By Ritesh Mehta on December 1, 2010 5:45 PM
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"It takes a village to raise a child." But it takes a
confluence of otherwise dispersed villages to raise a generation of truly
literate children.
The landmark 'Robert F.
Kennedy-Legacy in Action' event held on the 14th of October at
the Annenberg School for Communication and
Journalism at USC was where such a confluence assembled for the first time.
Representatives held up their distinctive mirrors, motivations, and voices to
create a distinctive echo chamber of ideas, a vision for a playground of
formative, post-pedagogical activities. Openness, eclecticism, and a concern
for the young reverberated in the introductory hope-bestowing speeches, probing
pecha-kucha-style
presentations, and reflective Q&A. Folk from Annenberg (Henry Jenkins, Erin
Reilly, Vanessa Vartabedian, Francois Bar, Josh Kun, Doug Thomas, Laurel Felt,
Maura Klosterman, Ioana Literat), the School
of Cinematic Arts (Holly Willis, Tracy Fullerton, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz),
and the Rossier School of Education (John
Pascarella, Brandon Martinez, Michael Morgan) held up high a bouquet of
idealism to folk who set up Robert F.
Kennedy's dream school space (Paul Schrade, Steven Stamstad, Jane Kagon, Max and Vicky
Kennedy) as well as to folk who will pave the trek to this higher altitude of
education (School Principals Eftihia Danellis, Esther Soliman and Dr. Chuck Flores,
and LA-USD President Monica Garcia).
The confluence also marked the first - and proud - stamp of
presence of the New Media Literacies
research group, one of two
engines of Henry Jenkins's Participatory
Culture and Learning Lab at USC, of which I am a member. Our mission was laid
clear by this pecha-kucha performance: we are here to implement the serious
business of pedagogical change. At the same time, the event was for us a cry of
appeal to our neighboring clans: our bells must toll together, and they toll,
at least in these early stages, for the 3500 or so children from six community
schools that share the magical learning space at the RFK-LA campus in Mid-City
Los Angeles. Muggles as we may be, our joint determination might just produce
the wizardry needed to truly service this real world Hogwarts.
Below is a sampling of the peals of bells and buzz of spells
produced, performed and perused by the elders and youngsters at this confluential
potboiler. A peek into the entire feast is at the end of this papyral
roll-call.
