“On an island of music in a city of drumbeats the drum dream girl dreamed.” ― Margarita Engle, Drum Dream Girl
Darío began by sensibilizar our ears to nuances of sound by sitting outside in two concentric circles, quietly attending to the nuances of what we could hear coming from different distances. We then moved into creating abstract sounds we could maintain with our own bodies and voices, and were soon orchestrating symphonies of sound and of silence.
Darío led us through an exercise to sensitize our ears. We listened in silence to noises close by, a little further away, and then as far as we could hear.
“I’m going to do this for my anxiety to connect with where I am and have dimensionality.” – Nany
“I realized that there are so many sounds” – Mely
“When you focus on one sound, you forget all the other ones.” – Samuel
“We have the ability to filter our sounds. We can make these sounds unheard if you want.” – Darío
The group was counted off by 1,2 to form two groups. The “twos” formed a smaller circle within the ones and sat with their eyes closed.
Group 1: During the first round, Darío touches a person on the shoulder with one finger, inviting them to start making a sound. When Darío touches a person with the palm of his hand, the person will stop making their sound. During the second round, the participants conducted themselves, starting and stopping when they desired.
Group 2: The groups changed positions, so the “ones” were now seated inside the circle. The rules changed slightly for the second group. When he taps a person twice, that person will change their sound. During the second round, the participants conducted themselves, starting and stopping when they desired, and changing sounds at least once.
“I was depending on another sound to initiate my sound and then I realized, maybe I should depend on myself and my own sound.” – Liza
“It’s interesting the difference when you’re prompted to make a sound versus when you do it on your own. I felt both circles had much more rhythm when they were feeling it out themselves, but maybe with less variety.” – Ian
“I found it interesting that both circles went for a rhythm. Usually you don’t see that happen.” – Kurt
“It’s intimidating to improvise. I’m used to clear rules and objectives.” – Lindsay
“That’s the beautiful thing about improvisation, rules are made along the way.” – Darío
Nany and Lee did an Alive Reading of the text in English and in Spanish. Participants made a percussion sound each time the word “drum” was read.
“Some things are just too unjust for words, and too ambiguous for either speech or ideas.” ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“Education is an optimist enterprise.” – Steve Seidel
“Optimism of the spirit; pessimism of the intellect.” – Antonio Gramsci
“Teachers invest their lives in the future. The idea of teaching children is to make a better future.” – Nick Rabkin
“What we do here at Habla is look very closely at how teachers work in classrooms. How teachers can make classrooms into more democratic spaces. Where all children are seen and heard, and where they can practice being part of a democratic society. But those of us who keep our eyes open, in the US we call those people ‘woke,’ we all ‘woke up’ in 2016. In Mexico, people have been ‘woke’ for decades and I am very interested in the ‘wokeness’ of Barcelona and Cataluña. We find ourself in societies organized by systems. Part of these systems are invisible and parts are visible. The invisible parts are what we think of as, ‘well, that’s just how it works.’ Yesterday Patricia said she wondered how we could bring the work we practice here at Habla to scale. We all recognized that we are a very tiny minority within these big systems and we need to understand the invisible parts of those systems, and we need strategies for changing them. We may believe it’s enough to ‘do work’ in classrooms that slowly becomes viral. I’m not sure that’s true. I suspect that we need to do more outside the classroom. Here at Habla we replenish, we revitalize our spirits and our hopes for our work as educators., and I’m curious about how you do that when you are at home, not at Habla, and working in those systems. Where do you look to maintain your spirit’s optimism. To organize this conversation, I have two things in mind. First, I want everyone to understand each other well. We likely won’t have time to translate, so you should sit with people that you can understand. I would like each country here to be represented at each table as much as possible. I want people to learn about each other’s countries. Next, what are we going to talk about? In my mind it’s simple. I would like you to talk about where you find hope in society and in the systems in which you work. I would like you to comment on how you understand the invisible words and norms in the systems in which you work. Part of my theory is, until we are able to see these systems, it is very difficult to change them.”
Cynthia presented a slideshow with techniques on how to use the viewfinders: to zoom in on small details, to understand the big picture, to focus on patterns, etc. Using the images in the slideshow, we practiced these techniques.
Cynthia modeled how to use oil pastels on black paper. She showed us how to make colors bolder and others softer, and how to draw without smearing colors. We then went outside with our viewfinders and looked for details and patterns that caught our attention. Some of us used our phones to take pictures of the details to make it easier to draw them afterwards.
We then took our mental images and pictures back inside, drew a couple warm up images of the patterns and details we chose. Then, using our frames, created an oil pastel drawing of the image.
These oil pastels produce deep, rich, and vibrant color images, and our facilitators gave us black paper to draw upon that provided a sharp contrast to the hues and shades of our marks upon their surfaces. The beauty of the resulting drawings highlights the importance of giving students access to high quality materials. And the focus provided by the viewfinders allowed participants who considered themselves to be untalented to create vivid, satisfying works of great subtlety and nuance.
Using our frames, we looked through our binders and each selected a line that captured our attention. We then wrote this on or around our drawing, connecting that literary idea to our visual observation.
Taking inspiration from the poem For Everyone by Pablo Neruda we wrote a personal stanza using the poem’s structure:
I know that many may wonder
“What is ______doing?” I’m here.
If you look for me in this_____________.
you’ll find me with ________________,
prepared to ______________,
prepared to ______________.