As continuing budget shortages force schools across the city to cut music programs, PS 55 in Queens is about to get a new one. Last spring, LaGuardia High School senior instrumental major David Charles was taking his sister to school at PS 55, when he realized that there was no music program at the school.

He went inside, found the principal, and offered to start one. In his words, “[The principal] warned me that it would require a lot of work and planning, but I told him I was ready for it. We exchanged contact information and I made the first lesson plan and showed it to him. We went over ….[the] cost… the schools budget…who would be interested. Then we handed out letters to the parents explaining what this was going to be about. Parents seemed really interested in the idea….

“Our purpose was to bring diversity to the school and promote musical understanding…. The school found a place (Laconia Music) to buy used instruments for very cheap… I’m going to have to come in before I go to school or after school. I have free periods in the morning and can move some things around.”

Wow. (more…)

I admit it: this time of year, my children don’t get enough exercise. It’s hard to drag them outside to play when we live in a northern, urban environment with no yard, and the playgrounds are sad and frozen.

There are only so many after school activities one can sign up for. The school does what it can, but its indoor facilities have limits, and if the temperature dips below freezing the teachers can’t risk frostbitten children. On not-so-bitterly cold days, the kids adjourn to the playground for recess, and I see them running around giddily, as though gulping fresh air for the first time.

When the weather’s too harsh to venture outside, the students sometimes watch a movie in the auditorium — to their intense delight. I don’t mind the occasional movie, but it’s no substitute for the kids moving their bodies. (more…)

As I sat furiously answering emails from high school students around the city last night, on the phone with a student from Queens I’d never met, and trying to keep up with constant facebook notifications from strangers, I told my mother I thought the MTA’s proposal to cut student MetroCards was a blessing in disguise. I didn’t really mean it, of course, but it is clear to anyone working on this issue that the students of this city are uniting and mobilizing to make their voices heard.

There have been student organized rallies and protests, petition drives and press conferences. And the next phase begins this week: a MetroCard drive, organized by the NYC Student Union.

At the end of this week, first semester student MetroCards will expire. Student representatives from schools around the city will be collecting their classmate’s MetroCards, asking them to write a brief message on their card before handing it in. The message should be about how the MetroCard cut will affect them, or anything they want to say about the MTA’s plan. (more…)

I work with many adolescents who are highly truant. In my 7-plus years working in public middle and high schools, the number one thing they tell me is that school is boring.

I have explored and contemplated this concept of “school-as-boring” for countless hours, trying to figure out what exactly these kids feel is lacking. I wondered about how their capacity for engagement has been affected by a literal lifetime of being plugged in to television, video games and the internet.

Do schools like NYCiSchool and Global Technology Preparatory have the answer by creating a curriculum in which technology and computer use is absolutely integral? I am definitely a fan of schools that appeal to technology aficionados, but I feel more is lacking and causing far too many adolescents to disconnect from school. (more…)