The late Eileen Healy was an active Ten Penny Player’s board member, who we often turned to for her articulate opinions and insight. She was one of the first Easter Seal poster children and as an adult became director of New York City’s Easter Seals. A long time and well loved disability rights advocate Eileen mentored Barbara and me, as arts special educators and parents of a student with multiple disabilities. Eileen and Frieda Zames (Mathematician, author and president of Disabled In Action) encouraged us to bring the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players to Goldwater Memorial Hospital, which was the first public hospital in America devoted solely to the treatment of chronic diseases.
Our colleagues in the disability rights movement were pioneers of the independent living movement. At that time Anne Emerman was the Director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) and Marilyn Saviola was Director of Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York (CIDNY). Many years before, they each had been residents at Goldwater Hospital, the largest residential long-term health facility in the New York City. They were aware of the dilemma faced by residents, whose lives in an institution may have dimmed their expectations for achievement in the outside world. Our work was to give voice, enable expression and self advocacy and through publishing to get their words and dreams out of the residence to a greater audience.
Through the public school system’s special education superintendency, Waterways was able to work with hospitalized students, attending the Goldwater learning center. The students published their poetry and prose in magazines of expressive writing. The students who were hospitalized as the result of street violence were encouraged by Mayor Dinkins to give voice to their stories, and to tour city schools as advocates for reducing the level of violence in the communities.
One of the residents, Starry, had been admitted after an automobile accident that left her unable to walk. She was adjusting to the trauma, and preparing to return to the world outside the institution. Through writing and publishing she was able to communicate her concerns. In one of her poems, she wrote:
When the difficult times
Make me sigh,
I try to persevere
head up high
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part v
Over the years, Waterways would receive writing by students who had their lives changed by events in the news. “The Invasion of Grenada” related the experience from Karen’s first person point of view:
“I was born in the Virgin Island and I lived in Grenada since I was about two months old. From the time I remember knowing myself, everyone around me was very kind, thoughtful and caring. In Grenada everyone in the neighborhood is like a Great Big Family. I thought Grenada was the world’s best island.
One morning my aunt came running down the alley screaming, “Mama, mama there’s a fire in the port.” I turned the radio on and it was all over the radio. I thought it was only a fire and it would pass.
Less than two hours later I went to feed my goat and an American soldier came right out of the sand and said to me, ‘Miss this area is restricted.’ My heart dropped right out of place. I wondered what was happening. Before I knew it, troops, helicopters, and tanks were all over, and gun shots were coming from everywhere.
All the neighbors, men and women were screaming at their children. ‘Get into the house and don’t come out.’ My grandmother was terrified. She was mostly worried about me going outside and getting hurt. From my bedroom window looking out, I could see the children running, people falling and blood from the people who got shot. My aunt’s husband, who was a soldier in the army in Grenada, came home with his finger dislodged by a bullet. As days went by, all you heard was yelling, screaming and gun shots.
All you heard for five days were trucks moving about, as they picked up the dad bodies in the streets. The American Soldiers took over a bank near by, and stayed there. The government passed a curfew that no one should be seen outside after 6 p.m. or they would be shot down on sight.
I had never seen anything like it in all my life. I never did learn the purpose of the invasion. People lost their homes and some of their families in the invasion, but today Grenada is pulling itself back together as the little beautiful island it used to be.”
Streams 5
“I was born in the Virgin Island and I lived in Grenada since I was about two months old. From the time I remember knowing myself, everyone around me was very kind, thoughtful and caring. In Grenada everyone in the neighborhood is like a Great Big Family. I thought Grenada was the world’s best island.
One morning my aunt came running down the alley screaming, “Mama, mama there’s a fire in the port.” I turned the radio on and it was all over the radio. I thought it was only a fire and it would pass.
Less than two hours later I went to feed my goat and an American soldier came right out of the sand and said to me, ‘Miss this area is restricted.’ My heart dropped right out of place. I wondered what was happening. Before I knew it, troops, helicopters, and tanks were all over, and gun shots were coming from everywhere.
All the neighbors, men and women were screaming at their children. ‘Get into the house and don’t come out.’ My grandmother was terrified. She was mostly worried about me going outside and getting hurt. From my bedroom window looking out, I could see the children running, people falling and blood from the people who got shot. My aunt’s husband, who was a soldier in the army in Grenada, came home with his finger dislodged by a bullet. As days went by, all you heard was yelling, screaming and gun shots.
All you heard for five days were trucks moving about, as they picked up the dad bodies in the streets. The American Soldiers took over a bank near by, and stayed there. The government passed a curfew that no one should be seen outside after 6 p.m. or they would be shot down on sight.
I had never seen anything like it in all my life. I never did learn the purpose of the invasion. People lost their homes and some of their families in the invasion, but today Grenada is pulling itself back together as the little beautiful island it used to be.”
Streams 5
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part iv
The longest article on fatherhood in Streams 5 was “Incarcerated Dads” by Frankie P. This thoughtful meditation is an in depth analysis that includes his commentary on the importance of communication and literacy. The intelligence and candor of the author is evident. The remarkable thing is that he was able to produce this piece of writing while being incarcerated himself and that he was able to entrust his work to the Waterways teaching artist/editor, Matthew Hejna-Luque, who helped him share his message through publication:
“Being a parent in the system is very hard to deal with. Many times at night I find myself lost, deep in thought, and at the same time my peers are in the same form of thinking. What we go through on the inside can tear this world apart.
Many people out there do not know how it feels to be incarcerated. Being locked away from your loved ones and not knowing when is the next time, or if, you are going to see them really hurts. It is not a matter of winning your case. It is a matter of surviving the penitentiary. There are many fights, slashings and stabbings in the system, and you never know when it will be you. You can be the type that just wants to do your time and get out, but problems still occur. Walking with eyes in back of your head and sleeping with one eye open are some of the survival skills one learns in the system. Watching your every step puts a lot of pressure on an inmate. With all this pressure, we still have to deal with the thought of losing our families.
Many of us are afraid to return to our homes and find out that our child is calling another man, ‘Dad.’ Often we entertain the negative thought of our wives leaving with the baby to be with another man, because she needs the material things in life. Sometimes she may forget that her child has a birth father, who has feelings for his child. But we must understand that it is hard to raise a child by yourself and you do need the help of your mate.
Many times in prison we see men with renewed feelings towards their family and children. Why do we get this sudden change of how we feel towards our family? I think it’s because of the environment we are in. In here our lives are being conditioned. We are told when to eat, sleep, get up and sometimes even talk. Now we are able to appreciate the smallest things in life, such as a walk through the park and even buying a piece of candy without being restricted to eat it. Here we are able to search and find our true feelings, that we thought we never had. Is it that we never had them, or we did not know they were there? In many cases, when you do get in touch you are able to see the world in colors instead of in a black and white picture.
Being in jail, we are in a position where we must hide our feelings, because that is taken as a weakness. Why do we take kindness for weakness? Is it that we are trying to hide our weakness by using manipulation, being demanding and rebellious? We use manipulation as a survival skill to get what we want when we want it. Being raised on the streets, many of us learned this as a means to survive. We are able to detect a weakness, and once we find it, we will play upon it. Now that we are locked up, we are subject to use it again. When he speaks over the phone, the man may hide his true feelings. He calls his wife and tells her, “I love you.” They respond joyfully and that is when we begin to manipulate for things that we want (clothes, money, etc.). Sometimes we do not see what we are doing until after it’s done.
I would feel very stupid calling my wife and telling her what she may and may not do. Instead of calling shots, I think we should tell our wives what and how we feel, and ask for her aid; because we are going through a crisis at this moment. The plain truth is that we need them by our sides to help us deal with our time.
I think that communication plays a very important role in families, nowadays. If you are short on talk with your family wherever you are I believe you are sure to lose them. Hiding your true feelings from them makes them feel as if they’re being shut out. If you do not communicate, they will never know how you feel towards them, and they may even think you don’t love them.
What do your feelings have to do with them? Your feelings have a lot to do with your family, because you are part of their lives. A very important part, may I add. Just as you like to know what happened today, in the course of a day, when you get home from work; little do you know that they would like to know how your day went, too.
There may be many fathers lacking education. It may be hard for them to write a letter. So the only thing they have is a phone call. I believe that if they would really like to communicate with their families that much; I think the adult, as well as the adolescent fathers should get together and help each other, because they can identify with one another. So I advise you, if you cannot write too well, ask a friend to help you. But then we have the rebellious type, that feel that they are being condemned if someone offers them help. Your child hearing from you is more important than anything else in the world. Whatever means of communication there is, I am going to write, call, talk and even scream to let my family know that I love them!
What kind of responsibility did we have, as fathers, on the outside? To be honest with you, I, myself, being a father, had some kind of responsibility, but I did not take it seriously, as I should have. But many of us just made a mistake in our lives, and should have thought about our children and future instead.
When most of us were out in New York, we thought that putting food in our baby’s stomach, clothes on his or her back, or even a roof over his or her head, was enough; but in reality, it wasn’t. A child needs more than just objects in its life, and that thing it needs is love. Now you know how much your baby means to you, so imagine how much your time and love means to your baby.
In a place like this, we are able to see the many sides of various subjects. But when we were in New York, we took our freedom for granted, and look where it got us; to this terrible place with cages that were supposed to be for animals. So we must not let it get us down, because no one is accountable for actions but ourselves. Instead of wasting our time, thinking and hurting, we must do something positive. Don’t let it go to waste, because you can expand mentally from an experience like this.
What I do sometimes to alleviate the pain, is I set off to a distant land, a place that I created in my mind to think of nothing but positive thoughts. What I must remember is that I must not let any negative thoughts of any kind enter this little place in my head, because it will destroy me mentally.
If one of us is to get ten years or more, and you have a child of two years or older, imagine the attitude when you do return to her after all those years. This is not the baby that you changed his or her diapers for. This is now a young individual, who can think, talk and do for him or herself. So imagine the response when they find out you are their father; and after so many years of incarceration, you come back to provide for them. It is going to be hard for them to accept you, and for you to accept them, because first of all, who knows who? If one of us, young fathers, is facing a lot of time, I think a good idea would be to approach your child as if he or she were your friend, and after a sufficient amount of time, tell them who you really are. If they do not accept you as their father, they may be able to accept you as a very close friend. I know you will feel hurt by knowing this, but you must remember, we did this to ourselves. So let’s try and work it out to the best of our ability.
Yes, we love our children! But how much? That is the question that remains in the heart and mind of the mother as well as the child when he/she gets older and finds out that their father is locked up. So take a look at yourselves, guys, and tell me what you see. If you are given a second chance to return to the streets, I hope you now know what you must do to keep your child where you want him/her, and that is very close to your heart and by your side.
Will you be able to face your child when he/she gets older?
Streams 5
“Being a parent in the system is very hard to deal with. Many times at night I find myself lost, deep in thought, and at the same time my peers are in the same form of thinking. What we go through on the inside can tear this world apart.
Many people out there do not know how it feels to be incarcerated. Being locked away from your loved ones and not knowing when is the next time, or if, you are going to see them really hurts. It is not a matter of winning your case. It is a matter of surviving the penitentiary. There are many fights, slashings and stabbings in the system, and you never know when it will be you. You can be the type that just wants to do your time and get out, but problems still occur. Walking with eyes in back of your head and sleeping with one eye open are some of the survival skills one learns in the system. Watching your every step puts a lot of pressure on an inmate. With all this pressure, we still have to deal with the thought of losing our families.
Many of us are afraid to return to our homes and find out that our child is calling another man, ‘Dad.’ Often we entertain the negative thought of our wives leaving with the baby to be with another man, because she needs the material things in life. Sometimes she may forget that her child has a birth father, who has feelings for his child. But we must understand that it is hard to raise a child by yourself and you do need the help of your mate.
Many times in prison we see men with renewed feelings towards their family and children. Why do we get this sudden change of how we feel towards our family? I think it’s because of the environment we are in. In here our lives are being conditioned. We are told when to eat, sleep, get up and sometimes even talk. Now we are able to appreciate the smallest things in life, such as a walk through the park and even buying a piece of candy without being restricted to eat it. Here we are able to search and find our true feelings, that we thought we never had. Is it that we never had them, or we did not know they were there? In many cases, when you do get in touch you are able to see the world in colors instead of in a black and white picture.
Being in jail, we are in a position where we must hide our feelings, because that is taken as a weakness. Why do we take kindness for weakness? Is it that we are trying to hide our weakness by using manipulation, being demanding and rebellious? We use manipulation as a survival skill to get what we want when we want it. Being raised on the streets, many of us learned this as a means to survive. We are able to detect a weakness, and once we find it, we will play upon it. Now that we are locked up, we are subject to use it again. When he speaks over the phone, the man may hide his true feelings. He calls his wife and tells her, “I love you.” They respond joyfully and that is when we begin to manipulate for things that we want (clothes, money, etc.). Sometimes we do not see what we are doing until after it’s done.
I would feel very stupid calling my wife and telling her what she may and may not do. Instead of calling shots, I think we should tell our wives what and how we feel, and ask for her aid; because we are going through a crisis at this moment. The plain truth is that we need them by our sides to help us deal with our time.
I think that communication plays a very important role in families, nowadays. If you are short on talk with your family wherever you are I believe you are sure to lose them. Hiding your true feelings from them makes them feel as if they’re being shut out. If you do not communicate, they will never know how you feel towards them, and they may even think you don’t love them.
What do your feelings have to do with them? Your feelings have a lot to do with your family, because you are part of their lives. A very important part, may I add. Just as you like to know what happened today, in the course of a day, when you get home from work; little do you know that they would like to know how your day went, too.
There may be many fathers lacking education. It may be hard for them to write a letter. So the only thing they have is a phone call. I believe that if they would really like to communicate with their families that much; I think the adult, as well as the adolescent fathers should get together and help each other, because they can identify with one another. So I advise you, if you cannot write too well, ask a friend to help you. But then we have the rebellious type, that feel that they are being condemned if someone offers them help. Your child hearing from you is more important than anything else in the world. Whatever means of communication there is, I am going to write, call, talk and even scream to let my family know that I love them!
What kind of responsibility did we have, as fathers, on the outside? To be honest with you, I, myself, being a father, had some kind of responsibility, but I did not take it seriously, as I should have. But many of us just made a mistake in our lives, and should have thought about our children and future instead.
When most of us were out in New York, we thought that putting food in our baby’s stomach, clothes on his or her back, or even a roof over his or her head, was enough; but in reality, it wasn’t. A child needs more than just objects in its life, and that thing it needs is love. Now you know how much your baby means to you, so imagine how much your time and love means to your baby.
In a place like this, we are able to see the many sides of various subjects. But when we were in New York, we took our freedom for granted, and look where it got us; to this terrible place with cages that were supposed to be for animals. So we must not let it get us down, because no one is accountable for actions but ourselves. Instead of wasting our time, thinking and hurting, we must do something positive. Don’t let it go to waste, because you can expand mentally from an experience like this.
What I do sometimes to alleviate the pain, is I set off to a distant land, a place that I created in my mind to think of nothing but positive thoughts. What I must remember is that I must not let any negative thoughts of any kind enter this little place in my head, because it will destroy me mentally.
If one of us is to get ten years or more, and you have a child of two years or older, imagine the attitude when you do return to her after all those years. This is not the baby that you changed his or her diapers for. This is now a young individual, who can think, talk and do for him or herself. So imagine the response when they find out you are their father; and after so many years of incarceration, you come back to provide for them. It is going to be hard for them to accept you, and for you to accept them, because first of all, who knows who? If one of us, young fathers, is facing a lot of time, I think a good idea would be to approach your child as if he or she were your friend, and after a sufficient amount of time, tell them who you really are. If they do not accept you as their father, they may be able to accept you as a very close friend. I know you will feel hurt by knowing this, but you must remember, we did this to ourselves. So let’s try and work it out to the best of our ability.
Yes, we love our children! But how much? That is the question that remains in the heart and mind of the mother as well as the child when he/she gets older and finds out that their father is locked up. So take a look at yourselves, guys, and tell me what you see. If you are given a second chance to return to the streets, I hope you now know what you must do to keep your child where you want him/her, and that is very close to your heart and by your side.
Will you be able to face your child when he/she gets older?
Streams 5
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part iii
We had previously published writing by teenage mothers. Streams 5 took the theme a step further. It explored the theme of role models with writing about and by teenage fathers. In her poem “A Good Father” (p.44) directed at young fathers, Keesha expressed her feelings:
I think a good father should be made up of many aspects.
He should be like a recipe: 100 oz. of Love
Love should be like feelings. When the baby is hurting it should hurt you.
When he is happy you should be happy.
You should be able to understand most of his feelings.
You should enjoy things like a first step.
Love includes all of the other aspects of the recipe: 100 oz. of Understanding
Understanding when the baby does bad things.
You should understand instead of wanting to throw the baby down or beat him. Understanding is knowing the baby cannot do what you want him or her to do.
He can only do what he knows from instinct.
100 oz. of Time
Time should be spent with the baby as much as possible.
Spend enough time with the baby so the baby knows who the father is;
and also knows the father loves the baby.
You shouldn’t just come around when you feel like it.
100 oz. of Support
Support should be helping out; helping with pampers, milk and clothes;
helping out with things like baths and washing hair.
Moral support is also good because it encourages a child.
A great father should love his child as much as possible...
even more than he loves himself or just as much.
This is because the baby is here; so it is the father’s job to love it.
There is no such thing as a perfect father. But so far I am lucky.
My baby’s father does as much as he can, whenever he can.
There is nothing more I can ask for.
Though, Roy doesn’t see himself as a role model, his narrative, “My Experience as a Teenage Father” (p.52) expressed the difficulties he encountered grappling with responsibilities:
What is it like to become a father when you are a teenager? That question never troubled me, until I was 16 and my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. A lot of things flashed through my head, like I am a child myself. Can I take the responsibilities that lay ahead of me? When I got over the shock that I was going to become a father, I thought of the fun that I would have to miss, like not playing basketball with my friends in the park or going to parties on the weekend. But I also thought of the fun I would have raising my own child, like going for a walk in the park on Sunday.
Still, the worst part was telling my parents that I was going to become a father. I thought my mother was going to kill me, because she always taught me to have safe sex and talked about the use of a condom. Well, they didn’t take it as bad as I thought they would. My mother sat down with me and my girlfriend, T, to talk about OUR “responsibilities” together. She said (I quote her words), “You two made it together, and you two take care of it together.” Me, my dad and T’s father had a good talk about my future, the baby’s future and T’s future. My girlfriend’s mother lightened up a lot after four months into her being pregnant.
The problem that I had was that, instead of having a job, I was dealing drugs. Me and T talked about selling drugs. She asked me to stop once the baby was born. I told her I would. As time went on, I started to make mo’, mo’, mo’ money, and I could not stop, because I had a type of attitude about wanting my child to have everything that I didn’t have when I was a kid. Anyway, the baby was not born, yet. I was saving money like crazy now and buying my girlfriend maternity clothes. As the months went by, I was getting more anxious about the baby.
Now it was November 23, 1978. The day started as usual. I went downstairs to work out in the basement of my house. Then the phone rang. It was my mother telling me to come pick up something she had just bought. So I went to pick up the package. As I was leaving my mother’s job, my beeper started to beep. I looked at the number. It was my girlfriend, T. She was always beeping me, so I didn’t have to respond to the number at first. Then she beeped me again. This time I answered her call. When she picked up the phone she cried that she was in pain. She said to me, “It’s time to have the baby.” I panicked, then got hold of myself. Then I drove to her house. She was sitting downstairs, crying in pain. I told her to take a deep breath, so she would calm down.
On the way to the hospital, I was scared that she was going to have the baby in the car. We finally reached the hospital. I didn’t know what to do first. I got her a wheelchair. I pushed her into the emergency room. Then I told the doctor she was having a baby. He said, “I can see that.” He looked at me funny, and I looked at myself and realized that I was still in my workout shorts and tank top. I cleaned up, so I could go in the delivery room with her. Four hours later, my son, Anthony, was born.
I wrote this on November 20, 1990, in Rikers Island Correctional Facility; three days before my son’s birthday. This is the first birthday that I’m going to miss and hopefully my last one. I feel really f***ed up that I’m not going to be there on his third birthday on this earth. (The day that I got arrested, my girlfriend told me not to go to the spot, but I went anyway. To this day I think that if I would have listened to her, I would be home today).
I feel that this is my last time in jail, because I want to make a good example for my son. I don’t want him in a place like this, or to go through what I have experienced.
Streams 5
I think a good father should be made up of many aspects.
He should be like a recipe: 100 oz. of Love
Love should be like feelings. When the baby is hurting it should hurt you.
When he is happy you should be happy.
You should be able to understand most of his feelings.
You should enjoy things like a first step.
Love includes all of the other aspects of the recipe: 100 oz. of Understanding
Understanding when the baby does bad things.
You should understand instead of wanting to throw the baby down or beat him. Understanding is knowing the baby cannot do what you want him or her to do.
He can only do what he knows from instinct.
100 oz. of Time
Time should be spent with the baby as much as possible.
Spend enough time with the baby so the baby knows who the father is;
and also knows the father loves the baby.
You shouldn’t just come around when you feel like it.
100 oz. of Support
Support should be helping out; helping with pampers, milk and clothes;
helping out with things like baths and washing hair.
Moral support is also good because it encourages a child.
A great father should love his child as much as possible...
even more than he loves himself or just as much.
This is because the baby is here; so it is the father’s job to love it.
There is no such thing as a perfect father. But so far I am lucky.
My baby’s father does as much as he can, whenever he can.
There is nothing more I can ask for.
Though, Roy doesn’t see himself as a role model, his narrative, “My Experience as a Teenage Father” (p.52) expressed the difficulties he encountered grappling with responsibilities:
What is it like to become a father when you are a teenager? That question never troubled me, until I was 16 and my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. A lot of things flashed through my head, like I am a child myself. Can I take the responsibilities that lay ahead of me? When I got over the shock that I was going to become a father, I thought of the fun that I would have to miss, like not playing basketball with my friends in the park or going to parties on the weekend. But I also thought of the fun I would have raising my own child, like going for a walk in the park on Sunday.
Still, the worst part was telling my parents that I was going to become a father. I thought my mother was going to kill me, because she always taught me to have safe sex and talked about the use of a condom. Well, they didn’t take it as bad as I thought they would. My mother sat down with me and my girlfriend, T, to talk about OUR “responsibilities” together. She said (I quote her words), “You two made it together, and you two take care of it together.” Me, my dad and T’s father had a good talk about my future, the baby’s future and T’s future. My girlfriend’s mother lightened up a lot after four months into her being pregnant.
The problem that I had was that, instead of having a job, I was dealing drugs. Me and T talked about selling drugs. She asked me to stop once the baby was born. I told her I would. As time went on, I started to make mo’, mo’, mo’ money, and I could not stop, because I had a type of attitude about wanting my child to have everything that I didn’t have when I was a kid. Anyway, the baby was not born, yet. I was saving money like crazy now and buying my girlfriend maternity clothes. As the months went by, I was getting more anxious about the baby.
Now it was November 23, 1978. The day started as usual. I went downstairs to work out in the basement of my house. Then the phone rang. It was my mother telling me to come pick up something she had just bought. So I went to pick up the package. As I was leaving my mother’s job, my beeper started to beep. I looked at the number. It was my girlfriend, T. She was always beeping me, so I didn’t have to respond to the number at first. Then she beeped me again. This time I answered her call. When she picked up the phone she cried that she was in pain. She said to me, “It’s time to have the baby.” I panicked, then got hold of myself. Then I drove to her house. She was sitting downstairs, crying in pain. I told her to take a deep breath, so she would calm down.
On the way to the hospital, I was scared that she was going to have the baby in the car. We finally reached the hospital. I didn’t know what to do first. I got her a wheelchair. I pushed her into the emergency room. Then I told the doctor she was having a baby. He said, “I can see that.” He looked at me funny, and I looked at myself and realized that I was still in my workout shorts and tank top. I cleaned up, so I could go in the delivery room with her. Four hours later, my son, Anthony, was born.
I wrote this on November 20, 1990, in Rikers Island Correctional Facility; three days before my son’s birthday. This is the first birthday that I’m going to miss and hopefully my last one. I feel really f***ed up that I’m not going to be there on his third birthday on this earth. (The day that I got arrested, my girlfriend told me not to go to the spot, but I went anyway. To this day I think that if I would have listened to her, I would be home today).
I feel that this is my last time in jail, because I want to make a good example for my son. I don’t want him in a place like this, or to go through what I have experienced.
Streams 5
Monday, January 24, 2011
Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part ii
The Streams anthologies were used in classrooms where teachers were encouraging students to write by emphasizing the relevancy of books. In the Spring of 1991, Lucy Kuemmerle, a reading teacher, wrote “What Do Kids Like to Read” for Options: the newsletter for the office of Alternative High Schools and Programs. In her article she stated, “I would never insist that a kid like something because I chose it; they are encouraged to say what they like and what they don’t like -- and why.” She added:
One more important thing which kids love; they love anything written by other kids. They pay a lot of attention to each other’s writing. The best source of student writing is Streams (already up to four volumes), published by the Waterways Project. Copies of Streams vanish as fast as I get them in the classroom. Filled with stories, poems, letters by teenagers, they speak with absolute authority and immediacy to all other teenagers. They feel they could have written each piece; they are often freed by this strong identification to start writing themselves, and to be struck by discovering that they, too, have a voice.
The correspondence section of Streams 5 was followed by Denise B.’s poem, “Love”:
To build upon love,
you need a foundation.
So let’s start now,
with a little communication.
Rudy Rodriguez was recommended to Waterways by Jerry Long, the Assistant Principal for Curriculum Development at Auxiliary Services for High Schools (ASHS). Rudy was a paraprofessional at ASHS who had attended the Roberto Clemente Center in the South Bronx. He visited other ASHS programs around the city to encourage writing. Because of his enthusiasm, more teachers were willing to use Streams in the classroom.
ASHS students returned to class to take the GED test for a high school diploma. Although the classes focussed entirely on test preparation, many students wanted more from a school. Passing the test was not an end in itself. The diploma would not guarantee a job, but by returning to school, the ASHS students served as role models. This was expressed in Streams 5:
My Brother by Robert W.
“...My brother is sometimes a pain in the neck; and sometimes he’s not. I used to think that I hated him so much; but now I realize that he’s just a kid and that little brothers are always a pain when they’re little. I also realize that I’m his big brother and I have to be an example for him. If I show him that the things he does are not right, maybe he will not keep on the way he is.
He always says he wants to be like me. He wants to quit school like I did. He wants to start smoking like I did. I want to show him that if he quits school he will not be able to work in a good job. In other words, he can’t do much without a high school diploma.
I had to find out the hard way. When I quit school, I was working and I thought I had it made. I was making about $120 a week, nine hours a day, six days a week. I realized later on that I was not really making good money; and that I never could survive in the outside world.
Now I’m back in school to get my high school diploma, so I can get a good job; so when I have a family, I can support them. When I do get my diploma it will not be the same as going to school for four years, but at least I’m showing my brother how hard it is to survive in the real world...”
and how relevant books are.
Streams 5
One more important thing which kids love; they love anything written by other kids. They pay a lot of attention to each other’s writing. The best source of student writing is Streams (already up to four volumes), published by the Waterways Project. Copies of Streams vanish as fast as I get them in the classroom. Filled with stories, poems, letters by teenagers, they speak with absolute authority and immediacy to all other teenagers. They feel they could have written each piece; they are often freed by this strong identification to start writing themselves, and to be struck by discovering that they, too, have a voice.
The correspondence section of Streams 5 was followed by Denise B.’s poem, “Love”:
To build upon love,
you need a foundation.
So let’s start now,
with a little communication.
Rudy Rodriguez was recommended to Waterways by Jerry Long, the Assistant Principal for Curriculum Development at Auxiliary Services for High Schools (ASHS). Rudy was a paraprofessional at ASHS who had attended the Roberto Clemente Center in the South Bronx. He visited other ASHS programs around the city to encourage writing. Because of his enthusiasm, more teachers were willing to use Streams in the classroom.
ASHS students returned to class to take the GED test for a high school diploma. Although the classes focussed entirely on test preparation, many students wanted more from a school. Passing the test was not an end in itself. The diploma would not guarantee a job, but by returning to school, the ASHS students served as role models. This was expressed in Streams 5:
My Brother by Robert W.
“...My brother is sometimes a pain in the neck; and sometimes he’s not. I used to think that I hated him so much; but now I realize that he’s just a kid and that little brothers are always a pain when they’re little. I also realize that I’m his big brother and I have to be an example for him. If I show him that the things he does are not right, maybe he will not keep on the way he is.
He always says he wants to be like me. He wants to quit school like I did. He wants to start smoking like I did. I want to show him that if he quits school he will not be able to work in a good job. In other words, he can’t do much without a high school diploma.
I had to find out the hard way. When I quit school, I was working and I thought I had it made. I was making about $120 a week, nine hours a day, six days a week. I realized later on that I was not really making good money; and that I never could survive in the outside world.
Now I’m back in school to get my high school diploma, so I can get a good job; so when I have a family, I can support them. When I do get my diploma it will not be the same as going to school for four years, but at least I’m showing my brother how hard it is to survive in the real world...”
and how relevant books are.
Streams 5
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part i
Streams was intentionally changing the character of the usual high school creative writing anthology. Instead of declaring the writing to be the best of the brightest, we were publishing a representative sample from the alternative high school sites Waterways visited. During the course of the year I motivated as many students as I could reach to attempt as much writing as possible. The material was first published by Barbara and me in photocopied site based magazines. By mid-February, we would begin to choose material from each site for the annual anthology based upon feedback from colleagues and students. As editors we were consciously developing a format that would help teachers present the writing to future classes.
Waterways was given the opportunity to mold a literature for a generation of New York City alternative high school students. Previous generation of at risk students had been given the option of leaving school. We were part of an effort to reach out to such students and encourage them to stay in school in the hope they would earn a diploma.
Not all students see education as the key to their success. They have to be convinced that reading and writing matters. We hope such skeptical students would find Streams relevant and want to own books written by peers. Our program published writing by students the traditional schools turned away. The impoverished, the school phobic, the rebellious, the sick, and the learning disabled, whose voices uttered the small cries of the human heart.
On the front cover of Streams 5 were two drawings -- one of a young adult and one of a child. The young adult is seen in silhouette wearing a heavy gold chain and carrying a Gucci jacket over his shoulder. The child, wearing earrings, a bracelet, and rings, is lacing up a sneaker, way too large for him. He’s trying to fill the shoes of his older brother.
The anthology began with a computer based correspondence between students who were attending classes provided in rehab programs by Offsite Educational Services (OES). The students wrote on Commodore 128 computers and saved their files to five inch floppy disks. Carolyn Green, the Waterways teacher, carried the discs to other OES sites:
Dear Pen Pal,
Hi, my name is Muneca. I am 20 years old and my height is 5’”. I am 125 pounds with green eyes, light brown with blonde hair...
Muneca received a response:
Hello Muneca,
My name is Trick Daddy. I am 18 years of age. I am six feet four inches tall; with dark brown eyes and naturally curly hair. No jerrycurl juice. I look Puerto Rican but I’m not...
Sticking out the program was a fundamental challenge to the students in all the rehabs. Muneca wrote back:
Hello, pen pal. I hope that you are all right and hanging in there. I say this because I heard that you and your friend were going through some changes. I hope that you hang in there, because leaving is not the move anymore. Staying and sticking it out means that you are very strong and able to deal with your problems.
In the next letter, Trick Daddy, shared some personal history:
I have a six month old son, but I’m not with the baby’s mother. Why? We don’t seem to get along any more, but I still see my son!!! By the way, my son looks just like his daddy; light skin, six feet four inches tall (just kidding!). But he’s handsome like me! Let me stop.
Muneca stopped writing for a few weeks. She was barred from writing by the rehab program. She finally explained to her pen pal that “I can’t write because I condoned my ‘supposed to be’ friend’s guilt; and a little of mine.”
Trick Daddy was supportive:
“...I know the situation you are going to be dealing with. I know what your state of mind must be like right now! But you got to be strong, as you encouraged me to do. I know you’re on a learning experience, but you wanna know something? It still doesn’t change how I feel about you, or how I look at you!! Please! Don’t feel guilty about the situation, because it happened to me before when I was in daytop’s upstate treatment. It will only make you a stronger woman. Notice I said that you are a woman; because you are gonna stick this out, right? I have confidence in your abilities, too! As a person once said to me, An obstacle is not the end. It’s a new beginning.”
That correspondence ended abruptly when she left the program. In the following correspondence between 18 year old Charles and 15 year old Missy, Charles wrote:
“I do have a son, who turned six months old a couple of weeks ago. But me and my baby’s mother are no longer together. Why? Because she lies about the little things like bringing my son over to see his father. I only associate with her to see my son. She had her chance to bury the hatchet! But I still respect her as I would any woman.”
Missy responded:
“I can understand where you are coming from with your baby’s mother. I used to be with a guy who was (and still is) a pathological liar. At least you aren’t just a slam bam, thank you ma’am type of guy. I like a guy who takes care of his. I know so many girls who got pregnant and the guys left them out there cold.”
Their correspondence continued through the Christmas. Charles wrote:
“My counselors expect me to do about 18 months or better!?! What I’m saying to myself is -- they got to be out of their cotton pickin’ minds!! I can’t see myself being here all that time!?! In fact, sometimes I feel like leaving! A lot of times I feel like leaving! But knowing that I’ll get a letter from you; it keeps me here.”
Streams 5
Waterways was given the opportunity to mold a literature for a generation of New York City alternative high school students. Previous generation of at risk students had been given the option of leaving school. We were part of an effort to reach out to such students and encourage them to stay in school in the hope they would earn a diploma.
Not all students see education as the key to their success. They have to be convinced that reading and writing matters. We hope such skeptical students would find Streams relevant and want to own books written by peers. Our program published writing by students the traditional schools turned away. The impoverished, the school phobic, the rebellious, the sick, and the learning disabled, whose voices uttered the small cries of the human heart.
On the front cover of Streams 5 were two drawings -- one of a young adult and one of a child. The young adult is seen in silhouette wearing a heavy gold chain and carrying a Gucci jacket over his shoulder. The child, wearing earrings, a bracelet, and rings, is lacing up a sneaker, way too large for him. He’s trying to fill the shoes of his older brother.
The anthology began with a computer based correspondence between students who were attending classes provided in rehab programs by Offsite Educational Services (OES). The students wrote on Commodore 128 computers and saved their files to five inch floppy disks. Carolyn Green, the Waterways teacher, carried the discs to other OES sites:
Dear Pen Pal,
Hi, my name is Muneca. I am 20 years old and my height is 5’”. I am 125 pounds with green eyes, light brown with blonde hair...
Muneca received a response:
Hello Muneca,
My name is Trick Daddy. I am 18 years of age. I am six feet four inches tall; with dark brown eyes and naturally curly hair. No jerrycurl juice. I look Puerto Rican but I’m not...
Sticking out the program was a fundamental challenge to the students in all the rehabs. Muneca wrote back:
Hello, pen pal. I hope that you are all right and hanging in there. I say this because I heard that you and your friend were going through some changes. I hope that you hang in there, because leaving is not the move anymore. Staying and sticking it out means that you are very strong and able to deal with your problems.
In the next letter, Trick Daddy, shared some personal history:
I have a six month old son, but I’m not with the baby’s mother. Why? We don’t seem to get along any more, but I still see my son!!! By the way, my son looks just like his daddy; light skin, six feet four inches tall (just kidding!). But he’s handsome like me! Let me stop.
Muneca stopped writing for a few weeks. She was barred from writing by the rehab program. She finally explained to her pen pal that “I can’t write because I condoned my ‘supposed to be’ friend’s guilt; and a little of mine.”
Trick Daddy was supportive:
“...I know the situation you are going to be dealing with. I know what your state of mind must be like right now! But you got to be strong, as you encouraged me to do. I know you’re on a learning experience, but you wanna know something? It still doesn’t change how I feel about you, or how I look at you!! Please! Don’t feel guilty about the situation, because it happened to me before when I was in daytop’s upstate treatment. It will only make you a stronger woman. Notice I said that you are a woman; because you are gonna stick this out, right? I have confidence in your abilities, too! As a person once said to me, An obstacle is not the end. It’s a new beginning.”
That correspondence ended abruptly when she left the program. In the following correspondence between 18 year old Charles and 15 year old Missy, Charles wrote:
“I do have a son, who turned six months old a couple of weeks ago. But me and my baby’s mother are no longer together. Why? Because she lies about the little things like bringing my son over to see his father. I only associate with her to see my son. She had her chance to bury the hatchet! But I still respect her as I would any woman.”
Missy responded:
“I can understand where you are coming from with your baby’s mother. I used to be with a guy who was (and still is) a pathological liar. At least you aren’t just a slam bam, thank you ma’am type of guy. I like a guy who takes care of his. I know so many girls who got pregnant and the guys left them out there cold.”
Their correspondence continued through the Christmas. Charles wrote:
“My counselors expect me to do about 18 months or better!?! What I’m saying to myself is -- they got to be out of their cotton pickin’ minds!! I can’t see myself being here all that time!?! In fact, sometimes I feel like leaving! A lot of times I feel like leaving! But knowing that I’ll get a letter from you; it keeps me here.”
Streams 5
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Martin Luther King Jr: Service Learning, Change and Poetry
When Martin Luther King was assassinated, the school year began with teachers on strike in New York City and Senator Eugene McCarthy challenging a sitting president; it ended with the deaths of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy. I was working with an after school program in New York City’s South Jamaica Houses, and accepted an invitation to become a Peace Corp Volunteer teaching high school in Buchanan, Liberia, West Africa.
Twenty years later, in 1988, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, a state agency lead by Harry Belafonte under Governor Mario Cuomo, presented workshops throughout New York. The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players hosted a series of these workshops at Liberty High School on West 18th Street in Manhattan. We also sponsored additional workshops down the street at the offices of the Superintendent of Alternative High Schools and Programs located in the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities. The workshop leaders, who had worked with Dr. King in the sixties, explained how he acted as a catalyst to cause change in the communities he visited.
Too often education becomes a game for winners and losers. Tests award and fail students. But our society can accomodate all its members and find merit in each if teachers would pause to listen and respond to their students (who would learn to write better because their teachers were reading and responding to the student writing). We wanted to enable communication, a rare thing. The Waterways teachers who visited school sites thus also acted as catalysts by publishing students’ expressive writing and poetry that resulted from the classroom discussions and reflections of all students.
Administrators at the superintendency of New York City’s alternative high schools asked us to develop a service learning component for one of its programs, New York City Vocational Training Center (VTC). VTC had grown from a cohort of industries, hospitals, nursing homes, and unions that provided internships at their own locations for vocational and special education students aging out of the school system. VTC provided an academic component at each site for its students. The cooperating agencies facilitated job coached hands on training for the VTC students at their locations. Through the work of the licensed academic and vocational teachers and the mentors at the cohort of cooperating businesses, students were helped to gain a GED, IEP or High School diploma while at the same time learning job related skills that would help them gain employment after leaving VTC.
Ten Penny Players’ writing and peer publishing curriculum enabled all participating students to share their reflections through the expressive writing that we published . Regularly scheduled ‘reflection’ is an important component of Service Learning. VTC and all the Alternative schools and programs already practiced ‘reflection’ only it was called Family Group. In this regularly scheduled practice students reflected on their activities and the challenges faced daily in the work site or at home. Because reflection was already part of the VTC program we were able to acknowledge it as both an accepted Family Group practice and as a Service Learning component. What was familiar, also was new, and therefore possible to develop into a formal Service Learning curriculum that met both Department of Education and the Governor’s Service Learning criteria and standards and didn’t cause formal grievance from the teacher’s union, parents or students. A win win for everyone including Ten Penny Players as it enabled the students to write and be published as part of our program.
--by R. Spiegel & B. Fisher
Learn and Serve 2001 Celebration
http://www.scribd.com/collections/2665044/Service-Learning-Curriculum
Twenty years later, in 1988, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, a state agency lead by Harry Belafonte under Governor Mario Cuomo, presented workshops throughout New York. The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players hosted a series of these workshops at Liberty High School on West 18th Street in Manhattan. We also sponsored additional workshops down the street at the offices of the Superintendent of Alternative High Schools and Programs located in the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities. The workshop leaders, who had worked with Dr. King in the sixties, explained how he acted as a catalyst to cause change in the communities he visited.
Too often education becomes a game for winners and losers. Tests award and fail students. But our society can accomodate all its members and find merit in each if teachers would pause to listen and respond to their students (who would learn to write better because their teachers were reading and responding to the student writing). We wanted to enable communication, a rare thing. The Waterways teachers who visited school sites thus also acted as catalysts by publishing students’ expressive writing and poetry that resulted from the classroom discussions and reflections of all students.
Administrators at the superintendency of New York City’s alternative high schools asked us to develop a service learning component for one of its programs, New York City Vocational Training Center (VTC). VTC had grown from a cohort of industries, hospitals, nursing homes, and unions that provided internships at their own locations for vocational and special education students aging out of the school system. VTC provided an academic component at each site for its students. The cooperating agencies facilitated job coached hands on training for the VTC students at their locations. Through the work of the licensed academic and vocational teachers and the mentors at the cohort of cooperating businesses, students were helped to gain a GED, IEP or High School diploma while at the same time learning job related skills that would help them gain employment after leaving VTC.
Ten Penny Players’ writing and peer publishing curriculum enabled all participating students to share their reflections through the expressive writing that we published . Regularly scheduled ‘reflection’ is an important component of Service Learning. VTC and all the Alternative schools and programs already practiced ‘reflection’ only it was called Family Group. In this regularly scheduled practice students reflected on their activities and the challenges faced daily in the work site or at home. Because reflection was already part of the VTC program we were able to acknowledge it as both an accepted Family Group practice and as a Service Learning component. What was familiar, also was new, and therefore possible to develop into a formal Service Learning curriculum that met both Department of Education and the Governor’s Service Learning criteria and standards and didn’t cause formal grievance from the teacher’s union, parents or students. A win win for everyone including Ten Penny Players as it enabled the students to write and be published as part of our program.
--by R. Spiegel & B. Fisher
Learn and Serve 2001 Celebration
http://www.scribd.com/collections/2665044/Service-Learning-Curriculum
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