“Are you with me now” A J Ryder
Scott Boldt is just about done with a 70-page installment of a longitudinal study on Harbor Freight Fellows spanning the last 8 years. There’s loads and loads of great stories, images and data (SID) packed into this first of three installments with two more years to go. Among many other things, the study shows:
“HFFI has been remarkably consistent and consistently remarkable in connecting youth to the skilled trades and providing a deeply rich learning environment that is often transformative (in their engagement with learning and school/in exploring or defining a career path in the trades/in creating a network of people ‘who know that you know’ (social capital)/in having students offered jobs/in leading students towards relevant post-secondary education/in equipping Fellows with valuable life and durable skills in bringing meaning and purpose to their lives).”
This report will shore up single isolated stories like the one below that appear almost every day in articles about the value of learning through internships, relationships and practice around meaningful work in the skilled trades and beyond.
“But the clincher for Newsome was the field experience:
working in a hospital in her junior year, obtaining a nurse’s
aide credential and then getting a job immediately after graduation
at the prominent Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
The HFF Longitudinal Study will take the thousands of anecdotes like these and show they are not one-off stories and that there is policy that can be constructed from practice and research that will provide a better way forward for all youth. Distilling the study to get to the essence of how to craft programs at the community level where youth can pursue meaningful work is what we hope to glean.
And to this end….
On Tuesday Andrea, Anthonette and I had time together both before and after a meeting with Anna Ponce and Noemi Donoso from Great Public Schools Network about developing more internships and other real world learning opportunities for youth in LA. Our group keeps on playing with how ImBlaze/B-U work in conjunction with the IBPLC. If we can create the bridge here, who knows what could happen. Places like Namahana where ImBlaze/B-U and the IBPLC will be used together will show the way.
I’m always playing with measuring and assessing learning in its simplest forms because even then there is so much to consider without getting bogged down in words that limit the meaning of an action. As Tim Ingold states: “Don’t blame words for their incarceration; blame the court of explicators that has passed sentence on them." It is always a good time to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask if we are part of the problem so here’s this week’s installment.
My interest in Chaplin started when I was very young and continued my whole life so, when I read a review Adam Gopnik wrote of another Chaplin biography, I jotted down a few comments below that Gopnik made about Chaplin and his films. They struck a chord in me about Chaplin’s way of creating with intention. Note, here intention really comes from its original connotation ‘in tension’ where you are grappling with pressure, weight and gravity.
After reading Gopnik’s review, I watched a Charlie Chaplin skit that was left on the cutting room floor for City Lights. The 8-minute piece shows Chaplin simply trying to get a sliver of wood to go down a street grate with his cane and foot. It is something a kid would spend all day doing. It is also something we can all relate to when we get caught up in doing something we think is easy but when we do it, it takes us down a rabbit hole of frustration. I loved the scene because he made something so easy look so hard but in reality, trying to do what he intentionally did makes simple child’s play into mastery.
“A great performer doesn’t work from ideas; a great performer works from their body and soul.” We can easily tell the difference but we can get tricked and misdirected. Body and soul performances never lack substance. What are the measures for working from body and soul?
“A child never works but is always busy.” I can relate. I play more than I work and my play keeps me busy. Why is almost everything we assess called work instead of play?
Moving from recreation to hobby to quest – Here the quest is the road to mastery. We can confuse having a knack or being good at something for the quest and even then, we need support and others on the journey with us albeit recreation or hobby. No one is alone. Why do we always assess the individual when there are so many more involved?
A bit more on assessment… You noodle on this and I’ll macaroni on that – Chico Marx
This week I was thinking about how in classical music more weight is put on executing the composition as it is written down but in jazz how you improvise the composition is way more the measure. Performing to the exactness of how a composition is written is a schoolish assessment where interpreting is more playful. Are we more interested in a performance to a precise written standard or a dynamic performance? This is touchy stuff to ponder in the world of assessment and there is great tension in the intention of both.
Next week, I’m off to Winnipeg to work with the principals and administrators on leadership or so they believe. Let’s see what happens.
“What we want and need is a generous acceptance of all people with shared values.”
Be well!
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