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A Deeper Drug Talk

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Brenda Conlan - Alcohol and Other Drug Educator

Brenda Conlan - Alcohol and Other Drug Educator

I wrapped up my school year at a girls school where I facilitated an interactive 8th grade student/parent evening that was a wild success. The activity is fascinating, as families are put into discussion groups about alcohol/drug issues with other people’s family members – the results are astonishing. It is delightfully freeing to talk about this topic with someone else’s mom or child – you can truly listen without that emotional investment you have in your own person. As the groups finish and return to the auditorium, the students are running around frantically asking, “was my dad weird in the group? Who had my mother?” The answers are so sweet and reassuring: “We had your mom in our group; she was so funny and nice!” Whew, once the kids realize that their parents didn’t misbehave, they relax and are enthusiastic about how interesting it was to hear from other adults on this vast and confusing issue…Generally, parents focus on safety and describe the fear that their child could end up hurt or damaged in some way. Hearing another parent package the same message in slightly different language or a new anecdote is refreshing and comforting for kids. I will often say, “raise your hand if you found out your parents are normal tonight!” Many hands slowly and reluctantly go up…The questions used in the groups are meant to promote honest dialogue and not put any one on the spot. I beg parents to approach the kids from their vulnerability as parents and not lecture or “educate” the students. I never have to guide the students; they just intuitively know what to do and are glad for an opportunity to hear something other than the Surgeon General’s Warning from adults.

I already mentioned that it was a brilliant evening. I would have just walked away feeling fine about the evening and not given it any more thought it hadn’t been for a comment from an adult. When we re-gather as a large group, I always ask for people to speak about what they will take away from their group discussion. An older woman who is raising her granddaughter said something provocative and very true. I have actually been thinking about it ever since. These are not her exact words, but this is essentially what she said: “The girls in our group were lovely, smart and articulate. They said all the right things and gave countless reasons to abstain from illegal drug use and underage drinking. They all speak as if they will never get involved in any of it. Yet there are lovely, smart, articulate high school aged girls involved in drinking and other drug use – how do we go deeper with this conversation, so it’s not just people saying the right things, but actually living well and avoiding harmful behaviors throughout their lives?” I have been doing this work for a long time and I still have many more questions than answers when it comes to teen behavior. The only thing I feel sure of is that the answer to that grandmother’s question lies in relationships. It’s relational – I feel that relationships are the access point to kids, starting with their relationships at home. The people I know who don’t abuse substances or have quit abusing them often say they are preserving something important – they recognize that drug use and all that goes along with it will interfere with their relationship to ______ (fill in the blank).

I am not discounting how compelling, sexy, edgy and attractive alcohol/drug use is made to seem in our culture – think of all the messages kids receive on social media sites that we adults aren’t even aware of. What we do see on TV and in movies is aggressive enough and it is terrifying to think that there is a whole online world that isn’t on our radar screen. Only something real and valuable, like human interaction can compete with all of that.

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Marymount Mobile Computing Initiative

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Marymount School NYC student using mobile technology in the classroom

Marymount School NYC student using mobile technology in the classroom

In his book Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn, professor and author Larry D. Rosen states “iGeners are growing up with portable technology. But I look as the little ‘I’ as reflecting the individualized culture.” Portable technology can take on many forms in education, including a 1:1 laptop program or the integration of smartphones and other mobile technology into the curriculum. No longer are our students sitting behind a desk with an open textbook, reviewing the “end of the chapter problems” on stoichiometry. They are blogging, commenting, sharing; they are accessing multimedia, multitasking and evaluating. Whether they are commuting on the subway on the way to school; hanging out in social spaces within school or sitting on the bench at sports practices, how our students access, interpret and respond to knowledge is rapidly changing. And its changing at a rate at which educators often cannot keep up with.

At Marymount, we have taken several steps to integrate mobile technology into our curriculum. We also tip our hat to the Atlanta Girls’ School, whose nationally recognized technology program was the impetus for our foray into mobile technology. We developed our program, the Marymount Mobile Computing Initiative, through the lens of research on how girls learn. Cognizant of the 2009 UCLA study, which noted that girls’ school graduates have more confidence in mathematics and computer abilities, and further supported by the 2010 AAUW report, which suggested that there has been an increase in the number of women in STEM careers, we sought to create a program that would allow girls to interact in an environment of interconnectedness while using a wide range of instructional strategies. The goals of this initiative were also fully in line with the Marymount Model of STEM education: an interdisciplinary focus, supported by technology, pedagogically-sound resources, all under the umbrella of a real world context.

Phase I of the initiative focused on the integration of mobile technology in two Advanced Placement courses: French Language and Physics C: Mechanics. Students in each class were given an iPod Touch for use during the school year. In AP Physics C: Mechanics, the curriculum was supported by pedagogically-sound Apps from the iTunes Store. For example, the study of oscillations was enhanced by the MassSpring app, a basic physics lab in which a block is attached to an ideal spring; students could then investigate the influence of the mass of the block and the spring constant, for example, on simple harmonic motion. Using the Newton’s Cradle app, students could investigate Newton’s Third Law and Conservation of Momentum. These Apps were used to supplement the curriculum and did not replace the required lab activity. However, the students were able to complete the activities “anytime, anywhere.” Moreover, students were able to access a variety of physics-related podcasts found on iTunes as well as additional teacher-produced, interactive podcasts.

In AP French Language, students used Twitterific and TweetMike to further develop their speaking, listening and comprehension skills in the target language. For example, on a weekly basis, the teacher would “Tweet” the link to an article on French culture found in LeFigaro or Paris Match. Students would then read the article on their iPod Touch and, using TweetMike, produce an audio recording or “TweetCast” that included a response in the target language. Students were also able to Tweet their peers the links to any article, audio or video file as well as access current events and other content in French on through a variety of apps, including Radio24 and TV5.

The student response to the use of the iPod Touch in the classroom has been very positive. Students commented:

  • I am a visual learner so being able to conduct basic demos of physics concepts made learning more dynamic and enhanced my basic understanding.
  • I appreciated being able to access course material and podcasts at any time.
  • All of the French radio apps allowed me to listen to French in real time. It definitely improved my listening comprehension and speaking
  • The iPod Touch is a terrific way to learn a language!

Planning of phase II of the Mobile Computing Initiative, for 2010-2011, is currently underway. Students in AP Biology will receive an iPod Touch, which will allow them to access teacher-produced and student-produced course-related podcasts and vodcasts. Students in Atmospheric Science will use the iPod Touch to become “Mobile Meteorologists,” in which they will be able to access current weather information and numerical model data to remotely write and produce audio forecasts for the school community here in New York as well as for our sister school in Los Angeles.

Perhaps the biggest paradigm shift, though, in education is the introduction of the iPad. The iPad provides a new education platform for both teachers and students. While some may argue that the iPad allows for people to consume media and not create it, others contend that the iPad will further enhance and drive the interactive nature of education. Marymount faculty has already embraced the iPad as part of the faculty pilot program this spring.

In the fall of 2010, the iPad will be integrated into our curriculum in all divisions. This additional strand of the Mobile Computing Initiative comes after careful consideration and evaluation by the faculty. As Larry Cuban suggests, “One reason technology integration has historically failed in schools is because technology is initiated with a top-down approach, in which administration forces certain technologies on teachers, and teachers force these same technologies onto students.”

To support the integration of the iPad into the curriculum, Marymount faculty is being given the opportunity to be iPad Innovators this summer. Participating faculty will receive an iPad for the summer, with the overarching goal to redesign a course curriculum using Apps available for the iPad. So far, potential redesigns of Lower School Music, AP Statistics and Middle School Science have been proposed, among others.

The success of the Marymount Mobile Computing Initiative results from a thoughtful approach to technology integration and has given our students the opportunity for individualized, yet instructional avenues using portable technology.

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Primary School: Where Girls Can Learn to Lead

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

When my daughter was in Nursery School, she came home one day explaining the key things she had learned in school: boys are stronger and better at sports than girls, girls like pink and boys like blue, and there were certain things that girls were not meant to do. It was at that moment that I felt totally helpless, as everything I had begun to teach my daughter within my own value set was being countered by the external influences of gender-stereotyping. As a result, I began exploring the notion of leadership more profoundly, as it relates to developing girls’ thinking, behaviors, and actions as integral citizens of the world. The more I began to re-define and re-think traditional definitions of leadership, the more I came to realize that the elementary school years are the fundamental place where leadership can truly be developed in exciting and unique ways. As my personal and professional journey as parent of a girl and Director of an all-girls Primary School has continued, it has become less about having answers and more about asking the right questions.

As educators, one of our best practices in elementary schools is to give girls roles within the classroom or as part of the larger school community. From attendance person to doing calendar work and reminding students when it is time to clean up, there are so many ways for children to be exposed to what it means to be accountable and to take ownership of an important community responsibility. The study of leadership, past and present, are also spaces where leaders of all genders and backgrounds can be celebrated and analyzed for who and what they have done to contribute to a better world. As teachers of leadership though, it is my belief that forming leaders begins with the foundation of one’s growing identity and an increasing sense of confidence in who we hope to be, what we aspire to do, and how we communicate, interact with and respond to the daily trials and tribulations of life.

As I made the shift away from answering questions and focused more in determining what the essential questions are, some of them include the following:

  1. How do I define, model, and teach leadership?
  2. What stereotypes do children hold about what leaders do, who can become a leader, and how one gets there?
  3. How do celebrities and the word “leadership” intersect in today’s media-laden world and what are the implications for students?
  4. How do children’s attitudes and dispositions toward people and developmentally typical events inform their character and in turn the development of leadership?
  5. Do I personally believe that leadership is inherited, nurtured or both? What are the implications of my beliefs?
  6. As leaders, how do we connect to others locally and globally?

These are only a few of the questions that I have grappled with in my development of an 11 week leadership course for fifth grade girls, where we focus on authentic discussions and defining of the whats, whos, and hows of positive leadership. Some of the highlights of this class focus on team building, questioning our notions of leadership, engaging in different forms of communication (debate vs. dialogue), and developing an understanding of what it means to impact the world, on a small or larger scale. I invite others to share in their ideas, understandings, and questions about leadership, as we look toward defining our purpose and goals as educators of girls.

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NCGS Environmental Think Tank Brings Sustainability Ideas to Campus

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

The all-girls Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT, hosted educators from independent, public, elementary, secondary and higher education institutions from Connecticut and as far away as New Orleans and Washington state for a groundbreaking NCGS Think Tank on taking sustainability education to the next level: beyond lightbulbs and recycled paper. The Think Tank model was originated by the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools to encourage an exchange of ideas among participants that will benefit their educational missions and of course, their students. Walker’s has placed significant focus on sustainability both on campus and off, offering classes in environmental science specifically, and co-operative learning where an economics class, for instance, addresses the impact of the environment on our economy.

The daytime event was preceded by dinner and animated conversation at The Firebox Restaurant, a cornerstone of the successful neighborhood rehabilitation project at Billings Forge in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood. Cary Wheaton, Executive Director of the Billings Forge project, along with Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman, spoke with attendees about collaboration between schools and other non-profits, such as municipalities and environmentally conscious organizations like Billings Forge. This kind of collaboration resulted in Walker’s becoming a founding partner of the Community Farm of Simsbury, a project which is focused on farm-based education as well as community service, sustainable farming techniques and service to the poor. The Town, Billings Forge, and Walker’s play a significant role in the direction of this important community project.

The daytime sessions on Walker’s campus started with a keynote by Brooke Redmond, a 1990 graduate of Walker’s and Executive Director of the national Farm-Based Education Association. Redmond spoke about the benefit of collaborations between schools and local farms across the country – students participate in results-oriented work, have ready opportunities for community service that directly impacts the sustenance of others, and learn food system literacy.

Further sessions focused on student-driven change on campus – for instance, having students build and present business plans to administrators promoting the adoption of new sustainable practices. This session was led by Walker’s faculty Jill Harrington and Carol Clark-Flanagan, co-teachers of the School’s acclaimed Environmental Studies class. Creating and Sustaining a Campus Organic Garden was a popular choice for the day. Many schools have or are looking to build gardens that not only educate students about where their food comes from, but encourages physical activity, recycling practices and wellness. Walker’s own organic garden was the site of this session, led by Garden Club faculty advisor Grace Epstein.

Cultivating Dynamic Partnerships for Education, the Economy and a Sustainable Environment, led by Pine Point School head Paul Geise, addressed collaboration with third party corporations using schools as measurement sites for environmentally beneficial, innovative products, such as wind turbines. Pine Point. located in Stonington, is hoping to be a prototype school by partnering with numerous Connecticut-based corporations and schools to allow students to measure results as well as to give companies the opportunity to see their products in use in a learning environment.

St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, CT, has benefited tremendously from the installation of an outdoor classroom on campus, used not only by science classes, but by all others most notably English, where students reflect on Thoreau’s works in a natural setting. The St. Luke’s boardwalks and gazebo were built by a team of students and teacher David Havens and plans are in the works to expand the project due to its success in enhancing education.

The School Campus and a Sense of Place, led by Hopkins School faculty member Priscilla Kellert, encouraged educators to give their students an understanding of the history, geology and ecology of the site their school sits on to foster a deeper connection with the land they are learning on and in many cases, helping to sustain.

Katrina Linthorst Homan shared her work at Choate, where she was instrumental in building a Student Environmental Task force, and keeping momentum at peak levels. Special attention needs to be paid to the specific culture of each school, and Choate has built an enviable and sustainable program.

The day closed with Katy Perry, a faculty member at Miss Porter’s who is actively involved with the Green Schools Alliance, an organization that has grown many times over in the past few years as it joins schools together to pool resources for on campus sustainability efforts. The GSA introduced the Green Cup Challenge several years ago, where independent schools compete during a two-week period to see which school can reduce their energy expenditure the most. This year, Avon Old Farms School was the winner of the Challenge, and public school districts are now emulating the competition. Perry’s session focused on the many different working parts of a school, such as administration, engineering and grounds maintenance, marketing, faculty, famiies – and understanding the contributions each entity has and can make towards environmentally sound practices.

Attendance at the Think Tank was diverse, from classroom teachers to school administrators to grounds and maintenance staff, promoting cross-departmental conversation from many regions of the country.

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The possibility of poetry

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

April is National Poetry month, so this post is well timed. “Poetry comes to meet us as an honored guest, the remote villager at the gate, an occasional tourist, an old friend holding a place at the hearth.”  I am so pleased to welcome Kate Doemland, Chair, Miss Porter’s School English Department as honored guest blogger on All Girls. Years ago I had the privilege of studying with Denise Levertov; for me, the reading and writing of poetry has been a fundamental and life-long source of joy and solace. Based on this piece, I feel that Kate Doemland is a kindred spirit. I’m sure her students feel that way. As will you.

photo courtesy of Miss Porter's School, Farmington, CT

photo courtesy of Miss Porter's School, Farmington, CT

IN THE PALE, SINKING LIGHT of a late-winter afternoon, I read Jane Kenyon’s February: Thinking of Flowers, and wondered if the biting wind, the endless, colorless sky and unforgiving frozen ground would ever allow the small, tender shoots of early spring another season, another chance. As spring arrives, tentatively and without great fanfare, slipping softly into being and rousing us from dreamless sleep, we see the promise of the eternal return, know the fecund scent of possibility and the slow waking to our own renewal. Isn’t this the mirror of the natural world in our own human experience: the length of dim light that provides a stark contrast in reflection to our own yearnings and desires? “A single green sprouting thing/would restore me…” writes Kenyon.

Across the field, small, tight buds of forsythia form on supple branches spilling onto the ground in ways yet to be revealed. Tiny white snowdrops emerge from the darkness of hard soil: a whisper; a raised eyebrow, an indication, a small but persistent voice—here! look! watch!— against the loosening hold of winter. So today when the sun extended itself into the invitation of evening and the evening takes on its own Eliot-like poetic resonance, I think of what I wrote to my friend after a particularly challenging stretch of days:  “I believe poetry can save the world.” I do. Poetry can save the world.

We are both healed and healing when we read poetry. It is in the elemental structure of language where we try to find our place, where word gives way to a reaching out into the larger world. As much as that process is what defines as humans, it is perhaps what we struggle with most resolutely to make ourselves fully human. The inexpressible nature of human experience that challenges us to come into being transcends language, yet the limited and limitless experience of being in a poem is one that expands and often confronts our understanding of what it means to be human. A poem demands an imaginative capacity to see the world differently, to experience “the world imagined” and envision—even for brief moments—another way to see ourselves and navigate a place on the face of the deep.

Poetry steers us into the world beyond object and category; it guides our eyes, our ears, and imagination toward the space around the object, the experience, and into the experience itself. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about poetry—about any art—is the empty space it creates for discovery, history, and vision.  Like painting or architecture, poetry asks us to explore the space around the poem, and in this construct, we are required to write ourselves, imagined, into the world as it might be. It is in our pursuit of the unknown that we discover what we know, or at least what we think we know. And poetry does that for us: it allows us to think about what we know, and it dares us to consider what we think we know in new or unencumbered ways.

I believe poetry can save the world because it has anchored us to our shared human experience since time began. Within the function and elasticity of time and history, poetry comes to meet us as an honored guest, the remote villager at the gate, an occasional tourist, an old friend holding a place at the hearth. Poetry is that thing to which we return to feed our dire human needs beyond food and water, aside from warmth and shelter; it is poetry that houses and harbors our human experience. Poetry dares us to do more, to be more. In poetry, we find possibility.

—Kate Doemland

Led by Chair Kate Doemland, the Miss Porter’s School English Department issues a Call for Papers to independent school teachers of high school English. Topics of interest include Modern Poetry, American Literature, British Literature, and Multicultural Literature. Papers will be shared at an academic conference held at Miss Porter’s School on May 13, 2010. For more information, including conference schedule, please visit www.porters.org/academics .

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Dreamflags — long may they wave

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

dreamflag display

AllGirls is delighted to welcome guest blogger Jeff Harlan,  sixth grade English teacher and Director of The Dream Flag Project at Agnes Irwin, a K-12 girls’ school in Rosemont, PA. In the tradition of Tibetan prayer flags, Dream Flags elevate, honor and transmit gently on the breeze, the dreams, hopes, and wishes of young people the world over. (In addition to many states in the US, Dream Flags have been made and flown in China, Japan, Costa Rica, Canada, South Africa, Rwanda and Nepal.) Jeff and colleague Sandy Crow are the inspiration and energy behind this enchanting and heartfelt project.

“And according to Winnicott, this transitional space is the space of play and creativity — where love can grow, where teaching and learning take place, where art is made, and where culture is created.”

I loved this comment that Sally made in her last blog entry about Donald Winnicott’s writing. When I think of it, I think of those spaces we make in our classrooms where play, creativity, teaching and learning take place—almost by themselves. It’s the feeling we get when some lesson we dreamed up takes hold, and we know it really works.

That’s exactly what happened with our sixth grade girls in English class eight years ago when we first made Dream Flags. Our girls created poems about the value of dreams and their own dreams—for themselves and for the world. But we do lots of poetry writing assignments. This was just another good one, inspired by our reading of Langston Hughes poems. What made it take flight and create that transitional space was when the girls put the poems on fabric, created a visual space around them with watercolor, and then sewed each one to a line to imitate the form of the Buddhist prayer flags we had seen in a school assembly by National Geographic photographer Anne Keiser just a few weeks before. When the lines were hung outside, when the beauty they felt free to create fluttered in the breeze on a spring day as sixty silent girls quietly read and admired each other’s work, (When do quiet girls and spring go together??) that’s when my colleague Sandy Crow and I knew we’d stumbled on something that worked. Maybe it was a transitional space, and we didn’t yet know the word for it.

And, as it turns out that, it’s worked for many others as well. As soon as we saw how the form of this poetry—the art, the metaphorical connection of the dreams to each other, the public good it all did—was a way to build our community, we could see that it could connect us to others. And it has in more ways than we could possibly imagine.

The next fall, we made a web page and a flyer to give out at a local Philadelphia conference. We invited our fellow schools to join in and we thought a few might. But twenty-six schools joined us that first year—both independent and public–and the idea of connecting the Dream Flags in our gym just wasn’t going to work. A few phone calls later, the doors of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra) opened for us and we were invited to have our first Dream Flag Celebration right there with dozens of student poets reading their work, musicians improvising while they read, and with the connection and exhibition of more than 1,000 Dream Flags, all in one great line. This was a transitional space—a place to play and learn and love—that we never imagined and that we never in a million years could create by ourselves.

From then on, it’s been one opening of doors after another. This April, we’ll celebrate again, as will more than 90 schools in 36 states and four countries who are creating Dream Flags with us this year. Since we first started, a total of more than 50,000 Dream Flags have been created by students in K-12 from Alaska to Florida and from Nepal to South Africa. And we know it’s because teachers tell teachers about what happens when students look in to dream, look out to create, and find in the space between, something that transforms us all.

We’d love to dream with you too. Check out our web site and join us.

Yours dreaming,

—Jeff Harlan

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Where we connect

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Istanbul, transitional space: a little girl connects with her grandmother. Photo by Collin Key.

Istanbul: a little girl connects with her grandmother. Photo by Collin Key.

Babies and toddlers cling tenaciously to their teddies, bunnies, security
blankets and loveys of every description. Imbued with the attributes of Mother, these transitional objects, as we have learned to call them (thanks to child psychiatrist Donald Winnicott) are powerful talismans against anxiety, especially when it is time to go to sleep.

I love the work of Winnicott and find it both intuitively “right” and also profoundly intellectual. Most dear to me is his concept of transitional space. I explain it like this —  You know how it is, when you meet someone — and you just click, within moments feeling deeply connected? You can be at a noisy party, and yet, you and that special person seem to exist in your own bubble of intimacy. You can hear the music and see the other partygoers, but still you feel enclosed. That is transitional space.

Winnicott posits that there is a private space (the psychic space within), and a public space, which is clearly outside us. And then, between us, is the place where we connect: the transitional space which is neither purely inside nor purely outside, but rather an enlivened between space. And according to Winnicott, this transitional space is the space of play and creativity — where love can grow, where teaching and learning take place, where art is made, and where culture is created.

I have been aware on occasion of a friend or lover holding a space open for me … almost as one might hold up a tent or a canopy. It’s like a balm. You feel the welcome and readiness to connect when the transitional space is held open for you. And feel the sadness when that space collapses.

Patsy Rodenburg, a renowned acting coach and voice expert, is an engaging speaker on the subjects of teaching, performing, presence, and intimacy. She has her own take on this material, a  focus on energy, and her own terminology for the  transitional space, calling it “the second circle.” For her it is the energetic space, the circle,  in which one is fully present in the moment. Right here. Right now. Engaged and connected. I  like conceiving of the present as a place. C.S. Lewis said, “The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.” The transitional space or the second circle is the only place.

If you are grabbed by Patsy Rodenburg’s  Second Circle, I also recommend a shorter and very moving recording in the  TED collection called Why I Do Theatre.

Your comments are more than welcome. Sought after!

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Fearless, confident, and proud to be African…

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

This piece was written by Anjimile Oponyo, the Malawian educator selected by Madonna as Head of Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, which is currently under construction.  Anjimile’s story is an inspiring example of the power of woman-to-woman mentoring; we are proud to publish it here on AllGirls.

Anjimile Oponyo, Head of School

Anjimile Oponyo, selected by Madonna as head of new school: Raising Malawi Academy for Girls.

SOMETIMES, IF WE ARE VERY FORTUNATE, we meet the one person who will forever change the course of our lives. Working in the Planning Unit of the Ministry of Education in Malawi I met mine.

I met Nwanganga Shields, a Nigerian woman who was heading the World Bank team that was working on the Education and Health programmes in Malawi. I could not believe that this African woman had so much power; every time she sent a message that she was bringing her team to Malawi everybody in the Ministry was running around preparing for her visit.

She requested that I work for her, and with every meeting she gave me more challenging work — including me in the studies and giving me more responsibilities on the ground.

One day she said to me, “If you are doing this work without training then you need to go to graduate school.” She found a place for me at the George Washington University at the School of Education. The battle now was to convince the men in the Ministry to let me go.

She noticed that when we had meetings, I was always sent to go and inform the kitchen to bring the tea. One day as I stood up in the meeting she asked me why I was going to call for the tea when I needed to contribute to the meeting. She said this is the last time you are doing tea duty, you have a degree and you are going to graduate school. She asked the meeting if anybody had an objection, everybody was quiet. She said she would take it as agreement since nobody had objected. Nwanganga is an African woman and she knew that there was no agreement, the men around the table were just shocked and stunned.

After she left, I was called and informed that I would not be going to graduate school at the George Washington University — I was devastated. I believed I wanted an American education because I wanted to be like Nwanganga Shields, fearless, confident, knowledgeable and proud to be African. In all the time I knew Nwanganga, and even though she was married to an Irishman, I had never seen her put on western clothes! She was so proud to be African, even though her views and attitude were completely western.

I was so crushed to be calling Nwanganga to tell her that I would not be taking my place at George Washington as planned. I should have known this fearless, determined woman would not be stopped. Nwanganga immediately sent me to the British Airways office where she had a ticket to America waiting for me.

It took a month after I arrived, but she managed to convince the Ministry to allow me to start school. She helped me find a place to stay, she got me a tutor to learn even basic skills like keyboarding, and she got me a job at the World Bank so that I could continue to work on research projects.

Every time I was homesick or discouraged she would invite me to her house and cook me African food and remind me that it was important that I succeed for the sake of other Malawian women who had never been given the same opportunity because of the assumption that they couldn’t do it.

She not only inspired me to strive to be like her, she inspired me to fight to open doors for other women.

If this one woman had not made that decision to fight so that I could go to graduate school I would have never left Malawi. I owe that one woman my education. Because of her I have educated my own children, and because of her my daughters do not think they might go to graduate school, they know they will. And because of this woman, every time a woman tells me that she wants to do something and there is a stumbling block in front of her, I start looking for solutions right away.

Nwanganga showed me that you should stop at nothing to open a door for a fellow woman. My way of saying thank you to her is helping other women the way she helped me. I took the job as Head of Raising Malawi Academy for Girls because it gives me the opportunity to do for hundreds of girls what Nwanganga did for me.

What an opportunity, to be able to say thank you to Nwanganga over and over again.

I hope that one day, when Raising Malawi Academy for Girls is open she will come to Malawi and speak to the girls in the school and give them the same inspirational talks she gave to me.

—Anjimile Oponyo

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Differences in girls’ self esteem at adolescence

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Leonardo da Vinci often doodled in the margins of his famous notebooks, At work in the biology labespecially when he was breaking in a new pen. One of the words he wrote over and over was: dimmi. Meaning, “Tell me.” The word is emblematic of his profound and relentless curiosity. Sometimes this Italian word comes to mind when I am trying to understand something that seems as if it should be clear or obvious, but just isn’t. At least not to me.

In reading studies about self esteem in girls I have mentally  said “Dimmi, dimmi,” to myself many times. According to this study, and others too, the loss of self esteem suffered by white, Hispanic and Asian girls at adolescence, is in general not experienced by black girls in the US. They maintain their good self concept and appear emotionally stronger and more confident. There was something about these findings that seemed tantalizing to me.  I couldn’t explain it, or make sense of why it should be so, but it felt intuitively correct, based on my own experiences with girls in their early teens.

So when in researching International Women’s Day I stumbled across this footage of Maya Angelou, speaking about the women’s movement, instead of dimmi, it was aha. Oh. Yes. I get it.

I’d love to hear your reactions and responses.

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New book for parents and teachers: connecting with middle school girls

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Review: A Precious Window of Time: A Manual for Teaching and Nurturing Middle School Girls, by Howard Hanger and Dr. Vicki Garlock.

When Howard Hanger’s two daughters were approaching middle school age, he knew they were entering a very important developmental phase, one that could have an enormous effect on their self esteem and confidence, so he started Hanger Hall, an all-girls middle school, just for them. preciouswindow

When I first learned that, I have to admit, I wondered. Isn’t that rather extreme? Is this guy a fanatic of some kind? I mean, starting a whole school for his daughters? But yes, he was that concerned about making sure they had every possible chance to be educated in a place where they could feel comfortable as girls and empowered as young women. He wanted a place where they and other girls could be understood, and where they could shine,  grow, and claim their power as they moved into young womanhood; he wanted a school where the challenges of personal  growth and academic growth would be in balance.

I am happy to report that this is a heartfelt, grounded, and very useful book, by two people who clearly understand and enjoy girls of this age. Parents of tweens and young teenage girls will find this book insightful, reassuring and inspiring. It will be of benefit, as well, to teachers, especially those new to teaching girls of this age and stage.  A Precious Window of Time is optimistic, enthusiastic, and full of vitality. That alone gives it a certain charm; so many books about teens seem to be a maelstrom of distressing problems and crises, real or anticipated, and what to do about them.

The authors do address such fraught topics as drug and alcohol use, sexuality, and moodiness, but they do so in a warm, even-handed and realistic way. I like the sections on social skills, balancing structure and flexibility, friends and community, and the ongoing importance of play. After reading this book, you will not be wringing your hands and lying awake worrying, rather, you’ll feel energized and eager to be a great parent, and/or a great teacher to your girls, in whatever settings you interact with them.

It’s unfortunate that the book is a bit amateurish in ways; it needs the shaping hand of a good editor as well as a professional proofreader. The conversational writing style relies on a lot of dashes — I don’t object to that — but the use of hyphens where em dashes should appear is awkward and confusing. However, these objections are minor compared to the good heart, solid experience, and usefulness of this book.

A Precious Window of Time is available through Lobster Books. I recommend it  to parents  and teachers of middle school age girls. Homeschooling parents in particular might find this book a game-changer and a boon. I would be very interested to hear reactions from readers. I invite you to post here, in comments section of AllGirls.

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