Teaching & Learning Blog

Student Stories: A New Orleans Classroom Chronicle

Students at the Center is a 12-year-old writing and digital-media program for students in two New Orleans high schools, co-directed by educators Jim Randels and Kalamu ya Salaam. This blog is no longer being updated.

Education Opinion Reading Toni Morrison
Our students at both Douglass and McMain have read Toni Morrison’s Beloved this spring. Many of them are in the middle of working with some of our staff and graduates to develop a play that incorporates their writing about violence against women and their reading of Beloved.
Jim Randels, March 20, 2008
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7 min read
Education Opinion Reading Hawthorne
Today’s blog introduction is written by Jennifer Harden, an 11th grade student at McMain.
Jim Randels, March 18, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion Just Funding
In Students at the Center, we have long advocated that it’s not enough just to have quality teachers, rigorous curriculum, safe schools, and any other items on the list of strategies to improve education for the young people struggle with school. For the last twelve years, we have demonstrated through the students we teach in these most challenging schools that strategic additional resources are necessary.
Jim Randels, March 5, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion Questions for Our Fathers
Here is another essay in our series of student writings about parents. Dan Vy, a senior at McMain, is in our Advanced Placement English and creative writing classes.
Jim Randels, March 1, 2008
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2 min read
Education Opinion Childhood's End
Salisa came to visit us in class last week. She was scheduled to graduate from Douglass last year, but somehow the scheduling process and transcript transfers left her missing one required class. Many of our students in New Orleans have faced similar problems since the hurricane. From missing course transcripts and botched schedules to lost scores on the state’s graduation exam, these young people continue to be pounded by the aftermath of Katrina.
Jim Randels, February 28, 2008
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2 min read
Education Opinion Teacher Training and Social Justice History
Today Gabrielle Turner joined other SAC staff members in a featured presentation at the national convention of the Association of Teacher Educators. Gabrielle has been working as a student and staff member of SAC for over seven years, and she is planning to enroll in the Master of Arts in Teaching program at Emory University next fall.
Jim Randels, February 25, 2008
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5 min read
Education Opinion Long-Term, In-Depth Teacher Preparation
Christopher Burton graduated from Douglass in May, 2005. He spent that summer the same way he had spent the two previous summers, working with Students at the Center in writing workshops, video productions, mentoring and teaching younger students in summer camps, and helping us train teachers and develop plans and projects for the next school year.
Jim Randels, February 23, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion "I Ain't No Little White Girl"
For the next week or so we will feature student writings that explore their relationships with their parents. Such writings are an important part of our curriculum for a couple of reasons.
Jim Randels, February 21, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion Toni Morrison’s Birthday
We celebrated Toni Morrison’s birthday today. Students in our classes at both McMain and Douglass are reading Beloved.
Jim Randels, February 19, 2008
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2 min read
Education Opinion Start With What You Know…
Many of our students are dealing with friends and family members who are serving out of the country in the U. S. military. Kanisha Daniels, a junior at Douglass High School, wrote this poem as part of her thinking about this international situation that hits close to home for so many of our students.
Jim Randels, February 16, 2008
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1 min read
Education Opinion A Cave Experience
Our course readings are a significant element of the collective discourse through which students write and think about their lives and revise not only their writings but also their thinking.
Jim Randels, February 13, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion No Longer Disappointed
As always Marleesa bounded into her SAC English IV class at McMain Secondary School and pleaded to read her new essay to the class. She had interviewed her grandmother as part of our exploration of the intersection between family and civic life. She read an earlier draft of the essay featured in today’s entry.
Jim Randels, February 8, 2008
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4 min read
Education Opinion Mardi Gras New Orleans Style
For many families in New Orleans, Mardi Gras is about much more than having a good time or even using the holiday and its industry as leverage for changing laws and customs. For many of us Mardi Gras reminds us of generations of struggle and gratitude and the on-going need for such work today.
Jim Randels, February 5, 2008
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3 min read
Education Opinion Carnival Time and Civil Rights
Gabrielle Caine, author of today’s selection (second-to-last in this series of blogs) from The Long Ride is another of the resilient students we had the privilege of working with at Douglass after Katrina.
Jim Randels, February 4, 2008
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2 min read
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