IDEA Blog
The Yellow Zone
Caine’s Arcade
Caine’s Arcade is a short film about a 9 year old boy’s cardboard arcade, located in his dad’s used auto parts store in East LA.
Caine dreamed of the day he would have lots of customers visit his arcade, and he spent months preparing everything, perfecting the game design, making displays for the prizes, designing elaborate security systems, and hand labeling paper-lunch-gift-bags. However, his dad’s autoparts store (located in an industrial part of East LA) gets almost zero foot traffic, so Caine’s chances of getting a customer were very small, and the few walk in customers that came through were always in too much of a hurry to get their auto part to play Caine’s Arcade. But Caine never gave up….
This short film tells the story of Caine’s Arcade, and of our attempt to make Caine’s day. Watch the film: http://cainesarcade.com
What Am I to Say to Aspiring Teachers?
At my university, I serve as the Graduate Program Coordinator for the Masters in Education program. Part of this job entails serving as an advisor/recruiter to people who already have a Bachelor's degree in some other field, but who wish to now earn a Masters in Education simultaneous with earning a state license to teach. Last week, a prospective student sat in my office, eager for a change from her stressful current job as a case worker in a community service organization. She plied me with questions about what it is like to be a teacher, is this a good time to be going into education, is the work stable, etc.What was I to say to her when so many negatives were swirling through my...
A conference that will matter after it is over
Justo Méndez Arámburu has had a very clear message about IDEC 2012 over the last two months.
“The most important day of IDEC 2012 is April 1st.”
That date is remarkable because it is the day after the conference is over.
In total, the conference will bring together over 750 young people, educators, community leaders, organizers, academics, and advocates from around the world and across Puerto Rico. But, the most profound accomplishment of conference organizers has happened even before the conference begins. Unlike so many other conferences, IDEC 2012 has been organized to have maximum impact in the lives of young people and communities in Puerto Rico after the international...
National Day of Civic Action March 15: Dear Mr. President
The paradox of democracy is this: those who don’t have it fight tooth and nail to get it while those who have it watch football.
I realize this statement is hyperbolic, but I wanted to make a point. On President’s Day, I began thinking about the tremendous impact political freedom has on our lives, and I realized that this thought may not have occurred to many of my compatriots. President’s Day is a time to honor the achievements of our most distinguished citizens, but it is also a time to celebrate the democratic process that wrote these men into our collective history. We live in a country that embraces civic engagement. We have the right to vote. We have the right to assemble in...
Pathways to Healing After a School Shooting
I’m a self-proclaimed news junkie. Every morning, I begin by scanning through major news sites online, by poring over Facebook and Twitter posts, updating myself with what’s going on in the world. This continues throughout the day, just as it did on Monday, when I saw BREAKING NEWS cross my Twitter feed with a statement about a shooting at a high school in Chardon, Ohio. My heart immediately sank and started racing, wondering about the students and staff. My mind and heart next went to the place and time it always does when I read or hear about another school shooting: October 1, 1997, at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi.
I was 16 years old the day Luke Woodham entered my high...
Opportunistic Parasites in Our Schools
We Are the Present: Why Youth Voices Are Necessary
When we pretend that children are just adults in hatching, waiting to become real participants in the world, we don’t merely take away their agency and lose out on their wisdom; we deny that they are already full participants in the world, on the front lines of the most critical struggles in modern history.
Photo courtesy of Manauvaskar Kublall
Evaluating Our Values
Articles are written every year bemoaning the fact that young Americans are woefully ignorant about civics. Here’s a radical theory to consider: Young people don’t know civics because we don’t teach them civics! We made a decision in that moment with those twelve boys that practice with writing a brief constructed response was of higher value than becoming competent, prepared, participatory citizens. Does that decision mesh with your own values?
My Love/Hate Relationship with Educational Numbers
A few months back, I wrote about how my college was going through the NCATE accreditation process. The outcome of that long event was a report about how we are doing. One area in which we were “dinged” was in our assessments of our graduate programs. This report finding means that as director of one of our biggest graduate programs, I am now under the gun to create quantitative assessments to determine the effect our Master's program has on its students (are we teaching them anything, are their dispositions and behaviors changing toward sought-after ends as a result of our program, etc?). While such info can certainly be useful in some ways, I cringe at how there is an assumption...
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