Tea Party of the Radical Center?

Last year Thomas Friedman proposed a Tea Party of the radical center. A contradiction in terms? Yes. Helpful vision? Maybe so. I'm left thinking about this vision after TFA's 20th Anniversary Summit in DC.



Like NYCORE (NY Collective of Radical Educators) and Grassroots Education Movement (grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com), I was expecting the event to feel something like a scientology convention. When Joel Klein said, "Is this our Egypt moment?" and something like "Don't be afraid to stand up to the big interests," I felt a little seasick. Does he say things like that to Rupert or Bill and Melinda. Disgusting. Orwellian.

However, I chose to attend sessions throughout the day that were led mostly by TFA alums who have been in the classroom for 10 and 15 years. Are they the majority? No, but they're out there. And all reaffirmed my connection to the organization. They shared tips and stories about building strong community with students, parents and fellow teachers.

With this in mind, I felt much better at the closing session. An alumna who is a PhD candidate at Temple had good things to say. And I was convinced that the two alumni state senators who spoke are more faithful public servants than the average politician. At the end, a kid from KIPP's orchestra was singing under his breath as he was playing backup to John Legend. Pretty good stuff.

Progress with Non-Fiction

About the difference between fiction and non-fiction, I'm afraid that my kids only understand that "stories are not real" and that "non-fiction is not a story."

So today I asked, "we know that most non-fiction doesn't have a problem and resolution, then what does it have?"

Ashley yelled out, "facts!"

"Good. What types of facts?" I asked. We ended up with this chart through a process in which I asked them to recall non-fiction books that we read, i.e.

Me: "Process is about how things happen. What books did we read this year about how something happens?" -

Kids: "From Pit to Peach Tree"

Me: "Ok, what process, what thing that happened, did that book teach us"

Kids: "How trees grow?"

Me: "Ok, so growth is one of the types of facts that's a process."

(Note: all this was focused to lead up to the skill of summarizing a non-fiction text by writing a main idea and two details.)