education summit education summit - Eric Rofes

Saturday, 8:30 am – 10:00 am SESSION 4
Saturday, 8: 0 am – 10:00 am Session 4
THRIVING UNDER PRESSURE:
A WORKSHOP FOR TEACHERS
We are living in difficult times in which significant stress in teachers’
work lives is common. Research conducted since 9/11 indicates
that people can develop their own resilience that helps them make it
through difficult times. Two of the key tools for building resilience are
finding meaning that sustains you and developing a community in
which people help each other through the tough times. Rachel Naolmi
Remen, MD and the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness
at Commonweal in Bolinas have pioneered such work for healthcare
workers. Borrowing elements of Rachel’s outstanding work, we will
create a temporary community in the exploration of what experiences
you have had that bring deep meaning to your work. Participants are
encouraged (but not required) to read Dr. Remen’s “Kitchen Table Wisdom”
before this workshop.
NANCY ANGELO, PH.D. is an organization development consultant
who has over twenty years’ experience in helping people work toether
to meet daunting challenges at work. Her doctorate is in organizational
psychology. She has worked extensively with people working in
healthcare, community-based organizations, education, and the arts &
culture. Contact Nancy at na@angeloconsulting.com.
U
Extended Session: 8:30-11:30
Workshop is limited to the first 10 people.
Founders Hall 204
UNDERSTANDING THE FINANCING OF PUBLIC
SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA
If you are involved in public schools as a teacher, administrator, parent,
student, or policymaker, you want to attend this unique session. This
workshop was requested by summit organizers to provide local educators
and people becoming teachers with a brief demystification of education
funding in our state. How did California drop from 6th in per-pupil school
funding to 35th? How does Proposition 98 work and has it really protected
school funding since its enactment in 1988? Why do some school districts
receive much more per-pupil funding than others? In an era of chronic state
budget deficits, are there any solutions to school funding inequities? These
mysteries and more will be discussed in lay terms for all affected by the
California public education system.
This identical workshop was offered during lunch on Friday.
LEE LIPPS is a school finance specialist for the California Teachers Association.
His responsibilities include individual school district budget analyses,
sitting on fact-finding panels, and analyzing the financial impact of
proposed state education legislation. He recently served on the state committees
that revised the K–12 Criteria and Standards and the State K–12
Audit Guide. Contact him at llipps@cta.org.
Nelson Hall East 106
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North Coast Education Summit 2006 26
CROSS-CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE: EDUCADO
AND SANKOFA
Or how a poor black girl got a white,
middle-class education and still
learned to translate her black cultural
intelligence and identity, despite the
white supremicist academic agenda
In this workshop we will discuss how to redefine academic
achievement using the cultural values of the
students to create and support a true atmosphere of
learning. Dispel myths perpetrated by “unkle toms” and
overseers. It will help any teacher to understand the value of each child’s
distinct culture in the classroom by discussing the experience and damaging
effects of a white supremacist based education on people of color
who have used education to cross cultural, class, gender lines and how the
current structure conflicts with the complex and honorable set of values
within our own cultures—including European ethnicities.
If our cultural values are consciously integrated into today’s classroom it
will improve the quality of teaching, the curriculum, and the classroom
environment in the education system. This workshop will not tell you how
to do it; instead it focuses on WHO you need to become though conscientious
healing before you can find success teaching within the African and
Latino “urban” community. Replacing the “white” middle-class education
system with Latin(a)- and African-based wisdom education is not about
compliance, but about social justice and freedom as students and families
in the community you serve define it.
SEKANI MOYENDA, teacher, activist and author is a third generation
Black educator working in an elementary school for over ten years. She is
co-author with Ann Berlak of Taking It Personally: Racism in the Classroom
from Kindergarten to College. She writes, “Despite all this education,
I am only a stereotype to many white colleagues and a threat to the
unkle toms and overseers who pass for Black. I must not be doing something
“white” but I’m very successful in the classroom because I focus on
social justice.” She can be reached at smoyenda@hotmail.com.
Klamath River Room, Jolly Giant Compound
VIDEO SCREENING:
HOMELANd: FOUR PORTRAITS OF NATIvE
ACTION (2005)
Filmed against some of America’s most spectacular backdrops from Alaska
to Maine and Montana to New Mexico, this award-winning film profiles
Native American activists who are fighting to protect Indian lands,
preserve their sovereignty and ensure the cultural survival of their peoples.
Nearly all 317 Native American reservations in the U.S. face grave
environmental threats—toxic waste, strip mining, oil drilling and nuclear
contamination. This film is a moving tribute to the power of grassroots organizing.
It is also a call-to-action against the current dismantling of thirty
years of environmental laws. (88 minutes)
Native American Issues In Schools
Founders Hall 118
QueSTiOn OF The DAy
how might education and its practitioners foster and sustain full and active
participation in democracy’s institutions and support a more equitable,
peaceful, and environmentally sustainable future?