Tuesday, March 6, 2010.
It’s minutes before first class will file into the library when Valerie Barth, a teacher-librarian, remembers that she has to move her car. All the on-street permit parking was taken by the time she arrived Tuesday morning at Horace Mann Middle School, she explains as she dashes out.
No matter. The projector’s set up, her lesson plans ready and in the minutes it takes for students still in their first period class to listen to the announcements that fade in and out over the PA system – don’t pass up the chance to become familiar with your future high schools, increase your math skills – Barth, finds a new parking place.
Even before the bell rings, she’s at the door with her handouts as the eight grade, mostly Latino students, shuffle in to fill the chairs at two long tables. They sit 15 boys at the table on the right and 13 girls at the table on the left. Three students are absent.
“I’m tired from walking up the stairs,” one young girl complains to her friend. There’s an exchange of gum at the boy’s table.
Barth quiets them down and turns their attention to the self portrait by the artist Yolanda Lopez (also a local hero on a mural outside the school) projected on the wall. The lesson is part of an enriched language arts curriculum lesson from World Savvy. Barth focuses on immigration and identity on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her co-teacher Christiana Hart, turns to the literature component on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Barth gives the students five minutes to jot down the words that come to mind as they look at the painting of the Olympian-like woman holding a cape with her left hand and a snake with her right. She has tennis shoes on, appears to be stepping on an angel and shimmers with the halo rays of a Madonna figure.
Murmurs start. “Shut up I’m trying to finish it,” says one boy. “Be quiet I’m doing my work,” says another.
Heads down, the students write about what they see: A girl with a snake, the Virgin of Guadalupe, a runner, a boy, a woman running, a woman strangling a snake, a woman stepping on an infant.
Barth asks them to turn to their neighbor and discuss what the artist was trying to say about herself. “She’s religious,” says one. “Spiritual,” adds another. “She doesn’t like angels.” “Or babies,” adds another.
“How do you spell spiritual?” asks one student. His friend across the table turns his paper over and points to the word.
During the discussion, one young man says, “she looks crazy.”
“Powerful,” a young woman counters.
Others who don’t share aloud have written: “She doesn’t see herself as a virgin, she denies her religion.”
“We think she is proud, she’s a soldier.”
“She’s also religious.”
“She looks dangerous and happy,” concludes one young woman.
Barth pushes her students to dig deeper and shows a contrasting painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. They look at it – some more interested than others.
Earlier in the semester, the students made posters that include a box filled with words of how they see themselves. On the outside, they’ve written the words others would use to describe them.
Barth asks her students to consider what each student was trying to say in their poster.
Inside one box: truthful, honest friendly, funny, helpful.
Outside: liar, disrespectful, lazy, ugly
Inside another: Latino, smart, energetic, can be calm at times, good brother.
Outside: can be crazy at times, easily frustrated, smart, random, funny.
The students walk by the posters and then return to write down their thoughts. Class is almost over so few get to read what they’ve written, but they hand them to Barth as they leave.
The contradictions between interior and exterior perceptions, one young woman offers, could indicate that the person “is putting a wall up and not letting people get to know them or they like someone they are not.”
“I think what other people think about us has to do with what we think about ourselves,” writes another. “and the people we hang out with effect the way we are…”
InClass is a new column to give readers a sense of what it’s like in Mission District classrooms.
This is a fantastic article! This should be reprinted in papers around CA & around the country. I was at the SF Board of Ed rally
against the cuts and lay-offs. This story show’s how teacher’s “work”, and how students
learn. Teacher’s can’t be easily replaced or fired without impacting the students & the community. The teacher has earned the trust of the students, and that is no small feat
I hope this article helps disabuse your readers of the wrongheaded notion that Horace Mann and other schools that teach our most high-need, at-risk youth should be branded as “failing” and have their teachers, administrators and students blamed, shamed and punished and their communities torn apart.
I’m so glad to see this article showing the meaningful teaching and learning going on in Ms. Barth’s class at Horace Mann. Our community needs to hear more stories about the creative work being done by teachers and students in our schools. Learning is about these kinds of moments –something that can’t be measured by “high stakes” standardized tests. Let’s see more articles like this one.
Excellent article that highlights the hard work and collaboration of the teacher and teacher/librarian. Congratulations to Ms. Barth for having her work recognized!
I find this to be profoundly inspiring and such a powerful example of what a great teacher can do for children, and by extension, for our collective future. None of this would be possible without these remarkable teachers.
I have said and will say again, I would be a fraction of the human being I am today if it weren’t for the teachers who inspired and believed in me.
It’s great to see how teacher collaboration like that between teacher/librarian Ms. Barth and teacher Ms. Hart contributes to the life of the school and to student learning. These are the kinds of activities that keep students engaged across the curriculum! Librarians rock!!! And thanks to Prop H (the Public Education Enrichment Fund) for providing funding that includes librarians.
What a great example of what classroom teacher/ librarian teacher collaboration can look like (not to mention how technology can enhance lessons– that one would not have been the same if students were handed black and white xeroxes of Lopez’s work). SFUSD is lucky to have librarians and should do everything possible to keep them!
At a time when most public schools are axing their teacher librarians, here’s an example of why NOT to cut out the heart of the school! San Francisco voters are getting what they paid for in Prop.H a few years back! Thanks to teachers like Ms. Barth and Ms. Hart, collaboration and co-teaching are possible and still alive!