Murphy Educational Consulting (MEC)

I always enjoy Alexander Russo’s blogs about education and Chicago Public Schools, but this one got me really, really excited!  I was teaching in Washington DC when the wire came out and the show was so real, so authentic… It visually described reality for some kids and some communities in ways that words often can’t.

Here’s a permalink to the post that I’ve included below.

May 11, 2010 | Posted At: 11:42 AM | Author: Alexander Russo | Category: Media Watch , Teachers & Teaching

There are lots of folks already teaching The Wire in college and (some) high school classrooms, but little of it I’ve read about so far focused specifically on the education issues raised in the series and particularly in Season Four.  That’s why I was excited when my tocayo, Catholic University communications study professor Alexander Russo, emailed to ask what I’d suggest as background reading focused on that part of the show.  He’s teaching a broad-based course this summer and was looking for ideas about Season Four. And I, unused to being asked to do anything, desperate to be helpful, and to avoid doing what I should be doing, spent too much time asking around and thinking up what I would include in a reading list. The results — including many ideas from friends and colleagues — is included below.  Take a look, and be sure to weigh in with any ideas or disagreements you might have.  Maybe we can get someone to teach The Wire at an ed school, which to my knowledge hasn’t happened yet.

ACADEMIC PAPERS, ARTICLES

Jukin’ the Stats: Education and Inequality in the Fourth Season of The Wire Jonathan Gayles, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Georgia State University

POPULAR COVERAGE AND COMMENTARY

Breaking Down The Wire Alex Kotlowitz, Steve James, and David Mills discuss Season 4 (Slate)

Why The Wire: Season Four Wasn’t As Good As Everyone Says It Was (More Than Fine)

“These Are Not Your Children” The Wire’s 8th graders and their fate at Tillman Middle School (darkmatter.com 2009)

Ed Burns:  Burning Man Teacher Magazine

Ed Burns, Now Wired Enough to Move On to Battles Beyond the Streets NYT

The Bleakness of The Wire American Scene

The Angriest Man In Television The Atlantic

What Barack Obama Could Learn From The Wire Hufffington Post

Nice White Lady (Mad TV)*

*There’s also a radio segment from Chicago Public Radio’s “Vocalo” in which Bill Ayers analyzes the skit, along with other movies like Stand And Deliver (Part One, Part Two)

Kevin Carey has a series of blog posts that I think include Season Four

NONFICTION DEPICTIONS OF URBAN EDUCATION

something from There Are No Children Here?

something from random family?

something from Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities (Harper Perennial, 1992)?

A Hope in the Unseen from Ron Suskind

Test Of Their Lives Los Angeles Magazine Jesse Katz 2007

Saga Of Rayola Carwell Chicago Tribune Stephanie Banchero 2004

What It Takes to Make a Student NYT Sunday Magazine Paul Tough

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND READING

Posing Problems and Picking Fights:  Critical Pedagogy and the Corner Boys Potter, Beliveau and Bolf-Beliveau

Risk and protective factors for urban African-American youth American Journal of Community Psychology 39: 21 Tinsley Li, S., K.M. Nussbaum and M.H. Richards (2007).

Childhood risk factors for adolescent gang membership: Results from the Seattle social development project, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 36: 300-322. Hill, K.G., Howell, J.C., Hawkins, J.D., and Battin-Pearson, S.R. (1999).

They wear the mask: Hypermasculinity and hypervulnerability among African American males in an urban remedial disciplinary school, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 11, 53–74. Cassidy, E.F. and H.C. Stevenson (2005).

Psychological mediators of violence in urban youth,” in McCord, J. Violence and children in the inner city. Slaby, R. (1997).

Something from Ralph Payne or Pedro Noguera?

As I am wrapping up my first year as a doctoral student, I am writing paper and reflecting on my learning. Thomas Kuhn writes about paradigm shifts and the scientific revolution, and he has been cited in all of my courses, regardless of content or discipline. Here is a quote that reflects upon why Kuhn’s writing is relevant to education. The quote is from Clayton Christensen’s 2008 book, ‘Disrupting Class’.

“Thomas Kuhn wrote 50 years ago that confusion and contradiction are the norm during this descriptive phase. As studies comparing the efficacy of chartered versus traditional public schools or smalls schools versus large schools illustrate, Kuhn’s wisdom is still with us. This phase is often characterized by a plethora of categorization schemes because the phenomena generally have many different attributes. Often in this phase no model is irrefutably superior: each seems able to explain anomalies to other modes, but suffers from anomalies of its own. This is the zone in which so many education studies get stuck (Christensen, C.M., 2008, pg. 168).”