On Monday, Cari Land facilitated a very fruitful meeting with me and several representatives from The Center for Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities, part of The Texas Health and Human Services Commission. We met with Project Manager Sheila Sturgis, as well as the Center's Melonee Carter and Demaris Nicholson. Some great dialogue surrounding Courageous Conversations and ways to examine our own personal biases about race. Ms. Sturgis presented some eye opening statistics from the most current studies and we left the meeting with a planned joint training involving Kealing Middle School staff during our 13-14 preservice week. These are sometimes difficult conversations to have - being color blind is not the answer - and I know we'll gain much personal insight from the work we will do together.
Fifth grade teacher Kati Guimbarda Dean also recently tackled a tough subject in her language arts classes. Connected to the class novel Maniac Magee, she had her students explore the Myths of Homelessness, with students conducting research around those myths and creating images and findings through the use of GlogsterEDU. The pictures and words are powerful reminders that homelessness is most often not a choice and some common preconceived notions are not necessarily true. This activity further served as a reminder that the use of multimedia arts tools can and do act as powerful change agents in our world. Job well done and some sobering information for us all.
