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A Confluence of Reasoned Hope, A Roll Call for New Pedagogy - The "Dean's Open Forum: Robert F. Kennedy Legacy In Action" Event at USC Annenberg
By Ritesh Mehta on December 1, 2010 5:45 PM
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"It takes a village to raise a child." But it takes a
confluence of otherwise dispersed villages to raise a generation of truly
literate children.
The landmark 'Robert F.
Kennedy-Legacy in Action' event held on the 14th of October at
the Annenberg School for Communication and
Journalism at USC was where such a confluence assembled for the first time.
Representatives held up their distinctive mirrors, motivations, and voices to
create a distinctive echo chamber of ideas, a vision for a playground of
formative, post-pedagogical activities. Openness, eclecticism, and a concern
for the young reverberated in the introductory hope-bestowing speeches, probing
pecha-kucha-style
presentations, and reflective Q&A. Folk from Annenberg (Henry Jenkins, Erin
Reilly, Vanessa Vartabedian, Francois Bar, Josh Kun, Doug Thomas, Laurel Felt,
Maura Klosterman, Ioana Literat), the School
of Cinematic Arts (Holly Willis, Tracy Fullerton, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz),
and the Rossier School of Education (John
Pascarella, Brandon Martinez, Michael Morgan) held up high a bouquet of
idealism to folk who set up Robert F.
Kennedy's dream school space (Paul Schrade, Steven Stamstad, Jane Kagon, Max and Vicky
Kennedy) as well as to folk who will pave the trek to this higher altitude of
education (School Principals Eftihia Danellis, Esther Soliman and Dr. Chuck Flores,
and LA-USD President Monica Garcia).
The confluence also marked the first - and proud - stamp of
presence of the New Media Literacies
research group, one of two
engines of Henry Jenkins's Participatory
Culture and Learning Lab at USC, of which I am a member. Our mission was laid
clear by this pecha-kucha performance: we are here to implement the serious
business of pedagogical change. At the same time, the event was for us a cry of
appeal to our neighboring clans: our bells must toll together, and they toll,
at least in these early stages, for the 3500 or so children from six community
schools that share the magical learning space at the RFK-LA campus in Mid-City
Los Angeles. Muggles as we may be, our joint determination might just produce
the wizardry needed to truly service this real world Hogwarts.
Below is a sampling of the peals of bells and buzz of spells
produced, performed and perused by the elders and youngsters at this confluential
potboiler. A peek into the entire feast is at the end of this papyral
roll-call.
I. Initiation (& Inspiration) Rites
Ernest J. Wilson, Dean, the Annenberg School
"(Today) is going to be an exercise in (respectful)
listening... a moment of creativity and conversation."
Monica Garcia, President, Los Angeles Unified School
District
"I'm just thrilled that we have a school on 23 along acres
of Wilshire that has welcomed 3400 students, and that school is a combination
of six autonomous schools. In LA-USD, this is a miracle.
"What we want is a 100% graduation. What we want is a 100%
literacy at every grade level... My interest here is, we need the best of the
best to help us, and we welcome... our community partners to reinvent public
education... at the RFK center, where children are waiting for adults to offer
them to be a part of the solution...This is very exciting. This is a long, long
story about social justice, about leadership, about sacrifice, and about
people working together... Our job is to get rid of the barriers."
Paul Schrade, one of Robert F. Kennedy's best friends
and advisors
"(This is) going to be the most important and best
memorial for Robert Kennedy and his social justice record and his principles...
We've got a great school... Henry, you and your crew can really develop a
wonderful program for us."
Max Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy and RKF-LA board
member.
(While standing on his chair):
"We are poised here to make an unbelievable difference...
There's a whole bunch of people out there who say we're going to fail, and I
know we're not. This group, you're going to have to work harder than you've
ever worked....
...and if you do this, we are going to change the lives of
these kids and we're going to change the way public education is handed out
in this country. And you look around this room. This is who is going to do
it."
II. 4-minute Dances of Ideas around the Fire
of New Literacy
Fifteen Innovations for After-School and New Curricular Activities
Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor and Principal
Investigator of PCL.
Participatory culture in the classroom
"One thing (that RFK's legacy) embodies for me is one of
our skills, negotiation, (which is) the ability to communicate across diverse
communities, to speak their language, to bring people together, and we think
that's a core skill... to overcome the participation gap...
...Our hope is that RKF-LA will be a center to explore some
of these possibilities, of new kinds of communication."
Michael Morgan, Masters Student, Rossier
Transmedia Filmmaking and Classrooms as Production
Studios
"Students are no longer just students. They are artists,
they are directors, writers, musicians, they are anything that they want to
be... Why not?"
Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, PhD Student, IMAP
Synaptic Crowd, a collaborative interview platform
"It is a live feedback loop between audience and subject
that is pushing the boundaries... Interviews that start out as topical can
shift gears and become more personal."
Holly Willis, Director, Institute of Multimedia
Literacy
5 Reasons for the Importance of Design
"What will take technology's place... Answer (is) really
simple: Art, Design, and You... Design is collaborative + collective. Design
gives us terrific metaphors."
Maura Klosterman, PhD student, Annenberg
Beatmaking Lab & music workshops
"With the popularity of hip-hop among today's youth, (we
can) draw students to a safe-environment (to) develop self-confidence as
media producers."
Josh Kun, Professor, Annenberg
19th century traditional Mexican folk ballad
form and the future of the history of LA
"How would students tell the story of their city in a
song?... (El Corrido) told the true stories of the (Mexican) revolution, ... of a
people's uprising for land and social justice."
Tracy Fullerton, Professor, School of Cinematic Arts
Games and Math Ed, History Education, Debate.
"(With some games), we are reframing the notion of cheating
in the traditional sense... (Students) "cheat" to share strategies (to learn
history)."
Erin Reilly, Research Director, New Media Literacies
Sharing images digitally and tagging to bring people to
places that matter.
"What was, is, and will be RFK Community School's sense of
place?... By tagging the places in our community, we will enable future
generations to have greater understanding of our past."
Francois Bar, Professor, Annenberg
The power of cellphones to tell stories.
"Imagine what you can do at RFK-LA with phones... Students
could teach their parents how to create a story... using their phone. Imagine
as well students telling justice stories to bridge the divide between home
and school."
John Pascarella III and Brandon Martinez, Professors,
Rossier
'Sceet', 'Scaveets', and the 'Tweetenheim'.
"How can we get students to access Shakespeare's language
in order to analyze characters... Students can go on a scavenger hunt, or
'scaveet', by finding objects, images,.. that (illustrate) what they have
learned about that character."
Vanessa Vartabedian, Educational Training and Development Coordinator, New Media
Literacies
The power of 'Play!' and professional development of
teachers
"We're used to teachers being the experts... A co-configured
classroom is one where teachers can be learners along with their children."
Laurel Felt, PhD student, Annenberg
Social-emotional learning leads to improved outcomes.
"If we can change the way we tell our stories, from
negative to positive, from depressing to optimistic, then we can change the
world."
Ioana Literat, PhD student, Annenberg
The challenge of Assessing impact of after-school
programs at RFK-LA.
"Assessment is important... (for this) pilot partnership
between USC Annenberg and RFK-LA... because we need to know what is working and
what is not working."
"...I live my knowledge, and what I have learned is more
than what I can ever say. Insight lies beneath."
Doug Thomas, Professor, Annenberg
"Cultivating the Imagination in a World of Flux."
"Our future is not only a world of machines. But it is a
culture... Like a petri dish, cultures grow and develop... What is organic is the
most interesting... We need new vision to understand the new and dance with the
flux... Imagination is the petri dish we seek for lifelong learning."
Meryl Alper, PhD student, Annenberg
Reggio emilia, and the 100 languages of children
"The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a
hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of playing, of speaking."
