-Career fair Presenters- On April 28th we are going to have our first ever career fair at Ward 6. We are currently looking for presenters in the following areas, so if you would like to present or know of someone who would be interested in participating, please have them contact me. The areas are as follows: Sports/Athlete, Arts, Business, journalism, Science, and Computer technology. We are going to need all hands on deck to make sure the event goes smoothly and I encourage you all to come and join us if you don’t traditionally mentor on Tuesday nights. Lastly, I have posted the career fair notes and form letter on the sidebar of the blog if you would like to take a look at them or need to refer them to someone.
-Upcoming dates:
• Spring break March 23-27th (No Center)
• Easter break April 13th-17th (No Center)
-Capitol Hill Classic- Join our Center Director Mr. matt in participating in the 30th Anniversary Capital Hill Classic 10k race. You can register for this race at www.capitolhillclassic.com. If you plan on participating, or are interesting in supporting ward 6, please contact Mr. Matt at mthornton@higherachievement.org. All Ward 6 participants will receive a Higher Achievement T-shirt. Go Ward 6!
-Isis Update- Mentors, please make sure your emergency contact information, address, etc… is up to date in ISIS.
-Housekeeping:
-Please assist staff in managing scholar behavior during Community Meeting and Gathering Time. If we are going to continue to cultivate a positive culture at Center, it is important for all of us to be engaged during this time.
-Session Feedback- As a reminder, please continue to get your session feedback forms into me each week within 24 hrs of your mentoring session.
I know the following is super-long, so I don't really expect many people to read the whole thing. But I thought I would share it, for literature mentors especially but really for al of us, because I believe that it conveys important messages about literacy and its implications for social change. The excerpt comes from the book "Rock My Soul," by bell hooks. If you are not familiar with her, bell hooks is an English professor and activist in the areas of race, gender, and class equality. Her language can be strong at times, but I think her work is thought-provoking at the least. Quoting her here seems especially appropriate given the time of year, since we just moved from Black History Month into Women's History Month.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy!
“In working on writing, I have documented the intensity of my working-class father’s pursuit of learning, his passion for reading. A race man interested in racial uplift, he was then and is today clear that black people can never count [solely] on schools to give us a well-rounded education, one where black history and culture are affirmed. Any examination of those periods in American history where African Americans have been engaged in organized transformation in the interest of civil rights and freedom reveals an intense focus on reading. In the wake of civil rights and black power antiracist movement black writers wrote an amazing body of nonfiction work aimed at educating other black people. The purpose of this literature was to provide a mass-based audience with the information and knowledge that would serve as the basis for critical thinking. This was a literature of resistance; its purpose was to educate and transform consciousness. From the late sixties to the end of the seventies, on public transportation all around the United States black folks of all classes could be seen reading the works of Gwendolyn Brooks, Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Malcolm X, Alex Haley, Eldridge Cleaver, George Jackson, Sonia Sanchez, Toni Bambara, Mari Evans, and a host of other black thinkers and writers who were bringing the world to the people.
Often the messages of education for critical consciousness first came to the people through performance art, in places where music and the spoken word converged. This configuration, particularly the use of popular music to express political self-determination, enabled learning to take place that did not depend on literacy. Significantly, individual black folks, especially black males, were often compelled to read more, either to learn to read for the first time or to improve their reading skills, because they hungered for the new knowledge that led them in the direction of black liberation.
During this period black-owned and –operated publications were abundant. It was an accepted given that one could not go to the ethnocentric racist white press and expect it to publish militant dissident work. Yet corporate white publishing did recognize the value of this new reading material and made its interest known by publishing bestselling works such as Soul on Ice, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. These works were read by black folks from all classes. Prison writing, both letters and books, carried the message that it was possible for incarcerated black men to education themselves for critical consciousness through reading. In his life stories Malcolm X shared that reading and critical thinking led to the transformation of critical consciousness.
This was the period of my critical political awakening. I came to consciousness at the end of the sixties. During my first year of college I read the necessary texts required for an English major and I devoured the work of black writers and thinkers. Now and then these writers were taught in newly formed ethnic studies classes, but for the most part I found them through conversation with dissident thinkers of all races. And once again, as in my childhood when I found more black writers by going to the public library, I turned again to libraries to fill the gap. This was an amazing time, because the prevailing mood was one of resistance and transformation. Militant black powers were calling all black folks to take responsibility for building healthy self-esteem. Reading the right books was deemed essential for self-actualization.
Much of the work black writers published, such as Don L. Lee’s From Plan to Planet: Life Studies for Afrikan Minds and Institutions, had long book lists at the end to guide the reader to further work. Lee’s book was published by Broadside Press Institute of Positive Education; it cost $1.95. There were many similar works circulated as pamphlets. Even though many of these new black thinkers were coming from middle-class backgrounds, they were addressing their message to the black masses, and by doing so they continued a tradition of antiracist resistance, which encouraged all black folks to read and write, to develop critical consciousness.
This focus on reading, writing, and publishing was a crucial intervention because it helped lay the groundwork for a public cultural context where the development of black self-esteem could be identified as a personal and political necessity for all black people. Conversation, dialogues about the issues, were a vital part of this cultural revolution. When we read about the lives of militant black power advocates we learned that many of them were challenged by interactions with critically conscious friends and acquaintances to educate themselves. The consciousness-raising group, the political rally, the political discussion taking place at the social hour were all spaces where individuals could find support for education for critical consciousness. This was cultural revolution at its best; it promoted dialogue, debate, dialectical exchange. And in this atmosphere of independent thinking black folks were learning how to decolonize our minds and build healthy self-esteem” (pp. 97-99).