"We Are All Brethren"
"Right is of no Sex -
Truth is of no Color -
God is the Father of us all,
and we are all brethren."
- Frederick Douglass (2/14/1817 - 2/20/1895)
This was the motto of Frederick Douglass' abolitionist paper, The North Star. To me the quote is an excellent connector to the events have transpired during February 2018. First and foremost, it is important because this month is the celebration of National African American History Month, otherwise known as Black History Month. This quote pulls together the humanity that we must collectively begin to harness to steer things in a better direction.
Some highlights of the month included things such as Super Bowl LII (2/4 - that is 52 for the Latin to English translation), the launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy (2/6, 3:45P), the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea (2/9), the release of Ryan Coogler / Ludwig Göransson movie / sound production of Black Panther (2/16). From an educator point of view, I had the opportunity to be a judge for the Capital Area Intermediate Unit's (CAIU) Governor's STEM Competition (2/14) and speak to area high school students about Architecture / Architectural Technology at HACC's Engineering Career Day (2/22).
On a sadder note, there was the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida (2/14), which is the 11th deadliest school shooting since Columbine on 4/20/1999. This was provided by Zackary Basu of Axios on 2/15/2018. Further data about school related shootings can be found at these websites: ABC 2/12/16, CNN 2/19/18, VOX 2/21/18, as well as getting involved in the discussion nationally through, Everytown.org, Moms Demand Action, and Open Secrets. While this is a difficult topic, I believe that as with the #metoo movement, the #neveragain movement can impact our society to give voice to the youth and implore adults to listen and then act.
I'll look at how some of these key pieces are interconnected in the second half of this blog, but first I want to check in on all the Making and STEAM efforts at John Harris and SciTech in February.
STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School
TECHNOLOGY:
STEM Lab (Mr. Gigac)
During the month of February Mr. Gigac was out sick because of the flu. Many teachers and students had it. Those absences combined with a couple of snow days made the month a little inefficient. During the middle of the month Mr. Gigac found out that the STEAM Showcase would be on Friday, May 18th and Saturday, May 19th. Friday will be focused on high school students where there will be displays of student work from 4:30P-6:30P. Mr. Gigac felt that this would be a great way to display the Carvey and 3D printing work.
On Saturday, from 11A-2P both the STEM Lab and AV Studio teachers and students plan on having a couple of demonstrations of the STEM Lab Projects. Students have been tasked to work in groups to develop a tri-fold display with some interactive elements to discuss with visitors. Over the next two months I'll be following the progress of these projects and documenting them in the blog.
DIGITAL ARTS & MEDIA:
STEM Lab (Mr. Cooper)
Periods 1 and 5 have been working to combine clips of everything that they have recorded since the AV Studio was setup back in September 2017 - Harrisburg High Cougar TV. This website has the current posts of student work and showcases some of their photography work. They also have a Youtube channel, Cougar TV, where they are working to get a weekly series started with regular viewers.
On Thursday, February
8th, the school had an official "Freeway" Rick Ross visit and the AV Students participated in the filming his presentation to the students. Mr. Ross visited the AV Studio back in November of 2017. He returned through the connection of Johntrae Williams. Mr. Ross spoke for 30 minutes to 50 students in the John Harris Field House. After that he answered questions and then did a 30 minute interview with the HSD Public Relations Coordinator Kirsten Keys and another John Harris student. The filming was done by two of Mr. Cooper's AV Studio students. They hope to have some of the edited footage posted soon.
STEAM Making @ SciTech Campus High School
SCIENCE:
Trout in the Classroom (Ms. Roberts)
The approximate 30 fingerlings continue to grow in the tank in RM211. The students are taking care of the weekly feedings and necessary water changes. During the month of March, the Fellows at Downey ES, Camp Curtin MS, Marshall MS, and SciTech HS will be planning the Trout Release Day at the Yellow Breeches Creek.
We'll have more information about that project next month.
ARTS:
STEM Lab (Mr. Elo)
On Friday, February 2nd there was great rejoicing from me and working with the AV Studio Equipment. For the past year and a half I've been trying to work out an issue with audio/video lag/sync issue in vMix. The issue puzzled me, the teachers at schools, and the District AV Lead Technician. Spending some time that Friday afternoon I discovered that all that we needed to do was input an audio delay when recording. From a 2015 online Elgato Game Capture HD60 forum I found a reference for a -650ms average delay when recording. Nothing else was specified and the reference was with recording game systems. Working with that number I continued to look for a place to enter the delay. Thankfully I found that within the Record Settings (Gear Icon) there was a space for an audio delay. I started with the recommended amount of -650ms and did a test record. It was almost there. I then tried -700ms and it was in sync. This was a lesson on perserverance, tenacity and taking the time just to site through problems, i.e. working in a "maker mindset." I include the screenshot in this blog because it was a great hurdle to overcome for the AV Studio Team.
Because of this seemingly small "breakthrough" students could use the equipment to film a morning broadcast. However, the filming of the Morning Announcements were put on pause mid-February to make way for a special project.
On Friday, February 16th, Mr. Elo, and his Media Students along with the school Guidance Counselor, Dr. Rossi put together a small 7 class period PSA assignment. This was prompted by the February 14th school shooting in Parkland Florida at Stoneman Douglas High School. Mr. Elo's students were wondering how they might help to raise awareness to the issue of gun violence and other types of public issues.
On Monday 2/26 the student groups were developing their ideas for the PSAs. The goal was to create a 30second to 2 minute PSA by writing a script, pitching it to myself and Dr. Rossi, and filming it with other students and the locations within the school. Besides the topic of gun violence, the other PSAs included Drug Abuse, Depression, Sexual Violence, and Suicide. Filming of each of these will start Friday 3/2 and the students are to have them wrapped up before mid-March.
MATHEMATICS:
MIT App Inventor 6 Week Session (Ms. Kornfeld)
On Tuesday, February 6th, the MIT App Inventor (http://appinventor.mit.edu/) Sessions started in Ms. Kornfeld's Technology Class. This 6 week project was an evolution of the Scratch Programming that she usually teaches. Ms. Kornfeld pulled together her own curriculum based on the MIT App Inventor 2 book which includes PDFs.
The students seem to be enjoying the web app, but it wasn't without issues. Mr. Kornfeld learned that the open wifi login prohibited students from logging in on the MIT App Inventor website. She found a work around by using another wifi address. If this is to run at other schools or again next year, we will make sure to test out this connection. The students do not have any full projects yet, but next month we should have links to what they created.
“Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.”
February has been a month filled with the topic of capacity building. This is within the Foundry, within Community Groups, within the Comprehensive Plan consulting, and from the perspective of education at the state/national level at the CAIU STEM Competition. When I am talking about this topic with anyone in these difference contexts, ranging from an individual to a group of people in a community group, I find myself sometimes arriving to a point where I have to explain what the embodiment of capacity building. I know I’ve discussed this in previous blogs, but during a lot of meetings this month, I have had clear examples.
I purposely choose the two quotes for this blog this month because they seem to embody the active need of capacity building, especially at multiple scales and contexts. With the first, Douglass is looking at the larger connection to rights & truth and our relationship to each other. This was extremely important in the Abolitionist movement. Please understand, I don’t mean to lessen that importance as in my process of connecting it to capacity building. I just see it as important to clarify a life approach of seeing each other in the most basic state of human beings.
With the second quote, one must see the Black Panther movie to have the complete context. If you have not see the Black Panther meeting, I encourage you to go see it as soon as possible. The scene occurs during the middle of the credits where T’Challa is addressing the UN in Vienna. He is speaking on past errors of Wakanda and a need for a new approach to better connect to the rest of the world.
Capacity building is critical in first understanding our relationship of rights, truth and our humanness, while actively look after each other. We must be operating in both conditions. If we only focus on the first, we only understand the logic (mind) of the process and neglect the compassion (heart). If we only look at the compassion (heart) there might be a tendency to become homogeneous, congregating in like environments, i.e. smaller tribes. We resist the different or unique.
This is important in the Olympics, as it is point every 2 years (considering Winter / Summer Olympics) the world become small. There is a global bonding that happens. A group experience at a global level. My favorite commercial from the Super Bowl was the NBC Winter Olympics commercial featuring, Mikaela Shiffrin, the women's alpine race skier (2 gold / 1 silver).
As a dad of two daughters, I watched the commercial with a smirk, reveling in the playful meanings of the film. This gave me a flashback to the 2013 GoldieBlox commercial that originally featured the Beastie Boys “girls” song with new lyrics. The commercial featured an elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption (The Princess Machine). Because of copyright infringement, there was a legal battle and a new theme song appeared in a revised commercial. I loved the commercial because of the ingenuity to try and film it in one take and the involvement of the girls to the process of filming - Behind the Scenes w/ Raven and Behind the Scenes w/ Reese. What started from a Kickstarter campaign went on to challenge gender roles in the toy world triggering a very large following.
This global experience phenomenon is fascinating to me. As I grow older, I try and stop and pause to recall important milestones. I remember it best during the year 2000, when nobody was sure that the Y2K Bug/Scare would render all electronics/electrical devices useless. I still remember family members asking me what I thought about what might happen to all their gadgets in their house. There are also historical milestones that take place without us even knowing the significance. This was the case of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. This was an amazing event, that I was able to cherish, sharing it with the students at SciTech on Tuesday, February 6th. Thanks to Mr. Eric Group, everyone attending/helping the SciBots Robotics Club, was able to experience history. I was able to share the moments of the Challenger Disaster on Tuesday, January 28th, 1986 and the Columbia Disaster on Saturday, February 1, 2003.
The latter is sometimes extremely pervasive. This is in some personal experience with area nonprofits. Some of those are in need of technological support as volunteers / directors / board members try to sustain efforts through traditional means, in a rapidly changing economic and business atmosphere. There is a gap between that group and students from college/universities to help provide support and new life to transition an organization into a future state. NOTE: This connects back to last month’s discussion on the Three Horizons. More of this topic can be found at Daniel Christian Wahl's 170607 Medium post, The Three Horizons of Innovation and Culture Change.
So an important component to capacity building is this global/group experience. In my experience it can be positive in moving along a sustaining effort, or it can be negative in percolating a toxic environment. In Harrisburg I believe that things have been the later. I find toxic environments existing from multiple inputs such as a shared negative experience, bonding through trauma (Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma Informed Communities), and sometimes even in immobility due to fear of change. In my work with various types of organizations over the years, I have found John Brothers and Anne Sherman's book, Building Nonprofit Capacity: A Guide to Managing Change Through Organizational Lifecycles to be invaluable. In it they follow the work of Susan Kenny Steven's who developed a 7 State Lifecycle Model. This is one of the best ways to visualize the the organic nature of organizations. We shouldn't expect them to last for ever, and in the book they look at High Arc (an exuberant, fast growing entity) and Low Arc (a steady, slow growing entity). You may know of some of these organizations and I've seen many operating at different stages. I stumbled upon this book in the fall of 2015 and it helped to clarify the cycle and when to recognize a point of reinvestment in the Turnaround Stage. This is expressed in the dashed arrow-headed line in Figure 1.1. The book is clear that when an entity is at the Turnaround State (which can linger for years) there needs to be some growth mindset to address the big questions of "why do we exist?" In all the nonprofit research the authors see 3 Distinct Paths:
Do a 180 degree turn around (through very serious Strategic Planning and Visioning)
Partner with another organization (depends on the missions of both organizations)
Close the organization (assess the mission and if there is energy to sustain either two previous options)
The example of capacity building that I have expressed with teachers, residents, community members, is that of people walking along together, looking after one another, working in heart and mind. It is in the perseverance to work through issues to get to the bottom of issues, to seek truth, ultimately doing what is right for students. Working together in supporting one another. This is an ongoing, cyclical effort, where individuals and organizations need to be self aware.
This is in the acts such as these. When a teacher begins to reach out to another teacher, or outside their own school, this is a big move. When a Learning Community begins to develop around STEM/STEAM or AV Broadcasting telling internal stories of student achievement and outside community stories in a way that builds a collective awareness, progress occurs. At the community level, when citizens begin to rely on each other and also offer up solutions to bigger problems we face, progress occurs. A paradigm shift happens when the thinking isn’t about what we need, but what we have to offer. Essentially capacity can be measured through a reinvested back into the system. While Lex Sisney doesn't specially talk about this from an educational perspective, I found this image helpful to visualize the process.
One caveat in all of this capacity building, is a very real need to decouple the person from the process. Many times, particularly in our current national state, we are of the collective mindset that something or someone will save us. We rely on “messiahs” to fix problems, which is completely opposite to capacity building. The former is about putting all the focus on one person, and the later is spreading the load between the collective skills of everyone involved. I see the later as diversifying risk throughout the entire group. I think it is our human nature to look to fall into a pattern of following strong charismatic leaders. WIthout much scholarly study, I believe this is evident throughout history, even to the detriment to the health/lives of a society. Blindness sets in and ignorance prevails and truth is diluted or lies undiscovered/unsought.
This is where I find us currently standing. We have a choice to move forward together, accepting the faults of the past, choosing to forgive, and promise to do better. I see this as the crux of BeHbg, the name of the Harrisburg Comprehensive Plan website. Locally and nationally I see the voices of youth becoming the ones of logic and reason, where us adults need to step back, provide a platform and be mentors, to guide the process. The youth might fail in some of the process, and that’s okay. This is the learning process. If we are honest, we’ve failed them. We’ve not stewarded the things that we were given. We haven’t tended to the educational process to provide them the means and tools to sustain. We’ve sometimes hoarded what we have achieved and not shared the byproduct, or shared the stories of what was accomplished.
This is how I see these two quotes intertwining. Early in college the term ZEITGEIST appeared in my vocabulary. It was from a history class. The professor liked to use it during the Modern Era because of all the changes. At the time, I wondered what it was like to be part of a Zeitgeist. To be in the change.
Another related term is as EPOCH. I’ve been wondering about this term as we are in between two epochs. The one of the past of Horizon #1, and the one of the future Horizon #3. This is both exciting and frightening.
Recently this term surfaced in my mind. There is this interesting change happening. This is evident in the importance of the movie the Black Panther (as well as the 2016 movie 13th). It is evident in the social movements such as the #metoo movement / #neveragain movement. There is becoming a more open discussion for the very real issues that everyone is facing.
Each day I am encouraging youth to be more vocal to express the very real issues they face. This is what is most exciting about working as a Fellow. To share in small victories of educational growth and curiosity.
Next month, I’ll carry this theme of capacity building into the realm of education, by looking at the PA STEM Competition and the HACC Engineering Career Day.
Until then, here are some great inspirational African American Inventors, connecting to the character of Shuri (T'Challa’s younger sister), played by Letitia Wright. This character is so powerful and inspiring for many. Even Vox writer Caroline Framke has a wonderful 180220 article on how Shuri's tech surpasses that of Toni Stark. As a woman recently said to me, “now there is a real Disney princess.” Enough said!
Famous African American Inventors
SCHOLASTIC TEACHERS ACTIVITY GUIDE: FAMOUS AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS
PDF LIST OF KNOWN AFRICAN-AMERICAN INVENTORS 1845-1980
BIOGRAPHY.COM
WIKIPEDIA.ORG
NATIONAL CENTER FOR WOMEN & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOCHICAS
THE HIDDEN GENIUS PROJECT
BLACK GIRLS ROCK!
BLACK GIRLS CODE
One final African American History Month point to mention...
The North Star was published during 1847 0 1863 in the Talman Building - 25 E. Main Street, Rochester NY. This can be found at the Freethought Trail website. Rochester was home to another freethought activist, Abner Cole, who published The Liberal Advocate under the pseudonym, Obadiah Dogberry.
