The House of Soul at the Detroit Heidelberg Project was destroyed by arson in 2013. This fire was one of 12 over a two year period – all arson – that, the last time I checked, have not been solved. I snapped this photo shortly after the House of Soul burned down – a kind of installation/grave site in remembrance.
The final lines of “Pandemania,” a poem by Daniel Halpern.
Some figures on the teacher education side of things:
I’m looking forward to teaching this graduate course in the MSU College of Education come fall. Actually, lemme back up; I’m looking forward to designing and then teaching this graduate course. I stand by the assertion that the first step in course design is actually the meditative process of making the flyer. I had fun with this one on the always useful tool Canva. Next is getting this reading list together.
Status Board
Reading: I picked back up Re:Imagining Change: How to Use Story-Based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World. The ideas in this book are so solid because they’ve been developed and refined through over a decade of collective practice. Someday I’ll use this book in a course I teach about narratives – just narratives.
Listening: “Poem for the Planet,” a groovy house track featuring indestructible Philly poet Ursula Rucker.
Writing: A course description for what you see on the flyer above. Check out the guiding questions:
- What racial-historical contexts gave rise to high-stakes teacher licensure exams?
- How do high-stakes teacher licensure exams both uphold and limit the quality of the teaching profession?
- How has the testing of teachers evolved over time, and why?
- What makes a teacher licensure exam racially biased or unfair?
- What is the range of experiences aspiring teachers have with licensure exams?
- How might scholars envision equitable ways to uphold a high standard of teacher quality?
Right now I don’t have satisfactory answers to this last question. So what I’m most excited about is designing a semester of learning where the class can come to better answers together. It’s always true: All of us together are smarter than any of us alone.