Hear Me in Philadelphia for Fair Education Funding

On December 2nd and 3rd the Hear Me team traveled to Philadelphia to interview students for the Campaign for School Funding. This campaign is in partnership with the Education Law Center, and is part of the Campaign for Fair Education Funding, a statewide effort of 40 organizations to ensure students’ access to quality education.

The team’s first stop was the Education Law Center's Philadelphia office, where Hear Me interviewed nine young people from various Philadelphia High Schools.

(Photo credit: Jay Frye)

The students discussed closing schools, adjusting to school mergers, budget cuts, class size, and the benefits of well-funded schools. Listen to these stories here. The night concluded with a group conversation over pizza, where students talked about empty classrooms, transportation, and school administration. 

19-year-old filmmaker Jay Frye, who visited Pittsburgh for last year’s Hear Me 101 screening to showcase his own documentary, photographed the visit and shared his stories.

(Photo credit: Jay Frye)

The following morning, the team split up to go to Palumbo High School and Lingelbach Elementary. At Palumbo, Ryan met with Eileen Duffy, a school nurse and a member of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. Eileen shared Media Mobilizing Project's video, "Our Schools Are Not For Sale," which documents the schools funding crisis in Philly. 


The three students interviewed at Palumbo echoed the view of the documentary - Something must be done to save public education in Philadelphia.  

Jess and Alex interviewed eight students at Lingelbach Elementary about the effects of budget cuts on their education.  Lingelbach had recently been in the news for having an annual discretionary budget of only $160 for the 2014-2015 school year, which equals about 40 cents per student.

The Hear Me team regrouped in the afternoon at South Philadelphia High School to interview 11 students about resources and funding at their school.  Throughout the interviews, many students talked about the importance of their guidance counselor and stressed the need for additional counselors. At SPHS, there is only one guidance counselor appointed to both the junior and senior classes. 

In total, Hear Me covered over 600 miles and visited four collection sites in just over 36 hours.  Look for all of the stories to be on the Hear Me website soon.

We would like to extend a big thanks to our partners at the Education Law Center and Philadelphia Public Schools for making the trip possible and a special thank you to all of the young people who shared their stories in an effort to ensure fair funding in education.

To sponsor a kiosk on Fair Education Funding, email kiosk@hear-me.net and help support these young people.

- Ryan, Hear Me Project Coordinator

More than a Number

An Open Essay by 16-year-old Denis McCormick

“People like to say we need to prepare students for real life, and what I counter that with is why don’t we make schools like real life itself-bring experiences outside of school into the school environment.”

This is a powerful quote from young education activist Nikhil Goyal (pictured above),who inspired me to further question standardized testing. As a student, I understand the importance of tests to track the progress of schools and individuals, but students shouldn’t be ranked based on test scores. The multiple-choice format of testing is a simplistic and inefficient way of assessment. It doesn’t show who the students are.

For example, students shouldn’t be labeled as “advanced,” “proficient” or “basic,” based on their answers to test questions. Coming from a low ranked school, I’ve seen students score poorly on these tests; meanwhile they have valuable real-life problem solving skills. I know that some of the things we learn are useful, but when will I be challenged in real life to fill in bubbles?

Schools put so much emphasis on the multiple choice section of standardized tests, but in the real world nothing will be given to us on a Scantron sheet with a packet full of multiple choice questions. As students, we struggle to find value in the state assessment system.

When I found out that our school district ranking was 437 out of 500, I felt that the Pittsburgh Business Times article was wrong and other students had mixed emotions. Some people agreed with the ranking, while others were mad, hurt and disappointed. We took action to make people realize that we are more than a number ranked by a system that fails to measure our real qualities. We all asked, ”Does this really define us? Are we really this bad?” We quickly shot down this thought and said, “We are more complex than what a test says about us. We are more than a number.” Then we decided as a collective group (The Future is Mine) to interview people on this topic and see how they felt about being labeled as “437”

Watch my documentary "437" here.

The state should provide more than just numbers about the students and the school district. The writers at the Pittsburgh Business Times were given the statistics and they were doing what they were supposed to do.  The numbers don’t show anything about the students’ character or their community.

It is difficult to measure creativity and social involvement, but we should be ranked and defined by more than our test scores. We never get a chance to tell the true stories about our community and the quality of the people who live there. We are all held back by the statistics and we need to break the shackles of the “standardization” of our community and tell the real stories.

Denis McCormick is a junior at Steel Valley High School

Hear Me Goes to ALEC to Record Student Interviews

This blog was reposted from The Brashear Kids Association Blog, which can be found here:  http://www.brashearkids.com/2014/05/hear-me-comes-to-alec-to-record-student.html

Hear Me Comes to ALEC to Record Student Interviews

Hear Me, an initiative of the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, came to the Allentown Learning and Engagement Center (ALEC) to record our students' thoughts about the Pittsburgh Police.  ALEC is located next door to the Zone 3 Police Station. Interactions with the police are part of our students' daily lives. 




Through this collaborative campaign with Allies for Children, students from all over the city of Pittsburgh had the opportunity to record their responses to such questions as, "What is the job of a police officer?" and "How would you describe your relationship with police officers?"  Once all the responses are recorded and edited, Hear Me will present them to Mayor William Peduto to help inform the selection of the new Chief of Police.  




Students at ALEC listened to their interviews  and then interviewed one another.  They had such a great time sharing their stories with Jess and Ryan of Hear Me, and we can't wait to share the final edit. 



Hear Me is a collaborative network of community organizations, institutions, businesses and foundations working together to provide a better future for our kids. Through this project, our students have had a chance to share their voice with a wider audience and participate in the democratic process.  To learn more, check out their website.

- Renee

New Narratives - Hear Me 101 Screening

Hear Me 101 presents.... New Narratives

A presentation of short films from students who want to inspire change.

May 22, 6pm 
Pittsburgh Filmmakers Melwood Screening Room (Oakland)
477 Melwood Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Admission is free. Hors D’oeuvres, light refreshments, and music provided

The screening will include short documentaries from our partner schools: Clairton HS, McKeesport HS/McKeesport Technology Center, Steel Valley HS, and F.U.S.E./Imani Christian Academy.  There will also be a special guest film from a Philadelphia student. The discussion panel will feature Emmai Alaquiva from HipHop on Lock, a representative from Allies for Children, and a representative from TeenBloc.

Community Responses to the Hear Me Display at Square Café

The Hear Me display at Square Café has evoked over 60 unique responses from community members since we installed it in May.  

The display features rotating stories from a group of passionate students who are committed to improving their education through the F.U.S.E. program, which was started by a Wilkinsburg high school teacher to give students additional learning opportunities outside the classroom. 

F.U.S.E. worked with Hear Me to record the students’ stories and partnered us with Square Café, a local restaurant who is committed to serving the community. The powerful stories and the display have become a topic of discussion in the café.

It currently features a story form Ashley, a 17-year-old Wilkinsburg High School Student, and asks the question: “How can we help students and administrators better understand each other?” 

Safety at Wilkinsburg High School  By Ashley, 17

Community responses to Ashley's story:

 

 

We update the story and the question every 2 months.  

Previous stories include Sophia's, accompanied by the same question:

(“How can we help students and administrators better understand each other?”)


My neighborhood  By Sophia , 16

Community responses:


 

and Tatiyana's, along with the question "Who is responsible for the learning environment in schools?" 


My School  By Tatiyana , 17

Community Responses:


  

To stay up-to-date with Hear Me displays and community responses, follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HearMeProject.

For more information or to learn how you can host a display, please email Hoffman.ryan8@gmail.com.

 

Ryan Hoffman Project Coordinator, Hear Me 

Harless CREATE Satellite Has Year-End Celebration

The June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development, College of Education at Marshall University, held a year-end celebration showcasing Harless CREATE Satellite projects on May 17, 2012 from 6-8 in the Memorial Student Center’s Don Morris Room.  

Featured projects included: the GigaPan Outreach Project, Arts and Bots, Hear Me, and Message From Me. In addition, a new WaterBot project was introduced.  GigaPan enables students to take GigaPan panoramic images of their communities and activities and share them with peers across the world. Arts and Bots is a customized robot designed to integrate technology, literature, and history through the use of art supplies, circuit boards, lights, motors and sensors. Hear Me seeks to amplify kids voices using media and technology to create a world where kids are heard, acknowledged and understood, thereby giving them the power to inspire change in their lives, communities and the world. WaterBot is a citizen scientist project that prototypes a low-cost, easy and mobile method to monitor water quality, empowering communities, educators and children to monitor their watershed systems.

 

 

The Harless CREATE Satellite grant, which was funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, provides rural Appalachian schools continuous and seamless access to technologies, educational resources and ideas generated at the CREATE Lab in Pittsburgh. In addition it enabled teachers to integrate cutting edge technology into existing curriculum.   

Schools showcasing projects are from the Marshall University Professional Development Partnership Schools and include the Early Education STEM Center, Huntington High, Kellogg, Guyandotte and Ceredo Elementary schools, Beverly Hills, Milton, Barboursville Middle schools, as well as Cherry River Elementary in Nicholas county, Beverly Elementary in Randolph county and South Point High School in Ohio.

 

 

MU Early Education STEM Center Goes From Nap Time to Tech Time!

March 30, 2012 @ 12:00 AM

LACIE PIERSON

The Herald-Dispatch

HUNTINGTON -- Most daycares have snack time, nap time and all sorts of games, but the Marshall University Early Education STEM Center has all of that, along with robots and voice activated technology that its Pre-K students are not only playing with but are helping build almost on their own.

That technology and those students were on full display during a family night event Thursday at the STEM Center in Corbly Hall on Marshall University's Campus.

Specifically, students were eager to engage in activities that made their way to Marshall's campus thanks to a partnership with the Create Lab at Carnegie Mellon, which includes three main projects called GigaPan, Hear ME and Message from Me, said Tarabeth Brumfield, the director of the Early Education STEM Center.

"All of these activities have so many ways to engage these kids in using technology," Brumfield said. "These are kids who have had technology be a part of their lives from the start, and they aren't scared or intimidated by any of it."

Brumfield was especially excited for the Message from Me Center, which allows the students to wirelessly upload photos by themselves, create a message to go with it and send the photo and message via text or email to someone from a list of people including their STEM teachers, their classmates and their parents.

The Message for Me machine is one of thirty in existence, Brumfield said.

"It's a neat way for them to engage their school life into their home life," she said. "It's a fun way to share what they're doing with their parents while they're learning."

Parker Adkins, a 4-year-old STEM student, operated the Message for Me machine like a pro, and his parents, Nisa and Shawn Adkins, said they've seen so many changes since their son began attending daycare at the STEM center.

"We wanted to send him to a place where we knew he wouldn't fall through the cracks, where he could get one-on-one attention, and he's gotten that here," Nisa Adkins said. "He's opened up so much, and there's so much difference in the way he deals with problems and works through things. The whole thing is just great."

For more information, visit www.marshall.edu/stemc.

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x439595474/MU-Pre-K-program-goes-from-nap...

Hines Ward, Clairton and USA Network!

Hines Ward and students at Clairton High School involved in Hear Me 101 will be featured in “NFL Characters Unite,” a documentary that premieres tonight at 7 p.m. on the USA Network.

Hear Me connected USA Network producers with Clairton City School District through Hear Me 101 in advance of the filming. Common themes among the students are a desire to raise their community up, become role models and to be seen and heard as positive people.  Hines Ward and students at Clairton High School involved in Hear Me 101 will be featured in “NFL Characters Unite,” a documentary that premieres tonight at 7 p.m. on the USA Network.
 
Watch the trailer!