12.6.19

Why the National Endowment for the Humanities Seminars and Institutes for Summer Scholars are Amazing for Educators

Image result for neh summerThe National Endowment for the Humanities will help me go back to school tuition-free for the Summer. I was selected as a Summer Scholar - which means I will join a small cohort of educators for a month of study at Amherst College in Massachusetts to study the ethics of punishment and reward. 

NEH Summer Scholars
Every year the National Endowment for the Humanities offers dozens of humanities-based programs for primary and secondary school teachers and higher education professionals. Teachers apply for the programs they want, and if selected from a national pool, are able to participate in an NEH summer seminar, landmark, or institute. The aim of the program is to put educators in an institution with great teachers, colleagues, and set with a topic - so when we return in the Fall we are hopefully enlightened, inspired, and equipped with new ideas, tools and curriculum to share with our home schools. 
"Punishment, Politics, and Culture"
I was selected to participate in a four-week Summer Seminar hosted by Professor Austin Sarat from Amherst College entitled "Punishment, Politics, and Culture". Here is a link to what we will be reading and discussing. I will come away from the seminar enriched because we'll dive into important texts (e.g., Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Book of Job from the Bible) that have shaped culture, history, and literature. The essential question of our seminar is why do we (as a society) punish - or reward - the way that we do and what does this say about our moral values? 
A community of Educators in Queens
I teach at a private, independent school in Queens. We're called Garden School and we've been in the Jackson Heights neighborhood since 1923. A few of my colleagues, James Pigman, Marcia Elkind, and Nancy Massand have participated in NEH Summer programs and they inspired me to apply. The cool thing about the NEH Summer Scholar program is that it creates a mini-community of educators who have done one or two programs and you become committed to sharing what you have learned.
Mr. Jim Pigman, an Emeritus Educator Inspired Me to be of the Hot Sauce Variety at Amherst
Mr. Pigman, who is now retired (but still very active), told me that "I am of the hot sauce variety". That's because I ate a dish of spicy crawfish in Suzhou, China (on a school trip we did together with students and other teachers back in 2017). I think he admired my spunk so I hope to bring that same zest to the Summer I'll be attending at Amherst. All of us in the program are all already linked together on an email chain and participants I will be working with have sent emails discussing what cool things we can do in an around the Amherst and Western Massachusetts region. I am looking forward to seeing the Emily Dickinson Museum.
Fun Facts:
The National Endowment for the Humanities provides opportunities like the one I am attending this Summer every year. Educators can apply for next year's programs in the Fall. Stipends of $1,200-$3,300 help cover expenses for the one- to four-week programs. I am staying on campus at Amherst. The stipend will help cover my dorm and meal expenses while I am at the college. I am grateful for this opportunity and I cannot wait to dive into the texts and meet our 2019 cohort.
What Do You Think?
Have you ever done an NEH Summer Landmark, Seminar, or Institue? I'd love to hear about your experience. Let me know in the comments.
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I created for the Humanities and English classroom

9.6.19

Video Installation: Flyover Woodside, Queens (with a Church Steeple and Cross in the Foreground)

I've documented a flyover of a passenger jet gliding over Eastern Queens on its way to Laguardia Airport. It was a bright, semi-cloudy day in Woodside - a quiet neighborhood in Queens. Folks were going to church (as shown in the picture). I took this amateur video on my iPhone and later uploaded it and added a soundtrack.

8.6.19

Bathroom List: There Ain't No Place to Pee in New York City (Unless You Know a Few Spots)

It's a common occurrence. You have to pee. And you're in the city. You probably don't want to risk peeing in an alley or behind a tree (although I must admit I have been forced to do that). New York City, unfortunately, has very few public places to relieve oneself. When nature calls, what are you going to do?
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash


5.6.19

Short Film Review: Reckless (2013)


The Short Film "Reckless" - 2013 (22 minutes, in Norwegian with English subtitles)
Film still from the short "Reckless" (2013)


The 2013 Norwegian short film "Reckless" is the work of director Bjørn Erik Pihlmann Sørensen and writer Einar Sverdrup. I saw the film in 2013 and passed it off as a public service announcement about the need to rein in irresponsible teenagers. But as you will notice as I write about the movie, my views have changed a bit since I last saw it. To give you a brief rundown, the movie is about a teenage girl who has to babysit her younger child-age brother - and through a series of related events tragedy strikes. I thought maybe the movie was funded by parents who want their adolescent-aged kids to take better care of their siblings. However, I recently watched it again and the short made me think more about what message it is trying to convey. I haven't read much about the movie online nor have I talked to anyone else I know who has seen it. I am going to take a critical plunge and articulate in a flat-footed way what I think the movie might be suggesting about adolescence, sexuality, and responsibility. It's also a movie about the absence of authority.

21.5.19

May Teacher Journal: Teacher Gonna Teach Animated GIF

Teacher Gonna Teach GIF
Teacher Gonna Teach
So, I wanted to make an animated GIF to represent teaching in May - and here it is (see above).

15.5.19

Family History: My Mother’s Doctor is a Roselli

Mom with Dr. Eric Roselli at the Cleveland Clinic
Mom called me the other day. “Greig,” she said. “I met your cousin.” She had been in Cleveland, Ohio to visit an aortic specialist. Mom has been battling an auto-immune disorder for a decade now. The latest development has been an inflammation of her aorta which doctors have told her point to a possible aneurysm. So my mom and older brother went to see Dr. Eric Roselli. Dr. Roselli will perform surgery on her sometime in September. So I asked my mom how she knows for sure Dr. Roselli is my cousin. The surname “Roselli” is not uncommon among Italian Americans. Lake Michigan is, according to legend, filled with Roselli’s attached to cement shoes. And in the Vatican City, one can find examples of the work of Cosimo Roselli.
    Mom had a hunch; there was a connection with this particular Roselli because she told me she had a feeling he was related. She said, ”So when I asked him to tell his story he said his grandfather Ercole (Hercules in Italian) emigrated from Italy and he had had a brother named Joseph.” Mom said her eyes lit up. My grandfather, Joseph, emigrated from Italy in 1923. He had a brother named Ercole. They were separated after my grandfather came to the United States after the death of his mother and they didn’t see each other for decades until they were finally reunited as adults. The stories matched! My grandfather, when he emigrated, lived in Detroit. He was a young man, and eventually, he moved to Louisiana. Ercole finally settled in Detroit too and stayed there. So if both stories corroborate - my father and Dr. Roselli are first cousins.
    Dr. Roselli’s father is my father’s uncle. We both share a common paternal grandfather. And this Dr. Roselli will take care of my mom (who is a Roselli by marriage). Mom kept the surname even after she divorced my father twenty-five years ago. I guess she liked the name! And she was raising my two brothers and me, so it made it more comfortable when she was dealing with stuff related to us kids. She never changed the name. So this story is really about my mom who is a cancer survivor, and now she’s battling this recent inflammation of her artery. She’ll have surgery done, and the chances are good she’ll come out of it with a clean bill of health. You've got the Roselli’s on your side!

I've written about family history on my blog - check out related articles here.