Judging by the reviews and blog comments, it’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing, and I am definitely in the loving-it camp when it comes to Lena Dunham’s Girls, which recently wrapped up its second season on HBO. I really admire the strength of Dunham’s vision of who she is as a writer/director/actor. Read more…
Goats (2012) is the film adaptation of Mark Jude Poirier’s debut novel. It’s a quirky coming of age tale that involves a 15-year old boy leaving home—although “home” for Ellis isn’t a safe and idyllic Shire, but a chaotic, dysfunctional family comprising his irresponsible and histrionic mother and his pot-loving mentor, Read more…
Dear friends and readers, It is with great excitement that I announce the launch of my new Web site. I will continue blogging in this space, but you can access those blogs (and read more about my projects) at http://www.minds-on-fire.org/. Best, Ysette
One of the most pleasurable parts of my job is being able to write letters of evaluation for each of the youth in the mentoring group I work with. The idea didn’t come to me because I had an immediate desire for “assessment.” To be honest, I got into this line of work partly because grading and putting numbers on people are activities that don’t appeal to me. The letters of evaluation grew organically out of the spectacular results from the first workshop I ran with the group. Technically, I can’t say that the youth “exceeded my expectations,” because I had gone into the mentoring group without any points of reference at that stage of my program development, and I barely knew anything about anyone in the group. But they certainly bowled me over with their level of engagement and with their ability to grapple with concepts that I had learned as a college undergrad.
If you’re an educator you’ll understand me when I say I was flying high from the experience even the day after. I couldn’t stop thinking about their projects, so I opened up a Word document and just started writing to each of them. I tentatively emailed them to the program coordinator just to make sure that it was appropriate to send them the letters, and she responded with absolute glee. She said that most of her young clients have never received letters in the mail, so getting an envelope with their name on it and a typed letter inside would be thrilling. And what’s more, it will mean a lot to have an adult engage seriously with them on an individual basis. And indeed, the letters thrilled the youth, thrilled the mentors, and thrilled my clients at Fostering Change for Children (who run the AdoptMent mentoring program). It was a no-brainer to make them a regular part of my workshops with them.
I thought I’d share the process behind each of these letters by identifying the elements that go into them: (more…)
Lacking a passion project was the very worst condition to be in as a graduate student. At first it’s liberating to be able to explore different concepts and areas of study. It’s like a dream for the intellectually curious. But soon the process of trying on and discarding topics gets wearisome. And then it becomes frustrating. And it isn’t too long before it becomes absolutely soul-crushing because all the books you’ve read (and you’ve read plenty), all the little ideas and pieces of knowledge you have rolling around in that expansive mind of yours—they all amount to a hill of beans.
What matters is having an idea that drives you, arriving at a unique vision, and finding your voice. What matters is producing material evidence of that singularity because you believe others would like to experience it. Sure, the world will keep on turning if you dropped out of grad school. But assuming you went into a doctoral program for all the right reasons, if you ask for my advice, chances are I would talk you into staying. Here’s why: (more…)
One of the things I love talking to young people about is their budding identities. There are a couple of Zits comic strips that I like to use to explore the theme. One of them involves Jeremy standing before a mirror, assuming different flavors of masculinity, only to turn into a little boy when his mom catches him in the act. Seeing Jeremy try on different identities is a great way to get a conversation started about identity exploration. We all “try on” different identities or emphasize certain aspects of ourselves at different times, and it can be a bit awkward and embarrassing when someone calls us out on it—especially when we are in our teens.
When I ran a discussion on identity for a writing workshop, we kept the group discussion on a largely abstract level, and then I had the youth write about their personal experiences afterward. With the mentoring group I work with, however, I redesigned the activity as a partner exercise with youth and their mentors. Each young person would write a list of the most important elements in his identity, and then represent that visually in his self-portrait. During presentations, the group would then respond to the portrait, by commenting on what was interesting or surprising about it, or naming other characteristics that they thought were fundamental to the presenter’s identity.
To model the exercise, I very quickly sketched out an impromptu identity self-portrait. Do pardon the scrawl: (more…)
The reading and work I’ve been doing on marketing is more interesting than I expected. It’s requiring me to take stock of my strengths, identify areas where I could use some help, and—the hardest of all—set long term goals. It’s easy for me to set goals for myself in the Read more…
Yesterday Gerald Chertavian flew into New York City to give a very inspirational talk about how he started Year Up. He had really solid advice about filling the gaps in your knowledge by hiring a diverse team of people and being very selective when it comes to assembling a board, but all those things are a bit farther down the line for me. What occupies me now are networking and creating a sustainable business model, neither of which come naturally or easily to me, so I’m still wrestling with what Gerald had to say about all that. I see how his approach has worked out tremendously for him, but am very ambivalent about applying all of it to my life. (more…)
Just a little over halfway through Lars and the Real Girl (2007), the titular character approaches his older brother, Gus, and engages him in a discussion about rites of passages. In the absence of any coming of age ceremonies, how did Gus know that he’d become a man? Gus stumbles over his answer, Read more…
This year I attended the second annual What Works in Urban Schools conference. I wasn’t sure how useful it would be to me, since I’m not a traditional teacher and it’s geared primarily for those who work in urban school systems, but I was intrigued by so many topics on Read more…