Learning: Innovators
The Days of Bread and Roses

A union-built education program uses the arts to teach about work.

When girls and women in the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile mills went on strike in 1912, their slogan "Bread and Roses" captured their desire for a living wage--and a life.

The Lawrence strikers captured the nation's attention and paved the way to better conditions for many thousands.

Decades later, they inspired Moe Foner, a union leader in New York City with a passion for the arts, to create a cultural program called Bread and Roses that today provides resources such as teacher guides for integrating art and labor studies.

Foner, now 84, has focused on this work with students for the past five years. One product has been the Bread and Roses "Women of Hope" poster series, which features African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American women who've been inspiring role models (see inset).

One of Foner's new series is built around the work of Ralph Fasanella, an artist world-famous for his paintings of American working people. The guide for this series can help students learn more about their own diverse backgrounds.

Foner works with dozens of New York schools, where children study labor topics and create original art. Some works are exhibited at a gallery run by Foner's union, Local 1199. All the others are exhibited at the schools.

Bread and Roses started out in the 1950s as a cultural resource for 1199's members. Foner recruited stars--Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Alan Alda, Harry Belafonte--to perform at both union events and inside hospitals and other places where his union's members worked.

"Culture is like chicken soup," says Foner. "It may not solve every problem, but it sure can't hurt. You can see it in our members' faces. They tell us, 'This made my day. Now I can continue and feel good about what I'm doing.'"

Impact:
Bread and Roses' field-tested teacher guides on working, sweatshops, and why unions matter have introduced thousands of students to labor history and current labor issues.

For More:
Contact Terry Sullivan at 212/631-4565 to order Bread and Roses posters, teacher guides, or other materials. Contact Staci Lightburn at 212/631-4569 to arrange for a traveling exhibit or a speaker.

Money Smarts for Girls

Innovator:
Joline Godfrey

Job:
Founder and president of Independent Means, Inc., a California-based company that promotes entrepreneurship and economic self-sufficiency among teenage girls

Bright Idea:
When it comes to money matters, Joline Godfrey likes to note, girls are not at the head of the class: "Boys trade baseball cards," she says, "girls collect dolls."

So, for boys, trading stocks is just another part of the game, while many grown women will shudder when asked about investing. Independent Means, Inc. hopes to change all that by empowering girls with financial know-how.

"Our goal is to make the next generation of girls economically powerful," says Godfrey.

Independent Means offers programs and products to educate young women about money. In Camp $tart-Up, girls work in teams to develop a viable business plan. At Club Invest, a workshop, girls create their own investment portfolio. The National Teen Business Plan Competition awards five girls $2,500 in seed capital and national recognition.

Independent Means also offers workshops for teachers, helps develop after-school programs, offers online resources, licenses curriculum, and networks women who work to motivate girls toward financial independence.

Next Steps:
Godfrey will soon launch a new Web site, DollarDiva.com, an online investment resource for young women.

For More:
Call 800/350-1816 or visit www.independentmeans.com.

Portrait of a Young Tough

Most psychologists, notes Duke University's Philip Rodkin, think violent children tend to be misfits rejected by other children. Rodkin's research says otherwise.

Rodkin and three colleagues surveyed 950 students in grades four through six, along with their teachers, from 20 schools in urban, suburban, and rural communities in Illinois and North Carolina.

The survey asked who is "really cool," friendly, athletic, studious, shy--and who starts fights. Teachers rated their students. Students rated themselves as well as each other.

Who are the violent students?
Some of the "coolest" boys were the most violent. Of the 40 percent of boys who were rated popular, two-thirds were "pro-social"--studious, cooperative, friendly.

But the other third were highly aggressive. Their classmates said they often caused fights and disruptions.

These popular tough kids were more violence-prone than a group of socially rejected boys who also got into fights.

The data provide indirect evidence that the popular violent boys are bullies. They were rated "cool" by all types of girls and by most types of boys, but not by unpopular boys. That's probably because the unpopular boys are their victims.

Why are the boys who start fights popular?
Our society has ambivalent feelings about male violence, an ambivalence that's reflected in student social structure. Movies help cause our interest in violence, but they also reflect it.

If a boy is aggressive and shy, he won't be popular. But if he's aggressive and athletic, he can be.

Sometimes violence is functional.

What about girls?
Violent girls in the study were only considered "cool" by other violent girls. Aggression is devalued for girls. That's deeply entrenched in our culture.

What can educators do about violence and bullying?
There's no one approach. Educators can do better at reducing bullying and violence if they understand the role that violence plays in the children's social structure.

For example, educators sometimes try to reform a bully by teaching him better social skills. But for the popular violent boys in this survey, social skills weren't the problem--they were doing fine.

A better approach might be to encourage the boy to develop another talent as an alternate route to popularity.

Most teachers do know the personal dynamics at work in their classrooms, according to the study. Teacher ratings of students closely matched what the children said about each other and about themselves.

For More:
For more on this study, go to www.apa.org/journals/dev/dev3611.html.

Striking a Chord for Nonviolence

Innovator:
Scarlett O'Neill

Job:
Fifth-grade teacher, Wilson Elementary, Westfield, New Jersey

Bright Idea:
Scarlett O'Neill has taken "Join Hands," a song about gun violence, and used it to engage her fifth graders in critical thinking about guns and violence. In the process, she's taught the song's composer a lesson, too--about how educators can be strong allies for social change.

When O'Neill first heard "Join Hands," she was struck by the tragic lyrics. Realizing that its spirited rhythms would also strike a chord with her students, O'Neill in 1998 incorporated the song into a lesson plan about nonviolence and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday.

"It's so much more powerful to play this song and do these activities than to have me share my opinions or read from a book," says O'Neill.

"Join Hands" was composed by Charlie Wine, a Leonard Bernstein Artist Fellow who blends musical styles to reach young people. In 1999, after the shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Wine offered his song as a free online resource.

Wine and his twin brother, Jim, also created an organization called Voices of the World, whose mission is peace education through the use of creative arts.

When the Wine brothers discovered how O'Neill was incorporating their work into her classroom, they realized--not surprisingly--that they could learn a lot from a teacher on how to teach about nonviolence.

O'Neill's materials are now available on the Wines' Web site. Educators in 45 states and 25 countries have already accessed her free, online study guide for teachers, which includes interdisciplinary learning activities and links.

Study Guide 1.0 includes music, the work of Langston Hughes and other poets, quotations by Dr. King and Robert Kennedy, resources, lesson plans, and creative learning activities that can provide a measurable account of the student's engagement. Version 1.5 of the downloadable CD includes additional modules for music, arts, sports, and peacemaking.

Next Steps:
This year, O'Neill will use "Join Hands" to study the constitutional amendment granting the right to bear arms. Following a summer 2000 tour to Johannesburg, Voices of the World will release an international recording from South Africa with introductions by Nobel Peace Prize laureates and lessons that focus on Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Revolution.

For More:
Contact O'Neill at 908/789-4605 or visit the Web at www.poesia-per-musica.com/VOW_Study_Guide/teachers.html.

"Paraeducators who work with special needs children are the link between life and death for many of them. I am proud to work with them and all of NEA's paraeducators," says Nessa Chappelle of NEA's Teaching and Learning unit.

Chappelle first worked in NEA's Human and Civil Rights unit, then left the organization to teach. She set up the first Multicultural High School in Washington, D.C.

Chappelle returned to NEA in 1994 and is now the lead staff for the Paraeducators' Task Force.

This group just released two publications. The NEA Paraeducator's Handbook offers a framework for standards and competencies for paras. IDEA and Paraeducators--Frequently Asked Questions examines the impact of the 1997 IDEA legislation. For free copies, call 202/822-7350.