Photo Credit: Araceli Ramos / Media Academy
Media Academy juniors Diego Garcia and Kemish Rosales interview a reluctant source — a teacher from a private school who had called in sick — during Occupy Oakland's general strike on Nov. 2. They were covering the event for the Green & Gold school newspaper and stayed for two hours. Reporters from Skyline's newspaper, the Oracle, spent the school day covering the strike and tweeting about it
December 14, 2011
Jorray Hart & Caleb Smith
Many teachers across Oakland have been pre-occupied this semester with creating lessons based on a local story that went worldwide — Occupy Oakland. Occupy Oakland is part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Participants argue that too much of the power and wealth in America is held by just 1 percent of the population. The local arm of the movement included an encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, marches, a general strike and other forms of protest. Occupy Oakland received worldwide news coverage after police shut down the encampment and an Iraq War veteran reportedly was injured by one of their tear gas canisters. At Oakland Technical High School, teachers incorporated the Occupy protests into their curriculum in a variety of ways from open-ended class discussions to changing their warm up exercises at the beginning of class. Oakland Tech English/history teacher Elizabeth Haugen had a general class discussion about peoples’ experiences in and opinions about the Nov. 2 general strike. A variety of opinions about the Occupy protests were expressed, from warm support to concern and dislike. Haugen also incorporated the Occupy protests into her government class by comparing it to the Tea Party movement. Another Oakland Tech teacher, Spanish teacher Deirdre Snyder, asked her class about the Occupy protests in a set of Spanish language questions at the beginning of class. This helped the class practice the subjunctive verb forms in Spanish. The Spanish language questions also helped link the curriculum to current events. “Just because we’re speaking Spanish doesn’t mean not talking about real life,” said Snyder. Many teachers at Fremont Federation of High Schools also used the movement as a basis for lessons. During the first week of Occupy Wall Street, social studies teacher Elizabeth Siarny began teaching her Media Academy students about the movement. She gave them news articles on the movement and led fishbowl discussions about what they read. “I wanted students to have more information, instead of [just] going by what they hear, in order for them to be able to make their own critical decision about if they support the movement or not,” Siarny said. Joanna Brownson, an algebra teacher at Media Academy, wanted her class to have a better understanding of what the movement’s “99 percent” and “1 percent” represent. Brownson’s class created a visual representation of what wealth the 1 percent of population shares (40 percent) versus the amount of the wealth that the other 99 percent of population shares (60 percent) in America. Students also calculated the average hourly wage of the people in both the 99 percent and the 1 percent. “Math is used to create policies or defend injustice,” said Brownson. “If you don’t understand it, you are more likely to be a victim of that injustice.” At Fremont’s College Preparatory & Architecture Academy, social studies teacher Elizabeth Schuster informed her classes about the Occupy Wall Street by having them look at New York Times slideshows of the protests for their morning warmups. After the slideshows, Shuster’s students broke into discussion groups to explain if they agreed with the protests or not. Schuster’s colleague, Advanced Placement U.S. Government teacher Ji Suk Lee, had her students read articles and then answered their questions. “I learned that the 99 percent going against the 1 percent wants better resources and for the money to be split equally,” said Lee’s student Unique James. The Oakland Education Association originally proposed to strike on Nov. 2, but later decided to encourage teachers to take a personal day to strike instead. About 300 Oakland district teachers requested a substitute that day. Oakland High senior Lei Fisiiahi said that even substitute teachers turned to Occupy for lessons on the general strike day. “One of our subs talked to us about propaganda,” she said. “But then he was telling us our government was corrupt. I said to him, ‘Wait, are you supposed to be telling us that?’ He was just telling us his side of the story.” Not all classes on Occupy took place on school grounds. Journalism teachers from Skyline and Media Academy took students to the general strike to do interviews, take photographs, send updates on Twitter, all part of reporting on a national story. “Honestly, experiencing Occupy Oakland first hand was beautiful,” wrote Skyline student Stephanie Yu about her reporting experience for the Oracle. “For me, it had been my first protest of any sort, and although I know the city’s reputation doesn’t reflect GETTING THE SCOOP Skyline Oracle reporter Hannah Ayasse interviews Betty Olsen-Jones, Oakland Education Association president, during the general strike on Nov. 2. Many members of the teachers union took a personal day on Nov. 2 to attend Occupy Oakland rallies and demand more money for education. Substitute tells students about Occupy arrestthe city itself, I was still wary, due to the susceptibility of demonstrations becoming violent.” Yu’s newspaper colleague, Hannah Ayasse, said that she had been to protests before but that Occupy Oakland was different. “Perhaps this new-found impression was due to the nature of my purpose there. I was interviewing as many people as I could, and most seemed passionate about their cause,” she wrote. While the causes the people represented varied, Ayasse found that the people she interviewed who were over 30 shared one sentiment — “They were happy to see a high school student at the protest.” Media Academy journalists also discovered new perspectives at the strike. “Being at the strike first hand was more exciting than learning about it in class,” said Diego Garcia, a junior and news editor of the Green & Gold newspaper “It showed how communities are able to come together to protest the government for something they believe in.”
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