A couple water metaphors

Charged by LSE architects and the St. Paul Public Library to offer a proposal for the new Highland Park community library teen space, our Designing Change class is diving in to makerspaces, FabLabs, and tech centers using twitter, interviews & site visits. We’ve saturated the studio space with the results of our research.   

We’re also glad to have Stanford Design School consultant Anna Love-Mickelson’s enthusiasm for this final design cycle. Yesterday she taught us how to unpack our site visits and interviews using headline note taking to pull out and preserve information.  Then, we sorted the idea looking for surprises, tensions, contradictions, and insights before creating Point of View statements.   

While there’s a temptation to focus on furniture and technology, the process keeps us focused on emotional qualities.  Here are a couple POV statement observations: 

• It would be GAME CHANGING if we could created a thought provoking teen space where young people feel comfortable taking risks.  
•  It would be GAME CHANGING if we created a versatile space that fosters community within the teen space.

Aiming for a December 11^th presentation to the architects and the library, we’ll ideate and immerse ourselves in prototypes in the next couple weeks. 

The collaborative curriculum

I couldn’t resist telling the Designing Change class students one day that they were taking a class without a curriculum.  If the class wasn’t pass/fail, of course, we wouldn’t have quite this level of comfort.  Yet the design process incorporates skills of collaboration, research, writing and presentation that fit 21^st century skills descriptors better than most. 

When we planned a class using the design thinking model for 9^th and 10^th graders, I pictured several 9^th grade boys in particular who struggled with the expectations of sitting around tables talking about literature.  In the English classroom, I always balance discussion with action such as group work, board work, or interpretive work, but the thinking about texts in discussion, later reflected in writing remains at that heart of most English classes.  Even if we move toward production, the act of reading and interpreting will remain central.  For a particular group of 9^th graders, this will always be challenging. 

So, when we imagined and then created this class that starts with collaborative activities and then moves into interviews, brainstorming and then physical prototyping, I imagined these kids would become the stars.  And at first they were.  Our first activity, the straw and paperclip bridge, got everyone working with their hands and each other to solve a problem.   And while the enthusiasm for this first problem in this novel class was electric, I noted that the students who took the lead in the discussions and in the presentations, were generally the same students who would have done so in regular class projects.  Perhaps, I thought, habits matter more than skills here and different students would surface as we moved into projects.  And when we moved into our first design problem- a physical problem in the school- some different students took the lead, particularly when computer aided design skills were required to use the Sketchup software.  Yet once that phase was done and the prototypes needed testing or iteration, these students drifted to the margins.  And I mean that quite literally.  It seemed that students who liked working with objects or technology have very different skill sets than those who work with ideas or people, and when the tasks became social, these students check out.  In my circuits around the class, I coached some students to face the group, to move closer, to stop drawing or engaging in other distracted/ing activities.  In our debrief, the division between those who preferred working with people those who preferred technology or objects stood out.  Since then, and despite coaching, the challenge remains.   

Much of the design thinking process is collaborative or social.  Students who struggle interacting with others struggle here.  And what stands out most to me, is that these are the same skill sets that make students successful in ‘normal’ school projects.  So while I imagined the design space being one that privileges non-traditional learners, I’ve been reminded that much of traditional learning and design thinking require social skills. 

Better Lucky Than Good

In schools we all negotiate the limits of calendar and class period, except for schools like Riverpoint Academy in Spokane Washington where math is the only pull out class in otherwise full day project based classrooms.  The rest of us struggle to fit the real world into 40, 60 or 80 minute pieces.  Similarly, projects outside of school often don’t match the school calendar.  Our Designing Change class has landed on an amazing design challenge for our local library that’s happening right when we’re ready for it.

After starting with designing for physical problems in the school building like doorstops and lockers, and then redesigning the tutorial period in our new schedule, we were looking for a community based issue for our final project.  We figured local politicians hear about plenty of problems and invited a city and district council members to speak to our class about what they’re hearing from the neighborhood.  They raised some problems, but also reminded us how progressive St. Paul is by focusing on bikeways and the sharable cities project.  While I hope we can come back to the shareable cities idea, Councilmember Tolbert also told us about a local library remodel.  

 A couple calls later, the architects were here presenting their plan for the library and asking us to help them design the new Teen Space for the building.  Our charge- design a 28x34 foot space that brings young people to the library.  We launched a design cycle today asking, ‘What do we need to know?’ Students will start research this weekend. 

Last thoughts

 Flowers are always appropriate, but on my last night finding a set of four flower stands like this felt particularly so.  The wreathes of marigolds and white flowers are for honoring the gods, and people put them on statues or small sculptures.  They also put incense sticks and pictures in these shrines.  They're scattered everywhere and remind me of fairy houses somehow.  

I wandered some in new neighborhoods tonight- from Hindustan Park to Khalighat 

It felt like goodbye, and I was struck by the low key density.  In the past couple days, I've been less tolerant of the honking, of the aggressive motorcyclists, of the guys sidling up next to me to try and chat me up before making the pitch for their shop (this never happens in real neighborhoods- only in this one by the hotel).  I've stared down some cars that expected me to jump out of the way despite the basic assumption that anyone who has a vehicle has priority over anyone walking. It's a sign of my transition back home, clearly.  But I also admired the tiny stalls of people selling rice, tea, chai, or offering tailoring, grain milling, or cell phone repair. 

I also came across this street where all the typists offer their services under a ubiquitous blue tarp.  I recall an office like this in Marrakesh where the illiterate could get letters typed or forms filled out.  In a legalistic, bureaucratic place like India, this must be an essential service for many.  Yet juxtaposed to a large population w/ smart phones, the contrast feels jarring. Still, most of them had customers tonight. 

Goodbyes

Warning- cute kids here.  These are my two 6th grade sections on our final day.  While the goodbyes were heartfelt ones all around, twelve year olds really feel things like that close to the surface.  In one class I finished reading The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell, a story I'd started a while ago.  In the other we wrote haikus- a form that makes students at home roll their eyes, but the exercise of counting syllables and making meaning in 17 of them was a novel challenge here.  Of course, there are some universals.  One boy wanted to write one about an AK47.  I said, "A poem about a machine gun?" and he didn't understand my dismay.  I reminded him that the name alone was 6 syllables thinking that might end it.  He solved the problem by writing about an AK46.  I received many sweet hand made cards, pictures, and little gifts.  All of noted that such appreciation never happens at home, although I think I recall Pape Diop, another Fulbright teacher, got the high school version of such appreciation when he left SPA and returned to Senegal.  

As usual and apt, I'm ready to come home after these five weeks.  First, it will be very nice to see family and friends again.  I'm also pretty excited to escape the humidity here.  If there was any hint of exoticism associated with monsoon season, it's certainly lost on me.  Constant sweating is straight up unpleasant. Bring on the 50 degree mornings.  I'll gladly exchange the cappucino delivered to my room for a regular coffee on the porch. 

New Light

 New Light-

The Kalighat neighborhood’s infamous red light district looked pretty benign in the afternoon as two groups of boys staged a kite battle in the main roadway.  Then we turned down a narrow concrete path with small open two room dwellings.  One had a person sitting cross legged watching a tv. Another seems to serve as a diner.  A goat stood outside another.

At the end of the corridor, the second floor of a former temple serves as office, cafeteria, school, and dwelling for nearly 100 children.  New Light was started by Urmi Basu who left the foundation world because the work felt empty (and as I later found out chose to leaver her husband, too, when given an ultimatum to choose him or her work). The organization serves sex workers, trafficked women, and their children providing shelter, food, education, and health services.  

Given write ups in the NYT, in Kristof’s Half the Sky, and recognition through various humanitarian awards, I expected more by way of  facilities. But that’s a common feeling here.  First we watched a dozen older girls do yoga on mats. Afterwards all of the 80-100 children lined up in rows for attendance and then meditation.  Seated on the floor in tight formation, they all closed their eyes and assumed a basic lotus position. The smallest ones were terribly cute trying to stay awake nodding perilously before quickly recovering.  

Afterwards we tutored them, after a fashion.  The first night I started writing letters and words and pictures that they would copy, then we moved to tic-tac-toe.  One girl beat me regularly, and not just because she cheated by ‘casually’ covering up her marks with a finger. These sweetpeas just loved the attention, as seems fitting for kids sleeping communally on the floor of a shelter without parents.  Their mothers may visit them sometimes, but largely this feels like something between foster care and orphanage. Tonight I worked with older students on their English homework from school today.  The levels vary widely, so I circled around working with small groups. One girl showed me her workbook with all the answers completed correctly, but as I was halfway through it, her friend ratted her out pointing out a cheat book with the answers in Bengali.  I teased her about being a cheater, a word she understood immediately, and made a joke about it.

While this place is far from the fancy school I visited this morning, the appreciation I felt there tonight seemed much more real. While working with them, it feels like any other teaching moment.  Sweet kids struggling with both material and motivation, working in part to please me as teacher.  It makes Mitra’s School in the Cloud seem a distant second choice.  I certainly sensed they preferred having me there over a computer screen, but maybe I flatter myself. I will be going back a few more nights before I leave. 

School in the Cloud

Sugata Mitra spoke today at a large, fancy local private school and I was excited to get a chance to see him speaking here.  Having seen his TedTalks about the "Hole in the wall school" and the "School in the Cloud" I was curious to hear how he might talk to a hometown crowd.  When I got there, I realized it was also largely a student audience.  As Fulbright teachers (and as guests of Akshar's head and principal) we had the fancy front row seats with the white chair covers and the red ribbons.  It's treatment that I've come to expect here, and going home will be a return to, well, reality.

Mitra's premise is that students can learn on their own with technology, and the latest iteration is that students in groups with online support and guiding questions can learn on their own. Rousseau's Emilie comes quickly to mind, and Montessori isn't far behind.  I'm struck, however, by the movement here away from the radical, nearly Romantic conception of learning back toward the center in his new version.  Now, students get guidance from adults and with questions.  Moreover, they meet together in public communities to do the work.  He still largely dismisses the role of teachers, although he doesn't want to quite come out and say it.

I also discovered that he's working with schools in Calcutta including Akshar creating SOLE periods- basically small groups working online in small groups to answer questions.  According to the teacher who's doing it, the purpose is to teach students internet research skills.  That's certainly a more modest goal that suggested by his original talk which implied students could come to understand genetics and DNA. 

Of monuments and men

Putting one more photo of the Taj Mahel on the interwebs is very much a coals-to-Newcastle sort of thing.  And not being a photographer, really, I was surprised to see the luminous quality to even my photos after this grey, hazy morning.  But like the thousands of others who walk these grounds daily, I came and admired the most beautiful tomb in the world.  

The story is as epic as the building. Akbar, the greatest Mughal emperor, is grief stricken when his third wife dies bearing his 14th child.  He spends 20 years and untold lives constructing this memorial.  According to our guide, he planned to build an identical second building in black marble but was deposed and imprisoned by his son in a nearby fort where he had a window looking out on the tomb of his beloved.  Supposedly, this son also killed all his siblings. 

 But places like this immediately beg the question- all this beauty at what cost? Even this weekend a handful of thin men redug the lawn on a hot morning. What are the conditions of of absolute power and feudal wealth that breed structures like this, Versailles, the pyramids, and so on? It makes me appreciate the Gates Foundation more, although I hear his house on the lake in Seattle is monolithic, too. 

And while I may not be a 'high net worth individual' like Bill Gates, this sign made my own privilege clear enough.  

What stands out most about this place now, however, perhaps more than beauty and power, is some deep need to take a posed photo in front of it and no doubt post it to facebook.  In France I often felt that the Oxbridge students didn't so much visit Montpellier as much as use it for facebook backdrop (and resume builder, of course). Baudrillard comes to mind-Do we have experiences anymore, or just stage images/simulacra that stand for these experiences?  In addition to being one of the seven wonders of the modern world, it also feels like the photobomb capital of the world.  Everyone maneuvers for their spot, many pose with their finger touching the topmost point, and some, well, some do need to be seen to be appreciated. I'm sure this photo is already on fb making her small, anonymous contribution to the monumental, virtual Taj

Photo Hash

Last night I walked around a new neighborhood and felt that travelers euphoria that comes from constant amazement.  Wonder is a powerful force, and I get the sense India has always been a primary source. On my walk, I came across the motorcycle repair part of town.  First there were the parts stores.  Then I came across an outdoor custom seat repair shop. You choose the vinyl seat pattern and they sew it onto your pad while you wait.  Finally, and in the dark, I came across the mechanics who worked in the street without benefit of light or lights.  None had even the lean to shed of this shop from the village I visited last weekend.

In public  transport, India also exceeds expectation.  Dozens of people ride on the tops of buses in the countryside, while they merely stuff them full in the city.  On the trains, especially in the air conditioned cars, its the vendors who create wonder.  The snackwala whose custom metal carrying container had a large central storage area for puffed rice which he then seasoned from a set of about ten different seasonings.  He mixed it all in another container and served it in a rolled newspaper cone.  

Although I didn't get a picture of him in action (it really required video) this was the musician who mostly made me wonder when he was going to stop.   He's playing a two string number that starts with an open drum held under his arm and ends with a handle in his hand.  The strings are held tight along his forearm between drum and hand and played with a large wooden pick.  

This is one of many Hindu street shrines.  They range from room size places of workshop to small objects perched on decorated platforms.  This one was secured behind a metal grid.  Some sit in the open.  In the evening you generally see someone making an offering at one.  

Chawalas  (cha is tea here) or coffeewalas are among the most common vendors, of course.  Like everything else on the street, they cook with open charcoal fires burned down to coals.  Often these sit on the bustling sidewalks.  While there was a letter to the editor about the hazards of this, like most hazards here, it's long established practice. Servings are very small, and most are offered in ceramic cups.  What's remarkable is that these hand made cups are single serving.  I'm still somewhat shocked that hand made, nonstackable cups are preferred to small plastic ones.  When you're done you just drop them on the ground.  Being very low fire terra cotta (perhaps just sun fired) they are ground underfoot and return to dust.  Here's a picture of evening pile in front of the cha stand in Santinitiken.

Santinitiken

Despite the heat, these saffron clad students gathered in small groups under trees working on drawings, reading English texts, studying Sanskrit look idyllic. The place invites that sort of view.   As envisioned by Indian poet and renaissance man Rabindranath Tagore, almost all classes meet outdoors as they have for over 100 years. One teacher said, “Students get so distracted when they’re stuck in a room all day.”  And we all tried to imagine our students here on the ground every day. The kids in the English class we observed read their passages, laughed at some inside joke, and seemed unaffected by the heat or our group of 13 observers.

Patha Bhavana educates 1100 students in grades K-12 with several hundred more in the associated university. The campus spreads across several acres with a second campus six kilometers down the road.  The colorful, colonial buildings are set in a simple grid pattern around parks, a large, green playing field, and a national historic site. Against the infernal honking and normal chaos of even the small village nearby, the school seems an oasis.  

Unlike most private school classes here that have 40 or more students in small, stuffy rooms, these groups of less than 20 felt intimate. The fact that half of the students live on campus in dormitories guarantees it.  I struggled to imagine a dormitory of 2nd gradesr, but was assured there was one. This is a slightly older group going to lunch.  They all had short hair which seemed a necessary concession to group living.  

Our guides were English BA students one of whom had been there since 2nd grade. They were passionate advocates for the humanistic approach.  Most Indian parents want their children to be doctors or engineers.  The man on the train home told me how his son had switched from engineering to art, but he didn't seem too disappointed.  Here, students can succeed in areas outside math and science and be recognized.  Yet apparently students here prefer cliffs notes to reading just like students anywhere, and in the recent English exam for the BA students, 20 of 40 failed.  Once admitted to the university, fees are very low and retesting later is a given.  The motivation to work and graduate from the bucolic world can be a bit low. 

Santinetiken was founded in 1901, Dewey’s Chicago Lab school in 1896, Montessori’s Casa dei Bambini in 1907, and Steiner’s Waldorf schools in 1919.  Like Waldorf in particular, Patha Bhavana struggles to distinguish founding elements from important elements.  Are three years of Sanskrit instruction really an essential part of the model?  Should technology be included?  And my own personal question- is it really necessary to learn the entire 2000 song canon of Rabindranath Tagore's canon?  Like some of these progressive era notions, the school is seen as an isolated exception rather than a general model for the larger education system.  At the current moment, High Tech High, Expeditionary Learning, Project Based Learning, and a host of other networks and organizations work to push similar open education ideas into the mainstream in the US.  This historical educational island in India seems a good spot to view the larger educational tides.  

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