Coffee Cups, Frogs, and Lived Experience

1. Coffee Cups, Frogs, and Lived Experience • Bertram (Chip) Bruce • Graduate School of Library and Information Science • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2. Communities • Learning communities • Online communities • Bringing the community into the classroom (Moll: funds of knowledge) • Taking the classroom to the community (service learning)

3. “The community is the curriculum” • The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain… until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. --Jane Addams

4. Dewey on inquiry • Thus the question of integration of mind-body in action is the most practical of all questions we can ask of our civilization. ... Until this integration is effected in the only place where it can be carried out, in action itself, we shall continue to live in a society in which a soulless and heartless materialism is compensated for by soulful but futile idealism and spiritualism.

5. Progressive education • “Respect for diversity, meaning that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, needs, and cultural identity, and • “the development of critical, socially-engaged intelligence, which enables individuals to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community in a collaborative effort to achieve a common good.” --John Dewey Project on Progressive Education, U Vermont

6. Social reconstruction • There is no good education apart from some conception of the good society...The great weakness of progressive education is that it has elaborated no theory of social welfare. --George Counts, PEA address, 1932 • Ella Flagg Young on teaching democracy

7. Public spaces • it is not only a matter of admission and inclusion in predefined public spaces; it is...a matter of transformation of our institutions and public spaces --Greene, 1998

8. Self awareness • Our students don’t come here because they are consciously seeking a liberating education or because they support Puerto Rican independence. They come here because they know that this school will work hard not to neglect them and because they’ll find out who they are. –Iván, a teacher

9. Nurturing • This school is my sanctuary. I know this because once I step outside these doors my problems come back. They’re just waiting outside the doors to smack me in my face and start all over again. I stay at this school because I don’t have to worry about my problems. I got my mind set on other things. —Damien, a PACHS student, in Antrop-González, 2003

10. Healthy environment • Dicen que el Coquí no puede cantar ni vivir fuera de la isla. Aquí, el Coquí canta a su isla con amor, sobreviviendo a la ciudad de los vientos aun en temperaturas bajo cero. --Luis Padial Doble

11. PACHS curriculum • the development of cognitive skills in the areas of Natural and Social Science, Mathematics, Communications, and the Arts. • the development of self-identity and self-worth by analyzing the Puerto Rican and Latino reality. • hands-on experience... video, bomba y plena, typing, dance, guitar and journalism.

12. Youth activism & community change • Ginwright, Noguera, & Cammorota, 2006 • self awareness • social awareness • global awareness

13. Community Media Lab • La Voz community newspaper, part of the Participatory Democracy Project • Theater, e.g., The Spark/La Chispa, about the 1966 Division St. riots • Community Internet Radio • Podcasts of oral histories

14. Café Teatro Batey Urbano • Cyber Wash • by Ghost Text

15. Social justice & technology • economic development • individual • community • liberatory possibilities • critique of oppression

16. Networked information systems • Rehab donated computers • Configure operating systems, software • Local & distance networking • Set up a community technology center • Teach people in the site

17. Inquiry-based learning • Fall 2006: uiuc.edu/goto/ibo • Students worked with community members: Digital Archive, literacy across the curriculum, hydroponics garden, violence reduction, community wellness program • Inquiry units: inquiry.uiuc.edu (“PACHS”) • Developing better communication practices

18. Community Informatics • Community information systems • Professional research in action • CI Corps practicum • Networked information systems • Inquiry-based learning

19. Students • I’ve always been passionate about literacy and social justice. I also have always loved libraries. I just didn’t know that those seemingly disparate interests could be joined. Growing up in inner-city Chicago as a child of immigrants, I spent most of my time at my neighborhood public library. Although my mother only made it to 6th grade in her native land of Mexico, she imbued us with a love for books. Reading opened up so many possibilities in my life because it provides access to information. --Dali

20. Lessons • People participate because of felt needs • Community action mobilizes diverse interests • Challenges working across boundaries • Learning when theory is integrated with action • Technology is made, not found • Things belong together after they are brought together • Teaching as listening; learning as telling

21. The community is the curriculum • Highlander School: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger, Bill Moyers, Eleanor Roosevelt, ... • connections to Jane Addams, John Dewey • Myles Horton: cannot teach responsible participation in democracy without access • “we make the road by walking” --Horton & Freire

22. Coffee cups • Democracy is conversation. --John Dewey • La taza de café puertorriqueña that kept us going through the process.

23. Community as Intellectual Space • Paseo Boricua, June 15-17, 2007

24. Read more • Puerto Rican Cultural Center: www.prcc-chgo.org • Community Informatics Corps masters program: www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/ms/cic.html • Ginwright, et al., 2006, Beyond resistance!: Youth activism and community change • Horton, 1990, The long haul • Coffee cups, frogs, & lived experience: www.uiuc.edu/goto/frogs

25. Batey Urbano PRCC Community Informatics Initiative Ann Bishop Sarai Lastra Alejandro Luis Molina Jose Lopez Matt Rodriguez Sunny Jeong Muzhgan Nazarova many more... Acknowledgements

26. Thank you for listening!