Ubuntu, Crandalls, and Hope for a Better World

1. Integrity
2. Responsibility
3. Self-Esteem
4. Sense of Humor
5. Self-Awareness
6. Focus
7. Ubuntu

These are the 7 Life Skills promoted by Hoops 4 Hope and 7 skills I work to promote as a classroom teacher of writers, thinkers, readers and doers. The skills are the epicenter of the Hoops4Hope program and are written to promote the importance of making smart choices on and off the field. In the classroom, the skills were  about making intelligent decisions in and out of school. Living with these mantras in mind benefit us all.

My cousin Mark Crandall is the champion of champions who has been building a strong sense of community since 1995 in both South Africa and Zimbabwe (it can be argued, too, that he's done a tremendous job in Amagansett, Long Island, too). His work reaches 10,000 youth a year in over 150 schools and shelters through the labor of a dedicated staff. Most recently, though, his promotion of Soccer4Hope has gained global momentum: in Africa, during the World Cup, and beginning this month in the Arctic, which includes Kugaaruk.

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, I've been working with teachers and students to promote Literacy4Life, building upon these life skills. Building community takes a lot of time. Rebuilding communities takes even longer, especially when young people in the United States endure curriculum that doesn't necessarily help them to build integrity, responsibility, self-esteem, a sense of humor, self-awareness, focus, and ubuntu.

In my own teaching and, later, with my Ph.D. at Syracuse University in literacy, I saw the importance of these 7 life skills in the lives of writers I worked with. Like the physical activity required on the playing field, students need teachers to stretch, drill, offer skill, practice, play, and reflect as an everyday routine. Learning to write, like learning to play a sport, requires individual to have a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. Writing has the potential to empower young people, especially when they see how they count within the larger communities they inhabit.

Richard Kent, a teacher, writer, and coach, has spent the last few years researching the effect writing has for athletes. In UMaine Today (Fall, 2012), he stated, "we all have different ways to learn. Some of us do well by writing about it, some of us need to talk about it, some need to think about it, and some need a little bit of everything." Writing goes hand in hand with athletics because it is a way to reflect and build knowledge. Athletics go hand in hand with writing instruction because the best teachers are coaches, not lecturers.

As we continue to build community where we work, we need to better collaborate efforts. Perhaps promoting these seven life skills is a start. 

Mapping Community for the next 365 Days (via Posts)

Yesterday, day one of 2013, I wrote then hiked. While on the streets and hills, I listened to the most recent rendition of This American Life featuring the theme "Mapping" - a throwback to an episode that was first aired in 1998 (the year of my first official teaching job). Each story followed the five senses and how humans make sense of the world - its communities - through sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings (well, one segment highlighted an electronic nose). I especially appreciated the prologue this week and the insight of Denis Wood in Act One who described his work as the poetics of cartography.

I love the idea of that space is a poem. I instantly thought of my next door neighbor at Fairfield University, Dr. Marsha Alibrandi, who teaches history methods. She spent her career working with GIS and GSP mapping and, as a colleague, she's been an important part of my Connecticut community. The "write" side of my brain envisions projects for students where they dream creative ways to map their neighborhood (spaces I eat Cheetos, locations of everyone's first kiss, areas where people are most likely to skin their knees).

I was intrigued by Denis Wood's description of graffiti and pumpkin mapping which he used to make his case about the art of mapping. Looking at his own neighborhood, he artistically recreated zones of life through labeling how the space was used and/or not used (and what this means in the larger novel of life). We are a categorical creature and, I suppose, this is why we love maps.

I like thinking about how to reshape a location through noticing specific details: lawns with dog poop, houses with cigarette butts in the front yard, people with manicured yards, homes with SUVs, cat people, etc. It's endless how many ways one can understand and conceptualize the territories where they live.

My own community in Stratford, for example, intrigues me. The landscape is hilly, the traffic insane, and the curves of winding streets have a billion ways they be depicted visually. Sure, they could represent the Google maps we frequently see via online environments, but they might also be more creative.

I think, like writing, cartographers who commit to mapping the world around them are the ones who experience agency and command. This, I feel, contrasts with having to recall how others describe and label things (and is why I would much rather give tools to kids so they create rather than handing them a multiple choice test).

Either way, I will spend the next 365 days "mapping" (poetic or not) my thinking on how communities are created, established, built, and brought down. This is why I was intrigued by listening to this particular episode of This American Life on my first day 2013.

Ubuntu, 2013

My cousin, Mark, and the young men from Syracuse who guided my research, introduced me to Ubuntu in 2012 and the realization that "I can be me because of who we all are." I have chosen to spend 2013 focusing on the importance of community in my life, teaching, family, networking, writing, and survival. Therefore, Community Crandall 2013.

In the meantime, I leave you with this montage of 2012. There's much more to come.