In any event, here's the article. The main reason I am posting it to the
NAT-EDU list is in order to solicit help from anyone in the New York City
area - particularly anyone connected with the school systems or museums -
who might be able to help us establish and solidify links between our
efforts on this project and those of the project described in the report
I heard on the radio today. If anyone is interested in helping in this
regard, please contact me ("gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us") as soon as possible.
(Actually if anyone in another part of North America have ideas on how
such links can be established and wants to help, you can also contact me.)
Thanks very much.
Gary
On today's hour-long daily news program from the Christian Science Monitor's
"Monitor Radio," broadcast here in the Boston area at noon on one of our
National Public Radio stations (WBUR-FM), a story was aired (several minutes
in length) about an experimental program in the New York City public schools
which is linking schools and museums to provide greater learning opportunities
for students than what is generally available using only textbooks and other
conventional materials. The story reminded me of the conversations we have
been having recently here on our mailing list concerning inter-disciplinary
education that can utilize community-based learning resources, and what Susan
Shore said recently:
> ...practical classroom applications can be elusive, and perhaps I have
> somewhat of an advantage in that I am not in a formal classroom, and I
> have direct access to the three dimensional in the form of artifacts. My
> work is usually supplemental to regular classroom study, and I can
> concentrate on alternative presentations without worrying too much about
> school types of assessment...
>
> One thing I try to do, however, is to encourage teachers to take these
> methods back to their classrooms, and I try to provide as much as I can
> in the form of extension activities, outreach programs, and direct
> school visits as I can given my very limited staff. Perhaps that's why
> it's easy for me to perceive this project as a way to help extend even
> further.
A RealAudio(tm) clip of the story should be available on the Monitor Radio
Web page ("http://www.csmonitor.com/monitor_radio/todays_show.html") some-
time later today.
I wasn't really listening to the report during the first minute or so (being
busily trying to find information on the Web on another story that had been
presented earlier in the hour, so I'm sure I missed some important details.
However, I did manage to get a few "factoids":
- Funding for the program (which they expect will cost about $36 million)
will come partly from the Annenberg CPB (Corporation for Public Broad-
casting) Foundation - the rest will come from corporate and private
donations ($4 million has been contributed from various sources thus
far - Annenberg plans to provide $12 million)
- One of the explicit goals is to provide students with more in the way
of what we have been calling "three-dimensional" kinds of learning
experiences than are generally available in schools themselves; they
talked about having students interacting with artists and with works
of art, etc. (and there was a clip of a student orchestra playing at
some gala event)
- The program has the enthusiastic support of New York City mayor Rudolph
Giuliani (sp?) - they played a clip of an interview in which he was
speaking in glowing terms about the project and its projected results.
- The program does have its critics, among whom is Prof. Judy Burton,
of the Columbia University Teachers' College (as I recall, she was
speaking about the problem of fairness - trying to provide as equal
a learning experience as possible for all students within the public
schools - I think that this program will eventually be extended to
all schools, but it is being tested in just a few presently - in my
notes I see "5 yrs., 1/2 of pub. schools," which I assume means that
they plan to have the program implemented in half of the public schools
within five years).
- The story was reported by Sue Simpson in New York, who I recognize as
providing stories to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) on a
fairly regular basis (I don't know whether Sue is a CBC employee or a
free-lancer).
Anyway, I'm thinking that it might be good to learn more about this program
and perhaps to find someone in the New York City area from within our NAT-EDU
community to see whether there might be some opportunities for the long-term
project to take advantage of this program as a means of, for example, getting
Native American artists and storytellers into direct contact with students,
and whether we might be able to help build some bridges that would otherwise
be lower down on the list of priorities in this project's planning between,
say, social studies and art classes and those divisions of cooperating museums
that would have the resources to invite Native American artists, historians,
craftspeople, et. al. to participate - and we might be able to help them to
locate and link up with such people.
I suggest that those who are interested in following up this angle might try
to follow up the story via the Web link mentioned above (the story, once on
the Web page will have a one-day lifetime, so you'll need to pick it up prior
to whatever time tomorrow that day's news stories appear on the page). I'll
also post a notice to NAT-EDU myself in case there is someone out there in
the New York City area who might want to help us forge the necessary links
to explore whatever collaborative possibilities might exist.
What say you all??
Gary