Know Me, Know Us Project

 

Know Me, Know Us Project

July 11, 2021

Starting With Why

“Start with why” urges ethnographer Simon Sinek (2009), and that’s the thread that has woven throughout our learning in the CURR 501: Digital Media Literacy course this summer. Why do I want to engage with the content of this particular graduate course, why does technology matter, and why am I even a teacher? Dr. Bogad has urged us to first “find our why” to guide our project design; to find that thing that (as anthropologist Michael Wesch argues) will be “worth it” (2016). So after many lists and scribbles and journal pages, here’s what I’ve arrived at - my working definition of the “WHY” behind the Know Me, Know Us Project:

I believe that in order for students to learn best, they need to be SEEN and KNOWN and RESPECTED. I believe that each human being is a gift to our community and the world beyond. Students need to feel that their individuality is a gift.

Further, I believe that in order to collectively change the world, we need to be seen and known and respected, so that our ideas are valued and we can collaborate productively to innovate, create, and dream beyond our current situations. We need to feel that we are a gift to the world - each and every one of us-and that our contributions can make the world a better place.

My project, which integrates Soundtrap and the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards, is focused on self-expression through oral communication, so individuals can share who they are and increase understanding of their unique and beautiful selves. Ultimately, the overarching goal of the project is to increase pride, confidence, and self-esteem of every individual in my school community.

All Hands On Deck

Why do we need to feel self-worth? There are so many reasons; too many to list here, so I’ll focus on one personal tenet that I know many others share: we need "all hands on deck" to make the world a better place. I’ve long been thinking about this idea as the reason why social justice exists, and how we might use technology to achieve the goals of equity, liberty, and justice for all. The writing of Wesch resonates this idea; in his “Anti-teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance” (2008), he uses Buckminster Fuller’s term “Spaceship Earth” to argue that the “grand narrative” that will potentially “harness and bring significance back to the classroom” is that “we are all interconnected, sharing one planet, and that our future depends on us.” In the same essay, Wesch examines a lecture hall class of 500 students, noting that 

while the sheer number of students is a burden in one sense, there is also tremendous potential. Think of the knowledge and life experience in that single room, if only I could find a way to harness it! I wanted the students to be fully engaged, talking to one another, grappling with interesting questions, and exploring any and all resources to find answers, and more importantly, more questions. (6) 

Similarly, the sociologist Sherry Turkle (2012) notes that we can “use technology to make this life a life we can love.” 

The importance of interconnectedness has surfaced in my learning again and again and has shaped my thinking. Thanks to my classmate Zoe Rogers, I’ve been introduced to adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy (2017). Like Wesch and Turkle, brown argues for “interdependence” so “we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways.” To achieve interdependence, brown writes, “we have to decentralize our idea of where solutions and decisions happen, where ideas come from” (87). I’m still in the process of reading Emergent Strategy and as I continue with the book, I see the theme of “all hands on deck” everywhere. Indeed it’s not really even a metaphor, as we’re literally aboard Spaceship Earth, voyaging through the unknown universe, confronting the actual devastating catastrophes of climate change, dire poverty, and too much power in the hands of too few people. Both brown and Wesch remind us that “ideas come from” anywhere, “if only [we can] find a way to harness” them!

The Plan (aka “How”)

Before I developed my plan, I returned to what I believe about how students learn. Dr. Bogad encouraged us to think about our favorite learning experiences as students, as well as the times when we felt most confident and effective as teachers. After writing about and analyzing those experiences, I arrived at this working statement: I believe that students need time, autonomy, trust, and freedom to learn. My plan is to be the "Granny" as Sugata Mitra (2013) suggests, to ask questions and give students space, time, and freedom to explore. I’m committed to aligning this project with Mitra’s SOLE technique and to cultivate a setting where a Self-Organized Learning Environment can occur. I don’t think leaving a computer in a hole in a wall will quite work with my goals for my school, but I do know that my students will achieve far more with a SOLE than they would if I were to place too many parameters on the project. (Here I offer a substantial caveat: in my small private school, I have a great deal of pedagogical freedom, and my students tend to have their basic needs met, and then some. I do think that ALL students and schools need time, autonomy, trust, and freedom, but I acknowledge that a student who is dealing with hunger, lack of shelter, and other stressful circumstances may need a different structure for this activity than what I have planned here.)

More on my “how,” with further context:  I’ve been named the director of Community and Inclusion, which is my school’s name for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I’ve decided that our community would benefit from using the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards as a framework for our anti-racism and inclusion work. My decision to start with the standards is in response to several colleagues’ concerns that we were diving too quickly into the “deep end” of social justice work, and that we needed to start with the basics -i.e. Developing a sense of our own individual identities. Thankfully, Learning for Justice has done just that and I can use their resources to get started.

The main Social Justice standard that will serve as a focus for this project is SJS4 or “Students will express pride, confidence and healthy self-esteem without denying the value and dignity of other people.”

The term "student" here applies not only to my 4th grade class and other children in the school, but also to teachers. In the Community and Identity workshops that I am developing for our faculty and staff around the Social Justice Standards, my learners will be my colleagues. I want to first explore using Soundtrap to create "Know me" podcasts with my students, and then do this work with my colleagues. And yes, I will try it out with students first because I know that they have much more willingness than adults to take more time to figure out the program and grow from their mistakes!

My plan is to use Soundtrap to have students record themselves answering a question about themselves and to create a podcast. I'm also toying with the idea of an interview, where perhaps my 4th grade classes first learn how to use Soundtrap, and then interview younger students (like our 3s class) and / or teachers who might feel more reluctant to engage with Soundtrap on their own.

My classmate Tamera Garlington helped me think about how helpful it might be to have some questions ready in advance so students could have more freedom to work with the tools. The questions that I have arrived at center around food. In my Pecha Kucha, I presented three possibilities: “Tell us about dinner at your house” or “Tell us about your family’s most special meal” or “Tell us about a favorite family recipe.” I like these questions for a few reasons. One is that I think everyone loves to talk about food (ok, so I love to talk about food!). Another is that I can use the Home Cooking Podcast, hosted by Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway, to model what this kind of recording might sound like. There’s a great episode - Episode 3 (2020) - in which Hrishi interviews his father about a favorite family dish. I thought that episode could serve as a helpful example for my learners. I think that food as a topic is so personal and also so indicative of the plurality of cultures and backgrounds represented in our community. There are so many different ways to make “Jewish” food from all over the world, and our community represents a tremendous range of cultural backgrounds. I can’t wait to listen to everyone’s food stories, and I have an idea that there will somehow be a giant potluck feast attached to this project...

Here’s another WHY, focused on teachers: I really want to help those teachers who are reluctant about using technology to feel excited about it. Soundtrap is a means to an end, and the end is to be SEEN and KNOWN and RESPECTED. Soundtrap is just the medium I chose. But I think about how extraordinary it would be for our Hebrew teachers to be able to tell us about themselves in their native Hebrew and record it, and then have a student do a voice-over translation, or maybe even simply an interview. I feel that the excitement they have around this project will help them learn Soundtrap and hopefully consider using it and other recording technology in their language classes. I want them to move from what Scott Noon (2005) refers to as “Technocrat” or “Techno-Traditionalist” (or even Preliterate!) to “Techno-Constructivist.” I too need to make this shift - honestly, I've really just continued to teach the way I typically have, but have digitized things, and though I feel quite adept with technology, I haven't tapped into creativity enough to really consider myself a Techno-Constructivist. I want to move both myself and my school community towards a more Tehcno-Constructivist style. Learning through doing - with time, space, and autonomy - is so much more interesting and engaging than me "teaching" them through a slideshow. Remember (telling myself here): I'm the Granny! I don't do the work. I just stand back and encourage. (And I've been doing the work for our teachers who are afraid of technology too often.)

Final Product (or the “What”)

The end product will be a living podcast show page (similar to the Home Cooking site) that I am tentatively naming "Know Me, Know Us." Thank you Roberto Vargas Tapia for helping me think of this project as a shared community resource to post on our school's website! Ideally every member of the JCDSRI community will have a recording about themself posted on this page. I see it living under the “About Me” tab on the JCDSRI website, and I see a possibility for each person to have multiple podcast recordings under their names if they choose. My hope is that we can continue to use this podcast space to explore the Social Justice Standards.

I want us to express our pride, confidence, and self-esteem and relish in the diversity of our community. And ultimately, I want my students and colleagues to feel that their presence is needed and valued both in our school and on Spaceship Earth, and to know that their ideas - and the ideas of ALL people - may very well transform the world. 

Works Cited

brown, a.m. (2017). Emergent Strategy: shaping change, changing worlds. AK Press.

Mitra, S. (2013, February). Build a school in the cloud [Video]. Ted2013. https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud#t-10440

Noon, S. (2005). From McKenzie, Walter. Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology: A Manual for Every Mind. (2nd edition) ISTE.

Nosrat, S. and Hirway, H. (2020, April 21) Episode 3: Cod Save America [Podcast]. Home Cooking. https://homecooking.show/episodes/3

Sinek, S. (2009, September). How great leaders inspire action [Video]. TedEx Puget Sound. https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action#t-13625

Social Justice Standards: A Framework for Anti-Bias Education. Retrieved 11 July 2021. https://www.learningforjustice.org/frameworks/social-justice-standards

Turkle, S. (2012, March). Connected, but alone? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4&t=19s

Wesch, M. (2008). Anti-teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance. Education Canada, 48(2), 4-7.

Wesch, M. (2016, April). What Baby George Taught Me About Learning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP7dbl0rJS0

Link to self-assessment rubric here.