los demás tengo que quererme primero yo… Si hay amor debe comenzar conmigo…Nosotros tenemos ese gran compromiso con nuestra Madre Tierra. Que mucho daño le han hecho los grandes empresarios, los ricos…y tal vez estos terremotos, cataclismos, estén sucediendo también por eso, que no nos hemos dado cuenta que el planeta está viva, el planeta se está manifestando, así es que vivimos con amor, fraternidad, demostrémos la amistad, y bueno, ojalá que esas gentes duras metálicas, un día reflexionan, y hagamos verdaderamente a nuestra planeta donde la gente vivimos en fiesta.”

“Now we have to see that our life is art, and we have to show all of humanity that in spite of this world disaster, and the uncertainty that the leaders of each country have provoked by their ambition for money and power, that very separate from that live people who love to live in celebration in harmony, in peace, without corruption, without ambition. Because today this tragedy gives us the opportunity, we realize that we are nothing, that we are just beings alive on the planet, like any little animal or plant, but that we are important for ourselves. And that in order to love others we first have to love ourselves. If there is love it should begin with me…We need to make a commitment to our Mother Earth. Because the big corporations, the rich, have don ea lot of damage. Perhaps this is why earthquakes and cataclisms are happening, so that we realize that the planet is alive, that it is speaking, and that we have to live in love and brotherhood, in friendship, and I hope that all those hard metallic men will one day reflect, so that we can truly make this planet a place where people live in celebration.”

When I told Rogelio that I help to train teachers, he offered these words:

This week I’d like to reflect on a “discussion” of sorts that we held at B-Club two weeks ago, about our “Acuerdos,” or agreements for participation in our club. I’ll share two approaches we took to grounding ourselves in these agreements for the new year. The two approaches illuminate differences between a “teacher-directed” setting and a true community of learners. Along the way I will have a few things to say as well about another study in contrasts: the core values of our club, and our ways of enacting them, and the ones that seem to be reining in this country at this time.

As a teacher, I believe in laying groundwork in any learning community: establishing a set of agreements about how we want to be with each other, and codifying these in some way so that we can hold ourselves and each other accountable. I know it’s important to make this as real as possible, not pro-forma, and not top-down: a genuine buy-in from the group. In my classes, we generally start with a community circle that symbolizes our interconnection: passing a ball of yarn around in spider-web form, with each person holding on to a piece as they voice aloud a commitment of what they will strive to bring to the group.

But as I noted in the first blog of this year, it’s challenging to come together as a group at B-Club, given our numbers, wide age range, and constraining conditions. There is no classroom large enough to hold us, and the MPR just isn’t conducive to large group discussions given its sound quality and the temptations of that big wooden floor.(There are parallels to the nation: it certainly is not an easy task for citizens to come together in any genuine dialogue or “town hall.”)

So this year we decided to divide the group in three. We had formed “buddy groups” consisting of two of the GRUGs and 3-4 of the kids. Our aim was to have buddy groups sit together to have a guided discussion about our agreements.

But a series of things conspired to interfere with the formation our “buddy groups.” And when we entered the classroom space that had been allotted to us for this discussion, we faced long rows of tables facing a white board at the front of the room. So what did we do? We defaulted to the familiar classroom script. I and my team walked to the “front” of the room. The students sat in desks. They self-segregated by age and gender. The GRUGs sat at the back of the room. Everyone faced forward and looked for someone to tell them what to do.

And what did I do? I defaulted into an old familiar teacher-directed classroom script. I assumed the space of authority at the front of the room. I called for the group’s attention. I showed them the poster of Acuerdos that we had established in the past and asked for volunteers to read the list. I asked for “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” indicating agreement or disagreement with each one. Like good students, everyone gave them all a thumbs up. Of course, this was all pro-forma. Did it really mean they knew or understood or agreed with these agreements?

As I proceeded with this teacher-directed classroom approach, I found myself distracted by two third graders in the second row. Mical and Keith (pseudonyms) were folding a piece of paper, passing it back and forth, and talking to each other. They weren’t loud or overtly disruptive, but they certainly distracted me, and I found myself triggered. We were talking about our agreements: to be respectful, responsible, and to listen to others. I felt like they weren’t listening to me.

At some level I realized that they may well have been listening as they worked – I myself engage in multi-tasking all the time. I also knew that just because others were quiet and looking at me didn’t mean they were actually listening. I also knew the approach I had taken was, to be honest, BORING. It wasn’t going as I had planned. I knew all these things, but because I had stepped into that teacher-as-singular-authority space, I found it easy to forget, and just to see the boys’ actions in terms of misbehavior.

And of course, I was self conscious. I knew the GRUGS were watching me and that I was serving as a model as they learned to be teachers. I felt trapped by the script I had unwittingly taken up. I knew I had a few choices: I could try to ignore the boys and proceed with the script; I could interrupt the script and assert my power to interrupt the boys’ behavior (by separating them, taking away the paper, or threatening some loss of privilege, such as participation in the club). I knew I didn’t want to do the latter, but I was triggered in that direction more than I’d like to admit.

What I wished for was for the community we were forming to help me out. (The kind of “noticing” and “helping out” that I wrote about in last week’s blog.) I wished for someone to go over and sit with the boys, and coax them into participating in the group discussion – not punishing or threatening them, but finding some way to build our community together. I wished for someone to step up with me and turn this lesson into a poem or a dance or something that would spark the group’s excitement. But I knew the script we were enacting didn’t allow for that. The GRUGs didn’t feel authorized to play such a role. I had assumed the teacher-as-authority position; they were doing their bit as “students as receptacles” – deferring to my authority, with the onus on me to enact that authority. These are roles that are played in school all the time, as teachers “manage” and “control” their students’ behavior rather than creating communities where everyone shares in the responsibility for being the kind of community we wish to be.

Later, when I reflected on what had transpired, I had my first glimmers of insight into different ways of achieving my own goals. Clearly just going over the list of Acuerdos wasn’t a real way of establishing them. It was boring, and it was a set up for resistance from kids like Mikal and Keith.

And just what was it that was fascinating them so much more than the boring adult-led talk?

Mikal and Keith had been teaching each other how to fold paper to create what has been variously called –according to Wikipedia – a “fortune teller,” “cootie catcher,” “chatterbox,” “salt cellar,” or “whirly bird.” (My students added “oracle” and “chismographo” to that list of names.)

They were animated by this activity. There I had been, trying to engage them in the things I wanted to discuss – trying to catch them in like cogs on a wheel – rather than doing what I believe in: looking for where kids light up and following their lead. Finding ways to connect the things I want to teach or impart with the things that kids know and care about. Connecting classrooms to everyday cultural practices, including the practices of children’s culture (cootie catchers, fortune tellers, Pokeman cards, Tachis, and more).

So…What if we made fortune tellers that had the Acuerdos written on them?

So last week that’s what we did. We wrote the acuerdos on the outer flaps, and left space on the inside flaps for kids to write or say what those acuerdos meant for them. We made a bunch and floated them around the club that day. The kids found them, played with them, and spoke the Acuerdos aloud as they had fun and played.  (And the magic that I referenced in the first blog started to happen, as we all stepped away from the teacher-directed script and began to build our community of learners.)

Of course, we can’t be sure that Acuerdos made any more sense to the kids in this form than they did in the poster and lecture format. Really, the Acuerdos will have to be lived through our interactions at the club. We may forget and need reminders about how to respect each other, be kind, be safe, and have fun. Perhaps the cootie catchers will help remind us.

Perhaps, as a nation, we could take some lessons from this. What would it mean to really live the values we believe in? What role should leaders play in helping to model and enact and live and support those values? And what about the values themselves? What would it mean to live in a world where respect, kindness, responsibility and having fun were central to everything we did?

Perhaps we should make a whole bunch of cootie catchers to spread B-Club’s values throughout the world.  And then hold ourselves collectively responsible for living up to our ideals.

In this post I’ll unpack one brief moment that happened at B-Club last week, and connect it to theories that we have been discussing in my Teacher Education class (which links theory to practice through our work at B-Club). This is exactly what I’m asking students to do, so it’s good for me to try the task myself.

Our class is centered on sociocultural learning theory. Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist who lived at the time of the Russian Revolution, is generally credited with being the father of these ideas. Brazilian pedagogue Paolo Freire is similarly credited with establishing an approach to liberatory pedagogies, another foundation for UCLA’s Teacher Education program.

But long before either of these men were born, there was a rather little known educator and philosopher, Joseph Jacotet, whose ideas about education resonate with both a sociocultural and an emancipatory approach to teaching and learning. Jocotet’s ideas were brought to light in 1991 by Jacques Ranciere in a book called The Ignorant Schoolmaster.

In his “method of equality” Jacotet argues that the teacher’s job is not to explicate (what Freire would call the “banking model of education). Instead, the master’s job is to “create the conditions for the desire to learn” to emerge.” This is what we try to do at B-Club, as I explain in my book (Language, Learning and Love):

“At B-Club we try to create the conditions for the desire to learn to emerge. We provide laptops, books, magazines, recyclables, and a variety of paper, pens, and markers for kids to express themselves in drawing and writing, as well as in dance, music, movement, speech and other semiotic forms. We make things, using all kinds of tools and technologies: pens, paper, markers, tape, cardboard tools, laptops. Our focus is on the creative process, and on watching that process unfold, with supports, rather than pre- determining where it will end. We then try to follow their lead, or move with them, creating room for them to lead as well – rather than steering them where we might want them to go. We nurture minds and hearts, looking for what kids love, and where they became animated.”

So last week I was seated at our writing table with a third grader whom I’ll call Eva. I had written a question on a blank page in our group journal: “¿Qué hiciste en B-Club hoy?” I was hoping that the question (along with a new pack of brightly colored gel pens)might create the conditions for the desire to write to emerge.

Amelie (another third grader) came over to our table and looked at the notebook. She asked me, “What does that say?”

I looked at Amelie quizzically, thinking to myself, “Why is she asking this?” I read the sentence to her. She looked at me. There was a long pause. She said, “I don’t know what that means.”

Very slowly, it dawned on me that the question was written in Spanish, a language that Amelie doesn’t understand. But Eva was listening in, and was way ahead of me. She knew exactly what was going on. She offered the translation: “That means ‘What did you do at B-Club today?’”

This brief moment illustrates something I have seen many times in my research on child language brokering (translation and interpretation done by the children of immigrants). Bilingual kids are attuned to language. They read subtle social cues. They know when translation is needed. And they step in to offer it. Eva was far more attuned than I to the fact that Amelie needed translation. I was not nearly as good at reading the social cues (nor at remembering which kids read Spanish and which ones do not).

Amelie – who may not read Spanish, but who is growing up in a multilingual community – knew some things, too. She didn’t try to sound out the words on that page, using her English reading skills. She took one look at the page and knew that she didn’t know what they meant. She recognized that the words were not in English. Implicitly, she seems to know that there are some things she can read and some things she can not. I don’t think many kids growing up in a monolingual environment, where they are only exposed to print in one language, would necessarily realize that.

Eva’s translation for Amelie also illustrates other ideas we will be discussing in our class. We can operate in a bi- or multi-lingual community by pooling our linguistic resources, and helping each other out. In our community of learners there is space for people to offer help to others. Expertise can be shifting and shared. One person (the teacher?) doesn’t have to be the provider of all information, or the source of all help. People can pool the resources they have. Children have much to contribute, if we let them.

In many classrooms in the United States, space for collaboration is limited. Talk and movement and ways of participating are often tightly regulated by the teacher. I’ve seen kids get reprimanded when they offered help to others: told to “keep their eyes on their own paper” or “do their own work.” They are expected to stay in their seats, keep their eyes on the teacher, be quiet, listen, and follow directions. Classrooms also generally segregate kids by age, and often by “ability,” language, or other forms of supposed homogeneity, so kids don’t get to see “more expert” others at work, and learn from them.

Barbara Rogoff, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has contrasted these typical ways of socializing children in U.S. schools (and to a large extent, in middle class U.S. homes), with the ways Mayan children participate in community endeavors in Guatemala. (See her TED talk: http://www.tedxsantacruz.org/talks/dr-barbara-rogoff/) She shows children observing what happens around them, and “pitching in” with whatever’s needed. They don’t wait to be told what to do, and they don’t expect to be compensated or rewarded for doing so. These aren’t chores; they are full-fledged forms of participating as members of a social group.

What if we created more space in classrooms and schools for people to help each other out, and to pitch in? What if we valued the idea of noticing who needs help? What if we didn’t emphasize the importance of “doing your own work” as much as the value of offering assistance to others? What if we didn’t set things up for all help to get channeled through or organized by a single authority figure (the teacher), but instead all members of a community were expected to assist each other? What if we established a set of core values (like our Acuerdos at B-Club), and then asked everyone to live by those agreements, and to enact them in their practice?

What if we then took those values out into the world?

Our first day of this, our seventh year of B-Club, was….well…chaotic. There’s really no other word to describe what invariably happens every year on the first day in which the participants in our multi-age after-school club meet up for the first time, start to get to know each other, and try to figure out what to do in this space that isn’t quite like any other they know.  I am learning to embrace the chaos, accept my own discomfort with the loss of a sense of control, and trust in the process that will unfold as our group builds something unique together, and reflects on our learning therein. It’s not easy to “let go” of control, but when I can do so, step back and notice and observe, there is always much beauty and order to see beneath the surface of what does invariably feel, well…chaotic.

This year we had seventeen Teacher Education students (our beloved “Grugs”), four undergraduates (equally beloved “Ugs”), three graduate students, forty-two kids, and myself. Twenty-two of the kids were returnees, anxiously awaiting the start of the new year of our club, and at least somewhat familiar with our “Acuerdos” and our practices. The other twenty-eight were new, figuring this out along with most of the adults who were there for the first time. There’s a lot to figure out. It can be unsettling.  But sitting with that discomfort can lead to new insights. As one Grug wrote in her weekly reflection:

“A classroom management book we use for another class often talks about how stressful it is for children to be in an environment in which they completely lack control or autonomy. I think it is interesting that on Friday, I felt like the roles had been switched; the kids were autonomous and confident, but I felt like I had fallen into a stream of kids, and simply had to move along with the flow of their choices and desires. They know the campus, the club, their peers; I know no names, no buildings, no “rules”, or expectations, and this role reversal made me very uncomfortable. However, I think this discomfort provides great insight to what it feels like to be a child.”

As often happens in schools, our best-laid plans to create some kind of order didn’t quite pan out. We had pre-planned groups of 4-5 child participants with two Grugs. The groups included a veteran B-Clubber and newcomers, older and younger. The idea was to have mixed ages and mixed expertise so that the more “expert” participants could introduce the novices to the school and the Club.  But some last minute changes to the list of participants were made by the school, so the groups we had established didn’t work, and we had to improvise.

Welcome to life in schools!  Last year on our first day, the fire alarm went off and we all had to exit the room.  An article our group will read later this quarter, called “Teaching as Disciplined Improvisation,” speaks to the pedagogical imperative for improvising. Teachers are often forced to go off script. To figure out what to do on the fly. To adapt, shift gears, make do. And to do so with a smile!

(I did all kinds of improvising during my years teaching at an elementary school not far from the school that now houses B-Club. For example, new students would often appear at my door, sent by the office, unannounced. I had to quickly improvise a desk, materials, a buddy, ways of learning about this child and bringing him or her up to speed and into the community of our classroom. And pretend that this was all part of my plans for the day.)

Organizing large groups of kids is challenging enough in a classroom setting, where teachers can rely on the standard machinery of schooling (all the things that help to assert “control” over squirrelly children’s bodies): four walls to house us in, chairs aligned in space and anchored to the floor, a whiteboard or chalkboard to stand in front, chalk in hand, posed ready to write names under either a happy or sad face…and the power of the institution backing adult authority, via the threat of sending a child to the principal, or a note home.

In our after-school program we have none of that “repressive apparati”  or contextual supports.  We also don’t want to “control” in those ways.  We want to channel energy in safe, responsible and productive ways.  We want kids to take responsibility along with us. We don’t want them to rely on adults to take care of all problems, but work with each other and with us to address any issues that arise.  We want to build a community based on mutual respect, and reflect on that building together.

But on the first day it’s always hard. Plus, it’s after 3 pm, and the kids have been sitting on chairs and walking in lines for six hours. Their heads are hurting  from thinking thinking thinking  all day (as they learn things that are hard for them at that age – even if those things seem easy to adults, who did that learning long ago, and probably in their first language). They’ve spent most of the day listening, being quiet, and keeping their bodies still. At this hour, the kids want (arguably need) to run, jump, dance, and move. And scream!  Julia and Maylin told their Grugs that screaming was their favorite thing to do.  [We have seen these first graders in their classrooms, and we know they don’t get to scream there. (In fact, Maylin’s teacher told us that she almost never talke in class last year.) We imagine they don’t get to do a lot of screaming at home either.  I think about my own “quiet good girl” childhood, and my reflections in my last blog (https://marjoriefaulstichorellana.com/uncategorized/why-do-i-write/) about the power of finding our voices. Perhaps B-Club gives a little room for these girls to find theirs, and to experiment with different ways of using them.]

(I stopped by the school yesterday to take photos of the kids in preparation for Friday’s club. I asked each to record on my voice recorder what they would like others to know about them. Maylin and Julia said, “That we like to scream!”  and indeed, they SCREAMED into my voice recorder.  The cool thing is that I could show them the visual image of their screams – charted on the Ap as sound waves – and how it shifted when they spoke in normal voices, or whispers.)

So on Friday I listened to the screams, but also laughter.  I watched as some kids threw their bodies on the ground in wild abandon (but with perfect control – no safety issues here). They slid on the big wooden floor of the MPR in a way that made an old lady like me feel, well….nervous. I tried to just notice my own discomfort and ask the questions we always ask before deciding if we should intervene with our adult authority: “Is this safe? respectful? responsible?”  If it’s not a matter of safety or disrespect, can I just notice how it makes me feel, and not feel compelled to stop it? (I’m so used to controlling my own every move. What would it take for me to feel that kind of freedom, to let myself loose in that way?)  Note: If it DOES feel like a matter of safety or respect, to ANYONE, we DO encourage ANYONE (kids or Ugs alike) to speak up, or intervene.

Yet even on this first day of confusion and, well…chaos…some magic began to emerge. I watched as a group of about six children of mixed ages forms around two young men who are learning to be teachers in our program. These Grugs skillfully channelled what looked at first like frenetic energy into a game of four square.  Kids saw the fun and joined in. The  group expanded, and the smiles grew bigger, the laughter louder.

Another group of children discovered some books I had set out on a table: brightly colored with images of “countries we are from:” El Salvador, Guatemala, India, the Philippines, Korea, China. “Guatemala!” a new girl to our program exclaimed. “My mom was born there.” The group plopped down on the hard wood floor of the MPR, books in hand. A Grug noticed, and joined in, using the books as a way to learn about kids’ lives.   We learned that one of our new participants is from India AND Cuba!

The first “letters of love” appeared as well, as kids found the stationery I had set out, and wrote impromptu letters to their new Grugs. They expressed love openly in ways that adults would never dare.  “I love you! You are so butiful” Sarita wrote to her new UCLA mentor friend. Such expressions of affection – or “letters of love” –  happen every year, without prompting.

In their reflections this week, several of the Grugs commented on the “chaos” – some noting their discomfort, but also commenting on how beautiful it was to see children moving freely, playing happily, not confined or “controlled.”  Two made explicit comparisons to the classrooms they are working in in the mornings.  They noted that there, kids often rely on the teachers to enforce control. They noted how much kids tattled on each other in school. In contrast, they saw the kids at B-Club cooperating, not turning against each other.  One Grug wrote this:

“I was amazed not only by the kids’ incredible energy levels, but also by how good they were at managing independently. In my first grade classroom, every other minute a student comes up to me trying to tattle, asking for help managing a social problem, complaining about something a peer did…in B-Club, I did not see any problems like this come up. Despite all of the chaos, nobody complained about getting injured or being wronged. I thought this was an amazing testament to children’s’ ability to self regulate, and perhaps conversely about their reluctance to self regulate when they expect adults to “solve” problems for them. They happily ran, read, created art, played games, etc.”

Another connected with the best memories from her own childhood:

“I liked how there was no instruction about where the kids should go if they wanted certain things. Instead, supplies were left out in various places, and the kids figured out what they wanted to do with supplies on their own. It reminded me of countless summers I had growing up outside with my neighborhood friends. We were not enrolled in summer school or summer camp. Instead, we played in front yards, and on our street, and made up games with the things we had in our houses. These were some of the best times of my life, and a huge part of it was that there were no adults involved! Instead, we had complete creative control over our playtime, and it fostered lifelong relationships and a kind of creative freedom I’ve rarely experienced since growing up. B-Club felt like this.”

A third said it helped her to think about how schools could be, if we could completely re-imagine them.

***

When it was time to clean up part of me panicked. How to gain the group’s attention? I felt responsibility for doing something, aware that the new Grugs undoubtedly expected someone – me? – to take charge.

We have long learned not to try flicking the light switches in the room, something teachers do in classrooms all the time. With a group this big in a room this dark, that will only elicit panic and pandemonium. To clap for attention (another favorite teacher trick), or foolishly ask for “one two three, eyes on me” was hopeless, with all the sounds bouncing around this echoic room.  What would “work” to draw people out of their small group activities, and bring us together as a group?

I tried stomping my feet instead, in a steady rhythm. The Grugs quickly joined in, and helped channel all the energy in these nearly 100 human bodies into a beautiful rhythmic stomping in a circle in the center of the room. First grader Carey (a boy whom we learned often gets in trouble for not sitting still in school), danced with wild abandon into the center, swaying his body with the rhythm of the group, a huge smile spreading from ear to ear. It was still not easy to lead the group in any “controlled,” adult-directed verbal conversation, but you could just see how happy everyone was. We were learning to connect with each other and to experience a sense of group  – together, without a single strong-armed or loud-voiced leader, and without a whole lot of words.

Seeing these moments of (relative) order emerge out of chaos – and perhaps more importantly, seeing the unbridled enthusiasm and sheer joy that the kids evince in moments that may feel chaotic to me – gives me hope for the weeks to come. Every year, I have watched magic happen in this space. I have seen how much the kids LOVE being here, and how much learning can happen while having fun.

The mention of that magic gives me an excuse to repost a blog from two years ago (one of the many that I lost). I’m adding that below, as I eagerly await to see what new magic will emerge this year, and to share a bit more of it here.

Older blog posts about our work at B-Club:

Sharing the magic

MAY 5, 2015  / 5 COMMENTS

Every week at B-Club a little bit of magic seems to happen. But how can I put that magic into words to share with you, my readers? How can I convey the feeling-tone of our learning community, and suggest what is possible in educational contexts?  Images may help to convey the magic, but I want to be careful only to use photos that obscure kids’ images. With words, I can provide some “rich, thick description,” as ethnographers like to say; we can also use words to analyze what goes on beneath the surface of the sometimes-chaotic fun at B-Club.  But there’s nothing like immersing in the context to experience what a pedagogy of heart and mind looks and feels like.

The pedagogical approach we take at B-Club is grounded in the core belief that learning doesn’t just happen in the heads of individuals. It isn’t disconnected from our emotions, bodies or spirits. And it doesn’t have to be painful, or difficult. It can be joyous. It can be fun. Learning comes along for the ride when we put our hearts into what we do. We use kids’ natural love for play, and for connecting with people as the driving force for learning at B-Club: love for the word, the world, the things we were learning about, and the people we were learning with and for.

For the last five weeks, my Teacher Education team has brought a terrific set of new activities to B-Club. These emerged from kids’ interests and invited them into new possibilities. They also connect with the themes that these pre-service teachers are exploring for their own inquiries into teaching and learning: around gender, language, imagination, friendship, technology  and voice.  They elicit “data” naturally: by engaging with kids in activities, and listening and watching closely to what transpires. This requires being flexible and adaptable (transcultural competencies, as I discussed in a prior blog, and skills that teachers deploy every day)  as they follow kids’ leads, builds on their interests, scaffold and support and open up zones of development for everyone involved. They bring inspiration from the training the team has received this year as well from a fantastic organization called Inner City Arts (http://www.inner-cityarts.org/).

Maribeth, Marisol and Leslie met with a group of kids to plan a blog and to write digital stories with photos wearing dress-up clothes. They took a striking pictures of Club participants in different poses against a clear white background. Marisol told us later that she then left the room briefly, and when she came back she found that the room had been transformed into a theatre. The kids were performing under dimmed lights.  Dolphin and Cutie Pie (pseudonyms) were dancing around the large wooden floor. Alexia was filming, holding an IPad camera as steady as she could and announcing with a big smile: “I’m trying my best!”

Meanwhile, Sydney, Maggie, Cristina and Arianna were outside with a group of kids in their “Explorer’s Club.” Sporting butterfly nets, binoculars, magnifying lenses and notepads, they were out in an large open field on the school lot. (Ironically, this is one of the only open spaces in this community – and a safe space for kids to explore, unlike some of the local parks – and yet usually the fields are empty after school. Where in this urban community do kids get to connect with the land and freely explore local ecosystems?)

In our debrief at the end of the day last week, Sydney noted that every time they have gone out to that field they have discovered and experienced new things. This week they explored the far corner, where a few trees grew in some tall grass. This was an approximately 8 by 15 foot area they had never been in before. One student, Roberto (a pseudonym) exclaimed excitedly, “Miss, it’s like we’re in a jungle over here!”

The kids found and piled up pine cones, discovered and tasted honeysuckle, and pretended to be explorers who got lost in this “jungle.” They wrote in their notebooks, looked at slugs, ladybugs and rolly-pollies under magnifying glasses and googled to learn the scientific name for these little creatures. (Did you know that rollie pollies are Armadillidiidae?)

Sydney reflected later in a fieldnote: They were intently looking at everything. I’m not sure if they all live in apartments or if they have backyards, but this experience with them getting so excited about the plants and animals made me realize how important it is to get students outside in nature. I don’t think most kids who live in urban areas get this experience very much and it’s a necessary part of learning and exploring the world. I hope to be able to include more experiences like this with my students in the years to come.

Sydney noted that when they went into the classroom for our afternoon wrap-up, she had never seen them so engaged in their interactive journals. We recalled how some of the kids resisted writing in these journals at the beginning of the year, and how excited they were to write about what they had explored that day. She noted, “That makes me think about how in the classroom how can we have authentic experiences in the classroom that makes them want to do ‘work.’”

Later Ronaldo and Byron compared notes from the day. Byron said, “We made a movie!” Ronaldo retorted, “Well we got to taste honeysuckle.” Ronaldo added, “This was like the best day ever in B-Club!”

Meanwhile, Sarah and Max worked with some kids to write a song about B-Club. Sarah explained in our debrief: “It was all about how we help each other how, how we get to play, how the Grugs (our affectionate name for the grad students) are the best, how B-Club is the BEST place in the world.” She did note that one student, Ronaldo, wasn’t really into the song, which made her realize how hard it will be to respond to the interests and needs of all students in her future classrooms. But Ronaldo got excited again once they agreed to insert the song into a movie they were making about B-Club. Together, Sarah and Max are thinking about how classrooms can provide structure but also give kids freedom to explore and to let things morph and unfold – what R. Keith Sawyer calls “disciplined improvisation.”

There is so much more I could say about what transpires in our magical club world – the learning that is embedded painlessly in the fun, as kids and Grugs plan and execute their visions together, using language in complex and dynamic ways, and integrating multi-modal literacies with explorations of theatre, art, science and math. As we wrap up B-Club for the year, I will have time this summer to dig beneath the surface of the fun, and will try to share more of that with readers.