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St. Andrew’s Resource Centre

muralWe went to the organic market at the St. Andrews Resource Centre today, to get some healthy, fresh produce. We also enjoyed a hearty lunch of lentil soup and samosas.

After several visits, I can say that the Centre is one of the best-run and most beneficial community centres that I’ve seen. In addition to the market, there are employment services, tutoring for secondary school students (grinds), adult education, computer training, parenting and young mothers programmes, and welfare rights counseling. There’s a Heritage project to record the history of the Pearse St. community and many others projects (see below).

buildingThe elegant building was opened as the St. Andrew’s School in 1895 and operated as such until 1976 due to the decline of the working docklands. A renovation began in 1985, which led to the social centre opening on Bloomsday, 1989. The structure is well-preserved and there are colorful murals in the hallways and the back courtyard.

Staff are drawn from the community, so that the centre’s work tends to directly reflect community needs. Concurrently, community members develop skills that help their own careers. The latest count is 224 staff on full or part-time status.

The Centre has learned several lessons that might be useful elsewhere:

  • Issues and programs develop out of needs identified by the community. There’s bottom-up planning rather than solutions from on high.
  • There’s a concerted effort to build capacity in the community. For individuals, there’s an advancement path through community work.
  • There’s a flat organizational structure, which allows quick and flexible response to needs. A corollary is an openness to the process. Staff learn to find workarounds to barriers.
  • cybercafeThere’s a self-sustaining budgetary model. There’s no one paymaster and staff grows in response to funding.
  • The Centre provides integrated services, a “one-stop shop.” This applies across the life cycle from the childcare center through Day Centre with meals for the elderly. Activities such as the Cyber-Links centre coordinate with others, such as the theatre project to present drama written and acted by community members.
  • figuresStaff and community members care about the Centre. Pride in the Centre is evident: There’s no grafitti and there appear to be limited security concerns. The display of figures brought in by children in the Childcare programme is just one tangible piece of evidence for this.
  • There’s a forward thinking, needs-directed process, which identifies opportunities for funding consistent with community needs, capabilities, and processes.
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Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Among the many events worldwide was the Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin. It sounded interesting when I heard about it just the day before, but I was hesitant to go: It had been an exhausting week between my mom’s recovery from a hip fracture and my preparing a lecture on education and community for Wednesday evening. The weather forecast promised rain; there was a Six Nations rugby match (best not discussed after yesterday); and I wasn’t certain I’d be welcome on the tour, not knowing anyone else there.

Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin posterFortunately, and without any doubt in the end, I made the right decision. It turned out that there was not only an enlightening and enjoyable tour, but soup and sandwiches afterwards at the Teachers Club, short movies, a distro (books, zines, and other publications), music, and lots of good discussion.

I had the impression that the organizers expected 20-30 people to show up. But there were at least 120, maybe up to 150, not counting various people who joined in for brief times along the way. What was planned as one group turned into two with an impressing display of organization on the part of Choice Ireland and the RAG collective. One organizer pointed out that their non-hierarchical structure made it easier to respond to unexpected events.

My group was led by Carol Hunt, a history postgraduate student at Trinity and writer for the Irish Independent. She was an excellent guide, leading us from St Stephen’s Green, to the Mansion House, Trinity College, O’Connell St, the Garden of Remembrance, and other spots, each being important sites for women’s history in Ireland. At various stops, others presented on issues such as immigrant rights or women’s centers masquerading as offering full reproductive counseling while in fact proselytizing. I learned far too much to try to convey here, but you can see the tour map and background information in a beautiful and very well-designed booklet, which should still be available in hard copy or pdf.

The tour was bracketed by two precipitations. In the beginning, we were standing next to the seat honoring Louie Bennett and Helen Chenevix. Bennett, a novelist, pacisit, and labor organzer, helped found the Irish Women’s Suffrage Federation, played an active role in the Dublin lockout, helped found the Irish Women’s Reform League, and was active for years in the Irish Women Workers’ Union. As Carol began talking, we had a brief burst of hail. Someone called out that God was a male and He was not pleased!

Then, at our last stop, someone threw potatoes from an upper story window, injuring one of the people on the tour. It’s amazing how cowardly some people can be and how afraid they are of others simply trying to learn.

After the tour, there was a social event in the Teacher’s Club at Parnell Sq. We saw two short films, including The Future of Feminism, by Cara Holmes and Breaking the Silence, by Katie Gillum. There was good music from Heathers, some of which you can hear on their Myspace site. I’m still working to complete all of the exercises in the activity booklet for children designed by Aileen Curtin!

I include the video below only because it gives a taste of the time of Countess Constance Markievicz. I learned on the tour that of all the great women in Irish history, and of all the many statues in Dublin, she is the only woman to have one. All of the other statues of women are of fictional characters or the Virgin Mary.

Markievicz was second in command of the St Stephen’s Green Citizen Army force during the Easter Rising of 1916. Court-martialed afterwards, her potential execution was commuted to life imprisonment because of her gender. She famously replied: “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.”

See more, with photos.

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Re-Connecting with Community

Nick and me

On March 5, National College of Ireland hosted an event to consider the relations between third-level education and the communities around them. Emma Kytzia and Beatrice Cantalejo did a terrific job putting it all together.

Nick Rees (left) presided. I was asked to speak on “A Radical Vision for Third-Level Education Today: Re-Connecting with Community.” The lecture was followed by a panel discussion, guided by Paul Mooney, then questions from the audience, and finally, conversation over wine in the President’s office.

I drew from two examples in the Chicago area, Hull House and Paseo Boricua, to examine how educational institutions can re-connect with community. There was a little about current work with the College and the local schools in the Docklands community around widening participation in higher education.panel

The real focus of the evening was on how these experiences might inform education and community work in Dublin today. An excellent panel took up that topic:

  • Mr Ken Duggan, School Principal, Westland Row CBS
  • Prof Áine Hyland, former Professor of Education and Vice President (Academic), UCC
  • Mr Seanie Lambe, Director, Inner City Renewal Group
  • Ms Michele Ryan, Head, School of Community Studies, National College of Ireland

Further Information:presenters

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    Camara in third-level education

    Camara shop We’ve recently had discussions between National College of Ireland and Camara. The Camara process involves collecting donated computers, testing and repairing them, loading software, shipping the the packages to Africa, setting up school or community technology centers, and training local residents. It also includes developing multimedia presentations and educational software, databases, networking, and a variety of software applications and system components.

    It turns out that enacting these processes addresses the learning objectives of the third-year work experience requirement, as well as major parts of courses in hardware, multimedia, networks, management technology, marketing, and other areas. Many students and staff are interested as volunteers as well.

    training At the same time, having National College of Ireland students involved meets special needs of Camara in terms of certain skills, especially hardware. College students could help with the pile of computers now waiting patiently for treatment in the Camara Computer Hospital. Some students will participate through coursework, which should help in terms of consistency of participation.

    banner This is an excellent example of the principle: The community is the curriculum. When learning grows out of concrete lived experience, learning activities start out being integrated. When it derives from real community needs those activities are automatically purposeful. They highlight independent and critical thinking, responsibility, communication, collaboration, and problem solving, not because someone decided these should be taught, but because these are needed to achieve a common purpose. All of the participants, including whether in the College, the Camara facility, or a village in Africa, become both learners and contributors.

    Second photo courtesy of the Camara Flickr site.

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    Changing the spiral of violence into a spiral of hope

    stack of monitors Camara is a wonderful program, which could be described in simple terms as a way to stop filling landfill sites with the hazardous waste of old computers, and instead, send those computers to schools and colleges in Africa. But it’s really much more than that.

    I was fortunate to get a tour of the new Camara facilities now located in the Digital Hub near the Guinness Warehouse in the Liberties area of Dublin. I’ve now also had a chance to meet with various Camara staff and volunteers. I learned that Camara delivers computers to schools throughout Africa; sends volunteers to teach technology in Africa, and creates computer training materials and educational multimedia for schools in Africa.

    refurbishingThere are many distinctive features of the Camara operation. One is that computers are loaded with Camarabuntu. This is a complete operating system (Linux), plus an office suite, web browser, many educational applications, and a condensed Wikipedia. It’s designed for a teacher to be able to setup a complete computer-based classroom quickly and easily.

    There is also much attention to the volunteer experience, including providing opportunities for people with a wide range of skills and available time. Post-prinary and third-level students participate, as do retired people, and many others. Camara finds ways to involve everyone. Even those who donate computers are asked to help with the initial sorting of parts. They also help with culture shock for those who make the four-week trip to Africa.

    girl at site

    One derivation of the name, Camara, is from a West African word meaning, “one who teaches from experience.” Another is from Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, who had an uncompromising commitment to the poor. Câmara’s “Spiral of Violence” calls upon the youth of the world to break the spiral that their ancestors and parents have perpetuated. The Camara computer to Africa program brings together these aspects of learning and social justice in a refreshingly practical and successful way.

    Photos courtesy of the Camara Flickr site.

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    Scholarship of Teaching & Learning at NCI

    NCIAn important emphasis for the School of Computing at the National College of Ireland is research that makes a difference for student learning. This is realized in the development of automated systems to enhance learning: Orla Lahart is developing a system to provide online mentoring for teachers; Dietmar Janetzko is developing dialogue systems to respond to learners or instructors producing course materials; Stephan Weibelzahl’s group (including Sabine Moebs, Teresa Hurley, Diana Chihaia) has a variety of efforts to build adaptive learning spaces; Keith Maycock is working on automatic generation of instructional content to suit the cognitive ability and pedagogic preference of learners.

    There is also innovative research on learning styles (Elaine Maher, Paul Stynes, Pramod Pathak); students’ perceptions of software development concepts (Frances Sheridan); the use of mobile devices to support learning (Paul Hayes); elearning (Eugene O’Loughlin); new approaches to enhance student engagement (Pramod Pathak); workplace learning (Leo Casey, Abigail Reynolds, Michael Coleman); digital literacy (Leo Casey, Abigail Reynolds); and many other examples. The recent inauguration of a new elearning usability lab (Leo Casey, Stefan Weibelzahl) further supports this research.

    A distinctive feature of most of this research is that it is applied to the teaching within the School itself. Thus researchers do not simply study how those in other settings learn or teach; they apply it to their own setting. This means that the School is automatically aligned with the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning movement. I hope to see its research appear soon in journals such as the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (IJ-SoTL) and at SoTL conferences.

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    Thoughts for today

    “Books are no substitute for living” (May Hill Arbuthnot), but “Life without books is empty” (Isaac Asimov)

    “To feel the meaning of what one is doing, and to rejoice in that meaning; to unite in one concurrent fact the unfolding of the inner life and the ordered development of material conditions–that is art” (John Dewey)

    “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers” (James Thurber), but “The best way to find things out .. is not to ask questions at all…if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets, and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone” (Elspeth Huxley)

    “One’s work should be a salute to life” (Pablo Casals, from “Salute to Life”)

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    Children First

    Children FirstI attended a very interesting session yesterday at the National College of Ireland on child protection policies. This related to the about-to-appear Children First: National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children, and the fact that the College has a significant number of under-18-year-old students, as well as programs for area children.

    There were disturbing stories in the session about recent abuse cases, and also complex accounts of how Ireland is advancing its child protection policies. The latter included issues such as reconciling the constitution’s protection of family rights with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention asserts that every child has basic rights, including the rights to live, to express opinions, to be protected from abuse, and to privacy. There were practical tips offered on what to do when observing a situation in which children’s rights were violated as when they are forced to beg on the streets.

    Participating in the session reminded me that 193 nations have ratified the UN Convention, while only two have not–Somalia and the United States. The turmoil in Somalia makes it a special case, which might be excused. But the US should have been the leader, not the wayward one. It’s sad to imagine John Lennon, standing on the other side saying, “We hope someday you’ll join us” and not being able to do so.

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    Aughavannagh and Glenmalure

    Aughavannagh cottage

    Our Ballsbridge apartment lease ran out at the end of January and the new apartment wasn’t available until 3 February. That meant that aside from badly needing a break, we were also homeless for three days. It became clear that this was a time to turn crisis into opportunity. We chose to make a long weekend of it, going to stay in a cottage in Aughavannagh in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. You can see the cottage behind the shed, in the first photo.

    Glenmalure mtns

    Being in a valley, there was no mobile phone access, much less internet. As our rental car was not designed for the snow in the mountains, so we were about as isolated as one could be just 50 kilometers or so by air south of Dublin.

    Glenmalure waterfall

    The weekend was cold, with light snows, rain, and ferocious winds at times. But we had a fireplace and plenty of fuel. At times the weather cleared enough for walks. One very delightful one was at Glenmalure, the longest glacial valley in Ireland and UK. It’s just east of Luqnaquilla, Wicklow’s highest mountain at 925m. There’s also the impressive Carrawaystick waterfall, down to the Avonbeg River (see left).

    Glenmalure is not far south from Glendalough, an equally beautiful spot, but one that’s more heavily traveled. At the end of the walk we had an excellent pub lunch at the Glenmalure Lodge, where we had parked our car. That allowed us time to get back to watch Ireland v. Italy (rugby) on the telly. (We weren’t totally out of touch with the modern world!) Glenmalure Lodge

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    Fulbright Chair at National College of Ireland, 2007-08

    NCI Iris

    My Fulbright Distinguished Chair position is hosted by the National College of Ireland, a third-level institution in Dublin. The College is very different from my own University of Illinois in terms of size, history, student population, local community, and emphasis on postgraduate education. And yet, I sensed from the position description and confirmed through subsequent interactions that there was an excellent fit with my own interests, experiences, and values.

    The College was established in Ranelagh by Jesuits. Initially known as the Catholic Workers College, it was designed to serve workers and to fulfill the social justice mission of the Jesuits. It was also a response to the threats of totalitarianism revealed by the leadup to and aftermath of the Second World War, seeing education as the means to preserve a democratic society.

    In 2000, the name was changed to National College of Ireland, and in 2003 the College moved to the International Financial Services Centre in the Dublin Docklands area. Over its history the nature of work had changed from manufacturing to service, digital technologies had become ubiquitous, and Ireland had grown into a wealthy nation. But not everyone participated fully in the Celtic Tiger; in the Docklands itself, one sees high-rise buildings for multinational banks and insurance companies next to housing for families who see little chance for success in schooling or in the economy. In this context, the College has maintained its social justice commitment, but renewed that in the context of a changing economy and demographics.

    It was clear from my initial meetings in the College that there was a strong desire among both the leadership and the staff to bring social action together with academic excellence. There was a commitment to foster social responsibility along with new economy skills. There was an openness to seeing social commitment as an integral part of the learning experience and of scholarship in the College. Because of this, I saw a real opportunity to connect my work on community inquiry. My work came to focus on widening participation, enriching the learning environment, and promoting an active research culture, which were also key aspects of the College strategic plan.

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