The Passion Project DeCal Syllabus

This  syllabus was created by four Chabot College students who transferred to UC Berkeley and while there designed and taught a Passion class as part of Cal’s DeCal program. The class moves from educational theory to hands-on projects. 

Description

By drawing on perspectives from Student Voice, ally-to-ally exchanges, popular education pedagogy, and different authors and disciplines, we will learn about and critique educational systems in the U.S. Through a ‘passion lens,’ students in the class will explore the way higher education shapes our personal lives, our classroom learning processes and interactions, and the society in which we live. We will use our personal experiences and the ones shared by students at Chabot College, a sister community college located in the city of Hayward, to contextualize our discussions and material. Students at Chabot College that will collaborate with us will be enrolled in a similar version of this course being taught at their community college. The collaboration between Cal students and Chabot students will consist of sharing assignments, reflections, and coming together in an Education Symposium towards the end of the semester.

Goals

We hope that the space, assignments, and material provides students with tools and networks to explore questions of identity, learning processes, and community organizing as well as linking academic and personal interests to efforts of social justice in multi-scaled communities.

Grading

The main components of the class are active creation and participation in activities and discussions during class, completing journal entries, letter writing, and reading assignments, maintaining dialogue and meeting at least once with a Chabot College student ally, and organizing for an Educational Symposium for which a small final project is required if attendance is not possible.

These components will be graded according to the following rubric:

35% Class participation and attendance

35% Assignments

30% Education Carnival Preparation and Attendance, or Alternative Final Project

The goals and grading components of the class will be reconsidered during the community agreements discussion.

Attendance Policy:

Weekly class meetings are a MUST to pass this class. You can only miss 2 classes maximum to not be dropped. The final Education Symposium will be held in the Bay Area and will be a celebration at the end of the semester, so it should be fun to go! If you can’t go, you need to tell us in advance so we can plan an alternative assignment. We will go over this throughout class.

Week 0 Info session

• Distribute small assignments on research of the history of Cal, CC’s, and k-12

Week 1 (Feb 3-7) History and structure of education and schools

• [University system and Community College system]

• In class: collective presentation of the history of education in the U.S.

• Video of Sir Ken: history of education [20 min]

• Discussion

• Assignment: Read prop 209 and articles to be assigned on budget cuts and tuition increase.

Week 2 (Feb 10-14) The big picture: how is Cal positioned in society?

• Policy that has affected diversity and the quality of public education in California.

• Releasing the trap - Watch movie section

• *What does Cal represent to you?

  • This could be an exercise in class: sharing points of view and answering the question (maybe anonymously) and then discussing what these feelings mean.

• Assignments for next week: Paulo Freire reading & Krishna Murti article

Week 3 (Feb 17-21) Pedagogy in your life: from K-12 to Cal

• Show Tuning The Voice - Ode to boredom

• What are things that work in the classroom (activities, lecture styles, exercises)? What are things that don’t work? What are teaching modalities you’ve seen at Cal?

• Reading Freire in class

Week 4 (Feb 24-28) Passion

• Watch: If money weren’t an issue [video, 4 min]

• Passion movie “The risk section”

• Discussion on metaphor: how to dream and be conscious at the same time?

  • What is the point of being aware of the obstacles and the reality of issues in day to day life?

  • How do you overcome the obstacles? Individually or socially?

  • In this context, why is it important to dream? Why is aspiring to big things fundamental?

• Do some leisure reading and write a 1 page letter to your Chabot peer about this topic:

  • What is one exponent of that discipline that does work with community/social justice? (kind of a research assignment) What are ways in which your discipline can help you realize your dreams?

Week 5 (March 3-7) Disciplines: kiss it, know it, fall in love, and go beyond it.

• How did you come to choose the discipline that you are studying now?

• Assignment for next week. Reading: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz. Type a 1 page response.

  • http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/#.UmC03ZTwJ4U

Week 6 (Mar 10-14) Critiquing The Degree

• Why are you at Cal??? what are your plans for the future?

• Assignment: Trinh T. Minh-ha article

Week 7 (Mar 17-21) Deconstructing the individual

• Narrative of the individual and identity discussion.

• Assignment for next week. Your dream project (Design an initiative you would like to develop in the future: what are the goals, mission, who would participate, who would benefit, what is needed to get it started, how can it be sustainable, what tools do you need personally to be able to do it?)

Week 8 (Mar 24-28) Social Justice

• Zeitgest III First Section

• Ecology lens and the social environment: how does it affect us?

• How we link the individual to the community, bridging it with social justice.

• Assignment: Podcast and article on trauma

Week 8 (Mar 24-28) SPRINGBREAK

Week 9 (Mar 31 - Apr 4) Hayward and the Bay Area

• O&F Student Speakers Presentation from Chabot [Opportunity and Freedom]

• Intersections on gender, class, race, and environmental justice. The Bay Area demographics and lens of political economy in economic activities, political trends, historical events.

• Discussion on podcast and article on trauma: can it be reversed? How to re-learn to fight and not flight.

• *Start preparing for symposium

• Assignment: Read articles on Hayward Calpine Power Plant and primary sources on court testimony.

Week 10 (Apr 7-11) Hayward and the Bay Area (continued)

• Environmental justice, ethnicity and race intersections.

• The Calpine power plant case and how if effects Chabot College students and the Hayward community. Bay Area trends (bringing other cases like Richmond into the discussion).

• Assignment: Bring a draft of your symposium presentation idea and your potential collaborator.

Week 11 (Apr 14-18) Your community engagement

• Your own connection and link to the community.

• *This day we could bring speakers from outside organizations.

• Symposium preparation: share your ideas in class.

• Assignment: Bring your final draft and materials you will need to complete it next class to start working on it.

Week 12 (Apr 21-25) Creating an Education Carnival

• What would it look like to you? (‘Education Carnival’ and ‘Symposium’ are interchangeable terms used to describe the same event)

• Working on symposium presentation (in-class).

Week 13 (Apr 28 - May 2) Symposium/Education Carnival

• No class, Symposium/Education Carnival will take place this week.