I explained to Herb Goldberg, the teacher in charge of the NYC Board of Education program situated in Odyssey House and UFT chapter chair, that I intended to visit as many OES sites of the more than sixty in drug rehabs, treatment centers, youth outreach, and shelters as possible (I wound up visiting ten a week). At each site I would introduce expressive writing workshops and act as the catalyst to generate site based magazines of student writing. Each site based magazine would appear regularly (monthly if possible). At the end of the year a collection of work from all the site based magazines would be published in a perfect bound anthology called Streams (rhymed with dreams, and first appearing in the spring of 1987). Many rivulets of alternative urban learning would flow into one mainstream.
“Alternative education” has different meanings. What it means to me is a non standardized approach to learning. It means a curriculum that is individualized to best employ the talents of the teacher and respond to the needs of the student. It was in this spirit that I was able to work across the curriculum. Computers often fell under the province of Math teachers. I was able to work with Willie Almadena, the Math teacher at Odyssey House’s residential setting on East 4th Street. His classroom was the computer room. It was where I could conduct weekly expressive writing workshops. Students wrote at their own pace, using Bank Street Writer software on Commodore computers. The innovation was to use the computer in the place of a pen or pencil. But a different writing tool would bring about different approaches and results in writing. Sometimes it would produce a group poem like, Ghetto Life
Did you ever go to school and did not want to learn?
You got money in your pocket that is ready to burn.
So you raise your hand to receive a pass
even though you know you’re gonna cut class.
You go out the building and around the block.
You head for the nearest cheba spot.
You get your tre-bag, and your quart of brew.
You know you already got your small bambu.
Then you walk in the park and you light it up.
Next thing my man you’re all banged up...
without no money and no place to go.
You know you don’t even have no radio.
So you try to kill time by bugging in the streets.
But not all writing in the Waterways publications came from using the computers. Poetic encounters between pen and paper were encouraged. One afternoon, Herb handed me a handwritten manuscript of poems by a resident. The first issue of Streams also contained Sabrina’s meditations, her odyssey from the memory of substance abuse to a new beginning:
(excerpt)
Feelings are sensuous, demanding, converting, jealous, stingy, kind, and unreal;
No sense or thought, no thinking really;
A pattern designed for some --
Talk, bad talk, no time to think, no premonitions,
No awareness or care for after affects,
Listless, no sign of feelings,
Able to hurt or kill,
Despise enough to turn into hate.
Know no one,
A body functioning on one thought --
Myself;
A face, no eyes or mouth,
Feelings neutral to others.
Transformation -- able to express --
a mouth appears, lips move in a rhythmic pattern.
Feelings emerge, some good, some bad,
Problems -- some are not able to cope with them,
Haven’t found out the use of a tongue,
Never recognized -- crying, internal feelings
Trapped inside...
No comments:
Post a Comment