Category: Education

  • Mid November NYC: Covid Spikes Again

    —

    in ,

    I get it. Things have been overwhelming. We’ve got ongoing election-related news: “President Donald Trump appeared on Sunday to acknowledge losing the U.S. election but then backtracked and said he concedes “nothing,” while President-elect Joe Biden focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and set meetings with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines.” (https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election/trump-still-refusing-to-concede-to-biden-inflaming-supporters-and-delaying-transition-idUSKBN27T0IQ) and “Zuckerberg was asked…

  • Covid Plan Update Research, part 1

    —

    in ,

    So in light of New York City’s new “covid zone’s” micro-cluster approach to pandemic management, I need to re-write the Agile Learning Center’s plan for operations this year. I published the plan in July, knowing that parents would feel better with *something* concrete heading into the school year rather than having plans unknown and changing…

  • October 26, 2020 Covid Zones Update

    —

    in ,

    Since my last DOH update — an email about the introduction of “Zones” and their implications for NYC schools like the Agile Learning Center — I’d been watching the news for updates on transparency about what criteria move an area into or out of a zone designation. I’d also been keeping an eye on general…

  • What is a cluster? A hotspot? A zone?

    —

    in ,

    Last Tuesday, October 6th, I wrote about the city’s early experiments with targeting zip codes for covid-restrictions was going over in relation to the school I run. On October 8th, borough president Gale Brewer’s newsletter noted (again) an increase in cases then added a note that experts are advising using seven-day averages, which that day…

  • NYC Covid School Iterations

    —

    in ,

    After a [predicted] spike in covid cases in NYC starting Sept. 25-27 and by some accounts putting us back to March 13th numbers over the past weekend, city government appears to be testing an approach of allowing or restricting hot spot area according to zip code. On one hand, families I work with in East…

  • what would Dr. Peter Gray’s, “What Einstein, Twain, & Forty Eight Others Said About School” sound like sourced from my library?

    —

    in ,

    An exercise published at https://www.self-directed.org/tp/re-directed-attention/ in November of 2019. That version was beautifully staged by the TP editors with pull-quotes and photos of the book covers! As my notes of quotes to add to the next version keep piling, sharing the original here… ——- Marie Ponsot-Rosemary Deen Marie Ponsot-Rosemary Deen, Beat Not the Poor Desk…

  • Opening the Conversation on Reopening Schools

    —

    in ,

    I’m listening, from the part of occupied Lenape lands called New York City, from East Harlem where the sirens and refrigerator trucks left and left us pandemic poverty without resolving the struggles of redlining and gentrification that were here before them. I’m listening, by which I also mean reading and watching, as the conversations of…

  • Virtual Storytime

    —

    in ,

    The ALC Network has a #bookchats book club that I’ve been part of since it started a year and a half ago. It’s been awesome: we’ve mostly picked books I love and the people who join the weekly call are folks I’m always glad to have check-in time with. My only previous experiences with book…

  • Play Futures Webinar

    —

    in

    There’s a 12 year old at the Agile Learning Center who has been updating me on her growing interest in elementary education. So when I got an invitation from Play Futures to get a recording of their webinar on “Why Play Matters,” I asked the kid if she’d be interested in watching it with me.…

  • Agile, Culture Creation, and Self-directed Community

    —

    in ,

    This post shares a long draft of an essay which later became an article published in the Cutter business journal’s 2019 special issue on applications of Agile. I’d been asked to share about the Change-Up process, and I’m grateful for folks across the network sending stories so I could include use cases from a variety…

  • Congreso Aagil 2018

    —

    in

    Organizers in Mexico just hosted 200+ folks from 9 countries at the first international ALC Conference! They held 2 days of events in San Luis Potosi, and I was grateful for the invitation to share and bear witness. Saturday morning was inspiring. Leon and Gabo shared music, Becka shared her story and why-SDE-is-world-transforming in her…

  • ALF Calls

    ALF Calls

    —

    in ,

    After the first ALF Summer, a group of us agreed to hold weekly facilitator calls to connect and support each other. As the earliest ALFs, it felt like we were constantly encountering situations that we needed to newly figure out how to navigate. On the one hand, we had years of experience of facilitators at…

  • LEGO Idea 2018: Day 2

    —

    in

    So the second day started like this: I could have watched Arvind Gupta for hours. His presence was gift enough. But then he mentioned that his project is open-source so 100s of his and others’ designs are available for free on his website. When I got to http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/, I discovered he also has work on there…

  • LEGO Idea 2018: Day 1

    —

    in

    A few months ago, I was invited to the LEGO Idea conference. At first, I wasn’t sure if my schedule and finances would work out in a way that would let me go, but…suddenly it was April and I was off to Denmark. #WorthIt Before I even got to the LEGO House for the conference,…

  • Educambiando Visit ’17

    —

    in

    I was invited to the Agile Learning Facilitation training that Educambiando hosted in December of 2017 in Veracruz, Mexico. After months of tending my language-barrier worries with serious study sessions and my leaving-school-for-over-a-week worries by getting ahead on paperwork while my spawn practiced running things without me, I headed off on my first international trip…

  • Newsletters Sept-March

    Newsletters Sept-March

    —

    in ,

    For the past few months, I’ve composed and sent out monthly newsletters to ALC Network members. Here are a few of them… 9.4.17 Hi everyone! Back in September of 2013, I could have updated the whole ALC Network by just walking into the back room of the East Harlem school and talking to the 4 men there.…

  • ALF Resource: Intergenerational Trauma

    ALF Resource: Intergenerational Trauma

    —

    in ,

    After reflecting a bit on how I’ve been voraciously consuming nonfiction without pausing to share out my learning–waiting, I think, to see the whole tapestry it’ll become once I weave the pieces together–I’ve decided to push myself to share my draft-y notes. Here’s the first attempt: The other night, I got home and decided to…

  • Note on ALC Logos

    Note on ALC Logos

    —

    in ,

    With new variations on our logos coming out (and start-up groups showcasing their creativity all the time), I remembered this email exchange where @tomis explained a bit about what the deal is with our branding guidelines and @spence suggested he put something together to share on the topic. In case it takes Tomis a while…

  • ALC-NYC Summer Planning (list)

    ALC-NYC Summer Planning (list)

    —

    in ,

    When it’s time: Explore why you’re interested in organizing a facilitator training. Re-read some anti-colonialism/anti-oppression texts. Reflect on your experiences facilitating and then as someone holding an ALC community. What roles and topics can you rock? Which ones do you need to find partners to take up? Set personal intentions and goals ASAP: Gather a team…

  • ALC-NYC Summer Planning (narrative)

    ALC-NYC Summer Planning (narrative)

    —

    in ,

    This post started as my journaling the process @ryanshollenberger and I went through in planning the first ALF Summer program outside the Network program in Charlotte, NC in the 2015-2016 school year. It’s one of 3 posts I’m putting together from my experience planning the NYC programs so far.  While I didn’t write that we…