Bridge Program for Preparing Science and Mathematics Teachers

This collaborative project between Barnard College and Teachers College aims to expand the pipeline for mathematics and science teachers at high need elementary, middle, and high schools and to develop Teacher Leaders in Mathematics and Science for New York City Public Schools through:

• Recruiting Barnard and Columbia students into science/mathematics education early in their undergraduate careers
• Mentoring students to become teacher leaders in mathematics/science in New York City Public Schools
• Supporting graduates of the Barnard Education Program through completion of a Masters degree at Teachers College
• Preparing graduates to become Teacher-Leaders in high need public schools through ongoing mentoring and professional development with Barnard and Teachers College faculty

For further information contact lbell@barnard.edu

Documentary Film Project: Forty Years Later: Now Can We Talk?

“40 Years Later: Now Can We Talk?” is a documentary film project that explores the impact of racial integration in the Mississippi Delta through powerful and moving dialogue with black and white alumni from the class of 1969 as they recall and comment on memories of that time, from their very different racial positions and experiences. Like the currently best-selling novel The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by journalist Isabel Wilkerson, our project captures a powerful story that has been previously invisible to most Americans.  The documentary tells a multi-layered story intercutting archival historical footage, vignettes from the high school today, personal profiles of participants, and the inter-group dialogue for reconciliation. 40 Years Later provides a contemporary way to examine the impact of desegregation on those who participated in the first integration projects and to reflect on our progress as a society and the challenges that remain for reaching the goals put forth in the 1955 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The production of the documentary is the hub of a larger school and community-based outreach project that will include DVD menu items of high school and college students responding to the documentary, a curriculum guide and discussion questions, all to be made available on our project website. “40 Years Later” will become a coalition-building tool for school and community groups interested in fostering dialogue about race and racism using the networks already created through the Storytelling Project at Barnard.  In Mississippi, we will be working with the William Winter Institute to use “40 Years” in Batesville and other communities in the state to support cross-race conversations and coalition building.

We have shown clips from the film to groups of high school and college students in New York City as well as university educators in different parts of the country.  These focus groups convince us that the film is indeed relevant to contemporary concerns, that people from all racial groups continue to see honest dialogue about race and racism as difficult to start and sustain, and that the film is powerful in provoking and encouraging such dialogue.

Barnard College and Hancock Productions are partners on this project. Professor Lee Anne Bell works with public school educators using her scholarship on race and racism in an innovative storytelling model that incorporates the arts to facilitate conversation and learning about race and racism. Markie Hancock, Documentary Director (www.hancockproductions.com) is a filmmaker who has produced educational videos about issues of race including “Off Track:  Classroom Privilege For All” and “Echoes of Brown v. Board of Education” both distributed by Teachers College Press.  Hancock has also completed other documentaries, including “Born Again” (currently airing on the Documentary Channel) and “Exclusions and Awakenings: The Life & Work of Maxine Greene.”

The project has received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Daphne Foundation and the Maxine Greene Foundation as well as through Barnard mini-grants for faculty projects and the Mellon Mays University Fellowship Program.

For Further Information Contact: lbell@barnard.edu or markie@hancockproductions.com

For the Public Good

Inaugural Panel

Michelle Fine, Nancy Holmstrom, David Wieman

Thursday, 10/13 5:30 PM

Event Oval, The Diana Center

Free and Open to the Public

This panel inaugurates a multi-year, interdisciplinary project to examine the “public good,” issues ranging from the environment and education to information media and public policy, the state of which cannot be left to the whims of the market or to one particular sector of society because they impact society as a whole. But how are we to discuss or define the “public good” when the recent global financial crisis has led to an economic regime that relies on free-trade policy and emphasizes, with often catastrophic results, the privatization of assets and services that were previously public? This series brings together scholars and activists from a range of disciplines to generate a thoughtful critique of the “public good,” and to suggest policies and directions that might best serve it. Speakers include Michelle Fine of The Graduate Center, CUNY (below), Nancy Holmstrom of Rutgers University and author of Not For Sale: In Defense of Public Goods, and David Weiman of the Economics Department at Barnard.

IS A PUBLIC SCHOOL A PUBLIC GOOD OR A SHOESTORE?

Diane Ravitch

Tuesday February 21, 2012

6:30 PM James Room, Barnard Hall

On Tuesday February 21, 2012 For the Public Good will host a talk by Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. Diane Ravitch is the author of:

Public Space & Public Consciousness

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, explores “the political power of physical places” evident in locations from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. Such recently reclaimed spaces encourage us to think anew about how we want the world we live in to be organized and about our role as citizens in creating change. As Kimmelman notes in a recent New York Times’ essay, “We clearly use locales, edifices, architecture to house our memories and political energy and shape our consciousness about the world.” Join us as we reimagine physical and intellectual spaces to consider ideas and actions that serve the public good.

The Storytelling Project: Teaching about Racism and Tolerance through Storytelling and the Arts

Dr. Lee Anne Bell, Principal Investigator

The Storytelling Project (STP) links research to practice through the development of a curriculum to teach about race, racism, and social justice using storytelling and the arts. The Storytelling Model is described in detail in a new book by Lee Anne Bell, Storytelling for Social Justice: Connecting Narrative and the Arts in Antiracist Teaching (Routledge, 2010).

Supported by a grant of $100,000 from the Third Millennium Foundation (2004-2005) and a two-year collaboration with the International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE), the STP model was developed by an interdisciplinary creative team of artists, public school teachers, university faculty and Barnard students. The Creative Team developed the storytelling model and curriculum to teach about race, racism and social justice for middle and high school students. Designed to be flexible; the program can be incorporated into existing school curricula such as English/Language Arts and Social Studies as well as in targeted after-school programs.

An intensive one-week Storytelling, Social Justice and the Arts Institute was provided to New York City public school teachers in summer 2005. The Institute introduced the STP model and curriculum, and engaged teachers in testing and refining activities and materials enabling participating teachers to experience the curriculum as "students" and devise strategies for teaching it in their own classrooms during the following school year.

During 2005-2006, two teachers from the Summer Institute implemented the curriculum in their own classrooms with the support of our team. As their students wrote, told, and performed stories drawn from historical and literary sources and their own lives, they began to see new possibilities for gaining perspective on issues of racism, tolerance and social justice in their own communities. They also developed critical thinking and communication skills through a range of artistic, writing and performance activities that also helped them develop heightened awareness of social justice issues.

As active participants, students and teachers had a significant stake in the process and contributed to research on tolerance education and understanding race and racism, providing feedback and making curricular revisions in collaboration with the creative team.  We assessed the initial year of implementation, tracking student/teacher responses and measuring results of student learning, in order to refine and modify the lessons and activities for wider dissemination to other teachers and schools in New York City and beyond. The STP curriculum is available as a free, downloadable PDF through the link below.

The Storytelling Project Creative Team

Professor Lee Anne Bell, Director of the Barnard Education Program led the project. Dr. Rosemarie A. Roberts a post-Doctoral Research Fellow, social psychologist, and artist served as Project Director. The creative team also included:

• Thea Abu El-Haj, Assistant Professor in Social Cultural Foundations at Rutgers University
• Anthony Asaro, middle school teacher at P.S. 104
• Roger Bonair-Agard, teaching artist and poet
• Dipti Desai, Director of the Arts Education Program at New York University
• Leticia Dobzinski and Zoe Duskin, Barnard College Education Program student teachers
• Christina Glover, high school teacher at Talented Unlimited High School
• Uraline Septembre Hager, teaching and visual artist
• Markie Hancock, Documentarian/Filmmaker
• Kayhan Irani, New York based performance artist
• Patricia Wagner, grammar school teacher at TAPCO in the Bronx.

bottom left: Z. Duskin, R. Roberts, L. Bell, U. Hager, K. Irani; top left: T. Abu El-Haj, A. Asaro, R. Bonair-Agard, P. Wagner, D. Desai, L. Dobzinski.

For more information contact lbell@barnard.edu.