Dreams

I have had an overwhelming sense of purpose and belonging in New Orleans the past few days (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). I've been busy at work all day; I've been coming into contact with lots of scintillating ideas and people (mostly in regards to education research, networks, projects); I've eaten three great meals in a row in wonderful company (savory burger at Cowbell, chicken panang curry at La Thai Uptown, and Com Rice with Eggplant at Magasin); my quiet times have been equally clarifying, energizing, renewing, and thought-provoking (maybe "quiet" times isn't the right name for them, but still, it seems to be the comfortable place where I make decisions, feel directed by God, etc. -- again, that probably seems like a paradox to be in a comfortable place while making decisions, ha! Leave it to God to pull a cool quick one like that). I feel really alive in New Orleans. I feel that this summer is an appointed time for me to be more intentional and thoughtful about my life choices, the way I treat others, taking care of myself, seeking God (and actually trying to understand Him better, rather than just operate out of my old preconceptions), and finally, relaxing and socializing more (I told C. last night that, aside from T., I spend the most time with her hands-down, and it's been a long time since I was so immersed in someone's company, time, and just enjoyed their presence without having to plan it out. It brings a different aura to the friendship, for sure. I hope I find someone like her in ATL...maybe S.? Or maybe it's just a summer-effect, where people [me especially] are more generous with their time, so friendships grow faster and better.).

So I titled this entry "Dreams." My NOLA summer fits into my dreams snugly. I feel incubated here, and at the end of this June already, I can reflect and confidently say, or shout with joy, that I am really happy with how that month was spent. I couldn't have spent my time in any better way! I feel incubated in God's love and care. It's a good feeling. And I pray that I am growing up in other ways too, spiritual ways and emotional ways.

My high school friend N. directed me to her pastor's blog, which had this great thought about the nature of dreams:

Joseph didn’t ask for these dreams.  They just came to him.  They were a divine interruption into his stable life, and they made life harder – not easier.  Many, many years would pass before these dreams would make sense to Joseph or his family.


What I've written about isn't the hard part, like Joseph faced with his big dreams. Rather, I've written about a nice "incubator" period in which my dreams don't seem so intimidating or amorphous. But it is wise in times like these to prepare for the harder times again, for they will surely come. This literal and figurative summer a time to store away memory of God's goodness for winter-times that lie ahead. And also, it's a time to remember that God is the giver of dreams, and no matter how big they are, or frustrating at times, He is making them happen, gradually, under His timing. I never could have foreseen or aimed for a summer internship like this, in a brand new city to me like this, with an almost built-in group of brand-new friends like this. God simply dropped it into my life, and it is igniting the dreams He gave me all the more.

At the Corner of Cadiz and Dryades

This is where I had a prosciutto panini for lunch and discussed God matters with a pastor. (The location sounds fit for a novel title, doesn't it?) I left the little Italian eatery with a satisfied tummy, and a satisfied spirit, on just a regular old Tuesday lunch. Thank You, LORD. 

A Night Out: Uptown

Below, you will spy four odd sights-- perhaps of the "only in New Orleans" genre. One: A Mercedes with eyelashes. Two: Paintings on the ceiling of the famed creole restaurant, Jacques Imos, that served us Shrimp and Alligator Sausage Cheesecake, on the house (surprisingly palatable). Three: A skyline of the city (OK, not so odd). Four: Artwork done by a NOLA student, a literal "toast."

 

Rooster Siting

Thursday morning, as I prepared for my pre-work reading ritual (which I do out on patio furniture about 25 steps down from my workplace suite, with coffee to accompany), a co-worker said, "There's a rooster in Uptown Square!" That's the name for the suite complex where I work, I guess, which is an ex-shopping mall.

So I went on a search after my reading. Sure enough, I found him behind some hedges-- his clucking gave him away! I wonder if he escaped from a domestic pen? A zoo is about 5 blocks away, but certainly zoos don't entertain such homely, pedestrian critters as roosters? Anyway, what a humorous way to start a workday.

Fish Dinner!!

Last night for dinner, I prepared this fresh flounder from a farmer's market! It smelled so good, even raw! I simply baked it (with some olive oil and oregano, salt, pepper). My roommates prepare dinner around 5:30 too, so it's a very lively, bright kitchen. I love where I live. I feel so blessed! My roommates are great companions. Anyway, back to the dinner. So all I had was fish. All they had was a scrumptious bean salad-- two cans garbanzo beans, two cans black beans, a cut up fresh tomato, one can of kernel corn, plus lemon juice, garlic, basalmic vinegar, and some olive oil and salt -- so we merged our food for a great, healthy dinner! Oh, plus I enjoyed a mini-cantalope too as an appetizer. I ate it straight from the rind as my bowl, just like the good old days on 5335 (growing up).

Week 2

what I've learned about education...

- Year 7 is when teachers peak in their performance. Interesting! (Tom Carroll, Nat'l Commission on Teaching and America's Future)
- Teacher turnover itself, aside from quality of the teacher, has been shown to have a negative effect on student achievement (Loeb et al., "How Teacher Turnover Hurts Student Achievement")

what I've explored and experienced...

- attended a BESE Board meeting yesterday in Baton Rouge
- went to the farmer's market in the parking lot of my workplace today, and bought a pound of flounder and some fruit and veggies, including a tiny cantalope!
- great and affordable frozen yogurt last night with the roomies, accompanied by great eduaction talk and enjoying YouTube videos of Cholas doing their make-up

Week 1 Reflection: What I've learned

Besides hard work and simple, good ole elbow grease, being a successful intern is all about keeping one's ear to the ground. What does that idiom mean, you ask? Well, I just learned it today. It means, to devote attention to watching or listening for clues as to what is going to happen.  This week has been all about getting in tune to what is going to be expected of me this summer, and preparing to learn about education in this particular place over the course of this summer.

So I thought I'd enumerate the products of my devoted attention this week.  In my previous post I talked about seed ideas, and the importance of not losing them. So here goes...a bullet list of interesting things I've learned about education, the South, or both in the last two weeks:

1.) At the "Reinventing Schools" Forum at Tulane's Hillel, 6-13-12

• The new 3R's are Relevance, Rigor, and Relationships [so interesting...deviating from the academic]
• An anecdote to illustrate how we "help" in schools: One dentist wanted to help a school. The principal said, we don't need a dentist, what my kids need are shoes. So the dentist said, "alright, I'll get some of my dentist friends together and we'll get shoes for everybody. Have your teachers give me a list of their students' shoes sizes." So the teachers did; they looked at all their students' shoes and wrote down their sizes. Upon delivery day of all these new shoes, the dentist and teachers discovered, they were all the wrong sizes--because kids had merely worn whatever shoe was available to them that day, be they outgrown, or oversized. Moral of the story: diagnosing what critical needs students need often requires more probing than just a surface-level antidote. 
• The extended school day innovation: just more time isn't it. (Reminds me of our SEF readings- how mere enrollment in preK isn't the solution; quality is.
• Horizons National is doing work like Graduation Generation's, except in 10 states, and with younger students: enrolling them in summer enrichment camps on college campuses.
• "Limousine Liberals" are those who has certain progressive sensibilities, but are afraid to talk about poverty, incarceration, and inequality.
• Learning-Centered Architecture is an innovation in place that involves providers coming into household, and assisting parents with building their families, creating homework nooks for their kids, etc. Parents get credits for participating in the program.
• Scholarships based on residency-- what a powerful, practical solution! ("There's so many practical solutions [to our education problems, inequalities], it's not even funny." - Keynote speaker Dr. Andre Perry)

2.) From a pamphlet on Cowen's "Disconnected Youth" study: Did you know that nationally, Louisiana ranks 49th in indicators of child well-being? (according to the 2001 Kids Count report by the Annie E Casey Foundation) I wonder who is 50th...Mississippi??

3.) From the Cowen Institute's Intern Crash-Course Info Binder:

• How lopsided the distribution of charter schools in NOLA is across primary and secondary: 49 of the former, and 5 of the latter! Reason being, schools have to transition to that point. To start, when installing an innovation, upper-aged kids aren't "saveable" in the popular notion of youth; converting to a new way of doing school is easier with younger students, so the "takeover" of traditional schools and converting them into charters has been a piecemeal progression, via "transformational schools" (i.e., starting with kindergartners only, and following that cohort through until the ultimate transformation of the entire school.)
• Some studies have contested the Coleman Report re: the importance of the built environment to student achievement.
• Uniquely, the Charter Movement was able to take off here because buildings were readily available. Old P.S.'s were simply converted to charters, whereas in other states, incubating, burgeoning charters have to face the daunting task of renting or building their own space.
• There are "types" of charter schools- i.e., type 5, which comprises the bulk of charters here, have no application standards, but there are covert ways around that, if the prerogative is to have a selective student body: make the application deadline early.
• Cowen runs a program called AdvanceNOLA, which supports AP (advanced Placement) programming in 6 charter schools. I'm not clear as to how Cowen chose the schools it chose, but one of the amazing things about it is that teachers are really receptive to it, and also there are cash incentives for both teachers and students for each qualifying score of a 3 on their AP exam- 300 bucks for both teacher and student!!
• Charter School students still have to take standardized state tests (here, the non-promotion years are 4th and 8th grades). Also, charters can qualify for Title 1 funds.
• No research to date has tracked achievement differences between singular charter schools versus network charter schools.  Networks are simply little families of charters that all fall under one charter management organization, or CMO. It's like a mini-district.
• RSD charter schools have a very segregated student population: 90%+ African-American; 93% reduced lunch.
• OPSB (Orleans Parish School Board) schools, by contrast, are more white and less reduced lunch (about 15-20%, and 63%, respectively). Also, more career teachers are in the OPSB (as opposed to new teachers). Reasons for all of this is that it is a wealthier, more traditionally-minded portion of the city's demographics, and its charters are partially selective admissions (i.e., not type 5 charters).
• NOLA, DC, Detroit, Kansas City, MO; Flint, MI; and Dayton, OH; and now Gary, IN, are all US districts with the largest percentage of public schools students attending charter schools. Why is this? Perhaps because many of these are what are termed "weak metros" economically, or perhaps they're hotbeds for reform ("purple states" are more open to reform) or have no strong teachers' unions to resist the formation of charters.
• PPE (per pupil expenditures) in NOLA went way up from 2005 to 2007-- from shy of $8K to 15K. They came back down more recently to about 13K on average. BUT, fascinatingly, the PPE is wildly different for charter versus non-charter public school students in this city: charter students in 2009-2010 got $10,718 each, whereas the non-charter students (those who went to the waning district or 'direct-run' schools) got $14,697 each.
• Be wary of bar charts that compare "years of teacher experience" across schools, districts, etc. These could exclude previous experience at private schools, in other states/districts, etc.

4.) From the SEF Orientation week, June 5-8

• to be completed and posted soon

Day 5: Spaghetti and Rough Drafts

Ahh, it feels good to be so into my work that I can't seem to get to lunch! I'll eat after posting this.

I just had an hour-long interview with a guy in our office, M, who works on (awards) TIF grants (Teacher Incentive Fund). So invigorating! One thing he said that rings SO TRUE of the education scene here in NOLA is, “It’s a complicated landscape”!! If there's one thing I've learned this week, it's that. I'll probably be expanding this concept into my SEF (Southern Education Foundation) homework editorial response, which is due next Friday. So this blog entry is my seed. If there's something about writing that I know for sure, it's: "Don't let your seeds get away from you! Baby them! Nurture them! Feed them! Track them!" (But I have a terrible history as a seed-neglector. That's why I haven't written a YA book yet, among other reasons.)

But back to M's astute, marvelously concise, wonderfully true comment. Indeed, if NOLA were just any other city, if it were a 'normal' city (ie, without its histories of natural disasters, its Southern particularities, its schools system's historically 'dire straights' status), I would only be becomeing acquainted with a regular ole' central office this week, as my first week on board at this internship. Instead, what we have in NOLA is a tangled mix of collaborations, ties between organizations: service providers and funders, granters and grantees, weak and strong schools, direct-run and charter schools. What results is a web of inter-organizational alliances that form a very complex eduational landscape here. Perhaps we can nick-name this city's innovative, unique, up-and-coming, transforming, transitioning school district "the Spaghetti School District." SSD. Spaghetti meant in no connotatively-charged way-- I can't say that a complicated landscape is messy, just because its structure is less bending than the traditional, centralized school district model is. Perhaps spaghetti is necessary for reform; solid structures won't permit it. SDS is a rough draft, rather than a bound book-- which again, is not meant connotatively either positively or negatively. Rough drafts we think of as gestational, incomplete, directionless -- but also consider, they are ripe with potentialities, and the hope for the future product/outcome is intense (fear too). A bound book can be thought of as stable, an accomplishment in publishing, but also consider: it gets outdated (by the two-year mark, tops, for an academic's book to be on people's radar before it is retired to the dusty shelves, I heard on prof [or was it my dad?] once say).

Spaghetti and Rough Drafts. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Day 4: Magazine Street

Magazine Street is a really well-known street in New Orleans, maybe like Denver's Colfax. Last night the other intern in New Orleans, C, and I explored and had a po-boy dinner at Mahoney's. We drove and walked around first, too.

So I didn't realize I live literally 2 blocks from the Mississippi River. Beyond my street is Annunciation and Tc (pronounced chap-a-tool-is) --great street names, right? There are mostly walls blocking off any sight of the water, so no wonder I didn't know. Wharfs line the shore (is that the right word for the side of a river? A bank?). Another word I love. I giggled all night whenever that word came up: "wharfs!" Above is a pretty bridge that broke the wall/wharfs monotony.

Beads. A staple here.

So this was a sight-- a giant Zeus sculpture! Also, I didn't know Mardi Gras was "made" anywhere.... Worth a field trip, I think.

I have a lot of things non-touristy related to report too. Like today I sat down and had a here's-what-I've-done so far, what-do-I-do-next meeting with my supervisor. I then told her about the three research projects I've done during my first year at Emory. She said I could present one over a lunch later this summer, my factor analysis, teacher interview project (my second year paper/MA thesis). She said during the academic year, ed researchers in this suite and office suites around us get together for a monthly "Ed Heads" gathering. Too bad they're not in session now!

Soon, I intend to write a blog post about the education system in New Orleans. I thought I knew my stuff about alternate routes, etc., but here, everything is so tangled and intertwined and it's like the information is deep and thick. I haven't arrived at a feeling of mastery or understanding of the teacher/principal ("human capital") scene here in this city yet. My task today is to research larger cities with charter schools and how they have tracked the recruitment and retention problems of staffing their schools.

I'm definitely learning.... It's a good feeling.

Day 3: Sights & Sounds

I continue to learn things about New Orleans.

Such as that the predominant religion here is Catholicism, even among African-Americans!

Such as effective rhetoric, when speaking to a crowd: if you're losing them, throw in a "God said" or "It ain't right," or if it's a really bad situation, say, "God said, 'It ain't right.'" (That I learned from my boss D, who attributed it to the concluding keynote speaker at the "Reforming Schools"panel yesterday, Dr. Andre Perry.)

Such as that the city streets, while they seem like an orderly concentric pattern on an aerial map, are actually a bit hard to navigate sometimes, because the streets run parallel to the river, in a Crescent shape. This last bit I learned from my coworker A, when I went to hang with two of her friends last night where we had red wine in antique glass teacups and cheese-- some that A made from scratch (there's a "Local food challenge" going on in NOLA right now), and some that another girl made from gouda cheese wrapped in Pillsbury crescent roll dough and baked-- YUM! BTW, how often in your life do you use the word 'crescent' twice in the same paragraph, in different capacities?

I made 13-bean chili yesterday. It was laborious, but with Tony's creole spice, it was easily redeemed. That reminds me of what EH said that her husband, a Louisianian, said to her about her cooking: "Anything can be good when you just add some Tony's to it."

I have so much more that I intend to write about, but here's a few more pics and now I have to go to do my job!

This is what street corners look like. Some intersections may lack signage, but at least there are tiles for pedestrians. Note also the steel support for the curb--cool.

Went exploring yesterday and found MEGP's elementary school! (Actually, it's K-8.) The funny thing about all these charter takeovers of formerly district schools is that they have banners of the new name, but over the front door remains the school's old name.

Wow-- what's the story behind this lineup of water holes in the sidewalk? Does it serve a lot of separate tenants within one small apartment building? It was in front of a beautiful mansion that appears to me to have been divided up into about 8 apartment units.

For you to visualize what a Shotgun style house floorplan looks like from the inside. My bedroom is in the way back of the first floor. There are two other bedrooms too, upstairs and downstairs. It's a great house, feels new.

Day 2: Day in the Life

6:30 a.m.: Running in the morning, it's typical for runner to use the soft dirt in the trolly tracks as a great pathway. When a rickety ole trolly car approaches, you have three or more minutes to move out of the way. The trolly tracks, as you can see, are in the neutral ground (median). New Orleans streets are oddly disorderly and orderly, all at once. The grass is uneven but not neglected; the curbs aren't perfectly straight, but the street layout allows for just the pedestrian vitality that Jane Jacobs loves.

8:00/8:30 a.m.: Leave the house for work. This is where I am living for two months. It has what's called a "Shotgun" style floorplan (ubiquitous in NOLA), because when you open the front door, you face a straight hallway that goes from living room to dining room to kitchen to bedrooms in the back.

8:30/9:00 a.m.: Arrive at work-- earlier some days, depending on is there's a meeting or conference event. This is the place (office complex) where I work. It was an old commercial walking mall, kind of like Highland Village in Jackson, that Tulane bought and took over for office space post-Katrina.

5:30 p.m. Leaving where I work for the day, I "reflect" on how awesome and perfect my placement is. I work among kin, intellectual/professional kin.

[This is a giant map, which you saw behind the glass door above. Upon entering the Institute, this map, which features the 60+ charter schools in the city and their location and distribution across the city.]

11:00 p.m. After an evening hanging out, running errands, driving the town, and sharing dinner with my fellow intern, we crash at her house. Sweet rest, then bring on another summer workday! (I love different seasons of life and changing routines!)

Summer's Work Begins: Day 1 at Internship

Hello from NOLA! I landed last night, settled into my new place (a sublet bedroom in a 4-bedroom house in a "good" part of New Orleans, occupied by 3 other mid-twenties females and TFA-ers), met my new roommates, took a run this morning on the trolly tracks on the "neutral territory" (what the rest of America calls the median), got lost on my run but found my way back, arrived 5 minutes early to my workplace, met my boss, read and talked about charter schools and the state of education in this city with her and two other coworkers for about 5 hours (off and on), and now I am nearing the end of the workday. Already I went out to a delectable lunch with three coworkers to a place within walking distance from my workplace called Tartine New Orleans, where I had an open-faced, salmon-and-locks covered baguette. Y-U-M. And, already another coworker has talked to me every time she passed my cubicle and invited me out with her two other friends Wednesday night! AGH! So exciting. Social life is easier in the workforce than in grad school, I think. Or maybe my mentality is more amenable to growing friendships when I am not in school...no, that can't be it. I don't know, but I can say I welcome this change! In Atlanta, I made friends, but boy, it was more of an effort to grow those friendships, and time spent together is small in comparison to people you work with all day everyday.

I think it's gonna be a good summer. I was apprehensive about whether getting back into the groove of a 9-to-5 job would be hard, but I've found that it's not! I really like my boss, and these young people at the think tank I'm interning at are brainiacs. I love to belong with them. I definitely think I am going to GROW this summer. Professionally and socially, definitely, but I hope also personally and spiritually too.

Two photos to get this summer reflection blog going (more scenic ones to come, I promise!)

You know you're in N.O. when there's Tony's creole spice in as close of reach as salt n peppa.

This alone will make my eight weeks working here fantastic. Talk about great working conditions: coffee on tap within the water cooler! AND, it is really great coffee, brewed just to my liking.