Finding a Blance

Annissa Byrd
After reading all the different ways to look at education and the knowing about the different programs that are available. It makes me wonder why the public education system has not taken steps to be similar to the outside resources. The oustside programs seem to be successful and the schools seem to be failing. It makes me wonder if it is the combination of both school and out side programs that create a successful student or do the outside programs provide the weight of the education for the student?

Canada uses an all hands on deck approach. He does not just focus on one area. His school has all options to help the students. there is even health options for the kids in his school. He seeks to help close the gap between affluent schools and poor inner city schools.

What are some of his personal challenges/inner debates/dilemmas that he faces in his work?
He has to balance the streets of Harlem and the high class of executive board rooms. These two worlds clash and there is rarely an equal place between the two. “These day, Canada, Divided his time between the streets of Harlem and the board rooms of corporate America, and when you look at him you can see the two sides his personality reflected.”( 12). Both worlds have different requirements of social behavior and he has found a balance between both and his ability to do this is how his programs have become so successful. When people come to the programs it is not just a superior place that imparts knowledge on them but it there is a since of respect to the students and anyone who come to any of his programs.
This balances between the worlds is what is needed in the education. MCCS has some aspects but there is still a since of animosity between the students and teachers. There is superiority one both parts and there cant be an equilibrium between the two when they feel this way.



The image is on a school. It shows a group of people thinking creativity around a table. Some are reading. I think that promoting this environment on the school so students not only hear what they should be doing but they can see what is being asked. it is in a creative way so the students are able to see that it is not as serious and it can be fun. The colors do not relate to the school and they pop out against the grey concrete.

From Brittany: Not Looking Away

Canada grew up in Harlem, so he knows the type of environment and what is needed for the area to improve. He has an emotional connection to the project which allows for him to put more effort into fixing the issues there. His goal is to improve the poverty issues in Harlem starting with the children in schools. He wanted a place that gave these children the resources at a young age so they could better their lives in the future. “It wasn’t enough to help out in just one part of a child’s life: the project would need to combine educational, social, and medical services” (Whatever it takes: The Lottery, 4). Canada wanted to provide for these children so they had support throughout school, that way they could not fall behind. Graduating high school and college were goals Canada had for all the students at his school. Since he is so emotional about this project turning away students was a hard part for choosing students to go to the school. During the lottery he wished everyone could have been chosen because the students that were not picked, he could see their hopes wiped from their faces.

During the speech Canada gives at the lottery he states, “If your child is in our school, we will guarantee that child succeeds. There will be no excuses. We’re not going to say, ‘The child failed because they came from a home with only one parent.’ We’re not going to say, ‘The child failed because they’re new immigrants into the country.’ If your child gets into our school, that child is going to succeed” (Whatever it takes: the Lottery, 12). By saying this, it shows that he genuinely cares about the students and he really does want them to succeed no matter what their background. He understands it is hard to come from a background with one parent or immigrants. He had personal experience with that himself. It was hard for Canada to not accept everyone, “They understand that if the school is good, the odds that your child is going to have a good life just increase exponentially. So now they just feel, ‘Well, there go my child’s chances’” (Whatever it takes: The lottery, 18).

When Paul Tough was explaining many of the different point of views of why poor people are in fact, poor, it was interesting to see how the government plays an important part in poverty with all the social programs. Some views believe that American poverty is created by the poor people’s poor decisions, “If this theory is correct, what the poor people need is not handout, but moral guidance and strict rules” (Whatever it takes: Unequal Childhoods, 24). This does make some sense. I do not believe giving handouts is the best way to help someone. You may be helping at that very moment, but that is not helping their overall problem. Programs from the government should not be just handouts but should be ways of helping them get jobs easier so they can support their families. Handouts will just cause a lifetime of handouts and no responsibility on the person to fix their own situation but to be expecting someone to help them out all the time. Another interesting study showed the different parenting types of middle class and poorer classes and how it affected their children’s learning, “They were able to conclude that the size of each child’s vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child. And that varied greatly across the homes they had visited, and it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 “utterances’ – anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy—to their child each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour” (Whatever it takes: Unequal Childhoods, 42). Most of the utterances were negative coming from the welfare homes which leads to believe this attitude and low vocabulary continues a person in a poverty stricken life. I found this interesting because this demonstrates how different each environment is that a child lives in and if a child does come from poverty then the school should focus on helping the child from an early age.

I took many pictures of the murals on Balmy alley and the ones that stood out to me the most were the ones that were most colorful with many different ideas all brought together. I enjoyed the one with the blue heart with the face on it and the nig eyes with hands reaching in. The bright blue really captured my attention and the eyes felt like they were just looking at me which was pretty cool. Most of the murals brought an idea of coming together as one. I also liked the mural with the butterfly, a woman praying, a man, and a dragon looking animal. This mural was full of vibrant colors and there was so much going on that I didn’t want to look away.

From John S: Inspiration . . .

When assessing the state of America’s children, people speak of the achievement gap between the middle class and the poor. However today there is an everything gap: a health gap, a safety gap, and a technology gap. Schools can help make up for some of these deficits, but they can’t make up all the difference.
As Paul Tough explains in “Whatever It Takes,” Canada “believed that he could find the ideal intervention for each age of a child’s life, and then connect those interventions into an unbroken chain of support.” Canada’s goal is to “contaminate” the entire culture of Harlem with aspirational values, disciplined self-improvement and the cognitive tools to do better than those who came before. That depends on offering services to as many people as possible.
What would it take? What would it take to change the lives of poor children not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? “If you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in the lives — their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.” Whatever It Takes contains, "the most cogent, provocative, and original thinking on urban poverty to come along in many, many years.” It is an inspired portrait of Canada and the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives. Running schools, of course, presents a unique set of challenges, but as Tough explains in the book, providing a high-quality educational system that can serve every child who enrolls is a key piece of the HCZ vision. "As Canada often said, he was tired of programs that helped a few kids 'beat the odds' and make it out of the ghetto; his goal was to change the odds, and to do it for all of Harlem's kids. “ “The only way to serve large numbers of poor children in a neighborhood like Harlem is to give them all a high-quality education, even the least motivated and least prepared, beginning at a very young age, and to do it in the context of a broader transformation of the entire community.” Strong schools are an essential element of HCZ's conveyor belt strategy, and for the group of children who have had the opportunity so far to follow the conveyor belt from Baby College to elementary school; evidence suggests Canada's model is working. For example, in 2008, 100 percent of third graders at one of Promise Academy's elementary schools and 97 percent of third graders at the second one tested at or above grade level on the statewide math exam. "If we know it works, there's no reason this program should stop at the end of those blocks in Harlem. It's time to change the odds for neighborhoods across America." Geoffrey Canada would likely be the first to agree, whatever it takes.
On Friday when we went to Valencia 826 I was truly inspired by what Emily had to say about their mission statement and what they are all about. I thought the whole place was so interesting and it made me eager to learn. From hearing about their goals and objectives I wanted to help that very second. They had me sold on their product, which was helping local kids in San Francisco get free tutoring; I thought that the idea of helping high school seniors write their college application essays was awesome. I wish I had the same opportunity because I remember I stressed so much over all of that and it put so much pressure on me as well. All I had was my mother who was great in helping me formulate my essays however I wish I could of just gone to my local recreation center to receive free help with all my friends. Once we took the walk through the Mission district I felt the diversity of cultures all around me with a large Latino influence. All the small shops and restaurants added so much character to the neighborhood. Of the few murals I saw before I left were astonishing and just took me back because I never could imagine creating such a piece of artwork myself. I am very excited to go back to the Mission to check out even more murals and each mural told a story in my eyes.

Pruning Roots

"Typical Harlem residents, mostly African American, some Hispanic, almost all poor or working class, all struggling to one degree or another with the challenges of raising and educating children in one of New York City's most impoverished neighborhoods. In ways, their sons and daughters were growing up the way Canada had, four decades before, just a few miles away in the South Bronx: but off from the American mainstream, their futures constrained by sub standards schools, unstable families, and a segregated city." (1)

This quote relates to the colloquium theme of the importance of education to a living democracy. People in poverty are simply shutout from mainstream America and are expected to fail. Not only are they in difficult situations to begin with but they are given mediocre opportunities to work with. For example, schools in low income communities historically receive less funding than schools in affluent communities. Canada strives to fight for people in poverty who are not acknowledged by society and the government. He is motivated by the segregation and the unjustness going on today that he experienced years ago. "There's just no way that in good conscience we can allow poverty to remain the dividing line between success and failure in this country, where if you're born poor in a community like this one, you stay poor. We have to even that out. We ought to give these kids a chance". (18) Canada wants to break the cycle of poverty by giving people from low income communities a fair chance to succeed.

"We're not interested in saving a hundred kids. Even three hundred kids, even a thousand kids to me is not going to do it. We want to be able to talk about how you save kids by the tens of thousands, because that's how we're loosing them. We're losing kids by the tens of thousands". (19) Canada's vision to provide the less fortunate with promising opportunities is not only a strength but also a personal challenge. I totally agree with him and I respect his vision but it is highly unlikely that he can help everyone by himself. "What I'm going to remember about tonight is how those mothers looked at me when their kids didn't get in". (20) It almost seems like he is disappointed in himself. I wish he would have also remembered the looks on the mothers faces whos children made it in the Promise Academy. His curriculum seems very promising and I think if he can some how get people in the school systems involved maybe his curriculum can change the infrastructure of the educational system in the U.S.

"The cause of the persistent achievement gap between rich and poor children and black and white children was not federal welfare policy, it was deep-rooted differences in intelligence." (33) I think this to me was the most surprising. It was racial and biased in many ways. Murray and Hurnstein basically concluded that intelligence is inherited because white people have higher IQ than black people.

Reading about the different perspectives of the root cause of poverty was very interesting. It reminded me of our strongly agree and strongly disagree activity in class. To me, what appears to be fair and less biased root cause of poverty is a little bit of all the different approaches. I think slavery, racism and years of oppression definitely has it's affects on African American people till this day. Just like the Native Americans who's suffered from traumatic events dating back to the Columbus days, they too have been suffering the consequences till now. I also think the structure of the American economy makes it difficult for people in poverty to get out. I think it has a lot to do with bad parenting skills, bad habits and decision making. I think it has to do with family background, the tectonic shift in society since the end of WWII, the government providing too much aid, language exposure at a young age, the environment and resources available. There are many root causes of poverty and Canada with his programs helps eliminate a number of these root causes.

One of the murals that stuck out to me was "Those we love we remember". The image that is biggest in scale and is most emphasized is the woman in the middle in tears. She draws the most attention and gives off a sort of emotional and somber type of feeling. Around her are different names, a person with an AIDS sign and different r.i.p signs. I think this is a tribute to people who have passed away. Anyone walking past this mural who had a friend or family member that has passed away can relate to this mural. Death is painful and is never forgotten and those we love will always be remembered.

Robin Goldschmidt
Colloquium: Thinking for a Change
October 30, 2011
Blog 9
Canada is motivated by a majority of reasons, but the main thing is that he wants kids from the inner city to go to college and receive a degree. The other smaller goals are to remove the children from the streets and create a safe haven for them to learn at. Canada also wants his school to be successful and a model for other schools and communities that have the same issues as Harlem. He is striving to help the African Americans in these neighborhoods, so they can be on the same level where mostly white children attend school. Canada does not directly address the issues of the school system as he created his own charter school instead of trying to fight the public school system in New York. However he wants to address the issues of the educational differences between whites and blacks as he discusses in the 60 minute interview. He believes through the education the children are receiving at his school in Harlem they will be able to receive a college degree and compete in the job market. The students are also trained to work hard in order to reach the goals they set for themselves, so they can get out of the poverty in the inner city. He stated that he faced some financial problems during the economic downturn and needs to recover in order for the school to remain successful. A huge inner problem he faces is that he is unable to accept all of the children that apply to enter his school as he is sending them to the ill-functioning public school. As these children are denied entry their chances of reaching college are reduced significantly. This is hard for Canada to accept as his goal is to send every child in the Harlem area to college. Canada would not see the point as only a few of the children would be able to attend the school, as in the article it states, “If all he was doing was picking some kids to save and letting the rest fail, what is the point”. Throughout this colloquium we have discussed the importance of school and how it can lead to future success. Also we have discussed how limited schooling has been and how many people are underprivileged while receiving an education.
What surprised me most were the statistics that were reported at the beginning of chapter two that there were 107 homicides in 1990 in Harlem alone. These 107 murders were of kids between the ages of 14 and 17. This is the age most children are busy with all of the work that comes with high school and getting ready to go to college. They are also discussing the different aspects of poverty as they say that it may be the individual’s own fault that they live on the street and that it is not their own fault. There is much discussion over the issue on how to best treat the individuals in poverty, but until a decision is reached nothing will happen. This is stated in the article by saying, “If this theory is correct, what the poor need is not handouts, but moral guidance and strict rules”. The root cause of poverty is almost always the loss of an individual’s job. Many people can also become impoverished because of their habits as they become addicted to drugs and alcohol. With these issues most of the money the individual’s make would then go to their addictions and not the necessities as the house, food, and clothes. The reformers have also stated that the poor are poor because the government has not provided enough aid and has not done its job in the first place, to prevent poverty.
It looks like the mural along the street is in a rough neighborhood that encounters many issues. First of all the mural is decoration for what would be a boring concrete wall. With this people would seem happy while walking past a piece of art as the same piece of concrete on a day to day basis. The image stands out due to its sheer size as it covers entire side of a street wall and the mix of colors it uses. It also emphasizes key parts on the wall by highlighting and outlining these aspects. I do not believe the piece is trying to speak out about a certain issue or problem that is occurring in this neighborhood, but instead is there for the enjoyment by the local population. It seems like it is symbolizing the importance company whose name is on the wall and the importance of art on this community.

Blog November 2, 2011

Paul Tough stated that Geoffrey Canada wanted everyone to do well, in that selecting some children to succeed, and letting the rest fall though the cracks was a bad thing.
"It was partly a gut feeling, a personal thing: he had always hated the idea pf picking and choosing, helping some kids and letting the rest fail" (Tough, 4).
Four pages later however, this idea is blatantly contradicted.
"...the only students Canada really wanted in his school were from central Harlem..."(Tough, 8)
While it is impossible to make sure that every child is given the best education possible, I ind fault in those who say they wish to help everyone, and then only help those who are expected to fail.
In helping only the children from Harlem, a certain message come across essentially saying that if you don't live in Harlem, you don't need help, and if you do live in Harlem, you are going to fail if you don't get help.

Who did he want to help?
He wanted to help poor children.
What was his goal for them?
He wanted them to be able to grow into fully functioning participants in mainstream American middle-class life.
What did they need to do to accomplish that?
They had to survive adolescence, graduate from high school, get into college, and graduate from college.
(Tough, 3-4)

Who deserves help?
Those who are willing to help themselves.
What is the goal for them?
To be fully functioning, healthy, and happy members of society.
What do they need to do to accomplish that?
They have to survive adolescence, graduate from high school, get into college, graduate from college, get a job doing what they enjoy doing, and maintain healthy and stable relationships with those around them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53313483@N03/5248666390/
http://library.lclark.edu/projects/graffiti/index.php?state=images&p=worktype&v=poster

I found this image on the Lewis and Clark Street Art Project.
I like is because it uses play on words to make a point.
The text says: "Graffiti is a Crime. Sanctioned Graffiti is a Crime against Humanity."
I agree with this. Graffiti is illegal, but most people do it to make a point. The second an act like that becomes sanctioned, or expecteed, the weight behind the message is lessened.
The point of graffiti is to be daring, dangerous, and to make a statement.

Activists and Educators

Zehara Eckert

Geoffrey Canada is an African American social activist and educator. This man’s catalyst began early in his career when he had an afterschool program that had more children that wanted to enroll than he could admit. He wasn’t happy with just giving a group of students the opportunity to succeed through Rheedlen’s afterschool program. He wanted to help hundreds and thousands of kids because he didn’t see the point of choosing some kids to save while the rest were failing. Unsatisfied with the scope of Rheedlen, Canada transformed the system and came up with Harlem Children’s Zone. “It wasn’t enough to help out just one part of a child’s life: the project would need to combine educational, social, and medical services” (The Lottery, 4). Following his theory that a child does better if children around him or her were also doing better, Canada and his team went door to door to recruit participants in housing projects. They organized fun events to break resistance in these neighborhoods. This wasn’t working the way Canada wanted so he figured out a way for Harlem Children’s Zone to get more involved which was through charter schools. This Promise Academy Charter School was free of tuition and open by lottery to students. “ We are calling our school Promise Academy because we are making a promise to all of our parents,” he said. “If your child is in our school, we will guarantee that child succeeds. There will be no excuses” (The Lottery, 14). This school was going to require student’s longer hours than a regular school, after school programs that would run late and the school year would continue until July. This charter school was a risk for these parents and kids because they had been promised improved education for their kids before and their options were always limited or fell through. The dilemma these parents faced was which promise to believe.

“The people who run prisons in this country are looking at our third-graders. They look at their test scores each year to begin to predict how many prisons cells will be needed twenty years from now” (The Lottery, 15). “You! Will! Not! Have! Our! Children!” (The Lottery, 15). Alfonso Wyatt was cleverly able to win the hearts and attention of these parents that were skeptical because in their world things do not always turn out like its promised or intended. His speech at the opening lottery celebration of Promise Academy had the right combination of statistics and encouragement to motivate these parents to take responsibility for their kid’s education. However, the opening night of this brilliant charter school lottery pick had its bad moments because there were parents that were desperate to get their kids into a decent school and they weren’t able to, which was sad.

We lose more kids to street violence and drugs then we are able to educate and save. Poverty was also the biggest dilemma that Canada was facing. Poverty is a dividing line between success and failure in this country. Its almost as if we are in favor of keeping the poor poor while we allow the rich to thrive. I understand that poor people need to take responsibility to change their circumstances. However, as this colloquium course demonstrates through the reoccurring themes that are presented in our reading, I believe that the problem of poverty is bigger than the individual. They are our collective problems that need our collective responsibility and cooperation to find a solution. Canada faced many obstacles in his path to create the ideal educational, social, and safe learning alternative to inner city kids. He was eventually able to transform his original organization and make Harlem Children’s Zone a center that would actively follow the academic careers of youths in a 24-block area of Harlem and with the success of the new model, this area has expanded to 97 blocks. Maybe Canada is not evening out the poverty dividing line, but we can definitely say that he is giving those kids a chance.

In the question about “Why are poor people poor?” Many of these studies and scholars had compelling answers to this fundamental question. Although it was harsh, I thought the answer, people stay poor because programs that are designed to help people financially and their bad habits are often perpetuated by these same programs. I can understand why government aid is part of the problem in keeping poor people poor. Government aid is hurting the poor more than it’s helping them through programs like federal welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, subsidized housing because it “…encourages poor people to not work, not to marry, and to have children at an early age out of wedlock” (Unequal Childhoods, 27). If these neighborhoods were faced with opportunities that they could use to help themselves and not be so dependent, than they could get jobs, become more educated, and raise their child conscientiously.

A school’s financial resources affect a student’s success but “it was the child’s family background, they said, that made the more significant difference” (Unequal Childhoods, 27). I strongly believe that a child’s home environment plays a huge role in a child’s development academically as well as socially. However, what I found absurd was Herrnstein and Murray’s study about intelligence being inherited. “That intelligence was inherited, and probably genetic; that there were significant inherent racial differences in IQ; and that it was better for society to accept this state of affairs than to try to change it” (Unequal Childhoods, 35). Cognitive and noncognitive abilities are affected by all sorts of outside forces. Hechman’s study pointed out that children who were born into a disadvantage family and then adopted by a wealthier family scored better than the disadvantaged peers on test very similar to previous study which argues that intelligence is not inherited. I don’t believe that people are genetically flawed in intelligence and people have the power to change their intelligence status throughout their lives through education and positive environmental forces. A child’s home environment is critical to his or her educational and social development. Parents that are aware of their child’s activities, parents that talk to their kids, encourage and simulate their learning process through sport teams, instrumental, and art lessons enhance the child’s education and well being.

My favorite Balmy Alley Mural is of the woman holding the chain angrily while the women and children behind her cheer her on and the picture of the beautiful blue eyes. The first picture captured my attention because it was full of emotions and it’s almost as if the anger of the woman comes through the painting. What impresses me about this painting is how two different people are portrayed through the same body. There is a grown woman holding a broken chain in a firm grip and within that woman you see an inner child that’s scared, in tears, and bundled up. There is also a positive light in this painting as well, the women, men, and children cheering her on, it’s as if this woman is fighting their battle too. There are beautiful and distinct colors in this painting. The combination of bright colors, strong emotions, size differences in the people, plants, and the climate make this painting strikingly beautiful. My other favorite painting is the heart shaped face with the big blue eyes. The hands are reaching into the eyes on this person bringing them to the front and making them bigger. The hand shape also keeps the original shape of the face by posing it in a heart shape. The eyes are big, bright blue, and it feels like they can see right through you. The hand pose draws your attention to the eyes. The eyes look sad. The other reason the eyes stand out so much is because of the background contrasting combination colors of yellow, red, orange, and light pink.