On Thursday, November 8, 171 Fall Forum participants visited Denver-area schools Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts, The Odyssey School, Skyview Academy, Laboratory Classroom Experience, and Munroe Elementary School.
Day-Long Pre-Conference Sessions
One hundred and thirty five Fall Forum attendees spent Thursday, November 8 in one of these focused, day-long sessions:
• CES Mathematics Leadership Collaborative: Strategizing for the Future, facilitated by members of the CES Math Superteam
• Make Your Classroom and Your School the Place Where All Students Learn How to Formulate Their Own Questions, facilitated by staff from The Right Question Project
• Supporting Learners in an Inclusive Classroom, facilitated by staff from Boston Arts Academy, Capital City Public Charter School, and School of the Future
• Teaching for Authentic Intellectual Work: Rationale, Research, Rubrics, Realities, facilitated by Fred Newmann, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Thinking Strategies: Integrating Literacy in the Content Area, facilitated by Mario Giardiello, Public Education and Business Coalition
• Transforming Districts, facilitated by district and school leaders from Mapleton Public Schools, Denver, CO; Highline Public Schools, SeaTac, WA; and Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, CA
• We Are Family: Taking Advisory Concept to a New Level, facilitated by staff from Quest High School
Opening Session
Thursday, November 8’s evening Opening Session pushed everyone in the CES network to take a stand. Chinaka Hodge, George Watsky, and Aya De Leon, award winning poets and artists from different backgrounds who possess a collective vision of compassion, humanity, and justice, performed individually and collectively, sharing their own perspectives and emotions about what they stand for.
A CES alumni panel, featuring Central Park East Secondary School graduate Alia Tyner-Mulings, Leadership High School graduate Loran Simon and Parker Charter Essential School graduate Ben Shear, highlighted dynamic and motivated young adults who have already made a commitment to make a difference in the world by forging careers in teaching, academia/education, and law/social justice. The Opening Session concluded with audience members committing what they stand for in writing. The mass of people flowed out of the room with energy and excitement, filling poster boards with their "I Stand For…" statements.
Featured Sessions and Speakers
Fall Forum offered participants 330 workshops, interest groups, Critical Friends Conversations, and other sessions facilitated by CES educators sharing their expertise. In addition, Fall Forum featured a variety of sessions and speakers aimed at larger groups, including:
• Ellin Oliver Keene, Leading for Literacy Learning: From Effective to Artistic
• Aya de León, Exploring Hip-Hop to Teach Critical Thinking and Media Literacy
• Restoring Justice in Our Schools
The following sessions are available for DVD purchase:
• Jane Andrias and Deborah Meier, Taking a Stand On Behalf of Play and Playfulness
• The Forum for Education and Democracy, Strong Public Schools for a Strong Democracy
• Organizing Parents and Communities for School Change
• How I Learned to Take a Stand: CES Alumni Panel
• Authentic Practices that Promote Equitable Outcomes for English Language Learners
• The Impact of NCLB on Communities of Color
• The Opening Session featuring Aya De León, Chinaka Hodge, and George Watsky
• The Closing Session featuring Alana Murray
On the evening of Friday, November 10, 170 educators and students gathered for drinks and dessert to celebrate the final DVD in the three-part CES EssentialVisions DVD project. The crowd reveled in the determined conversion story of the Tyee Educational Complex in Sea-Tac, WA, the successful college experiences of all Amy Biehl High School seniors in Albuquerque, NM, and the commitment to a community predicated on decency and trust at the Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center in Estes Park, CO. Everyone left with a renewed commitment to the power of the Common Principles. Click here to learn more about the EssentialVisions DVDs. To purchase the EssentialVisions DVDs, visit the CES on-line store.
Youth Forum and Youth Participation
On Thursday, November 8, CES Youth Leaders Dawanna Butler and Mariah Swafford from Oakland’s ARISE High School and Jocel Delos Reyes, Janae Miller, and Heriberto Lara from Oakland’s Lighthouse Community Charter High School joined youth poets/performance artists George Watsky and Chinaka Hodge to bring together 84 young people in an exploration of Resistance and the Spoken Word. The youth-led pre-conference workshop helped students learn about the role of youth in social change movements by exploring the concept of resistance in historical and contemporary contexts. Students explored what it takes to develop the creative agency to use spoken word poetry and performance to express what they stand for in their schools, communities and in their world.
Throughout the rest of the Fall Forum, young people continued to make valuable contributions by participating and engaging meaningfully with each other and with adults by leading workshops, facilitating Critical Friends Conversations and participating in discussions with adults about the future of their schools and the redefinition of public education across the country. Youth engaged as critical friends, journalists, leaders, artists and musicians.
Closing Session
The Fall Forum Closing Session featured the documentary “Méndez vs. Westminster: For All the Children/Para Todos los Niños,” which told of the historic court decision prohibiting school segregation in California in 1947. The filmmaker, Sandra Robbie, and one of the plaintiff-protagonists, Sylvia Méndez, were in attendance for a post-show Q&A session. Robbie and Méndez each provided more information and insight on this landmark lawsuit that provided arguments that attorneys used seven years later in Brown vs. Board of Education.
The closing keynote speaker, teacher-scholar-activist Alana Murray, gave a rousing and impassioned speech, enjoining the audience to become local civil rights and education activists. She spoke directly to youth, telling them to do what they can at their own local level. Many of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement were themselves young, she pointed out. Students today should not let their age prevent them from getting involved in the most pressing issues of our time.
The Closing Session ended where the Opening Session had begun, with spoken word performances from high school students who had attended all three days of Fall Forum. Ely Lynch from the Jefferson County Open School, Ariel Campbell from Milford Mill Academy College of Excellence, Lou Vargas from Global Connections High School and Benjamin Molina from Global Connection High School performed with a range of quiet passion and vocal fervency that reflected what they stand for and believe in. These young people brought home the theme of the conference: A Principled Stand.
Wellness Program
CES introduced wellness programming featuring well-attended Yoga sessions led by Emily Beenen of Native American Community Academy, and Meditation and Walking sessions led by Amie Kim of CES National and Leroy Silva of NACA, respectively. Session participants were thankful to have some time carved out to rest their minds and re-energize so they could keep a sense of mind-body balance and make the most of what Fall Forum has to offer.
Taking a Stand for the Environment
This year, we took a stand for sustainability, reducing the size of our program guide and other materials in ways that saved 46 trees, 4,070 pounds of atmospheric emissions, 16,892 gallons of water, 32 million BTUs of energy, and 2,169 pounds of landfill. In addition, 1,064 people brought their own totes, and conference attendees participated enthusiastically in recycling badge holders and other material at the close of Fall Forum.
Fall Forum 2007 Lives On (and read Blog coverage!)
For Fall Forum attendees seeking to connect with others, obtain materials from session facilitators, and extend the relationships begun in Denver, the online Fall Forum Program Guide remains available living document. Whether you joined us in Denver or not, you can use the online Program guide to review sessions, search for facilitators, and obtain contact information for participants. Use this living document to find others in the CES network who can help you create equitable, personalize, and academically challenging schools for all students.
Read blog coverage of this year's Fall Forum in Head First Colorado's Schools for Tomorrow, United Federation of Teachers Edwize, and The UpTake, a blog by citizen video-journalists that covered Day 1 and Day 2 of the conference.
Get Ready for Fall Forum 2008!
CES will bring the next Fall Forum to Charlotte, North Carolina, November 6-8, 2008. See you there!
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