From the Director's Chair

Dear Humanitas Colleagues,

As many of you know, the former Humanitas Director, Linda O'Neill, retired in June after many years of excellent service to Humanitas teachers throughout the District. I was asked to join Urban Education Partnership after eleven years on a Humanitas team at John Marshall High School. I could not be happier or more honored to serve as director for such a dedicated and truly inspiring network of teachers. As a former Humanitas teacher, I understand the commitment required to fully participate on an interdisciplinary team. Not only are we required to understand the scope of our own discipline, but we must also bring that expertise to bear on our work with our teammates so that we may collectively develop curriculum and instructional approaches that serve the specific needs of our students. This work requires an earnest desire to collaborate and a sense of curiosity about how the world really works-not from the perspective of disciplines working in isolation but as an interdependent world that requires critical thinkers and problem solvers whose learning is transferable from one situation to the next.

Humanitas teachers have been at the forefront of lasting reform for over two decades in Los Angeles Unified. The model is sustainable because it values teacher expertise and assumes that teachers, whether novice or veteran, are professionals that continually seek to improve student learning. Humanitas SLCs and programs are professional learning communities where grade-level teams collectively create, teach, and refine their units of study based upon student outcomes.

With the increased pressure on LAUSD to show measurable student gains in achievement, it is more important than ever that you continue to develop and refine your interdisciplinary units in order to best serve your student population. If you have not been to a Teachers' Center lately, please ask your coordinator to send your grade level team in the near future. Your ability to continue to deliver your own standards-based interdisciplinary units is entirely dependent upon the effort and thought that you put into this work.

Many of you are aware that Mr. Cortines met with Humanitas coordinators on September 15th. He was very interested in hearing about both the successes and the challenges at our forty-four Humanitas sites. While accounts of successes were abundant, the obstacles to delivering interdisciplinary instruction were more discrete: mandated curriculum, programming, Periodic Assessment timelines, and 9th-grade houses. Mr. Cortines listened with focused attention and concern. You may be interested in an excerpt of his article in the September 22, 2008 Associated Administrators of Los Angeles newsletter.

Many of our schools have demonstrated they can move forward. Students and staff have made this happen. These people deserve recognition for their accomplishments. They are to be celebrated, not denigrated. It is time to recognize the hard work it took to achieve these positive results. I have been meeting directly with teachers, staff from magnet schools and Humanitas programs, not through local superintendents, but by frankly asking them to identify schools and classes that have earned the right for autonomy and flexibility from the perceived onerous bulletins and polices that emanate from the downtown Beaudry building. Again, this brings those who work at the schools the opportunity to take part in the decision-making process and on a substantive issue. Beaudry--meaning the central office-is not bad, and we have begun a plan for more service and support from these offices rather than "downtown directives" to local district superintendents and school and classroom personnel. I believe this will send the message that we value people in classroom leadership and field positions. This emancipation will lead to greater entrepreneurial, creative education for all children and young people.

Go for Grants

Check these sites for updates:

Find a grant for your classroom or for professional development
www.TeachersCount.org

Under this highly competitive program, a team of educators from each school will receive an all-expenses-paid professional development experience at a NASA field center to develop an action plan that addresses a local need in math, science, or technology. Moreover, each school may apply for technology grants of up to $17,500 over the three-year partnership. Open for applications in the spring.
http://explorerschools.nasa.gov/

National Council for Teachers of Mathematics
www.nctm.org

From the California Council for the Humanities' Network...
www.californiastories.org

For 50 years, the International Reading Association has been a professional home for those who help others learn to read. Today, network and resources reach hundreds of thousands of teachers, researchers, students, administrators, tutors, parents, and others-in every part of the world.
www.reading.org

"Do Something Announces "Increase Your Green" School Competition
Deadline: December 15, 2008
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=217000004

Do Something is inviting America's middle and high schools to reduce their carbon footprint this fall through the "Increase Your Green" competition.
Participants must make concrete efforts toward reducing the environmental impact of their school during the eight-week competition. All initiatives must be youth-designed and -led. A representative from each group must submit an online report of the school or club's actions to save energy, reduce waste, and raise awareness during the competition.
Winners will be chosen based on the impact of their school's actions during the competition. The main judging categories are: 1) energy saved; 2) garbage reduced, recycled, and reused; 3) number of people involved/impacted; and 4) innovative quality of actions and ideas.
The competition is open to middle and high schools.
Participating schools are eligible for a first-place prize of $1,500, a banner, plaque, and eco-friendly gift bags. Three second-place prizes of $500 each will also be awarded. Winners will be featured on the Do Something Web site and in local press.
Students should register their club or school to receive an "Increase Your Green" action guide with tip sheets and materials (i.e., stickers, posters, flyers) to help launch the competition at their schools. The competition opens October 13 and closes December 8. The deadline for online submission forms detailing action taken during the competition is December 15, 2008. Visit the Do Something Web site for complete program guidelines and application procedures."

Contact:
Link to Complete RFP

Events Calendar

All attendees must register prior to any event. Contact aasatryan@laep.org

Music Notes...

MAKING THE SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK! TEACHING CORE
SUBJECTS THROUGH MUSIC

"For years, researchers have studied whether music education raises IQ points, test scores, spatial sense and math and verbal skills, reports Michael Alison Chandler in the Washington Post. Definitive results are scarce, but experts agree that music sparks memory. Just think of what wonders the alphabet song has accomplished over the decades. And as music classes are squeezed out many schools in order to permit more time on math and reading, teachers are looking for new ways to integrate music into classrooms. In the past three years, nearly 200 artists have contributed to a Michigan-based website, http://Songsforteaching.com , which offers music for the core subjects, but also for foreign languages, special education, and classroom management. One Loudon Country, Va. Teacher Eric Chandler, writes his own songs, finding his inspiration in the Virginia Standards of Learning. Chandler embraced musical pedagogy after learning about the teaching method called Quantum Learning, which encourages music to keep students engaged and focused. According to Chandler, after winter break each year, a handful of students come in with new guitars wanting to learn class tunes. Other students are simply happy to sing, and learn, along."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/10/22/ar2007102202243_pf.html

Los Angeles Opera 2007/08

For all information on LA Opera, email sseufert@laopera.com or call 213-972-7258.

The Humanitas and LA Opera collaboration on the March Teachers' Institute, "Recovered Voices," was a great success. Teachers, musicologists, historians, and musicians gathered to take a close look at music created by composers who were persecuted under the Nazi regime. Dan Alba and Mary Hendra from Facing History and Ourselves explained the historical context of the Holocaust generally and the music created at the Terezin concentration camp specifically. They shared the music of Gideon Klein and illustrated the ways in which the children of Terezin resisted their Nazi oppressors through art and music.

Dr. Michael Hackett of UCLA discussed the sources for two of the "Recovered Voices" productions: Viktor Ullmann's The Broken Jug and Alexander Zemlinsky's The Dwarf. Ullmann took his inspiration from Heinrich von Kleist and Zemlinsky from Oscar Wilde's The Birthday of the Infanta. Ullmann's opera is a farcical indictment of the Nazi regime while Zemlinsky's work hails from a broken and embittered heart.

Neil Anstead, the program director, and Dr. Stacy Brightman, Director of Education and Community Programs for LA Opera, developed an opportunity for Humanitas teachers that will serve them well as they create units that engage students rigorous discussion about the what Facing History refers to as: "The moral implications of decision making and human behavior embedded in the study of this history."

Art Around Town...

Tomma Abts
July 27 - November 9, 2008
Tomma Abts creates small, severe paintings that provide an intriguing antidote to the florid figuration that has dominated the contemporary painting discourse in the last decade. The exhibition, organized for the New Museum in New York by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, includes fifteen paintings, all of them the same size (19.8 x 15 inches), made over the past ten years. The exhibition at the Hammer Museum will also include a selection of pencil and color pencil drawings

Onging Programs

Free Daily Garden Tours
(except Tuesdays and first Thursday of month)
Free tours of the gardens are available with general admission or membership. Tours are offered Mondays, Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays between noon and 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. times vary depending on volunteer availability; please check in at the Information Desk on arrival for the day's schedule of garden tours. Sorry, these free tours cannot be reserved in advance.

Darwin's Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure
October 4, 2008 - January 5, 2009
Next year marks the 200^th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150^th anniversary of Origin of Species. To commemorate the occasion, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) opened this exhibition in April 2008; The Huntington will be its only traveling venue. The exhibition explores the botanical influences on Darwin's formative years in education, their impact on Origin of Species, and Darwin's place in the field of evolutionary botany. More than 60 items will be on display, including rare books, manuscripts, and prints from the NYBG collection and loans from private individuals and institutions. The Huntington will display its own copies of a selection of items from the exhibition checklist.

All the Saints of the City of Los Angeles
Through October 5, 2008
In All the Saints of the City of the Angels, artist J. Michael Walker uses the saints and the streets bearing their names to uncover the sould of Los Angeles, the City of the Angels. Los Angeles is home to 103 streets named for saints, hearkening back to the time when Spanish settlers bestowed upon new territories the names of saints to invoke their protection. Thanks to land developers and urban planners who continued the tradition, the saints still live among us. They walk our streets, ride the Metro, and shoot hoops in neighborhood recreation centers. Their presence provides counterpoint to the popular image of L.A. as a city of conflict, hedonism, and simmering rage.

Maverick Art
October 4, 2008 through January 4, 2009
Maverick Art emphasizes work created after 1990 to reveal how contemporary artist see the West now as an artistic resource. While some explore the lingering presence of frontier icons such as cowboys and Indians, others have found new ways to connect Western mythos with the modern experience, reveling a dynamic place where tradition and innovation exist side by side.

In-Sites

• Check out the Central Library website at www.lapl.org.
• The online exhibit "Picturing Hemingway: A Writer in His Time" by the National Portrait Gallery explores Hemingway's life with an emphasis on the experiences and people that would later appear in his short stories and novels. The full exhibit reveals the highs and lows, ending with his suicide in 1961. www.npg.si.edu/exh/hemingway/index.htm
• The exhibit, "Petra: Lost City of Stone" by the American Museum of Natural History weaves together the history of Petra, a 2,000-year-old city in Jordan an the techniques used by archaeologists to uncover history. www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/
• The online lesson "19^th Century American Art and Literature" by the National Gallery of Art's classroom division features seven works of art that will enhance students' understanding of America in the 1800s; each illustrates a major theme of the time period, including the agrarian society giving way to the industrial revolution and urbanization, westward expansion and its impact on Native Americans and the role African-American soldiers in the Civil War. www.nga.gov/education/classroom/19th_century_america/index.shtm
• "More than a century after its debut, Impressionism remains one of the most beloved and accessible chapters in the art movement." Website www.impressionism.org, a collaboration among several museums, was designed for grades 1-8, but lessons are easily upgraded for high school and offer students a tour through France at the turn of the 20^th century.
• Facing History and Ourselves "is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage student of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development lessons of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives." www.facinghistory.org
• YouTHink is an innovative education program of the Zimmer Children's Museum and the Center for American Studies and Culture. YouTHink uses the power of art to foster critical thinking, engage diverse learners, promote literacy and serve as a tool for social change. www.youthink.org
• 826LA Free Student Programming taught Roosevelt Humanitas students how to write and publish a book! For information, www.826la.org
• Four great plays offered through a Student Outreach Program, contact A Noise Within, California's Classical Theatre Company. www.anoisewithin.org or call (818) 240-0910.
• "Jan. 17, 2006 marked the 300^th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. To mark the occasion, the Electric Ben Franklin Web site, www.ushistory.org/Franklin, has compiled a rich array of information on one of the most colorful and inventive of the Founding Fathers, including background on his diplomatic service to the new nation and many of his most memorable quotes." American Teacher December/January 2006
• Check out student newspaper, L.A. Youth, at www.layouth.com. Invite editor, Amanda Riddle, to speak at your school about writing for LAYouth (323) 938-9194. A former teacher, Donna Myrow founded the teen newspaper in 1988 after the Supreme Court Hazelwood decision, which struck down student press rights. Myrow saw a need for an independent, uncensored forum for youth expression. Now celebrating its 18^th year of publishing, L.A.Youth has a readership of 400,000 in Los Angeles County."
• Southern California Library, located at 6120 S. Vermont Avenue in LA, has "approximately 30,000 books and over 3,000 periodical titles, ranging from 1930 to the present on the subjects of Los Angeles history, labor, civil rights, civil liberties, housing, immigration, people of color, left culture, peace, radicalism, socialism, communism, Marxism and other political theories and movements." archives@socallib.org
• "Since the re-opening of Central Library in 1993, ALOUD at Central Library has presented over twelve seasons of programs with leading figures in the world of literature, art and ideas. These dynamic programs are designed to contribute to an informed, engaged, and democratic community and to foster life-long learning in a welcoming environment." www.aloudla.org
• "Zocalo presents a vibrant series of programs that feature thinkers and doers speaking on some of the most pressing topics of the day. Bringing together an extraordinarily diverse group of Angelinos, Zocalo-'Public Square' in Spanish-seeks to create a non-partisan and multiethnic forum where participants can enjoy a rare opportunity for intellectual fellowship". www.zocalola.org