Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Du Bois in the Hood

Welcome to Watts!

If you haven't noticed, Misstra Knowitall has been struggling to keep up with his blog posts lately. I'm doing my training for Teach For America in Los Angeles (Watts) right now and I can't remember ever being this busy. Grad school was a breeze compared to this schedule (literally 6 to 6). I'm teaching 10th grade English in summer school.

Fired teacher, Karen Salazar

The school's been in the news lately because a teacher got fired for having a curriculum that was too "afrocentric". Apparently it was big news and it's kind of interesting to read the Los Angeles Times account and compare it to the ones in the neo-conservative Washington Times and Democracy Now!. (Hmmm...maybe that would make a good class assignment!)

Also, I found an article about a local gang interventionist that gives a little background on the area. I've lived in Oakland and Baltimore, but I have to say that the projects next to my school are some of the gnarliest I've ever seen. Not a nice place to grow up. But today the kids were nice and everything went well. One day down, nineteen to go. I'll keep you posted (so to speak).

Jordan High School, circa 1965

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're having an intense time. On a side note, I like the picture of the Watts Towers. I've read a lot about them and would love to see them some day. I like how they break the rule of engineering and stay up anyway.

Anonymous said...

So you're in Watts! That's hardcore L.A. Hope you're having a decent time. How long will you be in the city? I'll be in California by Aug 11. Any chance you'll still be out there?