So today we woke up to a bright and shiny - Erm, I mean, wet and rainy - morning looking forward to African Heritage Dancers and Drummers as well and a tour of the D.C. SEED school. Despite the rain, we managed to have a great time laughing and joking with one another and had some great experiences as well.
The African American Dancers and Drummers seminar was amazing. There is a video of us dawgs gettin our groove on to the beats of Melvin's drumming a couple of posts below. Melvin founded this program 55 years ago while attending Howard University as an elementary ed major. He was asked to utilize his skills of dance to help urban students learn and grow. He eventually decided that the students needed him more in the community, where he can work with all sorts of students, rather than in only one classroom. He works with students in groups ages 4-13 and 14-18. He runs both after school programs and a summer program.
He started out by showing us some simple hand motions that stood for things we often need to tell our students such as, "focus," "pay attention," "keep your hands to yourself," and others. The signs could really help us save time in our classroom! Melvin also taught us quite a bit about "Afro-Native American History," which is the history of those with both African and Native American blood. He gave us much insight and information on different issues regarding slavery, past culture, and present culture. After that he explained his program and how it works. He gave us quite a bit of insight on the different ways that teachers need to allow students to grow and how they can use dance, meditation, and art in the classroom to facilitate that. One of his main points was that teacher need to make sure that students know they are important. A great quote to sum up his advice:
"As teachers, we have to own our definition. We cannot let someone take that away from us. Know who you are and be confident enough in yourself to know that you can impact students. Some people (parents, fellow teachers, etc) might tell you that you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that; that it will have no impact on the students. Prove that it can. Own your definition."
He then gave us an example of his drumming and taught us some killa moves! Check out the video below.
We also went to tour the SEED school, featured in Waiting for Superman, which is the first public boarding school in America. Our path to the school became a bit convoluted after a few wrong turns, and we ended up walking in the rain up and down a few hills unnecessarily. We found a way to make it fun, though, and we had a great time bonding on the way! The ironic part was that at the beginning of our tour we saw a SEED school van and thought, "Hey! Maybe they could give us a ride!" but laughed that idea off and assumed the van was on school business. We later found out that the school had, unbeknownst to us, sent the van to pick us up - we learned this about thirty minutes later when we finally arrived to the school soaked and silly.
Our tour was lead by a junior and senior who had both been there since 7th grade, when the school accepted students. They now start accepting in 6th grade. The tour was very genuine and interesting! We got to see the whole school, many of the students, the dorms, the classrooms, and ask the students as many questions as we wanted to ask. Our tour guides were very funny and interesting. They were definitely doing all that they could to make us comfortable and ensure that we were getting all that we wanted and needed.
After the tour we had some free time since our appointment with Dr. Kanter got cancelled, so we went downtown and had a nice meal and a short bit of sight seeing. Tomorrow when we have our designated sight-seeing time, we will already have an idea of where we want to go! We are looking forward to a great time and will certainly keep you all updated again. Be sure to check out the videos and reflects below this entry!
Peace, love, and UNITE!
No comments:
Post a Comment