Lehman Alternative School

I found my Lehman notes! (refer to my previous post.)

So, we walked into the school and were immediately greeted by Chris Sperry's daughter, Alexis. Immediately, I wondered if she was a teacher or a student. I had to ask: "I'm a senior," she replied. "I've been at this school since 6th grade!" She was, in one word, charismatic. And friendly. And cheerful. I really wonder if her personality was a product of the school environment with which she has been immersed since 6th grade.

We were chauffered into the ASM, or All School Meeting, which took place in the tiny gymnasium (think, the size of a McDonalds restaurant). One student was leading the meeting in which any student could bring any issue to the table, the students would discuss it, then vote. The issue at hand was reinstating a peer mentoring program which had previously counted for the community service hours graduation requirement. True, students and teachers alike were shuffling in their seats, talking, eating, answering cell phones, and generally not paying attention, this meeting seemed to run quite smoothly. I admired the student leading his 200+ peers: I would have never been able to do that at his age.

Next on the agenda was the school tour. Hand-painted murals plastered the walls, doors, and in some cases, ceilings, of the school's interior. Chris Sperry told us that all murals were there by popular vote: a student would have an idea, draw a sketch, and the school would vote whether or not they thought the mural was appropriate for the school or not.

Now, for the Project Look Sharp presentation details.......

One of the more important ideas that Chris Sperry taught us is that, and I'm paraphrasing "If students are literate, they already know that the internet contains all information, and this information must be evaluated for reliability." I agree with this belief wholeheartedly. As teachers, our job is to help guide our students to the understanding that not every webpage, just because it looks good, is credible.

I'd also like to try his suggestion of learning history through the analysis, interpretation, and deconstruction of media and images from that particular time period. Chris gave us the example, I believe, of Saddam Hussein's capture. He advised us to look at newspaper images from all over the world. How is the capture depicted? Are there differences in images from different countries?

Another key point of advice that Chris gave is to "find the core documents in their lives to teach core content." For our demonstration, he used A Beautiful Mind with Russel Crowe. This was a perfect example, even though the movie is a few years old now, we were still more intrigued by it than, say, an old Western movie with John Wayne. As we present these text to our students, Chris said, ask them "Who produced this? And for what purpose?"

Overall, this experience at Lehman was great. I saw yet another school personality to add to my "prospective" list. I also learned that media literacy is not just internet and computer programs, but it is also any text that can be interpreted for meaning.

Bravo!

PS. Happy Spring !!