The Action Team in Pictures

The school year is winding down and the pilot year of the Action Team is drawing to a close as well. Although perhaps our most ambitious project is ahead of us (more about that in a moment), we find ourselves in a reflective mood. During our most recent session, we took time to revisit the original program goals to determine just how well they've been met. Of course, this being the Action Team, we found a creative way to share our conclusions . . . through drawing. Below are the goals, the drawings created, and the ideas shared.

(1) Action Team members will increase their knowledge, skills, and awareness of their personal power and how to use it to effect change in the school community.


"WIth our newfound personal power we feel like the world is now open to us and we have the ability to make positive changes in it."

(2) Team members will have a deeper understanding of their own racial and cultural identities and how to work with others of diverse backgrounds.


"We can now see other races within ourselves. The picture also represents the transfor-
mation that we feel."


(3) Team members will create a new guiding vision and way of being within the school.

"This picture represents the school embracing families. The rainbow represents our new vision. All of the ideas in the rainbow have been a part of our projects."

(4) Team members will develop action projects to build toward the new vision.



"The ground is the community. IMPACT and the school are the strong stem. The projects emanate from the stem, supported by the ground. The projects have been helping the school grow into a limitless, positive (smiling question marks) multicultural (all the different colors) future."





Final Project (for this school year)

Action Team members brainstormed several fantastic ideas for the next and final project of this school year. Some of the suggestions included creating a family resource center at the school, increasing the amount and quality of volunteer opportunities for parents, and outfitting the school building with multi-lingual signage. Although Team members intend to pursue each of these actions in the future, it was decided that the next project should be welcoming the 60 new students to Piney Branch who will be coming to the school for the 2010 - 2011 school year because of re-drawn school boundaries. This is a big and potentially high impact project. Check back with us soon to find out how the planning is going!

The Action Team in ACTION!

Testing, Testing, 1 2 3, Testing
MSA testing
Testing for racism, testing your patience
Shaping your experience
Your culture
A culture of racism, cultural or institutional
Testing our institutions, our resolve
Our children are testing
Our preferences, bias, and power
The power of a test
The racism of the test
Testing

--Ken, Action Team Member

Written after our last session during which we evaluated our MSA Night project through the lens of racism. Powerful conversation. Powerful poem.



Action Team members join with IMPACT's Neighbors Campaign volunteers to go door-knocking at Essex House apartments on Maple Avenue in Takoma Park. We knocked on 130 doors to share info and make connections with our neighbors living at the complex. We also invited residents to a Neighbors Exchange being held in their community room the following Tuesday.




The Neighbors Exchange at Essex House had record breaking attendance! Here, Ken (5th grade teacher at PBES and Action Team member) chats with a parent about the upcoming MSA. Ken staffed a resource table at the event.

MSA Night!

By all accounts, the February 24th MSA Night event at Piney Branch Elementary School was a big success! MSA stands for the Maryland State Assessment—the state standardized test taken by 3rd through 8th graders. MSA Night provided an opportunity for parents and children to learn more about the test and gain tips for improving student achievement.

The large turnout (more than 100 parents and children!) showed that there was a high level of interest in the topic. The parent-child event brought out diverse families, with representation from just about every demographic group at the school.

The MSA Night event was a project developed and implemented by members of the Piney Branch Action Team. The MSA event embodied many of the Multicultural Criteria developed by the Team. It was an event that:
 Created trust and relationship building opportunities across cultures.
 Fostered a warm and welcoming multicultural drop-in environment.
 Encouraged passionate teaching, learning and parenting to support all cultures.

Action Team members thought long and hard about ways to make the event inviting and interesting to the multicultural school community. Amharic and Spanish translation were provided and handouts were offered in those languages as well. Childcare and dinner were provided. The test prep book used during the event was trimmed down to make it more accessible. An MSA Night information table was staffed by Action Team members during the previous night’s Black History Month event. Nine of the families engaged at that event came out the next night to the MSA event!

Principal Bertram Generlette began the evening with an overview of the MSA that included information about how the test is administered, what is covered, and statistics on Piney Branch’s performance. Also included in the overview was a discussion of the achievement gap and how it plays out related to the MSA.

One of the highlights of the evening was a segment called “Taste of the Test.” Ken Allen, a 5th grade science teacher and Action Team member, led the interactive session that had parents and kids working together to answer sample test questions. Ken had this to say about the segment:

“After I handed out the tests and explained what I wanted them to do, everyone got to work. Ten or fifteen minutes later I looked out over the parents and children and saw how hard they were all working. I commented to someone that this was the ‘perfect class’: a low murmur of conversation exactly on task. The conversation was going both ways: children explaining some things to their parents and parents encouraging and challenging their children. Perfect!”

The evening ended on a fun note as ESOL teacher Rachna Rikhye (also an Action Team member) raffled off prizes that parents could use at home to help children learn math skills. Kids enjoyed coming up front to receive clocks, measuring cups, tape measures, and cake pans. Action Team members hope that this event represents the first of what will become an annual school gathering.

Check out this video of what PBES parent Tina McGuire and Principal Generlette had to say about the event.

The Snow Can't Stop Our Momentum!

Despite having to cancel two consecutive meetings because of snow, Action Team members were able to connect today to continue planning for the next round of action projects. Just how did we do that? Via conference call. Hurrah for technology!

Even though our last meeting was a distant three weeks ago on January 20th, Team members were able to quickly pick up where we'd left off. We'd already determined that our next round of projects would have an MSA (Maryland State Assessment) focus. Today we reached consensus on holding at least three MSA Night events--one at the school and two in the community (most likely at apartment complexes close to the school). Bertram suggested that February 24th would be a good date for the school event.


Why an MSA focus? Well, the Action Team's larger concentration is on student achievement and, as Jane put it, the MSA can be a big hurdle to that achievement. Vineda offered that the MSA is an interesting case study for our group's ongoing conversations about the achievement gap. Tebabu said that his assessment is that, "for immigrant parents the MSA is totally foreign to them." Lora offered that the MSA can be a mystery for many parents. One big goal of the MSA action projects is increasing parental awareness and empowerment.

Our next Action Team meeting is on Wednesday, February 17th. Prior to that meeting, Ray and Tebabu will develop action research questions that Team members can take out into the community to gather MSA feedback. Team members will be dividing into smaller groups to plan each of the MSA Night events. Undoubtedly the community feedback will be helpful to that planning.

There is much to be done in a very short period of time, but as the saying goes, "Many hands make light work."

Personal Thoughts About Joining the Piney Branch Action Team

Joining the Action Team has been, for me personally, a surprisingly powerful experience. I strongly believe in making the world a better place, but I'm also an introvert, and trained as a scientist/computer programmer, so I gravitate to work that is solitary, and hope that others will be able to use what I produce in a good way. How to create change in a community setting, with all of the competing interests that implies, has always been a discouraging mystery to me.

The most important part of this experience for me was the retreat. To be honest, when I came to the retreat I was rather cautious, feeling that I wouldn't have anything to talk about for two days. The early conversations made me feel even more isolated, as it became clear that the group as a whole had a strong religious / spiritual foundation which I did not share. However, several of the sharing and trust building exercises helped me see the human experiences I had in common with people, and in the end I talked about non-belief with the entire group and found that it was not a barrier. This was a first for me, because in the I've never shared my atheism with a large group -- and usually I've only joined groups where non-belief is assumed (as in many scientific circles). It was also (literally) a frightening moment for me, as I'd slowly come to the conclusion that I actually wanted to be accepted by the group.

Often, living in Montgomery County, I feel like I'm walking back and forth on a daily basis between two different counties -- one very diverse community at Montgomery College and on the metrobus and at Action Team meetings, and a different and less diverse community at Girl Scouts and carpools and play dates and doctors' offices. Takoma Park is filled with people of good will, but good will without actual exposure and activity doesn't get you very far. It would be amazing to see the kinds of trust-building experiences we went through repeated on a smaller scale in, for example, the PTA, or among parents within homerooms.

I also feel that my ties to the school itself have been strengthened. Ten years ago, I pulled my two older children out of this same school after meeting with teachers and counselors, and I continued homeschooling them through graduation. I decided to try the school again with my daughter (now in third grade) but I was skeptical. When I found out about the Action Team, I decided to join partly to try to avert another meltdown. Hearing so much about the school and its efforts has certainly allayed many of my concerns, and knowing that the school administration is open to changes and improvements has been *hugely* important in helping me be more comfortable.

So, thank you everyone who has made this possible and participated along the way. Can't wait to see how the rest of the year goes...

Sharing With the Community

On Thursday, January 7th Tebabu Assefa and Ken Allen spoke to members of the Piney Branch Elementary School PTA about their experiences as members of the Action Team. IMPACT staffer Lanita Whitehurst was on-hand to give background on both the organization and the program. Also there, lending moral support, were Action Team members Rachna Rikhye and Bertram Generlette.

This forum was a great opportunity to share with others what is happening with the Action Team. It was also a time to begin spreading the work and experiences to the larger school community. Action Team members extended an invitation to sign-up to be a part of the spring Action projects. That work will be kicking-off soon with even more members of the PBES community participating!

Thanks to PBES PTA co-presidents Ally Zevin and Adrienne Tilton for the opportunity to be a part of the meeting.

Check out this clip to hear Tebabu and Ken.

Bringing Multiculturalism to Life

During the November 18th PBAT session, participants did a bit of exploration of the term "multicultural." The term is central to the Team's work of of creating a culture that more fully acknowledges, supports, and celebrates Piney Branch Elementary School's multicultural identity. Because of the significance of the word in our context, it's important to explore its various meanings and how it's understood by individual Team members.

One of the activites on the 18th had Team members collaborate to create three collages made up of pictures that, for individual Team members, represented the word “multicultural." This week’s session (December 2nd) had participants revisit those collages to gain a deeper understanding of the term.

With the three collages hanging on the wall, our facilitator, Kimberly, asked participants to choose one picture, word or phrase (in any of the collages) that spoke to them regarding the term “multicultural.” After the choices were made, Team members were then asked to try to embody the chosen picture, word or phrase--to actually bring the picture to life.

After warming-up a bit, each Team member took a turn sharing his or her choice from the collages by striking a pose that represented the picture. Although it was clearly often challenging to symbolize a picture or word with the body, participants were very creative and enjoyed the opportunity to breathe life into multiculturalism.

In addition to using their bodies for representation, Team members were asked to explain their choices. The conversation was rich and the ideas around defining multiculturalism were broad and imaginative. Here are a few highlights:

* I am The Gift of Transformation – I am for everyone. I can be messy and uncomfortable, but through me we all become more beautiful. Being able to change is a gift.

* I am Love – We must first love ourselves to love others. Recognize and accept your own prejudices first, and then you can accept others without hate.

* I am Embrace -- I am a woman of color who embraces her blackness, her physical features. Show children of color positive images that look like them in books, magazines, movies. Embrace differences.

* I am Hope and Resistance – We put up boundaries that we’re unwilling to cross, but if we can talk and expose our vulnerability, we can create balance.

* I am The Duality of Multiculturalism – The duality is in the essence and form. Embody by celebrating the form, but put trust in humanity. We are human beings at the core. Respect form and embrace others to strike balance.

* I am a Spigot – From the flow there is no change only added value. We do not change who we are, but we shine more brightly.

After the individual sharing, participants debriefed the exercise in large group. Bertram (PBES' principal) shared that he appreciated using this method to explore the definition of “multicultural.” Rather than trying to come up with a linear statement, this approach allowed for a more expansive meaning of the term to surface. Other Team members echoed his comment, saying that their understanding of the term had been enlarged.