On November 1, 2014, I attended Rhode Island College’s 17th
Annual Promising Practices Conference, which specifically focused on
“Culturally Responsive Curricula in STEM.
Over the course of the day, I had the opportunity to attend two
informative workshops and to hear from the keynote speaker Dr. Christopher
Emdin.
The first workshop that I
attended, entitled Finding the STEM in the Urban Core, was presented by
Antoinette Pearson, principal, and Mariamba Kurbally, 2nd grade
teacher, from Bethune Elementary/Middle School in Detroit, Michigan. This school is 100% African American and is
located in a very depressed area of the city; however, Ms. Pearson and Ms.
Kurbally wanted to make STEM fields available to these students who otherwise
would not have that as an option. This
is something Kozol discussed in his reading Amazing
Grace, about students from poor areas in cities being denied the same
opportunities as children from richer areas. During the workshop, they demonstrated and
talked about the SMART Lab that opened in the school just this past
summer. The lab offers students the
chance to explore science and mathematics through hands-on activities. I have since followed the Bethune SMART Lab
Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Bethunesmartlab).
It is so great to see pictures of these
sweet kids using technology and hands-on things in their learning.
The second workshop that I attended, entitled Expanded
Learning Opportunities: Students’ Passion Takes the Lead, was presented by
Elizabeth Ochs and other teachers and students from Central Falls High
School. During the workshop, I had the
opportunity to learn about how Central Falls High School students are able to
create opportunities for themselves spend part of their schooling on something
that they were interested in. Elizabeth
Ochs, who is in charge of ELLs, clearly cared deeply about her position, and
has created a website (http://cfhs.cfschools.net/expanded-learning-opportunities.html)
that has more information about it. Basically,
students worked with a mentor who would support them in their learning. At the end of the experience, no matter how
long it took for them to complete the planned opportunity, they would present
what they had done and learned to earn credits.
We got to hear from one boy who used his ELL to design a robot that he
competed with. I think its great that
students are able to learn through atypical methods, as discussed in the Hill and Johnston's piece In the Future, Diverse Approaches to Schooling.
The final part of the day was lunch and listening to the
keynote speaker, Christopher Emdin. He
was a great speaker who did a great job engaging the audience. It was clear that he would be a great teacher
because of his ability to keep students interested in what he is talking
about. If you get a chance to watch
Christopher Emdin speak, even on YouTube, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouudXr-csZg)
he has a lot to offer. Emdin’s talk
reminded me of Robert Lake’s piece, An
Indian Father’s Plea. Emdin, like
Lake, talked about how so many students are lost and dismissed as stupid and
unwilling to learn, when simply they are just not interested in the material or
are being taught in ways that they are not used to and cannot learn because of
this. I thought that Emdin was a perfect
speaker to hear to end the day because it summed up both workshops I had seen
that day. The students in Bethune are
being provided hands-on opportunities to learn, and students in Central Falls
are being provided opportunities to learn through their interests. I have added Emdin’s book Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop
Education to my reading list because I want to be able to incorporate his
ideas into my future career.
